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Harry had thought he’d grown somewhat used to the differences in his world and this new one. He really had. It wasn’t even all that different, all things considered.
Er, that was, barring the glaring obvious one that was Voldemort’s very existence. But yeah, apart from that little tidbit everything else seemed more or less the same. The Wizarding World, the Muggle one, the people and the things in both.
So he had no idea, absolutely none, as to why he was lost in the middle of Diagon Alley… if he was even in Diagon Alley anymore. He had the sneaking suspicion that the shop in the corner was one he recognized from Knockturn Alley back at home. Not a good sign.
With a sigh, Harry made his way over, figuring that if he knew one shop perhaps he could start from there and try to get a grasp at his location. Now he really wished he’d taken Lily’s offer to come with him, but he’d been waiting for a chance to be alone. In the past two weeks since Harry had arrived, he’d been constantly monitored by one person or another, and though the sentiment behind their actions was much appreciated, it was frankly beginning to make him feel on edge.
Being thrown into a world where an alternate version of him existed, with no scar, learning that both James and Lily and so many others were alive in said world, and subsequently being sent to live with his parents here was something he needed time to come to terms with. He couldn’t do that when the very people he was uncertain about hovered over him every second, and so Harry had jumped at the first opportunity he had to get away. It had certainly seemed like such a good idea then.
Looking around, Harry grinned in relief as he finally spotted the pathway leading up to Diagon Alley. Not so lost after all. He walked faster now, confident in his knowledge of the area, and — promptly ran straight into someone else, sending them both tumbling to the ground with a startled shout.
Ouch, he winced, rubbing his arm as he got up. That was going to bruise something awful tomorrow.
The other wizard had crashed much harder than Harry had, and he was still on the floor, face crinkled in pain as one hand came up to tenderly touch the back of his head. Harry crouched down in front of the man, holding a hand out to help him up as he apologized for running into him.
“I’m so sorry, are you okay? I should have paid more attention, I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s fine. Clearly I wasn’t looking where I was going either.” Brown eyes flitted over to him before darting away just as fast. Almost too fast.
“Still,” Harry insisted with a frown, watching the wizard dust off his robes, “are you sure you’re not hurt?” He’d been injured enough times to recognize when a fall was a particularly bad one, and the way the man was clearly favoring his right leg over his left was not reassuring.
“Perfectly,” came the answer. He glanced at Harry once more, and cleared his throat somewhat exaggeratedly. “You should go now, you must be busy.”
Not necessarily, Harry thought, though it didn’t really matter. He couldn’t help this wizard if he didn’t want to be helped. Harry ran a hand through his hair uncertainly, muttered another quick apology, and made to walk away.
“Wait, wait. Harry?” Harry froze in his tracks, making an awkward half-turn to face the man again.
“Er. Yes?” Did this person know this world’s Harry? They didn’t look exactly the same, but they were certainly similar enough that someone could easily mistake one for the other if they weren’t looking close. And this alley they were in didn’t provide the best lighting, either.
Inwardly he winced at the thought; not many people knew that there was another Harry Potter yet, and this could make for a very uncomfortable explanation. Briefly Harry scanned the stranger — sandy brown hair, brown eyes, taller than him but not overly so — nope, he had no idea who this was, didn’t recognize him from his world. He stood there nervously, trying to calculate how best to get himself out of this.
The man made a frustrated noise. “No, I meant — okay,” he held up a finger, throwing his bag down and moving back a couple of steps.
“Wha—” The rest of his question choked and died in Harry’s throat as the man turned into a dog. A very big, very black, very familiar dog. “Snuffles?”
It couldn’t be. After all, there was a Sirius Black in this world, too.
Except.
Harry’s eyes zeroed in on the dog’s left ear.
Except that Harry had met this world’s Sirius, and Padfoot as well. Except that this world’s Padfoot did not have the tip of his ear nicked, just barely, the way Snuffles had, but this one did. Except that no other Padfoot but Snuffles could possibly have that same sign, not when Harry himself had been the cause of it.
See, Harry was rather attuned to scars. It happened, when one’s whole life somewhat revolved around one. Whether big or small, significant or not, everyone had scars, and Harry instinctually cataloged them, hoarded the information like it was treasure — especially when it had to do with someone important to him. Because it was those markings that showed who a person was, proved the life they had lived.
So Harry remembered with perfect clarity when and how Sirius had gotten that scar on his ear — that night in the Shrieking Shack, the brawl that had occurred while he’d been trying to save Ron — and he remembered staring at the injury afterward, when Sirius was asking him to come live with him, and thinking absently about how it was going to leave a mark. And it had. The wound healed so remarkably well that it was generally unnoticeable and almost invisible unless one was looking for it precisely, but it was there.
Harry had stared at that scar many times over the next two years, often rubbed a thumb over it inconspicuously when he scratched Padfoot behind his ears. He knew that scar like he knew his own.
“Snuffles,” he repeated, barely believing.
Snuffles barked loudly at him, mouth open in a wide grin (well, as much as dogs could grin, anyway) and the next thing Harry knew, he was on the ground with a heavy, slobbering, black grim-lookalike on top of him.
Gasping in surprised laughter, Harry instinctively brought his arms around the squirming animagus and scratched behind his ears happily.
Eventually his laughs turned into short bursts of snickers, to a soft huff as he caught his breath, and then, abruptly, into a hiccuping sob.
“You died. You died.” Of all the things that he wanted to say, all the things he should have said, that was all Harry could seem to voice. In any other situation he might have found this embarrassing, but right now he couldn’t care less about how childish he sounded. He felt like he was back in that awful day, when he’d been fifteen and incredibly stupid, having just lost the only family he knew.
Sirius, who had shifted back to his apparently borrowed human form as soon as the first tear gathered in Harry’s eye, quickly wrapped his arms around his distressed godson and began rocking him gently, comforting him all the while.
“Shh,” he whispered, “I’m fine. Definitely upset that you had to go through that, but physically fine.”
A sound somewhere between a heaving cry and a hysterical giggle left Harry. In response, he felt Sirius’s arms tighten further, and if he had had any remaining doubts about the man’s identity, they all disappeared that very second.
No one gave hugs like Sirius did. It was just a given fact. Yes, his outward appearance was one of someone else’s, his arms a little thinner, his height a little taller, his voice unfamiliar, his scent all wrong. By all means Harry’s brain should have been screaming at him to back away. Stranger! Run! it should have been warning, especially when Harry rarely accepted close contact from anyone, let alone someone he didn’t know.
It said nothing of the sort.
Home, his brain insisted instead, and his heart happily agreed with this assessment for once.
Because for all that Sirius’s looks were different, the certain and steady way he held Harry close was the same, the urgent but soothing tone of his reassurances recognizable. Slowly but surely, Harry relaxed completely into the hug, settling down enough to squeeze his godfather back in greeting and in gratitude.
“How did you know it was me?” he mumbled into Sirius’s robes.
“Like I wouldn’t recognise you a mile away?”
Harry leaned back, squinting up into the unfamiliar face as he tried to put the one he knew in its place. “Harry Potter, maybe. But me, specifically?”
A hand brushed his hair away from his face, and Harry raised an eyebrow before his eyes widened in understanding. He snorted.
“This,” he mused, “must be the first time I’ve felt happy to have that thing since I learned what it meant.”
“Can’t say I disagree,” Sirius smiled, now using his hand to mess up Harry’s hair. “How did you get here, anyway? You didn’t…” His hand dropped away as his voice trailed uncertainly, and Harry realized what Sirius was trying to ask.
“Die? No. That is, it wasn’t dying that brought me here, though I did die in the war before that —” he paused at Sirius’s horrified expression, shouldn’t have said that, “it’s a long story. I’ll tell you later, but I got here a fortnight ago due to an accident.”
Sirius grumbled something about gray hairs and heart attacks and you better tell me soon, but Harry wasn’t paying attention because a thought had just crossed his mind.
“Sirius,” Harry grasped his arms nervously, “I’m staying with Lily and James right now. I don’t know… how do I meet with you? If they don’t know who you are, what do I do? There’s another Sirius here, you must know that, but I can’t pretend I don’t know you!”
Sirius blinked a couple times in surprise when he called Lily and James by their names, but shook his head quickly. “I don’t plan for that to happen, Harry. If that’s where you live, I’ll go with you and tell them who I am.” When Harry still looked worried, he grinned cheekily, “No imposter of mine gets to be your godfather, not while I’m around to say something about it.”
Harry wrinkled his nose, feeling a little better at the jokingly reassuring words. As long as Sirius was joking, it meant things were well. It meant Harry could relax, and not let his concerns run away with him. “Hate to break it to you, godfather, but technically wouldn’t you be the imposter in this situation?”
“Betrayed by my own godson,” Sirius gasped dramatically, feigning a wounded heart, before he sobered. “But really, it should be alright. I did stay away because I thought I’d be intruding, but if you’re there, well. That’s good enough a reason for me. They’ve accepted you come from somewhere else, yes?”
“I suppose. It’s still kind of weird, though. But they’re trying, and they’re good people.” Almost too good, but Harry figured that was to be expected, what with them never having any of the knowledge and experience that war could throw upon someone. (So many fewer scars, visible or not, on those few people he actually knew well enough to compare with his version of them.)
It was unbelievable, sometimes, how naive they all seemed. Honestly, it made him just a little afraid for what they would think of him when certain parts of his past came into light, the parts that could be difficult to understand for those who hadn't lived through the same moments, under the same pressure and need for survival.
But that was a thought for later, and the fact that the Potters were so open and quick to trust was nothing but helpful in this case; it told Harry that the Potter family and their friends would easily allow another Sirius into their midst. “I think they’ll be delighted to have you, too.”
“Then it’ll be fine.” Sirius patted Harry’s mop of hair in an exaggeratedly patronizing manner. “Let the grownups handle it.”
Harry snorted again. “Pretty sure that rules you out, Snuffles, and excuse you, I’m an adult now.” But he did feel a little brighter. “It’s great to have you back.”
He got another pat on his head for that, before Sirius slung an arm around his shoulders and led them in the direction of Diagon Alley. Smiling contentedly, he let himself be urged along, listening to Sirius make comments about every store in passing and comparing it to their world.
By Merlin, they had a lot to unpack. Harry knew Sirius had questions, and he had just as many. That was not including the awkward talk that would ensue when he returned to the Potters with Sirius by his side, and the utter mayhem that was two mischievous Padfoots in one world (not to mention two accident-prone Harry Potters already). He didn’t know if the universe could take it.
To have his godfather back with him, though… Harry supposed it was more than worth all the effort.