568KEYNOTE/WARNING: I have dyslexia and I deleted this fic a few years ago because people were telling me to unalive myself and constantly picking it apart due to my errors.
This is not truly an edit, so much as an extended edition. The badly formatted original is complete on FF dot net, under JacobApples. As I reread this, I'm adding to it before uploading.
Summary: Harry Potter walks to his death and wakes up in the past before the third task in the Triwizard Tournament. When he asks for help from Professor Filius Flitwick, Harry's life takes an entirely different path. Order of the Phoenix if Harry had a bit more wisdom and whimsy. Order of the Phoenix, Time Travel.
Please enjoy, or don't, neither of us are being paid to be here.
Prologue
Betrayal is not the heart blow nor the dramatic upheaval of all that you know, sometimes, it's a disappointment, a failing of hope, a confirmation of fears.
Harry had been so angry at Dumbledore, at his secrets, at his refusal to confide in him as Harry devoted his loyalty to the professor.
But there was no anger left in him now. No surprise. If there was shock, then it was in the disbelief of his own stupidity for trusting a person like Albus Dumbledore.
Of course, there had been a bigger plan: a bigger picture in which Harry was an accessory and not the subject. He had never questioned his own assumption that Dumbledore wanted him alive. Now he saw that his life span had always been determined by how long it took to eliminate all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore had passed the job of destroying them to him, and obediently he had continued to chip away at the bonds tying not only Voldemort, but himself, to life. How neat, how elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the dangerous task to the boy who had already been marked for slaughter, and whose death would not be a calamity, but another blow against Voldemort.
And Dumbledore had known that Harry would not duck out, that he would keep going to the bitter end.
In trusting him, he had given away all Dumbledore needed to know about him. Learning him not as a friend but as an enemy, as Voldemort knew him. They both knew that Harry would not let anyone else die for him when he had the power to stop it.
Images of Fred, Lupin, and Tonks lying dead in the Great Hall forced their way back into his mind's eye, and for a moment, Harry could hardly breathe.
Yet death was impatient…
Harry's dry lips brushed over the professor's last gift to him.
The shades that appeared around beckoned him forward down this path that would end with them together.
James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died in, his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's.
Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than Harry had seen him in life. He loped along beside him with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets, a wide grin on his face.
Lily's smile was the widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew closer to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would devour his presence.
"You've been so brave," she said gently, with compassion and pride.
Harry could not speak. His gaze never left hers. He thought that he might be content here, in this time that raced yet extended beyond reason that he would like to look at her forever.
The mother who had loved him and died for him.
Died for him, so he could die for others.
"You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are... so proud of you."
"Does it hurt?" The childish question had fallen from Harry's heart before he could stem the bleeding of his fear.
Did he truly have to do this?
"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."
Harry clung to those words even as his was startled into letting go of the hollow, his family vanishing as if they had never been.
Not that it mattered much, he would, after all, be joining them soon.
"Harry Potter," the Dark Lord crooned before spitting through his teeth like sparks spat from a fire. "The Boy Who Lived."
On the precipice of death, accepting of a fate Voldemort himself feared above all others, Harry did not feel brave, he felt foolish.
He felt so very small as he closed his eyes against the light.
Dying was neither easier nor quick an eternity passed in agony as he was forced to relinquish who he was, every dream, every hope, rendered from in an instant, in a lightning bolt sensation of being forced apart and then together.
Harry could not help but fight, and in railing against his density, death spat him back out, taking with her something unnameable but pressure.
Chapter 1 - Easier Than Falling Asleep
When Harry woke, he did so screaming.
Clutching his forehead as white-hot pain attempted to cleave his skull in two, he fell to the ground with a heavy thud, the tangle of blankets doing nothing to protect him.
Death shouldn't hurt this much. That or Sirius was git for lying to him.
When the pain subsided he untangled himself from his covers and staggered to his feet.
Something was wrong. No, scratch that, a lot of things were wrong. He was in Gryffindor Tower, and apparently, he had just woken up. He found his glasses on the nightstand. The rest of the beds were empty. Was he shorter? Harry went to the bathroom and the sight of himself in the mirror frightened him and it wasn't because his scar was oozing blood, it was because the face in the mirror was years younger than it should have been.
And he was short.
Harry frowned and grabbed a towel wetting it in the sink to wash the blood away. What kind of dream was this? Washing the wound hurt but the cold water also soothed the aching in his forehead.
"Harry?" a voice called from the hall.
"In here!" Harry shouted back. He kept his gaze on the mirror, he watched the scar close up and magically heal over into the faintest of white lines. The lightning bolt was still visible but only if you were looking hard for it. This dream just kept getting curiouser and curiouser.
"Mr. Potter?" It was Professor McGonagall.
Harry left the bloody towel in the sink and went out to her.
"You need to get dressed, Mr. Potter," she said when she saw him.
Harry blinked at her and asked, "Why?"
She gave him an unamused look, " Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber of the Hall after breakfast."
Harry frowned, "Excuse me?"
" The champions' families are invited to watch the final task, you know. This is simply a chance for you to greet them."
What was this? Was he fourteen again? This dream was rapidly becoming too realistic to be just a dream. Was this the afterlife? Some cosmic game so he would have to live through Cedric dying again? If that was the case reliving Sirius's death would have been worse. Or maybe it would get worse?
Or was this some sort of soul time travel? Was such a thing even possible?
"Come, Mr. Potter or you'll be late, you have already missed breakfast as it is."
Harry threw on his robes and joined his Head of House in the common room, mutely following behind her. As they walked, Harry admired the intact, non-ruble quality of the walls.
They came into a room before the Great Hall and it was like walking into his own memory in a pensive.
Fleur's little sister, Gabrielle, was holding her mother's hand.
She waved at Harry, who waved back. Then he saw Mrs. Weasley and Bill standing in front of the fireplace, beaming at him just as they had before.
As if Fred hadn't died.
As if there had never been a war.
"Surprise!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed. "Thought we'd come and watch you. Harry!" She bent down and kissed him on the cheek.
"You all right?" asked Bill, grinning at Harry and shaking his hand. "Charlie wanted to come, but he couldn't get time off. He said you were incredible against the Horntail."
He was at a loss as to what to say. Cedric was alive. Was Fred too or Mrs. Weasley wouldn't have been smiling.
"It's great being back here," Bill was saying. "Haven't seen this place for five years.
Is that picture of the mad knight still around? Sir Cadogan?"
Harry nodded.
"And the Fat Lady?" said Bill.
"She was here in my time," said Mrs. Weasley. "She gave me such a telling off one night when I got back to the dormitory at four in the morning -"
"What were you doing out of your dormitory at four in the morning?" Bill asked.
Mrs. Weasley grinned, her eyes twinkling.
"Your father and I had been for a nighttime stroll," she said. "He got caught by Apollyon Pringle - he was the caretaker in those days - your father's still got the marks."
Amos Diggory waded in toward their group as Cedric held him back.
Harry froze, fear chilling him, both because he had caused this man so much pain.
"There you are, are you?" he said, looking Harry up and down. "Bet you're not feeling quite as full of yourself now Cedric's caught you up on points, are you?"
Harry didn't answer, his tongue leaden by guilt.
And not just of Cedric, but because of everyone who had died that Harry had been unable to save.
"Ignore him," said Cedric in a low voice to Harry, frowning after his father. "He's been angry ever since Rita Skeeter's article about the Triwizard Tournament - you know, when she made out you were the only Hogwarts champion."
"Didn't bother to correct her, though, did he?" said Amos Diggory, loudly enough for Harry to hear. "Still, you'll show him, Ced. Beaten him once before, haven't you?"
"Rita Skeeter goes out of her way to cause trouble, Amos!" Mrs. Weasley said angrily. "I would have thought you'd know that, working at the Ministry!"
Mr. Diggory looked as though he was going to say something angry, but his wife laid a hand on his arm, and he merely shrugged and turned away.
Harry was not upset to relive the morning of walking over the sunny grounds with Bill and Mrs. Weasley, showing them the Beauxbatons carriage and the Durmstrang ship. But it only made his anxiety worse as to what was to come. Right now, he felt as if he was walking through a dream. Smiling, chatting, treating it like he was from the same timeline as this memory, that there was nothing bad about to happen. Like he hadn't just died and woken up nearly four years in the past on the day that the Dark Lord came back to power. Like Albus Dumbledore hadn't set him up to die.
"Mum - Bill!" said Ron, looking stunned, as they joined the Gryffindor table. "What're you doing here?"
"Come to watch Harry in the last task!" said Mrs. Weasley brightly. "I must say, it makes a lovely change, not having to cook. How was your exam?"
"Oh . . . okay," said Ron.
Harry let the sounds of the familiar washing over him, picking at the food in front of him to hide the fact that he couldn't look around the room without remembering what had been or what would be.
Cloth covered bodies on the floor, injured moaning on cots.
When the enchanted ceiling overhead began to fade from blue to a dusky purple, Dumbledore rose to his feet at the staff table, and silence fell.
"Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes' time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch field for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr. Bagman down to the stadium now."
Harry got up. The Gryffindors all along the table were applauding him; the Weasleys and Hermione all wished him good luck, and he headed off out of the Great Hall with Cedric, Fleur, and Viktor.
"Feeling all right. Harry?" Bagman asked as they went down the stone steps onto the grounds. "Confident?"
"I think we are all going to die," Harry said tonelessly. After all, this dream was fast approaching its nightmare like quality. He hoped he would wake up soon.
Bagman laughed, thinking Harry was joking.
They walked onto the Quidditch field, which was now completely unrecognizable. A twenty-foot-high hedge ran all the way around the edge of it. There was a gap right in front of them: the entrance to the vast maze. The passage beyond it looked dark and creepy.
Five minutes later, the stands had begun to fill; the air was full of excited voices and the rumbling of feet as the hundreds of students filed into their seats. The sky was a deep, clear blue now, and the first stars were starting to appear. Hagrid, Professor Moody, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick came walking into the stadium and approached Bagman and the champions. They were wearing large, red, luminous stars on their hats, all except Hagrid, who had his on the back of his moleskin vest.
"We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze," said Professor McGonagall to the champions. "If you get into difficulty, and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?"
The champions nodded.
Harry didn't nod he just willed himself awake. It didn't work.
"Off you go, then-" Bagman said brightly to the four patrollers.
"Good luck. Harry," Hagrid whispered, and the four of them walked away in different directions, to station themselves around the maze. Bagman now pointed his wand at his throat, muttered, "Sonorus," and his magically magnified voice echoed into the stands.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! Tied in first place, with eighty-five points each - Mr. Cedric Diggory and Mr. Harry Potter, both of Hogwarts School!" The cheers and applause sent birds from the Forbidden Forest fluttering into the darkening sky. "In second place, with eighty points - Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute!" More applause. "And in third place - Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy!"
Harry could just make out Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Ron, and Hermione applauding Fleur politely, halfway up the stands. He waved up at them, and they waved back, beaming at him.
"So ... on my whistle, Harry and Cedric!" said Bagman. "Three - two - one -"
And it all happened as it had before. Harry didn't talk as much but in the end, it was just him and Cedric standing before the cup.
"You should take it," Cedric said.
Harry shrugged, "It's a trap."
Cedric frowned, "What do you mean, it's a trap?"
"Whoever takes that cup is going to die."
Cedric glared at him, "That isn't funny, Potter."
"The cup is a trap and Professor Moody is a fraud," Harry said. He sighed and reached out to the cup, "But I'm dead already, so what does it matter?"
"Harry-" Cedric started but he was too late to either stop Harry or to join him.
As Harry felt the pull on his navel he really hoped he was still dreaming.
oOo
Cedric shot red sparks up into the sky and started yelling for help.
It took ten minutes for help to arrive but they were no more help than Cedric had been. False Moody received the dementor's kiss and the real Moody was saved. But no one had the faintest idea as to where Harry Potter had gone.
oOo
Harry landed with a thud on the ground. He hated portkeys, what had possessed him to grab the damned cup? He needed to stop treating this like a dream because– clearly –pain was a real factor. And, apparently, events could be altered.
For instance, there was no spare.
Harry threw a reducto into the gloom, incinerating a tombstone.
Someone yelped and Riddle's voice yelled, "Subdue him, you fool!"
Harry had already thrown up a shield charm which neatly reflected Wormtail's spell. Harry started throwing hexes and charms, one after another without a word and without relent.
Screw dying, he wanted to live. He was never going to walk to his death again, Greater Good or no.
Wormtail was a poor duelist.
"Do not run!" Voldemort instructed.
But Wormtail was losing. Three years, three painful, miserable years learning to fight to survive, barely scraping by in school thanks to the war, thanks to running away from Death Eaters and Aurors. Hell, his education had been put aside so he could rob banks. Harry was fresh from the battlefield, whereas Wormtail was… Wormtail was lowlier than the worms that ate the dirt.
With a pop, Wormtail apparated away. Leaving someone behind in the grass.
Harry levitated a tombstone and repeatedly smashed it onto Nagini -who had come at him, fangs exposed.
"You know," Harry said, wand pointed at the corpse of the last Horcrux, "I don't hate snakes. I just hate Voldemort's snakes, you are all creepy and twisted."
Nagini didn't respond, as she was well and truly dead.
Harry supposed he should go back to the cup, back to Hogwarts. He hesitated, no part of him wanted to go back to Hogwarts, to Dumbledore, to the students, or to the media. But he would have to because this wasn't a dream. Somehow dying had brought him back in time. 1995 was not a good year for him.
Harry went to Riddle Senior's tomb and accioed all the bones. Morbid? Absolutely. But Voldemort had needed his father's bones to come back to his body. Pointing his wand at the bones, they shattered into dust and disappeared in a gust of wind.
Harry walked out of the cemetery and followed a vaguely familiar path that led further away from the town and Riddle Manor. After an hour of walking, Harry found the Gaunt Shack, or the ruin of it, that Dumbledore had shown him in the pensive.
He found the ring and transfigured a piece of wood into a porcelain ball just large enough to hold the ring. He scooped up the ring in the makeshift container, transfiguring it shut and pocketing the nullified poison–as long as he didn't touch it with his skin. He put the ring in his robe pocket, checking he had no holes in that pocket first.
Harry had done a lot of thinking on his walk and did a lot more thinking on his way back to the graveyard.
Number One: If you are given a second chance to live, don't waste it.
Number Two: Snape is more trustworthy than Dumbledore and either McGonagall or Flitwick is more trustworthy than Snape. So he had best pick someone to who he was going to tell the whole story, carefully, and make sure that Dumbledore doesn't try to get control over Harry again.
Number Three: Horcruxes. Taking into account his bleeding head pain this morning, he was going to wager that it had been the death of his Horcrux. The diary was finished, the ring was his, and Nagini was dead which only left the Cup, still in Gringotts, the Diadem, back at Hogwarts, the Locket, still at Grimmauld Place, and of course, Voldemort in his infant alien form.
Number Four: Hedwig, Sirius, Fred, Cedric, Lupin, Nymphadora, and countless others were still alive and Harry wanted them to stay that way.
"So who to trust?" Harry asked himself as he stood before the cup lying inertly on the ground. It was dark out but his eyes had long since adjusted to the moonlit night. "Who do I trust?"
Not Dumbledore .
It wasn't a voice in his head, it was his gut reaction to having trusted and loved a man who had set him up to die.
"So who do I trust who isn't with Albus Dumbledore?" Harry asked out loud, because talking to himself was the least of his sanity concerns at the moment. Not Snape, not McGonagall, not even Sirius.
Who then?
But the thought had occurred to him already. Filius Flitwick. He wasn't a part of the order but he was a good man, a Dueling Champion, and Head of Ravenclaw House. Harry could certainly use a little wisdom at this point in his life.
Of course, this all could still be a dream. Merlin, let it all be a dream.
oOo
"Harry!" Hermione was the first to get to him. She was sobbing. Mrs. Weasley was close behind.
Harry told them over and over again that he was alright.
"What happened?" "What happened?" It was all anyone could ask him once they realized he was, in fact, okay.
"Graveyard, Voldemort, Pettigrew, they both got away," Harry summarized.
"You are an idiot!" Cedric yelled. "You knew it was a trap, why on earth did you grab it!?"
Harry looked at Cedric dead on, "Because if one of us had to die I'd rather it be me."
Quiet descended on them like a suffocating hand after that statement.
McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley took charge then and Harry made it back to the castle without an interception. He was unsurprised when he was directed immediately to the hospital wing to be checked over by Madame Pomfrey.
He figured surviving the killing curse again only this morning qualified him as one who needed medical attention even though he felt fine.
oOo
Poppy shooed away everyone, even the Headmaster.
"Can I stay here until the end of the term?" Harry asked.
Poppy, who was more than accustomed to Harry as her tenant, was taken aback by this request.
Harry Potter had never asked to stay longer in her care.
She nodded mutely.
There was less than a week anyhow and she would be relieved to keep an eye on him.
His next question was more unsettling than the first. "Could you look at my scar, please? It was bleeding this morning?"
She did and what she found scared her. "Possession," she breathed.
"What was that, Madame Pomfrey?" he asked her.
"This–this residue was of another magical lifeforce, like a leach trying to eat its way into, not just your mind, but your soul."
"Is it gone?"
"You don't sound surprised."
"Please, just tell me?" he pleaded with heartbreakingly large eyes.
"Yes, it's gone and whatever damage it caused, it should begin to heal naturally now. How did you get it off?" she asked.
"I don't know what you mean," Harry tried.
She did her best not to bite back with something scathing as her protective instincts wanted her to, rather, she chided, "Mr. Potter."
"The Killing Curse," Harry answered shortly.
"You aimed a Killing Curse at your scar!?" she asked, deeply concerned.
"No," Harry corrected. "Wormtail, I mean, Peter Pettigrew did it, I woke up in the graveyard."
She gaped at him, how was one supposed to respond to that?
"It hurts," he informed her. "Dying hurts, and the killing curse hurts, it hurt when I was little and hurt the second time too."
Poppy frowned and pulled a vial out of her apron, "Dreamless Sleep, drink it and try not to worry about anything."
She was scheduling herself for a minutature breakdown after she tore into Albus for letting him compete in this bloody tournament.
"I don't want to talk to Dumbledore," Harry blurted out.
"I will see what I can do, but rest, Mr. Potter."
He did as he was told, for once, seemingly glad for the respite.
oOo
Dumbledore maneuvered his way into seeing Harry, Harry glared at Pomfrey who gave him an apologetic look before returning to her office.
Harry gave the old wizard with his sparkling eyes one glance before glueing his eyes to his own–strangely–scarless hands.
This man, this pillar in his life that had set him up to fall. Falling. It was Harry's last memory of this man alive, Albus falling off the tower because he made, made, Snape kill him.
"Harry, please look at me," Albus said gently.
"Leave me alone," Harry muttered back.
"How did you know the cup was a trap?"
"Because it was the last thing we did for tasks and there had to be some goal, some reason, for putting my name in the goblet."
"Logical," Albus said.
Logic? When had logic ever been a factor in Harry's life?
"I went to the graveyard," the Headmaster ventured. "It looked as if there had been a battle there. I found a rather dead snake."
"Wormtail got away with Voldemort," Harry said without raising his head.
"He's back?"
Harry shook his head, "Only in the way that he's never really been gone."
Albus sighed, "That's good."
Harry frowned.
"My boy, what's wrong?"
What's wrong is, is that you want me dead , Harry thought. But maybe that wasn't fair. Albus wanted Voldemort dead, Harry was just a means to an end.
"Harry–"
"Can you leave, please?" he asked. "I'm tired."
"Of course, if you told me everything important, I can go."
Harry looked up then, making direct eye contact, his mental wards as solid as they had ever been. Maybe without a slice of another person's soul attached to his mind, he could be good at this mind magic. "You know everything important, Sir."
It was the same tone Harry used with Snape and Albus looked floored.
"Harry, you know I would never cause you harm, don't you?"
Harry's gaze grew angry and distant, as he agreed, "Never directly." Only by your inaction.
"I will let you get rest if you think of anything, tell me."
Harry laid back done with the conversation and turned his back on the old man.
oOo
Harry spent his last day at Hogwarts destroying Horcruxes. He went down to the Chamber of Secrets first, with the Ring and stabbed it right through the porcelain container. The ring screamed and the black smoke died. He picked up the stone and pitched it into the Slytherin statue's maw where the snake had crawled out from.
Harry wrapped the fang in a scrap of leather and took his broom back up the passage that he had cleared. Harry went right to the Room of Requirement, found and destroyed the diadem.
Harry looked at the pieces of the crown and wrapped them up in a satchel.
How was he supposed to get into Gringotts again? Bellatrix Lestrange was still in prison so the first insane way they had done it wouldn't work.
He looked around the room for inspiration and it was the room itself that gave him an idea.
"Dobby?" Harry called.
Dobby appeared with his typical greeting.
"Dobby," Harry started, "Do you know how to break into Gringotts?"
The elf blinked. "What does Harry Potter need?"
"I need the Hufflepuff Cup from Bellatrix Lestrange's vault."
Dobby shuttered but snapped his fingers and the cup appeared in front of them, the sound of metal ringing as it hit the ground.
Harry gaped, "It can't be that easy."
"If Harry Potter, Sir, had asked Dobby to get him money from any vault but his own Dobby couldn't have done it. But this is a Hogwarts object and belongs to the school."
As Dobby spoke, Harry pulled the Basilisk fang and struck the cup. It screamed and the cup was left with a huge dent and black mark on it but it was soulless.
As any honest and respectable cup ought to be.
"Harry Potter, Sir, that was Dark Magic," the house elf informed him.
"Yep, and there is one more."
"Where, Sir?" Dobby asked ready for the challenge.
"Grimmauld Place, Slytherin's Locket," Harry said.
Dobby snapped his fingers once more, but the locket did not appear alone.
Another elf, this one snarling with a blind rage, came attached to the locket.
"Wait, Kreacher!" Harry called, "Kreacher wait, we are trying to destroy it as Master Regulus asked you to!"
Kreacher paused in trying to strangle Dobby, and slowly turned to Harry.
"What do you know about Master Regulus?"
"Sirius Black is my godfather and that locket needs to be opened by a Parselmouth and destroyed with something that can destroy the darkest of magic."
Kreacher let go of Dobby, who coughed and gave the other elf a dark look.
Harry motioned for the elf to lay the locket on the floor, which Kreacher did reluctantly.
" Open ," Harry hissed.
Harry, who was feeling a tad stab happy, stabbed it the moment the gears sprung open.
More screaming black smoke and it was over. The dairy, the snake, the ring, the diadem, the cup, the locket, and himself were all taken care of.
Harry picked up the locket that was mostly undamaged and told it to close. He handed it to Kreacher, "Thank you, Kreacher."
The dirty elf looked at him in awe, "You're welcome, Master Potter." Before popping away.
"Do you need anything else, Harry Potter, Sir?" Dobby asked.
"No, Dobby, thank you."
"Dobby needs to go back to preparing the feast but you can call Dobby whenever you need him."
Harry nodded and Dobby popped out as well.
Harry found his way to Flitwick's office next, he hesitated only briefly before knocking on the doorframe.
"Come in," said the man's merry voice before he looked up and smiled. "Oh, Mr. Potter, come right in."
Harry approached his desk, shutting the door behind him. Harry was pleased to see that there were no portraits in Flitwick's office.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Potter? I hope this isn't about homework or tests. You have been excused from such things for the year. One might think you've learned quite enough this year about magic."
"Professor," Harry started, "I need to talk to someone who isn't a member of the Order of the Phoenix… Someone who I can maybe trust."
Flitwick sat back in his chair, "You mean Dumbledore's Order?"
"Yes."
Flitwick frowned, "Why wouldn't you go to Dumbledore himself?"
What to say to that?
Harry ended up just blurting out, "I don't want to be a martyr. I don't want there to be another war but if there is, I want to fight, not… Not just be a cog in a larger plan."
Flitwick blinked, "Explain."
And Harry did. Starting with the prophecy, and Snape's part, Quirrell, the Chamber of Secrets, Sirius, Wormtail, the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort coming back, Umbridge, the Veil, the Horcruxes, Dumbledore's death, the school being overrun by Death Eaters, the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry's death, and Harry waking up the day of the final task and him re-hunting the Horcruxes.
Harry must have talked for hours and when he was done, Flitwick brewed a fresh pot of tea. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes as Harry drank deeply from the glass of water that had been refilling itself through his confession.
"Albus is–I can't believe this," Flitwick said finally.
"What am I supposed to do?" Harry asked.
"What are you supposed to do?" Flitwick repeated outrage, "Nothing, nothing you shouldn't have been responsible for any of this. It is us, the adults who should have to do somethin-"
"I am seventeen," Harry interrupted.
Flitwick sighed, "Perhaps, but you are in the body of your fourteen-year-old self."
"A war is coming. I can't sit back and do nothing, I will not wait and let what happened the first time around happen again."
"I will not let that happen either. I will be keeping an eye on Mr. Malfoy, Narcissa was one of my favourite students along with your mother. I will not allow either of you to come to ruin. And Severus is too close to this."
"But what do I do?" Harry asked again.
"You destroyed all the Horcruxes?"
Harry brought out the remains of Ravenclaw's Diadem and the cup, "All of them."
"May I?" Flitwick asked reaching out for it.
"I am not sure if it is safe to touch but I know it doesn't have a Horcrux in it anymore. But you can keep it."
Flitwick nodded and pulled open a drawer and slipped the cup and the diadem into it by pulling on the cloth it was resting on. "I will think on what to tell Minerva, Pomona, and Poppy when the time is right but let me ask you this, Harry, what more can be done at this moment? You've destroyed all that anchors him to this world and you have destroyed the remains of Riddle's father."
"I don't know," Harry said, "But we have to do something, we have to find Wormtail and Voldemort."
Flitwick sighed, "And with a tracker on your wand and the prohibition of underaged magic, how do you plan to start? Live in the woods for the rest of your life? On the run? Do you even know where to start looking for him?"
Harry looked out the window, "I can't… it can't all be for nothing, I can't let them all die again."
"You prevented the Dark Lord from coming back into his full power. You destroyed the Horcruxes in one week, that is more than anyone else could have done. And you wouldn't have been able to do that if you hadn't already lived it.
"So this is what we are going to do. You are going back to the Dursleys for one more summer, you are going to study, you are going to come back to school and work for your own future for whatever it is you want to do. And if Voldemort ever gets close to you again he'll be in for a fight."
Flitwick took a breath, "I am going to reach out to my contacts in the ministry. You and I are going to exchange letters over the summer so I know that you are safe and mentally dealing with—with all that has happened. I am going to do everything I can to help you and stop him."
"But for now you want me to go home and be a good little boy," Harry said, too tired to put force behind the words.
"Do you want to tell everyone you time travelled? because that comes with its own set of problems."
"No," Harry said shortly. "But I can tell my friends, right?"
"Of course, for they will believe you. However, this is the sort of story that even if you tell it, few would want to believe it."
"You can't tell Dumbledore," Harry ordered but it came out as a sort of question.
Flitwick's nostrils flared, "No. I don't believe I will be telling Albus much of anything, his intentions were good, his actions were, and are, inexcusable."
Harry nodded and stood, "Thanks for listening to me, Professor Flitwick."
"It was my honour, Mr. Potter, feel free to contact me about anything, even if it seems insignificant or you need someone to talk to about personal matters. You can come to me with anything."
"Thank you," Harry said again before leaving, shutting the door softly behind him.
Hardly believing that an adult had listened to him without interpretation or censure.
oOo
Harry had no desire to leave Hogwarts, even with the nightmares dogging his steps, he wanted to stay. He trudged up the steps to Gryffindor Tower.
"Harry?"
Harry looked up toward the voice.
"Luna?" he asked.
Had they even met yet? He couldn't remember. Merlin, but he was tired. He had slept all week, and yet, he was still weary.
"Yes, I'm Luna. You look older," she told him.
She stood on the steps above him, her white hair glowing, her luggage held in front of her brightly coloured skirts.
"I feel ancient," Harry attempted to joke, but his voice was dull and his humour fell short.
"Feel younger soon," she said with a sweet smile before skipping past him, the steps not causing her any trouble at all.
Harry was smiling the faintest bit as he reached his dorm.
Everyone was gone. He found his luggage packed at the foot of his bed, Ron or Hermione must have packed for him. He continued to move slowly as he made his way to Hogsmeade. What did it matter if the train left without him? He had been worse off than that before.
Harry found Ron and Hermione on the train. Having already told them the graveyard story over the last week, he didn't have much to say.
Harry felt bad about not telling them about the time travel, but he wasn't ready to explain himself to his friends.
Telling Flitwick had been easy in some ways because he didn't know the professor well enough to fear his judgement.
Flitwick had taken it all in stride, he did not think Hermione would have such a restrained response.
Harry drifted to sleep on the Hogwarts Express, he couldn't help thinking that falling asleep was far easier than walking to one's death, far easier than dying.
oOo
AN: There is no update schedule, it will take time to re-upload everything. you can certainly see that this was an earlier inspiration for The Delicate Art of Raising Thestrals which is far more ambitious.
Please share any thoughts, minks, or feedback, pretty please?