Foolish
Harry stumbled backward. The air was thick with the scent of autumn, and the streets of Hogsmeade were peaceful—eerily so. Then suddenly the village was lively again , filled with students, locals, and the occasional ghost. It felt like something else entirely.
He glanced at the buildings—everything seemed pristine, untouched by time. The familiar shape of the Three Broomsticks stood proudly, its windows gleaming, the sign swinging gently above the door. But it was too... normal. Too perfect.
Harry’s mind raced. He wasn’t sure how to put it together, but it felt wrong—out of place.
And then, he noticed the people. A few witches and wizards strolled along the cobblestone street, carrying bags of produce and chatting casually. But there was something about their manner that felt dated. They looked too comfortable. He'd have to be blind to miss the tension in the air, though. Compared to the Hogsmeade he knew, this was... happy. Mostly untouched by the weight of the war.
As Harry turned his head in every direction, his stomach dropped. This was Hogsmeade—but it wasn’t. It was before. Before the destruction.
His heart hammered as he approached a small newsstand on the corner of the street. Without thinking, he grabbed the nearest paper from the stack. The headline screamed at him:
Voldemort’s Growing Power: A Dark Era Looms
He stared at the words, struggling to make sense of it. The year—he glanced at the small print at the bottom—1976. His breath hitched.
1976.
It was as if someone had slapped him across the face. The world around him blurred, and his chest tightened. I’m in the past.
Harry’s thoughts spun wildly. This wasn’t some alternate reality or twisted version of the future. No, this was the world as it was before everything had gone wrong. Before his parents had died, before Voldemort’s final rise, before the Battle of Hogwarts.
I’m stuck in time, he thought. I’m back in 1976...
The realization hit him like a freight train. He was standing in a world where everything had yet to come crashing down. His parents—Sirius—were alive, in their sixth year at Hogwarts. The weight of it all made his knees feel weak. He wasn’t sure if he was more afraid of the idea of seeing his parents again or the fact that he might never get back to his own time.
"You figured it out, then?" Tom Riddle’s voice interrupted his thoughts, dripping with amusement.
Harry’s head snapped up, and there, standing beside him, was the same Tom Riddle he had seen before—the young man, with the same mocking, arrogant smirk, his features sharp and unnervingly perfect. But now Harry saw the full impact of it. The calmness of this time, the obliviousness to the horrors that were to come—it was too much. It was suffocating.
“You really had no idea, did you, Potter?” Tom continued, his voice low and taunting. “You summoned the past. You didn’t summon the dead. You brought us here, and you don’t even realize it.”
Tom’s eyes gleamed. “I truly thought you had realized. However, I was just overestimating you. You’re in 1976, Potter. The year your parents are finishing their fifth year at Hogwarts. Before you even existed as the Boy Who Lived. Before the prophecy was fulfilled. Before Voldemort’s destruction.”
Harry stumbled back, his head spinning. He wanted to yell, to scream at the injustice of it all. But all he could do was stare at Tom, who stood with that infuriating smile.
Tom’s lips quirked into a smirk. “And here you are, trying to find your parents, and instead, you get me. How very fitting.”
“I didn’t want you!” Harry snapped, his anger flaring. “I wanted to see them—my parents—alive again, not you.”
“Oh, I’m quite sure you did,” Tom drawled, his voice dripping with venom. “But you weren’t clever enough to realize what you were really summoning. The dead don’t come back to life, Harry. Not the way you thought. You’ve pulled us into a time that hasn’t even seen the worst of what’s coming. But I am coming. And you forget this was the time of my prime. A time when I’m not even me yet. And now you’ll have to deal with it.”
The reality of his situation began to settle heavily on Harry’s shoulders. There was no going back—not now. The war, the battle, the sacrifice, all of it lay ahead, and he was stuck here, in a time when his parents were still in school, their futures unknown.
He looked around, still stunned. This was his last chance to see his parents, but it was too much. How could he do this? He couldn’t change anything. He couldn’t interfere. It was too dangerous.
“Listen to me,” Tom said, his tone sharpening. “You’re not going to fix anything. You’re not going back to your precious future. You summoned the past. The price for that is you stay here, in this time, with me. And believe me, we need to figure out what happens next. You can’t keep standing there like a fool.”
Harry clenched his jaw. He was right. He’d summoned this—he didn’t know how, but he had. And now he had to deal with it. But there was one thing he knew for sure: he couldn’t stay here for long. He couldn’t remain stuck in this time.
“Well, then, what are we supposed to do?” Harry bit out, frustration clouding his thoughts. “You’ve trapped us here. What now?”
Tom’s expression turned calculating. “Simple. We get a room. We need to lay low for a while, figure out what you’ve done. And then, we plan.”
Harry glared at him, but before he could object, Tom flicked his wand lazily, and the bartender of the Three Broomsticks—a woman he didn’t recognize—turned toward them with a vacant expression, her movements slow and controlled.
With a few murmured words from Tom, she went to the counter and effortlessly booked them a room. No questions asked. No money exchanged. It was all too easy.
“Come on,” Tom said, his voice sharp. “We’ve got a place to stay, and we’ll figure out how to deal with this... mess you’ve made.”
Harry’s fists clenched at his sides. This was not how he’d imagined any of this. The anger, the confusion—it was overwhelming. But there was no escaping this. For now, at least. They had no choice but to stay here, in this strange version of the past, until they could find a way out.
Tom led the way, his pace unhurried, and Harry followed, his mind racing with a thousand questions—none of which had an answer.