Chapter 1
Chapter One
Harry awoke to darkness so complete that he could not be sure his eyes were open. All he could see was a dark void of black nothingness. The void brought with it a sense of peace unlike anything he had felt before. There was no anxiety left over from battle. No fear of anybody’s judgment. None of the aches and pains that came naturally from living in a body for thirty plus years bothered him. It felt safe, for the moment, simply existing.
“This is Hell, isn’t it?” spoke a voice near Harry. Harry knew that voice. He frowned.
“Malfoy?” Harry asked, turning his head toward the sound but seeing nothing. He pictured them both floating weightlessly out in space.
“Potter?”
“That’s me.” Harry confirmed. The peace from before began to dissipate as he realized he was not alone. It kind of ruined the vibe. He reminded himself that there were worse people he could be stuck sharing a boundless void with for the rest of eternity.
Voldemort came to mind. Umbridge.
“Sure. That’s what the demons want me to think.” Draco groaned.
“I’m not a demon.”
“That sounds exactly like something a demon would say!”
Suddenly the dark empty void was filled with light, and they discovered that they were both who they said they were, and they were both naked.
“Well, this is awkward,” Harry said, contorting his limbs to cover as much of himself as possible.
“Don’t look at me,” Malfoy swore, doing the same, “you’re hideous!”
Harry had a tiny inkling that he had been here before.
“Can we turn the lights back off?” Malfoy shouted into the void.
Harry agreed. In the dark, they did not have to confront anything if they did not choose to. They each could pretend that they were here alone. Or that they were dreaming. Simply existing in a painless void had been nice while it lasted. He’d almost managed to relax.
“What are you doing here, Malfoy?” Harry asked. He had already assumed that he was dead- the boundless void and the lack of any pain had been a giveaway there. He didn’t know what had happened after the flash of green light.
“That’s a stupid question, isn’t it? Obviously, we’re dead.” Malfoy replied with a scowl. “I always knew one day your Gryffindor heroics would get us both killed.”
“I’m having deja vu and I don’t know why,” Harry said, sitting down and pulling his knees to his chest. Sitting in the void was a strange sensation. There was nothing here to support his weight. It was almost as if the void had simply met his body where it was.
“Say, didn’t you die once?” Malfoy asked. He had decided to have a seat as well, but he was several feet away and the two were in absolutely no danger of touching.
“That’s what it is,” Harry gasped, snapping his fingers as the memory came rushing back. Albus Dumbledore. The brightly lit train station.
Suddenly Harry was dressed in comfortable muggle clothing with a drink in his hand. He took a swig and sighed with relief.
“How did you do that?” Malfoy demanded.
“We’re in limbo. We can do whatever we want.”
Malfoy looked skeptical, but he scrunched up his face to give it a try. Then he was dressed in his favorite robes and he was holding a sandwich. He took a bite and his eyes lit up.
Harry grinned and an enormous bowl of soup and a chunk of crusty bread appeared before him. Perhaps being dead wouldn’t be so bad.
Before long, the former Aurors had turned the afterlife into their own personal playground. Harry was zooming around on a broomstick and Malfoy was buried beneath a pile of happy squirming puppies, and he even allowed them to lick his face.
“Hello boys,” a familiar voice declared. “I see you’ve both been murdered. Isn’t it funny how things work out?”
“I blame you for this.” Malfoy pointed at Harry and glared. All of his puppies disappeared and he was left lying on his back.
“Now now, Mr. Malfoy; I could say the same thing to you.” The old man before them wore bright purple robes and tiny half-moon glasses. His beard had been twisted into an elaborate braid.
Malfoy swore.
“Language, Mr. Malfoy. Don’t make me take house points.”
“We’re dead,” Harry argued, the same time as Malfoy exclaimed.
“We’re thirty-three years old, sir. Take the points. Slytherin never won the House Cup anyway.”
“Seventh year,” Harry coughed.
“We don’t talk about seventh year,” Malfoy snapped, all humor draining from his expression.
Voldemort had tasked Malfoy with killing the headmaster during their sixth year. He had failed to complete this task, but Dumbledore had been killed at the end of the year anyway. Harry and his friends had been given a mission to complete that led to them skipping their seventh year. The school, having been taken over by death eaters, had become an institute for teaching the dark arts and nobody had had a good time.
“Ten points from Slytherin!”
“Stuff it, old man.”
“Malfoy!” Harry gasped, unable to fathom how his partner could be so disrespectful to their former headmaster when he knew how deeply Malfoy regretted his role in the man’s death.
“Shut up, Potter,” Malfoy replied. He turned his patented ‘bitch face’ on Dumbledore. “We need to talk.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have much time,” the old man replied, his eyes twinkling as he shook his white head.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, ‘we don’t have much time’? We’re all fucking dead! We have all the time in the bloody world!”
“Language, Malfoy! We don’t want to lose anymore house points!”
“Mr. Potter is correct, Mr. Malfoy.”
“Potter, we are grown-ass men! We don’t cooperate for ‘house points’ anymore! Grow the hell up!”
“It’s too late for that, Malfoy. We’re dead, remember?”
Malfoy made sounds of frustration, and the former headmaster chuckled.
“Time is a funny thing, isn’t it Harry?” the old man sighed, “just a few years ago I was counseling you in the Kings Cross before your final showdown with Voldemort.”
“I remember.”
“About that,” Draco interrupted. “You really did Harry dirty with all of that ‘chosen one’ nonsense. And don’t even get me started on those ghastly relatives of his.”
“The familiar bond-
“They kept him under the stairs!”
“Its fine, Malfoy,” Harry interjected. “That was all a long time ago and I’m over it.”
“I’m not finished. Using a child to further your agenda is a really shitty thing to do…and let’s talk about the house cup while we’re at it-
“Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore waved his hand and the blonde man was rendered mute. “I agree with you, but it was all for the greater good.”
Malfoy, red-faced in outrage, expressed his opinion with a very rude hand gesture, using both hands for effect. Harry kept his mouth shut, but the joy that had shown on his face earlier had drained away completely. The phrase ‘for the greater good’ tended to have that effect on them.
“Anyway,” Dumbledore continued cheerfully, “you two seem to have made the situation worse.”
“No guidance, and we get all of the blame?” Harry asked uncertainly, feeling just a touch of anger. “That doesn’t seem right.”
“Well, for once the ‘Powers That Be’ agree with you.” Dumbledore replied, “and now I have been authorized to offer you both a do-over.”
“A what now?” Harry demanded, glancing, wide-eyed between the old man and the silent blonde. Malfoy’s face looked a lot like Harry suspected his own did at the moment. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Confusion. Shock. Excitement.
“A do-over.” Dumbledore repeated calmly. “Every once in a while, the 'Powers That Be' decide that they have made a mistake and scrap the timeline. That’s the case here.”
“What sort of mistake?” Harry asked.
Dumbledore shrugged. “It is my understanding that a mistake doesn’t have to be huge in order to tip the universal scale. It could be something as simple and miniscule as your shoe-size. Perhaps if it had been larger or smaller, you may have purchased a different brand. Tiny movements can create massive ripples in a lake.”
“The Butterfly Effect,” Draco said, suddenly able to speak again. “Like in that weird muggle movie you made me watch, Potter.”
Harry nodded. Not because he was clear on anything, but because it was something to do.
“If you agree, you’ll be sent back to the summer before your first year at Hogwarts, whatever caused the ripple happened sometime after that.” Dumbledore explained as thoroughly as he ever did.
“What about Voldemort?” Harry demanded, “I was killed the last time I had to fight him. Will I have to go through all of that again?”
A younger version of Tom Riddle, complete with a nose, appeared holding a large purple snake.
“Sup,” Tom 27 said, waving in Harry’s direction.
“Sssup,” hissed the snake. It was some sort of purple python.
“The 'Powers That Be' have decided to send this version of Tom back with you. In another timeline, number twenty-seven, I believe, Tom Riddle became a farmer in Scotland and lived a quiet and satisfying life with his familiar Boffo.”
“Right,” said Harry.
“Of course he did,” agreed Draco.
“I’m Boffo,” hissed the purple python. Harry hissed back a greeting.
“You may still have to fight him,” Dumbledore concluded, “but Tom 27 will be going back with you.”
“Will we remember everything that happened to us during this- what did you call it- timeline?” Malfoy asked.
“Yes,” Dumbledore said, “Perhaps you can stop this war against the purebloods from occurring.”
“We’ll do it,” Potter and Malfoy agreed together.
“Excellent,” Dumbledore declared. It was the last thing either of them heard as the white room faded back to black.
-X-
(August 1991)
They were back in Diagon Alley together on the platform in Madam Malkin’s as sentient tape measures measured every inch of their bodies. Harry could see Hagrid waiting outside the shop.
“It worked!” Harry gasped. Malfoy shushed him, darting his eyes toward the front of the shop where Madame Malkin was conversing with his mother.
“Is there any meaning behind this specific moment?” the blonde asked in a hushed voice.
“Er,” Harry grunted, swatting at a tape measure that was getting a bit too friendly. “Yeah actually. This is where you insulted Hagrid and I decided two things. One was that I did not like you. The other was that I did not want to be in Slytherin.”
“Like that would ever happen,” Malfoy scoffed.
“It was the hat’s first choice,” Harry said mildly. “I begged it to put me somewhere else.”
“All because of me?” Draco murmured. Harry nodded.
They stopped talking when Madam Malkin returned with robes for them to try on.
“Maybe you should consider Slytherin this time,” Malfoy suggested as the boys parted ways.