Tumbling Through Time
“He hasn’t gone!” Harry yelled.
He did not believe it, he would not believe it; still he fought Lupin with every bit of strength he had. Lupin did not understand, people hid behind that curtain, he had heard them whispering the first time he had entered the room — Sirius was hiding, simply lurking out of sight —
“SIRIUS!” he bellowed, “SIRIUS!”
“He can’t come back, Harry,” said Lupin, his voice breaking as he struggled to contain Harry. “He can’t come back, because he’s d —”
“HE — IS — NOT — DEAD!” roared Harry. “SIRIUS!”
There was movement going on around them, pointless bustling, the flashes of more spells. To Harry it was meaningless noise, the deflected curses flying past them did not matter, nothing mattered except that Lupin stop pretending that Sirius, who was standing feet from them behind that old curtain, was not going to emerge at any moment, shaking back his dark hair and eager to reenter the battle —
Lupin dragged Harry away from the dais, Harry still staring at the archway, angry at Sirius now for keeping him waiting —
It struck Harry then, hard and fast and more painful than any injury before.
Sirius had never left Harry waiting… not once. When Harry needed him, truly needed him, Sirius was always there. Always.
Even with that realization threatening to break Harry in half, to tear his mind in to hundreds of pieces of pain, Harry wretched himself free of Lupin. Lupin shouted, but Harry was already running blindly toward the dias.
Any of the flying spells could have struck Harry and Harry never would have cared, never. All Harry cared about was reaching out, quickly, to move the curtain and tell himself definitively that Sirius was gone.
“HARRY!!”
Someone screamed as Harry reached for the curtain, but a more welcoming voice whispered to him behind the waving sheet.
“Harry…”
Harry felt his face curl in a vicious and triumphant grin as he reached out, reached for Sirius —
And then Harry was falling forward, tumbling…
Down he went… turning over and over in space while darkness and sudden silence surrounded him. Harry was confused at first, a little frightened. Then there was a voice, Sirius’s, reassuring him:
“Harry… Harry, you’re safe. Gods, you have to be safe...”
Safe? There had been a battle happening around him? There were death eaters striking students, Order members defending them… it had been Harry’s fault, his fault for believing a false vision, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Harry continued tumbling for what seemed to be an eternity. If Harry could feel his body, he was sure he would be sick. Certainly his glasses had disappeared and the blood from his various injuries sustained in the battle were dried. Yet Harry continued to tumble through what seemed to be an eternity of darkness.
When Harry finally hit the ground - the ground of whatever void was opened behind the veil - the air in his lungs were knocked out and he bent at the waist to cough and wheeze.
“A’right there, Harry?” A huge hand struck Harry on his back, sending him hurtling toward the ground.
Harry hit a stone floor face-first and struggled to breathe correctly until someone lifted him by his shirt collar and stood him on his feet. Harry couldn’t see, but he knew from instinct that his glasses had been broken, something confirmed by the way he had to squint over at the companion with him.
The man was large, with a dark and tangled beard that went to his waist and if Harry could see, he would know that there would be glittering dark eyes watching Harry with what had always been warmth and concern.
“Hagrid?” Harry gasped, his voice sounding strange. It was definitely Hagrid, no other man Harry knew was that tall. Though, as Harry tilted his head back, he wondered if Hagrid had gotten even taller since he fled Hogwarts? It had only been days ago that Harry saw Hagrid last, but the man seemed to have grown at least a foot.
“Yeh look peaky…” Hagrid said, his head turning left and right in the sunshine that should not be existing around them. “‘Ere… let’s go sit.”
Harry let himself be guided to a chair, a metal chair with a red cushion that felt familiar to Harry’s back. There was a storm of questions in Harry’s mind - all to do with what happened when he touched the veil. A few of them, Harry began asking, only to realize that his situation was more confusing than even his OWLS exam in potions had been.
“Where’s Sirius?” Harry asked immediately, hoping that he would have seen him when he hit the ground. “And how did you get here? Where are we? I thought you would be in the mountains until Dumbledore was back?”
Harry would have went on with his many questions, but Hagrid cut him off and shut him up with his genuine confusion.
“Sirius? Black?” Hagrid asked, his deep voice sounding only surprised. “Who told ya about him? Best to not think about it, ‘Arry. I dunno what’s gotten into ya… maybe I oughta go talk with Olivander, see what happened in that shop…”
Olivander? Shop?
Harry squinted his eyes and began looking around, taking his first true interest in their surroundings. It was warm, sunny… the sky was clear, there were laughs and merry greetings being called out around them… it was nothing like the battle that Harry left behind, nothing at all.
They were in Diagon Alley, not the Ministry of Magic.
That realization made Harry feel sick enough that when he raised his hands to cover his face, his next realization actually caused bile to rise in his throat.
Harry’s hands, scarred and calloused by years of mental things endlessly happening to him, were clear of any scars. Harry flipped his left hand over and even without his glasses, he could see immediately what was missing.
‘I Shall Not Tell Lies’ was gone. There was no scar there from Umbridge, no fainter scars from earlier fights and work.
Harry was sure he was trembling and Hagrid muttered something nearly frantic about water when Harry reached for his right arm, feeling up to the giant scar just beneath his shoulder. There should have been a knot of scar-tissue, a few shades lighter than Harry’s skin… it was gone.
Gone. All of Harry’s scars - from the basilisk, the graveyard, the blood quill - all gone.
Harry’s scars were gone and when Hagrid returned with a large pitcher of water, Harry was frantic as he turned the jug to try and glimpse his own reflection.
“Hagrid…” Harry looked at a childish face, thin but young. He traced the lightning bolt on his forehead, the one that wasn’t aching and sending any pains through his body. Harry looked at his hair, shorter than he began wearing it after his third year…
“What year is it?” Harry asked in a boyish whisper, horror and seeping in his blood and sending adrenaline through his veins.
“Year?” Hagrid shoved the water pitcher closer to Harry in a pointed attempt to get him to drink it. “‘S 1991, Harry…”
1991… and, if Harry remembered correctly - which he did, it meant that it was Harry’s birthday.
Harry touched the veil in the Ministry of Magic and fell clear back to his eleventh birthday.
The rest of the trip, Hagrid seemed concerned about Harry’s silence. It wasn’t that Harry hadn’t wished a hundred times that he could show Hagrid how much he appreciated his introduction to the wizarding world and the way that Hagrid had embraced Harry so fully, it was that Harry never expected to relive the bloody event.
By the time that Hagrid dropped Harry off in front of Number Four Privet Drive, he seemed positively concerned.
“Maybe I oughta ask Professor Dumbledore ‘bout sendin’ Madam Pomfrey out to ya,” Hagrid fretted. “She could fix ya up for some glasses, make sure ya didn’t touch anything cursed or summat…”
“Hm? No.” Harry didn’t know what was happening, but he knew that the last thing he needed was for Hogwarts’s Medi-Witch to be sent to him with suspicions of curse damage.
Harry had gotten enough of that in the last year, thanks.
“I’m just tired.” Harry forced a grin when he looked up at Hagrid, willing the friendly giant to believe him. “It’s, er… well, it’s pretty overwhelming, everything we’ve done today.”
Hagrid accepted Harry’s story easily, even letting out a deep breath when Harry gave him the simple explanation.
“If yer sure,” Hagrid said. He patted Harry’s shoulder again, causing Harry’s much smaller body to shake beneath him. “Suppose I’ll see you on September first then, eh, Harry? Be safe and you send your owl to me if those blasted muggles give ya any trouble, alright?”
Harry agreed and waited for Hagrid to leave before sinking down to sit on the grass in front of his trunk, cradling his head in both hands.
Time-travel… Harry had time-traveled, it seemed.
Why did the veil take Harry back to that specific day? Nothing of importance had happened on Harry’s eleventh birthday, nothing that Harry could recall being any more outrageous than usual in his life.
Harry had gotten his wand, his Hedwig… Quirrel had broken into Gringotts and failed… was that the very day that Voldemort would possess Quirrel? Was that somehow the cause for why Harry had appeared on that specific day?
The sun was beginning to set when Harry stopped wondering why he had been taken to that day - Harry didn’t question that a veil had the power to drop him in his much younger body, the wizarding world was mad and Harry had always known it - and began to wonder what happened to Sirius.
Was Sirius somewhere in 1970, in his eleven year-old body, wondering what sent him there? Would he be happy? Getting a chance to relive his life? Harry swallowed his heartbreak and wondered if he would ever get to meet Sirius Black, his Sirius, again?
Harry had been so driven by refusal to believe Sirius had died that he might have inadvertently driven them further apart than ever before.
Summer seemed to creep past Harry exceedingly slow. Many times, Harry thought about writing to one of his friends or slipping away to Diagon to begin searching on his own. Was it permanent? The time travel? Should Harry hope it was?
If Harry was truly eleven again then there were things he could do differently. Harry could capture Pettigrew on the train, free Sirius. It would stop Voldemort from coming back… it would save Cedric Diggory’s life.
It meant that Harry wouldn’t be there for the battle happening - would it still be happening if Harry disappeared from that time? Could Harry stop it from happening again? Did everyone’s world reset when Harry’s did? Or was Harry in a new world altogether?
Questions like that began to make his head ache. It also made him miss his friends… but that he could fix. Harry knew that if he managed to make friends with Ron and Hermione, Neville and Luna, the first time he’d been eleven then surely he could do it again.
And, Harry grinned to himself, maybe Harry could do it without a troll attacking them.
A week before Harry was set to return to Hogwarts, on the morning when his uncle reminded Harry of why it was unbearable to have to live through half a dozen summers with him again, Harry decided to venture to Diagon Alley. He didn’t have his cloak, he was young, but there were a few things Harry wanted to do.
Buying a charmed trunk, one Hagrid talked Harry out of the first time he had been eleven, was top of that list. If Harry could get one of the ones with the invisibility charm on them, he could keep his supplies with him. Harry also needed a journal… something to keep track of what all he wanted to do and fix while he had the chance.
Maybe while Harry was in Diagon Alley, he could run into Ron or Hermione. That would certainly fast-track his friendship with them and give him something to look forward to for the last few days of summer.
Harry also, rather begrudgingly, decided that he needed to pick up some more advanced spell books. Harry might not have been top of his year, but the Standard Book of Spells Year One was still rudimentary to him.
All of those plans left his mind when Harry arrived at the Leaky Cauldron and caught a glimpse of the paper that an old witch read at the counter.
“Excuse me.” Harry’s heart began racing when he saw the familiar face on the front of the paper. Harry’s glasses hadn’t been repairable and he had been planning to replace them that day; even relatively blind though, he could recognize the photo on the front of the paper.
Snarling at the camera then throwing his head back and laughing… it wasn’t the handsome face of Sirius Black, but the gaunt and wasted one of Sirius from Azkaban. They had posted that same photo when Sirius escaped from Azkaban… was it too much to hope that Sirius had returned to the same time with Harry and escaped two years earlier than the first time?
“Why - why is he in the news?” Harry asked the witch, his unintentional stammer making him truly sound eleven.
“Who? Black?” The witch looked at Harry and Harry knew that her eyes were ticking up to his forehead, seeing the scar that defined so much of his life. At only eleven, Harry wasn’t yet the hated liar that he had been called by the majority of witches and wizards in his fifth year.
“Oh, dearie.” The witch patted Harry’s head, rather like he was a dog, and was too eager to share the paper with him. “It’s good news, I promise. Sirius Black is dead!”
The last week of summer was spent in a haze for Harry.
Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Sirius falling through the veil… When he tried to sleep, he could hear the witch’s words replaying on a twisted loop: “Sirius Black is dead!”
Was it Harry’s fault? Would Sirius have lived if Harry didn’t try and follow him? Was there another world where Sirius could still be living?
Sirius Black is dead.
Harry sent Hedwig off with a single letter that week, addressed to the Ministry. When Harry realized he didn’t know who ran which departments at that point in time, he sent it to the Minister.
It was simple, short, a bit too carefully worded to fully pass as a child:
To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Harry Potter. I read that Sirius Black died on July 31st. If possible, as he is was my godfather, I wanted to find out about having him buried at Godric’s Hollow Cemetery. I would pay any costs.Thank you,
Harry J. Potter
The reply from the assistant to the minister was just as short:
No.
There was a single paragraph that explained how Sirius Black had been buried in the Azkaban Cemetery and would not be moved without an order from the Wizengamot. An additional paragraph informed Harry that he needed to get in touch with the Office of Wills and Bequests for an inheritance he gained.
Harry didn’t respond to that letter, he also didn’t reach out about an inheritance he didn’t want.
Harry wanted Sirius.
For the last week that Harry spent mostly confined in his room, even the Dursleys didn’t bother him. Aunt Petunia made a muttered comment about Harry getting what he deserved - Harry had been ready to actually kill her until he realized she thought he was upset about going to Hogwarts. Uncle Vernon didn’t know what to make of the silent and sullen boy who couldn’t even find the energy to shower.
Dudley tried to screw with Harry a few times, but Harry ignored him until he too eventually just left Harry alone.
All Harry had to look forward to was getting to Hogwarts, seeing the eleven year-old versions of his best friends. Even the thought that Harry could help them all so much wasn’t enough to lift his gloomy mood.
The world felt darker, more lonely, with the knowledge that Sirius was gone.
On September first, Harry didn’t even bother asking his relatives for a ride to King’s Cross Station. Harry rose before any of them and sent Hedwig along to fly herself there, she never did like the train, then walked a few blocks out of the residential area to call for the Knight Bus.
It was as mortifying and nauseating of an experience as it had been the first time Harry rode it, but it was easier than asking anyone else for a ride.
Even with the cloud hanging over his head and his generally terrible vision (Aunt Petunia had replaced Harry’s glasses, but Harry didn’t think that the prescription was quite right), it was still a relief to arrive at the Platform.
Harry was earlier than he had been the first time he rode it, so he stopped at a stand to buy a snack and drink. Harry didn’t have to meet Ron in the same place, but he didn’t want to take any chances either. It also gave Harry a chance to see some of the other students arrive…
Neville Longbottom arrived with his Gran and Harry watched him lose his toad on the way to the barrier. Trevor didn’t seem to mind, he only hopped through after Neville.
Lee Jordan arrived with a woman Harry assumed was his mother and a girl much younger than he was. Harry didn’t know that Lee had a sister… Harry didn’t really know much about some of his classmates.
Maybe it could be something he worked on? Harry might not have felt so isolated in his fourth and fifth years if he bothered to branch out to more than just Ron and Hermione.
There were loads of students that Harry didn’t recognize, mixed with a few he did. Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were escorted through the barrier by Draco’s father, Lucius. Even the sight of Lucius made Harry’s blood boil with rage. Lucius had been a part of the group of death eaters who fought Harry’s friends and - and killed Sirius.
That was a wrong that Harry would be too happy to set right.
Figuring that he still had a few minutes until the Weasleys arrived, Harry dug through his bag to find some paper. Since Harry never did return to Diagon for more supplies, he was stuck using parchment until he could sneak off to Hogsmeade…
At the top of his paper, Harry began a list of all the active and unknown death eaters he could remember.
Malfoy… Nott… Crabbe… Goyle… the bloke from the Ministry, Macnair…
There were more, too many, but Harry was interrupted by a throat being cleared in front of him.
Harry looked up from his list and lost his breath for a moment, shocked by the eyes that stared at him. Grey eyes, angled and sparkling with mischief. Fine features that were rounded by childhood but Harry knew would turn to fine and regal looking angles. Wavy black hair that laid over his face, almost hiding one of his eyes. The boy stood with careless arrogance, his hands tucked in the pockets of his black trousers.
It wasn’t a student that Harry knew, despite the way Harry was sure they were in the same year. Harry would remember him, Harry knew him… but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
“You might not know me,” the boy started talking and it had to be - couldn’t be… “but our dads were friends.”
That was certainly different.
“Er… Yeah?” Harry asked, sweating beneath Dudley’s sweater he wore. “What’s - what’s your name?”
The boy grinned outright and it was the same grin from the fireplace, from the Shrieking Shack, from Grimmauld Place. When he stuck a hand out, it was the same cocky arrogance that Harry had seen in Snape’s memories…
“Sirius James Black,” the boy grinned so widely, “it’s nice to meet you.”