Deathhopper
When Harry Potter is just 15 months old, he dies and wakes up elsewhere in the exact same spot. No one notices, not even Harry and ironically, he is hailed as the Boy-Who-Lived.
When Harry Potter dies aged almost 12, deep in the depth of a hidden passage of Hogwarts, beside the still burning corpse of his enemy, the few who might have noticed down play it, explain it away, and it goes unremarked. He awakes later, in the hospital, and is told he is lucky. He almost dies again only a year later, but a phoenix pulls him back from the brink.
When Harry Potter is 17 years old, he dies and wakes again. And again, no one really notices. He is, in sneering tones, sometimes called the Boy-Who-Lived-Twice. Sometimes someone mentions an event Harry has slightly different recollection of, like when celebrating Neville’s appointment as the new Hogwarts Herbology Professor, and Ron comments, “And this from the boy who broke his leg in his first flying lesson.” And Harry almost corrects Ron that it was his arm, but notices that no one else had noticed, and figures he just heard wrong, or just remembers wrong and dismisses it and laughs along with everyone.
When Harry is 25 years old he dies again, this time a combination of falling off a building after being hit by a cutting curse across his torso and blood loss. By the time he hits the ground he is elsewhere. The Healers all whisper about miracles when Harry wakes up in St Mungo’s. After just a few months of recovery, he is out of the hospital and back home with Ginny and everything is just like it was. Expect when it isn’t.
Like when Ginny mentions their first kiss happening in the backyard, not on the steps as Harry remembers. Or when he sees Luna’s buying books and her earrings are cherries not radishes (which might actually just be Luna). Or when he visits George in the shop and he is missing his right ear not left.
But Harry is very good at ignoring these things, telling himself he is just a little addled, after all, he just almost died (again) and it’s nothing really. It’s fine. He’s fine. So, later, when he sometimes tells his kids stories, and Ginny corrects something, Harry just laughs it off and tries hard to ignore the twisting inside him that no he is pretty sure that Griphook was the goblin who helped break into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault not Snortlock, and Percival Dumbledore was locked up in Azkaban not killed, and Hagrid’s umbrella was pink not purple.
Those changes are strange yes, but they are problems only Harry notices. The bigger problems is that as he edges into his 60th year he still looks like he is in his early 20, and sure wizards age slowly (even with the ravages of Azkaban Lucius Malfoy looked mid 30s until well into his late 60s), but Harry hasn’t slowed down at all, he still has the energy of a much younger wizard. Being the Boy-Who-Lived, The Chosen One, The Defeater of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named gives a bit of leeway, but even Ginny starts to question when Harry hits his 70s and his kids look older then he does.
And then he dies again (a bomb goes off when he is getting coffee), and this time, when he wakes up (because really, he must have been far enough away, because he is fine and leaves to avoid the muggle police who will no doubt ask questions he can not answer), the little different things he had noticed are much bigger.
Like the fact that when he limps home his key doesn’t fit in the door, and when it opens it isn’t Ginny standing looking at him but a man with a startlingly resemblance to Sirius.
“What the hell are you doing here, James Potter?” The man spits out.
“What? What are you doing in my house? Who are you?”
“I see you’ve finally cracked. My Lord will be please to see you. I guess my brother is still to cowardly to show his face here?”
“Regulus?” Harry is pretty sure he has cracked, but that's ok because Regulus answers with a nod of confirmation, and immediately tackles him and knocks him out.
The next few hours of torture at the hands of a very alive Voldemort tell him that actually no Harry Potter had been on the run for 6 years with his parents after they left in 1980 before Bellatrix caught up to them and strangled the boy four years ago. So is he sure he still wants to claim he is a dead 9 year old child wizard? Of course when the veritaserum and Voldemort poking around in his head confirm that he at least believes it, things get more painful.
Because this Voldemort might still be insane, but knowledge of the future, even if it from a clearly different world is nothing to be sneered at.
Later, Harry will realise that he probably did more damage there by funding the war through careful investments after he answers pointed questions then any other direct action he could have taken. But it also the first time he understands why he remembers things a little different then everyone else. In between curios and knives, Voldemort’s mocking informs Harry what is happening. Every single time he dies he doesn’t wake up in the same universe. Which really Harry had known. He just didn’t want to acknowledge it. But now, standing in front of him is the proof. Voldemort has never been defeated here. Lily and James, when under threat, had gotten as far away from Britain as possible.
Which means when Harry stabs himself in the heart with the dagger he grabs when old Voldy is monologuing again it isn’t really suicide. Not even when he knowingly rips it out and throws it at Voldemort when he raises a wand to help him. Not suicide at all.
Because he wakes back up, thankfully alone in the clearly disused basement. His chests aches. When he finally has the energy to do so after drifting in and out of consciousness, he raises a hand to feel there is a tacky hole closing slowly, the edges painfully sensitive.
He has no idea how long he has been there, but he is extremely hungry, and his mouth feels like a desert. His head throbs painfully. When he manages to crawl his way up the stairs he would cry if he wasn’t so damn thirsty when the door doesn’t open. His feeble whimper must be hear though, as he wakes up in a hospital.
A muggle hospital. With police asking who stabbed him and how he got to be in basement of a tourist attraction.
Harry has no wand, no ID and no idea. And when he gets his hands on a paper he finds out its 1991 still (again?).
Eventually he sneaks out, because it turns out when you can’t answer basic questions about who is in government and recent events doctors are reluctant to let you leave. And when the police back it up its really not possible to get away. So Harry sneaks away instead. He is in the middle of no where. He can’t apparate, and has to catch a bus with money he borrowed from one of the nice nurses to get back to London.
He goes looking for St Mungo’s figuring they can help him. And his head still hurts (‘serve dehydration, blood loss’ the doctors had exclaimed ‘really, your lucky to be alive’.)
St Mungo’s is not where it is meant to be. Neither is the Leaky Cauldron when he looks for it. He finds no sign of magic at all, so it's probably for the best that the infection he catches from wandering about the place with an hole in his chest kills him 4 days later as he lies in a alley across what should be the entrance to St Mungo’s hoping to catch a glimpse of someone with magic.
He is never so happy to be in a hospital bed as when he wakes up in St Mungo’s to a mediwizard fussing about him, tutting about reckless young men.
He goes to the goblins and claims to be a long loss relative Potter, because it's 1982 and he is defiantly not a 2 year old. After what is most likely some old dark blood magics, he gets into the Vaults. He is also told of the tragic loss of little Harry Potter on Halloween 1981, just before the famous defeat of You-Know-Who at the hero Longbottom’s hands.
Harry isn’t sure if he should be relived or worried that Harry here is dead. He wonders what happened before, when he seemed to wake up in a world where he already was. The last two times have been different. Time hasn’t continued on like always.
With access to the Potter Vault and no ties to the people here, Harry researches.
Hermione would be so proud.
It takes a few years, but eventually he decides there are two possibilities.
1. He has finally gone insane and he is currently locked up in a padded cell somewhere. Or maybe is in a coma. Either way, this isn’t real but a delusion or dream. As there is no way of testing this, and the whole wake up by killing yourself several books recommend in such a situation isn’t really helpful in his case, he thinks if this is what is happening, there is nothing he can do about it and he might as well go with the flow.
2. The whole Master of Death thing actually meant something more then a stupid title. Being the Master of Death may mean he can’t die. So each time he does stop living, he just gets bounced back. Which Harry thinks is pretty likely. If that is the case, Harry probably should figure out what else it means. And why he ended up in an alternative universe instead of back in his old body like the first few times.
Turns out that he isn’t the first wizard to end up jumping universes. There are accounts of other wizards doing it. Most are considered crazy even to other wizards, and so the books are a bit hard to get a hold of. But once Harry does he finds they agree that the number of times you jump, the further you get from where you started. And the more magic involved, the further away you land. And if you do it too many times you might become lost in not just location but time.
Which as a wizard’s core keeps growing as they age means that Harry’s later jumps are further apart from his early jumps. He was almost 80 when he ended up in Voldemort’s hands. From there a massive shift to a world with possibly no magic at all. And its only going to get worse. Because he can’t control it, his death is the trigger, not something he wants to face anyway.
Harry is so deep in research that its a bit of a shock when a trip to the Alley has him accosted by official thugs who demand to check his blood status ID, as per the new directive by the Voldemort controlled Ministry.
Ohh, turns out he has missed the majority of the second wizarding war. Oops.
He knocks the thugs out, but gets hit in the back by a bystander. He wonders if the bystander actually agreed with Voldemort was just to afraid to not do anything.
No matter. It's only Harry's (by his count) 6th jump and he is already accepted it. Or he tells himself that. His 100th birthday is in a new world, in 1886. He still looks like he is in his early 20s, and passes himself off as an amnesic bastard Potter. It works. He is no longer shocked at how stupid wizards can be. It probably helps that the Potter Lord is without legitimate issue despite the best healers and potions, and desperate of an heir to the point he was thinking he might have to adopt. His wife is less accepting of Harry, but Harry grew up with the Dursley’s. Her snide comments are nothing to Aunt Petunia on a good day.
Harry feels a little bad about it all. He has no wish to marry and continue the line only to possibly leave them behind. He survives a surprisingly long time, in his supposed 60s (150s), and adopts a baby Tom Riddle as his heir.
Harry can’t resist the irony, but he can assure the now 125 year old Lord Potter that yes, young Tom will be a powerful wizard. Harry himself is surprised to say the least to find that he is still a Parselmouth, after a number of interesting incidence with the young boy.