FicWad

Chapter 10 - Reset

Nimble fingers turned ink riddled pages; leather binding propped against elegantly crossed legs; head cocked slightly to the right; brow furrowed in concentration; gray eyes passed back and forth, taking in haphazardly scrawled script. The oil lamp set upon the end table beside the armchair that the dark haired man was sitting in cast a contrast of gold hue and elongated shadows across the man's lean figure, accentuating his aristocratic features and providing ample light for the man to read by.

Harry's gaze took in the subtle emotion that would briefly morph Sirius's features, as the man reviewed his notes more closely than the man had done before. The fractional upturn of the corners of the man's lips, when the man found something to be pleasing; the barely noticeable nod, when the man agreed with something that he had written; the hardening of the man's eyes, when the man came across a reference to something that was no doubt nefarious in nature; nor did he miss the slight hesitation that caused the man's hands to tremble and fumble noticeably at the pages, when the man found something to be disturbing, or that the man would pale and his lips would pull tight into a scowl for the very same reason.

"Not that I necessarily mind, but is there a reason for all the staring?" Sirius asked into the silence of the library and looked over to Harry, who was seated on the far end of the sofa opposite him with his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes trained intently upon him.

"I'm attempting to assimilate and accept that you are alive," Harry stated simply.

"And how is that going?" Sirius asked with interest.

"No worse than attempting to accept that I am a scrawny, 14 year old for a second time in my life," Harry grimaced. "Physically, at least."

"Not well then." Sirius smiled sympathetically. "How old were - are you...mentally, I mean?"

Harry sighed and ran a hand through 'his' unruly hair. The act was one of habit and now served as a very predominate reminder that the body that he occupied wasn't the one that truly belonged to him. For the last four years he had kept his hair trimmed short, as conditions had made his messy strands a pain to manage, especially with his hair grown past his shoulders, like it had been prior to him having had to cut it. Though, admittedly, he did prefer his hair long, despite having kept it short - a fair bit longer than his counterpart's hair currently was, yet not so long that reached anywhere near his mid-back.

"I had turned 23 about a month back," Harry said, answering Sirius's question.

"Nine years," Sirius said pensively, as if considering what nine years into the future might look like.

"You have no idea," Harry said with a gravity that had Sirius looking at him with deep concern. You don't want to know, he thought, as Sirius held his gaze with unmasked questions alight in his eyes. You don't want to know the detrimental difference those nine years had on my world's future and could have on yours. You don't want to know just how far human depravity can go.

As Sirius opened his mouth to ask a question that Harry knew with certainty that he wouldn't be willing to give an answer to, the man's mouth snapped back shut. In a single, fluid motion Sirius stood, closed the journal that had been open upon his lap, and set the journal aside on the corner of the end table.

"James?" Harry asked knowingly.

Sirius nodded. "I'll bring him up," the man announced needlessly, before leaving the library with swift footfalls.

Harry let out a slow breath, as he heard Sirius descending the stairs. With Sirius out of the room, he felt like he could breathe again."Fuck," he whispered to the empty library and hung his head, his shoulders hunching. He had seen death - had been its executioner and its prey - and had grieved for many losses in his life. Yet, through it all, it had been his godfather's death that had affected him on a deeply personal level that all but a few other deaths had done, and none so severely. To see the man alive in this world brought up old memories and emotions that he'd rather not explore and had thought that he had dealt with long ago.

The night that Sirius had died in his world had been one of the most emotionally painful nights of Harry's life. He had lost something that night and not just his godfather, but a piece of himself. The naive boy that had thought that maybe, just maybe he would one day get to be normal and have afamily of his own, like everybody else; the naive boy that had still believed that adults, like Sirius and Tonks, were strong protectors and couldn't possibly fall to the enemy's wand; the naive boy that had had the naive hope that it wouldn't come down to him and Voldemort in the end, despite all the evidence to the contrary... that the naive boy; he had died that night along with his loving godfather, never to be seen or heard from again. Sirius's death hadn't been just the loss of the only man that he had ever remembered viewing as a parent of sorts, but the loss of the last vestiges of the child within him that he had been so desperately cling to. If asked when Porteur Demort first began to take form within him, he would say that Porteur was born into his infancy at the precise second that Sirius Black slipped through the Veil of Death in the Department of Mysteries of the British Ministry of Magic.

You're dwelling, Harry chastised himself, knowing better than to allow himself to brood about what he could not change. There is only the future and what one does with it, he asserted his motto firmly within his mind. It was this world that had yet to know the terror of Voldemort's second rise to power that he needed to focus on. It was this world full of innocents that his counterpart had essentially argued for him to stay and protect. It was this world with an alive Sirius and an entire family of Potters that he would be joining, should James release him from his current mission objective in agreement with his counterpart and Sirius's stance on the matter of his continued existence.

Hearing the two distinctly different, yet somewhat similar sets of footsteps ascending the grand staircase and voices approaching the library, Harry pulled himself from his thoughts with resolution set within his mind and heart. As in his world, where Sirius was dead and he had had to deal with that fact; in this world, Sirius was alive and he was just going to have to accept that the man walked, talked, and breathed, as a living person ought to.

Harry looked around towards the library door just in time to see the silver, snake head that was the doorknob turn - the light from the lone oil lamp that resided on the worktable reflecting off of its scaled surface -and the door push open. Sirius entered the library first, followed by James, who was carrying a paper sack that smelled absolutely mouthwatering.

James smiled upon catching sight of Harry, the man's worn features transforming from a state of anxiety to relief in a matter of seconds. "Tom's beef stew?" he asked uncertainly, lifting the sack the slightest bit in offering.

Harry could not have prevented the moan of delight from slipping past his lips, if he had even had the presence of mind to. He was up off of the sofa and taking the sack over to the recently repaired worktable, before either James or Sirius could take an additional step into the room. Six, seven years since I last had Tom's stew - possibly longer? he questioned, while removing the three bowls of beef stew and dumplings that were under a stasis charm from the sack. He set the three bowls out on the table, conjured the necessary silverware, and eagerly pulled up a chair.

"Mmm..." Harry closed his eyes, savoring the burst of beefy flavor and spices washing across his taste buds, upon taking his first bite of the steaming sustenance. "Tom always did make the best stew," he said appreciatively, as he opened his eyes and looked to James and Sirius, who had yet to move and were merely watching him curiously. "Sit, eat," Harry commanded, indicating to the two bowls of stew set before the empty chairs across from him with his spoon.

As the two men did as directed, both continued to watch Harry proceed to take another bite.

The silence that followed James and Sirius joining Harry at the worktable was one only broken by the muffled sounds of chewing and a spoon periodically scraping against the basin of one of their bowls, as well as a few murmurs indicating each man's enjoyment of the meal.

"Sirius said that you have news," James prompted, after ashort while, when most of the stew had been eaten.

Harry rested his spoon against the side of his near empty bowl and looked up at James, who sat directly opposite him. "I've located Harry, as well as formulated a way to remove myself from him and restore him to his previous state of being."

"But," Sirius interjected, setting down his spoon and looking to James as well. His eyes and his tone were opposing. "If he goes through with the rite, he'll die."

"Thank you, Sirius," Harry said, glaring at said man and ignoring the way James's eyes had brightened with hope, only to dull mere seconds later. "I was getting to that."

"I think I would like for you to start at the beginning,"James said to Harry, while forcibly keeping his voice calm. "When I last heard from you, you were working on figuring out how dimension travel was even possible. If you could tell me where my son is and -"

"Harry's safe," Harry assured and reached up to tap the side of head. "He's right here...with me."

"With you?" A perplexed look knitted James's brow.

Harry nodded. "The way that he explains -"

"You've talked to him?" James leaned forward in his chair, his eyes keen and demanding. "How is he?"

"In a constant state of being ticked at me, or otherwise fascinated by me and enthusiastic about actually being able to speak with me,"Harry said truthfully. "As for him being 'with me', I should probably rephrase that and say that he's my host and I'm his guest. The way that he explains what he is experiencing is that it's like he's in one of his dreams, only the dream hasn't ended and I've taken control of his body, instead of the dream being set back in my world with me in control of my own body."

"So you're both...?" James looked Harry up and down meaningfully.

Harry nodded.

"Is that even -" James glowered and his eyes narrowed at Harry in scrutiny, as if he might find some visible abnormality resulting from the cohabitation of two souls within a single body. "That's not possible...is it?That shouldn't be possible."

"To be honest, if I weren't a master Occlumens and hadn't instinctually taken control of the situation, this body would have gone into an epileptic fit the moment that I invaded it. Two souls coexisting within the same body isn't possible, no," Harry said in answer to the man's staggered question. "The clash of commands coming from two conscious and definitively separate entities within a single physical form would be enough to cause insanity at best and death at the worst."

"As long as you stay in control, you'll both be fine?" James asked, no longer even attempting to hide or contain the worry afflicting him.

"As long as I remain in conscious control, I can maintain the barrier between our minds, keeping us both safe and sane," Harry said confidently.

"So Harry is safe?" James sought confirmation.

"As safe as I am," Harry told the man.

Upon James looking sideways at him, Sirius nodded, giving his own confirmation. "I've looked over his research and know a bit about what he's talking about. They're both just fine, as they currently are. We'd know, if they weren't."

"You said something about a way to remove yourself?" James looked back to Harry. Though he appeared to be convinced of his son's safety, his question was hesitant and filled with uncertainty.

Harry nodded. "It would essentially be a controlled exorcism aimed at a specific target rather than a general targeting of a foreign presence. I've combined a reverse soul transfer array with one of the older exorcism rites. The array that I've formulate is as foolproof as it can be. Once the magic is activated, only my memories along with my affiliated soul will be attacked, differentiating myself from Harry's soul and memories and allowing me to be recognized as a foreign presence. Though I've made it as safe as I can for Harry, he still might feel a bout of pain, when the portion of my magic that went into binding with his magic is ripped away. And as Sirius was so quick to point out," he said, before Sirius could interject and point out the cost of using the array for a second time, "the end result will not only be your son's individual existence being restored, but my death."

James looked distinctly uncomfortable and lowered gaze to the table, his hope and desire for his son's return causing him shame.

"I wasn't even going to ask," Harry said, his tone cautious, yet gentle. "I was going to activate the array and be done with it. In my opinion, my soul is mine to do with as I please. However, Harry has requested something of me, and while it's not something that I want to do necessarily or something that would be ideal for any of us, I can't ignore his request."

James looked up at Harry, his eyes torn by internal debate.

"While I can remove myself from your son and allow him to return to his normal life," Harry said carefully, "that isn't the only option. It doesn't have to be me or him, James. If you allow it, I can merge with Harry."

"Merge?" James frowned, looking for all the world as if the concept was beyond him.

"What would happen is that I would take your son's memories into my mind, while passing my memories into his mind in a constant flow. I'd have to do it in a quick, controlled stream without giving my mind or his mind time to identify the memories as being someone else's memories and not our individual own. As our minds begin to reflect each other, our souls will become reflections of each other as well. Our magic has already fused, so it shouldn't take much, as the only thing that truly defines us at the moment are our memories. Once that barrier is gone, by the very nature of existence, our souls will desire to return to being a single soul, fused as one to become a single entity experiencing its own unique existence."Harry indicated to his counterpart's body. "We'd retain who we were, though the person that would inhabit this body would not be the person that I am before you or the person you remember your son to be. He would be a blend of the both of us other."

"I thought you said that you had to maintain the barrier between your minds or you could both go insane or die," James said with confusion.

"I do," Harry affirmed. "However, I'm not talking about just chucking aside the barrier between our minds and allowing our minds to smash together. What I'm proposing to do is something that few other practitioners of the Mind Arts would even begin to consider, let alone be capable of. I'm talking about a controlled and steady exchange of memories to the very depths of the subconscious and reaching beyond the mind to touch the soul. I use the word merge in a very contextual sense, Mr. Potter."

"Harry wants this?" James asked, despite looking as if he hadn't quite comprehended what Harry had just told him. "He wants to merge with you?"

"He is very against my death," Harry said earnestly, while holding James's speculative gaze.

James nodded, accepting the answer without even a fraction of a doubt.

"Though now is not the time to discuss it..." Harry glanced briefly to Sirius, before returning his focus to James. "Harry has requested that I stay so that our merged-self can work towards preventing what happened in my world from happening here in your world. There are already several likenesses between our worlds that are quite troubling." Harry held up a hand, suspending James and Sirius's questions on the subject. "Now is not the time, but I just thought that you," he looked directly at James, "would at least like to know your son's reasons for wanting to merge with me.Not only has he become attached to me over the years, he's scared of this world's possible future and with good reason."

"And this decision - what happens to both you and him - is in mine to make?" James stated with only a hint of a question in his voice.

"While I would like to tell you to take the time that you need," Harry gave James an apologetic look, "the longer that a decision isn't made, the more difficult it will be to remove myself from your son, if that is your final decision. Every second I remain here, is one more second my soul has to get comfortable and connect within your son's body."

"If I decide on the rite," James drew an unsteady breath and let it out, "will you still provide the information that you promised me back at the house?"

Sirius looked to James, surprised by the question, before looking to Harry expectant of an explanation.

Harry reached into his pant pocket and pulled out a small glass vial with a silvery substance inside. He held it up, but made no move to give it to James. "I made a memory to explain what you'll see, as well as organized the memories in order of importance. Harry was to give it you, after I had gone. I figured this would make things easier and perhaps more believable than writing it all out. Dumbledore would most likely be more than happy to allow you to use his pensieve, especially if you asked him to join you in viewing the memories. Trust me. To do so would be less traumatic than administering them into your mind directly."

"If I decide on the merge?" James questioned.

Harry pocketed the vial. "The information that I deem important will be passed on to you, when it becomes necessary for you to know it. Otherwise, what I know will stay locked securely within my mind. Harry and I are in agreement on this. While he would be powerless to do anything about the events to come and would need you and Dumbledore to at least try to avoid the catastrophe of my world's war, should he and I merge the more effective thing would be to keep the information to ourselves and act on it as we deem fit, as it is quite sensitive. If Voldemort even hears so much as a whisper of it, the future of all of Europe would be at risk."

"I know you said now was not the time," Sirius began, looking from Harry to James and back to Harry with uncertainty, "but will you answer me one question?"

Harry motioned for Sirius to ask what he wanted to ask.

"As Voldemort is currently presumed dead and has been for the last twelve, almost thirteen years, how long do we have before he returns to the status of alive and this war that happened in your world breakouts here in our world?" Sirius's eyes bore into Harry intently.

"A little less than a year," Harry said solemnly. "If events follow the events of my world, by the end of June, he'll have restored himself to a body."

Sirius sat back in his chair, visible anxiety straining his face and tensing his muscles. "You won your war?" he asked stiffly.

Harry nodded. "It wasn't a true victory, considering all that had been lost over the course of the war, but we did win in the end. Voldemort was dead, we were rounding up the last of his followers in the British Isles, and Eastern Europe was in the process of rebuilding, while much of Western Europe was assessing damages and preparing to do the same. I was actually supposed to meet with leaders of several nations to decide the fate of the nations whose governments had supported Voldemort from the start of his campaign for power...yesterday, I do believe."

"I need to take a walk," James said, standing abruptly.

"Would you like me to come with you?" Sirius offered, looking up at James with concern.

James hesitated, casting a brief glance at Harry, before nodding in answer to Sirius's question.

"The journal stays here," Harry said firmly, as Sirius stood instantly at James's acceptance of company and took a step towards the reading area, the end table with the journal of his research in particular.

"Your father," Sirius stressed the word with complete seriousness, upon turning back to face Harry, "has the right to know what those pages contain. You've told him some of it, but not all of it. He deserves to know the truth, Harry."

"Sirius, he's not..." James began to say, but trailed off, upon realizing that Harry was merely staring as Sirius, as Sirius stared back at him, not correcting Sirius or protesting that calling him, James, his father was disrespectful to his parents' deaths in his world, nor remarking about the use of his given name over the use of Porteur.

"Very well," Harry said, calmly holding Sirius's unyielding gaze, and tilted his head to the journal in permission. Sirius was right, of course. James had every right to know what he had discovered in regards to what had caused him to travel dimensions, as well as know about the research that he had done, while trying to finding a way to restore his counterpart. He hadn't deemed the information relevant to James's decision regarding his and his counterpart's future existence and had figure on telling the man what the journal contained later on, when time wasn't crucial, or that Sirius would do so, once he had activated the array that he had designed and was gone from the world - though he seriously doubted that the latter would occur. Sirius, however, seemed to believe that the information was of great importance and that James need to know it now, not later. Not to mention, he's right in that the same principle that applies to him, applies to James. For at least the first year of my life, our time-streams were one and the same, making James just as much my father, as the James Potter that I knew to be my father in my home world was. Only, like this Sirius, this James Potter is alive, he thought with a weary sigh.

"We'll be back within the hour," James said, giving Harry an odd look, as Sirius grabbed the journal off the end table.

"I want your decision by then," Harry said, looking up at James. "I want this done and over with tonight, whichever way it goes."

"Of course," James said, the conflict consuming him flashing across his face.

Without an additional word exchanged between them, James left the library with Sirius trailing after him. Upon the door clicking closed behind the two men, Harry stood and stretched. His counterpart was right about James. The man was far less ruthless than he had estimated the man to be. He fully expected the father to return well before the hour was up, resolved that he and his counterpart ought to merge. Sirius on the other hand... Well, Sirius had certainly been a surprise. The version of Sirius that he had known in his world had condemned the Dark Arts and had sworn quite vehemently that he would have nothing to do with them. This Sirius, however, had obviously studied the Dark Arts and had put an effort into studying them, as the man knew and understood far too much to have just perused a few Dark Arts books over the years. It was a curious discovery.

Did he change his opinion of the Dark Arts from his Gryffindor youth in this world? Or had my parents' murders and his time in Azkaban in my world caused his deep hatred of the Dark Arts? Harry pondered, as he vanished the bowls of stew and set about cleaning up the books that he had managed to scatter all across the library.

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"You're certain?" Harry asked, looking up at James from his position on the sofa, where he had ended up sitting down and reading avidly, upon getting distracted by one of the books that he had been in the process of putting away not five minutes after James and Sirius had left. It was now over a half hour later. He had been about to begin a second chapter, when the two men had returned and interrupted his submersion.

"Yes," James said, his bespectacled, hazel eyes firm with resolve, as he looked down to Harry from where he stood a mere few feet from the sofa. "I can't ask you to...sacrifice yourself. I just can't. Everything else could've been managed. Harry would've gotten over you being gone. It might've taken a while but he would have. He'd have understood that - that the way you've - the fact that he was -"

"My horcrux," Harry supplied, when James failed to complete the sentence.

James cringed. "Yes, that. He'd have understood that it was wrong.And the war. We could have managed it or tried our best to, at the very least. We would have had your memories. We'd have fought just as we had thirteen years ago. We were able to hold Voldemort off then. We'd have done well enough with your memories now, I'm sure. But I can't ask you, my son, to die just so that I can have a version of you that I raised and love. I -" he swallowed the word. "You don't care, I know. You probably don't feel that you should care. I get that you've had a hard life...that you're..." he trailed off and sighed, looking flustered. Taking a step forward, he closed the distance between him and Harry and bent down directly in front of where Harry was seated to better meet him eye to eye. "I don't know you, you understand?"

"Nor I you, James," Harry reminded the man.

"I'm sorry for that." James looked upon Harry with true heartbreak, his eyes searching Harry's face but seemingly unable to find what he desired. He hung his head, disappointed. "Don't mess up. Please."

Harry set aside the book that he had been reading and leaned forward. He grabbed the man's right hand and encased it with both his hands, before giving it a firm squeeze, as he would do for any of his comrades experiencing emotional turmoil. James stared down at their entangled hands, as if he couldn't understand why the gesture had been extended to him.

"I won't mess up," Harry promised compassionately, causing James to start and look back up at him. "I know what I'm doing, James. This isn't goodbye for any of us."

"How long?" James asked, the words strained and barely rising above a whisper.

"24 hrs at the most," Harry said, giving James's hand another soothing squeeze, while maintaining eye contact with the man.

It took Harry a few more minutes to convince the worried father that everything was going to be fine, before the man reluctantly stepped back and joined Sirius over at the worktable, where the other man had quietly setup a game of chess - a silent declaration that neither man was going anywhere anytime soon. Seeing this, Harry closed the book beside him that he had been reading and set in on the floor.

"Don't try to wake me," Harry said, looking over at the two men. He pinned each man with a grave look that communicated just how important it was that they didn't disturb him. "I don't care if the house is burning down or if I appear to be having a rough go of it, do not wake me."

"Got it," Sirius said, as James nodded his understanding as well.

Harry eyed the two men a moment longer, before lying down on the sofa and making himself comfortable. He closed his eyes and plunged his mind into a subconscious state, allowing the sleep that he had kept at bay to claim him in a matter of seconds.

"Yes!" The shout greeted him, just as a teenage boy clobbered him.

Porteur grunted at the impact and tactfully untangled himself from the boy. "Harry," he greeted, as the boy spun away from him in awhirlwind of motion and energy.

"I knew you wouldn't do it!" the boy declared with a wide grin set upon his face, as he went about practically bouncing around the Gryffindor Common Room in his excitement. "I knew it. I knew it. I knew it! I knew that you'd see reason and listen to Dad in the end. I knew it! I so so soooo knew it!"

"Are you going to continue bragging, or do you want to do this?" Porteur asked, glaring at the gloating boy.

The boy ceased his jumping about and turned to him, sticking out his tongue and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Real mature," Porteur remarked, his glare not lessening in the slightest.

"Fine," the boy said exasperatedly. "But when we merge, we're going to have fun. We're not going to read boring, informative books all day and we're not going to curse people for no apparent reason and -"

"That isn't how this works." Porteur interrupted, cutting the boy off before the boy began to ramble. "Who we become...he will do whatever it is that he want to do. We will have no conscious control over him. We'll only be memories. Now, come here."

"Is this going to hurt?" the boy asked, suddenly nervous, as he crossed the Common Room back over to Porteur, who was standing by the great hearth as usual, with shuffled steps and tense shoulders.

If you continue to be a pain in the ass, I'll make it hurt,Porteur thought tetchily, despite knowing that it was a wholly empty threat and that the boy was done bragging. "It might hurt a bit, but we really won't feel much pain inside our minds as we are."

"That's good," the boy said, sounding relieved. Upon stepping up to Porteur, he looked up at the older version of himself. "What is it exactly that I have to do?"

"Nothing," Porteur said, reaching out to steady the boy with his left hand, while placing his index and middle fingers of his right hand under the boy's chin. He tilt the boy's head back a fraction of an inch to gain better eye contact. "Just don't move and don't resist. Okay?"

"Okay," the boy said meekly.

With the rules of engagement set, Porteur reached out towards the boy's mind, searching for a weak spot in the barrier between their minds that he could exploit without bring the whole barrier crashing down around them.