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Chapter three: The Girl Who Exchanged Stories

April 6th, 1997

The Headmaster's office in this world was utterly unlike the one with which Harry was familiar with. Too many spinning instruments and color-shifting liquids in suspended bottles. She said as much to Snape and Filius, for which she was rewarded with a sneer and a smirk, respectively.

"Merlin forbid that my office suit my interests and not model its décor after the inclinations, whatever those may be, of an unknown figure from some other world," Snape replied.

"It's warmer, at least," Harry said.

"Excuse me?"

"The Headmaster's office is really chilly. I didn't know that it could be any other way. Hogwarts, A History never mentioned." She yawned. "Before we talk about anything else, can we agree that I can sleep somewhere else? Than the boys' dorm in Ravenclaw, I mean."

Snape looked at her.

Something pinged against her skull, or itched, or bore through the bone like an ossuary mole, and Harry turned away. "I'll give you this one warning because the Headmaster does the same thing to me all the time, so maybe it's tradition or something like that, but you're not my Headmaster and you don't have permission to crack open my mind." Her hand curled around her wand.

Snape's expression turned to an appraising one. "Your occlumency is… passable. Can you perform legilimency yourself?"

Harry shook her head.

"Why not?"

"The Headmaster says that it's not time for me to learn yet."

"Did he say you're too young?" Filius probed.

"No. Only that it's not time."

"Why?"

"Because," she replied, and she faced Filius head-on. "And what about you?"

"Mediocre occlumens, and never a legilimens."

"Huh. Charms Professor, right?" She wondered what he thought of the look that she gave him then. It was just so weird.

"The Mind Arts are more than just extracurricular in our world."

"Mine too," she replied. "But the Headmaster wants me to learn many things."

"Are you familiar with the name Voldemort?" Snape suddenly asked her.

Harry touched a hand to her chin. "No." She paused. "French?"

"The name is a French bastardization, but the wizard is native."

She thought about that for a second. "The wizard. He named himself?"

"Yes. A Dark Lord, the first that Britain has grown for a very long time. Harry," Snape said, suddenly changing the topic. "What do you think of the muggle threat?"

Filius looked at the man strangely, and so did Harry.

"Um… What threat?"

"The threat that the muggles pose to our people, from body to culture," he explained.

She bit her lip and reached for her wand again as casually as she could manage. "I think that it might be best if we didn't discuss… Damn, this isn't even politics. I'm sorry, pure— pure stupidity. I suppose that we should get rid of the Scottish wizards, too, just so long as we're keeping ourselves pure. Mugggles are as likely to be saboteurs as a wizard is, and if they are then with better reason. A determined witch could kill muggles by the block if she wanted."

"Saboteurs…" Snape repeated, apparently speaking to himself. As if the word didn't make sense in the context it had been put in.

Ah ha. "You're in a different kind of world, aren't you?" Harry asked.

"Where there are divisions that yours lacks," Snape completed.

"How… What is it like?" She swallowed. "Aparthood, I mean."

"Aparthood…" Snape was visibly perplexed, then understanding dawned on his face. "No such thing. Did you ever hear of the Statute of Secrecy?"

She blinked. "In history books."

"Interesting," Snape said.

"Fascinating," Filius differed.

"You must understand that it's different in our world."

"Okay. But I… don't like—"

"Don't worry about it," Snape said. "I couldn't know where you stood on purity customs, and I didn't want to risk tainting your answer." He pressed his fingers together as if to form a tent. "If you supported my feelings as stated then either it was genuine or you were willing to say whatever you had to in order to ingratiate yourself with me. Either would have been unacceptable."

"Apology accepted."

It was Snape's turn to blink, but he took it without further comment. "The difference in our world is that the Statute is still in effect. Lord Voldemort, as he styles himself, supports the old purity customs, although it would be more accurate to say that he supports whatever is popular among those that could be his allies. He is a half-blood himself."

"And he's a Dark Lord," she repeated for confirmation. She looked as though the idea were distasteful to her.

"With horrifying consequences," Snape verified. "I am sure that no-one, at least in our world, has ever gone so far in the pursuit of power and immortality. There is a ritual, a grotesque ritual, allows one to split his soul and embody it within a chosen vessel. So long as the vessel is intact, a fragment of the wizard's soul is protected and so he will remain, in some form, alive."

The nausea was beginning to return. "We have horcruxes in my world too. The Headmaster made sure to teach me about them. But they're… in the past."

Snape and Filius shared a look. "I hope that you are correct," Snape responded. "What sets Lord Voldemort apart from the rest is how far he delved into the crafting of horcruxes, however. Not content with one, or two, or ten, he made dozens. In fact, we thought that he had destroyed himself one night when he discovered, quite to his detriment, that there was a limit to how far you could split the soul until, rather than splitting, it simply dissolved."

"Like an atom of the soul?"

"Atom?" Filius questioned, but Snape simply gave her another appraising look.

"Does Hogwarts teach of such things, or is that another extracurricular class?" he inquired.

"Neither." Harry smirked. "They introduce you to atoms before you enter Hogwarts."

"Interesting. But you're correct in your comparison. And this would have been the end of our story except that these horcruxes remained, and about five years ago one of them was found and triggered. It went on to trigger others under the correct assumption that by dividing our resources we would less likely to defeat it specifically, and we now have many suitable doubles for the Dark Lord. Some date from his late teenage years or twenties and others are… very recent. Some of the triggered horcruxes have begun to divide themselves again, taking care to not reach the limits that their original discovered."

"That sounds bad."

"So you understand the threat that our Harry was attempting to combat."

"If this is as bad as it sounds then…" She bit her lip. "Okay. I need to requisition some supplies. Can I have a pen— er, quill?"

Snape made a gesture with his wand. "The room will record you."

Harry wondered if it had been doing that to begin with. "Okay. I'm going to need high-voltage wire— don't worry if I have to explain some of these terms. PVC pipe— plastic pipe, I mean, you know what plastic is, right?— and something for insulation, some adhesive… double-sided copper sheets—"

"Pardon me," Snape interrupted, "but are you looking to build a stun baton?"

"Long cylinder thing that buzzes you?" Harry asked, stretching her hands apart to mimic its length.

"Yes."

"We call them electric wands. I didn't expect that you'd have them. They're a blue science thing."

"You'll have to explain that!" Filius exclaimed. "Maybe when your stun bat is on, so you can explain it to us with a live example."

"Baton," Snape corrected.

"Oh. Just like a regular baton?"

"Even so. Now Harry," Snape said, returning his attention to her, "we need to have a cover story for you."

"Deep cover mission," she said immediately. "Can't be contacted."

"While that could work," Snape said slowly, "I was thinking that you could say that you're experimenting with a new kind of wit-sharpening potion, one that, most unfortunately, damaged your memories. It's only temporary, of course, and memories are coming back all the time."

"Why not go with something simpler? Like, you know, sending me on a deep cover mission? It would give me more time to help you figure out what happened to my counterpart."

"It would be good to keep you in the public eye, perhaps even making some of our enemies decide that you're impaired at the moment, but besides that we have to explain the incident of just a couple of hours ago in the dorms."

"Right," she muttered. "I was hoping that we could just forget about that. Not my most graceful episode." She groaned. "I'm going to have to get used to a new body and everything. Do you know how much retraining I'll have to go through just to get back to where I was? And on top of that you're going to have to school me on my counterpart's life so that I'm not clueless about all of it."

"Do you think that you can do it?"

Harry stood and raised her hand in a proud salute. "Aye, captain. Harriett Petunia Potter, reporting for duty."

Snape looked like he was going to vomit. "Petunia?"