Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Unlikely
April 28th, 1997
"Mister Potter, before we jump... I would like to tell you that you have held yourself well. Your caliber is close to that of this world's Harry."
Crack
"She's your measuring stick?"
Crack
"Harry has proven worthy of the trust and the effort that I have invested in her."
Crack
The dreaming, in itself, as a process, was nothing new. She had dreamed of her world other times since they had begun putting theory to practice and laying the work to reverse the swap.
But that dream in particular.
That scene.
The Headmaster couldn't have known that she would see it.
"Harry has proven worthy of the trust and the effort that I have invested in her."
"I am a Knight of Merlin's Order," she whispered to herself.
Untrue, but at that moment she fancied that she could feel the future as if it were beside her.
She turned her attention back to Flitwick. "What if there's space in the multiverse?" Harry asked. "Or some context of relationships in which there's something similar. If there are universes branching off this one at this very moment, we could say that they're closer than any universes that branched fifty years ago."
"And you've figured out a way to make use of this? Flitwick asked. "Do you think that the distance, such as it were, will cause problems for us?"
"No, but I'm thinking. I'm thinking." She tapped a quill against the parchment diagrams between them. "We've still got our first problem anyway. We've got to find a way to locate one particular Harry out of all the possible Harrys that are out there."
"First problem? What are all the others? I thought that we solved the energy issue."
"Never mind. I'm working on it."
Tell him? Keep it secret? What did it matter when there were other universes in which she was doing either? But this instance of her wouldn't let him know. This instance of him, at least, wouldn't know that there would be failures out there.
Unless Harry figured out a solution. She would just have to feed the problems to him without letting him know what they really were.
He was a Ravenclaw in this world. Ravenclaws investigated problems just to sate their curiosity, right?
"So what do you have so far?" he asked her.
"Souls matter. Somehow. I'm Harry, he's Harry, we're both Harry, but we have different souls. Enough that the horcruxes have been able to tell the difference between us."
"I see."
Flitwick did not look pleased.
"Now, there's something else, too. Your Harry had a horcrux. This scar," she said, pointing. "But it's not here anymore."
"No?" Flitwick's eyes widened. "We didn't ask… There were traces of magic around it still but that could have been a residual effect. It is a residual effect, I suppose I should say. But we didn't want to alarm you."
"Our friend in the hollow house let me know that something was missing in this skull."
"And you feel that this will be useful to us?"
She did not look back at the hollow house. She did not look at the horcrux therein. The horcrux that was waiting. "Yes."
The next part would be the hardest of all.
Let me be a sword in the service of Britain, she thought to herself, that I might cut through that which must be done and not be bent.
*
She didn't tell them the truth. Only that it needed to be done.
Which was the truth, perhaps. But she had made implications, and conclusions had been drawn.
And perhaps it wasn't entirely true. It was probably a good idea, really, to get rid of this last horcrux.
"YoU ThInK I DoN't KnOw WhY yOuV'e CoMe."
In a field of bones.
But there had to be no witnesses.
"YoU tHiNk I dOn'T kNoW wHaT dEaLs YoU'vE mAdE."
No. Not a field. A garden.
Spines stood rooted, rising out of the ground. Unfurled, ribs outstretched like spreading petals. Jaws open in deadly agony.
Behind her, an open path blown through the bone-rows, wreckage from their battle. There were bones burning around them. Inferi moaning, and others trying to, but not intact enough to do so. Those scraped the ground with their fingers or clacked their teeth, trying in vain to bite at her, at him, at anything.
"BuT tHiS wAs A pLaCe ThAt YoU cOuLdN't HaVe FoUnD oN yOuR oWn."
"Shut up," she snarled.
He obliged, but only because the wound in his mouth had healed shut and his body was too broken for him to cut it open again.
A disembodied arm crawled across the field, between them.
"What deals I've made are none of your business."
His face moved, bones readjusting, trying to display his pleasure through a face that only barely resembled humanity.
"You're not my Headmaster."
She leveled her wand.
"Incendio."
"Incendio."
A blaze.
"INCENDIO!"
She didn't stop until the homunculus had been reduced to ashes. Then she put out the flames with a wave of her wand and, with another, carefully lifted the horcrux and deposited it into a small but very heavy box.
"Mister Potter, before we jump... I would like to tell you that you have held yourself well. Your caliber is close to that of this world's Harry."
Crack
"She's your measuring stick?"
Crack
"Harry has proven worthy of the trust and the effort that I have invested in her."
Crack
The dreaming, in itself, as a process, was nothing new. She had dreamed of her world other times since they had begun putting theory to practice and laying the work to reverse the swap.
But that dream in particular.
That scene.
The Headmaster couldn't have known that she would see it.
"Harry has proven worthy of the trust and the effort that I have invested in her."
"I am a Knight of Merlin's Order," she whispered to herself.
Untrue, but at that moment she fancied that she could feel the future as if it were beside her.
She turned her attention back to Flitwick. "What if there's space in the multiverse?" Harry asked. "Or some context of relationships in which there's something similar. If there are universes branching off this one at this very moment, we could say that they're closer than any universes that branched fifty years ago."
"And you've figured out a way to make use of this? Flitwick asked. "Do you think that the distance, such as it were, will cause problems for us?"
"No, but I'm thinking. I'm thinking." She tapped a quill against the parchment diagrams between them. "We've still got our first problem anyway. We've got to find a way to locate one particular Harry out of all the possible Harrys that are out there."
"First problem? What are all the others? I thought that we solved the energy issue."
"Never mind. I'm working on it."
Tell him? Keep it secret? What did it matter when there were other universes in which she was doing either? But this instance of her wouldn't let him know. This instance of him, at least, wouldn't know that there would be failures out there.
Unless Harry figured out a solution. She would just have to feed the problems to him without letting him know what they really were.
He was a Ravenclaw in this world. Ravenclaws investigated problems just to sate their curiosity, right?
"So what do you have so far?" he asked her.
"Souls matter. Somehow. I'm Harry, he's Harry, we're both Harry, but we have different souls. Enough that the horcruxes have been able to tell the difference between us."
"I see."
Flitwick did not look pleased.
"Now, there's something else, too. Your Harry had a horcrux. This scar," she said, pointing. "But it's not here anymore."
"No?" Flitwick's eyes widened. "We didn't ask… There were traces of magic around it still but that could have been a residual effect. It is a residual effect, I suppose I should say. But we didn't want to alarm you."
"Our friend in the hollow house let me know that something was missing in this skull."
"And you feel that this will be useful to us?"
She did not look back at the hollow house. She did not look at the horcrux therein. The horcrux that was waiting. "Yes."
The next part would be the hardest of all.
Let me be a sword in the service of Britain, she thought to herself, that I might cut through that which must be done and not be bent.
*
She didn't tell them the truth. Only that it needed to be done.
Which was the truth, perhaps. But she had made implications, and conclusions had been drawn.
And perhaps it wasn't entirely true. It was probably a good idea, really, to get rid of this last horcrux.
"YoU ThInK I DoN't KnOw WhY yOuV'e CoMe."
In a field of bones.
But there had to be no witnesses.
"YoU tHiNk I dOn'T kNoW wHaT dEaLs YoU'vE mAdE."
No. Not a field. A garden.
Spines stood rooted, rising out of the ground. Unfurled, ribs outstretched like spreading petals. Jaws open in deadly agony.
Behind her, an open path blown through the bone-rows, wreckage from their battle. There were bones burning around them. Inferi moaning, and others trying to, but not intact enough to do so. Those scraped the ground with their fingers or clacked their teeth, trying in vain to bite at her, at him, at anything.
"BuT tHiS wAs A pLaCe ThAt YoU cOuLdN't HaVe FoUnD oN yOuR oWn."
"Shut up," she snarled.
He obliged, but only because the wound in his mouth had healed shut and his body was too broken for him to cut it open again.
A disembodied arm crawled across the field, between them.
"What deals I've made are none of your business."
His face moved, bones readjusting, trying to display his pleasure through a face that only barely resembled humanity.
"You're not my Headmaster."
She leveled her wand.
"Incendio."
"Incendio."
A blaze.
"INCENDIO!"
She didn't stop until the homunculus had been reduced to ashes. Then she put out the flames with a wave of her wand and, with another, carefully lifted the horcrux and deposited it into a small but very heavy box.
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