Back For The First Time, Harry?

Harry's Home

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The gleaming train was like the culmination of all Harry's happiest moments, but the ride itself was lonesome. He didn't want to encroach on the nervously chattering first years cluttered into compartments, and he wasn't welcome among tight-knit upper years.

He did see Remus on the platform and wanted to give him a wave, but the lanky teen looked right over him like a complete stranger. And technically they were strangers- this wasn't his Remus.

Other than a mindless amble down the corridor to find the loo, Harry spent his ride alone watching and countryside and letting his nervous thoughts run away with him.

Over the summer, as interchangeably droll and miserable as it was, he'd managed to suss out what he'd make of himself. Harry'd never been one for being idle. It irked him more than anything that he had, like so many other times in his short life, no idea what was going on.

The dream- or the death- that place he'd been to twice now- had made little sense. He understood that the Horcrux had still been there, as horrifying and miserable as ever, and that an old man, although not Dumbledore this time, came to talk to him ambiguously about destiny.

He held the Horcrux... the voice that sounded like himself spoke in his head... he was to do 'it' right this time...

It all was very vague, but Harry was very used to working with vague. So he accepted it as one must when they wake up 24 years in the past, when they most certainly shouldn't even exist.

He thought not only of how very odd it all was, but of what it could mean for the people he'd left behind.

Not only Ron and Hermione, and Molly and George Weasley- but all the wonderful, wonderful people that hadn't died yet.

He thought about the boys he met in the bookshop- his father not yet dead by Voldemort's hand, Remus not yet a recluse, and Sirius not scarred by twelve years of reliving his worst memories.

Harry could, just maybe, change that. He knew the future- to an extent- and certainly knew more about what was coming than most people. He could list most Death Eaters off the top of his head, and if he had enough time to spare, could look into any more fringe groups looking to start ruckus. He felt confident that he had somewhat of an upper hand, until he remembered he was barely fourteen and living in a muggle orphanage. He didn't even have access to the wizarding papers!

After the Professor had taken him to Diagon Alley, he'd gone back a couple of times to meander about, but it was pretty far from Skyreach. And as it was, he didn't have much money. Heeding the Professor's warnings, he didn't want to spend it all in one go. He didn't have a vault of family wealth in the seventies because he wasn't supposed to exist...

Which was another thing entirely- was he related to the Potters? How does he fit into a world where he hasn't been born yet? How would he even figure that out?

It was all too much, and he wished he had Ron to commiserate with and Hermione to straighten him out. You've got to prioritise, she would say.

He could make halfway thought-out plans all he liked all summer, but he couldn't make people take an underage wizard- with no connections- seriously. He needed to be someone who was reliable and likeable, which he'd always managed well. Maybe he could get Dumbledore to listen, the old wizard was alive and brilliant and he'd always had his suspicions of Tom Riddle.

But then he might be suspicious of Harry- a boy who had virtually no background but a wealth of information of a secret criminal organisation. Harry remembered what Hermione said of wizards who meddled with time, it was one of the few hardline rules in their world.