All Hail the Dark Lord, Or Something Idiotic Like That

Chapter 2: Something Resembling a Plan-ish

A/N: Not my story! Original available on ao3

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With a painful crash, he finally drew in a deep, painful breath and clutched at his suddenly solid once again chest. 

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"Bloody hell," he groaned and rolled over on a bed he didn't remember getting into.

Harry Potter groaned in pain and cursed Hermione, the Ministry of Magic, Merlin, Voldemort, and Dumbledore for good measure. He really didn't want to open his eyes and deal with whatever was around him. He couldn't hear Percy breathing and he seemed to be in a bed, so he guessed they hadn't crashed onto the floor of Sirius's room in the past...he hadn't been looking forward to explaining to a freaked out Sirius why older versions of Harry and Percy Weasley were lying naked on his floor anyway. That would just be awkward!

He was naked though...if he'd ended up in his younger body...Harry reached up and hissed at touching a tender spot in his eyebrow. "Bloody hell..." he groaned. They'd come back in their current, older bodies, but his earrings had disappeared like his clothes.

It was a quick, wandless conjure to have new silver studs to put in all his piercings, which he did while checking out the room he was in. It took all of half a second to check out his old bedroom at Privet Drive. It was an odd juxtaposition for Harry to be standing in his 27 year-old body in his old bedroom in a house he'd never wanted to see again in his life. What was more confusing though, was where was young Harry?

Briefly freaking out that Harry might be at Hogwarts while he was in Surrey, he cast another wandless spell to see the date and time. Wandless magic was extremely tiring, and he realized he was quickly reaching his limit when he saw with a grimace that he was back in time to right after the dementor incident and before his fifth year. He didn't think he'd been taken to Grimmauld yet, but his memory was grasping back twelve years, so he could be wrong.

Hedwig hooted from where she had just landed on the open windowsill, and it was all Harry could do to keep himself from disassociating in his surprise and the emotions that overwhelmed him. With a deep breath and a couple tears that escaped his eyes, he smiled at his first friend. "Hey girl...if you're here, then young Harry must be here somewhere too, right?" Hedwig just hooted and flew over to her perch unhelpfully.

He hadn't planned on having to actually talk to his younger self, especially this early in his trip, but he figured it would be better to do that clothed than starkers at least. After a quick rummage through his school trunk, Harry pulled out the larger of Dudley's old clothes. He'd grown quite a bit since he was fifteen, not as much as he would want, but enough that he was thanking Merlin that Harry was still using Dudley's castoffs when even then there was a good inch at the bottom of his trousers. He didn't even try to put on his younger self's shoes. He'd figure out that situation later.

About the time he was finally, mostly covered, his eyes fell on the familiar sight of his wand lying on the table beside his bed. Now Harry frowned in earnest. If he'd just survived being attacked by dementors, then young Harry wouldn't even be going to the loo without his wand...frankly, it'd been a habit he'd formed then and hadn't changed in all the years since.

"Hedwig...did I somehow take the place of little me?" He turned a concerned gaze to the owl who didn't seem put off that her human was much older than before.

He wasn't sure how it was possible, but it seemed that somehow his older self must have over-written his younger self. With a pang, it hit him that he'd basically just killed his younger self unintentionally. Logically, that wasn't exactly what happened since young Harry was still a part of him, but ever since he learned they would be coming back this far, he'd kind-of hoped a younger version of himself would get to grow up with a much less traumatic life...to get to actually be a kid for a little while longer, or really for the first time.

Hedwig ruffled her feathers and dipped a beak in her water bowl. "Right...no time to freak out," Harry began to pace. "Once the Dursleys wake up, they'll clearly notice I'm not the me they know, and casting anything with that wand will have the ministry down on us immediately since I'm pretty sure the dementor thing has already happened," he explained to his owl.

Hedwig cocked her head and just looked at him, seeming to wait for him to come to a decision. "We need Percy," he finally decided. "He can cast a glamour on me or some other super-secret Unspeakable mojo to get me looking fifteen again. Then I need to get a new wand, trace-less if possible, then I guess we need some kind of plan."

He quickly sat at his desk and jotted down a note to Percy setting a meeting for the Leaky Cauldron just as soon as humanly possible. "Can you take this to Percy Weasley?" He asked Hedwig. "He'll look a bit different than last you saw him, and I'm not really sure where he was living now in this time. I would guess London somewhere, but I'm not sure."

The owl looked offended as he tied the letter to her leg. "Sorry...I was just checking," he smiled. He'd missed Hedwig so very much. "I know you are the absolute best owl in all of existence. Oh, and please stay with Percy after dropping off the letter because his owl will be too recognizable for a lot of the people I'll be with, so you'll be better for us to communicate with each other."

With a quick nip to his finger, Hedwig was off, leaving Harry to have to scramble to find a way to get to the Leaky Cauldron and get out of the house before his relatives woke. He was desperately hoping he had enough time before the Order members picked him up to take him to Grimmauld Place since he really needed to disappear for a day. It was imperative that he get a new wand and buy some clothes that fit him. Even if he planned to find a way to temporarily look fifteen, there was no way in hell he was going to stay fifteen consistently. Most appearance spells wore off in one's sleep anyway, so he'd at least need some bigger pajamas if nothing else. And shoes...he grimaced at the holey and tight trainers he pulled onto his feet. Briefly, he weighed the pros and cons of using just a bit more wandless magic to expand them, but he was already feeling very tired from what he'd done so far and didn't want to be unable to defend himself if he ran into trouble on the way to London.