Harry Potter and the Time Fluke

A Pathway Home

Magic surrounded him on every side.

The notion of escaping from the thick-walled sphere didn't even cross Harry's mind. He was trapped, completely and utterly; caged in by unyielding golden light, ironically of his own design.

He knew the spell. He'd created it, which is why he knew there was no crack in the solid walls of glowing magic to be exploited.

Granted, Harry had no idea that the spell would actually work, at any level, if used. It was still in its prototype stages, a baby in its own right. It was only a fantasy he'd had. A dream. It was just a few words; a Latin phrase he'd strung together. Harry wasn't even sure if the expressions he'd used were correct in their placement. He was in no way fluent in Latin, and he hadn't checked it with any linguistics experts or wizards who made their living off the creation of spells. He hadn't tested it either (on inanimate objects like broccoli or books) in any way to see if the spell was even within the realm of doing what it was supposed to. It was, for all intents and purposes, merely a thought he'd put to parchment.

An idea to open a pathway home.

And now, because some random person had stumbled across his spell—Harry was beyond clueless as to how—he was probably being catapulted through the fabric of time and space; optimistically, back to his original time. It would be terrible (but not entirely unlikely) if he ended up trapped even further in the past, or overshot his future.

Magic pulsed and rushed through the air around him. Harry closed his eyes and sighed, his whole posture screaming defeat. He didn't want to go back. He wasn't ready. This was his home now, in the past, with Tom and Dmitry and Abraxas and Orion, until he was forced to return to his present (lest a universe-collapsing paradox be born).

It was too soon.

The light of the spell surrounding him began to grow brighter and brighter, signaling its end, until Harry had to close his eyes and shield them with his arm as it reached the brilliant intensity of the sun. Then, suddenly, with a great whoosh of air that that left a ringing in his ears, the spell dissipated and everything beyond his eyelids settled into darkness again.

Harry really didn't want to open his eyes. He was extremely apprehensive about what he may or may not see when he did. However, he wasn't sorted Gryffindor for nothing, even if he was a Slytherin now. Mustering up all the courage he could find within and ignoring the churning waves of despair in his stomach, he lowered his arm and wretched open his eyes in one move.

He didn't even have time to blink before a slightly larger body slammed into him, entrapping Harry in a hug tighter than an anacondas grip. He choked for air and swore he felt his eyes pop out of their sockets. Muffled Russian phrases reached his ear, and Harry paused in his attempts at regaining full use of his airways to actually observe his surroundings, a small sliver of hope blossoming within.

His very familiar surroundings...

He was still here! Where he should be, in the past! The spell hadn't worked after all. Harry didn't even spare that thought a moment of disappointment. The spell's failure meant he needed to take it back to the drawing board, and for that, he was glad. He was eternally grateful that it had failed. Harry had thought it strange that the spell would work the first time it was ever used. It would have been one of those one-in-a-million chances.

Harry relaxed further into Dmitry's embrace, then immediately stiffened again. He snapped his head to the side so fast his neck cracked and the world spun for the briefest of moments before his vision settled.

Viridian eyes searched out the hedges through the broken window of the pub where the spell had flown in from, and settled on the face of an unknown Hufflepuff girl. She looked to be around the same age as him, but he couldn't recall having ever seen her in any of his classes. Harry assumed she was a year older, given the power necessary to get that particular spell to do anything, even if it was only the light show she had caused.