Chapter Text
The teen sleeping on the rickety single bed slowly blinked his eyes open and stared across the small room he was in. He blinked again and said slowly, “What the fuck?”
Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and looked around the room frowning. Then at his beat-down nightstand, where he found some black, round glasses which he put on and looked around again.
“What the FUCK!”
Rustling came from an open cage sitting on an ugly brown dresser.
“Hedwig?”
The white owl blinked her big yellow eyes and bobbed her head.
The boy rushed to her and started babbling, “You're alive? What happened? Why am I here? Am I still sleeping?” he carefully stroked the soft feathers.
The bird nipped his finger.
“Ouch!”
The bird looked at him as if saying, “Well?”
“Shit!”
He was awake!
The bird clacked her beak and managed to look worried.
“Hedwig, I am freaking twenty-eight years old! And I haven’t lived at fucking Privet Drive for a decade!”
The teen looked down at himself, at his hands, his clothes, and sighed, “I sometimes hate magic! How did this happen? I remember celebrating my birthday at the Weasleys and going home alone. Ginny tried to come, but I managed to escape. I went to sleep and then there was some disturbance at the wards. Someone who was allowed to enter came in, I think. Ron? And he brought Ginny? It’s kind of hazy. And they threw something at me? Some powder? Sand? And were chanting something? Fuck! Did they send my consciousness back in time? How? Why?”
The owl had no answer.
Harry, for this was the boy’s name, looked around and asked, “So, what year is it? It’s summer, early in the morning if I remember the layout of the house correctly. – There is some ripped wrapping paper. So my birthday was recently? What else, it’s early morning, and there are Daily Prophets. I got a subscription before my fifth year and then only read the headlines if I remember correctly. So, it’s either 1995, 1996, or 1997? No. Not 1997. And not 1996. I was at the Burrow for those birthdays, I think… 1995 was my last birthday at the Dursleys. Idiot, just look at the dates of the papers on top. Ah, there, the last one is from July 31 st 1995. So, it’s probably August 1 st or 2 nd .”
Harry tried to remember what had happened at that time and flinched. The Dementors! Fuck! He couldn’t remember the exact date of the day they had come. Just that it had been shortly after his birthday… And the Order had picked him up about a week later. So, did he and Dudley encounter them already?
He looked at his desk, which was full of letters, and looked through them. There was none from the Ministry or Arthur.
“Okay. I don’t remember what I did with those letters back then, so it’s probably before their appearance. Fuck! What now? Was that time-turner sand? Hermione does work at the DoM, after all. But she hadn’t been part of this clusterfuck, had she? What the fuck did they try to accomplish anyway?”
Harry couldn’t fathom any reason for sending him back… what? 13 years? If this really was the case that was. Even with Hedwig's nip, he couldn’t quite believe it. But his mind was in problem-solving mode, ignoring all the repercussions and heartache an actual time travel entailed.
“Hermione probably left her shit lying around again and they mistakenly took it, thinking it to be something else… But the only powder that they… Shit!”
Harry rubbed his face (nearly dislodging the glasses he wasn’t used to anymore). There was a ritual to subjugate someone to someone else’s will. Basically turning them into slaves. It was old and as the main ingredient – some sand-like powder – couldn’t be sourced anymore, because the creature supplying it was extinct, it wasn’t even illegal to perform it anymore. Harry and Ron had learned about it during their Auror training.
“Fucking idiots!” Harry whisper-yelled. It was a wonder the Dursleys hadn’t complained yet...if he really was where all his senses were telling him he was.
“Br’ck!”
“Sorry, Hedwig. I'll try to stop swearing so much. But I just realised that I cannot return to my time if they used time-turner sand. I have to go through time once again. And this is my teenage body. Not my adult one… So, it’s different from a time-turner, right? But that means, Riddle lives and so many others do, too… Like Sirius, Fred, you...”
Harry stared unseeingly out of the window.
“Well, at least I know where the fu… Horcruxes are.”
Another pause.
“But I can’t do magic at the moment. First order of business, I need to get rid of the trace.”
Hedwig blinked.
“Yeah. You see, I am an Auror, and I know how that shit works. I just need to get to a place with a high enough density of magic and I can get rid of it.”
Harry looked out the window again and remembered that people watched his house to ‘protect’ him and keep him ignorant. He remembered his anger at being kept in the dark. His friends and godfather doing everything Albus fucking Dumbledore wanted them to. Damn, he was back in the era of two competing personality cults of Riddle and Dumbledore.
Ok, first order of business, get out, get to the Alley, and get rid of the trace. And the Horcrux in his scar. Fuck.
Harry looked around again and packed his most important stuff into a messenger bag that Dudley couldn’t use anymore (the strap was too short, and it always slid down his round shoulder), his wand and his photo album. He would be using his invisibility cloak, so it didn’t join the rest.
He said, “Hedwig, I’ll come back soon, but why don’t you rest somewhere outside? I just don’t trust what they will do when I am gone and not cooking their breakfast. Hm, I better write a note, or the Order will be informed very quickly by the ruckus they will make.”
Harry scrawled a note with,
Aunt Petunia, sorry for leaving without notice. The m. world unexpectedly came calling. I’ll be back this evening, I hope. Harry
Harry then got ready for the day, pulled his invisibility cloak on, and let Hedwig fly out of the small window. He then snuck to the kitchen, left the note, and quietly exited through the backdoor. He just hoped Moody wasn’t on duty at the moment. That eye could see through the enchantments of a Deathly Hallow for some reason.
Harry frowned while walking towards the train station. How was that even possible? Maybe he needed to check the cloak for tampering. It didn’t make sense otherwise, and the artefact had been in Dumbledore’s hands for a long time. Maybe the man had found a way to enchant it somehow.
At least, no one seemed to follow Harry. But he couldn’t be sure, could he?
He had decided to use Muggle transportation to leave no magical trail and easily lose any tail from the wizarding world.