Not Your Savior

Harry's wand, always at the ready these days, was out and pointed toward...the person who looked like him... in an instant.

He was about an inch taller than Harry was, clad in simple black robes that made his presence slightly imposing. His eyes were a freakish silver, shining from his face and devoid of emotion. Beyond that, he was identical to Harry.

"Harry, you're pointing your wand at yourself. Please stop," the other said calmly.

"What's going on? Who are you?" Harry demanded. His wand did not waver.

"Yes, those are very good questions indeed," Dumbledore mused, closing the door and turning back into Sirius's room. His twinkling blue eyes scanned the newcomer cautiously.

The Harry look-alike paused and looked at the ground for a moment. "This is going to be difficult to explain," he said slowly.

"Well, start or I'll hex you," Harry said angrily. He didn't like this situation. What if it was another trick of the mind? What if he was finally going mad? What if this guy was a Death Eater with slightly ineffective Polyjuice potion?

The other quirked an eyebrow. "Very well. My name is Harry James Potter. I'm nineteen years old and currently working as an Auror. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic or silly, I am from the future." He fixed Harry with a silvery stare. "Will you put that thing down now?"

"Interesting claims," Dumbledore said, gliding over to the older Harry and inspecting his face. "Tell me, Harry, who is your least favourite Hogwarts professor?"

He grimaced. "Either Snape or Umbridge. It's a tie."

The younger Harry waved his wand irritably, and red sparks shot out the end. "Loads of people know that!" he spat.

Dumbledore nodded. "Perhaps they do. Who is your favourite, then?"

The silver-eyed Harry thought for a moment. "Another tie. Lupin or Quin." He paused. "When you made Shea a professor, that is."

"Did you just overhear our conversation?" Harry asked, still suspicious.

"No," the other responded. Then he smiled softly again. "But I do know what you talked about."

"Put your wand away, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly. He placed his hands on the other Harry's shoulders, still looking into his face. "This man is definitely you. He still cannot master Occlumency."

Harry scowled and tucked his wand back into his pocket.

"Harry's first question is still unanswered, Harry," Dumbledore said in a casual tone as he released the nineteen-year-old. It was as if he dealt with time travelers and multiple copies of the same person every day. "What is going on?"

"That's the part that's hard to explain," the older Harry said, displaying awkwardness for the first time.

"Why don't you start with why you are here?" Dumbledore prompted gently. Harry stared, feeling slightly unnerved as his older self began to speak.

"Things are bad three years from now. Voldemort is now immortal. I don't know how he did it, Hermione and a few other Order members have been researching possible spells for months now, but we're not finding anything. So I can't kill him," Harry said in an expressionless tone. "He's been gaining more and more followers. He took out the Ministry of Magic last year, and his influence is spreading around the world. We're losing.

"I'm here because I am powerful enough to kill him, but three years too late. So I've come back to a time when I can kill him." The older Harry looked too determined for a nineteen-year-old. He was downright scary.

The younger Harry thought furiously. A possibility had occurred to him. "Couldn't you have gone back to about a month ago-?"

"I considered it," the older one admitted, voice low. "Sirius was the only father figure I've ever had--well, you know that," he said sheepishly. "But-"

"But what?" Harry interrupted, desperate now. "You could bring him back, you could stop me--us--from going-"

"I put a lot of thought into this, Harry," Harry said sadly. "I want to save Sirius, but it's not what is best."

Harry gaped at this pronouncement. He was contemplating suicide after this last blow of Sirius's death. How could this future version of himself possibly believe that Sirius's death was for the best?

Seeing his younger self's disbelief and outright shock, the silver-eyed Harry asked, "Remember what our greatest weapon against Voldemort is?"

Harry looked away in mild fury. "Love," he said resentfully.

The older Harry nodded. "I've faced him about eight times in the past two years, and the only reason I can fight him is because of that memory of losing Sirius. Remember how he couldn't be in your body when he tried to possess you? It's the same thing."

Harry could not be mollified. "So being a weapon is more important to you than Sirius's life?"

His older self winced slightly. But only for a moment, and only slightly. "Yes," he said.

Harry shook his head, backing away. "Then you're not me at all."

"No," the other agreed. "I'm not. And I don't want you to be like me, which is another reason why I came to this time."

Harry swallowed. What did that mean?

"How did you come here?" Dumbledore asked. Harry started; he had almost forgotten that he was in the room.

"A modified Portkey spell," silver-eyed Harry answered. "I started in this very room, three years in the future, and charmed this button-" he held it up "-to transport me to the same place in a different time. I had hoped to come out at this exact spot, so I guess it worked fairly well."

"Interesting," Dumbledore mused. "May I ask what your plan is?"

Harry hesitated. "Well, I'm not actually sure it's going to work-"

"Great," green-eyed Harry said sardonically.

"-but I want to trade places with my younger counterpart, so I can make the necessary changes to the timeline," Harry finished.

"What?" the younger Harry said incredulously.

"Why wouldn't it work?" Dumbledore asked calmly, pointedly ignoring the younger Harry's comments.

"It's not like a Time Turner. If it was, then I would remember seeing my older self when I was sixteen," Harry explained. "I think what I'm doing is creating alternate universes. Or timelines. Something like that." He turned back to Harry. "So when you take my place in the future-"

"If I take your place," Harry said crossly.

"Things will either be the same as when I left, or Voldemort will be dead and it worked. I'm not sure," older Harry finished. "But the future as I left it needs a Harry Potter, nineteen or sixteen, it doesn't matter. And this timeline probably can't handle two of us. So-"

"So you want me to leave this time and take your place in the future," younger Harry said, not enthused about the idea. He was still hoping this was all some strange dream.

His older self nodded, black locks falling into his bright eyes.

Harry sat down heavily. This was too much to handle. He didn't like his future. He didn't want to become a heartless freak. He was downright scary with silver eyes and little facial expression. He didn't know how to react.

"Why are your eyes silver?" Harry asked, stalling for time and somewhat curious about the matter.

Older Harry averted his gaze, as if talking about his eyes was a sensitive topic. "I tried what you were thinking about before Dumbledore walked in. It didn't work."

Dumbledore stiffened. "What's this, Harry? Either one of you can answer," he added.

"I tried to commit suicide the day before my sixteenth birthday," the older one responded coolly. "Shea saved me by transferring some of his powers to me, and I've looked like this ever since."

Dumbledore was silent. Both Harry's watched in shock as the old eyes welled up with tears.

"I'm sorry, Harry," he said gently.

"So that's another reason why I came to this time," silver-eyed Harry said, ignoring the apology. "I don't want my younger self to do that. Necromancer powers are more trouble than helpful, and people are always afraid of me. Life became worse after I tried to end it."

Harry sat still, feeling slightly dizzy at this point. He didn't want anyone to know about his suicidal thoughts, least of all Dumbledore. He was kind of glad to hear that it didn't work, however. Somehow, it took away the pressure of deciding whether or not to go through with it, if he already knew the outcome.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Dumbledore repeated, looking back and forth between them.

Harry took a hint from his older self and did not respond. He wasn't ready for an apology, or pity, or anything. He just wished that no one knew.

The three wizards were silent for a long moment as each turned to their own thoughts.

"Remus is waiting for me," the older Harry said suddenly.

"Is he? How?" the younger Harry asked.

"Well, I think the same amount of time that passes here passes in the future," Harry explained. "So I've been gone for about five minutes, and Remus is probably panicking."

"You didn't tell him what you were doing?" Dumbledore asked, somewhat amused even if he still looked stricken. Harry felt a sick sensation of satisfaction at causing the old wizard pain. He did his best to quell the feeling, disgusted with himself.

"No, he would have stopped me," older Harry said easily.

An awful thought occurred to sixteen-year-old Harry at the mention of the Order member. "How many more people have died?" he asked.

"Too many," was the response.

The two Harry's and Dumbledore were silent for a few moments more. Dumbledore was the first to speak.

"I think you should exchange places, Harry," he said. He smiled. "Or, if you prefer, exchange times. I believe I can trust you to make the right decisions," he finished, looking over at the older Harry, who nodded gratefully.

"I think it's the only way," silver-eyed Harry said softly.

Harry was starting to agree. "But you said it might not work," he pointed out.

"Right. Because if we are making multiple timelines, then the one that I come from is still bad," his older self said. "But at least one won't have Voldemort in it anymore," he finished darkly.

Harry looked at himself in a mixture of awe and pity. With hardened features and emotionless eyes, he was every inch the hero and savior everyone expected him to be. But that was all his older self cared about. Being the savior. Doing his duty. Saving the world from the Dark Lord. The nineteen-year-old was shaped by the die cast by the wizarding world. And he was terrifying in more ways than one.

But what was he? He was just in the way. He couldn't destroy Voldemort right now. Familiar feelings of being a useless burden rather than the child savior began to overtake him again. He was useless here, and he was certain to be even more useless in the future, when everyone was probably used to him being an all-powerful Auror...

"But what if it doesn't work in the future that you come from?" Harry asked slowly. "What if you only succeed here? I mean, if you can't kill him, what am I supposed to do?"

The silver eyes clouded for a moment. Harry's older self approached him, looking down from his inch of greater height.

"You're more powerful than you think, Harry," he said seriously. "Don't doubt yourself."

"It just sounds like I'm going to be trying to fill some larger shoes than usual," Harry said, embarrassed.

"You've taken Voldemort on alone more times than most of the Order, and you're only sixteen. You'll be fine," the older Harry said.

"I don't think so."

"Well, excuse me for thinking highly of myself," silver-eyed Harry said, smiling slightly.

Harry sighed. This was still too weird. Yet it seemed right.

"What can I do?" Harry asked resignedly. He would do his duty. Even if he wasn't really the one doing it...his head began to pound in a mixture of confusion about time travel and nerves.

"Thanks, Harry," Harry said quietly. "You can touch this button. When you get there, tell Remus to calm down and read the note on the desk."

"Right," Harry said.

"You can trust Remus and Shea with anything," his future self added. "They'll watch out for you. And do me a favor and watch out for them, too."

"I will," Harry said. He reached out to take the button. He stopped, his hand halfway there.

"Will I return here any time soon?" he asked.

"I don't know," the older Harry answered truthfully. Their eyes met again, and understanding flashed between them. Harry nodded.

"Good luck, Harry," Dumbledore said. His eyes were twinkling again.

Harry nodded again, took a deep breath, and accepted the button from his future self.

The room blurred in and out of focus as if covered in a blue fog for a moment. Then all was normal, except Dumbledore and his strange future self were gone.

For a moment, Harry wondered if it really had been a strange dream as he looked around the familiar, unchanged surroundings. Then-

"Harry! Harry, are you in there? Open the door!" Lupin's frantic yells sounded from outside the closed door.

No such luck, Harry thought grimly. He walked to the door and opened it.

"About time!" Lupin shouted at him. "What were you thinking? What were you..."

Lupin's rant drifted off as he looked into Harry's green eyes.

"Oh gods, what did he do?" Lupin whispered.