Replay

Chapter One: If I Could Turn Back Time

    It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

    That was the only thing Harry Potter could think as he lurched to his feet. The air around him shimmered, orange and green haze shifting constantly as the gases around him oxidized and dissipated. Ozone and sulphur stinking around him. Not that he cared. The corpses of his best friends lay on the burnt, bare rock before him. Two bodies smoldered, the scent of roasted meat rising from their cracked skin to sicken the nostrils. One, the one with red hairs still stuck to its skull, had fallen towards the beginning of the fight; the other at the end. Neither had abandoned him, both had done their best to be beside him, and both had paid the price for their loyalty.

    "It wasn't supposed to happen like this," he whispered. "You weren't supposed to - supposed to -"

    'Die' lay on his tongue, foul and unspoken.

    Nobody was looking at him as he staggered off towards the looming bulk of Hogwarts. There were other casualties on the field that had once been a Quidditch pitch. It was a dark irony that the place of this bitter victory should be the same as that of all his sweeter triumphs; one that *she* had appreciated. "You know we'll win, Harry," she'd said, as they'd faced off the Death Eaters. At his questioning look, she'd grinned. "You *always* win on the Quidditch pitch!"

    Hermione had been partly right, at least - their side had indeed won... if this was victory when she and Ron were....

    Harry lurched around a tree and abruptly lost the ability to stand.

    "It wasn't supposed to happen like this," he whispered again, into the black tunnel that seemed to be rushing towards him as he fell, first to his knees and then prone.

*****

    Somewhere else, that was either very close or very far away depending on your attitude to tempospatial claudication measuring devices, someone else, who had nothing and everything to do with the situation depending on your perspective, agreed with him.

    It *wasn't* supposed to happen like this.

    Something clearly Had To Be Done.

    Something was.

*****

    "UP! UP! Get UP, boy!"

    Ten year old Harry Potter sat up and stretched. What a weird dream! As if *he* were a wizard, with magic powers and best friends and....

    His fingers were cut and scabbed, and there were bruises he knew had come from battle, all over his legs, arms and body.

    "Not a dream," he whispered. "*Not* a dream!"

    For a minute, he sat on his bed in his cupboard, hugging his knees, and rocked back and forth on his tailbone, staring at the photograph of his mother he'd filched out of one of Aunt Petunia's old albums and pinned up beside the little camp-bed he slept on. It was an old photo of her from her mid-teens, copper hair cropped straight across her shoulders in a then-fashionable cut, her thick fringe highlighting her clear green eyes. There were no other photos of her, or any of her husband, in the house.

    "GET UP, BOY!!" his uncle Vernon joined the chorus. Harry shook his head, much like a dog, and got up, and his nose wrinkled at the stench that hit him as soon as he opened the door. It smelled like... like... dye. Dye. That was probably Aunt Petunia, dying his new Stonewall High 'uniform'. Which meant, if it was *that* morning....

    Yes, it was. Dudley and Uncle Vernon were already sitting at the table. Harry blinked. They were so... big. And then he realised that, no, it was just that *he* was so small.

    "There's your breakfast, boy," Aunt Petunia said, pointing at a plate that held one fried egg and a piece of toast, between Uncle Vernon and Dudley's plates, groaning with bacon and fried tomatoes. "I'm not letting you in the kitchen with *this*," she added, nodding at the tub of grey dye.

    "What is it?" Harry asked, not because of any great desire to know, but for confirmation.

    "I'm dying some of Dudley's things grey for you. It'll be your new school uniform."

    "Oh," Harry said. Rather than push his luck any further, he went over to the table to eat his meagre meal before Dudley finished his and started eyeing Harry's off.

    Clearly Dudley had received his acceptance to Smeltings and had been taken shopping for his uniform already, because he was carrying his Smeltings stick, and poking Harry with it every chance he got. Meanwhile Uncle Vernon was reading his paper. It was rather a shame; before Hagrid's arrival, seeing Dudley model his new uniform had been the highlight of that particular summer.

    The mailbox clicked. As Harry remembered, Uncle Vernon ordered, "Get the post, Dudley."

    On cue, Dudley replied, "Make Harry get it."

    "Get the post, Harry," Uncle Vernon ordered.

    Now, how had he answered...? Ah, yes. He mustn't seem too eager. "Make Dudley get it."

    "Poke him with the Smelting stick, Dudley."

    He avoided the poke and went to the front door. Yes, there it was... the postcard from Aunt Marge, the bill, and YES! His Hogwarts letter sat on the top of the pile. Now, quickly, he didn't want to lose this chance. He stuffed the Hogwarts letter up under his shirt, shoving it into the waistband of his shorts like he was tucking in a singlet. The reams of material, combined with the Dursleys' studied indifference to his person, would hide it. Then he dutifully carried in the postcard and the bill.

    Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted at it and then started to read the postcard. "Marge's ill," he informed the kitchen at large. "Ate a funny whelk...."

    Harry had no interest in Uncle Vernon's sister's health. "I've finished," he announced. "May I be excused?"

    Aunt Petunia frowned. "What are you going to do?"

    Harry shrugged artfully. "Go to the park and keep out of trouble."

    After a moment's pause, Uncle Veron waved him off saying, "You do that. Well, go!"

    Harry hurried out of the kitchen before anyone could change their minds.

******

    Once at the park, he fished out the letter and opened it.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

Dear Mr Potter,

    We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You will find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

    Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

    'We await your owl'... but he didn't have Hedwig *yet*.... He hadn't met anyone *yet*....

    He began to shake uncontrollably as the reaction began to set in.

    /This morning, I had two best friends, I was eighteen, I was facing down my greatest enemy.... And now I'm ten, I haven't got anything, I haven't got anyone, I've got to start all over again..../

    Then he sat up straight. /I'm starting all over again... and this time I know what I'm doing! This time - this time I can stop it, I can save them!/

    But how? The first step was clearly to get in contact with Hogwarts, but he didn't have an owl or know how to get to Diagon Alley from Little Whinging. And the only one who knew anything about the Wizarding World in the neighbourhood was Mrs. Figg, who at this stage of his life was still his much-disliked babysitter.

    A flash of fur caught his eye, and he turned to see Mr. Paws, one of Mrs Figg's cats, sprawled out artfully on the pavement near the gate. Not looking at Harry, oh no, not at all supervising The Boy Who Lived, whatever gave you that idea?

    Harry sauntered over to the cat and scooped him up. Years of practice with Hermione's Crookshanks had taught him the best way to hold a cat and he needed only a little adjusting before his small hands caught the knack once again and he had a startled cat cradled against his chest.

    "C'mon, Mr. Paws," he said, for the benefit of any listening ears. "Better take you home. So's I can talk to Mrs. Figg," he added softly for Mr. Paws' benefit.

    The cat blinked at him, and then began to purr like a small diesel engine. He wriggled into a more comfortable position - for him - and pointed a paw imperiously towards his owner's house. Feeling rather like the Column part of Nelson's Column (as Mr. Paws' chosen position was lying on top of Harry's head), Harry set off.

*****

    Harry rang the bell and waited for the distinct /drag-thump!/ of Mrs. Figg's crutches. She had obviously been at the back of the house, because it was taking some time for her to get to the door. He didn't mind. It gave him some time to think of a cover story.

    She opened the door, and blinked at him. "Harry, what a surprise," she said. "What brings you here? Does Petunia need me for something?"

    Harry drew in a deep breath. "No," he said. "Aunt Petunia's fine. I'm bringing Mr. Paws back. May I come in, Mrs. Figg?"

    "Of course," the old lady replied. Harry politely waited until she had shuffled out of the way (a difficult feat, on crutches) before he entered. However, as soon as the door was shut, he said, "Mrs. Figg, are you a witch?"

    "A *witch*?" Mrs. Figg asked, her voice going up with surprise. "Whyever would you ask something like that?" But her eye shifted to Mr. Paws.

    Harry pulled out his Hogwarts letter and showed it to her. "This says I'm a wizard, and it got delivered by an owl," he told her. "Once, I saw an owl with a letter in its beak come here. So I thought, maybe, if the letter was real, then you were really a witch, and, and, well...."

    His voice trailed off at that point, as he ran out of breath and momentum. This was where the plan broke down. But so far, it was believable. Wasn't it? Hermione would know - but Hermione would have a back-up plan, too, or a failsafe, or *something*....

    Hermione. The thought of his best friend who was a girl (he had to think of her like that, he had to, he couldn't in any other way, it wasn't right or fair) triggered a slew of associations and memories he wasn't ready to deal with, yet. Hermione smiling shyly up at him as they studied in the Gryffindor common room. Hermione cheering herself hoarse for him at Quidditch matches. Hermione looking so pretty on Viktor Krum's arm at the Yule Ball. Hermione's body crashing to the ground, victim of an /Avada Kedavra/ combined with an /Inflammare/....

    Mrs. Figg was staring at him, no longer the batty old babysitter but now a member of the Order of the Phoenix. "Come into the kitchen and sit down, Harry," she said, "and we'll talk."

    Harry and Mr. Paws trailed her into the kitchen, where Mr. Paws demanded a saucer of cream for bringing Harry. Harry forbore to comment that it had, in fact, been the other way around; he'd had experience with Hermione the cat-owner. Which meant that Snowy, Mr. Tibbles and Tufty all appeared, as if by magic (and Harry was pretty sure that was the case, at least for Tufty; life with Crookshanks the half-Kneazle had taught him how to recognise Kneazles, if nothing else, and Tufty was a Kneazle if ever he'd seen one) and had to be fed cream, too, to stop them stealing Mr. Paws'.

    "Well," Mrs. Figg said, shuffling over with a plate that held what turned out to be a very tasty piece of chocolate cake. "What would you like to know?"

    Harry swallowed the mouthful of cake he'd just been chewing, and absently patted Tufty as he jumped up onto his knees. "Well, first off, how to reply to this letter," he said. "Then, how to buy this stuff. And if there are any secondhand stores around where I can buy it. I don't have very much money - only about twenty pounds in a post office savings account we did at school."

    Mrs. Figg looked at him carefully. "You're sure you want to be a wizard?" she asked him searchingly. "You know that the Dursleys won't accept you back if you do this."

    Harry shrugged. "The Dursleys don't like me anyway," he said carefully. He couldn't let Mrs. Figg know how much he already knew. "Maybe this will tell me why, and even if it doesn't, it'll be better than Stonewall High." Tufty gave a demanding 'Mow!' and reached out, batting at the hand that Harry had stopped patting him with. "Sorry," Harry said absently, and returned to patting the cat. Kneazle. Whatever.

    "True enough at that," Mrs Figg muttered. "Well then, I'll help. But not with an owl. We can't afford to risk someone seeing it and telling your aunt. We'll Floo."

    "Floo?" Harry asked. He hadn't known Mrs. Figg was on the Floo Network. It would have saved so much trouble if he had.

    "Yes," she said, standing up and hobbling into the living room. Harry picked Tufty up off his knees and set him down gently (he kind of liked the skin on his legs intact), before standing up and following her. This was made difficult by three cats weaving around his feet demanding *their* pats now.

    Mrs. Figg sat down in a comfortable chair that was pulled close to the fireplace and lit it. She poked at the small fire a few times, until it was starting to burn well, and then carefully fed it a brick made of mulched-up newspaper. Satisfied it would continue burning as long as she needed it to, she threw a handful of glittering dust into the flames from a pot beside the hearth, and stated loudly, "Hogwarts!"

    Some long seconds passed, and then a face appeared in the flames. Bodiless but no less recognisable for all that; with white hair, beard and halfmoon glasses, Harry saw the face of Albus Dumbledore.

    "Arabella," he said. "This is an unexpected pleasure."

    "I'm sure," she said tartly. "Harry Potter's Hogwarts letter arrived this morning."

    "On schedule, as expected," Dumbledore said cheerfully. "Dear Minerva is quite dreadfully efficient, isn't she?"

    "With *no way* of his giving a reply, Dumbledore, as I have informed you before!" Mrs. Figg said sharply. "The boy came to *me* for help!"

    "Oh," Dumbledore said quietly. "But surely Petunia--"

    "-- would not dream of allowing the boy to go anywhere *near* the world that she blames for the deaths of her parents and sister! It's bad enough that Harry looks like his father!"

    This was the first time that Harry had ever heard of a reason *why* his Aunt Petunia hated magic and wizards with such a passion, and suddenly he found himself feeling a little bit of sympathy for her. He had blamed Voldemort for the deaths of his parents; but if his parents had been murdered by random Death Eaters -- and Aunt Petunia would not have been told more than that -- how would he know who to blame and hate?

    "I want to go to Hogwarts," Harry said quietly. "I don't belong here."

    Dumbledore had not noticed him in the background. At the sound of his voice, he perked up noticeably. "Hello, Harry. I am Albus Dumbledore."

    Harry nodded. He didn't quite trust himself to speak. Dumbledore was responsible for so much in his life, from the years he had spent at the Dursleys to the final confrontation in which he had lost Hermione and Ron. There had been much good and much evil in his life that he could lay at this man's door. And his only defence was that he had done what he believed to be the best, right thing at the time.

    But that was only what anyone could do, wasn't it? Was it Dumbledore's fault that he had been unable to see that he was wrong? Harry didn't know what to say. He settled for a mumbled "Pleased to meet you, sir."

    "Dumbledore," Mrs. Figg said sharply, drawing attention back to herself, "you know I can't take Harry into Diagon Alley for his school things. You'll have to send someone, with his key."

    Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, of course. It will take some time to arrange, but we're not in any great hurry. Harry, can you come by Mrs. Figg's tomorrow, at about this time?"

    "Yes, I should be able to," Harry said quietly.

    "Good. I will be happy to welcome you to Hogwarts in September. Arabella, Harry, goodbye."

    Mrs. Figg and Harry both looked at the empty fireplace for a short time. It was starting to get quite stuffy from the heat of the fire. "Put it out, would you Harry?" Mrs. Figg said absently.

    Harry looked around until he saw the half-full sack of sand sitting beside the hearth. A quick check showed, by the generous quantity of ashes mixed in, that the sand had been used for this purpose before. He poured a generous bucketful onto the coals, waited till the flames and heat were smothered, and then swept out the fireplace. The remains of the brick went back into the scuttle, while he dumped the sand and ashes back into the sack.

    "You're taking all this remarkably well," Mrs. Figg said.

    "I think I'm in shock, a bit," Harry replied, truthfully. "An owl delivers a letter to me, addressed to my cupboard, that tells me I can do magic and I should go to magic school, and my neighbour can talk to people in her fire. It doesn't seem real, yet."

    "It is," she told him.

    "I want it to be. I hope it is. I want to be normal, like everyone else."

    Mrs Figg blinked at that, and looked unaccountably sad. "Oh. Oh, dear, poor child," she said. "I'm afraid that will never happen for you, Harry Potter."

    "Why not?" Harry asked. Didn't he get the chance to be normal this time around? He wouldn't make nearly the faux pas he'd made before.

    "Because -- oh dear, this is hard to say. Because you're a hero, Harry Potter."

    Of course. He should have known. That 'Boy Who Lived' thing, yeah, the Boy Who Lived When His Best Friends Were Murdered Right In Front Of Him And Couldn't Do A Damn Thing To Save Them. But he couldn't let on that he knew. "A hero? But I haven't done anything." He hadn't done anything and they'd died. But he was going to do it this time, Voldemort was going down before he even set eyes on either of them, and they would be safe this time. This time he'd do it *right*.

    "You wouldn't remember, because you were only a baby at the time, only a year or so old. But ten years ago, the Wizards of Britain lived in terror. There was a great and terrible wizard - You-Know-Who --"

    "His name was You-Know-Who?" Harry interrupted. He hated this. Sometimes he wanted to jump on top of a table and yell, "Voldemort! Voldemort! VOLDEMORT!!" Of course, Hermione and Dumbledore were about the only ones who wouldn't hit the floor in a dead faint if he did.

    "No, it was -- it was --" she dropped her voice and whispered, "Voldemort." She swallowed and continued, in a more normal voice, "We -- we don't say his name because he -- he did such terrible things. It is still -- still something we don't like to say. We all know who he was, so we call him You-Know-Who."

    "It sounds silly."

    "Perhaps it is. But we're still scared. Anyway, he hated Muggles -- that's non-magic folk like the Dursleys --"

    "That's not so bad," Harry said. "I hate the Dursleys, too."

    "Enough to torture them slowly to death?" Mrs. Figg said sharply. "Enough to leave them in agony for hours and hours, and laugh at them while they screamed?"

    Harry blinked. "Well, no," he said slowly. "I wouldn't do that. They don't deserve that."

    "Well, he did. And he did it on ordinary muggles, too. People like the Davidsons around the corner, who invited you in to use their pool the other day. He would have tied them up and thrown them into it, and laughed as they drowned. I know he did that with a couple of families."

    Harry knew Voldemort had been a murderer, but he hadn't thought of putting faces to the victims. "They have a five year old daughter," he whispered.

    "She would've been first in."

    Harry swallowed.

    "Anyway, it was a very bad time. He hated muggle-born wizards, too -- felt that they were less than those born to wizard parents, which is utter tosh, and I should know, my Richard was one -- but it didn't matter if you were pureblood or muggle-born, if you got in his way or didn't swear obedience to him, he'd kill you. Some of us tried to fight against them, like your parents."

    "My parents fought against him," Harry smiled, and then the smile fell. "And that's why they're dead. He won."

    "Not quite. He went after all three of you -- your dad, then your mum, and then you for some reason. Yes, your parents lost. But -- and here's what nobody understands -- when he tried to kill you, he failed. The spell rebounded. It did hit you -- it's where you have that scar on your forehead from -- but it bounced back and hit Voldemort, and killed him. Nobody knows how or why."

    Harry frowned. *He* knew why -- his mother's dying protection. It was yet another two-edged sword in his life.

    "And that's why you're a hero. Because you are The Boy Who Lived, when everyone else died, and you are the one who caused You-Know-Who's death."

    "What a thing to be a hero for," Harry said bitterly. "I'd rather have my parents back."

    Mrs Figg hobbled over, her dark eyes bright in her wrinkled old face, and hugged him. "I know. When I think of Richard, I feel the same way. Yes, he died protecting that family of Muggles, but I want my husband back. I want to hold him, not be the widow of a hero."

*****

    The next day, Harry was up doing the washing at dawn. Today he'd go to Diagon Alley. He was glad it was today, the twenty-fifth, and not July thirty-first, like it had been last time; he did *not* want to encounter Draco Malfoy this time. Blond rat-faced ferret-fink *bastard*.

    Breakfast was cooking while the Dursleys stirred. He smiled. His Hogwarts letter had been answered, so there would be no chaos. He would simply get his stuff today and store it at Mrs. Figg's, and then on September first he'd tell the Dursleys that he was getting out of their hair till next July, go over to Mrs Figg's, get a taxi to King's Cross and hop on the train. No mess, no fuss.

    He managed to leave the house without incident, and drifted over to Mrs. Figg's quite unobtrusively (he thought). Mrs. Figg was a lot less prickly than she'd been the day before, and Harry managed to have a cream tea before being swarmed by cats. Mr. Paws reclaimed his spot on top of Harry's head, Snowy decided to attempt a second career as Harry's scarf, and Mr. Tibbles and Tufty kept pushing each other off Harry's knees. All four purred their little furry heads off, and after five minutes Harry felt so relaxed by the bone-soothing hum that he couldn't have gotten up even if he wanted to.

    Mrs. Figg had lit a small fire, so that the Floo would work again, and Harry was facing it when it flared and out of the fireplace stumbled Hagrid. He looked at Harry smiled, and then began to sneeze.

    The cats scattered to the thunderous sounds, and when they left, the sneezing subsided.

    "Sorry 'bout that," Hagrid said. "Cats allus make me sneeze. I'm Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Groundskeeper at Hogwarts. And you would be Harry Potter?"

    Harry smiled. "Yes, I am."