Chapter Thirteen: Beginning

The next time Harry opened his eyes, to his relief, he was back to being a single person.

He sat up slowing, and looked around the empty, dark Hospital Wing. Harry had no way of knowing how long he'd been passed out, but he did know it took Neville days to recover from his cursed switchblade injury. Had he been out longer than that? Harry hoped not, as petty as it seemed, he liked to believe he was faster to recover, compared to Longbottom.

Harry searched the nightstand beside his bed for his belongings, namely his wand, and was unsurprised when he didn't find it. The he suddenly remembered there was something he needed to do, something he hadn't had the chance to do, due to Neville's interruption. He switched on the lamp and pulled out the letter Blakely had given him.

He carefully unfolded the envelope, took out the paper it was written on and began to read.

To the other Harry,

If you're reading this, then you've made it to Nurmengard, just like I suspected you would. Your determination to return home has probably led you this far, and while that's admirable, it's not needed. It's absolutely vital that you return to Hogwarts immediately, before Albus gets a good look at you.

Also, you must get Blakely out of there.

Don't worry about returning back to your world. It's for the greater good that we've switched places. It would have been impossible for you to defeat your monster, just like it was impossible for me to kill Albus without also destroying myself. You harbored a piece of Voldemort's soul inside you (essentially, you were a Horcrux) just like I harbored a piece of Dumbledore's soul in me.

But a Horcrux can't survive a journey between worlds. They both got destroyed in the switch.

With it destroyed and after the bit that lives in Longbottom is gone, Dumbledore can be killed. And soon, I will have turned your Voldemort into dust.

Good luck, Harry. And remember, take care of Blake and get her away from there. If she'd left behind, you'll have another Horcrux to worry yourself with, and Blakely doesn't deserve to die for this cause.

Harry J Potter

He read the letter several times, but he wasn't any less confused no matter how many times he read it. Harry had never heard the term Horcrux before. It was a piece of someone's soul? Hidden inside someone else? And it could keep them alive? And worse of all, Harry thought, he had a piece of Voldemort in him all this time.

Well, had. It didn't survive the trip between worlds. Harry knew it made sense. He, after all, had lost the ability to speak to snakes after arriving, as well as losing the alliance of his original holly and phoenix feather wand.

Harry stared at the letter written by a better version of himself. According to it, he'd failed several times during his trip to Nurmengard. Not only had Dumbledore gotten a good look at him, but they'd had a conversation. And Blakely. He certainly failed to get her to Hogwarts, away from Nurmengard, out of Dumbledore's reach.

All this, Harry was sure, meant she'd become the new Horcrux. How long did they have to rescue her before this happened? Or maybe, he thought with a sinking feeling, it already had. It brought him back to the taunting question of how long he'd been knocked out.

He swung his feet to the floor, ignoring the pain his leg as he did and left the Hospital Wing. Harry didn't want to waste any more time, and if there was one thing Harry knew about this world, it was that wondering around Hogwarts castle at night was made nearly impossible by Sirius and his obsession with checking his movements on the Marauder's Map.

And it just happened Sirius was the precise person Harry needed to speak with.

Unfortunately, walking became more and more difficult as the slight pain coming from the area he'd been hit with the knife grew into a throbbing and unbearable repeated stab. He staggered a little bit, and almost took a seat right in the middle on the darkened corridor. Instead, he gasped out loud, doubled over and clutching that side of his leg with his hands.

So consumed by his pain, he barely registered the light suddenly appearing.

"Mr. Potter." It was a silky soft but also dangerous tone, and Harry immediately recognized that it belonged to Severus Snape, the very last person he'd hoped to find him here, like this.

"Snape," said Harry, but it came out more like another gasp. Despite the way it felt, he forced himself to stand up straight and turn his head to face him.

"It's nice to meet the great Harry Potter," said Snape, voice dripping with sarcasm. "At last."

"I would say it's nice to meet you too," he said. "But we've meet once already, in my world, and it didn't go so well the first time."

Snape looked him up and down. "I can't imagine why. Pray tell, what are you doing out here, in the dark?"

"I need to speak with Sirius."

"A likely story," said Snape, "but it will have to wait until the morning."

"It can't wait until the morning. I need to speak with him now."

"You're not in any position to make demands, Potter. Back to bed with you, before you collapse and I have to levitate you back myself."

Harry glared the Potions Master. "You're not making much of an improvement on the last version of you, and trust me, he was pretty pathetic."

And Severus Snape glared back at him. No matter what Harry had said, he knew Snape wouldn't see reason, wouldn't grant him his request. Harry could have even told him he knew the secret to winning the war, which technically he did, but all Snape would see was the face of the boy who bullied him during his school days.

Harry opened his mouth to say something else rather ill-advised, but at that precise moment, James thrown off his Invisibility Cloak, startling Harry quite a bit but having no effect on the always stoic Severus Snape.

"Severus," James greet, then looked towards him. "Harry. What's the problem?"

"There isn't a problem," said Snape. "I was just advising your son that'd it would be in his best interest to go back to bed, before someone thinks he's up to something. Or better yet, plotting yet another poorly planned escape attempt."

"Can you call it an attempt if I actually did escape?"

"Really. Where are you now?"

Harry continued his glare, angrier now that Snape managed to get a good jab.

"James," said Snape, opting to use his first name not from friendship, but for clarification. "A word. Privately."

He spun on his heel and marched off into the darkness, expecting James to follow. Which he did, but not before throwing an over the shoulder look to Harry and telling him to stay put. Harry rolled his eyes. Honestly, where could he possibly go, with his leg like this? He sighed, and finally sunk down to sit on the floor of the corridor, getting the pressure off his injured leg.

"That boy will be the death of you," said Snape, smoothly, once they were far enough away from Harry that he wouldn't overhear them.

"How sweet, Snivellus," said James, unable to stop the childish nickname from escaping his lips. "And to think, all this time I've thought you didn't care."

"My concern," he started, narrowing his eyes, "is for the outcome of this war and has very little to do with your well-being."

"Or maybe," said James. "Your concern has more to do with Lily – you know, my wife – than it does the war."

He knew it had been a low blow even before he said it, but he found he didn't particularly care. After all, in was in James's opinion that Snape had intentionally started an argument between him and Lily, an argument that might not have been so easily fixed if it weren't for the events that revealed Matthew Mills as Harry Potter. Snape leading Lily to his well-kept secret somehow filled James with a renewed sense of hatred.

The pair of them had spent the last decade or so respectfully ignoring each other. James felt this was about to change.

Snape ignored him, and continued on. "You two are being foolish, walking around for the last three days as if your son has been miraculously brought back. But that's not your son. You don't know what his intentions are or even what kind of reality he came from. How could you? All he has done since he has gotten here is lie."

James let his eyes drift back to where Harry had now settled on the floor of the corridor. He didn't look particularly dangerous, then again, neither did Neville Longbottom until you put any sort of weapon in his hands. But James also knew, although he was unsure of how, that there wasn't anything dangerous about this Harry.

Annoying sometimes, sure, but harmless.

"Anything to add, Snape?"

Apparently, he didn't have anything else to add, because rather than answer the question, he slipped back into the shadows, silently. James was left to marvel at the oddness of the conversation. Snape warning them? That was new, but he suspected the Slytherin only meant to rattle him, attempting to ruin the good mood and forgiveness that had fallen over him and Lily for the last three days.

Another indicator that while they fought against Dumbledore together, the pair of them were about to fight a much smaller war between themselves.

With a sigh, James walked back over to Harry, who now was laid flat against the floor, eyes shut tight, holding the wound from the switchblade with his left hand.

"You know," said James, looking down at him and watching as his eyes snapped open, startling green just like Lily. "I don't think you were meant to walk on that just yet."

He groaned and placed his hands over his eyes, as if that would ease the pain. "I need a pain relief potion, stat."

"Unlucky for you," said James, and although it struck him as rather odd, as old as he was getting, he sat down on the floor next to where Harry was laying down. "I don't think the Potions Master is rather fond of us. However, I do know a charm that might work."

Harry uncovered one of his eyes, faintly interested. "A Charm?"

"It's out of date," admitted James. "But it will do the trick until Madam Pomfrey wakes up. I'd be happy to help you, if you answered some questions…"

"-That's not helping, though, is it? If you get something in return?"

For a moment, James thought he was losing him, that he had turned their otherwise civil attempt at a conversation sour, but after only a few beats of silence, Harry exhaled and seemed to lose some of his edginess. He sat up and used his hands to support him.

"What do you want answered?" He asked it in a way that implied he had been expecting something like an interrogation, and had resigned himself to it.

After three days of wondering, of guessing alongside of Lily, James knew exactly what he wanted to ask him. "How did you get that scar?"

"Voldemort," he said, simply. "Well, I suppose here he's Headmaster Riddle."

"Riddle calls himself Voldemort in your world?"

"Yes," he said. "He's also bald and hasn't got a nose."

It was absurd in a way that made James want to question if it were actually true, but he'd been lied to by him before, granted the boy had been wearing a different face all those times. Still, the words sounded different, felt different. He was telling the truth.

And so James laughed, quietly. "I'd like to see that."

"No," said Harry. "Because if you do, you're dead far too soon to have a laugh."

"That can't be completely true. You're not dead. All you've got is that scar."

Harry gave up a rueful smile for only a few seconds, then his expressions broke back into the pain. "Not for his lack in trying. When Voldemort decided he wanted me dead, I was one. He came to my house looking to kill me, but my mother, she wouldn't get out of the way, so he killed her and when he tried to kill me, he couldn't do it. Her sacrifice kept me alive, and the killing curse gave me this scar."

It was both remarkable and incredibly sad all at once. And just the sort of thing James knew his Lily would do for their children if she had to, but then that got James thinking. "And where was -?"

"My father," said Harry, interrupting and stressing the word father as if he were trying to tell James that Snape had been correct, he really wasn't their son. "Died in the hallway, trying to buy us time. And so after it was over, Dumbledore wanted me to go live with my aunt and uncle, but Sirius wouldn't have any of that."

"Your aunt and uncle?" asked James, incredulous. Harry only had one aunt and uncle. "You can't mean the Dursleys?"

Harry shrugged. "Who knows? Never heard any more about them. Sirius raised me."

"Better off for it," said James, thinking Harry's Dumbledore sounded an awful lot like a villain as well. "That was a good call, on Sirius's part."

"Sirius," Harry repeated the name, as if he had just remembered something very important. "We've got to speak with Sirius."

And then James also remembered. He had listened in on his and Snape's argument under the Invisibility Cloak long enough to know that's where Harry had been headed before the pain in his leg and Snape had prevented him.

"Why?"

"His daughter is in trouble."

"Sirius doesn't have a daughter," replied James, automatically. Though now that he thought about it, the fact that Sirius didn't have any lovechildren running around was its own miracle.

"Does the name McKinnon mean anything to you?"

In fact, the name McKinnon did mean something to James. Marlene had been Lily's best friend at Hogwarts. She'd also been Sirius's on and off again girlfriend for several years, up until the time of her mysterious disappearance. He had never thought about it before, but James did remember once drunken night Sirius had confessed he thought he was the last person to have seen her…

Harry reached into his pocket and produced a piece of parchment that looked as if it had been folded one too many times. A little hesitantly, as if he were taking a big leap of faith, he held it out for James to grab. "I think you need to read this."

James looked from Harry to the parchment before taking it and reading it. Several minutes later, he locked eyes with him.

"You're right," he said. "We need to go see Sirius."

"But first," said Harry. "You have to fix my leg."

James nodded and muttered the Charm. Of course, he didn't bother correcting Harry that this wasn't actually fixing his leg, just making the pain a little less intense. Easing it at least enough to walk. Enough to find Sirius.

And although the news that Dumbledore had what Harry claimed was the daughter of Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon held up in Nurmengard, that she may soon become a Horcrux herself, James couldn't help but to feel a little optimistic. They now knew something they didn't know before, something that would surely break the stalemate.

They knew how Dumbledore could die.

A/N

Well, it's finally finished! Thanks to all who have read, reviewed, favorited and followed!

I will be writing a sequel that I plan to have up next week or the week after next. If you are interested, look for it!