Alternative Universe

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling.

To explain the situation:

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry trains as an auror while he continues to fight against the surviving death eaters, who have managed to organise and wreak havoc on the wizarding world. On Halloween, at the official commemoration of the Battle, they launch a surprise attack. During the fight, Harry sees his friends and family die. In a desperate move, he again sacrifices his life in order to finally defeat his enemies and save what remains of the world he knows.

But Harry does not die. Somehow, he ends up in a parallel universe where he had been the one to die at that fateful Halloween 17 years back, while his parents, protected by their son dying for them, had survived. Consequently, Pettigrew's betrayal was discovered and he was sent to Askaban. With the additional help of James, Lily and Sirius, the death eaters had been rounded up earlier, so the attack on the Longbottoms and Voldemort's attempts to return to his former power during the following years were prevented, although most of it was kept out of the press in order to "not needlessly disturb the public" by orders of Minister Fudge.

Lucius Malfoy evaded prison but was under constant observation, so he did not dare to use Riddle's diary. Without this crucial clue, Dumbledore never figured out what kept Voldemort alive.

The Arrival

For Lily and James Potter it was the most horrible day of the year, of every year. They had never found a good way to deal with it. There was not good way. The events that happened on this day 17 years earlier were just too tragic, too deep a break in their lives. The best they could hope for every year was survival. While they now lived again in the house James had inherited from his parents, each year they returned to the little house in Godrics Hollow where Harry had died. Their closest friends usually tried to help them, sitting with them and trying to keep up a conversation. The first few years, Lily and James had not even seemed to notice them, clinging to each other's hand, Lily crying silently while clutching Harry's cuddly wolf to her heart with the other hand, James staring into space with a lost expression. They became better at hiding their desolation over the years, to the point where they could participate in the conversation from time to time, but the pain they felt inside was still as fresh and raw as ever.

This year did not seem to be different at first. Lily and James arrived at Godric's Hollow, and entered the house which was now a memorial. Remus and Sirius arrived shortly behind each other. Dumbledore and Hagrid came later in the evening, after the Halloween festivities at Hogwarts were over. While Alice and Frank Longbottom were close friends of the Potters too, their son Neville had been born a few days before Harry. Alice and Lily had gone through their pregnancies together and had shared the joys and excitements, but also the frustrations of learning to live with a newborn baby. Neville was a fine young man of 18 now who had just finished school and started a job with Planten, the biggest supplier of herbal potion ingredients in Britain. Lily and James liked him and treated him like a favourite nephew, but on this special day they could not stand to look at the face of their friends. The Longbottoms understood that without ever having actually been told and never joint their Halloween ritual.

The group had just settled down and Remus had asked Dumbledore about some details about their current werewolf initiative in the Wizengamot, when they heard a loud BOOOOOM. It sounded like someone apparating, only ten times louder and with a bright flash of light a body seemed to be falling out of the air.

For a second, no-one reacted, for while all of them were good wizards with 2 aurors and 1 former auror among them, they had not expected anything like this and were somewhat shell shocked.

No-one is actually not quite accurate. None of the 6 former occupants of the room reacted. The newcomer was a different matter. Even during his very short fall out of nowhere, he managed to twist himself in the air, so that he landed in a low crouch, bringing out his wanded hands before himself in a protective gesture, taking in the faces of the people in the room, shooting out a non-verbal shield charm and rolling behind the nearest cover; all of that in the one second the others were too surprised to move. By the time all of them had manage to jump up and reach for their wands, Lily and Remus had been disarmed and Dumbledore had to do some quick wand movements in order to avoid being strangled by the tattered curtains. James was casting a body bind curse, which was stopped by the shield charm and Sirius threw a stunner which bounced back and hit Hagrid (although thanks to his giant blood it merely slowed him down a little).

Dumbledore, after having dealt with the curtains, built up a strong but invisible magical wall, separating the fighters. "Stop it, all of you!" his voice boomed through the room. "Let's clear up a few questions before we kill each other. Who are you and why are you here?"

"Why don't you start with the answers? Who are you? And don't bother with trying to tell me you are who you pretend to be! I know better than anyone those people are dead." The people on Dumbledore's side of the wall looked at each other confused at these statements. The voice was deep, but surprisingly young and somehow familiar. In it, there was a wealth of anger and bitterness.

"We are not pretending to be anyone. We are who we seem to be. And as we have been surprised by your arrival, as I think you have noticed by our lack in reaction at first, why would we need to pretend something in the beginning?"

"I know you can't be who you look to be. Unless … where is this? What is this?" The anger was replaces by confusion and some sort of … anticipation?

"You are inside the Harry Potter Memorial at Grodric's Hollow. This is the house in which Harry Potter was killed by Voldemort 17 years ago and where Voldemort consequently lost his powers and vanished. It is the anniversary of this event which his parents and their friends spend every year inside this Memorial to mourn their dead son." James and Lily both winced at this cold description.

There was a moment of total silence. Then: "No … no that is not how it was … it can't be …" The voice was almost inaudible now, but they could hear the utter shock in it.

"It is true! My son launched himself in the way of the killing curse on his toy broomstick in order to save my husband and me. Don't you dare deny this!" Lily was suddenly filled with rage at this stranger who had dared to interrupt their private mourning, had attacked them and now denied her son's death.

"But … but it were the parents who died to protect their son!" It was still a whisper and confusion now mingled with shock.

"Everyone knows what has happened here and not even the dead eaters deny that Harry Potter was killed by Voldemort. Now once again: Who are you and why are you here?" Dumbledore tried to regain the reins of the conversation.

"I don't know why I am here, I don't know where I am." Now there was some desperation in the voice. The young man it belonged to slowly rose from behind his cover and stared at them through the magical wall. "But I am Harry Potter."

AN: As you might have noticed I am not a native speaker. I am trying my best to not make mistakes and I proof read everything, but I am not terribly talented in that area. (There are some people who take one look at a page and tell you that there is a spelling mistake in line 14. I am not one of them.) If you find mistakes, please tell me so I can avoid them in the future. I hope you otherwise enjoy my story. I know the basic plot has been done before (which one hasn't with almost 342,000 Harry Potter stories on this site alone?), but I like to read different versions of it and I wanted to write one myself. Please review and tell me what you think.