Fortuitous Miscalculation

Author's note: I don't own Harry Potter.

I'm sorry for not updating my other stories, I promise, I AM working on them, this idea just got in the way…so I wrote it. Anyway, it's just a one shot and you can expect an update on the Diadone Method in the next few days.

Enjoy!

Author's note (#2): So, I really want to keep working on at least one of my many other stories but my mind isn't cooperating...therefore, I decided to clean up some of my older ones.

Edited: 8/11/2013

So it hadn't worked out the way he wanted, whatever. So the entire world thought he was the next dark lord, who cares? So his headmaster and most of his friends betrayed him and condemned him to hell on earth for the rest of his life, big deal. No, what really bothered Harry was the fact that he had been calmly watching a Dementor pace, yeah, that's right, pace, in front of his cell, for the last five minutes and he wasn't feeling a thing. This could only mean one thing; it wasn't a Dementor.

Remus paced back and forth in the dark hall of Azkaban, every now and then he would turn towards the cell beside him, frown, sigh, and continue walking. Inside the cell lay the son of one of his best friends, a young man who managed to do the impossible only to be turned on by people he thought were his friends, it just wasn't right. The pile of rags he knew to be Harry James Potter was laying on the hard stone floor in the corner of the tiny cell, not moving at all.

Eight years in Azkaban, reliving the horrors of his short life had most likely turned Harry into little more than a raving vegetable. It didn't help that they had put up anti-Animagus spells once someone (cough-Snape-cough) had let Sirius' method of escape slip. Remus wished, for probably the billionth time, that he had been able to get here sooner, but these sorts of things took time! He had only just completed the spell, and it had taken him the better part of two years to figure out how to not only get into the prison but also out in one piece.

Harry tilted his head just a bit and squinted at the person in front of his cell; the person was obviously keeping the fake Dementor hood up with magic because there was no way they were that tall, even with giant blood in them. They also seemed to be extremely nervous about something. Deciding that he really had nothing to lose, Harry stood up and walked to the bars.

Remus nearly yelped when Harry just got up and came over to the cell door, how could he do that so calmly? Was his mind still intact? Questions flew around Remus' head so fast that he almost missed when Harry started talking.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Harry asked, his disused voice not much more than a quiet rasp. "I know you're not a Dementor because a) you're not making my head ache and b) Dementors don't pace in front of the cells.

"Uh…" Remus said quiet eloquently. However, it was enough for Harry to identify his voice.

"Remus?" Harry asked in disbelief. "What the hell? How did you get here?"

Remus pushed the magically suspended cloak off, "Harry, holy Merlin, you're okay!"

"As stoked as I am to see one of the only people who stood up for me, you still didn't answer the question."

"Oh, right." Remus said nervously, "Well, it took a bit of work, a whole lot of law-breaking and more luck than I'd care to admit."

"Okay… And what are you doing here?" Harry looked at the wall of his cell and checked his make-shift calendar, "It's been over eight years, why come now?"

Remus gave a small smile, "Because I've come up with a way to fix all this." He gestured in a wide arc, indicating the whole situation.

Harry raised an eyebrow, Remus and Sirius had been the only two who believed that there was 'no bloody fucking way Harry would ever go dark'. When Sirius had been killed a few days after Harry's capture by 'persons unknown', Harry had assumed that Remus had just wallowed in sorrow like he did after his parents' deaths. It didn't occur to him that Remus would try to save him.

"And how exactly do you plan on 'fixing' this? I can't exactly get out the way Sirius did, the only reason I'm sane is that my Occlumency progressed so far that I can completely cut off all emotion - makes me rather unappetizing to the Dementors. Anyway, it's not like my Animagus form would do me much good, these cells are warded from the inside, I'd just squish myself."

Remus' eyes widened, "You're an Animagus? When did that happen?"

"Yeah, it was something I worked on while training to get rid of our favorite Dark Lord."

"What are you?" Remus asked excitedly.

"A dragon, Arctic Silverfire to be precise. But, I believe we were talking about fixing things?"

"Of course. Well, I developed a spell which will send our souls, magic and mind back through time. I want to take you back to just before you were introduced to magic. That way, we can do things properly, the first time around, as well as put our trust in the right people."

Harry gaped, a second chance? "That's perfect! When do we go?"

Right now if you want. I had originally planned on breaking you out and nursing you back to health but that doesn't really seem to be a problem." Remus said with a genuine smile, his first in eight years. "So, here goes." With that he chanted a really long string of mumbo jumbo and they silently faded from sight, Harry from inside his cell and Remus from the hall. No bang or flash, just a quiet removal from existence.

Harry blinked. Then he blinked again. Then again. He was looking up at an eerily familiar face on a remarkably familiar head with hair reminiscent of his own, and brown eyes hidden behind glasses.

Ah shit! Harry thought. Something went wrong! He turned his head and saw that the bars of Azkaban had been replaced by another set, these were wooden and attached to a crib. Harry rolled over onto his side (something which took more effort than he would have liked) and looked through the bars; he saw the back of a head with long, bright red hair, Sirius' perfectly tamed and self-loved locks and then…Remus. Remus was facing him and had a completely shocked expression on his face before he schooled it into something less noticeable.

Damn, this does not look good. Harry the baby thought.

When Remus' consciousness was deposited back into his body he instantly knew something was wrong. First, he was sitting across from a very alive Lily Potter. Second, an equally alive Sirius Black was in a chair next to him, and finally, James Potter was standing over a crib that held a baby Harry who was staring at him in shock and confusion...which was quickly turning to anger.

Not good. Remus thought, unconsciously mirroring Harry's own opinion. I seem to have made a few calculation errors…

Harry and Remus stared at each other for a few seconds, both wondering what the hell they were going to do. Harry was also trying to decide between anger and elation; on the one hand, he was with his parents without having to watch them die, but on the other hand, he was a goddamn BABY! He also wanted to know what the date was and how soon he would be allowed to 'grow up' and start talking properly.

Remus saw the look on Harry's face and seriously hoped that he would have enough sense not to start swearing at him, because that was exactly what he looked like he wanted to do. By the accusing look plastered all over the infant's face, Remus knew that he would have to get alone with Harry soon so they could figure it all out and decide on a plan of action.

Harry's thoughts were rudely interrupted when his stomach growled. To his extreme horror, James called Lily over saying that Harry was in need of her services. Harry's eyes widened as he realized exactly what was going to happen. Oh no. Oh HELL NO! There's NO FUCKING WAY I'm letting this go where I think it's going! He screamed in his head.

Remus saw the look of revulsion pass over Harry's face and had to contain his laughter, the entire situation was disturbing but hilarious at the same time.

Thinking quick, Harry wandlessly summoned a banana and dropped it on his mother's head, hoping to every deity he could think of that she would get the hint. Thankfully, she did.

Lily laughed, "James, I think Harry is trying to tell us something. He seems to think that he's ready to start on real food."

James frowned, "I don't know, I thought we were supposed to wait until he was at least a year old."

NOOOOOOO! Harry sent the banana at James and whacked him in the face with it.

"Gah! Okay, okay!" James said, smacking the banana away. "I get the point. Banana it is."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, crisis averted; he would not be scarred for life…yet. There was still the matter of diapers to consider… Harry shivered as he felt a trickle of dread flow down his back.

Remus was proud of Harry, he had escaped! He surreptitiously looked around until he saw a paper, 30th of March, 1981; Harry was seven months old. Whoops. And they had five months until Halloween… He knew that Harry had been destroying things to help take down Voldemort but he didn't know what. If Harry told him what to search for, then he could try to get rid of them before Voldemort showed up. Hey, they could even save Lily and James!

Harry ate his mashed banana (all the while wishing that it hadn't been mashed) in peace and tried to think of a way to be left alone with Remus. Later that day he decided that it was time for Harry the 'prodigy child' to emerge. Whether they liked it or not, Harry's legs were going to let him walk. When he was sat on Lily's lap in the living room, he immediately slid off, walked to Remus and promptly grabbed his leg.

It didn't take long for Remus to figure out what Harry was doing, if Harry showed that he liked Remus best, then Lily and James were more likely to choose him to babysit. For posterity's sake he looked down at baby Harry in confusion and then up at the others. "Um…did Harry just walk?" He asked innocently.

Everyone else in the room stared at Remus and Harry, James started laughing, "Oh, Merlin! Your face!" He said pointing at Remus.

Tears leaked out of Lily's eyes, "Real food and walking, in the same day! Oh Remus, I think you should pick him up, he likes you."

Remus reached down and lifted Harry up, "Hey cub." He said. "Do you like your Uncle Moony? Huh? Do you? Yeah, I think you do." Remus pointedly ignored the daggers Harry was sending his way, which only he could see.

It was a week before Remus was finally left to babysit Harry; James, Sirius and Lily had gone to talk with Dumbledore, not that that was the excuse given to Remus. Remus knew exactly what they were doing and was a bit insulted that he was left out, but then he remembered just how bad the war was at this time, the insecurity, the suspicion, and he was a werewolf after all. Anyway, this time it was a good thing because he had a chance to talk with Harry the baby, now that was going to be weird.

"Hey Harry, how's it going?" Remus asked cheerfully as he walked into the nursery.

"Remus, I'm going to bloody kill you someday! This is awful! I have nappies! Sirius changed my nappy! I swear to god, if you even try to do that, I will make your life miserable! And I won't even get in trouble for it. And my parents, all they do is coo at me, read me stupid, idiotic stories and make me listen to classical music! I'm going nuts, I really am. I survived for eight years in fucking Azkaban and now my own family is driving me insane!" Harry took a deep breath and let his little baby voice rest, it was infuriating to have such weak vocal cords.

Remus had to stifle a grin, it was seriously amusing to hear such language coming from a seven month old mouth! Harry may have had all his future magic as well as all his magic from this reality but he was still stuck in a baby body. Which wasn't actually all bad, he had been using this magic to make his baby life a whole lot less embarrassing as well as much more amusing for himself. This often came at the expense of those around him, especially Remus, so Remus decided that laughing at Harry's current predicament probably wasn't the best thing for his health.

Harry glowered at Remus, he knew the older man was trying to hide his amusement, but Harry was quite adept at Occlumency and by extension, Legilimency; more specifically, passive Legilimency, so he saw right through Remus. "I'll have you know that I have all my magic available to me and absolutely no qualms about using it on you to my fullest ability. Need I also remind you that this is in addition to the magic this baby body has? Sure, it's not all accessible right now, but I'm working on fixing that; it will be useful to have twice as much magic as everyone else."

"Hey! I'll have you know that I also have twice as much!" Rem exclaimed indignantly.

"Yeah, but you don't count." Baby Harry said offhandedly.

"Excuse me?" Remus all but growled.

Harry quickly explained. "What I mean is, you can't really use your extra magic, everyone already knows that you're a genius with above average power, but you can't all of a sudden become some super-wizard, you're too old for your magic to keep growing."

Remus paused. "Oh." He said, sounding rather put out. "That sucks."

"Yup!" Harry replied, giving Remus a two-toothed grin. "I, on the other hand, can become Super Baby!" He said, striking a superman pose.

Remus smirked, "And draw the unwanted attention of our dear headmaster? That prophesy has already been made, he will either try to train you till you drop or bind all that extra power so you're not a threat to him. Not to mention all those oh so welcome questions he'll be asking."

Harry scowled (yet another expression that really shouldn't be on a baby's face), Dumbledore would do exactly that, he liked control and feared competition too much. He would either remove Harry from the picture or fashion him into whatever would best suit his plans, whatever they may be. "Fine, I hide the true extent of my power, but I'm not going to stop this 'accidental' magic."

"I wouldn't dare ask you to do that. Anyways, it's extremely amusing, even when it's directed against me; some of that stuff is pure genius! And blaming it on James and Sirius? Priceless. But moving on, we need to figure out a way to get rid of Voldemort before he has a chance to kill Lily and James." Remus said.

"Yeah...about that, we only have a few months and unfortunately you're going to have to do all the leg-work on this seeing as my legs aren't exactly doing much right now. Because we're short on time I think our first order of business is to get a time turner."

"A time turner?" Remus cried, "Do you know how hard it will be to get one of those?"

Harry grinned, "We'll just steal it, it's easier than applying for a permit. Especially if you know exactly where they are and how to get in. Which I do." He said.

"Okay..." Remus said uncertainly, it was all well and good for Harry to explain what to do, but Remus was the one who had to do the actual stealing. "Once we have the time turner what do we need to do? I know you were off getting rid of things, but I have absolutely no idea what or where they are."

"Ah, yes, the Horcruxes." Harry then proceed to tell Remus all about the soul containers that Voldemort had created, ideas as to where they might be now and how to destroy them. Remus was properly horrified, but that didn't dissuade him from asking hundreds of questions and taking copious amounts of notes.

By the time Lily and James got back, Remus and Harry had a plan that involved a whole lot of work and risk on Remus' part but they were both satisfied. Harry had been feeling extremely useless until they figured out how to communicate via Occlumency and Legilimency, it turns out that with an excess of magic and a well-disciplined mind, two people could communicate across long distances. This allowed Remus to check in with Harry at every stage of the operation.

While Remus was combing England for illegal artifacts, Harry was bored out of his mind; he tried distracting himself by playing rude and embarrassing pranks that only an adult could think up, thereby allowing the blame to fall completely on James and/or Sirius, but even this didn't help much. Eventually, he decided to put his extra magic to good use.

As various people dropped by the house or he was taken places, he pulled all the information about werewolves out of their heads and started working on a way to purge Remus' blood of the curse. Or at least cut down on the symptoms. By the time Remus had finished collecting and destroying the Horcruxes (thank Merlin his extra magic allowed him to control Fiendfyre), Harry had a few things to try. But that would have to wait, it was October 29th and he had two days to figure out how to kill Voldemort when he showed up.

After much deliberation, Remus and he decided to just use the killing curse. Sure, it was unforgivable but what were they going to do? Throw an infant in Azkaban? Anyway, he would mask the spell and make it look like some sort of amazing accidental light magic. Maybe he could change the color or something...

The 31st rolled around, Peter disappeared, Remus waited in his house biting his fingernails, Sirius was on his way back from the pub, and James and Lily were resting downstairs. Harry, having faked peaceful sleep, was hovering invisibly at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for Voldemort to arrive. He felt the Fidelius fall and ten minutes later the wards crumbled, James told Lily to get Harry and run, then, just as Lily raced past Harry, the door blew open.

Harry made sure that the majority of the rubble landed on James, stunned him and covered him in fake blood. Voldemort, seeing that James was 'dead', kicked the leg and continued up the stairs with a laugh. Harry, his work down here finished, Apparated (the anti-Apparition wards had fallen with everything else) to the nursery that Lily was about to get to. When Voldemort blew the nursery door up, Harry made sure that Lily's body looked just as dead as James'. When he saw Lily's 'dead' body, Voldemort laughed again then turned to Harry, who had turned visible again and placed himself back in his crib.

"Harry, Harry, Harry." Voldemort said mockingly, "Your parents are pathetic, I didn't even have to raise my wand against them. They might as well have killed themselves. Their incompetence has made this so much easier. Avada Keda-!"

Sirius rounded the street corner just in time to see the Potters' front door explode inwards and he watched as James was hit with debris and fell to the floor, covered in blood. He broke into a run and skidded into the house as a second explosion rocked the building. He raced upstairs and saw a brilliant white (but slightly green-tinged) light fly from Harry's palms and hit Voldemort in the chest. The mutilated body seemed to hang suspended for a moment before collapsing in on itself and falling gracefully to the ground in a heap. Sirius was shocked, the prophesy was right; Harry killed Voldemort!

Harry stared at where Voldemort used to be, he had done it! A fifteen month old baby (actually a twenty-five year old convicted "Dark Lord" and Azkaban escapee) had actually done it (with the help of a time-traveling werewolf). Not just kinda done it, like last time, but actually, permanently offed the Dark Lord.

"Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about!" He said with a wide smile. However, the grin was wiped off his face when he saw Sirius standing in the doorway, looking at him in shock. "You're fucking kidding me." Harry the baby said.

Sirius broke out of his shock, had Harry really just said what he thought he said? Judging by the sheepish and rather guilty look on his face, Sirius figured he had heard correctly. Sirius' mouth emulated that of a fish, Harry, little baby Harry, had swore! And in a grammatically correct way!

Seeing as he was going to have to wipe Sirius' memory anyway, Harry just kept talking, mostly to himself. "How could I have been so bloody stupid? It's not like he'd notice a talking baby baby or anything. Damn, Remus is going to kill me."

Just then Remus ran into the room. "I came as soon as I heard you celebrating. Seriously, you should try to be a bit quieter when you're thinking, you were broadcasting louder than the wireless at Christmas." He didn't even notice Sirius standing off to the side. "Harry, are you okay? I'm guessing it worked then?"

"Um, Remus...we have a bit of a problem." Harry said, pointing at Sirius.

"All the color drained from Remus' face. "Shit." He said.

"My thoughts precisely." Harry said in his ridiculous baby voice.

It was then that Sirius regained the use of his vocal chords. "What?" He choked out.

Instead of answering, Remus just stunned him. Harry sighed, "You wanna do or should I?" He asked.

Remus shrugged, "You, they can trace my wand."

"Good point." Harry said. He levitated himself over to where Sirius was slumped against the wall, one the way he picked up Voldemort's wand (taking note of exactly how it had fallen). Using just his hands, Harry carefully rearranged Sirius' memories before stunning him again with Voldemort's wand. Then he carefully wiped his fingerprints off the wand and put it back where he found it.

"Okay, what's his story?" Remus asked.

"He burst in, Voldemort laughed at him and said that he'd have fun playing with him once I was dead, then just stunned him." Harry said as he floated himself back to his crib.

"I like it, nice and simple." Remus said approvingly. "And I found James knocked out downstairs, came up here and found Sirius stunned on the ground, you in your crib just looking at me, and that body which I assumed to be Voldemort." Remus smirked, "Show time." He conjured a Patronus. "Someone, come quick! It's the Potters! I- I think- I think it was You-Know-Who!" Remus said in a panicky voice with a shudder just for effect, then he sent one to the DMLE and another to the Order Headquarters.

Twenty minutes later it had been determined that Harry was a hero (but thankfully not dubbed the boy-who-lived) and that Voldemort was indeed dead. Sirius was interrogated over and over even though the wand showed that 'Voldemort' had indeed stunned him. Thankfully, Harry's memory charm was flawless and no one suspected a thing.

Dumbledore had no choice but to agree that Tom Marvolo Riddle was dead. Also, even though Lily was in St. Mungo's and doused with dreamless sleep, she wouldn't let Harry out of her vice-like grip which meant that Dumbledore really didn't have a chance to analyze the boy's magic.

Growing up, Harry was a prodigy, mostly because he bored easily, and everyone (with the exception of Remus who laughed at them) slotted him to be Minister or Headmaster or someone political. Harry had different ideas, he played professional Quidditch for nearly fifty years, breaking countless records on the way.

Harry married a lovely Muggle girl who worked in his favorite coffee shop when they were both thirty five. The new Lady Potter had mastered martial arts and didn't take flack from anyone. They had twin girls and then twin boys, all magical (and extremely powerful). The second generation of Marauders were even worse than the first (if that was possible). Harry had a younger brother by two years, Richard, who married Ginny Weasley who had a long-standing crush on the red-head. The proportion of children with either straight red or messy black hair, rose dramatically in the wizarding population.

As a successful professional Quidditch player, Harry had plenty of time to spend with his kids so they all turned out fairly well and had a nicely developed (and selective) disregard for the rules.

Remus managed to get rid of the 'curse' part of lycanthropy and merely turned into a wolf once a month, he wasn't even contagious anymore.

Basically, they all lived happily ever after.

The End.