Across Dimensions (don't ask me why I chose this title, it relates to what I'm gonna write, but I wouldn't call it creative)

Hi everyone!  This is my first attempt at a fanfic, which I may or may not complete depending on the amount of time this takes up and the amount of time study takes up.  I already know mostly what I want to happen in this story, I just need the time (and brain power ^_^) to type it out and fill in the details, and hopefully add some humour, which is something I tend to lack in a lot of my writing at school.  After reading millions (well, not quite, but quite a few anyway), I've begun to have fantasies of my own fic.  So far, I haven't read anything like what I will attempt to write, so if anyone reckons I copied from someone, I'd like to say beforehand that I'm sorry, I truly did not know someone had the same idea as me.  But should that matter?  We're all writing for fun here anyway, not for profit.  Oh my, my fingers are starting to think for me!  Anyway, hope people enjoy!

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to JKR, Warner Bros., all those book publishers etc.  Anything you don't recognize belongs to me (the plot, hopefully ^_^).

Chapter one

~*~

As the saying goes, 'where there's a will, there's a way'.  Once an idea was in someone's head, that particular someone (or somebodies), that idea was usually stuck with them until they went through with it.  For example, while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the teachers could not contain several students, these students were known as the Marauders.  The walls of Hogwarts were not enough to contain the Marauders, and even the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest were not enough to contain them.  It would seem that the boundaries of a world are not enough for one James Potter and his faithful sidekick Sirius Black, and in this tale, their explorations and exploits just had to extend to worlds outside of their own.

It was on a cloudy Sunday afternoon that a little brown poodle began sniffing the ground, seeming to follow an invisible trial.  It's tail wagged and it bit and began to pull on what seemed to be an invisible person, which was what it really was doing.

"Look at what you've done!"  The voice was irritated.

"What have I done!?  The dog just wants to play a bit!"

"Well, the dog wouldn't have followed us if it hadn't smelled that you had the essence of a dog around you too.  Maybe if you transformed, it may even wanna mate." 

"Prongs, that is sick!"  Sirius made a face at James under the cloak.  Sirius was an animagus, with the ability to change into a great black dog at will, "go away, doggie.  Be a good doggie and go play somewhere else!"  Sirius' voice was desperate.

The dog cocked it's head to the side, and let go of the cloak momentarily.  It then turned to it's side and began to lift it's hind leg.  Sirius, seeing this, quickly changed into the big black dog and let out an angry growl, which had the expected and pleasing result of the little dog skittering away.  Sirius resumed his human form.

"Why are we under your cloak in the first place?"  Sirius asked.

"Well, we can't be too sure who we'd meet once we get here, not to mention how people would react to people appearing out of nowhere, and it's easier to explore without people knowing you're there."

"Where are we anyway?  Looks like a muggle neighbourhood."

"Yeah, it actually looks normal, as though Voldermort and Death Eaters never existed.  I wonder what our counterparts are in this world?"  James looked around wonderously at what seemed to be a perfectly normal neighbourhood, no signs of Death Eater activity, no dead people everywhere.  Although where they came from it wasn't exactly a war ground, but a lot of places were still recovering, and Voldemort's Death Eaters still roamed once in a while.

"I dunno Prongs, maybe Lily isn't married to you in this world, maybe professor McGonagall is!"  Sirius joked.

"Padfoot, that is sick!  Maybe you're best friends with Snape!"  Sirius felt like throwing up at that.

"No way!  Maybe you're a professor at Hogwarts!"

"Me?  Teach?  What, is a lesson in 'one hundred and one ways to pull a prank on Snape' actually gonna take place?"

"Possibly, we never know, this world could be very different from ours."

James and Sirius continued walking down the street.  They had not yet seen any of the magical world, but they were still listing off all the possibilities of what this world was like.

"Well, maybe here you're the minister of magic!"  James laughed.

Sirius couldn't help laughing at that, "yeah, and you're a Death Eater and I am on your tail, trying to catch you!"

"Hey, if I'm gonna be a Death Eater here, then you're not gonna be the good guy.  Maybe you're a convicted murderer… for killing a bunch of muggles!"

"Prongs, maybe here, you're dead!"  (AN: sorry, couldn't help that!)

James and Sirius continued to walk down the familiar street with the neatly lined hedges and newly cut lawns.  'Doesn't Petunia live in this area?' James was thinking to himself, and he voiced his thoughts to Sirius.

"I wouldn't know, I'm not exactly a fan of hers.  Hey, if she lives near here, how about we go and hex her, give her a little scare?"  The excitement in Sirius' voice was unquestionable.  The last time Sirius had met the woman was at James and Lily's wedding.  Petunia didn't even seem to want to be there, and took every opportunity possible to express those feelings and make snide comments about how awful it was that an Evans was to be married off to the abnormality known as the magical community.  Sirius had not been happy, and had hexed the bowl of punch to follow her around, slightly tipped as though it was about to pour on top of Petunia.  Remus had seen it and unhexed it from it's position, which made the punch land on Dumbledore, who had licked his face and laughed at the flavour the punch had when it had contact with his beard.  Dumbledore simply flicked his wand to clean himself and asked Sirius to not threaten Lily's sister in that manner again, to which of course Sirius ignored and next hexed a cream puff to follow her around.

The neat lawns and houses did shout out to be vandalised, "okay, let's see how we can redecorate my sister-in-law's not-so-imaginative lawn!"  Completely forgetting their game of 'list the possible differences between this world and ours', they began a new game of 'what colour grass would go with an orange house with fluorescent curtains?'

~*~

Two weeks into the holidays, all the laundry was hanging out, drying in the wind.  The cloudy day didn't help the drying process a lot, but at least it wasn't raining.  Harry was crouched in the front yard, pulling out some particularly stubborn weeds.  His black hair was plastered to his forehead with his sweat, and he had to occasionally clean his glasses of the sweat and dirt they seemed to constantly accumulate.

Harry had been glad that he did not receive a beating for the prank that the Weasley twins had pulled on Dudley.  In fact, his uncle did not even lift a finger.  However, the Dursley's did not totally forgive him for bringing all that trouble into their home.  All the chores were to be done by him, all the cooking, all the cleaning, lawnmowing, laundry, and he only had a small portion of food everyday, even less than what Dudley ate for his diet.  After a week of slave labour, Harry had begun to feel tired easily.  Even though it was summer, the nights were cool and Harry had nothing but thin sheets to cover his slim body with.  Combining the cool nights, the amount of food he ate, and the amount of work he did, it was quite possible he had begun to get sick.

Throwing the defeated weed onto the little hill he had produced, he tried to ignore the slight dizziness and the occassional stings of his lightning bolt scar.  He tried not to think about the amount of catchup work that he would have to do when he returned to Hogwarts without any homework done, tried not to think about Hedwig locked in her cage and the letters from his friends that his uncle had intercepted and burnt in the fire, usually while Harry was cooking so that he could be satisfied by Harry's shocked expression, another way of avenging the ton tongue toffee incident.

Harry noticed that no matter how many weeds he pulled out, there almost seemed to be more, as though someone had cast a charm to have never-ending weeds growing.  He looked at the ugly green leaves of the weed, and noticed how beautiful the flowers atop them were.  It seemed as though life must be lived with a mixture of good and bad, but Harry could list more bad in his life than good.  The beautiful flowers in his life were only his friends, his godfather, the walls of Hogwarts, and anything that related to the memories of his parents, like the photoalbum and his father's invisibility cloak.  However, he felt the ugly part of his life by far outweighed the beauty, including his life at the Dursleys (which had been ten years, compared to four at Hogwarts, not to mention his holidays were spent at the Dursleys as well), and Voldemort.  Voldemort, who had tried to kill him when he was a baby, who had haunted his dreams for years, who had returned to his body at the end of last year.  And there was Cedric, who Voldemort had killed.  It was his fault that Cedric was dead, it was his fault that Voldemort was returned to his old body.  And not for the first time in his life, he told himself that it was also his fault that his friends were in constant danger because of him, and that it was his fault that his parents were dead.

The thought made him feel slightly nauseous, and he stood up abrubtly.  That action brought on a wave of dizziness, and Harry couldn't stop the little food in him from coming out of his mouth.  He threw up in the bushes, hoping foolishly that none of his relatives saw him do this, and hoping he had enough energy to finish the job and get into bed for a much needed sleep.

While Harry had a hand on the fence and was breathing heavily, he heard a thump and then footsteps coming from his side and turned around, frightened that it was Aunt Petunia out to get him for ruining her bush, without realizing that Aunt Petunia would have come from the house, not from the front fence.  His eyes widened when he saw his godfather moving towards him, a worried look on his face.

"Sirius!  What are you doing here!?  You could get caught!"  Harry exclaimed in a soft voice, hoping none of the Dursley's inside would hear him.  Although he was scared for Sirius' safety, inside he was also happy that Sirius cared enough to come and look for him.  Sirius looked a lot healthier than at the end of the fourth year, his hair in a neat ponytail, his robes clean, and his face looked younger too.

"Harry, what are you doing here?  What are you talking about?"

Looking confused, Harry frowned, "Sirius…" he didn't finish what he had to say as he saw another person come up behind Sirius.  The person had messy black hair and the glasses, the symbols of a Potter.

"Dad?"

Stupid Harry!  Dad's dead!  That must mean that this man is… "Death Eater!"  Harry exclaimed, taking a step back and stumbling.  His tired body decided that the shock upon his system meant that his mind needed to rest, and with that, Harry fainted onto the weeds he had piled up.

~*~

AN: There you have it, chapter one!  Was that too short?  Sorry there wasn't any action or excitement, and style's probably not very good.  I hardly ever reread what I write, so if there are any grammatical and spelling mistakes, they are most likely a slip of the finger (or slip of my mind), I apologise.  If my mistakes really annoy you, then let me know and I'll change them ^_^.  No doubt if I reread it, I wouldn't be very pleased with how my ideas turned out, as I am very much a critic.  If you have any pointers on how I can improve my writing, please let me know by email or review.  Seeya next time!