Harry Potter: Into the Potterverse

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Harry raised his head from the book he was reading, snugly sat on top of his bunk, at the topmost floor of Ravenclaw Tower. Right in front of him, he saw himself.

"I'm sorry," said Harry, "there must be a mistake."

The other Harry didn't speak. He looked shaken, battered, quite in bad shape, in fact. Also, weirdest of all, his robes seemed to have the gold and red trimmings of a Gryffindor.

"Am I dead?," he asked, panting, looking around with spirited eyes. "Is this the afterlife?"

"This is the Ravenclaw dorm." explained Harry patiently. "And you should not be here, as it is quite late. Also, you should not be here, because I am here, and I am me. There can't be two me."

Harry - by which I mean, the wrong Harry - blinked, taking in the information, and thought about it for a while. "What year is it? What day?" he asked, finally.

"It is June 20th, 1995." answered Harry, quite annoyed. "I would believe this mess could be the result of a Time Turner, of course, if not for your outrageous robes. Also, if you were future me, I'm sure you'd remember this moment."

This was quite a puzzle, he thought. Luckily, it had found its way to the right place. Harry's foremost worry at this point was not to alert anyone else who could deny him the pleasure of solving it himself, so he cast a quick Muffliato charm around them both. Then he invited the other, clearly fake Harry to sit down next to him on his bed. He kept some distance between them, though. At this point his best guess was that someone had been confunded and force-fed Polyjuice Potion, perhaps to play a prank on him, perhaps with more sinister purposes. He tried a Finite Incantatem just to make sure, but nothing happened. All wandless, of course - that had been an easy trick to learn.

"The graveyard..." muttered the other Harry, still in confusion, holding his head as if he was suffering from a strong hemicrania. Then he jumped up. "Voldemort!," he barked. "Voldemort has returned! We must warn everyone! The Third Task-"

"-is under way right now, which is why we're almost alone right now." finished Harry for him, annoyed. "Can you please calm down with all this nonsense? Voldemort has not and can not return without my blood, as it was pretty easy to figure out when my name got spat out of the Goblet of Fire. Seriously, that was such a stupid plan. Now explain, who are you?"

Harry remained silent for a moment. Then he started answering slowly, "I'm Harry Potter. Son of James and Lily Potter. Gryffindor. Fourth champion and I guess tied for winner of the Triwizard Tournament."

Champion? Winner? Such a Gryffindor thing, indeed. This was getting intriguing. "And what are you doing here, 'Harry'?"

"I was in a graveyard." he explained. "Voldemort had performed a dark ritual. He used the flesh of his servant, the bone taken from his father's grave, and some of my blood, to rebuild himself a body. And then he duelled me, and our wands locked in some kind of... resonance. I don't know. It just all went white and then I was here."

Harry frowned. The description of the ritual he had given was distressingly accurate, too much for someone who was not involved directly in the matter. Which meant either this was truly him, or the alternative was much worse.

He took out his wand and pointed it at the other Harry.

"Sorry for this." he said. "What did Dumbledore hide in the Mirror of Erised during your first year?"

"What? How do you... the Philosopher's Stone, obviously."

"What's the name of the Malfoys' house elf?"

"Dobby. But he's not theirs any more."

"How many people did Sirius Black kill before being sent to Azkaban?"

"No one! It was actually Peter Pettigrew."

Harry looked at Harry and was finally convinced that he must be, indeed, Harry. Even though he was quite sure he was Harry too. What a mess. This made him think of the many, many horrible stories he had read about wizards messing with time, and the consequences of such actions.

"I believe you," he said. "Obviously you must be... another Harry."

"Another?" the other did not seem to take the notion well. "How can there be other Harrys? I am Harry! Who are you? Why are you playing this prank on me?"

"I am Harry too. Harry Potter. I believe what we're experiencing has to do with, you know." he waved his hand vaguely in the air. "Timelines."

"Timelines." repeated the other, stunned. "What are you even talking about?"

Harry sighed. Clearly their upbringing must have been quite different. It was not by chance that they had ended in different Houses, after all. "Yes, Harry. Timelines. As in, different ways the world can go. You know, parallel universes. In some way, whatever happened with Voldemort there has sent you through from yours to my universe. Now we need to understand what has happened exactly."

"I've never heard of anything like that." protested Harry. "But then, I've never heard of wand resonances or other people surviving the Killing Curse either, so maybe you're right. As for our wands, I don't know. Maybe it has happened because their core comes from the same phoenix?"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Say again?"

"Well, when I... when we got our wand, Ollivander said its core was a phoenix feather, right? And that the only other feather from the same phoenix had gone into Voldemort's wand."

"I didn't know." said Harry, thoughtful. "I didn't much listen to that old man's rambling. That is interesting. Well, if that's the case, then it's easy."

The other Harry shook his head. "I don't follow."

"We have two wands that should be the same. Literally the same: yours and mine. All we need to do is cast a spell at each other, resonance, and poof, you're off to another universe!"

"Or maybe you are." replied the other. "How can you be so sure?"

"Hmm, by logic, then, maybe we would both be?" said Harry, thoughtful. "Although if that was the case, that would mean-"

They paled almost in perfect synchrony.

"He's here." whispered the other Harry.

"No, no, wait, I mean, maybe he is, but he's not here here." Harry checked nervously the curtains all around. "And well, the good thing is, I suppose, that there's two of us and only one of him. This way, we have numerical superiority! He will face the wrath of not one, but two Heirs of Ravenclaw."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"That we have numerical-"

"Not that! What's that about the Heir of Ravenclaw?"

"Oh, that." Harry chuckled. "See, I was wondering, after all that nonsense with the Chamber of Secrets two years ago, if I could really be the descendant of one of the founders. Since I'm so awesome and all. Good thing, just the other day, Hedwig brings me this leaflet advertising the services of a wizard experienced in ancestry. All he needed was for me to send him a sample of my blo-"

He stopped himself as the weight of his own idiocy slammed on him as a ton of bricks.

"You know," he stuttered, "perhaps it's better if we get away from here quickly."

Amidst a dark room, surrounded by a crowd of masked Death Eaters watching in reverence, was the bubbling cauldron. Peter Pettigrew kneeled in front of it in pain, holding the bleeding stump of his hand; next to him was an empty vial with a few drops of a red liquid still inside and a well written address tag that destined it to the office of Parentagus, the parentage magus. From the frothing, smoking sludge inside the cauldron slowly rose a shape. A bald head, a face as sleek and threatening as a snake's, and two red, glowing eyes that spelled death with every gaze.

"I am reborn!," hissed Lord Voldemort, raising his skeletal hands in triumph.

There was some movement in the darkness. One of the Death Eaters turned to check what was going on and took out his wand. He was rapidly Avada Kevadra'd by some unknown opponent. Immediately everyone else sprung into activity. Someone tossed a cape around the newborn Dark Lord and handed him a wand, others formed a defensive circle, while a strike team went to take down the new threat.

All to no avail. One after the other, the Death Eaters were struck down by curses too fast and skilfully cast to be dodged or parried. The mysterious enemy didn't even need to leave the safety of the darkness to turn the room into the scene of a massacre. Only Voldemort still stood, slowly breathing in, frothing in rage, at the end of the battle. "Step out!," he shrieked. "So that I may see who is it that I have to kill."

For all the fear he knew he could inculcate in his enemies, Voldemort didn't really expect the opponent to obey. He was, in fact, preparing himself to the duel of his life, as obviously this was someone almost as skilled as him. Instead, obeying was exactly what he did.

The cloaked figure walked out of the darkness, hands raised, wand well in sight. A wand Voldemort recognised all too well. He was holding its twin in his own hand, after all.

"Who are you?," he asked, fascinated.

And Lord Voldemort lowered his hood to face Lord Voldemort.

"I am a much better ally for you than that rabble." he said, with a thin smile. "And I believe I know how to get more."

Pop!

Harry raised his head from the box of chocolates he was heartily digging into, comfortably sat on a large soft couch, at the edge of the Hufflepuff Common Room. Right in front of him, he saw himself. Twice.

"Aaaaaeeeuhhhp." blurted out one of the two Harrys, who was dressed in Ravenclaw robes. "That was sure a trip. I feel queasy."

"Get yourself up. We need to figure out what's going on in this universe." said the other Harry, in a Gryffindor getup. "Voldemort is sure to follow us soon."

"Yes, yes, you don't need to tell-" Harry lifted his gaze and looked at Harry, who had remained exactly frozen in position, a chocolate between his fingers that he had been ready to pop in his mouth but was now slowly getting all melty and sticky. Harry looked at Harry's robes, the yellow and black trimmings. "Merlin, tell me I'm not seeing what I believe I'm seeing."

The third Harry's stare flashed with rage. "You have a problem with Hufflepuffs? Cedric Diggory was a braver person than you."

"You mean than you."

"I'm not you. You're a different me than me."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," intervened Harry, "but I am quite sure Cedric Diggory is quite alive. He's competing in the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament right about now."

"Right. And shouldn't you be in it too?" asked the Gryffindor Harry.

"I, huh, got out of it." he replied. "Dumbledore thought it was too dangerous for me, and I really agreed. They set up a rule that said whoever got last in the First Task was eliminated, then all I had to do was enter the arena and leave immediately and I got zero points. Boy, that dragon was scary!"

He finally tossed that chocolate in his mouth. "Fow aww twee seconds I saw it." he finished.

"Wait, you could do that?" asked Harry.

"Well, yes. That's how I got out of it too, more or less." said the Ravenclaw Harry. "What, you mean Dumbledore didn't even suggest it to you?"

"No!"

"Could you explain who you are?" asked calmly the Hufflepuff. "I am Harry Potter."

"I am Harry Potter too," introduced himself Harry. "And this is Harry Potter as well. We come from, uhm, different timelines."

"Oh!" Harry had a flash of understanding. "Like in Star Trek?"

Harry beamed. "Exactly! But without the goatees. We're too young and not evil enough for that."

"Nice that you have something in common, now can we worry about Voldemort?" intervened Harry.

"One moment, please." said Harry. "This is getting really really confusing. I think it's important first to agree on some names to use for us."

Harry threw his hands in the air. "Fine! Just... let's hurry up."

"Ok, so, let's go by our Houses. You're Gryffinpotter."

"Right." said Gryffinpotter. "And he's Hufflepotter then?"

"No." Harry looked at his counterpart. "He's Harrypuff."

"Oh, come on!"

"No, I like that." said Harrypuff.

Gryffinpotter sighed. "Fine. So what does that make you? Ravenpotter? Harryclaw?"

"I am Black Ravenlord!" announced the third, proud.

"Isn't that a bit dark?" inquired Harrypuff.

"Exactly!" Ravenlord nodded vigorously. "It's supposed to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies."

Gryffinpotter sighed. "Let's move to that part then. Harry... huh... Harrypuff, do you know where Voldemort is in this timeline?"

"Dead, supposedly." answered the boy, thoughtful. "Though Dumbledore believes he's still lurking around, and this Tournament might even have been a trap to revive him."

"So in this timeline Voldemort didn't get our blood!" said Black Ravenlord, triumphant. "That means here we are three against two!"

Gryffinpotter scratched his cheek. "I don't like those odds much though. But yes, it's slightly better than-"

There was a scream of pain. Gryffinpotter and Black Ravenlord instantly whipped out their wands. One seconds later, they realised the one who had screamed was simply Harrypuff.

"There was a needle in one chocolate!," he protested. "My mouth got stung. I'm bleeding!"

"Well, spit it!" urged Gryffinpotter, running to him. "You got us scared."

Harrypuff rolled his tongue in his mouth intently for a while. "Can't find it." he concluded finally. "It's gone."

"Wait a second." Ravenlord grabbed his box of chocolates, turning it around to inspect it despite his weak protests. "Where did you get these?"

"They were a present." said Harrypuff. "I just found them on my bed... Why are you guys suddenly scared?"

"Here's the bone of the old man. What about the flesh of the servant, willingly given?"

"One moment. Hey, you. Can you hear me? Can you still hear?"

"Hnnngg... yes... my master..."

"Wonderful. Would you please let me take a bit of your flesh?"

"As you... as you wish... my master... if only you couldhhHHYYYYAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH-"

There was the flash of a curse and abundant blood splurts. Next thing, the scream fell into silence, and Voldemort got up with a still beating heart in his hand, which he casually tossed into the cauldron.

"Wouldn't the hand usually do?" asked Voldemort.

"I always thought this would be more appropriate." replied Voldemort. "Shakesperean, even."

"A pound of flesh, indeed. Now, the blood of the enemy."

Voldemort showed a half-chewed chocolate where a needle with a few drops of blood on it, still sticky with drool. He held it with just the tip of two fingers, and visible disgust. "Apparently this is the best Barty was able to come up with in this timeline."

"It will work. Get the blood."

"Do not order me around." hissed back the Dark Lord. "I will not touch this... thing for any longer than I need to."

And he tossed the chocolate whole into the cauldron. The other Voldemort frowned. "The impurities could affect the ritual."

"I am confident that the ritual is more resilient than that. Do you think Peter washed his hand before tossing it in when they brought you back?"

They took a step back. The cauldron's contents bubbled up furiously, and finally, among them, took shape a human body. Lord Voldemort emerged, in his naked glory, from the miasma.

"Where issssss the boy?" he shrieked, shaking himself from the residual fluids. "And why do I crave chocolate sssssso much?"

Pop!

Harry raised his head from the smoking cauldron he was vigorously stirring, standing next to the fireplace, in the depths of Slytherin Dungeon. Right in front of him, he saw himself. Three times.

"Are you sure this was a good idea?," asked Harrypuff, worried. "Can I go back, later?"

"I'm almost sure we'll find a way." said Black Ravenlord, confidently. "And here we have our Slytherin counterpart, of course!"

Gryffinpotter and Harrypuff exchanged a worried look. "...almost?"

The Harry of this universe, dressed in the usual green and silver decorated robes of a member of Salazar's House, inspected them quickly, then simply pointed his wand at them.

"I'm busy and have no time for pranks." he said. "So do please disappear from my sight before I decide to do it for you."

"This is not a prank!" Gryffinpotter stepped forward. "We come from three different parallel universes! We all had our respective Voldemorts resurrect thanks to a most dark ritual that requires him to take our blood. We come to warn you. The Triwizard Tournament..."

"Oh, that thing? I won it months ago." Harry raised his eyebrows in suspicion. "And you seem to know a lot about dark rituals. Where did you hear that?"

"In our respective universes. Where we all got our blood stolen, one way or another." said Ravenlord, slowly and patiently. "Do try to keep up."

"Oh, don't... one moment!" Harry turned back to his cauldron, that had started producing a worrying smell. He poured something in from a vial, mumbled an enchantment, gave it an additional stir or two.

"You said you won? How?" asked Gryffinpotter. "Wasn't the Third Task today?"

"You should really know this, since you're obviously the polyjuiced Weasley twins or something, but I'll play along." replied Harry with a smile. "It would have been, if any of the other competitors was in any shape to continue. As things went, they all had very unfortunate accidents that led to my victory by default."

Ravenlord squinted. "Accidents?"

"Obviously. Especially if any of you are Aurors in disguise, in which case, what you're doing is a clear violation of my-"

"We're not Aurors!" said Gryffinpotter. "We're you!"

"I'm me. You're... copies, at best." pointed out Harry. "Now if you'll excuse me."

He grabbed a sharp knife and, with a wince, sliced off a very thin layer of skin from his little finger, then tossed it in. The cauldron started boiling furiously.

"Wait a second!" Gryffinpotter couldn't believe his eyes. "That is the ritual! You just added the flesh of the servant! That means-"

"My flesh, and Dumbledore's blood before it. Don't get me wrong. This is just business." replied Harry. "The Dark Lord can be... reasoned with. He knows when he's beaten. If I just give him back his body, he will let me know the secrets to his power. And to his immortality!"

The other growled in frustration. "Are you an idiot? He just wants to kill you!"

"Well, he can try."

"There's a prophecy." said Ravenlord.

"There's a what?" asked the other three in unison.

"I managed to get Dumbledore to tell me in my second year." he continued. "There's a prophecy saying that neither of us can live while the other one does. In other words, we're destined to try killing each other until one succeeds."

Now the Slytherin Harry looked less sure of himself. "Even so," he said, "if he tried something funny, I am sure I could still take him. Heck, I could take three of him!"

Behind him, out of the cauldron, slowly rose four Voldemorts. One was naked, and of the other three, one was biting off a Toblerone bar. All had eyes flaming with hate.

"Bombarda!" shouted Ravenlord, his wand instantly out, and the whole cauldron blew up in smoke and chunks of metal. The Voldemorts, however, were untouched, as one of them had cast a protective shield.

"Quick, get my robe!" hissed the naked one. Another rushed to grab it from the stool where the Slytherin Harry had thoughtfully prepared it, together with his wand.

"Let's run while they're busy!" Ravenlord and Gryffinpotter held shields resisting whatever curses from the Voldemorts could be parried - the Killing ones, they just needed to dodge. "Fast!"

Harrypuff didn't need to hear it twice, and the other Harry followed suit. They left the dungeon, locking the door behind them, and ran up the stairs. The other students gave them weird looks, and the name of the Weasley twins was made more than once.

"Petition to name our new companion Sillytherin." said Black Ravenlord, wheezing for the effort of the run.

"Approved." said Gryffinpotter and Harrypuff in unison.

"What? How dare you!" protested Sillytherin. "You all got your Voldemorts resurrected too anyway! You didn't fare much better than me!"

"He's got a point." said Gryffinpotter, eyeing Ravenlord.

"At least none of us believed even for a moment he could be our friend." replied the other. "So Sillytherin sounds about right to me."

"You take that back! Or I swear-"

"Sillytherin."

"Say that one more time!"

"Sillytherin."

"That's it! Sectum-"

"Expelliarmus!"

The curses from Sillytherin's and Ravenlord's wands crossed and resonated, producing a blinding flash of light. There was a pop, and then both of them were gone, slurped down the drain of spacetime.

"So that's what it looks like." said Gryffinpotter. "Let's follow them."

"I thought I hated you. I really did. You were the odd one out - the different one, the outsider, who swept in and stole my spotlight. Perhaps I really did hate you, for a time. You were the opposite of all that I had ever strived to be. Yet as time passed, I realised... I couldn't be without you. You came to define me. You pushed me to new heights, to improve myself, and as I did, I saw how small, and poor, the way my family had taught me how to live was. You taught me grander things, you taught me to fight for all that is good, and you taught me love. Here, among these tombs, where we might as well meet our death at the hands of the Dark Lord, I finally realised, and I must tell you... I love you, Harry Potter."

Harry looked at the other with a gaze that was - no, not surprise. He had known for a long time. He had always known. His eyes weren't surprised. They were grateful.

"I love you too, Draco." he said, with a smile. "And now that we have each other, let me tell you, nothing in this universe could possibly separate us."

Pop!

"It is over, Potter-kun! Your blood has given me powers that you could not even dream before, and I have surpassed all the results of your training with Sirius Black!"

A sickly green aura rose around Voldemort, swirling like a noxious smoke around his body, while his magical energy crackled in short bolts. Solemnly, the Dark Lord rose his wand, at whose tip his energy begun focusing in a bright sphere of pure power.

"You should be thankful... you'll have the honour of dying at the hands of the greatest wizard to ever live! Avada...," he spelled, slowly, as the energy charged, "...KEDAVRA!"

A furious beam of magic darted towards Harry. He was at the end of his strength, battered and beaten, but he still managed to raise his own wand. "PROTEGO!" he shouted, and a blue shield erupted to meet the green beam. The energy stream crashed and dissipated against it, but still it kept coming, pushing and roaring furiously.

"NANIIIII?!" shrieked Voldemort, in shock. "This is impossible! No shield can stop the Killing Curse! My power should be absolute!"

"Not as absolute as you believe, Tom-kun!" Harry got back on his feet, a trickle of blood dripping down his cheek, and a shit eating grin on his face. "Because while you have the power of darkness... I have the power... of my friends!"

Out of nowhere, random still images of Hermione, Ron and other miscellaneous kids goofing around together flashed around him.

"It can't be! It can't be!" repeated Voldemort, dementedly, while the shield kept pushing against him, the energy of his own spell coming closer and closer to annihilating him...

"It can be!" Harry beamed, proud, advancing step by step, with dogged determination. "My friends have been with me all this time, and their strength flows within me! Someone like you, who never knew friendship, could not possibly understand that! Right now it would take an army of you to defeat me!"

Pop!

[A tune clearly composed by Alan Menken plays in the background]

HARRY: "Look at this wand, isn't it neat?

Wouldn't you say that my life is complete?

Wouldn't you think I'm the boy, the boy who has everything?

Is this it all, is this my world?

Have I just walked into a bigger cupboard?

Everyone expecting from me,

well, he'll kill Voldemort...

There's dementors and boggarts and house elves,

dragons and mermaids and trolls.

To get here I've crossed so many bridges,

but paid so many tolls...

I want to go where the real magic is,

surely there must be a place like that...

One where I'm free from being pursued, from being me-"

Pop!

"Potter Commander from the Gryffindor Batallion! Report!" shouted Ravenlord, having suitably enhanced his voice with a Sonorus charm.

"One hundred twenty-two Potters present, sir!" replied the Commander, a gritty Potter type with an eyepatch and a long scar crossing his cheek. "We've just received three new recruits over the last five jumps! Induction is ongoing right now!"

"Perfect! Have them ready, the next jump is planned in ten minutes. Potter Commander from the Slytherin Batallion, what's the situation?"

"Just thirty-two Potters, sir." hissed the Commander. Quite literally - he was in fact a giant snake, as for some complicated soul magic phenomenon that no one had quite well understood, in his universe Harry had swapped bodies with Nagini. Good thing everyone was a Parselmouth. "We're ready to go."

"Was this truly necessary, Ravenlord?" The original Gryffinpotter, part of what was now known as the Tetrapotter Council, core of the leadership of the Potter Army, walked up to his old friend. Or at least that's what he felt like, having known him for a few hours now rather than just a handful of minutes like most of the rest.

"Voldemort's forces are gathering, Gryffinpotter." said Ravenlord, staring into the distance with a stoic, thoughtful gaze. "It is up to us to resist him, and save the Multiverse."

"But he just keeps following us!" protested the other. "We're still exactly in the situation we were at the beginning. It's a stalemate, it always has been."

Ravenlord bit his thumb. "Well, at some point that ought to end. All we need is a little detail, a bit of knowledge, some luck, anything to tip the scales in our favour. And we can just rid all of our universes of him once and for all."

"I have the list of the last recruits." intervened Harrypuff, carrying a sheet of parchment. "We have Mathematician Potter, Master Chef Potter, Musical Potter, Muggle Potter and Potter Potter."

"Mathematician Potter sounds like he could be useful." suggested Gryffinpotter.

"In theory. What's Potter Potter? Is he, like... twice as Potter?"

"Oh, no." Harrypuff shook his head. "He's just very good at making vases with clay."

"Petition to kick Musical Potter out, he's driving me mad already." groaned Sillytherin, waltzing in the impromptu meeting. "And what's Muggle Potter? Are we scraping the bottom of the barrel now?"

"Oh, that's an interesting story." started Ravenlord. "See, in their universe, everyone is a wizard, and a select few lack magic and thus have the ability to use technology."

Sillytherin made a disgusted face. "Did I sound like I cared?"

"No, but you never do. Anyway, look at the bright side. That's also a Muggle Voldemort."

"Sssshould we kill him?"

"No. We need all the men we can spare."

"Then sssshould he fight along with us?"

"Ha! Are you kidding? We'll just Imperius him and use him as a meat shield."

"Fascinating. So that's only three hundred, seventy four copies of the most powerful Dark Wizard to ever live that we need to kill, and one old man."

"Sillytherin is right; it still doesn't shift the balance in our favour." admitted Gryffinpotter. "Have we figured out anything about how this whole parallel universes thing works?"

Ravenlord drew out a large stack of notes taken on loose scraps of paper, and more than a few napkins. "There is no obvious pattern to the worlds we visit." he said. "The only things I am reasonably sure of is that they seem to be placed in a certain order - whenever we jump, we always end up all in the same, and the Voldemorts follow suit. And we seem to all appear close to the position of our copy in that universe. So, for example, the same dorm."

"Which reminds me, we should scram." pointed out Sillytherin.

He was right. The army of Potters had now made it a habit of jumping between universes at a rate of one every ten to fifteen minutes, because subtlety and concealment had long stopped being options, even if they all had their Invisibility Cloaks with them. Mostly, they'd just appear in the middle of a random Hogwarts dorm (statistics were now placing 32.5% of the Potters in Gryffindor, 31% in Ravenclaw, 28% in Hufflepuff and a meagre 8.5% in Slytherin), cause enough of a ruckus to terrify everyone out of it, then grabbing their own counterpart and hastily explaining what was happening before they synchronised again to jump away before a teacher could intervene. Usually, at least, Voldemort was somewhere else. A couple of times they'd ended up in the Little Hangleton graveyard and had to barely escape with their life; another few they found themselves in the labyrinth of the final task of the Tournament. Never had they managed to end up in a places where they could decently regroup, organise, and maybe come up with more of a plan than "let's keep going and see what happens". Wherever they went, the Voldemorts were always hot on their tail, and it was a miracle that none of them had been killed in the few encounters they'd had with them.

Now they were all in a very crowded Gryffindor dorm, and they could hear the imperious voice of professor McGonagall outside, preparing to burst in and see what the hell was the matter. That would have been a bit hard to explain, and also, at this point, involving adults in the matter was out of the question. A single Voldemort could give Dumbledore trouble; more than three hundred of him would have destroyed Hogwarts in seconds.

"Right!" Gryffinpotter clapped and called everyone's attention. "Repeat the usual jumping maneuvre. Pair up, stay one in front of one another, and launch the simplest, most harmless charm that you know the counter for at each other. Just in case you actually end up hitting. We're odd this time, so three of us of the Tetrapotter will form a triplet, we know how to do that. And ready? GO!"

Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop...

Gryffinpotter, Ravenlord and Sillytherin exchanged a quick nod and stood at the three vertices of a triangle. Then, in perfect synch,

"Wingardium leviosa!" they shouted, aiming at the exact centre of that triangle. The usual blinding light of resonance was emitted where their charms met.

Pop!

The hut was isolated in the middle of a vast stretch of empty moorland. There were all sorts of weird knick-knacks on its roof and around it - things that looked like totems or charms to ward off evil spirits, things that looked like especially hideous versions of muggle garden gnomes, and things that just didn't look like anything that could be put into words. They pinged and whistled and clicked and ringed at the slightest breeze, producing an unnerving, dissonant orchestra of sounds.

In front of the house stood one boy, with dreamy eyes lost in the distance, a Hogwarts Ravenclaw robe, and a strange diadem on his head, seemingly a hand weaved wreath of some kind of metallic wire.

"Welcome, other Potters," said the boy, raising his hands in a gesture of salute, "to your place of rest."

The three hundred and some Potters all stood, confused at not seeing the walls of Hogwarts around them any more.

Finally, Ravenlord spoke. "Uhm, that sounds rather ominous."

"Forgive me; it was not meant to be." the boy said. "We have water and food if you wish to refresh yourself. You will be able to take a breath and sit down. Albeit, I'm sorry to say, we don't have enough room in our house."

"Out here will suffice," reassured him Gryffinpotter. "Who are you? I mean, I can see you're Harry Potter, but..."

"I consider myself Harry Lovegood," replied the other, with a smile. Sillytherin shouted a curse so foul it would have made a Dementor run away in fear, "but most know me by the name that I took from by natural father, yes."

"I see. Harry, don't mind me asking," interjected Ravenlord, "but that thing on your head is not by any chance the Lost Diadem of Ra-"

"My goodness, no!" Harry Lovegood laughed. "It is just an attempt at imitating it that I've managed to create with my father and sister. Still, it works wonders for the Sight. You would be surprised how much clearer it all gets when the wrackspurts are warded off..."

Lovegood's stare lost itself in the sky. There were really a lot of things everyone wanted to ask, but judging all from their individual experiences with Luna, they also didn't really know if they should ask them, or if the answers would make sense. So in the end it was Harrypuff who spoke first.

"Where are your stepdad and sister, then?" he asked.

Harry Lovegood's stare became serious. "Away." he said. "I have seen your arrival, but also that of another one, and those who walk in your trail. It will be dangerous, and I did not want them or my school mates to take any risks. So I ran from Hogwarts, and met you here, alone. For you will go no further. This will be the end."

Ravenlord felt a shiver. "How so? Are you a Seer? Is that a prophecy?"

The other nodded.

"Can you tell us its exact wording?"

The other shook his head.

"Ravenlord, this is crazy." hissed Sillytherin. "You know Luna, right? You all do. Would you trust her supposed Sight with your lives?"

"Well, he did know we were coming..." said Ravenlord, uncomfortable.

"Who the hell knows how and why. But even if there was a prophecy, should we entrust its interpretation to him? Come on!"

Gryffinpotter shook his head. "Prophecies are a serious matter. If there is one, we can't ignore it either."

"And he said we can rest here!" chimed in Harrypuff. "I don't know you, but I can tell you, me and the whole Hufflepuff Batallion are exhausted! Plus, he's a Potter like us. We should trust him."

"Oh, right, we should trust him. That's our line?" Sillytherin rolled his eyes. "Look, we're not going to win this with good feelings and friendship. We're going to win this with cunning plans and ruthlessness, because we're up against a whole army made of the most dangerous wizard to ever live. So anyone who wants to be all buddy-buddy with Looney Potter here can stuff it. I call a vote. I say we jump away as soon as we've rested and leave the Lovegood here. He's obviously no use. Your vote?"

"We should stay and fight." said Gryffinpotter.

"You said some pretty horrible things." said Harrypuff. "But I don't think we should fight now, so I'd rather leave and take him with us."

"That's three different ideas. Ravenlord?" the Slytherin boy turned to the last of the Tetrapotter. "What's your vote? You're by far the most rational of us all. You must see what the way out of this is."

"I, huh," Ravenlord stuttered, "I must think about it..."

The other three stared at him, expectantly. Harry Lovegood observed the scene with his usual dazed stare, and a slight knowing smile.

It all happened very quickly, and Harry Lovegood had expected all of it. The Death Eaters arrived, screaming and cursing, they'd grabbed him, set up a cauldron, stretched his hand over it and cut a long line in his palm, forcefully, with a knife, letting the blood drip in. Then someone else had severed his own hand, and they'd tossed some old bone in, and next thing you knew, there he was, the Dark Lord in person, in his full terrifying glory, though that was initially slightly diminished by his lack of clothes.

"Foolish of you, boy," he said, snarling, "to send your adoptive father away, and stay here all alone. Dumbledore's wards on this house are weaker without him to sustain them. Now, you and I will have our final duel."

"Would you mind waiting?" asked Harry, smiling. "There's someone else who's supposed to join us."

"Waiting?" Voldemort laughed, and so did his followers. "And who would this someone be?"

"You." replied Harry, enigmatically.

Pop!

Voldemort turned around. Behind him, in the previously empty moorland, were now hundreds of copies of him, perfect, down to the same dark cloak and the shape of his wand.

"By Salazar, what does this mean?" he whispered.

"It means that you no longer need these hapless morons to help you." said one of the other Voldemorts, stepping forward, with a cruel smile. "Oh, this part is always so much fun - Avada Kevadra!"

A storm of Killing Curses exterminated the Death Eaters. Voldemort was not in the habit of feeling shocked or surprised, but this turn of events certainly warranted that.

The lead Voldemort quickly examined the location. "Empty, I see, yet the local Potter boy is here. A puzzle. You!" his icy voice, and long finger, pointed at Harry. "Explain."

The boy looked straight into the enemy's eye, seemingly void of all emotions. "They have come and gone, Tom. They did not think me a worthy enough addition to their ranks."

Voldemort started laughing. Well, the other Voldemort, anyway, and his full cohort followed suit quickly. The local Voldemort was still mostly puzzled, but in the end he slipped in there one evil chuckle or two, just not to feel too left out.

When the hilarity died down, the lead Voldemort spoke again. "There you have it, all of you. The Potters are desperate, and they try their hand at cunning. Yet they do not realise that in numbers lies their only strength, meagre as it is. Their mistake will cost them. Let's start our triumph here. Let us kill the boy!"

"Which one of you will do it?" asked Harry, tilting his head with an expression of slight curiosity.

There was a moment of silence.

"What? Me, of course!" spat the local Voldemort. "I planned for this, I got you in the end! I will get the final laugh! Draw your wand and-"

"Not so fast." hissed the Voldemort at the head of the bunch that came from all across the multiverse. "We will all have our chance. But I've spent the most time hopping around from one world to the other, always seeing Potter escape through my fingers - why, yes, I believe I deserve to taste his blood first!"

"Not happening!" shouted someone from the back of the crowd. "I want him!"

"Says who?"

"Says You-Know-Who, thank you very much!"

"You're not better than the rest of us!"

"I should get to kill him!"

"Maybe we can just take turns torturing him a bit?"

"At the end / of our ploy / let me curse and kill the boy!"

"Shut the fuck up, Musical Voldemort."

The argument quickly degenerated in utter chaos. Shrieking, shouting and snake hissing was all over the place. In the centre of this hurricane of unbecoming behaviour, Harry Potter kept looking at the whole scene with detachment and the faintest hint of interest, certainly nothing close to what one would expect from someone looking at a debate on which murderous psychopath gets to kill them. And then...

"Avada kedavra!"

The green beam hit Harry in the chest and pushed him to the ground. His body lay motionless in the stunned silence.

"Who. Did. It." hissed the head Voldemort, turning around with angry, flaming eyes.

No one answered. But the crowd just sort of naturally parted as everyone seemed to push away from a certain Voldemort.

"You." the Dark Lord's eyes closed in a slit. "The only one of us to come from Gryffindor, of all Houses. I knew I shouldn't trust you." "Well, you lot were all discussing, and I got enough of talking!" proclaimed Gryffinmort, puffing up his chest, which was notably better built than any of the others'. "I'm a man of action, me!"

"And you're going to see some. Grab him!"

Some of the Voldemorts looked at each other in confusion, but others bolted to execute the order. The culprit was quickly restrained, his wand taken away and his hands bound behind his back. They dragged him kicking to the leader and pushed him on his knees.

Murmurs started running through the crowd.

"You are hereby accused of insubordination, and acting independently contrary to the will of the Army of Voldemort." said the leader, matter-of-factly. "The penalty for that is death. Anything to say in your defence?"

"You can't kill me, you idiot!" boasted Gryffinmort, with a snarl. "I'm not some chump like you all! I'll let you know, I have a horcrux!"

The head Voldemort didn't seem impressed. "Oh. Only one?"

"What do you mean? I..."

"See, that's the problem with you jocks." hissed the Dark Lord. "Plenty of brawn, very little brains. I do not play at your level. My backups have backups. And when you have so much experience at making something, well..."

He waved his hand in the air. A whizzing motion tracing an horizontal number eight, the symbol for infinity, once, twice, and three times. Gryffinmort felt a cold sweat overcome him. He opened his mouth...

"Spiritus confringo!" snarled the head Voldemort, finishing his curse and pointing the wand at the victim. A blinding, sick light so bright you couldn't tell its colour inundated the scene, and when it died down, Gryffinmort was slumped on the floor, eyes wide, mouth still gaping in his last attempt to speak, and a bit of drool trickling down. To anyone with a minimum of perceptivity he didn't feel just I'll-be-back-and-have-my-revenge dead. He felt more, like, dead dead. My-entire-soul-has-been-torn-into-shreds-and-sent-into-oblivion dead.

"...you also learn some tricks about destroying it." completed Voldemort, lowering his wand. He turned to the crowd behind him. "I hope that's a lesson you've all learned! Does anyone here feel like they still want to challenge m-"

He couldn't finish the sentence over the half a dozen of spiritus confringo curses smashing on his body and completely obliterating every trace of his soul. Much could be said about the Darkest Lord to ever grace Magical Britain, but not that he wasn't a fast learner.

"I killed him! That makes me the new leader!" announced someone in the crowd.

"Idiot, it was clearly me who-"

"Why should I-"

"Avada Kevadra!"

"Spiritus confringo!"

"Expelliarmus!"

"...seriously?"

All semblance of order amidst the Voldemort crowd was gone. Curses flew everywhere. Many of them dropped dead, more or less permanently. Limbs were lost and the concept of being a self-hating kind of person acquired a whole new meaning. Until...

"STOP FIGHTING, YOU IDIOTS!" shouted the Voldemort of that world, who had somehow managed to stay out of the craziness by virtue of simply keeping at a respectful distance from the rest of the army, and discreetly dodging the occasional curse that came at him. "Where did Harry Potter go?"

"He's dead, right?" asked one of the others, squinting. If this was a trap...

"Dead, yeah, so why is his body not here any more?"

For this, no one had any decent answers. But it was, indeed, puzzling. And worrying. Suddenly, the Voldemorts got on their guards, sharply aware of the fact that they'd just basically halved their own numbers. And then...

"Spiritus confringo!" came a shout from here, and there, and there, from all around really, and their whole army lost, like, seventy more Voldemorts in a single strike, and suddenly there was panic, they started casting curses all around but there was nothing, except some of them seemed to hit something.

"Cloaks off!"

And the Potters appeared. Their entire army, completely encircling the Voldemorts, hidden until then each by his own Cloak of Invisibility. Wands out and pointed at them, many already casting that triple infinity gesture. You couldn't say that the Boy Who Lived wasn't a fast learner either; or at least, the versions of him who belonged to Ravenclaw House.

"Avada Kevadra!" shrieked many of the Voldemorts. Some of them didn't hit. Some did hit a few Potters who had purposefully lowered their wands to avoid the resonance. And some clashed with other curses, bringing both Potters and Voldemorts away with a Pop!

Black Ravenlord stood behind his ranks, shouting orders with a Sonorus charm amplifying his voice.

"Pursuit team, prepare to warp to the next world to assist the ones who get into resonance! Try not to split further from there! Retrieval team, grab the ones who've been hit! Everyone who's already spent their spare life, please move to the back and let the frontline do its job!"

Spare life?, thought a few dozen Voldemorts, and suddenly all gears and their arcane knowledge clicked, and made sense of what had really happened on that one night, years ago, in Godric's Hollow, and also realised how truly, fundamentally, utterly screwed they were. The rest of them would die in ignorance.

Because at that point it was a slaughter. No Voldemort trusted any other any more, as they'd just been at each other's throat minutes ago. There was no coordination or attempt at teamwork, their numbers were vastly inferior due to how much they'd decimated themselves, and their opponents both surrounded them, could survive one hit from the Killing Curse each, and were fighting like they were a single person - which effectively, they were. One Voldemort had the brilliant idea of trying Spiritus Confringo on one Harry Potter who still had his horcrux attached, with the only result that instead of killing the boy the curse got the owner of the horcrux which was the surface layer of that soul. Someone in their own ranks screamed and fell dead while the boy got to grin and slash the throat of his attacker with a Sectumsempra (where did he even learn that?, were the last thoughts of the fallen Dark Lord before his soul got destroyed too).

"You know, Lovegood, your seer gifts have really come in handy!" said Black Ravenlord, in between two soul-shattering curses. "But you've been hit once already, you should withdraw."

"Oh, don't worry." replied the other. "I will survive this either way. I know." He casually flicked his wand in what looked like a random direction, and somehow, his curse hit exactly one Voldemort who was running in that general direction. Gryffinpotter whistled in appreciation, and even Sillytherin was forced to begrudgingly admit that was good.

Now the numbers of the opponents were whittled down, but a few still held out, and were engaged in individual duels. Potter Potter faced his nemesis, Riddler Riddle, who challenged him to a duel of wits for his soul but ended up enclosed in a gigantic transmuted jar. Musical Voldemort sang a sad elegy about the vagaries of fate and the tragic end of his ambitions before being struck down. Vampire Voldemort was impaled by a transmuted wooden stake. Anime Voldemort exploded.

"Keep up the pressure!" shouted Gryffinpotter, dodging another curse, then putting down two Voldemorts with a single wand flourish. He was getting good at this. "We're almost there!"

They closed in on their opponents. Their victory was sure now, it was just a matter of being thorough and careful. The enemy was in full rout. There was just dozens of them, then only a few, then...

One Voldemort. Only one Voldemort, crouched on the ground, with his head between his hands, wandless, surrounded by hundreds of triumphant Potters.

"Surrender." said Gryffinpotter, stepping forward, wand pointed to him. "Surrender and we'll spare your life. You can go to Azkaban to pay for your sins."

"Oh, just kill him!" shouted Sillytherin from the back. "It's basically a mercy anyway!"

The crouching Voldemort whispered something, too low and muddled to make sense of.

"...I'm sorry?" asked Gryffinpotter.

"...I am... free." said the other. "Finally, finally free."

There was an explosion. Shields were raised, and the army of the Potters hastily retreated.

"Regroup! Check for wounds, heal what you can, everyone else just get the hell out of here!" shouted Black Ravenlord. "It's just how I feared. Worse, even."

"What do you mean?" shrieked Harrypuff, alarmed. "Why is this Voldemort stronger than the others?"

"He must have been Imperiused until now, but..." Ravenlord drew a sharp breath. "...he's Muggle Voldemort."

"Muggle? Are you out of your mind?" Sillytherin laughed. "If he was a muggle he would be no threat at all! While, well..."

They all raised their eyes. Whatever what they saw in front of them was, it was massive. A large, glowing sphere of wrongness. Inside its radius, reality itself seemed to be warped and bent in impossible shapes. Like a giant funhouse mirror, except crackling with energy, and possibly with a few more dimensions than your usual well-behaved spacetime ought to have. You could only barely make out the image of Voldemort inside, distorted and reflected a thousand times like in a kaleidoscope.

"...that very much looks like one." he concluded with a whimper.

"He's not just a muggle!" shouted back Ravenlord. "He's Muggle Voldemort! I told you in his world the few secret muggles are the only ones who can use technology - so what does that tell you about the one who still manages to terrify them all so much they won't even speak his name?"

"IT WORKED!" the insane laughter, both joyous and utterly evil, came distorted in a thousand echoes from the centre of the sphere. "My masterpiece of science has become reality! Crossing the barriers of the multiverse... gathering multiple versions of me from other worlds... I never expected all of them to be magical! Oh, foolish Slytherin, I'm not a muggle any more. Nor a wizard. Thanks to the magic I managed to extract from the souls of the other versions of me - the power that I synchronised into my own body with my superior technology..."

The voice calmed down to a threatening hiss, cold like the vacuum of space.

"...I have become both." he concluded.

"RUN!" ordered Gryffinpotter. "Withdraw and regroup!"

"FOOLS!" the booming voice shouted, from no place in particular, "You can not escape my powers! My control over space, time, and reality is now complete!"

Something changed. Sure, they were all running away, so why did they found that they were still at the same place? The space around them had warped into something of a bubble. No matter how far you ran in one direction, you merely came back from the opposite one. The Ravenclaws and Slytherins realised that the fastest. Most of the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs just kept charging in, determined to test who was more stubborn, the space-time distortion or them.

"This is bad," muttered Ravenlord, "bad, bad, bad..."

"Mmm, that is better." Voldemort laughed. "Now, before I take care of you, one thing... let me browse the folds of time and worlds... ah, there."

Images unfolded before them, reflected in the spherical surface of the anomaly within which the Dark Lord sat. Scenes from the past, from a certain graveyard, of a boy trembling but standing up to his mortal enemy...

"Hey, that's me!" shouted Gryffinpotter.

"No shit Sherlock." Sillytherin snorted. "It's all of us."

"No, I mean me me!" replied the other. "I can tell from the pattern of the scratches on my cheek. That's when all this madness started!"

"Hmm, so this is how it was supposed to go." said Voldemort, with an amused tone. "You get saved by some random resonance... what a poor plot contrivance, really."

"Like you're one to talk." grumbled Ravenlord.

"Never mind. I'll change it into something more interesting." his fingers touched the scene in spots, plucking it like a harp, rippling the image. "There. Now you will travel between worlds instead."

Gryffinpotter grabbed his head. "Wait a second. Do you mean you set up this series of events, in the past? But if this had not happened, you would not have gained the power you have now, which means you could not have set up this and-"

"Did you experience with the Time Turner teach you nothing?" Ravenlord put a hand on his shoulder. "Trust me, just accept this stuff and move on. There's a reason why only the best of the Unspeakables deal with time magic issues."

"And now that my continued existence is guaranteed, on to more entertaining matters!" Voldemort laughed again. "That is, killing you all. Starting from..."

The storm of distortions around him calmed down, and Voldemort emerged from it, landing on the ground gently. Everyone could see him clearly now, similar to the Tom Riddle they knew, but somewhat different. His face was deformed, but rather than the effects of repeated soul mutilation, it was surgical scars and robotic implants that marred it. Around both his arms were some kind of long bracer, on which keyboards, small displays and other measurement instruments were placed.

"...you," he said, looking at the one Potter that had walked forward, seemingly unafraid, to face him.

Harry Lovegood.

"You can't kill me." said Harry, with a serene smile. "Remember the prophecy."

"The prophecy!" shrieked the Dark Lord. "I am beyond the prophecy now. Beyond all prophecies!"

"Where's Muggle Potter?" hissed Sillytherin to the others. "This ought to be his problem!"

"He's, uhm." Ravenlord lowered his eyes. "Dead."

"WHAT?"

"He was a muggle in the middle of a wizard firefight!" snapped back the other. "What did you expect?"

Voldemort laughed even more. "So the little fool had what was coming to him - I always thought he would be nothing outside of Hogwarts' plasmonic shield. The prophecy is then fulfilled! I live, and he dies! And so will you!"

"That is sad," said Lovegood calmly, "but I was talking about a different prophecy. The one I made."

"WHAT?" From the height of outrage, Voldemort's voice calmed down to a careful hiss. "What prophecy is this? Tell me!"

"A prophecy of our victory, and your defeat." replied the boy. "So, see, I can't just about tell you."

"Tell me the exact words or I will kill you where you stand!" roared the other.

"But you can't. Because the prophecy says I'll win, and live. So if you try to kill me that only hastens your defeat."

"You're bluffing! This can't be real!"

"Of course it can." said Lovegood calmly. "It was the last time."

"The blasted things... always something else..." Voldemort muttered. "Very well, I will unravel the prophecy. I do not care for the ramblings of seers. I do not submit to time or fate any more! Reality is what I think it is! So I will just search for the events your prophecy describes, among all possible futures, and crush them!"

The sphere of distorted space from before reappeared, but this time smaller, and it was in front of him, not around. He begun using it like a screen, browsing images of different battles, different future outcomes. Voldemort disintegrating all of the Potters. Voldemort ripping them up limb by limb. Voldemort feeding them to dragons...

"No, these are all futures where I win." mumbled the wizard. "Where are you... where is it..."

The Potters gaped in horror, watching a thousand versions of their own deaths. Burned, cursed, melted, spaced, or merely erased from existence.

"Of course it's hard to find... I'm just that strong... but where is the damned thing..."

Voldemort was more and more focused. The mental effort seemed tangible, his forehead was sweating. The images kept running. Potters skewered, turned into frogs and fed to snakes, turned into snakes and fed to bigger snakes.

"My own defeat... what could possibly lead... to my own defeat... FOUND IT!"

And the scene he was looking for unfolded before him. He was standing in front of a picture of himself reflected by a strange warped bubble. He was completely focused, so focused that he ignored all of his surroundings, lowered his defences, way too confident for his own good, and behind him was Gryffinpotter, wand pointed at him, and he was saying...

"Expelliarmus."

The bracers and cybernetic implants all reacted to the spell, and violently wrenched themselves from their master. Whatever little flesh remained, it fell to the ground in bloody chunks.

"Well, that was anticlimactic." said Ravenlord.

"Expelliarmus? Really?" said Sillytherin.

"Eeeeeeuggggghhhhhhwwww." said Harrypuff, puking away his last three meals.

Harry Lovegood, walked up to Voldemort's remains and looked at them like he would at literally anything else than a lump of disembodied human limbs and organs.

"How curious." he mused "This is very different from what I saw. Guess it wasn't really a prophecy, just an ordinary dream."

The others failed to find any words for a while.

"...you know, I'm just happy this is all over." concluded Ravenlord. "Now perhaps we should say something in memory of our fallen comrade, Muggle Potter..."

"BWAAAAAAAAGGHHH!" gasped Muggle Potter, waking up with a start. Amidst the stares of everyone else, he calmly got up on his feet, dusted his clothes, and combed his hair with a hand.

"You were supposed to be dead." said Sillytherin, with the tone of someone who wasn't especially happy that wasn't the case.

Muggle Potter shrugged. "I always carry on my body a small injector that can dose me with drugs inducing a very short term apparent death. As Dumbledore says, you gotta be smart to survive in a world where you've got wits but everyone else has wands."

"You... you...!"

"We're happy that you're still alive." cut Gryffinpotter before anyone could say something that would start a fight. "And we took care of your little Dark Lord problem for you."

Muggle Potter nodded. "Yes, that was really out of control. Good job there, team!"

That was best left uncommented. "Now that only leaves one problem. How do we go back to our respective universes?"

More than three hundred Potter heads nodded in unison at that.

Black Ravenlord walked up to the remains of Muggle Voldemort and picked up one of his bracers, turning it between his hands. "With these, I hope." he said. "It seems that this Voldemort had already understood very well the structure of the multiverse. Therefore, if we can reverse-engineer the mechanism... Muggle Potter, could you give me a hand?"

"Sure thing, but temporal mechanics aren't my forte." said the other, running up to him. "This looks like a spacetime resonator, but I can't understand what these graphs mean."

"Calibration data, perhaps?" Ravenlord frowned. "Mathematician Potter, can you take a look at this?"

"Yes, no problem. Oh, that looks like a map of the local curvature tensor, I think we should..."

The dialogue got faster and faster, and more unintelligible as time went by. Sillytherin groaned loudly each time another one of the "Potternerds", as he called them, joined the fray. Soon the argument got heated up. Some Potters thought the bracelet could allow them to travel through time; others, that it would simply detect which universe they were in; and some, that it was simply a device for Voldemort to play games on when he was bored.

"You're not getting anywhere!" shouted Gryffinpotter. "We can't wait forever until you figure out what it is. We'll all die of old age before that!"

"These things take time." replied Ravenlord, shrugging. "What do you suggest instead?"

Gryffinpotter came closer. Besides the small keyboards and all the lights and displays, on the bracelet there was something else. A big, red button.

"Let's try doing this the Gryffindor way," he said, and pushed it.

Pop!