Title: Mirrored Lives
Author: fortytwo03
E-mail: fortytwo (underscore) 03 (at) yahoo (dot) com
Timeframe: during OotP (but includes HBP and DH spoilers)
Characters: HP, SB, RL
Summary: Harry, Sirius, and Remus end up in a dimension where Voldemort was never defeated. As they work to survive in this darker universe, their alter egos - a Harry raised by Tom Riddle, a Sirius who never escaped Azkaban, and a Remus who is Albus Dumbledore's personal assassin - are spreading chaos in the world they left behind. NaNoWriMo 2007 entry.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, who is not me. This disclaimer is applicable to all subsequent chapters in this story.

Title: Mirrored Lives (1/?)
Posted: 11/01/07
NaNoWriMo Word Count: 3,028 words in this chapter, 3,028 words to date, 46,972 words to go.

Author's Note: Well, I've decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month this year, so you know what that means: quick, frequent updates! Of course, it also means first and second draft posts, but, hey, you can't have everything ;). I'm aiming for daily posts of 1,500-2,000 words each (I have to average 1,667 to hit 50,000 in 30 days), so today's post is longer than the rest will likely be. I have a toddler, so my writing time is during her nap. She generally is good about sleeping for 2-3 hours each day, so I need to generate 750-1000 words per hour. Can I do it? Well, it takes me 5 hours to write 1,000 words of well-edited prose, and 20 minutes to write 500 words of complete BS, so there's a fighting chance. We'll see!

Mirrored Lives

Chapter 01
In which two mortal enemies are (ever so briefly) like-minded

Dimension A - Canon Universe

Lord Voldemort was contemplating his current situation. At full power again, his followers back at his side, with most of the wizarding world so far into denial that they considered the mildest of defensive measures tantamount to treason, he seemed to hold all the cards. His only true enemies, Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix, were exhausting themselves attempting to thwart just one of his many projects, while having to deal with being maligned in the press, and constantly one step away from prosecution.

Yet, despite all that, he still didn't feel secure. Part of it was that he wasn't truly at full strength again. Oh sure, magically he was as powerful as he ever was; and he did have most of his core followers - his Death Eaters - with him now. Not only that, but the dementors were also back in his camp. It did make for a formidable group. But too many of his other followers and minions were gone, and he was feeling their lack.

For one, he hadn't yet rebuilt his corps of Imperio'd spies to anything even vaguely resembling their former level. This seriously compromised his intelligence-gathering ability (not to mention losing both the tactical and entertainment value of kamikaze saboteurs). He did have his Death Eaters, of course, and some of them had modest networks already cultivated, but nothing like what he had before the Incident on Halloween 1981.

As well, full-scale attacks were off-limits, since his army of Inferi was still woefully short of bodies - he did miss having a limitless stream of cannon fodder. Not that his Death Eaters weren't expendable, per se - the only really indispensable person was Voldemort himself, of course - but the twin attributes of thinking and breathing possessed by his (mostly) loyal core group were scarce enough to require a bit of judiciousness about when and how to use them.

So, if the Ministry ever came back from their trip down Denial and planned something big, he could very well be caught off-guard. Even with advance notice, he would be hard pressed to fend off any major attack without ruinous casualties.

Of course, he would be more than able to defend himself - already on the offensive, most likely - long before the Ministry could pull off anything worth worrying about. And Albus Dumbledore, wretched interfering old coot that he was, just didn't have the manpower to be a credible threat (which was a very good thing too, or even with all that Snape could do, he would still be in trouble).

Really, all of that was evading the issue. When it came down to it, the only reason Lord Voldemort was sitting here brooding, instead of enjoying the perks of being an evil overlord, was because of Harry Potter.

Everything that had ever gone truly wrong in his life - not the irritants or the minor setbacks, but the devastating catastrophes - could all be traced back to that one infuriating child.

The annoying brat even got a blow in before he was born. That blasted prophecy started it all. Before that, Voldemort hadn't been anxious or worried or concerned for a very long time; there hadn't been a need - he was immortal. Not only that, but he was immensely powerful to boot. He had worked very hard to get to that point - undergone countless dark rituals - and now this whelp was destroying his peace of mind, and eventually, or so the prophecy said, his entire self.

Obviously, this could not be borne.

So he did what anyone with an ounce of self-preservation would do - eliminate the threat before it eliminated you.

Which, of course, led to the aforementioned, thrice-be-damned,Incident.

It was a good plan - it should have worked. The vaunted savior was just a baby, no defenses whatsoever outside of the laughable fight his blood traitor father managed to put up. How was he to know that the stupid mudblood would manage give her offspring protection through her death!? No one could have guessed that. The only upshot to the entire debacle was that the error, while grievous, was not fatal. As it turned out, that was about the best that could be said about any subsequent meeting with Harry Potter, as well.

Through a combination of Dumbledore's helping hand, a good support system (aside from the Dursleys, of course, although Voldemort really felt that, filthy muggles or not, they had the right of it - Harry Potter was an unnatural freak who definitely should have died with his parents), and sheer dumb luck, the little monster not only survived three?!? more encounters, but decisively won two of them, and the best Voldemort could say about the night in the graveyard was that at least he was revived before the brat escaped. Otherwise, he would have had a hard time working off his rage - disembodied spirits just can't perform the Cruciatus curse nearly as well.

Given the fact that the only person he consistently could not defeat was the one person who was destined to kill him and the grounds for his anxiety were clear.

A world without Harry Potter - if Voldemort was going to make any sort of wish, that would be it. He wouldn't have been defeated, forced to roam the earth until he had to have help to return - by Pettigrew, no less. (Such an excruciating, humiliating experience - one that would never again be repeated, mentioned, or even thought about by any or all concerned.) And now he wouldn't be trying to figure out how in the world to kill the Potter spawn before the idiot child killed him - a task that, given past history, seemed unlikely at best.

Of course, the real problem wasn't that Potter had the power to defeat him, so much as that he seemed to be rather keen ondoing so. If only he hadn't tried (and failed) to kill the little demon child. Taken him, maybe - raised the little sprog to be a devoted follower. Granted, there were definite problems with the idea, a lot that could have went disastrously wrong, but still - the results had to be better than 14 years as a disembodied spirit.

Not only would this Harry Potter not be trying to kill him (a very big plus in and of itself), but he would bring his uncanny ability to succeed, against all logic, at whatever inherently risky and foolhardy task he set his mind to. That could be very useful indeed. A shame it could never happen.

As he resumed planning his (triumphant) comeback, Voldemort couldn't help but wish for that Harry Potter.

Little did he know that the force of that wish (for he was a very powerful wizard) was enough to cause a magical ripple, of sorts. It wasn't quite enough to do anything on its own, but it searched for a ripple caused by a likeminded soul. . . .

Dimension B - Alternate Universe

Albus Dumbledore was contemplating his current situation. The effective leader of wizarding Britain, his handpicked Order of the Phoenix at his side, with most of the wizarding world united behind him - committed to fighting until Tom Riddle was utterly defeated - he seemed to hold all the cards. His only true enemies, Riddle and his so-called "Knights of Walpurgis", had to be exhausted after carrying on a guerrilla war for the past twenty-five years, one that they showed no sign of winning anytime soon.

Though there was no sign of them losing in the near future, either.

And that was merely one of the reasons why Dumbledore didn't feel secure, despite all his apparent advantages.

Another was because his leadership position was starting to become quite precarious. While the public was still firmly behind him (despite a near-universal sense of frustration toward the never-ending war), quite a few members of the Ministry of Magic had recently begun to question publicly Dumbledore's running of the war. A few had even accused him of deliberately sensationalizing the situation in order to maintain power - as if Tom Riddle was merely leading a few non-violent protests, instead of launching armed attacks every other week.

While the Ministry had always been rife with Knight spies and sympathizers, this was the first time they had ever been strong enough to go public with anti-Dumbledore, and in some cases pro-Riddle, propaganda. The populace was tired of the generation-long conflict, and if they could be persuaded that Tom Riddle wasn'treally the boogeyman they had feared for so long, that in fact he was just over zealous and misunderstood, general support for the war would completely disappear. In fact, Dumbledore had heard some disturbing rumors that the Ministry was already making plans to approach Riddle about a truce, followed by a diplomatic effort to negotiate a mutually agreeable settlement - maybe even offer him an official position in the government.

This could not be borne. Dumbledore was furious at the very notion of giving Tom Riddle access to the reins of power - it went against everything he believed in. He simply could not - would not - allow it. In fact, he had already dispatched an Order member to persuade the Ministry to come back around to his way of thinking; accepting any terms short of unconditional surrender from Riddle was a disaster waiting to happen.

Not only did he have to deal with openly treasonous Ministry members, he was also finding that the effort required to keep muggleborns out of Riddle's clutches (which had always been a problem) was rapidly becoming untenable. Dumbledore had always been rather fond of muggleborns, as they, unlike their pureblood counterparts, who were encumbered by centuries of inherited tradition, tended to be open-minded and embraced change. In return, many muggleborns saw Dumbledore as a champion of sorts, as he placed no stock in bloodlines and wizarding tradition, but rather believed ability trumped all. This was a quality that seemed to be in short supply these days, especially among the Knights and their sympathizers, who tended to be from old, established wizarding families.

So it was no surprise that muggleborns tended to be some of Dumbledore's most fervent supporters. Riddle couldn't stand for this, and muggleborn students, along with their families, began disappearing while home over break. The school reacted by keeping muggleborns year-round, but this was of limited use, as, in retaliation, Riddle started hunting them down before they even entered Hogwarts. As a result, Dumbledore was required to bring them to the school at ever-younger ages; now it was to the point that one side or the other generally got to them within a few days after birth.

Of course, as it turned out, getting there first was just half the battle. Riddle was positively fanatical about depriving Dumbledore of as many muggleborns as possible, and he regularly launched raids against the Order creche - stealing the children before they were old enough to defend themselves, and thus reducing the future opposition.

This meant that not only did Dumbledore have to keep the creche staffed with childcare workers - a huge drain on manpower and resources in itself - but he had to keep it hidden and well defended besides, a task which required an ever increasing effort. It was still worth it, though, as every one of those children grew up into a dedicated Order member, completely loyal to Dumbledore.

Except, of course, for the ones captured by Riddle.

And that was turning into a disturbingly high number, especially considering that, except for muggleborns, recruiting for the Order had become far more difficult. Dumbledore had always had a good rapport with his students, and generally, those leaving Hogwarts had provided a steady influx of new blood. However, for several years now, his pupils had never experienced a time without war, and while they paid lip service to the necessity of defeating Riddle, they were loathe to become directly involved in the endless fighting.

The net effect was that Dumbledore had to do more with less, and it was his steadily diminishing Order of the Phoenix that had to pick up the slack. This meant that over the years, the Order had increasingly relied upon tactics that - while effective - weren't exactly fit for public consumption. At the beginning, Dumbledore didn't want to be seen doing anything questionable, but as the war dragged on, expediency became king. Top Ministry officials had their suspicions, but kept their silence - they had been his students once, too - and besides, Dumbledore was a powerful man and their only hope for defeating Riddle; they weren't going to jeopardize their future.

But as the war dragged on without any apparent progress toward victory, it was looking more and more like a false hope. It didn't help that many people remembered how Tom Riddle was once Dumbledore's protege, and a rising star in the wizarding world. Until one day, Riddle had suddenly dropped out of sight, surfacing later at the head of the Knights of Walpurgis and calling for Dumbledore's head.

Dumbledore still didn't understand how he ended up with Tom Riddle, of all people, leading a rebellion against him. Tom had been such a promising student when he came to Hogwarts. A few troubling behaviors, to be sure, but that was only to be expected, given Tom's deprived childhood in the orphanage. But surely Dumbledore's mentoring of young Riddle more than made up for it?

Apparently not, even with all Dumbledore had done for Tom: guiding him at school, persuading Dippet to give Tom an assistant professorship at Hogwarts when he had only just finished his N.E.W.T.S., introducing him to the top wizarding minds and facilitating his rise to prominence. Why, Dumbledore even considered Tom as his second, of sorts. Yet Tom threw it all back in his face, and - not content with merely rejecting Dumbledore - he decided to directly oppose him. And Dumbledore still didn't truly understand why.

But as painful and damaging as it was to be facing off with a former friend, Tom Riddle's defection was still only the secondary cause of his current problems. For all that Riddle had substantial knowledge of how Dumbledore thought and operated, the reverse was likewise true; however good Riddle was, Dumbledore was still better. No, that honor went to something else entirely.

Thinking back, Albus Dumbledore could trace all his current problems back to one specific, much-lamented, Incident. Said Incident had, amongst other things, lost him four of his followers, gained him one mortal enemy, and reduced the chances of him surviving this war to somewhere around absolute zero.

It's not as if Dumbledore hadn't done what he could to prevent this turn of events. As soon as he learned that Riddle was aware of both the prophecy and its likely targets, he had rushed to provide adequate protection, even volunteering to be the Secret Keeper himself (if only James would have taken him up on it, rather than foolishly trusting his friends, things would be far better right now).

Of course, in retrospect, maybe Dumbledore should have taken a more proactive approach to the prophecy - forced a confrontation on his own terms, perhaps - something other than the wait-and-see methodology that he had, in fact, adopted. But prophecies are a tricky thing, and he hadn't wanted to prematurely trigger it, and thus risk ending up with a negative - or even fatal - result.

If only Tom Riddle hadn't heard that fateful prophecy, he wouldn't have become so focused on the Potters (which led to the corruption of one of Dumbledore's best agents), he wouldn't have come up with the bright idea of kidnapping little Harry (which led to the deaths of James and Lily Potter), Peter Pettigrew wouldn't have tracked down Sirius Black (which led to Peter's death and Black's imprisonment), and now, most importantly, Albus Dumbledore wouldn't have not-so-little Harry Potter, currently second-in-command of the Knights of the Walpurgis, after his head, thus giving him a fighting chance at winning this insufferable war.

It wasn't just that Potter was convinced that Dumbledore was the Dark Lord in the prophecy, and thus was actively gunning for him - though that would have been bad enough. No, it was also that, even at a mere fifteen, Potter had the courage and ability - not to mention the luck - to succeed where most grown wizards would fail miserably; and he single-mindedly applied this talent to defeating Dumbledore. If only Dumbledore's original plan had worked. Then, not only would he have prophecy boy under his direct control until he was needed, he also could be benefiting from Harry's successes, rather than being battered by them.

A Harry Potter that was Dumbledore's most fervent supporter, not Riddle's - now that was a Harry Potter Dumbledore wished he had.

Dumbledore returned to his contemplations, unaware of the magical ripple his wish caused. Unlike most, which just fade away into nothingness, this ripple happened to come across a perfect match, that appeared at just the right time. The combination was immensely powerful - powerful enough to grant both wizards' wishes...

As always, please R&R!