(February 2013, minor corrections/revisions made of some errors, including incorrect spellings of 'Dolores')

Disclaimer:

I am not J K Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

I am not H P Lovecraft. I do not own The Necronomicon. Or Yog Sothoth.

Further Disclaimer:

This is a humorous story regarding a universe-hopping Harry Potter, who travels to alternate realities to experience Hogwarts and fight Voldemort over and over again... Characters and events may widely differ from canon.

It was the first of November 1991 and Harry checked the clock on the mantelpiece in the headmaster's study, then punched the air in triumph.

"Yes! It's half past three in the morning. I have defeated Voldemort, destroyed his horcruxes, killed the basilisk, caught Peter Pettigrew, cleared Sirius, and betrothed myself to Ginny Weasley and shaved fifty four minutes off my previous best time. Oh, and I managed to get Dumbledore sacked this time, Snape married to a smoking hot veela, and Lupin appointed Minister of Magic too."

"Draco Malfoy is set, however, to make a fortune from ferret-racing." Harry's only other companion, the Sorting Hat observed.

"Details, details." Harry waved that aside. "Besides." he sniggered. "Given what I've done to his counterparts in the previous thirty eight alternate universes, he's probably earned it."

"Don't you find this whole going-back-in-time-to-similar-universes rather… lacking in challenge?" the hat posed a question at him.

"Out of the last half dozen my dad's been Severus Snape in six, Ron's been a girl and Hermione a boy in two, Quirrell had a turban which was so nauseatingly green it was capable of inducing headaches without assistance from Voldemort in one, Lupin was supposed to be the secret keeper instead of Sirius in three, and Dumbledore and Tom switched roles in one. Plus my wand's been a different wood five times, and Neville misplaced and found Trevor a different way on the train the first year every single time. Oh, and the Dursley's interior décor of their cupboard under the stairs varies a bit too. Uncle Vernon worked in Grunning's technical department and had actually invented a low-energy light bulb especially for my cupboard in the universe three times around back, so as 'not to waste electricity on a freak'." Harry chuckled. "I pinched the design, patented it, and made a fortune. He was absolutely livid when he realised the opportunity he'd missed out on."

"Umm, yes, Mr. Potter, but I or my counterpart hats see what's inside your head every time you're sorted, and your opponents have been practically identical in their inadequate approaches unless you severely provoked them every time. It comes to something when the one opponent who reliably causes you serious grief if you run into her is a woman who wears a pink cardigan and has a kitten fetish. We Sorting Hats have a multi-dimensional awareness of one another, and a number of my counterparts are quite certain that you couldn't cut the mustard – so to speak – in their ends of existence. Of course, I believe that they may actually have a point, and that you probably would be best staying out of their necks of the woods, so to speak."

"Oh really? Harry Potter leaned forward, a gleam in his eye. "That almost sounds like a dare. The next time I perform a dimension-hopping spell, how exactly do I wind up in one of these particular alternate universes?..."

Predictable reckless Gryffindor stupidity, the Sorting Hat thought to itself. Oh yes, this was going to give another Sorting Hat fun.

Harry Potter had wound up in yet another alternate universe and once again arrived physically aged eleven and a bit at Hogwarts on Sorting Day.

Okay, the scene looked about what it did every September the 1st, although Dumbledore's dress-sense was towards the outrageous end of the scale this time around.

The first intimation Harry Potter got that something was truly different though, was when 'Abbott, Hannah' was sorted into Slytherin, of all the houses, and removed the hat and scooted across the floor to the Slytherin table at great speed looking highly relieved.

Crabbe and Goyle wound up in Hufflepuff, and Harry saw Malfoy give them looks of sympathy. Then again, people who ended up in Hufflepuff often got looks of sympathy, so maybe nothing different there…

Harry was, however, starting to wonder if perhaps he should have actually talked to people on the train this time, instead of locking himself in his own compartment to plan all the pranks he was going to play on Filch?

Malfoy took a long time to sort and ended up in Ravenclaw.

Well, Harry had known that to happen occasionally, usually as the result of himself talking to Draco on the train, but it didn't usually take as long.

And then shortly it came to his turn under the hat.

Ah, you've done this lots of times already, I see, Mr. Potter, so I'll make this simple: Slytherin or Ravenclaw?

Uhh, Gryffindor. Harry thought. It was where he felt he generally fitted in the best, and it was where his honed strategies for coping with everything worked the most efficiently.

Far be it from me to waste time trying to dissuade you, but the door of the headmaster's office is always open, if you want a re-sorting at the end of the first year – although it's likely to come at a price in your case. I think I could do with a nice holiday the other side of the Channel at the end of your third year, Mr. Potter. The hat informed him.

And then, before he could wonder what was going on, the hat had sorted him into Gryffindor, and he had to take it off and head for the familiar benches.

More sortings followed, with Harry seeing some classmates tossed into houses much different from their usual ones, including, to Harry's surprise, Ron Weasley being sorted into Hufflepuff, which he actually seemed pleased about. Harry started to look around for the other Weasleys, and saw the twins were still in Gryffindor, but Percy was in Slytherin. The twins seemed to making rude gestures at Ron, who simply grinned back.

Well Percy in Slytherin occasionally happened, but Ron in Hufflepuff and looking happy about it?

Harry looked at the head-table, and noted this seemed to be one of those alternate universes where Slughorn was potions master and most likely the head of Slytherin, with Snape nowhere in sight. Usually that meant Dumbledore had either let Snape go to Azkaban for being a Death Eater or that he had killed himself out of regret over Lily's death. After seeing so many alternate universes where fate seemed to consistently screw Severus over, Harry tended to feel sympathetic to the man, and it had been several dozen universes since he had been able to work himself up to actually hate the man or go out of his way to annoy him. Not that he wouldn't go after him, if unduly provoked…

Harry looked around at his fellow Gryffindors, and wondered whether he would be able to take another half hour off his time for wrapping everything up?

Then he noticed most of them seemed to be casting nasty glances at the Hufflepuff benches, who were returning their glares, and that Hermione was frantically scribbling things, as the headmaster stood up to give his usual pre-feast speech.

At the end of the year, Harry staggered back into the headmaster's office and pulled the Sorting Hat off the mantelpiece.

"Just re-sort me, please." he begged. "This stupid Gryffindor/Hufflepuff rivalry is killing me, and it's wrecking everything."

The mutual antagonism of Gryffindors and Slytherins to which Harry was used appeared to have been replaced in this universe with a particularly vituperative lack of good-will between Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Basically, if there weren't teachers in a room which contained both Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, it could be guaranteed that members of at least one house would be trying en masse to hex the members of the other – and even with teachers present an ongoing state of constant verbal sniping and anonymous notes being passed was usual.

And whilst Harry had been distracted throughout the year with an ongoing inter-house dynamics situation with which he was completely unfamiliar, Quirrell had executed reconnaissance and then made-off during the exams with the Philosopher's Stone. Fortunately, it had turned out Flamel had supplied a fake and Quirrell would die as a result anyway, but Harry still felt Quirrell getting alive off the premises with it to be an insult to his abilities.

Oh. And there was no sign of Pettigrew-as-Scabbers, nor, from what talks he'd been able to get in with the twins, had the Weasley family ever owned a pet remotely resembling the rat animagus.

He pulled the hat onto his head.

Well, you will of course have to give the headmaster – once they restore him – a pensieve memory of this occasion, to back up my testimony. And remember, I need your oath that you will do everything reasonably possible to take me with you on a trip to France at the end of your third year. The hat said.

Then it went about the business of sorting him into Ravenclaw.

At this point, Harry didn't care that Draco was also in Ravenclaw, and nearly as supercilious as usual at this point on the timeline. Harry just wanted out of Gryffindor.

Harry's second year saw a fresh-faced Ginny Weasley arrive in the intake of new students and be sorted into Ravenclaw. She was obsessive about magic and magical knowledge, and Harry saw her with some sort of personal organiser, with rubber-bands, pink fluff around the edges, and a bunny rabbit on the cover, but not with Tom's diary.

Bugger. That meant someone else must have it.

Meanwhile, the house enmities between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were heating up. As Harry waited for the Chamber of Secrets to open (this was one of those universes where only an actual blood-descendent of Slytherin or someone possessed by Riddle's diary could initially open it after half a century of being sealed) so he could go in and do his basilisk-killing stuff, he took the time to make sure Luna Lovegood was okay.

Talking to her was always a laugh – especially when it came to alternate universes.

"Do you ever think about alternate universes where your mum killed Voldemort in 1981, you were never 'marked', and there is no prophecy?" Luna asked him.

"Prophecy?" Harry feigned ignorance, as Dumbledore hadn't mentioned it to him yet on this timeline, and last year he'd been too busy trying to stay out of skirmishes with Hufflepuffs or being called a 'house-traitor' by his own housemates to credibly discover it on his own.

"Don't ever try to break into one of them." Luna said. "You probably wouldn't last very long. Everything's up in the air, and previous experiences mean nothing."

Harry was never quite sure if any Luna he encountered was another alternate universe traveller, or just enjoyed acting as if she was…

'The Beast of Hufflepuff' incident managed to get Dumbledore fired from the position of headmaster at the end of Harry's second year, and saw Cedric Diggory carted off to Azkaban. At least a dozen Gryffindor students had been seriously injured, and one of the Weasley twins killed. It had only been the latter event which had persuaded Ron Weasley (still in Hufflepuff) to inform the governors of just what was going on, so they could put an end to the abomination that Cedric Diggory had cooked up in an abandoned fifth floor classroom in the Astronomy tower.

Apparently Cedric had been reading a tome called The Necronomicon which had given him the idea, and he'd invoked the power of an entity called Yog-Sothoth to assist him in his attempt to decisively win the house war once and for all.

Harry had to wonder if this had actually been the real Necronomicon or not? In the two previous alternate universes he'd encountered a book of that name in, it had been an evil sentient book that was basically about how to create inferi.

There was no sign of Tom Riddle's diary still, or of the Chamber of Secrets being opened.

Harry eventually cracked and asked Draco what had happened with his father at the end of the wizarding war, after he'd pleaded Imperius curse, and to any, umm, 'dark relics' of which he'd been in possession?

"Why he helped the aurors search the Manor and remove and destroy all dark artefacts, of course." Draco gave Harry a look that said he thought Harry was an idiot. "He was under the Imperius curse his entire time in the Death Eaters. Put under it by Peter Pettigrew. Almost destroyed his mind, and a decade on he still has occasional 'bad days' where mother has to look after him. Of course he wasn't going to keep any of that stuff around."

It was at that moment that Harry Potter realised just how completely out of his depth he truly was.

"Uh, Draco. I know my godfather's in Azkaban for betraying my parents, but is there a possibility that Peter Pettigrew may have imperiused him into doing it?"

"Possibly, but since your godfather killed Pettigrew along with two dozen muggles in a fight the day after your parents were killed there's no way you're going to get Pettigrew to testify to prove it. Your godfather got Pettigrew with something nasty that shrivelled his lower body and left him dead with an expression of extreme agony on his face." Draco paused and looked thoughtful. "If your godfather was under Imperius, maybe being forced to betray your parents and knowing they'd been killed as a result finally snapped him out of it. Shame they didn't ask him about that when they had him under veritaserum at his Wizengamot trial, but just if he'd been your parents' secret keeper and if he'd revealed their location to Voldemort? I'm sorry Harry." Draco did actually sound regretful. "Your godfather had due process, and unless substantive new evidence turns up, you can't do anything about it."

There was a moment of silence. Harry mentally cursed. It sounded like this was one of those rare universes where his godfather had managed to kill Pettigrew, rather than Pettigrew faking his own death and escaping.

"Of course, my mother named my sister after your mother." Draco said trying to change the subject and to be nice. "She broke with family traditions of star or constellation names, and called her Lily." He furrowed his brow. "However, irrespective of which house she ends up in, I expect you to treat her with a good deal of respect, Harry, when she comes to Hogwarts next September. I'm very protective of Lily."

Harry found the start of his third year at Hogwarts disconcerting. There was no news of Sirius breaking out from Azkaban, no dementors on the grounds, and no Professor Lupin. The Ministry had replaced Dumbledore (last heard of heading for France) with Dolores Umbridge, and the headmaster's office was now the headmistress' office and filled with images of kittens.

And there was an Egyptian defence against the dark arts professor, and ornate sealed mummy caskets all over the place as 'security measures'.

Hermione was still in Gryffindor, and had attached herself firmly to the surviving Weasley twin as his chief aide in the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff house war, although over in Ravenclaw, Ginny Weasley was doing her best to be a fanatically organised Hermione substitute for Harry and Draco. This Ginny was scary though – especially the fluffy personal organiser – and there was no way Harry was going to fancy her. Draco seemed quite interested in her though.

Over the summer, to get the Dursleys off his back so he could focus on the important stuff, Harry had given his uncle some 'tips' enabling him to make a fortune on the stock-exchange, so at least things at Privet Drive were okay now. This was a universe where the blood wards existed and did approximately what they were supposed to do, and Harry had a feeling that he might well more than need them at some point.

So far, Harry had failed to find and deal with any horcruxes. The diary was in the wind – if it hadn't been destroyed by the aurors who had searched Malfoy Manor – Harry had no means of checking Grimmauld Place for the locket or getting at Bellatrix's vault for the cup, the diadem hadn't been in the Room of Requirement, and when he'd checked the Gaunt shack over the summer, he'd found the place burnt down and no sign of the ring. Either someone else was looking for horcruxes, or Tom had hidden them in different places.

Across multiple alternate universes he'd developed several means of removing the soul-fragment from the scar on his forehead, but unfortunately he needed to be older or to have at least one of Voldemort's intentionally created horcruxes to hand to employ any of them. Well, the goblins could also do it, but he'd found from painful experience that he needed them to owe him a really big favour for him to be able to count on them safely cooperating with anything like that.

So, no progress there, he thought, sitting watching the sorting.

And then 'Malfoy, Lily', came up, and Harry's heart missed a beat. For an eleven year old, she was breathtakingly beautiful, with all the best features of both her parents, and after twenty minutes the hat at last put her in Ravenclaw.

"I wanted to be in Slytherin." Harry heard her complain to her elder brother, pouting, as she sat beside him. "It insisted it was going to put me in Ravenclaw though, 'for my own good'."

Harry had to remind himself that Lily Malfoy was two years younger than himself, and that he was going to have to wait that bit longer before he could conceivably date her…

Harry, of course, spent the year focussing his attention on the headmistress, Dolores Umbridge, and her inquisitorial squads, despite occasional comments from Luna about an experience Eric Weiss had had according to some American counterpart of the Quibbler, some years ago. Unfortunately, the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff conflict and Harry's only being a third year got in the way of his attempts to form a DA – the best he could manage was a Slytherin/Ravenclaw study group.

The headmistress was not using anything remotely illegal like a blood quill either, at the moment, which removed the most efficient means of getting rid of her legally.

Harry sounded out the defence professor, discovered that he wasn't a werewolf, but neither was he a Voldemort supporter – and indeed he seemed slightly anti-Umbridge, or at least so far as his position as a member of the staff allowed him to be – and left the man alone. He had after all taken Neville Longbottom under his wing, which was boosting the Gryffindor's confidence, which Harry always liked to see.

At the end of the year, Harry was to come to regret that. The defence against the dark arts teachers, except in universes where the curse had been broken, almost always turned out to be bad news. Unfortunately, Harry had become used to ones in his third year being generally friendly and on his side, and only ever accidentally trying to kill him.

He and the scarred survivors gathered in the headmistress' office for him to retrieve the Sorting Hat.

"Ah good, you remembered your promise, Mr. Potter." the Sorting Hat chuckled.

"Did you know this was going to happen?" Harry asked.

"I was confident you would attempt to deal with it. Perhaps too confident," the hat said. "Maybe if you'd been in Ravenclaw from the start…"

Harry glared at the hat, but it wasn't as if he hadn't had plenty of clues. The Quibbler had been running increasingly wild articles all through the year.

Harry had made the mistake of assuming this was a universe where Xeno Lovegood simply tried to entertain the public. After all, his wife had still been alive, and that was usually what happened in those universes.

"There wasn't anything more you could have done, Harry." Percy Weasley, head-boy and the sole surviving Slytherin said. He sounded tired. He'd spent the year trying to be the perfect head-boy for Professor Umbridge, whilst covertly trying to fight and undermine her dictates.

Professor Umbridge had been taken care of now… the unassuming defence professor had seen to that.

Unfortunately, the unassuming defence professor had also seen to it that practically everyone else had been 'taken care of' as part of his insane plan to build an army of mummies and by means of multiple blood-sacrifices resurrect an ancient Egyptian god-queen, whom he had believed Dolores Umbridge to be a modern reincarnation of – not least because of her fondness for cats.

Besides Harry and Percy, the only other survivors had been Draco, Lily, Ginny, Luna, and Ernie Entwhistle – all Ravenclaw students – and the head of Ravenclaw, Professor Flitwick. The Weasleys had lost two more boys this year.

The worst moment for Harry had been when he had had to fight a crazed Neville Longbottom, in the embalming chamber where sixth and seventh year pupils were being converted into mummies. Neville had become the defence professor's chief henchman, as the professor had managed to use 'ancient Egyptian secrets' to awaken Neville's mother from her coma, and promised him he could awaken his father, too. Neville had been practically foaming at the mouth, as he swung the Sword of Gryffindor at Harry, desperately trying to stop Harry from hurting the man who had brought one of his parents back from a vegetative state, and promised to do so with the other.

Harry had acquired a lot of material for future nightmares in the past twenty-four hours and was going to have to stock up on dreamless sleep before he headed back to Privet Drive for the summer.

Hogwarts was obviously closed, following the Egyptian business, and whilst Percy had now graduated, the others had to find a new school. They ended up in Beauxbatons, where Albus Dumbledore had managed to get a history teacher job after being fired as Hogwarts headmaster the previous year, and where Filius Flitwick was now able to speedily gain an assistant charms professor position. The Sorting Hat was added to Beauxbatons' collection of 'historical magical artifacts' and Harry spent the summer doing his best to learn French and to ready himself for a year which would feature a hastily rescheduled biwizard tournament.

The Beauxbatons security arrangements were second-to-none. They employed goblins for the tournament security, who caught and handed over to the French aurors the three former Death Eaters who tried to infiltrate the tournament, and Harry had a generally pleasant time sitting on the sidelines for once watching other people run around fighting dragons, riding flying carpets whilst duelling one another, and then compete in an obstacle course where they had to solve riddles and then brew potions as fast and efficiently as possible to bypass problems.

Voldemort was significantly absent from the scene, and all in all Harry judged the year a success.

Which was just as well, as he was still recovering from the horrors of the previous year. The duel between Filius and the Dolores-reincarnated-god-queen was something which still caused him to wake up in the early hours of the morning sweating and shaking, even though it had been Filius who had won.

Igor Kararoff, the Durmstrang headmaster, mysteriously disappeared at the end of the tournament, and Harry had to start using occlumency to block Voldemort out of his thoughts. Apparently Voldemort had managed to resurrect himself without Harry's participation.

The French aurors had worked over the former Death Eaters who'd tried to infiltrate the tournament on French soil, however, and were hot on Voldemort's trail. The French aurors were going to go to hell before they let any English dark lord get away unpunished for sending minions to try and disrupt a French event. And despite the reluctance of the British Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, to co-operate, Alastor Moody had got back in the saddle, coming out of retirement for one last case, and was busy liaising with the French.

Apparently, despite his comments about French cheese, Moody was quite liked by his French colleagues for his no-nonsense merde attitude.

Author notes:

Written partly in reaction to seeing so many alternate universe Harry Potters where events always play out almost exactly the same way except where Harry himself proactively changes something...