Chapter Text
“Kill the spare!” A cold voice had declared, followed by a second, screeching voice saying, “Avada Kedavra!”
Harry Potter was just panting where he was chained to a tombstone, his heart pounding in his chest as he stared at where Cedric was crumpled on the floor, barely registering the spell happening nearby until his right arm was cut and allowed to drip into a glass vial.
“B-Blood of the enemy…forcibly taken…you will…resurrect your foe.” Wormtail whimpered
The blood was added into the cauldron and a white steam billowed out as slowly a figure emerged from the liquid.
“Robe me!” The voice ordered
Once the robe was handed to the form, he finally stepped out of the cauldron and away from the steam, revealing the skeletal and snakelike face of Lord Voldemort.
Still shaken by everything that had happened since touching the Triwizard Cup that had turned out to be a portkey, Harry drifted off again as Voldemort began to ramble off to him about his backstory.
He remembered the important bits -his mum was a witch, his dad a muggle deadbeat, his mum died in labor-, but if asked, he could not repeat whatever Voldemort had said.
His zoning out only got worse when Voldemort summoned the Death Eaters and started droning off to them about how faithless they were and did not look for him, and how dare they think he had truly died.
Honestly, Harry was surprised he could talk so long without getting winded; had he even taken a breath?
Harry was then utterly unprepared when Voldemort used ‘Crucio’ on him because of how little attention he had been paying.
Screams ripped through Harry’s chest as he experienced pain unlike anything else he had felt before, like his very bones were on fire until suddenly, it ended.
“You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me.” Voldemort said to the crowd, “But I want there to be no mistake in anybody’s mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger.”
The Dark Lord then turned to where Peter Pettigrew was nervously standing nearby with a silver hand, “Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand.”
Wormtail did as commanded, pulling out the wad of cloth that had been gagging Harry, and sliced through the ropes keeping him tied to the headstone.
For a moment, Harry did consider making a run for the portkey still lying by Cedric’s corpse, but his injured leg throbbed painfully and killed that idea.
Harry’s wand was then placed in his hand, which Wormtail had retrieved at some point.
He could barely see Voldemort in the darkness, only able to make out the glow of his red eyes as the Dark Lord asked, “Have you been taught how to duel, Harry Potter?”
“We bow to each other, Harry.” Voldemort stated, bending a little, barely enough to say he inclined at all, “Come, the niceties must be observed…Dumbledore would like you to show manners. Bow to death, Harry.”
The Death Eaters were laughing, Voldemort smirked in satisfaction, but Harry did not bow.
“I said bow.” Voldemort commanded, raising his wand, and Harry felt his spine curl despite himself, “Very good. And now you face me, like a man, straight-backed and proud, the way your father died. And now we duel.”
Before Harry could even react, the Cruciatus Curse was thrown at him again, and he collapsed to the dirt, screaming in utter agony.
When it stopped, Harry scrambled to his feet, shaking uncontrollably.
“A little break, a little pause.” Voldemort mocked, excitement clear in his tone, “That hurt, didn’t it, Harry? You don’t want me to do that again, do you?”
Harry did not answer; he was not going to obey, and he definitely was not going to beg.
“I asked you whether you want me to do that again.” Voldemort half-snarled, “Answer me! Imperio!”
That feeling of bliss returned as he felt the spell take effect, and he could feel the nudging telling him just to answer ‘no’, just do it, it is so easy, just say no.
“I WON'T!” Harry shouted, shattering the spell causing the pain returned
“You won’t?” Voldemort quietly said, and the Death Eaters stopped laughing, “You won’t say ‘no’? Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die. Perhaps another little dose of pain?”
Voldemort raised his wand, but Harry dodged it this time, rolling behind the marble headstone, hearing it crack as the curse missed him.
“We are not playing hide-and-seek, Harry.” Voldemort mocked as he got closer, “You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you are tired of our duel? Does this mean that you would prefer me to finish it now, Harry? Come out, Harry. Come out and play, then...it will be quick…it might even be painless. I would not know; I have never died.”
Harry knew he had to act now; he refused to die on his knees.
He leapt up, wand drawn towards the Dark Lord, shouting, “Expelliarmus!”
But Voldemort was ready, immediately casting, “Avada Kedavra!”
Green and red lights flashed from their wands and rushed towards each other, reacting violently as they collided and exploded into golden light, connecting their wands like threads.
A white spark appeared in the center of the golden strand and grew in intensity, beginning to swallow up the gold entirely as it made its way towards Harry until it reached him at last.
Harry could not let go of his wand even if he tried, and just watched in horror as the light got closer and closer.
His vision was swallowed by white, and he felt like he was being utterly undone thread by thread of his entire being.
And then the world went black.
***
Harry groaned as he peeled himself off the ground, slowly pulling himself up onto his hands and knees.
He was surprised to still be alive; maybe Voldemort wanted to kill him in a fair fight, but honestly, Harry was already over it.
Looking up away from the grass, Harry immediately noticed that he was not in the graveyard anymore; in fact, he was back at Hogwarts!
Scrambling back onto his feet, Harry immediately began to make his way towards the castle.
His leg throbbed the entire walk back, but Harry forced himself to power through it, he knew he had to tell people what had happened at the graveyard -that Cedric had been murdered and Voldemort had returned.
As he got closer to the castle, Harry noticed that all the tents and the maze that had been outside of the school were missing, so Harry was concerned about how long he had been unconscious on the ground for.
Surely someone would have noticed him down there if they had been undoing all the event prep?
This was all so weird, Harry just wanted to talk to Headmaster Dumbledore.
When he reached the school courtyard, Harry noticed that the decorations hanging nearby felt odd, but he did not really focus on that as he pushed the door open and went inside.
Eyes turned to him as he entered the castle, and Harry looked for anyone familiar in the crowd but found a bunch of unrecognizable faces.
Even the uniforms were off, the girls had longer skirts, the boys looked more formal, and the robes had a different cut.
Harry mentally filed that under things to think about later, his eyes scanning the crowd for the headmaster.
Unfortunately he was noticed first by a professor Harry had never seen before, an older woman that was wearing a set of periwinkle robes and had curly white hair pulled up in a bun that was starting to come undone.
“Are you alright, dear?” She asked him, “What house and year are you? Let’s get you to the infirmary.”
Harry did not answer, just sort of blinking at her.
Suddenly, a creeping realization began to dawn on Harry, all the inconsistencies he had noted and now this professor he had never seen not recognizing him.
Because unfortunately, everyone knew who he was, the stupid scar on his forehead was a dead giveaway that his bangs failed to hide with how the lightning bolt spread out and went from his forehead just beside his eye.
All of that together told him that somehow, he was in the wrong time, and he had no idea what year it was and he was about one bad realization away from just panicking.
Unfortunately for him, the kindly professor took his lack of answer and just got more concerned, “Oh, dear, you must have a concussion. Off we go, come along now.”
The walk to the infirmary was the longest walk of Harry’s life between his leg aching something fierce, the aches the Cruciatus Curse left him with after getting it twice, and absolutely everyone staring at him.
When they arrived at the infirmary, Harry received even more confirmation that he was in the wrong time when the mediwitch inside was not Madam Pomfrey but a middle aged woman with bright red hair coiled into a neat bun.
The mediwitch immediately rushed over, “Oh my, what happened here?”
“I’m not sure yet, Healer Byrne.” The professor Harry didn’t know the name of said, “But I do suspect a concussion, the poor dear can’t seem to remember their house.”
Healer Byrne immediately took that seriously, taking Harry over to a cot, “It certainly seems like the young one’s been through something rough.”
Harry wanted to laugh at that, fighting Voldemort in a graveyard after watching Cedric get killed was certainly rough.
But he remembered Hermione’s warnings about time travel while using the time turners last year.
She had gone on and on about you should not interact with your past self and try and change the timeline, but Harry had no idea when he was, but no one recognized him so he suspected he wasn’t born yet so he did not have to worry about encountering himself, but he knew that he might encounter his dad or someone and mess up the timeline bad enough to not even be born!
So he needed a fake name, he knew that question was coming, a few options immediately came to mind.
Hadrian, Harrison, Henry, Harvey, Harold?
He definitely did not like that last one, it felt like a very old man’s name.
Maybe Harrison, that way he could still use Harry as a nickname.
Henry had some merit, that was rather close to Harry, yeah, he liked that.
Henry Potter.
No no, Potter was too recognizable, especially if he was here during his dad’s time, he needed something plainer.
Lupin? No, what if Remus was here.
Black? Absolutely not, too many Slytherins with that one no matter what time period it was.
Dursley? Harry cringed at that one.
Evans. Even if his mum was here, that was a common enough surname that Harry had some plausible deniability.
While Harry was deep in thought about fake names, Healer Byrne cleaned and wrapped up the cut he had gotten from Wormtail stealing his blood and had put his leg in a brace, saying the ankle was twisted.
Healer Byrne pulled her wand out and casted a soft ‘Lumos’ to make the tip light up, “Follow the light with your eyes without turning your head, dear.”
Harry did as told as she moved her wand side to side and then up and down, and the healer seemed pleased, commenting that that meant no concussion.
“What is your name?” The healer inquired
Harry was ready for that, he had already thought about that, Henry Evans here he comes, “Henrietta Evans.”
Harry immediately screamed at himself internally, where had that ‘-etta’ come from?!
He opened his mouth to try and take it back, silly him, he meant Henry, but he found himself struck mute.
“Very well, Miss Evans. What house are you?” Healer Byrne asked, taking it in stride
It was too late to go back now, well at least no one would recognize Harry Potter in Henrietta Evans.
“I…umm…I am not enrolled here.” Harry said, an idea coming to him, “I was homeschooled.”
“I see, and where are your parents?”
“They died.” Harry answered
The healer looked at him sympathetically and the other professor gave him a sad look before saying, “A war orphan then. Between the muggle war and Grindelwald’s war there are plenty of those now. I will speak with Headmaster Dippet about getting you enrolled.”
Harry’s heart sank to his stomach at her words: muggle war, Grindlewald, Dippet.
The only muggle war he could think of happening while Grindlewald was in power was World War II, and if that was true that meant he was in the early 1940’s.
And if he was in the 1940’s, that meant young Voldemort was here too.
“Thank you, Professor Merrythought.” Healer Byrne said, “I will keep Miss Evans here overnight for observation.”