Chapter Text
Prologue
The Boy Who Makes a Choice
It was in Limbo that he noticed the slight wavering to the bricks of the barrier between Platform 9 ¾ and the Muggle world. With one ear on Dumbledore’s explanation of his choices, Harry moved closer to the barrier.
Not actually dead and with a complete soul inside him, Harry had a choice. Return to the world of the living to finally stop Voldemort, or to board a train and enter the afterlife.
“Or?” Harry questioned, looking over at the whimpering child-like horcrux. Three. Weren’t there always three choices? Three magical wishes? Three paths to choose from?
“Or? I don’t know what you mean, Harry,” said the dead Albus Dumbledore. He turned around and looked at the platform barrier. “Ah, yes. That is a much harder path.”
“I could go back?” Harry said. “Back to the beginning? I could prevent awful things from happening?”
“Or cause more terrible things to happen.”
Harry nodded, staring fixedly at the wavering bricks.
Dumbledore sighed. “I can see you have chosen.” He bent down to the horcrux. When he rose and faced Harry, he held the quiet figure, wrapped in a blanket. “Good luck, my dear boy,” he murmured and gave the soul fragment to Harry. He then turned on his heel and, with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.
A breeze ruffled through King’s Cross station. With the horcrux child in his arms, Harry passed through the hidden entrance from Platform 9 ¾ and into the unknown.
Chapter One
The Boy Who Lived Again
Harry Potter, asleep now, but not for long.
“Up! Get up! Now!”
Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.
“Up!” she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and remembered the blinding white of King’s Cross station. Limbo. A deceased Albus Dumbledore. A pitiful deformed child horcrux. A third choice. He rubbed the jagged scar on his forehead.
His aunt was back outside the door.
“Are you up yet?” she demanded.
“I think so… possibly,” said Harry. His heart was racing.
“Well, get a move on. I want you to look after the bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn. I want everything perfect for Duddy’s birthday.”
Dudley’s birthday – he was back where he began. Harry was ten, almost eleven-years-old. He was an underfed runt again. And a Dark Lord’s soul container. And he had to do everything again. He slowly got out of bed and carefully patted down his unruly hair, so it didn’t disturb the spiders hanging out on the sloped ceiling of the cupboard under the stairs.
Harry dressed quickly and picked up his glasses. He paused to rub his finger on the tape that held them together. He remembered when Mr. Weasley fixed his glasses. Harry put them on and rubbed his chest. He wondered what eleven-year-old Ron was doing right at that moment.
Harry was late to the kitchen and was unprepared when his uncle pushed past him and caused Harry’s right elbow to collide painfully with the door jamb.
Don’t be within grabbing range, Harry reminded himself – that was a rule for a quiet life with his family, right after –
Don’t ask questions.
Harry turned over the bacon with his left hand as he tried to shake the feeling back into his right. He’d have to get back into the rhythm of Dursley life. He pushed Dudley’s presents aside, thirty-six, to make room for the eggs and bacon. Harry tuned into the conversation about the presents as he sat at the table. Dudley’s face was frowning and red, so Harry began wolfing down his food.
As the telephone rang and his cousin began to open his birthday horde, Harry got up to wash the frying pan. Knowing that the conversation behind him was about the zoo trip, Harry tuned it out. Did he tell Dumbledore or not? Did he try to get Sirius out of Azkaban earlier this time? Did he ignore the Philosopher’s Stone in the mirror? When could he start horcrux hunting?
Dudley’s loud fake crying interrupted his thoughts.
“Dinky Duddydums, don’t cry, Mummy won’t let him spoil your special day!” his aunt cried.
Harry turned around to see Dudley in his mother’s arms, a nasty grin on his young face aimed at Harry.
Harry rolled his eyes as he dried his hands on the towel.
Later, he watched his uncle eye him around Piers Polkiss and his mother and decided not to let Vernon grab him when he warned him about ‘funny business’. Adding another bruise to his arm was not in Harry’s plan.
Conversing with the boa constrictor was much more enjoyable now that Harry knew he was actually speaking another language. He side-stepped his cousin’s punch and gave him a glare. Harry decided to avoid the disappearing glass and watched as Piers and Dudley banged on the snake enclosure. Maybe this time Harry would get to eat dinner.
Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he hadn’t changed anything. Uncle Vernon still ended up angry – even though Harry had avoided the snake escape incident. Rolling over and hugging his empty stomach, Harry figured his uncle thought he’d earned punishment just for having to spend the day in his unwanted presence. Now Harry and the snake were both locked up. No Brazil for either of them.