A/N: Welcome to my first published piece of fan fiction ever. I really hope you enjoy this story, and if not, oh well. The idea for this story has been bumbling around in my head for some time now and I thought I'd put out the first short chapter to see what kind of reception it would garner. Please post a review once you are finished as any criticism or praise it gets is another way I can better this story. Enjoy or don't. -Nachalas

Disclaimer: I don't own the intellectual property of J.K.R. or any other things that people could sue me about.

Coming and Going

Harry Potter was in a fucked situation.

There was simply no other word to describe his current predicament.

Chained to an uncomfortable, stone chair whilst naked was very highly humiliating and painful, but that wasn't what was bothering him the most. Around him, people from Voldemorts gang were leering at him with a powerful collective glare. All the while, a crazy witch was walking around him in a perfect circle, etching runes onto the ground.

After Harry saw the Greek rune for Soul, ψυχή, he let out his second curse that night. 'This is going to be fun,' he surmised.

Somehow or another, Harry knew Voldemort figured out about the piece of his soul locked away in Harry. He was seeing to it that it was removed unscathed. Apparently he didn't care about what his goons did to Harry as Lucius Malfoy entertained his sick habit of torturing his prisoners.

It amazed the curious part of Harry's brain that what a person could do with a three inch spike, salt, and a psychotic personality.

He was observing everything and memorizing all details thanks to his extensive Occlumency training. He didn't notice Bellatrix approach from his front since he was finding a particular crack in the wall particularly interesting. Bellatrix used this to her advantage and a cracked smile spread over her face.

She withdrew an eight inch dagger from his cloak and sunk it into Harry's left shoulder right between his collar bone and clavicle. Bellatrix was waiting for the cry of anguish, sure to escape her prey's throat.

It never came.

But what did come was a piercing, cold glare. It looked right into her eyes. Right into her soul, and it seemingly judged her and found her not worthy of his attention. The two orbs moved back to the scanning the room.

Inside Harry's head, he expected the blade so he had to time to cut off the nerve endings to his shoulder right as he saw the descent of the blade. He knew the pain would be astounding when he reconnected them, but for now, he thanked whichever deity that saw fit to allow humans to learn Occlumency.

"Scream for me, you insolent Half-Blood, or I'll take it out on your mudblood," screamed the enraged Lestrange. This was her guilty pleasure. She needed her screams or she got antsy. She took the blade and twisted the handle. Still nothing more than some quickened breathing.

Harry Potter leveled his eyes back at the witch.

He spoke so softly, yet so resolutely, it scared the mentally unstable woman. The level of coldness reached her black heart and squeezed. The promise in his words made her eyes widen and her pulse quicken.

"When I get out of this chair, I am going to kill you."

Bellatrix didn't know what to do. She hasn't been threatened that way since the first war. She was overly used to the idea of everyone fearing her. She just kept looking at him with enlarged eyes, until he started glancing around the room.

In Harry's mind, he was just counting down the minutes. So he started reminiscing about how he got to this point in his life. He couldn't help but smirk about how far he had come in such a little amount of time.

Harry's summer after his fifth year was quickly going down the drain. Thanks to the Order's threat to his uncle, Vernon was being more of a bastard than usual. After a quick back hand once in the house and a command to go clean Dudley's room, he was then kicked on his backside on his way up the stairs.

On his way past some of the family portraits hanging on the wall, his magic was flaring with his anger. It was heating up the area around him so dramatically that the frames on the pictures were glowing white hot and Petunia's potted plants were drying and dying in seconds.

Once he finished his messy cousins' room, he decided to just skip dinner and pass out on his lumpy bed.

His dreams were, as usual, his godfathers face falling through the veil over and over again. He awoke after Sirius flashed him his last smile before disappearing. Harry sat up quickly inhaling copious amounts of oxygen, looking around him for any threats.

Once he realized he was alone, his eyes clouded over with tears unshed for his godfather. It was the first time he has cried since he was seven and Dudley broke his arms with a new baseball bat his parents gave him. He realized his "lovely" family got some sort of glee when Harry cried. That was the last time he wept and stopped the more major damages his uncle and cousin caused him.

The tears started slow, and then proceeded to come in with vengeance due to all of the things that he has experienced in his short life. It seemed even shorter now that he looked back on it all.

Depression. Self-loathing. Pity. Hate. Anger. It all bubbled below the surface and he contemplated how everything was his fault. When his friends got hurt, it was his fault. Sirius dying was his fault. Everything was.

The tears slowed once more, even though he wished they'd continue. It was cathartic in a way. But he decided he better check what time it was and looked over at his bedside table for the time.

It was only 1:33 A.M.

Harry sighed as he realized it was going to be a long night. He decided that he would just go and stare out his window and follow the rains descent to the ground. The wobbly wooden chair was stiff but it suited his needs for the moment.

Then he smelled it. That smell of ozone in the air after magic is released, and it wasn't his. He jumped up and tried to 'feel' where the magic was coming from.

Forcing his own magic, like his muscles, to reach out and follow it like a bloodhound was slowly starting to work. He felt the air break apart in front of him as his magic traveled forwards. It was heading towards the window when there was a bang at his door.

His magic slammed back into his chest and where the air was separated in front of him collided back together. A sound not unlike thunder rippled through the house and caused his Aunt to shriek like a monkey in heat.

"Boy," howled his Uncle "You better not be doing that freaky nonsense in my house or I'll throttle you till you turn blue in the face!"

Harry, feeling snarky, whipped back with a remark of his own, "go to sleep fat ass before I de-evolve you back into a walrus."

The threat seemed to take a few seconds to sink in before he could hear the thunderous stomps of his super-sized uncle retreating to his bedroom.

'What the…' was all could the wizard could think about his recent self-discovery about his magic. Then his mind snapped back to the reason of why he tried to do whatever it was he was trying to do.

His hand reflexively searched for his wand in his back trouser pocket. It was not there. He flew around only to see a tall man leaned up against his closet frame.

"Harry Potter."

'Shit,' was his assessment of that moment.

The boy was starring off into space. Something was wrong and Voldemort knew it. He was observing him through the wall with a one-way spell and contemplated on what he should do.

Stronger men were usually crying for their mothers by now.

But he knew Harry Potter was different. He has escaped him numerous times and thwarted him on his own planned out crusades against his enemies.

He decided it was just arrogance and knew he'd crack in time. Stubbornness and self-grandeur usually went hand in hand, he mused.

Pacing himself while he walked into the room for a more dramatic effect seemed to be useless for intimidating the boy. He opened his mouth to speak but Harry beat him to it.

"Are you done staring at me through walls, Riddle?"

Voldemort did a double take at the suddenness and the show of audacity this, this child in front of him exuded in verbal form. He didn't even move his eyes away from the damned wall!

"Well Potter, it seems I have finally caught you. Any words before we move on with my plans?"

Harry finally moved his eyes to lock with Voldemorts and just cracked a grin. "You caught me? I thought it was I who apparated into your secret meeting."

Voldemort's eye twitched slightly. "I knew you were coming, I was planned for your arrival." He figured that was good enough to stall the boy until he came up with a sensible excuse to not seem incompetent in his follower's eyes.

"Right, the look on you and your posse's faces was quite humorous. In fact, I intend to capture a still of that event and frame it once I go home."

"Crucio!"

Nothing happened. Harry just sat there with a bored expression splashed over his face. Voldemort's eyes grew wide for a split second until he regained his composure.

"Such anger, Tom. Maybe you should go get that looked at, along with all those other skeletons in that closet of yours. I hear it is spawned from repressed homosexual desire."

Something was definitely wrong, Voldemort figured. He looked down at his wand to look for some sort of reason why his spell failed. He flicked his wand in the general direction of one of his Death Eaters and they fell to the ground screaming.

'So it isn't my wand…' he thought while he walked towards this child. He looked right into green orbs of defiance trying to gain entrance with legilimency for some answers.

He did not expect what he found and soon found himself on his ass half-way across the room.

"Clever Potter, real clever." Inside he was terrified, and he had reason to be. But he put it behind him and decided to just get on with his plans.

A smirking Harry Potter just sat there while Bellatrix tried to help Voldemort up only to find herself on the ground squirming beneath his Cruciatus.

"I need no one's help."

'And I'm the child' thought the amused hero as he viewed the exchange. His plans were coming to fruition and he knew it wouldn't be long now. A sigh escaped his lips as he tried to relax on the cold slab underneath him.

"Who are you?" yelled a panicked Harry.

"Calm down, Harry, I'm here to help."

This man was dressed in all black but stylishly so. Black suit pants, black silk shirt, and black jacket. It was as if he was going clubbing after this little meeting.

For all Harry knew of this mysterious guest, he probably was.

"You mind telling me why you are in my bedroom? And toss in your name while you're at it," Harry demanded slowly.

This man just smirked at Harry and moved to be within five feet of the surprised young man. When he reached his destination he sat down and before he fell to the ground on his arse a chair faded into existence beneath him like it had always been there.

Even more disturbing was the man's physical appearance. He was a mirror reflection of Harry, yet a more stylish one. Harry couldn't help but to give the man a once over to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him.

"Hello Harry, I'm Harry Potter."

To say silence reigned supreme within the room would have been a damning understatement.

"Impossible, I'm me," said an obviously shell-shocked and confused Harry.

The well-dressed Potter smirked and replied, "True, yet so am I. Tell me, do you know anything of inter-dimensional universal travel?"

The shaggy Harry made an intelligent sounding snort and gave a shrug. This just made the other Harry chuckle and lean forward on his chair slightly.

"To put it simply, I come from an alternate universe parallel to yours. I tried going to a transcendental universe of mine but…but it was far too twisted for me to actually make a lick of sense of anything that happened there. For example, the whole social structure was set up to follow the people who sung the best on a reality television show. I got the hell outta dodge within the ten minutes it took me to get some information out of a singing dog walker." After saying this, he shivered slightly.

"How can I trust you? I mean, this could just be a load of shyte. Tell me something only I would know," Harry inquired with wide eyes.

The newcomer lightly tapped his chin for a few seconds and suddenly his eyes got a mysterious tinkle in them.

"You've had a soft spot for our mutual friend Hermione since third year," he answered chipperly.

A slight blush creeped across Harry's face but he just shook his head. 'This has to be a dream. Or I've finally gone mad.'

"No you haven't gone mad, but it is reality. I know this is rather peculiar and I must say, you are taking this rather well. In fact, one version of us chased me around with a leg from that chair at your desk," he snorted while he finished this statement.

"Its crossed my mind, actually it's still a rather tempting idea. I just want to see what the hell is going on," stated a rather distressed looking Harry.

"Well before you starting swinging, slugger, let me just say that I come to help you out. I know our time-lines are different but situations, people, and evil dark lords never change."

The suddenly weak kneed boy sat heavily on the window sill and let out a huff of air he didn't realize he was holding. He needed answers, but couldn't this have waited? His godfather just died for Christ's sake!

"Why now?" he asked suddenly.

The traveling Harry looked like he was expecting this and showed it by smiling slightly, "because you, my troubled young friend, are on the verge of total collapse or rising like a phoenix from its ashes.

"The last four Harry's I have met, all committed suicide before I got to them. I don't know why some of us do it while some of us soldier on but that's just one of those funny things about the universe, I guess." He stood up and began to calmly walk back and forth before Harry.

"I guess, you could say, that Dumbledore thought that his protégé to the light could push on through this trying time. He was wrong on so many occasions as I've seen myself dead more times than I care to reiterate. So I usually just hop from one universe to the other giving helping advice to other versions of 'us' but that is usually it. I even usually disguise myself as someone else or even take the form of one of our friends," he finished lightly.

"Let me get this straight, you break the laws of magic, space and time just to help out other versions of us. I mean that's good and all but why? I'm just having a hard time grasping as to why you would do it."

"Good question. Well, it's what my universe does. You have more than likely heard of guardian angels, right?" This universe's Harry nodded. "That's basically us. The founders of my universe, the ones from Hogwarts, instead of setting up a school, actually set up a technomancy academy. They broke the dividing line between the mundanes and magicals and they have been combining our magic with their technology. Around two hundred years in your time after the alliance, their crowning jewel was revealed. The developed a machine called the Time-displacement Accelerator." The funny part of this statement was the fact that guardian-Harry stated it as if it was common knowledge.

Harry just stared at his counter-part with his mouth hanging open. He got the jest of it, but he just wished he understood how it worked.

"Don't get me wrong, Harry, not everyone from my universe is all sunshine and daises. Sometimes you'll get a disturbance that will cause a ripple through many universes. That's what causes wars or people rising up in power suddenly for no reason. I can see what you are thinking and no, Voldemort is just a child prodigy gone wrong. You only here about the good ones," he winked towards the gaping young version in front of him.

"Okay I think I understand. But why have you revealed yourself to me? I mean, what makes me so special?"

Harry thought how best to reply when he snapped his fingers as if coming upon an epiphany.

"Boredom. I've been doing this for many years now. I actually want to see a version of myself be happy instead of some emotional child throwing tantrums every now and then."

Harry scoffed, "I do not throw tantrums!"

His older-other self stared pointedly at his counter-part and just stated, "What about when your friends couldn't mail you and you had a shit fit whenever you met them at your Godfather's house?"

"Point taken."

"Good, now we can move onto the juicer bits of why I am doing this. First and foremost, I want you to survive the final battle. Second, I want you to get a girlfriend. That fiasco with Cho Chang does not count. That girl has issues."

The current universe's Harry couldn't help but laugh lightly. He instantly felt bad about laughing so soon after Sirius death.

But he couldn't help but feel that things were going to get interesting soon.

Either that or the shit is going to hit the fan.