Chapter 1 - Dominus

Harry looked around, taking in the battlefield of the final battle against Voldemort. It was estimated that over seventy percent of the remaining population of magical britain was out here fighting for one side or the other. However, now, a few hours after the start, it was hard to find survivors. To prevent enemies from fleeing, they'd done a ritual that would disable all forms of space bending in magical britain - for a limited time. Both Portkeys and Apparition used that, so it would block them. Floo's and phoenix travel were the only forms of travel still available, and Voldemort currently had access to neither. Unlike previous attacks, this battle was fought.

He stepped forward, invisibility cloak on his shoulders. He'd mastered it to the point where he could redirect its functions - temporarily sacrificing the invisibility for a minor defense against hostile magic. It was about as good at stopping curses as his basilisk skin armor had been before, but was much lighter. The Elder Wand felt warm in his hand - he'd been using it for years now, and its destructive nature was a perfect fit for his normal actions.

He was heading towards where he thought Voldemort would be. Time for a final showdown. He'd gotten a lot of scars since their last meeting, around five years back, in the atrium where Voldemort's return became public knowledge. Still, he'd avoided becoming Moody's lookalike. That counted for something.

He'd been alone for the last while. He'd had allies against Voldemort, of course. They'd all helped him fight in this battle. But his friends had all died before this specific battle even started. Ron had held off five death eaters, taking out two, while buying time for Luna to escape with a group of firsties. Neville had been killed by Voldemort himself for his destruction of Nagini. Ginny had been stuck in a warehouse with about 20 death eaters, and nobody had come out. Harry suspected she'd set the fiendfyre herself. Luna'd saved Harry's life by taking a Killing Curse for him. Hermione had been poisoned, while pregnant of her and Harry's child, and nobody had been able to save her. She herself had been their dedicated healer.

Harry had made new friends of course, but none of them as close as the other of the Ministry Six had been. He got along alright with most of the puffs of his year, as well as a few of the ravens.

He could feel the magic in front of him. He was getting close, and he found one of Voldemorts outer guards. He raised his wand, and spoke a single word.

Dominus.

A while line instantly connected Harry to the death eater. He could feel their magic being measured against each other. Of course, Harry had a lot more. The Death eater exploded, his magic escaping into the air.

Between Harry and Voldemort, this spell was the nuclear weapon of this war. None had ever survived a cast from either Harry or Voldemort of it. It was instant, and could not be defended against. Of course, that was said about a Killing Curse, but the Dominus was different. It didn't care about physical barriers in the way. Having no travel time, it could not be dodged. It simply compared the caster and the target, and the weaker one died. Quite messily. The wild magic released sometimes had weird effects, like a child's accidental magic.

And Harry had lost count of how many he'd killed with it. Voldemort probably had as well.

Harry finally found his nemesis. The.. man, for lack of a better word to describe the monstrosity on both a moral and physical level. His attraction had been gotten by Harry's eradication of his guard. Neither of them was able to know for certain who would win when either cast a Dominus, so therefore they started off with some of the more mundane spells. Voldemort started with a generous sprinkling of crucio's and avada kedavra's, while Harry used a few blasting curses, followed by transfiguring the shrapnel to stinging insects. Voldemort summoned an almost invisible silvery layer on his skin, which looked like shape-modified version of an anti-physical shield. Then he followed it up with some fiendfyre, which Harry countered with his own. Voldemort's basilisks against Harry's phoenixes, and totally hiding both from view of the other.

Harry lobbed a few heavy ball lightning curses. They were affected by gravity, so he could throw them on top. They'd also lethally electrocute everything in a distance proportional to the power put into the spell. This was a delaying tactic, however, as even if Voldemort hadn't seen them before as far as he knew, he'd probably be able to counter them. Harry rose upward. He'd never mastered unaided flight like Voldemort did, but that didn't matter with a couple enchanted rods at strategic places on his body. Then he he started pushing on the fiendfyre with his magic, hoping to force voldemort into spending power by dispelling it. The push would come at the same moment as that his ball lightnings would hit the ground behind him.

Then the fiendfyre shook, and moved in weird ways. As if it was a liquid sucked in a drain. This wasn't the normal way to put it out, but at worst, it was slightly more efficient. As soon as the fiendfyre didn't shield the area behind from his magical sensing anymore, he started casting confringo's where he could pinpoint Voldemort. He couldn't hope to actually land a hit, so he needed area curses. However, Voldemort rose up in flight as well, which put that strategy down. For a short while, they duelled, trading the darkest magic between them. Harry dodged a soul shredding curse. As far as he knew, it was the only way to kill a phoenix, and he knew this spell killed Fawkes. However, despite Harry knowing that with the Elder Wand, he was a better fighter than Dumbledore had ever been. He was even better than Voldemort had been a few years ago, but those few years of the most intense magical warfare ever had honed Voldemort's skills as well. Harry wouldn't beat him, and Voldemort knew it, starting to taunt him. So he aimed his wand, and bet the fate of the world on chance.

Dominus

Voldemort looked in surprise, and Harry could feel the spell take effect, stopping their duel while it measured them, both unable to cast anything. They started falling slowly, and they felt the Dominus build up. They slowed down before they hit the ground, the excess magic pushing off against anything close to them. Then Harry felt his reserves exceed Voldemorts by just a little bit. He also was Tom's eyes widen. Then he exploded, flinging Harry back.

Despite Harry knowing he wasn't that far above ground, he kept falling. He didn't see anything. Then suddenly, he hit something with a tud, then felt himself crash into what felt a lot like a solid wall, as if he was indoors. He knew that walls were generally slightly softer than rocks, even if he preferred not to think about having sufficient experience to tell the difference. He hit the floor a moment after. His eyes could see something, but mostly just vague shapes. He heard a girl's scream, and then everything became black.

James Charlus Potter woke in the middle of the night from a scream, and he bolted out of his bed. He knew Lily'd woken up as well, but he didn't exactly wait up for her as he ran to his eldest daughter's bedroom. He kicked the door open. Iris upright in bed, clutching the blankets against her. On the opposite side of the room, a strange boy lay that he couldn't see the features off, except for black hair and somewhat damaged clothing. He immediately threw a stunner at the boy. After all, easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. He then walked to his daughter, who'd just stopped screaming, but still didn't seem entirely coherent.

"Iris? What happened?"

She took a few deep breaths. "I don't know.. I woke up from a loud thud and suddenly there's someone who looks like he was thrown into my wall by a blasting curse..."

Lily entered the room, wand drawn.

"What happened?"

"Intruder. Hasn't done anything as far as I know, but I'm really curious how he got in here. Judging by the size, looks to be a kid around as old as Iris."

A wave of his wand, pulled the boy upright, and against the wall. He heard a strong gasp from his wife and daughter, and looked at them quizzically.

"He looks… almost exactly like you." Lily was the first to speak. Then she turned to her daughter.

"Anybody you've ever seen at Hogwarts?"

"No, never." She looked a bit closer. "So this is what Dad looked like at my age?"

"Could be his twin."

James frowned.

"As far as I'm aware, I have no relations closer than a second cousin, not counting Iris and Rose. And that's the Black family."

He cast a magical detection spell, but couldn't find any glamours.

"Perhaps polyjuice? If someone found an old hair of mine… Anyway, let's tie him to a kitchen chair or something, and let's ask him a few questions. Like how he got in here, and why."

He levitated the boy downstairs, both his wife and daughter following him. In the kitchen, he emptied the boy's pockets. He found a wand with a curled string of elderberries elaborately carved just above the grip. The boy had a golden ring with a black stone with some strange sigil on a chain on his neck. He also found a small purse with some money and a Gringotts key, but that was everything. The boy's clothes seemed like good quality, but well worn. It was also a bit too big for the boy, obviously geared towards a fit adult man. James himself was slightly jealous of whoever had the muscle mass and lack of belly that these clothes implied. When he grabbed the cloak, it felt strangely familiar. He took the cloak off the boy, and it changed to a garment he recognized immediate. His own invisibility cloak. How had he not detected the magic of the change? He knew nothing could detect the cloak's own magic. But whatever transfiguration it'd been under should have been detected.

"Iris, it looks like he stole the cloak from you."

"But… I had it in my trunk. At the bottom. Under the blood lock, AND a separate notice-me-not. And the trunk was closed when we went downstairs."

James frowned. He KNEW this was his cloak. Well, Iris's now, but that was irrelevant.

Lily suddenly asked: "Perhaps more of these exist? It's not like you've told everyone - no reason to believe nobody else would either. Honey, would you mind checking if yours is still where it should be?"

Iris nodded, and went upstairs to check.

James looked at his wife.

"Do you still keep that stash of Veritaserum ready?"

Lily nodded.

"I'd like to know how he invaded our home without the wards telling me so. Even now, the wards claim that he's a resident."

Lily's eyes grew slightly, but went to her potions lab to retrieve her Veritaserum. It wasn't exactly legal, but as a potions' mistress, she was allowed to possess it, if not use it. And it wasn't like anybody was going to find out.

Iris got back first, with the invisibility cloak under her arm. She put it on and disappeared before James' eyes, then took it off again.

James frowned. "I'd have sworn that this one was ours."

Iris nodded. "Me too. But apparently he's not a thief. Or at least, not for this cloak."

She took a chair and sat down. James took two more, and after a minute Lily rejoined them. She fed the boy three drops of Veritaserum, then enervated him.

Slowly, light came back into Harry's world. He found himself strapped to a chair, which was both good at bad news. The bad news was, he was imprisoned. The good news - he felt around for a moment with his magic - he had the stone on a chain, his cloak was not on but near, as was his wand. Apparently his captors weren't that well-informed.

He managed to slowly open his eyes, but saw blurry. That was curious. He hadn't needed glasses for quite a long while. All it'd taken was a simple ritual. He couldn't sense a spell interfering with his sight, but perhaps it was some undetermined muggle means. He lifted his head, and looked around. Well, tried to. He was indoors. Whoever owned this room had decorated it in colors of yellow and red, though there was some variety. He heard a bit of whispering behind a muffliato, and he could make out three blobs of colors that were probably people. It seemed that one had red hair and a green robe, one had black hair and a pink robe, and one had black hair and an almost black robe. Then they ended the privacy charm, and a man asked:

"What is your name?"

That was weird. Everyone knew his name.

"You first."

He heard another few gasps. What was that about ? It wasn't as if it was rare to be defiant during questioning, right ?

…

Right ?

Harry looked outside his occlumency barriers. Ah, that's why. Veritaserum. Always check that before you get interrogated. If you were lucky, they didn't give him enough to overwhelm him. He'd always been quite resistant to the stuff, but since he'd learned true occlumency, he'd sometimes failed to notice it.

He felt his head pulled backwards, and let them drip another three drips on his tongue. He needed about 20, which was lethally poisonous to most people, but which didn't impact him much more than 3 drops did other people. Still, it might be better to retain the capability to lie. He took a careful step outside his barriers, to answer the questions as if he were under it.

"What is your name?"

Well, it wasn't like it was such a secret. He could feel his mind supply the answer the veritaserum wanted, but he could choose to give it or not.

"Harry James Potter."

He heard soft whispering, and a muffliato go up.

What the hell was going on?

He waited patiently until the spell went down again.

"When and where were you born?"

Harry shrugged. Common knowledge.

"31 Juli of 1980. I believe in Godric's Hollow, but I am not sure."

A few whispers, the loudest of which was a "silent!"

"Who were your parents?"

What was it with these dumb questions? Everyone already knew all of this.

"James Charlus Potter and Lily Mary Potter nee Evans."

The muffliato went up again. It wasn't like anyone was able to capture him, but those interrogators seemed incredibly ill-prepared. Harry was used to a bit more… professionalism. Death Eaters tended to know him on sight, and either try to kill him or run for their lives. Since it's gotten around about the Dominus, mostly the second. Having to discuss after the test questions was… silly. And he still couldn't figure out how they obstructed his sight. Then he got a really stupid, really silly idea. And he looked at his nose.

He could see it sharp, in full detail. That wasn't supposed to be able after he fixed his eyes. Had something reverted that ritual? Were more things about him reverted?

He balled his left hand, and almost screamed in surprised. His ring finger was back. He hadn't even noticed. He tensed a bit against the bonds. His body felt a little bit more sluggy. The proportions were also a bit off - he was used to more muscles. Also, it was either a tall chair, or his legs were shorter. It seemed like his body had just grown… younger, and even reversing changes that were made to it…

His blood turned to ice. Reversing changes… was the horcrux back ? He send out his magic, and investigated his scar, then he almost sighed in relief. There was no horcrux there. But… there was something else horcrux-like in the room. He tracked with his eyes. Direction was the pink blob with black hair. The robes were an eye-watering color, and that meant the wearer would have to be Dumbledore, Lockhart, or a witch, and he knew the former two were dead.

The privacy spell dropped again. Apparently, they wanted to ask some more questions.

"How did you get in here?"

Harry frowned.

"I don't know. I don't even know where here is?"

"Don't play stupid. You were in my daughter's bedroom, and none of us let you in there. Now spill, or I will see you in Azkaban for breaking and entering."

Azkaban ? But it was destroyed…. He himself had torched it with Fiendfyre, in hopes of killing the dementors before they could join Voldemort. It'd even worked.

However, it made no sense. Even if someone had rebuild it - and he'd have known if they had - both sides of the conflict started preferring executions over imprisonment. It was a lot more reliable to keep hostiles off the battlefield.

And even if it were rebuild, he could escape it. But that probably wasn't the point.

"Nevertheless, I still have no idea how I ended up here. May I ask the date?"

"The date.. Young man, exactly how drunk were you?"

Harry couldn't completely stop a snort. He did smile though.

"I don't recall drinking any alcohol for at least a week."

"It's 2 July 1994."

"What !?"

Harry was shocked straight into his occlumency shields again, forgetting that he'd probably informed them he wasn't exactly bothered by Veritaserum. It had been the year 2000. He looked sharp at the figure in the middle, from which the male voice had originated. Even if he couldn't see him well, he knew where the eyes were. That was enough for legilimency. He launched his attack. The man's shield were certainly there, but he just batted them aside and marched in. It was indeed 2 July 1994. Or at least, before they'd gone to bed it was - he didn't know the time of the night. Hogwarts was still a school, instead of the fortress and smoking ruins it'd been in Harry's past 2 years. He also got a few sharp images. The most prominent person right now was a girl Harry's age, with black hair and green eyes much like Harry himself. There was even a lot of the same in their face, even if the girl's was more feminine. She also hadn't been starved like Harry had been at that age, which probably made up for most of the differences. She also shared his scar. Apparently, she was this man's daughter. Harry slipped slightly in his legilimency because of how similar she was to him. She even shared his date of birth….. Another image came, and Harry right away recognized this woman as his mother. This man had known her for a long time. The mental image he had of her consisted of her through her school years, and even with the pregnancy she'd had. Strangely enough, this man thought of her as his wife….

Who was this man actually?

Harry took a look, and he was surprised so silent that the man ejected Harry from his mind. Still, he was so surprised he couldn't do a thing. This man was James Potter. Not just believed he was. There was nowhere near the required amount of self-deception in that brain to allow for mistaken identity. This man was James Potter, and had been James Potter his entire life. Which had started in 1959. WHAT.

Fumos

A small wisp of mist sprang to life right in front of Harry's eyes. He couldn't even bring himself to care. He felt a few tears trace his cheeks. What was going on? Who was cruel enough to give him false hope? He slumped down in his chair.

What if it were true? Perhaps he went to an alternate world or something. The aftermath of the Dominus spell could be weird, and was weirder and more powerful the more powerful the destroyed magical was. Perhaps Voldemort had fuelled his journey to another world?

James pulled back quickly after throwing the stranger out. That legilimency attack had been… painful. It also made him feel completely powerless, which he didn't like in the middle of his own home, under his own wards, while the other person was tied up and dosed with Veritaserum. Which didn't appear to affect him much. How could this.. Boy that resembled himself and Iris so much have learned this sort of offensive magics? He was only 14 for Merlin's sake. At least, unless he had lied. But he did look the part. He turned to his ladies.

"He just… attacked me with legilimency." He waved his wand, and cast a weakened mist spell to prevent any further eye-contact. Lily was the first to answer.

"Headache? Did he bypass?"

"No, just tore my shields apart as if I were a newborn. He checked whether or not I was lying about the date at first, then stumbled across Iris here. I don't think he saw much beyond her looks. Then you. Then he checked who I was, and it seemed to… surprise him terribly. I was able to throw him out while he was surprised. All in all… no deep secrets spilled but...It just feels weird."

He looked at his girls. Well, two out of three. Rose had so far slept through everything.

"What if he is who he says? A Harry Potter from another world?"

Iris choose this moment to speak up.

"But.. Harry? Seriously? That's not a nice name or anything.. It's nowhere in the family. Why'd he be called Harry of all names?"

Lily blushed. "To be honest, if you'd been born a boy, Iris, you'd have been a Harry. I just… always liked that name, and James was fine with it."

Iris gave her best imitation of a fish, soundlessly opening and closing her mouth.

"That.. makes sense them. I'm suddenly glad I'm a girl. So… what do we do?"

They heard a cough. Apparently, 'Harry' was trying to say something.

"I think I know at least a little bit about all of you. At least, the general idea. How about I show any of you what's going on? Any of you know legilimency?"

Lily looked at James. She flicked her wand, reactivating the muffliato.

"I want to do it. I want to find out what's going on."

James looked in doubt. Then he sighed. "Just.. be careful, ok ?"

Lily nodded, then dispelled the muffliato as well as James' mist.

"Look at me."

The boy's startling green eyes looked at her. Exactly the same as her daughters'. Their focus was more along the lines of the Lovegood girl, however. But it was good enough. She made herself comfortable on her chair, and pointed her wand at him.

Legilimens

Lily found herself in front of a version of Hogwarts. There the boy was - but older. He smiled, but a bit uncertain.

"To be honest, I never showed all of this to anyone. But I think that if you are to understand..." he shrugged, helplessly. As he seemed to become more vulnerable, the great doors of Hogwarts opened.

"Follow me." He started walking inside. "We're heading to the Chamber of Secrets."

Lily walked up to him to join him, but she blanched at that word.

"The Chamber of Secrets? But Iris..."

"It was opened in her second year, and she killed the basilisk?"

Now she looked suspicious.

"How do you know that?"

He brushed his hand through his hair, meanwhile leading her to the grand staircase.

"A friend of mine once told me about multiverse theory. I might be wrong of course… but I'm guessing that there's gonna be a lot that Iris and I have in common. At least, I'm afraid so."

"Afraid so?"

He smiled sadly at her.

"If she is just me but in another world, I'd prefer her to have a better life than me. But, judging by what I've seen so far, it does seem to be that way."

That had Lily speechless for a moment. He'd had it worse than Iris ? The girl was fourteen. She survived a murder attempt at 15 months, which left James' parents dead. She'd fought a troll together with her best friend Hermione at 11. Later that year she killed a possessed professor. The year after it was a Merlin-be-damned basilisk. Then the previous year the traitorous rat bastard escaped, and there had been dementors around the school.

If he really was Iris but in another world, and he'd had it worse… she was torn between never wanting to find out, or find out how her own counterpart had failed so incredibly bad. And do everything she could for this boy. Man? He looked to be around 25 here.

They reached the second floor, and Harry led her to Myrtle's bathroom. Iris had told about that, so that was the same at least. He strode up to the sinks in the middle, and hissed something she could not comprehend. She winced. That parselmouth talent had given Iris a lot of grief. Then he hissed something else, and a platform appeared. He stepped on it, and gestured her to join him.

"This disc isn't there in reality. I just made it in my mindscape because it's a lot more convenient."

Lily nodded. She'd never actually been in her Chamber of Secrets. But she supposed it was a good place to store memories you didn't want others to see.

"It's funny that we both have Hogwarts for our mindscape. I just used the library instead of the Chamber."

Harry smiled. "I use the library for knowledge, and for decoy memories. All harmless memories are also there. However, everything I really want to keep secret is in the chamber. Which… includes everything I want to show you."

They arrived at the bottom. It didn't look much like Iris' description. Apparently, the mindscape version was cleaned up considerably. The corridor was also far shorter than the real one had been, if Iris had been accurate in her descriptions. The door with the snakes was right around the corner, and Harry opened it for her with another hiss. Then he hissed something in the room. A shape suddenly came into view, and she screamed out of reflex.

"Relax. I just told her to keep her eyes closed. I might have killed the real basilisk… but I decided I wanted her as guardian here anyway."

She noticed that the beast indeed kept it's eyes closed. It sniffed her, then slithered away again. Harry brought her to the statue, and opened a well-hidden door for her.

"Is that door real? Iris never talked about it..."

"It is in my world. However, I only found out when I was seventeen. There's some useful things in there. It'll help her get the maximum possible from her parselmouth talent."

He led her in, and it showed to be a modest study, with a few walls filled with bookshelves. She managed to not drool.

Harry went over, and grabbed a book on the bottom left corner.

"My oldest memory." He looked at Lily. "It is only thanks to the dementors that I can recall this one." He held it out to her, and she found herself in the memory unbidden.

"Lily! Grab Harry and get out! I'll hold him off..."

She came out of the memory, and tears sprang in her eyes. Now she knew what was worse. James and her had died there. But why wouldn't he be raised by his grandparents?

"If we want to do this in any reasonable time, we're going to have to go quick. Shall I just keep feeding them to you?"

Lily nodded, and steeled herself. Harry had obviously been alone. But no longer. She might not have physically given birth to him, but another her had. He was her son regardless, and she'd look after him.

Outside, James and Iris noticed that tears had sprung up in Lily's eyes. She gave no sign of pain, or discomfort. Just tears. James settled next to her, and held her hand.

It turned out he held her hand for two hours. Iris went back to bed. Lily's tears kept flowing. After an hour, he body started to shake a bit, and James held her, but he knew she wouldn't really notice it until she came back. Then she suddenly drew back, and breathed in, only to collapse in sobs. At first she grabbed onto him, but then she jumped out of her chair towards Harry, and not even caring for the ropes he'd been bound with, pulled him into a hug. Harry put up his arms to hold her.

"It's Ok, Lily. I won in the end."

Lily pulled back, then noticed the ropes.

"Young man, how did you raise your arms with those ropes?"

At least Harry had the decency to look a bit guilty.

"I.. might have used a bit of a wandless diffindo? I didn't want you to lose your balance and fall."

"Wandless magic? Then why'd you let yourself be bound?" James interrupted.

"I might have played a bit innocent for a bit. Usually when you get captured and you don't know where or by who, it's good to figure out as much as possible before you break out. There's generally some time. People taking the effort to give you veritaserum tend to not avada kedavra you right away. And well, it's not like you can keep my wand from me."

He flicked his wrist. James had sat himself down on the boy's wand, and it disappeared from under him, falling into the boy's hand.

Lily turned to James.

"Let him. He thinks he came here by accident from another world. It sounds… weird but it's the most logical explanation there is." She turned to Harry. "I'm so sorry that other we couldn't be there for you. But if they're, well, seperate from us but they are like us, then I know they'll be incredibly proud of you for what you've managed to accomplish under those despicable circumstances." She turned to James again.

"I'll tell you the long version later… but your parents had died earlier than here. That means that at Samhain 1981, you and I both died while Harry survived." She took a deep breath, but her next sentence came out in a whimper. "He was left with the Dursleys." She looked helpless, and James winced in response.

"I'm sorry, Harry."

Lily resumed again. "If I'm really nice to them, I'd call it criminal neglect. He came to Hogwarts severely underweight. I do think Pomprey slipped him some nutrition potions, though. He improved quite fast throughout that first year. Every shitty thing that happened to Iris, Harry experienced to. But unlike Iris… well, he didn't have us. That means his second year was… terrible. He also showed me some things that may still happen in our future…. If we fail to change it. Also, he's twenty. For him, it was the year 2000 yesterday."

James saw the pleading in her eyes, and knew exactly what she wanted. He looked at Harry.

"It's clear that Lily wants to help you. If you are willing… I think we'd love to offer you to stay with us. You can have a family. And with your help…" James thought for a moment. "I understand you wouldn't want to go through all that again. But even if all you do is give advice and warning, then we can probably ensure that Iris won't have it as bad as you."

Harry looked up with a vulnerability that was hard to believe from someone who'd before been so hardened. A deep pain, of someone who had been betrayed again and again. But who had never given up hope.

"You'll let me stay? Really?"

"Yes. So what are you gonna do?"

"Please."

"Understood. And what will you do?"

Harry smiled.

"I swear that I am up to no good."