Time to Choose by RitaRevenant

Harry gazed in sheer wonderment at the sight of the partially decorated Christmas tree standing centre-stage in the vast drawing room of the grand manor house. The tree stood at least 10 feet tall, still well short of the voluminous ceiling height of the room, filling the air with a heady scent of pine. A group of people were gathered at its base, smiling and tilting their heads back to admire a series of multi-coloured orbs that floated gently about the tree, nestling into place amongst the branches and brightly glowing from within. He wondered at how the orbs were being manipulated into place, as he could see no strings or wires to guide them.

Moving away from the doorway so that he could more closely inspect the illuminated orbs, he was halted by a large hand wrapping itself gently around his shoulder.

“Henrik,” a deep voice murmured from above. “A moment, if you will.”

Harry turned and looked up at the dark-eyed and serious face of his new father. He still could not quite reconcile in his mind that this was where he belonged now. Just that morning, Madam Pomfrey had informed him that this vast residence where he had awoken to a new life only yesterday was known as ‘Kall Hus’. It was apparently the family home of this strange and very serious man who wanted Harry to call him ‘Pappa’.

He still felt a hollow emptiness in his tummy when he thought about the Dursleys. He took a shaky breath and clenched his fists. The old man - Professor Dumbledore - he reminded himself, had shown him the signatures on the piece of paper. They weren’t his family anymore. They didn’t want him.

“Henry?” Professor Snape, his new father – Pappa - was kneeling in front of him, so that they were now at eye level. “Do you remember what I told you about our family?”

Harry nodded. He looked steadily at the professor before glancing at each of them and whispering their names to himself.

Cousin Hilde and Cadmus. He watched as Hilde pulled her long dark hair away from her shoulders for a moment and then settled one of her hands lightly against her husband’s back. Where Hilde was tall and lean, Cadmus was slightly shorter and broad-shouldered. His hair was blonde, slightly wavy and cut in a style that allowed it to be pulled back into a ponytail at the base of the man’s neck. Harry thought it rather odd that all of the men in this grand house seemed to wear their hair shoulder-length or longer, even (and perhaps especially), the elderly Professor Dumbledore.

Uncle Vernon would have most certainly have frowned at them if he had seen them in the street. He would have hurried the family past them, muttering about ‘freaks’ and ‘weirdos’. Harry knew this because there had been a couple of occasions when people had previously approached Harry in public who were dressed strangely, or who wore their hair in old-fashioned styles, or sported a fanciful-looking hat perched upon their head. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had seemed kind of scared whenever that happened. Harry always felt shy, and also worried, when he was greeted by these random strangers. Sometimes he would get in trouble for attracting the unwanted notice, even when he hadn’t done anything at all to gain the attention of these people.

Aunt Aggie. She was kind, but also a little bit scary. Harry thought that his new father rather resembled his aunt, not only in looks, but also in attitude. They both spoke sharply, using words that Harry sometimes found difficult to understand. They also moved with a particular grace and confident bearing. But where Professor Snape was very serious and strict, Aunt Aggie was smiles and soft touches, especially where Harry was concerned. She seemed to reserve all her sharp edges for her conversations with old Professor Dumbledore and sometimes for her nephew, too.

Over the past day or so that Harry had been confined to his bedroom to ‘recover’, as Madam Pomfrey had called it, Aunt Aggie had visited him twice. Both times she had brought Harry a story to read and on the second visit, she had hugged him goodbye and even kissed the top of his head. The best part was that the story books from which she read fantastical adventures had moving pictures, like tiny television frames inside each page! When Harry had stroked the pictures in wonder and asked Aunt Aggie how they moved, she had arched her brow, smiled down at him and replied ‘Why, magic, of course!’.

Harry had stiffened his shoulders and clenched his eyes shut when she said the ‘M’ word. It had taken him a few moments to realise that Uncle Vernon was not there give Harry a smack, nor to bellow that there was no such thing as magic. Aunt Aggie had looked at him quite closely for a bit and then over at Professor Snape, who had looked worried and maybe a little bit angry, too.

Harry returned to considering his new relatives and focused on the younger members of the family: Lucas and Bonita. They were the only children present, older than him, but friendly. Bonita had sent a card along with Aunt Aggie when she had visited him. In it, she had written ‘Get Well Soon, Henry!’. Underneath this message, Bonita had drawn a picture that looked a bit like a mermaid, only it was a man with a long beard and frighteningly pointed teeth, instead of a lady with long hair and a tail. It wasn’t a particularly good drawing, but Harry thought it was kind of her to send a card along to a boy that she didn’t know very well.

Right now, Lucas was the member of the family who drew his attention the most. The older boy was holding an ornately carved timber box. The orbs that had so entranced Harry earlier were gently drifting out of the box and floating through the air. Lucas carefully walked in circles around the tree so that the decorations would evenly distribute themselves on the branches. The contents of the box glowed so brightly that the older boy’s pale face was washed in delicate pinks and greens and purples that shone as each orb floated by him. It was a magnificent sight.

Another gentle squeeze of Harry’s shoulder reminded him that his new father had asked him a question and was clearly awaiting his response.
“Do you remember when we spoke about my family?” he asked again.

“Yes, Prof-Pappa,” Harry corrected himself softly. “I remember. They are ma-magical. Like you.”

“And just like you, Henrik,” his father looked at him solemnly. “You have magic, too, and it is nothing to be afraid of.”

Harry nodded and let his gaze drift to the floor. They had been through this conversation quite a few times now, but he still found it hard to understand. Everything about the past 24 hours had been difficult for Harry to come to terms with – no more Dursleys; a grand manor house in Sweden; sleeping in a proper bed in a real bedroom instead of in a cot in the cupboard under the stairs; his new, slightly terrifying father; Kora, the House Elf; pictures in storybooks that moved; the existence of magic. It all seemed like a fairy tale.

He hadn’t believed any of it at first. In fact, when Professor Dumbledore had explained some of these things to him at his bedside, Harry had become very angry. He didn’t know why, and even now, he couldn’t understand what had happened to cause him to push the old man away from him and jump down from his bed. He had moved as quickly as he could manage through a door near the fireplace and had found himself in a small, old-fashioned bathroom. There, he had experienced another shock. Intent on splashing some water on his hot face, in an attempt to calm himself, Harry had glimpsed his reflection in the ornate mirror and, to his complete horror, saw the face of a stranger staring back at him through dark brown eyes.

Confronted with this undeniable proof of magic at work, and feeling like he was trapped in a nightmare, Harry had turned, thrown open the bathroom door and tried to run, but his heart had bounced and jolted in his chest in an alarming fashion and his legs had gone all wobbly. A moment later, Madam Pomfrey was holding him in her lap and Professor Snape was shouting at Professor Dumbledore. Harry had started crying then, which he was ashamed to remember, because he never cried if he could help it and that was the second lot of tears he had shed that same morning.

Everyone had gone a bit quiet after that and then Professor Snape had given him a cup of what he had thought was water but turned out to be something thick and unpleasantly sweet that he tried to spit back out. The professor had made Harry swallow the awful drink, which he did, and then he didn’t really remember much about what had happened for a while after that. He supposed that he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, he was back in bed, wrapped securely in the fuzzy green blanket from the chair in his bedroom. Professor Snape was sitting quietly beside his bed in that very same chair and both Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore had gone.

It had been the conversation that followed with Professor Snape that had finally helped Harry to accept that at least some of what Professor Dumbledore had told him was the truth. He had asked to see the papers with the signatures again and the professor had looked at him with sad eyes but had let him hold them and look at them closely.

Harry had tried to read what the papers said, but he wasn’t very good at reading anyway, and the words were long and complicated and hard to sound out. He knew in his heart that what both professors had told him was true. The Dursleys had given him up.

What he didn’t understand, and still could not really wrap his mind around, was how he had come to be living in Sweden, with a completely altered appearance and in the care of a strange, dark-haired man who called himself a wizard. This same man - his new father - had explained to him, patiently at first, that Harry had been ill and that was the reason that his chest hurt sometimes and why his legs were all shaky. Professor Snape then told him that Professor Dumbledore had known Harry’s parents when they were young, and that it was his responsibility to find a new guardian for Harry.

The old man had, according to Professor Snape, chosen him above all others because he knew that the younger man would protect Harry. Professor Dumbledore trusted Severus Snape better than anyone else, even though some people might not have liked the idea of Harry Potter being placed in the care of the professor. Dumbledore, Professor Snape had explained with a resigned expression, believed that the situation called for extreme measures.

Not entirely sure what ‘the situation’ was, apart from the fact that he had awoken confused and disoriented in a foreign country with not even the familiar sight of his own face to look back at him in the reflection of the mirror, Harry had bitten his lip and remained silent.

He didn’t understand why anyone in the world would care what happened to him or who his new parent might become. Nobody had ever cared or come to check up on him before. He knew this, because it had been his greatest wish at times, late at night, when he remained locked away in the cupboard under the stairs with only Aunt Petunia’s many bottles of cleaning fluid for company.

At those moments, Harry had wanted nothing more than for a saviour to appear. He would fantasize about a mystery relative of his parents, who had discovered that Harry was alive and living in Surrey. In his mind’s eye, the saviour would arrive on a giant motorbike that throbbed and rumbled as it pulled into the neatly paved driveway on Privet Drive.

When dreaming about his rescue, Harry could almost see the bottles of bleach trembling on the shelves, jiggled by the vibrations of the bike’s enormous engine. In his imaginings, he heard the snick of a key turning in the locked cupboard door and watched in awe as the door pulled open and the light from the living room came streaming in to reveal the silhouetted figure of his redeemer, come to take him away forever. This person would really want Harry to come and live with them forever, because they cared what happened to him and wanted him to be safe and happy.

Of course, none of that had ever happened. In reality, Harry would remain in his cupboard for however long his aunt and uncle chose to keep him locked away, eventually allowing him out to attend to basic needs like going to the bathroom and cooking Dudley’s breakfast bacon.

But then, there he was, tucked up in the most comfortable bed he had ever lain in. And there beside him was someone who claimed to want to be Harry’s saviour. Although his appearance was stern and intimidating, it was also true that Professor Snape had treated him well. He had given him medicine to help him feel better, had spent long hours sitting by his side while he slept and then he was explaining the reason why Harry was here in this house, feeling frightened and confused. And he was doing so precisely so that Harry would feel safe. Perhaps he was also doing it so that Harry would feel not just safe, but happy, too.

The professor had continued on with his explanation, including the detail that Harry’s new father’s family, the Princes, lived in Sweden. The Prince family had been told that Harry was Professor Snape’s real son, named Henrik (Henry for short), and he was visiting Kall Hus with his father for the holidays. This false identity was the reason for Harry’s new appearance; his odd dark eyes, thin cheeks and pointed chin. It was a magical disguise, designed to make him resemble the professor and was not permanent. Harry wasn’t really satisfied about this part of the story and didn’t fully understand why Professor Snape hadn’t explained the truth to his family about who Harry really was. Perhaps the Princes were those people that Dumbledore had thought would not be happy to know that Harry Potter was being cared for by Professor Snape? But they were supposed to be family, so that didn’t really make much sense at all.

When Harry had become unexpectedly ill, his father told him, he also had lost some memories. According to Professor Snape, Harry had already known that he was magic (a wizard!) and had been very happy about it. He was still getting used to his new name, and to calling Professor Snape ‘Pappa’, which was Swedish for ‘Dad’, but he had apparently been settling well into his new family life when he had become ill. His sudden illness had been quite severe and Harry’s heart had stopped for a little while. Because Professor Dumbledore was magic and a very powerful wizard, he had done a spell to start Harry’s heart beating again, but something had happened to Harry’s brain and now he was having trouble remembering things.

All of this, Professor Snape – Pappa – had told him while Harry reclined in bed, clutching his blanket, and staring at his new father. The man had only become cranky when Harry had wondered aloud why Professor Dumbledore had also come to Sweden to visit the Princes.

That was the part of the story that still remained unexplained, as the professor had by that stage become impatient with him and snapped that he didn’t need to know everything about everyone. Furthermore, his Pappa had continued, he could see that Harry was just as stubborn and strong-willed as he ever was and it would serve him well to not to pry into matters that did not concern him.

Harry had felt very much like he had wanted to cry again then, because he really was trying to understand and the professor had been fairly kind in explaining everything up to that point. The man’s dark eyes had then flashed at him in anger and his lips twisted into a scowl that was worse than the one Aunt Petunia wore whenever Harry did something to disappoint her, which was more often than not.

Now wrenching his attention back to the present and to the festive scene in the drawing room of Kall Hus, Harry slowly lifted his eyes to meet the dark stare of his father. While the man’s gaze could not exactly be described as kind, at least it was not currently filled with anger. Harry took in the room before him and the celebratory atmosphere. He attempted a smile and it came more easily than expected.

Christmas at the Dursleys had never been like this.

Bonita and Lucas seemed genuinely happy to be helping to decorate the tree and there were no tantrums to be seen. The feeling of magic seemed to permeate the very walls of Kall Hus. Aunt Aggie had just noticed Harry’s presence and smiled warmly at him, waving him over to join the rest of the family. Everyone seemed so genuinely content and happy.
Harry focused on the man who still knelt before him, clearly wanting him to understand that magic was something not to be feared, but rather something that was fundamentally part of him, just like it was a part of this house and all the people who lived there.

Still uncertain, but willing to trust that something that felt as wonderful and as right as magic must be good, Harry slowly allowed his smile to broaden.

Professor Snape regarded him a moment longer and then stood and surveyed the room in the commanding way that he had. Harry took a huge risk and stepped forward, standing beside his new father. Without any fanfare, he slipped his hand into the man’s larger, warmer one.

Harry held his breath, staring straight ahead and waiting for the rejection that he was certain to be met with. There was a pause and then he felt the warm fingers gently squeeze his own. It felt just like magic.
Together, they both joined the rest of the family around the tree, warmed both by the fire in the hearth and by the small measure of trust that each had just shown the other through one simple action.

***

Feeling more than a little like an intruder on the family scene taking place around the now lavishly decorated Christmas tree, Albus Dumbledore sat quietly in a rather ornate red velvet chair. Aggie had conveniently positioned him a little distance away from the centre of the festivities when she had graciously escorted him into the room. Not sure whether this was out of deference for Albus, or more a product of her own seemingly frosty attitude towards him, he was nevertheless grateful for the opportunity for a moment of quiet contemplation.

The headmaster felt a small twinge of concern as he observed Harry’s still-too-pale complexion. Despite the warm glow of the fire that the boy was perched in front of, Dumbledore noted the almost bruise-like shadows under the child’s eyes and the pallor of his cheeks. There could be no argument that the elderly wizard was nervous about Poppy’s departure from the snow-laden grounds of the manor earlier that morning. While he and Severus both had some skill in the healing arts, their abilities paled in comparison to Poppy Pomfrey’s knowledge and abilities. Still, the matron had assured him that Harry just needed rest and quiet in order to make a full recovery from his ordeal.

That was, of course, all contingent on the boy taking no more unexpected and accidental journeys backwards through time itself.
Stroking his beard in thought, he considered the strange circumstances that had initially brought him to Kall Hus to investigate his potion master’s missing memories.

Whomever had removed Snape’s memories had known a significant deal of mind magic. The careful weaving of the Obliviate charm had been expertly managed; only focused on very specific key memories and periods of time. Other memories that were tangential to those removed had been painstakingly threaded together to form a seamless continuum. The magic was so skilfully and subtly wrought that the charm would have left Severus completely unaware that there were any holes in his recollection, were it not for that one significant memory of the lake that had lain somehow dormant, but still present in the recesses of the younger wizard’s mind.

Despite his painstaking efforts with Legilimency, Dumbledore had been unable to retrieve any useful recollections to prove the veracity of Harry’s claims of traveling back in time to the period of Severus’s own childhood. It was frustrating in the extreme, but there was nothing to be done at this stage about the mystery of the potions master’s missing memories. The conundrum of the time travel itself was a different matter altogether. Now, there could be no doubt that something magical had latched onto Harry and was somehow pulling him backwards through time, albeit for very short periods.

The real proof of this phenomenon rested with the child’s sudden and complete disappearance from the cottage, right in front of the headmaster’s weary eyes. He had thought at the time that he had dozed off, but now he knew that Harry had disappeared in the instant it had taken for him to blink, only to reappear some hours later, in a completely different part of the small house. While this in and of itself was troubling enough, even more so was the fact that Harry’s brief excursion into the past on that occasion had such terrible consequences. Nearly devastating ones.

Dumbledore had a keen an interest in the tantalising possibility of moving through the fabric of time, long before the events leading up to the escape of Sirius Black in Harry’s third year at Hogwarts. In his younger years, he had conducted many hours of personal research devoted to the potential of travelling into the past, far beyond the five-hour ministry-imposed restrictions of a Time-Turner. He had his own very powerful reasons to desire the opportunity to go back and right some tragic wrongs in his own life and in fact, his almost obsessive interest in the notion of time travel had led him to develop an eventual friendship with Agatha Prince, through several meetings with her father, Hans.

Hans Prince had a brief career as an Unspeakable within the Ministry of Magic. He had been a youthful contemporary of Madam Eloise Mintumble; a witch of considerable talent whose posthumous fame was linked to her notoriously tragic journey backwards in time from 1899 to 1402. Having successfully made the leap backwards by nearly 500 years, Madam Mintumble was trapped in the past for five full days before she was able to return.

The consequences of her experiment were dire. While she had successfully made the reverse journey, her travel forward in time to the present resulted in her body’s catastrophic aging at a cellular level by the exact number of years that she had travelled. Consequently, she quickly succumbed to her extreme old age and died. But the ripple in time caused by her return to the present extended beyond the effects on Mintumble herself, causing a series of temporal anomalies that ultimately resulted in a series of ‘un-births’.

A number of witches and wizards simply ceased to exist the moment that Eloise Mintumble arrived back in 1899. Likewise, the fabric of time that week was distorted and failed to follow the known and expected patterns of minutes, hours and days.

All of this, Dumbledore had learned during countless fascinating discussions with Hans Prince, who quickly became something of a mentor to the younger Albus. He developed a firm and long-standing friendship with the intelligent, highly principled man. He remembered speaking with Hans about the case of Eloise Mintumble with particular clarity, as it had been this event that had drawn his mentor’s career as an Unspeakable to an abrupt end.

“Be very careful in your dealings with the Ministry, Albus,” Hans had stated resolutely during one intense conversation. They had arranged on that occasion to meet in London at The Leaky Cauldron for a quiet drink after a particularly challenging school term for Dumbledore, which had recently involved several rather hostile meetings with the Ministry of Magic. The year was 1943; a student had died from petrification and Headmaster Dippet had just that week expelled Rubeus Hagrid.

Dumbledore had been simultaneously furious and devastated at the way the events had unfolded.

“It is because of the Ministry’s interference at Hogwarts that the true perpetrator of young Miss Warren’s death will never be brought to justice,” the professor baldly stated. "Hagrid had nothing to do with Myrtle's petrification. The poor lad is just a scapegoat!"

He threw back the last of his Firewhiskey and observed the grave expression that Hans wore, imagining that it matched his own grim countenance that evening.

“It has been my experience these many years that when a tragedy occurs in the wizarding world that cannot be readily explained, the Ministry of Magic will tie it up in a bow of endless red-tape and bureaucracy, hiding it away forever,” Hans spoke slowly and reluctantly. “You will need to watch your step in this situation, Albus.”

Grunting in agreement, Dumbledore signalled to the barkeep for another round.

“Do you remember our conversation about my dear friend, Eloise?” the older wizard lowered his voice and surreptitiously cast a privacy ward around their booth to avoid being overheard.

“Madam Mintumble? Of course,” the younger professor frowned. “I looked into her case quite extensively, in fact. She is the single-most compelling reason that I have not yet made my own attempt at long-range time travel.”

Hans regarded Dumbledore for a long time with fiercely intelligent eyes. His heavy, drawn brows gave an appearance of ill humour that belied his true nature.

“I hope that you continue to heed that consideration, Albus. Temporal magic is the most unstable of all magics. Eloise’s death and the events that unfolded at that time are proof of the inherent risks. When she arrived back at the Ministry, aged beyond any recognition, it was a devastating blow to our team both personally and professionally.”

Dumbledore nodded and the pair paused to accept tumblers of rich amber liquid from their server, a rather portly wizard who regarded them both with minimal interest, apart from collecting their sickles and knuts. They remained circumspect and waited for the man to leave before continuing their conversation.

“It must truly have been an horrendous experience,” Dumbledore finally said quietly. “To lose a colleague like that.”

“Her death was an undeniable tragedy,” Hans agreed. He circled the rim of his glass with his finger and looked past his companion with unseeing eyes as he remembered the circumstances surrounding his co-worker’s death.

“But there was more to it than just that. Rather than allowing us to continue our work to uncover the reasons for her death, and perhaps prevent similar instances in the future, the Ministry simply placed untold restrictions on the ownership of Time-Turners and then tried to pretend that the fault in this situation was all Eloise’s.”

“I thought that she had taken her experimentation too far? She pushed the boundaries of the experiment by trying to travel back further than anyone had done before,” Dumbledore tilted his head in confusion. “She wasn’t to blame?”

“Do not misunderstand me, Albus,” Hans leaned forward intently. “She made a mistake. Eloise Mintumble was a formidable witch of keen intellect, and she knew that there were risks involved. But the reason that she was in the Department of Mysteries working on temporal exploration, ‘pushing the boundaries’, as you say, was because the Ministry of Magic put her there.”

“Not unlike yourself,” the younger wizard nodded in understanding.

“It was the same for all of us,” he sighed. “The Ministry wanted us to advance the frontiers of temporal magic, to uncover and break the laws of time itself. And then when we accomplished that, albeit under tragic circumstances, our project was brought to a swift close. All of our research notes, artefacts that we had invented…Everything we had worked for was taken from us. It was just unfortunate that Eloise happened to be the witch who was working as the traveller that day. It could have been any one of us in her position.”

“You stopped working for the Ministry not long after that, didn’t you? I had assumed that it was your choice.”

“Oh, I could have continued on with the Ministry,” Hans made a dismissive gesture. “They placed all of us on new, considerably less ground-breaking research in different areas. My point, Albus, is that the Ministry is a political entity that fears backlash from the wizarding public. Even when it acts in the best interests of the people in terms of ground-breaking magical advancement, the very moment there is a perceived failure, the Ministry is at risk.”

Dumbledore nodded slowly. He considered his mentor’s words and applied them to his own situation. “Myrtle’s death is a failure, and therefore too great a risk,” he grimaced. “I’m never going to win this fight, am I?”

“Sadly not, my dear friend,” Hans looked at him intently. “You have already lost this battle. But there are always other ways to win the war.”

Albus Dumbledore returned his attention to the here and now. This problem with Harry was a battle that he could not afford to lose. He had argued long and hard with both Severus and Poppy about whether the Aetate Mutatio potion could possibly be causing the temporal anomaly that seemed to be affecting Harry.

It seemed so unlikely that the potion could be the cause. Granted, the de-aging potion was strongly regulated and not widely available to the wizarding population, but that was not because it was known to cause incidental time travel! Rather, the concern of the Ministry was that it would pose issues in the wizarding population with both addiction and criminal misuse. In this matter, as much as Dumbledore had disdain for the controlling hand of the Ministry, he did agree with the dangers inherent in a widely available de-aging potion.

The fact remained that at this point in time, dosing Harry with the antidote and returning to England was not even an option. In Harry’s current state of confusion, returning him to a 16-year-old body was fraught with trauma. The boy believed himself to be five years old. It would be inhumane to inflict further distress on the young wizard by suddenly aging up his body, while leaving him with the mentality of a small child. Additionally, it could do dangerous things to Harry’s magic.

He watched the boy now with undisguised interest, noting how closely Harry had positioned himself next to Severus as they sat with the rest of the family by the Christmas tree. The headmaster had been surprised and quite touched to see the boy grasping his professor's hand as they had moved into the room together, looking truly like father and son in that moment.

If nothing else, at least while Harry retained this more child-like persona, it would seem that the long-standing barriers that had existed between the stubborn Hogwarts teacher and the impetuous student were being stripped away.

And the scheming side of the older wizard felt that while he still had yet to win the war, this particular battle might be near an end, and with more than just one victor.