My Favourite Story's On The Internet

Findable On: Archive of Our Own (Ao3)

Author: Arkodian 

Type: Series

Summary: Some of Harry's memories end up in the past and he has to figure out 1. what to do about the shitty things he sees in his future, 2. how this happened in the first place, and 3. if he may just be making it all worse anyway. It doesn't help that his saviour complex apparently travelled back with him.

What he knows is that neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore have his best interest at heart, so he may as well be on his own side - and recruit as many people as possible to help/save.

That means making old and new friends as well as enemies, starting his political career early and messing with the timeline. A lot. After all, he will drag the wizarding world into the next century - kicking and screaming if he has to. And if that's not an excuse to be mayhem personified, Harry doesn't know what is.

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Harry Potter woke up on his ninth birthday, took one look at the low ceiling of his cupboard and the spider scuttling its way across the underside of the stairs and went "well damn".

Then he cursed some more for good measure until his Aunt Petunia reminded him with a loud rapping on the door that he had chores to attend to and if one more of those foul words passed his lips, she would wash his mouth with soap. Remembering the one time he had mentioned magic in front of visitors, Harry believed her. So he ducked his head, murmured "Yes, Aunt Petunia" and got to work cracking eggs into the skillet.

At least it was Monday, which meant while he made the biggest breakfast of the week, he was uninterrupted by Vernon and Dudley who were usually reluctant to start off their week. Petunia kept an eye on him for a few more minutes, but apparently decided he could attend the cooking alone while she did some laundry.

The moment she left, Harry's head snapped up from his obedient pose and he looked around the kitchen with narrowed eyes.

"Well damn", he repeated.

It took until that evening when the Dursley were suitably distracted by the TV – as evidenced by Vernon's booming laugh – that Harry found the time to think. The headache that had been plaguing him all day had receded to a dull throbbing in time with his heart and the darkness helped soothe his eyes.

Was it real? The magic and the mythical creatures and the castle that made something in his chest tighten in longing and the… friends. There had been friends, in these weird memories that seemed as real as the one of Dudley and his friends beating him up yesterday, yet as fragile as dreams.

There was one way to find out.

Harry took a deep breath, closed his eyes and tried to remember the warm feeling in his chest when aunt Petunia had shaved off most of his hair and it had grown back overnight, when he had turned his teacher's wig blue after she had berated him for not doing his homework after Dudley had ripped it to shreds, when he had nicked his fingers on the garden shears and the wound had healed immediately…

A thousand pictures flashed before his eyes, memories or not, and the helpless anger he felt most days took over his being. There was a wining noise in his head that felt like a thread stretching thin forever and ever – until it snapped with a twang, the whole house seemed to give a shudder, uncle Vernon gave a shout and the noise from the TV cut off.

When Harry opened his eyes, the thin sliver of light from under the door had disappeared. If he had to guess, so had every single other light source in the house. The warmth in his chest was back, along with a strange tingling in his right hand and a bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to pull him under. Even that could not contain the pure joy that spread throughout his body.

He had magic.