# Another

Аноним Ophidian

After the battle for Hogwarts, Harry wakes up on Grimmauld Place and learns that he is not Potter at all, but his parents and Sirius and Dumbledore are alive.

Ophidian

another

1. The awakening of a former hero

He woke up slowly, enjoying his nameless presence in the world. It happens that after a deep sleep, you don't immediately realize who you are, and these moments are so serene that you want to prolong them and prolong them. But his mind ignored his wishes and steadily cleared up until his memory awoke. And he remembered - he was Harry Potter. The boy-who-lived-again-and-this-time-for-a-long-time. Because he finally defeated Voldemort and stayed alive.

The victory was bloody, and those who survived with him were unable to rejoice in it. The last thing he remembered was looking for Ginny among the few defenders of Hogwarts and seeing her alive a few moments before he collapsed. And now he's here, in bed. It was comfortable and soft to lie down, I didn't want to get up. He was absolutely calm and did not feel the slightest pain, not the slightest disorder in himself. He must have been drugged to the brim.

He felt detached from the battle that had taken place, as if it had not happened to him. Probably because of the soothing potions, or maybe also because he had traditionally been unconscious for several days, as after the next annual Hogwarts brawl. It's a bad tradition, it's time to change it.

He smiled at the thought without opening his eyes. Maybe, well, this auror, what is he doing there? I thought about it and was surprised at hisself - not getting into the Aurora had previously been something of a life disaster for him, and he had never jokingly allowed such blasphemy. But there was a war before, and now it's all over. Now you can just live.

His mind was surprisingly clear, even unusually clear in some places. It was easy and clear to think -he must have slept it off a week in advance. It was nice to lie down and think, but it was time to open his eyes and please his friends with his awakening. They're probably somewhere nearby, they can't wait for him to wake up. Ron's best friend isn't without flaws, but he's still the best. There is no other way. Hermione's loyal friend, she even erased her parents' memory of herself and sent them away to accompany him in the search for horcruxes. And Ginny, bright, brave Ginny. His Ginny...

Harry sat up in bed and swung his legs to the floor. His sleepy gaze swept across the dimness of the room and in an instant became attentive. If he's not in the Hogwarts hospital room, then where is he? The gloomy interior and heavy blackout curtains on the window suggested that he was probably at Grimmauld Place 12. The room was unfamiliar to him, but he could have been put in one of the bedrooms where he had not been before. There are so many rooms here, you can't remember everything.

He automatically reached to the nearest bedside table for his glasses and found two surprises at once. First, there were no glasses within reach. Secondly, he doesn't need glasses, he can see perfectly well without them. In the last battle, he repeatedly received the killing unforgivable from Voldemort. If he was still alive, maybe it killed myopia?

After making sure he could see perfectly into the distance, Harry looked down at his hands. He could see perfectly up close, too, but it wasn't his hands. Not those familiar for a long time, down to every tiny scar, with broken nails and potion burns, but others, lean, slightly larger and more elegant, with strong long fingers and narrow, even nails. He didn't remember having his arms blown off-where did these come from? Did he get hurt while he was unconscious?

Harry looked down at his bare legs, half-covered with a blanket. The feet also looked somehow unfamiliar. He jumped out of bed-they put him here in his underwear-and looked down at himself. Something was wrong, though he couldn't say exactly what. There was a mirror in the bedroom, and he hurried to it.

Another man looked at him from the mirror.

His age. Taller, thinner in the waist, broader in the shoulders. A beautiful, well-groomed, lean body, without scars and signs of malnutrition. I would like to say about him - as new. She had a rather narrow, elongated face, milky-white skin that had never known sunburn. The hair is also black, the same length and the same shade as the previous ones, but softer and more obedient. They didn't stick out in all directions, but lay smoothly, except for the fact that on one side they were crumpled against the pillow. A neat nose with a barely noticeable bump at the top, deep-set eyes, not green, but dark gray.

Someone else's body, someone else's face. Harry ran his hand over his head, and the reflection mirrored his gesture. Her hair immediately fell into place.

The problem...

Whoever put it here took care of it. And they probably know what happened to him, all they have to do is come out and ask. Harry looked into the wardrobe and found clothes and shoes for himself there. After getting dressed, he pushed the door out first with his hand, then with his shoulder.

The door was locked. Remembering Allochomora, he looked around for his wand. He rummaged in the bedside table, on the shelves, in the wardrobe - the wand was nowhere to be found.

Combined with everything else, it turned out to be the trigger that caused him an instant surge of panic. Harry ran aimlessly around the room, rushed to the window, which also wouldn't open, then back to the door. He frantically shook it by the handle, trying to swing the lock, and fiddled with it until, in the confusion, he knocked his knuckles until they bled on the bronze base of the handle. Strangely enough, this ridiculous action finally worked, and the door opened.

The flash of panic subsided as abruptly as it had come, replaced by endless suspicion. His friends wouldn't have left him locked up without a wand-did his enemies really have him? Maybe it's not the Black mansion at all, but just a similar one?

Mechanically licking the cut on his finger, Harry looked out into the corridor. No, he was at the Blacks' after all, in his own house, inherited after Sirius' death. The bedroom was on the third floor, and there was complete silence. Suspicion did not recede - too many strange things were revealed. They could still be enemies who had managed to take over his house.

Harry walked down the hallway to the side stairs, making as little noise as possible. The second floor was quiet too. He was about to go down to the kitchen on the first floor, when suddenly a soft sound from the fireplace room made him shun away down the corridor. Footsteps on the parquet floor indicated that someone had arrived through the fireplace, and Harry froze in place, not knowing which way to move. Was it a friend? The enemy?

The sound of footsteps faded away, meaning that the person who had arrived here had stopped. A few seconds later, similar sounds were heard, indicating the arrival of another person. A few steps away from the fireplace, and the second man also stopped. Harry caught himself not breathing and sucked in a shuddering breath. He didn't dare go into the fireplace room with these people-even if they were his own, he would surely find himself to blame for breaking open the locked door. If they recognize him at all...

A short, barking laugh came from the living room and pierced right through him. The way he laughs is too familiar-it just couldn't be! Harry didn't realize he was backing away until his back was against the end door of the hallway. The chuckle was followed by the equally familiar voice of his godfather from the fireplace:

"What about my rehabilitation, sir? The rat died at the Malfoys', you can't bring him to the Ministry anymore."

Harry desperately shook his head to clear up the glitches. Sirius died two years ago, he fell into the Arch of Death!

"Yes, yes, my boy, don't worry about anything, I remember", Dumbledore's kindly voice replied unhurriedly. "First, I have to regain my former place and influence."

The glitches were getting worse because Dumbledore had also been dead for a long time. A year ago, he fell from the Astronomical Tower and couldn't talk like he was more alive than anyone else.

Before, Harry would have fainted, but this body was tougher. He just leaned against the door, exhausted, fighting dizziness and listening to the sounds coming from outside. Judging by the noise, people were arriving in the fireplace room one by one. It was filled with the sounds of footsteps, short coughs, and low, unintelligible voices, male and female.

Whoever these people were, they were enemies. Because Sirius and Dumbledore were dead.

"Is everyone here?" Dumbledore's voice was heard again, and silence fell in the fireplace. "Shall we go to the meeting?"

"There's still Remus," a high-pitched female voice replied. A stranger.

Harry had time to realize that now the whole crowd would come out into the corridor and see him. He ducked through the nearest door behind him, and the next moment it dawned on him that it was in this living room that the Order of the Phoenix held meetings and that these people would surely come here. The door in the hallway slammed, and he had seconds to hide. There were no cupboards in the living room, and the sofas were too low to fit under one of them. He desperately pressed himself into a corner to the side of the door, wishing he could disappear into it and be invisible.

Suddenly, his elbow sank into the folds of maroon velvet that lined the walls of the living room. There was a hidden niche behind the fabric upholstery, and if Harry had had time to think, he would have guessed that it was intended for eavesdropping. But he didn't have that time, so he hurriedly squeezed through the gap between the longitudinal folds of the velvet and found himself inside.

The niche was spacious enough to stand in it or sit on the floor sideways to the room. As soon as he straightened the folds behind him, footsteps of a small crowd could be heard approaching in the corridor. Leaning against the wall, Harry regained his rapid breathing from excitement and listened to people enter the living room one by one and sit down on armchairs and sofas. Finally, he plucked up the courage to open a crack in the velvet upholstery a little and peered into the room with one eye.

There were at least a dozen people in the living room, half of whom Harry thought were dead. Dumbledore was sitting in a separate chair against the far wall, alive, healthy, and not at all exhausted. The old wizard's bright blue eyes gleamed cheerfully from under his half-glasses, and in his hands he twirled a wand, which Harry recognized as the one placed in the tomb of the former headmaster. On the sofa next to him, Snape was grinning sardonically, bilious and unwashed as always, with a bandaged throat. Arthur and Molly Weasley sat down next to Snape, happy with their lives and in no way resembling their grieving parents.

Sirius and Lupin occupied the sofa by the door on the opposite side of the room, both cheerful. Two of his best friends and his girlfriend sat across from them: Hermione was closest to him, then Ron, and finally Ginny. Harry could see them from the side and behind, so he could only make out their faces in profile, but he could clearly see how possessively Ron hugged Hermione, putting his hand under her arm far enough to squeeze one of her rather bulky breasts. Ginny was sitting on the other side of Ron, with the flirtatious expression Harry knew so well, which appeared when she wanted to please someone.

On the sofa on Dumbledore's other side sat three people whom Harry's mind refused to recognize. But Harry couldn't be mistaken, because he spent hours looking at his parents' wizardry in the album Hagrid had given him, and he had no choice but to admit that this black-haired and bespectacled man, moderately well-fed and elegantly dressed, was the same James Potter, his father, and the pretty red-haired woman next to him was Lily Potter., nee Evans, his mother.

But the biggest shock was the guy next to Lily Potter. Black-haired, also bespectacled, dressed to the nines and fattened to the size of a pig, he would most resemble Dudley Dursley in build and manners if not for his face. This is exactly what Harry himself might have become if Aunt Petunia had raised him as a beloved son instead of Dudley.