Chapter Text
Running Parallel
Chapter One: World 002
There was a steady beat in her ears as Heather swung around her basement. She could feel the tempo straight through her shoes as she swung around the room. Lost to the ear-splitting volume Heather belted out the words to the song playing on the Mage-dio, she turned on her heels swinging her ponytail in a long arc. Then Heather snatched the beer bottle from the nearby table and took a long swig before bouncing in the place as the beat changed.
“Yes!” she cheered as her favorite part hit.
Thankful for silencing charms in the Muggle neigh boor - which without the police most certainly would have arrived with noise complaints - Heather flicked her free hand at her Mage-dio turning to volume up louder yet as she sang in her loudest and tone-deaf voice.
Heather only calmed as the song changed. Slowing her dancing she snatched her journal from the nearby table. Still bobbing somewhat to the new song, she triple-checked her notes and took another drink of her beer from the side of her mouth so that her eyes never left her papers. Carefully Heather studied her notes for perhaps the hundredth time that hour all to make sure she hadn’t made any maths or runes mistakes. As far as Heather could tell, she hadn’t.
The spell should work perfectly, and it was about damned time too. After all, there was a reason Heather was currently listening to the Mage-dio so loud, and it was only partly due to the excellent song choice. The larger reason was that because of the volume, Heather could ignore the chiming of her floo. Her family, attempting to contact her, meant the best… but Heather wasn’t in the mood for their sympathies or kind words. Besides, it wasn’t like it was a big deal! Sure, she was creating a brand new method of travel from scratch to avoid the problem, but it still wasn’t a big deal.
It wasn’t. Sure, Heather had thrown up on the Magical Prime Minister for Canada, sure her latest blind date hadn’t known her by her ‘savior’ or ‘girl-who-lived’ titles and instead by the obnoxious live photo of her throwing up. Sure she couldn’t use the floo or apparate with becoming brutally sick. It was fine. And wouldn’t be a problem once her portal was complete.
Heather’s expression still crossed into sarcasm as she put her bottle down and she spoke to herself: “if Ginny didn’t want me at every one of her stupid games then I wouldn’t exactly need to use anything but a broom now would I!” which, of course, was nonsense and she knew it. Heather couldn’t function in the world she did without traveling. Even without Ginny’s quidditch matches Heather still had to work, shop, visit Teddy and do all manner of other things that required apparition or the floo. And flying to all these places by broom just wasn’t logical, it took too long… she’d tried.
Well! It was still fine because she’d finished her prep and Heather was ready to finally test her portal for real. If everything went well, no one - namely the twins and Luna - would yell at her for experimenting with magic without someone there as a backup. Which, Luna admittedly had a reason, considering her mother.
Heather shook her head. It was fine. She set her journal to the side and marched to the runic circle she’d drawn in the middle of the room. This was the complicated base of the spell. In the future, Heather would alter and shorten the rune work so she could simply draw the portal in the air. In the future, it would run like a circle cut through space, jumping her from one place to another with a single firm step. Now though, the runes were painstakingly drawn onto the floor just waiting for her magic to power them up.
Inhaling a fortifying breath, Heather took a dueler stance and brought up her wand in a steady grip. Carefully picturing the location she wanted, the Burrow, which was the most familiar to her outside her own home, Heather jabbed her wand forward and poured her magic forward. There were no words for this spell just as there was not for apparition. Instead, it was, like apparition, all about intent and plenty of runes like a portkey.
As she focused, the runes in circle form began to glow a steady green. Heather briefly was surprised by that, it should have been blue for neutral magic but was instead glowing green for her own. Did that mean she was pushing too much magic into the runes? Should she stop? Fred would tell her to stop and revisit, but Heather was so very excited to finally find a new method of travel. The disappointment she’d feel if she messed up again and was forced back again, that was what kept her going. What drove the green brighter still.
It was fine Heather told herself and wouldn’t… completely regret that choice.
Before her a black spawn appeared in the air, like images of a black hole drawn in her Muggle science books it formed. The wind picked up around her, sucked toward the portal, and making her ponytail flap in the wind. Likewise, Heather’s notes fluttered violently but thankfully remained on the table.
Heather shoved more magic into the spell, finding it quite easy to perform the spell. It made her grin slightly because if it were this easy, then it could become a more commonly used spell. Of course, had she not been alone, someone might have reminded Heather that she was anything but ordinary. She was the mistress of Death, had power over the elder wand, and was the most powerful witch in an age. All this, she frequently forgot in her many attempts to claim she was just normal ‘Heather Potter.’ She’d be quite disappointed to learn that she was anything but ordinary.
Steadily the portal before her expanded, and she found a small amount of effort necessary to grow the circle, to make it large enough for a human to fit. Finally, she managed panting slightly and stood back to admire her work. It was a dark oval swirling a breath from the ground; it was perfectly large enough for her to fit through, though a taller individual might have to duck. Heather approached the portal and gave it a critical look. And well, there was a reason she was Gryffindor as Heather literally risked a limb a moment later.
She hurled her hand into the inky portal and waited to lose all feeling in the hand she’d chosen to potentially sacrifice. Nothing happened. The inside of the opening was chilled, like a cooling spell keeping her home cool during the summer. But beyond that, she felt nothing. Like she had her hand in open air.
Heather pulled her hand out unscathed, her math had been right, it worked. “Eat your heart out!” she said victoriously, and promptly stepped through the portal.
Immediately following, Heather realized she, quite effectively, fucked up. Firstly, because she’d done it in the first place. Secondly, because she’d left her notes behind. Thirdly, because the portal snapped closed behind her like a bear trap, preventing her from retreating or second-guessing. Fourthly, she immediately tripped over a box that really should not have been there. While on the single positive, Heather didn’t feel sick from the journey… which was… good?
Either way, Heather went down hard as she tripped. She squealed in surprise, arms pinwheeled, as she attempted to catch herself and failed. She hit wooden floors and cracked her chin against the ground, which made her eyes water painfully. “Ow, ow ow ow.” She whined, grabbing her chin with her free hand and groping with her other for purchase so she could return to her feet. As Heather reached forward, she met a wall much closer than expected, and Heather’s eyes snapped open to find herself in pitch-black darkness.
She jerked back slightly, realizing she had landed in a room far smaller than she’d left. Almost like a closest. So, she’d travelled, but… where?
“Episkey.” Heather cast at her chin, healing the minor wound from her fall before she wiggled her empty hand. A small light formed in her fingertips and floated overhead. It allowed her to get a better look at the storage room she’d been dumped in.
Heather’s brows pinched as she glanced at the endless boxes and eerily family walls before she cast her eyes up and found a simple Muggle light hanging overhead If she were taller, she would have bumped into it when she stood, as it was, it floated a full head length over her. The Muggle-ness of it, however, had Heather hurriedly jumping for the light to turn it on before swiftly dispersing her magical light. It would do to have a Muggle walk in and see her with a floating light randomly in their storage room. Heather would have to attempt to obliviate them, which she wasn’t skilled at doing, or she’d have to call Ron, which would be a disaster. Heather could only imagine the papers after that.
“Okay, this is fine… the spell worked, it just didn’t… bring me to the right place.” Heather rounded a few boxes as she tried to locate the door to get out. As she did, her mind whirled with possibilities, had she been distracted when picturing her location? Or was it a rune problem? Or was it something else?
Heather found the door at the top of a set of oddly familiar stairs, and she quickly rushed up them. With a twist of her wrist, she opened the door and shot a spell behind her to turn off the Muggle light. She was attempting to leave little sign of her coming and going, attempting being the clear word there. Instead, Heather walked into an equally familiar hallway and came face to face with a Muggle woman in a towel, fresh out of the shower going by the steam coming off her skin. Heather felt herself blanch as the woman registered her and attempted slowly to raise her hands to show she meant no harm.
This would definitely end up being front-page news she could just tell.
In slow motion, Heather watched the woman pale, watched her pupils constrict in fear, watched her mouth open, and then- scream.
“Thief!!!”
“Oh, no, no!” Heather took an aborted step forward instinctively, trying to soothe, “no, no, it’s a mistake… I was… err…” lie, lie, think of a lie… her mind was blank. Bloody hell-
“GET OUT! Roger, call the police! ROGER!”
The woman turned on the spot - the towel amazingly staying in place - as she snatched up a vase from the nearest flat surface and twisted, already flinging it toward Heather’s head.
“Bugger.” Heather ducked the projectile, thanks to her trained seeker reflexes, and it shattered behind her. Glass and water splashed across the ground. By the time the chaos of that settled, Heather was already retreating. “Sorry! I’m sorry! This is not my house, I thought-” she frowned at the walls as the woman actually gave chase while screaming. The pale blue walls were familiar as well, just like the stairs. They almost looked like-
““Thief! Vandal! Get out- ROGER!”
Yep, time to cut her losses. Heather bolted randomly, hoping she’d find a door and an escape from the hell house that was making her mind do all kinds of nonsense. She was beginning to feel like she was swimming in dejavu, everything about the building she’d ended up in pulled at her mind and screamed of familiarity. It took Heather some time and a few near misses from the women throwing things to finally place it.
The layout was just like Heather’s home. The kitchen was in the same place, the basement, living room, and thankfully the front door. It was all in the same.
“I’m leaving, okay!” Heather yelped at the woman as she finally got a grasp of where the front door was. Even as she retreated, her mind was working. The layout was the same, the walls were the wrong color, and the furniture wasn’t hers, but… but it looked exactly like most of the things the older man, who owned Heather’s home before her, owned.
“Roger!”
“Roger Terrace, lovely to meet you Miss Potter, and this is-”
And that name. Heather dove for the front door as she heard the pounding footsteps of what was likely a gun-toting Muggle man. It wasn’t likely just her uncle who owned a shotgun, after all. And she hastened to get out the front door fleeing toward the street.
Heather stopped dead on the sidewalk as the door closed behind her. Alarm bells rang in her brain, an alarm and a thought she didn’t quite want to think yet. Her instincts were screaming at her as Heather saw the house sitting across the one she’d just exited. Slowly, Heather turned back to the house behind her and compared it.
The cars were a bit older than they should be, all of them, the trees were shorter, and one house had been torn down several months previous when the aged man that lived there sold it. The house directly opposite of the one she’d exited was the very same that normally sat opposite Heather’s own home. The place beside that was the same one that always sat there. The tree - drastically shorter now - was the same one that sat in Heather’s yard. It was the same, yet there were stranger’s in the house Heather had landed in, and everything within had changed-
“No.” Heather realized, “not changed, reverted!” the thought settled in her chest like a stone. It sank into her stomach and made nausea build.
Now that she was thinking about it, the woman that kicked her like looked remarkably like a younger version of the woman she’d initially bought her home from. It was a different hair-style, but the face was the same down to the pointed chin. Heather had known the woman well after she’d spent months trying to convince the lady to sell her house to her. Heather had desperately wanted that one specifically after telling her Realtor she wanted a place and street with character. She refused to settle for a cookie-cutter. With a crooked path, aged walls, and a huge oak grown in the front yard, Heather fell in love instantly.
Over the past decade, Heather had decorated her home. Painting the bedrooms with Luna, doing woodwork with the twins, decorating with the Weasleys, and the rest of her family. Every inch of her home had been touched by her loved ones. And while Heather desperately wanted to believe her spell had been successful and she had just moved through space as intended, the Gothic building before her was a touch damning.
The house across from her was familiar in it’s oddly goth nature - it was hard to forget when the owner reminded her quite firmly of the Addam’s family TV show. Even if she could ignore the Gothic building, the house beside it was the blue number that always put out an explosion of holiday decorations. The two owners, an old Wicca woman who never came out during the summer and the intensely Christian family, always faced off during the holidays. Just as it was doing that moment, for one was covered in Christmas lights - yet it shouldn’t because it was the middle of August - and the other was plain, as much as a Goth building could be.
And these houses battling it out as they always did, that much was familiar, and that was the problem. Because Heather’s home should have been across from them, and instead, she’d been kicked out of it by strangers.
Heather shot a look behind her again, at the young little oak tree, the crooked path, the familiar crooked house that wasn’t quite as crooked as she remembered. Then her eyes clamped together, and she took a deep breath.
There was only one way to be sure. Because as impossible as it seemed, ‘impossible’ wasn’t a thing in a world full of magic. Anything could be done without enough time, and any witch or wizard that said different was trying to limit you. Snape had told her that, passing the words her mother had once said to him. Of course, he’d been far more aggressive and harsh in tone, but the point remained.
So Heather pulled up her big woman pants, lifted her wand, and firmly tapped her wrist.
“Tempus.” She cast.
Up from her wrist floated the date and time, the full date and time, including, unfortunately for her… the year.
‘December 3rd, 1985.’
“Oh fuck.” Heather stared down at the damning letters and cast her face to the sky. “Luna is going to kill me.”
The one and only rule with experimenting with new spells is to have someone around as backup. Luna, Fred, and George, and even Snape, had drilled that into her brain over years. The twins had done it when they taught her how to craft new spells when she’d helped them with the shop. The spoke endlessly about how if a fire started then the other twin was close enough to help especially if someone was knocked out. Snape had done it when she reached his Newt class and had spoken at length about how things went wrong. He’d showed them why it was important by having them attempt to control a purposely messed up potion alone. And then there was Luna, Luna’s who experimental mother Pandora had died to a simple problem because no one had realized she’d needed help.
One rule and Heather had ignored it.
“Oh, man.” Heather reached up and palmed her face in guilt, regret, and a large touch of self-pity. Heather had been thrown two decades into the past, and no one even knew to help her because she’d been ignoring them. They would stop contacting her floo, assuming she wanted space, and it would be days before anyone thought to check on her as a result. Then there was the whole butterfly effect thing. One did not become friends with Hermione Granger without knowing the ‘dangers of time-travel,’ down the quote in the most obscure of books. One wrong step and Heather… Heather could end up forced to live in a completely different home, which she’d rather not do. Not to mention, there was the whole ‘Voldemort could win,’ thing to acknowledge. So yeah, no, Heather was not interested in long-distance time-travel to change the fates. Time was much too delicate to go around willy-nilly walking through. On the other side, Heather was currently and for the extended future, trapped in nineteen eighty-five.
“What do I do?” Heather dropped her face into her palms. Look on the bright side, perhaps? She could be thankful that she’d not been experimenting in her pajama’s and at least had her wand with her-
Behind her, the front door to her eventual home opened, and Heather gave a silent gasp. Quick as a whip, she turned and spotted a male head and a bloody shotgun poking out of the front door.
She didn’t waste a second. Heather apparated on the spot and felt the squeeze of apparition and felt her boots land on concrete. As she landed in Diagon Alley, the first place her panicked mind that to bring her.
Heather landed and covered her mouth immediately. Her stomach heaved and twisted as if she were still stuck in the squeezing sensation of apparition. The familiar feeling of motion sickness, made a hundred times worse by magic, sent her stomach rolling, and it took all her concentration to control it. True it would be faster to just heave, the relief would be immediate, but Heather would rather not.
Travel had always been a difficult point for her. It started early on, as she’d be told, with Sirius’ motorcycle. He had, when she’d been a baby, taken her on the bike to Lily’s intense horror. She’d been safe enough, wearing a magically altered helmet and had been strapped to his chest. But seconds in and she’d thrown up all over him and the bike, he hadn’t done it again, and Heather still didn’t know it that was because of her mother or the throwing up.
It hadn’t gotten better over her childhood either. Vernon and Petunia couldn’t take her in the car without a bucket, let alone a train. By the time she’d been eleven and Hagrid had taken her on a boat, train, and then bus in that unfortunate order, she knew it would be a life-long problem. And that wasn’t even mentioning the Hogwarts express, which was a full day of travel. Though, it had helped her meet Ron, who, after a brief introduction, had been kind enough to hold her hair until her stomach was empty.
The one method of travel Heather had no problems with, was anything alive or a broom. She’d been built to fly a broom, and the control in her own hands eased something inside her. Likewise - to Hagrid’s intense surprise - she could also fly upon Buckbeak without a problem.
Floo, and apparition, though… that was better off not being considered.
And as she well knew, just not traveling by anything but broom really wasn’t viable. Especially not during a war. So she’d sucked it up… even if it had been a near thing when she threw up on a death eater’s shoos during the war after she’d been forced to apparate and flee. But really forced the issue, and the creating of her time-travel spell; was the day she’d barfed on the Canadian Minister for magic after one of Ginny’s quidditch league games. The moving picturing of the incident during the after-party had been in the papers for months. Heather decided to create a new method of travel when her blind date remembered her not for being the girl-who-lived, or even the savior of the magical world, but… as the woman who threw up on the Minister.
It had gloriously backfired.
“Miss are you alright?”
“Mhm,” Heather pressed her head into the stone beside the apparition point in Diagon Alley and waved off her well-wisher. Feeling ill or not, Heather also knew that showing her face in any regard would be ridiculously stupid. Her past self may not be an adult or seen in the public for a few years, but her eyes and the now faded scar would still stick in people’s heads. Not to mention she was apparently the ‘picture’ of her grandmother Euphemia, and most people knew it thanks to those stupid books. Heather didn’t want to panic the public by having them think ‘Euphemia’ was back from the dead and walking around Diagon Alley.
“If you’re sure…” the woman voice tinged in concern and a touch of confusion before she walked away. Heather glanced up to make sure she was gone and caught a glimpse of brown hair before the woman vanished around the corner. Watching her, Heather felt her stomach finally calm and was able to shove away from the wall. As she shifted, Heather tapped her wand to her head, casting a familiar and rather simple spell which wouldn’t be invented for at least, oh about thirteen years. So no one then would be able to counter it.
The spell acted much like Muggle makeup; it contoured, concealed, and emphasized in all the right places. Intent, and a clear mental image, was all that was required for the magic. So, Heather was still Heather, but she looked a great deal less than her grandmother with a simple word and a minimal amount of makeup.
A secondary bit of magic, more powerful and still commonly used. Well, that was to muddy up her too bright green eyes. It added new colors to her irises, like a Muggle color contact. A final spell, invented by Fred during the Yule Ball as a Christmas gift for her, straightened the mess that was her curly hair.
Feeling more secure with her appearance, Heather tucked her now pin-straight hair behind her ear and strode into the Alley. She did her best to appear as normal as possible and strode around as if it were a regular day for her, as if she was just a random witch going Christmas shopping. On the upside, the Alley was quite busy thanks to the season, and Heather was further disguised from prying eyes as a result.
As Heather wandered loosely to the quidditch store, her mind wandered as she desperately tried to think of a plan. Heather was only briefly distracted at the pitiful broom in the wonder. The newest in the year but a painful dud in the future she’d come from. She giggled slightly before sobering at her reflection in the glass.
“Okay,” she patted her cheeks carefully. Heather had in possession knowledge of the future, her wand, a single pair of clothing that did not work for the season. It was bloody December after all, and she was in some slacks, a tank, and her trainers… no jacket. She also had no money, Muggle or magical, no home, no friends, no family-
“Ah ha ha ha.” The nervously panicked laugh escaped Heather’s mouth as she tried to brutally shove her panic back.
Okay, so… what did Heather need? First, money, then food and water, and shelter. Preferable a plane ticket so she was far away from the drama and not tempted to change things. Then, supplies to recreate her portal, the instructions for which had been left behind, so she’d need to write that down quickly while it was still fresh in her memory. Then she’d mess with the spell to hopefully send her forward to her proper time, lest she be forced to relive the next two decades… and end up two decades older than everyone she knew.
“Not ideal,” Heather said, turning away from the display to move slowly along the Alley.
So the easiest and straightest path to not panicking, and getting back to her own time, was to… get money. The easiest way to do that… was to take it from herself.
Heather stepped away from the potions shop and glanced down the Alley toward Gringotts. The idea, now in her head, seemed like her best option. She’d pass Gringott’s test, aged up or not, she’d be able to access her vaults. And on the positive, her younger moronic self would not check the full accounts or even the trust fund records until she was seventeen. By then, she wouldn’t think to second guess ‘Heather Potter’ taking money out a few too early because she’d assumed she’d done it at some point. That, and if Heather took control of the full accounts now, then she could set herself up nicely for the future.
For… good intention, and so forth.
After all, in Heather’s own time, the accounts had been something of a disaster by the time she gained full control of them at her magical majority. This would only be saving herself, and Draco, who was her unfortunate tutor, some time. It was win-win… for her. And she rather thought that her past self wouldn’t mind.
“Brilliant, I’ll do that.” The pressure in her stomach eased slightly as Heather strode toward the bank. She felt somewhat comforted with the plan in mind. But Heather still didn’t notice that the very same Quidditch store she’d bought her first broom from, was in the wrong spot. Nor did she see that the famous Flourish and Blotts was now named ‘Nobles and Barns.’ Or, that the owner of said store, was just putting out a brand new display for a book called ‘The Lives and Times, of the Boy-who-lived.’