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1.
Harry wasn’t sure if there could be a worse timing than this.
"Who the hell are you?" Aberforth Dumbledore snarled, his fists still smeared with blood.
Some of it had gotten onto Harry's cheek. He wiped his face carefully, testing the movement of his jaw. The inside of his mouth must have been cut by his molars—there was a coppery taste of blood, and at least two of his teeth felt loose. Aberforth had put his full strength into that punch.
Bathilda Bagshot, a century younger (bearing only a faint resemblance to the elderly woman on the title page of *A History of Magic*), hurried over to intervene. The handful of mourners at the funeral were either trying to calm Aberforth or whispering in shock. They didn’t know what had happened between the brothers or to Ariana, why Aberforth had suddenly attacked his brother at their sister’s funeral, or how Albus could just let it happen.
And then there was the black-haired young man with a scar on his forehead who had rushed between the two brothers and taken Aberforth’s second punch to the face—though that hadn’t been Harry’s intention. But then again, he wasn’t sure what his "intention" had been. He had left Dumbledore’s portrait, handed the Elder Wand to Professor McGonagall to return it to its rightful place, climbed up to Gryffindor Tower, eaten a few bites of a sandwich Kreacher brought him, and then fallen into a deep sleep, only to wake up to the pungent smell of kerosene. After realizing he was in the wrong time and calming down, Harry had rushed to the only person he knew in this era—no easy feat, given how different England was a century ago—only to stumble upon Ariana’s funeral.
He understood Aberforth’s anger toward his brother, he truly did, but he just couldn’t stand by and watch Dumbledore take the beating without fighting back, the man who had spent his last moments trying to help others, acting as though it wouldn’t matter if he died meaninglessly here. Harry knew that Albus had already been defeated long before his brother’s fist connected, and that he had never truly recovered from that blow.
Aberforth was still glaring at him. The crowd was growing more confused by the second, and soon they’d realize no one present actually knew Harry. But even harder to ignore than all of that was the gaze burning into his back. Albus had slowly sat up, his breathing steadying, but Harry could still hear the wet, congested sound in his nose.
"I’m… Harry Potter," he hesitated but finally gave his real name.
"I didn’t invite any Potters," Aberforth narrowed his eyes. "Whoever you are, piss off and mind your own business."
"She’s watching you," was the only thing Harry could think to say. Aberforth immediately stepped forward as if to hit him too, and he heard Dumbledore gasp sharply behind him. "I… I’m sorry, but I think her soul hasn’t gone far yet. Ariana was a gentle child, wasn’t she?"
2.
He and Albus sat side by side on the grass, the August sun scorching the backs of their necks. From here, they could see the Dumbledore family’s old wooden house in the distance. If they stood up, they could also glimpse the much smaller version of the village at the bottom of the valley compared to a century later. The spire of the church was the tallest structure in the village, and beneath it lay the graves of Dumbledore’s recently buried mother and sister, the Peverell ancestors, and, one day, Harry’s parents.
"You’ll have to go to the Ministry. I can’t help you," Dumbledore said. His breathing had eased, but his nose was still broken, making his voice sound nasal. Harry knew that nose would take a long time to heal crookedly on its own, but thanks to him, Dumbledore had taken one or two fewer punches. If he could leave an impact in this timeline, perhaps the future Headmaster’s nose wouldn’t be as crooked as he remembered—a strangely amusing thought.
"I figured," Harry plucked a blade of grass and rolled it between his fingers. "I just… instinctively came to you. I’m sorry."
"Sorry I’m not the person you expected."
"No, I meant about Ariana," Harry said. Dumbledore stiffened slightly. "I might’ve made it in time if I hadn’t been so slow to react, so slow to move—"
"That wasn’t your fault," Dumbledore’s tone was more unyielding, sharper than it would be a century later. "It was mine. Ariana…"
Like a whirlwind seizing his throat, the red-haired young man’s voice cracked. He had to stop speaking and stood up abruptly. Harry didn’t turn to look at him. A century later, Dumbledore had done the same for him—waiting quietly for him to regain control, preserving his dignity.
"You know about her."
"I’ve heard from Aberforth and from you," Harry replied, omitting Rita Skeeter’s slander and his own near-belief in it. "Not many know the truth. I’m one of them."
"And yet you still thought I could help you?" The arrogance in his tone barely masked the hurt—that was what Harry heard from the boy beside him. But after a pause, Albus sat back down.
"I don’t know," Harry admitted. "I didn’t memorize your birth year, so I could only guess you’d still be young in this time. But I thought if it was you, you’d find a way. Even if you couldn’t, I didn’t want to try anything else before coming to you."
"What’s your issue with the Ministry?" Dumbledore leaned back on his arms, turning to look at him.
"A bit of everything, I suppose," Harry shrugged. "I might’ve openly accused two Ministers of Magic to their faces and nearly fought one of them."
He hadn’t meant to impress Albus with that.
3.
Unsurprisingly, this Dumbledore wasn’t particularly interested in his own future, so Harry told him about the Chosen One. He wasn’t sure if it would help, but when he had been refusing to accept Sirius’s death, Luna’s own story had given him comfort.
"You were fifteen," Albus pointed out, as though he weren’t only eighteen himself but decades older than Harry had been then. "In an impossible situation, with none of the adults around you giving you enough confidence to believe no one would die if you didn’t go to the Department of Mysteries."
*Especially me,* Harry heard the unspoken words. "Maybe. I blamed Dumble—the future you—for locking Sirius up, for not explaining things properly, for assigning Snape to teach me Occlumency. I blamed Snape for provoking Sirius and for hating me from the first moment he saw me, making it impossible for me to trust him. I even hated Sirius for barging into my life and then leaving so soon, leaving me in so much pain. But none of that changes the fact that it was my decision to go to the Department of Mysteries."
Dumbledore frowned but didn’t argue. Instead, he turned his face away again. His nose was swollen and purple, worse than a few hours ago, forcing him to breathe through his mouth.
"After that, I tried everything—even hoped Sirius would come back as a ghost. But nothing worked. For days, I was convinced it was all a nightmare," Harry said softly. "It took me a long time to barely accept it. But sometimes, that’s just how it is. No one meant for it to happen, but it did, and there’s no taking it back. Blaming or resenting anyone is pointless."
"That’s not the same," Albus said stiffly. "No matter how big your mistake was, you were trying to save your godfather. You risked your life for him. But I… I…"
"You wanted Ariana to stop hiding."
Dumbledore fell silent. After a moment, he gingerly touched his broken nose, then tortured himself by trying to breathe through it. The congested sound made it clear he could barely draw air. Harry couldn’t bear to watch and looked around instead. The sun was setting, the chill creeping in. Albus likely wouldn’t go home tonight, and Harry began wondering where they could stay—maybe Albus could go to Bathilda’s.
"Is that what I told you?" Albus asked suddenly, his voice cold, like thin ice under summer heat.
"Not exactly," Harry answered.
They sat in silence as night fell, stars dotting the sky. Harry began to suspect Albus had no intention of finding a bed to sleep in—fine, he’d slept in worse places. Dumbledore would survive, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to leave him alone.
"That was part of it," Albus said, his voice rough. "I loved her. I hated what happened to her, what happened to my family—why us?"
"I understand. At least a little," Harry gazed at the most visible thing in sight—the faint glow of kerosene lamps and candles from the village below, nowhere near as bright as the lights of a town in his time. Decades later, his parents would live and be buried there, their destroyed house marked by a sign covered in messages from people whose lives had been touched by their deaths. He had fantasized about Neville being the Chosen One with the scar, while his own parents kissed him goodbye on the platform, sending him off on the Hogwarts Express.
"Wanting to fulfill your dreams isn’t a sin," he murmured. "And neither is wanting someone."
4.
Albus went down the mountain to borrow some coin for the road from Bathilda, and the two of them checked into a small inn. Bathilda might have guessed Ariana’s death was connected to Grindelwald—she handed over the money without hesitation and didn’t insist that Albus stay with her. Harry remembered that a century later, she still kept the letters and photos between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, some of which Rita Skeeter later swindled to support her fabrications. For a moment, he hesitated over whether to take them away now. But Albus certainly wouldn’t want to see them at this moment, and telling him that, a century later, someone would slander his parents when he could no longer defend himself was too cruel to voice.
"I also think sending you to the Ministry should be the last resort," Albus said to him over breakfast the next day, clearly still unable to leave an urgent problem unsolved. "Not to boast, but if I can’t find a way to send you back, they probably won’t be able to do much either."
Harry let out a snort. Albus raised an eyebrow—his nose was still grotesquely swollen and purple, making his expression comical.
"Nothing, it’s just the way you talk…" Harry waved a hand. "‘Not to boast.’ The worst part is, I know you really mean it."
"Fine," Dumbledore said, mildly amused. "In any case, without the means to return you to your correct timeline, every action they might take would be… unfavorable for you."
"You mean they might quietly execute me?"
"In the worst-case scenario, yes."
"That doesn’t sound entirely wrong. A friend once drilled into me the dangers of meddling with time," Harry said plainly. "But I’d prefer to stay alive if possible. The last time I died, I was given a choice."
He hadn’t gotten to that part of the story yet. Dumbledore shot him a curious glance, with a flicker of liveliness that hadn’t been there yesterday. Harry was glad to have diverted his attention, even temporarily.
"I assume that ‘friend’ wasn’t me."
"Well, in the correct timeline, there’s about a hundred years between us. Calling you a ‘friend’ would be… odd."
"Nicolas Flamel and I are over four hundred years apart, and he still calls me a friend," Dumbledore said. "Though that might be his problem."
"I think it’s yours," Harry couldn’t help laughing. "You’re exceptional, Albus."
"People often say that," Albus broke off a piece of bread (which, whether due to the times or not, was truly awful) and his tone cooled again, his gaze distant.
"How did you meet Nicolas Flamel?" Harry changed the subject.
"I wrote a letter to the greatest alchemist of the past several centuries in my sixth year. He replied," Albus answered, as though many of his friendships began that way.
5.
"I don’t understand," Harry would bet very few people had ever heard Dumbledore say these words. "From the moment you were born, I consistently failed you—failed to protect you or anyone around you, failed to ensure you, a child, were properly cared for, and even sent you to your death. And yet you went. And afterward, you still came to me first."
"I thought Skeeter was already skilled enough at disparaging you," Harry said.
"What you described sounds exactly like that," Albus said flatly.
"I wouldn’t say you were perfect—no one could be. But that wasn’t all of it," Harry met those blue eyes earnestly, willing them to believe. "Some of the most important things in my life were taught to me by you. The conviction to fight, the power of love… Not as easy to describe as specific events, but they’re what carried me this far."
"THIS far."
"I suppose I’ve been trying to tell you the things you taught me," Harry shook his head. "When I lost Sirius, you told me the pain I felt was proof of how much I could love. That it was my strength."
Albus’s lips twisted into a cold smirk. For a moment, he looked nothing like Albus Dumbledore. "Clearly, by then I was too old to know what I was saying."
"Honestly, I thought so too at the time. But now I think I understand what you meant," Harry impulsively grabbed the other boy’s hand before anyone could walk away. "Choosing to bear that pain, to carry it forward instead of forgetting or escaping it—that’s the choice made by the best parts of people. You always chose what was right over what was easy."
"Not every time," Albus’s eyes flicked to their joined hands.
"Then you learned from it," Harry told him. "You never let yourself forget Ariana, because you loved her. It was love that made you who you became."
*A Dumbledore man through and through.* Scrimgeour’s voice echoed in his mind, and Harry’s answer would never change.
6.
When Harry first sat beside Dumbledore on the grass, he hadn’t expected things to progress to the two of them embarking on a journey together. Not that he minded—Dumbledore was an incredibly reliable travel companion, arranging everything to the best of their limited means, and his knowledge of customs and legends was encyclopedic. But the walking still had to be done by their own feet.
"When—do—you—meet—Fawkes?" Harry gasped in the thin air of the highlands, hands braced on his knees, his temples and ribs throbbing, every breath tasting of blood.
"You—tell—me," Dumbledore also paused, hands on his hips, panting heavily.
After catching his breath, Harry straightened with effort and adjusted the backpack strap cutting into his shoulder. "That wasn’t on your Chocolate Frog card."
"Whatever. But I doubt I befriended a phoenix just to have it carry my luggage," Albus took a sip from his canteen and passed it to Harry. "About five more miles."
"Can’t we Apparate?" Harry groaned.
"One can only Apparate to a place they know. I thought you’d have learned that by now," Albus studied the clouds and sun as Harry drank. "Apparating blindly, especially in mountainous terrain, might leave us materializing several feet above the ground. We’d break our ankles before we knew what happened, and that's one of the best consequences."
Still so persuasive. Harry handed back the canteen resignedly. "You know, one of the last things you ever did was take me rock climbing and swimming in the sea."
Albus barked a laugh. "The weather doesn’t look promising tonight. If we don’t make it to the campsite before dark, that might be the last thing we do too."
7.
On the road where no inns could be found, they often huddled together in a tent, sharing warmth—not just for heat, but for the solidarity of facing the darkness with another person. The habit stuck, and occasionally, when Harry woke before Albus, he would realize how bizarre it was to share a bed with the future Headmaster, though he was long past the stage of hesitating over such things.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Albus murmured one morning, thoughtful.
He lay with his arm pillowed under his head, his auburn hair fanned out around him, skin faintly luminous in the dawn light. The slight bend in his nose—the one Harry had watched form—only made him seem more strikingly handsome.
“Which part?” Harry asked.
“Teaching.” Blue eyes turned to him, and a smile—unstudied, unforced, something Harry had only recently grown familiar with—curved his lips. “You seem to think I was decent at it.”
“You were the best teacher and Headmaster,” Harry said without hesitation. The smile widened.
“That doesn’t sound like me,” Albus looked back at the ceiling. “When I was in school, I had little patience for students who weren’t… as quick.”
By his standards, “not as quick” probably covered a considerable range.
“You could try,” Harry suggested.
Albus shook his head slightly. “Not now. Maybe in a few years, when I’m ready to take on that kind of responsibility.”
“Alright.” Harry rolled onto his stomach, swinging his legs idly. “I could tell you you’d be brilliant at it, but I doubt that’d help. And I never actually sat through one of your classes. Maybe you only became Headmaster because you were terrible at teaching.”
“And what about you?” After a moment of shared laughter, Albus asked suddenly, “We’ve been searching for a way to send you back, but it’s been nearly a year with little progress. You might need to start considering your future in this time.”
“I… don’t know.” Harry faltered. Had it really been that long? “I wanted to be an Auror, but here, I don’t even have school records. And I’m not sure I still want that.”
“Have you thought about teaching?” Albus asked, and Harry stared at him in surprise. “You have experience, and I think you’d be good at it. If we keep traveling together, your background would align with mine. Hogwarts’ vetting isn’t as strict as the Ministry’s—we could say you were homeschooled or studied abroad.”
“Lying doesn’t seem like a great start for an educator,” Harry managed a weak joke, his mind spinning. Was he really going to live out his life in this time? Grow old and meet his parents as an elderly stranger? Watch as Ron and Hermione were never born, or Ginny—so much had happened since they parted, and the time they’d shared felt distant in every way.
But if he went back—to a world where only Dumbledore’s portrait remained—wouldn’t that be like losing the same person twice? Would Albus miss him? Would the Dumbledore in his memories change?
“And I’m not sure about sharing your credentials,” he added. “I know you could do it on your own. I haven’t really helped.”
“No, Harry,” Albus said softly. “You have no idea how much you’ve helped.”
The raw, tender look in his eyes pierced straight through Harry, stealing his breath. Harry swallowed, realizing only then that he’d taken the “keep traveling together” part for granted.
8.
“You’re the kind of good person who chooses those who need you, not those you need,” Albus said one sweltering midsummer day, their feet cooling in the river. He watched Harry with trust and unease, his red hair aflame in the sunlight.
“Maybe,” Harry brushed his thumb along Albus’s cheek, soothing them both. “But right here, right now—I *need* you.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have taken this step. But it felt like the most right thing in the world.