Desolation.

He walks amidst it without seeing, and yet sees naught else: the rubble and the ruin, the dead and the dying.  What little life remains is slowly being leached away before his eyes.  The colours dull to shades of brown and grey, the few scarce sounds of life are gradually smothered beneath the shroud-like storm clouds that lie threatening above.  Even the sickly-sweet scent of decay is half-buried by the dust settling at a glacial pace.

He wanders, and wonders at the awesome miracle of destruction that surrounds him in this barren land for which he is god.  Wreckage is strewn haphazardly throughout his dominion, and he pauses occasionally to consider the waste.  A charred bolt of red and gold cloth, a small nugget of silver, a book with its leaves torn out and spine crushed.

Bodies.  Often unrecognisible, bereft of clothing or limbs or hair or face.  He lingers over these, prodding and poking at them to make them yield their identities to him before he moves on.  There are always more.

A glint of light pierces the gloom and draws him to itself.  The broken shards of a mirror offers a poor, imperfect reflection from beneath a layer of grime.  He wipes them with one hand, only to taint them further with his own blood as the pieces slice his fingers.  Yet the image is clearer in spite of the reddish tint and the myriad of fragments, and he stares into the depths that disclose what he knows cannot be there.

Memories cloud his sight and delude his reality.  His own reflection fades as the impossible reaches out to him and cries out in pain as more blood flows and the shards begin to fly.

Automatically he reaches out  - and clasps hands with a different fate, a different destiny.

"Please, help me?"

The words are soft and trembling, the hands within his own slick with blood and sweat.  He considers the request, and acquiesces.

Opening his eyes, he gazes upon a new and familiar world.
 
 

His hands felt like they were on fire.  Simon knew that for a fact: he'd managed to set them alight during potions the previous week.  It hadn't been an experience he'd intended to repeat.

Wincing, he opened his eyes just as the heat faded from his hands, leaving him with throbbing pains from the multiple cuts he'd incurred when he'd crashed into the mirror.  There was blood everywhere, but blood was a hell of a lot better than charred flesh in his opinion.

"My goodness!" Professor Flitwick gasped from somewhere behind him.

He turned his head towards the minute professor, intending to apologise, but the words died on his lips as he followed the Charms professor's gaze.

"Bloody hell!" he swore.  "Da-"  He bit the word off before he could complete it.  "You're not Dad," he half-accused instead, then felt his throat dry up as green eyes pierced him through.

The person opposite Simon Potter most definitely wasn't his father - but he had his father's hair and face.  He didn't have his father's height or build, but he had his mother's eyes.  His robes were worn and stained, and his hands were bleeding, too.

"Dennis!  Fetch Professor Dumbledore!"  Flitwick ordered excitedly.  "Natalie, Professor Potter!"

Simon barely paid attention to his classmates as they dashed out of the classroom, his focus split between the green-eyed young man opposite him and the pain of his cuts.

"Who are you?" Simon demanded, barely able to contain his curiosity.  A slight tilt of the head was his only response as those eyes examined swiftly him from head to toe, then flicked around the classroom with lightning speed.  They scarcely blinked when Professor Flitwick sent bandages to wrap lightly around both his and Simon's hands with a flick of his wand.

"Oh, dear," muttered Flitwick as he magically adjusted the bandages.  "Are you hurt elsewhere, boys?"

"Not too tight!" Simon yelped quickly, his face blanching further.  "I think there might still be some glass in there."

"I'm sorry, Mr Potter - is that better?  No other injuries?"

"That's all," Simon nodded, and the professor turned to Green-Eyes, who stared for a moment before shrugging almost imperceptibly, apparently unfazed by the gashes in his hands.  If his own hadn't been driving him to distraction, Simon would have been impressed.  As it was, he wanted the pain well and gone.

"Can we go to Madam Pomfrey?"

"Er - we'll just wait a bit for Professor Dumbledore," Flitwick answered nervously, his eyes darting between Simon, Green-Eyes and the shattered mirror.  "The rest of you, to the library for the remainder of class."

They were whispering furiously amongst themselves as soon as they made it out the door, and Simon could hardly blame them.  He'd be the cause of several minor disasters over his years at Hogwarts, but this looked to be his worst incident yet: one rare magical mirror shattered, possible damage to several other enchanted items that Flitwick had assembled for class, and one silent green-eyed youth conjured out of nowhere.

This would almost definitely earn him a write-up in The Marauders' Misadventures (Second Edition)  - if he survived whatever his mother decided to do to him...

He winced.  Mum was going to be furious.  Sighing slightly, he sat on the edge of an empty desk and stared glumly at the bits of broken mirror on the floor, listening half-heartedly as Professor Flitwick attempted to question the green-eyed conjuration.  He wasn't having much luck getting answers.  Looking up quickly, he could see that Green-Eyes was practically ignoring the diminutive professor in favour of Simon himself.

He felt his cheeks heating up under the intensity of the gaze, making him almost as uncomfortable as the injuries from the mirror were.  He squirmed, jarring his hands a couple of times before bursting out, "What's your name?"

At first Simon thought he wasn't going to answer; then Green-Eyes' lips slowly turned up at the corners in what could loosely be called a smile.

"Harry Potter."  The voice was so quiet he wasn't positive he'd heard it.

"Huh?" Simon blinked.  Professor Flitwick's reaction was a little more extreme: he nearly fell over and had to clutch at a desk to stay upright.

"Harry - ?"  He murmured wonderingly.  "Oh my."

"You know him, Professor?" Simon frowned.  They shared the same last name, but all his relatives on his father's side were dead as far as he knew, apart from Dad, himself and Theo.  Flitwick seemed a little taken aback by his reaction, however.

"You don't - ?" he started, then stopped, seemingly coming to a realisation of sorts.  "Oh dear," he muttered almost desperately, staring at the shards of the mirror.  "Oh dear."  Simon would have questioned him further but was forestalled by his father's entrance into the Charms classroom.

"Filius?"  his dad queried wearily, obviously already expecting a disaster of some sort.  Simon was pretty sure that this would surpass those expectations, and was consequently not as surprised as he might have been when his dad stopped dead in the doorway, his face slowly draining of blood as he stared wide-eyed at the self-proclaimed Harry Potter.

"Filius," he whispered weakly.  "What - ?"

"Er - there was a bit of an accident," Professor Flitwick started to explain, pausing briefly as Professor Dumbledore arrived, laying a comforting hand on Dad's shoulder and pushing him gently into the room.

"Off to the Library with you, children," the Headmaster directed Dennis and Natalie, who had been lingering in the hallway.  The Charms professor continued his explanation after they left.

"Mr Potter - er,  Simon, that is - was in the process of setting off a couple of fireworks - "

"I wasn't setting them off!" Simon interrupted, protesting this accusation.  "I was just making sure they were ready for Divination!" He bit his lip as soon as the words had escaped, blushing furiously at his inadvertent admission.  Dumbledore's lips quirked in amusement, and his father seemed to drag himself far enough out of his shock to emit a rueful sigh.

"Nevertheless, the fireworks did go off, Mr Potter?" the Headmaster pressed lightly.

"Erm - well, yeah."

"And they hit a couple of the items I'd brought in for this morning's Advanced Sixth Year class," Flitwick continued.  "One of which being the Window of Eternity," he nodded at the mirror-shards on the floor.  "It fell onto Simon when he tried to stop the fireworks causing further damage, but when it broke, he seemed to disappear into it - "

Simon stared.  He'd disappeared into the mirror?  Was that what the falling sensation had been?

" - and when he came out again, well..." Flitwick glanced nervously at the green-eyed stranger, then at Simon's father.  "He somehow brought Harry Potter with him."

Simon could see his father visibly stiffen at the name, before returning his gaze to the person in question, seemingly trying to memorise his every feature with one glance.

"Dad?  Who is he?"

Dad frowned, his lips working soundlessly, seemingly unable to answer.

"Do you know what the Window of Eternity is?" Professor Dumbledore asked into the silence.  Simon couldn't quite work out whether the question was meant for him or for Harry.  Quite possibly it was meant for both.  He could see Harry's head tilt expectantly even though his eyes were focused on Simon's dad, as though waiting for the answer.

"No, Professor," Simon answered for them both.

"It is supposed to enable us to look beyond the destiny of our world to other possibilities."

Simon stared blankly, and waited for the plain English translation.

"Alternate worlds.  Parallel universes."  Again the voice was quiet - yet it was enough to make his father jump.

"Precisely, Harry," Dumbledore smiled approvingly.

"I still don't get it," Simon complained grumpily.  His hands weren't hurting any less, the longer they stayed in the Charms classroom.

"Harry - " his father said, sounding as though the name was being dragged unwillingly out of his throat.  "Harry is your brother, Simon."

"Huh?"  Blank looks seemed to be the go for the day.  He only had one brother, and Harry wasn't it.

"Your eldest brother," Dumbledore clarified.  "In our world he died when he was a baby.  Yet there are alternate worlds out there where Harry did not die, and instead lived to become a young man, such as the one standing on the other side of the room."

"Oh."  Simon was dumbfounded for all of a second before his mouth kicked into automatic.  "Why didn't you tell me I had another brother?"

"Simon."  His father's tone of voice had the strangled qualities that clearly stated 'We'll talk later'.  Simon was definitely going to make sure that 'later' came as soon as possible.

"We have a few more immediate concerns," Professor Dumbledore crossed the room to stand in front of Harry, his expression very serious.  "Until your arrival, Mr Potter, the alternate world theory has been quite unproven.  I am afraid that to my knowledge no one has successfully opened a doorway between two possible destinies before today.  The Window was clearly instrumental in transporting you here, but - it has been shattered."

"What you're saying is that I may not be able to return to my world."

Simon inhaled sharply, and found himself staring at his supposed elder brother.  Beside him, his father seemed to be holding his breath.

"Correct again, Mr Potter."  The Headmaster's smile was tinged with sadness.  "We will of course, try our best - "

"I understand."

It was weird, Simon decided, that strangely complacent expression on Harry's face.  Almost freaky, even.  After all, if he had just been told that he could well be stranded in another world with no chance of going home, he'd be at least a little upset.  A shiver ran down his spine as Harry's eyes caught his briefly.  For a moment he'd looked very much like Theo, and one Theodore Stephen Potter in the family was more than enough as far as Simon was concerned.

Professor Dumbledore gave Harry a searching look, before nodding.  Simon's father at last released his breath in one steady exhalation.  He gripped Simon's shoulder tightly, yet his eyes were all for Harry.

"Can I go to Madam Pomfrey now?" Simon pleaded, and succeeded in drawing his father's bemused attention.

"Oh!" He murmured, finally taking in the bloodstained bandages on his son's hands.  "Of course, Simon.  Off you go!"

Simon slid off the desk and headed out the door, pausing on the threshold, half-expecting his father to sling his arm around his shoulder and walk him to the Hospital Ward, as he'd done so often in the past.

This time, however, his father wasn't even looking in his direction.  He was instead making near glacial progress across the room to where Professor Dumbledore and Harry Potter stood.

Green eyes flickered sharply at Simon, their gazes locking just long enough for Simon to catch the slight upward twist of lips.

Something rolled unpleasantly in his stomach.  He glanced back over at his father, who was apparently lost in a dreamworld that had Harry Potter at its centre.

If his hands hadn't been hurting so much, Simon would have slammed the door.
 
 

To be continued...

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