Harry enters his classroom with secondhand certainty. He and Tom have evolved into something new and grand -- something he hopes he will not come to regret, this fragile separation of person -- and the cruel part of it is that he has no time for retrospect. Life goes on and a conversation on the way to a classroom means that, at the end of it, you'll still arrive at the classroom.

And, despite this, despite his wanting for some alone time, to mule over his choices... he does feel good about it. His head feels lighter and it is easier, now, to breathe.

A part of his conscious egging at him -- Tom Riddle killed his best friend and that has to mean something -- he is able to push doubt away until he sits in his new classroom cloaked by absolute conviction.

After all, he's not on good terms with the President. He's on good terms with Tom. There's a difference. (He needs there to be a difference.)

He steps into his classroom -- his new one, the Muggle Studies one -- and again is hit with his own incompetence. He's no teacher. He's never been trained. He wanted to be an Auror, to follow in the footsteps of his father, to turn his anger into something practical.

And he wants to, still. He hopes he will, in the future.

But it's like Sirius' hope that they'll get home eventually -- it's secondary and he believes it more out of obligation than anything.

Still. He has seen this scene before. When he has been woefully unprepared to do something... and yet pushes on, doing it anyway. It is one of his best traits. His resilience, his unadulterated ability to adapt.

Harry wipes his mind of lingering guilt, of the conversation he had with Tom, of what Sirius will say about it (and, more significantly, what Sirius won't ), or Albus Dumbledore, and then sticks a smile on his face. He has done this before. It is not new. It's easy.

"Hello, class," he says. "I'm Harry Potter, and I'll be your new Muggle Studies Professor."

Hands immediately go into the air. There's some new faces in the crowd. A few others, he's had in his other Defence classes.

They are Gryffindors and Slytherins, fourth year. Most seem to be, from those he can recognize, Muggleborn students here for an easy grade. There is a halfblood here and there -- curious as to part of their heritage.

There are few Purebloods. It is typical.

Harry calls on the girl on the front row. "What's up?"

"Where'd Quirrell go? Why are you taking over? Is this because the President's your pimp?"

Immediate whiplash. "What."

She flips her hair over her shoulder. "Well, we all know that Harry Potter, version 2.0--"

"That's not how it--"

"-- is totally the President's whore."

There are nods and murmurs of agreement and the movement of the crowd draws Harry to what he would have otherwise missed -- or would have otherwise noticed much, much later... at a moment that is far more convenient than this.

In the very back of the class, hunched in on himself, is little Neville Longbottom.

Harry's breath catches in his throat. The image of the boy -- so different from what Harry is used to, a stranger wearing his face... and only his face -- burns into his eyes and Harry listens to the chatter of the classroom fade to a ringing buzz in his head.

He's shorter, smaller, for sure. His hair is grown out and it's shaggy. Greasy. And he is pale -- and Neville has always been pale; they both know Harry's more the jock sort, but the pale here is near ghostly. It's near deathly.

His finger taps a constant rhythm against his desk -- and it is just his desk, he's sitting all alone -- and his other hand is running up and down the length of his upper arm, and... oh.

Oh.

His hands.

His sleeve is extended over his hands. It is a move Harry remembers vividly because it's the same move Harry made just less than three weeks ago. It's the same type of move he's made close to every day since he's been put with the Dursleys. It is a move made of odd, misplaced guilt.

Neville adjusts his hand and, yes, there's the slip.

I must not be.... But there's no single word Harry can make out clearly. It's a mess of scar tissue, overlapped and laying right on top of each other. Forgetful and ill-prepared and stupid and a dozen other variations combined.

Harry drinks in the image of Neville Longbottom and thinks, horribly, What have I done to him?

But that's not right, not exactly.

Harry's desperation fades away and he thinks, anger surging up within him, What did the other Harry Potter do to him?

And he knows the answer to that, doesn't he? The other Harry Potter is best friends with Severus Snape. The other Harry is best friends with Draco Malfoy. (He has learned nothing from his own situation -- if we judge a man by his company, then Harry Potter is not so much a saint as he'd like to think.)

The other Harry Potter has a blood quill in his desk.

Harry thinks -- no, he swears -- that if he ever gets an opportunity to meet the other Harry Potter, he'll kill him.

(He's not aware that, in a universe away, there's someone else thinking the exact thing.)

The certitude of his promise brings him back to reality, where he quickly realizes that he's busy making a fool of himself.

His vision unblurs and his breaths come in even, normal interludes.

Harry chuckles and smiles, nervously. "Sorry... I don't--"

"The fuck is wrong with you?" the girl snaps, looking him over with a disgusted look on her face.

"Nothing!" Harry throws his hands up. " Nothing, I swear. Okay -- okay, listen, I'm no 'whore' -- though that's an entirely derogatory term to use in my presence and I would prefer it if you'd--"

"If you're not his whore, what are you?"

Harry makes a pained expression. "I'm," he starts, but is instantly cut off.

"Because like, you're not qualified, and you're always with him, and why else would you have any sort of teaching position?"

"Exactly what I've been saying," Harry say weakly before sighing. "Me and Tom--"

"Tom and I. "

Harry purses his lips. Children, he reminds himself, are deserving of kindness. Their one slight is their youthfulness. So Harry doesn't yell when he says, softly, "Right. Tom and I are friends. The rumour mill has been turning, I've gathered, but good on you, kiddo, for asking for information from the source. There's nothing more deluded than the immediate trust in secondhand information."

The girl stares at him -- confused, but not off put. Harry buries his smirk and begins pacing the length of the classroom.

He's forever grateful to Mione, even and especially now. Who else's speech would he be borrowing? When a problem cannot be solved with violence -- or, perhaps, shouldn't be -- then he knows where to turn. The Brain to his Brawns.

Harry ignores the pain in his chest, the absent feeling that his Hermione is in some way not well -- or won't be, in the future -- because he's got a class to teach. Hermione would say that's important.

(Mione grant him the serenity to accept the things he cannot change, and the courage to change the things he can. This clarity is the wisdom to know the difference.)

"Primary sources," Harry says, "are an important asset to any recording of history. Wizards have the easy ability to record this information with greater precision -- and yet Muggles, in their own accord, are able to protect the sanctity of accuracy. Without pensives, without truth serum, without the longevity of their lives, how, I ask of you, are they able to record such events to even a similar level that of wizards?"

"Phones?" one student suggests.

"Radios."

"Cameras!" another pipes up.

"Exactly!" Harry forces a grin. They're pretty far into the curriculum thus far -- and, god, Harry never took Muggle Studies; what is the curriculum? He can only let Mione speak for him for so long before he actually has to start doing things.

And by things he means, of course, his original plan of indoctrination. Just because he's not explicitly teaching children to fight anymore doesn't mean he can't use any sort of position of power -- wrongfully given power, mind you -- to his advantage.

"Cameras, radios, phones -- the practicality of journalists regardless of magic and blood," and is it not a scandalous thing, to suggest the two are separate? He will worm his casual ideology into these children and by the time it's happened, they won't even have realized it, "these Muggle inventions are an example of their impeccable and unmatched, even now, capability to adapt."

The scowling girl in the front raises her hand again. Harry mentally prepares himself -- and Harry wonders, briefly, if this is how Voldemort felt when he was first trying to gather supporters. Answering to the whims of people who, for all their will and might, would just never understand.

He sweeps the thought from his head instantly. He is nothing like Voldemort.

"Yes, kiddo?"

"The name's Lance," says the girl. "Is this your curriculum? Are you changing it? We've already learned a lot and switching up the exams halfway through the year because the President got a little too handsy with the education of his students is hardly fair."

God, forget planting doubt of Tom Riddle! These kids are doing his job for him. The younger generation, back at it again.

He is tried to get any other age group to carry out what he's trying to do, it'd fail.

He is lucky. So lucky, and capable, and it is making for something grand.

Harry says, carefully, "While it is true I am not qualified for this position, and Tom letting his personal affairs leak into any educational ones is largely unprofessional, I am, as the Professor, in charge of administering the exam. I'll, of course, follow what's necessary for the fifth and seventh year students, but my workload, for everyone else, will match the planned exam while not being overwhelming."

The seventh and fifth years students not being as strongly in his control is a loss. But he's like a Muggle, prone absolutely to adapting, and this minor setback is not an exception.

That is the thing about casually planted doubt. He'll be able to do it anywhere.

"So what will you be teaching?"

"Nothing, yet," concedes Harry smoothly. Merlin, it'd be useful -- and practical, for all involved! -- if they'd given him a day or two to prepare before he had to teach. Then again, when has Hogwarts ever been big on practicality? He walks to his new desk and begins rummaging through any books that were left behind. "I will spend today -- and tomorrow, if necessary -- creating the basis for my lesson plan, and we'll move on from there."

"That's stupid," mutters Lance. She says, louder, "Free period, then?"

"For now," allows Harry. He rolls his eyes at the small wave of cheer that runs through the class -- and then he wonders when that behavior became childish and endearing instead of something he could relate to.

(He is fifthteen and feels ancient and young, stupidly young -- the younger generation! -- all at once. When has he never had the world on his shoulders?)

He scoops up the lesson books in his arms. He doubts, given the history of censorship he's already run into here, that he will find anything useful in them. Mione's voice rings in his head when he concludes that, regardless, it couldn't hurt to try.

Mione's voice is drowned out quickly by Tom's. He bites lip and looks at Neville, sitting in the corner. His movements are slow -- the very opposite of abrupt -- and downcast. He is writing an essay.

His hands are shaking. Harry wonders if that it is the fault of Harry's resemblance to his counterpart, or a mere side effect of excessive use of a Blood Quill -- and then he determines it doesn't matter which; it's his counterpart's fault regardless.

Hermione -- this world's Hermione, the one bore of compliance -- comes to mind. Their relationship right now is, given, strained. But, as an undeniable fact, it's changed. It's definitive and no longer defined by what Harry does and does not know. She is not mad at him for asking about Ron and instead is wary -- not angerfy, not resentful, wary, and what a difference it makes -- because of his... ah, more brutalitarian outlook on things.

There's the possibility of future reconciliation that wasn't there at the beginning, and the only reason that it's there at all is because he took a chance. He dived face forward into the unknown like the Gryffindor he is and came out the other side better for it.

Hermione... okay, well, she's not better for it. She's rehashed her trauma for what is essentially a stranger. Some hardships make you stronger but some? Some are just hard.

But she will be better for it -- for all of his, for Harry's presence here, for Harry's want to befriend her -- because she'll see the light. Because Harry will help her, help everyone here. Because the President toes the line of tyrannical. Do not all citizens freed of the chains of their oppression feel lighter?

(People -- behind his backs, always behind his backs; when his head is turned, whatever new thing to discuss will get its turn -- would call this a hero complex. Harry would copy a word from Hermione about primary sources -- or maybe he'd just throw hands. Who's to say?)

Tom had said, didn't he, that nothing changes without prompt? That if he left the situation with Hermione as it was, nothing more would come from it -- because why would it?

Does not that same rhetoric apply here? With Neville?

And he knows -- he knows, okay -- that some situations are best let be. There's no healing to be done in prodding, and Harry knows this. If a nicer version of the Durselys came up to him in this reality, offering apologies or friendship, he would curl so far in on himself he'd cease to exist completely. He hates the Bellatrix Lestrange of his reality, too, and he hates Snape and he sort-of hates Tom -- and it's because everyone will act like they are so above how Harry is handling this situation, but they aren't.

It is a difficult task to look past the preconceptions carried through the Veil, and it's sometimes an impossible one. When a sliver of evidence -- evidence that one's counterpart is similar to you not only because you share a face -- presents itself, he's quick to latch on.

Harry Potter has always been a creature of resentment. He is not the only one.

This is a delicate situation, approaching Neville. He will be fighting the notion that he is exactly like the other Professor Potter and with one misstep, he'll lose all chance of ever disapproving it.

And Neville... Neville will be, to his perspective, sitting right next to his tourmenter.

Harry would be lying if he said he didn't know it would be selfish to try.

Harry would also be lying if he said he didn't try anyway.

He holds the textbook to his fast beating heart and walks up the classroom steps right to the back of the classroom.

He stops in front of Neville's desk, tilts his head to the empty chair, and asks, "Can I sit there?"

...

Harry's no stranger to rage. Tom takes it -- and his violent outbursts, something Harry loathes to refer to them as -- as a result of the Dursleys; children parrot only what they know. If violence is the only language they used, it is a given that he'd learn to speak it.

Albus -- his world's Albus -- might say he learned it from Voldemort. Share a soul with someone for so long... and you'll become them. He might say that and he might not and Harry might never know. Albus keeps the tightest of lips on things he shouldn't. Harry's opinion on their relationship changes from the week to the day to the minute, and can be best described as conflicted.

And the Durselys would say -- and do say, at every chance they get -- he got it from his parents. His drunk, good for nothing parents that Harry does not know but loves strongly and fiercely and relentlessly regardless. When there is something wrong with the bitch, there's something wrong with the pup.

People will say this, people might say this, but that's just what people do. They talk. They gossip, psychoanalyze, all about things that, in Harry's opinion, don't matter all that much.

Whoever gave him his heart -- himself or his family or some unforeseen force that apparently wasn't all that unforeseen -- ...it's now his. He has it. There's no giving it back.

So Harry is no stranger to rage. It's an emotion that has made itself a home in his every action. It is recognizable, if only because he feels it so often.

The rage he feels toward his counterpart started out differently. It started out as guilt -- and guilt is a confusing feeling to have for him. He is not frequently remorseful. He makes his decisions the best he can and while some people are haunted by their mistakes, Harry does not allow himself to be.

What good is anger without reason? Anger without change? His mind and heart work together close enough that they're one in the same and, together, they create something that makes his erraticness pragmatic.

But he did feel guilt. He learned that his counterpart was more than just close with a demon -- he was one himself. And when people looked at him, that's what they saw. Something villainous and horrible and could he even really blame him?

His guilt has since faded. He is not angry at people for having these perceptions of him, refuses to be angry at himself (refuses to be angry at the things he cannot change), and instead directs this rage toward where it is deserved.

Harry Potter hates Harry Potter. He hates his counterpart. For hurting Neville and hurting the other children -- children, yes, that he was supposed to protect! To arm with the ability to protect themselves! To help, to nurture! He was given power over them and made the conscious choice to abuse it.

And then he manipulated them into thinking that there's nothing they can do. That dealing with it is better than the consequences of change.

Harry will never forgive him for his indontration.

And so Harry Potter simmers in his hypocrisy, unaware of the fact that he's simmering in anything, and sits next to Neville Longbottom in Muggle Studies Class.

Neville says, "Sure." Welcomes Harry into the space that was supposed to be personal. And Harry will think that he did give Neville a say in the matter. That this has nothing to do with abuse -- or even mere use -- or power.

But not all choices are intentional, and Harry should know better than to think that just because he doesn't think himself a Professor, in some position of authority, that no one else does.

Neville has leaned so far left in his chair that the sight would be comical if it wasn't so heart wrenching. His skittish movements have increased tenfold and though everything about him is screaming this was a bad idea, a terrible idea, LEAVE ME ALONE -- Harry is not listening.

"What are you working on?" Harry asks

Neville glances over at him, the pure look of a deer caught in headlights shining through his features. "Um," says Neville, tapping the quill in his fingers against the parchment, as if he'd just now remembered that he was holding it. "An essay." There's no social signal that this is a conversation that he ever wanted to be in or even wants to continue.

Harry continues. Harry is blind, and not just in his eyes.

"If you need any help, I'm all ears," Harry offers.

"I thought..." Neville says slowly, awkwardly, "that you weren't..."

"Trained to be a teacher?" Harry laughs. "I'm not. But I'm a graduated fifth year, and seniority in education -- no matter how small -- could prove to be of help to you."

"Okay," Neville says faintly, sounding not at all like he wants any of Harry's help. "Right."

Harry is not a quitter. "I'm looking for Muggle weaponry," Harry says, holding up the textbook. "Anything to do with strategy, Defense, that sort of thing. Know of anything in the coursework?"

Neville is curious despite himself. He is also all but trapped in this conversation. "Why...? Are you... are you going to teach us that stuff?"

"I haven't decided yet," lies Harry. "But I'm working on... a pet project, of sorts." He still wishes that they would've given him time to prepare -- he's left using valuable teaching time figuring out how to use this new opportunity to his advantage and with the big date so close, every second is precious.

A pet project. What a tame way to say terrorist attack. It is also a half- formed terrorist attack -- something to do with goblins and Tom and the James Formation and Auror guns. There's nothing yet concrete. He knows for sure he does have plans -- that he is not and never is passive. The fact that he will do something is indisputable.

But he's... lost. He's in a new environment without any of his main generals and he's never preferred strategizing on his own. The fact that he must start now is, to say the least, inconveniencing.

And... just, god, he wishes Hermione was here. He wishes Hermione was here and helping him and happy. It is a lot to ask for and it's a lot he won't get.

His middle name might as well be accustom, so he will make due. When has he ever failed to?

Harry clears his throat. "But if you've any ideas of what you want to be taught, I'm open to that." Not entirely truthful. But Neville doesn't need to know that, not when things are so fragile as they are. "What type of things were you guys being taught before?"

"What type of pet project?" Neville, it seems, is in the habit of avoiding the question. It is a shame. A testament to his discomfort. "Does -- does it have anything to do with the President? Or... or Snape?"

"No," Harry says evenly. "It has nothing to do with Snape." The President, on the other hand... "We're not on good terms, he and I."

"...You're not?"

"He's barbaric, I'd say. How that imbecile ever got a job here is beyond me."

Harry knows exactly how that imbecile got a job here. He was recommended by another imbecile. And for the people here, in this wayward world, that's enough.

Harry's white lie is rewarded with a small laugh. Neville relaxes a bit, letting his tense shoulders go loose. "You've... talked with him, then?"

"I have." Neville immediately becomes on guard again at his side. So touchy. Harry is reminded, somehow, of himself. "But not on good terms."

Neville does not respond, hunching over his essay once again.

Harry bites his lip, frowning. Is he really that afraid? Should he just get up and leave? (He should. But he won't. Harry Potter does not give up that easily.)

"I punched Snape once," Harry offers up. Bonding over mutual hatred, he's played this card before. Usually, it works.

"Did you now?" Neville says. Harry feels it is said out of social pressure to keep the conversation going, rather than any actual interest.

What is Harry doing wrong?

Harry clears his throat and tries again. "How long has Quirrell been teaching here?"

"Since... I dunno, the last forty years. I don't know."

"Has he always been a Muggle Studies Professor?"

"I -- I don't know. Maybe you should go ask one of the other students, who does?"

He wants Harry to leave. He's asking Harry to leave -- and Harry will, if Neville doesn't relax anytime soon. He will soon. Just not now.

"He taught Defense in my world. And, I think, Muggle Studies, too, before that." Harry hums, tilting his head. "Then he went to Albania and... everything kind of went to shit."

"That's not good."

"No," Harry says absently. "It's not. Is he a good teacher here, at least?"

"Was he a bad one there?" He doesn't want to talk about himself, does he? Like any information he gives up will be used against him.

Harry is okay with that. Harry understands his hesitation and can work with it. He is not a particularly patient man, but, for his friends, he's whatever they need him to be.

(Except sensible. He's everything except sensible.)

"He was alright," allows Harry. "He was a little skittish, and I've had worse but..." But I've also had better. "I think the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position is cursed."

"The what now?"

"Oh, right. Defense is called DADA in my world."

"Oh. Okay."

"And every teacher I've had in it has never kept it for more than a year." He wonders if the same can be said for Umbridge.. God, he hopes so. He doesn't know what he'd do with himself if he escaped this hellhole of a timeline only to go back to being taught by her.

He might as well just go feral.

"So... Quirrell was included in that?"

"Oh, totally," Harry laughs. The sound dies in his throat.

"Why?" Neville asks -- and Harry doesn't want to say, so he won't.

Quirrell is gone because Harry killed him. Because he placed his fingers against his skin and watched his body melt and writhe and Harry is the reason he stopped teaching.

Harry Potter and Vold-e-fucking-mort.

He wonders if that had to do with the piece of Voldmeort's soul in him.

He wonders what else in his life had to do with that. He wonders where he begins and Voldemort ends -- and then he stops wondering. It doesn't matter. He has decided that it doesn't matter.

Harry lies because telling Neville that he murdered a man is not a good start to their friendship. "He was involved in some illegal shit. Pretty sure he got turned by a vampire or something."

"Alright," says Neville, quietly. "Okay."

This is frustrating. Why doesn't Neville understand? (Why doesn't Harry?) He doesn't know what he's doing wrong -- if he's doing something wrong at all -- or if it's simply that nothing Harry does is comforting because it's Harry who's doing it.

Harry loves Neville like he loves Sirius and Ron and Hermione. He is not complete without him. Is it really so bad, to want Neville as his friend? Is it really all that terrible?

Harry says, tentatively, risky, betting it fucking all, "I am not the Harry Potter you knew. I know he hurt you. I am sorry he did. I promise I will never."

There. Out in the open. Opportunity for rejection, opportunity for acceptance. Harry will give up if he is rejected, but it is important to have a base line. It's important to be definitive.

"Okay," says Neville. Harry cannot tell if he believes him or not and Harry is left only with his aching heart and a useless textbook in his hands until the bell rings.

When Harry stands up from his chair to leave, Neville says, awkwardly and stuttering undeniably there, "Er... Professor... Potter?"

Harry hides his giddiness, his excitement. Is this it? His yes or no, his I resent you or I forgive you? He will get something here. And even something stupid is something.

"Yes, Neville?"

"There's a book," Neville says. It is a quiet declaration, but Harry can practically taste the bravery in it. Neville is a Gryffidnor at heart, even here, even now. "About Muggle guns... it should be in Quirrell's office, on one of the bookshelves."

"Thank you," says Harry earnestly. Guns, guns, guns -- there's an end game here and he doesn't need to be Hermione to see it.

Neville gives a weak smile. The moment Harry turns his back, it falls, and is replaced by the look of children who have just survived near death scenarios.

Harry will think that this piece of information was offered up willingly. That it is a sign to build a bridge here, that he has not lost a friend but, against all odds, gained one. He will think it an invasion to keep trying -- but he's wrong, and couldn't be more so.

This is an attempt to appease. If I give him this, maybe he will just leave me alone. He says he is not the Harry Potter I know but that's, perhaps, more terrifying. There is that saying about the devils you know and the ones you don't.

And then there's that other one, the one about a wolf in sheep's clothing. Neville thinks Harry has made himself kind enough. He does not snap at unruly and rude children, does not make to hurt them, and asks every question as if Neville reserves the right to say no.

Harry Potter wants Neville to think him trustworthy, but Neville does not buy it. Neville is afraid and Neville does not buy it.

He is suspicious. It is a mystery no one else sees it, that the gossip around him has to do with sodomy and not terrorism.

He appears out of nowhere, steals jobs right out under perfectly qualified people's feet, with the President at his side, working on a pet project involving weaponry and violence -- and none of that paints a pretty picture. None of that paints a picture Neville wants to be involved in.

So he will give Harry Potter what he wants, duck his head, and hope that whatever Harry Potter was looking for in him, he's already found.