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Poll result Chapter 2: I need a different hero, a different hero to save me right about now, and he's gotta be fast and he's gotta be strong and he's gotta to the task, I need a different hero!
🕑 Added 2024-03-22 04:00:05 +0000 UTC"Who the fuck are you muppets?"
Albus blinked at the crassness and shared a look with both Moody and Snape who sent him a one-eye and two-eyes eye-equivalent of a shrug.
“I had assumed you would know of me. I am Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts school for wizardry and witchcraft. Do I perhaps not hold the same position in the alternative reality you come from?” Albus asked curiously.
The man turned towards him and it was then that Albus recognized the eyes. Piercing green like the killing curse. This was…
“I recognize some of you, although I have to say that I can hardly say I know any of you.” He glanced around. “Sirius Black,” he said, looking at the escaped convict. “You look like shit.” His gaze fell on Remus and he raised the eyebrow. “This guy I don't know, but he is a werewolf so that's interesting.” He turned to Tonks who’d finally settled on a hair color and frowned. “Well technically a metamorphmagus can look like anyone, but I think I know which one this is.” Then he turned his eyes on young Harry. He tilted his head curiously. “He looks like James Potter, but younger, and dumber, and more poor.” Before young Harry could bristle, the man in the circle turned his head to behold the other occupants of the room.
“I think I've seen this guy at the ministry,” he said at Shacklebolt, before frowning at McGonagall. “You've given me detention. I hope you're happy to know that despite this being an alternative version of you, I still don't forgive you.”
The deputy headmistress sputtered and managed to choke out an offended, “What?!”
The man was already turning his head again. He looked at the last two people in the room. “Moody,” he said with a frown. “Still as ugly as ever.” Then his gaze turned slightly complicated as he looked at Severus.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Well, I guess I don't really know anyone here considering this is a different world and all that.”
“May we know who we are speaking to?” Albus asked with a raised eyebrow. “You seem to have a fairly decent idea.”
The man shrugged. Weirdly enough his pants mimicked the gesture. “I don't know. Being summoned into some sort of weird ritual circle in some weird cellar. I don't think I want to give you guys my real name. I guess you can just call me Prometheus?” he asked blasely.
“You have Lily's eyes,” Severus suddenly spoke up in a voice that was even more dead than usual.
“Don't you dare put her name in your mouth,” Sirius barked.
Severus for once didn't have a quick response to that, whereas Prometheus simply rolled his eyes.
“Yes of course there is only one person in this world with green eyes. I'm sure that this is doubtlessly proof of the fact that these two people must be related. If you really must know, I'm her long lost twin brother who went on an arctic adventure at the age of seven to find the hidden island of Atlantis and learn their magical secrets, which is why I've become the most powerful wizard of all time. This is how you sound like, okay.” He waved his hands in the air. “Alternative reality, which part didn't you get?”
“You seem slightly abrasive for someone who has willingly come here,” Albus said with a frown. Wondering about the attitude of this outer dimensional being. Why was he being so confrontational?
“Okay, I'll give you a summary of how I came here. My original body received your query asking for help. He thought it would be absolutely hilarious to put a copy of himself in a different world because he knew that it wasn't him who would have to deal with it, but me. You get what I mean? He fucking pranked me. I never wanted to be here, even if I can admit it would be funny if he was,” Prometheus said in a dead-pan.
A surprised chuckle escaped someone in the room and everyone turned their heads to double-check that it was Remus who’d laughed, a fist in front of his mouth and a red-face.
Sirius was also grinning.
“You have to admit, it is sort of funny,” the werewolf said.
Prometheus crossed his arms petulantly, before sighing and eventually nodding. “Alright, I'll admit it is a bit funny. Not particularly happy about the fact that I lost all of my family and my friends, but I can respect the good joke when I see one.”
“Is this what this is to you? A joke?” McGonagall suddenly spoke up, her Scottish accent coming out due to her tiredness and likely frustration with the situation.
Prometheus shrugged and put his hands up as if he couldn't do anything about the situation. “It's kind of funny but it's mostly sad. You people got so overwhelmed with your own problems that you thought this was a good idea.”
“Was it not a good idea?” Albus asked with narrowed eyes. “That seems to lie mostly in your hands.” Was Prometheus trying to imply that he wouldn’t work with them? But how? The ritual should have focused on someone who had vanquished Voldemort before.This and the fact that they’d sent a copy of themselves willingly implied they’d be ready to do it again.
“Yeah,” Prometheus said after a few seconds of thinking. “I have to say it was a pretty dumb fucking idea.” He didn't elaborate, just looked around at the circle he was in. “So there's obviously some sort of containment circle but can I get a chair in here, or am I going to have to suffer the indignity of standing as well?”
Albus gave an apologetic shrug. “I'm sorry but I can't conjure anything within it, just like how I cannot throw anything over the line.”
“Great, thanks for that, it really makes me want to help you guys out,” Prometheus said sarcastically and snapped his fingers. An ornate green couch materialized under him onto which he promptly let himself fall on, kicking his legs up to rest on a tree stump that similarly just appeared under his feet.
“How are you doing that? You don't have a wand,” Harry suddenly spoke up seemingly baffled by the show of wandless magic. Albus himself was throwing slightly concerned at the conjurations that were being completed without any magical foci. The implications on the power level of who they’d summoned were not very good for them if Prometheus turned out to be hostile. Thankfully any outer dimensional being would be unable to leave the circle until he allowed him to. He felt some of the tiredness that the long ritual had induced in him starting to take over his body, before he steeled himself.
“That’s the trick, Harry boy. The best place to keep your wand is up your own ass. That way, whenever you get summoned anywhere you still have your magical focus with you. I call it butt-magic, you should learn something about that one,” Prometheus joked, drawing an incredulous laugh from, of all people, Severus.
“How did you know my name?” Harry suddenly asked with furrowed brows. “I didn't introduce myself. You just said I looked like James.”
“Well to be fair, I'm pretty sure that Harry would be the name that James would give his kid which you obviously are. It's just the sort of lame stupid first name that someone named James would go for, I mean honestly,” Prometheus said with a roll of his eyes.
Harry bristled again and looked just about ready to lose his temper, the boy didn't take well to someone insulting his parents.
“Why exactly are you here then if not to help?” Albus asked patiently. Sometimes it was best to wait these petulant temper-tantrums out by continuing the conversation.
“Ignoring the fact that this was all a shitty joke? I think generally that this ritual is pretty retarded. You do know that in terms of the query ‘vanquisher of Lord Voldemort,’ you could have just as well summoned another dark lord who killed the moron while trying to stamp out the competition? Congratulations, you just summoned a dark lord more powerful than Voldemort who's ambitious enough to put a replica of his body in another world in a hope to expand his empire.” Prometheus waved his arms in the air. “Wow, I’m so smart, I’m Albus Dumbledore, chessmaster extraordinaire, always one step ahead.”
While Albus considered the implications of what the man just said, Sirius sniffed at the air.
“Wait,” the man said with narrowed eyes. “Are you high?”
“Okay I might have smoked a joint before coming over. I’m an adult and it's been legalized. What are you, my mom?” Prometheus snarked.
“This is ridiculous. How is this idiot supposed to help us?” Moody asked. “He's obviously some degenerate from a world where Voldemort wasn’t as much of a threat. He probably helped vanquish him accidentally as well.”
“Yeah, I was skipping stones by the lake and then one of them just somehow got picked up by the squid and redirected to Voldemort on the other side. It just split his head open and that was that. Easy peasy. Can I go now?
“Well before you go maybe you could find it within your heart to be more gracious to your brother?” Dumbledore asked, having finally deduced from the hints that Prometheus had been giving that this was actually just Harry Potter who had taken more after his mother than his father.
The actual Harry Potter sputtered and looked at the man lounging on the couch. “That's my brother?” he asked.
Prometheus raised his hand. “Interjection. That is not my brother,” he said pointing at Harry. “You know why?” he asked
“Enlighten us,” Moody growled, obviously getting fed up with the conversation.
“Have any of you ever heard of the teleporter experiment? The identity one? I think Parfit. Honestly, it sounds like something he would do.”
Albus raked his mind but couldn't think of anything that resembled what the man was saying. Surprisingly enough it was Severus who groaned and shook his head.
“I see you have, which means that you probably know what's coming next,” Prometheus said.
Severus grimaced and closed his eyes, one of his hands went up to his temple to start massaging it.
“Severus, can you explain please?” Albus asked, unused to having to say such a sentence.
“It's a muggle thought experiment. I'm not surprised people here don't know it, as uneducated as most of them are.” He threw a baleful glare at Sirius who picked his nose with his middle finger in response. Severus continued. “It has to do with the question of identity if one pursues a different sort of magical transportation. Let us assume for example that Prometheus here is teleporting to Mars. He is doing so by disintegrating all the particles of his body on Earth and recreating them on Mars one second after with all the same biological information and memories. The question then becomes if the Prometheus on Mars is the same Prometheus who just disappeared from Earth. One common answer which would reject the identity relationship between the two would be that considering that their two bodies are created out of different substances; one was organically grown through a lifetime and the other was simply created on another planet, the answer would be no.”
Prometheus spoke up. “The other answer would be that the two entities clearly share their memories, which implies a continuum in their experience which speaks for the fact that they are the same person.”
Severus finished the thought. “The issue naturally comes in the fact that in this world, Prometheus's memories have no context with which to grasp onto realities of relationship and past. No one on this planet shares any of his memories from their perspective, which means that for all intents and purposes, he is not in fact the person who we tried to summon.”
“Wait, what does this mean exactly?” Tonks suddenly piped up. “I mean, he is who he is.”
“Well, no actually,” Prometheus started. “While I certainly am the closest that you will ever get to the me left behind in the alternative reality I’m based off, I am not him. And considering that on the other hand you are not in any way related to me either through shared memories, shared worlds, shared cultures or even shared genetic continuity, this means that I got frankly don't feel any obligation to help you and for all I care you could all go fuck yourselves.”
“That's ridiculous,” McGonaggal insisted. “That's your brother!”
Prometheus crossed his arms. “No he's not, in fact. He's just some kid who has for some reason seen my dick. I hope you understand how painful that is for me considering that I am now actually a pedophile by law. Not a nice introduction. 0 out of 10, would not do it again. Unless it's someone else going, then it's funny.”
“I refuse to believe that you somehow contributed to the vanquishing of Voldemort by skipping a stone,” Albus insisted. “You certainly are not obligated to help us in a direct manner, but surely there is some information you can share which would take you no longer than a few minutes.”
Prometheus just slowly shook his head. “Actually, I have some really bad news for you. The way that you summoned me means that strictly speaking, from a moral point of view, I should not help you at all, actually.
“Why ever not? We have a common enemy,” Shacklebolt tried to reason.
“Disregarding the issue that I obviously don’t care, because the Voldemort in this world has nothing to do with me… The actual issue is that you have summoned me in a manner which morally obligates me to not help you so that you are not ever tempted to do so again. “
“Wouldn't you not helping mean we would have to do the ritual again?” Harry asked confusedly.
“No, actually, me not helping you means you should never do the ritual again. The result that you got was bad, or let's say neutral since you didn't gain anything, but just lost your time and effort. However it would have been entirely possible that you would have summoned a dark lord, or some eldritch abomination, or whatever else is floating around there in the ether. You see, what you sent out was a knock with an invitation. Do you think there are no beings powerful enough to disregard the requirements you input into the summoning. Do you think that the Dark Unknown, Saitan, Cthulhu, Xroclock the Terrible, would not be able to perceive the query and focus attention on this planet here, perhaps even hijack the signal to enter it? You essentially sent an SOS into a void with no control who would respond. You are without a doubt the stupidest magicians alive today, if not ever.”
“The query would have reached an intended recipient,” Albus argued.
Prometheus threw his hands in the air for the umpteenth time in the last hour. “How do I tell you that in comparison to some people I know your magical abilities are like that of a particularly gifted 6-year-old. Do you not understand the concept of alternative reality? Did you not push it to its ad absurdum? There are worlds out there in which Merlin never died and taught all magicals for the rest of eternity making everyone so magically powerful and skilled that they could whip my ass like I was a toddler if they wanted to. In this world they might have a different cultural norm which means that everyone who asked for help should be killed and that rape is fine and his babies need to be kicked and if they don't survive without accidental magic that they don't deserve to live in the first place. Do you get what I mean man. You know shit, you know jackshit, you know less than nothing.”
Dumbledore real back as if struck, while Shacklebolt stepped forward and crossed his arms. “I don't know Albus, he’s making a certain amount of sense. As hidden in vulgarity as his message is. This could have gone very badly.”
“There are good people here in this room. Their presence should have created sympathetic properties for alternative versions of them to latch onto,” Albus argued, but realized how it would be refuted as soon as the words escaped his mouth.
“And what, you've never done anything bad in your life and can't imagine an alternative version of you ever doing so either? You do know that most people are just a product of their circumstances. Drop Harry Potter into a magic hating orphanage and he might as well just become another Voldemort. In fact drop Molly Weasley in another orphanage, have her get beaten to near death by a few muggles every now and again and she might just become dark lady Prewett.”
“Albus I'm starting to suspect that this whole idea was a bit idiotic,” McGonagall suddenly said from behind the headmaster who had now lowered his wand and was rubbing his temples at the incoming migraine.
“Anyway, can I leave now?” Prometheus asked.
“What, you just argued you could be a dark lord and now you want to go? I don’t think so! Not before you submit yourself to veritaserum questioning,” Moody barked angrily, taking a step towards the circle.
Prometheus shrugged. “Hey, honestly with what you did, maybe I should go out there and kill a few people. As a reminder to not do this again. Anyway, It’s not like you can hold me.” He snapped his fingers and disappeared like a fart in the wind, leaving the order standing there like the muppets they were.
“What just happened?” Tonks asked confusedly.
“Nothing. Let’s just forget it ever did, in fact,” Albus said with a sigh. He knew that the fact that he’d broken the dimensional barriers meant that they would heal back stronger than ever before. If this play hadn’t worked the secondary intention had always been to lay a trap for Voldemort. If Tom thought he could replicate the ritual without a philosopher's stone, then the backlash could very well decimate at least the location in which he did the ritual while also not giving him any satisfying results. Perhaps the Tom from 30 years ago would have been able to perfect the ritual, but horcruxes induced insanity. Now, he was bound to fail.
In case he ever felt like using that tactic he could order Severus to tell Voldemort about the details of what they’d just done. Although maybe leaving out the rejection they'd experienced from their would be savior would be a good idea. Better that Tom live in fear of some all-powerful sorcerer coming after his head any one of these days.
-/-
Prometheus, or rather Harry reappeared in one of the bushes in a park in London. The apparition style favored by the house-elves did not come easy to him, especially when he didn't have a wand to help himself.
“Now what,” he muttered.
He wanted to kill Voldemort honestly, for old time’s sake. The fucker was just that much of a shithead. Even if this was a completely another world, he still wanted to jam a sword up the dark lord’s ass.
He just couldn't tell all those dimwits of the order that, or they would have written down that stupid ritual they did for further use in the future. Which was just not a good idea.
As for his first steps. He would have to completely change his looks and identity. Then he would enter this conflict if he found Voldemort to be just as bad as the one he knew, as an anonymous third party.
It would be fun, and it would get him some goodwill and footing in this new world.
Nobody knew him here, which was good because no one had any expectations, but also bad because he had no one to turn to.
He’d make new friends though, new allies. It stung a bit that he’d been sent here, without the support structure of his past.
But, he had to admit. There was never any danger considering his skills and life had been getting a bit boring.
Also… He’d never admit it to his other self… But…
It was a little bit funny.
-/-
AN: Don't know if I quite stuck the landing, but this was the best I could come up with. It's a complex situation, summoning someone from another world. Just wanted to explore all of its nuances.
Next poll will be on the next interlude for Harry Evans
Comments
bananaphone
I have just recently realised that you have written this some time ago, and have also found the "original" you have written this as a critique of against (agree, not the best of writing story-, character-wise and in general very limited). My question would be, are you considering expanding on this? It seems quite interesting and i like your style and witt. Best regards
bananaphone
off to a great start!
bor902
Harry Evans comes out once every ten days, pokemon every 15. Recently Harry Evans came out very rapid fire cuz I had an action where for every 10 new patrons I'd release a quick chapter. Hope that helps. So in General, on average, Harry Evans 10 days or less
Robert
Btw just wondering is there some sort of release schedule of your two main stories looking back they seemed alot more consistent compared to the last month
Robert
Not a fan of his attitude so far well to confrontational hopefully its only the abruptness of the situation and your MC didn't grow up to be a ass .
