7 A Harmless Prank!

{Potter Manor, Unplottable}

{11:11 A.M, 1 August 1991}

...

Scenes flew by quickly in front of Alex, in a moment he felt like he was seeing a hundred different flashes. The one constant that remained was that the framing of a fireplace accompanied each picture. Suddenly one of the scenes enlarged and Alex stumbled out of the fireplace, his right hand collided with the stone brick as he tried to steady himself.

The only reason he was on his feet was because of his reflexes. Alex continued his momentum, which surprisingly he had gained somewhere in the travel even though he had not entered the fire running.

'Nope, who was I apply stupid laws of physics to a magical travel system.' Alex thought sarcastically, he glared at James seeing his grin widen.

"You did better than your mum did, the first time she came to visit Potter Manor she slipped and landed face first right there," James spoke, Alex looked down. He half expected to see a frame of a petite Lily crawling onto the ground with chalk. 

'Oh how I wish I knew some spells right this moment, it would be so easy to get James in trouble.' Alex thought, his eyes widened at the possibility though as Sirius was the next to arrive. His eyes looked at Alex's grinning face and he cocked an eyebrow in question.

"Sirius, you wouldn't happen to know a spell that could paint an outline of a tiny Lily Potter with chalk like those muggle crime scenes... right about here?" Alex asked. 

The happiness and grin that appeared on Sirius's face was something he didn't expect. The horror on James's face was spot on though. In the next second a couple of things happened. 

James's wand flew through the air as Sirius won the quick draw, a small girl's head peaked into the room when she heard the commotion happening. With a couple of swishes and flicks, a small outline of Lily appeared on the ground, and with a devilish grin Sirius looked at his friend and incanted, "Ravdí~"

Alex didn't know what Sirius did, but whatever that spell was it had taken things a bit farther from a corny joke that Alex had intended. Whatever James wanted to say was stuck in his throat as Sirius blasted James' wand back to him and flicked his away. 

The floo flared to life once again as Lily arrived through. She smiled at Alex who was grinning, seeing him happy, in her home was something she could only imagine in her wildest dreams. Her eyes flicked toward James hoping to express her joy but seeing him frozen with a wand in his hand was a bit odd.

Through the corner of her eyes, she saw the outline of a small girl plastered on the floor. Her eyes dimmed as her smile faded, through the corner of her eyes she saw Sirius snickering sharing a glance with James and giving Alex a discreet thumbs up that she saw.

'Wait, Alex came up with this?' Lily thought her growing 'Mock' anger vanished for a moment, she blinked before she pulled back up all the indignant fury she could muster and glared at James.

"James," her voice took a sweet tone as she asked, "what do you mean by this?" Her face was a stark contrast to her sweet tone and she could swear she saw James gulp and shiver.

'He's such a drama queen...' Lily rolled her eyes in her mind.

"I... He... They..." James stuttered as he backed away a little.

"It's okay Lily, when I stumbled, James was just showing me where you fell, face down like a splat he said. He designed the whole thing pretty quickly but he didn't expect you to come this soon..." Alex nodded, and the fire flared to life as Minerva entered straight into the Potter family antics.

"James..." Lily barely started before the grown man turned tail and ran. Lily rushed after him and both Alex and Sirius broke down snickering. Alex felt a little light, the anxiety and stress of pretending that he was someone else was slowly building in him even though he wasn't exactly aware of it.

The small episode relaxed him a bit and he spoke, "You need to learn not to get overboard, what did you do after drawing this, from the look on James' face it couldn't be anything good."

"That's a superpowered sticking charm, no one is ever removing it." Sirius grinned, Alex's eyes widened as he stared at the graffiti on the floor again. He looked around, the room they had arrived in was small, and there were a couple of sceneries painted.

A few swords were hung on the wall, and now in addition to the history and art depicted in the room, there was an amateur drawing, an outline of a teenage girl lying face down on what seemed to be an expensive floor.

"Yeah, I really need to teach you more harmless pranks," Alex shook his head as Sirius grinned.

"Don't sweet it pup, this is your first prank-" Sirius grinned, though his grin dimmed a little as he realized that this might not be Alex's first prank. He was 11 years old. "-if I didn't do it Lily would have. Trust me this work of art is not going anywhere." Sirius spoke.

Alex turned to look at Dumbledore and Minerva who were looking at him with a smile. He nodded as he walked over the newly painted art, a few steps later he walked through the room. Many things caught his eye but the easiest one to describe would be the bones of a Dinasour hanging over the large hallway.

The ceiling was high, enough that the Potter manor had a dragon's bones looking over the entrance to the Manor. To the left of him was a large gate that likely led to the front entrance, to the right was a floating James Potter.

His one leg was floating in the air, the other he had folded for maximum comfort. Lily was beside him drawing an accurate outline of a floating James right beneath him. Sirius snickered and Alex had to nudge him to keep quiet.

He had no interest in hanging upside down, he tried to remember the spell that did it but it was slipping past his mind. What he did remember was that Severus was the one who invented the spell.

'I wonder what happened there, what about Remus and Pettigrew?' Alex thought Lily and James being alive was such a shock to him that he hadn't even thought about what it would mean for the timeline.

'No thinking about this now, first let's get through this exam and then I can try to see if I can find a history book.' Alex thought.

"Is this why he has such a big head, having all the blood go to your head couldn't be a good thing," Alex joked and Sirius froze, Lily looked up and beamed at him.

"Hahaha..." Sirius guffawed, a loud laughter echoed through the halls as everyone chuckled.

"What?" Alex laughed causing Sirius to snicker some more as he explained, "The head joke, that was Lily's first taunt to James..." Sirius smiled, his eyes going back to a distant time.

"That's a story for dinner, right now I'm famished, let me see if I can score some leftovers from breakfast," Sirius spoke as he started moving.

"I'll whip something up," Lily spoke, her drawing half-forgotten as she followed their group toward the kitchen.

"Guys?" James asked, after a moment he screamed, "GUYS!!!" panic clear in his voice.

...

Alex stared at his face, except for the eyes both he and Harry looked almost identical. The mark was the same and even their untamed hair followed a mysteriously similar chaos.

"Hello?" Harry spoke, his voice had a slight nervous tint to it.

"Uhh, hi. You must be Alex," Alex joked. It was a bad joke but Harry grinned slightly, tension leaving his frame. Harry had known he had a twin when he was born. The lie that his brother was alive, and potentially sick living in the muggle world had been unsettling.

There were many questions that he wanted answers to but for now, he was curious as to whether they shared the same bond as the Weasley twins. He nodded to a smiling Alex and thought hard trying to project his thoughts through.

'Hi Alex, can you hear me?' Harry thought, he saw Alex's face but there was no reaction indicating that he had heard him. He tried harder focusing on pushing his thoughts through. 

After a minute of trying nothing happened, Harry sighed as he looked at everyone eating toast at almost noon. He smiled, he was a little disappointed at not having someone with whom he could communicate telepathically.

But a part of him was relieved as well, he couldn't imagine what it would be like to have someone constantly trying to talk to him, someone who could hear or even see his thoughts.

Harry shuddered and put that nasty thought away. It was a good thing that they didn't share a twin bond. He didn't want anyone else living in his head...

...

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AN - At one point I wanted to spin the story that when Voldemort died, his would break into two parts. One latched onto Harry making him a Horcrux and the other possessed Alex fracturing his core in the process.

That the original 'Alex' was Voldemort biding his time until the sudden transmigration and the advent of Gamer's mind quashed Voldemort's soul into pieces, slowly giving Alex access to Voldemort's legacy...

I really had to resist, that thing would have too many plot holes so now I need a different reason for Alex's mark which hasn't faded... Any ideas?