177 Choices

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24th January 1995, Hogwarts Earth 2

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

The end of my time here was near. The confrontation with Dumbledore was the spark I needed to light the flames. Finally, my plan was coming together, and I was going home. After leaving the Headmaster's office, I returned to my own and waited for the inevitable to happen.

It was barely an hour later that I felt one of Voldemort's Horcruxes being destroyed. Dumbledore had taken the bait. This, of course, left only the cup, that I was using to scry the other Horcruxes, and Nagini. Assuming that Dumbledore was probably dead by now, the Dark Lord would be coming here soon. With a wave of my hand, I destroy the cup, leaving the Dark Lord with only a single soul anchor.

Now, I needed to prepare the castle for the arrival of a dark lord that was probably mad enough to slaughter every student inside. Fortunately, I was prepared and had arranged for the siege wards to be powered and ready to be activated at a moments' notice.

Finally, after activating the wards, I summoned Harry Potter to my office and started to wait for Voldemort's inevitable arrival to the castle. After all, this was, to him, a great opportunity to take over the castle that he saw as his first home, ever, and formally overthrow Dumbledore.

This was it for him. The Ministry was practically under his thumb anyway, with most of the politicians being either Death Eaters or threatened by Death Eaters. The people probably wouldn't care much about a change in regime, other than the Muggleborns that he's probably planning on killing. I never understood genocide for an ideology. It's just so ineffective in the long run. Maybe vilifying an entire population was a good idea to rile up and gain followers, maybe it was easy to blame someone else for their pains and hardships, but actually executing or imprisoning a chunk of your population was a recipe for either a revolt, or if it was successful somehow, a great way of destroying your economy. And that's ignoring how horrible the idea of genocide was.

I know how much of a hypocrite I was being; I, personally, have massacred whole species in my role as the Avatar of Death, and while I'm not proud of what I did, every single person that I killed in my service represented a grave danger to the world. I'm not happy with my kill count, but I did try to limit how much death I was responsible for, and a lesser man or woman would have let that power go to their heads and start killing for the fun of it.

I heard a knock on my door. Harry had finally arrived, "Come in."

He entered my office nervously, "Professor, you wanted to see me?"

I nod, "yes, I did. Tonight, is likely to be the last time we see each other, Mr. Potter and all my efforts, all my plans, have come to this. I'm here to give you a choice."

The boy was gaping at me, "What, why are you leaving? Why now?"

I chuckled, "Harry, I have a home, too. A wife, a daughter, a life outside this castle. For the first time in months, I can go home, and that depends on your choice."

"What choice?"

Before I could answer, a sinister voice resonated through the hall. It didn't happen to have source, seemingly coming from the walls themselves, probably resonated throughout the castle. The voice made Harry stiffen and pale in fear, it was the voice of Lord Voldemort, "Hello, students and faculty of Hogwarts. I have an announcement to make. My name is Lord Voldemort, and I have returned from the dead. Yes, Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore were telling the truth all along, I have defeated Death itself, and returned to the world of the living. I have released my loyal Death Eaters from their imprisonment in Azkaban and have an army of wizards and magical creatures outside the castle. And yet, I do not wish to reignite the previous war, because I have already won. Because, earlier tonight, Albus Dumbledore died by my hand."

Harry was shaking his head denying what was just said, "No, that's impossible. He can't be dead."

"And here comes the issue of Harry Potter. Most of you believe that I am preparing on storming the castle and killing every student inside. However, one cannot say that Lord Voldemort is not merciful. You are the future of the magical world, and I would rather not endanger it. Instead, I give you one hour to give Harry Potter to me, and I will guarantee that not a single person will die tonight. To Harry Potter, I address this. You have defied me many times, but are you truly willing to let someone else die for your sake? If you come willingly, I assure you that I will not lay a hand on a single one of your friends or even members of Dumbledore's little Order. You have on hour."

Harry looked at me, with tears in his eyes, "It's not true, is it?"

I snort, "It is. This is the choice I'm speaking of. Dumbledore is really dead. Instead, I'm giving you a choice, a real choice, for the first time in your life. You can go and give yourself to Voldemort, and die fulfilling Dumbledore's plan, taking him down in the process. Or you can stay here, and let me take care of it. Either way, Voldemort dies tonight. The only question is, do you want to be the one to kill him, and die in the process, or do you want me to do it?"

He looked at me, starting to get angry, "This is it, isn't it? This is your plan. You wanted this, all this time, you planned all of this, just for this moment. You orchestrated an assault on a school, you orchestrated Dumbledore's death, all for this moment, for giving me a choice. Why?"

"Because it has to be this way. I could just kill Voldemort, destroy the prophecy, but the impact wouldn't be as strong as if the one the prophecy speaks of refuses to fulfill it. So, I engineered the prophecy to have a single interpretation and having you either choose it or reject it. You can choose to give yourself, and die, killing Voldemort in the process, or you can reject the prophecy, let me take care of it, and live a long and wondrous life that I set up for you. We would either both win, or both lose, and that's entirely up to you."

"What life are you talking about?"

I grin at him, "I made you my heir, Harry, that includes a vast fortune, both in muggle and wizarding currencies, an entire mansion with a library containing my personal magical studies, trust me, it's enough to make you the second coming of Merlin in a decade or so. It also includes every process you need to exonerate Sirius Black. You could have the life you wanted, with Sirius as a family, without Voldemort looming over your head, without Dumbledore trying to manipulate your every move, with more gold than you could possibly spend in centuries, and more magical knowledge than the library of Alexandria, including fields of magic that are thought to be lost, or even thought to have never existed in the first place. You could even start courting Ms. Greengrass, or any other girl you like, have a real family, maybe with children. I'm giving you the luxury of choice. You could either choose to continue being Dumbledore's pawn and die as his pawn as well, or you could actually start living."

Harry looked dumbstruck at my answer, "You made things so that the only way for me to win, would be to make you win as well. This was all about the prophecy. You need the prophecy to be broken. No, it's more than that, breaking the prophecy will bring you home somehow."

I smirk at him, "It's good that you're finally using your brain, Harry. Yes, the power of a broken prophecy will power a ritual that will bring me home, to my wife, to my daughter."

"But why kill Dumbledore? Why heal the Longbottoms, Astoria and Mr. Weasley? Why destabilize the Ministry?"

"I honestly healed Arthur Weasley on a whim. The Longbottoms, were healed because I promised Neville, but you're right, I could have healed them later, but I did this to make Voldemort cautious and nervous, it's why I messed with Fudge's administration too. Plus, it was to make sure that they would leave you alone. I needed Voldemort to be on his toes so that he would capture Dumbledore and kill him. As for your former headmaster, he would have never left you alone, obsessed with fulfilling the prophecy, and Voldemort would not have come here, this openly, if he wasn't sure that no one would oppose him. He's arrogant, now, with Dumbledore gone, meaning that it would be a lot easier to kill him. All of this was to provide you a life, for you to have something to lose and not jump at the chance of killing Voldemort yourself. I even spoke to Sirius, to make sure he gets better, so that he would start living properly, and you could have an actual godfather when he's exonerated."

Harry was gaping, this time, "Who are you?"

"I am you. Well, I'm your counterpart in another universe. I was fighting someone that was very powerful and accidentally ended up here. I have been trying to get home, and to do it, I needed to use the cosmic backlash of a rejected prophecy to power a ritual to go back to my world, to my family."

I wasn't going to tell him about the cosmic entities and summoning Fate. This was still a teenager, one that was over his head, but he was still not an adult who could handle the possibility of his universe being destroyed by a multiversal event.

Harry looked at me, sadly, "Then the stuff you said about my parents…"

"Oh, I was talking about my world's James and Lily Potter. We don't get along much. Something happened during my childhood, and I ended up staying at the Dursleys anyway. Let's just say that my childhood was worse than yours, kiddo. They're not bad people, they just made a lot of mistakes. They're actually pretty good parents for my siblings, but I outgrew them and when I saw them next, I didn't need parents anymore."

"Mum and Dad are alive in your world?"

I snort, "Do you honestly believe that in the infinite possibilities of the multiverse, James and Lily Potter always die on Halloween. Sirius said the same when I told him."

"Sirius knew?"

"Only about my identity, not my plan, don't worry."

Harry started to get angry at this, "So, that's why he trusts you so much. You still killed a lot of people just to get home. That's wrong."

I shook my head, "No I didn't. The only person who died from my actions is Dumbledore and he would have been dead in a year if I hadn't intervened, and Sirius would have died in a few months too. Neville's parents would have stayed in the hospital, that outside of what would have happened when the war actually started. Hundreds, if not thousands of deaths, all averted because of my interference. In the long run, haven't I saved a lot more people for the exchange of a single year of life of a century old man?"

"You still endangered the castle by getting Voldemort to attack here."

I snort, "I warded this place myself. It would take that man child, that calls himself a dark lord, years to actually break the wards. Trust me, every resident in the castle is safe. I took every precaution, kiddo, saw every avenue, there's only two roads forwards. You can give yourself up and die for Dumbledore's greater good, and Voldemort will die, with the prophecy fulfilled. Or, you can reject the prophecy, refuse Dumbledore's plan for you, and let me kill the monster and go home, with you living a long and happy life afterwards. Either way, Voldemort dies, and magical Britain is saved. The only people this decision affects are you and me. I tried to make it as advantageous for you to pick my side, but it is still your choice. It has to be."

Harry looked pensive, "I choose to live. I choose myself for the first time. I want to grow old with Sirius, have a family, have friends and kids. I want to learn magic. I want to live with Sirius outside Grimmauld Place. I want to be happy."

Finally, I gave the boy a warm and honest smile, "Then I guess it's time for me to kill a dark lord, don't you think?"