Chapter Text
“I’m Harry freakin Potter. I don’t think I should be possessing people. In my experience, only bad guys possess people,” Harry snarled from his seat.
“You’re not really possessing someone. You would simply be taking over an otherwise dead body.”
“Now we’re getting closer to inferi and necrophilia which makes me even more uncomfortable with this idea,” Harry muttered, crossing his arms defiantly.
The man hummed gently, but didn’t necessarily disagree. He steepled his fingers under his chin and frowned at Harry, “Honestly, you aren’t taking this as well as I expected for a man who already died once before and returned to life. Not to mention the supposed savior of your people. In my experience, saviors are normally a touch calmer and all-knowing.”
Harry felt his anger rising, fists clenched at his side. He knew his voice was rising as well, but he could do nothing to stop it, his emotional intelligence growing little since his high school days.
“You think I’m not taking this well?? I’m simply taking an auror call when I see a purple light. I feel the burning pain. My chest constricted. I felt the pain. I felt myself die. There’s no question that I died, and yet when I woke up, instead of finally being reunited with my parents and loved ones, I’m back into another freaking train station. And instead of Dumbledore, I meet you. WHOEVER YOU ARE. CLAIMING TO BE A BLOODY ANGEL. I don’t know how long you’ve been watching my life, but I don’t think there’s very much angelic about it.”
The “angel” looked nonplussed, “I assure you that I am certainly of the heavenly realm.”
“Yeah, and I”m a house elf,” Harry snorted at the man in the boring grey business suit.
The angel stood up sharply, his chair making a screeching sound on the floor as his pals went flat on the desk, “Shall I give you a taste of my angelic qualities?”
“Have at,” Harry muttered.
Then Harry found himself scrambling backwards in shock, unable to understand what had appeared before him, even with magic. Where a middle aged, average in every appearance man had sat before him, suddenly a warrior stood. Easily 8 feet tall with giant white wings spreading out from his shoulders, full centurion style armor with a double edged sword hanging from his waist.
Harry steeled himself, “I’m a wizard, bloke. I may not know what spell or potion or trick you just used, but it doesn’t mean you’re an angel.”
“Perhaps I can use the same trick that Order of the Phoenix used to use? Telling you a secret I shouldn’t know?” the man/angel offered.
Harry shrugged, “Alright I guess. I’ll at least consider it.”
“Dudley and his friends: Piers Polkiss, Malcolm, Dennis, and Gordon used to play a cruel game of chasing you that you had dubbed Harry Hunting. They often chased you and beat you up,” the man said simply, though not unkindly.
Harry found himself recoiling again even as a flush spread of his neck. He had never told anyone about that, least of all what he used to call it. Even Hermione and Ron had been left out of the know, just that his home life had never been exactly good.
The angel went back to the cubicle he had been sitting at inside the train station and flipped a few pages.
“What do you want?” Harry finally asked.
"I am Carver, one of the Lord's angels," Carver said.
"What do you want with me? If I'm dead, shouldn't I be on my next great adventure?" Harry asked.
“We’ve already been over this. Things didn’t go right. Dumbledore is evil and manipulating things. You need to go back and change things. Keep magic from being destroyed. Your original body will still have a soul while your older body is dead, so we are compromising by sticking your current soul, memories intact, into a body that was dying. Once the soul has passed on, but before the body itself shuts down, I will transplant your soul,” Carver explained again.
"Why are you letting this child die? For that matter, why not save all dying children?" Harry demanded.
"That would be beyond my abilities. The children's deaths are fixed points in time. The only reason I can send you back is because I have special permission from my boss, and, even then, the child will still die. I'm only saving the body, not the soul within," Carver said.
Harry had a hard time swallowing this new bit of information, but he thought he had the gist of it. The kid is still going to die, Carver wasn't stopping that. The Dementers had taught Harry that a body could survive without a soul. Carver was going to take that soulless body and put Harry's soul into it.
"How will this help? Hermione once told me that time travel is incredibly dangerous," Harry asked.
"This isn't like that type of time travel. You wouldn't have to fear changing the future, that's the whole reason for sending you back. Also, it will create a minor paradox," Carver said.
Harry recoiled, "Aren't paradoxes bad?"
"Normally, but we want this paradox. Even though your body won't physically be marked, your soul has still been marked by Voldemort. By sending you back, we cause the prophecy to have ambiguousness. The prophecy could be talking about either you or the other Harry," Carver said.
"So I could take on the responsibilities of the prophecy," Harry mused.
Carver nodded, "I know that doesn't sound appealing, but it wouldn't have to be like last time. You don't just have to change your personal life; you can save so many lives."
Harry agreed, "I've gone through war once. I may physically be young, but I have the soul of an old soldier. That's probably why I went into the Auror corps. My hero complex is still very active, and it wouldn't let me deny this chance to save lives."
"One more thing, you will be given the gift of sight, so no one questions your strange knowledge of the future," Carver said.
Harry frowned, "No! The last seer I knew gave the prophecy that cursed me to my horrible life."
Carver tried to explain, "This wouldn't be like Professor Trelawney's prophecies. In fact, you would not be giving prophecies. You would be a very basic seer. You might have the ability to see tomorrow's weather or other small things. It is just a cover for the knowledge you already have."
"Couldn't I just keep my knowledge hidden?" Harry asked.
"Do you really want to spend your entire life as a lie? Besides, eventually someone would have to get suspicious. This gives a story you can tell your family and closest friends. You would want to keep even the knowledge of being a seer a secret from everyone else," Carver said.
“A family? I'd have a family. I still don’t like it though,” Harry muttered.
“Yes, yes, yes. Let’s get you into your new monk body,” Carver announced, snapping his fingers.
—------------------------------Time Break—-----------------------
Chökyi breathed his last after a sickness ravaged his body.
Less than a minute later, Harry took his first breath in Chökyi’s body. His now brown eyes blinked carefully. Though Carver had healed the body enough to survive, Harry still felt the ache of the fever.
Clenching and unclenching long thin fingers, Harry tried to adjust to this body. It all felt slightly off, like walking through a living room after all of the furniture had been moved a few inches to the side.
Eyebrows furrowed and a sneer twisted Harry’s lips at the thought that this might be how Voldemort felt when he would possess a body. Was Harry any better than Voldemort at this point?
Trying to push the thought away, Harry tried again to simply focus on the new body. It was weird, while he was still him, he also wasn’t. It was only his soul in the body, but the body itself gave impressions to him. Memories. Muscle memory, brain memories.
He knew a new language now, syllables running off his tongue with ease, though he could also remember English.
Hundreds of hours of prayers, the ache of knees long bowed. He hadn’t lived the life of Chökyi, but the memory of it was available to him.
“This is bloody weird,” he muttered to himself in English, choosing Ron’s favorite curse in memory of him, even if he had been a poor friend. Harry even had his suspicions now that he was looking back that perhaps Dumbledore had been helping orchestrate even that friendship.
A monk came rushing in with a towel in his hand, ~“Chökyi, are you feeling better? I was worried you might die!”~
His new brain identified the Tibetan and translated it, while he was already replying in the same language, ~”Yes, I believe so.”~
~”I’m so glad. Let me wipe your face,”~ the other monk replied, ~“If you are well enough, prayer starts soon.” ~
Harry soon learned that prayer was a large part of his daily life. Only eight days into this new life, he felt himself frustrated.
“Carver!” he yelled in English after he had set off by himself into the mountains, supposedly for more prayer.
The angel appeared by him silently, not using Apparition then, “Yes, Chökyi?”
“Ugh, that’s still taking a lot to get used to, even if the body automatically looks up at the name. I still mentally think of myself as Harry.”
“These things can take time. What did you need me for though?”
“How am I supposed to do anything while I am stuck in the body of a monk living in the HImalayan mountains?” Harry demanded.
“There were few options. You had to go into a dying magical child, so you would still be able to wield magic and not burn up the host body. Only so many magical children die a year, you know. You also had to go into a child who was close to the correct age. Plus, it had to be a child who was inconspicuous enough for this to work. Finally, this death occurred the farthest back in the timeline. The original Harry Potter is four years old,” Carver explained once again, no lack of patience.
“But I feel useless!” Harry cried.
“Take the time to train. Grow strong. Currently, you need to get back down the mountain before the other monks worry. We will find ways for you to help,” Carver urged him.
Harry grumbled the entire way back down the mountain. He was in a fine temper tantrum the rest of the day as well, fiery temper as strong as it was after fifth year. There were few years that Harry hated more than waiting around feeling useless.
Not to mention his godfather had already spent three years in Azkaban and the original Harry had spent three years with the Dursleys.
Harry grumbled through dinner, and through evening prayers and he was still grumbling as he went towards the hot springs to get cleaned up.
“Bloogy monks in the freaking Himalayans with bloody hot springs,” he at least mumbled low enough the monks couldn’t hear him, plus in English, which they didn’t know he spoke.
At that moment, his foot slipped on the mossy and damp rocks. Arms grabbling for anything to break his fall, they caught sharply on a large rock. The weight of him was enough to dislodge the rock.
Apparently, the rock had long been hiding a rather hot stream of water.
As burning water poured down over him, Harry didn’t even have time to scream before he was dead.
He opened his eyes to the white of the train station and glared at Carver.
“What the what?” Carver muttered, staring back at him.
“Why am I dead? I was only there for eight days, and I didn’t even get to do anything!” Harry yelled.
Carver flipped through his pages, “Ahhh here it is. While I had permission to send you back, it seems other forces were not happy. Good old Fate trying to keep the balance. Your newly possessed body was supposed to have died. It wanted that to happen no matter what. Balance.”
“Balance,” Harry stared blankly back at Carver.
Carver grinned sheepishly at him, “No worries though. We can’t send you back again, don’t want double paradoxes, that was once and done, but we have plenty of time before the original you starts Hogwarts. We’ll go with the next available body. Second time’s the charm.”
It wasn’t the charm, actually, Harry would like to have that noted on the official record.
That time, he was an eight year old boy in London, muggleborn. The original Harry Potter was still four. It was going well the whole three months he was there, right up until his new dad had him help hold a bucket of paint on an eight foot step stool.
“Lean a little this way,” Thomas said, urging Carl (Harry) to lean more toward him.
“Maybe you should do a bit of the leaning on your ladder,” Harry muttered lowly, but obligingly did as asked.
“Woah!” Thomas cried as Harry’s ladder swayed slightly, he shot out a hand and stilled the ladder. “Alright there, Carl?”
Harry was slightly shaken, “Yeah, I’m good. I might get off the ladder though.”
“Come on, now, that wasn’t that big of a deal. You’re fine,” Thomas laughed. “Don’t be a sissy.”
Harry scowled, “No, I’m getting down.”
Too late though. A screw had been slowly backing out of the folding mechanism in the ladder. Not immediately noticed, it had fallen out when the ladder lurched. As Harry shifted his weight, the ladder folded shut on him.
Harry lost his footing and fell headfirst to the concrete floor below.
He glared at Carver in the white train station, “Are you telling me that eight bloody feet took me out? That’s barely enough for a concussion.”
“Well, face first, with the right angle, it can be deadly,” Carver shrugged.
The third and fourth possessions did not go well either.
Third time, he died from wetting the bed with a faulty electric blanket. That one hurt too. In the shock, he fell out of bed just right.
“450 people die a year falling out of beds,” Carver comforted him.
“I’ll just start avoiding beds in the next life then?” Harry threw up his hands.
Fourth time, he was killed walking under a coconut tree and hit on the head.
“Invest in helmets maybe,” Carver said, flipping through his stack of papers, “Says here about 150 people die a year from coconuts, so I mean, could’ve happened to anyone.”
Fifth time, he was strangled by his own necktie, while in a crowd packed so tightly he literally couldn’t even raise his arms to adjust it.
“OK, that one I don’t believe really could have happened to anyone. The original Harry Potter is now seven years old. We’ve spent years putting you into different bodies just for Fate to eventually fix the balance and kill the body after all. I do think we’re making progress though. You were in that last body for almost a year,” Carver said.
Harry shrugged, “Fate is running a show Final Destination style. We were able to get a few things accomplished. Other Harry is no longer with the Dursleys at least. I do feel that dying so many times could be negatively affecting my psyche. Any who, who have we got this time?”
It was becoming easier to swallow what his life had become, a random parasitic soul.
"This time, you would actually be one of your classmates, same year and all. Butterfly effect is kicking in. This classmate didn’t originally die, but you didn’t know them much. They transferred to Beauxbaton in your fourth year. Due to changes you’ve made in this timeline, the classmate is getting ready to choke on candy in a playground. You would be the only child of your parents. They had a lot of trouble with the pregnancy, so they are fairly doting. The death of their only child almost kills them. Also, they lose their heir, and their family dies out after their deaths," Carver paused; "If you were to do this, you'd only be helping them."
Harry recoiled, “This feels different. What do you mean one of my classmates is about to die? This isn’t a stranger. I thought I was supposed to be helping!”
“You are helping, but remember, paradoxes, changing the future, you don’t know everything that will happen. These things have wide impacts.”
Harry thought. Anger rose in him, then went back down. Carver was right. He’d made his choices, and this classmate was going to die either way now. Might as well use the body. It would put him super close to the original Harry this way.
“Fine, let’s do it,” he said in a resigned manner.
"One more thing before you go, the name of the child is Lisa Turpin. You'll be a girl now," as Carver snapped his fingers; he could see Harry's furious face. 'I think he's rather mad with me.'
—-------------The morning before Lisa’s death—----------------------
When Darlene Turpin woke on the sunny morning of October 18th, she knew something was going to happen. And not a good something, but a terrible, horrible something.
She knew better than to try and explain the feeling to her husband. He just wouldn't understand. And she couldn't just ignore the feeling. The women of her family were long known for having a strong woman's intuition. Why, her grandmother had been registered by the Ministry of Magic as a very low level Seer.
Darlene had just decided that she would spend all day inside, with her family, when she heard her princess waking up. As soon as she heard Lisa opening her bedroom door, she remembered that she'd promised to take her daughter to the new all magical park.
'Maybe I can convince her to wait for another day, even tomorrow. She might not even remember that we were supposed to go today,' Darlene thought to herself.
"Morning, Mum! When are we leaving for the park?" Lisa called as soon as she saw her mother.
Darlene worried through breakfast, she fretted on the way to the park, and she absolutely panicked when she got to the park.
When Robert noticed that his daughter wasn't having much fun because of her mother's overbearing, he decided it was time to intervene.
"Dear, you're being sort of overbearing," he said to his wife.
The look she gave him made him think of an angry dragon. He decided to try a different approach.
"It's just that you haven't let Lisa off of the bench the entire time we've been here. Isn't the point of going to a park to play?" he asked.
Darlene sighed, "I suppose you're right. I just have this feeling that something horrible is going to happen."
"Perhaps you're worrying too much. Lisa’s seven years old, she's not a sickly baby anymore," Robert said.
"You're right, you're right," Darlene sighed. "Lisa, why don't you try out those swings? Just stay in eye sight please."
Lisa let out a whoop of joy as she ran over to the swings. She knew her mother and father would soon get into a discussion about boring grown up stuff, and she'd be free to explore more of the park. She happily played on the swings for a while.
Trying to distract his wife, Robert asked, “What do you think of Dumbledore’s newest law?”
"Would you be referring to the new law that is disguised as a way to help werewolves, but will actually lead to their registration and confinement?" Darlene asked.
Robert nodded with a grim look on his face. He had a brother – thought dead by the general populace – who was actually a werewolf in hiding.
"I doubt the law will pass. He managed to pass several confinement laws by using the ignorance of half-bloods, but the purebloods have gotten the truth out enough that this one shouldn't pass," Darlene said.
"Excuse me, but my wife and I couldn't help but overhear and we were wondering what you were talking about?" asked a gentleman sitting next to the Ogden's.
Robert and Darlene shared a look before Robert started talking, "Dumbledore is always passed off as some sort of benevolent grandfather, but he's actually very manipulative. It's a well-known fact, or used to be, that purebloods will occasionally marry a magical being to keep the bloodline pure. This is done to prevent inbreeding if I can be so bold as to just out and say it."
Darlene picked up, "Dumbledore has been passing laws to confine magical beings. Beings like centaurs and vampires, who used to be known as magical beings, are now being called magical creatures. They're losing all rights. Soon they'll be treated like a pet dog."
"We believe this is done in an effort to control the magical world. The purebloods would be controlled as most of us have some sort of magical creature in our bloodlines. The muggleborns are being kept completely ignorant. Did you know that Dumbledore has removed any introductory classes from Hogwarts? He's keeping muggleborns ignorant. Those two groups combined would be enough to overpower any opposition from non-ignorant half-bloods," Robert said.
The other couple had recoiled in disgust.
"Of course, I'd heard from my mother that there used to be a class on wizard customs and a class for muggleborns, but I'd never really wondered why they were removed," the man said.
"Yes, the largest part of this plan uses ignorance. If everyone knew that they were slowly being oppressed, an outrage would break out," Darlene said.
"Is that why there isn't a class on wizarding law at Hogwarts?" asked the woman.
"Yes, you can't oppose a law you don't know about," Robert said.
Eventually Lisa looked up to see that her parents and some of the other adults seemed to be in the middle of a discussion. She happily headed for some of the other park equipment.
She soon found herself by a slide that some older boys were sitting on. None of them seemed to be using the slide; they were just sitting on it and eating candy. That wasn't fair! It was the only slide around, and they weren't even using it.
Lisa marched over, "If you're not going to slide, why don't you let others use it?"
The boys looked at her in surprise. One of the older boys said, "Hey kid, scram. We're using the slide."
"No you're not. You're just sitting on it and talking," Lisa retorted.
The boys glanced at each other, "Here kid, I'll give you some candy if you just leave us alone."
Lisa thought about it. Her mother had always told her not to take candy from strangers, but this was a teenager, not an adult. Plus he was eating the candy too, so it couldn't be harmful.
"Alright, if you give me some candy, I'll leave you alone," Lisa said.
The boy gave her a handful of candy. It was a mixture of hard candy and soft gummies. She hesitantly ate one gummy before cramming more candy into her mouth. The candy tasted really good!
She happily headed for the merry-go-round before she started choking. She'd tried to swallow a gummy, but she accidently swallowed a hard candy too. She fell to the ground clutching her throat. The candies completely filled her throat, and she couldn't even call out to help. As her vision turned to black, she saw a boy run over to her.
Carver, in a younger form, rushed over to the dying girl. He knew he would have only seconds to heal the body after the soul left before the body also died. He knew the instant the soul left and he quickly set to work healing the body. He had a wand out to make it look like he was just a normal first or second year wizard.
He completely healed the body and mostly had Harry's soul into the body before he called for help. He quickly cast the CPR charm at the ground in case someone used Prior Incantum on his wand.
"Help! Please someone help me! Help!" he shouted.
People started running from all over the park. Lisa's parents rushed to her side when they recognized her.
"What happened?" her father demanded.
"I saw her clutching at her throat and realized something was wrong. I ran over and found out she was choking. I cast the CPR charm at her, but I don't know if she's ok," Carver said as he made himself seem frantic.
"We've got to get her to St Mungo's!" the mother called.
The little girl was quickly picked up and taken to the floo entrance at the Information Center of the park.
Carver grabbed the father's arm along the way, "Do you think I could come along? I'm just so worried that I didn't do enough…"
The father looked at Carver with sympathy, "You did all you could, which I'm thankful for. You may have saved my daughter's life. You'd better come along though; I'll make sure you get off of any charges for underage magic."
"Thank you sir," Carver said as they ran to the floo entrance.
When Harry first opened his eyes, he knew by the blinding light he had to be at some sort of healing facility.
'Why do doctors insist on blinding their patients?' he wondered to himself.
When he turned his head and saw a man and woman ('Darlene and Robert Turpin, his new parents,' his mind supplied), he remembered what was going on.
"Are you okay, darling? Does anything hurt?" the woman rushed over to his bed.
He (he supposed he should really start referring to himself with feminine pronouns since Harry was now a girl) gestured vaguely to her throat, which did ache.
Her father lifted a cup of water from the bedside table and helped her drink a little bit. The water helped her throat not to hurt as much and she was able to talk, "What happened?"
"Apparently you choked on some candy," said a healer. The healer waved his wand over Lisa/Harry several times and seemed pleased with the results. "We sent out aurors to capture the teenagers. We've now taken their statements."
"How did you know who I got the candy from?" asked Lisa/Harry (she supposed she also needed to refer to herself as Lisa, because the Lisa/Harry stuff was giving her a headache).
"This young man, who saved your life, told us he saw some teenagers giving you candy," her mother said.
Lisa looked over to see a very different Carver smiling at her. The first Carver she met looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. This Carver was probably eleven or twelve. He was wearing a t-shirt and worn jeans.
"I'm just glad you're ok," Carver said. She rolled her eyes at him when her new parents weren’t looking.
As soon as she'd gotten home that first day, she'd barricaded herself in her room.
She'd grabbed between her legs before screaming into a pillow. It was true, Harry was now a girl.
Little Harry was gone!
"Am I interrupting something?" a voice asked. Lisa looked up to see Carver, back in his older form, at the foot of her bed.
She'd jumped out of bed and started hitting him with her tiny fists. "I'm a girl, you tosser! Where was that in the plans?"
"I'm sorry, but Lisa Turpin was the only available body.”
"This is so weird. Way weirder than possessing someone I had never met before," Lisa muttered. Carver rolled his eyes. "How are you even here? I thought I wasn't supposed to see my guardian angel."
"That was before you knew who I was. Now that you know you have a guardian angel and who I am, there's no sense in my remaining hidden," Carver said.
Lisa nodded before thinking of something else, "So are you still the guardian angel of…uh…the other me, or what?"
"Another angel was assigned to him. At this point, your souls are very different. Your soul is scarred and older. I am assigned to your soul, so another angel had to be assigned to Harry."
"So you're the Carver I know, not some Carver from the past?" Lisa asked.
"I traveled back in time with your soul if that is what you're asking," Carver said with an amused expression.
Lisa walked over to a mirror and examined this new body. She hummed to herself as she took it in. Brown hair with just a touch of a deep red. Much more brown than auburn, but the red tint was there. It was cut to where it just brushed her shoulders. Pale green eyes from large, wide set eyes. An upturned nose.
A jolt went through her.
The eyes weren’t bright, Avada Kedavra green and the hair wasn’t her mother’s fiery red, but this body looked like it potentially could have come from James and Lily Potter. Or at least maybe a cousin.
Lisa Harriet Turpin, her mind whispered at her.
“No bloody way,” she laughed.
“What?” Carver asked from where he had been fiddling with knickknacks on the dresser, looking over at her with questioning eyes.
“My middle name is Harriet. I could go by Harri in this body. That would fix the issue of learning to go by a new name,” she laughed.
Carver frowned, “That’s gonna get confusing with the original Harry.”
Lisa shrugged, “I’ll spell it with an i at the end. You know, I actually like this body. It’s the first one that feels like maybe it could be me in the future, not just me possessing someone else’s body.”
The original Lisa must have been a very passive girl. Harry already had known a bit of that just from how unremarkable she had been during his school years. He couldn’t even remember an interaction with her past the sorting and occasionally seeing her in the hallways.
It didn’t feel like she had left much of a strong memory on this body the way he had experienced with some of the bodies.
Less like he was trying to override the deep emotions and memories that ran in a body with a strong soul, fiery personality.
This body also seemed to welcome his plans.
It felt like the mind was pulling up memories of his temper and magic and smiling. A light was lit up.
“Ahh, this is a soul that wants to maximize this body, not simply exist,” it seemed to whisper to him.
Or maybe he’d died too many times. Possessed one too many bodies and he’d stopped being bothered by it.
“Not really possession,” Carver muttered near him, still fighting over a technicality, and Harry grinned.
This one he meant to keep. He’d fight Fate not to have this body die.
Harry Potter was now seven year old Lisa Harriet Turpin, and she needed to tell her parents to start calling her Harri.
Away from the Dursleys was a seven year old Harry Potter.
At Hogwarts was the ancient Dumbledore, surely aware that something had changed, but he couldn’t possibly know about Harri.
And for the moment, Harri needed her first priority to be rescuing a certain dogfather of hers.