A Hero's Tale, or: Harry Potter and the Potions Accident

Harry Potter is a wizard. And also a wizard. And another wizard. And a few more wizards. And quite possibly a witch too. There were a lot of wizardly Harry Potters running around, is what I'm getting at. If you think that's confusing, just imagine what Harry thought of it.

If your imagination is not quite up to snuff, I'll give you the gist of it. One Harry (Let's call him Harry Alpha) was wondering how on earth spilling a potion could have possibly led to a multiversal rift. He didn't think it was possible. He was right, sort of. It wasn't just the potion.

Another Harry, Harry-Beta, the Slytherin twin of Harry Gamma (Yes, they were both named Harry; Hagrid meant well but it's kinda hard to tell babies apart at the best of times, and when they're identical twins with the same distinguishing mark, it becomes downright impossible) was thinking that he was never listening to the Weasley twins again no matter what puppy-dog eyes Harry Gamma gave him; Gryffindor pranks might have been rarer than Slytherin pranks but they made up for it in imagination.

Harry-Delta was in the quite awkward position of being naked, and covering up the sensitive areas with a spare textbook. He was a consenting adult with a very good reason for being starkers, and that's all he would tell anyone, not that they'd actually believe him. He generally tried to fade into the background, despite being taller than the rest and wearing a quite distinctive birthday suit.

Harry-Epsilon was looking at Professor Snape, his adoptive father, for guidance, but wasn't getting much from him; the version of Snape in this universe was somewhat shell-shocked at one of his worst nightmares come to life. Harry-Epsilon was probably going to be in for a rather rude shock if he talked to Snape before Dumbledore. No two worlds are exactly the same, and in the one Harry-Epsilon knew, a troubled man had learned to let go of hatred towards the dead. Harry-Epsilon had no idea of how rare this was.

Harry-Zeta was mostly surprised and emotional at seeing Hogwarts again; ever since an especially potent and troublesome magic had trapped him in the distant past, he'd given up on returning to the place he had considered home. He would have been wrong about that, even if no strange convergence of magic had lead him and all his counterparts together, but that's a story for another time.

Harry-Eta was wondering why no one else in the room seemed to keep any artifacts on them aside from an unfamiliar sort of stick. His was a world where magic was in things and shaped by the wizard, rather than in the wizard and channeled through things. He would soon be learning that it was never that simple in any world.

Harry-Theta had trouble recognizing the others as him. This was no wonder, for they were land beings, as opposed to Harry-Theta and his kind, the denizens of the sunken isles. There is a story behind the many changes that lead to Harry-Theta and his fellow wizards becoming amphibious, but it doesn't really have much doing here. Here, it has already been averted.

Harry-Iota is just a new first year, and he's wondering if this was what wizards considered normal. A good look around the room would show him that it wasn't, but he'd just been dumped into an alternate universe in the middle of a crowd of himself. He can be forgiven for missing some details.

These men, boys, and assorted other genders were all different people, from very different worlds. They had lived different lives, and had different stories to tell. But, as they would eventually figure out after the shock had worn off, they had things in common.

They all wished to protect their friends, and were all ready to defy authority when they thought it made a mistake. They were all brave in their own way- even Harry-Beta, sorted into Slytherin, would take great risks if the cause was right, he would just go about it in what he called "the smart way". They all had a talent for getting into trouble. They all had a strong sense of family, and after some initial shenanigans, they extended that feeling to each other. And though none of them set out to be a hero, all couldn't see a problem without trying to fix it.

That's what really brought them together. They were, the lot of them, heroes to the core, and wherever they were and whoever they were with, they would fight the good fight. This time, they'd do it together.

Voldemorts everywhere had better beware.