Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-Author notes-

Chapter 150: Time

"I don't think this is the time or place to get philosophical, Professor. But if you are contemplating the idea that I am an imposter… then once again, I will ask you to take those concerns to the Headmaster. He can vouch for my identity."

Snape didn't say anything and didn't move from his place either. He appeared to be having some trouble processing the situation.

"Stop thinking so much, just take these memories, take that pervert to the infirmary, and then go see the Headmaster."

Harry started to walk away.

"Potter! I didn't say you could leave!" He snapped back to reality and reacted by lifting his wand and pointing at Harry again.

Harry ignored the angry professor. Snape could be very temperamental sometimes, but he was not going to shoot at his back like a coward.

"I said stop!" Snape shouted.

Harry stopped right at the door frame and without turning around, he spoke again.

"I can already imagine how this is going to go down. Despite everything, Dumbledore will not expel that boy because he likes to think that people can change if they are given enough chances. He likes to see the good side in everything…but you and I know better, right, Professor?"

Harry glanced back.

"Some people have no good side… I want this to serve as a warning…keep your house in line, or the next time something like this happens, I will do it myself."

He exited the office after saying what he wanted to say, leaving behind a shocked Professor Snape.

"It seems like I have been completely wrong…"

Snape muttered, still looking at the open door left by Harry.

"You are nothing like your father."

He wondered for a moment if that was a good or a bad thing, before remembering that he had more urgent matters to attend to.

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On the next day, Harry expected to be called to the Headmaster's office, but the call never came.

He could not guess what Dumbledore was thinking but could only hope that at least Snape took his advice seriously.

Luna was left alone after that. Harry had no idea what Professor Flitwick could have told the girls, but it appeared to have worked, at least for now…

By the end of May, Harry had to make another trip to the Chamber of Secrets.

Accessing the Chamber was much easier this time around.

All the nasty protections set in place by Salazar Slytherin were completely removed and replaced by some much weaker and harmless ones instead.

Myrtle was not very happy to see him again, especially when he destroyed part of her bathroom once more.

This time, he made sure that no one was following him at least.

Not that he expected to fight any more dangerous beasts, but you never know.

"Oh? They have done some cleaning down here." The debris had been removed so he had no trouble walking around.

When he reached the innermost chamber, he noticed the ceiling had been restored and the holes had been covered. The Chamber was still in a deplorable state despite this but at least it won't collapse anytime soon.

"Still stinks, though…" The rancid smell of dead basilisks made it difficult to breathe here.

"No matter… I didn't come here for fun."

Harry tapped the stone tiles with his wand and transfigured a simple stone table. He then placed an old book on top and opened it.

"Let's see…" He flipped through the pages.

This was, of course, none other than the Time Book, the one lent by Dumbledore. After months of translating it and studying its contents, he was finally confident enough in his knowledge to perform some tests.

His main objective was to find the cause of what happened in this place a few months ago, which could in turn, answer a few other questions he had.

The Time Book contained the insights of many experts in the field of time and space magic.

It talked about the dangers of time travel and how, when someone travels back in time, that person is at a constant risk of creating an entire parallel universe.

If the traveler does something to change the timeline, no matter how small the change is, even if it's only something like breaking a window that was not supposed to be broken in the time he came from, then… another parallel timeline will come into existence.

The timeline where the window was never broken will remain the same, but now the traveler will be in a timeline where that window was always meant to be broken by him.

Those two realities will now exist parallel with each other, covered but unable to interact with one another.

Even small things could lead to big changes. Like his mother getting pregnant a few weeks earlier, meaning that he would be born earlier and not form part of the prophecy.

Time travel has existed for several centuries already and even with all the restrictions put in place by the Ministry, there have been thousands of persons traveling in time since its conception.

The amount of new realities spawning from all those travels is impossible to calculate.

But what worried Harry was that once created, these alternate universes should have remained separated.

"But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore…"

A.N: -I want you to keep in mind that this type of time travel is something I made for the fic and is not how it works in canon. Canon time travel is supposed to work on a close loop where changing anything is going to be impossible. This one is the type where if you change anything, then a new timeline is created, like in "Back From the Future". This was a necessary change because I needed those alternate timelines to exist for the story to work since Harry had initially come from a different timeline. -