Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Assistant Editor: Twinfetish—thanks for your invaluable help with the editing process.

Pairings: Harry/Harry, Neville/Lavender, Dean/Seamus, and Ron/Hermione.

Warnings: Slash: male/male relationships, Het: male/female relationships, violence, peril, character death, adult language, sexual situations, angst, and AU-HBP.

Faerietayle

Mirror Mirror burning bright,
Reflecting warped painful light,
Shadows uncover the Seer’s sight,
Nightmares haunt the darkened night.

Harry Potter stood over the fallen form of Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord had finally been vanquished just as the prophecy had declared. His eyes were hard, cold, and solemn. This wasn’t a boy; this was a man, a man who had killed so that others would be able to live.

Luna approached the bloodied savior and sighed at the weariness on his face. He’d done so much for them, so very much, and now she had an offer to present to him.

“You can be happy,” she whispered.

The battle-hardened warrior scoffed. “No one will ever understand me, Luna.”

She knew what he meant. He felt that nobody would ever love him for himself. All they would ever see was Harry Potter: Savior and Conqueror.

“If there was such a person, would you wish to meet them?” she asked.

He spun to face the insightful witch. “What?” His voice held shock and smallest bit of hope.

“If someone could love you for yourself, would you want to be with them?” Luna asked.

“No one could ever accept me for who I am here. They all see me as an object, not a person,” Harry bitterly spat.

“That is true,” Luna replied. She saw his face fall. “However, there is a person who understands you perfectly living elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?” he questioned. He didn’t want to get his hopes up; he truly didn’t. Harry had given up believing that he would find love over a year ago. The eighteen-year-old wasn’t naïve enough to think that anyone would care for anything but his fame and wealth.

“Another world, very similar to our own,” she breathed.

“Another world?” he skeptically inquired.

“Yes, a world where the only person who will ever understand you and honestly love you lives,” she replied.

“Love,” he mumbled quietly.

“However, there is a something you need to know,” Luna stated.

“Of course, the catch,” Harry muttered despondently.

“You’ll have to defeat Voldemort all over again. The hunt, the Horcruxes, the battle, everything will need to be redone,” she explained.

He jerked back at this declaration. All the pain and suffering would have to be repeated? “What do you mean?” he demanded to know.

“This person is in an alternate reality. Their timeline is behind ours; the one you are destined for is just turning sixteen,” she said. “You are the only one who can save him from suffering, and he is the only one who can soothe the pain in your soul.”

“He?”

“Harry Potter,” Luna answered.

Green eyes blinked repeatedly. Harry Potter. Himself? The one who was destined to assuage his pain was an alternate version of himself? He didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. Oh yes, he would certainly understand his own pain and suffering. He would understand very well.

“He just lost Sirius?” Harry asked when he remembered she’d mentioned the boy was just turning sixteen.

“Yes he did,” Luna agreed.

“In an alternate reality something is always different in the timeline,” Harry spoke as he remembered some information. “What separates his world and mine?”

“Up to the present in his time there are many minor differences, but the major one is that Peter Pettigrew betrayed the Potters instead of Lupin,” she said.

A rumbling growl of rage tore from his throat at the thought of the werewolf. He’d taken great pleasure in killing the filthy deceitful creature.

“Most of your memories of Pettigrew and Lupin will be mirror opposites,” she continued. “However, there will also be differences. For example, you’re much closer with Severus in this reality than he is with the Severus in his.”

“So where Severus taught me the Patronus Charm third year…”

“Lupin taught him,” she concluded.

“I see. Those are the main differences?” Harry asked.

“Yes, ones involving the past anyway,” Luna stated.

Harry noticed the way she stressed the word ‘past’ and narrowed his gaze. “You imply that there will be a future difference,” he said.

“Indeed, he will lose the fight with Voldemort,” Luna said clearly.

Every muscle in Harry’s body froze at that declaration. No. He stared down at the blood on his hands and fisted them. It shouldn’t happen that way. He’d suffered so much pain, allowed others to guide his actions, trusted the wrong people, been betrayed—someone wasn’t meant to go through all of that and then lose.

It was wrong. He wouldn’t allow it to happen.

Luna saw the determined look on his face and smiled gently. There was the Harry Potter she knew, the man who was courageous and strong, the wizard who would be responsible for the fate of a second world. “You won’t be able to come back,” she informed him.

For the barest moment, indecision flickered in his heart before he quickly squashed it. This other world would bring him love, and he would be able to save himself. He remembered exactly how much he’d longed for someone to be his savior; no one had been. He could protect his other self. Teach him. Love him.

He’d willingly bloody his own hands if he could keep another soul innocent.

“I’ll go,” he answered, just as she knew he would.

Luna stepped forward and pressed a kiss to his bloodstained cheek. “Be happy, Harry,” she breathed.

Her swirling silver eyes began to spin more quickly; the irises moved like a fall of molten mercury. She blinked once, releasing the magic.

There wasn’t any sound nor was there a brilliant flash of light, but the task had been completed.

The Harry Potter of her world was gone.

Mirror Mirror can you see,
I am you and you are me,
Trapped within our destiny,
I shall fulfill our prophecy.