The Pensieve swallowed them whole.
Cold came first, not the chill of stone corridors or cursed magic, but the bone-deep cold of a world locked in winter. Snow crunched beneath boots that were not Harry's Hogwarts shoes, but worn leather, scuffed and practical. The air smelled of pine, frost, and something older… watching.
They were taller.
All of them.
Harry, this Harry, stood at the head of a group of five, shoulders squared, posture instinctively protective. His hair was longer, tied back roughly. His face was older, sharper, seventeen and already bearing the weight of command.
Dumbledore's breath caught softly.
"Extraordinary," McGonagall whispered.
September, 1940 – England
Bomb sirens wailed overhead.
Fire bloomed in the night sky as London burned beneath the Blitz. The memory rushed through collapsing streets, shattered glass, the scream of aircraft engines. Children ran, five of them, escorted onto a train bound for the countryside.
Harry.
Peter.
Susan.
Edmund.
Lucy.
Evacuated to the quiet, book-lined home of Professor Digory Kirke.
"Same Kirke," Remus murmured faintly, stunned.
"The same," Dumbledore confirmed, eyes bright behind his spectacles.
The Wardrobe
Laughter echoed as the children played hide-and-seek.
Lucy opened the wardrobe.
Snow fell.
The world shifted.
They watched Lucy step into Narnia, into Mr. Tumnus's lamplit cave, heard the soft sorrow of his flute, felt the weight of betrayal narrowly avoided. They watched her return, breathless, to a world where no time had passed at all.
When Lucy told her story, Edmund scoffed.
But Harry didn't.
"She's telling the truth," memory-Harry said calmly. "I don't know how, but she is."
Professor Kirke's gaze sharpened. "Logic, my boy?"
Harry smiled faintly. "Experience."
Vael's eyes flicked to the real Harry beside her.
"Of course," she murmured.
Narnia Revealed
They ran through the wardrobe together this time.
Snow-laden trees. Talking beavers. A prophecy whispered beside a frozen river.
When two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sit upon the thrones of Cair Paravel, the Witch's reign shall end.
"And a fifth?" Sirius asked quietly.
Remus answered, voice reverent. "Balance."
They watched Edmund's betrayal unfold, saw Jadis, tall, terrible, crowned in ice, offer Turkish delight and lies. Saw chains close around him in the Witch's camp. Saw Tumnus turned to stone.
Harry's fists clenched at his sides in the present.
Aslan
The air changed when Aslan appeared.
Even within the memory, power rolled outward, ancient, vast, gentle and terrifying all at once.
McGonagall's eyes filled with tears.
Snape said nothing, but his posture had gone rigid.
Aslan's golden gaze settled on Harry.
"You are not of this world," the Lion said.
"But you are welcome in it."
They watched Aslan train Harry, not with a wand, but with will. Fire answered him. Wind coiled around his hands. Stone rose at a gesture. And when Harry stood beside Aslan, magic shifted and Harry became a lion.
Not an imitation.
An equal.
"A transfiguration without a wand," Flitwick breathed. "Merlin preserve us…"
The Stone Table
Night.
Betrayal.
Lucy and Susan wept as Jadis slew Aslan upon the Stone Table. The crack of ancient magic echoed like thunder.
Harry fell to his knees in the memory.
So did Sirius in the present.
Then...resurrection.
Magic deeper than law.
Aslan rose.
The Battle
Steel rang.
Wolves fell.
The battlefield blurred with chaos as Peter led, Edmund fought, and Harry stood between armies like a living storm, fire and earth answering his call, holding the line as the Witch's forces surged.
Edmund fell.
Harry roared, not as a boy, but as a lion, and shattered the ground to reach him.
Jadis struck.
Edmund broke her wand.
Aslan came.
The Witch died.
Silence followed.
Then crowns.
High King Harry the Elemental
King Peter the Magnificent
Queen Susan the Gentle
King Edmund the Just
Queen Lucy the Valiant
No one in the Pensieve spoke.
Fifteen Years Later
The white stag ran.
Adults again, wiser, weathered, still laughing.
The lamppost stood waiting.
They crossed back.
Children once more.
Professor Kirke smiled.
"Try me."
The memory shifted one last time.
Harry, seventeen again, stood in uniform, helmet tucked under his arm.
His siblings clung to him.
"You'll come back," Lucy said fiercely.
"I promise," Harry replied. "I always do."
Then,
Normandy. Two Weeks Later.
Rain. Mud. Blood.
The scream of artillery split the sky.
Harry climbed the trench ladder as bullets tore through the air, boots slipping on soaked earth. Magic pulsed beneath his skin, caged, waiting, but this was not a world that welcomed it openly.
He ran.
Across no man's land.
Fire and iron.
A lion's roar drowned by war.
The Pensieve stilled.
No one moved.
Harry sat back heavily in the chair, exhausted beyond words.
Dumbledore broke the silence at last.
"…So," he said softly, "that is where you went."
And for the first time, no one questioned whether Harry Potter had truly lived other lives.
They knew.