Jerry

Harry walked out of the bath and took a look in the mirror. There was no electricity in the house, so Harry was using a torch-lantern that ran on batteries to move around.

Harry brought up the lantern to his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror, and Harry couldn't help but be amazed at how similar this Harry looked to his original body. The black hair and face structure were the same. He had a thin nose, a strong jawline, and narrowed eyes. But instead of heterochromatic black-grey eyes, this Harry had deep black orbs.

'It'll probably fade to grey as he gets older.'

Harry had this thought while staring into his eyes. Harry also had darker eyes when he was younger, but as he got older and joined the army, his eyes faded and became lighter until they were light grey when he went for his second war.

This Harry would most likely be the same.

'If I time-traveled, then that means this boy is one of my descendants, doesn't it? My father had the same condition of the eyes, so if it happens to this body too, then it means I'm right.'

Harry brought the lantern closer and traced a line over his neck. There was a very light scar that ran across there from one ear to the other, and Harry recognized it as something you could get if someone slit your throat. But the scar was so light that Harry didn't think the injury was deep enough to draw much blood.

Was this some sort of accident?

There were no memories in the previous Harry's head about the scar, so Harry decided not to pay it much mind and he simply ignored it and stepped away from the mirror.

Taking a good look at his body, he saw that he was thinner than most kids his age should be. His ribs were lightly visible, telling Harry about some form of eating disorder. Did he have anorexia? Hopefully not.

His biceps and calves were slightly defined, but that was probably more from genetics than any form of exercise. Harry would have to work on this. Harry just didn't feel safe without having enough strength and flexibility to at least push his body to its own limit.

Harry left the bathroom after putting on some clothes, and the smell of food from the living room drew him there. The living room was also well-decorated, but all of the artifacts and paintings were washed and old, and there was an obvious lack of any sort of opulence in the room. They might not be poor, but Harry knew that they were not rich either.

His grandmother was sitting on a couch at the side of the table and she gestured him over while bringing out some bandages and disinfectant from the box beside her.

Harry took off his shirt and sat down, and his grandmother frowned once she saw the large bruise on his stomach before her eyes went to the purplish skin around the shoulder he dislocated before.

"Did you hit your shoulder somewhere?"

Victoria asked this while she got to work, and Harry nodded and said that he did. Victoria looked like she wanted to say something about it, but she held her tongue and changed topics as she moved from the shoulder to the stomach, where she began by rubbing some disinfectant on it.

Harry sucked in some air as he felt the sting of the spirit, but he didn't do anything more than that.

"There was an accident at the orphanage. I'm going to go out tonight to have a look and make sure the kids are okay. Your father is sleeping upstairs, so make sure you don't wake him up. Go to bed early and clean out the weeds in the backyard when you wake up tomorrow. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded as Victoria began wrapping the bandage around his thin waist. Harry turned to the stairs and wondered what sort of person his father was. From the memories of the former Harry, his father hardly ever came down from the upstairs room. In fact, Harry could count on one hand the number of times that he and his father had run into each other in the past one month. It was partly because his father was always upstairs in his own room, but it was also because Harry would always run away whenever his father tried to get too close to him. It was obvious that the former Harry was scared of his father.

'Well, I can't really blame him.'

Harry's father was named Gerald, but Victoria always called him Jerry. Jerry had a condition that was unknown to Harry. All Harry knew about the condition was that it caused serious damage to Jerry's skin and Jerry had to wrap up most of his body in bandages and stay in bed for days on end to rest.

The only thing that brought Jerry any relief were the painkillers that Harry had gone out to buy earlier today.

'No wonder she was so angry at me.'

Victoria got angry because she thought Harry had ignored his father's needs and went to play in the river instead. If Harry had been in Victoria's shoes, then he would have had a similar reaction.

When she was finished, Victoria told Harry to eat his dinner and take his father's food upstairs when he was finished.

"Just leave it outside the door so you don't wake him up. I won't be back till tomorrow morning, so be good. That means no going outside and no meeting up with any of your friends. Do you understand?"

Victoria stared into Harry's eyes sternly to make sure that he knew she was not playing with him, and Harry held Victoria's gaze seriously until Victoria nodded in satisfaction. She grabbed a scarf and a torch from the stand beside the door and then left the house.

Once she was gone, Harry scarfed down the food on the table rather quickly. Thankfully, he didn't have any hesitation while eating, so he was sure that his lanky appearance wasn't because of a lack of appetite. The previous Harry just didn't do much physical labor at all, so he was hardly hungry. But after everything that happened today, Harry felt like he could eat a mountain.

Once he was done, Harry stood and moved to clean his plate in the sink. Then he came back and just stared at the second plate of food that belonged to his father. Harry wanted to go find any books or maps in the house that could tell him more about this world and what happened in the last thousand years, but first, he needed to drop this off.

The climb up the stairs was slightly more ominous than Harry would've liked. A chilling feeling crept over him and Harry found himself cautiously measuring every step he took while listening to the creak of the floorboards under him. The lights were dimly lit up here and Harry figured that there was some sort of inverter keeping the lights on. He made his way to where he remembered his father's room to be and gently put the tray of food down at the foot of the door.

Then, Harry took in a silent breath, and opened the door slightly.

...

A/N: Please leave comments and tell me what you think. All forms of criticism are welcome and I'll be more than happy to answer any question you might have.