Parallel Universe 1

"Hey? Are you all right?"

Lily held her aching, dizzy head and slowly opened her eyes.

Before her stood a girl whose eyes were red from crying, now frozen in complete bewilderment. She had bushy brown curls and clear hazel eyes, and wore a brand-new Gryffindor uniform. Above the toilet, Moaning Myrtle's transparent ghostly figure drifted gently. Wait, this looked so familiar.

Lily's pupils contracted, and she nearly screamed on the spot.

Didn't I fall down the stairs? How did I end up here?!

Aaaah, I'm really going to scream. Did I transmigrate again? But I have no legal identity in this time period. Help!

She stiffly ventured, "Hermione?"

Hermione looked astonished and examined the girl in front of her from head to toe. "You know my name? Are you a first-year too?"

She stared at Lily's dazzling red hair, then looked at James Potter, who lay sprawled on the floor behind her, also wearing a Gryffindor uniform. "Are you in Gryffindor too? I remember pretty much all the first-years this year. Your hair color is so striking, so how come I've never seen you before?"

The top student's mind raced as Hermione stared at Lily's face, searching her memory.

Lily's brain had already crashed, leaving her mind completely blank.

Wasn't transmigrating to the Marauders' generation enough? Now I've transmigrated to the next generation and brought James along? What's next, will I go straight to the grandchildren's generation?

Even so, she could still get herself a legal identity here. But she looked behind her and saw that she had brought Potter along too. Damn it, she had to get James Potter back somehow. She came to her senses and reached down to shake James awake. "James, are you all right?"

Lily hadn't dared say his surname outright, for fear Hermione would realize something was wrong. Clearly, James didn't share that understanding with her. He leaned happily in Lily's arms, feeling as though he had reached the pinnacle of his life.

At that very moment, Hermione caught a crucial detail.

Except for his entirely different eyes, the boy on the floor had the same features and facial contours as Harry. He looked exactly like him. And the red-haired girl before her had eyes as clear and brilliant as the finest emeralds.

Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth, desperately suppressing the scream rising in her throat, her eyes filled with incredulous shock.

While she was still struggling to believe it, James delivered the blow that confirmed it for her. He grinned with unabashed delight. "Hehe, since you're not calling me Potter anymore, does that mean we can call each other by our first names now?"

Lily was struck speechless. All her efforts to hide their identities had just gone to waste.

Just as she was wondering how to cover up this absurd truth, the bathroom door burst open. A huge troll, green from head to toe, barged in with a thick wooden club raised high.

"Merlin's beard! Why is there a troll here?!"

James reacted swiftly, immediately pulling Lily back into a corner for safety. Lily reached back and pulled the stunned Hermione over as well, keeping her protected at her side.

Out in the corridor, Ron was full of remorse, feeling terribly guilty about the disparaging things he had casually said about Hermione. When the two boys heard a girl scream upstairs, their hearts clenched.

"That's Hermione! Come on, Harry, let's get up there!"

The two raced up the stairs as fast as they could, heading straight for the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom, the tension was at its peak. Lily tightened her grip on her wand. Hermione's scream had thoroughly enraged the troll, and its heavy club came smashing down on the floor with a gust of wind.

James's voice tightened. "Merlin, Lily, I don't think we've learned any attack spells yet."

He watched nervously as the troll was about to bring its club down. Lily pulled Hermione quickly behind the troll, with James close on their heels. Her brain was about to crash. What could she do if she couldn't think of an attack spell? Oh, oh, she remembered one: the Blasting Curse. "Reducto!"

The spell went wide, hitting the ceiling above the troll. Fragments of stone and dust rained down, making the troll sneeze violently. The club in its hand slammed into the floor once more. Lily seized the opening and nimbly sidestepped the fatal blow.

By then, the bathroom door was fully open, and Harry and Ron rushed in. The three had their backs to the door and were obscured by the troll's enormous body. With dust filling the air as well, the two boys behind them couldn't make out their faces at all. They could only see the backs of three Gryffindor students.

Lily didn't dare stop. "Reducto! Reducto! Reducto!"

Bolts of red light struck the troll one after another. Trolls were highly resistant to magic, and the low-level Blasting Curse couldn't inflict fatal damage. Instead, it only enraged the troll further.

Although James didn't know any powerful attack spells, he never backed down. He kept casting small spells, deliberately drawing the troll's attention to take some of the pressure off Lily.

As she cast spell after spell at such intensity, Lily could clearly sense her proficiency in the Blasting Curse in her mind, changing completely from white to gray.

The troll swung its club again, bringing it straight down toward the unsuspecting Ron.

"Ron, look out!"

James reacted quickly, stepping forward to grab Ron's arm and pull him into a safe area. Immediately afterward, Lily gathered all her magical power and cast one final spell with all her strength.

"Reducto!"

The red bolt was sharp, precise, and immensely powerful. It struck the troll squarely in the torso.

The next second, the troll's enormous body split down the middle and crashed to the floor, where it lay completely still.

All five breathed a sigh of relief, their taut nerves suddenly relaxing.

Drained of strength, Lily instinctively leaned slightly against the boy beside her and said softly, "That scared me to death. James, you're really quick on your feet."

Still shaken, Ron raised a hand and gave James a hearty pat on the shoulder. "Thanks, Harry! I nearly got flattened by that club!"

Two puzzled voices rang out at once.

"Who's James?"

"Who's Harry?"

Harry and Ron both froze and exchanged bewildered looks.

Harry looked up at Lily, with her red hair and green eyes, and an inexplicable sense of closeness welled up from deep in his bones. Those beautiful emerald eyes were so familiar that they sent a chill down his spine, as though they were engraved deep in his soul, familiar enough to make his soul scream.

Ron, meanwhile, stared at James's face, growing more confused the longer he looked. "Er... you look exactly like Harry? How come I never heard that the Potter family had twins back then?"

James frowned deeply. "What twins? I'm an only child. I'm one hundred percent sure."

He instinctively assumed the other boy was insinuating that his father had an illegitimate child, and felt deeply uncomfortable. He reached back and took Lily by the wrist. "Lily, let's go."

Lily was still staring blankly at Harry's face. James followed her gaze and finally got a clear look at the boy in round glasses.

At that moment, he fully understood why Ron had mistaken him for someone else.

The boy before him had almost exactly the same features, contours, and expressions as he did. Looking at the bespectacled boy in front of him was like looking in a mirror. It was precisely because they looked so alike that those emerald-green eyes stood out so much.