# **The Watchtower — Main Conference Room**
*(Or: When Your Son's Face Becomes the Multiverse's Worst Nightmare and You Have to Process That While Maintaining Diplomatic Composure)*
Diana Prince had faced down gods, monsters, and at least three different apocalyptic scenarios that should have ended all life on Earth. She'd negotiated peace treaties with beings whose concept of "compromise" involved only destroying half a continent instead of the whole thing. She'd stood before the assembled pantheons of Olympus and told them, in no uncertain terms, that their interference in mortal affairs was no longer welcome.
None of that—*none of it*—had prepared her for the holographic image currently rotating above the conference table.
The face was Harry's. Unmistakably, heartbreakingly Harry's. The same bone structure she'd memorized during late-night conversations about heroism and responsibility. The same jawline she'd watched set with determination before every mission. The same eyes that had looked at her with such trust when she'd found him in that Luthorcorp facility, broken and afraid and somehow still defiant.
Except the eyes weren't green anymore.
They were red. Blood red. The color of fresh wounds and ancient rage and something that made her Amazon warrior instincts scream *wrong* on a fundamental level that transcended normal threat assessment.
And the skin—gods, the skin. Pale beyond what any living thing should be. Not the healthy pale of someone who'd spent too long indoors, but a corpse-white that suggested whatever was wearing Harry's face had left basic humanity behind somewhere along the way. The features were sharper too, more serpentine, as if someone had taken her son's face and filed it down to its most predatory essence.
"That's not possible," she said, her voice carrying the kind of denial that came from seeing something that violated every protection protocol she'd ever implemented. Her hands gripped the edge of the conference table hard enough that the reinforced material creaked in protest. "That's *not possible*."
"I'm afraid it is," Alexander Luthor said quietly from his position at the far end of the table, his Earth-3 armor looking decidedly out of place among the Justice League's clean, hopeful aesthetic. His voice carried the weight of someone who'd spent two years watching his greatest achievement destroy everything he'd tried to protect. "That's what your son became in my dimension. Or rather, that's what took over when he couldn't."
Superman sat across from Diana, his normally warm blue eyes clouded with something that looked like grief mixed with strategic calculation. His hands were folded on the table in that careful way that meant he was actively preventing himself from making fists.
"You're certain this is the same person?" he asked, though his super-vision was probably already analyzing the holographic image for biological markers and finding too many similarities to be coincidence. "Not just someone who looks similar? Convergent evolution across dimensional variants?"
"I had that same hope," Alexander replied with brutal honesty. "Spent the first three months after I found him running every genetic analysis my equipment could handle. The DNA matches records from your dimension's Harry Potter down to the molecular level, with only minor variations consistent with dimensional drift and whatever enhancements I accidentally gave him."
He pulled up additional data streams that painted themselves across the holographic display in cascading sequences of information that would have made most scientists weep with professional envy. Genetic markers, magical resonance patterns, even psychological profiles that had clearly been compiled with desperate thoroughness by someone who needed to understand how badly they'd miscalculated.
"The boy I found in that Nevada crater," Alexander continued, "had the same baseline capabilities as your Harry. Same magical core structure, same potential for power generation, same fundamental connection to forces that operate beyond normal physics. But something was *different*."
"Different how?" Batman asked from his position in the shadows—because of course Batman had positioned himself in the one corner of the room where the lighting created maximum dramatic effect. His white lenses were focused on the holographic image with the kind of intensity that suggested he was running analysis protocols in his head at speeds that would make supercomputers jealous.
"His eyes were already red when I found him," Alexander said, pulling up what appeared to be initial assessment footage from a crater that looked disturbingly similar to the one in Nevada where Diana had found her own Harry. "Not the bright green that apparently characterizes your dimension's version. Blood red, like someone had replaced his irises with rubies soaked in violence."
The footage showed a boy who looked approximately fifteen years old, unconscious in the center of a blast radius that suggested someone had dropped a small nuclear device and then decided to add magical detonation for good measure. His clothes were torn, his body showed signs of trauma that should have killed any normal human, and when the medical scanners swept over him, they'd registered power levels that exceeded conventional measurement systems.
"I thought it was just a side effect of whatever dimensional transport had brought him to our Earth," Alexander continued, his voice taking on the kind of hollow quality that came from reconstructing your worst mistakes with perfect clarity. "Some sort of resonance from crossing between realities, maybe some kind of cosmic radiation exposure. My analysis suggested that his core capabilities were intact, possibly even enhanced by whatever he'd been through."
"So you decided to enhance them further," Batman said, and there was no judgment in his voice—just the flat statement of observed facts and their obvious implications.
"I decided," Alexander agreed, "to splice his DNA with genetic material from our dimension's most powerful meta-human, hoping to create someone who could stand against the Crime Syndicate. Someone who could match Ultraman's strength, Owlman's strategic intelligence, Superwoman's combat prowess."
He pulled up technical schematics that showed a genetic engineering process so sophisticated it made most cutting-edge biotech look like kindergarten crafts. Viral vectors, CRISPR modifications, quantum-entangled healing factors—the kind of work that would have won a dozen Nobel Prizes in any dimension where such modifications weren't immediately classified as crimes against nature.
"The procedure worked," Alexander said quietly. "Better than I'd dared hope. His power levels increased exponentially. His strategic capabilities became superhuman. His physical enhancement exceeded our measurement parameters. For approximately forty-eight hours, I thought I'd actually succeeded."
"And then?" Superman prompted, though his expression suggested he already knew this story wasn't going to have a happy ending.
"And then he woke up," Alexander replied, pulling up security footage that showed a medical bay in what appeared to be an advanced research facility. "Opened those blood-red eyes, looked directly at me, and said—and I'm quoting here—'Thank you for the upgrade, Alexander. The previous tenant was getting tiresome.'"
The silence that followed was the kind that usually preceded either brilliant strategic insights or complete mental collapse as people tried to process information that violated everything they thought they understood about how consciousness worked.
"Previous tenant," Diana repeated, her voice barely above a whisper as the implications began sinking in like particularly unwelcome quicksand. "He said *previous tenant*."
"I didn't understand at first," Alexander admitted. "Thought maybe the enhancement process had affected his memory, caused some kind of dissociative episode. But then he started demonstrating capabilities that shouldn't have been possible even with the genetic modifications."
Additional footage showed the boy—Voldemort, as the files labeled him—systematically demonstrating abilities that went far beyond enhanced strength or magical power. Strategic planning that bordered on precognitive. Tactical analysis that suggested he could predict enemy movements before they made them. The kind of comprehensive intelligence that made even Alexander's legendary business acumen look like amateur hour.
"He reorganized the Crime Syndicate's entire operational structure in three weeks," Alexander continued, pulling up organizational charts that showed before-and-after comparisons. "Took their chaotic destruction and turned it into systematic conquest. Made them more efficient, more effective, more *dangerous* than they'd ever been independently."
"And you're saying," Batman interjected, his voice carrying that particular tone that meant he was working through a complex problem and arriving at conclusions that everyone else was going to hate, "that this wasn't your Harry adapting to his circumstances. This was something else. Something that had taken over."
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Alexander confirmed. "Because approximately six months into his 'employment' with the Syndicate, he made a comment during a tactical briefing that got recorded by our surveillance systems. He was explaining a strategic maneuver to Ultraman, and he said—again, direct quote—'The boy whose body I'm wearing would have tried to save everyone. Fortunately, I have different priorities.'"
Diana felt something cold settle in her chest—not fear exactly, but the kind of profound wrongness that came from hearing evidence that violated everything she understood about the person she'd come to love as a son.
"The boy whose body I'm wearing," she repeated mechanically. "He referred to himself in the third person. As if Harry was someone else. Someone separate."
"Someone he'd *replaced*," Superman said, his voice carrying the kind of horrified understanding that came from finally seeing the pattern everyone else had been missing.
Batman leaned forward slightly, his hands steepled in front of him in that particular configuration that meant he was about to deliver analysis that would make everyone's strategic planning significantly more complicated.
"Diana," he said, his gravelly voice somehow managing to be both clinical and gentle, "you've mentioned that Harry told you about his arrival in our dimension. The circumstances of his dimensional transport."
She nodded slowly, remembering late-night conversations in Mount Justice when her son had been processing trauma through careful, methodical explanations of impossible events.
"He said he fell through something called the Veil," she confirmed, her tactical analysis protocols already working through implications she really didn't want to face. "In the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic. His godfather had just been killed, and in the chaos of battle, he lost his balance and fell through what he described as an archway covered in a tattered curtain."
"And what happened during that fall?" Batman prompted, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer and was just confirming his analysis.
"He said there was a place in between," Diana continued, her voice taking on that distant quality that came from reconstructing conversations whose significance you hadn't fully appreciated at the time. "Not our dimension, not his original dimension, but something else. Somewhere *between* realities."
She could still remember the way Harry had looked when he'd told her about it—sitting in the common room at three in the morning because nightmares had made sleep impossible, describing experiences that shouldn't technically exist with the kind of precise detail that suggested he'd been over the memory ten thousand times looking for something that would make it make sense.
"He said he wasn't alone there," she added, the implications beginning to crystallize into something that made her Amazon warrior instincts scream warnings about temporal paradoxes and identity crises. "There was something else. Someone else. He described it as a presence that had been with him his entire life, attached to his consciousness like a parasite feeding on his magic and his memories."
"Tom Riddle," Batman said, not a question but a statement of confirmed hypothesis. "The soul fragment that Voldemort had accidentally created when he tried to kill Harry as an infant. The piece of consciousness that had been slowly influencing Harry's development without anyone realizing what was happening."
"Harry said they fought," Diana continued, working through memories with the kind of systematic precision that came from Amazon battle training applied to psychological analysis. "In that place between dimensions, where normal rules didn't apply and consciousness was more important than physical form. He said it was the hardest battle he'd ever fought, because he was fighting against something that knew all his weaknesses, all his fears, all his strategic planning patterns."
"Because it had been inside his head," Superman observed quietly, his expression suggesting he was running through the same implications Diana was trying desperately not to face. "Learning from him. Studying him. Preparing for exactly this confrontation."
"He said he won," Diana said, her voice taking on the kind of desperate certainty that came from needing something to be true even when evidence suggested otherwise. "He told me he destroyed the soul fragment, severed its connection to his consciousness, and emerged from the Veil in our dimension free of Voldemort's influence."
"In *our* dimension," Batman said, his voice carrying the weight of someone delivering a diagnosis that everyone really didn't want to hear. "Our Harry won that fight. Destroyed the soul fragment. Emerged into a reality where he could finally be free of the darkness that had haunted him his entire life."
He paused, letting that observation hang in the air while everyone processed the logical conclusion that was rapidly becoming unavoidable.
"But what if there was another version?" he continued, his tactical analysis painting itself across the holographic display in the form of probability matrices and dimensional variance calculations. "Another Harry who fell through another Veil in another dimension. Another consciousness confronting the same soul fragment in the same place between realities."
"No," Diana said, though her voice lacked conviction because she could already see where this analysis was heading and couldn't find any logical flaws in the reasoning.
"Another version who *lost* that fight," Batman continued with the kind of relentless logic that made him both an invaluable ally and occasionally a deeply uncomfortable person to receive strategic briefings from. "Another Harry whose consciousness was overwhelmed by Tom Riddle's soul fragment in that place between dimensions. Another boy whose body became a vessel for something that had spent years learning how to be him—how to think like him, act like him, strategically plan like him."
"But with completely inverted moral priorities," Superman added, his voice carrying the kind of horrified fascination that came from watching a complex puzzle finally reveal its true pattern. "Because Tom Riddle didn't share Harry's commitment to protecting the innocent, his dedication to helping everyone regardless of whether they deserved it, his fundamental belief that everyone had value and deserved a chance at redemption."
"Tom Riddle," Alexander said slowly, working through the implications with the kind of systematic analysis that had once made him a legendary corporate strategist, "believes in power above all else. Believez that the strong deserved to rule the weak, that strategic superiority justified any action, that everyone was either an asset to be exploited or a threat to be eliminated."
"Tom Riddle," Batman continued, "who had spent years inside Harry's consciousness, learning every detail of his strategic thinking, his magical capabilities, his tactical analysis protocols. Who understood Harry's power better than Harry did because he'd been studying it from the inside without distraction from things like morals or empathy or the belief that people deserved protection."
"Tom Riddle," Diana finished, her voice hollow as the full implications hit her like a physical blow, "who emerged from that place between dimensions in Alexander's reality wearing Harry's face, carrying Harry's power, and possessing a strategic intelligence that combined Harry's natural brilliance with Voldemort's complete lack of moral restraint."
The holographic image rotated slowly above the conference table, showing that serpentine face with blood-red eyes and an expression that suggested whoever was looking out through those eyes found the suffering of others academically interesting rather than morally concerning.
"That's not my son," Diana said, her voice taking on the kind of flat certainty that came from denying information that her strategic analysis confirmed was probably accurate. "That's not Harry."
"No," Batman agreed quietly. "That's what Harry became in a dimension where he lost the most important battle of his life. Where Tom Riddle's soul fragment won the fight for consciousness and emerged victorious into a world that had no idea what had just been unleashed."
"And I enhanced him," Alexander said, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd spent two years cataloging every detail of their worst mistake. "Took an already dangerously powerful consciousness and gave it genetic enhancements that made it functionally unstoppable. Turned someone who was already operating at cosmic intelligence levels into something that could redesign reality if it got bored with current configurations."
Superman was quiet for a long moment, his super-hearing probably monitoring everyone's cardiovascular stress responses while his strategic planning protocols worked through the implications of fighting an enemy who thought like Harry but had none of Harry's moral limitations.
"The question becomes," he said finally, his voice carrying that particular tone that meant he was about to suggest something that everyone was going to hate, "what do we do about it? If Voldemort—this version of Tom Riddle wearing Harry's enhanced capabilities—is planning to export the Crime Syndicate's conquest methodology to other dimensions, then we're not just facing a threat to Alexander's world. We're facing a threat to every reality where people deserve protection."
"We stop him," Diana said immediately, her Amazon warrior instincts overriding the emotional turmoil of learning that somewhere in the multiverse, her son's face was being worn by one of history's most dangerous dark wizards. "We help Alexander stop him. Because regardless of what face that thing is wearing, regardless of whose body it's using, it's not Harry and it needs to be stopped before it can hurt anyone else."
"Agreed," Batman said, his fingers already flying across his wrist computer as he began pulling up tactical analyses and strategic planning frameworks. "But we need to be realistic about what we're facing. This isn't just a powerful enemy—this is someone who thinks like Harry, plans like Harry, strategizes like Harry, but without any of the moral framework that makes Harry's approach to power benevolent instead of catastrophic."
"Someone who's spent two years learning from the Crime Syndicate," Alexander added, pulling up intelligence reports that painted a picture of systematic conquest orchestrated with the kind of precision that made military academies look like amateur hour. "Who's already demonstrated the ability to reorganize chaotic destruction into efficient management, who's improved their operational effectiveness by three hundred percent across all metrics, and who's apparently having the time of his life doing it."
"Because Tom Riddle always enjoyed challenges," Diana said quietly, remembering stories Harry had shared about his confrontations with Voldemort—the dark wizard's evident pleasure in complex schemes, his appreciation for intellectual opposition, his genuine delight in turning disadvantages into strategic advantages. "And turning the Crime Syndicate into an efficient conquest force would be exactly the kind of problem he'd find entertaining."
"Which means," Superman said, his tactical analysis painting itself across the holographic display in the form of probability matrices that looked increasingly concerning, "that any attempt to stop him will need to account for opposition that can predict our strategies, counter our tactics, and probably redesign entire battlefields just to see if we can adapt quickly enough to survive."
"Essentially," Batman confirmed, "we're planning to fight a version of Harry who has all of his strategic brilliance, all of his magical power, all of his tactical creativity, and none of his dedication to protecting innocent life. Someone who views civilian casualties as acceptable losses and moral restraint as optional limitations that other people impose on themselves."
"Someone," Alexander said quietly, "who looked at my attempts to create a weapon for justice and decided that he'd rather be a weapon for conquest. Because Tom Riddle never saw the appeal in saving people when dominating them was so much more interesting."
The silence that followed was the kind that usually preceded either brilliant strategic breakthroughs or the realization that some problems were too complex to solve without casualties that nobody wanted to accept.
"We're still going to stop him," Diana said firmly, her voice carrying the kind of Amazon certainty that had once made gods reconsider their expansion policies. "Because regardless of what face that thing is wearing, it's not my son. My son won his battle against Tom Riddle and emerged into a dimension where he could finally be free. This... thing... is what happened in a dimension where Harry lost."
"And dimensions where Harry lost," Superman said, his voice taking on that particular warmth that suggested he was about to deliver a statement that everyone needed to hear, "are dimensions that deserve our help. Because if there's one thing your Harry has taught us, Diana, it's that everyone deserves protection—even people from other realities who made the mistake of creating problems they couldn't solve alone."
"Even people from other realities," Batman agreed, "who accidentally enhanced history's most dangerous dark wizard and then watched him turn systematic conquest into an art form."
"Even us," Alexander said quietly, and there was something in his voice that suggested he was still processing the fact that heroes from another dimension were willing to help fix problems that he'd created through what everyone agreed were spectacularly poor strategic decisions.
"Especially you," Diana said, her voice firm with the kind of conviction that came from making decisions about heroic intervention based on need rather than merit. "Because that's what heroes do, Alexander. We help people fix their mistakes. Even mistakes that accidentally threaten the stability of infinite realities."
"No pressure," Alexander said, though his tone suggested he was beginning to believe that interdimensional rescue operations might actually be possible with sufficient planning and really excellent backup.
"No pressure at all," Superman confirmed cheerfully. "Just the fate of multiple dimensions hanging in the balance of whether we can figure out how to stop someone who thinks like the best of us and acts like the worst of us."
"When you put it like that," Batman observed, his fingers still flying across tactical displays that were rapidly filling with strategic frameworks and contingency planning, "it almost sounds manageable."
And looking around the conference room at heroes who'd dedicated their lives to protecting innocent people—even when those people were from other dimensions and the threats exceeded conventional parameters—Diana felt something settle in her chest that wasn't quite hope but was definitely in the same neighborhood.
They were going to save Alexander's dimension.
They were going to stop someone who was wearing her son's face but had none of his soul.
They were going to prove that even when Harry lost his battle against darkness, there were still people willing to fight for the kind of world he'd tried to create.
Even if that meant confronting a version of her son who'd become everything he'd fought against.
Even if that meant facing the worst-case scenario that every parent feared—seeing their child's potential twisted into something monstrous by forces beyond their control.
Even if that meant accepting that somewhere in the multiverse, there was a dimension where her boy had lost, and she hadn't been there to protect him.
Some battles, apparently, had to be fought retroactively through the consequences they created.
Time to find out if love could overcome whatever had taken her son's face and turned it into a mask for one of history's greatest monsters.
No pressure.
Just everything that mattered in infinite realities, hanging in the balance.
Again.
—
# **The Watchtower — Diana's Private Quarters**
*(Or: How to Tell Your Son That Somewhere in the Multiverse, He Lost the Most Important Battle of His Life)*
Diana stood at the viewport in her quarters, staring out at Earth's curve against the star-scattered darkness of space. From here, the planet looked peaceful—blues and greens and whites swirling in patterns that had remained essentially unchanged for billions of years. No visible signs of the chaos below, the conflicts and crises that required constant vigilance from people who'd decided that protection was more important than power.
Her reflection in the reinforced glass showed a woman who looked like she had everything under control. Perfect posture, composed expression, the kind of regal bearing that came from three thousand years of diplomatic experience and really comprehensive training in maintaining appropriate public dignity.
The woman inside felt like she was falling apart.
*How do I tell him?*
The question had been circling through her mind for the past hour, ever since she'd excused herself from the strategy session where Batman and Superman were systematically planning an interdimensional intervention that would require confronting someone who wore Harry's face but had none of his soul.
*How do I tell my son that somewhere in the multiverse, there's a version of him who lost his fight against Tom Riddle's soul fragment? That another Harry—a boy just as brave, just as determined, just as fundamentally good—fell through another Veil and didn't emerge victorious?*
Her hands gripped the viewport's frame hard enough that the reinforced metal groaned in protest. Amazon strength, poorly controlled by emotional turmoil that she usually managed through systematic tactical analysis and really excellent combat training.
*How do I tell him that I've seen his face twisted into something serpentine and cruel? That I've watched surveillance footage of someone who looks like him but moves with predatory grace and speaks with Tom Riddle's calculated malice? That somewhere in infinite realities, he became exactly what he spent his entire life fighting against?*
"Diana?" came a gentle voice from the doorway, and she didn't need to turn around to know that Superman had followed her from the strategy session. Clark Kent's super-hearing had probably registered her elevated heart rate, the subtle tremor in her breathing that indicated someone who was processing trauma through really inadequate coping mechanisms.
"I'm fine, Clark," she said automatically, though her voice came out rougher than she'd intended.
"With respect," Clark said, settling into one of her quarters' chairs with that careful precision that came from being strong enough to accidentally destroy furniture if you weren't paying attention, "you're definitely not fine. And pretending otherwise isn't going to help anyone, least of all Harry."
She turned to face him, and the expression of genuine concern on his face—that particular combination of empathy and tactical analysis that made him both the heart of the Justice League and occasionally an uncomfortably perceptive observer of other people's emotional states—nearly broke her carefully maintained composure.
"How do I tell him, Clark?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "How do I look my son in the eyes and explain that somewhere in the multiverse, he lost? That there's a dimension where Tom Riddle won, where Harry's consciousness was overwhelmed by darkness, where everything he tried to be was corrupted into something monstrous?"
Clark was quiet for a moment, his super-vision probably conducting the kind of comprehensive health assessment that made normal doctor's appointments seem superficial by comparison. Elevated stress hormones, irregular cardiovascular patterns, the subtle biochemical markers of someone experiencing profound emotional distress while trying to maintain tactical functionality.
"You tell him the truth," he said finally, his voice carrying that particular warmth that had once convinced Lex Luthor to postpone a corporate takeover just to hear Clark finish explaining why hostile acquisitions were poor long-term relationship strategies. "Because Harry deserves to know, and because keeping this secret would hurt him more than sharing it will."
"Would it?" Diana asked, settling into the chair across from him with movements that felt mechanical rather than natural. "Would it hurt him more to keep this secret than to tell him that his greatest fear—that he might lose himself to darkness—actually happened in another dimension? That somewhere, he failed?"
"Diana," Clark said gently, leaning forward with that focused attention that made even simple conversations feel important, "Harry doesn't fear losing himself to darkness because he thinks it's likely. He fears it because he understands that it's *possible*. Because he's honest enough to acknowledge that everyone—even people with his power and his principles—has the capacity to fail when faced with challenges that exceed their resources."
He paused, and his blue eyes held depths that came from decades of experience with people who'd been shaped by trauma and learned to function anyway.
"Learning that his fear was realized in another dimension isn't going to destroy him," Clark continued. "It's going to confirm what he already knows—that the battle he won was genuinely difficult, that his victory wasn't inevitable, and that the person he's become is the result of choices he made rather than destiny he couldn't avoid."
"Choices," Diana repeated, working through the implications with Amazon tactical precision applied to emotional dynamics. "You're saying that knowing about this other Harry—this version who lost—will actually reinforce his understanding of his own agency? His capacity for self-determination?"
"I'm saying," Clark replied, "that Harry's greatest strength has always been his ability to confront uncomfortable truths about himself without letting them define him. He knows he has darkness in him—he's told you about the soul fragment, the connection to Voldemort, the way Tom Riddle's consciousness influenced his development. Learning that in another reality that darkness won isn't going to break him. It's going to remind him why he keeps fighting to be better."
Diana was quiet for a long moment, processing information that her strategic planning protocols wanted to reject but her understanding of her son's psychology suggested was accurate.
"He'll want to help," she said finally, the realization settling over her like uncomfortable armor. "Once he knows there's a version of himself causing suffering in another dimension, he'll want to be part of the intervention. He'll feel responsible."
"Of course he will," Clark agreed with the kind of matter-of-fact certainty that came from years of working with heroes whose dedication to helping others sometimes exceeded their capacity for appropriate self-preservation. "Because that's who Harry is. Someone who takes responsibility for problems even when they're not technically his fault, who feels obligated to fix situations that he didn't create, who believes that having power means having a responsibility to help people—even people from other dimensions who are suffering because of what someone wearing his face has done."
"But it's *not* his responsibility," Diana protested, her voice taking on that edge that came from maternal protective instincts overriding tactical analysis. "That other Harry—that version who lost—isn't him. They're completely separate people who made different choices in different circumstances."
"Try telling Harry that," Clark said with the kind of gentle humor that suggested he'd already run through this conversation in his head and knew exactly how it was going to play out. "Try explaining to someone whose core identity is built around protecting others that he shouldn't feel responsible for stopping someone who's wearing his face and using his power to hurt people."
He stood, moving to the viewport so he could look out at Earth alongside her.
"The question isn't whether Harry will want to help," Clark continued, his voice taking on that particular tone that meant he was about to deliver analysis everyone needed to hear. "The question is whether we try to stop him—which won't work and will probably damage your relationship—or whether we support him through what's going to be one of the hardest challenges he's ever faced."
"Supporting him through confronting a version of himself who lost his battle against darkness," Diana said, working through the psychological implications with increasing dread. "Supporting him through potentially having to fight someone who looks like him, thinks like him, plans like him, but has none of his moral framework."
"Supporting him," Clark agreed, "through learning that his victory over Tom Riddle wasn't inevitable. That in another reality, he lost. That the person he's become is the result of choices and circumstances that could have gone differently if even a single variable had changed."
Diana turned away from the viewport, her Amazon warrior training providing tactical frameworks that her maternal instincts wanted desperately to reject.
"This is going to hurt him," she said quietly. "Learning about this. Seeing surveillance footage of his own face twisted into something cruel. Understanding that somewhere in the multiverse, he became what he fought against."
"Yes," Clark confirmed with brutal honesty. "It's going to hurt. But you know what will hurt more? Keeping this secret. Trying to protect him from information that he deserves to have. Making decisions about his involvement without consulting him about challenges that directly involve someone wearing his face."
He moved closer, his presence radiating the kind of steady warmth that had made him the Justice League's emotional anchor through crises that would have broken most organizations.
"Diana," he said gently, "you're not just Harry's mother. You're also his mentor, his partner in heroic work, and one of the few people he trusts to tell him the truth even when it's uncomfortable. He needs you to be all of those things right now—not just the mother who wants to protect him from pain, but the hero who understands that sometimes protecting people means giving them information they need to make informed choices."
Diana was quiet for a long moment, watching Earth rotate slowly beneath them while she worked through emotional responses that her tactical training suggested were interfering with appropriate decision-making.
"When do I tell him?" she asked finally.
"Soon," Clark replied. "Before he finds out some other way—and he will find out, Diana. Harry's too intelligent and too well-connected not to notice when the Justice League is planning major interdimensional interventions that everyone's being suspiciously quiet about."
"And how do I tell him?"
"Honestly," Clark said simply. "You sit him down, you explain what we've learned about Alexander's dimension, and you let him process the information at his own pace. You don't try to soften the blow or manage his emotional response. You trust him to handle difficult information the way he's handled every other impossible situation—by thinking it through, feeling what he needs to feel, and then figuring out what he can do to help."
"Trust him to handle it," Diana repeated, the words feeling both obvious and impossibly difficult at the same time.
"Trust him," Clark confirmed. "Because that's what Harry needs right now—not protection from uncomfortable truths, but trust that he can face them without breaking."
Diana looked out at Earth one more time, thinking about the boy she'd found in a Luthorcorp facility two years ago—broken, afraid, but somehow still defiant. Still determined to be good despite everything that had been done to him.
"He'll want to come with us," she said. "To Alexander's dimension. He'll want to help stop this other version—this Voldemort wearing his face."
"Probably," Clark agreed. "And we'll need to make that decision together as a team—whether having Harry involved helps the mission or complicates it in ways that exceed tactical benefits."
"Batman won't like it," Diana observed. "Bringing Harry into a situation where he'll have to confront someone who looks exactly like him but represents everything he's fought against."
"Batman doesn't like most of our operational plans," Clark said with gentle humor. "But he's also practical enough to recognize that excluding Harry from a mission that directly involves his alternate dimensional variant would create more problems than it solves. Better to have him involved where we can support him than trying to manage the situation while he's off conducting his own investigation into why everyone's being mysterious about interdimensional rescue operations."
Diana almost smiled at that, because Clark was right—Harry's response to being excluded from information he deserved would be to systematically acquire that information through his own channels, which would result in significantly less controlled circumstances and probably some emotional processing happening without appropriate support systems.
"So I tell him," she said, the decision settling over her with the weight of maternal responsibility combined with heroic duty. "I trust him to handle difficult information. I support him through whatever emotional response he has. And I let him make his own decisions about involvement in operations that directly concern someone wearing his face."
"That's the plan," Clark confirmed. "Though I'd also suggest having some of his girlfriends available for support afterwards. They are probably better equipped for helping Harry process complex emotional responses than we are."
"Because they love him," Diana said quietly.
"Because they love him," Clark agreed, "and because sometimes what people need after learning that their worst fears were realized in another dimension isn't tactical analysis or strategic planning—it's someone who can hold them while they work through what that information means for their understanding of themselves."
Diana nodded slowly, her Amazon warrior training providing tactical frameworks while her maternal instincts screamed protests about unnecessarily causing pain to someone she'd sworn to protect.
"Thank you, Clark," she said finally. "For following me here. For listening. For helping me see that protecting Harry sometimes means trusting him with difficult truths rather than trying to shield him from them."
"That's what friends do," Clark replied warmly. "We help each other figure out how to be heroes even when being a hero means making choices that hurt. Even when protecting people means giving them information they'd rather not have. Even when love means trusting someone to handle pain rather than trying to prevent them from feeling it."
He moved toward the door, then paused at the threshold.
"Diana," he said, his voice taking on that particular tone that meant he was about to deliver one final observation everyone needed to hear, "Harry's stronger than you think. Stronger than he thinks. He survived Voldemort's soul fragment living in his consciousness for fifteen years. He won a battle against darkness in a place between dimensions where consciousness was more important than physical form. He emerged from that Veil into our dimension and chose to be a hero despite everything he'd been through."
Clark's smile was warm as sunrise, full of the kind of hope that had sustained him through decades of impossible challenges.
"Learning that another version of him lost that battle isn't going to break him," he continued. "It's going to remind him why he keeps fighting to be better. Why he keeps choosing compassion over convenience, protection over power, help over harm. Because that's who Harry is—someone who looks at darkness and decides to be light anyway."
And with that, Clark Kent—Superman, the Man of Steel, the heart of the Justice League—left Diana alone with her thoughts and the knowledge that very soon, she was going to have to tell her son the hardest truth she'd ever shared.
That somewhere in the multiverse, he'd lost.
That another Harry—just as brave, just as determined, just as fundamentally good—had fallen through the Veil and emerged as something monstrous.
That the face she loved was being worn by one of history's greatest monsters in a dimension that needed help.
And that despite everything, despite the pain it would cause, she had to trust him to handle it.
Because that's what it meant to be a mother to someone who was also a hero.
You told them the truth.
You trusted them to be strong enough to handle it.
And you stood beside them while they figured out what to do with information that changed everything they thought they understood about themselves.
No pressure.
Just the most important conversation she'd ever have with her son.
Time to find out if love and trust were enough to help someone process the knowledge that their worst fear had been realized in another dimension.
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