Hello, one and all! I'm finally back! So, I have take some of the reviews to heart and I have been looking over what I have written. And I can be honest when I say that it has been all over the place. And some of the ideas presented in the chapters? Yikes! So, I will be replacing the chapters with rewritten chapters every few weeks. Hopefully, it will make for a much more engaging and exciting story. So, without further ado...

Prologue: Dreams of Times Past and Future

The black-haired youth was standing in the archway, looking down into the chamber. 'Oh, not this again…' Harry thought, trying to back out of the chamber. His feet did not listen to him. They only carried him further into the chamber. Coming down the steps, he saw a turbaned man standing, looking into a mirror. Looking at the mirror for a minute, Harry recognized the Mirror of Erised.

'Say nothing, say nothing, say nothing…' Harry pleaded himself, but again, his body didn't listen.

"Professor Quirrel?"

The man spun around, looking terrified. Upon seeing Harry, he seemed to change to a hostile look for a moment, before it changed back to a worried expression.

"M-Mr. P-Potter? W-w-what are you d-doing down here?"

"What are you doing down here, Professor?" Harry countered, making eye contact with Quirrel. He was silent for a brief moment, before replying, "I was t-t-trying to k-keep the s-stone away from P-Professor S-S-Snape."

'How did I ever believe that?' Harry thought, as his voice replied, "Can I help you at all, Professor?"

"Y-yes, I'm h-having a spot of trouble getting p-past this f-final obstacle. Could you help me?" Quirrel responded, wringing his wrists nervously. Harry looked into the mirror. He saw himself and Quirrel, before he noticed his reflection was moving. His reflection slowly put its hand in its pocket, before pulling out the blood-red stone. Harry's eyes widened, as his reflection put the stone back in its pocket. Then, Harry felt a sudden weight in his pocket.

"What do you see?" Quirrel almost yelled, his usual stutter missing, causing Harry to jump. He reached into his pocket. 'No, no, no…'

"I've got it, Professor." He said, pulling out the stone and showing it to him.

"Good, now, give it to me." Quirrel said, extending his hand, "I can keep it safe."

"I can give it to Professor Dumbledore."

"Potter, give me the stone." Quirrel said again, a certain small greed entering his look. Harry brought his hand back. Quicker than he had ever moved, Quirrel's wand was in his hand, pointed unflinchingly at Harry. "Give me the stone, boy! Now!"

Harry turned and tried to run, as a high voice called, "Stop him!"

A wall of fire rose in front of the arch Harry was running towards, the wall quickly encircling the chamber. Turning, he saw Quirrel hurtling towards him, literally flying through the air, his arms outstretched. His reflexes taking over, Harry rolled underneath the man, trying to get away.

"Accio Potter!"

Harry felt a great force yank him backwards to Quirrel, spining him to face the man. His gloved hand closed around Harry's throat. Harry immediately began choking and tried to pry his hand off. "You will not live this time, boy!" Quirrel and the voice said together.

"Quirrel," the voice hissed again, "Let me see the boy."

"Master?"

"I want to…watch…him die."

Using his free hand, Quirrel began to unravel his turban. As it unraveled, Harry's scar twinged in pain, until the turban was completely off and Quirrel turned his head, letting Harry see the back of his head…where there was another face! Harry was stunned, and stopped fighting for a moment.

"Harry Potter…It has been a long time…" The face said, taking deep, rasping breaths.

"Who are you?"

"Do you not…remember me? It has been…a little less than…ten years since…we last met."

Harry did some quick mental math and his eyes widened at the revelation.

"Voldemort."

"Yes…You defied me once…You will not…do so again." He rasped, the hand tightening. Harry's vision began to go dark, with spots erupting behind his eyelids. Harry flailed in the darkness, before feeling them hit something, followed by a scream of pain. The hands disappeared from around his throat, and his eyes flew open. The screaming continued, and Harry realized that it was coming from Quirrel and Voldemort.

"What is this, Master?" Quirrel asked, terrified, as his neck turned to stone, the transformation creeping up his face, and down the rest of his body

"Fool…get the stone!"

Quirrel grabbed his wand, back away from Harry. "Accio Stone!" He yelled. Harry felt his pants pulled towards Quirrel, the summoning spell ripping the stone from his pants. Thinking fast, he grabbed the Stone, desperate to keep it away from Quirrel. He was wrenched off his feet, flying at Quirrel. Quirrel's eyes widened, as Harry wound up and punched him in the face, the force assisted by the summoning spell. Quirrel screamed again, steam rising from where Harry's hand had hit Quirrel, the skin turning to a cracked stone. The screaming cut off as Quirrel's transformed formed body crumbled to sand. Harry fell back, landing hard, as smoke rose from the sand covered robes. Harry quickly jumped to his feet, as Voldemort's face showed itself in the smoke and lunged at Harry, an unearthly scream coming from his mouth…

The scene changed, morphing itself so that now, it was an enormous snake lunging at him. 'This goddamn thing…' Harry thought. Lurching to the side, he took off down a side tunnel, before winding through tunnels, as his footsteps and the splashing of the water echoed off the walls. He came to a grating, trapping himself as the serpent snaked by behind him.

Harry went completely still, willing himself to go unnoticed. It passed him, hissing loudly. Harry stood there for a couple seconds after the serpent passed, its blinded eyes leaving a trail of blood on the floor and along its scaled body. Moving stealthily through the tunnels, Harry made his way back to a massive chamber. Large, stone snake heads seemed to come from the walls, acting as pillars holding the ceiling up. A high, cold laugh sounded off the walls as Harry turned to look at who it was. Tom Riddle stood there, Ginny lying still in the filth and grime of the chamber.

"Did you honestly believe that you, a pathetic Gryffindor, could ever rival the beast of the great Salazar Slytherin?" Tom crowed triumphantly. "You're going to die here, and I'm going to enjoy every moment of it." A great hiss from behind him alerted Harry to the basilisk. "Kill him!" Riddle yelled.

The snake lunged forward, forcing Harry to dive out of the way again. Grabbing the Sorting Hat, he jammed it on his head, praying for it to help him. 'Three, two, one…" Harry thought, before something slammed into his head, causing him to see stars. Tossing the hat off, Harry heard something metallic fall to the floor. Half blind in pain, he fumbled for it.

Finally, finding it, he grasped a cylindrical portion. As the spots cleared, he found out that it was the handle of a silver longsword, with rubies of different sizes set into the cross guard. Harry hefted the sword in front of him, holding it in both hands. The snake lunged again, and Harry sidestepped, bringing the sword down upon the scales of the basilisk. The sword bounced off the hard scales, followed by another hiss, as the snake came back for another attack. Left with nowhere else to run to, Harry thrust the sword into the roof of the snake's mouth. It shrieked in pain, even as Harry yelled at feeling something stabbing into his arm. Harry let go of the sword as the great snake fell to its side, twitching before lying still, the sword still in the roof of its mouth. Falling to his knees, he ripped out the offending object, which felt suspiciously like a fang. Even with it out, he felt a white-hot pain, before remembering that Basilisk Venom was extremely lethal.

Harry tried to walk, stumbling every couple of steps, before finally sinking to his knees next to Ginny. "And here you will die, Harry Potter, lying in the filth and grime, dirty as your Mudblood mother. Look, even the bird is crying. It knows you're going to die."

Harry's vision began to blur, as his arm went numb. He saw a flash of red and gold land next to him. "Thanks Fawkes. You did brilliantly." Harry found himself saying, his vision blurring and watering. The only sensation he became aware of was a warm, wet feeling next to the pain in his arm. It deadened the pain, making it feel far away. The room slowly came back into focus, followed by a bang, like cannon fire, as Fawkes flew away.

"Away with you!" Tom yelled, emitting several more bangs from the wand he held, "Phoenix tears. I forgot."

As Harry began to sit up, he felt something leather under his right hand. Quickly realizing what it was, he grabbed the basilisk fang and stabbed the diary with it. Ink began to pour from the puncture, like blood from a wound. Tom screamed as part of his chest began to glow with a golden light; the light quickly zigzagging over his body, as Harry stabbed the diary again and again. Tom then exploded in a shower of sparks…

Only for the sparks to reform themselves into Dementors, at least a hundred of them, surrounding him and Sirius. Both were yelling in pain at reliving their worst memories, as Harry heard Lily's screaming and Voldemort's high, cold laughter. Then, a pure white stag charged through them, the dark creatures thrown away by the waves of magical energy it exuded. Exhausted, Harry collapsed next to Sirius, his head hitting the rocks…

When he opened his eyes again, he found that he was very low to the ground. He felt long, powerful, and sentient. It took him a moment to realize that he was a snake. Judging from his estimated size and muscle mass, some type of python. He could feel the fangs against the roof of his mouth. Strange. Moving along his stomach, he slithered his way up the steps of an old, seemingly abandoned house. Finally, he slithered into a room on the third floor, moving to hang on the back of a large armchair. Looking down, he saw Wormtail on his knees, shivering and whimpering, as a cold voice sounded.

Voldemort's high, cold voice seemed to be coming from the armchair, and while he wanted something, Harry could not piece it all together. Wormtail, however, seemed only able to cower in fear, never looking at his master.

He stammered through talks of a tournament and, it apparently tied back to getting Harry. Some way through this, Harry would wake up, panting and sweating, with his scar feeling like it was on fire. Seeing the sun only just coming up over the horizon, Harry Potter groaned audibly. This would be a long summer for him…

*'*_Halfway around the world_*'*

The young man knelt over the woman's corpse, his world seeming to collapse around him as wrath and depression welled up inside him. "I will make you pay for this, old man. I will bring you to justice." The man vowed, staggering to his feet, walking back past the police tape, the Salem magical police letting him through. He set off, head down, the rain falling as the world seemed to share his pain. His feet took him to his second home without much thought. He entered his dorm, locking the door behind him, before collapsing on his bed and letting his emotions leak out at the injustice of the world in general.

Well, hopefully you guys like it. Yeah, it was really just to set up background information for this story, but that is information that you do need.
= Posted 06/06/2016