Well, this is my first fanfiction. If there are any betas out there... please, please HELP!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story.

Claimer: I won the Harry Potter rights by winning JK Rowling at poker.

(if you are so daft to think that that was the truth... well... Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter) - that was sooooo totally useless.

Things you should know:

It is 2013 in my story... well until Harry travels into the past

Harry is 26

Dumbledore is still alive

Voldemort didn't die at the final battle, he had YET another Horcrux which he used. He is now mortal once more but basically unreachable by anyone who isn't in the inner circle of Death-Eaters.

Pretty much everyone who died at the Battle of Hogwarts really did die.

Harry groaned as his senses slowly returned to him and he managed to flutter his eyes open only to quickly shut them again because of the bright light. He was lying on something soft, yet it smelled horribly like rotten meat. There was also the smell of cooking meat in the air. He hoped it wasn't the rotten meat getting cooked. This was odd, he was used to waking up in hospitals, and to the bright lights they came with... But he had never woken up to the smell of burning meat.

Frowning, he slowly raised a hand to his eyes to shield himself from the brightness and he grimaced in pain at his sore muscles. He felt worse than at that one time when Voldemort had managed to catch him with a particularly vicious cruciatus which had been an agony, worse than anything he had ever encountered and considering the fact that he was a private assassin who got found out and tortured every once in a while, that was actually saying something.

Slowly he opened his eyes and slowly removed his hand as his eyes adjusted to the light. He then blinked owlishly as he saw the tall trees above him, their leaves bright and green. Judging by the colour of them and the warm temperature, it was spring.

Frowning, Harry massaged his forehead which was developing a small headache. He had woken up in strange places in his life, the hospital wing at Hogwarts and other hospitals (whether they be muggle or wizarding didn't really matter), the cupboard under the stairs at privet drive (Harry scowled at that one), several torture chambers, once even at the beach with a random blonde girl he must have picked up while he was drunk but this took the cake. At least he was accustomed to those places (that was actually a very disturbing thought considering the fact that 'several torture chambers' had been in that sentence), waking up in a forest was something he'd never done. Well, except the one time when Voldemort killed-him-but-he-somehow-didn't-die during the legendary 'Battle of Hogwarts'.

He was startled out of his thoughts as he heard the cackle of a fire and he snapped his head to the side, wincing at the pain as he did so, and his eyes widened when he saw a campfire set up right next to him, and a wild boar hanging horizontally over it, a stick stuck right through it and hanging on two others on either side. The boar was pretty big and Harry had to commend the person who had managed to catch it as hunting had become one of his favourite sports and he knew how hard it was to kill something as big as that without the aid of magic.

That, however, wasn't the interesting thing. A young man was sitting on a small log to the side, staring into the fire, thinking deeply.

He looked tall, even in a sitting position and quite bulky, like one of those men who did that abominable muggle sport called boxing. He was extremely tan and had an impressive beard for his age (as he couldn't be any older than 25) which was a dark blonde. His hair, which was shaggy and reached his shoulders was of the same colour and looked like it desperately needed a wash and then a brush. *1

His eyebrows were bushy and large which half-concealed his bright electric blue eyes which reminded Harry of his old mentor, Dumbledore (which incidentally turned out to be a stab in the back bastard who had almost literally sacrificed Harry for the 'good' of the wizarding world).

His clothes, though, baffled Harry completely. He was dressed in a white flowing tunic which was tucked in loosely into his leather trousers. He wore long sturdy-looking leather boots which almost reached his knees and were fastened with ribbons everywhere. The rest of his clothes had been thrown onto a low branch carelessly and from the small pile of clothes Harry could make out a very long red and gold surcoat almost completely covered by an equally long travelling cloak. A sword, fastened to a belt was lying next to the man, within reach and Harry thought that was vaguely familiar.

Then, as if sensing Harry's examination, the man suddenly snapped his head up to look at Harry who was startled at the intensity of the blue eyes. The man smiled suddenly, a smile which made him look very joyful and boyish... like a Gryffindor.

"hver ert þú?" The man asked suddenly *1 with a joyful but slightly suspicious tone. Harry frowned, he knew many languages and dialects, he had been forced to learn them for his job and for negotiations during the war (which in fact wasn't over yet) but this language was one he didn't know, much less understand.

The man must have seen the confusion on Harry's face (for which Harry berated himself as he usually hid his emotions behind a mask and it wouldn't do for a potential enemy to find out his next move) because he suddenly pulled out a wand from nowhere (presumably his wand holster strapped to his wrist) and did some intricate waves with his wand without a single mutter.

Instantly, Harry felt the magical signature of the language translation spell wash over him and he nodded once to the man in thanks and slowly sat up, wincing as his pain seemed to double. He then leaned against the tree next to his makeshift bed which turned out to be a pile of fur from the boar, and let out a sigh.

The other man was staring at him with sympathy and pity, yet he covered it more or less well with a polite smile. Ah, a pureblood then, as he had been trained in the creation of political masks.

"Who are you?" The man asked and though it was subtle, Harry could see that his lips moved at a different pace than what he heard. The translation spell was working. His voice was deep and a little rough, no doubt from being so long alone.

Harry raised an elegant eyebrow, glancing at the mans clothes again. Was he part of a cult? Or a strange convention for comic fans? No, the muggle world was in a too great turmoil with the World War III looming over the horizon, no muggle would have the courage or time to organize something like that. Besides, his clothes looked like the original thing.

Frowning, Harry shifted through his several theories. Then suddenly his eyes widened. The answer was so simple... With a quick wave of his hand and a mutter of the word 'tempus' digital numbers rose into the air agonizingly slowly, reflecting on the state of Harry's magical core which was completely depleted, and he gasped as he read them.

21 May 1013 8:36.34 am

He had travelled exactly a thousand years into the past.

This felt like a good place to finish... but 1,183 words is not nearly enough for a first chapter. :D

21 May 1013 8:36.34 am

He had travelled exactly a thousand years into the past.

"Are you all right, my friend?" The other man asked, while staring at the tempus charm Harry still hadn't released, although he felt the charm already sucking the little remains of magic that still existed in his magical core. Quickly, Harry vanished the time, noticing the other man who was still staring at the empty space where the numbers had hung merely seconds before. The charm probably hadn't been invented yet.

"Yes, thank you, I seem to have been a little accident. Nothing to matter about," Harry said vaguely. God, he couldn't even give the man his real name, who knew what could happen in the future if his name suddenly appeared in a textbook.

The other man narrowed his eyes at him, slightly suspicious, then he shrugged, "I found you in the middle of a clearing, a few leagues back, where I was hunting. There wasn't a piece of skin on you which hadn't injured you. I tried healing you, but that is more Helga's area than mine."

Harry startled slightly at the name, but... nah, there were many Helgas out there, weren't there?

"Ah, you say I was injured badly?" Now that was news to him, could it have been that he had been tortured and then obliviated? The last thing he remembered was discussing battle tactics with Dumbledore (who he didn't like much anymore, but had to tolerate as they were allied against Voldemort) and then going into battle against Death-Eaters. He must have been hit by a stray misspoken word. The other man nodded at his question and Harry glanced at him, he had almost forgotten he wasn't alone and inclined his head silently in thanks.

"What are you called, kind sir?" The man suddenly asked, gently pulling at his beard.

Harry opened his mouth to say Harry Potter, but suddenly as if by magic (which it probably was) his mouth shut with a loud noise. Frowning, Harry tried again, and then again. The other man was staring at him by now, confusedly. Eventually, after several tries, Harry started trying out several names.

"Salazar Slytherin!" He exclaimed happily, joyful that he had finally been able to spit something out. It was only a few seconds later though, when he realized what he had said and his eyes widened. He tried to open his mouth to deny it, but his mouth seemed to remain stubbornly shut by magic. The other man though, didn't seem to notice the action because his face suddenly broke out in a full blown smile.

"Pleased to meet you, I am called Godric Gryffindor!"

...

That night, Harry lay in his makeshift bed, staring at the starry sky with amazement. It seemed that in the future, light pollution from cities did a lot to make the stars less bright in the night. However, his thoughts weren't centred on the sky, he was thinking about his current situation.

How had this happened? Hadn't Hermione once said that it was impossible for a wizard to travel more than 24 hours into the past? How had this happened then? And how had that thing happened with his name? It was as if his mouth had clammed shut, unable to open until he decided to talk about something different. A similar thing had happened when he tried to explain to Godric that Salazar wasn't really his name.

Then again, all the things that had happened during his third year... Maybe some things were meant to happen? Maybe he was supposed to be a muggle-hating mad man? Well, technically he kind of was... The muggles had caused the death of several of his close friends. Besides, a small part of them had allied themselves with Voldemort for some unknown reason. WWIII had already started in the wizarding world in his seventh year, but the muggles were close to it. There was just one thing they needed to do... kill Voldemort.

His whole 'government' had been built in a way that everyone was dependant of him, if there was no Voldemort, there were no Death-Eaters. He was the mastermind of the attacks, the one that gave them power through the dark mark.

So really... all he had to do was live as Salazar Slytherin, make up an excuse to leave the school eventually, travel to the future, meet up with Dumbledore, find a plan to get rid of Moldy-Shorts, get rid of him, and then if he found a way to come back to this time, get a wife and a family so that eventually Voldemort would be born and no time-paradox would created.

Easy Peasy.

"Or you could stay 'ere." Came the muffled voice of Godric Gryffindor as he slept on leaving Harry to wonder if all that he had thought about, he had said out loud.

It was almost two weeks later that the two men finally arrived at Hogsmead. The journey had only taken so long because they had had to stop frequently because Harry's injuries weren't fully healed yet. Godric had promised him that Helga would look at his injuries later, who was apparently a very accomplished healer. The woman turned out to be the legendary Helga Hufflepuff, and surprisingly Godric's fiance.

Personally, Harry had always thought that Godric and Rowena Ravenclaw had been married, he could almost picture a Hermione-like Ravenclaw hitting a Ron-like Godric with a book for being his usual idiotic self.

It had turned out, though, that the founders houses had been spot on, well in Godric's case anyhow. That man was as reckless as... well, Harry couldn't really find anything as reckless, never mind, something more reckless. He was ignorant as well, in many points of magic which irritated Harry quite a lot, considering the fact that he had been studying and fighting a lot in the last seven years, he was quite knowledgeable in the light arts, dark arts and grey arts. Furthermore, he had become very skilled in potions in the last few years, well that was probably because he found Salazar's potion diaries written in parselscribe, the written form of parseltongue...

Harry almost smacked his head at that, of course! He had hidden those diaries in Potter Manor, to make himself more knowledgeable in potions... in order to teach at Hogwarts.

This time, Harry did smack his forehead, Godric turned to look at him with a concerned expression, then he shrugged and turned his attention back to the road as he tried to find his soon to be wife in one of the streets which were almost deserted.

Rolling his eyes, Harry smacked his head again. How could he had not realized that he would have to build a school and be it's teacher. He shuddered as he realized all the work he would have to put into it. God, he even had to build a secret chamber and put a basilisk into it.

"Helga!" Godric suddenly exclaimed, jogging to a chubby, red-haired woman who was chatting with a tall beautiful one. The chubby woman, presumably Helga, was small and chubby and had an uncanny resemblance to Mrs. Weasley. She was dressed in a royal purple dress which matched with her violet eyes, her hair was pulled up into a tight bun which reminded Harry of McGonnagal's hair.

The other woman was stunning, though Godric didn't even seem to even see her, his love devoted purely to Helga. The second woman was tall, almost as tall as Harry, who had had a sudden growth spurt in his early twenties and lean though not as excessively lean as Harry. Her eyes were a beautiful amber colour which resembled that of a timber wolf. She was young, perhaps even a little younger than Harry, but she held herself like a pureblood Lady, as if expecting everyone, men included to respect her.

When Godric and Helga finally broke apart, they both blushed and Harry was reminded the fact that at this time women were supposed to be treated like slaves by men. Godric cleared his throat.

"Ah, Helga, Rowena, this is Salazar Slytherin," Harry let no surprise shine through his mask as the name of the other lady was revealed, his mask as strong as always. He kissed both of their hands gently and smoothly, like a true pureblood heir, and then proceeded to smiled enchantingly at them, "A pleasure to meet you, Helga, Godric never stops talking about you," Then he turned to who he supposed was Rowena Ravenclaw, "I am afraid, dear lady, I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting you..."

"Er... Salazar, this is Helga Hufflepuff and this is Rowena Ravenclaw," Godric said, staring at Harry with an amazed expression. Harry just smirked charmingly at all of them and offered his arm to Rowena as Helga had already taken Godrics. Rowena took it with a small blush.

"Now, where do you recommend we dine, Godric?"

Well, this is the end of the chapter, I hope you liked it.

Now, I don't want to put pressure on you but... reviews motivate me and if you click on the review button at the bottom of this page, I will be immensely happy.

I'm also going to start a competition. I've seen this in other fics, and I just thought that it was awesome. Anyway, there are four houses, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Slytherin.

Just answer this following quesiton and write your house next to it. (God, I sound like I'm doing the lottery on X-factor...)

What was Harry's job when he wasn't fighting for his side of the war?

So... that's it. Thanks for reading.

Word count: 2,991 words

(\(\

(,('')('') now that's just kind of random...