Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or any of the elements which will be used in this story, I'm not sure at the moment if this is a concept work or a plot bunny. I wouldn't expect updates very often however anyone who likes the concept feel free to run with it. This is mostly an experiment in my own writing and seeing if I can put pen to paper. This is not beta'ed so if anyone see's any glaring grammatical error's feel free to let me know.
Prologue – A campfire at the end of reality.
I now know the answer to the question posed by Robert Frost so many years ago. The world most definitely ended in fire.
I stood amongst the burned out ruins of London a husk set upon a dying world. The sky was blackened and scorched and a burning rain fell across the land. The smell of decay in the air was rank and in every direction the eye could see there was nothing but destruction.
After almost 30 years of conflict I stood alone, the final legacy of man. I was only alive for only one reason, almost 20 years ago facing my death at the hands of my parents murderer, I made a choice. I donned a mantle of power I didn't truly understand, something spoken of in only fairy tales and the oldest legends.
I became death.
When I became the bearer of all 3 deathly hollows something in me fundamentally changed sealed by my act of sacrifice. Embracing death and going back into the world to finish what I had begun, Set me upon a path that the old man could never have dreamed upon. Voldemort was only the first of my life's challenges.
After his fall I became complacent I fell into the trap of the old man's false wisdom. A normal life was never meant for me. The prophecy I believed filled was only just beginning. We all believed the prophecy only dealt with Voldemort and by destroying him having ended my role as warrior. But he was not the dark lord spoken of. He was only the beginning, a tool of the one true dark lord. The only dark lord the world has ever truly known, for all of the evil Voldemort committed he was still but a man and the bearer of the deathly hollows was meant for so much more.
The deathly hollows bestowed upon me gifts I had never even realized at the time. Building my power and reshaping me into a destructive agent for the good. I was the first guardian of man since that most famous of wizards old man Merlin himself. Unlike Merlin however I was complacent, I didn't prepare myself for the coming storm the world was to know. I let myself be restricted from fulfilling my role by the governments of the world. I let myself grow out of shape and lost my honed instincts by becoming nothing more then a mere trophy for the ministry. The man who slayed the dark lord himself, a poisonous title leading to false comfort in all of those who heard it.
The darkness in the world built and grew to a crescendo, Wars started all across the world and I sat by and idly let them continue. Famine broke out in many places of the world and yet I didn't even lift a finger to summon food to feed those in need. Plague's broke out and the world started to die and yet we hid in our secret world and let the world destroy it self not thinking of the grand consequences of it all. Death filled the earth as the world slowly fell into silence.
It was only when humanity was crippled beyond all hope that the legions of darkness came to earth. Dead rose from the graves to feast upon the living, Daemons walked the earth once more their terrible will manifest and made flesh once more. Monsters and the terrible nightmares of humanity rose again from the dark corners of the earth and once again feasted upon human flesh, torturing humanity and twisting it into its own cruel image. Old Gods horrors of the darkest legend came forth once more and began to twist the husk of what would remain of our world into their very own dark image.
It was only then when the world was burning down around us that the magic community even tried to help their fellow man. We Fought them with everything we had but it never even scratched the surface of the destruction, we had no one left to turn to for help. We were a symbiotic society we had built our towers of false power built upon the pillars of glass that was mankind. We were too small in number to fight a war like this by ourselves, we lacked the resources needed to wage such a war. Yet still we fought on.
For years we struggled under the brutal boot of our extinction and its only looking back in at how it all started that we can truly understand where we went wrong. The four horseman of the apocalypse had come and gone. Clearing the way for the end of the world, I alone was a fulcrum, I alone had the power to change the fate of the world. That was the true purpose of the deathly hollows, that was the true purpose of the prophecy which had always bound my life to this world.
I was born to those who thrice defied him. It was never about my parents but my blood line. I was born from a family of warriors of the light, we had fought and bled and died for humanity. "The dark lord will mark him as his equal", I was marked by the unspeakable evil of man and it doing so was granted a power to make me equal to evil itself to stand against the tide and to break the wave. "He will have a power the dark lord knows not", the power of free will is a gift given to man kind that which stands us alone from all the other beings in the world. "And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other one survives", and in the end while the world burned down around me I had destroyed my enemy I had banished the Morning-star back to where he had come. Forced to lie back to sleep for 1000 years until the next champion of humanity would rise up again. However there would be no champion to come after me.
So I stood in a smoldering ruin in London looking at the now exposed entranced to what had once been the Ministry of Magic. The pain of loneliness will drive anyone crazy and in this dead world there was nothing to be but alone. So I had traveled the world I had gathered all the information I could for one final gambit. A last ditch effort to go back and fix it all, I would break reality. It had taken me months to build the largest magic circle that would never be seen. It spanned most of the British Isles and was either gonna power the largest spell cast since Noah had summoned 2 of every creature on the planet to himself. Or I was about to blow the whole damn planet up and call the whole thing a wash. Either way it would be over shortly. I Made my way back to where my fight truly began.
The elevator chimed softly "Level 9 Department of Mysteries, have a nice day." I strode forward with quick even steps not even bothering to look back at the elevator I just set on fire for good measure. The room where the most center of my circle lay was filled with clocks, I had been here once before running with my friends from the death eaters that had laid a trap for us so long ago. They had fixed the room sometime in the last 25 years all of the time turners sat in there cases waiting to peel back time itself. I sat myself in my circle and sat out candles at the 4 cardinal points of the compass the smell of the cheap romantic candles I had found started to drift through the air. I lit each and every candle by hand with a Zippo lighter I had picked up a few years ago for my growing addiction to cigarettes, I needed something after a hard day of kicking evil's ass to take the edge off and its not like I was worried about dying of cancer. I was pretty sure something would have killed me long before cancer ever had a chance to kill me.
"Once more into the breach my friends" I quoted while drawing in my will. Magic with wands is a gift that I was born with but it is far from the only magic in the world, needs rise while the devil drives. I had discovered many types of magic in my many years of struggle I had expanded and learned every branch I came across. Most didn't even require you to be born with magic in your blood, as you pulled power down from the earth itself, through rituals and rites drawing power from the great beyond. Faith is another powerful force that the magic world had merely scoffed at, but I had once seen a man cloaked in faith and wielding a sword of pure steel against daemons and monsters so scary, I would be wary as hell about fighting them. With a armor of faith and a sword of pure intent he carved a swath in them so wide you could move a shipping freighter.
The candles begin to flicker wildly as each circle pushed out further and further igniting the 13 magic circles I had set up in an ever widening radius across my homeland. The lightning begin to tear into the earth with a savage fury, and the wind howled with rage. It was time.
For the women I had loved I was going to tear reality asunder. For the family I had cherished I was going to spit in the face of creation and rewrite reality. For the friends I had lost I was going to rip apart the very tapestry of time. For all those in the world I failed to save I was coming back to bring them kicking and screaming past the danger they all were in. I released my will in one solemn moment, and proceeded to kick the universe in the balls.
I thought I knew pain. I had been beaten, I had been tortured, I had been torn apart, I had even been killed once or twice before. I thought I knew pain... but I knew nothing the past ripped backwards through my body I exploded into molecules as every single hour glass, clock and time turner shattered with the force of the spell. Every pain I had ever endured I now suffered in reverse. Bones un-knit themselves broke and then healed again in an instant. Stitches flowed through my various scars and gashes opened only to close again an instant later. I felt myself die and live again.
I was screaming a long unending terrible scream and then a voice joined me. It was familiar like I should remember it as our voices slowly became one. And I felt as who I once was exploded into a million molecules only to be forcefully be rewritten as I re-entered the universe. I fell to the ground boneless and tired as hell.
I heard the voice of an angel, one of the first women I ever loved telling me to "please be alright, nothing like this ever happened when I used the time turner before." the world slowly came into focus as I looked upon the bushy mane of the smartest witch of our age. I muttered "Hermione what day is it."
"June 9th, we just used the time turner to come back to save Sirius when you screamed and then fell apart." She said. "God Harry are you alright do you need me to go get Dumbledore."
"No", I said "I will be fine, besides Sirius is counting on us".
This time I swore, I would be the shield which humanity needed in its darkest hour. I would not stand idle while evil feasted upon the innocent. Now my story begins again.