It was strange, him being back in these hallways, walking down them as though the place had never been destroyed – and indeed it hadn't. Not yet anyway. That wasn't due to happen for another twenty-or-so years in the current time-line, though it was a little over four years into his personal past. Time travel. It was all one big headache if you asked him, especially when you factored in things like paradox, causality, and quantum. He'd try to just not think about it.
Besides, he was here for a reason.
He made his way to the room of requirement, stepping in to grab a few things before leaving and closing the door behind him. It vanished into the stone work, gone once more while it wasn't needed. His next stop was a girl's bathroom a few floors down.
"I thought everyone had left the castle to fight the war," came a curious female voice.
"Hello Myrtle. I'm just checking something."
The ghost peered at the invader of her bathroom curiously. "Do I know you?" she asked.
"Not yet," he answered.
"Oh, alright then. What are you doing?"
The man hissed at one of the sinks, and it shifted.
"I'm making sure that what killed you is dead," the man answered, then jumped down into the dark hole that had been exposed by the sink.
"Oh. Thank you," Myrtle said, blinking as she stayed floating over the deep pit, curious about the strange man.
He came back no less than an hour later, smelling a bit funny, but smiling. He dusted his hands off once he'd finished hauling himself out of the hole, and hissed again so that the sink moved back into its right place. Once it had stopped moving, he rested against it and pulled a list out of his pocket.
"So, that's the diadem and the basilisk all dealt with," he commented to himself, crossing things off the list he was holding. "I managed to intercept Bellatrix with the cup already, and that's gone too," he continued, tapping his lower lip with a pencil. "That just leaves his ring and the locket, since I doubt he's made his snake into one yet, and then there's just the matter of the bloody prophecy."
He sighed and tucked the list back into his pocket.
"Who are you?" Myrtle asked, cocking her head curiously.
"Harry," he answered with a chuckle. "It was nice to see you again Myrtle, but I've still got things to do. Take care, alright?"
Myrtle nodded as she watched the strange man – Harry – walk out of her bathroom and disappear.
~oOo~
"Kreacher?" he asked, looking down at the house elf that had opened the door.
"Yes sir. What can I's be doin' for you? The family isn't home just now," the elf answered.
The man sighed. Truly, time and madness had not been good to the elf. Though, he still wasn't likely to win any prizes for his looks now either.
"I've come to help you accomplish your last order from Regulus Black," he said.
The house elf's gaze sharpened.
"How is youse knowing about that sir? Master Regulus didn't told no one else but Kreacher," the elf said, suspicious.
"Time travel," he answered. "May I destroy the locket for you?"
Kreacher nodded slowly and let him in, closing the door sharply behind before he scurried up the stairs and fetched the locket.
The man took something out of his pocket, and Kreacher was certain that it looked like a very, very big snake's fang – too big to have fitted into the pocket without there being a spell on the pocket, the fang, or both. The fang was then plunged down into the locket, which shattered, and the pieces started to bubble and disintegrate.
"You're a good house elf Kreacher," the man said, patting him on the head. "You keep this place clean alright? The wallpaper is too nice to let it rot."
Kreacher nodded slowly.
The man pulled a list out of his pocket, slashed something off of it, and then disappeared with a pop.
"Strange wizard," Kreacher said quietly, then looked down at the destroyed locket. "Helped Kreacher fulfil Master Regulus last order though, that good."
~oOo~
Severus Snape was hurrying to his Lord after having heard a portion of a prophecy – a prophecy which could mean his downfall.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder when he was just two doors away from his Lord's current residence, and he was dragged back into the shadows.
"If you tell him what you heard, Severus Snape-Prince," a male voice whispered into his ear, "he will kill Lily. You may hate James, but would you sentence her with him?"
"No," Severus admitted, shaking. "Who are you? How do you know these things?"
The hand on his shoulder forced him to turn around.
"Because I'm the one who gets to kill the Dark Lord."
"Potter?" Severus asked, squinting in the darkness. The man before him looked a little bit like James Potter, but also wasn't. The hair was wrong, the voice was different or he would have recognised it.
"My name is Harry," the man answered. "Know this, Half-Blood Prince," he said, calmly and without a hint of anger or hatred in his voice. "You can tell the Dark Lord what you have heard, and he will kill James. He will then go to kill the Potter child, but Lily isn't the kind of woman to just stand aside and let her child be killed, and she will die as well."
Severus collapsed onto the ground, shaking. He was a man many thought of as having no heart, but Lily had been his only true friend for many years. When he'd gone to Hogwarts, been sorted into Slytherin, he'd been looked out for by Lucious Malfoy, but it hadn't been the same. He felt a gentle pull from his head.
"I'll be going in your place, if you don't mind. Go and advise the Potters who the real traitor is in Dumbledore's little Order," the man, Harry, advised, dropping the hairs into a flask, which he shook a couple of times, then took a drink from.
Severus watched as his own face replaced the one that looked so much like James Potter.
"Go," the man advised, in Severus' voice.
~oOo~
He was granted a private audience with Lord Voldemort, and knelt appropriately before the man – and man he still was. He hadn't yet become the monster created from bones, a chopped off hand, and a little blood that Harry remembered watching rise from that cauldron. Here was the man that had grown up from the boy Tom Marvolo Riddle. He was still handsome. How nice for him.
Surreptitiously, he cast strong silencing charms around the room as he was bent before the twisted man, and withdrew the basilisk fang from his robes.
"Severus," Voldemort hissed. "What news do you bring me?"
"A prophecy has been made My Lord," he answered. "Of your demise."
Voldemort growled in displeasure, the snake Nagini beside him hissing the same.
"You will tell me what you heard."
"Horcrux scattered are shattered. Basilisk is beaten in the castle bowels. All that remains is what never leaves his side, at the hand of the child of those who had thrice defied him, marked by his own hand, the last of the Dark Lord's will shall be slain," he said, standing swiftly and plunging the fang into Tom's hand, breaking the ring and flooding basilisk venom through the Dark Lord's body.
Nagini hissed and lunged – only to have the fang jammed through her head as well.
"You're not going to die immediately Tom," he said, as the potion wore off and he regained his own form. "Basilisk venom takes a little while. Just long enough for me to use you," he said, plucking hairs from the Dark Lord's head and dropping them into another flask, and taking a swig before sweeping out of the room.
"My Lord?" Malfoy's voice enquired, hurrying to follow.
"Someone has been destroying my horcrux," he answered with a growl. "I have felt them! Where is it? I was assurances!"
Malfoy ran ahead and returned with the diary in his hand.
He recognised it and snatched it from the pale man's hold, then returned to the room he had come from, apparently to check it over and make sure that it was still whole. In reality, to thrust the fang through it as well.
Taking a list from his pocket, he scratched off the ring, the diary, the snake and the prophecy. Then the potion wore off as Tom Riddle finally expired from the basilisk venom.
"Malfoy, come in here," he called, lifting the silencing charms for just a moment.
"My Lord?" Malfoy answered, only to stop short at seeing Voldemort and the snake dead, and a large fang through the diary that he had just given to the man he had believed was his master.
"He is dead," the stranger answered. "Thank you, by the way, for handing over the very last of the horcrux that I had to destroy. Tom Marvolo Riddle, also know as Lord Voldemort, will never rise again."
Malfoy collapsed where he stood, staring in horror at the scene before him.
"I suggest you shape up and take pleasure in simply being a father. A time of peace is approaching. Make the most of it," the stranger said, then disappeared with a gentle pop.
~oOo~
He sighed. It was unfortunate, but there were simply things that had to be done. He made his way to the house that was supposed to be kept secret by Peter Pettigrew. It shimmered into view before his eyes as the dead body of Peter was thrown out the door and attacked with fiendfire. He chuckled at the sight and ducked in through a window before they could place a new fidelus charm.
"You!"
Ah, Severus.
The exclamation drew the attention of James and Lily Potter as well.
"The Dark Lord is dead. He will never rise again," he said calmly. "Unfortunately, there are certain things that need to happen, or fate gets completely screwed over."
"What are you going to do?" James demanded.
"Well, in the time line I have come from, you both died at the hands of the Dark Lord. Now, I'm not big on killing, so I'm just going to adjust your memories and remove you from the area, how's that? Much nicer I think," he said.
"What about my son?" Lily demanded. "What happens to my little Harry?"
He watched as Severus' eyes widened.
"In the world where you both die, he is given to Petunia, Sirius is put in Azkaban without trial for betraying you, killing Peter and blowing up a street in the middle of muggle London, and when your little Harry goes to Hogwarts, he faces the potential of death every year in one form or another," he answered.
"I think she meant in this time-line," Severus said.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" Lily echoed.
"Not to my knowledge anyway. Really, you can have your memory altered, or I can be more true to what fate intended to happen tonight and kill you," the man said.
Lily closed her eyes and swallowed nervously. "If you mess with fate, things only get worse," she said. "If you kill us, Harry will be safe?"
"As safe as anyone ever can be when a war is winding down," the man answered.
James stepped up. "I want to watch over my son," he said. "But fate can't just be messed with so much as to leave people alive when they're supposed to die."
The man nodded sadly. "I have a poison," he said, taking a vial out of his robes. It was filled with basilisk venom. "I will cast no magic to take your life."
James nodded and took the vial, putting it to his lips and swigging half of it down, handing it back as he coughed, the liquid burning down his throat.
"Lily, I suggest that you give Severus a good and proper kiss before you go. You'll regret it all of your afterlife if you don't," the man said, holding the vial.
The woman blushed as deeply as her hair, but did as suggested. The kiss went on for some time.
"See what a few words can change?" the man said quietly to Severus once the kiss was over and Lily had taken the poison.
Severus was crying.
"Now, you'd better get out of here before Sirius shows up and blames you. I'm going to get the child and a few important things that belong to him."
~oOo~
Albus Dumbledore arrived at Gringotts bank to request the sealing of the Potter will, only to find someone who looked like James sitting in one of the offices, feeding a baby from a bottle.
"You have no jurisdiction over the Potter properties Albus," the James look-alike said, not looking up from the child that he held. "The will has already been read and certain actions have already begun. When was the last time you got looked at by a mind healer? I'm sure that you're overdue."
The old man spluttered and the veiled insult, but the young man just calmly adjusted the child he held so that he was over his shoulder, burped him, then wiped up the small amount of spew, and stood.
"You will never see Harry Potter again, and you will never see a knut of their fortune. Excuse me."
~oOo~
"We'll make sure he gets all his learning good and proper," promised the goblin Grasp, who was in charge of the Potter estates.
"And his name is off the register for Hogwarts, and has been moved to Salem," assured a young lawyer called Gomez Addams – he was American, but all the better for little Harry's sake really. "I would like to add that our family is honoured to take the boy for you sir."
The man nodded. "The Addams are known for their family values, as the goblins are known for their integrity. He will grow to be a fine young man if he is under your joint care, I am sure," he said, handing the wrapped up child over to the man.
A slight shimmer in the air rippled around him, and then the man was gone, leaving Harry Potter to be raised by goblins and the Addams family.
"Good thing Gringotts has an American branch," the goblin said. "Or this arrangement would be much harder."
"Agreed," Gomez said quietly.
Through silent, mutual consent, neither of them mentioned the man who had just vanished in a way that was not apparition, portkey, or any other known transportation spell.
~The End~
"Harry, where you been mate?"
"Just dropped down to fix a few things Fred. You should be coming back to life soon."
"Eh!"
"Harry! You were breaking laws of the universe, weren't you!"
"Haha! That's our boy! So we'll be dropping out of the dead zone soon?"
"Should be. After all, Moldey-Voldey's permanently dead at the end of the war. No reason for you to have died by returned Death Eaters, is there?"
"Brilliant!"