"Though I wasn't sure of what was happening then, I'm all too aware of it now. When the final blow is struck against him, it triggers some sort of time-related spell he cast upon himself. The effects of this spell sends the one who triggered it back in time. Their memories and knowledge remain intact... but precious little else does.
"It took until the second trip back for me to really understand what was going on. After all, I had to see the spell again to try and understand it. And there was only one way for that to happen. I continued that first year back like it had happened the time before. I tried not to reveal too much about what I already knew for fear of distorting the timeline.
"The second trip back, I began to test the waters, bit by bit. I asked if the Sorting Hat would put me into Hufflepuff, for instance. It made losing Cedric all that much harder. But it did prove to me one thing - the timeline as a whole would not derail if I started to try and get out of the loop.
"The third time I went back, I asked the Hat to sort me into Ravenclaw. Here, I spent the majority of my free time reading. As I had already been to Hogwarts numerous times at that point, I had little trouble passing my classes. It was during this trip that I found a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, I was unable to further locate information.
"I won't bore you with the trips that happened after that. Most of them were spent trying to glean knowledge off of anything related to that one glimmer of hope I had found. I bounced around from Gryffindor to Hufflepuff to Ravenclaw and back again. I dared not to enter Slytherin - not with the knowledge of what would transpire in the future. I wasn't that crazy.
"Over the course of these trips back in time, I also managed to hold fairly stable relationships with several girls... though, annoyingly enough, only with those I seemed to already know well during my original timeline. In other words, I had held relationships with Ginny, Hermione, and Luna, amongst others. And, oddly enough, out of all of them, only the one with Luna seemed to cause me to wind up gaining more knowledge about my glimmer of hope.
"At first, I thought it was a fluke. But, a few trips down the line, I tried again. And once more, I was brought closer to my goal. I don't know if Luna has some strange relationship with time itself, or if I was just lucky and asked the right things at the right time. I'm afraid the memories tend to blur when you've lived so many at the same point in time...
"The last trip back in time, I found it. I had found it, but I had no idea how to use it properly... so Voldemort still won. I was thrown back in time yet again, to inhabit my younger self's body for what seemed like the hundredth time. But, though I had no idea how to use the item... it seemed to sense a need in me to learn. You see... this time, it came back with me.
"This time, I already had what I needed and had no reason to continue searching for info leading to it. No... This time, I needed to find out how to use it, so that this endless cycle of hell would finally come to an end. I have no idea if I would be returned to the timeline from which I originally came, or if I would simply continue to exist in the one I was thrown into. Either way, I would be happy for it to all be over with.
"The object seemed to fuse into my body when we made the jump back. Originally, I thought I had lost it again. But that first night back, as I sat in the cupboard under the stairs and watched the spiders play with one another, it happened. The Wand of Time materialized from somewhere in my left arm, shooting over into my right hand as if I had purposely summoned it. It took a few more nights, but I eventually learned how to store it back within me. It seemed to almost become a part of my magic itself. Suited me just fine, really. Made it harder to be stolen.
"This time, I would make things different. The timeline would bend to my will. I plan to change everything that had made my original timeline - and all of the variations I had lived through since - caused me to be in pain. This time, I would be the one in control. I had gone over the plans in my head countless times - after all, when one relives the same experiences over and over, one tends to get horrendously bored - and I knew how each piece of the puzzle should fall into place.
"The first goal... was to escape from Number Four. And after that, things would start changing. I had no fear of anyone trying to pry into my mind - I had mastered Occlumency ages ago. And I had become good enough at potions to detect most truth serums instantly by one means or another. I had even gotten bold at one point in the previous trip back, taunting that bastard Snape with knowledge even he didn't know.
"My name is Harry Potter. For better or for worse, I live at Number Four, Privet Drive. I have lived for far longer than I should have. I have seen things over and over that I wish I could've kept from happening. And now, for whatever reason fate has bestowed it on me... I control time."
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Author's Notes: This is the prologue to something that's never gotten off the ground. I write things like this from time to time. Plotbunnies enter my head and won't leave until I jot them down. I don't know if I'll ever write this out. After all, there are a couple really good back-in-time Potter fics. Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past being my personal favorite, written by S'TarKan. Go look it up and review, kids. Add to the ginormous amount he's gotten! As of when I write this, it's close to SEVEN THOUSAND. That number astounds me.
And yes, it's totally a direct Prince of Persia: Sands of Time rip. I just think it could be amusing.
Anyway, as some have noticed by glancing at my profile, my computer recently died. I'll be sending it to a buddy. He'll hopefully be able to salvage my hard drive's contents, burn them, and send them back to me. But until I know one way or another whether the contents are salvageable or not, I won't be continuing Citadel. I was two-thirds into chapter 4 and the death just happened completely at random. Turned it off, turned it back on, and it just didn't really do anything. Once I know what's gonna happen with my old hard drive, I'll update my profile. If the HD can't be saved, I'll just start rewriting chapter 4 is all.
So until then, I'll be posting quirky little things like this. Stuff from my mind that never quite made it to the publishing block. Who knows, once I finish the R-Series, I may start on one of these. Depends on if anyone's interested and which gets the most positive feedback.
So there ya go, kids. Harry Potter and the Wand of Time's prologue. I'll seeya in a bit, all. Later!