Edited April 2, 2010: Thanks everyone who has had interest in this fic. However a verity of factors have me overwhelmed and under-inspired. If this should change in the future I've decided to complete the writing before posting. So if/when this story is continued I'll post it all at once. Til than it will be for all intents and purposes, a one-shot.

Thanks go to my beta Tyson Rules

Inspired by Kay's Drabble Chain Challenge

Twenty Years

Assuming

Harry combed Buckbeak's coat slowly, being careful of the feathers on the shoulders. He had a lot on his mind: Voldemort, the Horcruxes, Dumbledore, Snape, but what was bothering him most was his own life. He studied, worked, sacrificed, and bled for this war. He did the 'right' thing. And he would die for it. He found it highly unlikely that even if he got all of the horcruxes, found Voldemort, and somehow convinced all the death eaters to leave him alone while he dueled their Master, that he would somehow best a ruthless man with 50 years more experience than him. It was just silly. No, it was sad, because that's exactly what the wizarding world expected.

Harry sighed, more depressed than ever. He realized that the growing up with the Dursleys, losing his parents, the trials at school, they were all for nothing; he would still die. Suddenly, he wished that he ran away years ago. Maybe he could have taken his godfather with him. He had an image of himself and Sirius on a Caribbean beach, sipping exotic drinks and surrounded by beautiful people. Course, Harry's beautiful people were much more masculine than Sirius' beautiful women but that was all right. In his day dream, he had had a chance to tell his godfather he was gay, and Sirius hadn't cared. And Sirius would prank the muggles around them, while Harry would lie in the sun all day with not a worry in the world, and nothing he had to do.

Buckbeak pulled on his hair a bit with his beak. Harry had stopped brushing while caught up in the dream. He smiled sadly at the hippogriff and continued. He wished that he had more time. As always, the word brought to mind the stolen time turner from the Department of Mysteries in his trunk. But it was useless. If he knew that something had happened, he couldn't change it cause then he wouldn't go back. So since he had seen, along with a dozen others, Sirius fall into the Veil and die, he couldn't save him. If he'd gone into a room alone with Bellatrix and just hadn't come out, there would be some ambiguity, some possibility that he hadn't died, it would be different. He could go back, get him, hide him, and then reveal him when his previous self went back. Just like with Buckbeak. He'd assumed that he'd died, but hadn't known. For the millionth time he put the useless time turner out of his thoughts.

He remembered the articles in the paper. Ever since Voldemort had taken over the ministry, it had been nothing but propaganda. This morning there had been an article about a rogue Auror who had tried to smuggle magic thieves out of the ministry in an effort to get their secrets for himself. He'd been killed. Another good man dying for a lost cause. Just like Harry would, and Sirius did. Even Regulus Black, had died trying to do the right thing. At least according to Kreacher, they were still waiting for him to come back with the Order thief, Dung. Harry's combing slowed. "According to Kreacher...." he said softly to himself. But even Kreacher had not seen his master die, he'd just assumed. And he had just been thinking about ambiguous deaths. But that was too far back surely. The time turner didn't go forward, what was he going to do with a pureblood ex-death eater for twenty years?

Harry's whole body stilled as a wonderful, incredible, idea formed in his mind. He could go back, twenty years. Who better to teach him how to defeat Voldemort than an ex-death eater who depended on Harry, who owed him a life debt? Regulus had grown up with the dark arts; he'd be able to teach Harry all the things he needed. And if nothing else, it gave him time to close that 50 year gap with Voldemort.

Suddenly he couldn't keep still. He excused himself from Buckbeak and ran out of the room. Plans were being formed a mile a minute. Ways to get money, things to pack, where he was going to stay, what he was going to do. He couldn't get help from anyone he knew. Harry stopped. He wouldn't be able to see or talk to anyone he knew for twenty years, at least not as Harry Potter. When he got back to now he would be twenty years older, almost as old as his friends' parents. Even if they could over look it and still be his friends, it wouldn't be the same. He wouldn't be the same. Who knows what would happen to him in twenty years.

He sat down at the dining room table, suddenly not so sure. He decided to take a leaf out of Hermione's book and started to write pros and cons on a piece of parchment. In the pros he had things like: time to learn, saving Regulus, and finding and maybe destroying horcruxes. On the con side he had many more things: leaving friends, not being able to change some things, and no outside help. In the end though, there was a pro he couldn't ignore. He'd put it at the bottom. "A Chance," it said. That's what it came down to, if he stayed he would die, if he went he might live and take down Voldemort eventually. So that was his decision, but it didn't make him as happy as it had.