Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I would be lying on a beach somewhere tropical, rather than writing this in between TAFE projects.
Summary: A Twist on all the 'Harry Goes Back In Time To Re-Write History' stories out there.
A/N: While there are lots of good 'Time Travel' stories out there, there are just as many bad ones. One too many of the bad ones inspired this. No offence to anyone.
Not Always A Good Idea
Harry Potter stood on the Final Battlefield, looking around at the devastation surrounding him.
The War was over and Voldemort was dead.
The Light side had won, but at the most terrible of costs. The Ministry had fallen, and Hogwarts had been destroyed. The Magical Community lay in ruins, though Harry supposed that he should be glad that no-one was worrying about the Pureblood/Mudblood issue anymore.
Worst of all, every one of Harry's closest friends, his surrogate family, even the Dursleys, lay dead, either here or in some other raid or battle earlier in the War.
Harry had fulfilled his destiny and Killed Voldemort, but what was the point, when none of the people he cared about would be here to share his joy?
Ignoring the Historical fact that Heroes are often rewarded by being given yet another, harder, task to perform, Harry just wanted to get away.
Despite not even knowing its location, Harry automatically apparated to the only place he had ever felt safe: His original home of Godric's Hollow.
Although everyone had told him that it had been completely destroyed, and was therefore a structural death trap by now, Harry wandered through the ruins of his infanthood home.
Likewise irregardless of the fact that time and exposure to the elements would have made good work of anything left, Harry made his way into what he thought might have once been the Kitchen. Lying on the table, in perfect condition, was a thick book.
While Harry had frequently heard of the phrase 'Curiosity Killed the Cat', he felt that he had disproved it enough times to take a look.
The book was called 'Time Travel for the Truly Desperate', and detailed a spell for traveling through time. Interestingly enough, it said that it could be either your spirit that traveled, your spirit that made its way into your younger body, or your body as it was at the time you cast the spell.
Well, let's see, Harry thought, everyone I care about is gone; I have nothing left to live for… I'd say that qualifies as Desperate. I could go back, and stop everyone from dying. I know how to kill Voldemort now, so I could do it without everything going to heck.
Carefully memorizing the spell to make sure he got it right, (couldn't the writer have stuck to Latin, rather than a confusing blend of Russian, French, Italian and Gaelic?) Harry began to perform the spell.
So eager for a second chance, Harry had forgotten one Very Important Thing.
Aside from 'Curiosity Killed the Cat', there were several other phrases that also commonly applied to the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Kill-Voldemort. Two of these were 'Fate is a Bitch' and 'The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.'
Harry felt himself falling through time and space, a whirl of colour the only thing he could see.
The whirl of colour separated itself into more recognizable shapes, and Harry found himself landing on his backside in the grass with a very painful 'thump'.
While Harry's first thought was 'Yes! It worked!' this quickly changed to 'Oh, shit!' at the sight before him.
Three blurry shapes stood over him, two with red hair and one with brown. Looking down at himself to make sure he arrived in one piece, Harry barely stopped himself from screaming.
He wore a yellow dress, with black trimming, and he was dead certain that the breasts and curves he now sported were not there before he performed the time-travel spell.
Still disoriented, in frantic denial and less than coherent, Harry could only mumble the first three names that came to mind. "Ron? Hermione? Ginny? What happened?"
One of the red-heads burst out laughing. "Who? Rowena, I though you said those glass and wire things would help the poor girl, not make things worse! Now she's hallucinating! Your 'spectacles' certainly help make a 'spectacle' of… Ow! Heaven Above, it was a jest!"
The brunette had hexed him, but the second red-head was still laughing to hard to take the hint. "Interesting Pun, Salazar. Maybe the experiment, coupled with the phase of the moon and its effect on the fairer sex, had some effect? After all, Taliesin the Wise said… Ow! What was that for?"
The brunette was moving past annoyance into anger. "That's probably exactly what he said when the ladies of Avalon heard about it! Be silent, both of you! Salazar, no-one wants to listen to your clever remarks! Godric, neither bloodlines nor bloodshed of any kind have any effect on my invention."
She turned and offered Harry her hand, pulling him up. "Are you all right, Helga, dear? I need your patience to deal with these idiots."
Standing up, Harry got a good look around. The brunette turned out to be a very pretty woman in a blue gown trimmed with bronze. The two red-heads were two men, one in crimson and gold robes, one in green and silver.
Having assured themselves that Harry – or, Harry's new body - was all right, wizard in red and gold conjured a small table, and the witch in blue spread out a chart. "I was thinking, for the dormitories we could…"
Finally, Harry's mind stopped screaming long enough to point out a few facts.
1) He was way further back in time than he had originally planned.
2) He was in the body of Helga Hufflepuff and planning Hogwarts with the other founders.
3)He really needed to get out of here.
Making sure that the other founders had their backs turned, Harry performed the spell as fast as he could, focusing desperately on closer to his own time.
Re-appearing, this time without the vortex, Harry found himself on Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
Jumping aside just in time to avoid being flattened by three laughing boys and a fourth, obviously terrified, one, Harry looked around to see if he could find the date. Judging by the clothes, he was a lot closer to his own time, although the clothing on the muggle-related students and their parents still looked strange.
He was jerked out of these thoughts by a female shriek of rage. Spinning around, he saw the mass of people parting like the red sea before Moses.
If Moses was a young witch with flaming red hair and his own vibrant green eyes (currently flashing with fury), and flanked by a boy with long, greasy hair and a hooked nose, that is.
Both had their wands out, and both looked ready to commit serious bodily harm.
Harry didn't notice this, however, as he had just realized that he had run into a younger version of his mother. Smiling at her in pure joy, unfortunately, only seemed to make her angrier. "POTTER! If I get my hands on you…"
Realizing that this point in time was when his mother was still friends with Snape and hated his father's guts, Harry proved that Gryffindors could think on occasion, and cast the spell again, just as both Snape and Lily cast a particularly nasty hex at him…
He landed in a large body of water, along with three other bodies.
Looking at himself again, Harry realized that he was in his own body, but aged eleven.
The second thing he realized was that he had been riding across the lake with the other first years, when his spirit returning to his body had rocked the boat hard enough to overturn it, dumping himself, Hermione, Ron and Neville straight into the icy water.
Trying to avoid the glares that his friends were shooting him, Harry and the others managed to clamber back into the boat, and they continued on their way to the castle.
Thanks to a careful drying charm, Harry and the others were mostly dry by the time they were led into the Great Hall for the Sorting. Tuning everything out, Harry waited for his name to be called.
Finally, "Potter, Harry,"…
Ignoring the whispers and surprised murmurs this time, Harry listened to the Sorting Hat. Well, now, this is interesting. You have brains, courage, and enough loyalty to drown a giant…
Harry started to worry slightly. He really wanted to get into Gryffindor, so he could change things. He was so determined that he would get into his original house and change the world that he completely forgot to complain about not wanting to be with Malfoy…
Now what's this? So much determination! Ambition to change the world! Forget Gryffindor, you're going straight to SLYTHERIN!
Standing up and looking at the hat in sheer horror, Harry stumbled to the Green and Silver table in a daze.
Maybe time traveling hadn't been such a good idea, after all.
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