Disclaimer:
I do not own the characters of Harry Potter, these belong to that wonderful author JK Rowling and the various publishing companies used to publish her works. I am however borrowing them, no not to make money but for fun and fun only.
Summary:
Secrets are revealed after Dumbledore dies on the Astronomy tower, one person believed dead comes back and with the help of an unlikely ally turns the tide of war against Voldemort for good. Mostly canon through HBP.
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Prologue:
All it took was one change to turn the course of the war, all Harry Potter did was ask Ginny Weasley to the Yule Ball. That was all, yet it had far reaching changes for so many in that one change. To not be left out and desperate for a date Ron Weasley had asked Luna Lovegood to the Yule Ball and would, as he said later realize it had been one of the best things he had done. Harry was able to solve the riddle of the egg far quicker with Ginny's help as he asked around for anything to help him in the task of the lake. He ended up asking professor Snape if he knew where he could buy Gillyweed. With a sneer and a few biting words Severus Snape had gone to his stores and shoved some at the boy and ordered him out of his sight. Harry was on time to the lake and in seeing Ginny as his hostage he rescued her quickly, this put him in first place of the tournament.
When the third task came he was well ahead of everyone else, both Ginny and interestingly Luna helped him in spells and such he would need to succeed. It made all the difference as he made his way through the maze with considerable skill and speed. He got to the cup first, well ahead of anyone else and reached out and grabbed it not realizing it was a portkey. He was whisked away to the Riddle graveyard, despite his being on guard he still was no match for Wormtail as he was disarmed and bound to a headstone. He had a front row seat to Voldemort returning and the violent way that it was done, he barely noticed the pain of the cut on his arm as he was surprised Wormtail was strong enough to still function after he cut off his own hand. Harry was tormented by Voldemort and then forced to duel the dark lord.
However when it came to him fighting the evil dark lord he refused and let the killing curse hit him, as he would say later it seemed the right thing to do. The curse hit him and those there saw both him and the dark lord fall, they thought Harry was dead when the dark lord rose back up. However, Harry Potter rose and summoned a still weak Wormtail to him then the cup and was gone in a flash. Harry would not talk about what he had seen during his time dead (he had died but as it was not his time he had come back) for a long time. The only thing he did say was that he knew the prophecy and that was it. He came back to Hogwarts and ousted the fake Moody and was able to prove his godfather was innocent. This would mean he would not ever have to go back to his so called relations as Sirius took custody of him. It still did not mean that Fudge fully believed Voldemort was back even with Harry's memories in the pensive.
Harry's fifth year was still difficult, though he manage to keep mostly out of the cross-hairs of Deloris Umbridge and start a defense club on his own. Though Harry no longer had part of Riddle's soul in him he still had a connection with him. After Arthur Weasley was attacked at the ministry he was required to take Occulumency lesions with Snape. This had officially ended badly, with Snape "tossing" him from his class, however Harry had, in this time managed to learn the ancient art well from Snape. Still, even with his skills Voldemort had managed to trick him into the ministry with a vision of him torturing his godfather. Turned out Sirius had been taken prisoner and tortured, mostly by Wormtail. In the following battle it was Wormtail that went through the veil and Sirius said "could not have happened to a nicer guy". The real tragedy was when Cho Chang had been killed by Bellatrix and Harry went after her in a fit of rage and very nearly killed her. Voldemort stopped him from doing that and would have killed him but for Dumbledore coming to save the day, and proving to Fudge Voldemort was back as he was right there in front of him.
The next year was mostly calm, Slughorn came back as the potions master and Snape ended up as the defense teacher. He was a good teacher, if you enjoyed landing on your ass more often than not and his biting, dark wit. Harry did get the potions book from the half blood prince, but shared it with Ginny who had him try out the spells on inanimate objects before he would try them on anything else. When he faced Draco in the bathroom he never did cast a Sectumsempra at the other boy, he only cast several shield charms and left the bathroom in a hurry. He never did say a word about seeing Draco crying and Draco was surprised that he had not, if he had Ron would have come to rub it in his face. Harry did get the complete memory from Slughorn and was forced to feed the poison to Dumbledore. Then he had to watch as Snape shoved Draco aside knocking him over and killing Dumbledore. The face-off Harry had with Snape went a bit different, he did managed to catch the man with a Cruciatus curse but Snape threw it off and stupefied Harry. When Harry woke Sirius was over him looking quite pale and vowing revenge on Snape.
There was one more small change, a gift that would shift the balance of the war even further from Voldemort. For sixteen years a woman had been in a mental hospital. No-one knew her name or where she came from, she could not speak and did not respond to those around her. All that could be done was keep her comfortable and that was it, then the woman had an accident, a surgery was needed and finally after so many long years the woman woke from her nearly catatonic state and slowly, ever so slowly she began to recover and remember who she was and what she was. A powerful lady had woke and soon would leave this place to take revenge on those who had wronged her and her family.
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So there is a set up for the story to follow, a bit of how a few little changes were made here, that changed Harry's life. Though not as much as what would have happened, oh and someone had to die in the battle of the ministry and though Cho is not a bad girl there was really no use for her in the story though she did die in battle, I did give her that.
Let me know what you think!