Chapter 1. Starting to go back

The idea started to form in an innocuous moment, not anything noticeable, or even anything memorable. Just an usual winter night with clear sky and shining stars.

In the muggle London two figures were lying on a fifteen-storied apartement house's roof and gazing upwards still. Around them were numerous snow-angels that showed their activity beforehand.

„It looks like you could almost touch the stars," commented the woman softly.

„Emphasis on the word almost," chuckled the man next to her.

„There is everything written there. The past, present and future."

„I know. Only we, humans, can't read it. Though maybe its better this way."

„Probably," the woman said dreamily, paused for a moment and went on, „Would be awfully boring to know that tomorrow there is going to be a frog jumping out of your morning coffee. I mean, this way it wouldn't be funny at all."

„True, true."

„But think what it would have been to have known the future back then. What if you had known that it's so much better to make snowangels on a rooftop, before you went to Hogwarts."

„We could have climbed on the castle's roof," mused the man, smiling faintly, „and done a lot of other things. I could even have been a top student in potions."

„Oh yes, Snape would have had Crackputs for that."

„Crackputs?"

„They infest person's hair, if said person is consuming too much pink Calming Draught."

„I thought that the Draught was blue in colour. But I suppose you could get it changed something pinkish if added some powdered moonstone, and then the pixie dust," he paused, frowning, „and then some caterpillars to stop the dust reacting with Camomille nectar, hmm…" he stopped, thinking of potions theory. He needed pen and paper for the calculations.

„It would be violet, not pink."

„Yes you are right, well, I guess, you could always add some muggle food colours."

„Exactly my idea."

„Yes I see what you mean, if Snape was adding that to his potion, he would be totally over the edge."

„Hmm. It could be fun though. And you could enjoy Hogwarts once more. I mean that there are probably countless plants in the greenhouses, that you didn't explore before, and you never had time to write a thesis about the thestrals there."

„You got a point there."

There was a silence, both of them lost in memories.

„And all the dead people," she added softly after a while, voicing what they were actually most fervently thinking about.

„Yes, all them." The man whispered with a far away sadness. All the dead friends. If he only had known what was to come. Or thought before acting more. Or hadn't trusted Dumbledore so blindly and looked things up for himself.

„So, you'd like to try?" asked the woman, „To go back knowing whats to come?"

„Would you come with me?"

„Oh, you know, Harry Potter, I'd come to the moon with you. It's never boring around you."

„Yes, the reporters, Dark Lords and deadly creatures, and attempts to poison me. Hmm, not to mention the quidditch reps. And small garden snakes."

„You forgot the Invisible books that attacked you last night."

„Ah them too."

„Great."

„Lu, you didn't actually find an highly illegal ritual to send us back in time, did you?" Harry asked in a more amused than appaled tone. He had known Luna for a long time.

„I don't actually think that it's illegal." She said in her dreamy voice, but wasn't fooling Harry any.

„Simply because the Ministry doesn't know about it and so can't forbide it?" he asked flatly.

„Something along these lines," Luna giggled, „Though they have restricted all dark magic. And rituals. And meddling with time. And there is a chance the ritual is complitely imaginary and won't work at all. After all, the book I found it from, was positively infested with nargles."

„Probably. It doesn't happen to be in one of those diaries written by Bloody Nutcase Arthur?" Harry inquired varily. If there was an author to be vary of, it was Bloody Nutcase Arthur.

„It's actually Bounty Nustern Arthur Carmaichail. I think I mentioned it sometime before."

„And I think it still is Bloody Nutcase Arthur. I have read some of the books after all."

They didn't do any time-travel ritual, or didn't even consider it in earnest, just more like a joke, or better yet – a daydream. But the thought started in that night on that rooftop. And become a game between the two of them, occasionally making comments to each other of all the things that they could have done. And what would have happened, if for example Harry got sorted into Huffelpuff or pranked Fred and George, turned Petunia's hair green, went to lunch with Fudge after the third task, became friends with the basilisk, exposed Voldemort's head under Quirell's turban, sent Snape Christmas cards or collected all the horcruxes and glued the soul shards in them together. Luna was wondering if then they would have made another insane Lord Voldemort, or would he be the clever, dangerous and cunning boy Tom Riddle. Well, first they should have gotten a body for it. Or if it even was possible to put the soul shards back together without including the wrath himself. It would have been an interesting experiment. Also there were the burning questions of what else was in the Room of Hidden Things that had been all but destroyed. Because as Harry and Luna had figured, after the fire, the Room of Requirement didn't work well at all. It seemed that all the necessary preps, like dummies, books, fireplaces, vanishing cabinets and whatnot that morphed the Room of Requirement into the different amazing shapes, came actually from the Room of Hidden things. And all the lost or abandoned things in the entire castle found their way into that place, when no-one wondered any more where they were. So all the old school books forgotten to the dorms, all lost clothes, newspapers, even teddybears – they found their place in there, waiting for someone to pace three times in front of the wall on the seventh floor and wish for them, so that the Room could provide them.

Luna was also thinking of all the poor Nargles who loved stealing and Teddlybee Bumbags who used to live inside old magical artefacts. Because this was a Room where there was bound to be numerous colonies of both, and as every living being, they weren't immune to something like the fiendfire. Or like any dead being. Or rather, anything at all.

But as much as they talked about it, they weren't considering really going back.

Until Luna died. Unexpectantly and unbelievingly. In a stupid accident. And Harry all but lost it.

Hermione tried to console him, invited him to stay with her, Ron and their two little kids, Rose and Hugo, and George was there, knowing better than anyone what it felt like to lose someone so close, understanding and familiar. There also were Bill and Fleur with their family, but all them had their own lives and Harry ended up more alone than not. He did feel more as a fifth wheel in their lives, rather than truly included. And after he had broken up with Ginny, there had always been some strain between him and the Weasleys.

It was two years later, when Harry sorted through some boxes in the little apartement, where they had occasionally lived together with Luna. And found again the diaries of Bloody Nutcase Arthur. And leafing through them, he suddenly laughed, not merrily and happily, but bitterly and full of desperation. There were the rituals of time-travel, the little joke between the two of them, that he had all but forgotten already. Now he looked hungrily through them, thinking of Luna's fingers, as she must have stroked the pages, and her dreamy smile, that graced her face when she had found some rather amusing entry.

At twenty eight, Harry wasn't in any way the reckless Gryffindor hero, or the Bloody-Useless-Boy-Who-Lived, who had survived only on pure luck. No, he had been through war, destruction, the death of his friends, couple of years in auror department, in politics, and all the time – whatever he did – on newspaper's pages. Also he didn't think of Light and Dark in Black and White, Merlin, he himself wasn't even any more the exeptionally Light and stupidly naive wizard he used to be in his school years.

But it wouldn't hurt to look into the rituals. Or experiment with the higly illegal and dangerous ingredients needed for them, or do some research into all the runes that he didn't even recognise from the fading diary's pages. After all, Harry was totally capable of following the security lines. And it wasn't like he had something more intresting to do. Or anything at all actually.

Dear Mione,

I've gone into a daydream. Or insane. Or just done somehing incredible stupid, and thrown myself into yet another of THOSE situations.

Don't be too sad or angry at me, or mourn me, though I think I won't ever be back. You have Ron and Rose and Hugo, and the Weasleys, and your job. And all the books in the world that you haven't read yet. Or written yet. Just make the best of everything.

This is actually what I'm trying to do as well. Make the best of my time. But in somewhere else. In somewhen else. As someone else. Almost someone else. It definitely is going to be intresting. If nothing else.

And give my greetings everyone.

Harry

PS! Burn the PPS!

PPS! Did a time-travel ritual. There, I've said it now.

It had taken months to get the rituals sorted out. And the potion ingredients that were required for the painting of the runestones. But there he stood – naked, inside an old stone circle, near Luna's childhood home. He also was surrounded by the runestones he had been making and carving and immersing in potions. The runes on them were gloving purple – being filled with his blood and his magic. There were long chants in latin to be sang, and an immeasurable amount of power to be thrown around. Also there was some time-sand to be eaten and burned inside his magic. And meditating, going into himself, into his mind, into his magic, diving into so deep, that anything around him become of little interest, or didn't exist any more at all for him.

Harry knew everything he had to do, now he just had to do it and see if it worked or not. He was rather curious.

So he did the ritual. And afterwards blacked out.

There was dark and Harry was lying on some substance. Not solid, but not anything else as well. He stood up, squinting his eyes in the dim light around him, but nothing else appeared. It looked like he was in the middle of nothingness. Well, there was some darkness as well. And some odd shadows.

„Now what?" he muttered. The place in some strange reason reminded him of the King's Gross station where he had been thrown after being killed by Tom and had his little chat with Dumbledore.

„Now you are dead," someone answered in a silky whispery tone, then added rather crossly, „or should be."

„Really? Did I mess the ritual up?" he inquired, thinking that if he ideed was dead, the situation itself was interesting enough. But as he looked around, there was no-one talking to him. The voice sounded like it came from everywhere around him at once.

„Oh no, but something did get messed up," it commented.

„What then?"

„Those three brothers, and their arrogance. The deal."

„The three brothers?" Harry asked. The conversation was getting weirder and weirder.

„Yes, mere mortals, thinking that they can fool me."

„Want to elaborate?"

„And now I have to deal with situations like that. You should be dead," the voice went on, not explaining anything.

„So I'm not dead?"

„You could be."

„But I'm not?"

„You would be."

„Why I'm not then?" He asked, exasperated.

„You mastered the three." The three what? But then it clicked.

„The hallows?"

„Congratiolations. Now I have to listen what you wanted to do. Now I have to talk to you," the voice was still mostly creepy and mostly emotionless, but Harry was sure that he heard some annoyance as well.

„You are the Death?" He asked, for some reason not feeling fearful.

„I can be."

„Okay, so about the ritual. Will it work?" He wanted to know, really, getting a stright answer from the-maybe-Death, was like talking to centaurs.

„You want it to work I gather. And it would solve my problem," mused the voice after a slight pause.

„What problem?"

„You should be dead." Ah not that again.

„Yes, we already covered that," ha said, but then paused, „Why though?" he wanted to know.

„Meddling with time is not for mortals. Any other would have died."

„I have always been a little odd in that way." Starting with surviving the killing curse and then going on and on with all the other near-death experiences, Harry was used to living through most unexpected situations.

„Hmm, yes, haven't you?" was the unhelping answer he got as the shadows started to grow, and his surroundings going darker and darker. And then Harry was out of it again.