Hello and welcome!

This is marked Romance & Humor mainly because of situational humor. I.e., this is me giving myself license to be incredibly stupid and even somewhat unrealistic during the whole writing process. I've already written a few chapters, but this is gonna follow seven years of Hogwarts schooling plus a few years before (and maybe an epilogue or something after), so you're in for a long ride, and honestly, I have no idea when it should get done! Chapters are pretty short, though, so I should be consistent with them... maybe...

If you see any errors feel free to let me know so I can correct them! And also, I own nothing. Obviously. (I'm not gonna put that on subsequent chapters because I can guarantee I won't be purchasing the Harry Potter franchise anytime soon...)

Part 1: Not Quite a Sociopath

Chapter 1: Tabitha James and the Stygian Elixir

Tabitha James was a lot of things: a witch, a scientist, president and founder of the Chosen One Fan Club... However, for the majority of the Hogwarts student body, all these things didn't really matter because of one little detail: she was in Hufflepuff.

Honestly, it was like everyone outside of Hufflepuff looked at the house as one big band of idiots with no real personality traits other than an extremely lacking presence of mind! This, of course, irritated Tabitha to no end. Sure, she only had good grades because of her unyielding determination, but we can't all be naturally brilliant. And Hufflepuffs knew when to stop studying and have a little fun. They were a much more cheerful bunch than the rest of the school, especially the Slytherins, and they were a tight-knit, helpful group. Sure, they were loyal to a fault and couldn't lie to save their lives, but they were also generous, loving, and dedicated. In fact, they were almost exactly like Gryffindors, minus the near-suicidal courageous streak and the need for recognition.

Funny that near-suicidal courageous streak should come up! Because despite her Hufflepuff sensibilities, Tabitha was about to do something very Gryffindor-ish. She would have felt uneasy about the ordeal had she not spent so much time on the preparations, but she'd been working on this project for two years, and by now she was certain she could safely make it back to the forties, find Tom Riddle, kill his sorry little ass and save Harry Potter from dying.

That's right, Harry Potter was dead. Tabitha pursed her lips at that thought, tugging off the bulky glove on her right hand to key in a few codes on the outer shell of the metal capsule before her. The thing was a masterpiece of science, really. Time travel was mere theory in the Muggle world, and even in the wizarding world it was only possible to travel a few hours at a time. However, Tabitha's machine was a marriage of the two worlds: magic to make the trip a possibility, and science to manipulate and direct the magic into a truly powerful force. It was a shame wizards didn't get this kind of idea more often. Imagine what magically enhanced nuclear weaponry could have done to Voldemort!

Tabitha sighed and pulled her gloves and goggles back on before stepping back to run a few last tests on the machine. The sounds of her machine's engine running quickly and smoothly, fed by a near-endless energy source she'd conjured up for it, echoed against the metal walls of the warehouse. Her sanctuary, since she and the other students too young to fight had been forced to flee Hogwarts a year ago. She'd wanted to stay and fight, but Professor Sprout had been livid at the very idea. She'd only been in third year then, and had spent nearly the entire year hiding out in the Room of Requirement with a growing crowd of fearful students while Death Eaters terrorized the school.

Somewhere in that mess of confusion and fear, Tabitha had been forced to face the facts: there was no guarantee this would turn out all right. There was no guarantee that Harry would be able to defeat Voldemort, prophecy or no. Not to scoff at his abilities or anything, but he was seventeen, and Voldemort was seventy. Voldemort wouldn't hesitate to kill Harry if he got the chance, and then what would happen? The Room of Requirement wouldn't hold up forever.

So, ever the determined little Hufflepuff that she was, Tabitha had made a plan B: time travel. Find out when Voldemort had been born and where he'd lived for the first few years of his life, then go back in time and kill him before he got strong enough to defend himself. There was a part of her that felt sick at the notion of killing a child before he had committed any of the crimes he later would, but the overwhelming part of her was saying that it didn't matter if he was innocent when he was a kid: he had killed Harry Potter.

She'd spent the entirety of her last year at Hogwarts flitting about the castle in search of clues that would drive forward her project. By the time the final battle had rolled around, the Room of Requirement had had to expand immensely to accommodate the books and papers strewn at the foot of her little hammock. Directories, directories, directories; record books; old graduation pictures she'd filched from teachers' desks; files straight out of Dumbledore's cabinet, of which she only knew the location because she had volunteered as the Headmaster's assistant bookkeeper for a few hours a week since first year.

She'd hit the jackpot when, just when she'd been about to give up, she tried Dumbledore's pensieve. Then everything had clicked into place: Tom Riddle. Wool's Orphanage. Artifacts once owned by the Founders themselves. Horcruxes.

That last one had kicked her into overdrive. That was how he'd come back. That was why Harry, her hero (actually, the entire Chosen One Fan Club's hero), had left Hogwarts. He had had to destroy Voldemort's horcruxes! With them, Voldemort was invincible. What nagged at Tabitha was one simple question: What guarantee did they have that Voldemort had stopped at seven? What if Harry went up against him and lost because he'd made just one more to be on the safe side?

So yeah, they'd needed a plan B. And Tabitha had found it: time travel. Tearing apart the fabric of time? Destroying the universe? Puh-lease, her machine wasn't built that way, thanks to some handy-dandy Muggle theories she'd applied while making it, not to mention all the tests she'd run, sequestered in this previously empty and now heavily-warded warehouse, in the past year since the Reign of the Dark Lord had begun. And also thanks to her (debatably mad) scientist parents, who had home-schooled her up until she left for Hogwarts and whose area of study had been time travel, although they'd never succeeded in making a functioning time machine.

They had theorized that time was thick and sticky, like silly putty. It molded to whatever container you put it in, and as long as you didn't try to rip it down the center, you never had to worry about it falling apart. Time-turners put you in the middle of the blob, where any false move could break everything. Muggle theories alone left you sitting on the outside, unable to touch it. Tabitha's time machine bridged the gap between theory and reality, between magic and science, and allowed you to prod at time, shape it into what you wanted it to be without harming it, by becoming part of it.

The key was reincarnation.

With a twinge of nervousness Tabitha removed her gloves and goggles, and then the rest of her clothes. She picked up a previously-prepared syringe filled with caustic blue fluid and clutched it tightly in her hand, forcing herself to breathe deeply. This wouldn't hurt too bad, she told herself. She could do it. Where was that Gryffindor streak when she needed it?

She exhaled slowly, her eyes drifting shut. This was the only way. That was how reincarnation worked, after all: you die, and then you're reborn. The only thing her time machine did was let you decide when you'd be reborn, and allow you to keep your memories of your past life. She'd also programmed the machine to quietly and safely self-destruct five seconds after it was used, to prevent anyone else from stumbling on it.

No one needed this type of technology, especially not Voldemort.

Steeling herself with that thought, she stepped forward into the capsule. The doors slid shut automatically behind her, trapping her in a softly-lit cage of her own making. Once again she looked at the syringe and felt her heart skip a beat. This was the only part of the process that she truly feared. In that syringe was a potion known as Stygian Elixir. One drop and you were dead, just like that. No pain, no second thoughts, no going back.

After all, you had to die before you could be reborn.

She'd planned it just right, she knew, even taking the time to create an automatic syringe so she couldn't mess up and wind up either dead or the culprit of universe-level destruction. It was just the thought of dying that made her…

"No." The word was quiet, spoken in a cool, even tone despite the shivers she felt raking across her exposed skin. Tabitha bit her lip and strapped the syringe to her wrist, double- and then triple-checking the angle before she finally looked straight forward. The tip of the needle pressed lightly against the tender skin of her forearm.

She swallowed back tears. In just a few moments, this would all be over. Either she'd be dead and wouldn't care, or she'd have succeeded in the most monumental time travel known to man. And no one would know. No one would know about what she'd done but her, because no one could know about this. This was dangerous knowledge, the kind that you only found mentioned in passing in the Restricted Section. The kind that no book in Knockturn Alley even dared to describe for fear of its abuse.

Perhaps, Tabitha mused in the last moments of her life, it was best that the wizarding and Muggle worlds remained separate after all, for a combination of these two most lethal forces would no doubt do more harm than good.

And then she hit the button in front of her, the single button she'd installed so that once she was in this capsule she'd have no way out but forward.

There was a sharp pain in her forearm, and the lights in the capsule seemed to swirl and coalesce as the engine whirred evenly. Darkness clouded her vision and her mind as the world around her faded away in an almost welcoming sort of light.