This my first attempt at a fanfiction. I welcome constructive criticism but will just ignore flames.

This story does seem a little uncanon at first but that will be explained in the story. Hope you like it!

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December 31st 1935 2pm

"We are so screwed." I think as I stare in shock at the infamous young necromancer lying dead in front of me. This day started out so well. It's a shame things are spiraling out of control as quickly as they are.

I am the leader of a research team who uses time travel to observe and catalog history and check the validity of current wizarding history books. I have a very professional team of wizards (and one very brilliant yet slightly unstable witch) so I never thought that anything this bad could've ever happened.

As I listen to the witch on my team cry into the shoulder of her scared looking husband, I think back to this morning before everything went monumentally wrong and reality started to crumble.

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July 18th 20** 5:30am

My name was Thomas. I was a relatively attractive brown haired, blue eyed 36 year old who absolutely loved history. It was one of my favorite subjects and I was happily obsessed with it. So when I was asked to lead a project in the Department of Mysteries involving time travel into the distant past I jumped onboard right away. At the moment my team stuck to current events that happened over the past century but I hoped in time that we would be able to go back further. We investigated both big exciting past events, and smaller but no less important past events. Currently we had been assigned a smaller event to observe and while not very exciting it did sound at least relatively important to the ministry of magic.

I entered the Time room inside the Department of Mysteries and looked at the team that I had assembled over the past year. They were all brilliant people that had been handpicked by me for their mastery in their various specialties.

Scorpius Malfoy, a pale blond man with a serious and proud yet friendly disposition, currently sat at the table in one corner of the room reading through a report he'd put together with information on the wizards alive during the 1930s. Scorpius was my genealogy specialist. Trust a man from a pure blood family like the Malfoys to know more about wizard family trees than almost anyone alive. One of my two Arithmancy specialists, named Augie McMillan, sat across from him at the table playing a muggle game I think he called "Sudoku" while he tried hard not to fall asleep. The young intern that was just placed on the team last month sat next to him with his head down on the table, snoring a bit. I thought his name was Anton but I could've been wrong. He was the only one on my team not handpicked by me personally so I always had trouble remembering his name. I didn't mind him being here much though since the teen was one of the only people to ever become an Unspeakable while still being a student at Hogwarts. So he was intelligent, if a bit immature and reckless at times.

A young dark haired witch with heavy lidded eyes stood near the large time device in the middle of the room looking at the various readings it was giving off. Donna Weasley was the second Arithmancy specialist on the team. She was a genius when it came to complex Arithmancy calculations and was an irreplaceable member of the team. I had a feeling though that all those complex calculations that always ran through her head might've been making her a little unstable.

Donna looked up as I entered the room and smiled happily at me. I grimaced a little. It was no secret that she had quite a thing for me but I'd never dream of dating a coworker, especially one that I respected so much. Plus she was married so that was a big no. The middle aged bushy haired woman standing next to Donna noticed my grimace and snorted, fully aware of how taken the pretty young genius was with me. The bushy haired Unspeakable, a brilliant muggleborn witch named Hermione Granger, distracted Donna from coming over and making me uncomfortable by getting her into an animated discussion about muggle mathematics. I silently thanked her. I considered Hermione my second in command in a way. She held all the technical aspects of the project together quite flawlessly and the rest of the team looked up to her as sort of a mother type figure. Even Scorpius liked the brilliant muggleborn and he was a Malfoy so that was a bit surprising. She also invented the time device by herself so there was also that.

Donna's husband, Rudy stood in one corner of the room, head peeked around the several large bookshelves there, shaking his head and frowning as he saw his wife smiling at me flirtatiously. I gave him an apologetic smile. Donna really needed to learn not to flirt with her boss like she did. It was very unprofessional. And to do it right in front of her husband was even worse. Rudy's twin brother Stan looked up from the files and history books he was sorting and got into a playful argument with him to cheer him up. The twins Rudy and Stanley Weasley were excellent field historians and had nearly eidetic memories for historical events and dates. They just weren't very good with people. And so Rudy's marriage with Donna became a bit rocky at times with him not really understanding his own wife that well.

I cleared my throat to get everyone's attention. "Good morning everyone." I said as my team looked in my direction, the young intern Anton startling awake at the table. "I know you are all probably wondering why I called you here so early this morning." Various grumbles could be heard around the room. The teenage intern yawned rather loudly, clearly not used to being up this early, even when he was at school. Scorpius glared at him for his lack of decorum.

"Anyway, it seems that our latest time travel trip date has been pushed up to this afternoon." my team looked up at me in shock when I said this.

"I thought we had at least a week to plan all this!" Hermione grumbled angrily at me. The rest of the team protested loudly about the late notice.

I quieted them down and continued. "I know. I know it's terribly last minute but the higher ups really need the data as soon as possible it seems. That is why I brought you all in early so we could get everything ready before this afternoon."

I looked at all of the worried expressions on my team's faces and tried to reassure them. "Don't worry everyone. I have a lot of confidence in you all. You are all the best Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries and I have no doubt that if we all buckle down we can easily get everything ready before we head out later today."

As I looked around at my team, who still looked a bit worried as they started scrambling to prepare everything, I noticed that a member of my team was missing. "Where is Sev? Is he not here yet?"

"We haven't seen him yet today." Scorpius replied as he rushed over to his desk to start collecting the data he needed. "I don't think he's here yet."

"Well we can't go anywhere without our field medic with us so he'd better show up soon. He has to go through our medical supplies and give you all physicals before we go." I frowned. My friend, Severus Prince, hadn't been all that punctual lately. He was the team healer and was also quite good at potions. Not quite a potion master yet but well on his way. We were quite close and usually I could trust the man with just about anything. It seemed though, that we were going to have to have a long talk later about his slipping punctuality.

About an hour later the young healer walked in cheerfully. "Good morning everyone!"

Donna giggled as she saw him walk in. "Sevy's in trouble!" she said in a singsong voice.

Sev looked up and actually looked a bit scared as he saw me storm over to him with a very angry look on my face. "Didn't you get my owl telling you to come in early?" I seethed. "The date of our next project has been pushed up to later today and I need you to perform physicals on everyone that is going!"

"Sorry Thomas I must've missed the owl," Sev said with an embarrassed grimace "I was in my potions lab at home finishing up some potions I was experimenting on. I'll get on those physicals right away." He then ran off to get set up.

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July 18th 20** 1:00pm

Before I knew it the afternoon had arrived. Everyone had all their notes and supplies they needed packed in their expandable bags. Sev had given everyone physicals and deemed that everyone was fit enough to go. The team now stood by the large time device in the middle of the room waiting for Hermione and Donna to start it up.

The time device itself looked a lot like its smaller cousin the timeturner only a lot bigger and a bit more complicated looking with an intricate system of gears and cogs surrounding it. It also had handholds attached to its base where its users could hang onto it when it was activated. The device itself was actually designed by my coworker Hermione shortly after she graduated from Hogwarts based off theories she had during school. She had spent two years using a timeturner to get to all of her classes and wondered during that time if a similar device could be constructed for much longer trips into the past rather than the timeturner's standard 24 hour limit. For some reason though she could never think of a better name for her invention other than "time device".

Hermione started the device up and let it warm up. The numerous gears and cogs started spinning slowly. Donna hummed happily as she fiddled with its many controls getting really excited for another trip into the past. "What was the date we needed again?" she said as she typed in the departure date and time into the control panel.

"December 31st 1935 I believe." I looked at my notes. The event we needed to witness firsthand was one that didn't have many reliable firsthand accounts it seemed, hence the reason for us going. What was certain though was that a small break in at the ministry happened on December 31st 1935 at around 1pm in the afternoon when most ministry workers were off celebrating New Year's Eve. And strangely enough the intruder somehow used the visitor's entrance to get in, despite that entrance being closed for the holiday. My team and I were supposed to stand relatively close to that entrance and observe how the incident began. It seemed like a relatively small incident but the ministry of magic had wanted to know how they were broken into like that. They did know that inside the ministry the intruder was quickly apprehended by an overworked auror that just happened to be one of the few people working that day. But since there was no one to witness how the intruder actually hoodwinked the visitors entrance they needed to find out. Too bad the auror was overworked that day or his interrogation of the man wouldn't have accidentally turned lethal and there would be no need now to go back in time to find out how he pulled it off.

"Yeah that's the date we need and set it for around 11am. And for the location, a couple blocks from the visitor's entrance of the ministry of magic should do it, preferably in a nice secluded nearby park or dark side street please, so no one will see us arriving."

Hermione looked closely at a map of London circa 1930's that Donna held up and looked for a secluded spot for us to land. She pointed at small space on the map. "That little park should work. It's still there today and I've been there before sometimes to sit and read while on my lunch break. It's a nice secluded spot." She plugged the information into the control panel. "Ok it's all set up. Just tell me when you you're ready and I'll activate it."

I turned towards my team and casted a Notice-Me-Not spell on each of them and then on myself. "Invisibility cloaks on now everyone and grab a handhold." I pulled the hood of my invisibility cloak up and watched as one by one everyone put their cloaks on and disappeared, soon leaving only Hermione visible. Then I grabbed a handhold on the time device.

"Is everyone touching the device and ready to go? Count off." I heard each of my invisible team call out that they were ready. "Hermione, would you be so kind as to activate the device now?"

"Sure thing Thomas." She said to my as she pointed her wand at the device, shot a spell at it, then quickly backed away. "Don't have too much fun without me. I'll hold down the fort here till you get back." She smiled "Remember you only have 4 hours and then you have to be back at the park where you landed to come back here." She waved at her invisible team as the large rings on the device started to spin.

I looked up from my grip on the handhold to watch the sand in the hourglass at the center start to fall. And then time started to blur around me…

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December 31st 1935 11:00am

Colors blurred fast around me. I felt like I was going to be sick. Suddenly everything stopped and we landed rather heavily on hard ground, the grass underneath me hardly breaking the impact of my fall. I lay there in the grass for a few moments trying to steady myself. Then I sat up and looked around, seeing the imprints in the grass of my invisible team nearby. Good, so their invisibility cloaks didn't fall off during the landing. I saw that some of the trees around our landing spot had been knocked over by the force of our landing. I was really going to have to talk to Hermione later about making the landing a little less forceful. It would be awful if any people were in the vicinity when we landed during these trips. They would most likely be extremely hurt.

I stood up and brushed the grass off my robes. "Is everyone ok?" I said after I looked around and determined that no people were in the area other than my team.

I heard a groan to my left. "Ugh Hermione really needs to smooth out our landings. I feel like I got hit by Hogwarts Express." The voice might've been Augie's but I couldn't be sure.

"I'm a-ok boss!" the distinctive voice of Donna chirped cheerfully.

"All limbs attached and accounted for sir." The twins called out at the same time.

"I think I landed in some mud! This is a new robe and I've ruined it!" what could only be Scorpius Malfoy cried out.

After it was determined that everyone made it here ok we all made our way over to the location across from the Ministry building.

After we got to the spot across from the Ministry visitors entrance I erected various wards around the spot we were standing at so my team could remain safely unseen. I also put up a repelling ward so no one would accidently walk into us while we were there. Once they had made sure that all the wards were up my team all took off their invisibility cloaks and started setting up their equipment.

Rudy and Stan brought out and set up their magic camera, which acted quite a bit like a muggle video camera in that it recorded up to an hour of things rather than just a moment. Their uncles Fred and George Weasley had invented it to record their various epic pranks over the years. One of the most memorable being when they turned the entirety of Diagon Alley bright purple for a week. Everything, even the people who happened to be there at the time had been turned a lovely shade of violet. The elder Weasley twins had to steer clear of Knockturn Alley for awhile after that since the spell they used had leaked a bit into the infamous dark alley and various unsavory witches and wizards were forced to walk around completely purple for awhile. Apparently Dark wizards don't like being purple.

Donna and Augie set up a device to measure different magical signatures and spells at a distance. It wasn't as if they could go up to their subject and ask what spells he was using so this device would be useful in figuring out how he had gotten into the Ministry through a locked visitors entrance. The intern Anton handed them pieces of the device as they set it up, glad to be helpful.

Scorpius conjured a plush armchair and sat down to read his notes. He got out a bit of parchment for any extra notes he might've needed to make. He then conjured two more chairs. One for me and one for Severus, who was standing over to the side watching everyone work. Sev accepted the chair, thanking Scorpius as he sat down in it.

I remained standing and looked around at my surroundings. The 1930s looked so different from my own time. At least the muggle side of things anyway. The Wizarding world probably didn't look too different since wizards didn't like change much.

By the time everything was set up it was almost time for the event to happen. My team waited expectantly and watched across the street for the man to show up. When he finally did show up and proceeded to the visitors entrance we discovered that the trip had been a bit of a waste. As it turned out, someone had forgotten to lock the visitors entrance that day and as it was a holiday it hadn't been set up right to screen visitors. So the man had basically just walked right in. The whole team groaned. All of that set up for nothing.

My team grumbled as they packed away their equipment. I thought to myself that I would have to make it up to them in some way for all of the disappointment. After everything had been packed up everyone put their invisibility cloaks back on and I disassembled the wards. Then my team and I trudged back to the small park that we had arrived at this time period at.

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December 31st 1935 1:50pm

As we arrive back at the small park I notice something in the bushes near one of the fallen trees. I get a bad feeling about it as I walk slowly up to what the bushes are hiding, my invisibility cloak sliding off as I walk.

"Tom what's wrong?" Severus says with a frown as he sees me walk up to what looks like a bundle of clothes in the bushes.

As I get close enough to see what the bundle of clothes in the bushes really is, I stop and stare in shock at it. It's the dead body of a child! The boy looks no older than ten years old and he is lying dead in the bushes. Hadn't I just thought a few hours ago that I needed to talk to Hermione about making the landings safer so no innocent bystanders would get hurt by the impact of the landings? And now I wish I hadn't been proven right.

Severus suddenly appears next to me as he throws his invisibility cloak off and rushes over to the body to confirm if the boy is really dead. He checks for a pulse and mutters a few spells then straightens up looking sad. "He's dead Tom. Did we do this to him?"

"It looks that way Sev. Could you check to see if he has something on his person that tells us his name? I need to know just how bad a situation we are in." I say sadly.

I hear a sob behind me. "Why does it matter what his name is?" Donna cries "We killed a child! I know it was an accident but still it's a child he's dead because of us!"

"Donna its not just that we killed a child. We killed someone that was supposed be alive during this time. All the things this boy would've done will never happen now. If he wasn't really noteworthy we might be ok but if he did anything big then we are screwed because reality might not be able to deal with a big change in the timeline." I say as Severus checks to see if the boy has identification. I see that the rest of my team have all taken their cloaks off by this time so I quickly put up some wards around the park so no one will notice us all.

"Those are just theories Tom. We have no idea what would happen if we changed something big" Augie says "but I agree with you, I doubt anything good would happen. More like some reality shattering consequences probably."

"Well I suppose we should get ready for some reality shattering consequences now" Severus says as he straightens up and looks at us. "The tag on the boys shirt had his name on it. His name was Sylvester Markos Lee."

Everyone stared at Severus in shock. "You don't mean The Sylvester Markos Lee do you? The big bad necromancer Sylvester Lee?" Anton speaks up and then looks thoughtful for a moment. "Well that's good then isn't it? None of the horrible things he did will happen now. We saved the Wizarding world from a future dark lord."

I give him a sad look. "I'm afraid it's not that simple Anton. There's a reason we can't go back in time and change things. This big of a change, well I doubt anything good will come of it."

Donna runs over to her husband and buries her head in his chest. He puts his arms around her "It'll be ok Belladonna. Everything's going to be alright." But Rudy doesn't look like believes the words he is saying. He looks very scared. Donna sobs into his robes.

I hold my head in my hands and think to myself that we are all well and truly screwed. Sure enough reality starts to warp a little around us. I feel hopeless until I suddenly think of something that could fix everything. We could replace the dead future dark lord with another dark lord. Then if we had that dark lord do things very similar to how the first dark lord would do them then reality might be fixed. I tell my team this idea.

"But how on earth are we going to find another dark lord in time?" Severus asks with a frown. "Reality is already starting to crumble."

"It's quite simple really. We make one." I look grim as I say this. "I'll take his place. You can brew a de-aging potion Severus and I can take the necromancer's place at the orphanage he lived at. I'll become the new dark lord."

I can do this, I know I can. I am a parseltongue so people won't question it. I have to do this. I, Tom Marvolo Gaunt must become a monster in order to save the world.

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Well there you have it. My first chapter. Yes my little timetraveling Tommy is Tom Riddle Jr. I thought it would be interesting to have the irony that he has to become a dark lord to save the world. The next chapters will deal with the other members of Tom's team and how they deal with having to do really bad things to stop reality from crumbling. Severus will go from his cheerful self to his more well known snarky broody self. Bella will go off the deep end. Tom will slowly decend into Voldy madness. Fun stuff. To be continued. Hopefully soon.