Author's Note: I've written some things in the past, but this is my first fanfic, so if you are gonna write a review – wich I encourage you to do – please be relentless. Also, English is not my native language, so when it comes to my grammar be even harsher.
I'll try to upload at least 1 chapter a week.
If you are reading this, thank you, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.
Every character and the whole world belongs to the one and only J. K. Rowling, I'm just playing in her kingdom for a bit.
Edition's Note: Fixed some grammar horrors. Hawkswench gets all the credit for that.
Chapter 1 - When all seems lost
Harry closed the door with a strong push. The rusty hinges yelled painfully, echoing through the library. The cold winter breeze slipped through the broken windows. It was hard to recognize the place that once was one of the most beautiful things that Harry had ever seen.
The boy threw his bag into the corner of the room, the cans inside made a bell-like sound when it hit the ground.
He sat in the ancient chair that stood in the middle of the room, between the towers of books, letting himself relax, at least just a bit. Hermione would have loved this place, even in its current state.
He stopped himself, by that point he knew better. He couldn't start weeping, not any more. He couldn't sink into fond memories, there were things to do.
The light cast by the candles flooded everything – the chair, the books, the low rivers of ice that hanged from the windows and the portrait of the old woman.
He watched the sleeping figure inside the golden framework. If you didn't know, you wouldn't have been able to notice the subtle movement of the witch's chest, or the slowly falling leaves on the background. Her head was down, resting in the precious bless of sleep.
"Minerva" Harry said.
The figure straightened up, opening her bright green eyes.
"Mr. Potter," she said in her thick Scottish accent, noticing Harry "how did the harvest went?"
"Poorly" said the boy shaking his head "There's almost nothing left at Hogsmeade. If we don't figure this out soon I'll have to start searching further"
"There's no passageway for that" said the witch.
"Then I won't use one" he said.
"That's too dangerous Potter" Mcgonagall said reprovingly.
"Not eating is pretty dangerous too" Harry said with a smirk "Don't worry, we'll figure this out" he quickly said before the strict witch could hit him with one of her characteristic admonish looks.
Harry graved a blue frayed book that was resting in the little table next to the chair. He opened it on the marked page and start reading, more to concentrate on something than anything else. He went through the well known page. A maze of complicated equations and strange runes fill every page of the book.
"Have you thought how to reduce the energy burning?" he said without moving his tired green eyes from the pages.
"No" she said almost in a whisper "Harry," the witch's voice was but a faint draught "maybe it can't be done"
"We can do it" said the boy, his attention overturned on the paper.
"I know," said the old woman "but maybe we should consider…"
"What!?" said the Boy Who Lived, throwing the book across the room as he stood up "What should we consider professor? Surrender? Let him win?"
"Harry, I didn't meant..." Minerva Mcgonagall said, her eyes immersed in her non-existing feet.
"I know what you meant" said Harry, spiting with every word "Do you think I haven't thought about it? Every day I have to convince myself not to let myself go, not to let him win. Bloody hell, he controls all Europe and almost all Asia. In a year he'll have America too"
The words echo through the library, filling every corner of the room with venomous thoughts.
"Voldemort won" he finally said turning to look at the defeated image of the last Hogwarts headmistress "Unless we can do this. Unless we can pull this off, all their deaths, all their sacrifices are in vain, and I can't live with that. Hell, I can't even died with that"
His eyes were heavy then. The green had succumbed and the pitch black had taken over.
"Harry," the professor said "this will most likely kill you"
"Well," Harry said, fetching the thrown book "at least I'll die trying"
Things were quieter then. Mcgonagall didn't talk again, but she didn't went back to sleep either.
Harry ate his way through the book "An assay in time travel", like he has done a hundred times before.
He had founded the book after he rescued the headmistress portrait from the fire that the death eaters had started after they thought him gone, and he had grapple to it like it was the last thing that matters in this world. Like things were, it probably was.
The memories of the "Hogwarts fall" were still very fresh in his mind, even after two years. The place that had become the head quarters of the last rebellion had burned like every other place Voldemort had put his hands on, and with it, his last friends had burned too.
He could still hear it. Neville's screams while he embraced what remained of Luna, Hermione's last words calling for the already gone Ron, Minerva, fighting till the end, screaming like Harry didn't even thought the witch could, and of course Ginny.
Hers he remembered most than all the others. Gin died in his arms. Still today he could see the blood running through her pores, he could feel it dampening his robes. She received the curse Snape meant for him, and died smiling, running her hand through his hair, like she used to do on the summers in the Burrow, under the tree that was theirs and no one else's.
By that point, tears ran all the way through Harry's face to finally fall in the dry pages of the well known book.
"That's it!" he said standing up, squeezing the book with such force that his knuckles had gone white.
The figure of the witch looked at him with a furrowed brow.
"Water" he said, the gears in his mind working at full speed "We haven't consider changing the medium. We can make a liquid that deals with energy in a worst way than air does"
"That way," Mcgonagall said, her eyes showed the gears starting to turn "we can apply enough energy to take you're soul back without it being destroyed by the backlash"
Harry started spinning in the spot. He felt something that he hadn't felt in a long, long time; hope.
"We have to run the numbers first" Mcgonagall said, but a smile had form on her face.
The next few days were consumed by math and potion making, which reminded Harry of his days as a student. Harry crunch the numbers, with no little help from Mcgonagall's portrait, and immediately started working on the complicated potion. Each day, Harry founded himself day dreaming about his friends, the family that had accepted the miserable Boy Who Lived, before they've known who he really was. He started dreaming at night too, something he hadn't been able to do in more than two years, not since the Hogwarts fall.
"This should do" said Harry, holding up the piece of paper with the recipe in front of the portrait.
"I really think that Lacewing flies would be a better active component than the Knotgrass" said the witch with a sigh.
"But we don't have any Lacewing flies, so Knotgrass it is" Harry said, pocketing the piece of paper.
He went to the tiny rack and grabbed the clear flask with the green leaves inside. Thankfully, some of Snape's ingredients had survived the fire. He dropped the contents of the flask into the massive cauldron. The leaves were consumed by the viscous boiling liquid, wich change from an opaque gray to a soft purple.
"It'll be just a few hours now" Harry said grinning, he kept roaming in front of the portrait "What do you think it'll do if I were to drink it?" he said when he noticed the preoccupied look of the old woman in the canvas.
Mcgonagall's face change suddenly, it was nice to know that the portrait maintained the witch's thirst for knowledge.
"You would probably die" she said "but potions was never my specialty"
"I wont test it" Harry said "just to be sure"
That draw a little mirth from Minerva "That's reassuring" she said.
Harry forced himself to stop moseying and he sat in the comfortable chair.
"Have you thought what will you do when you go back?" said Mcgonagall after a brief pause.
"If I go back" harry remarked "I don't know. I'm having problems with that"
"What problems?" she said with narrow eyes.
"I don't know wich theory is the correct one" Harry said, his gaze lost somewhere "There's a theory that sustains that no matter what I do, destiny can not be change"
"If that's true," Mcgonagall said "nothing of this really matters"
"I know" Harry said "that's why I'm gonna act as if that theory were wrong"
For a couple of seconds, all that you could hear in the room were the sound of viscous bubbles exploding.
"Another theory" Harry continued "says that I could change things, but that would make my memories… wrong in a way"
"If you change something in the past" Mcgonagall said siting up "that would change something in the future, which would make the memory that make you change that thing never happened so you would never have changed that thing in the first place"
"That sentence is awfully confusing" Harry said with a tired smile.
"What would happen in that case?" Mcgonagall said.
"It depends" Harry said "If the past I go back to is our past, that would be a paradox and time would shatters"
"Mr. Potter," the professor said, her eyes opening wide "that's horrible"
"Yes it is" Harry said downplaying it "that's why I try not to think about that one either. But there's another theory that maintains that I wont be traveling back to our past, I would be instead traveling to a different universe, that happens to be just like this one, only some years behind"
"All this thoughts are… disturbing to say the least" Mcgonagall said wrapping her arms around herself.
"I know" the boy said "that's the problem"
The room grew colder. Not even the sound of the brewing potion was able to disrupt the tension.
"This wont take us nowhere" Harry finally said "I'm going to assume that I can change things, and if that isn't the case, then I'll know I've done everything I could"
"Fine" the witch said shaking her head "So, what are you going to do?"
"I'll try to change as little as I can" Harry said "that way my memories will be useful for at least the first couple of years"
The tension kept growing. The witch was avoiding the question Harry knew she wanted to ask.
"Will you talk to him?" she finally said.
"I have nothing to tell him" Harry said, his hands were into fist, so tight that his knuckles went white.
"Harry," Minerva said "he did his best, he really cared about you"
"No he didn't" Harry said standing up "he only cared about destroying Voldemort, he couldn't care less about me"
"That's not true" Minerva said trying to sound convincing.
"Yes it is" lashed the boy "Everything, me living with the Dursleys, Snape, his damned Horcruces. He force me into a horrible destiny, he force my friends into a horrible destiny. All because 'It was the right thing to do'. He used his influence to manipulate every one of us"
By this point, the Boy Who Lived was shouting, pointing fiercely at the portrait. The old woman wasn't maintaining eye contact.
"He could have ask, you know?" Harry said, his voice getting lower "He could have trust the people that was prepared to die for him. Instead he only trusted the person that I repeatedly warn him about. That stupidity, no, that pride was his demise"
Harry was sited again, his hands trembled uncontrollably "Don't you ever said he cared, he doesn't deserve that"
Some time passed, it was hard to tell how much. The cold slowly leaved the room, consumed by the fire under the cauldron. The silent persevered though, that one only grew heavier.
"Did you double check the runes?" The professor finally said.
"Yes" Harry said, a remainder of his anger still lingered on his voice "They should take all of the castle energy"
Harry tried to calm down. He didn't realize the rancor he kept regarding Dumbledore. The old wizard had done what he thought best after all. But it was the foolishness of the man that really bother him. The headmaster thought himself the most powerful wizard, that's why he was so scared of Voldemort, the Dark Lord was the living proof that he wasn't. That's why his life quest was to vanish Tom Riddle.
Once his mind was cooler, the problem that had been nagging Harry for the last few days took first priority again.
"Minerva" he said not daring watch her friends image in the eyes "there's another problem"
"What would that be Harry?" Minerva said frowning.
"If the spell takes every bit of energy from the castle that means that the portrait..." he couldn't end the sentence, his throat closed and his eyes were full of tears.
"Harry" the old woman said starting to reach out with her hand before she stopped herself "This is only an image, the real Mcgonagall died more than two years ago"
"I know" the boy said in a whisper "but you've been my only friend for so long"
"Harry James Potter" the professor said, he had raised his head and discovered that she was staring very firmly at him "You are going to go back and fix everything so this portrait doesn't even have to exist".
Harry's eyes watered even more before the words of her friend, he had to bait his lip not to openly cry "Thank you" the boy said with a broken voice.
The old woman was crying profusely too when she nodded "Let's get to work" she said.
Harry checked the runes one more time. He was convinced they where fine, but the humdrum activity helped him calm his nerves. He put his hand on the cauldron, it was warm now, the time had come.
"It's time" Minerva said, probably noting his expression.
"Yes" hi said with a sad smile.
The boy approached the portrait and embraced it in an awkward hug "I'm going to miss you Minerva"
"You will go back just a week before school Harry" the old woman said with a sob "I will be there"
"I suppose" the boy said loosening his grip on the golden frame.
"About that" Minerva's image said looking very old "I've been thinking, and you shouldn't tell me anything of this, the past me I mean"
Harry's eyes were open wide "Why?" he said.
"You have to understand" the professor said "that at that time I didn't know you. You were only a very special child to me, and I didn't know what I know now"
Harry kept looking at the image of her friend.
"And I fear I wouldn't understand, I fear I would tell him"
"But" the boy said swallowing with difficulty "I need to tell someone"
"You will have your friends" she said.
"I can't do that to them" the boy said looking down "From my perspective, they are my family, but for them I'll just be a kid that could one day be their friend. I can't throw all of this at them, not for a couple of years at least"
"I think" Minerva said "that they would surprise you"
"Maybe" Harry said "but I can't risk it, I can't lose them again. I know is selfish…"
"Harry" Minerva said with smile "you have earned the right to be a little selfish"
"I'm going to really miss you Minerva" the boy said, tears threatening to come out again.
"I'm going to miss you too Harry" she said not holding back her own tears.
"Lets begin then" Harry said stepping towards the big cauldron.
He started removing his clothes. The professor cover her eyes until Harry told her he was inside the viscous liquid.
The purple liquid felt strange against his body, like if it were getting really close to his skin but not quite touching it. He removed his glasses and carefully placed them over his old robe on the floor.
"This is going to hurt a lot Harry" the professor said while the boy crouched, letting only his head and the arm holding the wand above the surface of the sulfur smelling liquid "You will essentially drown".
"I know" Harry said, his breathing heavy.
The boy gave a last look to his friend, touched one of the runes carved in the lip of the cauldron with his wand and he submerge in the thick liquid, letting his weapon fall to the ground.
The liquid quickly clasped him, pushing against his chest with unbelievable strength. He had to fight to stop the liquid from getting through his nose. Panic took over.
In a few seconds, the liquid started heating worryingly. Had they made a mistake in their calculations? Was the liquid not enough to contain the energy backlash?
Harry could feel when the spell fired. All the nerves in his body started screaming with pain. The agony was a hundred times worst than that of the Cruciatus curse. He fought to get out of the horrifying liquid prison, but the weight of viscous purple pressed him against the bottom of the cauldron.
He felt his heart slowing down, his muscles relaxing, his eyes slowly opening, and then, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, finally died.