A/N: This is an interlude after "Secret of the Shapers" and before "Blight of Dragons", and parts of it directly follow up on "Borrowed Destiny" and "Legacy of the Shapers".

This is based on the "Harry Potter" series by J. K. Rowling, and the video game "Geneforge" by Spiderweb Software.

I'm Lexen Chelseer, the interdimensional time traveler, although it has been eighty years since I last did so. But I'm immortal. I was content to wait, and allow a person I loved to be happy, even if I could never understand why she would reject immortality herself.

I don't know that I will ever understand why Cassiopeia Black chose to accept death. But I loved her. I will always love her. And for that, I will allow her that free choice, even if I cannot comprehend it, and much as it hurt to let her go.

Now, I'm waking once again in the dormitory in the School of Thought, in Torn Elkandu, the center of the universe. It has been eighty years since I first discovered that I could actually travel through time - a silly thought, I know, since I've known since the start of all this that I could travel back through time when I die, either to the last time I woke up or to the first day that I died depending on how I was killed.

But now, however, I know that I don't have to always go to the same point in time when I travel to another world through the Nexus. I don't have to return to the summer of 1991. Completely by accident, a stray thought, a stray wish from Cassie, sent us back to 1933 instead.

So, where am I going this time? Exactly the place that I just left. Time I just left. Whatever. I head for the Nexus, and don't even stop to bother the woman tending it. I concentrate on an image of the room in my home in Wizarding Earth, where Tom, Gellert, Rispy, and I had gathered up to make some final discussions before leaving. Where Tom hit me with one last Killing Curse, sending my soul hurtling across space and time back to Torn Elkandu.

Glowing mists surround me, filling the space between the ring of obelisks, and when my vision clears, I'm somewhere else. Home, surrounded by the blinking, confused faces of my friends.

"Wait, how did we get back here?" Rispy wonders, scratching behind one of his big, floppy ears.

"This is where I chose to go," I say, beaming broadly. "It seems that it worked."

I gather them up and Recall us all back to the Nexus. The view shifts, and the purple skies of Torn Elkandu return.

"So it would appear," Tom says, looking around with a grin. "Fascinating."

"What did you guys experience in the few minutes before I used the Nexus and went there?" I ask.

They shake their heads. "Nothing," they concur.

"I simply cast Avada Kedavra, and then there was a swirl of mist," Tom says. "It was a little disorienting. I could feel something yanking my soul around, but there was no interval."

"I think it's high time that we figure out just what I can do and where we can go," I say.

"Yes," Tom agrees. "It's about time. What shall we look at first?"

"I'm thinking perhaps poke around Wizarding Earth a bit," I say. "For short periods here and there. None of these eighty year spans in one timeline again."

"If you're heading back to a period where I was imprisoned," Gellert says, "then you don't have to bother coming to get me out if you aren't planning to stay for long. I'd like to try to find a way out of Nurmengard myself."

"You spent fifty years there and couldn't get out," Tom says.

"I did," Gellert says. "But that was fifty years in a prison I'd built myself and accounted for every contingency I could think of. I couldn't learn anything new in there and everything I knew that might get me out, I'd already thought of and patched up. It's been a century since then, a century of learning many interesting new things that I could not have accounted for when I built the place."

"Worth a shot," I say, shrugging.

"I know it's completely unnecessary," Gellert says, chuckling. "But it's a puzzle that's been bothering me for a while. Am I a sad person for spending my spare time thinking of ways to break out of my own prison?"

"Nah," Rispy says. "As for me, I can stand being with the Parkinsons for a while if need be, so don't worry about me if I'm there. I'll get away from them myself if I can."

Tom smirks at them and says, "As for me, well, I really mind being a book, so please get me out of there as soon as possible." He grins at me and snickers. "No, honestly, I'm barely aware of being a damned book, so don't worry about it if you're doing something else somewhere. I'd really just rather not miss out on anything. But go ahead and have fun, and let us know what you learn when we meet up next."

"I think this was more intended to be about learning information than having fun," I say with a smirk.

"You're a Ravenclaw," Tom says.

"Point." I chuckle.

"Alright," I say, stepping into the Nexus again. "Here goes nothing. I'll see you all on the other side, somewhere or sometime."

And where - when - to go? The first thing that comes to mind... a flash of green light in a graveyard. Quirrell slaying me and sending me back to the start. The first time I was ever hit by the Killing Curse.

Glowing mists surround me and my companions, and the runed streets of Torn Elkandu vanish.

"HARRY!" screams Cedric.

My eyes snap open, staring up at a darkened sky. I'm laying flat on my back in the dirt. Quickly, I roll over and scramble to my feet, reaching for my wand. My leg protests in pain from a partially healed wound as I do so.

"What the-" Quirrell begins. "But... you... how!?"

"I'm the fucking Boy-Who-Lived!" I yell. Maybe I actually deserve that appellation now. I point my pine wand at him. "Surrender, or you will be destroyed."

"You- What can you possibly do to me, boy?" Quirrell demands. Then his eyes move to a shadow at my side. "And who are you? How did you get here?"

I glance to my left. Tom is standing there. He must have come along with me. That's right, the diary was destroyed in this timeline. I guess there wasn't anywhere for him to get merged with. Does he really count as a separate person than Voldemort?

"Me?" Tom says, chuckling. He brandishes his wand - identical to the one Quirrell is now holding - and a nonverbal Lumos lights up his face.

"Wait... You!? How can this be?" Quirrell says, staring incredulously.

"What's going on?" Cedric wonders.

"I'll explain later," I say, holding up a hand to him.

"So, tell me," Tom addresses the man pointing the same wand back at him. "Am I speaking with Quirrell right now, or Voldemort?"

"I am Lord Voldemort. This pathetic fool is still trying to fight me even now, weak as a mewling kitten."

Tom snorts softly. "No. You are the one who is weak."

"How dare you!" Quirrellmort shrieks. "I am the greatest dark wizard who ever lived!"

"You are a deluded, posturing fragment of a shattered soul who thinks himself great and powerful," Tom replies. He glances at me, and says, "Let us rid this world of this one. Lend me your power, and we shall crush him."

"You are weak if you have to seek the aid of another!" Quirrellmort says.

Tom casts a cool glare at him. "And you are weak to refuse to do so unless you have no other recourse." He raises his wand and casts, "Separo Animum!"

I let all the power he needs flow through our Soul Bond and into him. Quirrellmort lets out an unearthly wail, and a wisp of something glowing faintly green emerges from him, struggling and snapping around in the air. Quirrell collapses to the ground once it leaves his body.

The greenish glow is pulled across the graveyard, and Tom cups it in an outstretched hand. It seems so small and dim from here.

"See this well, Stormseeker, Cedric?" Tom says, holding it out for us to look. "This is your Dark Lord. This is all that's left of Voldemort, after he mangled his soul in an attempt for immortality."

Cedric's eyes widen as he stares at the ghostly wisp, still squirming futilely, but Tom has it held tightly with his magic.

"He sacrificed love, he could not comprehend regret, and he drove himself more and more insane," Tom goes on. "And I regret that any of this ever happened."

He sighs and closes his eyes, and focuses. He makes it look so easy, but I can see the lines of pain on his face, and I can feel him drawing on more of my magic. The light fades, seeming to be absorbed into his hand. In mere moments, what remained of the Dark Lord is gone again, leaving the graveyard lit only by Tom's wand.

"What- What did you do?" Cedric asks.

Tom shudders a little. "I can't believe that he used such a foolish, convoluted plan to get Harry Potter here." He snorts softly as if in amusement and looks to Cedric, and answers, "I reabsorbed him."

"You... what?" Cedric says.

"Ah. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Tom Marvolo Riddle." He bows suavely toward Cedric. "I am the one who, in another life, in another time, another future, would have become Voldemort. My dear friend here told you he was a time traveler, yes?"

Cedric nods, still looking confused.

"When he would have been killed here, I came back with him," Tom explains. "I am not from this world."

He goes over to where Quirrell is laying and casts a few healing spells over him, then picks up the duplicate wand. He holds them both out so that Cedric can see.

"They're exactly the same..." Cedric says.

"Indeed," Tom says.

"So, when I helped Harry kill You-Know-Who, it was really all for nothing?" Cedric wonders.

Tom shakes his head. "Not at all. If he had been in a physical form of his own at the time, even one as mutated as the one he'd wound up with, I would not have been able to do what I did like that. He would have needed to be killed again, and his spirit might have fled before it could be captured. Tracking him down after that would have been problematic. So, you did well, Cedric."

Cedric nods uncertainly.

"You two had best get back to the Tournament," Tom says. "I'll leave it to you to explain what happened. I'll take care of Quirrell and catch up with you later. He was not an entirely willing participant in this."

He goes to tend to Quirrell's semi-conscious figure, and Cedric and I turn to head back to where the Triwizard Cup had fallen.

"Can we trust him?" Cedric whispers to me as we're walking away.

"Absolutely," I reply. "He is my rock in the darkness, who will support me even when my closest friends might waver. You have no idea what we've been through together... in those moments between breaths, a hundred years passed for me."

I gather up the invisibility cloak and put it back into my bag of holding.

Cedric holds out the icy blue dagger he'd used to destroy Voldemort's draconian form. "Do you want this back?"

"Keep it, if you like," I say, shrugging. "I'd rather not carry around a weapon that kills me if I so much as touch it."

"Alright," Cedric says, carefully tucking it away in his belt. "Grab the cup on three?" I give a nod. "One... two... three!"

We put our hands on the cup simultaneously, and it wrenches us away. The portkey lands us back on the Hogwarts grounds. Thunderous applause erupts around us amongst the spectators.

"Wait, there's two of them?" someone says after a few moments.

"How can we have two champions?"

I give the faintest of smirks. This stupid, foolish Triwizard Tournament. I shake my head. "Give the trophy to Cedric."

"But-" Cedric starts to protest, but I hold up a hand.

"No buts," I say. "I should not have even been in this tournament in the first place. Magically binding contract my arse. It required me to participate, whatever that's supposed to mean, but I don't have to accept any awards for it. I hereby officially forfeit any chance I might have of receiving anything from this tournament."

"He can't do that!" murmurs the crowd.

"Can he do that?"

"He just did."

"Now," I say, "I am going to go and make sure that Fleur and Viktor are alright."

I turn to walk back toward the maze. I have no idea what state this last iteration of the time loop left those two in. I don't remember whether they were stunned, injured, whether I'd had time to call for help for them, or what.

"That is very honorable of you," says a voice heavily accented in French, "but that won't be necessary. We are fine."

I stop and smile over at her in relief. "Fleur."

"And I," says a male voice with a different accent.

I nod, going over toward them. "I'm glad. I was worried."

"I am... sorry about what happened," Viktor says quietly, looking about uneasily.

I shake my head, and murmur to him in Russian, "You need not apologize. Not to me. Maybe to Cedric."

Viktor blinks at me, and replies, "I did not realize you spoke Russian."

I chuckle. I'd originally learned it on Terrestia, and refreshed my knowledge of it - and confirmed that it actually was Russian - during my last life. "I'm full of surprises."

"I'll say, brother," Viktor says. "I meant to mention it to you before the final task. Katrina is due in September. The mediwitches determined that it will be a girl. She wanted me to ask if you had any preference for names."

My heart skips a beat. Despite having just watched generations of my descendents grow up, I still thrill with elation at the news. I reply immediately, "Raven."

"Raven?" Viktor repeats, then nods. "I will tell her." He adds more quietly, "Provided that I am not sent to Azkaban."

"If you are, I'll break you out myself," I say firmly.

Cedric waves me over, and I nod to Viktor again before heading off with him to meet with Dumbledore and the other judges.

"Don't leave me here to try to explain what happened on my own," Cedric says.

"Sorry," I say, smirking. "Can you blame a guy for wanting to make sure his brother-in-law was alright?"

"After what he did to me?" Cedric says, raising an eyebrow.

"He was Imperiused," I say. "Not that that's even a particularly grammatical word."

"I do not believe that we will argue over grammar at the moment," Dumbledore says. "What exactly happened in there?"

"The Dark Lord tried to resurrect himself," I say. "Instead we killed him, permanently. He will not be troubling anyone any longer."

"Forgive me if I find this all a little hard to believe," says a man. Merlin, I forget what his name is.

"Cornelius, I do not believe that Mr. Potter would lie to us," Dumbledore says. I forgot Fudge? That's sad.

"He is fortunate that he did not get sent to Azkaban," Madame Maxime says. A woman the size of a mountain? Yeah, she's impossible to forget.

Cedric sighs and steps up in front of me. "Enough. Harry doesn't deserve the half of the venom he's been getting lately. He's a bloody hero, even if none of you quite understand the extent of it. I was there! I saw the whole thing! I helped, but if it weren't for him, I'd probably be dead right now. I would have wound up going in there completely blind, without realizing there was You-Know-Who at the other end of that portkey! And that's assuming I got to it at all, and that Krum didn't kill me while he was under the Imperius Curse."

"It's alright, Cedric," I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I really don't care what they do to me. They can send me to Azkaban for all I care. I'm not going to be staying here much longer anyway."

"What do you mean?" Cedric says.

"My work here is done," I say. "I was destined to fight Voldemort." I sigh. "Not much of a destiny, if you ask me, but I took it, and it's over with."

"And where do you think you're going, then?" asks the headmaster of Durmstrang. I don't remember his name, either.

I shrug. "I don't know. But I'm leaving this world. I just want to tie up some loose ends here first."

"Perhaps it would be best to discuss this further at another time and place," Dumbledore says. "And Harry, you are limping. Madam Pomfrey would be most upset if I were to keep you from getting treatment for that."

"I'm fine," I say. "It doesn't really matter."

"Still, some rest would be best," Dumbledore says. "Run along back to the castle, the both of you."

"Very well," I concede.

I head back to the castle along with Cedric, strolling as casually as I can across the darkened grounds with my injured leg. How did it get injured? Was it in the maze? No, it was before then. It got hit with a curse from Lucius. Draco... oh, Draco, I hope he's alright. Draco stood up to his father and chose to stand by my side no matter what. I can't help but feel guilty about the thought of leaving him here when I go.

"I don't know that I quite understand what's going on," Cedric says. "But thank you. I owe you my life."

I shake my head. "No life debts to me, please. I'm not going to be staying to collect on them, and don't really care to do so regardless. Just... Live your life. Get married. Have children. Be happy. And be ready. Because one day soon, the walls will come down, and the Statue of Secrecy will fall."

"What do you mean?" Cedric says.

"Wizards can't hide from Muggles forever," I say. "Everything's liable to fall apart within the next few years, the next two decades at most. I can't be certain as to an exact date. The timelines are too different." I shake my head. "But I can't help you with that. The wizards will need people like you if they hope to survive the upcoming events."

Well, I say can't, but I certainly could. I most certainly could stay and help. But I choose not to. It would drive me barmy to try to save every timeline from itself. That's not what I'm here for.

Cedric and I part ways, and I head for the Slytherin dungeons. If I've given him something to think about, then so much the better. It's not my responsibility to stay and keep anything bad from ever happening again. I've fulfilled the destiny that was demanded of me. A destiny that, at the time, I'd thought it so important to fulfill. Now, it seems almost laughable.

Life goes on. The world goes on. There are no endings or beginnings. Only changes.

"Potter," a voice interrupts my musings. "Can I see you in my office for a moment?"

My mind still miles away, I don't think much of it, and just follow the teacher along. I stiffen for a moment as I glance at him and recognize him as Mad-Eye Moody, with his wooden leg and magical glass eye. And then relax a moment later as I realize that, in this timeline, Moody was being impersonated by Barty Crouch, Junior. And then tense again when it occurs to me that Barty might not be happy about the news that his master's plans went horribly awry.

As I step into the Defense Against the Dark Arts office and the door closes and locks behind me, a sense of dread wells up within me and my blood runs cold. I think I've just walked right into another trap.

"I just failed at 'constant vigilance' there, didn't I," I comment.

"Yes, you did," Barty agrees.

He flicks his wand at me. My own wand goes flying out of its holster, and he snatches it out of the air. Alright, then, let him think he has the advantage. I couldn't do wandless magic in this timeline, so he probably thinks I'm nearly helpless without it.

"So, I hear that the Dark Lord has been vanquished, hmm?" Barty says.

"Things are not as you think they are," I say.

"Really now," Barty says. "Then why don't you tell me?"

"It's complicated," I say.

Barty snorts. "Of course it is."

I smirk. "I don't know how much you know, but let me start by saying that we work for the same person." Sort of, at least. "And I'm no more Harry Potter than you are Mad-Eye Moody."

This is all rather irrelevent, too. No matter what happens, his master is liable to be gone soon enough anyway. I'd just really rather avoid getting tortured or something here.

Barty narrows his eyes at me. He's pointing his wand at my heart from a foot away. The worst he could do to me is Obliviate me or feed me to a Dementor, and I don't think he's going to do that.

"Who are you, really?" Barty asks. "And who do you work for?"

"My name is Lexen Chelseer," I say. "I'm the Dark Lord's apprentice."

"He never mentioned that to me," Barty says.

I roll my eyes. "Of course he didn't. He needed you to fulfill your role, just as he needed me to. Without compromising anyone's cover."

Barty stares at me suspiciously. "I don't believe you. You are lying."

A flash of red light erupts from Barty's wand, and before I can react to defend myself, the world goes dark.