"Who are you?" The dark lord repeated, now almost at an edge, knowing how vulnerable he was at the moment.

"Lord Voldemort. I'm glad to finally meet you again." His wand arm flexing as his robe fluttered, revealing the extravagant symbol on his hand.

A skull with a snake coming out of it.

"My Lord." The man smirked as he knelt in front of the baby. "I come from the future. Your future."

"Why?"

"To make sure that Harry Potter suffers, to make sure that the world burns with him."

"The Future?"

The redheaded man smirked. "Yes, my Lord. The future. Your future." He kneeled in front of the homunculus form of the Dark Lord and looked up. "I am afraid it does not turn up very well for you in the future, my lord."

Voldemort felt a surge of anger, but it was replaced by curiosity and to some extent, fear. The Potter boy had been his bane even as a toddler. The boy had been his bane at eleven-years-old. There was no way to ensure the brat would not pose a suitable threat for his world-dominance plan. Unless of course...

"I assume you come with suitable information..." The homunculus spoke in a grating voice, his eyes glowing brightly. He knew that in this form, his powers were suitably reduced; the only power he could effectively utilize while in this form was Legilimency and possession. Neither of them of any help in presence of a powerful wizard.

"Who are you?"

"My name is not important, my Lord. What is important is the information I bring for you."

He dares shove his opinion on my face! The atrocity...

"Tom Marvolo Riddle, otherwise known as Lord Voldemort, killed by three demons on June 29th, 2001. His horcruxes destroyed by Harry Potter and associates-" He enjoyed the look of shock the dark Lord gave him as he mentioned horcruxes.

"Horcruxes? How—how do you know about them?" the dark lord looked practically scared and anguished at the thought of the loss of his priceless horcruxes. His means of defying death—his anchors to the mortal realm—his measures for living forever-

"Are you perchance... feeling scared, my Lord?" the man's lips quivered in amusement.

"Tell me everything." The dark lord yelled in exasperation and fear.

"Of course."

Harry apparated in front of the dilapidated Gaunt shack, his magical senses on high alert. He was still quite far away from Riddle manor, and had no idea if Voldemort was already there or not. The desire to apparate into the Manor and burn the homunculus was driving him crazy, but he digressed. The horcruxes were of higher priority after all. He would destroy the horcruxes first, and then kill the dark bastard. It was ironic that Voldemort was actually a bastard, he mused, what with his squib mother trying to potion his muggle father and all.

Standing in front of the Gaunt shack, he waved his wand, trying to make out the protections present there. Marvolo Gaunt would have been happy to know that his last descendant had seen fit to hide something as precious as a soul-shard inside this dilapidated shack. If not for the magic sustaining it, the shack would have already fallen to dust.

An intent ward coupled with a Parseltongue-based protection ward. Altogether decent stuff!

A few swishes later and the wards neutralized, he strode towards the front door. It was almost too easy. The door opened with a creaking noise, and just as he was about to enter, a dozen adders leapt at him from the inside, baring their fangs. Harry was surprised at the sudden attack, but a well-timed Immobulus solved the problem. That and a few Parseltongue commands later, he strode towards the center of the room, his eyes staring at the loose chunk of marble on the floor.

The ring is hidden beneath it.

He whipped his wand in an anticlockwise curve and then pulled it off in a tangential flick. It was a standard procedure for curse breaking. Knowing very well that this was the very place where the rotting curse had struck Dumbledore, Harry decided that taking precautions was better than anything else was. As he anticipated, the slab glowed purple, proving that his suspicions were correct. The stone slab held some kind of concealing charm, charmed to prevent other people from sensing what lay beneath it. A quick Reducto later, the stone was flattened to dust, baring the wooden box beneath it.

Found the son of a bitch!

Levitating the box out of the hole in which it lay, Harry banished the lid off, revealing the Peverell ring inside it. How ironic that Voldemort would use Harry's own heirloom to safeguard his soul shard! Then again, Voldemort was never really accused of being sensible anyway.

That thing really needs a good old washing.

Harry smirked at his own thoughts, as he procured a vial of basilisk venom out of his own robes. Opening the lid, he dropped the venom slowly over the ring. A soul-penetrating howl cried out from the ring, as thick black smoke shot out of it, leaving the ring intact.

I just dropped basilisk venom on the ring, and it did not even corrode? Then again, the Peverells made it after all.

The thought had just made it to his brain, when he felt a burning feeling inside him. At first, it did not even matter, but slowly the pain became almost unbearable. Harry shut his mouth hard, trying to not to cry out in agony.

What is happen-Ning?

Then it happened. The ring inside the wooden casket broke into fragments as the stone—the fables resurrection stone levitated out, shining brightly and surrounded by eldritch energies. At the same time, the ring on his left hand began to glow. It was then that the truth hit him.

I am carrying the elder wand with me, and now I have another. Two deathly hallows which are the one and then, I am the owner of the Cloak. Oh, fuck!

The elder wand holstered up his sleeve began to vibrate and heat up, and just as he expected, it shot out of the holster and levitated outside. The cloak snuck out of his robe and levitated out, the three hallows performing almost some kind of weird dance around him, circling him and manifesting grayish mist all around.

Is this about being the Master of Death?

A surge of fear and curiosity got hold of him, as he stood still, only having eyes for the still-revolving items that were circling him. The mist settled around him, manifesting some kind of obscure runic circle upon which a giant triangle seemed to form, with Harry as the centre. He felt the Deathwood wand and his own phoenix wand heat up, almost as if trying to resist the change that was about to happen.

The elder wand of legend was not just any other wand. The Peverells who were renowned necromancers of their times, had sacrificed countless lives to generate enough soul-magic necessary to create three magical items that held in themselves—an essence of death itself. The elder wand was no simple wand—crafted from the wood of the Yggdrasil and covered by purified elder wood, the wand had the blood of the three Peverell brothers as its core. One of its main powers was its ability to magnify the power of the spells cast through it. It was exactly for this particular reason why it was so coveted by wizards—good and bad alike. Whenever a wizard bonded to the wand, the wand extracted out some part of the core of the wizard's own wand and merged it to itself, making itself stronger. It was the reason why the elder wand was compatible with so many masters.

Now however, it had faced a new Master, one who already had a very powerful connection to his own wands, and interestingly, did not covet the powers of the Master of Death. That was what caused a complication. Death was invincible and death conquered all, and so did the Deathstick. However, the two wands of the wizard in this case—the holly and phoenix wand, and the Deathwood-ice dragon heartstring wand, both bonded strongly to Harry, and thus gave in a huge resistance. Finding that said wizard was actually a descendant of the core flowing inside it, the elder wand gave in, fusing with the wizard- the two other wands followed suit, along with the cloak and the resurrection stone. The five items glowed with eldritch energies until they transformed into pure energy and fused with the wizard possessing them.

Harry watched in trepidation as the five magical items transformed into pure energy and get soaked inside him. He felt the energy enter his body and felt his nerves fire dangerously. His eyes glowed an eldritch green as a wave of magical energy lashed out of him, rendering him unconscious.

"On the night of the third task of the Triwizard tournament, you devised some sort of resurrection ritual which you employed to resurrect yourself back to life. Harry Potter was captured and you used his blood to fuel the ritual, after which you were able to touch him without getting burnt."

"Interesting. I was indeed working on the ritual." The Dark lord mused. "What happened after that?"

"I admit I do not know what exactly happened, since I was absent- but I do know this- Harry Potter was somehow able to fight you off and return back to Hogwarts using the cup as portkey."

"A silly miscalculation. We will have to change that. What else can you tell me?"

The man bowed. "You have to understand, my lord-," the drawling tone the man used reminded him eerily of Lucius Malfoy- "if I tell you too much into the future, it might change things and thus, my knowledge of the future might become obsolete."

Voldemort considered his answer.

"Very well, what else can you tell me, without changing the future too much?"

The man smirked. "After your defeat, the wizarding world faced a new dark lord, one who caused much more devastation than you ever did. The entire International Federation of Wizards, the ICW- the entire federal structure was brought down to dust by the hands of the dark lord Harry Potter."

What?

"That is inexplicable. Harry Potter is but a boy, and Dumbledore's stooge. It is impossible that he would ever become a dark lord, forget becoming someone of the likes of me."

"My lord, I am only giving you the facts of what had happened in the future."

Voldemort sighed. "Very well. Continue."

The man let out an oily smile. "Harry Potter destroyed the demon horde you had summoned, and decimated your forces single-handedly. A month before your death, you sent for me. You told me everything that happened. You told me how I should travel to the past, how I should warn you-you were fearing that soon everything would be over and two hours after your death, I time-travelled to this timeline."

"Can you show me the memories?"

The man bowed low. "I can, my lord. However, I fear it might not be the correct thing to do. Future-You had warned me that you would ask such a thing, and hence he told me something that would prove it to you that my information is authentic."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes, "what information is that?"

The man closed his eyes and stood silent. Then he began muttering the words.

"Philadelphia, Warren, Caravan, dragon-heartstring, necromancy."

Voldemort widened his eyes for a moment. Then a sense of calm settled around him.

"I believe you."

The man smirked. "I knew you would consider my situation, my lord."

The dark lord stayed silent, weighing his options. "What do you know about the horcruxes?"

"Riddle's diary, Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, your familiar Nagini, Slytherin's locket, the Gaunt family ring... these are the ones you are looking for?"

To say that the dark lord was shocked would be unfair. His red eyes had almost bulged out in fear, knowing that in the future, his arch-nemesis was not only able to dig out information about his own past, but also destroy all the items for good. It was... unfathomable.

"Yes..." he let out, his voice trembling in anger and fear, "those are the ones I am talking about."

The redhead smirked. "You are still missing one, my lord."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes. Diary—Cup—Locket—Diadem—Nagini—Ring; those were his horcruxes; together with his own soul, it made seven. The magical number of stability. However, if this man said that there were more-

"Do you mean to tell me that I created one more?"

"Yes. Your last horcrux is Harry Potter."

"WHAT?"

Harry opened his eyes reluctantly. His whole body seemed to be aching—even the act of opening his eyes seemed like a pain. At first, it was all blurry with nothing distinct. Then slowly, his memories came to him and his vision cleared.

Where am I?

It was dark. Very, very dark. Harry held out his hand and flicked his wrist, but no wand shot out of his sleeve.

Damn!

He concentrated on producing a Lumos, and a ball of light manifested in front of him. For some reason, maintaining the wandless light spell felt much easier to him than ever. Almost as if, he was using his wand.

He was standing on the edge of a deserted road, one that curved its way sideward, leaving a precipice overlooking a river. There was a broken wooden bridge before him—the centre of the bridge broken and the wood shredded and downright rotten. Harry stepped over the first plank and the bridge groaned, some of the broken planks from the middle falling down into the unending deep bottom below. The planks hit water; he was sure that he felt water splashing beneath.

This feels so... familiar.

He took another step, his feet on the next plank, planning to use a levitation charm to levitate himself to the other side of the river. He took a third step, and that was when things begun happening.

The water rose from the bottomless depths- the black murky waters rising up to catch the sky, forming an impenetrable barrier between the two ends of the bridge. That was when it hit him.

Merlin!

A shadowy figure rose high from the blackened depths beneath the bridge and drifted upwards floating towards him. It stopped and then it spoke in a disembodied voice.

"We meet at last, Peverell."

Harry stood shock, his mind boggled, his body petrified, his eyes almost bound to look straight at the powerful entity drifting towards him. For a dark lord who had ruled over Magical Britain, the feeling of fear and wonder that he was feeling felt unfamiliar to him.

Death?

"Yes, Death I am, the conqueror of worlds. And you, Peverell are the nasty little insect that goes by the name of Harry Potter!"

Harry gulped. He could feel the power and magical energies rolling out of the entity in front of him. It was the same energy that he felt from the elder wand, albeit one magnified many, many times.

"Why do you call me Peverell?"

Death laughed. A grating, disembodied laugh. "Because Harry Potter, that is your true name. You are Peverell, the keeper of my belongings."

Keeper?

"I am not sure I understand,"

Death laughed again. Harry could feel the mocking beneath the cold dry laugh. "Of course you don't. For a dark lord, you still have a lot to learn, Harry Potter."

A frown marring his face, he urged. "Why am I here? What is this place? Is this about the Hallows?"

Death chuckled. "So many questions..." he drawled, "and yet, all unimportant."

Harry gritted his teeth. This entity, Death or not, was playing with him. "What is the blasted important thing then, Death?" he gnashed his teeth in irritation.

"You are here because you have been dealing with powers you have no idea about. You Harry Potter, you broke the laws of time and magic; you fractured the continuity of an old soul, you broke in and diverted the timeline into something different, creating an infinite number of temporal fragments-you are a royal pain in my arse, Harry Potter!"

Harry smirked. For some reason, being chastised from a powerful entity seemed to amuse him. Death continued, "But for all of your flaws, you have done one single thing correct. Your time jump destroyed the entire demon horde, and for that, I am grateful to you."

Harry frowned, uncertain of what Death meant.

"But then again, you caused a new set of problems when you entered this timeline. You created a paradox, for there cannot be two Harry Potters in one single timeline."

Harry frowned. "That's not possible. I merged with my younger self when I entered this time stream. There is only one of me over here."

"FUNNY! WHAT AM I THEN?"

The very familiar voice behind him caught his attention as his eyes narrowed. He glanced backwards instantly to find an angry thirteen-year-old Harry Potter glaring at him.

Fuck!

"You... but I thought... the ritual was supposed to merge our souls together." Harry stammered uncharacteristically.

"Yes, of course, a soul shard stays with me for sixteen years without merging. I defeat Voldemort's Imperius without batting an eye. Of course there would be no issues when an alien soul springs out of nowhere and tries to merge with me."

Was I really all that sarcastic?

Then a realization hit him. Wait, how do you know all of that? Fourth year hasn't even started."

The younger Harry looks at him with a deadpanned expression. "You come from the future. You take control of my body. You merge my magical core with yours to give yourself a boost. You retain all my memories. And when I get your share of memories, it is unbelievable to you? Damn, was I hit in the head in the future?"

This is exactly what happens when a teenager gets the memories of a dark lord.

"Right!" Death deadpanned, "As funny as it is to let the little-You chew You-" both Harrys looked indignantly at the insult- "we are here for more. By coming into this world and activating the Hallows, you have caused a trans-temporal disturbance. As it is, you had acquired the three hallows in your other lifetime too, but did not activate them then-"

"Wait! Why is that?" Older Harry asked. Then, it came to him. "I never defeated Dumbledore then. Draco defeated him by disarming him, and I disarmed Draco- there was no direct fight... was that why? -" he trailed.

"I knew there was a bit of intelligence hiding somewhere deep down!" Death drawled, getting scowls from the two identical-looking Harry Potters. For some reason, it intimidated him slightly.

"That makes two souls- two masters of death residing in the same time-plane, which for all kinds of nuances you have no reason knowing, forces me to make an odd decision. Peverell- he powers of the Hallows are yours to have, use them for your struggles and you-" he looked at the younger Harry, "—will have to fuse completely with him, making it one single, albeit slightly large than normal—soul in the body created for the keeper of the Hallows."

"Wait! You answered why am I here, and everything I asked. But you said that those questions were unimportant. What is the important question? " older Harry asked.

Death smirked. "I am sure you will have fun, finding it out. May you find the peace you desire, Peverell." With that Parthian shot, Death raised his skeletal hands, and the two Harry Potters bodily collided into each other in a huge flash of light.

Harry Potter woke up from the stone floor of the dilapidated shack, his mind swirling with images of the triangle of the Deathly Hallows. He felt different- his magic was no more searing up and down, but seemed to have reached some form of stability. He seemed to have grown a bit, his face now sharper and aristocratic than previously. The interesting thing however, was the absence of his wands.

The Deathstick, the holly wand and the Deathwood wand- all of them were gone. In their stead, two tiny runic symbols had formed on his left palm— one representing the phoenix and the other representing the ice dragon, etched into his very skin. For some reason, his age line also seemed to have vanished completely. His right palm however had one single line with the runic symbol of a thestral etched in the center. As with the left palm, his age line had disappeared completely.

Wonder what this means!

On a whim, he thought about casting a Patronus, and almost instantly, something surged inside him and a burst of light surged out of his right hand, casting the thestral in full glory. Harry stood gob smacked- to be able to cast a Patronus of all things wandlessly- it was unfathomable.

Smirking, he apparated away.

"Harry Potter is one of my horcruxes?"

The statement was filled with disbelief. Not just disbelief, it was filled with awe, fear and curiosity.

The man smirked, but he just nodded in reply.

This changes things. I always knew that something about the boy was different. That was why entering his mind was so easy. He is my horcrux. But that means-

My own horcrux is bent on killing me!

"I suppose there is no way to convert Potter into my service, is there?"

The man laughed; his laughter grating on the dark lord's nerves. "No my lord. Harry Potter will never join you. He will need to be destroyed."

I will cross that bridge when it is necessary. But wait-

"When did I, I mean the Me from the future, come to know of this discovery?"

"You never did."

"Then how did you? -" the question remained unspoken. The man seemed to know what he wanted to ask. "My knowledge of Harry Potter is not just dependent on what the Future-You told me, my Lord. You see, in my time-" he lifted off his hood, his brown eyes shining with mirth, "- I was once his best friend, Ron Weasley!"

Merlin!

### And that, ends the chapter. Yeah the guy from the future is Ron Weasley, and I am sure you are wondering what might have happened in the future that led to this. I would love to read your reasoning. As always, do review and hope you enjoyed the chapter.