Notes from the future
Summary: A start to a story which has been sitting on my hard drive for more than four years without ever really going anywhere, no matter how much I want to continue it. I submit it to your judgement, unedited. – In a war torn future, Harry Potter seeks to use Hermione's last invention to change the past…
Warnings: If you like Albus Severus, Hugo, Scorpius or canon pairings, this one ain't for you! Past! Canon Pairings, HP/HG, ASP/SM (Slash)
Ninety-one year old Harry Potter sat at his desk, quill in hand. The book open before him was little more than a muggle notepad bound in black leather. All two hundred and fifty pages of it contained note after note, consisting of the history of the magical world, with a lot of focus given to the last ninety years; his life.
It listed where he went wrong; what he should have done and what he should not, who he should have trusted and who he should have ignored. And, perhaps more importantly, who he should have destroyed.
Every correct decision and every one of his mistakes were listed in the book and it was his hope that, with this book, he could put things right.
In his relatively short life (for a wizard, that is), Harry had seen and experienced it all; highs and lows, joy and sorrow, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, and anger; plenty of anger.
The people living in the Wizarding World were fickle beings; kind and adoring one minute, and convinced you were the next dark lord in the making, out to kill them all the next.
Apparently killing off one of the history's worst dark lords did not count for anything to the general public when enough purebloods, who had bribed other purebloods to get out of prison, said you were dark.
And perhaps he should have been dark. It was a miracle that he was not, what with all the horrors, torment, anger and petty bigotry he had put up with since before he could remember.
With the last note made, Harry cast a drying charm to dry the ink before closing the book and binding it with a bit of string.
He set it back onto his desk and that photograph caught his eye, as it had done for the last twenty years.
He took the picture in hand and sat back in his seat as he examined it.
The photo had been taken during one of many gatherings that occurred during his fifth year of education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They were all there, the D.A; even those who would betray him.
And her. She was standing by his side, loyal as she had always been.
She was one of very few.
Deciding that the photo would do him no good now, he removed it from the frame and took hold of the quill again and drew blue rings around the faces of those who had stood loyal beyond the end of Voldemort. A tiny bit of magic from him changed the colour of the ink on the quill to red, so he could draw rings around the backstabbers and betrayers; the murderers and traitors. They were not to be trusted. Finally yellow rings encircled the rest; the ones he was unsure of; the ones who fought by him and died before they could betray, and the ones who he knew little about.
Once he had dried the ink, he folded the photograph in half and tucked it into the sting tied around the book. Notes already inside it explained what the picture showed, and what the rings meant.
Well, there was little else to do but send the book to its intended recipient.
He turned from the desk, book in hand, and headed down to the basement of the draughty old house he now lived in.
Down in the basement there was a large rock, with countless runes engraved upon its surface. It had been her last piece of work and her death had meant that he had had to finish it off without her.
Now, after twenty years, he was certain that he had it all ready. All it would take was to engrave the last rune, and he did so with perfect precision.
A tap of the wand and some muttered Latin that he barely understood, but knew that she had, made the rune carvings glow brightly.
After a few moments a small, glowing sphere appeared. It was not big enough for Harry to fit through, but big enough to allow the book to fit.
He placed the book inside the sphere and muttered "August 21st, 1991."
With a whoosh and a pop, the book was gone. Another bit of spoken Latin and the sphere faded.
Now to make sure no one else got their hands on this.
Ten explosion hexes later, the boulder and its runes were no more.
Job done, Harry headed back upstairs to his bedroom, to sit on the bed.
Reaching up to his neck, Harry hooked a gold chain from inside his shirt.
On the end of it was a locket, and inside was a picture of her.
Hermione; sweet, wonderful, lovely Hermione.
His lost love.
The one he should have been with.
The day she died was the day he had gone into hiding, taking her final work with him.
He would not forgive, and he certainly would not forget.
It would not be long now.
They were coming, he could feel it.
His thoughts turned to Hermione's daughter; Rosie. She had been the first victim of this new war.
She had only been seventeen at the time of her death; murdered by who she thought was her best friend and his lover.
If only Harry had known; back then. He could have put a stop to all this.
Oh, who was he kidding? The only way to have put a stop to it was to have conquered the world himself after Voldemort's fall. When he did not, it was only a matter of time before another dark lord tried his luck; it was just a matter of who and when.
And anyway, this was why he had sent the book back in time; to prevent all this from happening. Now all he had to do was wait.
He did not have to wait long.
The whole house shook as the wards surrounding it were brought down by a concentrated blast of powerful magic.
A flick of his wand, and Harry activated a magical device in the corner of the room. It was ready to complete its task following a key event.
No fewer than one hundred figures stormed the house, ransacking the lower floors before some of them made their way up to the top floor where Harry was.
When the first entered the room, Harry stood and gave him a hard look.
"Scorpius." he acknowledged as a greeting.
"Potter." the boy sneered. So like his father and grandfather.
Harry's eyes turned to the next figure.
"Albus."
His own green eyes stared back at him from the face of his son.
"Father." acknowledged the boy.
A third entered.
"And Hugo." said Harry with a grin.
Hugo just grunted. So like his father, too.
Harry tilted his head to the side "But where is James?"
Albus scowled "You know as well as we do."
Harry chuckled "Oh, yes. I remember now. He came looking for me a few years ago, most stupid of him."
"You killed him." growled Albus.
"I had to." replied Harry "He was going about raping muggles and muggle-borns, and going on and on, spouting that pathetic pureblood elitist drivel. I think, Albus, that your little boyfriend here" he nodded towards Scorpius "would have been able to tell you about what happens to those who spout that garbage around me."
Scorpius snarled as he raised his wand "I'll avenge my father and grandfather here today."
"What makes you think I'll give you a chance?" asked Harry, calmly drawing his own wand "I beat your father, and his father. I beat the master they both served. I beat the best that the Dark Lord Voldemort had to offer, and spent thirty years working as an Auror. And I have spent the last twenty years picking off many of your number; either individually, like James, or in numbers, like Lorcan, Lysander, and their little gang. You, meanwhile, have not done a single day's work since leaving Hogwarts."
"I have more power in my little finger than you do in your entire body, you muggle-loving scumbag." roared Scorpius.
"You think so?" asked Harry, before spinning on the spot and firing a spell "Impedimenta!"
As Harry had been talking to Albus and Scorpius, Hugo had been slipping around the edge of the room, hoping to get behind Harry.
Little did he know, many charms and enchantments were placed around the room, all of them keyed to Harry. He knew where Hugo was at all times.
So, when Harry spun, Hugo stood no chance. The spell hit him full force in the chest and threw him through the solid wall next to the window.
Scorpius began moving, intending to fire his own spell, but before he could even aim properly, Harry's wand was trained on him.
"Sectumsempra!"
That same spell had killed Scorpius' grandfather Lucius Malfoy thirty nine years ago, and had killed Scorpius' father Draco Malfoy eighteen years ago; both by the same caster. And, again, that same caster had now fired the curse at Scorpius himself, and with him the Malfoy line would end for good.
Albus yelled an order, and his followers began firing upon Harry, who shielded for as long as it took. Apparently none of them had much stamina; probably used to their superior numbers deciding a battle, rather than skill.
Two minutes later, they were all tired, and Harry returned fire.
Heads and other limbs dropped to the floor as Harry killed around sixty of them without breaking a sweat.
Then Albus made his move "Avada Kedavra!"
Attacking like the coward he was, from behind a shield of human bodies, Albus Severus Potter murdered his own father.
Harry Potter dropped to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut, just like his father when Voldemort came calling that fateful Halloween night ninety years ago.
And that was the moment Harry had waited for.
Not only was he free, but his son had sealed his own fate as well.
The key event that the magical device sitting in the corner had been waiting for was Harry's death.
The moment the killing curse slammed into Harry's side, the device pinged into life. It activated some of the most powerful anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards found in the known world, and then it exploded; bringing the house down and crushing all those inside.
Including one Albus Severus Potter.
The spectre of Harry James Potter waited around long enough to watch the house collapse, before heading off into the beckoning light.
The light got brighter and brighter as he moved closer to it; so much so that for a moment he could not see.
Then all became clear.
Hermione was there, standing before him, the biggest smile on her face. Rose was there too, and so many others. They all enveloped him in hugs, and Hermione gave him a kiss before whispering "You did it."
Harry smiled, and allowed himself to be led forward to the next great adventure; the fate of the world no longer in his hands.
That reality would soon fade, as the book he sent to the past made its changes. Whether those changes would be enough to save the magical world once and for all remained to be seen…
A/N: So there it is. Someday I might get around to re-editing it, expanding this first chapter and continuing the tale, but not for now.
