Harry looked at the charred body of Molly Weasley, felt rage as he watched Ginny's body turn to ash and crumble through his fingers, he heard Ron screaming in the distance. In reality, they should have expected this. Could three teenagers really defeat the greatest dark lord that had ever lived?
A tragedy is what the papers called his wife's death, they dared to call him a psychopath for not crying at her funeral. To Harry, crying in public was a weakness that he could not afford letting Lord Voldemort see.
Hermione spoke of a way to save their families and defeat Voldemort, her proposed idea involved something Dumbledore had said was forbidden and impossible, time travel.
The ritual circle pulsated wildly, Harry felt his soul, his very being thrashing against his body. Hermione pulled him out of the circle fear alight in her eyes.
Harry retreated to Grimmauld Place, he had moved his family to the old house for protection. Approaching the library which he had never been in as unlike Hermione, he was not a bookworm.
Harry browsed the library until he found something that caught his interest, The elements and their applications with magic, the author's name had been scribbled out so that Harry could not make out a name.
The book spoke of power, of crushing his enemies using his natural strength. Harry found it alluring and when he tried one of the spells achieved it easily.
The elemental spells required little amounts of wand work and he managed to learn quite a bit in the time it took Hermione to work more of the runes out. An example of Harry's new prowess was his mastery of fiendfyre, it had taken him days to master it with minimal wand work.
Harry could manipulate the fire into many different shapes but his favorite was a grim in the exact same shape as Sirius's animagus form. As it was, Harry had seen no reason to become an animagus as he was never particularly skilled in transfiguration.
Hermione visited often enough but nothing she said, nothing she did was enough to help him overcome his grief. The only thing that helped him hide his feelings was his studies in elemental magic, it called to him.
Harry listened as Hermione detailed her plans, her goal was to send Harry to an alternate universe before Voldemort's resurrection.
(Hermione didn't realize, how could she?)
Harry continued his studies and continued to expand them into runic magic. Elemental magic could be used to quickly care runes into the ground and cause destruction. Harry could feel the darker books in the black library calling to him, he could see the worried look in his wonderful daughters eye.
Harry's sons were at Hogwarts currently, leaving him to teach his daughter as he didn't trust someone to not attack her. Albus and James could defend themselves but Lily was far to young.
Sighing, Harry stood from his seat in the library and marked his place in his runic alphabet book. Harry heard the door open and saw his daughter peeking in and walked towards her.
After feeding Lily her dinner and laying her down, he began contemplating Hermione's idea. Time travel was a decent idea but had many strings attached. One of the many was that no one would remember the war and many of the people he had grown to love and care for wouldn't be the same.
Hermione had explained that he had three goals, the first was to inform Dumbledore of the horcruxes and warn him about the traps, the second was to hunt the death eaters before Voldemort could call them to him, the third and final goal was to find the last piece of Voldemort's immortality.
But Harry was content with raising his kids, this would prove to be a mistake.
Harry had asked Hermione and Ron to get his children from kings cross, he had to go and do some errands with Lily and ended up too busy to get James and Albus.
Hermione was the one who worked up the courage to tell him, James and Albus had been captured by Death Eaters and taken.
Harry had Hermione take Lily back to Grimmauld Place and started thinking, his mind working fast he deduced that if he wanted answers that he would most likely get them from Draco Malfoy.
Draco was relieved when the screaming stopped, it had been laughably easy to take Potter's children. The Dark Lord had been pleased and Draco had been forgiven.
Draco drowned his fire whiskey as Davis gave his report of what knowledge the Potter children held. Potter hadn't left his house in months, still grieving over his wife. Draco snorted, it was ridiculous that Potter couldn't get over it. Ginny Weasley had died like a pig, just like the rest of the Weasley family.
Draco felt a slight prickling on his neck but ignored it. Excitement filled his veins as he imagined himself as The Dark Lords right hand. Draco picked up a picture of his family and noticed a crack that hadn't been there.
The prickling sensation returned, stronger than before as the house shook and Draco dropped the photo of his family.
The wards fell in a flash of a fiery red. Draco immediately attempted to apparate away but failed. There were wards around his house to prevent him from doing so.
Draco felt the magic before he saw him, heard the screams of the other Death Eaters outside before Potter came. Draco's night ended in a flash of earthen hand knocking him out.
Harry retrieved the elder wand, it had repaired itself in the past twenty years. The wand pulsated with power as he held it and he knew it recognized him as its master.
The second step to his plan was to put wards around Malfoy manor to prevent all forms of magical transportation.
Harry attacked late into the night. Summoning his fiendfyre and slamming it into the wards. Harry was happy to watch them fall near instantly.
Death Eaters came charging out of the house. Harry decided a speech was in order.
"Bring me my children. Bring them to me and none of you shall be harmed." Harry said before a spell whizzed past his head and Harry took pleasure at the sound of bones crunching when he retaliated.
"A fluke!" He heard a woman call out, the woman looked strangely like a mix between Bellatrix and Tom.
Harry felt a smile come to his face, so Tom was able to have children. Harry flicked his wand and a stone hand came out of the ground and grabbed her. Harry would use her to get back at Tom.
Harry created a hollow area in the ground and sunk the woman into it before covering it. Harry then killed the other Death Eaters in his path.
Approaching the doors to the manor, Harry blasted them open. Harry recognized Roger Davis, a man still pushing pureblood supremacy even under a muggleborn minister of magic.
Harry slammed Davis against the wall and approached him. Davis let out a satisfying scream as Harry approached. Harry watched as Davis automatically closed his eyes.
Harry laughed, "Open your eyes or I'll force them open. I assure you that my method is much more painful."
Davis wouldn't comply and so Harry forced one of his eyes open and used a sticking charm to keep it in place. Harry then burned the other eyelid open.
Harry ignored the screams, "Legilimens," He hissed out and ripped into Davis's mind.
Harry felt ice cold rage as he watched his sons being tortured. After learning the location of his sons, he ripped Davis off of the wall.
"Crucio!" Harry yelled and watched with sickening pleasure as Davis screamed and thrashed on the ground.
Harry continued until he was sure that Davis was broken, then he cut off his limbs using a severing charm and cauterized them using a simple Incendio charm.
Throwing Davis to the side, Harry proceeded to Draco's study. Blasting open the door, Harry stepped over the rubble.
"Decided to join Tom again, Malfoy?" Harry said mockingly.
Draco flinched and reached for his wand but only found it smashed to pieces on the floor.
"I believe you have something I need." Harry said, "Give me the key to the dungeons, Draco."
Malfoy, the coward that he is quickly complied.
"The only reason I am leaving your wife and child alone is because I have something better to torment Tom with." Harry said with malicious glee.
Harry quickly started moving towards the basement while leaving a trail of gore and dead Death Eaters behind. Harry arrived at the basement and blasted open the door to Tom Riddle.
Tom was sitting on a throne in front of a cell with his children in it. Harry snarled as Tom began clapping.
"None of my Death Eaters are left, well except for Draco but he hardly counts." Tom said with a smile, "You really did slaughter them, Harry."
"Afraid, Tom?" Harry said, although he knew he really stood no chance.
Tom laughed, "Hardly, I assure you that I could easily defeat you. It is through pure luck and coincidence that you defeated me."
"Give me my sons, Tom." Harry said, "and I won't take anything of yours."
Tom smiled, "But of course! You can have your sons back."
Tom clapped and Albus and James heads rolled from the cells and Harry felt three things at once: shock, grief then rage.
Harry pointed his wand at Tom and rapidly fired spells before Tom could defend himself and ripped him apart. But before he could finish him, Tom broke through his wards and apparated away.
Collecting the bodies of his sons, he reattached their heads and apparated away. Harry appeared in the living room of Grimmauld where he closed his sons eyes for the last time.
Hermione arranged their funerals, Harry was silent through it all as he protected Lily. Harry had learned Tom's daughters name was Delphi and was a product of lust between Bellatrix and Tom.
Harry had her locked in a dungeon beneath Grimmauld and was looking forward to killing her. Harry spoke empty words at James and Albus's funerals and left without speaking to anyone and after putting his daughter to sleep, he went into the basement.
Delphi was chained to a wall, passed out from dehydration. Harry forced water down her throat and woke her up.
"Talk, Riddle." Harry said, "before I rip into your mind."
"Never, your puny legilimency won't break me." Delphi said and she spit on his face.
"You will tell me the secret to your father's immortality." Harry said before forcing her eyes open, "Legilimens," he hissed out.
Harry ravaged her mind until he found his answer, he pulled it from her mind angrily before coming out of her head.
Tom had made an extra horcrux and hidden it from everyone else, then using his daughter had returned but stayed in hiding as he was not sure if Harry could be killed at all.
Then Tom had discovered that Harry had been a horcrux and hastily hid his final one. Tom's final horcrux was a diary written by Salazar Slytherin himself. Delphi didn't know where it was, only that it was in England under complicated dark magic.
Harry decided to take Hermione up on the time travel. As Harry started getting ready for the ritual, he realized he couldn't leave his daughter.
Another problem was Delphi, he decided to kill her and let Tom find her. Harry cut Delphi's head off and stuck it to a pike before sending it to Diagon Alley.
("Think, Where did it all go wrong, Harry Potter?")
Many times had Harry repeated Luna's words in his head, the words she had mumbled when she died.
The Ministry had fallen, Tom had easily manipulated his way into the 'reformed' ministry. Hermione's changes had fixed nothing, Lucius Malfoy had kept pushing his pureblood agenda and after he was killed for it, Draco continued with the same damned propaganda. Harry could take solace in the fact that Draco had fled England taking his wife and son with him.
The Wizengamot was, once again, filled with purebloods seeking to rid the wizarding world of scum.
"We need to make a decision, Harry. Are you going to go back or not?" Hermione questioned.
Harry let out a sigh and looked at Hermione, "Yes. But I don't want to lose my daughter."
Harry knew it was pointless, Lily's body would be destroyed in the process as she didn't have a body to return to. Hermione had told him about this version of time travel.
The ritual used would send his brain and soul back to his fourteen year old body. Harry would then spend the year destroying Tom's horcruxes and finding his last failsafe. Then during the third task Harry would kill Tom before he could become a significant problem.
"I know I can't bring her, just promise me that when I go, you'll take care of her." Harry said mournfully.
Hermione nodded and smiled, "We'll do the ritual tonight, when it starts I just want you to think about where it went wrong."
Luna's words repeated in his mind like a constant pulse, "Where did it all go wrong, Harry Potter."
Fourth year, that damned tri-wizard tournament. That was where everything went wrong.
That night as Harry stood in the ritual circle, thinking of his fourth year, Tom attacked and everything went white, then black and he could only hope that Hermione erased the ritual circle.