A/N – As always, the recognisable Harry Potter characters were created by, and are owned by, J K Rowling – I am merely using them to have them do for me what they didn't do for her. The interpretation of those characters may differ from yours, and will certainly differ from canon. That's the whole point of fan fiction, after all!

Chapter 1 – Highway to Hell

At first the darkness was all encompassing. The boy felt strange, sensations he couldn't put his finger on. It was as if he was being reborn from the darkness as sensations started to return. He was expecting pain which never came. He was listening for sounds which weren't there, he was looking for, well, anything.

He was slowly aware of rational thought returning to him. Memories of the last few minutes came back online and he found himself sitting up. How he came to be lying down here, wherever here was, he was unsure of, but what he did know was that he was clearly dead.

Harry James Potter had been fated by the gods to be the wizard who would stand against Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known to the Wizarding World as the self-styled Lord Voldemort. There was a prophecy which made that determination. The exact wording isn't important at this point in the story, but the nub of it was that the two would meet, one would kill the other. To the victor the spoils, to the vanquished, eternity.

Harry finally opened his eyes, not sure what he would find. He remembered his last conversation with the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, late headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which had compelled him to take that fateful walk into the Forbidden Forest where Voldemort cut him down in cold blood.

Harry didn't know that Dumbledore's plan was to have Harry sacrifice himself in the hope that the killing curse, Avada Kedavra, would recognise the shard of Tom Riddle's soul which had imbued itself with Harry's own soul, forming one of Riddle's anchors to this plane of existence. A Horcrux. An abomination.

Dumbledore's plan was simple. The killing curse, cast by Voldemort would seek out the dark lord's soul, end that and render him mortal, leaving Harry's soul still attached to his body and thus, mean that Harry would live to fulfil his destiny.

"Well, that didn't fucking work." The first words uttered by the young wizard since he became self-aware again.

His eyes became used to the darkness which was nowhere near as total as he first thought. Everything around him was grey, bereft of colour. It was as if there was no evidence of any kind of a life, no suggestion that the universe could be anything other than a drab monochrome.

"What is this place?" Harry was aware he was talking to himself, his cursory glance around the place showed no hint of anyone else being there. That was, until a voice answered him, shocking him into full awareness.

"You are in Hell, Harry Potter."

Of all the statements Harry thought he would have heard, that one didn't make the top ten.

"Hell?" Harry was perplexed. "I figured out I was dead, but I didn't think I'd lived so bad a life as to merit an eternity of damnation."

A figure as monochrome as the rest of the place faded into view before him. If this was a demon or a devil it didn't look anything like what Harry would have expected. The figure was clearly human, and had a distinct lack of horns, cloven hooves, forked tongues or any other diabolic stereotype. He looked, for want of a better term, normal. A typical middle aged man.

"Yet here you are." The figure's voice wasn't harsh, as could have been expected, nor was it comforting. It was neutral. "I can sense your thoughts, Harry Potter. You are making a mistake made by many."

"What kind of mistake?"

"You are giving a Judeo-Christian assignation to the concept of Hell. Your people have been taught for decades that Hell is for the damned. That Hell is where the evil of the world go to be judged for the rest of time, where perpetual punishments are rained upon them."

"Isn't it?"

"No."

'Well this isn't going to be easy' thought Harry. "What is it then? What are you?"

"I am given many names. I have been called Chaos, I have been known as Anshar, the whole Heaven. I am the Alpha and the Omega, I am Judgement. I am the father of magic. This is but one facet of a kaleidoscope of futures, of a myriad potential universes. This place is the manifestation of missed opportunities, of unfulfilled destines."

"You know that doesn't actually help. Who are you then?"

"I have many names, in many cultures spanning many aeons. If it will make things easier for you, you can use one you will be familiar with."

The figure before him morphed into another visage, this one was older, and was recognisable to anyone who had been to Hogwarts.

"You will know me best as Merlin."

Harry stood. 'That was somehow both unexpected yet not wholly surprising'. "So what happens now? Am I destined to spend the rest of eternity in this, I don't know, limbo? Purgatory?"

"For most, the answer would be yes. For you, Harry Potter, it doesn't have to be."

"Why?"

"For all that I am the alpha, the personification of the creator if you will, I am called Chaos for a reason. I have no omniscient power to control the universe at large. Nor do I want to. There are those who do though. Those who want to pervert the natural order of things, those who want to bend all of the multiple universes to their will, who will go as far as to try and cheat Death."

"Sounds like someone I am far too familiar with" said Harry with a grimace.

"Yes. Voldemort has caused ripples, even here. Once in every epoch or so, there is born one so tainted that they threaten to upset the balance. There must be evil so that there can be good, but the two need to be in balance."

"But there are far more good people in the world than evil." Harry was confused.

"Don't mistake balance for equilibrium. Yes, there is much more good in the world than evil, but think about it. How much good in the world goes unreported, unrewarded. It's taken as a given that 'good' is the natural way of things, that 'evil' is an aberration."

Harry nodded to indicate he understood what was being said so far.

"So to try and put this into a context you will understand, acts of evil weigh more on the universe than acts of good do. So, whilst there is more good in the universe, that good is balanced against the lesser, but heavier, acts of evil."

"I'm with you so far, so what happens if the balance is shifted?"

"If it tips too far in the favour of good, then a slow decay driven by lack of progress. With no evil in the world, there is no reason for people to learn, to develop, to grow. Things stagnate, then wither, then die, but they die happy and fulfilled, and then they are out of even my sphere of influence. I presume it ends well though. If evil gains the upper hand, then we return to the primordial times before me. Where pain and suffering are the natural order. We return to oblivion."

"So what can be done? I can't do anything now that I'm dead."

Merlin looked at Harry with a critical eye. The younger wizard couldn't help but feel like he was being judged.

"Voldemort is one of those who would tip the balance toward oblivion. Dumbledore is one of those who would tip the balance toward stagnation. Both feel that they are right in their tasks, yet both are wrong. Dumbledore may act with good intentions, for 'the greater good' as he is so fond of saying, but he is in many ways as misguided as Voldemort is. He has done you many a disservice."

Harry was shocked. "But Dumbledore is the epitome of the fight against evil, against darkness."

"Yet he is as blinded to the need for balance as Voldemort is. That's where he failed you, that's why you have not fulfilled your destiny and brought balance to your age."

'I should be more surprised at that' Harry thought.

"Yes, you should"

"Do you mind not doing that!" Harry snapped. "I had enough of people ravaging my thoughts when I was alive."

"You refer to the likes of Severus Snape who deliberately failed to help you protect your mind?"

"Amongst others. You really know a lot about me, don't you."

Merlin raised an eyebrow. "I know a lot about everything. It comes with the job." The primordial being smiled for the first time since the encounter began.

"You have many questions, Harry Potter, some of which I will answer, some of which I will not. The most pressing of them however, is what happens now."

Harry nodded.

"I will give you the same as I give every being, human or not. I will give you free will."

Harry looked into Merlin's eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I will give you a chance. A chance to fulfil your destiny. I won't force you, I won't try and coerce you, I will give you as much information as I deem safe to impart without risking the balance I seek for the universe. If I tell you to much or too little, there's the risk that you could be tipped one way or another."

The ancient signalled for Harry to sit in the chair which had appeared behind him. "You are a child of time, Harry Potter. There have been ripples in creation since the dawn of time, and each aeon has a one who helps sooth those ripples as well as one who would take those ripples and turn them into torrents."

"I presume you mean Voldemort?"

"Yes. Each of those destined to bring balance has faced evil, but also faced challenges caused by those who wanted to help. You were no different in that respect, but in others you are unique."

"Ok, you have lost me again."

"Voldemort is not the first to try and separate his soul, but he is the first to do it more than once. He is also the first to cause part of his tainted soul to try and corrupt the one destined to face him. The night your parents were killed, Voldemort had set out to kill you, not them, and use your murder to create another Horcrux. Despite the murders going wrong, the first part of the ritual was already in place and could not be stopped. The attempt to murder you was enough to cause the fracture of the soul, which then had no-where to go. It latched on to you."

"Why me? He killed my parents first, why didn't their murder power the ritual?"

"To make a Horcrux as you know, you must commit premeditated and cold-blooded murder. You also have to have determined in advance who your victim will be. The victim has to be named. That night, he named you as the victim, so the murder of your parents would not have powered the ritual."

"Dumbledore never saw fit to mention that part."

"Dumbledore never mentioned much which would have been good for you to know. Information which would have kept your life in balance, which would have caused you to act in ways which would have brought you to your destiny, but which Dumbledore feared would lead you down a certain path which didn't fit with his ideas of 'the light'"

"Like what?"

"He contrived to control your life to mould you into his idea of a warrior for the light. Of course, he also had to make sure that if his suspicions were proven correct, that you would be willing to sacrifice yourself. That's why he kept you hidden from the Wizarding world all those years. That's why he appointed himself your magical guardian, he wanted to 'protect' you from influences other than his. The depth of his manipulations would astound you."

Harry was glad he was sitting down as he was sure his legs would give way. "But Dumbledore was the Leader of the Light. He was committed to beating Voldemort, he gave his life for the fight. I know it was him who left me with the Dursleys, but what other manipulations are you talking about?"

"Harry Potter, Dumbledore wasn't evil, I'm not saying he was. At least not as you understand the term. He was though as single minded as Voldemort was and that meant that he was more than willing to cause the same kinds of torrents as Voldemort. Good deeds can still cause ill, regardless of intentions."

Harry just sat there, not sure what to say.

"As for his manipulations, he robbed you of what I hold sacrosanct, he denied you free will. He worked to determine your upbringing, he worked to influence your choice of friends, by his actions or inactions, he dictated almost every facet of your life – your family, your friends, the woman he decided you should love, rather than the one which fate had determined would be your soul-mate. There was hardly any part of your life which was not dictated by Dumbledore. Regardless of his good intentions, by his actions your life was not what it should have been, which in turn meant that you were unable to fulfil your destiny."

"You keep saying that but I'm not sure what you mean by it."

Merlin stood. "Harry Potter, you are destined to return balance to the world. You are destined to defeat Voldemort's plans to tip the scales in favour of evil, and maintain balance by reigning in the well intentioned by dangerous tendencies of Dumbledore. You can only do that by having your free will, and your soul-mate by your side."

"Well, as grand as that sounds, there's not much I can do about it now that I'm dead" Harry grouched.

Merlin smiled again. "There is more to life than death, Harry Potter, and there is more to death than you think. You were killed, it was true, and when death is summoned, a soul must be taken…"

Something in the back of Harry's mind perked up at that. "So what would happen if two souls were taken?"

Merlin looked pleased. "You get to the heart of the matter Harry Potter. That would be out of balance, out of the equilibrium I wish to maintain! You please me with your insight."

"But what does it mean for me? I don't know anything about a soul-mate, I know I loved Ginny, but…"

"Ginevra was never meant to be your soul mate. That was one of the machinations of Dumbledore."

"How? I mean, why? What…"

"Remember Harry Potter, that Dumbledore was utterly convinced by his path, and that anything he did was justifiable. Anything. Voldemort felt the same way. Dumbledore thought that he was helping by manipulating things to provide you with a partner, one who on the face of it would be a good match, but didn't stop to consider the wider implications of that, and who would suffer as a result. And suffer people did, you amongst them."

"Who else suffered? I wouldn't want anyone to suffer because of me!"

"Your soul-mate suffered the most. She would be drawn into a bad match for her, which would mean that she was condemned to a life which lacked fulfilment, which lacked the joy which would have come with you. She existed, rather than lived. She ended up with one who was better suited as a friend, whilst remaining naught but friends with the one who would have completed her."

Merlin looked at Harry. "I will not explicitly name your soul-mate, but I trust in your intellect enough to mean that I've already said enough to allow you to determine who she is."

Harry thought about what Merlin had said. Someone ended up with someone who was better suited as a friend, but remained a friend with him. He thought through his female friends. There was Ginny, of course, Tonks, Cho Chang, Fleur Delacour, various others he had encountered during his time at Hogwarts. Then of course there was Her. If Harry had been honest with himself during his life, he would have admitted that the idea of having a soul-mate didn't seem that far-fetched. Not since he met her. The girl who had stuck beside him through thick and thin, believed him when no-one else did. Trusted him, supported him, comforted him, suffered for him.

"How the fuck didn't I realise before now" he groaned.

Merlin looked pleased. "I didn't' think it would take you long to figure it out. You had two powerful forces inadvertently conspire against you Harry Potter, so don't feel too bad. You had the parasite shard of Voldemort's soul, and you had the manipulations of Dumbledore both work to compromise you. Had things been different you would have realised the connection the two of you had and would have acted on it. Maybe not immediately, but it would have been something neither of you could have ignored."

Harry sat there looking sad. "I'll never get a chance to tell her I am sorry for condemning her to whatever she has been left with."

"Well, that brings us back to the earlier point of our conversation, remember, the part about souls"

Harry didn't look up. Merlin didn't stop. "When Voldemort killed you, the universe demanded a soul. I have enough influence still that I can determine which soul stays here, and which is returned to your plane of existence."

That got Harry's attention. "Your soul can be returned. I can't return it to the point where you died, but I can send it back to a point in time. I can send it back to a point where time has an infinite number of opportunities, a point where a decision you probably weren't even aware you made had an influence on the whole of your future."

"But if I go back, how will I know what I need to do to help keep this balance you were talking about? Won't everything turn out the same?"

"No. I can't turn back time on your soul, only on the point in history where your soul is reintegrated with your body. The soul which is sent back will be the one I'm talking to now."

"Does that mean I will have all my memories? I'll know where all the Horcruxes are, I'll now what happened, how I can won?"

"Do a degree" answered Merlin enigmatically. "I can't send you back with all of your knowledge. You going back will alter the balance, because it has to, if I send you back with the entirety of your knowledge intact there's a risk, however small, that someone could pick up on that and cause even more problems."

"So how does me going back help in any way if I don't know?"

"You will have knowledge and understanding, even if you aren't wholly aware where it comes from. You will have the ability to protect your mind, and to answer your upcoming question, no mind-shield is wholly invulnerable. Regardless of how much ability I give you to shield your thoughts, you would still be at risk should anyone ask the right questions whilst you were under the influence of veritaserum, for example. It is better than I give you some knowledge, and the ability to quickly gain more as you progress."

"How can you do that?"

"Well, to start with as I said before the Horcrux in you was parasitic. It needed your magic to survive. Without it you will find you have much more of a connection with your magic and with your own mind. You will be able to focus more easily, you will learn more quickly."

"Ok." Harry didn't sound wholly convinced.

"If I send you back with 6 years worth of magical knowledge, it will soon become apparent how far advanced you are compared to your peers, which will cause questions and will get you noticed by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. There's one or two in particular who it would be best not to advertise to."

"So what would I be sent back with if I went back?"

"You would retain the knowledge of your role in the ripples of time, you would know the role that Dumbledore has played, as well as that of Voldemort. You would know that there have been multiple Horcruxes, and you would know that you have a soul-mate out there waiting for you to spark the connection."

"Will I know how to do that last thing?"

"I can't tell you how to do it. If I did it would not be your free will to make that connection, although it would be obvious once the connection has been made. I trust in your abilities."

"At what point in time will I be sent back?"

"That's not up to me. I have the power to return you into the time stream, but I don't get to say when".

Harry looked at the figure before him. "Wait, aren't you like the creator of all existence? You created, well, everything, but you can't decide when I get put back?"

Merlin raised an eyebrow. "You misunderstand, Harry Potter. I did not create the universe. The universe created me! It recognised that there had to be something to bring balance to the primordial chaos that was the universe or it would wind up destroying itself. I was created as that balance."

"So I will be back at Hogwarts somewhere in time. Academically I'll know what I already knew at that point, but I'll be a better student and I'll have an understanding of the various manipulations which have been holding me back?"

"That's a reasonable summary. You will also remember the outline of our conversation, but not many of the fine details. It will appear to your mind to be like a dream, one which was very vivid, but which you can now only remember in broad terms. Your connection with your soul-mate will help. She will help you organise your mind, she will help you better compartmentalise your thoughts and emotions, she will help you control your magic and your temper. To a degree."

"A degree?"

"I want you to be you. Albeit an improved version of you. I would be doing us both a disservice if I was to send you back as a significantly changed person from who you currently are. You need your temper sometimes, you need the chaos which flows through your mind sometimes. You need the fire which makes you reckless, it's that same fire which makes you brave, which makes you protective, which makes you love. By the same token you need more control, you need to know when you are better served to unleash that chaos."

Harry sat there looking at his feet. There was so much to take on board. On the one hand, he had a chance to go back and live. It was a chance not only for him, but for all of those who had died in the war after the point where he was reinserted into the time stream. It had risks – if he was put back too late, people like Sirius Black, his godfather, would still be dead. If he was put back too early, he knew he was going to have trials and tribulations to endure once again.

Not for the first time, Merlin picked up on Harry's thoughts. "Yes, you may have things to re-endure, but when you are back you won't necessarily remember the details from the first time around. At best your hidden knowledge will be able to guide your instincts. You may not be aware of why you are doing things, but your restricted memories may be able to influence your subconscious and aid you more than it could if you had perfect recall."

That put a much more positive spin on things. Merlin continued "the other side of course, is that your subconscious will make you wary of people you may have been friendly with the last time around, without making it clear why. There will be certain friendships which by default can't be the same when you go back."

Harry picked up on this. "You mean Ron, don't you." Merlin stayed silent as Harry picked up the pieces of the puzzle and continued to slot them together. "Dumbledore influenced my friendship with Ron. Now that I think about it, it's obvious. That first time I went to Platform 9 ¾. Molly standing there saying 'Oh, I can never remember the platform' was a set up. Ron was the 6th kid she'd sent to Hogwarts, after going there herself, the train has never left from anywhere other than 9 ¾ according to Hogwarts: A Histo…."

Harry never finished the sentence. Just thinking about the book flooded his mind with images of its keenest reader. Harry found himself thinking about the number of times she had quoted something from the book. Usually pertinent to the discussion being had at the time, but sometimes just a random fact about the castle. He often found himself wondering at the unabashed joy which radiated from her at learning something else new about the castle that the two of them had rapidly grown to love.

"If I'm not going to remember details, how will I recognise that she's my soul-mate?"

"You will be drawn to her, although at first you won't know why. You will feel a kinship with her, but won't recognise the depth of it to start with, but you will soon pick up on her magic calling yours. When you recognise that, you will have made the connection to her, and she to you. After that, it's up to the two of you. You will be soul-mates, but you will still have to work together to make the connection work."

"What does being soul-mates mean?"

"A good question, Harry Potter. Some believe that having a soul-mate is like being matched by the fates. It's not really like that. It's evidence that you could search the rest of creation and not find anyone else that you are more suited to. Yes, you could deny the connection and you could even go on to have a relationship with someone else, but you would never feel complete. There would always be a restlessness about your relationship, a lack of that certain something, a feeling that something important was missing. It's also unlikely that such a union would be blessed with children."

Harry pondered that. He had vague thoughts about being a father, thoughts which both thrilled and terrified him. He had built up a mental image of his own father as this paragon of paternal excellence, based on nothing other than a wishful thinking. He also had a prime example of how not to be a parent based on his Uncle Vernon. Going back for the opportunity to put things right and have the chance to experience parenthood was a powerful jolt.

"Anything else I need to know before I decide?"

"Yes, there is one thing. I am prepared to make one change to the timeline which will fall in your favour. It won't relieve you of the obligations which will return to you should you go back, but it may help."

Merlin raised a hand and conjured an image hovering over his palm. It shifted from a three dimensional Hogwarts, to the Ministry of Magic, to Diagon Alley and some other images. "Voldemort hid his abominations throughout the Wizarding world, safe in the knowledge that as long as one existed, he would not die. The change I will make will mean that should Voldemort die, it will require the sacrifice of one of his Horcruxes to revive him. This means that should you kill Voldemort seven times, he will die for good. If you destroy five Horcruxes and kill him twice, the same would happen."

"Can't you change things to eliminate the Horcruxes altogether?"

"No. There are restrictions where souls are involved. Seven were made, so seven must remain, however as the seventh was you, and Voldemort struck you with the killing curse, that shard may stay in my domain. You will have the six remaining shards to resolve should you return."

"So, can I summarise – I'd get sent back with some vague dream like memories of you, but with no specific information to help, I'd have to find my soul mate, recognise her as being that, re-learn everything, fight Voldemort, whilst at the same time dealing with the manipulations of Dumbledore, being guided by nothing more than instincts that are based on memories I won't actually remember. Does that sum it up?"

Merlin nodded.

"To be honest, you aren't really selling it. Why should I decide to go back? If this is Hell and the worst that's going to happen to me is that I forget what blue looks like, I can't hold my hand over my heart and say that it's any worse than the life I experienced the first time around."

Harry half expected Merlin to look disappointed, to have that same infuriating look that Dumbledore would have whenever Harry showed signs of independence. He didn't. "I promised you free will, Harry Potter. If I have to try and manipulate you into returning, I would be violating my promise to you, at that point I'm no better than Dumbledore. Your choice is yours. I will answer any questions you have, but I will not seek to influence your decision."

"What happens if I don't go back?"

"You know the answer to that. If you do not return then Voldemort has killed you. Rightly or wrongly, you are heralded as a beacon of hope. If that beacon is extinguished there is no guarantee that a new one will be lit."

It made sense, Harry thought, but the significant slice of cynicism that Harry had developed over the years couldn't help but think that anyone who makes such a profession of not trying to influence him was, by default, trying to influence him. He looked over at Merlin who just stood impassively.

Harry considered everything, and found himself coming back to one thought before any others. That thought had a defined shape. It had a definite name. It had a set of emotions which, without the dampening effect of the Horcrux which had spent 15 years polluting his body, it was like Harry was feeling for the first time. He could almost smell the scent of her hair. He could hear her voice in his mind, and he could feel her touch as she pulled him into a hug. He knew there was no point denying it. If there was even a remote chance that she really was his soul-mate, he owed it to himself to take it.

He opened his mouth to speak but saw the look on Merlin's face. Harry's own face clouded. "I really wish you wouldn't do that."

"I am sorry Harry Potter, but I can no less sense your thoughts than you can deliberately choose to eschew breath. Breathing is part of who you are, this is part of who I am."

"So how does this work then?" Harry knew his mind was made up, and knew equally that Merlin was well aware of the fact. As soon as he started thinking about her, there was never any doubt.

"Close your eyes, Harry Potter" it was a command rather than a suggestion, and Harry found his eyes closing without being aware of it. "When next you open them, you will have been reinserted into the time stream. What you do then, is up to you."

"I wish you well Harry Potter. Go forth and fulfil your destiny!"

Harry felt like he was being pulled every way at once. It was like apparition and portkey travel, it was like falling and flying, it was like being pushed and squeezed. Suddenly, there was a roar of noise which almost made him cry out in pain.

17 year old Harry Potter had closed his eyes in Hell.

11 year old Harry Potter opened his eyes to see a sign before him.

"Welcome to Kings Cross".