Rated T/M

Summary

He died trying to save the universe... thousands of years in the future. Now he's back in his reincarnation of 1926. Meet Charles, one of the many reincarnations of Harry Potter. He comes to 1930 with Big Plans, none that involved Tom Riddle.

Chapter 1: Being Dead

"I died. At least, I'm pretty sure I died." He whispered into the nothingness. The fact that he could whisper was unsettling.

"You did, my friend." A voice he recognized told him.

"Jake? Did you die? ... So I was not successful?"

"You were. Thanks to your sacrifice we lived five more years before everything we ever knew was destroyed. There was no way to stop it, that plan was made more than 4,000 years ago. You manage to give us some time, enough to manage this." Jake said

"What is this exactly?" He concentrated and realized that he could see. He was on the Grand Hall, the meeting place of all sentient beings back home. But it wasn't the busy, colorful, and nosy place of his childhood or the destroyed place from adulthood after the last Great War. Instead, it was in all its former greatness but eerie white, silent, and apparently empty, except for him and Jake.

"Where are we? And why are we here? If this is the afterlife the ancient mortals used to preach, it's not living up to its reputation... No offense Jake."

Jake smiled "None taken. To answer you, I have no idea where we are. Really. Don't look at me that way. I have seen this place only in books; it was destroyed before I was born. You chose this place, I suppose because it's familiar to you and it's associated with good, safe, memories. Why are we here... is more complicated. A year after you...left."

He interrupted, "You can say it, Jake, after I died. I'm proud of what I did. It gave the others more time to live, even if it was useless in the end." He said bitterly.

"Well" Jake continued, "after you died we figured anything and everything we did would be useless. Everything was set in motion and we couldn't stop it, the energy was too great and the momentum was set. We would have needed a source of energy bigger to counter it or a way to suck its energy. Both options were impossible, as you know. The people, if you can call them that, that did it knew what they were doing and used the wars to divert the attention so that when we noticed something was terribly wrong, it would have been way too late to do something other than wait for the final moment."

"So everything was useless then? All died?" He asked uncertainly.

"No. Everything was not useless. You should know better than to think your daughter would have let your sacrifice be in vain," Jake said with a fond smile

"You loved her didn't you?" He gave him a knowing and suspicious look.

"Everyone loved her, she made it difficult not to," Jake said with a shrug, "It was her brilliance and love of history that managed to make a 'if everything else fails plan'. The year after you died she buried herself in books, we thought it was her way of coping, and in a way, it also was. It was not a strange sight to see her at all hours on a random table or floor with four books and her journal. After a successful break-in of the Archianova library on the planet Earth, she found a book that changed everything." Jake explained.

"Wait! Did you go to Earth? How in the stars did you manage that?" he said, shock clearly in his voice.

"We found some old maps on a destroyed ship and the years, and lack of human population was kind to the planet. We found only 60% of polluted air and only 40% of the waters dead. If the universe would have lasted longer we might have been able to go back..." Jake stayed in silence for a moment in contemplation.

"We strayed off-topic, go back to the book"

"Ah, yes, the book. To tell you the truth I did not believe a word of it but we were so desperate that any plan, any idea that gave hope was given a chance... and I couldn't deny Sophie. If she thought it could work it was good enough for the rest of us. And given that we are talking, I guess she was right after all."

"W-why is she not here?"

Jake looked at him sadly and said, "She couldn't, she didn't qualify. Apparently, some souls, spirits, whatever you want to call it, are re-born again and again. The book called them Old Souls and they, apparently, are usually responsible for major historical events. They are people who are strong or powerful or charismatic or something that makes them stand out, be heard, and influence history in some way or another. The earthling that wrote the book remembered every life that he had lived and some of the people he suspected to also be an old soul." Jake looked down and had a pained expression, took a deep breath, and continued "Sophie, being the brilliant girl she is, managed to track in history all of our past lifetimes and ..."

"Jake, What are you not telling me? ... What did she do?"

_flashback_

"Sophie has gone missing, Sir." a tall blond man in a dark gray uniform said.

"Are you sure? Have you cheeked all her usual places? The kitchen?" Jake responded with a tired voice. This was not the first time Sophie left her duties unattended because she lost track of time because of one of her 'discoveries'. He could almost hear her voice saying 'But Jake this could change everything! Maybe this is the answer' and of course, he would look at her big hopeful eyes and forgive her.

"I have done so, sir. The last place someone saw her was close to the Demon Ritual Chambers of Sector five, but of course, nobody can enter there without your permission."

Jake suddenly looked alert "Thanks soldier, get back to your duties, I'm sure she is in some corner reading a book and just forgot to check the panel."

"All right, sir."

Jake calmly walked off the main control center and took off running after he was far from anyone else. 'No need to panic the people, I'm sure she is ok and there is nothing to worry about.'

When he got near the ritual chambers he saw one door open and warily approached it hoping to whatever might hear him that Sophie will not be there. She was a smart girl; she knows how dangerous it is. She will not be there. She will not.

When he got to the door he saw her. On the floor. Covered with blood. On a rune circle.

"Sophie... What have you done?"

_end of flashback_

"She did a demon rune circle. Traded her magic for the knowledge of all our lifetimes. After that, she only lived two more years. You know one cannot live long without your magic, the body is too used to it, it doesn't know how to survive without it anymore." Jake stopped, took a deep breath, and continued.

"She lived long enough to determine which life could have made the more difference. Out of the 50,000 of the last sentient beings, only 14 were considered 'old souls'. Out of those 14, only 8 had the potential to change the outcome. Surprisingly those 8 were born in a time where a small change could have been enough to stop the end. Unsurprisingly those 8 died young. We think they were murdered to ensure they could not change anything, which included you and me. She calculated that by going back, we could stop it. Of course, one cannot go back that far in time and inhabit a body that is currently occupied, even if it is your own. She died before we manage to figure something out. One of the eight, I'm sure you remember, Nathan, the weird son of your second ex-wife, figured the last part. As it turns out, he was not weird for the sake of being weird like you and Afron always thought. He remembered some of his past lives and sometimes confused his current life with some past one. His method was actually really simple, so simple that... I actually thought that this was really the end. Each of us, pardon the expression, is a freak of nature. For some reason, we do not follow the rules and instead of following the normal order and become part of the universe after we die, we come back intact, whole, in a new body. With our past experiences buried but not lost." Jake explained

He mourned the death of his beautiful daughter, but he could not deal with that now, it was best to not think about it. He tried to understand all the information and all its consequences "I'm trying to follow you, I really am..."

"I do not judge you in the least, I still don't understand it and I'm only beginning to believe it and I had some years to study it and become somewhat used to it," Jake said.

"So what do we do now? What can be done? And where are the others?" He said in one breath.

"I'm guessing the others are already there, waiting for us. I was in charge of telling you and guiding you. For some odd reason, they thought I would be better for the job. I tried to tell them you would prefer a beautiful mortal woman with a bottle of alcohol in her arms. But they thought I was joking." Jake said

He smiled a little, Jake knew him well "You should at least brought the alcohol, so... what do I have to do? And where are we going?"

"We are going somewhere around 1930 of the ancient calendar; it depends when you were born in that lifetime and" Here Jake paused for dramatic effect "we are going to Earth!"

For all his trouble he got an unimpressed look, Jake sighed, "This place is an in-between place, if you are here is because you can choose to come back. You have been stuck here for some time because there's no new body to go back to. There's no life being born. There's nothing to go back to. But by me coming here you gained your 'self'. Nathan told us that he had to die first, somehow manage to gain his sense of self, don't really know how he managed it, and appear to the next person that died. That was Carol and so on so forth with the eight. I am coming here for you. You are the last. Now you need to remember all your past lives in the order from your last birth to your first. This is the hard part because you'll have to remember things you might have wished not to. I had to suffer my every childhood, puberty, being in love and then remembering how they died, the pain of every betrayal. It was brutal. Once you finish this part you have to concentrate on the life you want to go back to and the time. We will all be arriving at different times and parts of the world because some have to be early to prevent their death and some don't want to arrive at an inconvenient moment in that life. The only thing that we will be actually doing is having all of our memories of the future lifetimes with us and the only reason we can do that is that there is no place right now to go back to. And the 'nothing can be created or destroyed' rule works in our favor." Jake said

"So how we will recognize each other? By the way, apart from you, Nathan, and Carol who else is going?"

"Our best bet is our auras because we will all have different names, faces, and ages. I will be somewhere in Benito Mussolini's Italy with republican parents and you will be in Nazi Germany with a Jew father. No one got it easy, let me tell you. Nathan and Carol will be in the Spanish civil war. The rest, except Afron, you did not know a lot about. Alanna, Cassandra, and Dante are the other three. The good news is that they know all about you and have a sad case of hero-worship, but then, everyone that knew you had a case of hero-worship. Sad times we were living in. Even I admit that I missed your particular brand of sarcasm and grouchy personality in the mornings" Jake joked "I'm not sure of Cassandra or Dante, but Alanna will be in China around that time and Afron will be in France. Sophie speculated that if we stay where we are born we will die in the conflicts because chances are that no matter how hard we try we will either be pulled into politics, be noticed by our intergalactic enemy, or both. Remember they murdered us, no matter how it appears you died; they put the pieces there so that we all end up dead. The safest place we can go is in London; we have a 12% probability that if we make it to London we will be relatively safe. The thing is, getting to London has a high chance of getting us killed on the way."

"Sounds optimistic... Afron is going? That's great! Dante? …The name sounds familiar." He tried to remember; he has a vague memory of someone with that name "Was Dante the new recruit that spilled juice on my carpet and then trying to fix it almost burned the office? That Dante?"

Jake laughed, "Yes! That Dante. To be fair you scared the brains out of him, but later on, he manages to gain everyone's respect with his genius in mechanics."

"So to be clear, the plan once we get there, to London, keep your head down and survive? Do we have to kill someone or do something more specific to change the time?"

"You have to understand that in our history is extremely rare for two of the 14 to be born some years apart. To have eight of us in the same period, in the same galaxy, let alone the same planet, each of us capable of changing history dramatically, will change everything. For some reason that time on Earth is extremely important to the bastards, that is why we think there were so many of us, why they killed us before we could ruin their plans, and why they created so many conflicts between the earth mortals. Don't get me wrong if I happen to see one of those bastards, I'll happily kill them. I'm sure most of us will, after everything they have caused us. I'm sorry my friend but it appears our time here is coming to an end."

He looked around and saw the edges around the Grand Hall fading. For a moment he panicked, but then remembered he already died so what more can he worry about?

"What do I have to do to remember?" He asked quickly. And for the first time, Jake came closer and touched his forehead. The last he heard from Jake was "Don't fight it" and all was black again.

It all started to play like a recording. His life. At least the last one. Born Dartamian Marcus Liander of the galaxy Alpha in sector 14. Son to the Chief Commander and a cleaning inspector. Neither had permission to procreate and his birth was kept a secret. His father sent his mother to some desolate place in the galaxy, where ship thieves and human/creature selling were high. His childhood was hard, but he learned, adapted, and survived. Mother was not so lucky and was killed on his tenth birthday.

On went, the memories of his childhood like an avalanche, almost too fast to process. Learning how to fight and then killing the five that were responsible for his mother's death and the 70 that were part of the particular band. Best not to leave potential enemies behind was a lesson he learned early on. The stories that told that particular adventure made some important people look at him and years later he was the youngest High Chief Commander.

His first marriage, Sophie...beautiful, baby Sophie, the wars, the deaths, the destruction, the panic, the blood, and finally knowing the universe as we know it will end. Knowing it's too late but also refusing to admit defeat and let his daughter, his people, down. The Plan. The plan that could save them. The plan that needed someone to be there until the last explosion and that it will be impossible for that person to survive it.

He was the leader, the only leader actually. The rest of the leaders and governments of different galaxies did not survive the attacks. And even if there were supposed to be other people of higher authority than him or that he was relatively young he was made leader. By that time it did not matter if your skin was blue, you have no skin or eat fire, it was a common enemy, and old wars were forgotten. The people loved him, the rest respected him, but all trusted him with their lives so it was his responsibility, his honor, and pleasure to make the last stand. At least he'll go with a bang. And finally his death on the twelfth cycle of the moon on the 5783 of the turn of the star named Sun following the ancient Earth calendar.

And on went the lives he had lived. Hundreds of lives. In most he was a mortal man living in space, in a few he was a woman, in rare cases, he was from another race, in another planet, in some distant corner of the universe where they didn't even know of mortals.

Something he learned is that being some great hero is not so great for the hero. Almost all of the lives where he is some kind of a hero meant he had a really crappy childhood, died young, alone, and without ever really experiencing life, and everyone trying to manipulate him in some way. And in the ones where he was some kind of dark lord/king/dictator/ruler he lived a long full life. Such are the ironies of life... of course, the assassination attempts do get old and tiring. To be fair he was never really evil. Ruthless, bloody, and short-tempered, maybe. But the victors write history as they say, so after he won and the people were happy, healthy, wealthy, and safe, he was remembered as the greatest thing that could have happened to the planet or sometimes galaxy. If he lost he was the worst thing that almost happened but the good people of the government saved the people.

He gets to live on Earth, but it's polluted, there's no water and radiation is killing them. Those that had the money went to live in space. His family was middle class. Further back he goes he gets to re-experience the sun on his skin and to look up and see blue, look down and feel the grass, trees that are not for food, forests, snow, vampires, goblins, werewolf's, so many things that were lost in the future.

Getting to a life that is close to the intended date he pays extra attention. Harry James Potter, 1980, no, is still too far. Jake said around the 1930s.

His life as Harry starts bad, with an assassination attempt even before he can make full sentences. Lily Evans reminds me of my Sophie. She did a demon rune blood circle and traded her life for her child's survival. This life keeps getting worse with his mother's sister. It is not the worse childhood he ever had, but it stills sucks. After that with a self-called 'Dark lord' terrorizing a small community of magical people, things don't get easier.

After seeing some of my lifetimes of being Supreme Ruler, King, Overlord, or Dictator, he is not impressed. The so-called 'magical world' that was really just a small community with illusions of grandeur hiding behind his underfed and skinny ass was really not warming him up to them either. The supposed grandfatherly figure planning his death, hiding facts, and generally being a manipulative and stupid old man was really irritating. Got to give him his grudging respect for being a master planer but still, he leaves much to be desired as a leader. His black and white frame of mind would have caused him a lot of trouble in his time. But sadly, he can't blame it all on other people. He, as Harry, should have studied more, practiced more, and generally learned more about the world he was living in.

In one of the memories, something about the red cat eyes and insane manner of Voldemort makes him think that the bastards infested Voldemort. He had seen it done before after all and the way the prophecy conveniently points at him makes him think the bastards created (or guided) a mad dog and then pointed in his general direction. He'll think about it later, maybe there was some important clue about the time or place.

He could have done so many things, changed so much if only. But that's the story about most of his lives. Too many could have's, should have's. He likes to think that with each life he is more competent, more decisive, made better choices, but that maybe is his own bias. Some would believe that ruling your own planet and/or galaxy is a big no-no. Being a hero is overrated anyway.

As Harry, he didn't even get to see a different country or have sex until he was married. Things don't get better in his next life. Born Louis Pierr to a poor French family in 1956 and died of an infection in 1961. Five years. I only lived five years.

Well, there goes the theory that he is some super-powerful, all-knowing, and indestructible being. He can die just as easily as the next baby. The fact that he has the potential to do something apparently doesn't mean he will. The only difference is that he will not be part of the natural flow of energy after he 'dies'.

That's...disappointing. He was kind of hoping for some extra special advantage over the bloody bastards that planned the end of the universe. And just to have enough energy out of the destruction to build their own universe. Selfish bloody bastards. Considering that epiphany he did a pretty good job as Harry. He was a normal kid after all.

Next is his intended life. Charles Gustav, no last name, was born in Germany in 1926. The second child of a one-fourth veela mother that was disinherited by her family for being 'ugly with no magical powers and a squib Jew father. Abigael or Abby as we called her, my older sister by two years. She got more of the Veela heritage. With my mother's blonde hair, perfect skin, and my father's soft brown eyes, she made a beautiful picture. Not Veela perfect, but in a sea of normal, she was breath-taking. She also had slight mental problems, nothing incapacitating, she just acted a few years younger than she was.

His family lived in the country, mostly because of necessity. My sister could not control her allure and did not understand that people wanted to harm her. His mother also had panic attacks when in public. His mother, Annabelle, was cast out of her family at 16. Being 1/4 Veela meant she had plain blonde hair, weak allure, her father's green eyes, could not transform to the complete Veela and overall was fairly normal to them. This made her a target to the others. Of course, to her son she was the most beautiful creature to ever exist.

It was her imperfections that he loved. Her dimples, beauty marks, slightly round face, petite frame, really curly hair, and too plumb lips made her stand out, be unique. Her parents mostly shielded her from the others' cruelness. After her fall out with her family that came with the death of her parents, she moved to Germany. Shortly after her arrival a band of boys tried or did rape her; he was never told exactly what happened. Dad's mom saved her. Grandma told him she never really got over the experience.

Dad had to be her friend for two years before she could be in a room alone with him. Three years dating before she consented to marry dad and four years before Abby was born. He has always thought dad would have calmly waited his whole life for her. He was a good man and a better father. Frank, was the son of a squib that was forbidden from using the family name and a squib himself. They never saw the need to invent a last name for themselves.

It was a pretty good life until he was about eight. He's guessing they lasted that long because they were pretty far away from most towns and not many people knew about them. Dad and he were sent to concentration camps. He now understands Jake. He would have preferred more than anything not to remember. His father died and he escaped using luck and magic. Traumatized, he when looking for the rest of my family. Years later he found out that when they tried to use his mother and sister as prostitutes, Annabelle killed Abby and then killed herself. Not before setting the place on fire, killing hundreds.

When he started to get into politics, naively thinking he could prevent this from ever happening, someone broke into his apartment and killed him. The last thing he saw was red eyes and blond hair.

Without mercy, the memories continue. He still has not reached the first. Curiously his first life was as a Spartan. A good hard-working life of a warrior. He died when he leads a few hundred to an ambush of an army before they could reach their land.

Now the next part. He wants to be Charles in the summer of 1931, four years before everything went downhill. He was four, Abby was celebrating her seventh birthday and mom was teaching them to play the piano and the violin. The summer Abby tried to 'save' a baby horse and their father got hurt trying to get her out of the mother's way.

That summer.

Anytime now.

Maybe he has to do something else? Try harder? Be more specific? Ok then. The day early summer where mother asked him what second language he wanted to learn.

Edited by Timewhisper, March 1, 2012

Edited May 2021