"Prisoner number 6785," a bored sounding voice called out.

Harry's world was still dark. Tiny beams of light shone through the holes in the carrying box he'd been shoved into for transport to wherever the hell he now was.

"Experiment number 0034," the voice continued.

Light flooded Harry's world. The front of the box had been opened and Harry stepped out onto a wooden platform. Two men, perhaps the same two men from the prison, attached him to the platform with chains. In front of him, was a sight that made his underused eyes widen in shock.

"Modified version of the confundus charm, woven into the arch using Hypthorn's static enchantment protocol; dated the third of September, 2002, approved by the Chief Unspeakable."

It was the veil of death.

"Begin the transfer."

Without making a sound, the platform started moving towards the veil leaving Harry no possibility of escape… not that he wanted it.

'For neither can live while the other survives,' he mused, grinning manically. He was about to die, but he knew that what was going on here was something Voldemort certainly didn't know about, or authorise.

He was halfway to the veil now and suddenly terror flooded his mind, but the raw primal emotion wasn't his.

A loud crack sounded behind him and Voldemort's voice screamed "Accio Potter!" but the chains held him fast to the platform and before another word could be uttered he'd plunged through the archway and darkness took him.

It was a voice that returned him to consciousness

"Good morning, Mister Potter," were but the words. The voice hard as stone, it echoed like an empty cave, yet it was somehow as refreshing as cold air or pure water.

Harry was not aure he agreed it was good. Different, yes, he'd concede that.

"Ah, good morning?" he asked anyhow, not able to see whoever had spoken, or anything else. The sound of his voice surprised him – notably, that it sounded clear and undamaged … the voice of an adult … even though he'd done virtually no speaking for nearly ten years.

And his mind … it also felt free … he could feel none of the fog of the Dementors, nor the agony of the connection to Voldemort. For the first time maybe ever, he felt his mind was his own.

Then he remembered. He had gone through the Veil. He was dead.

"Amazing what not having a body will do for you, is it not?"

He could not tell whether or not whoever was speaking was also in his head. He did not feel anyone intruding, for however little that might-mean-probably-meant.

But the words had confirmed that he was, in fact, dead. He was bodiless, a spirit.

"You are," the voice said, plainly responding to his thoughts and proving that whoever they were, they could read minds.

It dismayed him … he thought that over the years he'd become equal to the Dark Lord in Occlumency, able to keep anyone else out.

"Your Occlumency is quite formidable, Mister Potter, but by necessity it does you no good here. There is no hiding, there is no secrecy. "

The voice paused. "Here, there is truth. And, we are not alone."

The darkness lifted, to be replaced by the sight of a small, round room. In the middle of the room was an open firepit, filled with flames of every color. For some reason, there were wolf furs on the floor, and old Muggle weapons on the walls: swords and spears and shields.

There was also two thrones. A man sat in one, a woman the other.

The woman was clothed in an elegant dress of the purest white. She held a thick book. Her face was uncovered.

The man was clad in closely-drawn black robes. His face was partially concealed, and he held a great scythe.

Harry supposed the man – the male figure, at least – must be Death.

If that were the case, the woman – the female figure – probably would be Fate, or perhaps Magic.

If she were Fate, was she one of the Three Sisters who worked the loom? Or was that just a tale and she was all of them?

Harry thought that these people liked theatrics.

"I am Death," the woman said at the same moment as the man said "I am Fate." They paused. "We are Magic," they said together. "Think of us as either or both."

Magic began to fill the air and press in on him, far more powerful than any he had ever sensed.

He shivered and he shook … it was going to overwhelm him … he would be destroyed, without question … never to exist again …

The pressure stopped swelling and withdrew.

"A taste," the female figure said.

As if that had been for his pleasure.

"We have something of an issue to discuss with you, Mister Potter," the visage of Death proclaimed. "A bone to pick, as it were."

Harry muttered something perhaps barely distinguishable as "um okay." He closed his eyes and tried to close his mind. Tried to shut everything out, to think. "Does this issue have anything to do with me dying not at Voldemort's hands?"

And if it didn't, why was he here? The conversation ahead didn't look like it would be in any way pleasant.

"A bit of theater, that … and a bit of conniving on our parts," spoke the figure of Fate. "If we hadn't acted then, you and Tom Riddle would have continued to live for … oh, about a thousand years, give or take anything up to a hundred."

This idea did not please Harry at all, and he tried to shout some kind of harsh expletives. But all that came out was a vague croak.

The figure of Fate nodded at his non-words. "Yes … the timelines are not a hundred percent predictable that far out … but it would have been no less than nine hundred more years before the last of the Horcruxes … you, eventually … would have expired. Tom Riddle would have died very shortly thereafter, one way or another."

"That doesn't satisfy us, though," Death added. "I don't like being denied what I am owed."

Harry knew he must have an uncomfortable expression on his face, and wondered exactly what it looked like. "Are you telling me that it's my fault that I was a Horcrux?"

The two entities shook their heads in unison. "We are not and you are not, Mister Potter. Riddle is the one at fault and it is he whom we blame."

Harry felt a tiny bit better hearing that.

"The prophecy," the woman he decided was Fate began again, "was not fulfilled properly. You were supposed to kill Riddle, and not in a thousand years."

Harry's shoulders tensed. "Pretty hard for me to do that, trapped where I was." He wondered if his voice had sounded more or less sarcastic than bitter.

"Yes," Fate agreed. The simple answer helped not at all.

Covered in torn rags and in filth, having reason to believe he was hardly taller as a "grown man" than the tallest of the boys he'd gone to Hogwarts with had been at eleven years old, Harry felt small before both entities, whose voices and presence filled the room.

"You were certainly handicapped," Death said, perhaps responding to those thoughts.

"Never was it our intention for you to end up in that abomination Magical Britain uses as a prison." Fate added.

"Where did it turn wrong?" Harry asked. "Or, when?"

"Where and when are questions with many possible answers," Fate said. "But, as a start, there was your brother, who failed to do the job he took on."

"My … brother" Harry trailed off, not sure what that Gryffindor meathead could possibly have done. Or, not done.

"Your headmaster, when the two of you were babies, declared your brother to be the Boy-Who-Lived, and as he grew up your twin made no effort to disabuse people of the idea, even as it became more clear to him you were the one the prophecy referred to," Fate explained.

"He knew!" Harry yelped, completely shocked. There had been no hint in the interactions he had seen between John and Riddle that John had known anything.

"He did," Death affirmed.

"When did he know?" Harry asked.

"From shortly before he first started at Hogwarts. Dumbledore told him."

"Dumbledore," Harry said with a biting, grasping, angry voice. So many things came back to Dumbledore. He closed his eyes and tried to stifle his turbulent feelings.

"Harry," Fate spoke his first name for the first time, surprising him and making him open his eyes, "Dumbledore deliberately named your brother as the Boy-Who-Lived, knowing it wasn't true, and started the process of a plan to make and keep you weak."

Harry looked straight into the icy blue eyes of the being, finally remembering where he had seen that particular color. The word "why?" crossed his lips.

The entity sighed. "Dumbledore had seen the rise of two Dark Lords in his lifetime, and felt that he bore significant responsibility for both rises. He was terrified of it happening a third time. When he heard a prophecy defining someone who could vanquish the second of those Dark Lords, who would have a power they didn't know, he tried to control events such that the prophesied child could not become a threat to the world as Dumbledore knew it."

Harry's resentment towards the old man grew. He'd spent almost his whole life in one sort of hell or another, all to find out it was because of a prophecy that only talked about possibilities … not anything certain. "So Dumbledore … traded the possible rise of a Dark Lord … for the certain victory of one already established?"

Fate smiled weakly. "He had never intended you to remain in Azkaban for long, but his death meant he could no longer control events, and your brother never did or said anything that might have enabled your release. That moves us nicely to why we're here now."

Too angry to speak, Harry stood in silence.

Fate and Death nodded. "We are going to intervene."

Harry jerked, not daring to believe what he'd just heard, or what it meant. "It's a bit late, isn't it? I'm dead. Riddle won. The prophecy's over."

In an instant the visage of Fate moved, until she was standing right next to Harry.

But it was Death who spoke. "It's not too late, although … we are going to have to bend some of our rules. Even perhaps change some of them forever."

"Tom Riddle needs to die," Fate added. "And I will not subordinate my will to Albus Dumbledore's folly any longer."

Somehow, Harry returned her stare, remembering the owner of the last icy blue eyes he'd seen, someone he hadn't seen in years now. "You brought me here. You must have a plan."

Fate smiled. Death clapped his hands. "Well stated," they both said.

"Even trapped in the hell of Azkaban," Fate began, "you made the best situation you could. Reading Riddle's mind through the connection and taking his knowledge … very resourceful of you. Your brother would never have thought to do that even if he could have."

"In its own way, it was very bold," Death said. "It was a boldness that makes you deserving. So we intervene."

Thrilled at the compliment, Harry simply asked. "What will you do?"

"We can send you back to an earlier point in the timeline. Before you went to Azkaban, before you even went to Hogwarts. We want you to change your future. You will destroy Tom Riddle, and fulfill the prophecy the way it was intended."

Harry considered this. "So I'm going back to when I was, what, ten? Nine? Younger? That's a long way. How will I stop myself getting sent to prison once I'm at Hogwarts?"

Fate smiled. "You must save Ginny Weasley."

Harry blinked. "I don't have a problem with that, but does that really keep me out of danger? What if someone else gets killed and I'm blamed, or Dumbledore flat out engineers something to get me sent to prison?" Harry shuddered. "If he were truly desperate, he might do that."

Death clapped his hands again. "Very well stated, and well perceived. Think about magical society. What do you know of it?"

Harry blinked. "Magical Britain, you mean? It's … well, it's very stratified." He paused. "The old wizarding lines, the Wizengamot lines that is, well, they control pretty much everything. When I was at Hogwarts, Dumbledore was the Wizengamot's Chief Warlock."

Fate nodded. "And your family?"

Harry's expression hardened. "The Potter family is one of those old families, yeah. Fat lot of good that did me."

Death smiled. "And that is the beginning of how we intervene. You shall have a lordship."

Harry blinked. "I can't be Lord Potter unless my father and brother die first. Are you going to kill them? I don't mind."

The entities laughed. "That would be too much intervention even for us. If we could do that we would just have killed Riddle directly and been done. But, we'll get there. What else do you know about your bloodline?"

"There's more?" Harry asked, surprised.

Fate nodded. "Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised you don't know … Riddle had no reason to take interest in your family history after all."

Death nodded. "There are fewer seats on the Wizengamot today than there were back then. Lines merged, or went extinct, but the blood still flows. The blood remembers. Some of that blood is in you. Or was in your body, rather."

"And my brother's, of course," Harry sniped.

Death nodded, unphased by the snipe. "Well, true enough, as he is your twin. But being the older son, he would be the heir for the Potter seat first. We aren't changing that."

"But your words, the way you think and understand, prove how much more capable you really are," Fate added, "and how much of a mistake it was for us to give John Potter the chance to do the job Riddle had marked you to do."

Harry had to rerun these words through his mind more than once before he fully comprehended them. "Er, what? You gave him the chance? How? And what do you even mean?"

Death and Fate both looked a bit embarrassed. "It is … largely as you heard. We gave him the chance. He was fighting anyway, willingly, and you were in Azkaban … suffice it to say, there is no reason why we should be unable to make mistakes just as mortals do. We gave him a chance. But he failed."

Harry had to think about that. In doing so, he thought he saw the big problem straight away."Wouldn't John defeating Riddle have meant the prophecy was not properly fulfilled?"

Fate nodded. "It would not have been ideal, but it might have been acceptable. But he failed."

Harry narrowed his eyes, not liking the picture he thought was developing. "So how did John die in, I guess, his first timeline?"

"At Riddle's hand in the graveyard, at the end of his fourth year."

Harry blinked. "Huh … I guess that's why he seemed so able to draw people to him, and how he did so well without apparently trying … he was older, and he really did know all the answers." Harry shook his head. "I guess that would compensate for his personality."

Fate and Death laughed, though neither seemed actually amused.

"And … wait, that's why he let Riddle kill him! He thought you'd give him another chance!"

The grim nods that garnered were so slight Harry did not see them.

"And," Harry's thoughts were rushing, "no, wait, that can't be right … second year doesn't make sense … John knew that the diary would kill Ginny Weasley and he let it happen anyhow? I thought those two loved each other for years even before Hogwarts."

Fate's expression was terribly sad. "In his first timeline, the diary did not abduct Ginny Weasley until the end of the year, and your brother did manage to save her at the very last minute. In his second timeline … John Potter's meddling caused the diary to speed up its plans."

"Huh," Harry said, blinking his eyes as he comprehended the words. "He must have really botched it."

The entities looked grim. "Indeed. And let that serve as your warning, Harry Potter … do not attempt to weave plots based on foreknowledge … a wise person once said, 'No plan survives first contact with the enemy.' You should remember that, and forego any idea of preserving the timeline. It won't allow victory. Take every chance you can to acquire every advantage you can … your lordship will help you, but that is your task."

For a while there was silence. Harry let all his thoughts build together. Finally he spoke. "So, destroying the timeline, saving Ginny Weasley, keeping myself out of prison, and somehow defeating Riddle, all that is my task?"

The entities nodded. "Well summarized," Death intoned.

Harry closed his eyes and looked down at the floor. "The lordship … you haven't said what family … since that isn't something I already have or ever had, I suppose that's a gift, of sorts?"

Fate clapped her hands.

There was another obvious category to name. "The knowledge I took from Riddle's mind … those things are my assets obviously."

A question then occurred to Harry that he became immediately desperate for the answer to. "In John's first timeline … if he saved Ginny in time, did I still end up in Azkaban?" This, he thought, might give him a clue on how far Dumbledore might be willing to go.

"You did," Death replied.

"How?" Harry immediately asked.

"Dumbledore convinced your brother to push false evidence that you had engineered the incidents the whole time."

Harry felt the information strike him and tried to ignore the hurt. It made a sick sort of sense … someone who could convince themselves of some crime's necessity probably would excuse further crime if the stakes were high enough. And desperate people did desperate things.

But the logic didn't matter. The effect did. And the effect was that he decided John would always be his enemy and there was no way around that. Dumbledore too.

It left an obvious group of questions though. "Does my task require any specific end for Dumbledore or my brother?"

The entities shook their heads. Harry guessed that meant that decision was up to him. "What about Ginny Weasley? Is she important to you beyond what happened to her in her first year?"

Fate smiled. "An astute question. So long as you save her life and keep yourself out of prison, how you treat her is entirely up to you."

That sounded off to Harry's ears, but for the moment he did not see how. He filed it away as a maybe-clue.

Both entities sensed this thought and both approved.

Harry brought all his thoughts to the front of his mind, quickly building a summary. "So, the destruction of Riddle is my task … a lordship will be my gift … Dumbledore and my brother are at least obstacles if not outright enemies … the knowledge I stole from Riddle is my asset base …" he trailed off, then found the way back, "destroying the timeline and not relying on foreknowledge are my, rules, we could probably call them. What are my … limitations?"

The entities beamed. "You really were the right one for the job," Fate said happily.

Death was the one to answer. "The sum total of all the knowledge you took from Riddle is too much. We are intervening, not creating a demigod. Pick what you most need; the rest will not return with you."

Harry winced; that was a heck of a limitation. Yet it fit; if he knew too much he could conceivably come to rely on foreknowledge without knowing he was doing so, disrupting the plan.

But he'd been told to pick what he needed most … well, there was one obvious answer.

"The Horcruxes. What they all are and where Riddle left them. Without that, there's no point sending me back at all."

Death and Fate nodded. "Absolutely true. Well done."

Though Harry appreciated the compliment, he was more concerned with the approval. It led to another obvious answer: the Horcruxes were absurdly dangerous knowledge; he'd need to be able to protect himself.

"I need all of Riddle's skill at the mind arts. Occlumency and Legilimency both."

That also received a nod. "We will accept that. Well chosen."

Harry tried to suppress a smile. Far from being happy, he was now a bit alarmed. This was going too well, it was proving too simple … he thought he saw a pattern playing out. He was going to get one more big piece, two if they were being generous. But, that seemed unlikely, He needed to pick well.

He concentrated all his determination on that need.

Immediately, he could rule out any other specific spells. Not a one of them was a good enough choice.

He thought of Riddle's wandless, un-transformed power of flight. He dismissed it with painful regret; he had always wanted to try it, but it seemed unlikely to be worthy.

Wandless magic in general then seemed to have promise. Riddle was capable of a great deal of it, far more than most wizards or witches.

But, Harry decided remorselessly, with enough time and effort he should be as well. No, wandless magic was not the answer.

The answer struck his mind with the force of a million lightning bolts.

Wand lore. It was among the rarest, most prized fields of knowledge that existed. Riddle himself would admit he had looked all over and found only fragments.

With that as his choice, Harry could build himself a wand – one without the Trace – which would eliminate one of his big liabilities once he went back. If he was going back to before Hogwarts, he would not have the legal right to a wand. And stealing one carried such risk that he dismissed it out of hand. The answer was plain.

He breathed deeply, in and then out. "I need Riddle's knowledge of wand lore. All of it."

Death and Fate beamed. "Bravo. Well chosen indeed." Fate clapped her hands aggressively.

Harry knew a shrewd expression was crossing his face. "They're all I'm getting. I dare you to say I'm wrong."

The entities' facial expressions did not change. "You're not wrong. Well done."

Harry breathed deeply, in and out. He had been right, It was almost a pity, but they had said they were not creating a demigod.

With the lordship, what he was getting might just be enough. Speaking of which …

"What are the lordships I can pick from? You rather implied there are at least two."

Death and Fate nodded. "There are three, actually. Two from your blood, one from something else. The two from your blood would require your blood to be altered – some traits would be expressed which previously were not, and others to be suppressed which previously were expressed. You would change, but the core would still be you. Just … a rather different you than existed in body, before."

Fate continued. "Via the right of conquest, due to Riddle's attack and your survival, you could claim the Slytherin lordship. We would allow that."

"And from your blood," Fate paused, "on your father's side, you could claim Peverell. From your mother's blood, you could claim Gryffindor."

"Gryffindor!" Harry all but shouted. "How on earth is that right?"

"A fair question," Death replied. "To keep it short, after the last lord was born, there were several hundred years of nothing but daughters, until you and your brother."

"Blood remembers," Fate intoned. "Wizarding Britain may not have done, but we knew."

They both then simply said, "Choose."

Harry closed his eyes. This was an even more important decision than the knowledge he'd take back with him. It was the biggest decision of his life … his death … his existence. Nothing else compared.

His first instinct was to take Slytherin, rejecting his parents' histories out of hand. They hadn't raised him, why should he care who they were descended from?

He quickly realized that was too hasty. Taking the Slytherin lordship was, through a crossed eye, rather like being a Slytherin at Hogwarts.

He had done that. That would be preserving the timeline, which he was not supposed to do.

Going to the house of Slytherin, or becoming its lord, did not seem like a path to growth. If anything, it seemed like a path to stagnation.

Plus … it would not allow him any safety. Dumbledore would instantly know he would either have to be himself or Tom Riddle.

No, he probably had to ignore his instinct.

"Slytherin's out. I can't afford to pick that," he said, forgetting for the moment they could see into his mind.

But they paused at his response. "Tell us your reasons."

Harry thought that didn't bode well. "Choosing Slytherin seems like being Sorted into Slytherin. I was Sorted there before, as was Tom Riddle. That preserves the timeline, which you have told me not to do."

The entities nodded. "Do you have more reasons?"

Now Harry was sure that he had made a mistake. "It immediately identifies me either as Riddle himself, or as myself, in Dumbledore's mind."

The entities nodded briefly. "You dismiss the possibility that Dumbledore will consider any other options? Such as, for example, an old branch of the family returning to the Albion from somewhere overseas?"

Harry considered this. "I'll admit I shouldn't completely rule that out, but he seems more desperate about this whole situation than he would realistically be to consider that possible." he finished.

That earned a slightly friendlier nod. "You could be right. We felt it necessary to stress the possibility though."

Harry nodded. "I'll do better."

With that option gone, he looked at what was left.

Peverell was far more anonymous politically. That was a strength in that fewer people would care. It was also a weakness, because for the same reason it would be harder to make waves.

Gryffindor would put him in a political spotlight at all times. And would probably have Dumbledore, James Potter, and all the other lords of the Light faction at his proverbial doorstep at all times as well.

He wondered if choosing Gryffindor might grant him some benefit at Hogwarts, and asked that.

The entities did not answer, But that did not rule it out, he thought.

He thought that choosing Gryffindor might instantly make enemies of all the Dark faction. But then he was not sure. Perhaps that would depend on what stances he took and what decisions he made.

Comparing it to Peverell, there seemed no advantage to Peverell that outweighed the challenge of choosing Gryffindor.

There was also, perhaps, the choice of oblivion. But he didn't think the entities would allow him to pick that.

Two obvious questions crossed his mind.

"Will I still be a Parselmouth no matter my pick, since I didn't choose that part of Riddle's knowledge?"

Death only shook his head. Fate gave a full answer. "If you choose the Slytherin lordship you will become one in truth, and it will run in your blood from here on. You were never truly a Parselmouth as Riddle's Horcrux; the power was his. Choose Gryffindor or Peverell and you will lose even what you had."

And that answered his other question. "Meaning, no matter which way I go back, I'll no longer be a Horcrux."

They nodded. Confirmation.

He realized he'd implied he still might choose Slytherin. He decided to run with that thought. "If I choose Slytherin, I see an obvious task you haven't mentioned. It'd be my job to try and restore the house's reputation. The famous attributes of the house – ambition, resourcefulness, ruthlessness – aren't bad things, no matter how many people say they are."

The entities nodded.

Emboldened, Harry continued that thought. "If I made doing that job my political stance, I might steal some of Riddle's support out from under him. Or some of Dumbledore's, for that matter, even if unlikely."

They smiled. Harry took that as saying they approved.

"On the other hand," he paused, "if I choose Gryffindor and position myself as someone pro-magic, not pro-Ministry, I might do much the same thing. It could really be a tossup at that point."

The entities' smiles did not disappear.

"So the one to rule out," Harry paused, "isn't Slytherin at all. It's Peverell. No real benefit for a giant waste of opportunity."

The entities laughed. "Well stated indeed. You prove your worth more and more every minute. Your brother wasn't nearly so sharp."

Harry's instinct was to say that John had been a Gryffindor after all; sharpness and subtlety were nearly alien to them.

Then he thought better of it. It wasn't the house that had made him, it was how he was raised. They had been twins, were twins still – they should have had the same potential.

But John had been a spoiled, pampered prince – while he had endured through hell.

It marked him just as thoroughly as Riddle had done.

Perhaps he could bring some razor-sharp edges to the Gryffindor lordship … and the house.

That seemed like a monumental challenge.

"Gryffindor," he intoned. "I'll take on Gryffindor."

The entities nodded. "Well done," Death said.

"Did you want me taking that one?" Harry asked. It seemed possible.

They both shook their heads. "It matters not to us. But your reasons do, because they show how you think. And your reasons show you to be one we believe can succeed. That's all we care about."

Harry nodded. "So you don't care what I do to Dumbledore and my brother?"

Death shook his head. "Mister Potter, from my perspective, so long as you complete your task I could not care less if you choose to conquer Magical Britain yourself. So long as you did not ever create a Horcrux that is. They are, after all, what really brings us here."

"Right then," Harry nodded. "No immortality through murdering people." He thought that was a light tone.

Death chuckled.

Fate then spoke in a very prim sort of voice. "I would certainly prefer if you avoided conquest … but so long as the prophecy is fulfilled properly I won't make a fuss about it."

"Excellent," Harry began, "because I fully intend to wreck some peoples' lives."

Harry closed his eyes. Breathed deep. "How do I call the ring? Riddle never knew."

"Will it to appear on your finger," Fate said, "and it shall."

Harry obeyed. It was a large ring, the band a half-inch in diameter of pure yellow gold. The stone was a circle-cut ruby of the deepest scarlet; Harry thought the shade was the one called "pigeon's blood". There were no other gems or adornments. It was a very simple ring.

Taking it off to look at the engraving, Harry found it on the underside of the gem: Leonidas, Heir Gryffindor.

He put the ring back on, letting the name roll across his tongue and through his mind. Leonidas Gryffindor. He liked it.

"Harry Potter no more, I take it?"

Fate nodded. "The second and final gift we can give you."

Death stamped the butt of his scythe upon the ground. "There is one more bit of advice we would have you remember, young heir … soon to be young lord."

His eyebrows rose. Advice? Or warning? He wondered if it was not really the latter.

"Be careful what you wish for," Death began. "You just might get it."

He felt a vicious tug behind his navel as if he were going away on a portkey of massive power. As he disappeared from that place, he realized it definitely had been a warning after all.

Darkness fell on him.

When he could see again, he was in the cupboard again. Number Four, Privet Drive.

The Dursley home.

His mind told him it was barely three in the morning, thirty-one July, in the year 1988.

He felt the ring sitting invisibly on his right ring finger, willed it to appear to him, and then to disappear once again. And he smiled.

"Let there be only war."

He willed the door of the cupboard to silently open, then crept down the hall to the kitchen.

Nothing in the refrigerator interested him. Rather, he was after one very sharp knife.

There were Muggles to murder, and the conquest of a nation to begin planning.

[D]

Note: This is an exercise in "rewriting without rewriting", done in a couple of hours. The original remains what it is.