A Tale of Time Tunneling
Prologue
Winds bellowed violently, lightning flashed by and thunder crackled in the background, a telltale sign of a storm. The last storm that the world would experience. A pair of emerald eyes scanned the ruins of the building that once stood proud as the best Magical School in the World. Cracked cobblestone, scorched earth and a desolate landscape painted a grim picture. It was the only picture Harry had known for the majority of his life.
A tattered cloak with a triangle hung from his back while a necklace of an odd-looking stone with the same symbol hung from his neck. A ivory white wand spun in his hand, as he whirled it between his finger with practiced ease. It was not his original wand but rather a gift from his mentor after the destruction of his first one. Oh, how he missed her. The echoes of the life he could have had were now but a fleeting dream. But, perhaps it was best not to dwell in terrible memories, that rabbit hole was deep and depressing.
Voldemort's second rise to power was terrible and far more destructive compared to his first. It had drawn all of the wizarding world into the crossfire. There were no neutrals. The neutrals were probably the first to be killed anyway, and the flames of war had scorched anyone and anything that was in its path.
The conclusion was a decisive victory of Voldemort's forces. A victory that had later cost them but it was a victory nevertheless.
Under the banner of the then Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, the British Ministry of Magic had loudly proclaimed that Voldemort had not been resurrected during the events of Harry's fourth year and after the Triwizard Cup. His own sorting into Slytherin had not done him any favours either. He had narrowly avoided three assassination attempts in his first year alone, two from a teacher and one from a fellow Slytherin upper year. Two out of the three times, he had been saved by his Head of House, Severus Snape. Snape had tried to make his life miserable in his first year of schooling, though he had mellowed out to neutral when teaching him occlumency in his second after Harry found out that Voldemort was alive and the most powerful legilimens in the world. He was proclaimed as the next Dark Lord and a menace spreading lies for his own benefit by the Daily Prophet and the Wizarding World in general. Slytherin was full of offspring of Voldemort supporters who wanted nothing more than to kill him, none of which he'd managed to sway to his cause and the few neutrals he had recruited had their families silently killed, something that ensured Harry was utterly alone and isolated in his own house. Most others in different houses mistrusted or were outright hostile to him.
He often wondered what sort of life he might have led if he had gone to Gryffindor. Or known and chosen to save the Granger girl who had died in her first year of schooling. Or chosen not to kill Sirius Black before he figured out Pettigrew was the true traitor. Regardless, Harry was without any support when the War began. After the duel at the Atrium of the British Ministry, the war began in its earnest. Not a day into his reveal, Voldemort orchestrated a bloody coup and killed most, if not all of the powerful political figures in the country that could have opposed him. Dumbledore's counterattack would have been a success if not for Voldemort's trump card. An Obscurial. Specifically, a dead Obscurial revived as a blackened inferius that he later found out had been Dumbledore's sister. Arianna Dumbledore. The Obscurial massacred most British Auror Forces with Dumbledore being stalemated and ultimately forced to flee to his fortress of Hogwarts but not before ending the Obscurus.
With the fall of the British Ministry, Dumbledore went to the ICW for help but got none as no country wanted their people to die in a fight against the most powerful dark wizard for a civil war of another country. Dumbledore pointed out that after the fall of Britain, it was inevitable that Voldemort would turn his sights towards the ICW, but his arguments merited no response except a blockade of Magical Britain in an effort to contain the rising power of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. An effort that went in vain as Voldemort destroyed Beauxbaton, Durmstrang, Ilvermorny, Salem in a span of two weeks, by an army of dark creatures, offering anyone alive a chance to join him or die screaming, a feat that put the entire magical world in shock. The ICW convened in an emergency session to discuss how to respond only for the session itself to be attacked by Voldemort using his final trump card. Demons summoned from the dimension that Fiendfyre is summoned from. It was speculated that Fiendfyre originated from a different dimension and that Hell was accessible through the Veil of Death but Voldemort was the first person to crack its code and used it to pull Demons for his army.
A session that consisted of over five hundred magicals from all across the magical world were massacred like cattle. In the final duel, Voldemort killed Dumbledore thus ending any resistance to his cause and stealing the most powerful wand from his hands. Meanwhile, Harry had fled Hogwarts in search of Voldemort's horcruxes, finding all six after he heard of the fall of Hogwarts. Help came from the most unforeseen ways as Gellert Grindelwald of all people assisted him in his quest after he freed himself in the chaos. He didn't want to do so but had chosen to after hearing Dumbledore's death.
Together, the magical prodigies developed several Demon-slaying spells that helped wipe out Tom's Demon army. Gellert had also helped Harry remove the Horcrux in his head by firing a second killing curse at him the moment he heard his story. Harry had been most cross with him but eventually forgave him. He had also trained Harry to his limit in most magical arts. Together, they had ruthlessly butchered through Voldemort's army of death eaters before his mentor had died while taking down Tom's last horcrux, Nagini. That was over four months ago. This was Harry's final fight. Voldemort had no more Horcruxes and in his own insanity had killed a significant number of his forces by cruciating or outright killing them. He had no one left, neither did Harry for that matter.
He had bathed himself in Dragon Blood and corresponding rituals to mimic a giant's magic resistance. He had refilled his magic to the brim and over and hooked up his power as a battery in the Resurrection Stone. He had taken a number of potions including his final "safe" dosage of Felix Felicis for the next decade. He was wearing a number of protective enchanted equipment, though he had forgone his armour in favour of speed and mobility, a decision he had made after hours of debate. The Cloak of Invisibility also provides spell resistance of the highest magnitude as it neutralises and masks most magical energy it comes in contact with, so he had worn that as well.
Just when he thought Voldemort might not show up, he spotted a pale white figure striding briskly towards him. His black cloak fluttered in the wind and pulsated with magical power, indicating it was enchanted. His pale, hairless body was still the same as he remembered from that All Hallow's Eve from twenty five years ago. His red serpentine eyes glowed with unrestrained power and his entire body was caked in an eerie black glow indicating he had performed numerous dark rituals in an attempt to boost his power.
Voldemort stopped when he was a hundred yards away. His powerful voice boomed, "Here comes our final duel, dear Harry."
Harry smirked and lazily twirled his wand between his fingers and replied, "So you finally gathered enough courage to fight little old me huh, Tommy boy."
Voldemort remained silent for a moment before hissing, "Your petty attempts to mock me will not work today. I acknowledge you as a worthy opponent and adversary. This battle is going to be the fated one. It was high time I finished what I started all those years on that fateful Halloween night. After your death I shall restore the magical world and rule it as its rightful king."
Harry let out a bark of laughter at the thought of Voldemort's proclamation of restoring the magical world but wanted nothing more than to kill the bastard in front of him rather than delaying the battle any further. He snarked back while whipping his wand in a circle above his head, "You're more than welcome to try like the dozens of times in the past."
A bolt of pure lightning left Harry's wand as Voldemort fired his killing curse from a long wand with elderberry carvings on them. The two spells stalemated each other in the centre, resulting in sparks of spellfire, engulfing the entire area in a display of power. The spells were evenly matched for almost a minute before Voldemort lost his patience cutting the curse and smoothly transitioning into a massive fiendfyre basilisk.
The fiendfyre basilisk was over thirty feet long, easily the same size as the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. Perhaps, a few years ago, it would have intimidated Harry but now he hadn't even batted an eye. With a wave of his wand, he transfigured the nearby debri into a massive pool of water that shaped itself in form of a massive Leviathan, easily the same as the basilisk.
Both magical creatures fought in an epic battle for domination as both beasts coiled against each other, trying to snuff the other out. Copious amounts of steam erupted from their clash, filling the arena with a dense fog. Voldemort slipped a blasting curse towards Harry though the fog that Harry batted away with a negligent swipe of his fingers. The blasting curse flew into a nearby wall reducing it to dust as though it never existed.
Meanwhile Harry had managed to gain the advantage as his leviathan strangled the basilisk out of existence, sending a massive torrent of water towards Voldemort. Voldemort froze the water and shattered it with an explosive curse that sent shards of ice in every direction before they froze mid-air and caught an airstream sent by Voldemort towards Harry. The shards of ice would have made a pin-cushion out of most normal wizards. Harry was many things, but normal was not one of them.
Sensing the approaching ice-storm Harry wiped his wand in a circle and whispered, "Protego Diabolica."
Despite his distaste for the Dark Arts, he knew many destructive Dark spells that he had reserved for this battle. He would never cause unnecessary pain and refused to fall to Voldemort's level but sometimes it was necessary to do distasteful things to protect himself.
A rotating shield of blue fire immediately formed in front of Harry absorbing all the shards of ice in an instant before shaping into a massive dragon. The dragon let out a mighty roar and proceeded to consume everything in its path. Voldemort retaliated by conjuring a massive cyclone with a whip of wand and lighting it aflame with devilish-green fire. The conjured cyclone of green fire met the dragon of blue fire, resulting in an explosion of humongous magnitude, incinerating everything within a kilometre radius.
Upon seeing the waves of fire rush at them with glee, consuming all in its iridescent glow, both Harry and Voldemort conjured thick steel shields in front of them while maintaining their magical shields. Both shields began to melt due to the extreme temperature of the fire before the flames hit their magical shields.
Voldemort shot a massive bolt of lightning to the sky, summoning a massive thunderstorm in a matter of seconds that snuffed out the flames, before shooting a massive bolt of lightning at Harry. Harry quickly transfigured a blade of grass into a lightning rod, absorbing the discharge and redirecting it towards Voldemort. Voldemort quickly earthed the lightning bolt but Harry managed to use the time to transfigure the ground near Voldemort into a quicksand trap.
Voldemort growled in frustration and exploded in a rush of magic, conjuring a vortex, absorbing the quicksand and creating a massive sandstorm. Harry unleashed his own firestorm, the same one he had seen Dumbledore use in the Inferi cave. The firestorm clashed with the sandstorm, causing a mass of glass to be formed around them. Voldemort quickly took initiative and shattered the glass and unleashed a storm of glass towards Harry. Harry quickly formed a magical shield that turned the shards of glass into harmless particles the second they passed through them and for the first time since the start of the fight, crossed eyes with his opponent.
Red met Green, as a mental struggle for domination began. Voldemort's Legilimency still felt like a ton of bricks pounding Harry's head even after his years of experience. Voldemort had forgone any subtle approach to legilimency and had instead opted to brute force his way and cause as much pain to break his opponent's will. Harry retaliated the same but Voldemort's occlumency walls were like a wall of steel, unmoving and unfaltering. Their clash only lasted for a few seconds before Harry quickly conjured a flurry of swords and banished them towards Voldemort.
A wall of bricks quickly rose from the ground in front of Voldemort and absorbed the swords like clay, indicating he had enchanted them the second he transfigured the ground. Voldemort rose into the air, his cloak billowing in his wake as he unleashed a wave of curses towards Harry.
Bone-breaking, blood boiling, blood freezing, entrail-expelling, withering, organ-liquifying, cruciatus, killing, and many other curses that Harry couldn't identify from sight alone barreled towards Harry with almost blinding speed. Harry gracefully twisted around the spells, deflecting the ones he couldn't dodge and shielding the ones he could without risking his own neck.
Harry pointed his wand skywards and with a bellow, chanted a spell of his creation, "Atlas."
A massive atmospheric pressure rose, forcing Voldemort to the ground. Atlas was the Titan condemned to hold the weight of the sky in Greek Mythology. Harry's spell was designed to emulate that weight by concentrating atmospheric pressure in the Arena, forcing Voldemort to the ground. Harry quickly transfigured massive golden chains and enchanted them in a short breath, attempting to bind and contain Voldemort. Voldemort hissed and unleashed a colossal burst of pure magic and vaporized the chain attempting to bind him and quickly conjured three dozen venomous serpents around his opponent in an attempt to buy time.
Harry clicked his tongue in irritation and bit down the urge to curse. He had lost his parseltongue abilities when the horcrux had been removed from his scar, otherwise he would fight for control with Riddle. He once more summoned the firestorm spell with a quick whirl of his wand and incinerated the snakes in a raging inferno. With a point if his wand, he directed the inferno towards Riddle before his eyes widened in surprise observing what Voldemort had done in the interval of time he was given.
In front of Voldemort stood a massive golem of stone that was caked with iridescent lines of different colours, indicating numerous enchantments, one of which was a fire absorbing enchantment. Voldemort had predicted Harry's move and preemptively set-up a trap. The inferno doused the golem in its blistering might but did nothing but power it up further. The skull helmet glowed an eerie black, pulsating with power absorbing the inferno. The golem body lit aflame as molten boiling magma dripped from its body. In its hands was a massive European broadsword that swung faster than Harry had anticipated, crashing down on him.
Only due to his lightning-fast reflexes had he put up cushioning charms and a powerful shield charm and leapt backwards at the same time. The sword narrowly avoided Harry but managed to throw him backwards a few hundred metres. Harry quickly cast a wandless Arresto Momentum while gathering his concentration and levitating massive masses of rocks into a rugged stony sword over twenty feet in length and a few feet in breadth. The stone quickly transfigured into a smooth steel lance fit for a giant. Spirals of lines wrapped themselves around the lance, enchanting themselves to be explosives before Harry fired an overpowered banisher at its handle guard. The lance launched itself at blinding speeds towards the golem and annihilated it the moment it came in contact. The resulting explosion had debri and shrapnels flying in all directions and reducing the nearby area to a massive crater.
Voldemort had snuck off with a powerful disillusionist charm coupled with obscuration charms making him nigh undetectable. Harry, realising Voldemort had disillusioned himself, began casting several spells and transfigurations around him and setting up traps and defensive enchantments. His instincts, honed by almost a decade of war, spiked and alerted him just in time to throw a powerful shield to protect himself against the corrosive fog that blinded him from behind. He pivoted around, coming face to face with the ugly snake-faced bastard. His serpentine eyes glared into his deadly green, both blazing with anger. Voldemort launched a simultaneous legilimency assault while shaping his corrosive purple mist in the form of a cobra, its massive fang digging deep into Harry's shield. Harry's shields, both magical and occlumency, began to buckle from the assault. Voldemort targeted multiple points in Harry's occlumency shield and pumped more magic as the dark violet fog glowed and corroded his shield.
Harry, realising that Voldemort had him pincered, drew power from the Resurrection Stone and unleashed a burst of ice all around him. Deadly icicles emerged from all around Harry, freezing everything in a fifty metre radius around him due to the extra boost in power. Harry receded the icicles and noticed Voldermort had leapt backwards, maintaining a shield of fire.
With a twist of his wand, Harry unleashed a deadly barrage of wind blades towards Voldemort, extinguishing Voldemort's fire shield out of existence before coming in contact with his magical one. While maintaining his wind assault, Harry transfigured the air around Voldemort to corrosive acid, limiting his movement before transfiguring the ground underneath him into a deadly trap.
A massive dragon skull erupted from the ground underneath Voldemort, its fangs barred and ready to draw blood. Before it could though, Voldemort self-transfigured himself into smoke and wafted away several metres away from Harry. Self-transfiguration had its benefits, allowing the user to escape from nearly all traps but had a disadvantage that it took a while before the wizard could regain his bearing, being in full human form again.
Harry wandless clenched his fist and threw a massive boulder, a remnant of Voldemort's golem, while shooting a explosive curse, shattering it to pieces. The deadly shards were transfigured into deadly rapiers, some of which were enchanted to ignore shields and pierce right through them. Voldemort recovered just in time to swat away most of the rapiers but one clipped his shoulder, drawing inky black blood from his inhuman body. Harry had just drawn first blood, so long into the duel.
And so their battle continued. Both titans of magic clashed for what seemed like an eternity. They had begun their clash before mid-day. Now it was almost twilight. The sun had set and both their reserves were almost empty. Precise strikes and spells along with point transfigurations were replaced by sloppy and crude ones. Both felt the effects of physical, mental and magical exhaustion by now. Harry's magical reserves and the Resurrection Stone were almost empty and Voldemort's magical power that he had obtained by killing and sacrificing 666 muggles the night before the duel was reduced to a mere fraction.
Both Harry and Voldemort realised that the next spell would be the final one, the one to end it all. Voldemort's Elder Wand fired its final killing curse while Harry's own fired a red decapitation curse. Green met Red. Eyes and spells alike clashed for a battle of will. Both pushed their years of hatred and rage for one another into their spells. Voldemort's own rage of being unable to kill his hated foe for nearly twenty five years of trying fueled his spell to spike at massive amounts of power. Harry's own rage at being unable to kill Voldemort before he damaged and destroyed magical society fueled his spell and similarly spiked it with massive power.
Almost five minutes of stalemate and spellfire, Harry's curse began to overpower Voldemort's one. Voldemort's eyes widened in surprise as he began to grip his wand with two hands and attempted to fight back. Voldemort screamed in frustration and channelled all his might and frustration into his killing curse.
"This will not be my END!" Voldemort snarled powerfully as he realised Harry's spell closed in.
"This is it. Your next great adventure. Your one way ticket to oblivion. Die with dignity at least and atone for your crimes in Limbo, Tom." Harry calmly spoke as his legs began to violently shudder as his body was deprived of its final few vestiges of power.
"NOOOoooOOOoooOOoo! I do not want to die! ARGGG," Voldemort screamed as his tone grew uneven and desperate as he began to lose the battle. Harry just grunted in response and with a final spike pushed as hard as he could.
Harry will finally overpowered Voldemort's own as Voldemort's head flew cleanly off his shoulder but not before his Elder wand fired one last spell. A curse Harry recognised due to its signature web pattern.
The Web of Time was an ancient and powerful curse that would freeze anyone in its vicinity in time for near eternity if near a powerful magically saturated area. Like the one near Hogwarts. Wanting to avoid that fate, Harry felt physically too exhausted to move. As a green spider web enclosed in on Harry, he recalled one lesson his mentor had taught him a few years ago.
"Time and Space are two sides of the same coin. They make the very threads of reality. Distorting even one requires a great deal of power or powerful enchanted artefacts. It was a theory of mine that when one goes out of flux, like when using a time turner, it is possible that the waves translate into two kinds, both spatial and temporal. It might be possible to use the other when riding and skipping timelines using a time turner."
With the last remnants of his power Harry fired one of the few offensive spatial charms that he knew and whispered, "Spatial Rend."
A massive arc of pink energy cut through the invisible threads of space and met the green spell head one. Almost instantly a massive black vortex was summoned that sucked everything towards it. Harry slammed his wand down and anchored himself in an effort to delay the inevitable before summoning his reward. The Elder Wand. Just as the wand flew into Harry's grasp, he was sucked into the black vortex. A massive black triangle with a circle inscribed in its centre with a diameter and median running through it was summoned on the vortex just as Harry lost consciousness. A truly enormous explosion of unprecedented proportions consumed the area of the ruins of Hogwarts leaving everything within miles of its radius as nothing but a smoking crater, creating a magical shockwave that would be felt throughout the world.
Authors Note:
As you can definitely see, this fanfic has its inspirations from the infamous "I'm Still Here". It definitely is not the same as this will be a Marauders Era Harry who's obviously OP. I never liked canon Harry. I admired his willingness to step up and his courage but hated his utter laziness(I blame mostly Ron Weasley). Like if I knew I had the greatest dark lord after my ass after the first year I would haul my ass and focus on my magical studies instead of meaningless sports like Quidditch. As a hobby it's fine, but when he wastes so much time on it, it just hurts. His decision to take divinations also hurt. Instead he just whines and rages like a little bitch, even after his godfather's death. We also never got to see epic magical duels except for that one in the ministry. So I decided to correct that with Sly!Harry. You will see more of his life later into the fic.
End result was that epic duel you just read and obviously more to come. You can also see that Voldemort and Harry are pretty evenly matched. There are things Voldemort is better than Harry and there are things Harry is better at than Voldemort. For example, Voldemort is better than Harry at the Mind Arts and he is also faster than Harry at casting whereas Harry is magically more powerful and Voldemort has to use sacrificial rituals to keep up. There will be more differences that will be more visible if the fic continues. No promises as my exams are literally two weeks away.
Also Harry Potter x Lily Evans x Bellatrix Black. Maybe Narcissa as well but only if the flow picks her up as well. Don't like the pairing then why are you reading this story? There will also be character development. Not that there won't be spontaneous sex. Like the're teenagers, of course they jump first then think of consequences then. But that just adds to the drama and spice of this fic. Lemons, maybe?. I'll try one, if I can write one properly then I'll put one in. maybe after a few "references" ;)
On an ending note, please leave a review if you wish to help this fic and the author a little. Every bit counts and I hope you see that really brightens any author's day.
