Hello everyone! I need to get back into practice with my writing, and what better way than with some good old fashioned Harry Potter fanfiction? This is a story that I had floating around in my head for a bit, though to be honest it changed pretty drastically about halfway through the prologue. This chapter, being the prologue, is pretty short. Expect each chapter to be at least double the length. Anyways, I hope you enjoy my story, any reviews are welcome.

Harry Potter was confused. Just a moment ago, he had stood outside Hogwarts Castle, facing down his sworn enemy, Voldemort. The Dark Lord had aimed his wand at him, and Harry had seen the sickly green of the curse as it streaked towards him, too fast for him to react to in time; not concentrated and uniform, like most other spells, but wild and chaotic, with tendrils that flailed wildly back and forth, more akin to an animal than anything else produced by magic. He had noted, absently, the irony of his fate. His story had begun with the killing curse, and now here, in the dark and beset by enemies, it would end. The spell moved towards him almost in slow motion. It slammed into his chest, and everything went black.

Harry had awoken in a strange place. White emptiness stretched out before him in every direction as far as his eyes could see. He raised a hand to shield himself from the brightness of it all, only to realize that he did not, in fact, have a hand. Startled, Harry looked about himself, seeing nothing. There was no Harry Potter, only the endless white void. It was like being inside of a cloud, except if a cloud was nothing, and so was he. Thinking about it made his head hurt, only he didn't have a head, did he? He was getting nowhere with this train of thought, so he tried to focus on something else.

A figure began to coalesce from the nothingness. Bit by bit, a body took shape. Whatever it was, it appeared to be humanoid. It was cloaked in the darkest black, a black that seemed to suck in the white light around it. The figure's face was the palest white, with no other discernible details besides its eyes, if eyes you could call them. They were of a deeper black than the figure's cloak, staring without pupils right at him. Harry wasn't sure what this creature was, though strangely, he was not afraid.

"Mr. Potter, it is good to see you again, old friend, though I wish it was under better circumstances," the figure spoke, though Harry did not see its lips move. Instead, he heard it speak from inside of his head. It spoke with many different voices, a chorus of identities ranging from young to old, from man to woman emanated from the strange entity.

"Hello, Death," Harry said. He had known who it was before Death had even spoken, though he wasn't sure why. Wait, how had he talked? He looked down at himself and was surprised to find that he had a self at all. No longer was he a consciousness floating in a void, he had his body back. And, he noted with some slight embarrassment, he was naked. Death chuckled, a gentle sound, a soft breeze over a field of grass just past dusk.

"No matter how many times you and I meet, you still find ways to surprise me," Death said. He waved a thin hand, and Harry found himself clothed as he was when he had challenged Voldemort that final time, only he wasn't covered in sweat, blood, and dirt.

"Thank you... I think," Harry said. Death merely chuckled again. He waved his hand, and two comfortable-looking chairs appeared before them. Death seated himself, gesturing for Harry to do the same.

"Come," Death said in his multihued voice. "We have much to discuss, you and I."

With nothing else to do. Harry sat in the chair opposite Death. They studied each other in silence for an indeterminate amount of time, until at last Death spoke.

"You have questions."

"Many."

"We shall start with the simple ones, then."

"Where are we?" Harry asked, glancing around at the whiteness around them.

"Ah, I did expect this question to be first," Death said. "This place is an in-between; a crossroads between life and death. You were killed, and so I brought you here to have this little... conversation."

"How do I know you? Why did you call me friend?" Harry asked the question that had been bothering him since he had started his meeting with Death. Death did not answer right away. He merely smiled a small, mysterious smile.

"Permit me to answer a question with a question. Why do you think I called you that?"

Harry racked his brains, trying to think. The answer was right there, he knew. It was on the tip of his tongue, and yet it eluded him. A thought blossomed in his mind then, like when he had identified Death; a small thought, but it held within it a surety that he knew deep within his soul.

"We've met before," he said at length. Death's smile grew wider, revealing pointed teeth.

"You always were the smartest of the three brothers."

Harry's breath caught in his throat. It was completely outlandish, and yet... it wasn't more outlandish than talking to Death in the first place, was it? He knew, even as Death said it, that it was true.

"How?' was all he managed to get out, trying to process the implications of what Death had said.

Death watched him, that smile never quite leaving his face. He reclined in his chair, crossing one leg over the other before responding.

"A proper explanation would be a lengthy affair. Suffice it to say that reality is like a loom; the fabric of life is woven endlessly in a cycle unbroken since Creation, and the wheel of time drives it all on. When the threads of a life are spent, they are gathered unto the wheel again, and are once more spun out into life. We have... become acquainted several times. I last knew you as Ignotus Peverell, and I gifted you mine own cloak of invisibility."

"So the stories were all true?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer to that question.

Death nodded, steepling his fingers in front of his face.

"Yes. You and your brothers bested me at the river, and I gifted you each a boon. I should have foreseen what you would have asked of me, and yet I did not. You were the only one of the brothers to foresee my trick in giving my gifts to you," here that predatory smile returned. "Yes, you have always been an interesting soul."

Harry decided to take that as a compliment, somehow knowing that Death gave them out sparingly. He knew that he had more pressing questions, but he couldn't resist asking one more regarding their relationship.

"How many times have we met?" he asked. Death mulled the question over for a moment, not once blinking his eyes.

"We have encountered one another several times since you humans first emerged on this world. You breathed your first deep in the mists of time, in a small paleolithic community in what you humans now know as Anatolia. Your lover died young, and you were not content with that state of affairs, were you?" Death's smile was thin, now, eyes narrowed. "You found a way to summon me, and demanded to have your love back."

"What happened then?" Harry asked, his attention glued to the entity before him. He didn't notice his hands painfully clenching the armrests of his chair.

"I killed you."

Harry felt a cold chill descend upon him, and a distant pain within his chest. A deep feeling of loss welled up within him, and he felt tears glisten in his eyes.

"Yes," he spoke in a whisper. "I remember that."

Silence reigned once again between the two, with Harry struggling to get a grip on his emotions. Suddenly Death smiled again, and the chill melted away as if it had never been there, and all memory of previous lives faded away. Harry could still feel these memories, but they were much less pronounced than memories from his life as Harry Potter; muted, dreamlike, but still there.

"Let us not dwell on these matters from the past. We have something much more urgent to discuss," Death said. His expression hardened, and his black eyes glowed ominously. "The one called Tom Riddle is using a rather nasty bit of magic to make a mockery of the cycle of life and death, a mockery of me. I am sure that you are wondering why I do not take him myself. I would, gladly, were it not for the soul anchors that he has placed in the world. Horcruxes... they ward the creator against Death, preventing me from reaching him. I have chosen you to do so in my stead."

"But I can't, can I?" Harry asked, taken aback. He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. It seemed that even after dying, he couldn't escape Trelawney's prophecy. Death merely quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Are you questioning my judgement, Mr. Potter?" he asked.

"No," Harry said quickly. "But... he beat me, didn't he? I mean, he has fifty years of knowledge and experience over me. How could I possibly hope to match him?"

"Now we get to the heart of the matter," Death said, inclining his head towards Harry. He stood, his cloak swishing about his feet, and began to pace slowly back and forth. "In ordinary circumstances, you would be correct. Voldemort far surpasses you both in magical ability and knowledge. That is why I will be sending you back to before Voldemort's resurrection, so that you may grow in strength enough to challenge him."

Harry thought back to his last battle with Voldemort. Calling himself outclassed was an understatement. The Dark Lord had used spells Harry had never heard of, his command of magic greater than any he had seen, save for Dumbledore, and that wasn't even considering Voldemort's peerless speed when it came to dodging and casting spells. For every spell Harry shot at him, he had had to dodge six. They were on two different planes of existence when it came to skill, and Harry couldn't see a way to narrow that gap. He said as much to Death, who merely shook his head with a sigh.

"Yes, I am aware of that," Death said. "That is why I will be sending you back with a boon, something that will enable you to even the playing field, to defeat Riddle."

"What is this boon?" Harry asked, unable to think of anything he could be given that would make him as powerful as Voldemort.

"I have already given it," Death stopped his pacing and stood looking down at Harry, a frail-seeming form wrapped about in a cloak darker than night, but radiating power more immense than anything Harry had experienced.

Harry stood, idly noting that he was of a height with Death, trying to puzzle out what Death had given him. It was hard to keep his thoughts straight with all of these memories of past lives darting in and out of focus. Harry's eyes widened in realization.

"You mean...?" Harry couldn't finish his question, mind already racing with possibilities.

"Yes," Death said with a nod. "A thousand lives you have lived on this Earth, and a thousand lives' memories I grant you. Use the magic that you once wielded, remember it, and you will be able to defeat Voldemort."

Harry simply nodded, momentarily at a loss for words. Death, satisfied, motioned Harry to follow him as he began walking into the void. As they walked, surroundings began to materialize around them. Stone blocks stacked themselves high on either side while wooden flooring spread before them. The light of their surroundings dimmed as a ceiling of tinted glass constructed itself over them. Neither said a word; Harry was too busy trying to slow his scattered, racing thoughts while also peering curiously at everything around him. At length, they came to the end of the hallway, where a single wooden door awaited them.

"This is where we part ways," Death said to him. His pitch-colored eyes seemed to soften as they looked at him. "Entering this door will send you back to a time before the Dark Lord Voldemort is revived. I wish you luck, though I do not believe that you will have need of it. Go forth, my friend, and conquer."

Harry squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath before reaching a hand to the iron-wrought door handle. Surprisingly, it was warm to the touch. The door opened easily enough, and Harry had to shield his eyes as bright light shone through from the other side. It wasn't the empty, white light of this place, but the warm, yellow light of the sun. Harry's eyes watered as he felt heat seep back into his being, the warm embrace of life that he hadn't even noticed had been missing. He hesitated, one final question coming to the forefront of his brain.

"My parents. Are they...?"

"They are well. They are proud of you, and they love you very much," Death said gently, more emotion in his voice than Harry had heard from him in several lifetimes.

Harry nodded to him, and with the memories of countless lives swirling through his head, he stepped through the doorway.

And that's all for the prologue. I hope that everyone enjoyed the chapter, and I hope that it wasn't too short/fast. Next time, we'll see Harry return to the past and become acclimated with his previous lives' memories.

Also, I do not expect to follow canon too closely. I won't be going completely off the wall AU, but with Harry having all of this knowledge and experience, things just won't go the same way they did with the books. Expect to see a more competent Voldemort and Dumbledore in this story. This is good practice for me, and I would like to go a little more intricate than I usually do in my own writing.

Anyways, thank you all for reading, and I will see you next week!