Authors Note: Thank you for choosing to read this work. This is hopefully going to be a new take on a multi chapter TRHP time travel story. I'm going to try and update every week or two, so I really hope you stick around. Reviews are really appreciated.
The Prophecy of Time
Prologue
"I thought he would come."
Harry had never heard that high, cold voice in such a tone. Almost ... disappointed. He saw the Dark Lord standing still in the centre of the clearing, his followers mute, the atmosphere thick and frozen, waiting to be shattered into pieces.
But why wouldn't he be disappointed? Harry knew Voldemort would want his enemy to come and surrender to his power. He would want Harry to fully submit to his death, to kneel and stare into his cold eyes as he cast the Killing Curse. Harry imagined Voldemort felt robbed of his true victory, unknowing as Harry stood, bones aching, mind exhausted, summoning the last of his broken will.
He was more robbed than Voldemort could ever be. Every future he'd ever dreamed of during those long summers at the Dursley's had vanished into thin air. Every smile and memory of his friends ghostly and distant. Every childish hope he'd held over the years, that the Light would win and evil would fall, the natural order, destroyed.
Taking in one last hungry look, he let the stone slip out of his fingers and watched as his mother's eyes, shimmering with tears, slowly faded into nothing. He could barely stand to watch his father and the only people he'd ever considered family depart once more, dissipating into the forest gloom, but ever broken, he steeled himself. It's going to be okay, he thought. I will see them soon. And I will never have to lose anyone ever again.
Branches cracked under his feet as he stepped forward, but time stood still. Harry paused, taking one last long look up into the sky. Finally absent of the Death Eaters curses, it was a dark tapestry of shimmering diamonds, a crescent moon glowing. Far too beautiful of a setting. It was almost easy to forget the smoke from the burning castle nearby, the smell of ash and fear and something macabre and sickening clawing at the back of his throat. The blood on his arms glistened, black in the moonlight, the faces of the people he tried to save scarred in his mind.
Fred. Tonks. Lupin. Colin.
Even Snape.
Harry's eyes burned, the quiet melancholy gone. He had carried the weight of every death and betrayal for so long, for too long, and he could no longer bear it. Even Dumbledore, who had always been there to guide Harry, who Harry trusted to be leading him in the right direction, had betrayed him after all, had drawn him to his death like a moth to a flame, or like a pig for slaughter.
Bitterly he wondered just how long Dumbledore had known that the Boy Who Lived must die at the hands of Lord Voldemort. Did he know when he avoided me in my fifth year? he mused. Did he know when he watched over me in my first? Or when he left me on the doorstep of a family who hated me when I was one?
Taking a ragged breath, he quieted his mind, refocused on the centre of the clearing and moved forward. Regardless of his suffering, he still knew his duty to defend.
"It seems I was ... mistaken," Lord Voldemort said.
"You weren't," Harry spoke, loud and clear.
The silence shattered. Voldemort whipped his head around to meet Harry's steady gaze. Death Eaters gasped and crowed until Voldemort forcibly hushed them. Bellatrix stood to the side of the clearing, as close to the Dark Lord as it seemed he would allow, eyes wide, chest heaving, on bated breath.
Harry looked into the serpentine face of the man who had single-handedly shaped and ruined his life. Stared into those inhuman eyes, as the Dark Lord stared back, that ominous connection resurfacing once more. Despite the watchers on the sidelines, no one else existed in that moment but the two of them.
Now Harry was aware of the Horcrux, its presence was almost unmistakeable. He wondered how he had ever missed it. Foreign feelings of triumph, cold hatred and murderous instinct threatened to overtake Harry until there was nothing of himself left, but there was a sudden wariness also. The soul piece seemed to almost recoil in fear, screaming danger, danger.
"Harry Potter," Voldemort all but whispered, yet his voice still rang through the clearing. "The Boy Who Lived ... come to die."
Briefly Harry wondered how it had come to this. Voldemort, one of the Lost Boys like Harry and Snape, such similar lives, forced into the same circumstances, yet their trajectories so wildly different. A soul devoid of empathy, a soul who died for love, and a soul who would die for the greater good.
He felt Death waiting, desperate to seep into his bones, foreboding but alluring. His eyes fluttered closed in anticipation, and Voldemort raised the Death Stick.
"Avada Kedavra," the Dark Lord cried, and Harry knew nothing once more.