Disclaimer: Before my thoughts begin to run…

A/N: Sorry about the delay, folks, but some exciting things are afoot. I've finished up university and there's an announcement in the author's note at the end of this chappie that you may find awesome. Oh yes, you may. Short 4,000-word filler chapter here, but it'll do since I'm away for another month and didn't want to leave y'all hangin'.

-Joe

!Seriously, you'll want to read the author's note at the end of the chapter!


Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time

Chapter Two – Elemental Destiny

the antithesis of anything free.

~Sophie Dahl


I had no say in the first truly defiant act of my life.

Afterwards, I had cheated death. I had two dead parents that weren't as lucky. A hideous scar and the well-earned ire of a maniacal Dark Lord to see me through the next thousand years.

And what a quick thousand years it was. So many days and so many deaths. Shredded sanity was the best I could hope for, and prophecy be damned, powers of a god cast aside, it was more than I deserved.

When I was eleven, Hogwarts was an impossible weight. I rose to the challenges across the first few years, as is my way, making friends and enemies and watching the resurrection of the Dark Lord Voldemort. A man of fate, as much as I, destined to lead one way or another.

Which, given his beliefs, could not be allowed to happen.

So they asked me to save the world. To rise on the wings of prophecy and cast the menace of dark magic howling back into the abyss. They asked me to save the world…

They should have asked me if I liked the world the way it is.

You see, if Voldemort's first attempt on my life taught me anything, it was that there is only power, and those too weak to seek it. He was right about that. He was right.

I promised myself a long time ago, as the blood drained from my wrists under the twilit sky of a foreign, Forgetful, world and a demonic water sprite granted me eternity, I promised myself that when I destroyed the Dark Lord Voldemort I would not rest until the Ministry and the world that had let him rise unchecked crumbled beneath my rage.

They asked me to save the world.

I promised to remake it. Not their way. Not Voldemort's way.

My way.


Well, well, look at you.

Always did look younger than you were. But the eyes give you away, Harry Potter.

"How so?"

Because they're dead, son, and lost in chaos. You have the look of man who knows how fragile civilisation truly is, because you've seen it come crashing down around you…


From that farce of an inquisition at the Ministry I Apparated south. Way down south. Almost to where south became north again.

My fury simmered. I had barely been able to contain my rage at what they had done to Fleur. Summoned her under threat of prosecution, badgered her with questions concerning my whereabouts… a pregnant woman! They had no right. Lawmakers or no, they had no right on any level.

I laughed. Oh fuck, I laughed.

It was a sad day when I held the moral fucking high ground. I had no claim to that, but at least I knew it. The arrogance. The sheer blind arrogance of it all! Even after a thousand years it could still surprise me.

The Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica was cold and dark this time of year. Very cold. Very dark. Over half a million kilometres of frozen wasteland, bathed in the dim light of a trillion stars—pinpricks of forever, boss, dig it or not—overhead. A cool breeze, a merciless wind chill, almost blew the awesome cap from my head.

If not for the heating charms, my breath would have frozen in my lungs, given that I was wearing nothing more than a snappy suit.

It was beautiful here. Deadly, lifeless, yet beautiful. A thick plate of ice, silent as the grave, simply floating atop of the ocean. What made this particular shelf special was that it was about the size of France.

Waves of wind-blown snow and frozen water, as blue as the sky, reflected the night overhead. It had been dark for a very long time here. There was nothing this far south, nothing to stand in my way, or to feed my rage.

I took a breath of the warm air created by my magic…

And cleaved the ice shelf in half.

My wand was a thin piece of chipped wood in my hand. It did not seem capable of the strength I hurled across the endless white plateau. A shimmering wave of transparent force that shattered the miles of ice like glass cast against stone.

I screamed.

I raged.

I bellowed at the impossible and into the oblivion above me. The magic within responded, flowing down and through that innocuous piece of holly, and began to light up the harsh environment all around me.

Brilliant waves of untamed force. Magic almost raw, like that beneath Atlantis, bled from my wand in a cacophony of substantial light and sound. A rainbow of colour splashed across the landscape, cracking and liquefying the ice, sending up swirls of dark water that had been frozen for tens of thousands of years.

Orbs of chaotic strength, pulsating light, blasted up into the air like fireworks, exploding in arrays akin to a thousand bursts of mortar fire.

I was doing my best to vent the rage within. The insanity that demanded I do this to a city – to the Ministry itself!

Power enough to melt continents, I had said once upon a time, and here was the truth of that…

Antarctica—the coldest, driest, windiest, highest and iciest place on Earth. And I was doing my best melt it. To heat it up with enough magic that the entire shelf would simply plunge into the sea!

Rays of light – as golden as the sun – burst from the orbs and whipped through the air. They took shape, brazen sparks of azure brilliance, into vast dragons of plated light. A tremendous roar from the constructs split the frost shelf beneath my feet and a tumult of slush and rock-hard ice disappeared into a very dark abyss.

My rage dissipated with it, funnelled toward and into the oblivion below. I began to breathe again, low and harsh, and the light behind my eyes dimmed to nothing. Senseless, really, this destruction, but oh so satisfying.

Tons upon tons of shattered ice, pieces as thick and as long as mountains, plunged into the sea a few kilometres away. I realised I was floating on air, the ground beneath me had melted away…

The night sky shone with my twin dragons as they shimmered through the air. Deadly and violent. Crimson eyes, filled with life, swept across the shattered ice shelf, gushing with water down toward the ocean – water that was already beginning to freeze again.

The golden dragons roared, quieter now, and took flight across the plateau. Their radiance bathed the dark world in soft light, embers of my endless rage, and I took another breath.

I had needed that.

Needed to release some of the strain.

All was quiet again now. I coughed, tasting blood in the back of my throat, and grimaced. My hand twitched around my wand, which still thrummed with power unmatched by all save Lord Voldemort.

I missed my friends. I missed Fleur, and Tonks… and Tessa. Who was she? A beautiful girl I couldn't get off my mind. I should be thinking of Fleur, of only Fleur.

The mother of my unborn child.

But thoughts so hot they were painful plagued me.

There was more to this game than even I knew, and that was troubling. Because after a millennium of this shit I knew fucking everything.


You know what I really want right now?

A burger. And none of that fast food shit, either. A real burger, with onion and relish, tomato and lettuce, dripping with fry sauce and topped with bacon…

There are times in my dark and sordid past I've let the entire world burn for a burger like that.


Baby, you're not ready – slow down.

According to the watch gifted to me by an immortal figment of Forget, a creature akin to Father Time, it was four minutes to twelve. Midnight in the minds of insanity, and make mine a scotch and Coke – no ice, never any ice – and I guess we'll hold the Coke, too…

That platinum pocket watch was bruised and battered, and rusting. It had struck its last chord as Atlantis forced itself across an impossible void of time and space, through maelstroms of fire and chaos – wrought about ten-thousand years before my own madness – and settled off the north-west coast of England.

That was a problem to be dealt with, in time. Given the nature of my existence, and for however long I had left to exist, time was alternatively a luxury and in short supply. I never had a fuckin' chance, not really, but we make do…

All of us, we make do.

Beneath my feet I could feel the rumble of the New York subway. It was a cool Autumn day, late in the afternoon, and the last vestiges of my summer that had taken me to Hell and back had all but disappeared from the world.

I strolled down West 59th Street, hands tucked into the pockets of my suit pants, shoulders hunched against the breeze. Alongside Central Park, I walked against most of the crowds – travellers and shoppers, all of us alone – in the greatest city in the world.

Having melted a fair slice of Antarctica two nights ago, I'd taken a day off to recuperate and plan my next move. Next moves. There was much to be done, and after existing for over one thousand years, now I was short of time. There was always a pattern to this part of the year – preparation for the war.

Voldemort and I were already at war, of course we were, and had been since before I was born. But the true fight, the true battles, had yet to be fought. Those were the battles that decided how much of the world we set on fire. It had to be different this time. It was different every time, but now the outcome had to change… I had to win.

And deal with Atlantis.

The Ministry.

My friends.

Fleur.

I was heading towards Columbus Circle, but veered away down 7th Ave and through an alleyway. I ended up on the corner of 58th and Broadway, outside a quaint and dusty second hand bookshop. There was magic to be found on little corners of the world like this.

A bell tinkled above the door as I let myself in. Save for the bookshop that Tessa worked at down in Australia, this was perhaps my favourite shop in the world. It was chaos and madness inside. There were shelves buried beneath the piles of books, I was sure. Books were stacked eight feet high, haphazardly, with no rhyme or reason.

There was a heady smell of pipe smoke on the air, within the dust and the dry, torn scent of old leather. An old man, as wrinkled as his wares, sat next to a defunct cash register. He nodded from behind his glasses, a dog-eared paperback in one gnarled hand, and I returned the gesture before disappearing deeper into the shop, amidst a wasteland of forgotten pages.

Or a heartland, I thought. An oasis in the desert of time, a recording of human endeavour compiled into a significant fire hazard, caught between one moment and the endless gulf of the next.

It was like a maze, navigating the stacks of books. Stacks that seemed to stay upright only with the power of good intention. I cut through the labyrinth and made it out to the back of the shop, along a wall strewn with leather bound tomes. I checked the local time in my head.

It was sixteen minutes past five… and twelve seconds. I took a seat on a pile of encyclopaedias and waited. I was three minutes and forty-eight seconds early. Savin' time, boss.

At twenty past five on the dot two people snapped into existence. I tossed aside the book I'd been flipping through on how to hitchhike through the galaxy and rose to meet them, an honest smile on my face.

"Harry James Potter!" Hermione Granger said, as she shook off the portkey disorientation and narrowed her gaze against me. "Just what in the name of Merlin have you been doing?"


Do you know how many good people have given their lives so you could hate yours?


"Ron, Hermione… it is always great to see you," I said, and I meant it. Relief as powerful as Atlantean magic swept through me to see them alive. I had known they were alive. I had known it. But so many memories saw them both dead.

"You too, mate," Ron said, not completely oblivious to Hermione's ire. "Good summer?"

I nodded. "Bought a really nice bottle of scotch. Pricey stuff, but totally worth it. We'll have a glass later on tonight." I paused. "I also became an international fugitive, but the cool kind, where it's all fast cars and scotch, and I'm in the right and it's the Ministries that have it all backwards."

"We were worried about you, Harry." Hermione was blushing red to her roots. Torn between the same relief I felt and furious disbelief. "All last month we heard the most terrible things about you, and with what happened over London—"

I stepped forward and kissed Hermione – briefly, barely a brush of her lips – but it silenced her concerns. Then I pulled both her and Ron into a tight embrace, almost overwhelmed by the utter joy I felt at seeing my two best friends. The three of us alone and, only for the moment, safe. Safe from the world and its woes in a dusty old bookshop.

"All of that in good time," I said. "I didn't have Dumbledore whisk you away from Hogwarts just for a hug. We're going to dinner – just around the corner actually, at Columbus Circle."

"We're in New York?" Hermione seemed to take in her surroundings for the first time. Nothing but books. "New York, really? I've always wanted to visit…"

"It's a helluva town," I agreed, glancing at the rather conspicuous Hogwarts robes my friends were wearing. I drew my wand and with half a thought gave Ron a cool charcoal suit, three piece, and Hermione a simple white blouse and suit pants. "And now you're dressed for it. Let's go. I promise I'll answer any and all questions, more than you'll want to know, over dinner."

Hermione had one that just wouldn't wait. "How did you get that scar around your neck, Harry?"

"Hmm? Oh…" I raised a hand to caress the ropy tissue that stretched from ear to ear. "Ah, well, that was Voldemort. He cut my throat a week or two ago."


I'm sure there used to be a point to this.


"Rafe, party of three," I said to the waitress as we stepped across the decadent façade of the Liza restaurant on the eighth floor of the building overlooking Columbus Circle and Central Park.

"Right this way." The woman smiled. "This early in the evening we've a table next to the window for you."

"Splendid." Yeah, I use the word splendid. It was a touch early for dinner, but then the restaurant was nearly deserted, which would be good for privacy. There were some troubling things to be said. We each took a side of the table and accepted a menu. "I hear you do wonderful things with Turkish bread. Can we have a plate of that to start, please?"

"Sure. Anything to drink?"

I shrugged. "Would you believe we're all twenty-one?"

The waitress laughed. "Not at all."

"Lemonade for me then. Hermione? Ron?"

"The same," Ron said and Hermione nodded.

"Great."

Once she was gone, my friends turned their intensely curious stares back at me and I sighed. Where did I start? With the time-travel? Sure, as good a place as any. Or with Fleur? No, Fleur was to be kept a secret from all… save those that already knew.

Perhaps with their deaths, their first deaths, or maybe some other point of chaos along the line… Ah bugger it, I was going to enjoy dinner first, before spilling the beans about the ends of the world, and ruining the only true friendship I've ever known.

"Harry," Hermione began.

I raised a hand, the mythril one covered with a simple leather glove, and she fell silent. "Let's eat first, because there's a lot to be said, and none of it happy. Don't want to ruin your appetite."

And so we ate. Over the next forty-five minutes we ate and talked of everything save the war, my awesome summer, and even managed a laugh or two. It felt innocent, almost too innocent, but – for me, at least – it only felt half real. I'd been here too many times before, had too many memories weighing upon my soul, to relax in fine company.

But it was kind of necessary, I guess. On some level of low regard, the simple act of dining with friends was a well of strength to me. Sometimes… well, sometimes we have to do things that are more important than saving the world. And I should write that down because it sounded cool.

Dessert was green tea ice cream with red bean gelatine. It was simply delicious but, as promised, my appetite had dwindled. I took a deep breath and put aside the half eaten treat. Hermione and Ron did the same, no doubt sensing my mood, as my gaze drifted across the table and out over the fading day, a cast of sunlight still clinging to the treetops in Central Park.

I saw a different world out there. One teetering on the brink of destruction. A world already aflame.

"It began like this," I said, gesturing to the world at large beyond the window. My voice was distant, dream-like. Interstellar in its silence and galactic in its gravity. "Or it ended like this – semantics, really, to no one but me…"

"What did, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"The cry of a terrible power," I whispered, inflecting a subtle humour into the words that was far more terrifying than simple darkness would have been. "Of Harry and Voldemort, my friends, and how we unmade the world."

I wanted to fold, but I had a killer hand, and it was time to lay the bloodied aces on the table. I told them, God save me…

I told them everything.


Isn't it enough that your actions send gods and demons alike screaming into the abyss?

No.


"About six, seven hundred years into this game I… I kind of lost sight of anything that mattered." A bitter laugh. "I mean, after all that time, how could any of this seem important? How could it all matter when I'd seen it swept away so many times? Obviously, it couldn't."

"You became Voldemort," Hermione said, her hands shaking on the table. "Or something very similar."

I thought about that for a moment and then shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Something similar. I didn't care who lived or who died – accept him. That son of a bitch would never die. Atlantis ensured that. Still, I wasn't the good guy anymore, if that makes sense. I was as feared as the Dark Lord and then some…"

"And you're alright now?" Ron asked. "I mean, you've not gone bonkers, have you, mate?"

Hermione shushed him. "How did you pull yourself back, Harry?" she asked. "If you became so lost, how did you keep going?"

"Not a how, but a who…" I sighed. "Her name was Tessa."


And I suppose pain doesn't hurt for long when it's all you can remember feeling…


"The magic is… unleashed. Only unleashed isn't the right word." I shook my head. "Hermione, you probably know this, but Ron… back in World War Two, the Muggles dropped a bomb on Japan. Two, actually. Anyway, the bomb in Hiroshima…"

"Pretty powerful, I'm guessing," Ron said.

I nodded. "Hmm." Pretty. Powerful. "The bomb in Hiroshima, when it went boom, created five and a half miles of pure raw fire. Can you imagine that? One heartbeat there's nothing, save an awful, pregnant pause… and the next the entire city is on fire. It's like magic, only far more terrible, because a bomb like that is only good for one thing."

Silence from my two friends.

"Unmaking the world." I laughed, took another swig of lemonade that should have been scotch, and laughed some more. I was the only one still eating or drinking. "So if mere atoms can do that, imagine what the human soul can do when you set it on fire…"

Ron dared ask what Hermione couldn't – or wouldn't. "What can it do?"

"Turns out it can hurl you back in time about eight years… a few hundred or so times." I thought of the blinding agony, the sheer mind-numbing pain that tore through my body when I arrived back at the start. It had its cost, as did everything. "Even the soul has its limits, though. Of all the times I've lived and died, and lived and died again, this life will count for all."

"Why?" Hermione whispered.

"Because it's my last," I said simply. "No more magical reset, no more extra lives or starting from the last checkpoint. This time counts for all and the dice will lie as they fall. It's why I'm telling you all this, why you deserve to know if you choose to do as I ask of you. I suppose, at the heart of it, this is my confession."

The Life and Times of Harry James Potter.

"Life and crimes," I said aloud, to no one in particular, and chuckled to myself. "Oh yes, by the time I'm done… crimes, indeed, but necessary, very necessary, and long overdue…"

"You're babbling, Harry." Hermione was pale, unnerved, yet her voice was tinged with concern for me. "What are you talking about?"

The restaurant had filled up in the time we had been here together. How long had that been? An hour? Two? It was time to move on, back to my stolen hotel suite. What are you talking about?

"I'm talking about revolution, Hermione." Yes, I guess I was – again at the heart of it – revolution was what it boiled down to. There was still some excitement in that idea, a flare of righteous adventure. "Reforging the world, my friends – not the Ministry's way, not Voldemort's or even Dumbledore's way, but our way."


Own it, Harry. Fate may have damned you, but by god you will own the cost of your game.


A/N: Hmm, he told them. We'll see the fallout of that in the next chapter. This was just a segway kind of chapter because I'm heading away for another month and won't be able to get any writing done. Still, please review.

HERE IS EXCITING NEWS!

Now, I've been in this fanfic game 7 or so years, writing and begging for reviews. So have a lot of others, some names you may recognise: Motherfuckin' Joe (that's me), jbern, Clell, Perspicacity, Shezza, Blot, Kinsfire, Heather Sinclair, and meteroicshipyeards.

Well, guess what? All of us, and a few others, got together and wrote some original short stories and compiled them into an anthology – which has just been published and is available right now! Can't link it here, but check out my author profile for the full details. It is awesome and you should purchase it!

Purchase it (ebook available also), or I'll fuck this story up so bad it'll make 2 Girls 1 Cup look like Songs of Praise.

All the best and happy holidays!

joe