A/N: Some time for this one again. I've got the ending figured out, and as you'll see there's some big things happening here. The story will be completed. I super duper promise that. Here's 4k words to get back into the swing of things:
Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time
Chapter 14 – That Dress Looks Nice on You
Two-thirty in the morning
and my gas tank will be empty soon
Neon sign on the horizon
rubbing elbows with the moon
A safe haven of sleepless
where the deep fryer's always on
Radio is counting down
the top twenty country songs
And out on the porch the fly strip is
waving like a flag in the wind
Y'know, I don't look forward
to seeing you again soon
You'll look like a photograph of yourself
taken from far, far away
And I won't know what to do
And I won't know what so say
…except fuck you.
~Ani Defranco
It has been some time, hasn't it? Since I started this game. Twenty thousand aborted timelines sent howling into the void, twenty thousand Harry Potters dead for my cause. Time to put and end to what we started.
Time to strike at the heart of things.
Auror Serena Helms had delivered unto me a summons. I was to attend the Ministry, Courtroom Seven, in the morning and discuss the state of the affairs. Everything from the murder of the French president to the appearance of lost Atlantis, locked frozen in time under my shield magic along the north west coast of England, was to be cast into stark clarification.
It was about time, really.
They weren't going to like what I had to say. But then, they didn't have to like it – just had to get behind me. Granted, I'd given the Ministry very little reason to do so up until now. But that would soon change. I'd need to bring my A-game, leave the old man and the epic powers at home, and play this one smart.
Merlin, I wanted a drink, but I was trying to maintain my sober streak.
"Twelve hours sober and counting," I muttered, sitting at the desk in the captain's quarters of my battleship. I held my head in my hands, elbows resting on the desk, and tried to calm the nausea and sweats. Withdrawal always hit me hard, more so because of the time magic and other spells keeping me alive.
I summoned a few potions from my stores and knocked them back one after the other. Painkillers, mostly, but they took the edge off the headache. I had work to do this evening, as my battleship floated invisible over the village of Hogsmeade. Letters to write, people to get in my corner. After a thousand years I was trying something new. Something exciting.
The coming war wouldn't be Potter vs. Voldemort. It couldn't be – not after how many times I've lost. No.
I'd unite Wizarding Britain behind my flag, and united we would put a stop to that murderous madman once and for all. In all honesty, I had tried variations of this plan in the past—but I had something new, now, something… hopeful.
"Last time counts for all," I said, fingering the cerulean gemstone that hung from a silver chain around my neck. A gemstone gifted to me in a bubble of liquid time, gifted to me from a beautiful woman calling herself Lily—a woman claiming to be my granddaughter.
If that were true, and it felt true, then there was a future somewhere within the maelstrom where I won. Given the lives lost so far, the twenty thousand resets, perhaps that future could be now. This time.
"Wouldn't that be nice," I sighed and got to work.
I must run faster.
It was almost impossible to tell, even after all my resets, which path to destruction the Dark Lord would choose. I had warned Dumbledore of the fall of Moscow and the ravaging hordes of dead muggles, infectious inferi, that Voldemort sometimes released. I had warned him of the takeover of Hogwarts, and how it's most infamous student turned the castle into an infernal machine, lashed together with bone and cemented with blood.
But the return of Atlantis spelled a different fate, this round, and that was a beat I could dance to. Bowie at his best, which is to say, always. Hogwarts' ruination and the end of the muggle world were, at this point, sad songs stuck on repeat—I'd heard the tune so many times before. It was time for a new release, a chart-topper.
Voldemort was lead vocals, but I could play some mean bass. Sometimes I could even steal the show.
London was cool and misty, slightly smoggy, as I flew my cloaked battleship above the Thames over South Bank and parked her above a nice café overlooking the river. I Apparated down and had myself a fine breakfast—eggs, bacon, hashbrown, tomato, sizzling mushrooms all shoved into a crusty roll. A Cornish stack, they called it, and I'd never had finer.
With little else to do, little else that didn't feel like the weight of the world on my shoulders, I admired the view over the Thames over the ruins of my breakfast. Rumour had it the Thames was home to an ancient river dragon that slept in a cavern far below the murky waters. If you could find it, the dragon would grant a single wish. In all my years, I'd never met a wish-slinging river dragon. But given the absurdity of my story to date, I was willing to work on a little faith.
"Will there be anything else, love?" my waitress asked. She looked me up and down and smiled sympathetically. "Rough night?"
"Lifetime of them," I said. "But breakfast was good, so the scales are in balance today. And no, nothing else, thank you." Unless it's a beer. No, no drinking. "Wait, one thing…"
The future will be just fine.
I Apparated directly into the Ministry, through the wards designed to prevent just that, and through a few more erected in wartime. I arrived to a court in full session, hundreds of witches and wizards, the full Wizengamot and Ministry executive. Aurors lined the halls, and my scant allies, Dumbledore and a cadre of the Order, sat in the upper levels.
The air felt heavy, charged, an electric stink of magic on the air—as if a thunderstorm was about to make landfall.
It seemed I was a minute late, and the court had been waiting for me with bridled patience. Ain't nothing but a pipe dream and my guitar, I thought, old cigars and dead car batteries. A spike of pain shot through my mind and I took a seat to hide a stumble. As was tradition, the old chains on the chair in the centre of the room rattled menacingly as I sat. How many times have I been in this chair? More times than lives I'd lived, to be sure.
"Good morning," I said, and took a sip of harsh, black coffee—a triple shot. "What news?"
"Mr. Potter," the Minister said, regarding me severely. "Please do take a seat, sir." He seemed affronted I'd shown initiative. "And thank you for gracing us with your presence. You are here today to answer the list of charges laid out before you as such." He cleared his throat and the court clerk stood, unfurling a scroll of parchment that rolled down the stepped benches and onto the old stone floors.
"Under the legislative acts…" the clerk began, and that was when I zoned out and focussed on sipping the acrid coffee.
I let them prattle on as I tried to stomach the coffee, wishing oh so very much it was a beer, for a minute or two and then I stood up.
"Minister, you Wizengamot so and so's, my name is Harry Potter and I'm here on a mission." I inclined my head ever so slightly. "Let's keep this brief. I'm wanted for committing a vast litany of offences, ranging from unpaid floo tickets to capital crimes. I make no secret of this, I confess to them all, and gladly. Lock me up in Azkaban and throw away the key! Only… only you don't have an Azkaban anymore, do you? Is that public knowledge yet? It will be when the dementors start sucking London dry. I know this. I've seen it."
"Are you asking us to arrest you, Mr. Potter?" Scrimgeour asked.
"You couldn't, Minister. I am beyond your power, I am beyond your control." I said this matter-of-factly, not as a show of bravado, but as a statement of simple truth. "The truth is, I'm a thousand year old time traveller, caught in what was once a stable loop of the same eight years. That loop has now closed. I am on my last life, my last moments of borrowed time."
"You… what?"
I shrugged. "I know you all a little too well. I know what you're thinking. And I do not have time to be subjected to your tests. There is a cache of artefacts in the Department of Mysteries I will be taking with me today. Funnily enough, several of them could confirm how time-fucked I am. But grist for another day's mill and all of that."
The courtroom sat in silence. I saw faces that believed me, faces of calculation, faces of barely concealed contempt, and faces less concerned with concealment and more with hatred.
"To summarise," I continued. "I am a thousand years old, I've died twenty thousand times trying to end the war against Voldemort. I'm here to ask for your help and, if you won't give it, which I already see may be the case, then I'll take what I need."
Shit, maybe I'm not ready to work with this lot… I'm about as patient as a slap to the balls.
I moved my gaze across those members of the Wizengamot in Voldemort's back pocket, the secret supporters and those branded with the Dark Mark. Was it time? Souls already sold could be harvested by any reaper. Yes, yes it was time. Drink the ink from the pen, balance history, if you love something… give it away.
I focussed my intent and clicked my fingers. The click echoed through the silence and gagged twenty-three of the self-important little men and women in Voldemort's employ. Gagged them in invisible bands and lifted them from their seats. With none too delicate a tug I wrenched the traitors through the air and composed them in a ring on the cold stone floor in front of me.
The courtroom erupted in cries and I nixed them with another click. The Aurors, Serena Helms there at the front, advanced on me. I held up a hand and they stopped, stuck in place, and took another sip of godawful coffee.
"I can't pretend I don't enjoy being the biggest swinging dick in the room," I said into the silence. My friends and allies, Dumbledore and the Weasleys, looked uncomfortable, but could they stop me if they wanted? No, no they couldn't. And they didn't want to. "These men and women are servants of the Dark Lord, and I'm taking them off the board now." I thrust a finger toward the twenty-three bound Wizengamot bastards and bastardettes. "You lot, raise your hand if you carry the Dark Mark?"
I forced twelve hands into the air, wrenched the sleeves from the arms, revealing the ugly mark. The Minister sat back down.
"The rest of you, though you're not marked, you wish to be—or will be." I pressed a hand to my forehead. Headaches brewing or an angry Dark Lord, who knew? Or cared. "And in the weeks and months to come you all commit acts of war against this country and Ministry. For that reason, you're off to day care until Voldemort is defeated."
I tossed a Portkey, forged last night in the cabin of my battleship from an old axe handle, into the mix, and all twenty-three traitors were sucked into the portal and across the face of the world.
That done, I took a seat and leaned forward on my knees. "Now, time's were I would have portkeyed that lot into a volcano and have done with it, but time's were are now time's was. So, Minister, and the rest of you, welcome to Potter's Army." I retrieved a list of artefacts on a scroll of parchment from my pocket and floated it over to the Minister. "This is what I require from the Department of Mysteries. Have it prepared immediately." I sensed some level of resistance. "Or, you know, don't. After what I've done today Voldemort will be coming. Would you rather it all in his hands?"
"Mr Potter," the Minister said, finding his voice. "Could I stop you?"
"I want to work with you, Minister." I thought on that a moment. "Well, no, I thought I did. But what I really want is for you to do as I say. Trust me, the knowledge and experience required to lead this fight was gained the very hard way. I am the oldest wizard in existence, and I am asking for your help. But if you're not willing to give it then, honestly, I'll just take it and do my best."
Your best so far has been pretty piss poor, nattered a voice in the back of my mind that sounded a lot like Chronos. Bless that bastard, I hadn't seem him in a few days. Hope he hadn't stubbed a toe.
"This fight," I said wearily. "This damned war that sits at the heart of my existence. It's…" I crushed my coffee cup and let it fall. A pale imitation of the whisky buzz, caffeine being mean, had me in its sway. "It's like a runaway train now. There's no slowing down, no stopping it."
My headache worsened and I felt a trickle of blood run into my eye. That old scar had split open once again. Voldemort was pissed. Good, good.
"See this?" I asked. "He's coming. He's bringing what armies he has gathered so far. London is about to go to war. We have to evacuate those we can, and what we can, right now."
Scrimgeour's moustache bristled over his lip and he stood. "Armies?"
I sighed and wiped the blood from my eye. "The fight will start here, at the Ministry, and spill out into Muggle London. It always does. Minister, send your employees to evacuate the nearby schools. As many as possible, as far away as possible. In the past, we've used the countryside near Monmouth, the Forest of Dean, as a staging ground for evacuating the Muggles to the United States."
No one in the room moved. They didn't believe. "Headmaster," I said, without looking back. "This starts now. We are officially at war, and the enemy is at our door. Do you want me to put a number on the lives lost for every minute of delay? It's about thirty. Most of them children. Begin immediately."
A fierce band of pain forced rivulets of shiny red blood down my face. I wore a mask of crimson resolve. "As of right now, the Statutes of Secrecy are disbanded." Another spike forced me to one knee. "The Dark Lord Voldemort has just entered the Ministry of Magic. He's heading this way."
I stood as a tremendous boom shook the entire Ministry. Centuries of dust fell like snow from the shadowy high ceilings overhead.
"If anyone needs me, I'll be pilfering what I can from the Department of Mysteries. Aurors, with me."
I didn't wait to see if I was obeyed. Those that followed would live to fight, and die, for the cause. Those that didn't would simply die.
I'd seen it all a thousand times before.
I can't rest, I can't stop, I can't breathe.
So, story idea: A kid spends the first ten years of his life parentless, stuck in a damp closet, until one day an owl swoops in with a letter from a prestigious magical school—a castle, hidden from normal folk up in the Scottish borders. The kid is awed, overcome, and soon finds out he's somebody in this world of witches, wizards, and magical creatures. Moreover, that his true family was part of this world, and loved him dearly.
Indeed, he's the Chosen One, prophesised to defeat the villainous Dark Lord, the man who killed his parents. Destiny, fate, and his friends all want him to succeed. And why shouldn't he? He's got the power of good and love on his side. He's honest. He stands for what's right. He was true. Even when he was hurt, he did the right thing.
The difference between what was right and what was easy was never a choice. He owned that shit from the start. It wasn't fate or destiny or even his friends that taught him how to make the right choice. No, it was that fucking cupboard under the stairs.
The kid learnt early, he learnt well, that if he wanted anything in this world than he had to do as he was told. Clothing, food, shelter—all could be taken away as easily as his no-good parents. The cupboard taught him to please. To keep his head down, to try and please those who had the power to take away what little he had.
So take those lessons, that environment, and amplify it to a cupboard the size of a castle. What's the kid to do?
Fight, of course. Because he's eager to please. He wants his friends to like him. He wants his mentors to believe in him. He wants to be part of a world that wants him. At any cost.
At the greatest cost.
It'll be okay… on the healing day.
Time was short, but I'd played this game before. I ran through the Department of Mysteries, portkeying out those items that could be portkeyed, and collecting those that couldn't in a conveniently transfigured burlap sack.
The Fire Gauntlet of Ravavulin—in the sack.
Egyptian Crowing Shield Blade—in the sack.
The Gemstones of Avalon and Avarice—sacked.
Staff of Rampant Virility—sacky, sack, sack.
Smoke and the heat of powerful magic bled through the walls. The taste of liquid metal clung to the air. The Ministry was cooking.
A few Aurors had followed me, and I set them to gathering some smaller items, then instructed them out of the Ministry, to leave the artefacts and ancient, powerful weapons at a secret location. Serena Helms, bless her, did as she was told, and the others followed her lead. I didn't deserve their loyalty, but people would always be people.
All the while the entire Ministry shook from the Dark Lord's attack. The stone walls cracked, enchantments that had stood for centuries began to flicker and fail, and my scar burned like dread fire in the night.
I made it through most of the list, a good ninety per cent of old school crap, before I reached the Veil—Sirius' final resting place—and found I could go no further.
"Hello, Harry," Lord Voldemort said from the crooked dais, cloaked in black and a shroud of something intangible—cold and shadow. "You've been busy today, old man."
I hefted my sack from one shoulder to the other, the various magical objects clinking and clanging, and licked the scar blood from my lips.
The veil fluttered in that unseen breeze, whispering sweet, callous nothings. Voldemort stood alone, as did I. I let the sack fall and drew my wand with the casual ease of someone very well practiced, and very tired.
"Hello, Lord Voldemort. You… surprise me." Another tremendous boom echoed throughout the Ministry. A great piece of stone floor cracked between the Dark Lord and me—in the shape of a lightning bolt, funnily enough. "I thought you'd be upstairs, making sport of the halfbloods."
Voldemort stood nearly seven feet tall, twisted by ancient magic and the dark secrets he had gained in fabled, lost Atlantis. He wore a hood over his pale head, eyes of crimson fire within the folds, and seemed to be entirely at ease.
"You forced my hand today," he said.
"That was… part of the plan." I frowned. "Well, yes, part of the plan. I wanted the Ministry to join me, but as soon as I got into that courtroom…" I exhaled slowly.
"You could not stand the sight of them?" Voldemort asked. "The very idea of allying yourself with wizards and witches so far beneath you seemed not only abhorrent, but offensive." He didn't make it a question.
I saw no sense in lying. "They don't—can't—understand." I sighed and gestured vaguely in his direction. "You can, I suppose. You live in my head. I poured the memories of the last thousand years into yours. I was hoping it would cripple you, leave you raving."
Voldemort grinned. "You will burn this world before letting me have it, won't you?"
"I have. More than once. As have you."
Voldemort placed a thin, skeletal hand on the archway of the mysterious veil. Where his skin touched the arch, the stone beneath his hand blackened as if scorched with flame. He stared into the veil for a long, patient minute. "It is a curious thing, death," he said. "You wish to die, do you not?"
The cerulean gemstone from my maybe-future-granddaughter felt hot against my chest. "Once you're in the ground, mate, I won't be far behind you."
"And what happens if you die first? Your time magic is spent, Harry. There is no going back."
"It's the end of a very long day," I said wearily. A day spanning one thousand years. "Are we going to duel or is this just going to be one of those sassy dick measuring meetings?"
"I have instructed my forces to attack Muggle London."
"I know."
"The dementors of Azkaban are loose in the city."
"Yeah, that's always a shit show."
"I have cast an inferius charm over a ten mile radius to reanimate any of the dead."
"Textbook Dark Lord right there."
Voldemort caressed his wand, staring at the wood, and then nodded to himself once. He faded away, disappeared, and I retrieved my sack of mystical, magical artefacts. No duels today, then. Perhaps the soul-torn bastard feared a proper confrontation. Perhaps he feared I'd held a few memories back of our duels in the lost pasts.
Perhaps he was right.
A/N: Next update will be soon - and the battle for London will begin!
I'm back on this fanfiction pony for a time, to get these stories finished. If you'd like to read more of my work, then check out my original stories:
The Will Drake Series:
01. The Rig
02. Crystal Force
The Reminiscent Exile:
01. Distant Star
02. Broken Quill
03. Knight Fall
Google: Joe Ducie
All of those books are available at bookshops and online retailers. I reckon you'll enjoy them, if you like my fanfic! Also, I'm contemplating getting into original web serials. That could be fun. Anyway, please review and keep an eye out for future updates. It won't be a year this time. ;)
Cheers,
Joe
