A/N: If this is actually posted, then I made it through the first chapter. And someone actually read the Prologue. Which in the world of Harry Potter Fanfiction is a shock.
This story has twists… lots of them.
"My name is Marie Adamms," she said, finally beginning. George made to stand up, but she waves him back in his seat, impatiently. "This concerns more than just you, Mr. Potter." She took another deep breath and began again. "My name is Marie Adamms. And I want to change the past."
Chapter One
Over the past twenty-four hours the home of Harry Potter had been thrown into a mad uproar. And most of it had been Marie's fault. Harry had shot back in his chair, stunned when she admitted to wanting to change the history. His eyebrows rose in question as he shot a significant look to Ginny and George.
"And why, would you want to do that," he asked warily, straightening up a little bit and staring at her over his glasses. He seemed t be under the impression that she was senile.
"I just want… to change my family's history." There was a collective silence in the room before Harry said:
"Go on…"
"I should really start at the beginning." Marie sighed, her fingers absently tracing the contours of the gold ring on her middle fingers. Her Uncle had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday, and she had been overjoyed. It had never come off of her hand since.
"My father's family was killed before I was born. All of it was by Voldemort." She looked off into the distance, and caught her reflection in the glossy, snowy window. She looked much older than last time, especially since she had learned her Uncle's involvement with the Dark Lord.
"That I have accepted. I understand their deaths… but in the past few months since I have graduated I've learned things. About my family." She leaned forwards, her ash colored hair falling into paleness of her face. "My Uncle was a Death Eater."
There was no gasp of surprise from them, and she hadn't expected one. It was only a shock to her, the memory of it all still gnawing on the inside. "To understand properly, I have to tell you that my Uncle was not a Muggle-hater or a man who wished anyone else harm. Or so I thought. I believed he was perfect. That was until I… found letters. Correspondences to fellow and well-known Death Eaters. And when he was buried, I saw his dark mark.
"He was the one who murdered my father. And countless others. And after my mother died he was the one who raised me---." She broke off, swallowing quickly, tears burning in the back of her eyes. The pain was still raw, and so was the anger. Though she doubted that that would ever go away.
"He was older than my mother, almost twenty years, and she was older when she decided to have children as well. He went to school with the young Voldemort. And I want to kill them both. To stop them for good."
This time there was a shocked silence. Harry had sat up, if possibly, straighter. And George had leaned forwards in keen interest. Ginny seemed to be the only one who didn't change in expression. And if the rumors told about her were correct, then she understood Marie's need completely.
"You… you want to kill… your Uncle?" Harry said, his voice thick with incredulity. He took off his glasses, polishing them on his shirt, and then replaced them back on the bridge of his nose. He seemed much older than she had expected. Tales of Harry Potter's conquest and defeat over the Dark Lord was well known, even nineteen years after the fact. "And Voldemort? That's absolutely ludicrous!"
"Yes, I know." She couldn't express the betrayl she had felt upon seeing the dark mark on her Uncle's body. It sounded irrational to everyone else, but her. Only she knew the pain/ "I had the chance to speak to some… professors about my uncle. And they confided that they were shocked that I hadn't become a servant of the Dark Arts like my Uncle. I believe if I can save my Uncle… that the death of young Voldemort would change… everything."
"That still wouldn't change who your Uncle was," he pointed out, his eyes trained directly on her.
"I believe, sir, that my Uncle was seduced by the pull of belonging to something bigger. Something that had a cause, making him has a cause. If I'm wrong… then there is no loss to you. Only to me."
"You plan to stop Voldemort… in his past?" A woman's voice said, her haughty tone carrying through the room. Marie jumped, startled to not have heard the woman who she knew as Hermione Granger, standing stiffly in the doorway.
It was an odd thing to be standing in the presence of one of the greatest witches of all time. Hermione Granger, the women next in line to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
"Yes," Marie said, trying to keep her voice strong. It was difficult to remain calm under that hard-eyed stare.
"If… you want to do this…" Harry said, his voice giving off the tone of a father now explaining to his child that they were wrong. "Then why did you come here? To ask us permission?"
"It will affect your life most greatly. If I succeed in… killing Voldemort then your---all of your lives---will change. Drastically."
"My life is what it is. I've accepted that."
She nodded. She had already prepared herself for this argument. "But what about the others? Your Godson Ted? The murders of the families who have had survivors that haven't moved on like you? If Voldemort never rises to power, he'll never kill or lead other to kill those people. The Wizarding community as we know it would have never been in shambles."
"Some things can never be changed!" Harry stressed, rubbing his temples for they had now taken on the familiar pounding they did whenever he was faced with a moral dilemma.
"I came here tonight, not to get your permission, but your blessing. This could change everything, as we know. Something's can never be changed. But this… this is one of them that can. If I fail, then everything remains the same. And the only people who have endangered themselves are I. And I am perfectly willing to take that risk."
Her tawny eyes blazed with an inner fire that burned her insides. She could get revenge; all she needed was the last ingredient. She could do this. And she was prepared to fail as well. Prepared for death.
Silence filled the spaces and caverns in the drawing room. The only sound was the light tinkling laughter of the people in the next room. This Harry Potter was a happy man, but she could make every one else happy as well. There were witches and wizards who were still afraid, and she could cease that fear.
"What do you need?" Marie's breath hitched. Here came the moment of truth.
"A grant to make the Draught of Time." No one in the room said anything or made any moments of recognition, but Hermione. The woman's breath sucked in so sharply that she almost whistled.
"That's… illegal!"
"I know. But I need to do this… please…"
And so they had agreed to let her travel back into the past by the means of the hardest potion to brew known to wizard. Hermione, with the help of a still nervous Harry, secured the grant from the minister to brew the potion. It took several explanations on her part to the Minister and several others people who were supposedly trust worthy.
By Saturday night the plan had been reviewed about a hundred times and run past about a hundred people. It had taken a while, and while Marie had mentally prepared herself, when she entered the Potter's home, her nerves stood on end.
The woody scent of the potion wafted into foyer. It wasn't a bad smell, but it made her slightly uncomfortable. Maybe, it was because she was having second thoughts about this. Maybe…
Marie shook her head, clearing it of all unnecessary thought. There was no going back now. She had a plan. And she had partially convinced the ministry to help her, even though it was a backwater project that no one was supposed to know about. If this broke out to the public, there would be hell to pay for the Ministry.
At first, she hadn't wanted the Ministry involved. She wanted this to be as legal as possible. But if the certain ingredient of a drop of Basilisk venom hadn't been withheld from the public, even the Black Market side of things, then she wouldn't have had to go to Harry Potter in the first place. But she wasn't going to tell them that.
And so it was with her hair standing on end and her heart beating through her chest that she stepped through the door into the drawing room. A thick pewter cauldron stood in the center. The sluggish bubbling it was emitting made her stomach turn as she looked over into the violently purple potion.
"That should do it," Hermione said softly, her sharp eyes softening a bit as she noticed Marie's nervousness. "Don't worry… I think I've made it correctly. If not…" She didn't have to say the rest. Marie completely understood.
Harry entered the room, his Wizarding robes flowing around his body when he moved towards the potion, which had turned the deepest shade of blue. He grabbed a silver goblet and dipped it into the simmering potion. The silver glowed slightly as he held it out for Marie to take.
For the first time since formulating this plan, she hesitated. Was this really what she was planning to do? Was she really going to go back in time to prevent Voldemort from rising to power? Tom Riddle from becoming Voldemort. Over the last few days she had learned all there was to know about Tom Riddle. Every piece of information she and Harry had gathered. And in turn she had searched through her Uncle's letters and plans.
She was going back to be a Seventh year. Her house would probably remain the same, but she wasn't sure. She had already worked out the plan with Hermione several times. Marie was going to pose as a student whose parents had educated her by themselves until their untimely deaths. Home education wasn't all that unpopular after the war of good and evil with Grindewald. Parents, then, still feared that their children would be attacked at any moment. She would be sorted into her house when she arrived in Armando Dippet's office in exactly one hour. Or, one hour and sixty-three years in the past.
The one issue she was going to have, well besides dealing with Tom Riddle and his followers, would be giving the letter she and Hermione had carefully scripted from her "parents" stating their last wishes were to have her go to a formal school, such as Hogwarts. Her whole entire plan hinged on that.
Marie's hand trembled as she took it… her fingers clasping over the silver handle. This was for her father… who her Uncle, her beloved Uncle, had murdered. And only because he had been a muggle. All of this was because her mother had loved someone who was non-magical.
"Thank you," she whispered, nodding in both their directions. Hermione's lips were thin, just in perfect imitation of McGonagall's when she was angry. They both watched as Marie lifted the cup to her lips.
"You can't come back," Hermione burst out. Here eyes were wide with fear as she watched Marie smile sadly and take a sip, then two, before draining the rest of the potion.
The last thing she saw was Hermione and Harry's grim expressions as she felt something jerk her body backwards, as if a hook had caught around not only her navel but also her whole entire body. It felt slightly like a port key, but different somehow.
And then she began to spin… very fast until she felt like vomiting. And then everything turned dark.
"Yes… Ms. Adamms," Headmaster Armando Dippet said, his voice tight the indecisiveness on his face making him look like a very confused child. "I… understand that, but it strikes me as odd that your parents would just leave you -"
"My grandfather went to Hogwarts, it was important to him that I… be educated here. My mother and father didn't want me to come due to their fear of Dark Sorcery. And then after Grindewald, definitely not. But after his death they decided that if anything should happen to them… they wanted me to fulfill his last dream."
She was laying it on too thick. That much Marie knew. But in the presence of Headmaster Dippet, she was willing to try anything. And if one thing she had learned from the records she had read through, it was that she must play to his vanity. And Hogwarts was his weakness.
Pride is such an arrogant thing, she thought, watching as Dippet reviewed the letter once more, shuffling the papers in a sign of obvious unease. This was going directly against his protocol, had there ever been a transfer into Hogwarts before? Marie supposed not.
"Despite your Grandfather's wishes. The question still remains, will you be able to cope with the course work?"
"Yes, sir." He sighed, obviously rereading her essay on the properties of Moonstone she had written in the sixth year. Hermione had though it best that she provide some of her own work to prove the she was educated. With a few minor changes to the styling of her words it was flawless. Marie's best piece of work, even though she had been a fairly average student.
"I admit this is quite impressive for a sixth year. You say your parents made you write this in order to pass their standard form of examination?" He looked up over his glasses; the frizzy gray hair sticking up in all directions was still squashed underneath his black Wizarding hat.
"Yes, sir."
It was several more moments before he sighed again, the sound of acceptance. Marie's nerve endings tingled as she fought the smile rising to her lips. The plan was going so smoothly… all she had to do now was get, kill Tom Riddle and then find someway back to the future.
Even as she thought the words kill Tom Riddle her stomach gave a feeble little lurch. She had never committed murder before. Or even a crime that was much more than sneaking out of her dorms late at night to sneak food. Panic flared in her gut as she watched Dippet stand and take the Sorting Hat down from its perch atop the highest shelf behind the desk.
Could she really kill Tom Riddle? Well… it was a little too late to be having second thoughts about this. Now of all times, when the plan formulates with Hermione, Harry and various others had been executed flawlessly so far.
Her stomach heartbeat sped up, the frantic bah-boom; bah-boom was beginning to fill her ears as she drowned in hysteria. You can't go back now… you've come to far, she chastised herself, trying to regain a smidgen of control over her heartbeat.
It wasn't enough. Only when the Headmaster coughed loudly into a handkerchief and sat the frayed, Sorting Hat down in front of her, did the full sense of reality come seeping back into her mind like slow, poisonous ooze.
"Ms. Adamms, if you will."
She glanced up, the sound of her blood still roaring through her ears. He was waiting for her, his pleasant smile still tacked neatly onto his face, but those eyes looked tense as if he was waiting for her to fail.
Marie breathed deeply; the aroma of the start of term feast began to waft up through the office. And it was then she realized that she was holding up the feast. It was with another pang of guilt that she gently took the Sorting Hat and placed it atop her head.
It awoke, or that was the only way she could describe the buzzing that had filled her ears. She waited patiently for it to assess all of her talents, her weaknesses and then place her in her house. Gryffindor, like it had always been.
Marie had never considered herself brave and she had suspected the reason she was placed in Gryffindor was because of the long line of family members who had been in the very same house. Her mother had been in Gryffindor, her grandfather. Even her cheating, lying, twisted man who she had looked up to like a father figure for years had belonged to that house.
Of course, she had had her courageous moments. When she had finally decided to ask Eric Davies to go with her on a Hogsmeade weekend trip. But she had done nothing spectacular. She'd had slightly above average grades, being better than most in Charms and Potions. There was nothing special that stood out about her. And so it came as a great shock when the mouth at the hat's brim opened wide and shouted.
"SLYTHERIN!"
A/N: Things will pick up, I promise. Next chapter you get to meet Tom. And I would like to keep him as in character as possible, so he may be a bit cruel. Until I dig a bit deeper. I've always been convinced that he would have been better with a girl… maybe not –grins-