To Ride the Carousel Again
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR, etcetera.
I make no money from this writing.
Inspired by, and loosely follows a Reptilia28 Challenge.
Time Travel and therefore Alternate Universe (AU) story.
Let's get to it.
Chapter 1, Prologue
Arrival
About 1,300 words of story. Lo-o-ng A/N at end with Challenge rules. (Um, how about callin' 'em guidelines?)
I apologize in advance if I accidentally steal any ideas without proper attribution or permission. I have read A LOT of FanFiction and there have been some really good stories in the time travel/AU/Harry dies, send him back, genre. Let me know if I get egregious at it.
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To Ride the Carousel Again
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Harry woke up feeling very confused and with a pounding headache. He seemed to be lying on a comfortable something.
Forcing his eyes open, he could 'see' he was in a very dark place, surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of bright streaks of light that seemed to appear over his shoulder and zip away from him at high speed. They were spears of light. Spears of every colour, aiming for the same point. And they just disappeared at a point ahead of him.
Harry forced himself to sit up. Looking around, he seemed to be on a small, grey, rectangular platform.
He felt no sense of speed, but he was positive he was traveling very fast toward that same point as the light streaks.
But just as all the spears of light, and him, reached that small point, instead of plunging into it, Harry felt his platform shunted off to the side so violently, Harry thought he would be flung off.
The darkness had exploded into an almost painful bright light. When the spots faded from his vision he gasped as he beheld the towering, shiny, silvery mountain with a column of sparkly golden light from its top in front of him.
The platform stopped abruptly.
Looking away from the silver mountain, Harry could see his 'platform' was laying against a bright white rectangle dock-like thing.
Fear slammed into him as he saw only blackness around his grey platform, with his white 'dock' thingy, a building and the silver mountain.
It was as he looked around in confusion, looking for something that made sense to him, he realized the edges of his platform were crumbling and falling into the blackness of the abyss around him. And disappearing.
"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed as he jumped from the disintegrating platform to the dock, and sprawled the landing as the platform gave way as he started his leap.
A heavy "Go-o-ong" sounded as he landed on the 'dock'. Harry was working on getting to his feet when he realized he was no longer alone on the . . dock thingy.
Reflexively his hand dove into his robe pocket for his wand, only to find nothing there. He froze, hand in his robe, staring at the person standing in front of him.
That person, from the clothes she was wearing, was obviously female. The neon red, shiny fabric was fitted skin-tight to her shapely form. Her head was covered with a tight cowl that trailed like a split set of robes down to her mid-calf, covering the tops of her glittery red boots. And she was wearing a pair of wrap-around sunglasses with mirror lenses and fingernails that seemed to move.
"Greetings, soul returnee." The female spoke in a wonderful, melodious voice. "May I have your name so that I can inform the Soul Commission Return and Placement Service who has returned and that way we can get a head start on getting you sent to your final reward."
"Huh? Wa . . ." was the eloquent reply by Harry.
"Look, I realize that being thrown up here is somewhat disconcerting, but we need to get you to final processing. Returnees are fairly rare, and I have other things to be doing," the young woman replied.
Even without being able to see her eyes, Harry knew she was glaring at him. He was trying to come up with some questions to ask the woman in front of him when . . .
"C'mon now," she said crisply. "I got dressed in this rather hideous outfit of, "You got that right, he thought." I think you call them robes, just to try and make you comfortable."
She spread her arms and stated, "I don't like how this robe-thing makes me look, but it is what the well-dressed witch has been wearing this year. It's supposed to ease you along, give you something familiar for your mind to latch onto."
Finally, something Harry's brain could 'latch onto'.
"Just what year are we talking about?" he said, grasping at any straw in his confusion.
"In your Earth terms, you have died in 2124. Although, I must say you look a lot younger than I would expect for being a hundred forty-four-year-old man."
"Hmmm. Maybe it's just mental confusion from your advanced age," she said contemplatively, tapping her fingers against her chin.
"Advanced age?" Harry bellowed. "I was killed when I was fourteen!"
"Wait, how did I know that?" he thought.
And with that declaration, a flood of memories cascaded through his mind.
Dragons in the first task and the Horntail's tail that gashed his arm and almost took off his head.
Grindylow's in the Black Lake attacking with claws and teeth. And his narrow escape from them.
And the last task. The nightmare. "Kill the spare." Followed by the same flash of necrotic green that the Dementor's made him remember seeing, and the forever sightless eyes of Cedric Diggory staring into the sky.
He flashed to being tied to Riddle's father's headstone. "Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, and blood of your foe."
He remembered the Crucio's, the pain from being touched by Voldemort. He remembered the farce of a duel before the brother wands locked up and how with the help of his parents and others killed by Riddle, he managed to escape.
Now he remembered arriving back at the maze, battered and bloody. But he had, by Merlin, brought Cedric back to his parents.
The rest was a blur of him babbling to everyone that 'He's back, Voldemort's back', and seeing the disbelief on faces and the voices doubting of his sanity.
It was during the arguments that Moody came and took him away from the madness surrounding the third task maze, and walked him to his office in the castle. There he was questioned by the old auror as to what had exactly happened.
Exhausted, in pain, and shaking with occasional tremors, Harry tried to explain all the bewildering, perplexing, and confusing events that had happened to him in the graveyard.
He was just starting to wonder why Professor Moody wanted to know the smallest detail as to how the Dark Lord had spoken, how he had acted. Harry could have sworn Moody took great pleasure in the punishments Voldemort had dealt to those who he had accused of abandoning him.
He was so very tired. All he wanted to do was get to Madame Pomfrey, get a pain draught, and sleep forever.
Suddenly a Foe Glass on the desk had glowed, and in it, Harry could see the Headmaster and Snape charging straight at the glass.
Moody had taken a quick glance at the glass, whipped his wand out of his coat, pointed it at the startled Harry, and incanted, "Avada Kedavra".
And the sickly-looking green light of his nightmares filled his vision just before the ripping pain and darkness overtook him.
A/N:
And so, we hop directly into the "Harry Dies" part mentioned in the story description.
My style seems to start with a short, prologue-type chapter that is intended to 'hook' the reader. However, if the story is not your type, a quick thousand-or-so word read, and you can move on to something else.
Most of these stories start after the Forbidden Forest walk and Suicide by Tom Riddle AK. What changes if Harry has not been tortured by the Blood Quill, the traumatic death of Sirius, the train wreck of HBP, and all the danger, angst, and betrayal of The Deathly Hallows?
Since I have taken to heart criticism that I am often too short, or spare, with descriptions and dialogue, I will probably overcompensate in that area while writing this story.
Have a dozen pre-written chapters and will load every two weeks until they are gone, then every month.
The Reptilia 28 Challenge:
`Harry is killed at 17 [14] during a fight with Voldemort. [Fight, yes. Killed? Not then. It's another betrayal by a supposed friend.] He's sent to his Death's office, (explained later) and finds out this is not the first time this has happened.
`Harry's Death, (who can have a human name) is angry at his arrival. Apparently, people dying before their time is a black mark on Death's records, and Harry is perilously close to getting this one fired.
`When Harry asks what was supposed to have happened, Death goes off on a rant saying how was he was supposed to have killed Voldemort, found his soul mate, (some Granger girl…) [Oops. He forgot that part.] and lived to be of centennial age. But since Harry keeps getting into life-threatening situations for one reason or another, he keeps dying before any of that happens. Harry is surprised about the soul mate part.
`Death gives Harry a paper to sign that allows him to retain his memories. (The previous times he was not allowed this option for some reason) Harry is deposited to a previous time of the writers choosing.
`Eventually, Harry gets it right. He kills Voldemort, gets the girl, and lives to the ripe old age of whatever. And Death does not get fired.
Requirements:
`Harry has to have died at least three times before this one.
`The memory-keeping contract must be included.
`Death must refer to Hermione as "some Granger girl" when Harry's soul mate turns up in his rant.
`Obviously, it must be Harry/Hermione.
`Try to have fun.
Optional: Dumbledore's manipulations can be a factor in Harry's premature demises.
Try to have fun.
[Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how constraining this Challenge can be? But, then again, let's find out if I can stretch my talent enough to make this work.
There will be many common tropes and cliches milked to the point of them becoming desiccated mummies in this story.
I apologize in advance for any ideas I accidentally thieve without proper attribution. After all, some of the most talented writers on this site have written for the Reptilia28 Challenge.