Whirlwind in Time
"Words"
'Thoughts '
The forbidden forest was suffering from the morning mist, a dense fog covered the base of the trees and made it hard to navigate. For Harry though, it was a gift, something that allowed him to traverse the forest unscathed in order to find the Dark Lord.
He remembered back to his Hogwarts days, before Voldemort returned and everything went to hell. He recalled his time playing quidditch, and how he was the youngest seeker in a century who led Gryffindor to victory again and again on the pitch. He remembered the heights he reached when it came to magic, and of how he won the Triwizard tournament with nothing but sheer dumb luck.
He had become strong since those days, stronger than he even thought possible. He had studied and trained ever since Voldemort was revived in that graveyard, secretly visiting the Chamber of Secrets and Salazar's library every night since his fourth year. Spells had been seared into his mind that went beyond dark in that chamber, and he had consumed knowledge and performed rituals that would have made most gasp in horror if they only knew.
The Chamber had served him well in that regard. It was a hidden place that only he could access, and somewhere no one could disturb him, allowing him to grow in strength in power in secret. He had learn many things in the caverns of that chamber, and even more while visiting the Black Library within Grimmauld Place. Although the latter was much more difficult to visit in private compared to the former.
He had used his knowledge well, and killed what felt like hundreds of Death Eaters in his quest to stop Voldemort since then. But it had never been enough, and Voldemort had been able to take over Azkaban and reclaim his most faithful servants. The Dark Lord had successfully been able to assassinate Dumbledore, and after that he had overrun the Ministry, with the rest of the country swiftly falling into his grasp from there.
It had been an orgy of violence since Dumbledore died in his sixth year, as the last person standing between Voldemort and Wizarding Britain had died. After that Harry had become even more desperate, delving into darker spells, and even blood magic to gain power, doing so secretly behind Ron and Hermione's backs.
Deep down Harry was ashamed of what he was doing, and what he had become because of it. But in reality he would sacrifice anything to defeat Voldemort. That was why he had scarred himself with so much dark magic, ruined and rebuilt his body to its peak with ancient rituals, all so he could face Voldemort on equal footing.
And that was where he found himself now.
He entered a clearing, finding Voldemort standing amongst his most faithful servants. It was almost as if this moment was destined to happen, with Harry knowing that this would truly be his last duel with the Dark Lord.
"Harry Potter." Voldemort breathed at last. "The Boy-Who-Lived… come to die."
The Dark Lord raised his wand. "Avada Kedavra! "
Harry could see the green light coming towards him, and for a moment he was tempted to let it hit him. He knew what would happen if it did, and that all of Voldemort's Horcruxes- including him- would be destroyed. It would end all of this, and he knew that those who remained fighting would be able to take care of the remaining Death Eaters.
But he had put in too much effort to go quietly. And in that moment, Harry made a decision. 'If I am to die, then I will die fighting! '
Harry sidestepped the killing curse, raising his own wand in return before slashing it at Voldemort's head. "Sectumsepra."
The Dark Lord ducked it, and the curse beheaded the man behind him. Harry didn't care. And he swiftly moved to the side as three dark piercing curses nearly hit him. Voldemort was angry that he didn't just lay down and die, like he should have.
Harry sprinted and dodged through the hail of curses coming towards him, all the while keeping his own wand up and casting. He began by stringing together an explosion hex with a wind cutter followed by a dark melting curse that he had learned in Slytherin's library. His explosion curse missed Voldemort, but did its intended job, as the curse hit the ground and exploded violently, forcing the Dark Lord to shield the debris. Harry's wind cutter curse then hit the Dark Lord's shield, slashing it to bits before his melting curse followed up.
Voldemort managed to sidestep the dark curse just in time, moving his body so quickly that he almost appeared like a serpent. He turned back to Harry, a furious expression on his features, and began to rain hell on him with curse after curse.
Harry danced around the spells coming his way, utilizing years of experience along with his quidditch reflexes to move as fast as he possibly could. Even then it was a struggle, and he could feel his muscles reaching their limit as he desperately avoided Voldemort's endless barrage of spells.
He eventually managed to conjure smoke in between the insane spell chain Voldemort was utilizing, generating enough smoke from his wand that he was able to lay down flat and recover. While that happened, Voldemort continued casting, launching spells wantonly through the spoke in a desperate bid to hit him.
But Harry avoided all of them in his prone position, instead tracking with a careful eye where all the spells were coming from. His wand moved carefully, estimating the exact position of the Dark Lord, before he finally struck.
A nasty curse left his wand, one he had learned from the Black Library, and would cause its victim to be hit with a fast-expanding foam that would eventually cover their entire body. The pale spell left his wand, soaring through the smoke, before hitting its intended target.
Harry heard Voldemort scream in agony, and quickly got up and vanished the smoke. The curse had hit as intended, right on Voldemort's thigh, as a pale sludge grew and grew on the Dark Lord's body like some sort of fungus. He could tell it hurt, with steam rising where it made contact with skin, all the while Voldemort tried every counter-curse conceivable to stop it.
But it was not Voldemort's ability as a wizard that stopped the curse, but instead Bellatrix, who approached him from behind before applying the counter-spell. The Dark Witch was born into the Black family, something Harry suddenly recalled, and knew the counter-curse as a result. The woman's spell it the curse, reversing it, and causing the sludge to dissipate from Voldemort's body.
Voldemort glared at the woman, before looking back at Harry with pure hatred. "That will be the last inconvenience you cause me, Harry Potter. "
He hissed his name in parseltongue, before following up with another dark spell chain. Harry didn't have the energy to dodge this one, instead putting up a shield to wait it out. He knew that he could outlast most of Voldemort's dark spells behind a shield for a significant length of time if need be, but he had forgotten about the man's favorite spell.
"Avada Kedavra! " Voldemort hissed, the killing curse erupting from his wand.
The green curse blew through his shield, missing him by mere inches, before another one followed it up. Harry, caught unaware, jumped and waddled through the onslaught of unforgivables as he sought a reprieve.
'How can he cast the killing curse this fast! ' Harry mentally swore, knowing that the spell was supposedly difficult to cast and had a lengthy incantation. Yet that didn't stop Voldemort, who used the spell like a schoolyard hex, and it was starting to annoy him.
The Dark Lord soon changed his strategy, as a conjured snake of fire charged at Harry. It blew across the forest, getting stronger as it burned and absorbed branches and leaves in its path along the ground, and headed straight for him.
"Ventus Duo. " Harry hissed in parseltongue, amplifying the power of his spell, as a massive jet of wind erupted from his wand. It sent the fiery serpent sky-high, and he followed it up by a momentous water-conjuring charm to put the fire out. "Torrentius! "
A tsunami of water left his wand, putting out the fiery snake as if snuffing out a candle. Harry then swept his wand down, and his conjured tsunami followed his movement. The water slammed downwards and against the Dark Lord like a whirlwind, spiraling around him in a violent swirl as Voldemort desperately fought the spell.
It is said that at a certain point spell-chains and counter-spells become useless in a duel between powerful wizards. No longer do they use the typical disarming, bone-breaking, and trap spells that are so common in normal duels. Instead they begin to rely on advanced magic, turning the fight into a battle of wills and magical knowledge, compared to a endless game of dodging and casting.
Harry had only seem this once before, with the way Dumbledore fought at the Ministry. The deceased Headmaster had blunted every one of Voldemort's attacks with his magical knowledge alone, doing so without casting any spells Harry could recognize, and instead relying on his innate magic ability to win the battle for him.
It was something that Harry was beginning to learn, and a technique that Voldemort was also learning to do as well. Advanced magic that expended tremendous energy made for a entertaining show, but one wrong move and it would be all over.
Sadly, it seemed that Voldemort's magical knowledge was high enough to make do, as he was able to expel Harry's tsunami with a large magical discharge. It reminded him so much of the battle at the Ministry, with Dumbledore's control of water and Voldemort's massive shockwave caused by a large discharge of magic.
It threw him back, blasting the water all over the forest like a torrential storm. Everything that wasn't rooted down went flying in their part of the forest, as Harry had to shield himself in order to not get blown away.
That was when Harry knew he had to do something to gain the momentum, or else Voldemort would continue to pummel him until he gave in. He summoned the magic within himself, nearly draining his reserves dry, as he prepared for his ultimate attack.
"Ignotum Tempestor! "
It was a dark spell he used, that much he was certain of, as a dark monochrome cloud left his wand before rushing towards Voldemort. It was like a poisonous fume he had conjured, and everything it touched withered and died.
A nearby Death Eater got too close, and the cloud he conjured ate through his skin all the way down to the bone. Other Death Eaters ran from it, and some even shielded, albeit unsuccessfully, until they too were killed by his dark conjuration.
Suddenly, a flaming serpent left Voldemort's wand, and the huge flaming snake charged the smoke before diving into it. Harry knew that the Dark Lord had conjured Fiendfyre, a much stronger magical fire than before, and the flames began eating through his own spell.
Harry poured more magic into the clouds, and they moved to form a mighty lion made of shade. The dark lion let out a roar, standing high above them like a monolith. Meanwhile Voldemort's snake let out its own hiss, being fueled by Voldemort's own magic, and the two conjurations clashed.
The Fiendfyre serpent wrapped around the lion, as the giant beast tried to unsuccessfully bite the snake. Slowly the lion was weakening, and the fire began melting its body as smoke arose into the atmosphere.
'I am going to lose. ' Harry realized, watching the two massive conjurations clash. It was like watching something out of history, the epitome of magical power made manifest. He looked over to Voldemort, only to see his enemy in the midst of concentration.
'Voldemort is distracted.' He felt weaker as the conjuration battle went on, glancing back up at the fight between the two massive conjurations. The Fiendfyre snake had nearly won, and Harry didn't have the magical power left to stop it now. 'I need to do something!'
He gave up on powering his conjuration in that moment, and instead pointed his wand at Voldemort, just as the fiery snake turned towards him. "Expelliarmus! "
His spell hit Voldemort dead-on, and the Elder wand went sailing across the clearing and into his grasp. Harry felt victory in that moment, despite knowing he had lost in the end, but he also felt a strange coldness as well.
But it did not matter, as the Fiendfyre descended upon him nonetheless, its momentum unstoppable at this point, and the last thing Harry saw was the open maw of the large fiery serpent.
"Greetings, young Peverell."
He awoke with a gasp. Desperately getting up and looking around to find himself in a strange endless realm made of gray light. It seemed to go on forever, with no clear end, leaving him alone along with one other person.
A cloaked figure, almost like a Dementor, stood before him. His cloak was raggedy and black, dark as midnight with a hood that stared at him without a face, only darkness was there instead.
"W-What are you?" Harry asked.
The being stared at him for some time, before finally speaking in a raspy voice. "I am the one you have avoided for all this time."
It clicked in his mind who he was speaking to, as Harry knew he was already dead. "Death."
"It is not often that someone of your stature wanders into my domain. And even less common that they are allowed to leave." The figure stated. "Yet you have collected my artifacts; the wand, the stone, and the cloak. Few have ever possessed all three, and fewer yet have been as important as you are."
"W-What are you talking about?"
"You come from a long line of important individuals, being those who originally bargained with me to gain my artifacts. I have been indebted to them for a long time, and even more so now with your death and the destruction of all three."
"You speak of the Peverells." Harry remarked, remembering the story of the Deathly Hallows and the Peverell brothers. It struck him then that he had possessed all three artifacts at the time of his passing, being the Wand, his Cloak, and the Stone. "All three of the artifacts were destroyed with me."
"Yes." The strange being said. "And as a result, I owe you a debt of gratitude."
"What good does that do for me?" Harry snarked, suddenly feeling angry. "I'm dead!"
"You are dead for now." Death continued. "But you do not have to be."
"W-What?" Harry stuttered.
"I am going to give you a choice, the chance to go back. Should you choose to do so, I will send you to another world without the same challenges you have faced before. I will give you this opportunity, or you can choose to move on, and see the ones you love."
"So you're giving me the chance to live again?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"Unless you choose not to, and wish to enter my domain, yes."
"But I'm already dead." Harry said. "How exactly can I live again if I'm already dead? Especially since there's probably nothing left of my body because of the Fiendfyre."
Death let out a chuckle, a noise that chilled him to the bone. "Who said anything about you returning to the same circumstances that you lived under before?"
Harry blinked, a million thoughts going through his mind. He wondered about his old life back home, of how tired he was and how easy it would be to move on and see his family. 'I could see my parents, and I could even see Sirius again.'
He desperately wanted for that to happen, but there was something stopping him. A strange pull in the back of his mind to accept Death's offer.
"I'm not ready to move on just yet."
He couldn't see it, but Harry could swear that Death smiled under that hood of his. "Very well."
"Agh! "
It took him a moment to wake up and get his wits about him. Harry could feel the rhythmic rumbling of something that felt like a train beneath him. He was in a small room, which looked oddly familiar, having two parallel cushioned benches with a window looking over the passing landscape to the side, and a door to a hallway across from it.
'So this must be my new life.' Harry realized, feeling oddly calm as he adapted to the new situation.
He realized that he was sitting in a cabin located on the Hogwarts Express, wearing blank Hogwarts robes. He looked up to see a trunk, one that was surely his own, and Harry moved to get up and grab it. But that was just when the compartment door clicked, and he stopped to look at who was entering.
A black haired girl entered the compartment, looking irritated for some reason. Her thick lips were pursed in a way he found really attractive, her black hair falling down in curls past her shoulders. The clothing she wore was fashionable, and it clearly was meant to restrain her large assets. Harry wouldn't describe the girl as anything other than damn gorgeous.
She stopped suddenly, seemingly noticing she wasn't alone in the compartment. The girl studied him, as if this was the first time she had seen someone like him before. "You're new."
Harry shrugged. "I guess."
The girl frowned at him. "What's your name?"
"It's Harry." He replied absently, feeling like something was controlling him all of a sudden. "Harry Peverell."
'Peverell? ' He couldn't help but wonder why he didn't say Potter. He didn't even intend to say Peverell was his last name, and it just came out without thought.
"Peverell?" Her eyes shown with interest for a moment before she seemingly sniffed in distaste. "I thought you all were extinct."
"You thought wrong." Harry frowned. "I never got your name?"
The beautiful witch sat next to him, holding out her hand primly for him to take. "Bellatrix Black."
'T-This is Bellatrix? ' The woman looked completely different from the sadist he had associated with the name. The same woman who had killed Sirius and tortured Hermione was sitting in front of him. 'How did I get here, how is she so young, and what exactly is going on?! '
None of his internal panic showed on his face, as Harry took her hand and give it a kiss. The witch smiled at his actions, bringing her hand back to rest on her thick, plump, thighs.
"So why are you in my compartment?" Harry asked, desperately trying to get his thoughts in order with his occulmency.
"Ugh!" Bellatrix suddenly groaned in clear frustration. "Both my sisters, Cissy and Andy, just so happen to be seeing boys! And they both don't want me around them, nor do I want to be around them!"
'She must mean Narcissa and Andromeda.' Harry recalled Bellatrix's sisters. "And so you decided to sit with me?"
"Well, your compartment looked empty earlier when I passed by, and I thought it would still be empty when I entered. Only to find you here." She sniffed in irritation, but Harry could tell she was messing with him. She looked over his form suddenly, especially at his tie. "Say, what House are you in?"
Harry glanced down at his tie, and came to the realization that it was blank, meaning he had yet to actually be sorted. 'Great. I'm a new student and probably need to be sorted because of it. '
"I'm new." Harry answered. "I probably have to get sorted."
"I hope that goes well for you." Bellatrix gave a short smile, acting much kinder than he imagined. It made Harry wonder if this was what she was like before Voldemort, before she spent all those years in Azkaban and was made into a monster. "And just so you know, Slytherin is the best House to be in."
"Oh?" Harry raised a brow. "Is it because you're in it?"
"You're charming." Bellatrix smirked at him. "But I'm afraid that I'm a bit too much to handle for a boy like you. Trust me, no one is brave enough to tame Bellatrix Black. "
"You've yet to meet a wizard like me." Harry replied, letting some of his magic loose. It wasn't enough for him to have a mass magical discharge, but enough that his green eyes glowed and a faint outline of energy surrounded him.
He stared into Bellatrix's eyes the entire time, watching her reaction as his magic poured out of him and filled the compartment. She seemed to freeze at the sheer amount of power he emitted, enthralled by his powerful green eyes as her gaze remained locked with his.
Harry rested his hand on her thigh, letting some of his magic physically touch her, and causing the witch's body to shiver in pleasure. He could tell she was powerful, especially for a witch her age, but he was in a different league compared to her.
'Death did say that this would be a different world from my own. And if that's truly the case, then I'll be sure to take advantage of it.' Harry mentally remarked, watching as Bellatrix panted and quivered under his power. 'How about I start by denying Voldemort one of his most loyal Death Eaters first? '
A/N:
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