A/N: Welcome Folks! This is my first fanfiction. We're going to be doing an Alternate Universe time-travel which will slowly break away from the canon as it goes & Harry interferes more with the timeline. The ages to a lot of characters like Bellatrix, Andromeda, Regulus will be changed so they fit into the story, this will be occurring with a lot of the side-cast as well. Each chapter will have an AU Change warning of what's being tweaked as we go. Some will be massive others will be small. In total, this will not be a perfectly 1:1 scale matching the canon. What I'm adding to the story, is to tie into real world history, flesh out the world building, and tack onto the stonework of massive lore. This story is intended to be an epic, so we're here for a long haul. Overall, if you want a to read a new take on the wizarding world then this may be the fic for you. Hope you can all enjoy it!

Quick shout out to our beta reader, BoredBarrister! They slew quite a few grammatical monsters hidden in some of the dark corners between words.

AU Changes: Old Customs/Laws that didn't survive the 1980s.

BOOK 1
The Tragedy of Harry Potter

By. Momento Virtuoso
Edited By. BoredBarrister

A/N: I do not own Harry Potter unlike J.K.

Chapter 1.

A Return of Sorts

Dying was an odd feeling for Harry Potter. Managing to prop his back against a gnarled tree deep within the Forbidden Forest, Harry clutched a small triangular stone between his numbing fingers, his mind swirling with a whirlpool of regrets as he lay in his death throes.

Harry had thought about using the stone before walking into the clearing where Lord Voldemort was surrounded by his followers, waiting for him to surrender himself in a hopeless attempt to save his friends. He had begged for some kind of escape from what he was being asked to do.

He had been sent in as a pawn, asked by a piece much bigger than him to throw down his life so that the game may hopefully be won.

Flashback

For a long moment he thought his courage would falter and waver, his feet slowly stumbling underneath him as he tried to reach for the nearby trees for support. He grappled with his fear of death alone before coming into the clearing where Lord Voldemort and his followers lay waiting.

He could run. He could escape to live and fight another day — that's what his parents would have wanted, right? To hell with the speculations of an eccentric old man. Harry had always been taught that life was a precious thing by the adults around him — his own most importantly.

Overcoming the temporary urge to abandon it all, Harry stood before Death — greeting him like one would an old friend. Opting not to flee from the entity, as the Dark Lord who had marked him an equal, was keen to.

The Dark Lord was surrounded by hundreds of his followers in the clearing.

Harry watched silently as the Dark Lord who had terrorized and hounded him for all his life inspected him, giving him a once over. He stared the self-made immortal in the eyes knowing he'd have the last laugh when Hermione and Ron destroyed the snake, Nagini, and then the man himself.

The Dark Lord didn't know that he was about to destroy his own unintentional Horcrux.

However, just as quickly as he found his courage, it departed from him like the wind leaving his sails slack upon entering a doldrum. Harry wasn't met by the familiar words and a green flash of light that had haunted his nightmares for seventeen long years. Lord Voldemort decided on another dark curse.

An unfamiliar phrase left the Dark Lord's lips and a purple blade of magic flew from the tip of his wand. It thrummed with a darkness that many in the vicinity had never been exposed to despite their proclivity for the art.

It pierced Harry along his left side just below his heart, cutting down the length of his flank. The Death Eaters surrounding him whispered as they watched Harry's strength wane as the cut was made. Voldemort ignored the musings of his followers; watching on silently. Almost instantly, Harry's knees began to buckle and he sank down, struggling to find purchase or even pull air into his lungs. His strength rapidly depleted in a race alongside the life blood pouring from his side.

The whispers became sneers and then the sneers became shouts as the dark wizards rose in jubilation at their Lord's victory over the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Surround the castle, make sure none can leave. They must see our total victory and have their spirit crushed," Voldemort hissed out to his army. The Death Eaters and other wizards who pledged themselves to the Dark Lord departed to carry out their lord's orders.

The Dark Lord, Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort slowly approached the crumbling figure of his greatest opponent. A tsk sound escaped his thin lips, almost sneering. 'This is the boy who destroyed my body all those years ago,' Voldemort thought bitterly. The sting of that defeat lingered fresh even as he savored his final victory over the boy.

"To think. You almost impressed me, Potter — evermore the pity that you fell short in the end," said the Dark Lord, staring into the eyes of the boy who stood against him more times than any other wizard alive. Lord Voldemort could almost see the cold gray approach of death in the boy's features, sending an involuntary shudder down the Dark Lord's spine.

Harry held eye contact with the monster who was ordained to be tied with him by fate. His green orbs filled with a fiery rage that gave the Dark Lord pause; he could see the hate. A moment of hesitation and even unease gripping him at the sight. Briefly, he considered casting the Killing Curse to ensure his triumph.

The Dark Lord decided against that notion; the spell that had struck the one prophesied to defeat him was doing its work. It was a nasty piece of magic that was created by Liches of old, dark wizards, who like himself, experimented with the magic regarding the soul. The boy would not survive the hour, he concluded, nodding down at his work in satisfaction and to the boy as well.

"Good-bye, Harry Potter. I would give your loved ones your last regards but they are not long for this world either," the Dark Lord mocked, enjoying the pleasure of taunting his opponent one last time. "Of the two of us… only I could survive and live forever," Voldemort said, disappearing into a thick black smoke.

With that, the Dark Lord left Harry to die alone on the forest floor.

End Flashback

Harry could feel the numbness overtaking his body now — a chill creeping up his extremities and carving its way through his being. It was all-consuming.

Harry's breaths were shallow and his flank was colored red from the lifeblood leaving his body. The wound left by the dark curse was gaping and tinged with purple lines crawling out like an infection, attacking his body as it spread.

How did this happen? Was it supposed to end like this? Did he fail even at dying properly?

He had gone to the forest after witnessing the memories of his former Potions professor, Severus Snape. A man who had always hated him for what he was. A hollow man who had betrayed seemingly everything by executing Dumbledore, who trusted him, on top of the Astronomy Tower. A broken man who had been childhood friends and in love with his mother, Lily Evans.

Harry had entered Dumbledore's old pensieve and watched in fascination, horror, and finally begrudging respect, the man he had hated since first stepping into his classroom.

A man who for all of his worth had only ever tried doing what was best for him — ironically something that Dumbledore, the man Harry had always looked towards, didn't do because he needed Harry to play this part. The old man's betrayal stung fiercely but it was almost nothing to the terror now gripping his mortal soul.

In the Headmaster's office, he had grappled and come to terms with the fact that his life was only going to be as long as it took to hunt the Horcruxes. He had a much shorter expiration date than he would have ever wished.

A job passed from Dumbledore to him; he obediently continued to chip away at the bonds tying not just Voldemort but himself to life.

In his departure from the castle Harry had told no one good-bye, determined to have no explanations in his wake. Now, he deeply regretted that. He had been impatient, wanting to carry out the task quickly before losing more to the Dark Lord, but it seemed Death was a much more patient being than Harry realized.

He only wanted one more moment with his friends. To hold Ginny close again like those wonderful blissful days around the Black Lake at the end of his sixth year. He would never feel her lips upon his again. He should have reached out to her as he passed her in the corridors on his way to the forest.

As the seconds ticked by in what felt like eternity, Harry could hear his heartbeat pumping away the blood further through and out of his body. He could feel how his own organs were betraying him in his final hour, a funeral drum pounding out to the shaking of his mortal coil. It was a morbid symphony.

Harry had always possessed a strong will to live, he liked to think, but he could feel it siphoning off. Soon it would all be gone. His brain and nerve and bounding heart. It would all be gone — or at the very least he'd be gone from it in the end.

"I'm ready— I'm ready to die… I am about to die," Harry choked as he turned the stone over thrice with his fingers. The power of the Hallow washed over him. Where before he had only felt warmth, there was now an eerie coldness to the magic.

A mist had begun approaching him, covering the forest floor like a herald of impending doom. For that was Death, and only such could call the dead back from the Otherside.

Opaque figures began to form from some of the mist rising up, taking human forms. Slight movements around him suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground of his final resting place. Soon Harry was face to face with his parents, Sirius, Remus, and oddly enough, a solemn Severus Snape.

Dumbledore had once told Harry after his duel in the graveyard with Voldemort that no spell was capable of bringing back the dead but perhaps, the old man had been wrong once again.

They were neither ghosts nor truly beings of flesh; he could see that still despite his clouding senses. The five figures resembled closely that of the Tom Riddle which escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been but a memory made nearly solid. The apparitions moved towards Harry. On each face except Severus Snape's, there was the same loving smile to greet him.

James Potter was the same height as Harry. He wore the clothes in which he had died in, his hair untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were lopsided upon his nose.

Sirius was tall and handsome, younger by far than Harry had ever seen him in life. He came forward with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets, a smirk resting on his lips.

Lupin was younger too. Less shabby, and his hair thicker and darker. His spirit looked around, appearing happy to be back in this familiar place, a scene of so many adolescent school day wanderings with his pack.

Severus Snape stood behind the Marauders but remained in sight of the student he had tormented in life. He was younger too - still clothed in black, but his face bore none of the premature aging and stress he carried in life.

Lily's smile was the widest of them all but her eyes also held the deepest sadness. Her green eyes, so like his own, searched Harry's face hungrily in awe despite the pain that was overtaking her son's features.

"Oh my dear boy — hello, Harry, my sweet little boy… you've been so brave," the soft voice of his mother croaked. She was beautiful even in death. The few photos that Harry possessed of her didn't do the apparition before him justice.

It was the first time he had ever heard her older self speak without begging for his life to be spared from the Dark Lord. The chill creeping through his body grew even colder as he grasped the reality that this would be the last and only time he'd hear his mother.

"You've been so brave. You just need to hold on a little longer," Lily urged. Her translucent hands attempted to comfort her son but could not grasp anything tangible within them.

"I never — I didn't — none of you should have died for me — none of you should have ever died for me… it's not what I wanted," Harry finally managed to get out, blood now creeping along the curve of his mouth and down his chin. It was going to fill his lungs soon.

Harry's green eyes rose to meet those of his dead Potions Professor.

In life, Severus Snape would have glared at the boy before him, filled with venom and bitterness for the father he wasn't. Now however, Snape's dark eyes bore both regret and more remorse than what Harry saw in the pensieve at his own betrayal to Lily.

"I watched your memories Professor, I did what you asked and —" Harry's body suddenly shivered; more blood was staining the forest floor. A large puddle had formed underneath him. "I failed —" Harry tried desperately to get out.

The ghost of Sirius Black was immediately pulled to his godson's side.

"Shhh… none of that now Harry, you didn't fail, my boy," Sirius's ghost comforted. His father's ghost nodded in agreement.

"Your mother is right, my son, keep holding on for a little longer — it'll be ok," James said.

"You're nearly there… very close. We are… and always will be so proud of you."

Harry's eyes moved on to meet Remus', which in death held none of the weariness and exhaustion they had in life.

"Your son, Remus, Teddy —" Harry began before being cut off.

"Will know that his parents died so that the world he grew up in would be a better place," the Werewolf reassured his former student. "Do not worry Harry, for he will be okay," Remus finished for the young man. A smile sat upon his scarred face.

After a moment, the ghost of Severus Snape found its will to speak, no longer standing amongst the many people he hated in life, but kneeling before the boy whom he had sworn to protect.

"Potter, you haven't failed yet and I would hate to see you abandon your usual stubbornness in your greatest hour of need," Severus's voice cut through the mist like a lighthouse in the distance, calling a ship back from a dark sea. "You were given an impossible task, yet you've managed far more than I, or even Dumbledore, first expected of you," the Potions master stated, trying to reassure his former charge.

"I, and especially Dumbledore, failed you. This was not supposed to be, but it will happen regardless now — you must prepare yourself." Harry didn't understand what his former Potions master meant. He was dying after all.

Despite the weariness overtaking him, Harry's fingers tightened around the stone. The black rock cut into his skin from the pressure of his fist, drawing a small amount of blood into it.

"Atta boy lad, don't you dare go gentle on us now," Sirius smiled at his godson. "This ain't the end yet; you've got to see it through," his godfather said almost excitedly.

Unbeknownst to the ghosts surrounding Harry, the dark curse caused more than just a deep wound in the wizard's side. His scar was on fire like never before, his head threatening to split open from the pain as a foreign piece was removed from within him. The magic was sapping away his life force alongside his life blood, eating away at the souls within his body. The tethers that bound his soul and the horcrux of Voldemort to the plane were severed upon the curse's impact.

"Is it better after this? Is everything ok after dying?" Harry begged his godfather for an answer.

The ghost of Sirius knelt down before him, wishing more than any in that moment that he could offer more comfort to the boy he should have raised after his friend's death.

"It's just like being asleep. You won't feel a thing, it's much quicker and easier," Sirius whispered, his voice slightly breaking at the confession.

Harry's demeanor shifted as his body which had rigid began to slowly release the tension in his muscles. His already poor vision was now failing him in earnest. His glasses offered no support in death as they had all his life. He could only see the ghosts of his eternal supporters and the mist which surrounded them all. The trees of the Forbidden Forest had departed from his sight minutes ago it seemed.

His failing eyes met their twins briefly in the face of his mother. He could finally see what everyone else saw now when they looked at him. He could only see the green of Lily Evans' eyes.

"It's ok Harry, you've done your best — but now it's time for you to do even better," Lily spoke softly.

"Please… sta— stay with me?" Harry begged.

His father came close to him alongside his mother. Trying and failing to touch their son, but still giving him their comfort and protection.

"Until the very end," said James with a devotion that showed just how the man would have had the courage to charge a Dark Lord the moment he burst down the cottage door. His hazel brown eyes looked lovingly at the man his son had become.

Harry couldn't imagine doing anything better like his mother had asked him.

He had done everything asked of him by the wizarding world and Dumbledore. He had stood against Voldemort. He had hunted down the man's horcruxes till there were only two left. He accepted and embraced his coming death as an old friend, trying to be brave like his mother had been.

The Resurrection Stone was the only thing he could feel now and it weighed heavy in his hand. Gravity was pulling it down to the earth and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold onto the small stone.

Finally, after holding against the curse for so long, Harry's chest rattled and his grip faltered. The stone slipped between his fingers and crashed to the forest floor. Almost immediately, the visages of his parents, their friends, and Snape vanished into the mist. Their smiles and support were the last things his eyes witnessed before finally closing.

Against a tree in the Forbidden forest, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, had finally died. Across the school grounds the Dark Lord and his followers were approaching the school that they laid siege to, ready to subjugate or kill off the people that Harry had sacrificed himself for, just as Lily Evans had done on that Halloween night in 1981.

Silence was all around him, covering his entire existence like a blanket for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, but passed before the first new breath left his body.

Harry's eyes opened to a large, dazzling white cathedral-like room which held a bright mist. The arches above his head were made of the purest marble with no imperfections in its stone. It was a marvel of architecture that reminded Harry of the few London churches he had visited during his childhood.

The dying wizard found himself at a place between a church and train platform. There were columns that seemed to be lost in the distance the higher they went, reaching up to the arched ceiling, with two open lines bordering the high walls of the cathedral. Lined along both sides were platform stations and a few benches where one would sit to await their oncoming train.

The first thing that Harry realized was that his side was no longer in pain, and his soul felt no agony. The lightning shaped scar on his forehead sat there mutely for the first time in seventeen years, no longer feeling the assault it had been under while laying in the forest.

His muscles felt relaxed and healed despite the year he'd spent on the run and the last few days of constant fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts. Looking down, Harry found his body clothed in a simple white shirt and pants that he had not been wearing in the Forbidden Forest. His vision was perfect and there was no need for his glasses which he had relied on everyday since he could remember.

"Hello Harry, my dear boy," a voice heralded out in front of him.

Harry's attention immediately snapped toward the direction it echoed from. Standing before him was the man who had been his mentor and guide throughout all of his time at Hogwarts. He found himself staring into the half-moon spectacled electric blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore. Eyes he had not seen since that fateful night he fell from the top of the astronomy tower.

Dumbledore stood before him sprightly and upright in long sweeping robes of midnight blue. His right hand was white and undamaged, no longer the sickly black form it had taken from the mummification curse that sat upon the Gaunt family ring.

"You wonderful brave man. Would you care for a walk?" Dumbledore asked, gesturing with his lively right hand for Harry to follow him.

Stunned, Harry stood there as Dumbledore turned his back to him and waved him forward along with his lively hand once more. The once offending appendage captured almost all of Harry's attention.

The former Headmaster led him to two seats that Harry had not previously noticed set some distance away from the vaulted sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one, and Harry fell into the other staring at the face of his mentor. The dead headmaster's long silver hair and beard, the eyes and his half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: every feature was as Harry remembered him in life.

"But you're dead," Harry said, "You fell from the tower."

Harry had seen it happen. It was a mere fact and a very hard truth to the young wizard.

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly. "Quite so, I'm afraid."

Harry took a moment in silence. "Then… I'm dead too?"

Dumbledore smiled at the young man. "On the floor of the Forbidden Forest for you it would seem," the headmaster said with a wink. "But that is the question, isn't it? On the whole for totality, my dear boy, I'd think not."

Looking at each other, the older of the two was still beaming but there was yet a sadness in his eyes despite his happy seeming comment.

"Not?" repeated Harry, asking for any clarification.

Offering none though, "Not," said Dumbledore, quite surely now.

"But…" Harry faltered for a moment. "I died. He didn't cast the Killing Curse like I thought. Voldemort used some kind of cutting curse instead and left me there… I don't think that was part of the plan, was it Professor?"

"No, dear boy. It was not," said Dumbledore sadly. Harry's shoulders lost their composure to be straight upon the Professor's word. He slouched over and ran a hand through his usually untidy hair which was straight for the first time ever.

"You were, I had hoped, to go to him and not defend yourself. So that when he cast the Killing curse upon you, he'd perform his undoing once more — like what happened with your mother, dear Lily. But instead, he cast something far worse, but somehow just as fortuitous as that particular Unforgivable is, against you," Dumbledore said. Twiddling his thumbs together, the old man looked at Harry. "He severed your soul's connection to the mortal plane and in doing so, severed that of his Horcrux's connection as well."

What befell Harry was certainly not how Dumbledore expected for the piece of Voldemort's soul to be extracted and destroyed from the boy.

Harry absorbed the straightforward answer from the headmaster and nodded.

"But then what was the spell he used?" wondered Harry.

"Ah. That would be a soul reaving curse. Nasty business I must confess, Harry. Once it is cast upon someone, they are marked for death because there is no magic that can heal such a wound. They will expire regardless, potentially from the physical injury but most definitely from the magical one that is sustained," Dumbledore explained.

Harry took a moment to himself.

"But the part of his soul that was in me…"

Dumbledore nodded at the young man, urging Harry to continue onward, a sad smile upon his face.

"…Has it gone for good? It isn't floating about like the first time before he got his body?" Harry clarified his question.

Dumbledore frowned at his former pupil. "You know the magic that it takes to maintain a Horcrux, Harry. Without the physical host, it cannot go on. It would not have killed Voldemort but that piece of his soul is very much gone."

"Professor, I still don't understand. You said I wasn't fully dead but yet it didn't go as you had planned. How can you be so sure that I'm not actually… well, dead?" asked Harry with frustration. It was a very confusing time for the young man.

Dumbledore smiled at the boy before him who had grown to be a man, twiddling his thumbs together. He had two answers for the young man, thinking silently to himself, he supposed he would have to give one to the boy now.

"You know the answer to that now, my dear boy, or have you not been paying attention?" asked Dumbledore with the audacity to mirth a grin.

"But how can I be alive if nobody died for me this time Professor?" Harry started thinking of how he had dodged death the first time when he was a babe due to his mother's sacrifice.

Dumbledore kept his grin firmly showing on his face as his cheeks pressed the half-moon glasses even higher up upon them.

"I think you know," said Dumbledore. "Think back to that fateful evening in the graveyard all those years ago. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and cruelty."

Harry thought of that eventful night. He still held deep-seated regrets for what happened to Cedric when they had both grasped that cup together at the end of the maze. It should have only been him.

He let his gaze drift over his surroundings for a while. If indeed it was a cathedral in which they sat together, it was a stunning but odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of railing here and there, not organized how one would place the pews for the coming congregation to sit. The answer rose to his lips quite easily, without effort.

"He took my blood," stated Harry, thinking back on the dark ritual Voldemort had undergone to return to his body.

"Indeed, precisely that. He took your blood," said Dumbledore. "Taking your blood and rebuilding his body with it! Your blood was within his veins, Harry, dear Lily's protection inside the both of you. He has tethered you to a life while he lives."

Harry sat there in silence once more. Dumbledore glanced around their surroundings like they were in a park outside and he was watching clouds roll over or birds pass them by.

"I always thought it was the other way around… I thought the prophecy said we both had to die," mumbled Harry in confusion. Prophecies were always fickle things he had learned in poorly-used time in Divination.

Dumbledore smiled at the young man and shook his head softly. "No my dear boy. Due to the circumstances it spoke to the fact that neither could die while the other was still alive."

Harry sat in thought once again for a long time, or perhaps only a few seconds. It was very hard to be sure of concepts such as time, here.

"He killed me with your wand, he stole it from your grave."

"I believe he failed to kill you with my wand. Remember Harry… not quite," Dumbledore corrected Harry with a smile. "But yes, he has the Elder Wand. But it is, however, just a wand all the same, not too different from any one might possess."

"It makes the user undefeatable though," Harry said stumpily, remembering how the story from Beedle the Bard had gone. It was an invincible wand.

"Ah, no. Not quite like that Harry, my dear boy. The wand itself is very much fallible. It has passed hands for many centuries, after all. I, myself, even obtained it from defeating Gellert at the end of his campaign to subdue the Muggle world. It is, however, an incorruptible wand. One could cast all the dark magic they wish with it and they'd suffer nothing for it," Dumbledore explained the wand lore.

Placing his hand upon Harry's shoulder, he turned the young man to look in his eyes. Harry noticed that Dumbledore's face bore the look of a haunted man for the first time since meeting him.

"Dark magic always has a price whether to the wizard or the wand they hold, Harry, you must remember that. It can cost you more than your soul sometimes," Dumbledore warned the young wizard sternly. The old wizard himself had learned that lesson a long time ago, much to his regret, before he saw the error of his youth.

The former Headmaster released Harry's shoulder.

"So in moving on, I think we can find agreement that you are not dead — though, of course," he added as if fearful of being discourteous to the young man before him, "I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sorry to be a part of, severe as they were."

Harry nodded. 'It's beginning to be too much with you, Dumbledore, honestly,' thinking in his own head.

Last summer, Harry had found himself in a dark place after the Headmaster's death upon falling from the Astronomy Tower. He had barely had any time to grieve for the man that he knew before it was revealed that he had never really known the eccentric professor who had been guiding him to begin with. A whirlpool of emotions were in turmoil within his chest at the thought of the older man.

Dumbledore observing the younger wizard seemed to know where his thoughts had gone.

"Harry, my dear boy. Please allow a few mistakes on an old man's behalf. Despite what the world laureled — I was not indeed perfect. There are many I have wronged in my time. None more so than you," said Dumbledore. "I hope that despite what you may think of me now, you take my words as parting gifts to heed."

Harry turned and glared at him, remembering a much more pressing subject that had plagued his mind for weeks.

"The Deathly Hallows," he said, and he was glad to see the solemn expression on the old man's face wiped away for an even more sorrowful one. "While I've always had the cloak, you didn't entrust me with your wand despite knowing my own would fail every time me and Voldemort tried to harm one another. You never even mentioned that the stone would let me see —" Harry's voice broke. "To see my parents or Sirius again," Harry accused.

"Ah, yes," Dumbledore said. The old wizard looked a little worried, more so than when he had just requested of Harry absolution of his sins. For the first time since Harry had ever met Dumbledore, he looked less than the legendary wizard and old man, much less. He looked like a small boy caught in wrongdoing.

"I shall ask again Harry, can you forgive me?" he requested. "Can you forgive me for not telling or trusting you with their nature? I only feared that you would have failed where I had failed as well. I feared you'd repeat my very mistakes. I crave your pardon Harry. I have known for quite some time now that you are a better man than I."

Harry simply watched the old man, not speaking but his eyes widening and shrinking in thought.

"I trusted you with the objects of your destruction and not with the items of your potential salvation. The Hallows are real, as you well know, real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools and lesser men," said Dumbledore.

"Like Voldemort, I too sought a way to conquer death, Harry," the fabled wizard solemnly admitted.

"Not the way he did," said Harry, grimacing at himself for defending the wizard who orchestrated his life, his anger at the old man in the moment not temporarily forgotten. He felt it odd to sit here in this cathedral-like room, beneath the high, vaulted ceilings, and defend Dumbledore from his actions.

"Hallows, not Horcruxes," Harry said in a forced bite. They were different — they had to be since Harry had wielded the latter.

"Hallows," murmured Dumbledore, "not Horcruxes. Precisely," almost acceptingly.

Dumbledore sat quietly in thought for a moment. The white mist was lingering around them still and Harry could have sworn he was hearing the call of a train off in the unseen distance.

"My dear boy, I wonder if there is anything for you to take forward. And if there is a last piece of parting wisdom I can grant you: there are always extremes in which you can partake without losing oneself. The Hallows being but one example," the old wizard turned his eyes to Harry. For the first time in Albus's existence, he was truly looking at Harry James Potter for who he was. Not as the Boy-Who-Lived. Not as a piece to be moved on a board in a game against a Dark Lord. Not as the Horcrux which plagued the boy's own soul for so many years.

"You were the best of us Harry, and I think you will be again," Dumbledore whispered quite assuredly.

"You all keep saying things like that — like I've got to go back," said Harry. He didn't want to go back… it was peaceful here. It was finally quiet.

Dumbledore looked at him with a raised eyebrow. The smile that was wiped from his face earlier was now back in earnest.

"I should think so my dear boy but that is ultimately up to you."

"I've got a choice?" Harry asked dumbly, not expecting one after all his life being denied his own.

"Oh yes, of course you've got a choice Harry. You've always had a choice despite what you may think. That's what's made all the difference till now," stated Dumbledore.

The train Harry could hear was getting louder now. The cathedral had taken upon an appearance more akin to King's Cross Station during their conversation. Dumbledore nodded at him.

"You can either board that train or you can go forward with what's been laid before you," Dumbledore informed.

"And where would the train take me?" Harry requested.

"On," said Dumbledore simply, not elaborating on his answer.

There was silence around them again. Deafening so that the only thing Harry could perceive was the call from the oncoming train's engine and wheels turning against the track.

"But you want me to go back?" The question left Harry's lips almost bitterly. Even in death he had hoped the old man wouldn't start pulling his strings.

Dumbledore looked at him almost sadly with a resolution.

"I think," said Dumbledore, "that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he could be finished for good. I cannot promise it my dear boy. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does."

Dumbledore took a moment. He now had to explain the second answer he had come to earlier with the boy now. Albus had sent the boy off blind once before. Perhaps this time he would allow the young man a peek.

"The curse the Dark Lord struck you with has — repercussions shall we say? You may be able to return… but it will not be the way you currently believe my dear boy. Your soul was severed from that plane after all. You will be in for the fight of a lifetime I'd wager," Dumbledore slowly stated.

"By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart, that even those beyond current redemption have a hand held out to them in their darkest moment. If that seems to you a worthy cause, then we say good-bye for the present."

Harry nodded. Leaving the cathedral would be nowhere near as hard as the solitary walk to the forest had been. Nowhere near as painful as his final moments had been with his loved ones' apparitions, but it was warm and peaceful in this hallowed hall. He knew he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss. He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other's faces.

Despite the foreboding and comforting words of the Headmaster. Harry could not help but feel like he was being led along once again. However, he had come so close to defeating Voldemort. What more did he have to lose by going back? Looking around once again at his surroundings, he felt at peace here. This wouldn't be a poor place to return to if he failed. He would miss his friends and those held dear of course but he didn't tremble at the thought of dying again.

Looking at Dumbledore one last time, Harry was absorbed in the man that the idealized figure of his school years had become before him.

"If I do this again, it's not because you asked me to," Harry growled at Dumbledore. "I'm doing this because Tom's a monster that needs to be put down. You're right, sir. Souls have been maimed and families have been torn apart — my family was torn apart," Harry admitted to himself, finally accepting the losses that he had incurred over the years. It wouldn't do to let the deaths of anyone who gave their life for him hang over him. He had to make an attempt to move on of sorts — he'd honor them of course, but Harry couldn't live with ghosts. The Resurrection Stone had briefly shown him that.

Dumbledore nodded at the young man before him. "I shall never reveal the best of you, Harry," the old wizard ominously said. Looking at Harry's scar for a moment, he thought of a certain Potions Master. "A good man…" Dumbledore mumbled. "Perhaps that is the power the Dark Lord knows not? Not love but kindness?" he mused. However, another stanza of the prophecy was playing in his head, The Dark Lord's Equal — yes, Harry would prove better. He had to have faith in the boy now that he did not have in life.

Harry shook his head, "I don't think we'll ever truly know Professor. I thought it was the Hallows. You thought it was love. Perhaps we were both wrong?" Harry said, unknowing of the Headmaster's train of thought.

Taking a moment to himself one last time, Harry nodded, "I'm ready."

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though his figure was beginning to disappear.

"One last thing before you go. Remember Harry, my dear boy, that help will always be granted at Hogwarts to those who ask," the old man smiled at Harry one last time before a sudden lurch made itself known in Harry's stomach, pulling him away from the bench and his old Headmaster.

The entire time, the only thing Harry could hear was the forlorn whistle of the train pulling into the station.

The cathedral was gone and the Forbidden Forest invaded his senses once more. The sounds of wildlife and trees shifting replacing the call of the train he never boarded. With a gasp, his hand flew to his side, where he was previously wounded.

Harry sat up and righted himself quickly. He was no longer lying in a pool of his own blood against a tree. He still wore the clothes that he faced the Dark Lord in, and the side of his jacket and shirt were seared from spell fire. Looking down, he could see a long purple line make its way across his flank. It looked irritated and inflamed. The mark was uncomfortable to the touch but the pain he experienced before was nowhere to be found.

Harry was alive. Breath filled his lungs, a steady beat within his chest filled his ears, and the color of the surrounding world filled his eyes, yet his glasses distorted everything unlike their usual function. Overall, Harry survived the soul reaving curse just as he had the Killing Curse. Once again, he had defied the odds and stumbled his way out, in pure luck or through Fate.

Trying to gather his feet underneath him, Harry slowly stood up and grasped for the hawthorn wand within his pocket, but it came out in two pieces. The wand was fully snapped in half. Its dragon heart string hung limply out of one of the wand's halves.

Harry looked down, saddened at the magical medium which had served him well these last few months, and arguably the savior of his life since he won the allegiance of the Elder wand upon stealing this one. He put the broken wand back in his pocket to figure out what to do with it later.

He looked around at his surroundings after the adrenaline of coming back from the dead wore off. The sun was pouring through the canopy of the Forbidden Forest. It had been late evening when he walked inside to face his death. How many hours had he been out for? He had to get to the castle and stop Voldemort immediately! Who knew what might have befallen his friends and the others defending the castle so far.

With his feet underneath him, Harry began to stumble through the forest, trying to dodge the roots which attempted to entangle his feet. Soon, he found the strength to break into a run. He was no longer a corpse, but he was sure that he shouldn't have been expending this much energy yet. His body was in pain and knots from his ordeal.

But he had to hurry. Ginny needed him. Hermione needed him. Ron, Neville, Luna, Professor McGonagall, and everyone else who was fighting against the Dark Lord. Harry began to sprint now, pumping his arms with his legs as he made with all due haste through the last bit of the forest.

Breaking out of the tree line, Harry came upon the clearing leading up to the castle, where he stopped in his tracks at a sight that left him speechless.

There were no spells flying across the sky from an ongoing battle. There was no Dark Mark hanging over the castle. There was no evidence upon the scene that a conflict had even been waging here nonstop for the last day or so.

Hogwarts stood before him pristine as he had always known it, completely untouched by the war that tore it and the wizarding world apart. Harry didn't know what to make of anything that he saw before his eyes.

Harry stared out at the unblemished castle before him in open shock, slowly approaching the educational structure. Harry's body was tuned to the war and conflict he was previously embroiled with on the same school grounds; his eyes darted side to side, anticipating any attack from Voldemort or his followers who may have been hiding in the vicinity.

There was no indication that said attack would occur though, no burns from spells marked any stones, the structure of the school entirely intact, and no bodies were strewn about in the wake of battle like Harry had witnessed.

At the front of Harry's taxed mind, a single question held steady. Even if a battle was not currently being waged as he left it, 'where is everyone?' he thought anxiously.

There were no souls to be seen out on the grounds. Even Hagrid's Hut off in the distance by the forest edge sat empty, showing no sign that the giant had returned to the structure. In fact, Harry was almost positive Hagrid's house had been destroyed during the battle. Hadn't it?

Approaching the large wooden doors of the Entrance Hall, Harry shoved the grand entryway open with his shoulder. The doors slowly opened, groaning out from their hinges as they swung. The Entrance Hall was empty as well.

It seemed as if the entirety of Hogwarts lay abandoned. Yet, the only sound gracing Harry's ears wasn't the silent hum of nothing, but the flames from torches lining the walls. However, that didn't herald signs of life, nor even occupation. Harry knew that in some of the halls, there were always torches lit in the castle, no matter the hour or season.

Harry turned to ascend a staircase — he figured he would have better luck at finding someone on another floor if the main entrance hall was empty.

Navigating the moving stairs of the Grand Staircase, Harry found himself under the scrutiny of various portraits. However, stepping off the mobile stairway onto the second floor, Harry came before a solitary figure who appeared as if to be waiting for him.

Harry stopped and stared at the old man before him.

A man whom he had just been speaking to in the cathedral-like train station was standing before him. A mentor, a friend, a teacher, and manipulator, who had assured Harry he was quite dead on the Otherside, was before him. This time, however, he was very much alive.

Albus Dumbledore watched the young man before him curiously past his half-moon spectacles, which rested oddly upon a crooked nose poorly set after a break decades ago. His eyebrows torqued with curiosity. The Headmaster's robes were a deep maroon red instead of the midnight blue that Harry noticed on the Otherside. Dumbledore's hair and beard held more brown than silver yet.

Harry's attention, however, was soon captivated by something the living Headmaster was holding.

In Dumbledore's hand, which was healthy and alive, was the Elder Wand. Its knotted wood appearance was unmistakable to Harry's eyes. It was that very wand which had cut through his body and soul with a dark spell mere hours ago, it seemed to Harry. He could feel his side still burning slightly from the memory of the spell.

Harry slowly approached the Professor, which only provoked a curious eyebrow to once again raise up on Dumbledore's face. He was an exceptional wizard in his own right, but the man before him looked stricken with the kind of mental sickness that he hadn't seen except in the aftermath of large scale battles.

He saw upon the young man before him the looks of men who had just finished stumbling across the battlefields the continent would have seen decades ago, when Grindelwald was waging a bloody and costly campaign across Europe. Studying the young man in front of him further, Albus concluded he definitely looked like he had seen much better days. His clothes were torn, dirty, and even carried some stains of blood upon them.

However, two scars were the main interest of the Headmaster's interest when looking over the stranger. One, on the side of the torso, like it pierced him and passed through and the other resting upon the forehead in a lightning shaped scar. Yes, Albus Dumbledore could spot the signs that their origins were of foul magic which had befallen the boy before him.

"Hello there, young man. I suspect you are the one whom I was alerted about wandering upon the grounds from the wards," Dumbledore greeted. He was curious as to how one did just appear in Hogwarts.

"Professor—" momentary shock stopped Harry. Finally noticing the older man in depth, he had never seen Dumbledore look this young. "Professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked to make sure it was indeed the old eccentric professor standing in front of him.

"Ah, so you recognize me then? That is comforting — that at least one of us isn't a stranger to the other," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. "Since you know me, might I inquire as to who you are, young man?"

'Did Dumbledore not recognize him?' Harry thought in shock.

An alarm bell rang sharply inside Harry's head, urging him to keep what had happened to him away from Dumbledore, and to worry more about why this version didn't seem to know him.

How would he explain to the Professor that he was just talking with his dead doppelganger? Harry knew that kind of information wouldn't be heard lightly by someone like Albus, who had tried to foil Death himself once. Instead he focused on the identity issue before him.

"Harry, sir. Harry Evans."

His mother's maiden name left Harry's mouth sooner than he could think to stop it. If Dumbledore didn't recognize him as Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived or the Chosen One, then he wasn't going to be the one to personally remind the old coot of his personally-hated monikers.

Dumbledore noticed the slight lie with Harry's response. The man before him had taken much too long to answer and was surprised with what came out, almost as if he was himself unsure. Very few people were unsure of their identities, and even less so when there was no memory charm involved.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr. Evans. Would you please follow me into my office? It is just around this corner, actually. I'm an old man, and I believe I am due for a seat. You might as well join me, so that you may explain just what you are doing in this castle," Dumbledore requested of Harry. However, Harry could tell that the Professor's request was more of an order.

He could see the old man's thumb playing with the edge of the wand. Dumbledore was wary of him.

With both men being on slight edge, Harry nodded at the Headmaster, offering him to lead the way to his office. Harry didn't have much trust left in his old mentor from his previous experiences of manipulation, but what other options did he have? If anyone understood what was going on then it was likely only the Professor could give him answers.

Following Dumbledore through the castle halls, they came upon the Gargoyle statue which stood guarding the Headmaster's office, moving aside silently for them as they approached the doorway.

However, before they entered the office, Harry had to know.

"Sir, where is everyone?"

Dumbledore looked around them, almost as if he was looking for the nonexistent students himself for a moment. "It is currently the middle of summer. The next school term will not begin for another month or so," he answered the young man.

That couldn't be — it was still term when the battle had occurred. It was May 2nd when he, Hermione, and Ron had broken back into Hogwarts to retrieve the diadem.

"And the date sir, the date please…" Harry stressed looking almost pleadingly at Dumbledore. The Headmaster did not miss the swirl of emotions behind Evans' eyes. They held the look of a man on the verge of absolute failure.

"It is July 31st, 1977," Dumbledore answered simply, watching Harry's face closely as the young man closed himself off, as though he had just been told the gravest of news.

Harry wanted to sink into himself as the world he had known slipped away from his fingers for a second time.

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the first chapter. We're going to be exploring some interesting themes together. It's my first time writing a HP fanfiction or a fanfiction in general, so bare some patience. I apologize for any errors. Please let me know & I'll edit as we go. Thank you new readers.