After defeating Voldemort, Harry Potter is wrongfully convicted by the wizarding court for the murder of innocents, including Voldemort himself, and is sentenced to life in Azkaban. Decades pass as he endures relentless despair and madness in the prison. Eventually, Harry dies and encounters Death, who offers him a chance to go back in time—on the condition that he brings a younger Tom Riddle with him.
Harry wakes up in his childhood, just before his 11th birthday, with full knowledge of his future and Voldemort's essence lingering in his mind. Determined to rewrite his fate, he secretly visits Diagon Alley, secures his inheritance, and gains the respect of goblins by revealing his ability to speak to dragons. He then pays the Dursleys to leave him alone until he goes to Hogwarts. With Riddle's influence in the back of his mind, Harry sets out on his second chance with both caution and resolve, ready to reshape the wizarding world in unexpected ways.
--
In the wizarding world, memories are often as fleeting as they are indelible, fractured and pieced together by ancient spells, by unhealed trauma, and by remnants of darker days. And now, on this day in the Ministry's grand, oppressive hall, Harry Potter's memories would be used against him. This wasn't a trial for heroism, nor a victory parade. The audience filling the courtroom benches were a sea of stony, reproachful faces. He hadn't expected thanks, but he never anticipated this level of disdain.
Harry stood in the center of the courtroom, shackled by iron manacles that seemed as ancient as Azkaban itself. The charges—absurd, incomprehensible—rang in his ears. The Minister's voice echoed through the room, as if speaking to the very walls: "Harry James Potter, you are hereby found guilty of the murder of numerous innocents, including Tom Riddle."
Tom Riddle. The irony tasted like ash. Tom, the murderer of hundreds, the one who'd torn families apart, had somehow become a sympathetic figure, perhaps even a tragic one in the eyes of those who had never seen the terror firsthand. The trial had been brief, conducted by a Wizengamot more interested in justice-for-their-own than understanding Harry's sacrifice. The decision was unanimous.
"You are sentenced to life in Azkaban," announced the Minister, his voice cold and final.
--
Years in Azkaban passed like slow poison. Harry's spirit, once unbreakable, wore down as the weight of guilt and shadow clawed at his mind. The Dementors were relentless, sucking every ounce of hope, every pleasant memory, until he was left adrift in a haze of forgotten days. He grew older, colder. The boy who'd once wielded a wand with fierce purpose was now reduced to a hunched, skeletal figure haunted by visions and echoes of a world that no longer remembered him.
Decades passed. Loneliness became his only companion, his only escape in a twisted way. Madness had come and gone. At times, he wasn't sure if he still lived or if he was lost somewhere between life and death, his soul stretched so thin it felt as if he might break apart at any moment. But one day, his torment came to an end.
The icy chill of Azkaban slipped away, replaced by a peaceful stillness. For the first time in years, he felt warm, weightless, free. He opened his eyes to find himself in a place that defied explanation—a plane of shadows and ethereal light. Before him stood a figure, cloaked in darkness yet radiating an undeniable presence.
"Harry Potter," the figure greeted him with an air of calm finality. "I am Death."
Harry should have felt fear, but all he felt was relief. It was over, he thought.
"Not quite," Death replied, reading his thoughts as easily as one might read an open book. "Your journey is not yet complete. You have a choice."
Harry's brow furrowed in confusion. "What choice could I possibly have left?"
Death's voice was cool and cryptic. "To go back, to relive and reshape. But this time, you would not go alone."
For the first time, Harry noticed another figure in the shadows—a presence that sent a chill through his very bones. Tom Riddle. Voldemort, in his prime. His dark eyes gleamed with cunning, with malice—but also with something else: curiosity.
"You are both bound, more than you realize," Death continued. "To return means to take him with you."
Harry swallowed. The offer was almost incomprehensible, the implications too complex to process. But then again, he had nothing left to lose.
"I accept."
--
In the blink of an eye, he found himself awake, cramped in a familiar, painfully small space—the cupboard under the stairs at Number Four, Privet Drive. He reached up, touching his face, feeling the smoothness of young skin. It was his ten-year-old body. He was going on eleven again. The memories of his years in Azkaban were as clear as if he'd just lived them moments ago, and beside those memories lay the quiet, dangerous knowledge that Tom Riddle's essence had come along with him.
The days passed slowly, but he prepared. He felt Tom's presence at the edges of his mind, a brooding shadow, a coiled snake awaiting its opportunity to strike. Harry found himself unafraid. For the first time, he understood his old enemy in a way he never had before; they were reflections of each other, bound by Death and by choices that had shaped them both.
When the Hogwarts letter finally arrived, Harry was ready. This time, he wasn't going to be the naive boy who wandered into the Leaky Cauldron in awe. He would act with precision, with intent.
Sneaking out before the Dursleys awoke, Harry used what he remembered to slip through the cracks of the Muggle world and into Diagon Alley. Cloaked and wary, he avoided anyone who might recognize him, slipping instead toward the looming grandeur of Gringotts. He knew the goblins held a certain distaste for wizards, but he had something that would pique their interest.
Entering Gringotts, he sought out one of the senior goblins and requested a private meeting. With his unusual mastery of Parseltongue, he revealed that he could speak to the dragons, that he understood their language and could communicate with them. The goblins, intrigued by this rare talent, granted him access to his vault without question, and he struck a simple deal: he would never interfere with goblin affairs, and they would consider him a friend.
Having gathered his supplies, he carefully disguised his identity and ensured he returned to the Dursleys unnoticed. The final step was perhaps the most satisfying. Standing before Vernon and Petunia, he calmly explained that he had enough money to "pay for his upkeep" in the months until Hogwarts. In return, he wanted one thing: peace.
--
As he lay on his thin mattress in the cupboard that night, the future stretched before him like a fogged mirror, full of possibilities both terrible and wondrous. With Tom's presence faintly simmering in the back of his mind, he knew he would have to tread carefully. But this time, he was prepared. He would be the master of his fate, even with the constant reminder that he carried a fragment of his old enemy within him.
The wizarding world awaited him, oblivious to the shift in fate, to the changes in a young boy's mind that would alter history. Harry's second chance had begun, and in the shadows, Tom Riddle stirred, waiting for his own.