Making it Right
Prologue: The Burrow Again
By Mr. Intel
Author Notes:
Being another Redo story, I felt it was necessary to explain some things about my take on this somewhat popular segment of the Potterverse. First and foremost, I have read several attempts at the "redo". The original redo, as far as I know, is Viridian's Nightmares of Future's Past. I love the fact that he took on the whole of canon, and wrested it in his very capable hands. But... it came across as too dark in the end. The ones that followed in its wake like Intromit's Fate's Debt, were fresh faces on the redo scene, but eventually, they started to get stale. I mean, how many times can Harry board the Hogwart's Express for the first time? Or be sorted into Gryffindor, again? So I intend to do something very different with this story. For example, I won't be having Harry redo his first year. The second thing is that Harry will not lie to anyone about who he is and how he knows so much. This means that it will be something of a super!Harry. There will be no Dumbledore bashing, and no Snape-hating. At the beginning, this will be as close to canon as possible, and Harry will slowly mold the universe to his will, as you will see in the very first chapter. It's these changes that will make this a story. It will be up to you, gentle readers to determine if I am successful.
Prologue — The Burrow Again
A thick blanket of pre-dawn fog covered the ground where Harry stood, drowning out all sound, and swallowing every light source. He trudged up a well worn lane until he fell into a ditch that marked the property line of the estate he was looking for. It had been almost three years since he’d been there — at his wedding to Ginny. It hurt to think of those days, when the war was still manageable, and so many lives hadn’t been taken. A distant explosion rocked the ground, urging him on.
He stumbled up a small hill, his feet catching on loose rocks and low, invisible hedges. He was alone, the last of the Order of the Phoenix that had survived the year-long purge of all resistance to Voldemort’s onslaught of destruction. It had all started before Harry turned eighteen; the year he’d taken off from school to search for the Horcruxes.
He’d destroyed every one of Voldemort’s soul containers but the snake, Nagini. As he lay on the ground in front of Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts, he had watched through the millimetre slit in his eyes as Neville was killed outright. It had taken every ounce of control for Harry to not leap up and destroy Voldemort right there. Then, while they were battling in the great hall at Hogwarts, Harry had been disarmed in his fight against Voldemort and lost the Elder Wand’s allegiance. Harry had escaped with this life, but the outcome of the war had been determined from that moment on.
The fog lifted slightly as he crested the hill and in the dim distance, he could make out the broken shell of his favourite place in the world. The Burrow’s roof had been torn off, but one section remained dangling precariously on the last shred of magic left. Ron’s old room lay open to the elements and Harry used his magic to leap to its worn wooden floor.
He turned and looked out over the fog. The sun was trying to peek above the horizon, but the fog held its light at bay. Another explosion rocked the ground, this time closer. Harry sat cross-legged on the floor and waited.
Soon, the fog began to part as if a giant scythe had ripped it in half. Thousands of Death Eaters and Dementors flooded the once tranquil grounds of The Burrow. In the very centre, Voldemort floated across the dying grass, his snake, Nagini trailing behind him.
"You have lost, Harry Potter," he yelled and was answered by a chorus of cheers from the encircling Death Eaters. "You are alone in the world, now, Harry. I am merciful, however, and I will send you to the ones you love." Voldemort pointed the Elder Wand at Harry.
Harry screamed. "NO!" There was a sound like a thunder clap and the Death Eaters were silenced. Harry stared at the pair of gleaming red eyes that had menaced him for his entire life. "It ends here!" Before Voldemort could react, Harry reached inside himself and with all his might, wrenched his magic from inside his body. He pulled it into a ball of crackling blue power, feeding it until every ounce was extracted.
His opponents looked around in confusion. Voldemort sent several Killing Curses at Harry, but they were simply absorbed by the pulsing ball of energy. Then, with his last ounce of strength, he compressed it into a microscopic point and let go.
The explosion was massive — the equivalent of a ten megaton nuclear weapon. It ripped across the landscape, decimating everything in its path. The Death Eaters, Nagini, and Voldemort were all instantly incinerated.
Harry was ripped from his body by the force of it, but his spirit lingered — drawn to his exploding magical core. As the magic continued to flow into the night, Harry saw a hole open beneath him, where his core had been. He floated down to look, unaware that it was pulling him with relentless pressure. All eternity seemed to stare back at him and as he crossed into the void, his last thought was how he much he just wanted to hold his Ginny one more time...
*
There was a deafening snap and Harry’s eyes shot open. He was breathing heavily, trying to force the nightmare out of his mind. He lay, staring at a familiar ceiling, smelling scents that crept out of long forgotten memories. He was in the Burrow, except, it wasn’t the Burrow from his nightmare. It was whole. He sat up.
Ron lay in his bed, snoring softly. He looked too young — younger than the man that had been killed a year before Harry had exploded his magical core.
Harry rubbed his eyes under his glasses and looked around. It was definitely the Burrow. What had happened? Had he been dreaming? It all seemed so real and yet, he felt like he didn’t belong here, like he was living someone else’s life again.
The nightmare had been so vivid; vivid enough that he could remember whole months of life from it better than he could remember what he’d eaten the day before in this Burrow. He remembered the hole left from his magic exploding in the ruins of the old Burrow. It drew him in and now he was here, obviously in a different time, but was he real?
He held out his hand and gave his leg a solid pinch. Ouch. Yep, definitely real.
He crept quietly from his bed and as he stood, he marvelled at how big everything seemed. He measured himself against the doorway and shook his head in wonder. Whatever age the Ron in the bed was, Harry seemed to be the same. Careful of the creak in the third stair from the top, Harry tiptoed down to a room he’d only been in twice. A sliver of moonlight illuminated a sleeping form in the small bed. She was young, too, but Harry knew that face anywhere. It was Ginny — his Ginny.
Climbing back into his camp bed, Harry’s mind whirred with a million questions. How was it possible? He was certain that he’d killed Voldemort and himself with that last ditch effort to end the war, but what had happened after? The only explanation he could come up with was that his spirit had somehow gone back in time to inhabit this body. But what happened to the Harry that lived now? And when was now, anyway? It was definitely before his wedding, and judging by the size of Ron and Ginny, he guessed it was sometime during his school years.
Exhaustion stole over him, so Harry lay back down, content to work out these questions in the morning. The most important things would have to be determined soon, however. He decided that he’d been given a gift. For whatever reason, he’d been placed in a time before Voldemort had begun to destroy in earnest with all his memories and knowledge from his future life. With a grim smile, Harry resolved then that he was going to do everything he could to make things better this time around.