Chapter 121 - My OC Stash #21 - Dodging Prison and Stealing Witches - Revenge is Best Served Raw by LeadVonE (Harry Potter)

-Quite an interesting fic; a different take of those time travel HP stories.

*Harry isn't a murdering, torturing psychopath dark lord, but he has enemies that he needs to take out and a personal agenda that he'll do almost anything to see through.

Sypnosis: Harry Potter has been banged up for ten years in the hellhole brig of Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit, and his traitorous brother, the not-really-boy-who-lived, has royally messed things up. After meeting Fate and Death, Harry is given a second chance to squash Voldemort, dodge a thousand years in prison, and snatch everything

Rated: M

Words: 625K

Posted on: fanfiction.net/s/11574569/1/Dodging-Prison-and-Stealing-Witches-Revenge-is-Best-Served-Raw (LeadVonE)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1+2 (exceptional)

Through the Veil

A pile of rags sat in the far corner of a high security Azkaban prison cell. The moon shifted a fraction through the window bars and the pile slowly showed itself to be the curled up, skin and bones form of Harry James Potter, the True-Boy-Who-Lived.

Things had gotten a bit better since the Dark Lord had taken over Magical Britain, but not by much. On the plus side, there were fewer dementors around, but on the negative side, Voldemort was now devoting more and more time to torturing him through the mental link they shared. The raids on muggles were increasing, and the viciousness of the treatment of the victims would've made him heave, if he'd had any food to speak of in him. The muggle raids were increasing because all the muggleborns had already been exterminated.

He'd been in here for just over ten years now. This year marked the point when his stay in this prison would overtake his stay in the last one, those miserable excuses for human beings that called themselves the Dursleys.

It made no sense. Why had his parents dumped him there? The official reason was that he'd been mistaken for a squib, but that didn't explain why they refused to speak to him after he came to Hogwarts.

His brother, John Potter, was believed by all to be The-Boy-Who-Lived, but Harry knew that wasn't true. He also knew the Headmaster knew it wasn't true.

For some reason, the headmaster really didn't like him. When the chamber of secrets had been opened in his second year, and a girl killed, Dumbledore had convinced the world that he was the culprit.

Everyone in the wizarding world, even his fellow Slytherins, blamed him, and they'd never liked him much to begin with. In fact, no one much liked him. In his two years at Hogwarts he'd never made a single friend. The Slytherins all hated that he was a Potter, everyone else hated him because he was a Slytherin, the teachers hated him for some unknown reason, and his parents hated him because… he didn't know.

He'd been shipped off to Azkaban screaming for someone, anyone, to believe him.

No one did.

The look of disgust and revulsion on his parents faces, fuelled his dementor nightmares for years, until he stopped caring what the d.i.c.ks thought of him, and Azkaban merely became an edited highlights reel of Durskaban.

And then Voldemort had risen again, and started sending him those thrice-damned visions.

He'd made as much use of the connection as he could, sifting through the Dark Lord's head and grabbing all the knowledge he'd acc.u.mulated over his long life. Harry couldn't hope that he'd be able to escape from here to use it—such a happy thought would've been stripped away—but it was the only thing to do and, as messed up as it sounded, spending time in the Dark Lord's head was preferable to his own when the dementors were on the prowl.

Voldemort seemed to find his rummagings amusing, as though he were an over-eager student. The bastard would grab his consciousness, show him a fortified building the Death Eaters were about to storm, explain the attack plan to him at great length, gloat a bit that he, Harry, was the only one who could warn the defenders, then force him to watch his followers torture, ****, and kill the helpless victims, once they'd broken through.

Years ago, he'd even seen his own brother killed in this way. The arrogant tosser had just walked right up to Voldemort and invited him to kill him.

The Dark Lord would do this with everything, all his political games, all his strategy sessions, each and every one of his recruitment and training drives.

It was getting to be more than he could take, and the darkness of his cell seemed to be getting darker every day.

The sounds of someone clinking and moving penetrated the fog of Harry's mind. Someone was here. That wasn't normal.

"Oi. Potter. Get up. You've been requested."

There were boots where before there was just floor. That also wasn't normal.

"Oh, for crying out loud. He's out of it. Let's get him up."

Pain shot through his shoulders as two pairs of hands grabbed his arms and lifted him from the floor. It was the first time someone had touched him in ten years.

"Can you walk or are we going to have to drag you?"

He tried to put one foot forward, towards the cell door, and every muscle in his atrophied lower body screamed in protest. Eventually, with the support of the men, he managed to get a rhythm going, and Harry Potter, The-True-Boy-Who-Lived, walked out of Azkaban, and into a world ruled by the Dark Lord.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

"Prisoner number 6785," a bored sounding voice called out.

Harry's world was still dark. Tiny beams of light shone through the holes in the carrying box he'd been shoved into for transport to wherever the hell he now was.

"Experiment number 0034," the voice continued.

Light flooded Harry's world. The front of the box had been opened and Harry stepped out onto a wooden platform. Two men, perhaps the same two men from the prison, attached him to the platform with chains. In front of him, was a sight that made his underused eyes widen in shock.

"Modified version of the confundus charm, woven into the arch using Hypthorn's static enchantment protocol; dated the third of September, 2002, approved by the Chief Unspeakable."

It was the veil of death.

"Begin the transfer."

Without making a sound, the platform started moving towards the veil leaving Harry no possibility of escape… not that he wanted it.

'For neither can live while the other survives,' he mused, grinning manically. He was about to die, but he knew that what was going on here was something Voldemort certainly didn't know about, or authorise.

He was halfway to the veil now and suddenly terror flooded his mind, but the raw primal emotion wasn't his.

A loud crack sounded behind him and Voldemort's voice screamed "Accio Potter!" but the chains held him fast to the platform and before another word could be uttered he'd plunged through the archway and darkness took him.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

"Good morning, Mister Potter." A four word sentence, male, in a voice of stone, empty caves, and deep gulps of fresh mountain air, conquered his head, and forced his focus.

"Ah, good morning?" Harry replied. He couldn't see his interlocutor. Darkness surrounded him. But his voice… speaking was amazingly easy, not what he'd expected after a decade of non-use. And his thinking… he could think! His mind was clear and fresh, thoughts flowing through it, crisp, like a mountain stream.

"Yes, it's amazing what having no body will do for you."

A pebble of a thought dropped into his consciousness. He'd just been pushed through the veil. He was dead.

"Yes," the voice said, "you are."

And this person?… thing?… could read minds, despite his near impenetrable occlumency shields, mindscape, and decoy memories.

"You may as well start speaking. Talking to myself still makes me feel a bit of a berk, even if I can read your thoughts. And we're not alone."

Harry finally replied again, "Err… who are 'we' exactly? And where are we? Are you Death?"

The darkness lifted to be replaced with a round room, lined with furs from floor to ceiling. An open fire crackled in the middle of the room, shields and weapons lined the walls, and, asleep in a corner, a mess of large wolves were piled on top of one another. On the opposite side of the small room to him, comfortable and relaxed in large wooden thrones, sat two people, a man and a woman.

The woman, clothed in an elegant white-laced dress, held a book.

The man, clothed in dark robes of the blackest black, held a scythe.

"I guess you are," he continued. These people seemed to really like their theatrics.

"Yes, I am," said the man, "and this lovely lady to my right is Fate," he motioned to the woman who inclined her head to Harry, "we have a bone to pick with you."

Harry was nonplussed. "Um… okay," he hesitated before continuing, but Death seemed personable enough, "does this bone have anything to do with the fact that I just died not at the hands of Voldemort despite what the prophecy says?" He tried to think ahead in the conversation. Why was he here?

Death smiled a smile made of solid oak. "No, that was merely a bit of conniving on our part to get you to us. If we hadn't have done that, you and Voldemort would have continued to live for another thousand years."

He blinked. "What?"

"I don't like things that are owed me being withheld, Mister Potter."

Harry's looked nonplussed. "But… It's not my fault if I was a damn horcrux!"

The lady, who'd up to this point been silent, now spoke in a voice as smooth and soft as the blond hair flowing down her shoulders.

"We know that, Mister Potter. We don't blame you for it. It is Riddle we hold responsible."

Harry settled down a bit.

She continued, "The prophecy wasn't carried out as intended. You were supposed to kill Riddle, and I don't mean in a thousand years."

Harry's shoulders slumped. "Pretty hard to do that when you've got demons from hell sucking out your thoughts every minute of the day," he mumbled.

"Yes," Fate stared down at the man standing before him, still all bones and rags, "you were never meant to go to that infernal place."

"So, where did it go wrong then? When I was sent to Azkaban?"

"No. That useless sack of wizard that called himself The-Boy-Who-Lived failed to do the job he took on."

"My brother?"

"Yes. Dumbledore declared him the Boy-Who-Lived when he was a baby, and the child made no effort to disavow others of that impression, even when it became apparent to him that it was you the prophecy referred to."

"He what? He knew!" Harry was shocked; his brother had never given any indication with his interactions with Voldemort that he knew.

"He did."

"When?"

"He first knew shortly before first coming to Hogwarts, when Dumbledore told him."

Harry stayed silent, anger and resentment boiling just under the surface. So, Dumbledore told John… That made sense. In the end, it always came back to Dumbledore. The games that man played with the lives of his followers sickened him. It says a lot about a man when someone like Voldemort enjoyed playing against him.

"Harry…" Fate stood, walked over to him and placed a calming hand on his shoulder. "Dumbledore deliberately choose John to be the Boy-Who-Lived, knowing full well it wasn't him and tried to keep you as weak as possible."

His eyes narrowed, and he looked up into Fate's ice blue eyes. "Why?"

Fate sighed. "Dumbledore saw the rise of two Dark Lords in his life, both of which he felt partly responsible for, and he was terrified to see another. When a prophecy spoke of a boy who was the Dark Lord's equal, who'd have a power the Dark Lord knew not, he tried to control events such that the prophecy child would not be a threat to the wizarding world as he saw it."

The resentment towards the twinkly-eyed headmaster seemed to double. His fists clenched and unclenched. He'd spent ten years in the worst hell on earth because some old bastard was afraid of something he might choose to do because he might have the power to do it. "So Dumbledore traded the possible rise of a Dark Lord for the certain success of an already established Dark Lord?"

Fate gave a weak smile. "It was never his plan for you to stay in Azkaban for as long as you did, but when he died before John Potter did, he was no longer able to manipulate events and your brother said nothing to anyone who might have been able to intervene, which moves us nicely onto why we are here."

Harry stood silent, seething, but expectant.

"We are now going to intervene."

Harry jerked, not daring to believe the implications of what he'd just heard. "Isn't it… isn't it a bit late now? I mean, I'm dead. The prophecy was unfulfilled."

At this point, Death took over from the beautiful woman now standing at Harry's side.

"Normally yes, however, in this situation, we're going to bend our self imposed rules. That f.u.c.ker, Tom Riddle that is, not Dumbledore, needs to die."

Fate fixed Harry with a hard sapphire stare. "And I will not subordinate my will to a pathetic excuse of an old man who gets off on lemon drops and playing the puppet master, especially when he's so utterly crap at it."

Harry returned her stare, and for a fleeting second, was reminded of Daphne Greengrass, Slytherin's Ice Queen. "…So, what's the plan?"

"Well," she continued, "unlike your brother, even in the worst of situations, you made the best of it. You spent years absorbing all of Riddle's knowledge. That's a good thing."

Death jumped back in. "We're going to send your soul back in time to several years before you leave for Hogwarts. We want you to make sure Riddle dies, and we want you to make sure the prophecy is fulfilled."

"…What's to stop me being thrown in prison again?"

Fate smiled. "You must save Ginny Weasley."

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment. "I've no problem with that, but didn't you just say the headmaster manipulated events to send me to prison at the first possible excuse? I may dodge that particular bullet, but what's to stop me being sent on some other flimsy trumped up charge?"

Fate's eyes shone. "And this is exactly the reason why you're going to be our champion this time, Harry, and not John. You think things through. We already let John re-do the timeline once and he still failed."

"Wait, what?"

"Oh, sending him back required less intervention, and since he was already fighting Riddle we figured he might be able to pull it off."

"… But wouldn't that mean the non-fulfilment of the prophecy?"

"It would have been close enough for me to accept. But that's irrelevant. He failed."

"How did he die in the first time-line?"

"In the grave-yard at the end of fourth year."

"Huh… I did wonder how he got such good grades without trying, and how he seemed to instinctively attract witches to him despite his horrific personality, he had a four year lead on everyone, and already knew them."

"…"

Inside his head, the revelations were coming thick and fast. His eyes widened.

"Wait… That's why he let Voldemort kill him! He thought you would give him a third chance!

Death nodded, grimly.

"…"

"And… wait, that doesn't make sense…. He knew Ginny was going to die and let it happen anyway? I thought those two loved each other for years before they even came to Hogwarts!"

Fate looked sad. "In the first timeline the diary of Tom Riddle didn't abduct Miss Weasley until the end of the year, and your brother managed to save her. In the second timeline, John Potter's meddling caused Tom to accelerate his plans."

"Wow. He really messed that up."

"Indeed. And let this be a warning to you, Mister Potter." Her face became sterner. "Do not try to setup master plots based on foreknowledge, and do not worry about 'preserving the timeline'; acquire every advantage you can, as quickly as possible with the power you possess, while exposing yourself to as little risk as possible. Remember, even though we are sending you back, your brother has already gone back. We can't change that, so you're going to have to deal with another time traveller who also thinks they are our chosen. The life you know was in the second timeline, and when we send you back, it will be the third."

"Yes, my lady… er… if my brother saved Ginny in the first timeline, did I still go to Azkaban?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Dumbledore pushed him to provide false evidence that it was still you that opened the chamber."

"That… utter… f.u.c.ker!"

"Mmmmhmm."

"So, how am I going to stop that from happening then? It seems the old goat is desperate for me to go."

"Well, in the first instance, you now have a good solid knowledge of how the political and legal system of the wizarding world works, and for the second… I am going to grant you a gift."

A gift?

Harry looked away from Fate and towards Death who merely smiled. "No, Mister Potter, not a deathly hollows style gift. I'm never making that mistake again."

Fate laughed. "Mister Potter, how much are you aware of your lineage?"

"Umm… I'm a Potter?"

"Figures you'd know almost nothing. Riddle didn't know after all." Fate walked Harry over to her throne and motioned him to sit down, which he did so, hesitantly. The woman then started pacing in front of the two men.

"Harry," she said eventually, "you know your wizarding world has a highly stratified political and legal system."

"Yes."

"So to grant you the chance you need to fight back against Dumbledore you need to be higher up in the system."

"Makes sense."

"I'm going to grant you a lordship."

Harry's eyes bugged, "Whaa… You're going to kill my father and brother? I mean, I don't really have a problem with that, but even then I wouldn't become Lord Potter until I'm seventeen."

"No no no, Harry. I don't have the power to intervene that much, if I did, I'd have just killed Riddle, and it is as you say; you still wouldn't ascend until you reached your majority, well, in theory anyway. No, what I'm suggesting is for you to take a completely different lordship."

Harry blinked, owlishly.

"There are three possible lordsh.i.p.s you are close enough to being able to claim for my influence to work. Peverell, Gryffindor, and Slytherin."

Fate started pacing again.

"The Peverell and Gryffindor lines are closely linked to you through blood, and it would take only a slight modification of your blood to allow you to claim them. The Slytherin line could be yours through old family magics called the right of conquest, whereby the conqueror of the last of a line can lay claim to that line's family magics, provided they didn't initiate the conflict that led to the death of the line. This includes titles since they're based on family magics."

"So because I defeated Voldemort when a child… wait, wouldn't I have that last one anyway?"

"Riddle didn't truly die."

"Ah."

"But! That's exactly the kind of minor adjustment to magic that I can get away with. The difference between dead and not alive is close enough, and the age of your soul gives me enough wiggle room in regards to you being of age to claim."

She took a deep breath before continuing.

"Now, you're only getting one of them, so you're going to have to choose. Any thoughts?"

"Well, screw Gryffindor. I'm a Slytherin, through and through. So it comes down to Slytherin or Peverell. Peverell would grant me greater overall political acceptance. I wouldn't have to worry so much about being immediately labelled a Dark Lord by a third of the wizarding political elite…"—Harry stretched his chin—"…On the other hand, Slytherin would grant me immediate kudos with the very enemy that I'm trying to fight. Any death eaters or allies of Voldemort that I can bring to my side would be a double victory, simultaneously denying the enemy resources while boosting my own. With Peverell, I'd have to play a zero sum game with Dumbledore for allies—A moment of silence passed—Slytherin would also grant me special privileges at Hogwarts… I assume?" he finished, uncertain.

"A few, yes," Fate conceded.

"And it would also give me a mission to rally people around other than just 'defeat Voldemort'. The ideals and beliefs of Slytherin house are nothing like what they should be. Ambition and cunning does not equal evil and bigotry," he mused.

Fate smiled.

"Also…, and I think this is the real kicker, by claiming the tile of Lord Slytherin through right of conquest I can easily demonstrate that I am the true child of prophecy to who ever I please, whenever it is necessary."

Fate clapped, and Death just sat there, relaxed, and looking incredibly smug.

"Well done young champion, very well thought out. Your brother never demonstrated even a hint of similar strategic insight."

He smirked. "Well, he is a Gryffindor."

Fate raised a warning finger. "That's as well as maybe but remember not to let house rivalries detract you from strategic necessity. There are Gryffindors it would do you well to bring to your side.

"…Granger." The Dark Lord's memories of the brunette muggleborn were impressive. Hell, she practically carried his brother's team, despite being four years mentally younger than him.

"Yes her, definitely. But also remember my warning. Any advantage, as quickly as possible, for as low a cost as possible."

"Right. Not to mention she grows up to be hot as hell."

Fate frowned.

"I'd advise against falling into he same trap as your brother and collecting too many witches of questionable usefulness around you. They could easily become a distraction."

"Right. So I'll only collect the useful ones. And distractions… I'd prefer to call them strategic team building exercises." He tried his best to look as innocent as a pile of rags and bones can.

Death grinned from ear to ear while Fate looked resigned.

"Well, I've just spent twenty years in hell, yes? I'm not holding back on this second chance. I will do everything in my power to make sure the primary objectives are achieved, which at the longest should only take five to ten years, fingers crossed. I fully intend to make sure the final hundred odd years of my life are as satisfying as possible."

Death spoke up. "Mister Potter, so long as you achieve your primary objectives, I personally don't care if you become a dark lord and destroy the whole of Britain."

"I'd be a bit miffed, but couldn't actually fault you," Fate interjected, "so long as Riddle dies and the prophecy is fulfilled, you have a free pass.

"Excellent, because I fully intend to ruin a few people's lives."

The trio continued to discuss minutia and tactical and strategic options for some time, before Fate and Death waved Harry on his way and his soul was flung back through the veil.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

On July thirty-first in the year 1988, eight-year-old little Harry Potter sat bolt upright, banging his head on his cupboard ceiling.

'Oww', he thought, rubbing his hand on his bruised forehead. He felt a metal band on his finger. Closer inspection revealed it to be the noble head of house ring of Slytherin house. A manic grin spread across his face like the opening to the gates of hell.

Chapter 2

Flying Under the Radar - Wand

Harry spent a few moments basking in his new old body. The cramped space of his cupboard wrapped around him like an old friend, the kind you tolerate having a once-a-year drink with, but who soon reminds you why you stopped being their friend.

Right! Time to fly this joint. Prison break! And with a loud crack, the cupboard under the stairs was empty. The Dursleys could fix their own damn breakfast.

He appeared in a park not far from Privet Drive and sat down on a bench. The sky slowly brightened as the sun rose over the nearby trees, flooding the grass with light that refracted off morning dew and painted a picture of peace and happiness in the back of Harry's cornea. Freedom.

Harry would never again let anyone imprison him. Not Voldemort, not Dumbledore, not the Dursleys, not his parents.

To do that he needed power, for without power you were helpless, and if you were helpless everything you have can and will be taken from you.

So, what did he have?

Well, he could do a limited amount of wandless magic. He could summon and banish, apparate, fly, talk to snakes, cast the stinging hex, lumos charm, and incendio charm, as well as basic legilimency and master occlumency. Wandless magic was time consuming to learn and Voldemort had never learnt more than the combat critical necessities.

His ring would protect him from obliviation, mind-altering potions, confundus charms, and other mind altering magics… but not the imperius, nothing could block the imperius — you just had to have the mental will to throw it, which is why it was classified as unforgivable — poor little pureblood lords couldn't defend their families against it. The ring could also become visible and invisible on command and was soul bound, meaning it couldn't be taken from him by force until he died.

All this was very nice, but it didn't make him the all-powerful force of nature he needed to be. Wards could easily block apparition, and his combat spells were very limited. If he got in any trouble in the magical world, he'd be at the mercy of whatever wand wielding weakling with a basic OWL in defence stumbled on him. Worse, he had almost no sneaking abilities. Disillusionment, notice-me-nots, muggle repelling wards, key-in wards, silencing charms — as he was at the moment, he couldn't do any of them.

He needed a wand. Then his repertoire would be vast. Then he could really get on with things… but… how was he going to get one? Ollivander and his British contemporaries wouldn't sell him a wand, he was too young and the wand would have the trace on it. Other countries also wouldn't be any good — they'd still apply the trace, and it would just switch over to Magical Britain the moment he crossed the border. The ministry would be very interested in why there was an unregistered underage wand casting magic all over the place. He could get a wand without the trace if he revealed his status as Lord Slytherin, but he wasn't anywhere near ready to announce that yet. He could try stealing one, but that would be far too risky at the moment. If he were caught he'd be in big trouble.

No, there was really only one option. He was going to have to make one.

It wouldn't be great. It wouldn't be at the level of perfection of one produced by Ollivander, but it would work and be functional until he could buy a proper one. And since it was the wand that chose the wizard, or so Ollivander would say… well… he'd just have to think like a wand.

…Yew. Yes, the wood of death and rebirth, of resurrection and immortality. Voldemort's wand was yew because of its properties associated with eternal life—although how the wand knew of the Dark Lord's future when he'd been just eleven was anyone's guess. His wand, by contrast, would be yew because of its properties associated with rebirth and resurrection, not to mention he was Death's champion.

And for the core… thestral tail hair, definitely. No creature was more closely associated with death than the thestral, except maybe the grim. As for the length… 15 inches, the same length as the elder wand. The wand made by Death. Yes.

Harry leapt off the bench and stretched his arms to the heavens. Shopping time!

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

Sue Ruthson was a short plump woman who loved the outdoors in principle, but preferred the comforts of the tearoom in practise. She flipped the sign on the door to the office from closed to open and turned to man—or in her case, woman—the reception.

"Excuse me," said a child's voice behind her. She turned and beheld a small skinny boy in baggy clothes with a mop of unruly black hair and piercing green eyes behind sellotaped glasses. They seemed to stare straight into her soul and force her to reexamine all her hopes, dreams, and fears.

"Y-yes, dearie?" she asked, looking around for the lad's parents. They were no-where to be seen. Probably let him run ahead of them.

"Is this the Royal Forestry Society?"

"Yes, it is, where are you parents dear?"

"Oh, they're around. I'm doing a school project and they said I could ask some questions for it. I'm interested in really old trees." He smiled a smile that screamed future-heartbreaker.

"Well dear. Why don't you just take a seat here and I'll get you something?"

The lad beamed. "Thank you Mrs…?"

"Ruthson dear."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ruthson."

This was one polite kid. "Any particular types of tree you're interested in?" she asked, probing the boy's knowledge while fishing in a filing cabinet behind her desk.

"Um… Yew? They're supposed to be really old, right?"

"They are. Yew trees are among some of the oldest in the country." She found what she was looking for and handed it to the boy. "Is that enough information?" she asked.

The boy flipped through the glossy paged brochure before stopping at one particular page. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Ruthson. Thank you! I need to get back to my Mum and Dad now — they're waiting for me."

"Not to worry dear, happy to help."

The boy left the office and Sue smiled. What a nice young man.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

Alan and Jennifer stumbled into their hotel room from a night of holiday filled excitement and romance when Jennifer noticed something was wrong.

"Alan," she said, sounding worried.

"Yeah, Baby?"

"I can't find my wallet."

"Seriously? Where did you last have it?"

"It was in my pocket. But it's not there anymore."

"I'll check the bags."

"Oh no… oh shit! shit!" She threw up her hands. "My cards were in there!"

"Jen, don't panic, its probably in here." But his search was proving fruitless.

"What if someone uses them! Oh shit! shit!."

"Jen! Calm down! We'll just call up the company and get them to freeze them!"

"Oh shit, shit, there was like a hundred pounds in there, that's like what, 150 dollars? Shit! Shit! …Well!?"

Alan had stopped searching the bags.

"Yeah, it's gone."

"SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!"

Several blocks away, Harry inspected his catch in the privacy of a public toilet. It was a rule of life as far as he was concerned. If you were a wizard and didn't charm your money pouch to be non-summonable, you were an idiot. And if you were a muggle tourist and didn't attach your wallet or purse to your person, or keep it deep in your bag, you were an idiot. Better he snagged it than some less deserving cut purse.

He finished counting out 107 Great British Pounds and smiled… Breakfast time.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

Harry spent a relaxing day eating and practising his occlumency in various hotel lobbies around London. The great thing about hotels was that the staff didn't ask too many questions about kids on their own in lobbies. It was assumed the parents or guardians were around and had dumped them there with instructions to wait. If people had started getting too nosy, plan B had been some tiny village teashop in the middle of nowhere.

The sun was going down and it was time to hit his first target.

He paid for his final drink, left the building, turned down an alley, disappeared with a loud crack, and reappeared in a field on the flood banks of the River Thames. The ground was boggy and Harry had to struggle for his footing on every step before he smacked his head in frustration, and remembered he could fly.

Hovering a half-inch from the ground, and making every attempt not to be seen doing so, he flittered from bush to bush in the rapidly failing light of the British summer.

Ahead, he spied the distinct, majestic outline of his intended — The Ankerwycke Yew.

This tree was ancient. Not the oldest in the country by any measure, but at over two thousand years old, it had been around well before the Peverell brothers played their games with Death. The tree was steeped in myth and legend. It was here that the Magna Carta had been signed, forever breaking the absolute right of the King to rule, which included the magical population, and included passages, now invisible to muggles, granting the magical community autonomy from the muggle government. It was said that under this tree, the muggle king Henry VIII, had started his illicit affair with his future wife, Anne Boleyn, resulting in the split between the churches of Rome and England, and the end of the witch hunts in Britain.

It was perfect.

Harry drank in its beauty, hungry for the potent combined symbol of freedom, death, resurrection, and unofficial polygamy. He could feel the magic radiating from it, even from back here.

He pushed forward and suddenly felt something sweep over him — something subtle, but very definitely noticeable to one trained to sense the flows of magic. His breath hitched. He'd just tripped a detection ward. Dammit! Too late, he realised most of the magic hadn't been coming from the tree, but from the wards around it.

He ducked behind a nearby bush and waited. Who'd go through the bother of putting wards around a tree?

Crack! A figure in a dark robe appeared around the trunk of the tree, wand out and alert. Even at the distance he was hiding, the figure was recognisable. It was Mr. Ollivander.

Oh, damn.

"I know you're there!" Mr. Ollivander called, "I want to know why."

Harry struggled to rip his shirt off and tie it around his head to hide his face, hair, and, most importantly, scar. The eyes might give him away, but there wasn't much he could do about that.

"If you don't come out, I'll just come to you," the old wand maker continued. "Homenum Revelio!"

Merlin damn homenum revelio! Screw it. There was nothing to do but make a break for it.

Crack! Harry appeared in a field some fifty miles away and turned.

Crack! His pursuer appeared right behind him.

Crack! And he disapparated again, appearing in an empty city street at a dead run.

Crack! A red stunner passed mere inches from the back of his head before he turned a corner, out of sight, and immediately shot up, towards the moon, over the edge of a rooftop, and away over the city skyline.

Crack! The silence lasted only a moment before a quickly fading and frustrated voice shouted, "Homenum Revelio!"

Please, please, please, let him be out of range. Harry ducked behind the massive chimney of a huge industrial building and quickly accelerated right to the top before disapparating with a final, definite, Crack!

There! After several more cracks, he appeared in the graveyard of a small village in Devon. Let the creepy bastard follow me up there!

He stumbled over to a bench and plopped down on it with an audible, "phew."

His breath started to slow, but his pulse was still going at a mile a minute, his adrenal glands still pumping concentrated 'fight-or-flight' into his small body.

He was an utter idiot. Why hadn't he spotted the very obvious fact that the perfect candidate for a yew wand tree in the country would already be 'taken' by another wand maker? He could only hope to Merlin that the old man had neither spotted him flying, nor been alerted to his aerial presence by his last homenum revelio. He wanted to keep every advantage he had secret, and if an identifying skill became public knowledge, he couldn't use it and remain anonymous. Flying was definitely an identifying skill. Only he and Voldy could do it, after all.

Harry sighed. All in all it could have gone worse. With luck, the only thing Ollivander would have learned about the wizard sneaking around was that they were very short for a wizard who — because of their ability to apparate — should be in their late teens, at least.

Oh… He might also have spotted him apparating without a wand… bugger. And since Ollivander could detect him with homenum revelio, he'd be forced to conclude I was a very short, and very powerful, humanoid. I suppose it might be more credible to suspect a metamorphmagus rather than a child… or possibly a half-breed like Flitwick… or someone under the effects of polyjuice… okay, so there were actually lots of possible ways to explain him away.

Harry stood back up and dusted himself off. The night was still young and he still had a list of other trees he could hit. There was a loud crack, which echoed around the church stonework, and Harry Potter was gone.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

Angelystor was dead. She'd been dead for a long time now. She'd been in love with a local muggle noble, who'd stabbed her when she'd told him she was pregnant. She wished she could have seen it coming, but she couldn't. Seers could not see their own futures.

And now all she could do was haunt this graveyard, in this tiny welsh village. There weren't any magicals around to talk to and the only fun she had was on All Hallows Eve, when the boundaries between this world, and the world beyond the veil, were at their weakest. Then, she could shout out who in the next year was going to die, and the muggles could actually hear her. It was a small joy, but it was all she had.

She floated around the graveyard's huge yew tree, its trunk split at the base in three, giving the impression of three separate trees growing from the same spot, and stilled.

Something had changed. Her sight wasn't nearly as good since she'd died, and she couldn't do any divination or scrying that needed a wand or other foci, but something had defiantly changed in the flow of time.

Movement attracted her attention. Despite it being near midnight, the full moon made it easy to see, although why that mattered to a ghost who technically didn't have eyes, she'd never wondered about until that moment.

The figure was hesitant and very cautious. It was small and crept from tombstone to tombstone, as though expecting to be attacked.

She floated over to the child, for it was surely small enough to be a child, and was shocked when the boy, and she could now see that it was surely a boy, recoiled from her. His chest was bare — the shirt he'd presumably been wearing hid his face. He made to bolt and she quickly held up a hand.

"Wait! I won't hurt you!"

The boy hesitated, but did turn to face her.

"You can see me right?" she asked. "Only magical people can see me. You're magical aren't you?"

The boy nodded.

"Who are you? There aren't any magical children in this village. I'd know. Why are you here? Why didn't I know you were coming? Did your parents move here? Are they magical? You can't be a muggleborn or you wouldn't know you were a wizard. Why…why can't my sight see you?"

The boy stood and watched her through emerald green eyes barely visible through his makeshift mask.

"Hello," he said, his voice was guarded, his stance still coiled for flight.

"Um… hello," she said, suddenly realising she must have sounded both silly and aggressive with her question monologue, but she couldn't help it! She hadn't spoken to anyone in over two hundred years.

"What did you mean by, 'I didn't know you were coming?' and, 'your sight,' …are you a seer?"

"Ahh, yes. I am, or rather, I was… I can still see a bit, but it's not nearly as strong as when I was alive."

"And now you haunt this graveyard? There must be a lot of ambient magic to support a ghost like yourself."

"The magic comes from the tree. It's called the Llangernyw Yew. It's the oldest Yew in the country, you know!" She visibly swelled with pride, although the slight baby bump under her ethereal dress might have helped give that impression. "It's among the oldest living things in the world, you know. That's what a muggle science person said."

"Really?" The boy seemed to be warming up to her. "How old is it?"

"Well, they say it might be five thousand years old, but no one really knows. It might be only three thousand."

"And how old are you, my fair lady?"

She mock gasped, "You don't ask a lady her age, young man," a hint of smile played across her lips.

The boy seemed to wince. "Sorry, I mean, how many years has it been since you died?"

"Over five hundred years… and I'm twenty-one, by the way," she smiled, "my name is Angelystor, and I am the ghost that calls out the names of those who will die in the next year on All Hallows Eve."

"The muggles can hear you?"

"On All Hallows Eve, yes."

The boy seemed to think for a moment.

"My name is… Harry."

Her smile was now summer and light and good friends around an open fire. "Pleased to meet you, Harry. So… what exactly are you doing here in this isolated village, at midnight, wearing your shirt on your head?"

Harry hesitated again.

"There aren't any other magicals around, right?"

"You're the first one I've seen in over two hundred years."

"And you can't actually leave?"

"No." Her smile was slightly sad now. "I am bound to the tree where I died."

Harry nodded. "I am here for a single branch of the Llangernyw Yew, to make a single wand with which to defeat Dark Lord Voldemort."

Angelystor felt her eyes widen almost comically. "I have seen the wizard you speak of with my sight. He is a terrible power in the world. How do you, a child, want to defeat him?"

"I am the child of prophecy — singled out by Fate herself — to do the job the wizarding world cannot. I will do it because I must, because only I can."

"And you have no one to aid you?" she asked, looking around as though expecting Merlin or the founders to suddenly appear.

"There are… forces in the world working against me. Forces that would see me incapable of fulfilling my duty. Forces that would risk the almost certain destruction of everything in favour of a plan with a comically low probability of creating an ideal peace."

Silence settled between boy and ghost for a moment.

Eventually Angelystor spoke. "I do not like seeing the tree harmed… but… for such a purpose, I can hardly refuse. Please Harry, take what you need."

Harry nodded, face still hidden, "Thank you, Angelystor."

Together they walked and floated to the tree. And then together they floated to the very top of the tree where the freshest growth was. Angelystor stared in awe. "You can fly."

"Yes, beautiful lady, I can."

Harry produced a folding miniature hacksaw from the pocket of his baggy trousers and deftly removed a six-foot branch of fresh growth.

"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me," he whisper-sang, a slight smile playing around his mouth, just before the nearby church bell sounded midnight with a single, low dong. He floated backwards. "Well, Fair Lady, this is where I must go."

Angelystor nodded, "Harry?"

"Yes, My Lady?"

"Before you go… can I see your face?"

Harry floated motionless for a good few seconds before putting the branch down in the nearby growth, reaching up, and removing the shirt around his head.

Angelystor gazed into a young face that promised future strength and nobility. Black messy hair spilled over his forehead, utterly failing to conceal a fierce lightning bolt shaped scar, tinged in an angry red.

She floated around him, inspecting him from every angle at less than a few inches distance, before finishing right in front of his face.

"Thank you, Harry," she whispered, before retreating a few feet, "and good luck."

Harry nodded his thanks, picked up the branch again, and with a single crack, was gone.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

Two days later, Harry woke feeling great. Stage one was complete and he'd liberated enough muggle money from people without enough common sense to move onto stage two. It was time for the thestral hair and he had a long journey ahead of him.

There was only one thestral herd in the British isles, and it was Hagrid's on the grounds of Hogwarts — a place Harry dared not tread for fear of the wards being capable of alerting Dumbledore to his presence.

So, he'd have to search further afield, and in Voldemort's memories there was only one other place with a thestral herd. It was the big one — the wild thestral herd of the Mongolian shamans.

He spent the next few days apparating across Europe, through Russia, and down into the Mongolian heartland, arriving near Ulaanbaatar—Mongolia's capital city—sometime around midday on the third day of his travels. Magically exhausted from his trip and still wearing his shirt around his head, he scarfed down the last of the food he'd packed and stretched out on the luscious grass.

Grassland stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, broken up by the occasional mountain. There was zero cover and anyone within fifty miles would be able to see him. On the other hand, there were so few people here, and the country so vast, the chance of being happened upon by someone who cared, was tiny.

Several hours of kip later and Harry moved on.

After another few hours of apparating southwest, he finally arrived at his destination, the Ongiin Khiid Monastery complex, the centre of the Mongolian magical community. When the communists took over the country in the 1920s, they'd destroyed most of the Buddhist temples throughout the country, and now most of them were little more than ruins.

While the muggle population of Ongiin Khiid had been slaughtered or forced to serve in the communist army, the magical community had hunkered down behind their powerful wards. After the initial destruction, they'd gradually taken back the complex, rebuilding and warding it until the entire area was bristling with muggle repelling and illusion wards. To any muggle walking by, it now looked just like any other ruined temple complex.

Harry walked through the gates and beheld the grandeur of the Tibetan architecture — row after row of houses and temples, all with the same distinctive white stone wall and square, curved, sloping roofs. While Diagon alley looked like a stroll down a history timeline, Ongiin Khiid looked like a uniform shopping street designed by an architect with a fetish for old-green copper and spruce.

With the exception of one building of course.

Harry ambled down the street and turned to face a building that looked like a melting roman temple. Gringotts.

Knowing the goblins would react unfavourably to disguises, Harry unwound his make-shift shirt-mask from his head, slipped it back over his chest, and walked past the guards, up into the bank.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

Ten minutes later, Harry exited the bank with five galleons exchanged from 250 pounds — the results of his morning and afternoon of summoning training on the London underground.

The goblin serving him had certainly raised his eyebrows at serving a lone, clearly western, English accented child, but hadn't asked questions. Merlin he loved goblins.

Harry continued to walk down the street until he found what he was looking for — a small shop with a thestral tied up outside, eating noisily from a bucket of unidentified meats.

The shop contained everything thestral. Cured thestral meat hung along the rafters, thestral bones aligned the walls, bottles of thestral glue stood next to bars of thestral soap. The floor along the wall was lined with thestral shell cordovan boots.

And next to the counter, pride of place was given to a wooden mannequin wearing a black, full-length, duster style thestral shell cordovan coat with a robe style hood. It looked amazing and Harry knew he wanted it. It truly was a coat deserving of being worn by Death's champion. He sauntered up to the work of art, and nonchalantly flipped the price tag. Two hundred galleons (£10,000). Ouch.

"Би эрхэм тусалж чадах уу?" a voice said.

Harry turned to see an old man standing in the doorway.

"Sorry?"

The man looked a little surprised at Harry's western features, but quickly rallied. "Can I help, Sir?"

"Yes, I'm looking for thestral tail hair."

The man smiled. "You cannot see it?"

Harry gave him a look. "I cannot see it because it is not on display."

"Ah, well done, Sir. But I am surprised to see one so young who has seen death."

Harry shrugged. If old man only knew.

"How much you want?"

"Ten strands — in a wand core braid."

The shopkeeper suddenly looked cautious. "You want for wand core."

"Is that a problem?"

"Where you go after here?"

"Back home to Europe."

The man was silent few a few moments.

"Okay. But you did not buy from here, right?"

"Sure, I understand."

Five minutes and two galleons later, Harry pocketed a long wrap of thestral hair cord and a small bottle of thestral glue (£100).

"And for another two galleons, I'd like to reserve that coat for a year," Harry said, pointing at the breathtaking black duster on the mannequin."

The shopkeeper grinned. "You like it."

"Yes, but I cannot buy it just now."

"Okay. I can do that, Mister…?"

Harry scrabbled for an appropriate name. "Death." Dammit!

The man raised a single eyebrow. "Okay then, Mister Death. I hope to see you again for your purchase… but only for that, of course."

Harry left, berating himself for his dumbass name choice, and decided to get a room to rest his core before the long-as-hell apparition trip back home.

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

And now, after three whole weeks back in the past, here it was.

Harry reverently opened the wooden box, which the muggle war-veteran carpenter and wood carver had made to go with the wand, and, eyes shining, gazed upon a thing of beauty.

The handle was ornate and featured many little discrete motifs of Harry's own design along the hilt, which curved down in a graceful arc to the wand proper, before spiralling all the way down to the wand's point, like a wrought iron twisted fence.

Harry spied, among the hilt motifs facing him, a tiny lighting bolt killing a snake, and another striking a goat. The handle itself was textured in an interlocking lightning bolt pattern and the pommel was perfectly round and used the wood's swirling grain to suggest a smoke filled orb.

It was perfect.

"Yep, some of my best work that," the craftsman said, noting the look of extreme delight on Harry's face. "Still say it's a mighty weird request, and some of the materials you wanted… well, I've never seen anything like that glue ever. I'd swear there wasn't even a visible join between the middle and the tip. And that cord… my friend insisted he couldn't even see it! But in the end, I figured you certainly knew what you wanted and was willing to pay for it, eh, Young Man?"

"Yes…" Harry said, only half listening, distracted by his own internal musings. "It is strange like that."

He reached for the wand and felt the connection before his digits even touched it. As his finger tips wrapped around the handle, warmth shot through him, quickly building into a crescendo, pulsing power down his arm and through the wand, sending emerald green sparks up and all over the wood shop counter.

"Bloody hell!" The man shouted. "What was that?"

"Magic."

The man stared. "Huh. Whad'ja know. And my wife's always going on about horoscopes and psychic readings, and all that. Figures there would be something to it all."

"Yes. You've really done an excellent job. This has got to be the only muggle made wand in the country, if not the world. And it looks and feels better than any I've seen or felt."

"Err… Thank you, I think?"

Harry casually fingered the wand's tip before pointing it at the master craftsman.

"Obliviate."

— DP & SW: RiBSR —

Harry stepped outside the woodwork shop and spent a good twenty minutes throwing up a casual detection ward to alert him if any other wizards gained entry. There wasn't much magic around, so it wouldn't last long, but it would do the job for now. He felt he owed a tiny bit of protection to the man for such good work, and who knows, he may have need of him in the future. That, and it would give him early warning if someone managed to somehow trace his wand's origins.

Wow it felt good. His old holly and phoenix feather wand hadn't felt half as natural, or as powerful, as this one did. And there he'd been, thinking this wand was just going to be a rough and ready stopgap measure. Hah! All that, 'wand chooses the wizard,' dragon crap… turns out the wizard just needs to really know himself.

And now that he had a wand, he could attack his next greatest vulnerability, his rather empty and nonexistent vaults.

— End of Chapter Two —