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Voldemort should not be here. He’s supposed to be back in Malfoy Manor, patiently waiting for his Death Eaters to return with the prophecy. But Merlin forbid Lucius do a single thing right, so here Voldemort is, some hundred years in the future with not a follower left to his name, not a galleon in his bank account, nor prophecy in hand.
What he does have is a faulty time turner, his wits, and his magic.
He will rise above his circumstances, as he always has and always will.
~~~~~~~
He finds that his little accident in the Department of Mysteries’ Time Room had left a fragment of himself behind. That fragment had gone on to take control of the wizarding world for a blink of history’s eye, then been swiftly murdered by his brat of a nemesis with the supposed power of love. Again.
This defeat had been widely publicized, and Voldemort’s reputation is in shambles. He considers building himself a new identity, but a week in his dubiously acquired Knockturn flat quickly dissuades him of the notion. It would take far too long to do so, and far too much hardship. He can enchant the flat as much as he likes to provide himself the illusion of his past success, but that’s all it is: an illusion.
No, if Voldemort is to reclaim his name and reputation, he must destroy the root of his ruin: Harry Potter. He modifies the time turner for his own use and commences his plan. He’ll be careful this time. He won’t rely on his Death Eaters like his past self had. Unlike the fragment of himself he had left behind, he won’t underestimate Potter.
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
~~~~~~~
The time turner, with its dented metal and cracked glass, doesn’t work like a normal time turner. Voldemort can mark one day and one day only to return to, but despite this limitation, he wouldn’t have it any other way. With this time turner, he’ll never create a paradox. He has as long as he needs to create the perfect day.
He chooses Harry Potter Day, the annual celebration of his death.
Glamoured to look like himself in his youth, Voldemort watches as Potter addresses the crowd with a pleasant smile. Though no longer a boy, Potter, wild-haired and athletic, appears to be no older than forty, a stark contrast to the two grandchildren standing behind him. Now those two, weathered and gray-haired, look their age.
Their parents, Voldemort has learned, have already passed, as have Potter’s little sidekicks, Weasley and Granger. Voldemort wonders what manner of magics Potter has delved into to have maintained his youth thus far.
He will find out soon enough, he’s sure.
“It wasn’t really me who defeated Tom Riddle,” says Potter, and old as he is, thinks Voldemort, he’s still a brat.
“It was everyone,” Potter continues. “Your grandparents, your great-grandparents, friends and strangers alike—everyone standing together for what’s right. They did that. I have all the faith in the world that you can do that, too.” Potter takes a deep breath. “And that’s why I feel confident enough to say that when I retire from Britain today, I’ll be leaving you in very capable hands: your own.”
The crowd bursts with questions, but Potter answers none of them. He leaves with nothing but a “no comment,” and apparates back home as soon as he exits the stage.
Voldemort, of course, already knows where he lives, and apparates a safe distance away to observe as Potter packs up his entire house and vanishes into the night.
Well , thinks Voldemort, that simply won’t do .
~~~~~~~
“It wasn’t really me who defeated Tom Riddle,” says Potter.
Having worked his way through the anti-apparation wards an hour earlier, Voldemort apparates on stage and says, “No, it wasn’t. Avada Kedavra. ”
Potter’s body topples to the platform with a thunk. The crowd stares, stunned.
“Granddad!” yells one of the old Potter men, and the world delves into chaos.
Voldemort handles it with aplomb—until a cry from a voice he knows all too well rings out. “ Expelli—”
Voldemort doesn’t wait for Potter to finish casting the spell. He turns back time.
~~~~~~~
“It wasn’t really me who defeated Tom Riddle,” says Potter.
Voldemort wordlessly slices off his head, which goes flying off into the crowd. People shriek and jolt away from where it lands as if it’s a bomb. “You!” someone cries before casting a vicious hex.
Voldemort deflects it easily and defeats the would-be heroes. He starts to deliver his speech. “My fellow wizards and witches, this need not be a blood bath. I have no desire to—”
“ Expelli—” shouts Potter, apparently alive and re-capitated.
~~~~~~~
“It wasn’t really me who defeated Tom Riddle,” says Potter.
Voldemort activates the hidden glyph under Potter’s feet, and the Man-Who-Lived explodes.
Only Voldemort remains untouched by the gore. He floats up to the stage and takes his place behind the podium. “No, it wasn’t,” says Voldemort with a placid smile.
The crowd panics. Voldemort fights, and Voldemort wins—
Until Harry bloody Potter rises from the entrails and casts, “ Expelli —”
~~~~~~~
This is getting out of hand, Voldemort thinks, as he runs Potter through with a Muggle sword. Muggle methods , honestly .
But nothing’s working. Nothing. Potter just. won’t. bloody. die.
Not a single spell Voldemort knows has worked. Poison in Potter’s food and drink hasn’t worked. Venom injected directly into his blood stream by a deadly viper hasn’t worked. Darkening the sky and loosing a horde of half-starved vampires on him hasn’t worked.
Fire? No. Lightning? No. Drowning? No. Suffocation? No. A hitman for hire? No.
Potter is apparently immortal. Voldemort needs to find out how.
It’s not Horcruxes, and it’s not the Philosopher’s Stone. Voldemort knows how those two methods work, and Potter is operating in an entirely different manner. Honestly, if Voldemort didn’t know better, he would suspect Potter of making some unholy deal with a being of old, but surely Potter with his precious morals would never do such a thing…, right?
Voldemort breaks into Potter’s home.
It’s a pathetic thing, really. Potter could live in any manor or castle he wanted, but instead Potter has settled himself back inside Grimmauld Place. Portraits of his friends and family lie about, some, like those of him alone with his two sidekicks, stuffed into corners facing the wall.
Dust covers most of the rooms, even all the beds. Only the sitting room sofa seems worn and well-used. The food on the shelves has been magically preserved, but there’s not much of it, and most of the shelves’ magic is stale. The air itself hangs heavy and still.
Perhaps Potter has another home he spends most of his time in, Voldemort considers, though he suspects otherwise. He had all too happily taken advantage of Potter’s more negative emotions last year. It seems to him as if little has changed, despite the passage of time.
“Who are you?” asks a voice from behind him.
Voldemort stills, surprised at himself for being caught off guard. He never would have expected Potter of being able to move so quietly. His mistake, perhaps. The boy had been an auror for some years, after all.
Voldemort reaches for the time turner.
“Don’t,” warns Potter. “Turn around slowly.”
Voldemort does. He may not be able to kill Potter, but Potter is entirely capable of killing him. Voldemort needs to be careful. “Sorry,” he says with a chagrined smile. He’s glamoured himself to look as he did in his 20s. Perhaps Potter will feel some paternal instinct toward this wayward youth in his home. “Didn’t think you’d catch me in the act.”
Potter blinks at him, wand wavering. “Tom?” he asks, sounding far more bewildered than afraid. It should be the inverse, Voldemort thinks, disgruntled.
Voldemort flicks his wand to disarm Potter, but Potter blocks the spell reflexively. “Yeah, that’s you,” says Potter, jaw squaring. “How did you get here?”
Voldemort considers his options. Potter doesn’t seem aggressive, and he had intended to do recon on this trip…. “Quid pro quo?” he asks, testing.
Harry considers him for a moment, his eyes sharp. He searches Voldemort’s face, as if seeking something, before he nods curtly.
“Time travel,” says Voldemort because this revelation won’t matter once Voldemort starts the day over. “How do you know who I am?” Voldemort had erased every piece of evidence and memory of his past. Potter, older and wiser or not, should have no clue what Tom Riddle used to look like.
“I know everything about you.” Potter says it like it’s true, like it should mean something. The audacity of the statement makes Voldemort bristle. “Why are you here, Tom?”
“If you know everything about me, then surely you know.”
Potter huffs, eyes flicking away and shoulders slumping. “You want to kill me.” He sighs with the weight of all his years, then, some decision made, meets Voldemort’s eyes with a little smile, of all things. “Well. Good luck with that. Want some tea?” He lowers his wand, turns his back on Voldemort, and walks into the kitchen.
Struck dumb for the first time in decades, Voldemort watches him go. No, I do not want tea , he almost says, but then he remembers what he came here for: information. “If you please,” he says, friendly as can be. It has been some time since he’s had to play the kind and civil angle, but he knows it well.
He follows Potter into the kitchen and watches quietly while the man prepares a pot. Potter moves habitually, his mind elsewhere. He seems to care not a whit about the red eyes tracking his every movement, but he moves gracefully, like he could be ready to fight the moment the mood shifts. Key word: could . Voldemort gets the impression Potter doesn’t want to.
Potter now reminds him of Dumbledore, but without the arrogance Voldemort had always so despised.
Potter sets a teacup and saucer in front of Voldemort. He sits across from Voldemort with his own cup and watches intently as Voldemort prepares his tea, testing for poisons then levitating over the cream and sugar.
“I had a strange dream last night,” Potter says, apropros of nothing. “I’m supposed to give a speech later today, and you killed me during it. Well, tried to kill me.”
“...Was that a question?”
Potter shrugs and takes a sip of his tea. “I think you still owe me a question, actually.”
Voldemort pretends to sip his tea. “Why can’t you die?”
“Of course,” Potter says, sounding resigned. He stares down at the table, eyes distant. “I don’t know,” he says. “Plenty of people have tried. I’ve even stopped stopping them recently….”
Voldemort, who has always been so desperate to live, cannot comprehend this. “You’ve allowed yourself to be killed,” he says in disbelief.
Harry grins, oddly soft and sad. He nods.
“Pathetic,” says Voldemort. This is the man who defeated him? This man who actively seeks his own death? This is the boy his past fragment had failed to be rid of? Allowed himself to be destroyed by? Preposterous .
Potter huffs. “You would say that.” He gives Voldemort a look. “I’m 182, Tom. I’ve lived a life—more than. I’ve seen the world change and refuse to change. I’ve seen my efforts succeed and fail. I’ve watched my children grow up.” His eyes flicker. “I’ve watched them die, too.” He swallows and leans back in his chair. Sighs. “I’m tired, Tom.”
He looks tired. He looks like he belongs here in this worn out house of dusty memories.
“Honestly, I was planning on killing myself today,” Potter admits softly.
Voldemort sits up. “‘Was’ planning?”
Potter sets his teacup down and leans forward as if to share some great secret. “Well, now I don’t want to,” he says. His eyes seem to spark as he grins. “Might need to stick around a while longer. Keep an eye on you.”
Voldemort sets down the teacup with an angry clink and stalks out, already pulling out the time turner. Potter lets him.
~~~~~~~
“It wasn’t really me who defeated Tom Riddle,” says Potter, and Voldemort lets him.
Potter vanishes, and Voldemort lets him.
~~~~~~~
Weeks pass, and Voldemort makes himself known to the world under an alias. Reappearing as himself after Potter’s disappearance would have made him look like a coward.
It goes well enough. Far too well, perhaps. Potter’s exit has shaken their world, and the people fall into line like an Abraxan under the whip.
“Well, now I don’t want to. ”
Wizards and witches have finally noticed the Muggles’ rapid advancements in technology over the last century, and they’re scared. Voldemort takes advantage of that fear.The purebloods buy into his promises, and the populace buys into his charm. It’s all too easy.
More time passes, and Voldemort sees the future laid out before him, everything he ever wanted within his grasp.
“Well, now I don’t want to .”
His future is empty. Winning , getting everything he’s ever wanted—it does not satisfy him.
The world slips its head under his yoke, and it’s still not enough.
“Well, now I don’t want to.”
He wants more.
“Well, now I don’t want to.”
He turns back time.