An unknown time, in an unknown place

The last thing He remembered was Voldemort's wand flying through the air as Tom Riddle fell to his own killing curse. This is what was going through Harry Potter's mind as he found himself waking up in a seemingly blinding expanse of white. Feeling the best he had in years, Harry slowly made his way to his feet and looked around. Finding nothing but light all around him, even the floor seemed to be made of solid light, a large unlabeled door suddenly materialized into view. After looking himself over to find he was clothed in simple all white clothing and seeing no better course of action, Harry approached the door and knocked.

"Enter." Responded a loud, clear, and ethereal voice with just the slightest hint of confusion.

Upon crossing the threshold of the door, Harry found himself inside and moderately sized and very organized room. It looked much like an office of an elite muggle businessman with many filing cabinets and shelves with what seemed to be in and outboxes for documents. The man in the room though, was anything but ordinary. He could be described perfectly in one word. Timeless. He was dressed in the finest black robes and possessed an aura and figure that demanded respect but was not overly intimidating. His face was nothing if not handsome. With a sharply cut jaw line and well shaped nose, along with the pure white hair that looked out of place on someone who seemed to be in the prime of their life, it was almost impossible to keep your eyes off of him. But that was what did it. The eyes. Piercing solid white with the barest outline of black around where his iris and pupil should be on each. They seemed to peer into the very soul of a person and hold all the knowledge in the world.

"You're not supposed to be here." Said the man with a slightly wary tone.

"Well where exactly is here?" Harry asked, the confusion evident in his voice. "And who are you, if I may ask"

"Ah yes," He began, realizing some basic information would be required before they could get into the more complicated matters. "You are in the afterlife, more precisely in your case, the place before the afterlife. As for who I am, you may call me Felix. I am the right hand of Death and Fate, and as of recently your liaison with those great forces of the world."

Of all the things Harry was expecting, this certainly was not it. Questions began to flood his mind but out of all of them one stood out above the rest.

"Why?" Harry breathed out as he fell back into chair that came into existence seeming to know that he was falling.

"Would you care to elaborate some"

"Why am I here?" Harry asked after taking a moment to center himself. Then it hit him. More precisely, it had hit him. A flash of green light. The killing curse that had killed Voldemort had somehow also killed Harry. The recognition flashing through his eyes brought a response from Felix.

"I see that you have realized what happened. We only just received the information a moment before you asked, hence why I was not expecting you. Now that we're on the same page so to speak, we have a few options as to what to do next." Felix responded in a now more calm and aware voice. While Harry had been dealing with the revelation of where he was, Felix had been discussing what had occurred and the appropriate course of action at an inhuman speed and had decided upon several suitable choices for the young man he was dealing with. Of course, Harry was completely unaware of any of this as the conversation occurred mentally.

"Alright, what would they be." Harry said slowly, taken aback by having choices after a life of being controlled so rigidly by almost everyone around him.

"First thing you need to know is that this is not something that very rarely happens, so I would advise that you take all of your options very seriously." Felix began as he reached behind him and pulled a file down off of a shelve leaving it empty, being the only place in the whole room where a file was by itself. Upon placing it on the table, opening it, and removing to very official looking documents, he resumed his speech. "This partly due to the fact that you became 'Death's Champion' upon reuniting your ancestors' gifts. Though from what I understand you would be given a chance similar to this if you had not achieved this, seeing as you are 'The Child of Destiny'. It may sound silly but we enjoy giving out monikers. It makes the ages pass somewhat faster when there are interesting people to keep track of.

But back to your options. The original plan for you in the event of an early death was to either allow you to simply pass on, or go back. No harm done there really just quick and easy and get on with everything as it was. However, seeing as you became 'Death's Champion' it makes things a bit more complicated. After reviewing the circumstances of how you came to be here as well as the possible outcomes of both you passing on, and you going back. We, that is Death, Fate, and myself, have decided upon a third option." Upon saying this Felix removed a third document from the file.

"And what would that option be." Harry inquired while indicating the equally official but noticeably larger document.

"This" Felix said while waving the document slightly, "is perhaps the single greatest compromise that Death and Fate have ever come to. It is very rare that they come to an agreement that allows humans to directly change the world using our knowledge and never before to this extent. This is their solution to what caused so much trouble in life of you and so many others. To go back and end things for real the first time. I'm afraid that I can't give you any more details without your commitment to that option. This being because your window for the original option of returning to your life is closing shortly. You have approximately five minutes and then I will an answer."

But Harry didn't need even one minute. He had already decided. "I'll do it."

"Are you sure about this." Felix questioned regarding how fast his response had been.

"Quite," Harry answered resolutely. "There's nothing that would be worth me going back for. Those who truly cared for me have already died, and my surrogate family is broken even if they truly cared for me in the first place. If I return I won't be able to make the difference to the world that I should. If I can do more this way then it's for the best."

"Alright, let's get to it then!" Felix exclaimed enthusiastically. "Here's what you'll be doing. You will be sent back to 1980. With all of the knowledge and power that you have now in order to complete your task before Voldemort casts the killing curse on you after killing your parents. Unfortunately that attack must take place or Voldemort will succeed in taking over wizarding Britain. This being because without your mother's sacrifice to save your life, Voldemort would have survived that night and if he attacked without your parents being present then you would die and he would live. Certain events regarding that night must occur exactly as they did the first time. However we are not so cruel as to condemn you to a live without a family as you have already experienced. This is why you will go back a year before the attack so that you will have time to make the changes that need to be done."

Harry felt a bit conflicted about this. Sure he would be dealing with Voldemort much earlier than he had in this life, but he would still be losing his parents. Of course he didn't really have a choice anymore at this point. Though Harry also realized that the Harry Potter that grew up after this would not be the same as he was. There also seemed to be some sort of plan for raising this new Harry properly. This comforted him and served to increase his conviction for whatever he would be doing.

"What exactly must I do?" Harry inquired, now truly realizing that it would be for the best. Not just for him but for many others. "I assume I will have to destroy all of the horcruxes before that night."

"Yes, but that's not all that is required." Felix began, before getting onto what would undoubtedly have the largest impact of Harry's new life. "There are a few things that must be done in order to allow the new Harry to live the life that you should have had, had certain parties not interfered or made rash decisions."

Harry grinned slightly at this as he recalled Sirius' tendency to act without thinking, something that he had a habit of doing often as well. "And what exactly will these things give me."

"A family Harry." His counterpart said knowing exactly what kind of reaction this would have on the young man he was speaking to.

Harry's eyes widened at this. He was expecting it of course but hearing it confirmed to him was as if all of his abusive childhood was instantly washed away as he realized he could give himself exactly that. "Well then let's get on with it." Harry spoke with an almost manic look in his eyes.

"Well as you said, finding and destroying the horcruxes is part of what you need to do, but knowing what and where they are may very well make that the easiest thing that you have to do." Felix intoned in an effort to sound mysterious. "As for everything else…"

Godric's Hollow, October 31st, 1981

Harry had the strangest feeling as he watched through the window of the Potter home from across the street. Part of it was because he knew where the house was despite the fidelius charm due to the knowledge that had been given to him. But it was almost as if he was in the room playing with his parents as well but he knew that he wasn't, and nobody would ever know this Harry Potter either. He had made sure of that. After a year of perfect planning, the circumstances surrounding this night had been changed in such a way that the Harry Potter that survived would have the family that he so desperately deserved. With only two steps left in his year long mission, Harry took a moment to look back on all he had done before Voldemort arrived, as Harry knew he surely would.

Gathering the horcruxes wasn't exactly that hard and Felix was probably right in that it most likely was the part of what Harry had to do. Only two of them had truly been difficult, the locket and the diary. This being because they were kept, whether knowingly or unknowingly, and therefore would require more work than the others. Surprisingly though the diary hadn't been all that hard as Harry had found Lucius Malfoy to woefully ignorant as to what the diary actually was and therefore did not keep as well protected as it should have been. It was really only a simple matter of using glamour charms on himself in order to arrange a meeting with Lucius while not being thought to look anything like James Potter. Then finding and retrieving the diary after besting Lucius in a duel and obliviating him in order to think that it was simply a meeting with a potential business partner and that things had gone awry. Altogether not too difficult but all of the formalities and pleasantries involved with arranging the meeting with pureblood lord was far too tedious for Harry's liking. Especially since this was something that he had very little to no knowledge of in any capacity.

Even worse was what Harry had to go through in order to get into Grimmauld Place. The many letters exchanged with Walburga Black had disgusted him as he had to play the part of the arrogant pureblood looking to ally himself with the house of Black and help support Voldemort. Again the pureblood formalities were hard for Harry to follow and at times he worried about almost having messed up the smallest action and ruined all of his hard work. At least when he had dealt with Lucius it was far more manageable as he was only acting as a businessman and did not need to follow every custom and be aware of every aspect of society. Here though, it never seemed to end as the time that had led up to a meeting at Grimmauld became more and more tense as Harry was sure Walburga Black was having his public moves observed. Of course once he did manage to get inside of the ancestral home of the Blacks it was a simple matter of sleight-of-hand to swipe the locket during a tour of the house that he was graciously given. He may have had to stun a certain house elf for a moment but that was not of huge importance.

The diadem was by far the easiest to obtain as he knew of all of the secret passages into and out of the school. All it took was two trips through the Honeydukes cellar during the dead of night, with a stop in the room of requirement separating the two, and then that one was dealt with. The ring took some amount of work as there was complex and deadly wards around the Gaunt shack, but thanks to the powers that be Harry was met with no problems while getting to the ring. Harry made sure not to put the ring on knowing about the curse which lay upon it. Despite his misgivings, Harry made sure to use the killing curse to get rid of the horcrux so as to avoid the possible destruction of the stone. Although the 'new' Harry may not come to possess the stone, Harry didn't want to risk destroying such a magical artifact.

The cup was an… interesting ordeal to take care of to say the least. Harry knew that he wouldn't be able to actually go into the bank because they would know that he was under a glamour charm if he did. So hoping for the best, before trying to devise a plan to break into Gringotts for the second (first?) time, Harry simply sent a letter to the bank informing them that he had reason to believe that there was an item of an extremely dark nature residing in the LeStrange vault. Knowing that it was a long shot, Harry was surprised to hear back from Gringotts that they had investigated his claims and taken care of the horcrux which was Hufflepuff's cup. The goblins had also informed him that had his claims been false that he would be tracked down and killed, despite his not providing a name or location.

After obtaining and destroying all of the horcruxes Harry's work became a little bit more complicated. There were events which he needed to manipulate in such a way that they would not have a major impact on anything else that was not meant to be changed. Of course it helped that Death and Fate themselves had provided with the exact details of what needed to be done, where it was supposed to be done, when it had to be done, and how to do it. For instance the ward that Harry had just placed around the Potter house in Godric's Hollow was specifically designed by Death so that when Voldemort died that anyone bearing the dark mark would also die. It was something to do with the ward manipulating the arithmancy of the modified protean charm that created the dark mark. Harry didn't quite understand how it worked but knew how to cast it and Death had assured him that it would work properly. The main reason for doing this was because it was the simplest way to get rid of Pettigrew without making it seem like he had been targeted. This would help to make sure that Sirius would not be falsely arrested.

Thinking of Sirius brought Harry out of his thoughts and back to the present and after a quick check of his watch, released the owl that he had been waiting to send. This was one of the things that needed to be done at certain time so as to avoid unintended changes. The letter needed to be delivered at a certain time so that Sirius would not arrive too early and find James and Lily alive but also could not be too late where he would arrive after Dumbledore had already taken Harry away. The Letter also contained a few suggestions, more like instructions, as to things that would need to be done after Sirius had Harry. Some were far more important than others but Harry suspected that everything would turn out well considering that Fate had written the letter.

The next half hour until Voldemort arrived passed idly by as Harry lost himself in musings of what the life of the new Harry would turn out like. Not that he would ever know because he wouldn't be around to know about anything that happened past this night. When Harry finally heard the tell-tale pop of apparation he snapped to attention and saw his long time enemy standing in the middle of the street outside of the Potter House. Oh how he wished he could just go kill the man himself. Of course Harry knew that wouldn't solve any of his problems. That's why Harry had to watch and listen as his parents were murdered in front of him and could not act. He simply pressed the tip of his wand against the cover of the diary and counted down the seconds.

"Good luck little one," Harry wished before two voices incanted the same curse in unison. "Avada kedavra!"

AN- This is my first story here and I welcome any and all advice and criticism. I cannot make any guarantee on when updates will occur as I have a fairly busy schedule as well as another story that I am working on. I will do my best to update soon

I decided to post this first chapter to gauge interest in my story. I will be continuing with it regardless of the public opinion but I hope that others appreciate it as well. I have enjoyed reading what this community has to offer and wanted to take the chance to add to the many wonderful stories here.