I know. I'm coming up with another story even though I haven't finished my others. This one's just been bugging me, though! I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 today and was really hit with the writing bug so here we go!

Basically, this story takes everything for the first seventeen years (or the entire series) as canon. From Deathly Hallows, however, I'll be taking liberties. What liberties these are you guys won't see until the story advances. Interested? Sure hope so! 'Cause this is going to be a wild ride!

Drop a REVIEW and let me know what you think!

Summary: Something went very wrong that Dumbledore never planned for. After only a year of peace, Voldemort came back to power. Now, eleven bloody years later, Harry Potter makes a critical choice that lands him in a position that he could only have dreamed of: to do it over once again, and make it right.

Chapter 1: Prologue

The tinge of strong magic crackled through the air, burning the oxygen and filling the vast room with the distinct smell of ozone. Flashes of red, yellow, and green light sparked through a doorway before a figure tumbled through it. It rolled to the side and slammed the door shut with a wave of a stick.

"Severus!" the figure hissed, creeping alongside the wall. "Severus!"

A different voice spoke from across the room. "Over here!"

The wizard who had called for Severus made it across the room in two seconds, coming to a stop by his tall companion. Grimly, twenty-nine year old Harry James Potter, the renowned Boy Who Lived and Chosen One, locked eyes with fifty-year-old Severus Snape. The younger wizard had a mess of black hair that was slightly streaked with gray; his emerald green eyes were shielded behind glasses and glinted with determination. His face was littered with small scars. His black robes were torn, bloodied, and all-around ragged.

The elder wizard's lanky hair framed his face and was more gray than black; his face was sallow, lined, scarred, and showed weariness beyond his years. His obsidian eyes glittered in the dim light of the room, contrasting sharply with the green light of his younger companion. He no longer wore robes as they had been set on fire earlier but instead the clothes that had been on underneath, namely black form-fitting pants and a button-up, high-collared, and long-sleeved shirt.

The two had no time to further converse, however, as the doors leading into the room they were in began to rattle loudly.

Cursing, Severus turned back to the door he had entered through and warded it. "Did you ward your door?"

"They won't get through it easily," was all Harry said, vivid green eyes flicking towards it. "We should have ten minutes until he's here."

The two powerful wizards were currently in the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic. The room they were in was dark, cold, and filled with curious odd artifacts that neither of them wished to touch. The Unspeakables of the department surely had a reason for them being in this room and neither wished to find out why.

There was another loud crash from outside the room and both wizards snapped their wands in the direction of the sound. Harry gave his a flick and a dozen different objects piled in front of the door he had entered through earlier. Then he stepped to the door Severus had warded earlier and pressed a hand to it.

After a moment, he gave the older wizard a nod and dropped the ward, opening the door. The two stepped through to find themselves in a large circular room with a dozen other doors. They were back at the beginning.

Harry gave his wand another flick and the door that had just closed behind them glowed red before returning back to normal. That taken care of, they stepped forward only to find a different door on the far end suddenly blast open with a bright white light.

Instantly putting up a shield, Harry yanked open another door and grabbed Severus by the hem of his shirt, pulling both of them inside before shutting the door behind them. "Bloody hell!" he swore, jabbing his wand in the direction of the door and placing a strong ward on it.

"Careful, Harry." Severus placed a pale hand on his companion's. "Save your strength for the fight later."

Harry smiled bitterly. "Not much good if I can't kill him, is it? Remind me again why I let you convince me this was a good idea?"

"Because against all odds, you trust me and thus my judgment," Severus replied smoothly. "Now, you understand what must be done?"

Harry's lips thinned and his eyes became steely. "It's what's been happening the last twelve years," he said shortly. "But now we're actually doing something else."

They didn't immediately react as the door on the other side of the room slammed open. It was when a figure tottered around the side of a bookshelf that Severus struck, unleashing a torrent of flame from his black wand. The fire formed a massive dragon, setting the bookshelf and the shrieking figure on flames before Severus canceled the curse, sucking the flames back into his wand.

Harry didn't acknowledge the motion except to dash through the burned section, leaping over the pile of ashes that had previously been a Death Eater to make his way to the other side of the room. Severus was on his heels after casting another spell to knock the bookshelves down and make it harder for anyone to follow them.

The two were almost there when the entire atmosphere around them shifted. Harry noticed it first, his muscles tensing before he forced them to relax. As he did, though, his movements became more fluid as he shifted to a more battle-ready mode than what he had been in earlier. For his part, Severus simply stepped closer to Harry and made sure his wand wouldn't be leaving him anytime soon.

"He's here," Harry noted softly.

The entire floor trembled beneath their feet and they held onto each other for balance. The air around them seemed to give a silent reverberation and Harry's ears rang with a sound that was too loud for him to hear.

"Blast," Severus hissed, face paling even further. "They've knocked the walls down. It would seem he no longer cares for the state of affairs of his beloved ministry."

"Severus—"

He gripped Harry by the front of his robes with one hand. "You will live, Harry, you understand?"

Harry's eyes flashed. "It's just us two!" he shot back furiously. "What else is there to live for? We went on this suicide mission because of that! Or did you forget?"

"I have lived for much longer than I ever could have anticipated, Harry," Severus said rapidly, his entire stance tense. "But this entire war hinges on you."

"And I did such a bang-up job of it the first time," Harry said bitterly, taking Severus's hand off to clutch the wrist. "What are you planning on doing?"

Severus didn't answer, instead channeling a large amount of magic through his wand and aiming it towards the wall. "Reducto!" The white blast blew a large hole in the obstruction and the former Hogwarts professor shoved a protesting Harry through it. "Remember, Harry."

Harry leapt forward with a cry. "Severus!" But he was too late as his former mentor sealed the wall up with a hasty Reparo. He hit the newly repaired wall with a fist, mentally cursing whatever deity had given Severus such a bloody streak of stubbornness.

"What good is surviving this bloody war if everyone's dead?" he muttered, stepping away from the wall. His eleven-inch holly and phoenix-feather wand was clutched tightly in his hand as he turned to face the room Severus had thrown him into. He inhaled sharply as he recognized the cursed room from his fifth year: the one that possessed the veil.

Carefully approaching the dais in the middle of the room, Harry spun around in a slow circle to take into account what the room had been used for in the last eleven years. He swallowed as he looked up at the ticking clock in the room, which read 11:50 P.M. It would soon be his thirtieth birthday, making it twelve years since the madness that was Lord Voldemort had been once again inflicted on the magical world.

Everything happened on his birthday. Everything except the last time he had killed the evil wizard and the first time he had vanquished the madman. The first time had been on Halloween and the last time had been on May 2, 1998. Now, twelve years later, he was still fighting the Madman-That-Should-Have-Bloody-Well-Died-By-Now.

Something had gone wrong. When Dumbledore had told him about the seven Horcruxes to destroy, Harry had thought that the end of the matter. But after killing Voldemort May 2nd and then finding out that the evil wizard had somehow come back to life a year later on July 31st – his birthday no less – Harry knew something had gone dreadfully wrong. The venerable headmaster had overlooked some critical fact that let Voldemort once again rise to power.

And not once in eleven – soon to be twelve – years had Harry or his friends found a way to destroy the evil bastard.

Severus had tried his best to help, but his knowledge of the Dark Arts was far surpassed by that of the Dark Lord's. In truth, he should have died that night in the Shrieking Shack but something had interfered. Harry had publicly hypothesized that the taking of Severus's memories and the fact that he'd had the Resurrection Stone literally in his pocket (albeit in a Snitch) had kept Severus alive long enough so that by the time they came back to claim his body, he was still alive. Privately, he was of the opinion that being Master of Death had its uses, amongst which was keeping people alive if it was remotely possible.

Yet nothing had saved him from the carnage of the last eleven years. The Wizarding World had been at war for these long years and Voldemort was winning.

Winning and currently standing right outside this room if his senses were accurate.

"You'd better not be dead, Severus," Harry muttered, even though his former mentor was most likely dead by now.

Jumping down from the dais, Harry dove for the cover of a bench just as the door leading to the room blasted open, showering the area with debris.

A soft voice snaked its way into the air, sending chills down the wizard's back. "Harryyy… I know you're here. Wherever Severus is you aren't far behind…"

Harry remained still, keeping his breathing quiet and his magic tightly reined in. He couldn't afford to make any mistakes until he was absolutely sure of his odds. Chances were that he was dead anyway but he could still go down fighting.

A chuckle rent the air. "Don't you want to see your beloved mentor one last time?"

This time he couldn't stop the flinch that ran through his body. Severus was still alive?

Soft footsteps sounded on the stones and Harry wordlessly Disillusioned himself, sneaking back as he did. When he'd reached the end of the bench, he silently stood up, wand in hand. His heart skipped a beat as he saw the man that Voldemort was levitating in front of him.

The demon was robed in black, his snakelike red eyes glittering with malice. His white skin contrasted sharply with his robes and blended with the wand he held, a new one he had made since discarding the yew and phoenix-feather that was brother to Harry's. It was still yew, but the core was from a basilisk's heartstring.

"He's waiting for you, Harry," Voldemort called, his voice resonating with happiness. "He's waiting to see you one last time."

Harry turned his head to see the Death Eaters that had entered the room behind their master. They circled the room from above, black cloaks fluttering and pale dead faces blanched in the torchlight. Ha. Voldemort had already made one thing easier for Harry to solve.

Severus was motionless before Voldemort and suspended like a ragdoll. His wand was gone and his body seemed immaculate, although Harry knew he'd probably been cursed multiple times before Voldemort had taken him in.

"Don't feel like showing yourself, Harry?" Voldemort curved his lips in a sneer, pointing his wand directly at Severus's body. "Perhaps you need some incentive? Reducto." The curse was at low power and hit Severus directly in the leg.

A low hiss was the only sound that showed that the man felt any pain from the bones in his leg all shattering.

Harry had to clamp his jaws together to stop himself from screaming. Not now…

Voldemort let lose a low chuckle and cheerfully hit Severus with a Bone-Breaking Curse, shattering the bones in his arms and other leg. "Still not presenting yourself, Harry? Perhaps you need some more…incentive."

Before Harry could blink, Voldemort had slashed Severus's chest open with a Dark curse. Blood spurted out and splashed against Voldemort's robes. The Dark Lord simply smiled in rapture as he watched his former servant gasp in pain.

And that was it. Harry could no longer watch and stand back to see his friend and mentor be tortured to death. Snapping his wand around in a circle above his head, he summoned a torrent of Fiendfyre that blocked the Death Eaters from approaching. It settled itself in a ring directly at the top, crackling and burning with Dark Magic. At the same time, Harry dropped the Disillusionment spell, sprinting towards Voldemort and Severus.

Voldemort simply widened his grin and locked eyes with Harry as he pointed his wand directly towards Severus, whispering one of the curses that had caused both Harry and Severus to be feared amongst Death Eaters. "Sectumsempra." He accompanied this with a rapid slashing motion of his wand, Severus's body literally torn apart with the sheer force of the magic behind the curse.

"SEVERUS!" Harry screamed, hand outstretched as if he could stop the curse from hitting his friend, mentor, and one of the last surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix.

Voldemort simply smiled at Harry's obvious pain. "Too late, Harry?"

Harry snapped. His nonchalant tone, the last eleven years of pain, the deaths of his friends, and now the death of his mentor and most trusted friend was the last straw. With an inarticulate roar of rage, Harry hurled curse after curse at the most feared Dark Lord in history. Voldemort wasn't laughing any longer, having to hold off the extremely skilled and extremely mad wizard that was matching him spell for spell and curse for curse.

"Not so confident anymore, are you, Tom?" Harry seethed, eyes blazing with power as he shot an Incendio that was blocked by Aguamenti. "No. You're nothing but a coward!" He punctuated this statement with a Blasting Curse that hit the ground at Voldemort's feet, pushing him back.

The Death Eaters at the top clamored for their lord but were unable to breach the Fiendfyre that was still crackling before them. Thus, they could only watch as Harry came closer and closer to Voldemort, pushing him against the dais and the veil that was fluttering behind him.

"Now, Harry, you know you can't kill me," Voldemort said, shielding against three successive curses. He launched the Killing Curse at Harry, but was blocked as Harry conjured a large block of stone that shattered upon impact. His red eyes widened as Harry was suddenly directly before him, having used the distraction to cross the last few feet.

"You want to bet on that, Tom?" Harry smirked and launched himself directly at Voldemort, snarling a "Reducto!" just as he hit the Dark Lord. The curse tore through the wizard's chest and threw him backwards into the side of the veil. The added momentum of Harry knocked him aside and through the fluttering cloth, just as Sirius Black had fallen through fourteen years earlier.

But Voldemort wasn't the only one. Unable to stop his momentum, Harry found himself plunging into the abyss as well and into endless darkness.

The last thing he heard were the ringing chimes of the clock in the Department of Mysteries spelling out midnight on July 31st, 2010.

So? Thoughts? I'm not going to make this story a priority on my list. But since it's out there, I want to hear some feedback. :)