A.N. An annoying thing about writing is trying to string along planned events in a way that isn't boring as hell. A lot of this chapter is just trying to not make the story jump from important event to important event, trying to make it flow. I'm not particularly satisfied with it. So, there is a flashback/dream in this chapter. A cyber-cookie for those who recognise who past-Harry is influenced by. (He was going to be something like that, but then I saw the character and it clicked.) Also a lot of pointless alluding to Harry's past in this chapter. I'd appreciate it if people would tell me what they think of such an approach.

So next chapter should hold the off-screen arrival of Fate. It's irritating. I know how it will play out when the TSAB arrive, but getting to that point is something I'm not sure about, and I don't want to just skip to it.

He looked down at the pieces of paper in his hands. The representation seemed pretty good, better than anything he could accomplish. He sighed.

"Um, is something wrong? Are they no good?" the boy, Yuuno asked.

"Huh, no, these are great." He laid down the sheets of paper "These two" He gestured "are what are locking my ability to age and preventing me from using magic. I can probably counter them, they're modified standard versions the ministry back home uses, but the last one" He gestured at the final paper "Is way more complex. I recognise the style. It was definitely that bi-" he glanced at the two children across from him "woman who did it. It'll take years to counter this one, if I even can. She probably designed it specifically for me." He rubbed his face with his hands, sighing again.

"Umm" Nanoha raised a hand for some reason.

"What is it Nanoha? You don't need to raise your hand by the way"

"What does the last one do? You said about the other two so…"

"…It's the seal locking me as a girl." He said bluntly.

The children's eyes widened. "Then Harry-chan is?"

"Right, I'm not a kid and I'm not a girl." He said, lifting his teacup to his lips. He sighed at the warmth and the taste. With good tea, anything was bearable.

After that revelation was made, an awkward silence fell. No one was quite sure what to say.

Harry eventually broke the silence "So you've been a mage for about a week, Nanoha?"

"Right!" she smiled. "I'm still inexperienced, but I'm doing my best."

"Heh, you seem to be doing just fine. It took me more than a week to really get magic was real, let alone use it comfortably, and I was older than you are now." Harry said smiling at her.

She smiled back, launching into how she became a magical girl. Harry half listened to her, while conversing with the book in his head. Apparently the designs were completely unfamiliar to it. Harry wasn't particularly surprised, the book seemed to be familiar with the type of magic Nanoha was using, which seemed completely different from the magic he grew up with. A small part of him was curious about the difference. He had an idea, but he was more focused on freeing himself for now.

After Nanoha finished her story, she had to run off to the bathroom, leaving Harry alone with the boy, who interrupted his musings

"Harry-san, was it? Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead" Harry said, refocusing on the conversation.

"Leaving aside how the magic seems completely unfamiliar for now, you said that they were modified versions your 'ministry' used. I hope you forgive the question, but did that ministry use those on you?"

Harry eyed him for a moment, before sighing "a sharp one, aren't you? You're right. The ministry threw these on me."

"Then my next question, why did they do so? I won't allow anything that may be harmful to Nanoha"

Harry raised his hands "Whoa, easy. Nothing will happen to Nanoha." He paused thinking how to explain what had happened, preferably without lying, a resolution he had made to himself, years ago. "Something happened back on my world, a bunch of people died. I was on vacation when it happened, and the ministry asked me back to my home country to answer a few questions due to certain… reasons. They jumped me at the place I was staying, taking me prisoner. I woke up like this. I simply broke free. I detected an unfinished portal within the ministry building. It was something that the ministry definitely didn't make , so I broke further in, activated the portal and jumped through. I'm certain they couldn't have followed me."

"I see" the boy frowned, thinking over what he had said. "You did that without magic?"

Harry nodded "I have a… I think you would call it a device. Without magic I can't manifest it, but it can still do a few things."

"Yes, that makes sense. It would have to be an intelligent device to do something like that. Seeing something like that which has no link to the TSAB would certainly be interesting." He trailed off, talking softly enough that Harry couldn't hear. That suited him just fine, and he returned to his thoughts.

After Nanoha returned, the topic returned to the jewel seeds that they were trying to track down.

"So you have no way to track them until they show up?" He sighed, "What a pain. Reminds me of when I had to track down a few artefacts with no information to go on. It really is troublesome. If I can break these, I might be able to help with that at least." He said.

"Really!" Nanoha's eyes lit up in excitement.

Harry was forced to look away. The… hopefulness she was displaying reminded him of things he would rather forget. "Yeah, maybe".

The conversation dragged on for a short while, before Yuuno resumed his transformation so Nanoha could return home, after extracting a promise to see him at school.

After they left, Harry managed to hold on for a few moments before breaking out in a sweat and clutching at his chest. It was only natural. If there was a convenient magic which could stop ageing, then there would be no old people in the wizarding world. The seal that locked his ageing had consequences. He didn't know precisely what to expect, having not studied advanced magical theory and such, outside of a very specific field, but the repeating sharp pains probably were those side effects. They'd only started recently and, from the little he knew, it was amazing he'd gone so long without them starting.

It took several minutes for the pain to fade, and him to get his breathing back under control. He turned back to the documents Yuuno had produced. He had to get to work. He didn't know how much time he had left before he couldn't reverse the effects. It was likely that even if he lifted the seals, then at most he would age normally rather than revert to a proper age. He cursed. While he couldn't really blame Ron for hating him to this extent, it was because of his actions after all, Harry refused to let this kill him. He wouldn't die in such a pathetic manner.

He sat down at the table. He had to get to work. After wasting five years, he couldn't afford any delays.

The scene was a forest. It was dark, and shadows covered the world, the sole light being small blue flickering flames in the center of the clearing. There were three figures. One, a female, stood back from the other two. Another, a red haired male lay on his back, having been thrown down by the third, another male. This one stood over the male on the floor, giving off what could only be described as a menacing aura. It wore a white shirt, black trousers and a short sleeved robe that was somewhere between yellow and burnt gold, a hood covering most his face with shadows. His eyes, a bright green seemed to glow out of the shadows. Then there were several corpses littering the clearing, dressed in black robes with skull masks on their faces.

The figure turned his back. "What did you think was going to happen? That we'd run around, letting them do as they please? While they fuck with our mission? Fuck that! By killing those stupid fuckers we send a message, the same message they sent us last time! They can't catch us, they can't stop us! So long as they support the Dark Lord we will! Find! Them! And Fuck! Their! Shit! Up!" The words were punctuated by the figure stomping on one of the corpses.

The red haired man got to his feet, "You go too far! You're sinking to their level, no, worse than that! We're supposed to be the good guys! They were begging for mercy and you killed them anyway!"

The hooded figure sneered down at the red head.

"Try and remember this kid: This is war. Compassion? Forgiveness? Mercy? What do you think this is a tea party? You won't find any of those things here! Little boys that still piss themselves when shit starts to get real don't belong in something like that. Capiche?"

"Fuck you Harry! Fine then, come on Hermione, let's leave this stupid bastard. We'll do this without him." The red haired walked past the lone female, still half extending an arm to the hooded figure.

Harry spoke then "Go on Hermione. I know you disagree with the way I do things. I have no intention of carrying your dead weight with me."

The woman hesitated for a moment. Her expression couldn't be made out, but it didn't take a genius to figure out how she would respond to her best friend saying such words. Wordlessly she turned and rushed after the retreating figure of the other man.

The hooded figure said nothing watching them go.

"…"

It took a deep breath, "So, it's just me against the full might of the death eater run government. It's me, alone, against them." The figure grinned savagely, not registering the hollow feeling deep within himself, a hollowness so familiar that he blanked it out, as he had always done. "As it was always meant to be."

There was a knocking sound, making Harry wake with a start. He was sweating, breathing heavily. It took him a moment to register his surroundings, and he got to his feet unsteadily. 'It's been a while since I've dreamt of the past' he thought bitterly. He regretted how he had been back then. If he could change things… he shook his head. 'A useless thought'.

The knocking sound came again, louder this time, like it was banging against his skull. 'Uh, studying magic arrays like that always makes me feel messed up'. He looked around, noticing that he had been sleeping on the diagrams Yuuno had giving him, resting on the table. He walked over to the door, opening it. He cursed that he was too small to see the peep hole again. On the other side of the door was a worried looking Nanoha.

"Nanoha?" he questioned blearily "What's wrong?"

"Harry-chan hasn't been to school for three days, I was worried!" she said.

"Three days? But I started studying the seals right after you left" he protested "You're telling me it's been three days?" Even as he asked, the truth of her words presented itself with his rumbling stomach and dry throat.

"Excuse me" He interrupted whatever Nanoha was about to say "It seems I haven't eaten in three days. I really need to remedy that." He said, turning around and making his way to his kitchen.

Nanoha followed him in, waiting for him to finish rummaging through his cupboards before saying anything.

"Tch," He muttered, seeing he didn't have anything that could be called food in his cupboards. He'd have to steal some stuff soon, he thought bitterly.

Settling for a glass of water for now, he drank speedily. He still felt like shit, but it wasn't so bad.

"Um, did you make any progress with the spells?" Nanoha's voice came from behind him.

He glanced over at her, "Not really. They're both pretty simple but they're connected in a really annoying way. I'll have to smash both simultaneously or they'll both trigger a -" he paused, telling a kid about a kill switch may not be a great idea "an annoying side effect." He finished.

"I see." She said "Weren't you going to eat?" She asked.

"Unfortunately" he said drily "I don't have anything that can be called food left in my cupboards." He gestured to something that had been a loaf of bread a few days previous, but now could be mistaken for a biology experiment. "Anyway, what did you come here for then?"

"To see if you were alright of course" Nanoha said cheerfully.

"That's it?" he questioned. Seeing Nanoha's hurt expression he sighed "Sorry, I'm not used to this whole people caring about me thing. Anyway, you don't need to be concerned. I'm fine."

"Anyway, I brought hand-outs from the classes you missed." Nanoha said, taking said papers from her bag and handing them over.

He sighed. He looked at the hand-outs and sighed again. He 'really' hated having to deal with school. Especially since it was the same shit for the fifth year in a row. "Thanks." He said dully, taking the papers and putting them down on a free side. "I'll deal with those later" he said. Of course, 'deal with' probably meant 'throw away'.

It was irritating, having to go to school. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a pretty big problem where if he was caught outside during school time, people would make a fuss and he'd end up having to hypnotise people, squandering the meagre amount of magic he could call on. Of course, attending school caused problems of its own, but he was still able to store up more power this way.

"If it's alright with Harry-chan" he winced again "you could come over for dinner at my house?"

Harry paused, thinking it over. He would have to steal more food sooner or later, but on the off chance he was caught, he didn't really feel up to using hypnosis. On the other hand, he remembered the last time a young girl invited to her house after their first year of school. It really didn't go too well. But then again, that definitely wouldn't happen this time.

"Alright, sure. If it's not a bother then I'd love to, Nanoha."

She gave him a radiant smile, so bright it almost made him feel bad that it was being directed at someone like him. After all, Nanoha was an earnest and innocent girl, and he was… Never mind. He had changed. Sooner or later he had to forgive himself.

"Shall we get going then Nanoha?" He asked, heading toward the door.

"But what about your hand outs?" Nanoha asked.

Harry stopped and looked at her. After a brief staring contest, he sighed, heading back and picking up the papers. It seemed Nanoha was as serious about this as she was about helping to find the jewel seeds.

"So how's the hunt for the jewel seeds going?"

"It's going great. I have already collected five of them." Nanoha explained happily.

"That's impressive." Harry praised. It really was. An apparent professional, Yuuno, hadn't even retrieved one before getting his arse kicked. Well, he didn't really know much about the circumstances, and Yuuno was still a kid, so he shouldn't be so harsh, he mused.

"So does your family know about you being a mage?" he asked. He congratulated himself. It could have been pretty inconvenient if he had blurted it out and they didn't know.

Nanoha was silent for a moment. "No, I didn't tell them about magic, or Yuuno-kun, or anything. Since they care about me they may want me to stop and I feel… this is something I need to do."

Harry didn't respond for a while. "I see. That's your decision. But you may want to tell them. Secrets… usually end badly." He murmured the last bit softly. He wasn't sure if Nanoha heard, but she didn't respond to it.

"So what do they do?" Harry asked, trying to make conversation.

Nanoha's face lit up as she began to talk about her family. It seemed that her father owned a café, her brother went to college and trained her sister with the sword. Harry couldn't help but smile. Nanoha was so… happy. What would it have been like if he had been like that? Would his parents have had more children? What was it they even did? He couldn't believe he'd never asked… but then, all he remembered of them was his mother's death. While he was at Hogwarts his parents had meant absolutely nothing to him. He banished those thoughts. There was no need to trouble others with such concerns, and he had a feeling that Nanoha was annoyingly perceptive.

"It's been a while since I've cooked" Harry mused, in response to Nanoha talking about her mother, "but I'm given to believe I'm pretty good."

"You can cook?" she asked.

Harry figured him being an 'actual adult' hadn't really sank in yet. "Yeah. I… had a lot of practice." He said.

"What about your family, what do they do?" she asked.

Harry looked over at her. He hesitated before answering "My parents died when I was very little. I" He hesitated again "I was then raised by my Aunt and Uncle. We, never got along. I never really cared what they did, and they felt the same."

They fell into silence as they walked. Harry realised he should probably said something different. Nanoha was still a kid after all.

"So is Yuuno not with you?" Harry asked.

"Unfortunately I can't bring him to school with me, but we can still talk through raising heart." Nanoha explained.

"Telepathy huh?" Harry mused. "That could have come in handy back in the day."

The silence continued for a while until Nanoha broke it.

"Um, what do you do?" Nanoha asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Your job. In school they were talking about the future, and I was wondering about it since I'm not really sure what I want to do."

"Job huh. Honestly I didn't have one. I just travelled around, trying to figure out what I was meant to do." Harry confessed.

"I see." Nanoha returned to whatever she had been thinking about.

"I wouldn't worry about it. You're still just a kid, there's no need to worry about the future yet. Just try new things, find things that you enjoy. Well, I'm probably not a good person to get career advice from though."

They continued their journey in silence, neither really sure what to say.

Harry sighed as he lay in the bath. He wondered how it had come to this. Everything had been going fine. He'd been introduced to the family, after a while they'd started dinner, Nanoha's family not suspecting anything.

The conversation had turned to martial arts, he'd made some comment on the discussion and everyone figured he'd been trained in martial arts (not entirely untrue. He'd learned the basics as a means for Dudley to legally beat the crap out of him and winged it from there) and he'd been facing off against Nanoha's sister in the dojo before he knew it. Even with the disadvantage of his current body, the fight had ended with him breaking his nose (again, thankfully he would probably be able to fix it by the tomorrow. The seal on his magic was really annoying) and her with a dislocated shoulder.

The pain was distracting enough that he had admitted that he'd learnt to fight because his life depended on it, which apparently had some irritating assumptions made about it, and somehow him living alone had come up along with his less than pleasant relation with his relatives, leading to an assumption of him being abandoned in Japan. He'd tried to correct them, but he hadn't been able to get a word in edgeways, even if he had, he honestly had no idea how to untangle the web of assumptions without it falling apart and having to use liberal amounts of hypnosis (which he may or may not be able to pull off, especially if he wanted to properly heal his broken nose afterwards) which Nanoha probably wouldn't be happy about.

"I was totally caught up in their pace, huh" he sighed.

What had followed could only be called a swarm of mothering that he had honestly thought he had escaped when Mrs Weasley had been killed by Bellatrix. Of course the obvious out (I'm an adult man) was unavailable for use, so he'd totally been at their mercy.

There was a nervous laugh across from him. "I'm sorry about my family."

Of course he'd been pushed in the bath after with Nanoha after they'd done what they could for his nose. So 'the adults could talk'. Nothing good ever came from that expression.

"Don't worry about it. Just, don't mention my scars to them, alright? It would make things more complicated." He said, talking about the scars littering his body. A testament to his life of fighting without access to proper medical care.

"Okay Harry-chan." Nanoha said brightly.

"And you've totally forgotten that I'm not a girl haven't you."

"Ah." After a second Nanoha just laughed nervously.

Harry just sighed again. "Your family really are nice people" he muttered, wondering what they were going to pull next.

Harry entered his home. He'd been surprised that the Takamichi's hadn't tried to force him to stay. A little relieved honestly. They'd brushed it off when he apologised for dislocating the girls shoulder, just as she'd apologised for breaking his nose. Perhaps they'd realised that he'd have resisted something like that, so were taking a subtler approach. They'd extracted a promise to return. He was a little wary, but it had been too long since he'd had anything approaching a good meal.

Regardless he had to get back to work. If he couldn't break the seals, he'd at least identified a weakness. An internal surge of magical energy should break the bindings free. Of course it might take a year with no magic use to store enough to start such a surge, so it wasn't really a viable option, but it was probably good to know.

He looked around his empty apartment. It was moments like this he wished he at least had someone waiting for him.

Looking down at the sheets of paper that held the key to unlocking his power, something caught his eye. He hadn't really paid attention at the time, but Hermione had used every opportunity to thrust her school work in his and Ron's faces. Picking up the sheet that he was unable to figure out, he narrowed his eyes.

"That bitch" he muttered. It definitely bore a heavy resemblence to the things Hermione had been working on. It was just like her to do that knowing he hadn't cared or paid attention to her work, making it similar enough for him to recognise. She probably had the only 'key' to unlocking it, trying to force him to her on his knees.

Putting the sheet down, smoothing where he had gripped it too hard, he let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. The third seal wasn't tied to the first seals. Since Hermione was, irritatingly, a genius, he should focus on the seals he could break, rather than the one he likely couldn't. As he was about to sit down to work, he was forced to clutch at his chest in pain.

"tch, not again." He gasped out.

The pain faded, as it always did and while he swiped the sweat from his brow, he decided to give up on working for now, favouring a good night's rest.

He looked around. The scenery was… it could only be described as warped.

"Welcome, Harry Potter, to the boundary." Came a smooth, powerful voice.

He turned, seeing the form of Voldemort, looking much closer to human than he had rising in the cemetery.

"Or rather, a space existing much closer to the boundary than our planet." He continued, turning away from Harry, back to what appeared to be a holographic projection.

"You no doubt wonder why I have led you here." The man stated.

Harry had replied, as evidenced by Voldemort's chuckle, though Harry could not hear what he had said.

"Indeed. Tell me Harry, have you ever wondered why you have your power? Why you, and no other among your peers awoke it? Prior to your awakening, I was the only person to possess it within the last century or so. I was special, unique. It drove me. Why did I have this power, what set me apart from everyone else? I unflinchingly chased this avenue of question, delving into some of the darkest magic known to man. Unfortunately, my research led me back here" he held out his arms, "to Hogwarts, the old man's base of power. He had no intention of letting me be within its walls. I needed to get rid of him then, to find my answers."

Voldemort looked back, nodding to something Harry had said.

"Yes, it is strange that I am regaling you with my life story, when you and I are most certainly enemies. However, you should understand when I am finished."

He swiped his hands, causing the screens to shift around, beginning to type at the projection.

"My methods of doing so were probably not the best. In my defence, I had already started creating horcruxes by then, and the process stripped me of something important. I can only thank, that at my rebirth, a fragment that was attached to you re-joined me, letting me realise what I had lost. I immediately set about absorbing my remaining horcruxes, my diary having been destroyed by that point, something that I lament. I recalled my true purpose, nothing as tedious and droll as conquest. My quest for answers. "

He again paused, nodding at something Harry said.

"Yes, I understand your desire to put an end to this business between us, however I ask that you allow me to finish without interruption. You can't break that barrier to get at me, so you should just listen obediently while I enlighten you."

The holographic projections shut down, and Voldemort turned to face Harry.

"Since my research pertains to you as much as myself, you should be curious about the subject. Never the less, on with the story. With the old man out of the way, I was able to dedicate myself to learning the secrets entombed here. There were many distractions, mostly caused by your slaughter of my minions and their subsequent whining. I didn't really care, they were worthless anyway, merely a tool to oust the old man. What was it they began calling you? Ah yes, 'the Demon in the Night' or some such pretentious nonsense.

Regardless, I dare say I have uncovered more of Hogwarts history than any who has come before. Secrets not only about us, you and I, but about our entire world."

Voldemort paused for effect, seemingly disappointed that Harry had said nothing in response.

"This world, all the people in it, were created by an ancient magical empire. This was seemingly an age ago, and the world was sealed away behind an incredibly complex barrier. The purpose was to create people capable of obtaining and wielding a certain power. The descriptions are a little vague, but it was clear that they were trying to create people like you and I, for the sake of fighting some 'great enemy'. The power you and I possess is not the end goal of the experiment. But rather, one could say that the power of darkness we use is a means to tapping into that power.

Hogwarts existed for these people, these, Al-Hazardians to examine the magicals of this world, to see if they had the potential they needed. Then they seemed to disappear, leaving only these areas disconnected from normal space, and we developed without their interference.

That, is the reason I have brought you here. I intend to use that power. You are here to stop me if I am unable to control it. After all, I have no desire to destroy the entire world we inhabit."

Voldemort thrust his arms out, playing with dramatics to the end. "Now come, there can only be one Dark Lord. Let us fight until only one of us remains! The one who survives shall keep the title 'Dark Lord' and face a destiny of endless conflict!"

Voldemort's eyes seemed to gleam. An incredibly complicated looking glowing seven point star with strange symbols scribed around it appeared beneath his feet.

"Disengage all restriction systems. Generate dimensional interruption imaginary number, dimensional interface field deployed. Dark Mantle Ascension activate!"

Dark power seemed to explode off him, swirling around like an incredible vortex, forcing Harry to bring his arms in front of his face even as his robe was whipped about by the power.

Then there was a loud roar, which created a shockwave powerful enough to knock him back several feet.

Harry awoke with a start. He brought his arm up to rest on his forehead. That final fight against Voldemort had been… desperate. He was still surprised he managed to somehow win. It had been close, closer than he cared to admit. If he hadn't obtained the Hallows, the tome of death mastery, then he would certainly have lost.

He reached out, into the darkness of the room above him. "I'm seeing too much of the past. But even so." He clenched his hand into a fist "I have no choice but to keep advancing." He muttered. "Isn't that right?" he asked of the empty room, a girl's face with all life drained from her eyes clear in his mind.