Harry stared down the length of the wand, his mind failing to comprehend what he was seeing. Logically, he knew he was betrayed. It seemed unlikely that Draco Malfoy would be standing beside his father, holding a wand at his best friend with the Dark Lord himself looking smug in the corner about the whole situation.

"I really am sorry about this, Harry." Said Draco, his father's hand clasped tightly on his shoulder.

Harry stared speechlessly at his now-former best friend. One part of him screamed that this was a nightmare, one of so many he'd had over the last year. Another part of him just observed the proceedings with the detached indifference he was famous for. It was ironic, that part of him claimed, that for all his talk about logic and reason, Harry Potter had let misplaced emotion get in his way. And now he was about to pay the price.

Harry, his mind still too fractured to say anything to his fratricidal best friend, glanced over at Voldemort. The man, if he could still even be called that, stared back at him with a kind of perverted glee on his pale face. His hideously thin red lips were curled upwards in a parody of a smile, as he savoured his inevitable victory.

His eyes panning back forward, Harry looked up at the elder Malfoy, searching his face for any trace of regret or remorse. Lucius just stared back at him impassively, his cold, stormy-grey eyes holding nothing but contempt. This man would shed no tears for what he had done, nor what he was about to be party to.

"Dra-…" He stuttered, before cutting himself off. His mind, as shattered as it was, still retained enough intelligence to realise there'd be no convincing Draco to turn against his father now. Not with his victory, and the spoils that came with it, so close at hand. "I-." Harry stuttered again, before shutting his mouth.

It was a rare occasion that Harry Potter had nothing to say. Five years in Slytherin had sharpened his wit, and he could count on one hand the times he didn't have some clever retort or comeback.

It was just like him to have one of those times be today. He hesitated for a few moments, his body frozen in reaching for his wand. The villainous trio just stared at him, with expressions between smug and apologetic. Of course Voldemort wanted to savour this. He'd been waiting fifteen years of his victory. He could wait a few moments longer for this.

As Harry's mind began to piece itself back together, his mind desperately searched for something, anything, to say. A retort, comeback, a question, anything. Preferably, something that would buy time for somebody to save him. Sirius, maybe? Or, if he was really lucky, Dumbledore. Of course, Harry Potter was not known for his luck.

A few more moments passed.

Nothing.

It was over. Harry felt all of his plans, his dreams, his ideas and his burdens slowly melt away as he waited for his doom to come. For the first time in years, he was free. Too bad it had to be in his final moments.

He searched his friend's face for a trace of the young man he knew. Had it all been a lie? The laughs, the tears, the defeats and the triumphs they had shared over the past five years. He looked his best friend dead in the eye, hoping against hope that there was indication this was all part of some larger plan. But his eyes were cold, and they stared right back at him. Harry just sighed. Before he left this world forever, he wanted to know one last thing.

"Why?"

He wasn't sure if he was just seeing what he wanted to see, but he could have sworn Draco's eyes flickered with sorrow for a moment, before they hardened again. "Because I had to." With that, he flicked his wand. Time slowed to a crawl for Harry, as Malfoy began the Banishing Charm.

So this was it. This is the end, Harry thought numbly as he stared, while the end of his life came towards him at a maddeningly slow pace. It really was underwhelming. In a few seconds, it would all be over. Just like that. No glorious battle for the future of Wizarding Britain. No dramatic reveal that Voldemort had been tricked, and that he'd somehow already lost. Just him, a spell, and a magical artefact. Everything he'd worked for, everything he'd sacrificed. Everything others had sacrificed for him. All were about to be rendered pointless. Harry did not consider himself as an emotional person, but even he had to admit, that part hurt a little. That all the blood, and the sweat, and the tears that had been shed in the fight against the Dark Lord was meaningless…well, it just didn't seem fair.

In fact, it wasn't fair. It made him angry. It made him furious just to think about it. He'd spent years preparing to protect himself against the genocidal maniac, and now he was going to be cut down like a lamb to the slaughter anyway.

No. It wouldn't end this way. It couldn't. He wouldn't let it. No good Slytherin would just let themselves die like cattle. And Harry was the best. His fury, and hurt, and rage at being so cruelly betrayed coursed through him, coalescing into something useful. His hand curled around his yew wand, and he whipped it out of its sleeve. With a wordless cry of pure anger, he unleashed a bolt of pure energy at his target, just as Draco finished his spell.

Harry felt himself thrown back, as the Veil's gaping maw rushed to swallow him. However, something else was rushing to meet the Veil. A bolt of red light flew towards the Veil, ripping the fabric of the portal asunder just as Harry went through.

Black. White. Red. Blue. Colours, named and unnamed, rushed all around him in a pattern of stunning complexity and richness. Harry could perceive it, but he couldn't quite understand it. He looked uncomprehendingly as wave after wave of feelings, thoughts, locations and time crashed onto him. It was as if he was supposed to understand something, but couldn't, like a snitch just out of his reach. He felt his mind and body tremble and buckle, on the verge of breaking as he continued his journey through what he intuitively felt was the very lifeblood of reality. Suddenly, it stopped. Blackness claimed him.

Then there was whiteness again. No, not white, blond. An unhealthy, bleached blond that could only ever belong to one person.

"What's your surname, anyway?" The blond boy said keenly, as he sat perched on the stool. Slowly, Harry took in his surroundings. It was Madame Malkin's. Row upon row of clothes stood in the shop, and Harry felt the grasp of Madame Malkin herself as she measured him up.

Harry's eyes turned back to his best friend (or so he thought up until five minutes ago), who stared at him with an impatient look. Harry stared dumbly back, not trusting himself to speak. Why was Draco so short? And baby-faced? Had it all been a dream? He looked down, bringing his up. Had they always been so small? In fact, his whole body felt small, as if…

No.

No way.

"Well?" Draco demanded as he gestured impatiently at his thoroughly unimpressive housemate. "What is it?"

Before Harry had time to answer, however, Madame Malkin told him that he was all done. So, instead of answering, he bonelessly stumbled his way to the door, trying to ignore the eyes of Draco Malfoy burning into his back. It couldn't be. This couldn't be happening. Was it a dream? Was he hallucinating? Was he dead? If he was, then it was the most completely underwhelming heaven (or, more realistically, hell) he could imagine. As he emerged back into the bright street of Diagon Alley, he rubbed his eyes disbelievingly. When he opened them again, the alley was still there. He rubbed them again. Still nothing. For good measure, he gave them a final, long blink, just to make sure. Everything was still there, exactly how he remembered it. 30th of July, 1991. He was back. He couldn't be. But he was.

"'Arry!" A deep, familiar voice cried out to him happily, pulling him back to reality. "Wha's wrong?" asked Hagrid, a concerned look on his bearded face as he stared down at his young charge.

"N-nothing professor, nothing at all." Harry lied smoothly, with an admittedly unconvincing smile.

Hagrid look bewildered for a second, his eyebrows drawn together as if trying to solve a particularly obtuse math problem. "Professor? Nah, Harry, I told yer, I'm jus' the Groundskeeper, not no professor or nothing! Anyways, if you're all measured up, we've only got one thing left t'do. We need ter' getcha a wand, lad!" He continued happily as he ushered his young charge down the street to Ollivanders clearing the way with his sheer size as Harry desperately tried to work out what in the hell was going on.

The rest of the day passed just as it had five years ago, minus his original self's friendly chat with his (former) best friend Draco Malfoy. He went back to Ollivander's, sat through the man's creepy monologue about his 'new' wand (13 ½ inches, Yew, with a Phoenix feather core) and its brother, wondering how he hadn't ran away screaming at the man's frankly unhealthy obsession with wands the first time around.

Harry just tuned out, trying to absorb the absurdity of the situation. Magic was, in a fact universally acknowledged by even the most knowledgeable magical theorists, an inherently unpredictable phenomenon, as was natural for an art that drew much of its power from primal forces. But this…this went far beyond the recorded boundaries of magic. He even remembered asking Dra-

Bile filled his stomach as he thought of the boy who he had, until this moment, considered his brother in all but blood. Was he now consigned to an alternate world, or had Harry's actions ensured that he was now gone, only a spectre of unrealised possibility? Even if Harry did everything the same again, surely the Malfoy he knew would be-

Ruthlessly, Harry blanked out his mind. Visualising a deep chasm, he stuffed his thoughts down deep. Emotion like that was a vice, a luxury he could ill afford. He needed his mind clear, and sharp. There was too much he needed to think about.

As the day wound down, he went back through the Leaky Cauldron, into Paddington Station, and had a quick bite to eat with his guardian for the day, who rambled on about how he'd do great things at Hogwarts between bites of his (third) burger. Then, he got onto the train, and went back to the Dursley's. This time, however, he wasn't terrified, like he was five years ago. He wasn't worried. He knew what he had to do. And he was excited.

Because Harry Potter, Prefect, Quidditch Captain, and Seeker, was going to do it all over again.

And this time, he was going to do it right.