Actions

  • Entire Work

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of one does not simply accidentally travel through time (unless you're harry potter)
Collections:
The Witch's Woods, Top 10%, I wish I could read these for the first time, why I only sleep an hour a night, S.T.I.L.L., Expecto Petroleum (aka these fics are GAS), Harry potter Time travel, The fics that never leave my brain, Amaris' Harry Potter Favourite Super Duper Good Fics Ever, HP GEMS, Fics I want to force my friend to read, The Spirit of The Wilds, the ever-expanding fanfic library, 💖ONLY THE BEST💖, Cherry Lemonade will have spare time eventually!, Wrinkling the Fabric of Space & Time, любимое, complete besties bastards beloved, wicked wizarding worldbuilding, time travel tales, deceitful dishonest dumbledore, potter, Ripon’s Fanfic Recs, HP Fics that are dear and special to me, hufflepuffdemiwizard's completed works, dino's library of obsessions, Roonil Wazlib for the win!, He was rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy, did someone say time travel, the reason i'm an insomniac, Harry Potter Fics I Do Adore, hello yes i can’t stop thinking about these works, Ash’s cute n good fics (warning may not be cute), Finished Works Me Have Read, Good Works Me Have Read, Mint's Library, HP Fanfics that I can actually follow along with even tho idk anything abt the series, Completed but marked for later, Time Travel Fics, I wanna eat you up (like Betty Crocker), Finished HP Fics, look what i've found
Stats:
Published:
2020-04-24
Completed:
2022-06-09
Words:
67,495
Chapters:
18/18
Comments:
1,097
Kudos:
12,505
Bookmarks:
2,766
Hits:
394,352

Everything Black

Summary:

If you had a chance to do it over again, make things better, would you take it?

or

Harry fakes it 'til he makes it.

OR

Harry -somehow- accidentally goes back in time.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1: it ended with not a bang, but a whisper

Summary:

as of march 2024, small changes have been made. going forward, if you are a rereader (bless your hearts you little cuties), these changes are minor (mostly an update to writing style), but going forward you may find some minor plot points missing. Relax, they will eventually come back, i've just had some time to think and realised i bit off more than i could chew/didnt like how i did smth. xoxoxo

Notes:

kay, this was an idea I had, so not sure if it'll work, but here's to hoping

Chapter Text

“You dare—” 

“Yes, I dare,” said Harry. His mind was racing, taking in the destruction all around them; the ruins of stone that buried blood and bodies beneath them. Despite the way his heart ached and burned in pain, he had entered a strange state of calm. This was the end. This was it. The final breath. “I know things you don’t know, Tom Riddle,” he taunted. “I know lots of important things that you don’t. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?” 

Voldemort prowled in a circle, silent with black rage. Harry knew that he if he could keep at bay, temporarily mesmerised, held back by the faintest possibility that Harry might indeed know a final secret. . .

 

“So, it all comes down to this, doesn’t it?” said Harry quietly, eyes intent on his target. “Does the wand in your hand know its last master was disarmed? Because if it does . . .” in this moment, Harry was weightless, unbound by fears death. “I am the true master of the Elder Wand.” 

A red-gold glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. The light hit both of their faces at the same time, so that Voldemort’s was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: 

“Avada Kedavra!” 

He would not fall to Voldemort again.


“Expelliarmus!” 

The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead centre of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort’s green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell. 

One shivering second of silence, the shock of the moment suspended: and then–  

 

–the heavy air broke around Harry as the screams and the cheers and the roars of the watchers rent the air. The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as they thundered toward him, and the first to reach him were Ron and Hermione, and it was their arms that were wrapped around him, their incomprehensible shouts that deafened him. Then Ginny, Neville, and Luna were there, and then all the Weasleys and Hagrid, and Kingsley and McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout, and Harry could not hear a word that anyone was shouting, nor tell whose hands were seizing him, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, hundreds of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the boy-who-lived, the reason it was over at last —

 

The sun continued to rise steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light. Harry was an indispensable part of the mingled outpourings of jubilation and mourning, of grief and celebration. They wanted him there with them, their leader and symbol, their saviour and their guide, and that he had not slept, that he craved the company of only a few of them, seemed to occur to no one. He must speak to the bereaved, clasp their hands, witness their tears, receive their thanks, hear the news now creeping in from every quarter as the morning drew on; that the Imperiused up and down the country had come back to themselves, that Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captured, that the innocent of Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named temporary Minister of Magic. . . . 

They moved Voldemort’s body and laid it in a chamber off the Hall, away from the bodies of Fred, Tonks, Lupin, Colin Creevey, and fifty others who had died fighting him. McGonagall had replaced the House tables, but nobody was sitting according to House anymore: All were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents, centaurs and house-elves, and Firenze lay recovering in a corner, and Grawp peered in through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth.

 

Exhausted and emotionally drained, Harry let his feet lead him away from it all, giving a nod to Draco as he passed him. He nodded back.

 

Harry couldn’t blame him for leaving taking his parents and fleeing from battle – no, by that point it was almost over anyone. He had done his part, risking more than his life to supply inside information to the outside world from the very heart of Voldemort’s oppuration. Without, Harry was certain that he, Ron, Hermione and countless others would be dead – or worse. No, Harry did not (would not) blame Draco.

 

A minute or so later, he finally found himself outside once more.

 

His breath caught in his throat, heart beginning to race. A delayed swell of panic and loss rose like a tide in his chest, threatening to drown him. The overcast sky was streaked by brilliant orange, the sinking sun giving a new light to the ruined landscape. 

 

The castle, blackened by soot and stained forever by the death of so many of its students, still stood tall. As he stood in the morning glow, ash clinging to his skin, the ominous aura of pain and suffering that plaguing his home gave way to a sense of hope. Harry’s lips curved into a small smile, and he closed his eyes, face tilting towards to the sky. He breathed and something like peace settled in his bones.

 

It was over.