Authors Notes: Some things I thought I should mention about this story and will only say it once:

This story is AU and does not include Deathly Hollows. It is post HBP, but pre DH. Any coincidences to DH are just that. This story includes Time Travel. This story contains Cutting and Thoughts of Suicide; don't like it, don't read it, no one's forcing you to. This story is Not Slash and has no concrete parings. This story does have Character Death, don't worry I won't kill off Harry more than once… maybe. :)

Up front special thanks to my best friend, sister and muse, Aislyn Shadowsbane, for her wonderful ideas, constructive criticism and all around moral support.

Harry Potter and the Difference of Time

Harry Potter's life has been an incredible journey, but his death will be even more incredible. Harry Potter dies and is sent back in time to rewrite his history. What will he change? What will he make sure never happens? How will he know what is the right path to follow when suddenly he can see everything clearly.

A/N: Not mine, the Harry Potter Universe as always belongs to J.K. Rowling and all the other affiliates.

Prologue – The Past – The Future

The sun that filtered through the heavy dark clouds reflected off his circular glasses as he ran. A jagged scar, which looked much like the one that adorned his forehead, ran down the left side of his face, and although the wound was mostly closed, it still bled and stung irritably.

This was ignored as Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Protector of Hogwarts, and the last of the Golden Trio, pulled out the sword sheathed at his side. The sword was rather plain looking, but it was not an ordinary sword. It was goblin made and able to channel brief bursts of magic through its enchanted steel. It had been found in his family vault. At a few hundred years old, and belonging to the Potter family, it was the only weapon Harry had left. It was his last hope.

Until just a few days ago, he had been using Godric Gryffindor's sword, but it had been destroyed in his last fight along with his wand. The fight he had lost and run from. He would not lose this one! He couldn't.

Harry Potter swore on his magic and life that at all costs he would not fail. He had nothing left but his life now, his friends were dead, his family was dead, and even part of his soul was gone. Harry's silent oath was heard by no one, but something heard it as a blue hue momentarily flowed around him; sealing the oath, the promise to himself.

"Making oaths, Potter?" a voice hissed darkly, almost too quite to hear over the short distance between them on the ruined grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where fighting seemed to come to a stop as the two enemies met for what everyone hoped would be the last time.

Harry slowed to a walk and then halted all together, his chest heaving, not from the exertion, but anger. "Oh yes!" Harry snarled, though it came out calmly. "And here's another one, My Lord," he spit out. "I swear on my magic and my life that you will be defeated!" Another swirl of blue magic flew around him, sealing the oath.

The Dark Lord laughed. "I think we've gone over this, Potter, I cannot be defeated!"

"I beg to differ, my Lord," Harry whispered as he circled the disgusting reptilian form that was Tom Riddle. Never once did he move his eyes away from him, even as his eyes blazed with fury and an aura of magic shown around him. "Your Horcruxes are gone," Harry hissed quietly. "I've accepted the full power of Protector. I've enhanced that power to a seductive amount and I've nearly lost myself in that power, all in the name of defeating you! You've taken my friends, my family!" he snarled. "THIS TIME I WILL NOT LOSE!" Harry shouted.

The Dark Lord only laughed harder and rather insanely. "It must be so frustrating for you. Watching your loved ones die and not being able to do a thing about it. It does not matter how much power you obtain, boy, it is the strength of will to use it that matters. Tell me this, Harry. Can you cast the Killing Curse on me yet?" Harry just stared back as he continued to circle. "How about the Cruciatus Curse, Potter? The Imperious Curse mayhap, would that be more to your liking?"

The evil chuckle that met Harry's ears sent a chill down his spine, and his anger grew so much, his right hand and sword shook. "Shut up!" he said darkly, quietly.

"Your dear friend Ginevra seemed to like it very much when you were under it. As I remember she even screamed when you –"

"I said SHUT UP!" Harry screamed as he pointed the sword at the Dark Lord, the blade glowing with power as he started to pace back and forth in front of him.

"Tsk, tsk, Harry. Are we a bit angry with your failure to beat my Imperious Curse?"

Harry stopped dead, a darkness and a swirl of fire flashing over his eyes that seemed even to make the creature in front of him falter. "Stop talking, Riddle, or are you afraid to fight me?" Harry whispered coldly.

A sneer twisted the Dark Lord's rather none existent lips. "I should have taken the ability to speak that name from you as well," he muttered. "You will address me as My Lord!" he hissed as a thin silver sword appeared in his right hand and Harry's eyes widened fearfully. That sword Harry had sworn was destroyed first of all the founder's artifacts, the Scimitar of Salazar Slytherin. It was not a good thing to be seeing that sword.

Harry growled as he looked at his gifted sword in his enemy's hand. "Very well, My Lord; lets end this!"

"So eager to die… as you wish." The Dark Lord bowed slightly and then moved at an incredible speed towards Harry, the sword raised. Harry met him, and in a shower of sparks, the battle began and in three swift strikes, ended.

Harry blinked in surprise and shock as the sword plunged into his chest, he didn't even notice the pain that he thought should accompany a sharp piece of metal going through him. He looked down at the sword that held a piece of his fractured soul, and then looked up into the red eyes of the man that held the handle of it. The Dark Lord looked just as shocked as Harry felt, but his shock was quickly replaced with a cruel smirk and a glint of triumph. He tore the sword back out, Harry gasped and staggered back, and then fell to the ground as blood quickly soaked his shirt and began to pool around him.

"In what way did you ever think you could defeat me? You see, Harry Potter, as I told you before; your fight against me is useless. You should have joined me. You are dead and it is a meaningless death. Just like your friends before you, just like your family." The Dark Lord loomed over Harry and watched as Harry looked up at him with tears in his eyes as he breathed shallowly.

Blood welled in Harry's throat, cutting his diminishing air supply. He couldn't go like this; he hadn't beaten the Dark Lord yet. He glared with pain-filled eyes up at the monster, though his sight was quickly dimming. Harry still held the Potter sword clasped tightly in his grasp and he focused on the familiar weight. He slowly lifted it with a shaking hand and Riddle laughed lightly as his hand fell back down under the weight.

"It is no use, Harry, you haven't the strength to go on fighting," he said quietly, almost soothingly. It almost sounded as if there was sympathy in his voice as he watched the savior of the Wizarding World choke to death on his own blood. He knelt down next to Harry, his hand still resting on the hilt of Slytherin's bloodied sword. "Perhaps, Harry, in another life, we will meet again and not be enemies, but allies," he hissed.

A last bit of anger came to Harry's eyes. "Never!" he gasped out and blood ran down his chin. Harry clenched his teeth and pushed the last of his magic, which was sustaining his life, into the sword and swung as hard as he could with what strength he had left.

He did not see the sword catch the Dark Lord across the throat, but he did see the fear in his red eyes as the blade briefly met resistance against Slytherin's and then cut cleanly though it. As Riddle fell, his life quickly drained out of him with the blood that flowed from the wound.

Harry looked over to the dying Dark Lord as he himself plunged further into deaths embrace. "N-now," he choked, tears coming to his vivid green eyes and blood now running freely from the corners of his mouth. "Now, m-my death m-means s-something; n-now, we're b-both dead…" Harry's last breath left his lips in a choked gasp and his body went limp as he closed his eyes for the last time, not hearing nor caring about the gurgling noise that came from the Dark Lord's futile attempts to speak. He was tired and he was finished. He had done what he was destined to do. Now he could finally rest…

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A/N: Prologue, as always, rather confusing, but what do you think anyways?