A strange idea that came to me after reading a selection of darkish, time-travel fics and then a discussion with one of my favourite people, FateRogue. Following this chat, they very generously allowed me to their fabulous OC, Carina Black, if I promised not to damage her too badly.

She is my all time favourite OC from two of my all time favourite fics, 'The Blackest of Souls' and it's sort of sequel, 'Finding the Light'. If you want to understand the background behind her then do go and read those works. I think that they are well worth the time spent on them but I have been told that I am rather strange. Many times.

Unlike a great deal of my writing, this is all planned out and a lot of it is already written but I'm going to upload a chapter every Sunday to give you all something regular to read while I struggle on with my other projects and their far less predictable updates. It's not going to be huge, maybe 50 to 60k words and it is going to be both Dark and humorous. Well humorous to me, anyway. See above. Very strange.

I still don't own Harry Potter otherwise I'd be writing all day instead of working to pay the bills.

Dylan the Rabbit. xx

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Fallen Angel.

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1. An Angel Falls.

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The Angel of Death.

That's what they call me now.

I had another name once. Several actually; The girl who lived ... the woman who won ... Champion of the Light ... Warmage of the Order of Nephilim ... Lady Protectress of the Magical United Kingdom ... The Defiler. Oh yes, and one more; Marigold Lily Potter.

I was a heroine, beloved of my people. For a brief while, anyway.

I saw an interesting muggle movie once where the hero, or perhaps anti-hero might be a better description, said that being such a hero can only end one of two ways. You either die young enough that you never really live, or you live long enough that you become the very thing that you fought so hard against ... the villain.

I'm paraphrasing of course, but that's what he meant.

It remains the truest thing that I have ever heard. I should know because it happened to me.

I spent thirty years of my life fighting Dark Lords (Voldemort was only the first) and bringing them to justice, sacrificing my relationships with my family, my friends, my lovers ... and for what? So that the very people that I had saved, sacrificed my life for and shielded from the darkness and the horror all those years could turn around and call me, me, the worst Dark Lady in a millennium.

Ungrateful bastards.

Ungrateful bastards who started a Worldwide Magical war to ensure that my stain should be removed from their 'perfect' existence. The fact that this perfect existence of theirs wouldn't have been possible without my sacrifices didn't seem to factor into this decision at all. So, we went to war. The entire Magical World against the Angel of Death.

They had thought it was going to be a very one sided affair. And they were right. Not in the way that they thought perhaps, but still, they were right. I wiped the fucking floor with them.

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It had started simply enough, with a photograph.

By that point my magic was so strong that I could actually tear other beings apart at the molecular level with the merest wave of my hand. It was this kind of magic that the reporter photographed me using against the Dark Lord Cerbero and his deluded followers.

It probably didn't help that I was hovering six feet off of the ground, being held aloft on my black feathered wings that had emerged from my back, while I cast this unknown (but clearly Dark) magic at them with the legendary 'Deathstick'. Or that I had a fucking great onyx sword in my other hand that I was swinging around to decapitate any stragglers without the slightest hesitation, mercy or respite.

The entire World saw me then as I looked when transformed for battle. A dark and powerful mixture of Hecate, Lucifer and an extremely expensive stripper.

Apparently, it scared the shit out of them.

Rituals are amazing things for giving one some new toys and a bit of a power boost but the general public do tend to get awfully squeamish about them. It's all that blood you have to use to get them to work, I suppose.

The newly elected Minister of Magic, Hermione Weasley, had certainly thought so. I remembered the days when she hadn't been such a stuck up, prissy bitch. The time when we had been friends ... and more, but even back then she probably would have got all preachy about me doing blood rituals.

I had comforted her after her parents murder back in the summer of 'Ninety Six, desperately trying not to let my attraction to, and lust for, my friend get in the way of just being there for her when she needed me. To my surprise (and delight), however, she had been the one to kiss me first, initiating our, slightly tepid it has to be said, seven month affair.

Undoubtedly the best seven months of my life, that was. The end of our 'grande amoure' wasn't so great, though.

I had loved her with a fiery passion from the first moment that I had seen her big, bushy hair and cute, buck-toothed smile on the Hogwarts Express, wheras she had always loved me like a friend. Like a sister. In my naivety and stupidity, I had never believed that, of course. My love addled brain wouldn't let me. It's why I didn't think to question it when she all but fell into my arms that summer out of grief, or some mis-placed sense of 'rewarding' me for my patience and effort. I didn't know, I didn't care and I didn't question.

And I really should have questioned it. Just as I should have stepped in when I saw her doing the exact same thing with poor Carina over the next year or so, after she was released from Azkaban, framed for killing the Grangers.

Sirius' wild, little, animagus daughter would have killed me if she had ever heard me calling her that, but I could never think of her in any other terms than as 'poor Carina'. And I mean she would have really killed me. Carina Black may have been one of the best friends that I ever had as well as a bit of a prankster in her youth (like our dear Sirius) but she hated being pitied. Even by me. Especially by me. So when I say she would have killed me I actually mean it. That girl had a temper worse than mine and the power to back it up.

We were like peas in a pod. And it wasn't just being the victims of abuse and our mutual 'saving people thing' that bonded us. We were more alike than anyone really knew. She was my truest friend and my greatest regret. I should have believed in her as she had always believed in me, fought for her as she had always fought for me. We all should have, but we let Dumbledore and his honeyed words sway us.

I was as dumb as rock back then and even after all of the things that she had suffered in that Merlin damned prison, I still allowed that bushy haired bitch to play with her fragile heart like that. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth even now and I don't blame her in the slightest for bailing on us, on me. No, I blame Hermione for that.

Which brings me back to my point. Hermione Weasley hadn't trusted me, or really even liked me very much, since the aftermath of the battle of Hogwarts when Carina and I had caught her snogging with Ronald amongst all the bodies in the ruined castle.

Things were said.

Bad things.

Things that couldn't be taken back.

The repercussions of our four way conversation that night had done what Voldemort and his minions had never been able to. It split the 'golden quartet' apart finally and forever.

The ginger moron and his bushy haired, harlot had gone off to get married and plot Hermione's path to greatness while a heart-broken Carina had all but fled to America with Teddy Lupin and Luna Lovegood in tow. I had struggled to see the sense in that, to be honest. Not that I didn't think that it was a good idea of her having someone there to keep from going insane. No it was the thought that Luna would be anybody's first choice for that role. She might be super cute and lot of fun, but that girl was, and always would be, nuts. It was probably her that started all that mess with the vampires.

As for me? Well, I was heart-broken too but nobody seemed to care about that and, since I didn't have anyone who wanted to go with me for the right reasons, I went off on my own, personal 'walkabout' alone. Oh, there were plenty of offers for 'company' but none of them were very appealing to me. There are only so many times that you can make Cho Chang scream out your name (Oh, hell yes, I did that) before it gets a bit ... tedious. Especially when she's not the one that you actually want to be screaming out your name. So, I picked up my ICW accreditation as an Agent of the Light, a very useful thing if you don't want to get jailed for killing people, Dark Lords or not, and I Ieft. Alone.

Bit of a good job too, really.

I learned a great deal from my travels and my battles. Not all of it was very nice. In fact, most of it was downright unpalatable. It's where I picked up the knowledge of rituals (Egypt) and using blood sacrifices to facilitate them (Sumeria), although I never went as far as the ancient Wizards in central America. Those were some blood-thirsty Toltec and Mayan bastards right there.

Besides, I was living in the Outer Hebrides by the time I started using them and we had neither the pyramids nor the population for such practices.

The incredible (super toned and super sexy) body, the strength, the wings, the sword, the elder wand, the black sclera and iris that I had 'gained' from my rituals, however, they made quite the impression when I went to battle. It gained the attention of the Order of Nephilim, a morally sketchy group of Dark Wizard hunters who asked me to join, and of course, the entire British magical population when I rather stupidly allowed someone to live long enough to photograph me.

The picture hit the front page of The Daily Prophet within a day of being 'found' some months later and all Hell let loose.

They saw what I had done to myself, all in the name of their bloody safety mind you, and decided that their saviour, the great heroine of the second blood war and champion of the light had gone Dark. Apparently, I needed to be 'dealt with' and 'purified'. I'll bet you a thousand Galleons, that was Ronald. He always was a bigoted, fucking idiot when it came to that sort of thing.

So, Minister Weasley (that still sounds all kinds of wrong for sooo many reasons) raised an army of Aurors and assorted volunteers and brought her 'war of purification' to my door.

A lot of the people who died in that confrontation were those that I had once called friends ... comrades ... even a lover or two. I didn't kill Hermione though, that was her idiot husband hitting her in the back of the head with an overpowered reducto meant for me. I'm surprised that he ever managed to have sex in the first place, let alone father two kids, with that bad of an aim.

I'm sure that Carina, wherever she was then, was cheering me on in spirit as I separated his stupid, ginger head from his body with my sword moments later.

Ronald was the last death that day. After he was dispatched, with rather more prejudice than was strictly necessary, those horrified few that were left lay down their wands and gave themselves to my mercy. I mercifully gave them a few days to get their affairs in order and then I mercifully executed them.

Page one, Chapter one of the Dark Lady handbook. Never leave an enemy alive to turn around and stab you in the back at a later date. It was a surprisingly common mistake among Dark Wizards, Voldemort included, although I couldn't really say too much about that since I was one of his mistakes.

It did not go un-noticed that I had just slaughtered half the magical population of the British Isles and enslaved the remainder under, what was essentially, a dictatorship and the eyes of the ICW turned upon me.

Their previously lauded and decorated Dark Wizard hunter was now number one on the International 'most wanted' list and there were individuals, organisations, and indeed entire Countries, lining up to take me down. They should have worked together. Might have stood a chance against me then. But probably not.

Within five short years I had killed them all. And I do mean all.

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Ashes.

That was all that remained of the magical World now.

This was my great legacy.

I was the Mistress of Death, His Angel on Earth and I had done my job well. Nothing was left. Not a single person, not an animal, vegetable or mineral that was not more than a crumbling piece of charred carbon. Everyone and everything that I had ever cared about was dead. Except for me.

Funny, isn't it?

No?

To be honest, I didn't really think so either.

Oh, the muggles went on, as before, oblivious in their mundane lives and their mundane World, but the real World ... my World ... the World that I had loved and embraced so tightly from the very first second that I had known of it's existence ... that was gone.

I had killed it.

All of this was my fault and I needed to fix it.

But how do you fix something that is already dead?

The answer took me many months of alternating between rage fueled screaming, excited babbling and quiet contemplation in my Island strong-hold to locate, but I got there in the end. Admittedly I was a great deal less sane by that point than I had been when I started looking. Frankly, I made Bella-bitch Lestrange and Loony Lovegood look relatively normal (or as close as those two would ever get, anyway) by the time I had figured it out.

Time being the operative word.

I knew there were all kinds of rituals, including ones that dealt with time, all I had to do was find one. Or the right one really.

To correct the terrifying future that I had personally created, I had to go back to the beginning. Well, not all the way back. There was absolutely no fucking way I was going back to that damned cupboard, or the hell that was Durzkaban at all, if I could help it, but I did need to go far enough back to save them.

To save myself.

Actually, I wasn't too worried about saving myself, always having been Fate's bitch, I was more than prepared to sacrifice myself so that the World that I had loved (and then destroyed) could have another chance. So that all of them, Carina, Cho, Hermione, even Ronald the idiot and the blonde ponce, those that I loved and loathed alike would get a chance at their 'happy ever after'.

I would give them this this gift without having a hope of it for myself. It would be my penance.

.

The ritual was simple enough. Finding it, however, was not. Mainly because I had the destroyed pretty much all of the places where I might have been able to find the relevant information. There were no more libraries, no more repositories of learning, no-one left with the requisite knowledge and skill to assist me. No-one left at all.

It was then that I realised who, or more precisely, what, I had to turn to.

I summoned the elder wand to my left hand and my 'sword of doom', complete with the resurrection stone embedded in it's hilt to my right. The cloak was always with me, disguised in plain sight as the regular, if slightly tatty, black one that I always wore.

I had the Hallows, I was the Mistress of Death and had been feeding him souls for a little over forty years, He would come when I called. Plus, he owed me for Tom Riddle, as well as a couple of other wannabes who had also tried horcuxes as a means to 'defeat' Him later on.

"Death, the Great Leveller, He who lays his icy hand on peasant and Prince alike, your Angel beseeches you, your Mistress commands you ... Come."

It took a couple more goes, the words becoming increasingly more loud and vehement before He deigned to show Himself.

What do you want, mortal?

"I beg your pardon. Just who in the Hell do you think you're talking to here, my lad?"

Death sighed as his shoulders slumped. He couldn't really sigh, of course, but it was always fun to imagine him doing that. We didn't interact that often but I had found it really annoyed the Grim Reaper when I treated him like a stroppy teenager.

Alright then, what do you want ... Mistress?

After I had explained my predicament in my best 'mom' voice, the Reaper of Souls proved to me what an excellent idea calling on him was. He may be creepy and scary, even to an exceedingly creepy and scary individual like myself, but the man (?) knew his shit. He knew everything actually but all I needed was the information about one, very specific, ritual. He gave it up faster than I thought was possible, which I just chalked up to Him wanting to be a good and helpful 'servant'.

Being the Mistress of Death was a complete pain in the arse most of the time, but sometimes, like now, it was just bloody ... awesome. My 'dumb as a rock' days were not yet behind me apparently, as I ignored the, not at all creepy and calculating grin of Death and started jumping up and down, cheering in my excitement at getting this ritual started.

It occurs to me now that taking the piss out of Death for four decades probably wasn't a particularly brilliant idea. Especially since I needed his help with this ritual and with what happened later. You know what they say about hind-sight being twenty/twenty and all? Totally true.

I really should have known that my so called 'servant' would fuck me over good and proper.

Although I suppose he didn't so much stiff me on the ritual as in it's consequences. As always, the Devil was in the details.

Now, I may have done some ... questionable ... things in my life but I believed, through my own, messed up, sense of morality, that I had never been outright evil. Not until that day. The day of the ritual. The day that I rounded up eighty five muggles (they were the least savoury ones that I could find, but I was on a clock and some of them may have been less horrible than I was trying for), tied them fucking great crosses in a massive circle and bled them dry to power my ritual.

I blackened my soul that day. Well, even more than I had done previously, anyway. I tried to justify it, of course. I told myself that these people would never have technically died if I did this ritual right. I told myself that nobody else would have to die, either 'now' or 'then'. I told myself that it was all for the 'greater good'.

That was when I realised that I had gone truly insane.

It still wasn't enough of a wake up call for me to stop, however. I was set upon my path and there was no turning back. Not now.

I stepped into the circle and ran the already bloody blade down my own forearms, raised my arms and began to chant the words that my highly untrustworthy 'servant' had drilled into me. It didn't surprise me that it was in Ancient Persian. Those fuckers were even more blood-thirsty than the Mayans but they did have a God of Time as well as all of those creepy Death cults. Zoroastrian was a bit of an oddity as a God but I didn't care. I would have performed cunnilingus on that pink, toad, bitch, Delores Umbridge herself if it got me where I needed to go.

Or when I needed to go.

With my goal in front of me and that extremely disturbing image in my brain, I sucked it up and powered on through this evil, damned ritual as fast as was physically possible. It still took all day. And it hurt like fuck. But it also worked.

Kind of.

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This wasn't supposed to happen.

Not the timing of my return, that was bang on; It was October thirty first Nineteen Ninety Four, and I had made it just in time for the Goblet of Fire to announce the Tri-Wizard Tournament champions, it seemed. That part of it was perfect. No, it was more the fact that I was sat on entirely the wrong side of the Gryffindor table to what I remembered I always had. And then I saw why.

I found myself staring straight into the wide, emerald eyes of ... well ... me. And not like in a reflection in a mirror, but actually me. A much younger me, obviously. That part wasn't unexpected, only the part was where I had expected to be the one inhabiting that particular piece of fleshy real estate which led to the big question; If Marigold 'Mari' Potter was sat over there, and the presence of my two book-ends from this time, Hermione and Carina, seemed to suggest this to be the case, then whose body had I ended up in?

A quick and surreptitious examination of my forearms told me that I still had the ritual tattoos for my wand and sword but the lack of scarring indicated that my body was far younger than when I left the future. Which was pretty awesome when you thought about it. It also meant that I hadn't fucked the ritual up totally. Just a little bit.

Okay, so it was a fairly important 'little bit', given my self appointed mission here.

I needed to check what else I had potentially done wrong. Grabbing a golden plate and casting a wandless polishing charm on it, I stared at my own reflection in the makeshift mirror. There was a great deal of relief at the image that glared back up at me for a moment before it slowly started to smile.

It was me.

I mean, older me. Older than I had planned for, anyway. Like at least Sixteen or maybe even Seventeen. Also, it was post 'extreme beautification and massive power up' rituals me. Unbelievably sexy and dangerous looking me. I will admit that I sort of got a bit lost in the moment here but, in my defence, I hadn't seen myself looking this good in over a decade and I was all giddy. Yes, even Dark Ladies can get 'giddy' on occasion. Especially when they look as hot as I did and could now look forward to charming the pants off of literally any witch I damned well pleased.

Because of my mental trip to the land of teenage lust, Dumbledore had to repeat my name three times before I actually heard it. Except that it wasn't actually my name. I mean, I felt like it was, but it wasn't all at the same time. Consequently, it took quite some time for my brain to catch up to what was happening.

"Angel De'ath."

I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time. But I couldn't. All I could do was scream and rage at my own hubris and stupidity and incompetence in the privacy of my own mind. And at that bony bastard Death's twisted sense of humour obviously. I wasn't allowed to linger there for long, mind you.

"Oi moron, that's you."

Katie Bell, one of my former colleagues on the Gryffindor quidditch team, pushed my shoulder hard as she spoke, causing me to fall off of my chair and onto the cold, stone floor in an untidy heap. Laughter exploded in my ears and I growled as I scowled into the flagstone beneath my splayed hands. Then my eye began to twitch. This was not a good sign for anybody currently in the Great Hall that wasn't me.

Back in the day, I was a called a Dark Lady for a very good reason and these school children were about to get a lesson in why it's never a good idea to laugh at someone as dangerously powerful as me. Not that they knew I was any of those things at the moment. It didn't matter to me though. I was incensed, as much by my failure with the ritual to bring me here as with the fact that these children were laughing at me.

Unfortunately for them it set off the activation of one of my least attractive traits. My prodigious temper.

I rose to my full height, rolled my shoulders to rid myself of the residual stiffness and embarrassment, the joints popping and cracking impressively over the giggling in the Great Hall, and released a pulse of pure magic from my core. It swept across the room leaving nothing but silence in it's wake.

Well, silence and the occasional shocked gasp from the teachers and guests.

And a few whimpers from the younger and less brave students.

And a strong smell of ammonia from those who couldn't hold their bladders.

Even Dumbledore blinked a couple of times before motioning me forward with a puzzled, but still twinkly eyed, smile.

With head held high, daring anyone to say a word, I stalked to the podium with all the dangerous grace of the Alpha predator that, given my many ritual enhancements, I most certainly was.

"Let's hear it for your Hogwarts Champion, Miss Angel De'ath!"

The applause started out rather restrained and polite, a ripple of quiet clapping with a few half hearted 'whoops' from my own Gryffindor, Housemates. In no way, did I feel that this was an appropriate response for the Hogwarts Champion from the Hogwarts faithful and, at my snarl and another pulse of magic, the ripple became a raging torrent, raising me up on it's tide of emotion.

Ahhh. Fear. One of my personal favourites. I could literally smell it in the air as I sashayed to the Champion's Chamber at the other end of the hall, liberally dispensing winning smiles and 'royal' waves to my, now manically cheering, 'subjects'. Although, the mask did almost slip when I caught sight of the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team indulging in some very over the top bowing and scraping (Weasley inspired, no doubt) as I passed by. Still, I managed to make it out of the hall with no more indication of my amusement than a crafty wink at the surprisingly pleased looking Mari Potter and her two shell-shocked friends.

She didn't look quite so pleased when she followed me through the door to the Champion's Chamber a few minutes later, mind you. Her demeanour was outwardly tough and determined, but you could see the scared part if you knew where to look.

My protective instincts immediately went into overdrive.

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"I believe you."

Three simple words, spoken loudly and clearly, that had a huge effect.

They cut through the babbling and the arguing like a hot knife through butter, silencing the entire room. Which was strange enough, considering my knowledge of the hateful attitudes and mental capacity of most of the morons present, even if it had been the effect that I had been going for. What happened next, however, was much more strange.

I grunted as my younger self crashed into me, hugging me with a fierce intensity that I had forgotten I possessed.

And that was the problem here. I didn't hug. Anyone. Ever. Well, with two important exceptions.

The only times that I had ever initiated a hug, or even accepted one without much squirming and attempting to get away, were with Hermione and Carina. My first and fiercest girl-crush meant that I let Hermione get away with a lot of shit that I wouldn't otherwise have done. Something else (besides our shitty home lives) that Carina and I had bonded over. Our hugs were much more rare, but much more heartfelt.

So knowing how I was back then, how much I hated all forms of physical contact that were not from these two trusted individuals, to say I was surprised would be quite the understatement. As she continued to hold tightly around my waist and my own arm slipped around her shoulders, tugging her even closer, I thought that I might actually burst a blood vessel from the shock of it all.

We sat together for the entire ten minutes of the meeting, our hands clasped together, giving and receiving the, unlooked for but welcomed, comfort of the warm contact. I backed her up when she told them she didn't enter their damned Tournament, I defended her when they wouldn't listen and I told Snape to go fuck himself when ... well, because he was Snape. And really, who needed any more reason than that?

Minerva McGonagall approached us as the volatile 'meeting' came to a close.

The Deputy Headmistress had that look of blissful pride on her face that appeared whenever one of her young Lions did something particularly good or brave or noteworthy. It was a look that I hadn't seen in a very long time, well not directed at me anyway, and it made my heart swell unexpectedly and my breath catch in my throat.

"Miss De'ath, the Headmaster wondered if you could spare him a moment in his office."

It obviously wasn't a request and, honestly, I was quite keen to meet with him myself, but my protective side wasn't quite prepared to let 'little Mari' face the trip to Gryffindor Tower on her own. Our House Head must have seen the hesitation on my face and made a good guess as to it's reason.

"Don't worry dear, I'll get Miss Potter back to the dorms safely and make sure that she's alright."

It wasn't until I received another hug (seriously now, what the hell was going on?) and a whispered 'I'll be fine' that I relinquished my hold on Mari and allowed the professor to lead her away. They turned in the doorway and I was treated to a pair of smiles from two witches who rarely, if ever, did so at this point in time.

Something very weird was going on.

Then a bright and twinkly eyed Mari Potter giggled as she shyly waved me good-bye, making Minerva chuckle and nudge her out of the chamber. She ... I ... she ... giggled. I'm almost certain that somewhere out there, beyond the reach of time and space, Hell was freezing over. And Death was laughing his bony arse off.

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There is a poem called 'Death The Leveller' by James Shirley, which is where that particular phrase came from. It's a bit morbid (obviously) but rather good all the same and well worth the read.

Your reviews are oh so precious to me but not necessary. I'm certainly not going to hold you guys to ransom over them.

Good? Bad? Leave your thoughts although you can always PM me with ideas, suggestions, comments if you want. Dylan the Rabbit. xx