As you can probably tell, I am not too happy with the way the prologue turned out, as evidenced by my constant edits and fixes. At some point, I realized that it would be simpler, easier and less time-consuming to simply rewrite the whole thing.

So now,

The Winter Lord presents,

Name of the Game (a Harry Potter fanfic).

X…X

"I know that you are preparing to fight. Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me.

I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood. Give me Harry Potter, and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded.

You have until midnight."

Very few people liked Tom Riddle, mused Harry, but one could not help but respect him. A masterful pronouncement, thought up on the spur of the moment, and yet no number of speechwriters or orators could have done better. It would be tempting, so tempting now, for somebody to just Stun him and hand him over to the Dark Lord ('Grab him!' somebody shrieked, and he paid it no mind), so easy for somebody to assure themselves both victory and safety.

'There will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.' Less than three years ago these words had been spoken in this very Hall, and that day the weight of their shadow fell upon those within it once more.

They were fighting now, noise and anger filling the walls as student glared at student, House fought House, and it was all so pointless. It had been years since his mind had been this clear – had it been like this before Voldemort was resurrected? It was difficult to remember anymore. Distant times, and one could not imagine them ever coming back again; too much death lay in the way.

Neville, he knew, would kill Nagini, taking the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes to the other side. Only one was left to deal with now, and Voldemort had just summoned him.

It was an unfamiliar sensation – he knew something that the Dark Lord did not. Like a map he saw it laid before him (no, not a map but a clock ticking on), and he saw that there was no battle, there were no other people in this vast, lonely castle. It was just the two of them, him and Tom Riddle playing a game, with plans that they had set against each other, each seeking to be the victor.

And no one knew it yet, but Harry had already won. The Snitch was already caught.

He sought out Hermione – Hermione, brilliant Hermione who aced every subject but was unparalleled in Transfiguration – and drew her into a corner.

"I need you to do something for me." He said.

X…X

The walk to the gallows was not as difficult as it was made out to be – it was all, Harry reflected, a matter of choice. He walked lighter now, unburdened either by destiny or by the future. Now at last, he felt, he had unraveled the last of the machinations set into place by Dumbledore (seven Horcruxes and three Hallows, all for him to claim), and now went willingly where before he had been led blindly (It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul).

Now, perhaps, he knew his old Headmaster better than he could have ever claimed to before, and he felt not the awe of previous years, but an overwhelming sense of pity. Wisdom, even more than Prophecy, was a burden than estranged men from the world, for it left one with no peers, nothing but a terrible foreknowledge of what was to come.

He walked now with his eyes wide open, and in his hands clutched the one weapon that would change the course of the war – not the bloody Wand that Voldemort held in his hand, not the Stone-that-Called, liberated from a Snitch; not even his faithful Cloak, silver and whispering-soft. It was nothing so great, nothing so branded onto the scarred face of history… but it was good enough.

He smiled as he saw Voldemort's eyes, watching him from under the Cloak (but even as he watched he felt another pair of eyes upon him, terror and despair building somewhere above). He stepped out from under the Cloak.

"You weren't wrong, Tom."

Walking closer, walking closer even as Voldemort's amusement increased. Three paces, two paces, one pace.

"You just couldn't see the bigger picture, you couldn't see what was going on."

Keep him angry, keep him off-balance; make him look at one hand and do the magic with the other.

"Game over, Voldemort. The Snitch has been caught." (But somebody else heard those words, somebody who was more afraid than anyone in that Forest, and somebody made a gamble for survival.)

As the green light sped towards him, he opened his hand. The grenade, lever now free, fell to the mossy floor a yard from Tom Riddle's foot.

X…X

It had been nice to meet the Headmaster again – and he would always be the Headmaster, alive or cold bones in the earth – simple and peaceful in a way that so few things had been lately. Their chat had, of course, been cryptic and completely indecipherable, as all chats with the headmaster tended to be, but interesting for all that.

The train whisked him back to Life, and he opened his eyes.

He was falling backwards, watching every person present go for their wands as the grenade bounced off the ground.

Ahhh crap.

X…X

Sweet sodomizing Salazar, that had hurt!

He opened his eyes again – it seemed to be all he was doing nowadays, hopping back-and-forth between Life and Death – to the view of unending expanses of white. He was seated, as was the… the thing in front of him. He blinked.

Completely nondescript, right down to gender. Okay.

"Hello." He said. "Are you Death?" Because honestly, Death was supposed to be dressed in a robe with a scythe, and this was not how it was supposed to go.

It seemed startled for an instant, before shaking its head. "No." It said, and as it spoke a shiver of fear ran down his spine. "I am not Death. I am the Builder."

Well, this didn't look like a train station either, so that seemed to fit, but he was fairly sure that he should have been dead.

"Am I dead?" he asked curiously. It did not seem to have moved in this time.

"Yes, as far as it is possible for you to die." It tilted its head. "You do not seem afraid."

He shrugged (but that was a lie, he had never been more afraid in his life, but Death was not what he was afraid of). "Dying is just the Next Great Adventure." He said. "It isn't so bad. It isn't so scary."

"I disagree." It said softly. "Death – the End of Things, the Destruction of What Is – it is a terrible thing indeed."

Harry stared at It for a long moment. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I am the Builder." It replied, spreading gnarled hands in the air. "I build all that is new; every universe, every world is my creation. I wish to converse with you, Master of Death."

They looked at each other blankly, before the Builder smiled, a vicious parody of a smile, as expressive as a gouge carved out in a rock. "Patience is a virtue." It said, almost mockingly. "There is no precedent for a Master of Death – death has merely been, in the same way darkness has always been. Death is nothing, death is the absence of life… and yet the absence too has a Master.

I cannot say what your domain is, Harry James Potter. You belong where death is, and yet death is ever where life abides. I offer you then, this proposition. The universe you have left is one you can never return to; dead is dead, as the Bridgeburners once told, even for a Higher Order of Being. Enter another world of my creation; live it all over again. It may bring… closure."

Harry opened his mouth (run, run, run, get away from here) and said. "Alright."

The Builder smiled, and it was heartfelt this time. It was scary this time.

"What's in it for you?" asked Harry. The Builder kept on smiling.

X…X

Better. Much, much better.

Right. The rest of the story will now stay more or less the same, unless I change it. Obviously. WARNING: It will contain sex between prepubescents (graphic descriptions of) and other such unethical acts of debauchery.

For those who are interested: Harry did get the memories from Snape, the grenade used was an M68 Fragmentation Grenade, the poem he thought to himself was 'Invictus' by W.E. Henley and the chapters will be much longer than this prologue.