A/N - So this is my first time trying to write a HP fanfiction… and also my first time trying to write a Marvel one. As such any feedback is appreciated! It's worth mentioning that the way this chapter and possibly even the early parts of this story will be confusing at points. This is done on purpose but hopefully only the intended amount of confusion.

Anyways let me know what you think!

1

Harry walked through the ashes of memory, air still thick with dust and death even centuries after he had last been there. Centuries since anyone had been there, he supposed idly, feet tapping gently barefoot over cold stone, avoiding the cracks between slabs and the blackened soot of friends and enemies.

With every stride came echoes of laughter in warm hallways, lit by the crackling of torch laden sconces and the gentle rumbling of braziers littered around the place.

Come on Harry

His body followed the twists and turns of the corridors almost absent-mindedly, a distracted air about him as he hummed along to the gentle lullaby he vaguely remembered from the kind blond haired Moon. Even as Harry stepped out over a sheer drop of many floors a staircase slid underneath his feet with a gentle click, no matter how many years it had been the old castle always protected its charges; keeping them safe.

I've got you

Without any decrease in pace or acknowledgement that he had just narrowly avoided a quite painful fall, the boy turned man swept down the stairs, ever wild hair shifting around his head as he slid down the bannister of the next. A gleeful laugh clawing its way from his throat as his speed whipped his hair about his face.

Harry stumbled to a stop at the end of the railing, almost sprawling haphazardly into and likely through an old dust covered door. He couldn't really see where he was going of course, the torches and light sources had long fallen cold and empty, a long with the classrooms and dorms and all the hundreds of paintings that had hung from high walls; but that didn't stop him from happily walking around, almost skipping with every other step.

Let's go

At last he came to a great cavernous hall, the rafters of which cut across the black expanse of a clear night sky. What had once been a lustrous array of stars and cloud and enchanted flying candles now reflected the rest of the castle as a hole. Cold and void.

Between two such stone rafters a single star glimmered brightly, the only light source amongst bottomless darkness. Yet reflected in Harry's bright green eyes he thought that there had never been anything quite so beautiful as that single shining blip, for with it he remembered even if only a little. Another echo, this time of sparkling blue eyes filled with belief and love.

My dear boy

Collapsing in a not so elegant fashion onto one of the few benches that remained upright, Harry remained focused on this singular light.

"Is it time yet?" he murmured, blowing little bits of mist into the cold air, "An adventure for the ages Crooked Nose. You told me I would know when it was time."

Only silence greeted his whispers, echoes dispersing as he looked away from the star for the first time. Seeing the wreckage that filled what had once been the great hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Tables smashed and flung to all corners of the large room, benches shattered, windows gone or broken in so many ways they might as well have been. Ashes lay strewn across the floor in such large volumes that practically the entirety of it was covered by at least some blackened motes.

He lay a hand almost soothingly on the oaken wood of a nearby table, almost hearing Hogwarts groan around him in strain. This was what had drawn him back. From his own back-garden somewhere in the middle of nowhere Harry had felt it.

The death rattles of his first home. Without students to power its wards the castle had had enough magical power saved up within its massive core of a ward stone to last itself thousands of years; but the damage done by the Skull People and the Snake Man in breaching the wards had reflected on the ward scheme and core. In its greatest and futile efforts to prevent harm from coming to its inhabitants, the halfway sentient building had expended large parts of its reserves. A measly few hundred years after the battle that had hurt both of them so badly, Harry was watching his only friend die.

I read about this place you know

Harry slowly closed his eyes and reached deep, towards the great flickering ball of power and energy that had stayed unused for so long. It snipped at him like a live animal, a snowy bird with great big eyes full of intelligence he had really thought it ought not to have. But behind its annoyance at not being used it sang a clear melody of joy, of barely restrained passion and longing for freedom. Harry frowned. He couldn't even remember the words anymore; a dull ache and static filled his head the harder he tried to remember.

But it didn't matter. The energy coiled deep inside him remembered, the magic remembered. And with a gentle sigh large swathes of it flowed out of him, its actions following his unsaid – unspeakable – commands. With the familiarity of an old friend, torches appeared and tables gently snapped themselves back together. Shards of wood from benches and other furniture fluttered on a non-existent breeze around the hall as they settled back into place and clipped together like a puzzle that had only just remembered it was meant to be completed. The ancient golden podium righted itself, dents and scorch marks fading away like they had never been.

Harry felt the pleased thrum beat gently against the fingertips that he still had hovering on the table's surface with a featherlight touch. For just this moment, this single snippet of time, amongst the ashes that still coated many surfaces the old castle felt whole again. For the first time in a long time magic flew through the grounds of Hogwarts, singing and twisting in the air and all was right in his world again. For once his memories and thoughts began to un-fog and Harry smiled because he remembered and revelled in his magic and marginally more real echoes of his once friends and family. Harry could recall their names and the glorious magic they had done together and-

Avada Kedavra

And in a bright flash of green behind his eyes it was gone. The clammy and cold grasping hands of the static and smoke that shrouded his mind returned with a vengeance, clawing and clasping at everything they could. With nary a whimper Harry's magic snapped back into him and, although the repairs stayed, the torches and candles slowly went out one by one, eventually and inevitably casting the hall back into its original darkness.

Finally, the solitary star in the artificial night sky sputtered, dimmed and went out. One last heartbeat thumped gently against his fingertips; somehow conveying a depth of love and care for the boy who was no longer a boy but still found his home here within its walls. It was acceptance and an apology.

Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, was left alone with nothing but the cold, the dark and a single tear running down his cheek.

-o-

It was with trembling limbs that Harry approached the great fireplace near the entrance way. The wizards and witches who had maintained the magical fireplace teleportation system (his mind fuzzed even thinking that much about it) had long since died. No longer maintained, what had once been a vastly complicated grid of canal like passaged filled with magic had dried up into unusable troughs. That's what it seemed like to Harry at least.

He stared at the fireplace long and hard, willing it to let him through. The ruddy thing just stared back at him accusingly as a pile of desiccated wood could at least. After a few moments of deliberation Harry found himself hunched over the mantlepiece, almost tripping over the logs as he got there.

"Ministry of-" his voice rang out clearly even as the fuzzy feeling intensified in his head. He grunted, "Well that's inconvenient."

Slowly he closed his eyes, pushing forward an echo to the front of his mind. A great chair, covered in chains, a pink toad, shelves upon shelves upon shelves of glowing crystalline balls and finally a great stone archway. Or rather something that looked like stone, acted like stone but was really something other. Harry felt a pull at his navel, a single dried out root in the grid filling with his power. With no sound other than swoosh of green tongues of flame Harry Potter disappeared from the ground of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the final time with tightly shut eyes.

When his eyes opened after admittedly dizzying spinning feeling of the magic fireplace, like travelling down rapids without a boat or a life jacket, Harry found himself planted face down in decades old soot and cobwebs.

He rose with a mighty splutter, puffing out little clouds of ashy mites and webbing.

"Not the most pleasant way to travel." He chuckled weakly to himself.

It was perhaps two hundred years ago that Harry had started doing that. At first, he remembered in the echoes, the few survivors had tried to help him; to talk with him. That had been fun. But they faded away all too soon, without the power sources they needed age had crept up on them ever faster.

Eventually they had withered before his very eyes. The Moon, The Sun, The scant few Fires that had remained. He knew the others had gone on without him, to their next journey and adventure while Harry was left alone. Even the non-magical places were gone; some wiped out by the great war that had so completely destroyed his world others by non-magical means. Self-destruction and human nature were one and the same he supposed.

But for Harry he was left untouched by time. No wrinkles or sagging skin, no greying hair or failing health. Completely unchanged he looked the exact same as he had at twenty years old. Unkempt hair, no facial hair to speak of (much to his consternation and a lanky Fire's amusement), reasonably tall too he liked to think. The only benefit of being alone, Harry had found, was that for once he was always the tallest in the room.

So it was that The-Boy-Who-Time-Always-Seemed-To-Forget-About entered what had once been the British Ministry of Magic.

I killed Sirius Black

The echoes were strong here too. Even as Harry brushed the last of the dust from his hair, he could hear them, see them and almost touch them. From the most brilliant of golden hues, to the most rotten green and browns they danced around him, leaving the dust undisturbed as they pirouetted through normal daily life and then the final battle.

Flashes of the most verdant shades of green and blue and red shot through the air. One by one the echoes died out, forms slipping into glowing particles that eventually fell into the ash that they had become today. And Harry was alone again.

However, the pull in his navel hadn't disappeared after he arrived. He felt it even now, a gentle tug towards a great golden elevator that rested near the corner of the atrium he had arrived in. Harry had always been a fan of following his gut, much to The Book's annoyance and all the others' reluctant amusement.

When he entered the elevator his hand almost rose by itself to press the very lowest button. "The Department of Mysteries" it read out clearly, coincidentally right next to a bright red sign of "DANGER. NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONEL". Harry poked his head out briefly to check the coast was clear, glaring at the dust mites on the floor.

Even as the elevator began to descend, they didn't deign to respond, which was really quite rude of them Harry thought.

Please, take me! Leave him!

He shook his head blearily, the closer he got to his destination the fuzzier he felt. Must have gotten some of that dust into his head he thought idly. By the time the contraption finished its descent Harry's head was almost horizontal as he tried to smack the side of his head to get anything out of his ear.

Nothing came.

With a ding the rattily old gates swung open to reveal a long dark corridor with many equally dark doors. As Harry walked through it his bare feet left feet-shaped markings of ash that he had latched on in the atrium, contrasting heavily with the near black marble floors and walls that almost seemed to absorb light into them.

Harry ignored all the doors to his side, his sight set on the one at the very end, the one his stomach was almost dragging him towards by that point. When he lay his hand on it the first thing he noticed was the cold. It seeped through his skin, straight through the bone and into his soul. Whatever was on the other side of that door was not right.

Almost like Harry himself.

The door opened with the slightest push, not letting out a single squeak or groan and within was a large circular room. Its rocky walks seemed to have been hued naturally by the elements, walls that seamlessly curved down and around onto the floor leading to a small hill. Atop the hill stood his destination, and he found that he had always known where he was going.

A great smooth "stone" archway towered high above his head, looming menacingly. Harry shivered, the cold was definitely unnatural but what really unnerved him enough to slightly pierce his fogged mind was the absolute silence. In the rest of the ministry there had also been no noise true but still, everything about that archway was still. But he could feel it, just beyond his senses a tapestry of noise, a cacophony emanating from inside that arch. He couldn't hear it but he feel it.

On unsteady legs Harry ascended the mound, fingers trailing loosely over jagged rocks at his side. Even his sense of touch seemed muted somehow in this room that shouldn't exist, in view of this arch – this doorway! – that shouldn't exist. When finally he rested one hand on the thing at the top of that hill.

Run

Go

Come

Leave

Die

LIVE

The echoes burst into his head clearer than they had ever been, almost memories. Of bushy hair and books, of flaming hair and flying brooms, of gold and moons and more. Of friends. Of family.

Harry's eyes had been forced closed with the influx of voices and images but when he opened it he thought he could see it. Just a little bit. Around the base of the hill stood echoes, ghosts of a better time. He could almost make out their faces, just too slightly blurred out by the multicoloured glow of magic. He knew they were watching over him, they always had been and when he looked back at the archway he could see it. A door of undulating power and inconsistent form, a pathway.

With one last look back at what had been his family, Harry Potter, just a boy, opened the doors and stepped through.

Into the next great adventure