Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Harry Potter. I write this for my amusement and for others to enjoy, not for profit.

Revision: 2/06/07

Rough Draft: 5/14/06

His Next Destiny

by MingShun

Summary: That fateful Halloween night, there were three destined instead of two. Only one was marked. So what if you're not the Boy Who Lived anymore? If you've lived as one already, you're not going to let fate hold you back, will you?

Warnings: Alternate Universe, Back to the Past, No Slash, H/G

"Regular Talking"
Alias (When we don't know that person's real name.)
'Thoughts'

Spells, and Memories

Sound Effect

(Time)

A/N: I have an amazing story to tell you, but I'm afraid my writing skills will weaken it badly. I implore that you, the reader, help me make this story better by warning me frequently…even for the smallest spelling mistake. Reviews, e-mail, somehow…let me know.

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 1: In a Strange Place

-o-o-o-o-

It was a crisp clear winter day. Snow gleamed brightly from atop the rooftop of an ordinary looking home. However! This isn't an ordinary home. This house, it grows as one approaches. By the time you reach the front step, you'll find that the home is now large enough to be a mansion. No, this isn't technology at work, it's magic!

Inside of this mansion was a moderately sized room, one whose thick heavy curtains prevented most of the light from entering through the large windows. In the middle of this room sat a large comfortable-looking bed, upon which laid a raven-haired boy. However, the boy looked anything but peaceful. Even as we speak, the boy was flailing wildly, and his frequent incoherent mumbling carried a depressingly dark tinge to them.

With a final jerk, we see the boy's eyes fly open as he bolted off the bed and onto the soft floor.

He crouched defensively beside the bed for a minute; trying to focus his sight and hearing in all directions as he sought out some invisible danger contained within the room. After a minute he relaxed, and, with a heavy sigh, collapsed ungracefully into a more comfortable position. He sat there quietly, waiting for his heavy panting to slow before he stood up and climbed back into bed.

Ungracefully flopping onto his back, the boy tiredly stared at the ceiling as he started to remember his dream...

Days had passed since Voldemort had fallen and Harry sat alone within his parent's ruined cottage at Godric's Hollow. He dizzily looked around. The firewhiskey in his hand was stronger than he would have liked, but it dulled his regrets.

An era of peace seemed to be dawning with the fall of Voldemort, but he couldn't muster the energy to be out there celebrating with the crowd or solidifying the peace with his best friends. Instead, he traveled around in a fit of depression, visiting places that held meaning to him. He took another swig of the awful liquor when a bang filled the air. Taken by surprise, Harry was unable to dodge the curse…a fatal wound…surprisingly no pain…then he couldn't remember. Was there anything else?

Like any dream or nightmare, the details had faded away. Who had fired the curse? Why was he in Godric's Hollow anyway? All he was left with was a vague impression of dying in his nightmare. He couldn't suppress the chuckle. It was absurd how frequently he dreamed about his own death. With that thought in mind, he dismissed the nagging feeling that it might not have been a nightmare..

With a sigh, and a brief moment of thought, his thoughts turned outward as he moved to face Ron's bed.

"Alright Ron, it was hard. But all of our efforts hav-"

Harry sat up in shock. Without his glasses he had trouble distinguishing a cantaloupe from a green apple. But he immediately saw that this wasn't Ron's room at the Burrow, nor was it the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley's. In fact, the pine green walls of the spacey room did not belong to any room that he knew or trusted.

Now alert, Harry looked around frantically for a wand. Half blind without his glasses, the search proved to be rather frustrating. After rifling through the covers, he finally directed his attention to the top of the dresser that was placed next to the bed. There!

Instead of grabbing and holding the wand aloft in triumph, he stared suspiciously at it instead. This was too convenient, something was wrong here. Harry's eyes flickered upwards where he found something else to occupy his attention for a moment. Brilliant! A pair of glasses! He wasted little time in picking them up and securing them to his face.

Immediately after putting them on, he froze as fear enveloped his body. He waited. Waited for the pain that would happen any second now, as a dangerous curse reach out and melted his face.

A minute passed without anything happening. He tentatively cracked an eye open and gingerly felt his face. Nothing felt out of place. With that thought in mind, Harry soon opened his other eye. When nothing serious happened except for clearer vision, he decided that these glasses might be safe...for now. He pulled them off anyway and waited for boils to grow on his face.

Half a minute later, the glasses were back on his face and he had stopped wondering about the potential dangers. Instead, he was curious about why the lenses seemed to be just right. Not too powerful and not too weak. Not only that, this pair also fit better than his old ones. He quickly shook his head to disperse his thoughts. Now wasn't the time to speculate about his new eyewear.

He glanced at the wand. It was different from his, a dark brown and charred in spots. However, when he looked at the wand, it didn't scream cheap or poorly cared for. His first thought was that it looked evil. It was obvious that the previous owner was a talented artist to alter the wand's appearance to have this effect. He reached over to pick it up...

…and immediately dropped it in surprise. It felt like an ordinary stick! Seizing it this time and using willpower to hold it firmly in his grip, Harry quickly revised that thought, it was worse than a stick; try as he might, he couldn't force more than a fraction of his magic through it. The wand was so incompatible that it was fighting against his magic. Biting his lip, he decided to keep it anyway. He needed a wand next to him to feel safe.

Abandoning the bed from the side opposite the dresser, Harry was presented with two obvious escape routes. Which should he use, the window or the door? The decision took little time as the answer was obvious. Determined to find answers, he covered the few steps to the nearest door, and found…a walk-in closet. Aside from a few articles of clothing and toys, it was rather empty. Undeterred, Harry backed out and headed for the next door.

Taking care to pull it open slowly, the boy cringed as it gave off several gasps anyway. He immediately darted behind the door and listened, his wand out and ready for any guards that decided to arrive and investigate the source of the noise. Finding none, he carefully pulled the door open a little more so that he could peer through. He almost cheered aloud. Instead of another closet, Harry found himself staring into the middle of a hallway this time.

Soon after, Harry found himself wandering through a cheerfully decorated hallway. 'Very strange for a dark wizard's home,' he distantly thought. There were several closed doors on either side of the hallway, all of which he ignored after the first one gave him a rather vicious shock.

This was strange. Aside from the doors, his captors weren't acting like he would expect. If he was a prisoner, why wasn't he restrained when he woke up? Why was a wand freely available? Where were the ones that were supposed to watch him?

He finally came to a tall staircase. It was here that he paused for a moment to listen to the ambient sounds. He heard some clinking and clattering downstairs, as if a few people were eating. The smell of warm food reinforced that assumption. Taking a chance, Harry crept downwards, holding his breath whenever a stair groaned under his weight.

At the bottom of the stairs, Harry sidled over and took a peek into the room. His eyes widened as his legs suddenly felt like jelly and his arm decided right then to give out on him. He fell forward.

The world seemed to crawl.

'What? How? Mum? Dad? Whose girl is that?' he numbly thought right before his shoulder struck the wall with a thump.

He saw the girl stiffen slightly, before she turned to look behind her. This prompted the two adults to stop their conversation and look questioningly at the child before they too looked in his direction.

Time sped up as he pulled back as fast as he could. It was too late though. His gut told him that they had seen him, and he didn't have much time to figure out what to do now.

He heard a chair scraping as its occupant started to stand. That was all that he needed to spur him to run for it.

The front door wasn't far, and Harry immediately chose that as his escape route. A shout of surprise was heard as he passed the opening into the dining room, but Harry ducked his head and kept running.

His furious charge ended when a sickening thud marked his heavy impact with the front door. Grasping the knob, he tried to twist it. It wouldn't budge, locked!

Whipping his wand around, Harry started to wave it, an incantation on the tip of his tongue.

Stupefy!

As his world went black, Harry cursed himself for not seeing the other person crouched next to the stairs.

-o-o-o-o-

Ennervate!

A strange tingle pulled Harry back from the land of unconsciousness. Groggily taking in his surroundings, Harry's eyes first met Sirius'. Before he could jump and hug his godfather however, his eyes snapped towards the other two familiar faces. James and Lily Potter. They were older-looking but still easy to recognize. That photo album that Hagrid had given him at the end of his first year was starting to fray around the edges given how often he looked through it in his free time.

But it was strange to see their happy expressions in the photos replaced by a frown on mum's face and an oddly neutral expression on his dad's face.

"Mum…Dad? What's wrong?" He asked in a dreamy sort of a voice.

So he was dead. While he died younger than he would have liked, at least he finished his life's mission to take out Voldemort.

His heart swelled. He was finally meeting his parents in person. Maybe Ginny was hiding around a corner and waiting for his parents to finish first before she appeared to show her anger and love. Yes, he had no doubt that she would chew him out for dying before he had a chance to li-

Harry was understandably surprised when two large hands seized the front of his shirt and yanked him forward. "Where were you going boy?" James shouted.

"James!" Lily sputtered out in surprise. The hands abruptly released him, and Harry fell backwards, incidentally knocking his head hard against a solid unyielding object.

"W…wha?" Harry stammered as stars filled his vision. He was pretty certain that if he were dead or dreaming, it wouldn't hurt this much. The world fell away as Harry struggled to understand what was going on. Who were these people? Where was he?

A single word caught his ear and he looked up to glare at his interrogator just as the man was finishing his question.

"-mort?" Harry felt a fleck of spittle landed on his cheek.

"What?" Harry asked glaring furiously at the fake who dared impersonate his father.

"Who were you going to meet?" Sirius asked, taking over the questioning since his friend was too overcome with emotion to speak coherently. As he asked, he grasped Harry's left arm and raised its sleeve.

"No one?" Harry replied indignantly as he pulled his arm away. He opened his mouth to tack on an insult, but he was interrupted by a hard slap.

"You lie!" James shouted. He grabbed Harry by the shoulder and started to vigorously shake the boy again. Harry felt his head knock against the hard wood twice more before the man shaking him was restrained by the woman and the man. "Listen here boy, if I hear or even see you going dark, I will kill you myself."

Harry watched guardedly as James stormed out of the room, followed closely by Lily. There was a loud cry of rage, and something breaking in another room before silence descended on the house again.

His attention was drawn back to Sirius, who was crouching down, bringing the man down to Harry's eye level. "Dumbledore has given his permission for your return to Hogwarts…"

'What?' Harry mentally asked, stunned. Wasn't Dumbledore dead?

The man continued, unaware of Harry's thoughts, "…Apparently, you aren't the one responsible. This time. Hear me now when I say that you're one lucky piece o' crap. Get your trunk ready you waste of space, everyone else is leaving in an hour. Just remember, even if you don't have anyone following you, you will still be heavily watched. Anymore trouble and you will finally be expelled and on your way to Azkaban," he took a deep breath, "If you were my son, I would have sent you there long ago. Your parents are really too kind for this." The man stood up and walked off.

Harry sat there gaping in shock. Shock quickly became anger. How dare that twat dishonor Sirius' memory like that, he seethed as his grip on the wand tightened. After several tense moments, rational thought finally succeeded in restraining him from chasing down the git, and hexing him to oblivion. It wasn't because he was scared for his life. It was the wand in his hand. It was telling him that it didn't like him. He wouldn't be able to win. And when Harry finally met his godfather on the other side, he would be ferociously chewed out for knowingly throwing his life away for nothing.

Harry stopped glaring at the man's retreating form and looked up at the girl that had appeared to glare at him. A redhead, she was probably 8, maybe 9, wore glasses, and rather average looking. She was going to be a heartbreaker in the future though, he could tell. Nevertheless, if this was supposed to be Ginny, they really didn't do a good job on her.

"Err, hi." The boy greeted, without a grin, wondering what the girl wanted. A glob of spit smacked him in his right eye. The girl ran off immediately after seeing her spit land on his face.

-o-o-o-o-

That was shocking, and disgusting. Harry had immediately slapped a hand over the right side of his face, but it failed to hide his flabbergasted expression. A minute ticked by before his face twisted into a scowl and he stalked into the kitchen to wash the spit off.

Afterwards, he made his way upstairs, wondering why his captors were sending him to Hogwarts. It struck him that maybe they were going to present him to the newest dark lord who was currently based within the walls of Hogwarts. He immediately dismissed that thought. It was too crazy. But maybe Hogwarts was code word for the dark lord's fortress while Dumbledore was the code word for leader. He would have to be careful.

A dull headache plagued him as he traveled through the upstairs hallway. 'Too many knocks to the head,' he thought wanly. How did he get himself into these situations anyway?

He came upon a slightly open door. Recognition dawned on him; this was the room that he came out from earlier. Curious, he entered the room, and shivered as a chill in the room pierced his body.

This cold, it wasn't the type which a little heat could remove. No, the room reeked of loneliness. Who could possibly live in a place like this?

It took some time before the chill stopped bothering him. In that time, Harry had slowly entered the room and worked his way around the messy floor. His eyes soon landed upon an old battered trunk. Opening it, he found it almost ready to go.

'Strange. It was almost as if the previous tenant wanted to leave as soon as possible. '

Picking up an old broomstick that he found in the corner of the room, he placed it into the trunk before he latched the lid and claimed the trunk as his own. Perhaps it was stealing, but the weirdness and infuriating nature of this place kept him from feeling very guilty about it. Mentally declaring himself ready, he decided to take advantage of the extra time that he saved to explore the room and ponder his current situation.

It took Harry a second glance at the calendar before realizing that something was wrong with the date. If the calendar was to be believed, then today was January the third, 1993. Or at least, that's what he assumed, there was a slash through the first, the second, and a few days at the end of December. Yesterday was June the twenty-second, 1998 if he recalled correctly, and he did. It was a day to remember, and a day that he wanted to forget. Shaking his head to rid himself of a painful memory, Harry angrily wiped his eyes and walked over to the nearest window to have a look outside.

Swish! The curtains were flung open, and Harry was treated to an extraordinary sight. A blanket of white covered the ground, trees, and houses. Snow! Fred and George's Snow Snow product could do this, but they rarely sold it seeing how expensive the ingredients were and how often the device failed to work – today really was January, and he was in the past! That explained why everything seemed higher, why his hands were smaller, and why he felt weaker.

Was this a dream? It's strange how much control he had here. He positioned his hand against his forearm…

Ouch! The pinch stung. No, this didn't feel like a dream. His head throbbed, reinforcing his belief.

So what about his memories from before? Had he dreamed of his victory over Voldemort? Harry shook his head at that, he was pretty certain that those wounds that he incurred were real. He gave a huff. Then an odd sort of inspiration struck him, maybe he had been given a second chance! He frowned at that. No. He couldn't be starting over from day 1. He would be at the Dursley's then, not stuck in a Death Eater's mansion.

No, he thought despondently, this probably wasn't a second chance. What was going on then?

Confused, Harry turned away from the window to look at the room. There had to be an answer in here! But where? The more he gazed at this room, the more confused he became as more questions popped up. Overwhelmed, the boy decided that he had enough for now. Besides, it was time to go. He stalked over to the trunk, only to stop halfway there.

"Bloody!" He bit out. Barefoot, Harry had accidentally stepped upon something small, and pointy. It stung. Bending down for a closer look, he came upon a small object hidden deep within the thick plushy gray carpet. Pulling it out, Harry discovered what used to be an arm. Looking back at the mess of toys he had kicked into a corner, he saw a headless figurine, resting on top, missing the arm that he was now holding in his hand.

He picked up the figurine to examine it. It used to be a toy wizard, maybe an action figure. He flipped it over. It didn't move anymore he absently noted, the damage was too great. He tried once or twice to reattach the arm. His efforts went unrewarded as the arm fell away soon after.

Dropping the arm into the pile, Harry stared at the toy wizard a little longer before looking up to gaze at the others. These toys are all broken beyond repair. Are they there to warn him?

Something must have compelled him, because he dug into the pile and uncovered a small pink diary.

A quick glance behind the cover had:

Property of:

And, penned underneath it
H.J.Potter

He dropped the diary in surprise when he saw the initials behind the front cover. Bending down to retrieve it again, he placed it into his pocket, before grabbing his "new" trunk and leaving the mysterious room.

-o-o-o-o-

A/N: I need a beta reader.

Ming (underscore) shun (underscore) lin (at) yahoo (dot) com

More Notes:

- Harry in this story is actually fairly powerful. However, aside from knowledge, he doesn't have any special skills, such as shapeshifting or wandless magic.

- Don't expect lots of killing and death and gore. I'm not interested in explicit violence.

- Feel free to point out plot holes, or things that don't make sense. I'm trying to write a story that's entertaining, yet realistic. I've spent a fair amount of time planning the story, so it should be fine.

- Review by dragon of war:

"his eyes and ears darting wildly left and right"

How can your ears dart?

My Fix: "trying to focus his sight and hearing in all directions "

Thanks! It's not easy for me to catch these small things since my focus is all over the place. I'll try and be more cautious.