Time and Again

Author's Note: This is going to be the longest thing I've ever written/posted on this site. Expect following chapters to be longer than this one. Random character drawings I've done are at my DeviantArt account, which there is a link to in my profile... I think. This is eventually a Harry/Voldemort story so if that disturbs you, leave now because I didn't have to warn you.

This is a sixth year AU, but I've tried very hard to keep it to canon for most of the sixth book. Although the plot's a little different, most of what JKR says goes.

Prologue

Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts was passing relatively normally so far. Hermione studied. Ron whinged. Dumbledore was being enigmatic. Malfoy was being a twat. And Harry existed. Currently, Harry was existing in potions class. He was determined to actually get a potion made correctly this time. His last two potions, despite the help of the Prince's book, Malfoy had ruined Harry's perfect potion just before Slughorn examined it. This time, Harry was certain he was going to be able to keep Malfoy as far away from his potion as possible. Harry had even gone so far as to cast a new ward that would let him and anything he was touching through to his potion, and nothing else.

Harry added the hyssop and stirred counter-clockwise once. He smiled down at the potion. Perfect. Harry called Professor Slughorn over to check his potion.

"It seems correct," Slughorn said after peering at it. "But after your last efforts, Mr Potter, I think it would be best to test it."

Harry nodded, lowering the ward so that Slughorn could take a sample. Harry watched the professor intently, needing a good grade on this potion to pass the class without doing extra credit assignments. If he hadn't been so intent upon Slughorn, Harry might have noticed that Malfoy had left his seat and dropped a lit firework and both ends of a Fainting Fancy into Harry's cauldron. But alas, Harry did not notice anything was amiss until what remained of the potion in the cauldron exploded.

Harry shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. Because of that, and the smoke, Harry tripped over his schoolbag and ended up face first in a boiling hot cauldron. His impulse to scream didn't help the situation at all, and Harry found himself burning and drowning before someone finally pulled him out of his cauldron. The potion was all over his face, so even upright Harry was still blinded. He heard Slughorn vanish the potion and finally, although painfully, Harry could open his eyes. They locked onto the brown ones of his rescuer. Eyes that made Harry's blood run cold. Eyes that looked alarmingly like they belonged to Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"Mr Riddle," said Professor Slughorn from behind Harry. "Would you care to explain this?"

Harry spun around to face the potions teacher, hoping desperately that this was all some giant hallucination. It didn't take much looking at Slughorn to realise that if it was a hallucination, he was still in it. Slughorn looked rather different from how Harry had expected him to look. He looked about fifty years younger, for starters. Harry turned back to the Riddle lookalike and realised that the students staring at him behind Riddle were not the same students he'd shared a room with a moment before.

Harry fainted.

x X X x

October 1996

Chaos reigned in the potions classroom once the smoke had cleared. Where Harry had been, he no longer was. Ron, always quick to his friend's defence, rounded on Malfoy who was trying very, very hard not to look guilty.

"What did you do to Harry, Malfoy?" Ron's eyes were wide with panic, he'd grabbed Malfoy's collar and was well on his way to choking the blond.

Slughorn separated them with a wave of his wand, and looked rather distressed about the whole situation. He'd lost one of his students. That had never happened before. Although, he did remember an opposite situation when a student had appeared in a cauldron. A student, come to think of it, who looked rather like Harry Potter. Slughorn went pale, unaware of the students' wariness of his silence.

"Professor Slughorn?" Hermione asked tentatively, before reaching up to tap him on the shoulder.

That simple touch broke Slughorn from his musings. "Class is dismissed," he stated.

"But what about Harry?" someone else asked.

"I'm afraid Mr Potter will not be returning to class for quite some time."

The students quickly skedaddled after that, leaving Slughorn to examine the curious ruined potion.

x X X x

A/N: So that's it for the prologue. Next chapter should be up in a day or two, depending on reviews.