Disclaimer: Yet another time-traveling fic - oh, the horror. Anyway, neither Harry Potter nor the idea belong to me. The way I've twisted the original idea of Harry traveling back in time to Voldemort's schooldays, though, might be considered mine. In other words, I am beating a dead horse.
He had been so happy. This was important.
Voldemort – Tom Riddle – and all incarnations of him were gone. The horcruxes had all been destroyed and Voldemort himself vanquished.
Harry Potter was basking in the satisfaction of a job well done. It made the feeling only sweeter to know that he'd finished a task that had been assigned to him before he was even born.
Oh, there were several things that needed cleaning up, including the mess that had been left of Hogwarts and the Ministry – but the important thing was that Voldemort was gone and people were willing to help to make their world whole again.
Most importantly, the people who he cared about were safe and well. Hermione and Ron were together, alive and well. Harry and Ginny also had nothing barring them from being together, either. Neville, Luna, the Weasleys, the professors… most of them were perfectly fine. What more could he want?
He was happy. The crusade was over.
"Give us another chance," pleaded the woman in front of him.
Harry frowned, unwilling to have something unpleasant intrude into his moment of greatest fulfillment. She had pushed her way into the crowd of well-wishers that had surrounded Harry and swept out with him in tow, her presence somehow making everyone else give her a wide berth.
Perhaps it was the tears tracking their way down her cheeks or the clear sign of aristocracy shown through her clothing, her bearing. Maybe it was even the fact that she looked as though she had lost everything. This woman looked very much like a queen, with silvered blonde hair and an imperious chin. It just made her open grief so much more startling.
It should have been a time of celebration because even the people who had lost their own could appreciate the sacrifice made as necessary for the defeat of Voldemort.
This woman alone showed a sorrow that was frightening.
"You must help us. Or do you only give your lions the chance to choose their side?" she asked bitterly.
Harry studied her, wondering who exactly this woman was. She had to be a pureblood, quite possibly a former Slytherin. There was also an impression of great age about her. "I'll do my best to make sure that all the Death Eaters get a fair trial," he promised, wondering if that was really possible. However, he would try his best because he remembered that Draco had lied for him, as had Mrs. Malfoy. He still disliked them, but he owed them that much.
"A fair trial? You really don't understand anything."
Before Harry could move, the woman waved her wand in a complicated figure. Harry grasped the Elder Wand, which responded immediately to his hand. Something about the woman's eyes, though, made him stop.
They were such a deep blue.
She finished her spell, whatever it was, and pointed her wand straight at him. He was aware of a number of lights cocooning him into a great web. Perhaps it would be better to die now, while he was at his happiest? But no, he would never go down without a fight and he didn't think that the woman really wanted him dead.
He'd have to trust her, for now.
"It's not finished yet," she said quietly, taking out a silver knife with fine etchings on the blade.
"Stop!" Harry cried out. The woman had just cut her own arm with her knife, so deep that it must have reached bone. Blood poured out, and Harry understood. This was blood magic. Only the witch hadn't used someone else's blood, she'd used her own. Either way, it was an abomination.
"It's all right. But you'll give us another choice now, won't you?" she asked smiling as though she couldn't feel the pain. Even as Harry watched, she seemed to grow older. Wrinkles appeared and deepened on her face, the straight back became less straight, the hair became completely white.
It was horrifying to watch.
If this was a way to appeal to his sense of honor and guilt, then it was working. Before Harry was completely wrapped up in the cocoon, he watched as the woman seemed to shrink and, finally, appeared to fall apart.
By the time others came out into that place, nothing remained of Harry or the woman.