[Author's Note: This story was originally created by a very good friend of mine, Ailin Revan, and the first two chapters belong to her, I only corrected the minor mistakes that I found. Unfortunately she has very little free time at the moment, so I'll be taking over the story. I hope you won't be disappointed.
~ Silvana.]

Prologue.

As Harry James Potter lay helplessly on the battle field, his whole life did indeed flash before his eyes. Years at the Dursleys, Hogwarts, the war, everyone that died, both Order members and Death Eaters. Harry couldn't help but wish that he could have a chance to go back in time and do something to change his mistakes… for there were a lot of them… most of all he regretted trusting Dumbledore… Even as he knew he was about to die, he managed to get angry at the old bastard and those two red haired fuckers – Ron and Ginny Weasley, who manipulated him since he came into the Wizarding World and ultimately destroyed any chance for a normal life he had…

With the last remaining strength he turned his head and looked at those who lay beside him – Hermione, Luna, Tonks, Voldemort and the two Malfoys… Potter's vision dimmed gradually. He wondered why none of the survivors tried to save him… but no comforting ideas came, as his consciousness slipped into oblivion.

When Harry opened his eyes, he was surprised to find himself in a very luxury room. The floor was made out of glass and below it… below it was the battle field he died on. The teen turned around and found a beautiful man sitting on the sofa and looking downwards. As he felt Harry staring, he looked up and smiled:

- Well, mister Potter. As you probably figured out, you're dead.

Harry blinked, the statement was rather blunt:

- Yeah… I thought so…

The man nodded:

- Good, very good. I am Destiny and I'm afraid that you won't be able to stay here.

- What do you mean? Am I going to be sent to Hell for all the people that died because of me?

Destiny snickered for some reason:

- Hell? No, of course not. Why does everyone always assume the worst? I simply meant that it was not your destiny to die today, Mr. Potter.

- So you'll send me back? I'll continue living?

- Not exactly…

- Huh?

- Very eloquent… what I meant was that I'll send you back to some time around your 10th birthday.

- Why then?

- Well… since you've been manipulated ever since you came to Hogwarts, you'll now have a chance to avoid that and do things differently.

- Wow…

Harry was in shock… his dream was coming true – he had a chance to go back and set things right… it was mind blowing… for a second he thought he was hallucinating, but then he remembered that he was in fact dead and therefore it was very much real. Silence became noticeable and Harry cleared his throat:

- Will I… will I have my memories? Of this time?

- Of course you will, otherwise you'd just make the same mistakes again…

- Yeah… I guess so…

- I take it you're ready to go?

- Is there… anything I have to know before you send me back?

Destiny smirked, obviously pleased that Harry managed to ask the right question:

- Well… it's very good you asked, Harry. You see, there are a lot of things you're not aware of that I couldn't speak of unless you asked… first of all, your mother, Lily, was not a muggleborn. In fact, she was not an Evans…

- Hold on… if she was not an Evans, then what about the blood wards?

- Patience, Potter. I'll get to that in due time. As I said, she was not an Evans, her birth name was Lilith Eve Warren, and she was the sole heiress of the family. Her parents were among the last victims of Grindewald and so she landed in an orphanage. Then she was picked up by Albus Dumbledore and given to the Evans family.

- So his manipulations go back to my Mom?

- Not quite. He's always been manipulative, greedy and power hungry. He knew Lily was from an old rich pureblood family, what he didn't know, was that her family was descended from Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slitherin.

- You're kidding, right? I'm the heir of Ravenclaw and Slitherin?

- No, I'm not kidding, now be quiet, I'm not finished. The Potters, as you know, are an equally rich and old family, descended from the other two founders – Hufflepuff and Griffindor. The Griffindor part was common knowledge, which was part the reason why Voldemort thought you'd be his equal, not Neville. Now what you'll need to do, when you go back, is to claim heirship the first chance you get. I'm pretty sure, you'll get emancipated. The rest you'll find out there.

- In Gringotts, or in the past in general?

- In Gringotts, of course. Make sure to do the test that all the pureblood children take to see if you have any extra gifts. If you do, make sure they're not bound, for that just might be the 'power he knows not'. Now our time's up, I'll send you now. Good luck, Harry Potter.

Harry nodded dumbly, still in shock from the informational overload. His surroundings blurred out and then he fainted.

Chapter One.

As Harry woke up, he automatically sat up and banged his head on the ceiling. He fell down onto the extremely uncomfortable mattress and opened his eyes. He expected his surroundings to be blurry, but they were not. This was an unexpected but very welcome surprise. The boy spent a few moments in total silence, waiting for the headache to go away. And then he remembered what happened before he passed out. Destiny, the talk…

Feeling very anxious, Potter opened the door and peaked outside. To his utter shock, he really was back at the Dursleys. He slowly crept down to hall to the kitchen and checked the calendar – it was June, 30st 1991 – he had an entire month before the special birthday. "I'm stuck here for a whole month… ugh…" – Potter was about to go on a rant about how all of it was not fair, but then he realized something important – "No… this is actually good… I have a chance to draft a plan of everything I know and things I have to find out and… hell… i have to go to Gringotts. It's about time that old manipulating bastard took his hands out of my money…" A nasty smile made its' way to Harry's face as he imagined how Dumbledore would look when he realized that all of the stolen money was gone…

The clock told him that there were at least two hours before the Dursleys would be up, so Harry got to his chores with an unexpected vigor. He hoped that Petunia would let him go out for the day, which was essential, if he wanted to go to Gringotts.

He was busy cleaning the windows, when he heard the faint knocking on the cupboard door. "In here, aunt Petunia." – he called, not wanting her to yell at unimaginable volumes. A few minutes later the woman came in, ready to berate him for stealing food, but much to her surprise Harry was putting away cleaning supplies and the entire kitchen was so clean, that it was almost glittering. Petunia Dursley narrowed her eyes and studied the boy. She knew that it was his birthday, so she was sure that he wanted something. Still, she waited for him to speak. And indeed, Harry blushed and asked, stuttering:

- Aunt Petunia… do you th-think I could g-go out f-for the day?

Missis Dursley looked around the kitchen and sighed, knowing that it would be unfair to make him do more chores, especially since it was Dudley's bithday and Mrs Figg broke her leg and was unable to stay with the boy. This way they wouldn't have to take him to the Zoo with them:

- Yes, you can go, just make sure to be back before 10 pm, if you're late, you'll have to spend the whole night outside.

- Thank you, aunt Petunia.

Harry replied with a huge smile on his face. Then the boy all but ran out of the house, complimenting himself on his acting skills.

When he was out of the house, he sat down on the pavement, as the obvious problem came to his mind – he had no money for the Knight Bus and therefore he had to figure out how to get to Gringotts. Floo was out of the question for obvious reasons, he had no way to make a port key and he had no broom. That left only one option – apparating. He had no doubts, he could do it, but it had to be done in a way that would look like an accident, for an almost 11 year old child would not know how to apparate successfully. For all he knew, people would think Voldemort was possessing him and that was not what he wanted.

After a few test tries, he knew what had to be done. He climbed a tree and jumped down, apparating in the process.

The landing was rough, but not as painful as Harry imagined. Then he realized, that he landed on somebody. The boy scrambled to his feet and began apologising. A firm hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up to see whom he fell on. As soon as his eyes met the silver-grey eyes of the man in front of him, Harry froze. He knew only one person witht eyes of that particular shade of grey.

"Oh crap! I apparated on top of Lucius Malfoy! How is that possible? Why does stuff like this always happen to me?" – Harry was hyperventilating and he knew it, yet he couldn't calm down.

Lucius, on his part, was looking at the child in concern. He had no idea, how a child, who looked no older than 6, maybe 7 years old managed to apparate on his own. From the way he was reacting, Lucius figured the kid was muggleborn, or an orphan, raised by muggles. Yet, at this moment it didn't matter to him. He had to calm the boy down.

Harry waited for Malfoy to start yelling, or just go away, but the blond did neither. Instead, he lowered himself to Harry's level and stared at the boy in concern, not sure what to do. "Ok, Potter, relax. He didn't recognize you. Now if I can act out the part of a scared kid, he'll leave me be…" – rationalized the 'boy-who-lived' and glanced around with wide scared eyes:

- What happened? How did I get here? – he asked in a wavering voice, close to panic.

- It's ok, it was just your accidental magic. There is nothing to be scared of. – answered Lucius softly, trying to calm the child down.

- Accidental magic? But… there is no such thing as magic… - said Harry suspiciously – My uncle says so.

Lucius blinked. Of course, he expected an answer like that, but he was undecided as to how to handle the situation correctly:

- Your uncle? Don't you live with your mother and father?

- No, sir… they died when I was one.

Lucius froze and looked closely at the child – messy black hair and green eyes… he'd think this was Potter, but the boy in front of him couldn't possibly 11 years old.

Meanwhile Harry was cursing himself for saying unnecessary things – "Merlin, now he'll think I'm a muggleborn… anyway, why the hell is being so nice? He doesn't know who I am…" And that was when he realized something important – Lucius Malfoy, no matter how he behaved near Harry, was not necessary a bad paerson. That left another question – why was he a Death Eater? Why did he become one in the first place? Harry mentally added another question to his list of things to solve.

Harry smiled shyly, feeling more at ease now that he was at least partially sure that Lucius Malfoy was not evil incarnate:

- I'm really sorry for landing on you like that, sir… but I really must be going now. Have a nice day, sir.

With that he dashed into the crowd and made a beeline for Gringotts, leaving a very confused Lucius behind.

Having made it to Gringotts in one piece, Harry thanked Merlin for sparing him from any more accidental meetings. With some difficulty he opened the door and entered the bank. Everything was just like he remembered, the golden interior, goblins and lots of people.

Potter crossed the hall and went up to an an unoccupied goblin:

- Hello. I'm Harry James Potter and I'd like to go through the blood test to see if I have any inheritance.

Apparently that was the right thing to say, as the goblin snapped to attention and peered closely at Harry, as if making sure he really was Harry:

- A blood test, Mr Potter? That's possible.

The goblin then took out a very old looking parchment and told him to put three drops of blood onto the parchment. Harry complied and soon names began appearing. This didn't really surprise Harry, since he recalled from his chat with Destiny, that it was supposed to work like that. But he didn't expect to see anyhting other than the five names he knew would be there. The boy glanced at the goblin and saw that the poor creature was obviously in shock, not that he blamed him. As soon as names stopped appearing, he bent lower to get a closer look. The first were the obvious ones – Potter, Warren, Black, Griffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slitherin. Then came some surprises as the Prince, Evans, Gaunt, Weasley, Prewett, Lovegood, Longbottom – the ancestry houses that he was Lord of.

"Merlin's balls… why the hell I didn't know about any of this before? How could Dumbledore not tell me?" – he asked himself and then had a strong urge to bang his head on the wall – "I'm such an idiot… this whole mess was cooked up so that Dumbledore and his lackeys… have to figure out who that is… could get their hands on inheritance… and if that's true, then what about the prophecy? I heard it in Dumbledore's memory, so there is a big chance that it could be fake…" Potter was jerked from his musings as the goblin finally came to himself and told the boy to follow him to the Gringotts' director's office.

Chief Ragnok, the director of the British branch of Gringotts was not having a good day. He has been staring at the report in front of the last half an hour, trying to understand, how something like that could even be possible. "Stealing from Gringotts... and from Harry Potter no less... when I find out who did it, that person will wish he'd never been born..." - thought the ancient looking goblin. This was, after all, a matter of pride and therefore a huge offence in the goblin's eyes.

Just as Ragnok was about to write a letter to the mentioned Mr Potter about the event that occurred, his secretary informed him, that Mr Harry James Potter wanted to see him. "Well... talk about good timing..." - thought the goblin, as he told the secretary to show his guest in.

Author's Note: Ok, here ends chapter one and from here on begins my story. I really hope you'll all like it =)