Hello Folks, this is the first story I've written here in a very long time, and the first ever under this name. So enjoy the ride and let me know what you think. Grammar Nazis are welcome but will not be taken seriously, and flamers will be used to stoke my fireplace.

Disclaimer: Legally this does nothing but no, I'm not an exceedingly rich British woman, and I never will be, I lack the proper equipment.

Prologue: There and back again... and again.

The twisted skyline that once marked the great city of London lay in ruin. This burned out husk had stood this way for centuries. I can remember it burning. Of all the ways I pictured the world ending I never once would have blamed it on the muggles. Throughout the eons I have protected this world time and again. Always born as the seven month dies, and always only when the world is threatened by a great madman that could see its destruction. But I have no power to fight bombs; radiation, and the total destruction of civilization was not something I could prevent. In some ways; all this ruin is my fault.

This is one of the bad times. I don't know why I have been called back, especially after being left to sleep for so long. My only guess is that he must have woken up with me. Growing up in this hellish landscape wasn't easy, but at least this time I had my memories. You see, every so often, when fate decides to throw me a bone, I get to remember, everything. I remember a grand castle in the Scottish wilderness, friends, classes, and magic all around. I can remember a thousand years before that, founding the very same school, even though my name was different. I can even remember growing up in a mud hut before the written language was invented. Through everything, I have always had my magic. A powerful force that sweeps around me, bending to my will, allowing me to create and change matter with a thought. In this age it seems stronger than it has before, more primal as well.

Every time I awaken I know he has as well. Sometimes I believe I've only been brought back to stop him, or die trying. I've done both more times then I'd like to remember. But, I've spent 23 years wandering this wasteland and I have never layed eyes on him. I can feel him though, like a deep ache in my bones.

A thunderous crash sounds out deep within the ruined city, a booming roar that shatters the few remaining windows scattered about. I look up from my perch atop a dilapidated building and my eyes narrow at the sight. Since muggles ended the world some seven centuries ago, magical society collapsed. We were so few in number even our magic couldn't protect us from the destruction the muggles wrought with their nuclear bombs. This included the statue of secrecy, and the protection we gave to the magical creatures of this world. What I am seeing would have been a dragon in the past, but now it was a true monster. Its wings were stunted and twisted, this monster had never flown. Extra eyes, some of them seeing, others milky whit and blind, dotted its reptilian face and neck. It was impossible to tell what variation of dragon this particular beast descended from, but it was blind with rage, and probably pain. Large sores dotted its bus sized body, and scales were either falling off in places, or had fused together like some plate of armor.

It was crashing about, smashing into buildings and spitting out small spurts of a sickly orange fire. It was hurting itself more than anything else, and I was content to let it have its tantrum when a scream reached my ears. I leapt off of my high spot, using magic to guide me safely to the ground and cushion my fall before taking off at a dead run. Magic was different this time. This time I am without a wand, but in some ways, it suits me better, feels more natural. I leap up into the air and use my magic to push myself forward, fading into a gray cloud as I use a quick combat style of apparition to appear mere feet from the beast. Its kicking up dust and rubble in its pursuit of a young woman, no older then I look. I raise my hand and a thick, three foot long spike of ice shoots from my palm and lodges itself under the creatures arm, burying itself in its flesh.

The woman shrieked again, either in terror or at what I had done directly, and turned and bolted as the mutie dragon turned to face me. I raised up both of my hands and a blue shield swirled around me in enough time to catch the perverted dragon's fire that the monster managed to spit at me. I kill the shield and roll behind an old boulder that once was part of a wall to a book store before poking my head back out and lash out with spinning blades of dark crackling magic.

The blasts tear into the beast, one of them cleaving its fore leg from its body, another burying itself in its maw before losing momentum. It roared in pain and anger as a great rush of dark, putrid blood pooled beneath it. The beast lurches forward and swiped at me with its one remaining front leg. I jump backwards and flip up and over my boulder, easily avoiding the attack as the monster collapses.

It whines pitifully and struggles for a moment before lying still, panting as it dies. I walkeover to the beast, confident that the will to fight had left it, and rest my hand on its head. I saw brief flashes of its life as it dies. Younger, and healthier. Parents that cared for it and loved it. It seems like some of these mutations were finally stabilizing. At least for the dragons.

I send one last blast of pure magic into the crazed animal's brain to put it out of its misery. I could feel that this beast was still flowing with magic so I made a choice. With a few swipes of my hand I pried apart its chest, mostly warped and flaking scales, and give a little 'come here' motion with my finger. Its heart jumps out of its chest with a wet pop and hovers in front of me. After giving it a once over, and deciding that it was more or less a normal dragon heart, a drop it down into the bag I always carry, you never know, maybe I could make a serviceable wand with it one day. The woman I had saved was no where in sight. It wasn't hard to understand why either. With technology barely above the bronze age in sophistication, she probably believed she was losing her mind. Even to this day, I have seen muggles deny the existence of magic, even when its thrust in their faces. The population had dwindled greatly, with only a few million people across the whole world, and only a few hundred wizards amongst them. The few I have managed to speak to at least knew of their history. Some pockets of magicals had survived better than others, but no one was doing very well. I move on from the dead dragon and head for the outskirts of London.

I had been searching the last six or seven years for some way to reverse the damage that had been done but to no avail. It seemed to me that the planet was slowly sorting itself out, but things would never be how they had been. With mutation as bad as it was, it was a wonder any pure animals existed at all anymore. The sun had begun to set as I reached the borders that had once been London. I decided to camp for the night in a clearing just outside London. I would see what the morning brought me.

I awake in a cold sweat. Nightmares haunt me constantly, no matter how long I've lived, regardless of my current incarnation, I always have the nightmares. Usually they star him my ever present antagonist, but last night, it was different. I haven't dreamed of Hermione Granger in a very long time. She was a brilliant witch, the smartest of her age, and she was taken from our world unjustly.

When she was in her early twenties she was offered an apprenticeship to work in the Department of Mysteries, an old area within Britain's wizarding government. She hadn't been there long before an accident occurred. A spell she had been researching backfired right in her face and she was erased out of existence. We never found out what happened to her exactly, but the best minds at the time concluded that she probably slipped into the space between realities, and would probably drift their forever.

I had nightmares about her for years, crying out, floating in an endless void of pure darkness as things that didn't truly exist reached out to touch her, torture her. Last night was the first time in this life that I've had such a dream, and probably the first one I've had in my last four incarnations. Something about Hermione always stuck with me. She was just so uniquely her own person that she'd be impossible to forget.

I sigh and try to let the nightmare go before standing and trying to stretch the kinks out of my body. With a quick summoning charm and a flick of my wrist I have a nice fire started and dig through my pockets (much bigger on the inside than the out) and pull out an old nap sack that has some food in it. Mutie chicken doesn't taste that bad as long as you make sure not to pop the venom sacs while you're fixing it.

After I've eaten I stand and leave my little clearing in this dead stretch of forest and head back out on the road. Much of my time is spent like this, just traveling about, helping where I can and always keeping an eye out for Him. I've had a few leads and hunches over the years as to what he might be up to but nothing concrete, and I've never been able to sense him either. I run a hand through my unruly black hair and frown at the feeling of the scar that crosses my forehead. I always have this scar. If I am born with it I will remember who I am by the time I reach my fifth birthday. If not then I more then likely never find out who I truly am and live a life or ignorance, at least until I die. The scar holds us together somehow. He has one similar to it along the inside of his left arm, but for the life of me I can't remember how we came about them. We are both so very old its quite possible we've merely forgotten their significance.

I crest a hill in this forlorn world and spot a small settlement in the distance. It goes by the name of Good Springs these days, but I always remember it as Chelmsford. I don't believe anyone has called it that in over seven hundred years now. Most of the original town is rubble now, but there is a small population living in a collection of buildings near the edge of the town. It once boasted a population of over a hundred thousand, now it has a population of a few hundred. There are armed guards at a make shift gate and they eye my suspiciously as I approach.

One of them, barely out of his teens calls out to me. "Halt, state your name and intention!" He sounds Serious.

"My name is Harry Potter, I come seeking shelter and trade. Not doing anything more then passing through mate, won't have any trouble out of me." I guess dreaming about Hermione last night set that about; Harry Potter is only one of many names I could have given, but it was always one of my favorites for some reason.

The older of the two guards approached me. "Lift up your coat." I did so and I spread it open for good measure. The only weapon I had that he would be able to see is an old sidearm I carry with me, He eyes me for a second but seems to relax some. Everyone owns a gun now after all. They let me through after their inspection and tell me to behave myself if I don't want to end up with a bullet in me.

The little town is kept pretty clean and orderly, a tiny slice of civilization surrounded by wild country and monsters. There aren't shops exactly, any of the buildings still standing are used more like community housing, but there are little booths set up selling goods. Mostly things like food and clothes, people in this day and age are concerned about what it takes to stay alive, not about having fun.

A few kids are running around though, playing with guns carved out of wood. Its been a while since I've seen any children, growing up in this world is no easy task. I walk up to one of the booths and fish a few stray bullets out of my pocket to trade with. I'm able to get a bag of fried squirrel and a couple of mutie apples. The apples are about a third bigger than the normal ones and are orange with yellow stripes. I take a bite out of one while stashing the rest of my lunch. Its extremely sweet and has a hint of a caramel taste.

I stand their eating my apple and watching the kids play for a moment before moving on, heading down the road to the only building not used for normal housing. Its a clinic of sorts, but the doctors have no real medical training, just trial and error. I always visit places like this first. I walk around, laying a hand on a man's shoulder that has a broken leg. In A few days it will be healed. A pat the hand of an older woman and her 'doctors' will discover that the infection that was going to kill her in a week was starting to clear up rapidly.

There isn't much I can do for this world. The people are so scattered and divided on everything, it will take centuries before they might start trusting each other enough to band together. But I can help the sick and hurt where I find them. With just a subtle bit of magic I can help ease their pain and get them fixed much faster then they would naturally.

I head back outside in enough time to catch some sort of fight going on. A woman is being accosted by one of the guards that also acts as the police here. Apparently she tried to steal food from one of the vendors, and theft is a capitol crime here. I approach them and realize its the same woman I saved from yesterday.

"I'm sorry alright? I'm just hungry, didn't have anything to trade with." She looks pitiful, lanky and staggering. I smell a certain kind of rot on her that tells me she's suffering from radiation poisoning as well.

"Tha's 'sides the point. We don't put up with thieves here so you're either gonna pay for it or I'll throw you out of town on yer arse and you won't ever get back in!" He's holding her by the upper arm and is trying to grab at the loaf of bread she's clutching.

"No need for that now. I'll pay for it." I pull out some more bullets and a small bag of herbs I've collected used for healing. "Is this enough?" He eyes me suspiciously, inspecting my bullets and giving my bag of herbs a sniff before letting her go with a nod.

"Its right good of this bloke to do that for ya. If I catch you stealin' again yer gonna be out on yer arse."

He walks away to pay the vendor and I face the woman. By the way her eyes widen I can tell she recognizes me from yesterday. "B-but, you ain't dead mister?"

"Nah, takes more than a rascal like that. I gave him a spanking and sent him running home to his mummy. Its Harry by the way." I reach out and shake her hand, using my magic to pull the radiation from her body as I do so.

"Well its awfully kind of you mister. I couldn't help me self. I've just been so hungry these last few days. I thought I was getting sick, but I actually feel a bit better now."

"I understand, we're all hungry. Just try not to let it happen again." I give her another look over and I'm satisfied that I drew enough radiation out that she should be fine now.

She totters off to go find a place to eat and I continue on down the street. There's not much for me to do in little places like this. I just go about trying to help people before moving on. Much of this life has been spent this way, with the people so divided I imagine he has had a hard time gathering followers this time around. The man has always bee a monster, and he always wants his minions.

I head into a little tented off area that serves as a bar. If there's one thing people haven't forgotten how to do its how to make alcohol. I lay a bullet down on the table and ask for a glass. I'm mostly here for information. The bear of a bartender approaches me and fill up a dusty glass with something that might be whiskey, but is much stronger. "Have any news I might find interesting?" bars are always a good place to here things, especially given the lack of newspapers in this world.

"Not much 'round here mate. Same old same old for the most part. I did here somethin' interesting about a place on up the road though." I sit up a little straighter and motion for him to continue. "Well, 'bout a week ago a fella come in here talking about this guy up in Cornick, that's about a hundred miles north of here if you didn't know. He says there's this man up there by the name of Tom that's been doing a lot of talkin'. Says he can help the town flourish and prosper. The guy said he did some fancy magic tricks and had the whole town eating out of his hand. Sounds like a tosser if you ask me."

I'm perfectly still. The name Tom echoes in my memory for a minute before settling. Tom Riddle. It could be nothing, just a coincidence, but I will have to make sure. If he's using magic on these people then they'll probably do anything he wants. "Any clue what he did?"

"Oh that fella told me he made a little crippled boy walk. Probably somebody he brought with him in on the scam."

"Yeah, yeah that's probably it." I down my drink, suddenly feeling like I need it, before heading back out the door. I stop at a few more booths on my way out of town to grab some more food and then I'm on my way. The bartender said Cornick is about a hundred miles north of here so that's the direction I'm heading. Throughout my many lives I've been almost everywhere a person could want to go. But I don't recognize the name Cornick so I'll have to walk instead of apparate. Trying to apparate somewhere without knowing exactly where you were going was always a very bad idea.

In no time I'm back out on the road and leaving Chelmsford behind me. I'm heading for Cornick.

END

Well what do you guys think? If people find this interesting I'll of course write more, if not I might write more anyway. It might seem a bit slow for now but it'll pick up once the main conflict gets rolling. I always wanted to right Harry in the apocalypse, hopefully the way I put him there is at least a little original.