A/N: Okay, I know I just posted the first chapter today, but I had such a good time writing that first little bit, that I went ahead and wrote the second part before turning in this evening. I hope I've not done anything too cliche, although there ARE some cliches when it comes to Harry Potter FanFiction that I just love to read.

I should have said this before the prologue, but I am working on the premise that the destruction of the final horcrux in Nagini actually caused some kind of backlash in Voldemort, causing him to retreat from the battle. The defenders of Hogwarts ended up being trapped in the castle until a couple years later Voldemort returned and destroyed the castle, killing most of the inhabitants. Since that time, Harry, Hermione, and Luna were on the move, living in the tent, while training.

So, yeah... Anyway, I hope you all enjoy reading this.

Chapter 1

Harry James Potter, known to the wizarding world as The-Boy-Who-Lived, woke to find himself in a bit of a predicament.

Now this was nothing new to the once prophesied savior of magical Britain. No, he had awakened many times to find himself in odd situations. Most of the time it was surrounded by Death Eaters, or goblins, or there was even that one time when he had woke tied to a tree by a particularly rabid fangirl, although that hadn't happened since before the Fall of Hogwarts.

No, when Harry Potter woke this time, it was to find he was all alone in the middle of a forest. Again, part of this was to be expected. He had gone to sleep the night before inside of a tent that was pitched in a small clearing in the Forest of Dean. However, he should have found himself waking up inside of the tent that he and the girls had spent the last year-and-a-half in.

When Harry woke this time however, he found that although he was still in the middle of a clearing, in the middle of the same forest he had gone to sleep in. There was not a tent in sight.

Harry stood to his feet, brushing his pajamas off as he did. After looking around the clearing and confirming once again that he was completely alone, Harry raised his watch to his lips, flipped open the face plate and spoke into the communication mirror built into the top.

"Girls," he said.

The watch had been created before the fall of Hogwarts by the combined genius of Hermione and Luna in a desperate bid to alleviate the boredom of hiding away from the world and training all the time. The faceplate of the watch, at first glance, appeared to be simple unadorned black. However, if one were to take the time to find a magnifying glass, they would see that in actuality there were hundreds of runes engraved there. Opening the faceplate revealed a simple analog watch face, and the tiny communication mirror built into the faceplate. By speaking any one of a dozen command words, Harry could: use the watch as a storage device (which the girls had yet to find the upper limit of), perform a complicate Glamour charm on himself that was actually immune to a Finite spell unless they cast it on the watch itself, set up personal wards such as silencing and masking, and much more.

The girls had often complained however that the communication mirror was too small to be able to effectively see the other person.

They had tried several times to explain exactly how they had come up with the design, and even how they had managed to do something that Hogwarts' Runes Professor Babbling had assured them was impossible. Once they had the watches functioning, and had shown Professor Babbling, she had immediately declared them her apprentices.

Sadly Professor Babbling would be killed before she could present them with their Rune Mastery.

The communication mirror should have immediately synced his watch's communication mirror up with the girls. If nothing else he should have received the vibrating code back that would mean they couldn't answer the mirror at the moment. Instead he got… Nothing.

After several more tries to get through to the girls. Harry sighed, running his hands through his hair in his frustration. Sadly, in his distraction, he didn't notice that his hair was a lot longer than he had ever kept it. Nor would he notice that the hair that hung down off his forehead was a lighter brown than his raven locks had any right being.

Patting himself down and looking around while looking for his wand, Harry found two slips of parchment lying beside where he had awakened. Both pieces of parchment were folded in half with his name on the front.

Finding his wand in the holster on his right arm where it belonged, he quickly cast a detection charm to make sure there were no traps on the parchment. Finding nothing, he picked the notes up, noticing as he did that one of the notes was made in Hermione's precise scrawl, while the other was written in Luna's artistic and loopy handwriting.

Sighing in relief at the familiar writing, Harry settled himself cross legged on the ground and opened Hermione's letter first.

Harry,

I cannot tell you how sorry I am for the situation that Luna and I have placed you in. By now you should have noticed that things are a little different since you went to sleep last night. Before I explain exactly where you are, I just want you to know that in no way do Luna or I blame you or want you to blame yourself for what happened. If we hadn't decided to relax our guard while shopping, we would have gotten away from those Death Eaters with no issue. Neither one of us even thought to use our portkey to escape. We've seen you take on so many Death Eaters, so many times, that five seemed like something we should have been able to cover. We were wrong.

It was around the time that we had to remove Luna's arm that I realized something. Luna and I may have been dying, which admittedly was not ideal, but you were going to watch us die.

I couldn't do that to you Harry. I know you would have been there for us for every bit of it. You would have tried your hardest to help, and honestly you would have figured out some way to prolong our lives. You always did do best under pressure.

In the end however, despite your best efforts, Luna and I would be gone, and you would be alone.

You have always been the best friend a girl could ask for. Even during that disaster with Ron, you never once told me how stupid I was being. Every single time he made me cry, you would be right there to build me back up again. There are times that I think that catching him with Lavender was both the best and worst day of my life. The worst because I thought my heart would break in two at the time. The best because for the first time in our many years as friends, YOU initiated a hug, you held me while I cried, and honestly in all the years since then, I've come to realize there has never been anything nicer than having you hold me.

Merlin, I wish I had seen what I had then.

Anyway, back to your current situation. In our search for a way to keep you from giving up, Luna found a couple of rather dark rituals. I am not going to tell you what the cost was for the rituals, but I will say that I would gladly pay this cost again.

I would hope, by now, that you would have noticed the physical changes that our rituals created in you. We decided that your disguise needed to be more than a simple glamour charm. Congratulations by the way, you no longer have to deal with that lightning bolt scar on your forehead.

We decided that as much as we loved your green eyes, the color was just too remarkable to be anything but an identifying trait. So we changed your eyes to blue. We also found a nice little light ritual that completely fixed your eyesight. Congratulations again.

Now this is another physical change, but if I know you, there's absolutely no way you would have even noticed yet. I absolutely hated doing this ritual, but Luna said this one had to be first. Magic can do some wonderful things, but I hope you never have to see this particular ritual being cast. So… guess what, you're thirteen years old again! We thought thirteen would be the perfect age for you to be since that was the year before your dangerous life became incredibly life-threatening.

Now, do me a favor and cast a Tempus.

Harry cast the spell and was unsurprised to find that the time was just before eight in the morning. The date however was the part that made him want to freak out, just a little.

August 5th, 1993.

Somehow he had ended up in the summer just before his third year. With a shuddering sigh, Harry ran his hand through his apparently light brown hair before turning back to his letter again.

If everything works right with this last ritual, then you should be sometime before our third year at Hogwarts.

Important things to note: as far as we can figure, we are actually sending you into an alternate timeline rather than straight back. So you should be able to interact with your younger self with no issues. So hey, you could tell young Harry everything about his future, or you could just befriend him. It's completely up to you.

Luna and I set up a new identity for you as well. We took the last name of one of the families whose vault you inherited when they passed away. You know, the ones who had no heirs so they gave you their fortune and titles. Well, your new last name is Locke. If you open up the storage on your watch you will find a folder with all the relevant papers as well as everything you will need to transfer to Hogwarts as a third year. I took the liberty of creating some history for you, as well as choosing what electives you will be taking in the following years. You are NOT going back in to Divination, and with Hagrid not knowing you in your new timeline, you have no obligation to be taking Care of Magical Creatures. Therefore, Mr. Potter, you will be taking Runes and Arithmancy. I know you can do it!

Oh, everything that we have collected since The Fall is now set up in your storage. If I know you, you won't care too much about the library that we have now, although I would appreciate it if you would at least crack a couple books a year, just for me. Our tent is in there too. At least something to remember us by if nothing else.

I want you to remember though, Luna and I EXPECT you to befriend us again. We EXPECT you to step up and be the man you have always been. PLEASE do not withdraw; PLEASE do not cut yourself off from the world.

Luna left you a note too, so I won't say anything more from her. Just know that I love you Harry. I've loved you since a little boy jumped on the back of a troll to save a little girl who MAY have been a little annoying at the time. I loved you even during my stupid little fling with Ron (by the way, DO NOT let me do that in your new timeline).Even if you do not feel the same way, just remember you have always been my best friend.

I love you.

Love, Hermione

Harry leaned back and stared at the sky while he tried to get his emotions under control. There were so many things in that letter that needed to be addressed, he didn't know where to start.

Hermione and Luna had been dying. He had known that and had done everything he could to help in their research. He had kept himself distracted for every waking moment since they had been cursed. He had been aware of the curse, but he had thought that if anyone could break the curse then his girls could.

Apparently he had been wrong.

It was only at night, in his bedroom where the girls could not see, that he would allow the tears to fall. Only after silencing the doorway so the girls could not hear him, would he curse at the gods, curse at whatever fate had decided that kept throwing more than he could handle at him all the time.

Harry wasn't completely stupid. He knew that whatever the rituals had been that the girls had performed on him, they would have required a certain sacrifice.

Harry took a deep breath, pushed that thought from his mind for the moment, and tried to form a plan to go forward.

Okay, so time travel. Not cool. Of course, the girls had set him up to be independent. If he remembered correctly, the Locke vault, while not overflowing with Galleons, should be enough for him to make it through the next several years before he needed to get a job. Although if he wanted any kind of spending money during the summer it might be a good idea for him to find some summer work.

Locke wasn't even one of the ancient and noble families like the Potters were. This could actually be ideal. As a Locke, nobody could expect him to act like a Lord. If he played his cards right when he went to Gringotts to access the vault, he could actually avoid claiming any other vaults, leaving everything else for Harry… well this timeline's Harry anyway.

Being thirteen again; not ideal. Harry understood why they would want him to be this age coming back in time; especially if they wanted him to befriend them again. However, being thirteen had not exactly been a picnic last time through.

The physical changes actually excited Harry. Now he could walk around in the wizarding world with no worries of being recognized!

Finally, Hermione had declared her love for him. He had tried for years to convince himself that he only thought of her as a sister. Then Luna had joined them, and Harry finally learned the differences between family love like he felt for Luna, and romantic love like he had always felt for Hermione. He had held himself back from her for the past several years, hoping that maybe once the war was over, that maybe then he could confess. Then she had gotten ahead of him and confessed first!

Noting that a little over an hour had passed since his waking and reading Hermione's letter, Harry thought it might be a good idea for him to get something to eat for breakfast before he read Luna's letter.

Reaching into his storage, Harry retrieved his small wallet of muggle money, before apparating to the closest town.