171The First Time Harry Tried to Time Travel
It was nearing the end of what should have been Harry James Potter's mortal life, he was 120 years old, as he thought about everything that had gone wrong in his life and all the things that had gone right. He weighed one against the other and began to mentally make a list. You see, he's been contemplating time travel for many years now.
He was five years old when he learned his name was not Freak or Boy.
He was 11 years old when he found out he was a wizard, how his parents really died, made best friends with Ron and Hermione, and protected the Sorcerer's Stone from Voldemort.
He was 12 years old when he met a house elf, the students of Hogwarts turned against him for being a parselmouth and therefore had to be the Heir of Slytherin, slayed a 1,000-year-old basilisk, defeated Tom Marvolo Riddle aka Lord Voldemort, again, saved his best friend's kid sister, and freed a house elf.
He was 13 years old when he blew up his Aunt Marge, learned how to produce a patronus, met his godfather, found out who was the real betrayer of his parents, learned about animagi, and learned about time travel.
He was 14 years old when he was entered into a tournament against his will and had the students of Hogwarts turn against him, again. In the tournament he faced a dragon, merpeople, monsters in a maze, witnessed the murder of a friend, and was used in a ritual against his will that saw the resurrection of Voldemort.
He was 15 years old when he was being vilified in the Daily Prophet as being delusional. He was ignored by his friends on Dumbledore's orders. He was ignored by Dumbledore. He saved his cousins life and had to defend himself against underage magic. He endured torture by a so-called professor for speaking the truth that the Ministry wanted buried. He taught students how to fight. He found out his father was a bully. Then he lost his godfather to the Death Veil because he had been kept in the dark, only for Dumbledore to finally believe he was old enough to hear the prophecy that said he had the power to defeat Voldemort.
He was 16 years old when he learned of Tom Riddle's past and horcruxes, experienced having a girlfriend, witnessed Dumbledore's murder by Snape, and gave up on having a girlfriend for her safety.
He was 17 years old when he was Undesirable Number One and on the run with Ron and Hermione, sleeping in tents, learning of the Deathly Hallows, and destroying horcruxes. He witnessed Snape's death, found how Dumbledore's death was planned, and found out he was raised to be a sacrifice because he was a horcrux and had to die. He walked bravely to his own death. He came back to life. He had unknowingly collected the Deathly Hallows. He defeated Voldemort.
He woke up after the final battle no longer needing his glasses and his body completely healed. He had not been to see a healer before falling asleep. He chose not to think too hard about that, as he thought it must have had something to do with the horcrux no longer being present in his scar.
In the days following, he made contact with Andromeda Tonks to make arrangements for Teddy, met with Professor McGonagall to find out what was needed to help with rebuilding, met with Kingsley to find out what he needed to do about what he may need to do about Gringotts and the escaped Death Eaters.
It was a few months later, the morning of his 18th birthday, that Harry had awoken to find the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone had appeared on his nightstand and refused to remain in their hiding places. Thankfully, Molly had seen fit to allow him to use Bill's old room while he waited for the Ministry to settle things at Gringotts so he would be able to gain access to his vault again, so there had been no one present to witness this phenomenon.
After his third attempt to hide away the Hallows, he took out his invisibility cloak and the picked up the remaining Hallows to contemplate. The moment he made the decision to stop trying to get rid of them, they combined together in a flash and disappeared into his skin, the sign of the Hallows glowing on his chest, just above his heart, for about 30 seconds before fading away.
It was a few days later when he noticed his magic seemed stronger, and that he didn't have to think about what spells to use anymore, they just seemed to happen at the moment he decided what he wanted. He began to practice secretly, so that he could find out his limits and moderate the strength of his spells. It was during this time that he came to realize he could do wandless magic and become invisible at will, and it was undetectable. Recalling the dead wasn't something he was prepared to test, though, so he left that alone.
He was 20 years old and on his first solo auror mission when he realized his body was healing all his injuries without medical intervention. He had gotten into a rather nasty confrontation with Greyback, who had managed to get in a few good swipes before Harry was able to bring him down. It was lucky for him that he had been alone on that mission, otherwise there would have been no way of containing the fact that his body healed with no scarring.
He was 21 years old when he realized he was invisible to wards, if he chose to be, and could apparate any distance and not exhaust himself.
He was 22 years old when he realized that he burned through any potion that was designed to take his free will or otherwise cause him harm. He had made a surprise visit to The Burrow and happened to overhear Ginny and Molly through the open window of the kitchen. They had been discussing the love potions that they had started feeding him and Ginny was complaining that they were not working. It seemed that Ginny was frustrated that Harry had not tried to get back together with her after the war, she was so desperate to become the new Mrs. Potter that instead of actually trying to sit Harry down and have a conversation, she would rather take away his choice. It was only Molly's response that made Harry stop himself from confronting them out right and choose to listen further.
It seemed this wasn't their first time giving him love potions. They began (with Dumbledore's approval) at the start of Harry's sixth year, small doses at first and then increasing little by little. They had only stopped when Ron had ran out on Harry and Hermione during the horcrux hunt and didn't have the chance to start it back up again until a few weeks after the battle. Molly showed confusion that it appeared to work before and didn't understand why it wouldn't work now. Rather than confronting the Weasleys, he chose to do further investigating, which turned out to be a good thing.
Due to Harry's upbringing, he was able to live very simply and did not visit his vault all that often. It was enough for him to just find out that he had access to his money again and could purchase some of the necessities that he had not the opportunity to buy for himself before, so he didn't think to see if he had an account manager at Gringotts before; however, something in his mind had triggered after overhearing Molly and Ginny, so he decided to take a trip over to Gringotts. It seems he had inherited more than his trust vault. He, also, inherited the Potter Family Vault, the Black Family Vault, along with the personal vault of both his parents and Sirius.
Harry found out that every time Mrs. Weasley had used his trust vault key to get his school supplies, she was taking more than she needed and never gave him the change. And since he rarely visited his vault even now, he never noticed it because it was always replenished by his family vault at the end of every year. It appeared that this practice had continued to happen even up to the point that Harry overheard about the love potions. And when Harry asked, his account manager said Mrs. Weasley had produced a signed form by his magical guardian, Dumbledore, and since he hadn't made any changes upon coming of age, it was the assumption of Gringotts that Mrs. Weasley still had his permission.
Harry chose not to pursue reimbursement, because he still had more money than he could spend in 10 lifetimes, so he just requested that all keys be recalled and new ones made. He didn't want to have a confrontation and didn't want to ruin their reputation, they had still treated him better than anyone else he had known besides Sirius. He did eventually start seeing them less and less, but it ended up being a gradual thing, so everyone thought it was just one of those things that tends to happen naturally. It was quite a few years before Harry was able to find out which of the Weasleys had been genuine with him and who hadn't.
He was 25 years old when he met someone he could love and could love him back; and 27 when he lost her to a killing curse meant for him. He figured out how to access the absorbed resurrection stone to say goodbye.
He was 28 when Ginny finally gave up on him and married Dean Thomas.
He was 30 years old when he realized he he wasn't aging in the way he ought to have been, in the way all of his friends and everyone around him had. He chose to start wearing a modified glamour that he designed to automatically change his looks as the years passed, so that he would not stay looking the age of 23.
He was 34 years old when Teddy graduated from Hogwarts, and 36 when Teddy proposed to Victorie.
He was 40 years old when Teddy and Victorie had their first child and made him an honorary grandfather.
He was 50 years old when he fell in love again and this time married.
He was 60 years old when a new dark lord started making trouble and Wizarding Britain looked up him to save them again.
He was 70 years old when his wife surprised him with an heir after he thought they would never have children. He was 71, when he lost both to complications during delivery.
He was 75 years old when he decided to retire from the aurors and spend his spare time sneaking through the wards of the Department of Mysteries to research time travel and the Death Veil.
He was 80 years old when he decided he needed to make plans to fake his death.
He was 90 years old when he began to empty half his vaults a little at a time and regularly began exchanging a portion of it on muggle money that had been printed between the years of 1900 and 1981 (just in case he did decide to time travel). Lastly, he made sure his Last Will and Testament was updated, leaving Teddy and his children as the main recipients.
He was 110 years old when he finalized his plans to fake his death, and put it into action when he was 112.
Now, at 120 years old, currently in the glamoured body of a 30-year old blond, Harry was contemplating life and coming to terms with being the immortal Master of Death. He'd discovered during his time researching the Department of Mysteries that even after all the years of learning about time travel, they were still no closer to replicating the time turners that were destroyed back in Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts.
The Veil of Death, Harry determined, was actually a portal to another dimension or alternate universe and does not actually cause one's death, only the Unspeakables haven't figured that out yet.
He had found a few notes the Unspeakables made about the Deathly Hallows, but since they had never had any of the artifacts in their possession and Harry was the first person to have ever collected them all, none of the notes could be substantiated. He does see it's noted that it's believed that the Master of Death would have the ability to travel to any time or dimension/alternate universe, although they speculated that a new time stream starts from the point that the MoD has traveled to when time travel is attempted. Another thing they hypothesized was that there would be no merging with their younger self, as the MoD exists outside of time, so theoretically, Harry could go back and raise himself if he chose to, assuming that's the time period Harry chooses to go.
By now, Harry had been living as a muggle for the past few years, finding out the wonders and advances that technology has made in the past several years that he had been out of touch.
He had purchased a muggle-made leather backpack on which he placed notice-me-not and muggle-repelling charms, so as to deter would-be thieves. In addition, he charmed it with a featherlight charm with an undetectable extension charm on every pocket, plus blood wards keyed only to him. He carried the several million galleons (including a significant amount of muggle money) he withdrew from his vaults, all of his sentimental and precious possessions, his clothes, a wizarding tent, and plenty of canned food with additional preservation charms so they stay fresh indefinitely.
He chose to live in the tent more often than a muggle hotel, because he wanted to save his muggle money for when he decided on when he might time travel and what year he was going to. And while he had plenty of money, he still chose not to waste it when he had a decent tent and knew the wards to place to prevent detection.
He spent much time mediating on when in time he wanted to go. Did he want to go far enough back in time to defeat Grindelwald in order to prevent Dumbledore from having so much influence that he thinks it's okay to manipulate everyone he comes in contact with? Does he want to go back to raise Tom Riddle from a baby? Is he willing to go so far as to rescue Merope from her family before she has the chance to love potion the senior Tom Riddle? Does he want to go back to before the Halloween of Voldemort's first defeat and take care of him and his horcruxes before he can attack Harry's family? There are so many directions he could go, but he knows he has plenty of time to do all of that and more if he chooses to, since he is effectively immortal. He decided to do a bit more research on muggle history over the 200-300 years, while he made the decision on it.
Authors Notes:
Well, I just started writing this today and have been making it up as I went along, since I was getting a little bored re-reading stories I've already read, or multiple stories from the same authors that seem to have many of the same elements. I have no idea where I'm going with this or how long it will take me to write it or how long it will be, as I'm writing this on my iPad.
Heck, at this point I don't even know if this is going to even upload it into the same format I've typed it in.
Also, I have no beta and I'm new to writing stories, so if find any typos that bother you or are so confusing that you don't know what I'm attempting to write, please tell me, so I can make an attempt to correct them, if I can figure out how.
I do plan to include dialogue in the remaining chapters.
I've probably reached the limit of author notes that I'm allowed, so I close with saying thank you for giving this story a try. And if you're like me and only like to read completed stories, just click the follow button, I do intend to finish this story, it just may take me awhile.