Author: Swimdraconian

Title: Circular Reasoning

Rating: M

Genre: Action/Adventure/Dark

Pairing: Harry/Tonks, Harry/Fleur, Harry/OFC

Summary: Under circumstances beyond his control, Harry ends up in his thirteen year old body with memories of a violent future and a hefty debt on his soul. Juggling power, political intrigue and questionable sanity, he must keep two steps ahead those out for his blood.

Disclaimer: Of course I own Harry Potter. Right about the time I became Prime Minister of several small countries. Mmm-hm. And if you believe that, I’ll tell you another one… My monsters are property of Garth Nix and his brilliant series as well as Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. And of course, there will be several Joss Wheedon quotes, pop culture references, brief history lessons, political allusions, violent scenes, potentially disturbing materials, and the severe debasement of JKR’s world. If you are a canon fan, I highly suggest you hit the back button, as I will take great glee in murdering the Harry Potter series. I laugh in the face of your disdain.

Author’s Notes: Most elements of Half Blood Prince will not be used as I felt the book to be too constrictive for where I wanted to go with this story. Though, Riddle does come from an inbred line of Slytherin, so I will use the House of Gaunt and probably a few other characters. Nothing else.

Circular Reasoning

Prologue

Caught in a Hard Place

Somebody once said it’s a bit dangerous to place all your eggs in one basket. A better translation of that could be ‘don’t place your entire faith one single person.’

Reality was never a kind individual – not by any stretch of the imagination. And she had the bad habit of reasserting herself whenever an unfortunate being forgot so. The reality was that Harry was one person. One single bloody person. Sure, he had a lot of power at his disposal. But what good was that when he was outnumbered nearly one hundred to one?

Common sense dictates that those aren’t very good odds at all.

Then again, common sense isn’t as common as it used to be.

pagebreakpagebreak

It was raining outside, Harry was sure of that.

The wind carried the typical moaning wail and inside the old mansion, an oppressive silence weighed down on his ears. The noise of the tempest raging outside had been muted down to a soft, rumbling echo. One of Harry’s team members next to him nervously adjusted the sight on the large semi-automatic weapon in his hands. This mission had been especially nerve wracking for all of them; a safe house had been reported as compromised by one of their spies.

That was not something Harry wanted to hear. They had been losing ground steadily since the last battle for Hogwarts. The old castle had finally fallen. To whom, he wasn’t sure; Harry had begun to lose track of just who they were fighting. The invisible line drawn in the sand had become just that – invisible. It seemed as if the war had weeded out all who had a bone to pick with somebody else and put the means to an end in their hands. They had crawled out of their holes from various parts of the world with a chip on their shoulder and a greed for what they thought was rightly theirs.

The wizarding war of the British Isles had turned into a World War of catastrophic proportions. Most likely from corruption within, the British ministry had collapsed in Harry’s twentieth year, the year that Dumbledore had been murdered. After that, power fractions had split themselves right down the middle; it was not, as Harry believed when he was younger, a war of whether the light triumphs over the darkness. No, for the most part, it was a political war through and through. Voldemort wanted to rule the world; grand ambitions, yes, but Tom Riddle soon found he wasn’t the only big bad with an unhappy childhood. Indeed, a high necromancer from the wizarding slums of Brazil had given him more trouble than Voldemort, until Harry put him down.

Besides, if it really was a Light and Dark war, then Harry would have been considered on the wrong side – he was one of the most powerful and subsequently, most feared Dark Magic sorcerers in the world. Aside from Voldemort and a whole slew of other dark wizards with a nose for power, of course.

There had been one last formal battle, before too many facets got involved to do anything but guerrilla tactics. About six years ago when he was twenty-one, he was nearly twenty-eight now, Voldemort and a French wizard named La Croix took over most of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Large parts of the French wizarding nobility were pureblood purists with a lot of political clout and influence. But nevertheless General Ron Weasley and his band of merry men lined up on foreign soil fighting for the light and the oppressed. Sadly that had been Ron’s last hurrah; the youngest Weasley male himself took out Lucius Malfoy and a large number of his French relatives before being caught unawares by a stray curse.

Harry had heard this from Draco Malfoy, Ron’s second in command who had surprisingly turned from the beliefs his father had nearly brainwashed him with. Though, one mention of Bellatrix Lestrange and Draco would smile frightfully; Neville Longbottom had teamed up one day with Draco and they did not return for several hours. Tests performed on her remains confirmed Harry’s suspicion of torture to death with Cruciatus; there was no love lost between the Black and Longbottom relations. He didn’t blame them. There had been several rumours of the Lestrange bitch having tortured both on a disastrous reconnaissance mission.

Harry had not been in the Battle of Normandy; he was in Japan finishing off the council of Dark wizards that had been terrorizing the chains of Asian Islands that dotted the Pacific. Upon hearing the last of his best friends had been killed, he had gone postal, killing of most of Voldemort’s inner circle and nearly La Croix himself. He had already lost Hermione to the muggleborn concentration camps the ministry had set up before its fall. Now another friend had been added to the mounting death toll. Surely Voldemort would have known Harry would be just a bit hacked off about that.

After the death of Dumbledore, things started to fall apart. Harry had refused to be a member of the Order, preferring to work solo and providing information when needed. As such, the Order had been without a competent leader until Amelia Bones took over and brought with her the last of the Aurors and Ministry Intelligence. That was a whispered suggestion in her ear by Harry during one of the last Wizengamot sessions for capturing Death Eaters.

Then, one morning Harry woke and there had been no Wizarding world, globally. Both muggle and magical ministries were the first to collapse in Britain. All that was left was a wizarding and muggle mish-mash of frightened refugees and displaced people. All barriers had fallen and it had been one large mess until the Americans had stepped forth with wizarding soldiers capable of handling the madness. Some semblance of order had been restored and somehow Harry had ended up being part of a collective leadership. With Madam Bones in charge, the gathered resistance and its refugees had moved underground.

Perhaps the least of his worries were the storms.

Rain around the British Isles was a fairly normal occurrence. Yet the storms that had existed ever since the summer after Harry’s fifth year were anything but normal. Freakish things, Vernon Dursley would have called them, had he been alive to say so. But he would have been right. These storms were unnatural; they were formed from wild magic that had broken free of normal restraints by the numerous wizarding deaths.

And, on cue, a streak of white light slithered across the sky, flicking its forked tongue at the bruised and bloody heavens. Raindrops battered themselves against the large picture windows lining the northwest side of the room. Lightning was their only source of illumination, making shadow creatures out of upturned furniture – faces in places they weren’t.

A particularly loud crack of thunder flashed blindingly white, causing some of the newer recruits in his team to startle and aim their weapons wildly in the direction of the light. Harry chuckled softly, a spark of mirth returning to his eyes. They jumped again, aiming at him instead of the windows.

“Steady boys,” he said grinning at them. “It’s what you don’t hear that hurts you the most.”

‘At least the rain will wash the blood away,’ Harry thought as he adjusted his hold on the pachmayr grips of the twin black and silver Berettas in his hands. The smile disappeared at that thought, almost as quickly as it had appeared.

The unease in his mind grew as something brushed across his sixth sense. A wet, creaking sound had been growing louder and it had nothing to do with the rain. Harry signalled for his team to fan out and investigate; if what he suspected was true, then it was better them than him. He hadn’t survived this long by being stupid.

He heard a grunt at his side and Harry knew Neil, former elite Auror, was standing by him. “What do you think, Potter?”

“Something’s died here,” Harry glanced at the tall, burly man out of the corner of his eye. “Recently too.”

Harry expanded his senses. Everything seemed okay; if it weren’t for the acrid odour of decaying bodies in the air, he would have sworn it was just another abandoned manor. Wait – something was moving, something…. oh “Shit.”

Neil cast a worried look at him. “What? Nothing big, I hope.”

He grimaced. “Death Eaters. And Dead Hands; they have a low level necromancer with them.”

“How many?”

“Too many.”

While Death Eaters were unpleasant, Dead Hands were much worse. Of no relations to Death Eaters, Dead Hands were simply reanimated corpses at the beck and will of the necromancer. They were spitefully easy to be created and hard to destroy; Dead Hands took either a ridiculous amount of Free Magic or the separation of each limb from the body.

“Well then, what do you suggest we do?”

Harry grinned. “Make big boom and watch body parts fly.”

But the high-strung twinge in his gut told Harry that danger was closer to them than the Death Eaters. An almost déjà vu like feeling was prickling in the back of his head. Back of head, edge of mind, teasing his senses – What The Hell? Harry’s eyes widened… “Aw, FUCK! They’re behind us!”

The doors flew open and belched smoke and flame into the room. A Mordicant had waited in ambush; a thing that could pass at will through Life or Death. Its body had been made of bog-clay and human blood; infused with Free Magic and independent of the necromancer that created it, the Mordicant would prove to be the greater of the two evils.

The thing smiled, blowing putrid air out from between its teeth. Harry re-holstered the Berettas; they would do him no good here. From over his shoulder, Harry pulled a modified katana out of its sheath. The blade was etched with the Charter marks for binding, silencing and slaying. That and Free Magic would be the only things that could possibly save him and his team. His team didn’t know that, they could get themselves seriously injured or killed.

“Neil!”

The man spun to face him from where he had been staring, gob smacked, at the Mordicant.

“Let me handle him.”

Neil shut his mouth and nodded smartly. “You heard the man! About face! We’ve got something just as nasty at the other end.”

Harry stared into the Mordicant’s eyes. The characteristic flame-like eyes of the dead now inhabited the empty sockets. He could hear the sounds of fighting behind him begin. In front of him stood the creature. It stretched out a blackened four taloned hand in a crude imitation of a ‘come hither’ motion.

Then it lunged at him and Harry struck back, catching its hand with his blade. The Mordicant drew back shrieking, its cry sounding like nails on a chalkboard. ‘I’m not quite such an easy prey, now am I?’

Surprising him with its swiftness, Harry barely missed having his throat slashed open by its talons. The Mordicant’s coal like eyes glittered with lust for Harry’s life force. It opened its mouth and screamed at him, spewing forth flames. Harry ducked the Mordicant’s next lunge and sliced a fiery gash across where its torso should have been. The creature bellowed and knocked Harry’s blade away, slicing through layers of dragon hide.

He backed up a safe distance from its swiping talons, clutching his wounded arm. The son of a bitch! He’d gotten cocky and nearly got his arm ripped off. Harry growled back at the Mordicant and quickly signed the Free Magic marks for destruction and killing. His magic was resisting him due to his injury; the marks would not flow off his fingers. Harry snarled and spat them out.

“Anet! Calew! Ferhan!”

The words dried and burned his throat, but three silver streaks of light flew towards the Mordicant. Its shoulder sprayed out wards and two fist sized holes appeared in its torso. It screamed and frightfully enraged, the Mordicant lunged at Harry.

“Damn.” He’d meant to kill it, not anger it further! Harry darted past its deadly talons and jabbed his sword into one of the holes in its chest. It shrieked and tried to claw him off, but Harry held fast, dragging the sword with him in a downward motion. The Mordicant got a blackened hand in between Harry and flung him and the sword off like a rag doll. Harry landed on his injured arm; he bit down on his tongue to hold back a cry of pain and the salty tang of blood exploded in his mouth.

He rolled to his feet and spat out another spell. “Merdeflous!” That was dark magic, but it would work just as well. The raging Mordicant began to steam instead of smoke and soon boiling water as well as a black substance he assumed to be blood was pouring out of every orifice. It melted in upon itself; the water turned into steam as it hit the floor.

Harry sneered at the pile of ashes at his feet.

His team had not fared as well as he did. Neil and four others were the only ones still standing out of the original ten they had started with.

“Neil!” The ex-Auror looked back at him from where he had just decapitated a Death Eater. Harry gestured at him to come forward. “This way!”

Neil shouted at the others and they ran towards the blackened doorway where Harry stood.

“Never thought you one for retreat, Harry,” He shouted at Harry as they ran past hallways that had once housed fine and expensive inhabitants.

“This is called tactical repositioning,” Harry said as Neil grinned wolfishly at him. “Here! Stop here.”

Harry pointed to the darkened corner of the large stairway. His ragged team members leaned against the wall gratefully, tending to their injuries.

“We need to get out of here. There’s no point in our being in this place anymore; whoever we were supposed to help is already dead.”

Harry glared at the wall. “I know that,” He ground out between clenched teeth. “This whole thing was trap. I felt the Anti-Apparation wards go up while I was fighting the Mordicant.”

“So that’s what that thing was. Freaky looking son of a bitch.”

Harry could sense the Dead Hands getting closer. Shit. They had already stopped for too long.

“…Got as many as we could,” One of the younger recruits was talking to him; he couldn’t hear all of what they were saying to him. Maybe he had lost more blood than he thought.

Harry looked up sharply into the newbie’s proud brown eyes. “How far away are we from where the entrance is?”

The wizard stammered and blushed, making a fool of himself. Harry ignored the still wet-behind-ears recruit and glanced over at Neil. The other man shrugged.

“Two or maybe three sets of stairs. We Apparated into here so I can’t tell you truthfully.”

“Then we’ll have to risk it,” Harry said as he darted out of their hiding place across the wide dusty ballroom and down the next set of stairs. If his team wanted to survive then they would follow him.

They were doing well until on the third flights of stairs, a jet of green light flew at Harry’s face.

“The bastards have boxed us in!” Harry spat.

One of the recruits was screaming; a frightened wail that echoed over the noise of the skirmish. Harry wished the fool would shut up – he wanted to hurt something, rip it apart with his bare hands and teeth. How dare they try to kill him and his team! To hunt them down and slaughter them like animals… The red haze of anger began to blossom in his vision. ‘Fuck spells.’ He pulled out his Berettas and began ploughing bullets into anything twitching that didn’t look like his team.

An enraged howl put Harry’s senses on full alert. Werewolf! And from the sounds of the beast’s paws hitting the floor, it was a fairly large one too. Bloody Fucking Hell! Could he not get a break?

A deep growl on his left told him the position of the werewolf. Harry shot off another killing curse at the horde of Death Eaters and switched the clips of his guns. An alpha male charged out of the shadows and ripped into Neil before Harry could pull the trigger. He couldn’t tell the man’s blood from his crimson Auror robes. Now he knew why they wore them. The wolf turned and growled at him and began a loping run towards him. Harry shook the temporary numbness off and unloaded the silver rounds into the beast.

It crashed to the ground and slid to Harry’s feet, leaving a long bloody streak on the ground. ‘I hope that hurt, you bastard.’

In the midst of the chaos of deadly light, a calm settled over Harry. He supposed it was shock; shock of knowing you’ve finally lost. Harry watched as his remaining team members were picked off one by one; even he had begun to believe he couldn’t be killed – he had been the only survivor of many battles and skirmishes. Harry knew he was outnumbered this time.

So this was it. This was the end. Not much like how he had imagined it, but then again he didn’t like to think about such things. He was going down…. Wait.

Harry pinned the Death Eaters with a piercing green gaze.

Yes, he was going to go down fighting.

He smirked at them.

But it would be on his terms.

Harry turned and ran, ignoring the surprised shouts behind him, through the shadows to the hallway on his left. While ducking spellfire he changed the clips once more, stopping to fire at his pursuers. Before they had left for this mission, Harry had taken that opportunity to look over the house plans. If he remembered correctly, there was an exit down this corridor.

The hallway had widened considerably by now and he ran into the room, jumping over the furniture in his way. Harry slammed into the door at breakneck speed. His hands were shaking badly from blood loss as he lifted the heavy bar locking the door. A jet of red light hit the door just above his head, knocking chips of wood down onto his head. They had followed him on his very heels.

Harry pulled out his wand and let out a war cry reminiscent of the Scottish warlords of old. The cry momentarily distracted the Death Eaters, giving him the advantage to begin firing off spells.

Glowing lights sped across the room knocking limp bodies onto the floor. Harry ducked a shredding curse and sent off a blasting curse to the fucker stupid enough to make himself a target. They knew who he was – Harry would be taken prisoner and tortured, again. Voldemort would take express pleasure in that. ‘Sadistic son of a bitch.’

Harry fired off spells quicker than they came to mind. They had backed him into a corner and had surrounded him. He didn’t have the room to get out of his own way, when the man he thought he had killed, shot off a familiar green light.

The light was moving at an extremely high speed, but it seemed to Harry that it almost danced towards him, waltzing at its own leisurely pace. He could see the other Death Eaters shouting angrily at their comrade and the dawning comprehension in the man’s eyes at what he had done. Harry looked down at where the light was about to enter his chest. There, hanging over the front of his trenchrobes, was Hermione’s timeturner Harry wore as a token of better times. She had given it to him after it had ceased to work for her studies. Little green glints flashed off its glass edges as the killing curse drew near.

The Killing Curse struck Harry.

There was no pain.

There was no fear.

There was. …Nothing.

Except for the swirl of blackness at the edges of his vision and the muted sounds falling away.

There was peace.

Harry breathed deep and sighed, closing his eyes to the world.