Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…

Placing: 29 years after the war.

Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt: (insult) blood red. 1217 words. Gryffindor, Hogwarts.

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sSsSsSsSs

RED ROOM

sSs

The first impression, Neville had of the room he walked in was red, lots and lots of red.

The carpet, the floor, the walls, the furniture, the ceiling – all covered in red, blood red.

Blood.

Neville stopped at the entrance to the room, taking in the surreal scene he had walked into.

In the middle of the room was a table with five mangled bodies sitting around it in a horror version of a normal mealtime. On top of the table stood another man, currently working on the placement of a sixth body.

Neville watched the man for a minute or two, then he decided that he wouldn't comment on the idea of a body as a lamp and moved on to more important topics.

"Hello, Harry," he greeted the man. "I see you were busy in the last eight years since we saw each other."

The man on the table didn't even bother to turn around or flinch at Neville's entrance. Neville guessed that the man had known that Neville was coming long before Neville had even entered the building.

"Hello, Nev," the black haired, green eyed man without glasses said instead. "Not here to arrest me, are you?"

"Nah," said Neville, waving off the question as unimportant. "I'm still a Herbology teacher at Hogwarts, not an auror."

"Good," Harry said and finished arranging the last body he had been working on to his liking. "What brings you here, Nev?"

"Malfoy," Neville said and this time Harry turned around in surprise.

"Huh?" said he, interest in his eyes. "I haven't heard of him since… ten years? Yeah, that's 'bout right. Saw him last the day I brought Albus to the train station…"

For a moment Harry pondered on it a bit longer, then he shrugged it off and continued.

"How's the old chap?" asked he interested. "Has he taken my old post as a Head Auror, yet?"

"No," Neville said. "After the deaths of his wife and son –"

"Ah, yeah," Harry said sighing. "They were at the station as well, weren't they? Astoria and… Scorpius, wasn't it? Al was friends with the boy…"

"Yes," Neville said sighing. "Astoria and Scorpius. They were killed about the same time as your own family… anyway, after their deaths, Malfoy decided to leave the aurors –"

"Like I decided to leave them?" Harry asked interested.

Neville looked around the blood red room and winced.

"Not that… drastically," he finally settled on politely. "He was hired by the Department of Mysteries. He's been working on a lot of different stuff over the last years –"

"Hmm…" said Harry. "I think I heard about that. Some complains about a thief and manors being robbed blind or some such…"

Neville winced again.

"That's… more of a hobby than a job," he finally settled on. "The stuff Malfoy's been working on at work were more… delicate in nature… well, he might have tinkered with some of the stuff in his free times as well, but all in all, the things he has worked on most was prophecies and some such –"

"Yeah? So what?" Harry asked confused and hopped from the table. "Doesn't have anything to do with me anymore, does it?"

"No, not truly," Neville said. "But he still wants to talk to you. It's mainly because of your current chosen profession…"

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Why?" he asked, still a little bit confused. "'S not as if the DoM arrests people now for killing off others…"

"Er… he didn't sent me to arrest you or some such," Neville said. "He actually just asked me if I wanted to come, but I thought we might need some numbers on our side, so we decided to ask you as well…"

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Don't know what you want from me, but two or three – that doesn't change a lot, you know?" He said amused.

"Well, it does if one of them is a psychotic assassin, another one a neurotic thief and the last one –"

"A bad-ass strategist?" Harry offered amused and Neville squirmed.

"I wouldn't put it like that," he said slowly. "I'm just a Herbology teacher, you know?"

Harry raised an eyebrow and then had to wipe his forehead when some blood that adorned his hair threatened to enter his eyes.

"Says the man who singlehandedly strategized the attack on the people who killed our families," he said dryly.

Neville shrugged.

"I had to do something," he said darkly. "They killed Hannah and my children. They killed the Weasleys, Ginny, your children, Astoria, Scorpius and all the others! I was the teacher of all those children who died, I was the friend of a lot of people who died at that time as well! I couldn't just stand by – just because I wasn't in the auror corps!"

Harry waved it off.

"Of course you couldn't," he said as if Neville had declared the sky blue. "You were a fighter in the war, you headed the DA in seventh year, you went to the DoM with me in fifth year – there was no way that you could just stand by and watch!"

Neville smiled.

"There wasn't," he said. "Now, will you come along and meet Malfoy?"

Harry just raised an eyebrow.

"And do what exactly?" He asked incredulously.

Neville's face turned into a feral smile.

"We're breaking a few more laws," he said grinning.

Harry wiped his forehead again and then looked back at the table with the bodies.

"Well," he said slowly. "'S not as if I care about the law, particularly…"

"We want to break into the Department of Mysteries and use the veil combined with a time-turner," Neville explained.

Harry frowned.

"What does it matter if you combine those two?" He asked confused.

"We rewrite a runic array on the veil and one on the time-turner so that they fit," explained Neville.

Understanding filled Harry's eyes.

"Ah!" said he. "Timed dislocation and destruction of mass to ensure a power bust. Let me guess? Another way of travelling back in time without messing around with time-laws. Just one body, one soul, but the memories of our past selves embodied inside our younger selves…"

Neville raised an eyebrow.

"I have no idea what you were blabbing about just now," he said. "But then, it sounded about right, considering that I didn't understand Malfoy's explanation as well…"

Harry waved it off.

"You haven't worked on wards, Nev, have you?" He asked amused. "The better you know wards, the easier it's to understand theory like that…"

Neville shrugged.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "It's enough for me to understand that we three go back in time to change it without being found by the DoM the moment we arrive."

Harry snorted.

"Alright," he said. "I'm in. When do we start?"

Neville's grin turned feral.

"Whenever you're ready to go," he said.

Harry looked back at the corpses.

"I'm ready," he replied. "Let's go!"

The world would regret the day Harry Potter's children and wife were killed in the attack – not that they knew. For them, Harry Potter was a normal boy one day, and a psychotic assassin the next. But maybe, just maybe, this time around the world would be a better place when Harry Potter was finally done with her…

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Just a little idea, inspired by a discussion and Rorschach's Blot's 'Make a Wish'.

Hope you liked it

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