Yo,

I rewatched Terminator 2 and 3 a couple of days back, and ever since an idea kept running around my head. It basically takes the main idea of the movies, sending back assassins in time, into the Harry Potter universe.
As both Harry and Voldemort grow to be too powerful to even kill each other in the future, Voldemort sends his best assassin to the year 1997 to kill the 18 year old Harry Potter. As a reaction, future Harry sends his best soldier to the year 1996 to protect and prepare the young Harry for the inevitable.

That's the general plot I couldn't get out of my head the last few days, so I wrote out some scenes - heres the Prologue I've written yesterday. I'm not sure if this idea is worth following it through, and whether someone else or I should be writing it, if at all.

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Interlude – Outrunning Time

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People say with great power comes great responsibility. Oh, how sick I am of hearing that phrase. Thinking it, being reminded of it by my conscience.


Conscience – do I even still possess that part of my character? Do I keep fighting because I know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do?


I laugh at that train of thoughts. No. Conscience has nothing to do with my war. Not today. Not anymore.


I stare over the dusty and deserted city that lays before us. It sits there, beneath a reddish, a hellish sky, its outlines twisted like gnarled hands against the setting sun that is escaping this doomed, god-forsaken lands like I wish I could.


But I can’t. I can’t just leave. It is not because I don’t want to abandon “my people”. To be honest, I don’t give two shits about the people looking up to me as their “leader”. Their saviour. For some, their messiah.


Fucking idiots.


No. I can’t leave because I have a hunger to satiate. A thirst to be extinguished.
A hunger for death, a thirst for blood. I try not to be a monster, but there isn’t much left in me that keeps me from stepping over the edge and tumbling into the endless voids of insanity.


I’ve gone to the very depths of hell to become who I am today. What I am today.


My best friend is probably the closest to what I am nowadays. No, he’s not that much of a monster as I am, but I can tell that he’s getting closer to the edge with every passing day. With every morning he has to greet all by himself, being reminded of the loss he had suffered, he takes one step closer to the gap. I know what it feels like. I have been there myself.



It is sad, really. There’s not much of our friendship left, yet I call him my best friend. Is it out of habit? Or is because I have no one else besides him and my daughter? I decide not to ponder on that thought anymore. More important things to deal with. Virgins to be sacrificed, and all that.


“What the fuck are we waiting for, Potter?” He barks, his eyes narrowing as he gazes over the landscape. He is fidgeting, playing with the hem of his sleeve, his scarred face twisted into a permanent glare. As much as Ron has changed over the past thirty years, his impatience never left him. Ever since his wife had died, Ron’s mental condition has continually worsened. I’m simply waiting for him to snap.



I’ve lost my wife twenty years ago, but yet God (or whoever decides it) doesn’t see it fit to have mercy on me and free me of this curse that is my life. Everything turns into dust around me. My friends, my family, my life.



“Anathema,” I say, looking over to where my daughter is standing. She is crouching next to some of our captives, doing some final preparations. Poor sods – not knowing what’s going to happen to you is worse than knowing, usually.


Well, today, it would be different.


“She needs some time. Maybe for once, we can adhere to her wishes.”


Ron snorts disdainfully, kicking a pebble from where he stands. It rolls away and tumbles down the hill where we have positioned ourselves.


“If it’s Time she wants, she’ll have a shitload of it soon.”


I agree, but say nothing. There’s so much that might go wrong with our little experiment. We might blow this shithole up like no nuclear bomb could ever fucking dream of.
Not that it would make much of a difference, ravaged as Berlin already is.


Finally, she stands up and walks over to where Ron and I are standing. Her black hair is tied back into a thick bun, and her azure eyes are hard, but sad – as usual.


“I am done, father,” she says.


I merely nod, and turn around to finally take in the whole scene.


Thirty- three humans are assembled in a tight circle, their hands tied behind their backs and their mouths muffled by cloth. I can see the sweat dripping of their foreheads, can smell the fear seeping off their pitiful bodies.


Males and females alike are staring at the three of us fearfully, knowing full well what is about to happen to them. They probably never expected to be a sacrifice in an unholy ritual, what with being on the dark side and usually standing on the other end of the wand. Oh well- they haven’t met the Potters yet.


‘One soul for one summer, one mind for one winter,’ I quietly mutter to myself, letting my gaze sweep over the crowd.
I smile coldly at them. Nobody will miss them. Well, nobody from our side.
Mostly, they are new recruits we scooped up during some of our latest raids, but one amongst them holds a special meaning to me.


I walk over and crouch down to eye- level with the chubby, ratty man who is pissing himself in fear – quite literally. His bald head looks up to me from where he lays in the dirt. Watery eyes, in which I can see my mirrored self, tinged by the terror this bastard is feeling.


“Now, now, Peter,” I say sardonically, enjoying each and every moment of his angst, his terror. “It simply won’t do if you have an cardiac arrest now. We need your heart working nice and easy until we’re ready to rip it out. So be a good rat, and relax a bit.”


He whimpers pathetically, and through his muffled mouth, I can make out his hopeless pleas of “have mercy”.


Anger shoots through me. Irrational, hot hatred that seeps into my very bones as this pathetic excuse for human flesh begs for MY mercy, MY forgiveness.
The beast inside me roars, and I raise my hand, about to crush his pathetic being with one powerful blow. Already, I can feel the slightly painful tug inside of me, signalizing that my powers are ready to be unleashed, when I feel a small but strong hand holding back my wrist.


“Don’t, father,” Anathema says in her strangely melodious voice. I turn around, trying hard not to leash out at her. Her angelic features remind me so much of her mother that I cannot help myself but to force down my hatred. Her azure eyes are sad, a silent plea in them. With some effort, I calm down.


I had never told her, but I would do everything for her if she only asked for it. I wish I could take this burden off her shoulder, but I can’t. I wish I could make her life different, but I can’t.


“We need him alive – at least for a while.”


Again, I only nod. I’m not ashamed of my outburst – not ashamed of how close I came to trashing a human into the very dirt. This is just a part of who I am today. This is just me.


“Let’s get this over with,” Ron snaps from where he stands, his scowl directed at us. He probably would have enjoyed seeing me smashing Wormtail’s face into bits.


I stand up and gesture towards the men I’ve brought. Clad in grey and red cloaks, I align the thirty-one men so that one of them stands right behind one of our captives.


The men and women try to flee, scrambling around on their knees, their pleas for mercy muffled by cloth. Fear is in their eyes, and my insatiable thirst greedily takes it all in. My men ruthlessly yank them back by their collars, their faces just as cold as mine.


For a moment, I wonder if Ron and I would have been that easily persuaded to take part in a ritual like this twenty years ago. Probably not. Back then, we weren’t merciless bastards without qualms of killing in cold blood. Back then, we were still human.


But things change. Circumstances, too. As Anathema said, we are forced to do what we are about to do – maybe give us the chance to end this infinite war. This war- no, genocide - has been raging on for close to twenty- five years now, claiming death- tolls that peak in the billions with no end in sight. It is a maddening war, a senseless slaughter where everyone has already lost so much. There isn’t a single family on the planet that has not been torn apart by the World War that had sparked after Voldemort had put it up for real.

Milosevic, Hitler, Stalin… their crimes were petty in comparison to what Voldemort has done to the world. What I have done to the world.


Maybe this is the key. Maybe this is the chance to end it all. Going back in time, no matter the cost, could prove to be the solution to this horrendous mess. Finish things before they start.


Obviously, Voldemort has thought the same. From Wormtail, who we have caught just yesterday by sheer fucking dumb luck, we have learned that Voldemort had sent his best assassin, his apprentice, back in time to the year 1997 with the mission to kill the then 18 year old Harry. A Harry who was weak, who hadn’t grown into his powers yet. A Harry who could be killed.


Over time, both Voldemort and I had grown exponentially in power, both of us using different kinds of magic to become stronger, more powerful. At fifty years of age, I had undergone so many rituals that my body vibrates of power, a beast barely restrained by the fragile cage that is my daughter.


The same applies to Voldemort – but different from me, Voldemort has indeed achieved immortality – or at least, something that resembles greatly to it. But as powerful as we both are, we don’t seem to be able to kill each other. All of our duels had ended in devastating draws, with entire cities being erased from the landscape. Time and time again we have met, only to be locked in a bloody draw where both of us are the last ones left standing, more bloody mess than living beings. Speak of collateral damage – Hiroshima? Well, that had to be a joke compared to what we unleashed.


So we will try the same as Voldemort. Send our best assassin to the past, to protect and to kill. Maybe, this will work. Maybe not. Whatever the chances, there’s no going back now.



“Very well,” I say to Anathema, who stands next to me, her face set and determined. I wish her mother could have met her – maybe if she had lived, Anathema would be different today. Less like myself. Less like the lethal weapon I have formed her into. I know my wife would hate me for what I have turned our daughter into, but it was for the greater good. Oh the bitter irony.


“Now is the time.”


She nods, and turns to me. I can read in her eyes that she yearns for a hug, for some display of emotion on my part, but I cross my arms over my chest.

Not the time for emotions. Not the time for weakness. Emotions mean affection. Affection means vulnerability. I have drilled that into her head as soon as she was able to understand. Not the best kind of father, I suspect.



Usually, she understands. Usually, she doesn’t even try, but now, in our very last moments together, she seems to have pulled together her courage. She steps closer to me, with hesitation in her movements, but I recognize the hug before she starts to open her arms.


“Go,” I murmur, not trusting my own voice. I try to banish the horrible pictures in my mind, of Anathema dead, mangled, killed.



Am I sending her to her doom?


No matter. ‘Not the time for weakness,’ I repeat to myself.


I can see her eyes hardening, and she whips around. With determined strides, she moves to the middle of the circle. I nod to Ron, and the two of us move into position, myself behind the now kneeling Wormtail.


“On my mark!” I shout, pulling my wand, my eyes fixated on Anathema. She stands in the middle of the circle, her fists clenched at her sides, her face set into a mask of deep concentration. I can see her lips moving, spitting out the long verses that will activate the ancient magic we had rediscovered only some time ago. We aren’t sure if it will work, but we have to try – there is no other way.


Anxiously, I’m awaiting her signal, and when she finally snaps her eyes open and looks straight into mine, I yell “NOW!”


Thirty- three simultaneous green bolts of buzzing light flash in late evening, and thirty- three bodies drop to the ground, dead.



For a moment, nothing happens, but then the earth begins to rumble and the pebbles on the ground start to dance. The motionless corps start to shake, and I can see blue-ish wisps of smoke emanating from them, slowly creeping over the ground towards my daughter. It seems like an eternity, but in truth it only takes a few seconds until the wisps of smoke reach her. Like a living cloud, the smoke encircles her, engulfs her in a cocoon of dark- blue magic. I might be hallucinating, but I think I can see faces in the smoke – faces twisted into grimaces of pain.


I haven’t realized that it had started to rain – it rarely ever does anymore nowadays, but the deep rumble of thunder makes me look up and see the black clouds collecting right over us.


Suddenly, a bright flash of lighting shoots out and hits the spot where Anathema must be standing. My breath catches in my throat, and instinctively, I take a step towards the now pulsating cocoon.


A second rumble emanates from the clouds above, and with the fat rain-drops falling down on us, more and more bolts lightning start to hit the cocoon that was still engulfing Anathema. Then, with a final roar, the cocoon explodes, and the rain stops.



Anathema is gone.


For a few moments, nobody moves, nor speaks. Finally, Ron stows away his wand.
“Reckon it worked, don’t you think so?” He asks, already turning away and not awaiting my answer. I nod dumbly at his back, my body feeling numb. Now that Anathema is gone, most likely forever, there is nothing that will hold me back now. How much time do I have left until I’ll submit to the pure hatred, the anger?


I just hope Anathema will be successful – although I doubt that we will realize if she is. Time theory is a tricky subject, and thinking too much about it only gives you a headache.


I shake my head to clear my thoughts and look at the bodies lying around on the ground.
”Clean the garbage – I don’t want to face more Inferi than we have to the next time we’re around,” I order. Before I finish my sentence, the place is ablaze with Fiendfyre.


Sometimes I wonder - will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? Then I look around and I realize… God left this place a long time ago.

***

So yeah, that's one part of it. If I follow this through, the story will include a lot of character developing. One of the subplots will be how Harry will turn out to be the bitter and dangerous man he is in the future - but I figured if I followed this through, I'd write a Trilogy, with the first story focussing on Harry and Anathema, with Anathema being, funnily enough, Harry's mentor. And, of course, the encounter between the sent assassin and Harry.
Take a guess to who Anathema's mother might be?
Anyhow, I'm interested in what you people think of this... is this even worth following? Any ideas?
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I'll only read this if it turns out Anathema is so love starved by Harry she gets her affection from his younger self.

Yes, young one. I dare ship Harry/Anathema.

Your writing is a bit dramatic, but it can work if you follow with original ideas. Make sure you don't make this just another mentor!fic.

 

How dare you?

I cringed at Harry naming his daughter Anathema of all things.

 

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Fixed.

Hmm...

Luna is my first guess, because of her eyes and voice, Fleur/Gabrielle is my second.

I've listed some changes, but if this story were in my cold, clutching hands, I'd go over it again and make more edits, including combining many of the sentences.

I like the general idea, but a lot of this comes off like a green drama student auditioning for a Mad Max sequel and trying too hard to sound, well, hard.

I'm so angry. No. I'm so furious. It made me want to strangle babies. No. It made me remember the babies I HAVE strangled and opt for kicking pregnant women instead. All so no more babies would have to live in this cruel joke of an existence... and so everyone would know I'm really, really mad. And just as bad as the villain.
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It makes me talk in stilted sentences that die too soon. Like this sentence fragment about young lives snuffed out like cigarettes in this overripe bus station urinal we call Earth. I growled venomously to establish my shitty mood. And because there were no more actual bus stations.
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Ron just sneered bitterly from where he stood... and from a relay station in Antarctica.
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You get the picture.

Parts of your story read like Mad Libs, where you start a sentence with a bad adjective and noun, then top it with an even worse adjective and noun.

It was a bad-adjective bad-noun, a worse-adjective worse-noun.

It was a hard war, an unbearable holocaust.

Every bad thing is described twice, in a similar manner.

And then there's this... 'phenomenon'.

Blarg, you get the idea, I hope.

Also, stories written in present tense tend to be annoying as hell.

/me points at Amerision. I'm not necessarily saying I agree... I'm just pointing...

Like the ocean is a bit wet.

There is that, but I didn't mind it so much (as other things).

 

I like it and look forward to reading more. Though I do keep calling the daughter Anna in my head instead of the name you've given her.

 

I thought about this a couple of days ago, during my massive Sarah Connor Watch-A-Thon but discarded it due to the fact that in the HP world, changing the past spells disaster. Hence, neither of them can die. In T-World, time is a lot more mutable.