Harry Potter knelt beneath the moonlight, tears streaming down his face, and began to Transfigure the sacrificial circle around Hermione Granger.

And that was when Harry realised he was being silly.

The note, after all, had told him to go back in time five hours, not six.

Voldemort was a blur of colour, and the Order had fallen in on itself, Dumbledore doing his best to shield the rest from Voldemort whilst they held off Baba Yaga, but it was not tenable. One misstep could kill all of them. If Harry failed...

What would I do if I were Lord Voldemort?

If for some reason he had to abandon Hermione's body, he wouldn't just fly away and leave Baba Yaga to her fate. One doesn't become a Dark Lord by throwing away powerful allies, not when one is fighting David Monroe. No, Voldemort would simply possess the Transfigured backup body and keep right on fighting. He had nothing to lose.

Am I sure of that?

Even if there was only a tiny chance that Voldemort would flee...

Harry looked down at his watch, noted the time.

A scrap of parchment appeared, reading simply, "YES".

Harry grinned fiercely. A wave of powerful relief swept over him that none of the Order had thought to destroy Voldemort's backup body. They probably just assumed it was another of Voldemort's victims.

Next problem: how do I get Voldemort out of Hermione?

Harry couldn't hope to get close to Voldemort. He'd be cursed to pieces before he got within five metres. He doubted he could hit Voldemort with a spell, when he was moving that quickly.

So, Harry had to hurt Hermione enough to exorcise Voldemort, but not enough to kill her...

Harry reached into his pouch and signed three letters with his fingers.

Unfortunately, Harry had learned, a handgun was not the ultimate wizard-killing weapon. Of course, a bullet moved faster than most spells, but it was only in films that gunshot wounds killed human beings instantly - and wizards were significantly tougher than Muggles. Barring a very lucky shot to the brain, a wizard of Voldemort's calibre could trivially heal any wound most weapons could inflict. This, of course, was assuming that your enemy didn't enchant some item of clothing with a Shield Charm as an obvious precaution. And, for that matter, that they weren't a troll-cum-unicorn moving faster than you could see.

Harry felt a sense of doom around Professor Quirrell, a legacy of the Riddle-imprint that made Quirrell almost count as Voldemort. That was as nothing to the sense of pure horror, the physical pain in his scar, around the true Lord Voldemort.

Harry was fairly sure that the resonance would be stronger, too.

Harry's lips curled into a tight smile.

Harry had one hour remaining on his Time-Turner - more than enough to cast his Patronus, enlist Professor Quirrell's help.

And so Harry reached into his pouch and withdrew the gun Fred and George had acquired for him, loaded with a bullet carrying a simple Tracking Charm, made permanent by the Stone, the gift of his future self.

Some time in the future, Harry would Transfigure the surface of the tracking bullet into itself.

Harry closed his eyes, allowed himself a fraction of a second to take a deep breath-

Harry aimed roughly at Hermione and fired.

The Transfigured metal and Voldemort's shields shorted each other out. The bullet carried on inexorably, and lodged itself in Hermione's chest.

Two Tom Riddles screamed horribly, and then Hermione's body collapsed in magical flames.

OoOoO

She'll be fine, that troll could regenerate from losing half its skull.

There was no time to think, no time to notice what the Order were doing; Harry sprinted towards Voldemort's corpse, raising his wand-

Quirrell had explained the ritual to sacrifice a magical creature enough that Merlin's Interdict had allowed Harry to hear the incantation, thuo tei dunamei.

Harry had guessed that the majority component of Quirrell's animal-sacrifice ritual was the circle - there'd been no corresponding flare of doom when Quirrell had said the incantation, so it was probably not a major magical effect.

The sacrificial circle was Transfigured around Voldemort's new body in a hair-thin line.

Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver

Harry fixed his wand on Voldemort, began the chant.

Harry's scar began to burn as Voldemort's spirit returned.

Lord Voldemort would certainly have time to shield himself from any curse. Dumbledore would not be able to kill him while he was down - it might cost him a great deal of strength, but even wandlessly Voldemort could sense and deflect any spell from where he lay.

But for all his power - for all his ancient lore and wandless magic - Voldemort was still a human being. A disoriented human being, used to a unicorn's speed. Even if he'd known what Harry was doing...

There was one brief moment when Tom Marvolo Riddle, terror of all Britain, the most powerful wizard the world had seen in centuries, the Dark Lord Voldemort, was nothing more than a magical animal, a specimen of Homo sapiens with a chunk of marker DNA.

"Thuo tei dunamei!"

Harry pointed his wand at the form on the ground, then slashed it at himself.

Riddle's inhuman face was a mask of terror and fury.

Harry knew exactly how the Dark Lord felt. It was exactly how the imprint of Tom Riddle had reacted in Azkaban, the weakness to Dementors, the all-consuming desperate horror of non-existence.

There was one horrible moment in which a Tom Riddle knew that he was about to die.

...And that therefore he had no reason to avoid the magical resonance.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Harry didn't have time to scream.

Something soft but very fast slammed into him from the side, throwing him clear, and the Killing Curse splashed uselessly against the Sunshine General, pale and shaken but very definitively alive.

And then Voldemort began to wither, flakes of skin cracking and crumbling away, and he turned to dust and nothingness.

I'm sorry, thought Harry. He knew it was wrong, knew it was stupid, knew that Voldemort had caused untold pain and suffering, but...

Harry had destroyed all but a remnant of the Dark Lord.

Harry's vision darkened as his mind was assaulted with more than he could possibly process all at once, all Voldemort's Interdicted lore, his magical abilities.

He would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that that was another benefit of the plan.

Later. Deal with it later.

Baba Yaga spat one final curse, threw up a pulsing white barrier, and fled.

Harry reached wearily up to his neck and spun the Time-Turner once.