It was the year Harry Potter was coming to Hogwarts.
No one knew his exact age – he was somewhere between a few months and two years when he defeated Voldemort – but this year was the first he could come. Though, most agreed he was likely on the older side.
There were few names that year of note, two of those were Fred and George Weasely. There should’ve been more notable students. But two years before Voldemort’s defeat was when most of the bloodline purges took place.
The name ‘Harry Potter’ wasn’t called that year, just like the names of dozens of children weren’t called.
Their names were automatically removed upon their demise, but the blank space remained. The Scroll McGongall was holding was filled with blank spaces. Ten inches of quiet between two names.
During the war, the Hogwarts registry often updated before the obituaries hit the Daily Prophet.
Either way, no one thought much of his absence. Harry was likely younger than they thought. 15 months instead of 27.
There were a lot more names, the next year.
Abbot, Bones, Bulstrode, Crabbe, Davis – three inches of blank – Entwhistle, Finch-Fletchley, Goyle, Greengrass – a few scattered muggleborn names between empty spaces – Longbottom, Macmillan, Malfoy, Nott, Parkinson, Patil, Patil, Perks- Turpin, Weasley, Zabini.
No Potter.
Space for 56 names. Yet 7 Gryffindors, 9 Slytherins, 10 Ravenclaws, and 11 Hufflepuffs. 19 names unread, and Potter was one of them.
That’s fine!
He must’ve been 3 months, then! A very young babe, but powerful magic had been shown at birth before.
Lovegood – names, names, names – Weasley. 10 Gryffindors, 13 Slytherins, 15 Hufflepuffs, 16 Ravenclaws.
No Potter.
Something was wrong. Everyone knew it. Something was very, very wrong.
—
Knockturn Alley is an insular community.
Everyone knows everyone knows everyone. They don't rat each other out, either. Not unless they feel wronged, at least. It is a dog-eat-dog world, after all.
The hag across the street from the Mannequin Store has memorized the face of every male who's ever crossed paths with her without tossing a coin or prize or information in her pointed hat. The vampire coven acts as secret police, or a gang, or the Mafia, and only let's in the kind of trouble that'll pay the fee.
Hobgoblins watch the sewer entrances, trolls wait for nightfall to drag the drunkards out, free elfs have their own headquarters where they plot the downfall of wizardkind, and wizards mix in with the worst of them.
It is a place flooded with Dark Magic.
It should not be surprising that they knew Death when they saw it.
The first to see Him was the hag who lived across from the Mannequin Store.
Some poor witch had stepped in – likely for a voodoo totem – at the wrong time or in the wrong places. The Mannequins didn’t like when you did that.
Her body was gently laid in the Alley across from the hag, and once the door closed (and the danger was gone) she crossed the street for a little bite.
Someone beat her to it.
A little waif of a child, four or five, with frostbitten skin and blue lips even in the summer heat. With black hair that sucked in all light instead of reflecting it. Not even a glimmer of the noonday sun could be seen in his skin. The light and shadows on him spoke of night, and the cold, cold, winter.
He ignored the hag, though there was no way he wouldn't have seen her, and reached towards the witches’ mangled body.
A little light – shivering, afraid, shocked – pulled from the woman's chest. It was wreathed in the sparks of magic all wizard souls carried.
The light grows brighter.
The hag doesn't blink, because she long ago tore off her eyelids to better see prey, and her eyes don't seal at the blinding light, though they try to – instead she watches. The soul is wreathed in greengreengreen and-
It vanishes along with the boy.
There one moment gone the next.
The hag doesn't mention she saw him for months, she knows better
But even though he's male, he can still pass her without giving her a gift.
It's gift enough he hasn’t come for her soul.
—
There's a boy wandering around Knockturn Alley.
He has dark hair, and round glasses, and every time he ducks into an alleyway green light curls around him. He vanishes from sight.
He's a Hogwarts student, or he will be, because he's never around in winter. (Those that do see him in the cold months of snow and ice, they stay silent. They don't mention the body ducking for warmth, the faint glimmers of emerald, the chime of bells, the whispy shadows. They don't mention the Alley's greatest secret.)
He never tells anyone his name, hardly speaks at all, but when he speaks it's a quiet thing. A quiet, powerful thing.
They all know his name anyways.
—
The boy is tiny, the first summer he’s noticed in the Alley.
The vampires do not scare him, no living wizard sees him.
The Manequins and poltergeists flinch from him.
The boy remains unharmed.
Once, he is offered food. He eats it, his small face lighting up in delight. An auror pulls the child away from the denizen who offered him the sweet cake. Sternly, he is led back to Diagon and told not to take anything from strangers.
The boy is back the next day, gleefully taking food from all who offer it to him.
At least, he tries.
—
The boy is turned and twisted too fast to see that he did not pick up the food. His hand slipped through the offerings (and the plates, and the hands) and though he lifts his hand to his mouth to bite, his lips don’t part. His hand shoves the mirage of a gift past closed lips and he mocks the motion of chewing and swallowing.
He can still taste it.
He is still pleased with their gifts.
It still disturbs the habitents of Nocturn to see the now rotted and decayed food, and freshly cracked and aged plates.
And the withered hands.
They do not let him see what he leaves behind. They may know what his name is, but he is still small.
He does not understand yet.
—
He grows, slightly, over winter. Sometimes he is offered hot chocolate and manages to carry the cup. There is no liquid that hits the snow when the mugs inevitably slip through his fingers.
The blankets and quilts do not mold and become moth-bitten when he buries himself in them.
He’s growing.
—
The first time he speaks, he’s already a familiar sight in the Alley. Many have been… extrajudicially executed for attempting to harm him. It’s been years, and he almost reaches the hip of most adults.
The words whispered are a quiet ‘thank you.’
It’s to the owner of Borgin and Burke’s, for a shimmering cloak the man had definitely not stolen from Dumbledore. It didn’t quite work for anyone – rumor was that it was keyed in to only work for a specific bloodline when they wished. That bloodline was likely destroyed in the War, if Dumbledore had a hold of it.
The cloak glimmers with distant stars and the boy fades from view in broad daylight.
The owner of Borgin and Burke’s isn’t surprised. Neither is anyone else on the street.
There’s a rumor about invisibility cloaks and where they came from. No one could make them anymore, but there is one tale of their origins.
The Tale of Three Brothers.
—
They know his name, even if they never speak it.
It’d be stupid if the creator of something couldn’t use it.
—
The only way anyone can tell where he is now is by the sound of bells and the twisting shadows.
Even under the cloak, the depths of the world reach for him.
It’s fitting that Knockturn Alley has become so loyal to him.
—
Eleven years after Voldemort’s death at the hand of a yearling toddler and his mother, missing posters are put up.
No one quite knows what Harry Potter looks like, so they’re only artistic renderings. Some have black hair, some red, some brown. James Potter had hazel eyes, and Lily had green: some of the missing posters have green eyes, or gold, or hazel, and a few blue.
All of them are the same pale that comes from living in Britain. Most have Lily’s nose, and thick glasses, and wild, curly hair.
All of them are smiling.
The resident’s of Knockturn tear down the posters with black hair and green eyes. For good measure, they tear down the brown-haired ones too, and the blue eyes, and any with rounded lenses on their glasses.
The false name isn’t spoken of, and only once do Aurors come looking to see if he’s made his way to the magical underworld.
Some get interrogated under Veritaserum, and they truthfully say they haven’t seen Harry Potter. The name on the posters isn’t what they call him.
They know his real name.
It isn’t Harry Potter anymore.
—
Shortly after the missing posters appear, Voldemort returns.
No matter how many of them bear marks on their forearms, none of them give up the boy in the Alley.
Voldemort wants to kill him.
They all know you can’t kill what’s already dead.
They know better than to try.
—
Ollivander was killed.
The most superstitious of all (the most ancient) knew that this was the end of things. Ollivander had Been since Magic had. No magical children were born that year. House elves began to disappear. No one could see the mermaid pods that were previously in the lakes and rivers and coasts next to wizarding settlements. Prophecies in the Hall of Prophecy began shattering at unexpected rates. Wards fell, sickness took the last of magic from the old, potions lost their strength.
Magic was gone, with nothing to hold it back to the Earth.
The Lovegoods vanished, and the last seers and prophets went with them.
One Lovegood remained to bear the name of Fate.
Luna Lovegood was still unconscious, lying trapped in unbreakable crystal. The path would be held, nothing could move Fate from its path. Magic was gone.
Slowly, the world began to burn. Fire and disease and paranoia covered the world.
The last of the wizards and witches created terrible ‘cures’. False magic and blood spells. The desperate ripped magic from what ley lines remained, or carefully plucked it out of magical objects.
The Flamels died of old age, and the gold made by them flickered out of existence.
On some days, no one could enter Gringotts. It was too magical to remain in London.
Still, Knockturn Alley told no one of the boy (the one who grew, but was still so small. the one who they knew the true name of) who walked in the shadows.
—
Every planet must die eventually.
Earth just did it faster.
Death doesn’t like when it is wronged.