The Prologue
Petunia and Vernon Dursley of Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey were very normal people, thank you very much.
Especially Petunia. She took an odd sense of pride in being the most “normal” one there, especially compared to the likes of that old batty Mrs. Figg, or the parents over there on the other side of the road that had those violent baby children. Awful parenting techniques, really–her Dudders was perfectly sweet and kind, even as a one-year-old. No doubt he would grow up nicely, too.
October 31st. Tunia knew the neighborhood children never came to Privet Drive–they always headed to separate districts to find candy bowls to stuff their grubby little hands in when they saw all the lights were off. Thank god for that, she’d hate to be handing out such precious sugar to the gremlins when she could save it for her own family.
So when she was awoken by a doorbell ring in the middle of the night–midnight, to be more accurate, she didn’t go back to sleep. Instead, she crept downstairs and opened the door by a crack.
The streetlights were out that night, oddly enough. It seemed as if the entire world had frozen on a turn of its axis, the stars scattering through the night like pinpricks in a curtain of ebony, bright enough to see the empty street outside.
A cat mewled quietly before falling silent. There were no crickets, no footsteps, no inane chattering of parents as their children burned themselves out running everywhere.
It was quiet.
The moonlight streamed in through the silhouetted doorway, illuminating the bundle on her porch. Petunia stared at it for a moment, bemused, before it shifted and revealed a tiny head with a lightning scar, bright red, etched onto the infant’s forehead, emeralds peering curiously through thick black eyelashes up at the thin woman.
Petunia screamed.
It had been three years.
But instead, it felt like more. Harry sighed as he slugged down another butterbeer–he wasn’t willing to actually get drunk on something too strong before he headed to work. And work…who would’ve thought that would be the department he went into?
An Unspeakable, indeed. Even Harry himself was surprised with the choice. Had he not wanted to be an Auror? Why had he changed his own mind? Not that he regretted becoming an Unspeakable, of course, it was just…
Maybe it was the war. Maybe it was the fighting that had changed him.
A lifetime as an Auror had sounded like a dream. Fighting bad guys, capturing the murderers, arresting the criminals…the Gryffindor Golden Boy to the rescue of not just Hogwarts, but to the everyday citizen! Who wouldn’t want to be the hero?
Harry certainly didn’t. Harry James Potter was tired of being the hero. Of being the Boy-Who-Lived, the Man-Who-Conquered, all these titles lavished upon him when he’d lost so many friends (and family, his treacherous mind reminded him) to the war that had taken his life twice.
He was lucky that he’d survived.
Now that he thought about it…didn’t people say that the third time was the charm?
Aberforth watched as his most frequent (and most mysterious) hooded customer stood abruptly and left Hog’s Head Inn, cloak swishing about them with a sort of final air.
He wondered if he’d see them again.
Silvery wisps danced along the edge of his fingertips as a slightly-drunk Harry stood in front of the thing that had taken away his dearest godfather. If he leaned closer, he would probably hear Padfoot’s voice echoing with delight, his crazed laugh, that gleam in his eyes-
No. Sirius was gone. There was no use in thinking about that moment anymore.
Slowly, Harry pulled down his hood, his face revealed bare for the empty room to see. The flickering curtain waved gently in a non-existent breeze, shimmering, reflected as argent pools deep within his viridian eyes. The hat did say he would always do well in Slytherin, didn’t it?
Well, no use thinking about that, either. Everything was past now.
Hermione and Ron and Ginny and Neville had all moved on, past their ghosts, past the echoing past that they all had. Somehow, they’d followed through with their futures. Ron, an Auror before heading out to help George with the twins’ (now only one) beloved shop. Hermione, fulfilling her dreams of saving the elves from a cruel fate of slavery. Ginny, quidditch star, Neville, herbology professor, at Hogwarts, no less…hell, even Draco Malfoy had likely gotten married by now…
So why couldn’t he move on?
It was all over. Why could he just let it go?
…well, Harry had survived death twice. What was to say he wouldn’t survive it a third time? But there was still that chance–what was to say he would survive?
As he stood there, teetering on the edge of the stone steps, someone else made the choice for him.
Wide-eyed, Harry Potter tipped forward and careened into the void of the Veil of Death, face-first.