Comments: Although I'm making Harry a female trapped in a male's body, I will work hard to not make him just a stereotypical homosexual. I won't make him overly powerful, but he will know how to fight. I will give him other character traits besides "queer." This story isn't a humor/parody fic like "Dudley Dursley's Sassy Gay Friend"- though a lot of the characters have a sarcastic sense of humor. In some ways, this story will be a darker version of DDSGF.
I had this idea for a LONG time, but I've been chickening out when it came to actually writing anything down. However, I recently received a confidence boost when I aced my final exam for nursing school (the dreaded Exit HESI). So, I decided to throw my weird idea into the Pit and see what kind of feedback comes out. Whatever reviews I get, that won't change the fact that I'm graduating!
Let us assume that Fate, Destiny, and Chaos all contracted permanent insanity from prolonged exposure to the affairs of one Albus Dumbledore and one Tom Riddle Jr., AKA Lord Voldemort. Let us assume that the Wizards, both clearly insane (one in an eccentric, well-intentioned, slightly-off-his-rocker kind of way; the other in a homicidal maniac kind of way), caused Fate & Co. to swerve so sharply 'round the bend that the mysterious deities could see their own arses as they spun further and further out of the Earth's orbit. For the purposes of our discussion, let us consider a situation in which the three insane deities, for whatever reason, took it in their heads to give the power to defeat a Dark Lord to an infant.
Of course, nobody would believe it if something like this just happened out of the blue. Fate, Destiny, and Chaos were tasked with making it look realistic … or as realistic as three personifications with little to no direct contact with the saner beings of the human race could manage.
They couldn't help it. The sane ones did not provide nearly as much entertainment as the legions of the half-baked, the nutjobs, the loony toons, and the crazies. Thus, like the parents of one quiet, dutiful, obedient child and one reckless, hyperactive psycho-boy, Fate et al. tended to ignore the quiet one and focus most of their attention on the one making too much noise, blowing up the house, or tap dancing on the roof of a church. Don't blame them! They had to intervene to prevent the psycho from killing himself in a spectacularly moronic way that would end with said psycho being mentioned in the next edition of Darwin Awards.
Thanks to their prolonged, almost uninterrupted, exposure to society's nutcases, the term "realistic" for the deities entailed a Prophecy made by an alcoholic, a backfired Killing Curse, the power of love, a bird that liked to set itself on fire, and many more odds-and-ends that formed a ragtag group of plot elements somehow melded together to create a gripping story.
In the event of Dark-Lord-vanquishing super powers being bestowed upon an everyday, run-of-the-mill infant, the baby currently curled up with a soft pink blanket would be the last baby anyone would expect to receive that power.
Even compared to other infants, he appeared delicate, fragile. His longer-than-average dark hair and an attachment to a pink blanket that had been his mother's when she was a girl caused many people to mistake the baby for a girl. The only thing that distinguished the infant from any one year-old girl was a scar shaped like a bolt of lightning on the right side of his forehead.
Anyone who had even the slightest bit of contact with the Wizarding World in the past few days knew the story of the scar. Had any Witches or Wizards been nearby, they would realize that the sleeping infant was not only a boy, but the Boy-Who-Lived.
However, the upstanding Surrey neighborhood contained not the slightest hint of anything abnormal, unless you counted the baby dozing on the doorstep. Even exceptional, Dark-Lord defeating infants aren't very exciting when they're sleeping, unless the watcher is the infant's mother.
Fate, Destiny, and Chaos do not have it in them to spend hours cooing over a "cute widdle baby." Nor are they the kind of paranormal forces inclined to actually make something happen if they could avoid it- unless they could think of something crazy that humanity would never be able to pull of without their help.
Mainly, they liked to sit back and watch as human kind did odd things, setting into motion events that Fate, Destiny, and Chaos could never dream up in a million years, and then turning around and blaming the results on Destiny, Fate, and something called "The Chaos Theory." Despite the flak the deities collected for meddling in the affairs of humans, this Boy-Who-Lived phenomenon was the first time in hundreds of years that they had deigned to adjust the affairs of humans. Before that fateful Halloween night, the most recent event which had necessitated their intervention had been the Roman Charioteer Incident, which none of them really liked to talk about.
Despite the dullness of the sleeping neighborhood, Fate, Destiny, and Chaos could not tear their watchful gazes away. Something exciting was going to happen, they could all feel it. This something did not require the slightest intervention from any of them, but assuming that their ability to judge such things was still intact (despite having been driven crazy in the war against Voldemort and the Light Side… honestly Dumbledore and Voldemort… strange, strange men), there would be a few things set into motion tonight which they would not mind taking credit for. Although in a neighborhood as hopelessly boring as Privet Drive, such a thing was impossible to imagine.
But, believe it or not, the only man in the world who could possibly be crazy enough to give both Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort a run for their money arrived with a literal army of men. It took half a dozen trucks to carry them all, and even then, most of the men had to sit three to a seat with several men uncomfortably crammed in the back with the supplies.
Unlike the flamboyantly dressed Headmaster, the emerald-cloaked teacher, and the moleskin-wearing giant who had visited Privet Drive earlier that evening, these men obviously made some effort to blend in with the darkness. They all wore black clothes and ski masks and slipped out of the truck silently and, without a word to one another, began gathering supplies from the back.
The strange man who had caught the attention of Fate, Destiny, and Chaos looked ordinary. He was of average height and medium build. The only thing unusual about his appearance was the presence of innumerable scars from various fights. However, the cuts and bruises were concealed underneath heavy black clothing and a ski mask, so there was nothing to distinguish him from the army of men he was leading into the perfectly normal neighborhood of Privet Drive.
Still, it was clear that the men seemed to regard him as the leader. Nobody was talking, but the man appeared to be giving the others orders by nudging some of the men and pointing to different areas of Privet Drive. When everyone seemed to be positioned to his satisfaction, the man nodded, and, instantly, the army went to work.
In a strange reprisal of what Albus Dumbledore had done with the Put-Outer only hours before (although these men didn't know that), put out the lights, causing the street to be bathed in darkness. However, not having access to magical streetlight extinguishers, the men were forced to be more creative.
They could have just shot at the streetlights, but even with silencers the sound of glass breaking would have woken the inhabitants of Privet Drive. Instead, one man climbed up each pole and used a screwdriver to carefully pry off the glass cover. Without the glass covering the bulb, the lights brightened momentarily, causing the street to glow. Then, in one practiced movement, each of the men unscrewed the bulbs from the streetlights, causing Privet Drive to once again be coated in complete darkness. That done, they each slipped on a pair of gloves and a large bag, then hurried over to their appointed stations. Some men stood next to the houses' walls, being careful to stay out of the way of windows. Others pulled themselves up to the rooftops.
They went to work. Each of the men used a pocketknife to slit the bag open and covered the house they were assigned with the fragrant contents of a bag of manure. Every so often, one of the men on the ground would throw another bag up at the man stationed on the roof. All of the men worked diligently, yet silently, like the well-oiled clockwork soldiers they were until manure had been spread all over the roof and exterior walls of all the cookie-cutter houses in the perfectly normal neighborhood of Privet Drive.
Fate, Destiny, and Chaos were all but lounging around eating popcorn as they watched the prank play out.
Even if told of the deities' interest in their activities, each man in the group would insist, with the certainty of one who had their god shout this lesson at them for hours every day, that they were not special. Nobody is a special, unique snowflake of special, unique specialness. We are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else. These men just happened to be exposed to Tyler Durden's wisdom. It was natural that they would be a little more… enlightened.
It was while he "repainting" the walls of Number Four Privet Drive that one of the masked men noticed a baby on the doorstep, swaddled in a pink blanket. She appeared to be sleeping. The man had never been a father, but he knew enough about crying babies to know that they could ruin the most stealthily handled operations. A wail at an inopportune moment could wake the residents of the house. He knew what Tyler Durden would do.
Tyler would not let the risk of a crying baby ruin Project Mayhem's morning wishes to Privet Drive. And were not all the Space Monkeys extensions of Tyler's will, Tyler's plans, Tyler's genius? Without a second thought, the Space Monkey pulled a knife out of his pocket and aimed it at the baby's neck. Closer, closer. Hmmm… he had a son around this girl's age. Maybe they could have been friends. Ah, well.
He slit the infant's throat, causing blood to gush out and pool on the Monkey's black pants, the baby's blanket, and the pristinely clean front porch. The baby opened her mouth to shriek in pain, but no sound came out. Seeing that she was still moving, the Space Monkey cut her throat again. And again. And again, until her head was nearly separated from her body. The baby lay still, her mouth half-open in a silent scream, her heart beating feebly against her thin chest. No matter. The important thing was that she would not make any noise while he was busy. Tyler would be satisfied. With that thought in mind, the man went back to work.
By the time "late night" could be considered "early morning," the obsessively clean neighborhood was unrecognizable. The once-sparkling whitewashed walls were brown and smelly. The roofs were the same color, and occasionally, brown goop would drop off the top of the house. Oh, and there was a dead baby on the doorstep of Number Four, surrounded by a puddle of its own blood.
"Should we, you know, do something?" asked Destiny, referring to the baby. The kid did have a hastily created Prophecy to fulfill, after all.
"Shhh…" said Fate. "It'll work itself out."
"That's your solution to everything," Chaos pointed out.
Fate gave him a Look.
The men hurried back to their trucks and drove away before the feeble rays of sunlight could break through the gray clouds that were building, promising a storm.
A/N: I already started chapter two and should have it up soon. For those who made it this far, thanks for reading! Good, bad, or ugly, tell me what you think!
In the meantime, if you are so inclined, try to guess the character who slit the baby's throat. Hint: it is a Harry Potter character created by JK Rowling. If you get it right, I will be amazed and immediately offer you a cookie.