7 Lesser Known Ways Harry Potter Could Have Died But Didn't
Summary: A look at some of Harry's close calls over the years, told through seven humor filled chapters... At some point one begins to wonder if this Boy Who Lived really had another secret magic about him, because man, was he close to dying a lot more than the many instances he was already famous for!
Chapter 1
Harry Potter had always been known as the Boy Who Lived, a name he earned himself at the age of one. He did not know of this until he started attending the magic school Hogwarts, and it wasn't until then that he would have to prove himself yet again worthy of the nickname. His life rather immediately took a turn for the more dangerous, and he did indeed prove that he wasn't as easy to off as his enemies would have liked. However, he was close to dying a bunch of times before he also became known as the Saviour of the World, times that had absolutely nothing to do with the war against evil... Times that as such aren't as widely known, or even to the boy in question himself.
Harry Potter had been living at Hogwarts for a month, and he could safely say that it was the best month of his life. He had started to learn his way around the castle, he'd found a great friend in Ron Weasley, and he wasn't getting beaten down by his cousin every day. He liked his lessons, well, most of them anyway, and he had also realised that he wasn't any worse off than any of the other students, even if he hadn't known about his magical heritage until that very summer.
Currently, he was sitting on top of his comfortable bed in the Gryffindor first year boys dorm room. He loved the dorm, it was cosy and homey in a way that the little area under the stairs that he used to call his place just wasn't. The dorm had no spiders, it had a proper, good bed, and he got to share it with four other nice boys. Harry sometimes, late at night, would still pinch his arm just to make sure that this was all real, and not only a fantasy that he'd managed to escape to in his dreams. He was just now reading in one of his school books, the first year book for Potions class. Snape was not his favourite teacher, far from it, but he had assigned them reading homework, and Harry thought he might as well do it. Partly because he assumed the subject was on the curriculum because it was important for them to know, partly because Snape had had that look in his eyes that usually told his students that he was secretly threatening them with a pop quiz.
Without looking, he reached down to his trunk, to find the wrapped up sandwich he had made himself during lunch in the Great Hall. It was around tea time and he was feeling rather peckish, and had saved the sandwich for just such an occasion. It was filled with butter and orange jam, something he never used to get at the Dursleys – Dudley would always grab it before he had a chance. He kept reading, to his surprise finding it much more interesting than sourly Snape made it seem in class, and unwrapped the sandwich. As he wasn't paying proper attention to it, he didn't notice the smell that came from it. It felt soft and almost inclined to fall apart, but he didn't linger on the thought, thinking that it might after all had gotten a bit smushed in his bag during the day. Just as he was about to take the first bite, the door opened, and two laughing voices filled the room. Harry looked up to see Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, two of his dorm mates, talk animatedly on their way in. He smiled hello at them, and returned his attention to the book and his snack.
It was then that he noticed that the sandwich he had in his hand was not the one he had made himself, but rather a much older, almost entirely green thing that had started to grow fur. He jumped, startled, and threw it away instinctively. What in the world? He peered at it, lying in a disgusting little heap on the floor, from his spot safely on the bed. Harry didn't recognize it immediately, but then it dawned on him. Ron had had sandwiches made by his mum with him on the train, about a month ago, on their way to the Hogwarts school. They'd forgotten all about the sandwiches when Harry instead bought them lots of sweets to munch on, and somehow they must have ended up in Harry's trunk. He rummaged through the bag that laid thrown beside him, finding the jam sandwich he'd made himself. Of course, why would he have put it it the trunk? He really ought to pay less attention to his homework, and more to what food he put in his mouth. Harry shook his head at his own silliness, and chanced a glance at Seamus and Dean, to see if they had noticed anything. It didn't seem like it, and for that he was glad. It would have been very embarrassing to be caught almost eating a murky green, fuzzy sandwich, and he would probably turn from the Boy Who Lived, to the Boy Who Died From Disgusting Poisonous Sandwiches. Granted, he didn't enjoy the whole Boy Who Lived thing either, but it sure was better than the alternative. Who knew what would have happened if he had eaten the old sandwich? What if Dean and Seamus hadn't come in when they did? Would they have found him dead in his bed, with the traces of disgusting green fur around his mouth? Harry shuddered at the thought, and got out of bed. That was quite enough of that, he threw the old sandwich away and went down to the common room, fully intent on finding something that could distract him from the unpleasant experience of almost eating a month old sandwich.
The house elf who cleaned the room during the night made a bit of a grunt when she found the remnant of an old sandwich in the bin – it really stunk something horrible. She hoped no one had eaten any piece of it while it looked like that, she imagined it being rather dangerous and poisonous at this point. She quickly took it away, and made sure to check the sleeping first years to see that they were all okay. This was after all the famous Harry Potter's dorm, and she did not want to be the one to tell the Headmaster that something had happened to that particular student. Satisfied that they all slept soundly, she finished her cleaning, and went into the next room.