Harry had had worse days.

This was what he thought as the few members of Dudley's gang not at Dudley's tenth birthday party let out their anger on Harry. They laughing at him, at his thin frame and freakishness. Harry suppressed a pained groan and endured the burning pain on the side of his face as they held a torch to him; he'd learned a long time ago that if he fought back, he usually ended up doing something freaky. He didn't want to do something freaky; they would punish him if he did.

He reached out to grip a tree; if he could keep his sensitive parts turned away against the tree, he'd not hurt as much later. It didn't matter that he felt ashamed; freaks like him didn't have anything left in the first place, no pride to wound. It was a small price to pay to keep him healthy.

Just then, he heard one of them yell; then another, and another, and then the one closest to him shrieked as dazzling sparks flew past his head towards him.

He turned his head; the boys from Dudley's gang were gone. With a sigh of short-lived relief he resigned himself to fate; he'd have to pay for the freaky occurrence later. For now, he looked around, trying to find the source of the freakishness.

"Hey."

He swung around protectively, watching warily as out from behind a tree stepped a boy Harry was sure must be royalty; after all, only royalty wore robes and fancy jewellery, right? This boy was wearing wonderful robes that draped over his body, a grand necklace of silver with a beautiful pendant of snakes and emeralds laying on his chest. Harry committed to memory the image of the prince, The swaying robes, the smooth, unblemished skin, the obsidian hair and the ice-blue eyes that searched and finally laid themselves on him.

"Are you okay?"

Harry dared himself to breathe. Was... was someone being nice to him? Was this royal person actually asking if he was alright?

"I'll be okay," Harry replied, half expecting the question to be directed elsewhere. Perhaps he was standing in the way of a beautiful princess? He didn't want to get in the way of the prince finding his princess. Trying not to look disappointed, he shuffled under his tree and continued to stare with bated breath. He never dared to break eye contact with anyone; turning your back led to pain, and only pain.

"You're hurt," the prince said, walking right up to Harry and sitting before him. Harry felt his world spin as he backed away fearfully, the sudden movements inflicting more of the familiar dizziness. He tried to ignore his throbbing head and focused on maintaining the distance.

"Please, please stay still," the boy begged, and Harry froze. He needed to obey this boy; he was scared, but he knew that the prince was more important than him, just as the Dursleys always told him to obey people. He held out a wooden stick and tapped Harry's burn along the side of his face. Immediately the pain melted away into nothingness.

Harry touched his cheek and bit his lip. "You healed me," he breathed, not daring to believe it.

The prince smiled. "Yeah."

Then Harry remembered what this meant. "Something freaky happened again," he said before he could stop himself. Now he'd never escape punishment, not that the would've before. Fearful, he hugged himself close, hoping for the freakiness to go away so that he wouldn't be hurt.

He watched the prince as his lips parted into a small gasp, betrayal wet in his eyes. Harrycar deemed it best not to say a word, instead watching with a terrified stupor as the prince cradled his cheek. Nobody touched him like that. Ever. It felt... it felt nice.

With a sigh, the prince let go. "Don't forget me," he ordered, trying to hide his upset. "Okay, little ash-heart?"

"Okay," Harry replied, not sure how to respond. Little ash-heart? He wasn't sure what the prince meant, but he would never forget him.

He would remember his prince for as long as he could.

Harry stared at his face in the mirror. He half expected everything to be a dream, for everything to revert to the way it had been with the strike of a clock, like Cinderella and her carriage. As of yet, however, he remained as he had been before being healed, minus the pain. The burn, that bubbled and rippled across his face, was a reminder; a reminder his prince was out there somewhere. He stared for a while, trying to pick out the scar he remembered, the one that reminded him of his parents, the lightning bolt, but it was gone.

Maybe I'm growing up, Harry thought quietly as he stared at himself in the mirror, at the burns that trailed over his face. Maybe this is a sign that I should stop hoping for my parents and start hoping to see my prince again.

His prince was kind and gentle, had healed his face and rid it from pain, had chased away Dudley's gang. Maybe someday he could return to his prince and protect him, like his prince had protected Harry. He smiled fondly and steeled himself.

Even as he was locked away in the cupboard that night, he made up his mind. All that mattered now was his prince.

Somewhere in magical Scotland, in a magical castle far away, a large book, filled with names and dates, glimmered and suddenly flipped through nearly ten years of pages. The page shone, and a name was erased, but not because the child had died. The date - July 31st - was replaced with July 1st, as that was the same as that day. Somehow, magic figured out that the boy couldn't possibly be one year old, either, so it kept the year the same. Then, erasing the boy's last name, it replaced it with the words Ashheart. Its magical duty done, it flipped back to the blanker pages waiting to be filled and began to write down children being born in magical Britain again.

The old man that sat in the room didn't even notice. After all, even if there were only new magical children once every so many days, it was by no means a unique or noteworthy occasion in the man's mind, and so it slipped past him completely, ignored in favour of things he considered more important, like choosing which pair of socks to wear and how he was going to get Gryffindor to win, considering his Potions teacher had neglected to give Gryffindors any points and had instead doled them out in surplus to those bothersome Slytherins.

In the corner, a small machine shimmered and turned gold, flashed three times, and fell silent, the smoke turning from its usual white to a bubbling reddish-orange. By all means this should have caught the man's attention, but even if it was one of his most important gizmos, his things were always puffing smoke and changing colours, flowing over themselves and letting out cries every so many minutes, and so it went over his head as well. He wasn't a very attentive man, so all that occurred in the span of three minutes was ignored by man, but not by his beast, who was likely the wiser of the pair.

Fawkes, the golden bird, representative of all things good and kind, fluffed his feathers and stared at all the things going on in the room. He, unlike his bonded, was very attentive, and often caught things others did not. His sharp sight saw the new name, and the shift in the gizmo, and he trilled quietly to himself, wondering what to do. If he told his master what was happening, the boy would once again be thrust into his destiny… but if he remained, and then spoke to the boy personally… yes.

When Fawkes realized he was avoiding his master, he suddenly wilted, his sadness echoing in one quiet trill which went unheard by the headmaster, who was so absorbed by his thinking spree that he did not notice anything amiss. Not until his bond weakened beyond repair did he realize, and by then it was too late; his phoenix was gone, off to the hills of yonder shore, not to be seen again for a while.

In the span of the next year, people who asked after Fawkes would be told that the bird was going through a state of solitude, often taking flights or disappearing altogether. The ashes on the floor were kept, as well as the perch, to make an image of normalcy, and for the most part it worked; after all, few people had even seen a phoenix, and so it was assumed that Dumbledore was being truthful, and his precious social standing remained. Soon people stopped asking about the phoenix at all. Merlin forbid people know that he had lost his phoenix, a blemish upon his person blacker than most. In all his work to hide the phoenix's absence, it never occurred to him that he should be thinking about why the phoenix left.