Disclaimer: Use common sense, if I were J.K. Rowling the first book would never have been finished as such I am not. All characters and most places belong to said J.K. Rowling.

A/N: This is not an alternate universe, this is just me playing around with the possibilities of one or more actions from the books happening or not happening.

Thank you to my two betas midnite-thunder and Trowa no Miko for everything they have done to make this legible. You two are amazing!

Prologue

To some, today is the end of hope. To others, it is the beginning of the world they worked so hard to achieve. To me, well, it's just another day; another will reading, another young man claimed by a war he should never have been a part of. Looking around at all the faces, it is hard to tell who are friends, who are family and who are just here in the hope of filling their pouches with the deceased's gold.

I could say that this will reading didn't move me, but I would be lying; they always move me. The younger the man, the more I feel for the people who are left behind. How do you tell his young wife that she shall never come home to see him holding their children, laughing and joking and playing with them? She shall never be able to look over at him and say, "What did we do wrong?" or "They take after you, always looking for trouble." Never have that wedding every young girl dreams of growing up, the one he had promised they'd have as soon as the war was over. How do you tell her? She who sits all alone, crying, pushing everyone else away. How do you tell a young girl who has already lost both her parents that she has lost her husband as well?

Then there are the friends, crying on each others shoulders, trying to comfort each other, despite already knowing it won't work. They say things like, "He's better off, wherever he is", "At least he can't be hurt anymore," and "He'd want us to move on and live our lives." But they can't take their own advice. Not now. Not yet.

Then, the only blood relatives the boy had left. They aren't crying. If anything, they are ecstatic. The two adults have smiles that seem so out of place among the mourners. Their beast of a son is the only one of the three who might fit in; his face shows some remorse but holds confusion too. You can just tell he has no idea why he is here, that he has no idea where here is.

The only other person in the whole room who is not crying is the old man in the corner. He doesn't look upset in the least, though he's not happy either; not smiling. Or at least, not that I can tell, with his long white beard hiding his mouth from sight. He looks like nothing can upset him, like he has not a care in the world. But if you looked him right in the eyes at just the right moment, you would see his steely, uncompromising gaze. He has the look of someone who expects everything to go his way, and if it doesn't, there will be hell to pay.

The clock chimes nine. It's time to start. It's time for the people to learn whether their hopes and dreams have come true, whether they will have something to remember him by or whether they are just here to be told how awful they are.

"We welcome you to the reading of the will of Mr. Harry James Potter."