Prologue

"How is she?"

"The girl?"

"Yes."

There was a soft crinkling of parchment as a set of pages flipped.

"She's almost perfect."

"Qualities, Lucius. Qualities."

"No friends, her personality drives them away. Very studious and capable. Fairly high raw magical power."

"A mudblood?"

"A mudblood."

A quiet chuckle resonated through the large room.

"All the better. And what of the boy?"

"The old fool was tricked easily. All your compulsion charms worked. The boy has grown up and is ready for our purposes."

"Will he be easy to turn?"

"If the girl succeeds in her mission."

There was a pause, then the second voice spoke.

"Lucius, she leaves for King's Cross now. Do not be detected."

"Yes, my lord."


Hermione Granger was a witch.

Yes, a witch. That funny McGonagall woman had proved it. First she'd broken the primary theory of conservation of mass, then she'd broken the first laws of thermodynamics, then she'd created life.

Hermione hugged her textbooks to her protectively. She'd gotten them a few weeks ago at Diagon Alley – Diagon Alley! – and she already knew how to use several spells. She listed them off in her brain – Wingarium Leviosa. Check. Lumos. Check. Incendio. Incindeo. Check.

She'd find friends at Hogwarts, she knew. Hogwarts she would be happy, with friends, learning. Then when she'd learned everything she could learn, she would find her parents and her physicist grandfather and they'd bridge the gap between -

There was a 'pfft-pop' sound and a quick, harsh voice, a blinding flash of white light, and then nothing.

Nothingness.


Consciousness.

Slowly swimming world, whirling in existence.

The boy sat up in his bedroom. A puddle of blood was splattered onto his floor, leaving a bright red stain on the old, darker splotches that painted parts of the floor and wall.

Vernon had been really angry that time. When he got the letter addressed to "Harry James Potter, the Cupboard Underneath the Stairs".

No-one lived under the stairs, except for him. But his name wasn't Harry.

The name held some slight recognition. When he was very young, Harry had been a name of some sort, but he'd never heard it since. Boy. Freak. Waste of space. But mainly boy.

Now there were voices, arguing outside.

Boy was not very good at talking, but he was a good listener. So he listened.

"Harry isn't here," Vernon was saying again. "He's out. Away."

The other person, who sounded like an older man, was talking about Hogwarts. Boy almost smiled. Old people were stupid and senile. Maybe old person was confused, and didn't know what he was thinking about.

But no-one knew what Boy was thinking, either.

Yeah, I know. Short chapter. This is just an introduction, I'll be posting Chapter 1 in a few hours.