Clearing out my laptop I found this prologue stashed away in a folder called 'DARK_HARRY' which I never remembered typing. It's back from 2015, three years ago. I read through it and was slightly surprised by how much I liked the premise. Yes, it's cliched, but there's actually a lot of potential from stories such as this. I noticed also that there are many, many, unfinished prologues such as this one just hanging out in various different folders...

Beep…. Beep…. Beep….

Petunia jerked awake, instantaneously shifting from the haze of sleep to the jarring reality of wakefulness. Blearily, she reached out and tapped her alarm clock, causing Vernon to mumble something under his breath as he turned away from the sunlight streaming through their large window overlooking the backyard.

The large man mumbled something about owls and then, with a loud grunt, proceeded to fall asleep again. Petunia sighed, but even so, she couldn't resist the shudder that that word induced in her. Last night, Vernon had brought up the topic of her sister and her blasphemous son after having heard and seen owls and oddly dressed people on the streets of London. Regardless of how little she had spoken of her last night, the thought of her sister and that world had not left her.

Quietly, she slipped out of bed and into her morning robe and slippers and creeped to her still-sleeping son. Dudley was uncharacteristically quiet this morning so Petunia decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth and silently moved out of the room. She paused for a moment when the door clicked behind her and she let out a sigh of relief when no sound came from the room.

Again, she crept down the stairs and made her way into the kitchen where she started her morning routine of making breakfast. It was a Friday, the last working day before the weekend and Vernon was bound to be at least a bit grumpy; some extra bacon wouldn't hurt. Perhaps also some milk with his tea. Glancing at the large clock hanging in the kitchen she surmised that the milkman ought to have come by already.

As she unlocked the door and opened it (without even a slight creak, thank you very much), her eyes automatically dropped to the ground. However, she was not expecting to see a bundle of cloth laying on her front porch instead of the customary bottle of fresh milk. For a moment she stared at the seemingly innocent bundle and then her brain kicked in. Furtively glancing left and right to make sure that none of the neighbours had seen this peculiar event, she reached out to pick it up.

But then, in that precise moment the bundle… stirred. Now anxiously hoping that the bundle wasn't what she feared, she slowly pealed off the first layer of embroidered cloth. The baby laying on her front porch was now staring at her with curiosity. And tucked right in with him was an envelope of parchment.

Her mouth suddenly became very dry and with shaking fingers, she unfolded the parchment, revealing an emerald script that she remembered all too well:

Dear Petunia,

I regret to inform you that your sister and her husband were murdered on the night of the 31st-

Petunia's fingers spasmed and the letter tumbled to the ground but she paid it no mind. Her sister was dead. Lily. Dead. All because of them… Because of that world. Because that Dumbledore had convinced Lily to go. Her little sister was dead. Dear Lily… Dead. But then suddenly everything became very very clear and her attention turned to the small baby laying at her feet. Harry would have to go.

"Aw, look at this brave little boy!" Samantha, the first-year social worker cooed as she stared down at the small bundle of joy in her arms.

"Don't get too attached," a quite detached voice commented, its owner barely glanced up from her stack of papers to address the social worker. "Thirty years in the business and I've learnt not to get too close to the little blighters."

The social worker gasped slightly, horrified that anyone would call orphaned children as such. She gently swayed her arms to get the little boy to sleep, but his bright and calculating eyes seemed to stare her down.

Samantha and Mrs. Mills were currently holed up in the latter's study, filling out the forms for this young baby that had been left on their doorstep earlier that day. Mrs. Mills was a strict woman, that much Samantha had learnt in the past five months, but she had never seen anyone so harshly reject a baby in this way before. In the time Samantha had spent at Wool's Orphanage, there had been three new additions to it, this little boy being the fourth. And in all this time, she had not seen Mrs. Mills react so adversely to a single one of them… except the boy she held in her arms.

"Birthday and age?" Mrs. Mills asked. They had been at this for a while now; Mrs. Mills would ask some detail about the orphaned boy, and Samantha would give an estimated guess.

"Hm, he looks about a year and a half old," Mrs. Mills nodded tersely and wrote down a number on her sheet of paper. "As for his birthday…" Samantha cocked her head to the side, thinking. It was the first of October, a year and a half ago would be exactly the… "1st of April, 1980," she voiced her thoughts.

"Name?" Mrs. Mills now asked. Samantha bit her lip; her one year internship at this orphanage would end in seven months and she would never see this little boy again, but he would have to live with the name she gave him now for the rest of his life.

Perhaps a generic name would do? Less teasing and bullying that way. Bless the poor boy, he would have enough problems on his plate!

"Well?" Mrs. Mills questioned impatiently, now for the first time turning her hawk-eye stare on her. Samantha panicked on the spot, causing the orphanage matron to harrumph disapprovingly. "Only God will save the boy's soul - Ignatius for the founder of the Jesuits and Cole after my mother," the matron said in such a tone of voice that left no room for argument. Swiftly, she pressed the fountain-pen against the paper and scratched the name out.

"Ignatius Cole," Samantha tested out softly, glancing down at the baby in her arms. He was bundled up in a thick, expensive cloth and she wondered how such a boy could have ended up in such a place as this. The cloth was even embroidered with a large crest depicting three ravens and a large skull at the top. Beneath this crest, the words Toujours Pur could be read. Samantha knew enough French to understand this as 'Always pure' and she wondered what sort of family was in a status to say that about themselves.

The boy's — Ignatius' — thick black lashes and hair were a stark contrast against the pale skin and sharp emerald eyes, that continued to stare up at her with undisguised interest. She wondered what his story was, who his family was and how he had ended up here. Poverty evidently was not one of those reasons.

"…Place the boy with Simmons," the matron said, quickly dismissing Samantha as she placed the freshly made documents for one Ignatius Cole in the filing cabinet behind her. Samantha quickly left the office and as she walked over to room 27 of Cole's Orphanage, she had a sudden dreadful feeling that something terrible would happen to dear little Ignatius sometime in his future. She only held him closer to her chest as a cold chill passed through her.

Ignatius, now a boy of seven, mirrored his namesake in many ways: he was as studious as Ignatius of Loyola and could only be rarely seen without a book or journal in hand. He was remarkably well-versed in all sorts of religious orders, and was immensely interested in the cooperation and coexistence of the spiritual with the scientific.

He was teased by the other boys and girls and was constantly singled out by his roommates for his odd name and dignified manner, which according to children was unacceptable and unnatural. Samantha, now long gone, had been right, Ignatius had grown up to be a very special boy, indeed — an attribute that bullies liked to take advantage of.

One such bully was Jonah Simmons; the largest orphan in Ignatius' age group. He was tall and chubby; he excelled at sports at school and was being considered for the wrestling team the next year.

Ignatius was currently hiding from said boy. He had found a small place in the attic that had never been renovated. The large victorian house offered one many secluded places to hide from other children such as various cupboards under staircases, alcoves; small, hidden rooms and so on. The attic, however, was the only place where Ignatius could stash away his piles of books and hidden possessions that he wished no one to come across. One of them, for example, was his treasured blanket in which he had been told, he had been brought in, on the day of his admission to the orphanage.

The attic was freezing in the winter, but during the rest of the year, small cracks of light filtered through the roof, allowing Ignatius to take advantage of as much sunlight as possible.

He was taking advantage of what little sunlight he had on autumn evenings this very moment and had taken to examining a thick book he had found in the library down the street, about various coat of arms and their corresponding families. For as long as he could remember, Ignatius had been trying to figure out the meaning of the crest on his blanket. Surely it could only be of his family? Of the family he belonged to? But why would an evidently aristocratic family leave him in such a place as this?

Ignatius knew he was special, he felt it in his bones and he realised and understood that the things he could do weren't normal. Crystal, the girl who had briefly spoken to him when she had first arrived at the orphanage had distanced herself from him when he had accidentally spoken to a snake… and it had responded in such a way that he had understood it. Only later, had he realised that he had been the one to speak in its tongue.

Last summer, Jonathan Stubbs had been about to tumble out the window and in some act of desperation, Ignatius had managed to pull him back through the window… without once moving a single limb. The matron Mrs. Mills had later explained Jonathan's reaction to Ignatius' power as an infantile explanation for a lucky gust of wind that had thrown him back into the room. Jonathan stopped hanging around Ignatius after that.

Turning his attention back to the large tome, his eyes suddenly widened when he caught sight of a very familiar coat of arms. He had found it! He had found it!

Staring back at him was the crest he had spent the last four years coveting and examining over and over again: the three ravens, the skull at the top and the short motto at the bottom — all exactly the same! The joy in finally finding it was cut short when moments later, he realised how short the small text bellow the coat of arms was. It mentioned that the 'Black' family had been around several centuries before but had now all but disappeared.

Regardless of the fact that the text revealed to him little to no information, Ignatius finally felt something warm blossom within him — perhaps he was a Black? Perhaps he had finally found his family?

He was very quickly roused from his small daydream when a voice that he recognised very well creeped up through the small, open latch in the far side of the attic. Jonathan Stubbs had finally caught up with him. He had found his hidden attic.

"Cole, where are you?" Jonathan taunted from the bottom of the ladder. There was a loud creaking sound as he hoisted himself onto said old ladder and Ignatius swallowed hard, looking around anxiously. This attic had been his secret hideout for years and he had since then, decorated it with makeshift bookshelves and even a small desk. The moment Jonathan would see this, he would run squealing to the matron and Ignatius' save haven would be ripped away from him.

The large, beefy boy's hands appeared on the top rim of the ladder and soon his body followed. For a moment, both boys stared each other down. One beefy and tall, the other thin and small. "Mrs. Mills s'gonna kill you," the boy said, his accent thick. Ignatius' lip pulled back in disgust.

"You shall not tell her," Ignatius commanded in a neutral tone. He generally attempted to speak without emotion, but his eyes betrayed him. The emerald orbs tended to light up with stark emotion, often intimidating everyone around him. He had sworn to learn to control his emotions by compartmentalising his thoughts, but that wasn't coming along well as of yet.

"Like hell I won't," Jonathan sneered. He advanced on Ignatius, squaring his shoulders as he did so, evidently attempting to physically intimidate his roommate. "I might have 'ta straighten you out first." He balled his fists.

Ignatius swallowed visibly, but showed no other outward sense of nervousness. Jonathan was now a mere two or three steps away; in a mad dash for his own survival, Ignatius grabbed two or three papers full of his own musings, and made a bee-line for the trap door. But before he even crossed half of the attic, an iron hand clamped down on his shoulder. Ignatius cried out in pain as the other boy spun him around.

"Yer an abomination, Cole. A freak. I know what you did. I was going to fall out the window, and y-you did something." Another hand grabbed hold of the front of his shirt.

An emotion of some sort rose up within Ignatius and he felt it burst forth. Almost like electricity it coursed through his entire body, originating somewhere at the centre of his chest and consolidating on the areas of his body where Jonathan Stubbs was grabbing hold of him.

His skin turned hot, burning hot. Not the sort of heat one experienced when one had a fever. Jonathan let out a loud scream of pain and jerked back. He instantly turned his palms up to his face and Ignatius caught sight of the burnt and scarred skin. Completely charred.

Ignatius' eyes widened and he spun on his toes before escaping the attic while Jonathan continued moaning in pain. He ran all the way down the stairs shouting at those orphans that got in his way. A matron cried at him to get back into the building the moment he left it, but he continued running all the way to the park.

He found a bench in this same park and sat there until the sun had long since set. He kept reliving the event in the attic with a sort of vivid horror. He was partially terrified at what he had done to Jonathan; another part that petrified him was that in that moment… he had felt true power. All his life he had known he was special, but in this way — this power?

Ignatius sat there on that bench until an officer picked him up. He was in such a daze that his mind didn't even register what the officer said until he was delivered back to the orphanage. The matron in charge that evening greeted him kindly at the door and the moment this very same large oak door shut behind him, he was pinched by the ear and dragged to the detention room.

This room was designed to make the orphans do penance for whatever they had done. The moment the matron opened the creaky door, Ignatius snapped out of his daze. The matron was speaking:

"—poor Jonathan. You shall pay for your penance, boy. You have the devil inside of you, you do. Marina shall call the priest in the morning—"

Ignatius tuned her our. Barely registering a word more. The door shut behind him and a bolt locked it. He was plunged into darkness.

All incidents stopped after the exorcism.

Of course, that wasn't because of whatever the priest had done, but because Ignatius had learned to control his power somewhat more tightly. There was the occasional mess-up, but he usually managed to avoid a suspicious glance by blaming it on the wind or something similarly mundane.

At eight, he was advanced one year in school, his maturity having pushed him to excellence in his current class.

At nine, he began experimenting with his power, not fearing it any longer, finally managing to move around objects without moving a finger.

At ten, he figured out that this power could be used for other purposes. Very quickly he learned to use his magic in coils, sending these invisible silvers of power into the minds of the people standing opposite, minutely manipulating their decisions and nudging them into the direction that he just really needed them to go into.

At eleven, he received a letter that turned his entire world upside down.