Before the Beginning
Once upon a time...
Stories like this always start with those words don't they? Tales of fantastical worlds, of creatures of legend, of heroic exploits, of tragic loss.
And in this tale of the Underground, how else could this tale begin. So...
Once upon a time, there lived a little boy. In the straight little house of Number 4 Privet drive, so much like Number 5 Privet Drive and practically identical to Number 3 Privet Drive, was a little storage cupboard under the stairs that the Boy called home. During the day, the rumbling, heavy steps of the house's other inhabitants on the staircase would send a sprinkling of sawdust down onto the Boy under the Stairs. He would sneeze and cough, and when his chores took him out into the house he would be smacked for getting his dirty germs all over Dudders' breakfast.
No one said it was a happy tale.
In another boy's room on the floor above, was a huge mess. This boy wasn't very careful at all. This boy had a lot of toys. This boy was the nasty little cousin of the Boy who Lived Below the Stairs.
This boy had glow in the dark stars on his ceiling.
The Boy under the stairs looked up at his own ceiling, like a hundred boxes hung above his head, the twists and turns of the steps. When it was late at night and dark in his cupboard the Boy wished he could have those stars above him. Wished there was a little glow in the darkness.
He wished so hard that one day he looked up to see a starry sky.
Another boy would have screamed but not this one.
Odd things happened around him. This was just one of many.
Lying in his bed the Boy gaped at the sky above. A moon edged into sight and as the night grew it moved across the sky.
Days passed and every night the sky became his ceiling. He was never cold when it was freezing outside, never wet when it rained. But he saw the clouds pass over their world nonetheless.
In another world, in another time he would have first seen this sight in a castle far away with little boys and girls wearing pointed hats roaming its halls.
But that was not this world.
One day, in the year when the boy turned ten, All Hallows Eve approached. Far away from the Boy, people celebrated. T'was the day when years ago a war had ended, t'was the day when the Dark Lord fell.
And for the Boy who Lived under the Stairs, t'was the day when he was orphaned, t'was the day his fate was changed.
For those who still remembered though, t'was the day when the veils between the worlds thinned, t'was the day when the Fae came out to play.
And in the night, under the stairs, looking out at a starry sky, when the eve of Samhain drew close to an end, the Boy who Lived under the Stairs made the purest wish he had ever made.
I wish I was anywhere else
Once upon a time, there lived a boy who wished himself away.