(Note: Admittedly, I've never been much of a fan of fanfiction, or of Harry Potter at all, for that matter. But it seems to be what the kids are into these days, and artists are nothing if not whores, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. If I get any of the digital formatting for this a bit akilter, then give me a break, please, I'm too old for this.)

So you asked me to regale you with a story, eh? I can't say I know a whole ton of them, so I guess I'll resort as always to the old one—that's the only reason you asked me for a story in the first place, isn't it? You knew all along that I was one of the witnesses to the execution of Harry Potter, but you kept it a secret all this time. I should mention that I have ways of knowing more than you might think—never doubt me—but never mind for now, you can finally sit at ease as I tell you the story in every invigorating detail, the way only I know it.

And if you don't happen to like it—well, I suppose you won't take it too harshly.

Now Harry Potter was born, as it happens, in a cantina in the town of San Sancho,—you have heard of it, I am sure—much the sort of the one in which we are sitting right now—a little more rustic, perhaps, a little less protected from the heat outdoors. But it was folk just like us, the men and women you see cavorting all around us right now, these were the first people to ever take a glimpse at those cold snake-like eyes of Harry Potter, as chills descended from the heavens above, as even his infantile cries seemed to suck the life right out of the breath of each one of the patrons that day. (I was not myself present that day, as you can well imagine, but I happen to know one or two fortunate souls who were).

It was deep into the autumn night that a disheveled young woman, an outsider whom none of us in town had ever seen before, and whose name we still have never learned, pushed her way through the door and up the door with no small measure of exertion. Her cheeks were flushed and her entire body dusty, and it occurred to some there that she might have just been buried alive (I wouldn't be surprised if she were, for the record). Her body was particularly slim, and her dress particularly loose-fitting, and for this I am told it occurred to no one that she was pregnant, or at any rate, that she was as far along in her pregnancy as she was.

She began to shout to the bartender, in some Indian language which nobody else apparently spoke, and she received only alarmed stares from the confused patrons—until, in clear desperation, she began pulling out wads of bills from her dress pockets and putting them furiously on the counter. Without yet touching the money, the bartender poured her a shot of cheap rum and held it out to her questioningly. Without moving her arms an inch, she put her lips directly up to the rim of the glass, letting the bartender tip it gently in her direction, an odd sort of Communion with whomever it might be that she worshipped.

Her eyes, which had been serenely closed as she drank, opened black and bloodshot the instant the glass was empty. She gestured furiously in the direction of the rum barrel (purportedly scarring one man's cheek with her sharp fingernails) and gave disconcerted gasps of panic. Happy to oblige, the man poured her a second shot, while the pile of money continued to sit forlorn between them. This second glass he offered as he had the first, but her response now was simply to grab it out of his hand with all five fingers, no doubt nearly shattering the glass in her face, and to swallow it fiercely as though she had just discovered that these drinks were as important to her being as was air.

Disconcerted, and in a sense called to action, the bartender began to think ahead. Now he took several shot-glasses at once, trying to pour faster than she could drink, the thought likely being that once she were dead he would have an firm enough claim on her money (and who, after all, could know how much more money she had on her person?).

And so the drinks continued to come, and her fury continued to grow, until there grew around her a sizable circle of spectators, some betting and gossiping, the majority silent, not wishing to disturb or provoke this beast into any fits contrary to her consumptory nature. This binge continued for no short amount of time, and after a while the woman had exhausted the entire barrel. It was with some trepidation that the bartender chose with what drink he would supply her now that her preferred beverage was out; he settled upon one similar in flavor but noticeably sweeter, and it came as a great relief to him and to all those present that she accepted this with no less zeal than she had the former.

Around this point, I am informed, those who were not completely engrossed in this woman's temerity had noticed that dawn was closing in upon them, and by the time this fact was noticed by all, it had become clear that the woman's strength was fading with the rise of the sun. At last, disoriented and no longer able to hold a glass in her hand, she put her head down in her arms on the hard wood counter and the place fell totally silent. This continued for no more than a few seconds.

With just as much fervor, if not as much collectiveness, as she had begun her drinking binge, she spun around in her stool, stood up, towering several inches over most of the men present, and she walked slowly around the circle which had formed about her, her horrible bulldog-face a kiss of death for those at whom she stared. At last she stopped, focusing her gaze upon every bit of a rather unassuming—if anything caught her attention, it was his timidity and shortness in stature—gentleman of the crowd. Fearlessly she nudged a short, small knife out of his belt, he remaining perfectly still and unresisting for the time under her watchful face. Then she retired to her stool.

With her knife held defensively about her, she took one final look around at the room—at its people, at its frivolities, at its scents, which she seemed to detect with her eyes—and at the horizon just outside the door above which the sun was shortly to rise. She took one great unblinking look at all of these things of life, and—uttering one final prayer in her Indian tongue (which the world still has yet to hear again), and plunged the knife into her womb. Her eyes went out instantly and her entire length fell clumsily onto the floor to her side.

Several worried observers ran outside to seek medical help, while others merely stared with pity on the image of the fallen giantess. With the assistance of one man in the crowd, the bartender had her picked up and placed her gently upon the counter. If nothing else, this position would at least make the image in onlookers' minds that much less gruesome.

One by one they filed out, no sign of medical attention anywhere in sight, until at last there remained only the bartender and one other man, he from whom the knife was taken (and yet this man with the knife happened to be the one witness whose word I knew I could trust absolutely—a sign, I think, that I was the one meant to bring this story to conclusion, just as he was the one to begin it).

Once all the patrons had filed out, and our two remaining souls could only sit and look at each other in stymied silence, there entered a doctor. A priest, a Franciscan by all appearances, another stranger in town, whose habit was as light and untarnished as his own complexion was dark and murky, slowly ambled his way to where the woman lay unbreathing and began to check for vital signs. A short while later, he had delivered a baby boy.

Though none came in nor out while he labored, the news of the birth was somehow enough to draw a crowd in its own right—a crowd which was, if anything, bigger than that which had watched her drinking, and a crowd made up of women, children, the frail, the elderly—in short, from those of all walks of life.

The priest was not disturbed by this crowd, though neither did he acknowledge their presence in the room. The baby was a far more pressing concern, and it would be there long after the crowds had stopped coming to admire the miracle of its birth.

In time, he grabbed the baby up in one of his long arms and prepared to wade through the crowd—though not without a few bounties for himself and the child. The stack of money at the woman's feet, he knew without asking, was his with which to raise the child. This money he took in his deep priestly pockets, sparing only a few bills, which he placed back upon the counter.

"For the burial," he muttered to my friend and the bartender. It was the first and the only thing he had said since he had come in.

Less expectedly, he pulled the knife—until this point still lodged firmly in the woman's body—and, caked with blood though it were, he held it at his side.

Now without any free arms—baby held aloft with his right, knife clutched to the side with his left—he traveled slowly and carefully through the crowd, while all who were there clamored for a touch of the baby before it was out the door and gone for seemingly ever. Though few wished to admit it at the time, those who saw the infant up close eventually agreed that the experience had given them all terrible chills, and many, in fact, were relived to see the baby leave town and never to return.

Once outside in the hot desert day—the sun had already gotten far along in its day's journey by the time the priest left the building—he turned sharply to the west, away from (some would say in tandem with) the bright sun and down the long road toward the mountains not far in the distance. Some, I believe, tried to follow the man, to see how far he could make it alone on foot on such a blistering hot day—these fools were all sharply rebuked by nature, for he could be plainly seen continuing at his brisk pace until rendered invisible by the distant mirage.

At this point in our story, I must stop to interject. There is no absolute evidence that the baby who was birthed that day was necessarily our one and only Harry Potter. However, there are a great number of similarities, similarities which I cannot pause to explain here but must reveal one by one as this story continues. In short, we may never know whether or not this baby was in fact Harry Potter, but, for those who have at least some sense of imagination and purposefulness—I hope you won't be quite so cold and unaccepting here—there remains something pivotal missing from the story of his life without the mention of this episode. Hopefully, when all is said and done, you might have an increased appreciation for the various quirks and oddities of my story.

Now Harry Potter—I will have to start calling him just Harry for now on, I can't be so general now that I am dealing with him as a person here and not just an abstraction—Harry was said to have grown up so far removed from civilization and society that he was unaware of the existence of any such concept as 'money' until well into his adulthood—and yet, once he first discovered it, he developed a sense of greed which more than made up for his childhood innocence. Perhaps that is simply the way things are in nature—try to prevent a certain sin in a man, and he will commit it far more terribly than his protectors could ever have feared. The story of Harry, in fact, could be seen as a parable warning us of the dangers of remaining too isolated from society. But enough with this—I cannot go on discussing the meaning of a story which I still have yet to tell.

Now, as I was saying . . .