A/N: We do not own Harry Potter or any characters/similarities/aspects/anything else. This is merely a FanFic for fun. No copyright violation intended or aware of. The story takes place in an alternate dimension of Sydney, Australia.

~CHAPTER 1~
The Boy Who Didn't Die

Mr. and Mrs. Deadly, of number 13, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, were proud to say that they were perfectly abnormal, no thanks to you. They were the first people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just loved such a thing.

Mr. Deadly was the director of a firm called Gunnings, which made guns. He was a thin, bony man with a long neck, clean shaven every day, though he did have a unibrow. Mrs. Deadly was beefy and brunette and had almost no neck and a low head, which came in very handy since she spent so much of her time hiding from the neighbors behind garden fences. The Deadlys had a pudgy son named Demon and in their opinion there was no worse boy anywhere.

The Deadlys could never be content with what they had versus what they wanted, but they had their greatest want – a secret, and, like all secret holders, their greatest excitement, as well as fear, was that somebody would discover it. They thought they could barely bear it if anyone found out about the Smotters. Mrs. Smotter was Mrs. Deadly's sister though they had only met once in several years; still, Mrs. Deadly simply broadcasted about her sister, though her sister and her wonderful husband were as unDeadlyish as it was possible to be. The Deadlys rejoiced to think what the neighbors would say if the Smotters arrived in the street. They'd heard rumors that the Smotters had a large daughter, too, but had only seen a son on video chat twice. The daughter (if there was one) was another good reason they wanted to keep the Smotters close; it would be nice for Demon, mixing with a girl or boy like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Deadly woke up on the light, sunny Wednesday our story starts, with everything about the subtle green glowing clouds in the sky suggesting that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Deadly belted a Taylor Swift song as he picked his most interesting tie for work, and Mrs. Deadly was silent as she gently placed a solemn Demon into his gilded solid gold throne.

They immediately noticed, but forgot, seeing a tiny, gray owl crash into the bushes after hitting their window.

At half past seven, Mr. Deadly picked up his gun, smacked Mrs. Deadly on the cheek, and tried to smack Demon good-bye but missed, because Demon was doing a workout video and working on leg lifts.

"Little dork!" screeched Mr. Deadly as he ran from the house. He got into his Ferrari and crashed into the mailbox of number 13, righted himself, and pulled out of the drive.

It was on the fork in the street that he noticed the first sign of something new - a dog trotting across the road with a map. He immediately knew what he had seen, and jerked his head around to look again (crashing into the neighbor's mailbox, too). There was the dog, but the map was now a book. What map could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the green glow. Mr. Deadly put his fingers in his mouth and stuck out his tongue. The dog did the same. As Mr. Deadly drove past it and down the road, he watched the scruffy gray dog with spectacle marks and bare patches of fur in his mirror. He swerved to avoid yet another mailbox. He had hit that one yesterday. The dog was now pulling down the piece of paper that read 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams'. Dogs could only read newspapers and books! Mr. Deadly hit himself and put it in the back of his mind. As he drove into the wilderness, he thought of nothing except a large order of AK47s he was hoping to get that day.

Though half-way through town, guns were almost completely driven out his mind (not that he had much of one anyway). He noticed that there were people more oddly dressed than him! They wore cloaks, Victorian age clothes, smocks, women's bed clothing…. He found this funny! If he weren't in his car, he would've gone out and swapped fashion tips with them. He saw one man in a group who wore an emerald cloak. It complements him very well, Mr. Deadly thought. Fashion was driven out of his mind an hour later when he arrived in the Gunnings parking lot.

Mr. Deadly always stared out of the window at work. He never actually did any work. He saw some very odd things but always forgot about it. Everyone thought he had short term memory. He saw owls smash into his window and some narrowly avoid crashing. He pointed and stared with the other people. He ignored other people and just stared at the 'pretty birds'. He was in a good mood until he decided to go to the Green Market and buy himself a snack.

He'd forgotten about the fashionable people until he saw another group of them near the entrance to the store. He turned towards them as he past. He didn't know why, but they seemed familiar. They were speaking very loudly, but he wasn't paying attention to what they were saying. It was on his way back past them, stuffing a whole Twinkie into his mouth, that he caught a few words, and listened in eagerly for fashion tips.

"The Smotters, that's right, that's what I heard-"

"-No, their son, Barry, there's no daughter-"

Mr. Deadly stopped, um, dead. He immediately fled from the shouting people, fear as well as excitement kindling inside of him.

He hailed a coming taxi, and when it didn't stop, jumped atop it and climbed in through the moon roof. He arrived back at his office, told the secretary to guard the door, yanked out his IPhone 4G and had almost finished dialing Mrs. Deadly's blackberry when he dropped the phone. Too lazy to pick it up, he plopped into the Twinkie shaped beanbag in the corner. He stroked his unibrow, thinking... no, he was being totally uncool. Smotter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people named Smotter who had a son named Barry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his niece, er, nephew was called Barry. He'd only seen him twice. It might have been Harry- no, that wasn't it. Or Barney. Yes, that one. There was no point in involving Mrs. Deadly; she always got so excited at the mention of her sister. He was sorry about that- if he'd had a sister like that... but all the same, those people in smocks...

He decided to concentrate back on guns that afternoon, but when he left the office at six o'clock, he remembered and became so excited that he pushed a girl out of his way just outside the door.

"Oops," he mocked as the tall young girl stumbled and fell, sliding across the tiled floor. He immediately noticed that she was wearing a nightdress and smock. She seemed perturbed for a moment, then smiled and said in a deep voice that made the secretary and Mr. Deadly laugh. "It's cool. I'm less depressed than usual today! Rejoice, for Guess-Who has disappeared at last to somewhere we can't find him! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating this less depressing day!"

And the young girl hugged Mr. Deadly around his head and sprinted off.

Mr. Deadly slowly turned a 360, but the girl had gone. He had been hugged- kind of- by a total- but familiar- stranger. He also knew that he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He whimpered, shaken. He hopped into his Ferrari and sped home, hoping that he was dreaming, which wasn't good since he lived on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams and had long since given up dreaming.

As he pulled into the backyard of number 13, the second or third thing he saw- and it greatly interested him again, hoping for another mirror game- was the gray dog he'd seen that morning. Up close now, you could see its ribs through its fur and it looked to have mange. It had just jumped to the hood of his car. He was sure it was the same one; it had the bare patches.

"Please, stop! You'll scratch the car!" he shouted, feeling for his gun.

The dog threw its head back and seemed to laugh. Then, it jumped off the car and went around the back of the mansion. Pulling up his mental pants, he kicked down the door to his house. He was still debating whether to tell his wife anything.

Mrs. Deadly had had a horrible, strange day. Even more owls had hit the window and there was now an owl shaped hole in the window. Demon had learned a new word (Alien!) from the neighbors. When Demon had been to put to sleep (and resurrected in the morning by his Horcrux they had made last night) he went into the bathroom to catch the beginning of the evening news.

"To begin, this horrible evening, owls have been behaving erratically. Workers at Gunnings report, that hundreds of owl have been smashing into their windows and following them the whole day." They showed a clip of the secretary of Gunnings running and screaming from an owl that was pecking her. The newscaster grimaced at that. "And off to Ted Tongs for the weather! Going to be anymore owl showers tonight?"

"Well, Brian," the weatherman, Ted Tongs, said. "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls acting weird today. The squirrels as far as Sydney, Victoria, and Tasmania have been attacking people! Also, instead of the rain I predicted yesterday, there's been a downpour of bullets from nowhere. Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early—whatever the heck that is! But I can promise a cold night tonight!"

Mr. Deadly shifted uncomfortably in his Twinkie shaped armchair. Falling bullets all over Australia? Owls attacking in the daytime? Fashionable people all over town? And an exclamation, an exclamation about the Smotters.

Mrs. Deadly squeezed into the bathroom carrying two cups of hot chocolate. He'd have to tell her. He cleared his throat dramatically. "Er, Daisy, Dear—have you heard from your sister lately?"

As he expected Mrs. Deadly perked up. She loved her sister.

"No," she said quietly. "Why?"

"Just boring stuff on the news," Mr. Deadly declared. "Owl attacks, bullets, and there were a lot of fashionable people in town today…."

"And?" Prompted Mrs. Deadly.

"Well, I wasn't sure about… probably… maybe it involved… well… her group."

Mrs. Deadly sipped her hot chocolate, but spit it back out because it burned her tongue. Mr. Deadly wondered whether he should tell her he heard the name Smotter. He decided he shouldn't. Instead, trying to be mysterious, he said, "Their son—he'd be about Demon's age right now?"

"Yeah!" Mrs. Deadly said excitedly.

"What's his name again? Harry, was it?"

"Of course not! That's a stupid name! It's Barry. Beautiful, poetic name if you ask me."

"Oh, duh," said Mr. Deadly, his heart singing with excitement, "I quite agree."

He decided to bring back up the owls again as they took the elevator to bed. When Mrs. Deadly went back down to retrieve the hot chocolate she had forgotten, Mr. Deadly stomped to the back window and leaned out and looked down. The dog was still there, pacing back and forth. It was staring down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, as if waiting for something. He thought this may have something to do with the Smotters. If it did… if it got out they were related to a pair of—well that could go either way. The Deadlys got into bed. Mrs. Deadly fell asleep quickly, but it took Mr. Deadly awhile, trying to clear his mind. His last sad thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Smotters were involved, they were probably dead. The Smotters knew very well what he and Daisy thought of them…. Still, he hoped they were alive so they could get together—he yawned and rolled onto his stomach—he hoped it would affect them….

How lucky he was.

Mr. Deadly may have been slipping into a peaceful sleep, but the dog rolling in the flower bed outside, showed no sign of fatigue. It howled when a car door slammed and tried to eat two owls who ran into each other. It was almost three in the morning when it finally wore itself out.

A man had appeared in the middle of the street, so loudly, several people who were still up looked out their windows, only to go back for the thought that they were dreaming. The dog gave a happy bark.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, like this man had ever been seen before on this street. He was rather short, with long, horribly dyed black hair, that went down to his knees and had a pink bow tied in it. Yes, pink. In fact, everything he wore was pink. His robes, his cloak, his boots, and his designer purse that had a toy Chihuahua in it. He had dark brown eyes that sparkled and a rather small pair of square glasses. This man's name was Babble Mumblemore.

Babble Mumblemore seemed to ignore the fact that the street clearly, and strongly, told him that he was unwanted. He was staring at the dog, which was still barking happily. For some reason the dog seemed to anger him. He scowled at it. "I should have known."

He put his hand into his beard and pulled out a Juicy Drop Pop. He squeezed it and a blinding white light came out of it. The few other people, who had still been at their windows, ran away screaming about how they were blind. He chuckled. Strangely, neither Mumblemore nor the dog seemed to be bothered by the light. Putting the candy (well, sorta) back in his beard, he began to walk to the dog who gave another happy bark. Not wanting to dirty his clothes by sitting on the ground, he stood next to the dirty dog. After staring at it in disgust, he spoke:

"Not very nice meeting you here, but I guess you're better than anyone else, Professor McMonomial."

He looked down to glare at the dog, but instead found he didn't need to. He was now glaring at a rather young woman, who had a distinct air of care-freeness around her. She was wearing a nightgown of blood red. She looked, now, as if she would wag her tail if she still could.

"I'm so glad you knew it was me!" she squealed.

"I wish it wasn't…."

"I'm ignoring that. So why are you here? Did you come to see me!"

Mumblemore rolled his eyes. "No. I was just passing by on my way from a party. They were having some good ones over yonder."

Shockingly, despite her appearance, Professor McMonomial said, "I don't like parties. Especially the ones over yonder. Horrible host. They also should be a bit more careful! Those Muggles had left their smellyvision on and I saw their antics were on their news! Owl crashing, squirrels, even bullets! I bet that was Puzzle Piece. He was always missing a few cents, if you know what I mean."

"Well, can you blame him?" Mumblemore exclaimed harshly. "We haven't had any good things happen to us for eleven years!"

"I know, I know. But still." Professor McMonomial gave a sigh and rolled her eyes at the same time. "I don't want to know what the Muggles thought of the clothes though! They must've thought the others idiots! And the rumors!" She looked at Mumblemore. "Wouldn't it be oh so ironic that the day Guess-Who disappeared that the Muggles find out about us. Ha. Also, he is gone, right? I've heard that he created something that will keep him alive, but that's not true, right?"

"Of course he's gone," Mumblemore easily lied. "Good, no? Juicy Drop Pop?" He pulled another one out of his beard.

"No! Those are disgusting!"

"More for me!" He ignored the disgusted look Professor McMonomial was giving him.

"So, it's true that Guess-Who—"

"My… somewhat dear Professor, surely I have made it clear that it is perfectly A-OK to say his name? Come on, say it with me: Moldyshorts!" He ignored Professor McMonomial's scared snort of laughter. "I will never get why we call him Guess-Who. I always confuse it with the game. It's no use being afraid of his name. I'm not!"

"Not all of us are brave enough." Professor McMonomial said, with yet another roll of the eyes. "Plus, everyone knows Guess—oh OK!—Moldyshorts, was afraid of you."

"Aw. Thanks for that compliment. But he had powers I never had."

"Only because you're not on the Dark Side, Luke."

"What?"

"Nothing," Professor McMonomial said quickly. "Anyways, do you know what they're saying? About why he's gone and how?"

This seemed to be why Professor McMonomial had been at the Deadlys' house all day. She was giving Mumblemore the sharpest stare she'd ever given, something quite out of character for her. When it became clear to her that Mumblemore wasn't going to say anything, she spoke again:

"What they're saying is that last night Moldyshorts went to find the Smotters. The rumor is that Edelweiss and Lames Smotter are—are—"she burst into tears, "DEAD!"

Mumblemore bowed his head and Professor McMonomial sobbed even harder.

"Edelweiss and Lames… oh, I didn't want to believe it… I didn't really… Oh, Babble…" The next words were unintelligible. Mumblemore silently patted her shoulder.

Professor McMonomial's voice grew higher as she went on. "And that's not all! They're saying Moldyshorts went to kill the boy, or girl, whatever! He couldn't kill it! He couldn't kill Barry Smotter. Moldyshorts' power somehow broke—and poof! He disappeared!"

Mumblemore nodded and put a hand on his hip.

"So it's true! Noooo! After everything! All the deaths, he couldn't kill a one-year old? It's shocking… out of everything… how in the name of pie did Barry survive?"

"It's like the Tootsie Pop owl says… 'The world may never know,'" Mumblemore quoted.

With McMonomial crying, Mumblemore looked at his golden, pink sapphire studded Rolex. It was very strange; instead of numbers, or even planets, there was nothing there. Mumblemore must have known its meaning though, since he put his arm back down. "Hairgrid's late. Did he tell you to come here?"

"Maybe. But I thought you said you came from a party!"

"I did. But I was going to come here anyways. I am bringing Barry to his aunt and uncle."

She gasped dramatically. "You don't mean the people who live here!" She walked over and kicked Mr. Deadly's car, setting off the alarm. "You can't! They're too weird! You don't want Barry Smotter to end up like you, do you?"

"It's a risk I will have to take. And I've written them a letter that explains everything. And you must know how eager they are..." He trailed off.

"A letter! Well, I suppose that's good enough... So who's bringing him?" She eyed his beard as if he could fit a baby in there. Which he probably could. Beware babies, beware.

"Hairgrid, unfortunately. I don't think it wise, but he was the first person I could find." Mumblemore sighed.

"Nonsense! Hairgrid is one of the most trustworthy people I know! Then again… I only know you and him…." She looked dramatically into the distance before squinting. "What was that?"

A humming sound was slowly growing louder. They stared as one of those electric, seated scooters came down from the sky and landed near them. It was bright blue and had red racing stripes. On it was a small man with an obscene amount of brown hair. His beard and mane of hair was even longer than Mumblemore's. He was wearing leather, and, poking out of his hair, was what looked like the top of a guitar. On his legs was a bundle of, not blue nor pink, but purple blankets.

"Hairgrid!" Mumblemore said, looking immensely relieved. "Where did you get the scooter? It might have been faster to walk."

"I borrowed it, Professor Mumblemore, dude," said the small man getting off said scooter. "From young Sarcastic White. He's right here, dude."

"Sarcastic White? Here?" Professor McMonomial asked.

"I think he meant Barry Smotter," Mumblemore told her. "Were there any problems?"

"No dude. House was, like, totaled, but I got away before Muggles came to ask for my autograph. He fell asleep halfway through the flight…." Hairgrid held out the tiny bundle and the other two had to bend down low to see in it. Inside, was a small boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of silvery-blonde hair was an oddly shaped cut, like a heart.

"So that's where…" Professor McMonomial said while stretching out her arm. Mumblemore slapped it away. "Will he have it forever?" she asked.

Mumblemore nodded. "Scars can come in handy though. I have one that spells out the capitals of all the countries in Africa. Well, we better hand him over." Mumblemore began to search for something in his beard.

"Could—could I say 'bye to him, dude?" He bent over the small bundle and gave the thing in it great butterfly kisses. Suddenly, Hairgrid lost his cool and gave a horrible howl.

"Shut up!" Professor McMonomial hit him on the head. She looked up and saw that the Muggles were still running around blind.

"S-s-sorry." He sniffed. "I just cannot stand it! E-Edel and La-a-ames dead! And poor Barry off to live with Muggles!" He gave Barry to Professor McMonomial and lay down on the floor to cry like a five-year old.

"Get a grip, dude." She said, bouncing Barry. With that, Mumblemore took out a giant slingshot. He took Barry and put him in it, with the letter. "Wait!" Professor McMonomial exclaimed. She took a rock and threw it through the window of the Deadlys' master bedroom. Mumblemore nodded and pulled back the band. There was a small sigh as a small bundle flew through the air and into a bed.

"Well, I best be getting back to the party over yonder. Anyone else want to come?" Mumblemore said after a period of silence.

"Nah. I best get this away. G'day, Professor Mumblemore, Professor McMonomial, dudes." Wiping his eyes, he went back onto the scooter and flew off into the night.

"Shall I see you at the party?" Mumblemore asked again. Professor McMonomial simply sighed.

Mumblemore walked back to the middle of the street. There was no need for the Illuminator; the Muggles were still blind. He noticed a mangy dog slink away into the night, much less excitable than in the morning. He could faintly hear exclamations from number 13.

"Good luck, Barry." And with a loud pop he disappeared.

Barry didn't know that at that moment he was being ogled at by his aunt and uncle. He didn't know that he was very special or that he was missing some great parties or that he would soon have a cousin as a playmate. He couldn't know that at the very moment, people in smocks and nightgowns and cloaks were giving toast to him, "To Barry Smotter! The boy who didn't die!"