The Altern8tive Universe
The Inevitable Boy
A Harry Potter Alternative Book
By J. Eoin Whelan
Prologue
The Thief
The thief looked more like a ghoul than a man. His pale white skin and his dark, shoulder-length, greasy hair slicked back tightly, and his dark robes through which no light could penetrate, all gave him the impression of one who might have belonged to the Addam's family.
An hour before, Halloween celebrations had led to hundreds of children dressed in similar costumes as the thief milling about. The thief had watched them from the graveyard diagonally across the street, by the old Anglican Church. It was there that he'd watched the Dark Lord appear and force his way into the house before which the thief now stood. It had been poetic that he had chosen the cemetery to hide in; if the Dark Lord had discerned his presence…but no: with a singular purpose in mind, the Dark Lord hadn't detected him. The battle that had followed, five minutes later, sent all merry-makers scattering. But it had all been over in less than five minutes. The thief had watched as the initial attack erupted in the sitting room hallway. He'd expected several flashes of red and yellow light and a contested battle to ensue, but only green light flashed, and he'd seen, through the ground floor sitting room window, the man drop, lifeless.
"No," he'd whispered to the tombs around him, moving closer to the perimeter of the old cemetery.
The cloaked figure that had moved up the stairs hadn't struggled much when it reached the first floor. Another few crashes and a flash of green light, and a woman's shrieking scream followed. And then, the world had fallen anxiously silent.
"No!" The thief had shouted nearly. He'd cleared the cemetery in an athletic leap, crossed the street and pounded into the garden in a matter of seconds. Not her, please! Not her!
The front door was open, nearly blasted off its hinges, and as the thief entered the entrance hallway, he saw the crumpled figure of the man of the house, sprawled at the foot of the stairs. Inside the house, an eerie silence had settled save for the electric buzzing of flickering lights on the first floor landing, up the stairs. Never understood why they wanted electric lights, the thief thought sourly. And the body of the man looked, eerily, at peace. The thief hitched up his robes as he lifted his foot to step over the man, but his mind suddenly overwhelmed him with memories…memories he didn't want to revisit.
Another time, another house, the animal shrieks of a wounded creature and the unmistakable glow of the full moon spilling through cracks in the walls. Another shriek of pain, human-like, and then a growl, wolf-like. Wand at the ready, the thief moved through the ground floor of the shack, breathing through baited breath. His foot lifted and settled on the first step, which creaked. All things went still, and the monster up the stairs began to sniff and move toward the stairs. And then, he was face-to-face with the werewolf, frozen in shock. Prepared to die as the wolf's mouth opened, and then, the stag appeared out of thin air and speared the wolf with his prongs. A shaggy black dog collided with the thief, knocking him over en route to the werewolf. The dog nipped at the feet and legs of the werewolf while the stag forced him backward, turning for a moment to set eyes on the thief. A look – pity? penance? self-righteousness? selflessness? – flashed across the stag's eyes….
The thief shook the memory free, tucking it away into the caverns of his mind. He stepped over the man with a sneer and continued up the broken stairway.
"Lily?" He said in a trance-like state that had so clearly befuddled his mind that he had bent down and whispered the question to the corpse behind him. It did not respond, bringing the thief back to reality.
"No!" He whispered again, straightening up quickly. Blood pounded in his ears and his head began to swirl. He looked up the stairs and saw light spilling from the room at the top of it. Taking two steps at a time, the wizard cleared the stairs in a few strides and landed on the top floor with a thud. It was a mess. More debris littered the carpeted floor and the door to the nursery room lay in splinters just inside its room. A body lay crumpled and shivering out of sight beneath the door. The thief's head was shaking automatically, his mind buzzing with fear. He crossed the floor like a hunter stalking game, and automatically bent to lift the splintered door. But then he saw her.
Her auburn hair was spread out like a halo above her head. Her eyes were open and a look of fear was etched across her lifeless face. Her arms were sprawled out at her side in the formation of her fall. And behind her was the basinet in which her son was pulling himself to his feet. The thief crouched and felt the woman's pulse, confirming that she had none. His head seemed to split open then, and all control over his body was lost. In his grief, he knelt and lifted the limp body of his true love, a whimper escaping him.
"No!"
The baby wailed, breaking the thief from his moment of lament. And, from under the splintered door, another half-human sound shrieked. Laying the woman down again, the thief crossed back to the door and lifted it. What he saw beneath it was horrifying: if a person could age backwards and appear to be an old man in a baby's body, this thing would be exactly what the thief would have imagined it to look like. The baby cried again and the thief looked up at him. He'd dropped his blanket at the foot of the basinet, and the thief, through powers that were not his own, crossed the room again, his head hurting from shock and pain, and picked the blanket up. His eyes drew level with the baby and he saw, to his amazement, Lily's eyes looking back at him. The soft pink skin of the young child bore a mark – one the thief was almost certain would be instantly famous once word got out – like the jagged root of a tree, or perhaps more in the form of a lightning bolt.
The man's features softened for a singular special moment, but a sudden popping noise outside the house broke it, and the man's features hardened. The baby boy was searching the man's face, a look on his own that suggested that he didn't know what to think of this ghostly creature. In honesty, the man didn't know what to make of this young child – one whom he could have imagined being his own once long ago. Footsteps approached, and the old familiar voice of the half-giant emitted a gasp and whimper, suggesting that the man's body had been discovered below. The thief stood, clenching his teeth, and crossed to the door again. He lifted it and grabbed a hold of the embryonic creature beneath it, wrapping it in the blanket the baby had dropped. With a snicker, he touched his wand to the wrapping and vanished it to a place he hoped it would perish on its own. Hatred flooded back into his being as the half-giant and the man who had been a large shaggy dog in his memories appeared on the first floor landing.
Their eyes met, and the half-giant frowned. A feeling of betrayal overwhelmed the thief, for a moment, and then it was gone. The other man, however, hardened and tightened the grip on his wand.
"Severus." He said.
"Padfoot," the thief replied.
"Severus," the half-giant growled. His eyes pleaded.
"Rubeus," The thief, called Severus, replied with an unnatural softness.
"Has it…?" Rubeus Hagrid whimpered. The other man's gaze dropped to the floor, a look of deep sadness transforming him from a warrior to a mourner. Severus nodded once.
"He's gone," he whispered.
"Gone?" the other man questioned. Severus couldn't respond. He cast his own mournful gaze downward and clenched his teeth again.
"But…" he whispered. "There is a boy."