Prologue: In which Harry taps his toes and does some light reading.

I'll sing you a song of times long gone
when dark and light first met
the dark and its Night gave way to light;
and by Seven the Charter set
fast to hold, to shape and mold
magic and land and fall and step.
Five into magic were poured quite tragic
as life gave way for new life's bloom;
Two remained there, fully aware
woof to the Charter's loom.
Tied to the land, in Kingdom they stand
though once through worlds they flew.

-From Of The First, by Saral, Remembrancer and Chief Librarian

There are moments when, though unstoppable forces rage throughout the universe, though the great march of time continues undaunted to its final destination, everything rests on a single decision, made by a single being. At one such moment Harry James Potter sat alone, crying in the dark of his cupboard, hungry and in pain. Uncle Vernon, a thoroughly piggish man, had just finished another of his long tirades against 'The Freak,' whoever that was, and how in some way or other Harry's next three days of going without food would 'teach The Freak a lesson.'

In one world Harry would feel the crush of ultimate despair, and as a boy of seven he would for the first time wish for his own death. Then the rush of warmth and comfort offered to him by some unknown magics invoked by a dying mother's last wishes would flood him, give him a renewed will to survive, and he would start to feel mysteriously better. In this world Harry would grow up to fight an evil he had no real knowledge of, and by offering his own life for those of his friends he would triumph over the monster Tom Marvolo Riddle had become.

But in another world this tidy ending would never come to pass. In this world, for whatever reason, Harry did not succumb to despair. Instead the crying Boy-Who-Lived wished with every last shred of his being for some kind of help; any help would do, as long as it let him get better. With an imperceptible hiccup the universe subtly changed directions, derailing the plots of old men and evil spirits alike, and Harry's call was answered.

Harry had already cried the worst of his tears away and was down to just a few sniffles and little moisture around his puffy eyes, and where a little while ago he had begun to doubt that anybody would miss him if he were to just die something in him snapped back into place and a fierce gleam entered his eyes. Earlier, he had heard the Dursleys troop through the hallway next to his cupboard and out the door while saying something in cruelly loud tones about movie night. The house was quiet when a soft, high chime began to sound in his ears. The happy tone grew sharper and more defined, and Harry's feet began to tap as it sounded a little tune.

The melody spoke of dances, treks through rocks and hills and grass, of exploring places, just to know what they held; of dogs taking walks with their humans and untouched forests and rivers and all the places that Harry had heard about in conversations but never seen. Somewhere in the mystifying and beautiful song a point of light appeared above Harry's head, growing brighter and brighter until he had to close his eyes, then so bright that he saw it through his eyelids. Warmth coursed through him, and another voice joined the song; one which sang energetically of waking up each day to face the world anew, of the beauty of opening doors to see outside and bringing new sights to dreamers, of drawing still things to move with its wakeful tune. His feet were dancing now, and he didn't think he could stop them if he tried. Another voice joined, and another, and another. Voices sang their songs to Harry of sleeping, speaking, thinking, of binding strength and life and even of death, and all the while more points of light joined the first one, swirling in greater and greater numbers together to form what looked like a million strange symbols, all along the inside of his cupboard.

The light was intense and Harry wasn't entirely sure, but he thought he felt something inside himself responding to the song. Some little piece of Harry Potter was growing rapidly, drawing strength from the strange symbols that danced through the air in complicated swirls and lines, and it seemed to be pushing at something else inside of him. Then without any warning Harry felt the worst pain he had ever even imagined along the scar the Dursleys had told him came from a car crash, and the something in him pushed strongly and violently and he heard a brief scream of frustrated rage as his scar split open. A sour, bitter odor leaked out of his scar as it throbbed an ugly counterpoint to the music. The pain was unbearable and Harry sank into merciful oblivion, his feet still tapping to the cheerful tones of the Walking Song.

The next thing that Harry heard was the sound of his Aunt Petunia rapping angrily on his cupboard door.

"Get up! Get UP! It's time for you to use the loo and shower, and don't make a mess of things boy, or you'll be trimming the roses tomorrow!" Aunt Petunia had a nasty habit of making Harry do the gardening, and would always 'forget' to give him gloves when she made him prune her great, overgrown rose bushes in the back garden as a special punishment. Harry's fingers would always smart for a whole day afterwards, and the little thorns would itch wildly.

"Coming Aunt Petunia," Harry replied, and swung his feet over the thin plywood-and-cotton bed Vernon had installed three years earlier in his 'room.' He paused. Hadn't he just been punished? Why were the Dursleys already back from movie night? And what was that about music? As he struggled to recall Harry's eyes were drawn to a plain, dark, leather-bound book at the foot of his bed. That hadn't been there before, had it?

"Hurry UP, you stupid boy!" Harry sighed and opened his door.

Making his way toward the loo, Harry stopped to collect his allotted clothes and supplies for school in the morning—a ratty second-hand backpack, some lined notebook paper with basic addition problems done in sloppy pencil, and Dudley's hand-me-downs two sizes too big. He entered, washed, and had just started brushing his teeth when he noticed something shining at him in the mirror, and as he tilted his face this way and that he realized that a mark stood out high on the fair skin of his forehead. It was too faint to show too clearly, but every now and then as he tilted his head to one side or another a little glimmer of light shone at him. This of course threw Harry into a frenzy; he scrubbed at the mark, trying to get it off, and when that failed he brushed his fringe of hair forward only to see it spring back cheerfully into place. As his fingers brushed the mark Harry thought he heard the faintest hints of music, and something barely forgotten stirred in his mind.

"Hurry up, we don't have time for you to waste in front of a mirror boy!" That would be Uncle Vernon, then, and try though he might Harry couldn't delay any further. Necessities taken care of, he opened the door and attempted to brush past his looming uncle.

"What've you been about then? Answer me, boy!"

"Nothing Uncle Vernon, really!" His voice came out a high chirrup, half cut-off by fear and half excited by the prospect of the mark and the book, and the bits of memory that were starting to come back to him from earlier in the day.

"Been lazing about then, while we honest folk work for our keep? You disgust me, hear? Now get back to your cupboard!" With a heavy but slow-moving swipe in his direction Uncle Vernon waved Harry through the upstairs hall and down toward his room. Harry padded down the stairs and meekly closed himself in for the night, waiting with nervous tension as the family bedded down and the sounds of a settling suburban house lulled them to sleep. When he was certain the Dursleys were asleep Harry felt around at the head of his mattress for his second most-prized possession, an old flashlight Dudley had abandoned after only denting it once. Clicking it on, he shifted around to make a little room and grabbed the book from its resting place on the floor. He opened it, and noted that it seemed to be very old indeed, and that it was written by hand in dark ink. Flipping to the first page with letters on it, Harry was able to pick out the title: Free Spells and Charter Mages. He squinted and looked more closely at the tome, trying to make out a few more words under the flickering bulb and it seemed as though the book shivered slightly in his grasp. Harry started and the book seemed to slide from his nervous fingers, falling closed on his bed.

Opening the book proved more difficult than it would seem, as a warm silver catch pinned both covers together. At first the boy thought it might have been there all along, and simply closed when he dropped the tome, but when he examined it he realized that the catch had no keyhole. After a few dozen tries at regaining access to his book Harry had finally given up, stashed the book in that little space under the last step which Uncle Vernon never looked in, and faded off to sleep.

The next day he'd thought that he would have time for a little further exploration, but Aunt Petunia's after-school chores list seemed to have multiplied by itself, and he wound up not only pruning the rose bushes but also watering the lawn, washing both family cars, and cleaning up Dudley's second bedroom ("so Diddykins can store his new comic book collection!"). He managed to sneak a few scraps of food out of the immense supper he helped prepare for the Dursleys, but as he was technically still not allowed to eat his time was spent dodging his aunt, sneaking morsels of supper, and trying to work all at once. By the time he was let into his cupboard, starving and exhausted, there was little else on his mind but food and sleep.

Even so, as he was about to fade out of consciousness, Harry's thumb brushed past his forehead and that almost-audible chime sounded again. A brief thrill of warmth rushed through him and he somehow knew that last night's adventure in the cupboard was not just his imagination. Frowning in concentration, the Harry tried to isolate the feeling a little bit, and there in the darkened cupboard he somehow pushed his mind at the mark.

Instantly he felt himself connect strongly to the almost-music, and in his mind's eye he saw thousands of marks which glowed golden and warm. It was strange enough that were it not for the Dursley family being asleep he probably would've shouted out. Instead Harry removed his hand from the mark as quickly as he could and lay still, his heart thundering. He listened, frantically, for any sign that the brilliance and strange noisiness of the mark might have woken the family above him.

After a few minutes and some very still breathing Harry realized both that the family above him seemed deaf and blind in matters concerning the mark, and that he could see a faint glimmering light, coming from the spot where he had hidden the book. Softly orienting himself so that he could reach the leather-bound tome, Harry reached out and gasped when with a snick it opened to his touch. Carefully and greedily, the little boy reached over for his dented flashlight and took a peek inside his new third most-prized possession.

The first page swam with little marks, so many that Harry couldn't quite tell where one ended and another began, and as he touched the fine parchment-like substance he couldn't help but think that the whole book was made entirely of those symbols. His theory was further strengthened when the first page erased and rewrote itself with simpler-looking words and bigger, clearer letters to read:

PREFACE:
Though most Charter mages begin their studies of spell casting very early in life, it appears to the writers of this book that with Kerrigor's rise few remain in the kingdom with the necessary skill to teach student-magicians. Soon it may be impossible for newly-baptised adepts to call upon the spells necessary for even the most basic of Charter magic. This text will therefore provide the new mage with the theory and basic history of Charter magic, as well as an advanced primer in spell-casting and an index of common marks.

Harry, having worked very hard that day without much in the way of food, was dead at the wheel trying to focus, but he soldiered his way through one page-it was, after all, about magic. When he turned the page his eyes lit upon a set of the symbols-Charter marks, his mind supplied-which flared to life and seemed to weld his eyes open. Harry felt new energy seeping into him from that warm golden place, and when he looked at the page again the letters were back with their terribly adult words, and he still understood them. In a minute he turned the page, then the next and the next.

The book talked about the nature of magic, how it was bound up in what made things real, and how Seven Bright Shiners put themselves into a Charter to organize and contain the magic and build things that benefitted life itself. As he turned page after page he read of the basic spells a Charter mage could cast, of speaking them or whistling them, or even drawing them in the air with his fingers, and he learned a basic Charter alphabet consisting of nine symbols present in the most common spells.

Harry was quite aware that something was strange about his night. He was reading, more than he ever had before, and while he remembered a few of the things he read with perfect clarity- like how to tell a corrupted Charter mark from a pure one, or the first nine marks every mage knows-most of the information slid away from his thoughts like water down a drain. Little pieces remained, though, and they were enough to kindle in the young new mage a thirst for knowledge that would serve him all his life. In fact, Harry found that he didn't want to put the book down, even if he had been reading for what felt like days and days. This magic promised to be powerful, warm and safe, and comforting. It offered him protection and care that he had never felt before, and while his mind was absorbed in spell-fueled reading he could forget about the prickly thorns, aching stomach, and all the work he would have to do tomorrow. When at last the flow of information slowed and the book itself began to gently close of its own accord, Harry sighed.

Aunt Petunia's ugly ornamental clock was chiming two. Harry sat up and without noticing what he was doing whispered a mark into existence and the lock on his cupboard clicked open. Shocked but still not willing to let this opportunity slide, the boy clambered out of bed as quietly as he could and shuffled his way into the kitchen. Making sure no one was looking, he stole enough leftovers from that night's Sunday roast to fill his empty stomach and walked back to his cupboard, smiling softly. The book had paid off.

It seemed, however, that with this new exploration whatever spell the book had woven over him broke, and the accumulated fatigue of a long day's work and a mostly-sleepless night came crashing down on Harry in an instant. With a sad little groan, he barely remembered to stash the book in its hiding place before sleep claimed him again.

Author's Note:

Thought I might finally get to clearing our a few of the stories in my hard drive, and maybe even pick one up. If there's enough interest in this one I'll probably update a few times a month, otherwise... ehh. But I Will finish this thing. Eventually.

Any comments are welcome, and I love criticism. Especially if it's constructive.

Oh, and if you plan to use any of my work consider this an open invitation-just make sure that copy and paste is credited to me, and I would very much enjoy reading the stuff you post.