Harry Potter and The Wizard's Blight

by EiriTheBear

The Wizarding World sees itself in the heart of the Dark Lord's curse. At Joramund Academy, fourth year Harry Wyllt learns of his true identity from a man called Sirius Black. Will he face a destiny so dark and full of terrors? AU Slash with some OMCs and OFCs. Harry/OC. Greatness Beyond Power rewrite. Different School. Different setup.

1. Part I: July 1991

Author Note: This is Marvin, Michael's friend. Greatness Beyond Power will be going through a rewrite again. Michael all but abandoned this story because his plot bunnies fell off a cliff, so I'm taking over. Heh. Sucks for you. Also, this story will get a title change, because Greatness Beyond Power sucks. Until I think of a cooler one, I'm going to leave it in for a while.

July 1991

Harry blinked in the darkness, finding it infinitely frustrating that it made no difference whether his eyelids were open or shut. He could have been asleep, experiencing a dream, but he was hyper-aware of his short breaths and body position, proof that he was awake, and living in a very real, cruelly inescapable nightmare.

Crying would only dehydrate him further. His throat felt raw from crying out and his tongue rough as sand-his last attempt at getting his relatives' attention proved futile, and he had given up, curling himself into a ball in the corner of the dusty old cupboard under the stairs.

He heard nothing from outside, but he was perfectly aware of the time of day. He didn't know how he knew, but he could tell that it was the light of day, and that no one, as far as he could tell, was making a sound outside the cupboard. It only meant that no one was in the house, and that he had been left there, abandoned.

He ignored his grumbling stomach, so empty that the pain had turned him numb. He refused to move an inch and expend any of the energy he had left living. He felt desolation and abandonment and fear to the bone, and yet he couldn't cry, because he had to survive this, he just had to.

Anything was better than this, the neglect, the belittlement, the unfair amount of labor and the lack of gratitude and basic sustenance. Time was as slow as the passing of the seasons, and the darkness seemed to close in around him with each struggling breath.
"Help," he whispered in a little, hopeless voice. "Help."

Time passed, and he had collapsed. He would stay there, unmoving, until the grandfather clock outside would chime at midnight, during the thirty first July. He would be unconscious as the door to his cupboard was opened. He wouldn't be awake when the person, his liberator, gasped in shock, and took him away from his Aunt and Uncle's house.