Prologue

PROLOGUE - PART 1

DEATHMASTER

YEAR 2040

London had grown ever upward since the first skyscrapers were built in the 1960's. Now the city was unrecognizable, a forest of mile-high towers, each one a different shape and sparkling with dazzling lights from millions of HD displays and hue-shifting mood-lighting.

A man stood atop one of the tallest of these towers, looking down on the city. The night was moonless and cloudy, reflecting the lights of the city down on it and bathing everything in a soft, ambient glow.

Loathing surged through the man's veins. He knew once he would have felt a sense of wonder at this sight. At what the Muggles had accomplished.

Yet the same things which achieved this awe-inspiring sight; the same ingenuity, the same efficiency, the same exponential population growth, which had taken everything from him.

His wife, his children and even his young granddaughter. His friends and comrades. His sworn enemies, too, and he even hated the Muggles for that.

He knew they hated him too. The Deathmaster, they called him. An international terrorist, the most wanted criminal in the world. He supposed he deserved the label, though the precise details of the propaganda put forth about him were invariably fabrications.

The average Muggle - oblivious, self-obsessed consumers that they were - still didn't know magic existed. The big multinational corporations, on the other hand, had figured it out some time in the 2020's.

The revolution of the 2000's was mobile technology. The revolution of the 2010's was social media. The revolution of the 2020's was artificial intelligence.

Take ubiquitous mobile devices with cameras and microphones. Then connect everyone in the world into a giant network of instant communication. Then add the ability to collect and process all the data being exchanged.

Then add the ability to automatically search for patterns; and with AI to understand all this data and to see the things that don't make sense - at least, by Muggle standards.

A formula for catastrophe. He understood all these things now that it was too late. That the Statute of Secrecy had been doomed from the start, due to the inexorable progress of Muggle technology.

The Magical world had never really understood capitalism. They didn't have the population growth for it, and capitalism as the Muggles practice it demands never-ending growth.

More profit, more goods, more choices, more roads, more houses, more people.

At first it had just been a few witches and wizards disappearing, here and there. As Chief Auror, he had investigated such cases himself and been perplexed. No magical traces, and never any witnesses.

The people just disappeared. With no evidence to go on, at the time he'd dismissed them. Focused on hunting down Dark wizards. Protect Magical and Muggle alike from the worst elements of his society.

How naive he had been. They all had been, his fellow Aurors, and their other colleagues in the DMLE. The Obliviators and the Accidental Magic Reversal squads. Well-meaning fools, all of them.

All the while, they were being watched by the cold, lifeless glass lenses on innumerable connected devices. Live video and audio streams fed back over wireless internet, collected in massive underground, climate-controlled data centers.

And recognized as anomalous by a deep-learning neural network, flagged to the human overseers of that system at a technology mega-corporation.

First one, then many knew the Magical world's secret. Mega-corporations were always neck-and-neck with their competitors. Soon all the big players were all competing to get their hands on some Magic.

Tracked by the way magic interfered with the Muggle electronic devices. Any advantage in self-defense was ultimately negated by the fact that using magic allowed the Muggles to track us.

The upper echelons of the mega-corporations wanted the good stuff for themselves though, and they kept the public in the dark. Called Magicals terrorists. Said our wands were high-tech, that combined holographic projection with aerosolized hallucinogens.

Even when the narrative didn't totally make sense, people attributed it to drug-addled memories. Digital evidence in the Internet storage cloud was easily doctored by AI systems monitoring upload activity.

The corporate stranglehold on the Muggle media meant the only people asking any questions were "nut-job" conspiracy theorists. People who lived on the fringe and didn't care about their social credit score. The sort of people no one would miss if they disappeared.

So yes, they called him a terrorist, and he embraced it. The Deathmaster. He would not accept the extinction of his people, would not lie down and submit.

Many Muggles died. Too many to count. Those who were sent after them, and innocent bystanders as well.

Collateral damage. He was in a fight for the survival of his entire world, and it was not his fault this fight was kept a secret from the rest of the Muggle populace by his enemies.

That they risked attacking him in the presence of innocents, and he had to prioritize his own safety above random bystanders. His adversaries certainly paid their lives no heed.

He had long since stopped letting himself care, stopped even noticing. None of the innocent Muggles had noticed when his people had been destroyed. No, their lives had fueled the economic engine that had given a select elite the power to destroy the Magical world.

For it had been destroyed. He still fought, but the war was over. Everyone he had fought for was dead. He knew that isolated magical communities must still exist in secrecy, but their days were numbered.

A network of satellites and armies of autonomous vehicles scanned the world relentlessly for them, under the tireless guidance of advanced artificial intelligence. All in the name of counter-terrorism.

Robots would be sent to hunt them down. Hunter-killers. Capture or terminate, based on a rational risk-reward assessment. Targets posing a threat to company property - the robot - are terminated.

He'd become quite effective at destroying the damn machines. He hated them even more than Muggles, damn soulless metal demons. But he'd had a lot of practice with that sort of thing, for basically his whole life.

The Deathmaster, the Master of Death, the Vanquisher of Voldemort, the Boy-Who-Lived. Husband, father, grandfather. He had been called many titles, served many roles.

A Child of Prophecy since his birth, he'd always had an unearned reputation.

But Harry Potter also had a reputation he had earned. That he might lose a few battles, but in the end, he won the war.

And god damn it. He was going to win this one.

A chime pulsed in his right ear. It was time.

He stepped off the edge of the tower.

The sea of sparkling lights blinked out around him. Racing him outward as he fell down, the power outage cascading out in a pulse of darkness. Soon a ten-by-ten block radius would be out.

The Muggle hacker he put under the Imperius Curse to sabotage the local substation control system said that, anyway. He always assumed something would go wrong, but this time nothing did.

Good hacker.

Still in free-fall, he pulled his broom out of an expanded Moke-skin pocket in the side of his battle-scarred and bullet-pocked dragon-hide armor. Auror issue Mark VI, with heavy customization.

The final production model, deployed to active forces in 2033. Only a year before everything had really gone to shit.

Flipping the broom between his legs, he swerved around a dim obstruction. A maze of walkways and tubes connected the buildings. Normally lit from the inside, they were nearly invisible in the darkness of the blackout.

Yet Harry had been a star Seeker, and navigating the shadowy obstacles posed no real challenge to him. In an earlier time he'd have found it an enjoyable test of his prowess in the air.

Now though, he was a man on a mission, swift and silent. Hedwig would be proud.

Hermione had confided the emergency protocols of the Department of Mysteries to him once. Said the burden was too much for her alone to bear, as Minister.

And she had not fully trusted the Head of the Department. No one ever really trusted the Unspeakables.

Harry's gut clenched. He missed his friend, missed her fiery intellect and compassionate heart. They had lost her, along with much of the government, before they'd even known they were at war, in the opening salvo.

The mega-corporations had deeply infiltrated the Magical world, built models and simulations. Ran projections with game theory. Figured the British Ministry was too effective under Hermione's leadership. Best to take it out preemptively rather than face potential highly competent resistance.

He'd survived that one by accident, yet again. His next-in-command was covering for him at the big meeting at the Ministry with the Wizengamot. That's why he'd promoted a pencil-pusher, after all. Tracking Dark wizards was more fun than sitting at an uptight government function. Back then, when he still had the capacity to have fun.

They'd been oblivious, completely unprepared for what was coming. An army of killer robots, drilling into the Ministry from underground. It was a bloodbath. He doubted he could have stopped it, but that didn't stop him from blaming himself for not being there. He would have tried.

The witches and wizards there, among the most skilled in Britain, put up a valiant resistance.

Yet they were massively outnumbered, clustered together. They were sitting ducks. The speed, precision, and destructive power of the Muggle death machines overwhelmed them.

So it had been when his family was taken from him. Oblivious, off alone on a self-imposed mission, left alive by accident.

Hogwarts had been the last refuge, the last bastion of resistance. Of freedom from a life spent in restraints and sedated in a Muggle research facility.

He had plumbed the depths of the Castle's secrets in search of a solution to their crisis. All for nothing, merely grasping at straws in the dark.

He'd been up late, exploring his latest finds in the Chamber of Secrets, alone. He still couldn't think deeply about it. Made him too angry.

Tactical nuke. It felt like an earthquake in the Chamber, carved deep into a thick layer of bedrock. The rest of Hogwarts was leveled.

He'd gone on a bit of a rampage, when he'd fully grasped what had happened. His whole family. After what he did that day, it was fitting they called him the Deathmaster.

Growling, Harry shoved aside the ever-lurking rage that reared up, for he had reached his destination. It was time for the next stage of his infiltration.

The River Thames was still exposed to the air in some places, flowing through slits in the manmade canyons of the city. One of the few features of the original geography left in the modern metropolis. People still paid a premium for the view.

There it was - a small gap between two buildings that spanned the river.

Harry maneuvered his way into the narrow space, drifting down to a stop, hovering just above the water's surface. Snapping his wand into his hand from a holster on his wrist, he tapped a patch on the Mark VI's breastplate depicting three wavy lines, activating the suit's aquatic mode.

Fins sprang out of the suit, small ones from the arm and leg plates and larger ones from the boots, and a Bubble-Head Charm activated around the suit's hood. Performing a Sloth Grip Roll, Harry unhooked his legs from the broom and let them sink silently into the water. Exerting a flicker of willpower with a mental command, he deactivated the broom's flight charm.

The dragon-hide armor made him denser than water, and he pressed the broomstick into a crevice in the center of his breastplate as he sank. The Modified Sticking Charm placed there worked a bit like Muggle Velcro, and would free up his hands for swimming while keeping his broom within easy reach.

His feet hit the silty riverbed. Tapping his wand to the top edge of his hood, he activated the built-in Lighting Charm. This deep in the murky waters, the light wouldn't be visible from the surface.

They'd learned early on in this war that, for whatever reason, the Muggles weren't able to detect the activation of Charmed objects the way they could detect spellcasting or Apparition. While such magic was very limited compared to what could be done with a wand, it had often given Harry the edge he'd needed to survive his one man guerilla war.

Kicking off the bottom, he holstered his wand and began swimming upriver, his long diving fins easily propelling him forward against the current. The river would be entirely underground soon, as it passed beneath denser, cheaper residences for those unable afford water views.

His target was just over two kilometers from his insertion point, not far at his current pace. Those scheming bastards at the Department of Mysteries had given Hermione and him a headache over the decades they'd spent at the helm of the Ministry.

Ministry politics were a byzantine mess in general, with the typical squabbling for larger budgets and increased authority endemic to well-entrenched bureaucracies. Yet the Unspeakables were far worse, holding themselves above such mundane concerns as budgets and bylaws.

With the Death Eaters largely out of the picture, Harry's Auror forces began stumbling onto the more subtle criminal plots of certain Unspeakables. His internal investigations were stonewalled despite Hermione's vigorous support as Minister, with the Department hiding behind their extensive secrecy oaths.

Yet despite the Department's significant power, Harry and Hermione were still quite a force to be reckoned with. Together they had delved deeply into the collection of mysterious artefacts and forbidden magics the Unspeakables guarded so zealously. Unfortunately, however much they learned, the criminal network they pursued always remained a step ahead of them, right up until the end.

If the Unspeakables foresaw the apocalypse brought on by the Muggles, they'd done nothing to prevent it. Harry sneered; they had considered themselves far above other wizards, let alone Muggles. He had no doubt most of them had been captured quickly, too confident in their wands to overcome whatever the Muggles could throw at them.

The Unspeakables were gone along with everyone else, but the Department itself was another matter. Built long before any of the current Unspeakables were born, before the Ministry itself was founded and built on top of it, the Department was one of the most magically protected locations in existence.

Every Minister learned that in the case of the Ministry's destruction, the Department of Mysteries would go into total lockdown mode. The normal entryway, via the Ministry's elevator system, was permanently and irreversibly disconnected, with all Department personnel transported by Portkey to an evacuation zone in the Outer Hebrides.

This was done for their own safety, because at that point the Department went into a Stasis Rift, separating it from Time and Space entirely, protected and preserving its contents. Unfortunately for those wanting a way to skip a few decades or centuries into the future, entering a Stasis Rift was quite fatal.

Harry was distracted from his thoughts by a massive, shadowy shape looming out of the darkness ahead. That must be it, he thought. Swimming closer he confirmed that he had indeed reached his destination. A huge boulder sat on the bottom of the Thames, sunk deep into the soft bottom.

As he got within arm's reach of the stone, his hood-torch revealed a jagged crack nearly splitting it in half. Good. That meant the Department was still in stasis.

He draw his wand and inserted it into the fissure, while reciting a passphrase that every Minister of Magic was required to commit to memory on their first in office.

Hermione had insisted he learn it too, "just in case," once she had realized how little the Unspeakables respected her authority as Minister. Legally, it was her prerogative to do bring him in, as Chief Auror, if it was a matter of state security, which she had deemed it to be.

He repeated the passphrase seven times. As the final syllable left his lips, a faint light blossomed inside the boulder, shining out through the fissure.

Slowly, with a great deal of hissing and bubbling, the boulder opened, splitting apart like a clam-shell and revealing it to be a massive geode. The inside was encrusted with sparkling crystal nodules of agate and jade.

A circle was carved into the center of the crystals, inside which was set a round door made of an inky black metal. Grabbing the protruding metal handle firmly, Harry heaved with all of his strength, rotating the handle and activating the mechanism within.

The Department of Mysteries was once again in the here and now. With a faint click, the door swung outward, revealing a pitch black opening. With a few lazy flicks of his feet, Harry drifted through, pulling the hatch shut behind him.

He was in a cylindrical tunnel, about his height in diameter, straight as an arrow and bored directly through bedrock. The sides of the tunnel were as smooth as glass, and Harry briefly pondered on how it had been constructed.

Melted, he thought; perhaps with a modified version of the Welding Torch Charm. He'd read about such spells being used for tunneling into Goblin strongholds during one of the rebellions, but details had been scant, and he'd never had a reason to attempt it himself.

After several hundred yards of swimming, his hood-torch illuminated an identical round hatch door at the far end of the tunnel. Harry went through, securing the door behind him.

He was now in a small, featureless room excavated from the bedrock, with a metal grate floor. As soon as the door's seal was tight, a deep rumbling began, activating a sluice gate mechanism below, and the water level in the room started dropping.

Once his head was exposed he deactivated his suit's aquatic mode, then waited, impatient.

Finally, once the water dropped below the level of the grate, an ornate wooden door appeared in one of the walls, bearing a brass plate with the inscription:

Department of Mysteries

Back Door

There was no door knob. Harry frowned. Hermione's briefing hadn't mentioned that. Something obvious, then. He tapped the plate with his wand and the door swung in, revealing a long maroon-carpeted hallway, well-lit by glowing sconces set into wood-paneled walls.

He moved through, the door shutting itself with a soft click behind him. Since it had just emerged from a Stasis Rift, he should be the only living being in the Department.

In theory. Harry had developed a healthy skepticism of theory over the years.

After all, as the Boy-Who-Lived, he knew from direct experience that even the most certain rules had exceptions in the world of magic. Caution was always warranted, or as Alastor would have put it, "Constant Vigilance!"

He reached into his armor's Moke-skin pouch, extracting the Invisibility Cloak. Sticking Charms on his dragon-hide spaulders keyed to the magic of the Cloak kept it in place, molded to his armor. He could stand in a hurricane and it wouldn't flap open.

"Damn, I'm going to miss this armor," he muttered.

Nothing could go with him, where he was going. Or, more precisely, no physical objects.

He tapped his left bracer with the tip of his wand seven times. A seam appeared along the length of the bracer, then split open, revealing a long, narrow compartment. There, nestled into the soft velvet lining, was the Elder Wand.

He switched it out with his trusty holly wand, and it snapped shut. Harry only ever used the Deathstick for the most critical or difficult tasks; despite it's obvious power, it felt less comfortable than his original wand.

Perhaps it was because of its power; because of how many lives it had taken, wizard and Muggle alike. Both before and after he became its master.

He stalked forward on silent feet, wand at the ready. Fortunately there were no surprises, and soon he reached the Entrance Chamber.

"First stop, Time Room, please."

Harry entered the door that opened. He'd been here a few times since his first visit, before relations with the Unspeakables soured. Nothing ever really changed here, so he a made a beeline for his target. The entire mission would have to be scrapped if one of the researchers had made off with the artifact since his last visit.

He let out a breath in relief. There it was. High up on a shelf, where he'd seen it on his last visit decades ago. Long before he knew what it was.

Harry caught the artifact, an extremely ornate Pensieve, with a silent Levitation Charm. The Muggles wouldn't be able to detect most wand magic here, as the Department of Mysteries was deep underground and layered with magical protections by generations of the most paranoid witches and wizards of Britain.

Making his way back out to the Entrance Chamber, he began whistling. This felt great - whether it worked or not, he was almost there. Almost done.

"Death Chamber."

Harry descended to the bottom of the pit, and climbed the dais in the middle. He directed the Pensieve to rest directly in front of the Veil. Reaching into his Moke-skin pouch, he fished around, finding a small jewelry box.

Months after he defeated Voldemort, he started having a reoccurring dream. Walking through a familiar looking forest, always along the same path. Stopping in front of a dead tree. Reaching down, into a leaf-filled gap between two roots.

Then he'd wake up.

The Resurrection Stone had called out to him, night after night. After a year he knew the spot in his dreams so well he was able to Apparate to it awake.

He'd never told anyone, not even Ginny or Ron or Hermione. Kept it in secret all these years. Removing it from the box, he placed it into a hemispherical hollow in the bottom of the Pensieve. Perfect fit.

He hadn't really doubted the information he'd found in the hidden library of the Chamber of Secrets, but it was still a relief.

The Pensieve was Salazar Slytherin's greatest creation, in Harry's opinion. Godric and Salazar had captured the Resurrection Stone from a powerful Dark Lord, and Salazar, as the expert on Dark Arts, took it for study.

Salazar developed the Death Pensieve, based on Rowena's work designing the original Pensieve, to enter the memories of the dead directly, rather than being limited to mere discussions with their shades.

Years later, when Slytherin fled Hogwarts after falling out with the other Founders, he took the Resurrection Stone with him, but was forced to leave the Death Pensieve behind.

Over the centuries, the Pensieve found its was into the Department of Mysteries, while the Stone was passed down as a family heirloom, through the Peverells and Gaunts.

Harry was the first person since Salazar Slytherin to reunite the two artifacts. The final piece of the puzzle was the Veil.

Ancient and mysterious even in the time of the Founders, Salazar had devoted years of study to the veil. Using the Death Pensieve in an attempt to trace its origin, he'd followed it back through the wizards of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, to the time of Atlantis.

Slytherin left many fascinating notes behind in his library. They didn't say if he ever discovered who created the Veil or for what purpose, but they had included something of great interest to Harry.

According to his notes, Slytherin had never been willing to test the final enhancement to the Death Pensieve. For one very straightforward reason - it involved walking through the Veil, and for all intents and purposes, dying.

Harry was going to put it to the test. If it didn't work, he'd just have another thing to mock any Slytherins he ran into in the afterlife about.

On the other hand, if it worked, Harry would be able to change everything.

The effect was roughly equivalent to sending a magical portrait of yourself back in time, into your own mind. Salazar Slytherin's plan for immortality that he never got a chance to implement - infinite lives.

If this worked, Harry would be sending his sixty-year old mind back to exactly seven years, seven months, and seven days after his birth.

His memories, personality, and an echo of his very will would persist.

Communication would be limited at first. He'd only be able to reach his past self by manifesting into his dreams, at least until the boy learned some Mind Arts.

He hoped it would be enough. He had nothing else to try.

"Diffindo."

He sliced his left palm open, squeezing it into a fist over the Pensieve. The Resurrection Stone set into the base seemed to suck the blood in as it dripped down.

Harry then began drawing silver memory strands from his temple and placing them into the bowl, where it combined with the blood entering the Stone. There weren't any shortcuts to this part; every memory he wanted to send back had to go in.

Hours later, faint from the steady blood loss, he was ready. Everything useful he knew, plus a bit of fluff to get the kid through hard times.

Lifting the Death Pensieve and hugging it to his chest with both arms, he stepped through the Veil.

PROLOGUE - PART 2

MARCH 7, 1988

He floated in a void of purest darkness, with no body and therefore no senses.

Fragments of memories began to arise, vague impressions at first, but slowly more and more whole.

The first coherent words that came came back to him were his name, Harry James Potter.

Everything gradually fell into place, until he remembered it all. His history, his purpose.

With his memory of his purpose came a sense of agency. Walking through the Veil had destroyed his old body. The memory construct that had gone back in time had no connection to his current body.

Unable to directly access his new body's sense, focused his attention on his memory of sense. Not any one sense in particular, but all of them at once.

There. Faint at first, but gradually louder. The thump of a heart beat. The breath, in and out, in and out, slow and steady, the respiration of deep sleep.

Harry's mind was exhausted from its journey through the Veil and integration with his past body. He quickly joined his younger self in restful slumber.

Weeks passed where he was just along for the ride, reliving life as an unwanted seven year old orphan.

Harry had no interest in going through it for a second time, so he spent the time deep in a meditative trance. Using an advanced Occlumency technique taught to Senior Aurors: he began constructing a Mind Palace.

Based on Slytherin's secret library in the Chamber of Secrets, it was a giant index for all his memories, with each book's title a subject.

Each page contained a memory related to the subject at hand, which could be viewed as a Wizard photo in the book or entered and experienced like in a Pensieve.

He made books for each year of his life and on every subject he'd ever studied whether magical or Muggle. He even had books on Voldemort, the Death Eaters.

Best of all, years down the road when his past self got good enough at Occlumency, he'd be able to go into a trance and come visit this Mind Palace.

Too bad Hermione would never be able to see this.

MARCH 27, 1988

Finally, he manifested into one of Harry's dreams.

Dudley was chasing Harry through the deserted hallways of their school.

As they ran past him, the elder Harry stuck a leg out, tripped Dudley and sending him sprawling.

Two pairs of green eyes met as his miniature doppelganger looked up at him, posture radiating uncertainty and wariness.

"Are you a teacher?"

"Yes, in fact I'm your new teacher. My name isn't from around here and might confuse you, so just call me Mr. P."

Harry sent a nervous glance around Mr. P, looking for Dudley, but he couldn't see him anymore. Hadn't Dudley just been chasing him, before this man showed up? Where did he go? Weird.

Mr. P chuckled.

"Dudley's gone, Harry. Just you and me now. Let's head to my classroom, it's time for your first lesson.

Harry wondered where Mr. P met Dudley. He hoped the man hadn't also met his aunt and uncle. People who met his relatives rarely liked him very much.

He followed Mr. P to a classroom, looking around. The school looked weird, and where was everyone? He tried looking through the windows of one of the doors they past but he just saw his own reflection, like it was dark inside.

Mr. P entered the next classroom, switching on the lights. Harry followed him inside, and Mr. P closed the door behind them.

Hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room, was Dudley. Harry's panic died down when he realized it wasn't his cousin, but a life-size stuffed doll resembling him.

"I don't like bullies, Harry. The key to dealing with bullies is confidence, and one of the best ways to build confidence is by learning how to defend yourself physically."

"Welcome to your first boxing lesson."

Harry grinned. Mr. P was pretty cool, and he'd definitely never met Harry's guardians; there was no way they'd let Harry learn boxing!

"Now boxing isn't just gritting your teeth and foolishly swinging your fists, it's a subtle science and exact art…"

JUNE 23, 1988

Harry loved boxing. He knew it was really weird that he was learning how to box in his dreams, but the results were definitely real.

He was slipping punches from Dudley and his gang more often than not now, and even getting a counter here and there. Harry Hunting was getting more painful for the hunters, and they were losing their enthusiasm.

Of course, Dudley whined to his parents about how Harry was hitting him and his friends. That's why Harry was now grounded, confined to his cupboard for Dudley's birthday.

No food except the dog biscuits Aunt Marge brought as his "present," while Dudley got a computerized robot.

Munching on the dry pet treat, he considered that the food was more useful. He wished he had some water. Mr. P had taught him some calisthenics, but doing them would make him thirsty in no time.

Sighing, he laid back and shut his eyes, trying to shut out the sounds of festivity. He sure wished he could fall asleep despite it only being the afternoon. He wanted to see Mr. P - he was the best teacher ever.

OCTOBER 10, 1988

Mr. P was the worst teacher ever.

Harry thought it was incredibly unfair. Mr. P was making him to all his schoolwork again, in his dreams. Mr. P even kept his own student record for Harry.

"Look, your Aunt and Uncle can't punish you for doing better than Dudley here. I don't care what you do on your other homework. Keep doing the bare minimum to pass," Mr P had said, shrugging.

"But I know you're capable of more, Harry. No more striking or grappling until you've finished that math test with a half-way decent score."

Harry slammed his head into the desk. Here in the dream, the contact barely registered. Sometimes it hurt when he did that. Dreams had strange and unpredictable rules.

Muttering, he continued slogging through the word problems. He'd just turned in the test, excited to get to his wrestling lesson, when he was jerked into wakefulness by Aunt Petunia banging on the cupboard.

"Ugh, instead of learning judo I've got to make scrambled eggs. What a gyp!"

OCTOBER 31, 1988

"Field trip," Mr. P announced, leading him outside the school.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked.

"You'll see," Mr P said while grabbing Harry's hand.

Suddenly, they weren't in front of the school anymore. They stood on a hill overlooking a small village. It consisted of a church, graveyard, and main square surrounded by a cluster of quaint cottages.

As usual in these dreams, the village appeared - deserted aside from Harry and Mr. P, of course.

"What is this place?" Harry asked again. He was sure he didn't recognize the place, and yet it triggered… something.

"Godric's Hollow. Let's head into town."

As they walked, Harry looked around, taking in the old-fashioned style of all the buildings. The town looked historical.

"Is this some sort history lesson?" he asked.

"Of a sort, certainly, Harry. Let me tell you a fairy tale."

Mr. P spun an elaborate tale, of a magical world besieged by an evil wizard.

He spoke of a young man and woman, sent into a hiding by a wise old sage because of a mysterious prophecy.

He spoke of their three best friends, two true and one false. How misplaced trust led the evil wizard to their secret refuge, where they were unable to escape.

Harry was crying by the end, tears blurring his vision.

"Why did you tell me that story? That wasn't fun or even exciting, it was just horrible! The bad guy won, and the good guys barely put up a fight!"

He nearly bumped into Mr. P, who had stopped walking.

"Well, I agree that it's not a very good story, Harry, and it's undoubtedly a very sad one. But it's also not over yet - for there was other person in that cottage that night."

"Who?" Harry asked. Mr P didn't answer, just pointed ahead. Harry sniffed and rubbed the tears out of his eyes, to see what Mr. P was pointing at.

They'd made it to the center of the village, and were standing in front of a large stone monument.

"Go ahead, read the sign," Mr. P said in a gentle voice.

Mr. P usually sounded no-nonsense, sometimes sarcastic, but never gentle. That only made Harry more worried. Heart in his throat, he crept forward, toward the obelisk. He jumped when it suddenly shifted into a statue of a young couple.

He took a step back. Obelisk. Step forward. Young couple. He turned back, raising an eyebrow at Mr. P, but his teacher just gestured to continue.

Steeling himself, he draw closer to the statue. He could now see the woman was holding a small baby in her arms. Wrapped in a blanket, it had a content look on its face.

POTTER MEMORIAL

His heart plummeted from his throat to his gut.

Dedicated to Harry Potter

It continued traveling down to his feet as he read. Defeated the Dark Lord. James and Lily, died as heroes defending him.

Vision blurring, he staggered backwards, losing his balance and landing on his rear. His mind reeled.

He felt Mr D's firm grip on his shoulder.

"Is this a joke, because it's not funny. That fairy tale you made up, just for this?"

"No, Harry. This is very real. James and Lily loved you very much, and they didn't die in a car accident."

Harry was speechless, processing.

"What do you mean real? What about the evil wizard, the magical spells? None of that stuff is real?"

Mr P didn't laugh.

"Harry, magic is perfectly real, just a very big secret. You can't tell anyone."

Harry wasn't sure he believed him, but he couldn't help but looking at the statues. Of his parents, gazing down at him lovingly.

Mr P settled down next to him.

"Everything I told you was completely true, Harry. Missing details, but true. Hogwarts is real. You'll get your letter on your eleventh birthday, and then spend seven years learning how to be a Wizard."

"Me? A Wizard? But, I'm…"

"Just Harry, believe me, I know," Mr P interrupted him with what he'd been about to say.

Harry raised his eyebrows, hoping that Mr P wasn't reading his mind.

"You're the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry. Famous in the Magical World for defeating the evil Dark Lord You-Know-Who."

"Vulmadork?" Harry asked, trying to remember the name from the story, but Mr. P let out a loud guffaw.

"Close, Harry. Voldemort, but mostly people call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who."

"That seems a little silly, isn't he supposed to be defeated?"

Mr. P laughed again, but grew solemn as he spoke.

"The magical world can be very silly at times, but it can also be deadly serious. And seriously deadly. Now, we don't have a lot of time before you wake up. I wanted to take you here because tonight is the anniversary of the night your parents died."

"They are buried in the graveyard behind the church. You should pay your respects."

Harry tried to swallow, but the lump in his throat refused to budge. Instead of trying to speak, he just nodded.

Mr P continued up the road and Harry followed.

The headstones were unremarkable, but they didn't matter, what was underneath them did. Harry laid down across both graves, while Mr P told him stories about his parents.

He was still crying when he woke up the next morning, but he also felt better than he ever had before.

He was filled with purpose like never before. Now he understood why Mr P wanted him to do well in school. Both his Dad and his Mom would want it.

He wasn't going to let them down, and he wasn't going to let Mr. P down.

"Freak! Up! Breakfast!" Petunia's shrill voice pierced his thoughts.

He laughed, it all made so much sense now. They called him a freak because they knew he was a wizard. Aunt Petunia had to know, at least.

He was going to show them. He planned to prove them right, by being freakishly good at magic.

"Boy, don't make me come over there!"

Harry didn't know how he was going to wait almost three whole years to become a wizard, he just knew it wasn't going to be patiently.

"Coming, Aunt Petunia," he shouted, to preempt further assaults against his eardrums by his Aunt's screeching.

No, this wasn't going to be easy, but at least there was a light at the end of the tunnel now. Three more years of egg scrambling and screeching Aunts, and then he'd be in for the adventure of a lifetime.

He daydreamed about Hogwarts the whole time he was cooking breakfast.

Fortunately it's hard to mess up scrambled eggs, even for a day dreaming eight year old.