This is my first ever AU and the premise is quite odd so bear with me, there will eventually be Bellamort. I could never write a story without them.
I now present to you Harry Potter and the Alternate Reality.
Chapter 1: Be Careful What you Wish For
It was shaping up to be another outrageously hot summer in Little Winging. He reached down to pluck a piece of dried out grass that was growing from a crack on the sun baked sidewalk on which he sat. His little patch of shade wouldn't last long, the full light of the scorching sun was creeping ever closer to his spot crouched in the shadow of a sparse tree. He began to pull the grass apart one tiny, yellow, strip at a time.
For Harry Potter any menial activity to keep him occupied was greatly appreciated. Because if he had nothing to do then he began to think and he did not want to, he was tired of the image of Dumbledore's corpse falling from the top of the Astronomy Tower, of Snape's retreating back as he fled and he, Harry did nothing to stop him. He was tired of feeling guilty, angry, and afraid. Of that overwhelming anxiety that took hold of him every time the thought crossed his mind that The Order would be looking to him to lead. His parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, all dead. So he was the next blessed hero to stand in Voldemort's path, the chosen one, as the Daily Prophet had phrased it, as if he had won some sort of lottery. As if it were some sort of honor, spending his every moment feeling as though he may as well have a target painted on his back.
It would be so much simpler if Voldemort would simply decide to quietly bow out, unlikely as it was it would have made a universe of difference. Just as if it were simply to be nightfall and the sun would go gracefully then some of the wretched heat would dissipate away and he could stop cowering behind trees when he wished to escape the Dursleys.
Just one more week, he reminded himself again, he had been counting down the days ever since he had returned, just one more week and he would leave for good. Seventeen years skirting around the people he lived with, turning a blind eye to nasty looks he received if he so much as moved too loudly, constantly hiding out in his room to void their blatant disdain for him.
Ron complained often of how closely his mother minded his grades, "She's like a bloody hawk" he had moaned once over breakfast once the previous April. Harry knew that it was perfectly natural for him to resist her admittedly overly watchful methods, but he could not help but think that he would have loved to have a mother that was interested in his marks.
He wondered often how his life might have been different had even one of the factors that had caused fate to take the path that it had, been different. What if his mother had managed to escape with him? Instead of estranged relatives who loathed him simply for existing it would be Lily Potter who greeted him at King's Cross station every June, eager to hear about his exams. It wouldn't have been easy on her, she would have been widowed very young and Voldemort would not have rested until he found them, but surely the order could have protected them as it did the Weasleys. Would Ron have come to his house each summer instead of the other way around? Would Ginny have been permitted to visit? He remembered very little about her but he was certain his mother would have loved Ginny...
Or what if Voldemort had chosen Neville? He could have lived with both parents, visited Sirius whenever he wished, he could have lived out his entire life blissfully unaware of the peril he had so narrowly avoided.
But his dream would have forced Neville to suffer in order to come true and so he couldn't really wish for it. He sighed, come to think of it perhaps it were best this way, at least now it was only his death that was sought, at least in this version of events the danger to innumerable nameless, faceless, strangers was minimized.
How lucky, he thought bitterly, allowing himself a moment of resentment at his situation in which he scuffed the toe of his dark blue sneaker resentfully against the burning asphalt.
He let out a long, slow breath that had caught in his chest at his sudden rise in emotion and allowed his head to loll back against the scrawny trunk of the dried out Quaking Aspen, wondering what he ought to do with himself for the rest of the evening, the watch on his wrist told him it was seven ten which left him with at least three or four hours to kill before the Dursleys expected him back. The idea of returning to their stifling resentment early was incomprehensible and he possessed no muggle money with which he might entertain himself if he were to take the bus into London and moreover it was doubtful that any bus that passed through London would be making rounds that took it as far from the city as Little whinging at the time of his intended return. He ought not to waste the evening languishing beneath the Aspen but the heat was seeping into him, making him drowsy, his eyes ached at the bone dry air and he closed them to relieve the persistent sting. He had not realized how tired he was until he afforded himself the opportunity to rest, the strain of the previous weeks, of the previous years, sat leaden in his limbs, making it impossible for him to summon the will to move.
Just another moment, he told himself, already half unconscious, one more moment and the he would get up.
He woke when his sunburnt cheek struck the rough surface of the pavement. Harry cursed and adjusted his glasses haphazardly, roughly shoving himself up into a seated position, he speculated that he must have shifted in his sleep and slipped from his perch. It was full dark now and it judging by the stiffness in his limbs no small amount of time had elapsed, it was with a great deal of dread that he lifted his watch close to his nose so he could make out the glowing digital display. It read one thirty seven am.
Uncle Vernon was going to kill him.
To some it might have been eerie to find themselves sitting beside an empty field in the dead of night, in the new development that lay beyond the chain link fence some fifty meters away he could make out the towering form of a crane, paused in the hot, dusty earth for the night.
But the reassuring weight of his wand in his pocket staved off any concerns he might have had in regard to his personal safety, indeed whatever awaited him at home was most certainly more terrifying than any darkness.
It was not entirely black, though there was no moon the stars overhead shone brighter than he had ever seen them, a look skyward was enough to take his breath away, they looked so brilliant, so close. Despite the enormous weight that rested upon his shoulders, or perhaps even because of it he found himself transfixed by the simple beauty of the sight that met him. He noted with a pang of sadness that he could not find the star Sirius.
Not wishing to dwell on any greater number of unpleasant things he shifted his legs beneath him to leave and indeed was about to depart when a peculiar brightness near the constellation Cepheus caught his eye.
Initially the object appeared only a bright orb mounted high in the sky, millions of klicks away, but the more he observed a glowing sphere of what appeared to be dust shifting around a brilliant, pensively pulsing nucleus became apparent. It was far too bright to be any distant sun or nebula. Professor Sinistra had covered these only briefly in his third year, the death of a star.
In some ways he envied the celestial body it's beautiful final act, his death would certainly not be so pleasant to look at. Voldemort would make it ugly, bloody and slow, would wrest every ounce of pain from him somehow twistedly justified in his desire for revenge.
Was it too much to ask to at least meet a quick end, to be like the star? He wished he were, or that he was Neville, or Ron, or anyone but himself, he wished he could have another life, a quiet life, an un-extrordinary life, he longed for ignominy.
He wished he could erase all the pain, all the destruction at Tom Riddle's remorseless hand, he wished more than anything to exist in a world free of his evil, where security and trust could be taken for granted and were not simply precious commodities one was lucky to come by.
It might have been his imagination, and he did assume as much at first, when the light overhead seemed to stretch and grow, expanding like a helium balloon. But it rapidly enveloped the other pinpricks of light around it, and then the constellations. It's light becoming increasingly more brilliant as it swelled until the radiance was blinding and he could no longer look stare into it.
Somewhere beneath his sluggish non-comprehension it occurred to him that he ought to flee while he still could. Run! Some primitive sense within him commanded, but he felt as if he where rooted to the spot.
The star gave one final flare, equal in intensity to the combination of those that had preceded and there was an almighty roar that thrummed mercilessly against his eardrums. Now he really meant to cry out in alarm but his voice stuck in his throat and he could not breathe. The deafening light was everywhere, so near it was unbearable and he thought to himself that he had to be dreaming and would wake any moment as the supernova swallowed him.
Please review, I would love some feedback on this one.