Courting Cactus

Disclaimer: Not British and not over forty years old, though I am blonde and a writer (so at least I got that for me) - I got two out of four, however I am not J.K Rowling thus I do not own the rights to the original plot or characters, I however am just borrowing the characters to mess with their lives.

Summary: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." - Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack. The muggleborn witch who was known throughout the wizarding world for defying Voldemort and giving birth to the Boy Who Lived, Lily Evans Potter had a dark secret that she took with her to the grave only able to bring it out the public's eye nearly fifteen years after her death. She wasn't Lily Evans Potter at all.

Edited 4/22/2014

Ramblings about my editings: at the urge of one of my reviewers I have edited this chapter before re-doing the already finished (but not published) second chapter of this story. Hoping that this story is now better I redid it making it so that Harry is not as depressed as he was before, this is a darker story about Harry, and a more Slytherin themed story hence the [Daphne G. / Harry P.] in the couples. And of course their will be other couples in the story but as of now I have no idea what the couples will be though I am thinking about them, a.k.a if I should keep them Canon or not? And back to where I began another thing about the editings for this chapter I also went over trying to make the sentences make more sense - this is just the first chapter of the story, more like a prologue and it will continue on so for anyone that freaks out Harry Potter lives, like he always does.

Chapter One: The Boy Who Looked Death In The Eye

"You don't have to be a lion to be brave"

No matter how much pureblood wizards swore that they were different in every way possible from the loathsome muggles even going to war trying to prove it's difference they had only managed to add to the list of similarities. Although the real place where you saw the likeness shine was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; one part education and two parts 'where do I stand in the pecking order of wizardkind.' This was something that made Harry Potter a special case - something he didn't want - with the Boy-Who-Lived title; he would be treated as though he was Merlin one moment and the next he was as evil as Mordred.

And always at the end of the year, after he had gone through the Merlin-to-Mordred start of the year when he had saved everyone from their own guaranteed demise (that they frankly sat on themselves) he would be in their good graces. Still no one would bother to talk to him unless spoken too and even then they didn't mind speaking about him behind his back. It was like he was never excepted. In on way, he was thankful for this. He would hear his classmates gossiping during the last feast of the school year or in the common room talking in groups about their plans for the summer holidays; which would range from shopping in Paris to meeting up with friends they made during the Triwizard Tournament while he was fighting to stay alive. Watching the professional Quidditch season or spending time with their friends and family.

For Harry summer holiday was not a time to take a break from tiring work and let his magic rest, as he would spend the summer working around Number Four. Being ignored to the point where he questions his own existence, and being beaten up by his nasty whale of a cousin named Dudley. Dudley was a normal muggle who had been spoiled as long as Harry could remember - the Dursley's went out of their way to favor Dudley making sure he had all the best toys and video games, always having more food then Harry and answering to his every request - from the second Harry was taken in by the Dursley's, even as a small child, they had gone out of their way to show that they were superior than him in every single way.

And that is how fourteen - and nearly fifteen - year old Harry, found himself mowing the lawn what seemed like everyday that summer because of the neighborhoods new policy that passed while he was at school; that told the house owners their lawn could not grow past one and a half inches. His mind would be on the Wizarding World; the only place he felt he truly belonged and would be returning to as soon as the summer came to an end. Where he would only be brought back into the hidden world to defeat the evil Lord Voldemort - a villain who had not only killed his parents but countless others as well. And be given a few measly house points for saving the entire Wizarding World once again, and then at the end of the school year to be thrown back to the muggles like yesterday's trash.

Unlike other years, even his best friend Ronald Weasley had ditched him thinking that he cheated his way into the tournament. Calling him a lying cheater when Ron himself, had said that he would try and cheat his way into the games for the eternal glory. Sometimes, Harry wondered how him and Ron were even friends sure they made friends over Harry buying the two of them treats on the train ride towards Hogwarts but besides that they had nothing in common. Ronald Weasley spent his entire summers playing Quidditch - a sports game which the Wizarding World used as a equivalent for soccer, but with broomsticks; it had a Keeper that acted as a goalie in front of three big bubble-blower shaped goals from the three Chasers, Beaters who would try to knock the opposing team members off their brooms or distract them from scoring on the teams Keeper, and last but not least, in Harry's opinion the best spot on the team, the Seeker who catches the snitch and nearly always wins the game - or playing with his siblings, being fed regularly with amounts of servings that would make Harry sick but Ron would call a small snack and spend time with his family that loved him unconditionally.

Currently, Harry didn't have the mower or any other house improvement tool in his calissed, burnt, and blistered hands as the swing he sat on moved in millimeters creaking loudly as it did such movements, his feet was moving the bark underneath the swing. In the corner of his horribly fixed glasses that were past the point of falling apart, he saw Dudley and his gang of matching in idiotic tendencies, headed towards the abandoned neighborhood park where Harry sat swinging.

"Big D, your freak cousin!" cried one idiot.

"Let's honor old times with another game of Harry Hunting!" yelled another.

His cousin and his gang began heading his way as Harry watched them with his emerald green eyes like a wild wolf when it ran across photographers for those wild life magazine's; utterly peaceful, as the idiots crowded around him snatching at him, punching at him which resulted in the young teenager falling off the still moving swing, and through none of that did Harry Potter bother to fight back their hits not hurting and their words not reaching.

"I hear you screaming in your sleep 'Cedric! Cedric!' what is he your boyfriend?"

Harry let his eyes snap open at the gust of ice cold air on what was supposed to be another warm summer's day. The sky at only two in the afternoon had grown dark, his wand was still shoved away. Darkness had descended over the abandoned park, most of the idiots had ran away leaving their precious leader alone like pussies that they are. "H-a'rry! Wha' ar uh doin-ing?" screamed Dudley, afraid.

His mother's shadow played in front of him followed by a green light. Dementors coming back to torment him, the raven black haired boy looked around as he saw the cloaked creatures coming towards him, and Dudley. Harry felt for his wand in his jacket pocket, fear spiking through him as his hands came up empty - the green light his Cedric - looking to his frightened cousin "Run! Dudley! Get out of here!" He shoved his cousin like push starting a car, he whale wobbled off screaming as Harry being the stupidly brave boy that he was stayed still, "Lumos" he cried in near desperation.

To his utter happiness and liveliness his hands brushed against the wand - "Expecto Patronus!" He yelled as loud as he possibly could thinking of the last memory that he had of his mother. Her voice soothing him as the feeling of love came over him shooting out of his wand came; nothing.

It didn't work.

His wand didn't react to his voice like a loyal puppy would, his wand didn't react at all, and he was all alone. Taking a step back he stumbled his mind going back to the first time he saw Voldemort since he came to Hogwarts, that dark night in the Forbidden Forest. His feet slipping on a toy thrown across the park as he fell backing up in a crawl away from the cloaked creature - Cedric was hit by the light again - and Harry winced freezing up as he thought, rather jealously, of how all the other students never had this happen to him but at least, he tried to think positively, it wasn't Voldemort who would kill him.

Having one's life flashing before their eyes just as they know they are about to die is not a new or unknown phenomenon. Millions of documented cases of individuals who have experienced a complete review of their life during a near death experience have come into existence over the years. Many of the religious crowd claim that the phenomenon is the result of a divine being reviewing the individual's life before sentencing them in the afterlife. Neurologists and psychologists dismiss such cases as hallucinations induced by extreme shock in an understandably stressful situation. Whether caused by divine judgment or a stress addled mind, Harry Potter didn't really care.

All he knew was that he watched as his mother hold him telling him that she was sorry that she couldn't give him the life that she wished she could. Watching as she began reciting a spell never heard to him before. Him being dropped off at the Dursley's, being picked on my Dudley, landing on the roof of the school, talking to a snake at the zoo, Hagrid coming to pick him up, the beauty that was Diagon Alley, meeting Draco Malfoy, heading towards Hogwarts on the train, meeting Ron, meeting Hermione, watching Neville find his toad, being sorted into Gryffindor even with the hats urging for Slytherin, meeting Professor Snape and his rudeness, the obstacles of first year, etc.

He had a pretty good life, he admitted.

He had lived at least.

Kiss.

His soul was yanked from his body as though it was just sponge, as a mist like sub-tense that he would assume was his soul crawling towards the dementor and out of his body as he watched curiously as some mysterious black gooey mist leaked out of the scar on his forehead, the scar itself fading away painlessly until only his sun burned sweaty forehead remained.

Good, Harry thought painlessly, he would die without the wretched scar, and like a snap - the darkness spilling from his scar ricoshade to the cloak figure a missile, and the last thing he saw before his world went undeniably black was the see through mist of his bouncing like a beach ball towards him.