This story is not compatible with the Guardian books. It is only compatible with the movies. I have never read any of the books or comics. It is mostly compatible with the Harry Potter books. Any information similar to the Guardians of Childhood series is because I read the Wiki page.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or Harry Potter.
"Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
Dumbledore beamed at him and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even thought the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
- Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows, Chapter 35: King's Cross, Page 579.
Man in the Moon
Harry's imagination had always been strong, stronger than the Dursley's would have liked it if they had known. But Harry was taught very early on not to ask questions or talk more than necessary, so he never shared with them the world that he was slowly building in his mind from a very young age. He quite often felt very disconnected from the world that they lived in, silently trudging along and watching them change and grow without any input from him.
In his mind, he was like the moon. He drifted through the empty space of the universe, because there was no earth in his mind, and there was no one to ignore him or acknowledge him. He was solitary, but Harry didn't mind.
He first heard of the Easter Bunny when Dudley found a handful of the chocolate eggs that had been hidden in the park. As he eavesdropped on the adults who watched over all the other children, hiding himself in a bush because even though he had been brought along his Aunt and Uncle said he couldn't go looking for eggs because they were all chocolate and told the other adults that he was allergic, he listened to the parents complain.
"All this chocolate, it's going to make them hyperactive." Complained Mrs Seven.
"My son wants a bunny for his birthday now. Stupid creatures, always burrowing into the ground and ruining the land." Grumbled Mr Twelve, who used to have a farm.
"I think they're cute, and their warrens are really well made and large." Young Miss Two interjected. Mr Twelve snorted.
"Well made, until they burrow out an entire hillside and suddenly you've got a valley where there used to be a mountain." He rumbled.
Harry didn't pay much attention after that, instead thinking of the Easter Bunny - a mythical bunny who could destroy entire mountains and change the shape of the world. And obviously the world was shaped like an egg - why else would there be Easter Eggs?
So an egg-shaped world appeared in Harry's mind-world, with a race of bunnies that could change the shape of it however they pleased. But when Harry saw a round globe of the earth, he asked why it was shaped funny and not like an egg. Petunia told him it was how the earth had always been shaped. In Harry's mind, the rabbits changed the shape of the Earth to match the one he saw outside, but many of the rabbits were lost in doing so until there was only one left.
He was the moon, watching the earth as it was shaped and crafted by the rabbit-race, circling the planet and ignored by everyone; well, he supposed everyone ignored the moon. Why else would everyone else sleep when the moon was out? They certainly didn't play in the moonlight like they did the sunlight, and he'd heard of all sorts of horrible things being done at night time with only the light of the moon to guide the perpetrators. Vernon and Petunia always said that he was to blame whenever something went wrong, and even though he hadn't done it he wondered if perhaps someone else had in his name, like the thieves and criminals who waited for the moon to come out before doing their wrongdoings.
So in his young mind, he was the moon, circling the now-round world but detached from it while everyone else slept on and ignored him.
Harry was startled from his doze by Dudley's yells when he was still very young, and he could hear the pounding of Vernon's feet and Petunia's tapping slippers as they rushed to check on their son. Dudley was blubbering something about someone called 'the Boogeyman', and his Aunt was quick to comfort him.
"No wonder he's scared of the Boogeyman - its pitch black! Perfectly normal reaction at that age." He heard Vernon exclaimed. "Lets open the curtains, the moonlight should calm him down for tonight, and tomorrow we'll by a nightlight for him."
Harry sat in his cupboard, which was so dark he couldn't see his hand in front of his face, and wondered why the Boogeyman hadn't come to frighten him. But then he thought on what Vernon had said, and thought to himself; 'Of course. I am the moon, and moonlight keeps people safe from the Boogeyman. He can't touch me.'
He added the Boogeyman to his world in his mind, and modelled him off a dream he had. In his dream, a woman fell down after a tall man with pale skin and dark hair threw green light at her, and then turned red eyes on Harry. It grew less detailed as the years went by, until eventually it became just a green light, but the basis for the Boogeyman was there in his mind. So he made him tall, with paler-than-moonlight skin and hair that refused light. For his eyes though, Harry hesitated to make them red because he had always known the two colours - red and green - in his dream, and to give him one without the other felt wrong.
But he remembered his classes - he was in Reception and learning about the colours and doing colour wheels - and he remembered that between red and green was yellow. So Harry gave the Boogeyman yellow eyes, and in his mind he associated Vernon's phrase, 'its pitch black', with the phrase from when his Uncle had been watching the cricket, 'of course he's going to win, its Mike Gatting!' So the Boogeyman had a name - Pitch Black - and Harry continued circling the world in his mind, offering protection from the Boogeyman where he could but letting the being of fear continue scaring people.
Subconsciously, the parasitic leech attached to Harry's scar recognised that the new being in Harry's mind was a reflection of it, and detached itself from the scar, instead nestling in the body of Pitch Black. In doing so, the soul shard disconnected itself from the world around Harry and severed all ties to the world outside, instead living on the fear of the people Harry circled. Quite by accident, Harry had defeated the first Horcrux.
Months passed by quickly, and Harry and Dudley finished Reception and entered the summer holidays. As Harry matured, so too did the world he had created in his mind, and people grew smarter and started searching for reasons why rather than blaming it all on superstitious circumstances.
One night, when Harry had accidentally locked himself outside and was curled up in the garden bed underneath Dudley's window, he spotted a shooting star.
"Look Dudders, a shooting star!" He heard Petunia say. "Quick, make a wish and then maybe the Sandman will make your dreams comes true."
"Who's the Sandman?" Dudley asked, and Harry titled his ear in an attempt to hear better.
"He's a little person who can use sleepy sand to send little children like you to sleep and give them good dreams." Petunia told him, and Harry smiled.
In his mind, a small man that looked like the sand on the beaches in summer time appeared from the remains of a shooting star that had crashed into the world, and Harry told him that he was to spread good dreams to all the children in the world. Though Pitch was not happy, Sandman did exactly that and the fear of the night slowly disappeared as the nightmares were replaced by good dreams.
Harry lost his first tooth that he could remember whilst at school. One of the boys in his class accidentally hit him with a soccer ball and he fell over, knocking the tooth out in the process. There was a bit of blood, but nothing to be worried about according to the nurse. It happened all the time.
Petunia was called, and she looked at the tooth in Harry's hand and took him home early, giving him some cool water to wash his mouth out.
"Don't think that the tooth fairy is going to visit you now that you've lost a tooth." She told him. "The tooth fairy doesn't collect the teeth of boys like you."
It was the first time Harry had heard of the Tooth Fairy, and he secretly asked Dudley that afternoon when he came home.
"Yeah, the Tooth Fairy always comes and gives me money. Mum says it's a little mouse, but Suzie who used to live in America says it's a little person with wings, who collects the memories that the teeth hold. Last time, I got two whole pounds!" Dudley said. "Here, give me your tooth and I'll prove it!"
Harry handed the tooth over, and Dudley raced to his parents, cheering about 'his' lost tooth. The next day, Dudley showed him the five pound note that had been stashed under his pillow in place of the tooth, and Harry gazed in admiration and wistfulness. In his mind, he added a woman with bright coloured feathers like the ones on a hummingbird he had seen a picture of, and she flew around the world collecting the teeth and memories of children.
His world was evolving, and the combined efforts of the Sandman, Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny were slowly pushing back Pitch.
It was years after he lost his tooth before Harry added another person to his little world in his head. He was at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Ron was celebrating Harry's first remembered Christmas with him.
"Who gives us these presents?" Harry asked.
"Well, mostly friends and family," Ron told him, "But my dad told me that if you get one that you don't know who it's from, Santa Claus gave it to you."
"Santa Claus?" Harry queried.
"Yeah." Ron shrugged. "It's a muggle thing, according to my dad. A big Russian fellow used to go around giving kids presents and the muggles turned him into some sort of celebrity and now all the present that don't have 'from' written on them come from Santa. He doesn't exist in the wizarding world but the muggleborns like to think he does, so us people who grew up in the wizarding world just go along with it. Dad thinks muggles are cool, so he likes to say we get presents from Santa Claus."
Harry nodded. He remembered reading about the Russians once in primary school, with their big coats and fur hats, and little Pyotr from Little Whinging Primary had once brought in a big black fur hat that used to belong to his grandfather, who was something called a Cossack.
He created a large burly man, who was strong like Pyotr said his grandfather was and full of imagination and wonder for the children. He gave him swords, because all strong people have swords according to the comic books Dudley reads. When he asked Hermione about Santa Claus, she gave him tons of information, like where he lived, what he did, who he worked with and who worked for him. So Santa Claus came to be in his world, and Harry was content because he could feel that Pitch Black's influence was almost completely gone from the world he had created.
If he answered sometimes when the inhabitants of the Earth in his mind talked to him; calling him the Man in the Moon, well. That was simply because he had created the world, and the thoughts of the people sometimes helped him with the world outside.
Harry was outside in the snow contemplating the second task in the Triwizard Tournament, wearing nothing more than a sweater and sneakers, when he heard of Jack Frost.
"Harry!" Hermione scolded him. She held out a coat and gloves, and Harry moved to take them. "Put these on before Jack Frost comes snipping at your nose!"
"Who's Jack Frost?" He asked the bushy haired girl even as he shrugged on the coat and pulled the gloves on.
"No one, it's just an expression." She told him. Harry stayed silent, but in his mind he made a young boy his age, with hair as white as snow and eyes as blue as the sky with the power over frost and snow, who didn't know who he was because it seemed no one else did either.
"Before you go, Professor, I want to show you something." Harry told Dumbledore, who looked at the young man in confusion. "You said that just because it's in my head doesn't mean it isn't real. Does that mean this world is real as well?"
He called up his world, the earth spinning in its axis as it circled the sun. Dumbledore looked at the world in surprise.
"My dear boy what is this place?" The aged Professor asked.
"This is my world. I am the Man in the Moon here, who selects and creates the Guardians for the children of the world, who in turn keep the world safe. I created it in my mind, but by your logic it is also real. Is it true? After I defeat Voldemort, can I retire here instead of having to deal with being a celebrity in your world?"
"Harry..." Professor Dumbledore looked at the young man and opened his mouth to speak, only for a flash of black and gold to attract his attention. "What is going on over there?"
"The Guardians are fighting Pitch Back, the Boogeyman. I know who he is modelled off now - he is a shade of Voldemort." Harry paused. "The Guardians are really just like the houses of Hogwarts, you know? Brave and bold North, determined and hard working Sandy, quick witted and knowledge-collecting Tooth, and ambitious and cunning Bunnymund."
"The Easter Bunny is a Slytherin?" Dumbledore asked in confusion as images of the people Harry was talking about appeared in front of them on their perch on the moon.
"He has to be cunning to hide the Easter Eggs well enough that the kids don't see them first up, but they can still find them. And he is the last of his kind. It's his duty to ensure the coming of spring and the turning of life, and he has to use all his skills to remain in his position." Harry smiled in amusement. "His ambition is for Easter to finally defeat Christmas."
Dumledore chuckled. "A large ambition indeed. And what of the young boy?"
Harry stopped here and watched Jack Frost pensively. "He's me."
"Excuse me?" Dumbledore asked again.
"He represents me. He was created and thrust into the role of Guardian without even knowing who he was or why he was here, and it took me so long to find out more about the person known as Jack Frost." Harry explained. "In the meantime, I also learnt more about the person known as Harry Potter."
Dumbledore and Harry watched as Pitch was defeated finally, with the help of the children who refused to stop believing in the Guardians.
"That is a good omen." Harry said. Dumbledore turned to him.
"What do you mean?"
"Pitch Black was defeated. It is a good omen for your world, as it was only through the combined strength of all five Guardians that it happened. If they can cast aside their differences and join together, so can we." Harry told him. "It's time for me to go back, and you to move on, Professor."
Dumbledore paused. He had been talking with Harry longer than he had thought he would. "I suppose. But Harry, please do not dwell on the dreams of a world that exists only in your mind."
"Don't worry Professor, I'll make sure that I stick to reality." Harry smiled, but Dumbledore wasn't comforted. After the Professor disappeared, Harry turned back to the celebrating Guardians. "Not many people can create a new dimension with their mind alone."
"Harry, where are you going?" Hermione asked one day, watching the young man pack away his possessions and gift many items to others.
"You have heard of parallel dimensions and alternate realities, haven't you, Hermione?" Harry asked her.
"Well, yes." Hermione said. "But what does that have to do with anything?"
"I died, Hermione, when Voldemort cast the Avada Kedavra on me. And when I died, I realised that through my becoming the Master of Death and my overactive imagination as a child, I had somehow created another dimension with my mind alone, and the magic that was released from my body at the moment of my death followed through the link in my mind to the world I had created and stabilised it." Harry paused to let the information sink into Hermione's mind. "I created my own world, and now that I have finished what I started in this one I want to go there. I won't be coming back."
Hermione was flabbergasted and speechless, and could only watch as Harry finished what he was doing and finally turned to her. He was dressed in his pyjamas, which was strange in Hermione's opinion, but Harry had always been a strange boy; more interested in the mythical creatures and beings of the muggle world than anything to do with magic. Oh certainly, he was fascinated by the energy, but as Hermione's first love was books and her second Ron, Harry's first love was fantasy muggle creations and the second magic.
"Goodnight, Hermione." Harry told her and turned back to the bed that was sitting in the middle of the room. It was the only piece of furniture left in the entire house, set directly in the middle of the living room, and Hermione could only watch in bemused confusion as he crawled into bed and closed his eyes.
The house was silent, except for Harry's slow breaths and Hermione's confused noises, which turned into alarm when Harry's body started to fade away until there was nothing in the house except an empty bed and the alarmed and mildly upset witch. A door opened behind her, and Luna Lovegood stepped through.
"Oh, he's gone already." Luna stated mildly. "I was going to tell him that he'll need a new Man in the Moon if he's going to live on the other Earth like the rest of the Guardians. Oh well, I'm sure he'll figure it out. Come on Hermione; let's go get a lovely cup of tea."
North looked up at the moon and frowned in confusion. Occasionally the Man in the Moon had seemed distant and preoccupied with something farther away than any of the Guardians could perceive, but now it just felt empty, nothing more that a large mass orbiting the planet.
But even as North held that thought, a new presence sidled into the moon. "You are not Man in Moon."
I am the new Man in the Moon, North. The moon told him, and he frowned even further. The previous Man has retired from his position and elected me in his place. I look forward to working with you.
"Is the old Man in Moon okay?" North asked in worry. It was unheard of, a Guardian retiring.
He is fine. He just wants to live on Earth as you do. Do not worry, you will see him around. The voice told him. My name is Tsar Lunar. It is a pleasure to meet you.
"Pleasure to meet you too." North told the Man. "Is it okay if we still call you Manny?"
Of course, Santa. He had the feeling the voice was teasing him gently, calling him by his title, but North couldn't find it in himself to mind. After all, Tsar Lunar was his name, but they would call him by his title just the same.
Though he did wonder where the previous Man in the Moon disappeared to.
Harry breathed deeply of the smell of freshly fallen snow and let himself smile as he watched the children in the park play. He could get used to this life.
He raised a hand in greeting to Jack Frost as he flew overhead and laughed to himself when the surprised teen flew into a tree. It wasn't the boys fault, Harry supposed. It wasn't often that an adult could see the Guardians of Children after all.