Ripples
A/N: I haven't updated either of my other stories in a while, I know. They're still WIP, I've just got more important things to worry about. Besides, my fount of creativity has run a bit dry as far as those stories go, so I figured I'd take another shot at an HP SI, this time without the over-similarities to A Curse of Truth.
Prologue: Legendary
How do the great legends and myths of this world start? I've always wondered the answer to this question. At the end of my life, will I be considered a member of that unofficial hierarchy of old and young, mortal and immortal? Who will remember me for what I've done, and will my actions be described as evil or good? I admit these questions plague me far more often than they should; however, at times there isn't much more to think of other than the future of your reputation, especially in the face of an impossible decision.
I've always been a fan of epic-style fiction. The more ridiculously powerful a main character is, the better. The more cosmological and unbelievable the final battle is, the better. I will read millions of word and do my bet to remember every single one if it so pleases me. Of course, not everything gets published for profit, so it's only natural for me to browse the various online forums for more and more to absorb.
It didn't take long for me to discover to that one site where billions of words resided in such fictitious wonder that I would lose hours of my time browsing the directories. After I eventually ran dry of epics to read, I decided to write my own, weaving memories of events that never occurred into the pages on my computer screen; unfortunately, nothing ever really took off and flew, and I never garnered much satisfaction from it. False thoughts did nothing to soothe that sense of purpose and adventure in my soul.
At last, after many more weeks, I discovered the reason for my inability to finish a work of fiction I had once started: I simply lived too ordinary a life. There was no hint of magic or the supernatural in my experience, and it didn't seem that any such things were likely to occur before I was much too old for it to matter. I had never travelled far or for long outside of my hometown, and my finances were much too meagre for me to even attempt an egregious move as that.
I was still determined to seek out that elusive revelation, the moment I would finally unveil my true purpose, however. I spent months searching and scouring the Internet, my resolve knowing no bounds as I desperately sought for some way to make myself into a legend. I let it become my obsession, and my grades in the university at which I was enrolled steadily dropped until they were little more than a letter on a page, gaining nothing other than contempt.
Just as I had given up hope on finding some way to make a name for myself in the world, something happened. Something that I could scarcely believe, and hardly thought to be real. One moment I was staring myself in the mirror of my bathroom; taking in the sunken cheeks, thinning hair, and pathetic feeling of worthlessness shining darkly out of my eyes. Another moment followed and I found myself immersed in a world so different from my own that I wondered whether it was all real.
Of course, all of this deliberation and pontification seen here in these words meant little back then. I was still young – well, much younger than I am now, being only a measly nineteen years of age when the events about to be transcribed ensued. Thus, from this point on I shall dust off my memories of that wondrous time, letting it show much as a stream of consciousness would in the wake of a particularly… interesting… experience.
After all, it would do no one any good to read about the long-since past when it would be much more exciting to read into the recent transpirations. Who better to imagine as the owner of the mind which became legend in the worlds once thought to be fiction than the reader themselves?