*Author's notes* This is a very short prologue for an idea that hit me a few days ago. A first-person series for after Hogwarts. I'm going to write it at the same time as my 3rd-person Hogwarts era re-imagining. It's going to be very dark and depressing at times, and you should probably not expect this to adhere to the epilogue from book 7 – None of that will happen at the end of this.

I'll try to update regularly, but there might be delays as I write both stories. So apologies for that. So please enjoy this incredibly short prologue. I'll begin Chapter One tomorrow.

Thanks.

Prologue

My name is Harry James Potter.

The Wizarding World knows me as the Boy-Who-Lived, their saviour, the one who vanquished the Dark Lord Voldemort not once but twice.

I sometimes wonder if I might have doomed the Wizarding World by defeating Voldemort, oh sure the despair lifted for a few years, people were happy, they felt safe, they felt secure. But little did they know, that Voldemort was just the opening skirmish, his fall was the prelude, not the end.

We were unprepared for the evil that would follow in his wake, an evil with such power that many good men and women died helplessly in the first days of what would come to be known as 'The Age of Desolation'.

I lay much of the blame on myself, I was naïve, blind to it. I thought my work as the spearhead for good was over, I got soft, I allowed myself to enjoy life and in doing so I fear I've doomed us all.

In my naivety I lost people precious to me, I was unprepared and I paid the price. The Battle at Hogwarts paled in comparison to the carnage and death of the first attack, 1000's of Wizards and Witches died in a matter of minutes, and we were all powerless to stop it.

Now, I lay low, hidden away like a coward, trying to rally the troops and find a away to thwart this unstoppable evil. I feel inadequate, bereft of ideas, clawing for a solution that just is not there.

So I sit here lost, without direction.

Hogwarts is gone. The Ministry of Magic is no more. He was smart, he knew where to attack, where to hurt us. With the two largest repositories of Wizarding knowledge destroyed, we had nothing to go on, no clues to find, no secrets to uncover.

There might yet be a way but we're oblivious to it, blinded and confused.

But we will continue fighting, we will fight until the bitter end, to the last man, victory or death.

We will persevere.

We will survive.

Even if it kills me, I will drag us back into the light.

I will not let hope elude us.

We are lost, we are hurt, we are facing down the barrel of the gun.

But we are still alive, we are still fighting, still struggling against the chains of despair.

Until our last dying breath.