Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe. The incomparable J.K. Rowling deserves all the credit.

CHAPTER 1

I present to you, Harry Potter, the reticent hero who saved the magical world from the hands of evil and resurrected the world from darkness to light.

I present to you, Harry Potter, the reluctant hero who never quite fully understood why this was the kind of fate in stored for him.

Ladies and gentlemen, once again, I present to you, Harry Potter, the humble man who sacrificed his life for the sake of the lives of the witches and wizards around him.

Harry Potter changed the world. And it wouldn't be an exaggeration when I say that,

"You are alive because of Harry Potter."

Thank him, for he went to hell and back to do this.

I met Harry Potter during my first year in Hogwarts. He was an unassuming person, all modest and shy, even when everyone in the train stared at him with awe, curiosity and admiration.

"It's Harry Potter!"

"Wait till I tell my folks about this!"

"Is that him? Is that really, really, really him?"

Questions were asked. There were gasps and sighs. The air was thick with admiration for him. But Harry Potter did not allow himself to bask in all the glory showered on him; instead, he preferred to lock himself inside the train compartment, away from the view of the interested public.

As the days went by, I got to know more about the famous young hero. We were roommates, along with his best friend, Ron Weasely, and two of our other friends, Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas. The conversation inside our circular dormitory was slow at first, but after a good one week, the candles flickered until midnight and the talking continued until the wee hours of the morning. And have I mentioned that the once immaculate dorms started to resemble a garbage dump once we got comfortable with each other, much to the distress of the house elf that cleaned our rooms?

I could say that I was the last one in that dormitory who warmed up and got friendly with the group. I was the clumsy blubbering klutz and grandma's little baby. And sharing a room with archetypical boys did not help. I felt too babyish compared to them and to their rather mature tastes. They talked about quidditch, sports, and the like while I sat in one corner dreaming about the day when I could talk to them about these things.

I felt so alone, but there was one boy in the room that noticed and helped bring me out of my shell. That boy was Harry Potter. For, like me, Harry did not really seem to belong to these kinds of conversations having stepped into the magical world for the first time in a decade or so. And this idea of not exactly "fitting in" gave us a chance to talk, no matter how shallow schoolboys' talks were during those times.

Harry James Potter did not know much about his past until later on—and there were still a lot of questions left unanswered. What he knew was that he was the son of James and Lily Potter, two of the countless and heroic victims of the evil Lord Voldemort. He also knew that he survived the wrath of this devil, and much to his surprise, he was famous. He said all these in an offhand way, sometimes with amazement or a tinge of annoyance, but never with superiority. And that made me realize that Harry Potter was human after all, experiencing the same emotions and amazement that everyone in that room felt.

When I first met Harry Potter, he was short for his age. In fact, he was the antithesis of a hero. Instead of being tall and muscular, he was short and scrawny. Instead of being blonde and good-looking, he was cursed with unruly black hair and was bespectacled and pale. Instead of being the confident god-like champion, he was introverted and abhorred being noticed. He wasn't the archetypical hero, but he still stood out. The scar on his forehead changed everything.

But as the years went by, Harry Potter did not only stand out because of his scar but rather because of his emerging physical characteristics as well. Adolescence had been good to him. Although he was bespectacled, Harry Potter definitely looked good—and that is saying something coming from a member of the male species. He was tall, well-proportioned with a lean and lithe frame, bestowed on him after many years of playing quidditch. And though he was still pale this suited him very well, and the female population of Hogwarts wasn't immune to this—except, perhaps, Hermione Granger.

Harry Potter was rarely alone and was constantly with his two best friends, Ron Billius Weasely and Hermione Jane Granger. They were the most famous trio in Hogwarts: the combination of the hero, the comic sidekick, and the strong-headed heroine. Countless stories sprouted from this, and though most are false, a number of these stories were correct.

But I digress, Harry Potter, as I was saying, was the complete opposite of the hero, but what he had encountered in life was incomparable. Hercules, Odysseus and Hector were nothing compared to him, he was worth ten times the three of them combined.

And while being a hero has its perks, from appearing in countless papers and magazines, to all the special attention being lavished on him, I soon realized that behind all the fame and the glory, was a boy faced with a daunting task and an unrelenting search for peacefulness and an undisturbed life.

It wasn't enough that Voldemort was always clinging on Harry's back, unyielding in his manic desire to see Harry Potter dead. There were also the rumors that went out of control, the times they discredited him and never once acknowledging the sacrifice he made to save the magical community, there were the taunts on his sanity, and of course, last but not the least, and as shallow as it seems, Harry Potter was faced with the trials of adolescence and the educational institution.

The life of Harry Potter alone is very interesting, peppered with comedy and tragedy. But what made it very remarkable was the friendship he shared with his two best friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasely. Theirs was a story of friendship, love, loyalty and courage; a friendship that stands the test of time and the boundary of life and death.

In every hero's story there is the sidekick, the comic relief, the blubbering baboon, the confidante, everything actually—but he is always in the background, not sharing the spotlight with the godlike hero.

Ron Weasely never experienced what it was like to be the center of attention, long overshadowed by his over-achieving brothers (and even by his youngest sister, the alluring Ginny Weasely!) and by his friends, Harry and Hermione.

But fifth year came and Ron Weasely managed to make the Gryffindor team win in the school quidditch tournament. But there were a ton of obstacles before this happened, and after that, he preferred to be in the sidelines instead. But it doesn't mean that Ron Weasely was not able to do anything, because in his own way, he was able to contribute to everything.

Ron Weasely belonged to a large family. And being in a large family certainly had its disadvantages. I do not like to sound tactless, even mean when I say this, but the fact that Ron Weasely was the sixth child out of the seven in the family, with everything handed down to him, his self-confidence and self-esteem was close to null. And with all the insults he suffered in the hands of Draco Malfoy and his cronies, he soon developed an inferiority complex and the idea that he would never live up to the legends that his brothers were.

The first time I laid eyes on the gangly, freckled face boy with flaming red hair, I knew right away that he belonged to the Weasely clan. My grandmother knew their family and I caught glimpses of them before we went to school. The first time I met Ron, I felt this air of "street-smartness" in him. He was a "been there, done that" type of person and knew about everything in the street-smartness sense and he couldn't really suppress himself from sharing all that he knew. It was only Hermione Granger who could make him shut up, who could point at his mistakes and share a bunch of related information, straight from her very best friend, Hogwarts, a History.

I certainly got to know a lot about Ron. I had seen him happy, sad, angry and frustrated, and with his very distinguishable facial expressions, I could deduce right away what he felt any day. He also talked to me, a lot. He shared stories and thoughts and secrets he wouldn't dare tell anyone in fear of being laughed at. He told me some of his deepest desires on days when he felt really low. He told me how much he wanted to build his own identity, away from the shadows of his brothers and his friends. He told me how he wanted to be known as Ron Weasely, not as Charlie's brother or Harry's best friend.

But unbeknownst to him, a couple of years later, the name Ronald "Ron" Billius Weasely would be a legend itself.

Hermione Jane Granger was the woman. Some might wonder why I christened her with this title. Certainly, Hermione Granger was a woman because of the fact that she belonged to fairer sex. But to christen her as the very epitome of the woman might be hard to grasp for others, so give me this opportunity to explain to you why.

When asked during conversations what the students of Hogwarts think about Hermione Granger, there was always a melting pot of mixed reactions. Some girls would say that she was a great and caring friend but others would say that she was an ugly know-it-all. Some would say that she was the epitome of the genius while others would say that she was a bossy nerd. But her closest friends gave me some very revealing remarks, that a couple of years later would be a prophecy fulfilled.

Hermione Granger to me was what "Portia" was in the "Merchant of Venice", a play written by the great muggle playwright, William Shakespeare. She was intelligent, cunning, passionate, witty, and a woman not afraid to speak her mind. Hermione was also the "ugly duckling who turned into a swan" to others. But I can say that I do not agree with that idea. She may not be pretty in the conventional sense-- she was neither blonde nor tanned. But there was an ethereal quality in her that always appealed to you. She had an ice-queen persona broken only by the few people she deeply cared about. Hermione was definitely not an ugly duckling, and she proved them wrong when she rendered them speechless at the sight of the stunningly beautiful Hermione Granger during our fourth year Yule Ball dance.

But why do I call Hermione Granger the woman, you ask? It's because she was the very epitome of one. She was the brave heroine, the helpless princess, the best friend, the enviable lady, the essence of refinement and culture, the beauty, and of course, the object of affections.

She was the brave heroine, exemplified by the courage she showed and the intelligence she shared in every battle against Lord Voldemort.

She was the helpless princess, who could be tough on the outside, but vulnerable underneath that ice-queen exterior. She could worry about a single mistake in a 200-item exam like there was no tomorrow and fret about what she'll wear to the next ball.

She was the best friend, the other member of the fantastic trio. And I could say that Harry and Ron would not have survived without her. She saved their necks even when they took her for granted sometimes.

She was the enviable lady. Every member of the female population would like to be her for a day, no matter how hard they deny it. Hermione Granger was smart as she was beautiful. She was surrounded by two of the most eligible bachelors in the magical community. She was always noticed.

She was also the essence of refinement and culture. Her tastes were above the common teenage girl. She was the woman your parents would love to meet. Her ice queen aura and hot intense intelligence always resulted something admirable.

And last but not the least she was the beauty and the object of affections, a lot of which would be discussed later on in this memoir. There was the hero, the sidekick and the enemy.

I believe that all doubts are gone by now, after this very revealing passage. And I believe that you can all agree when I say once again that Hermione Granger was the woman.

The path of the hero is never smooth. The reason why he is called a hero is because of all the dangers and obstacles he overcame and not because he has been sitting pretty the whole time. And I wouldn't be exaggerating when I say that one of the reasons why Harry Potter's path was never smooth was because of Draco Malfoy.

Draco Malfoy was stylishly evil. That is always the first thing that comes to mind when I think about him. I actually believe that tormenting someone was his form of entertainment— but he did this with flair that describing him as a bully wouldn't do justice to his wicked ways. I am not condoning his malevolent ways rather I am describing him as I have described the others.

There was absolutely no doubt that Draco Malfoy personified his namesake, the dragon. His anger was unimaginable, his cunning unparalleled, his memory unrelenting, his image notorious, and his passion consummate. And if there was one thing that you should remember is that Draco Malfoy never forgets.

If you scorned him, expect to be scorned in return, tenfold.

If you embarrassed him, expect never to show your face out in the open again.

If you denied him, expect danger ahead.

If you are Harry Potter, expect your life to be a living hell.

But behind that exterior, was a person nobody really knew. He was a mystery to everyone but himself.