PLEASE NOTE: THIS FANFICTION CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR HBP AND ALL PREVIOUS BOOKS. If you wish to continue reading then please do, but Preoperative will not be held responsible for anything that disagree's with you on the topic of 'spoilers'.
DISCLAIMER: I do not: own, plan on making any income, claim or take any credit for the wonderful series created by JK Rowling. I am not making any money from the following fiction and it is written with the innocent intention of enjoying myself (and spreading the love, hopefully).
A/N: I can't help but get the feeling that from this point on in time fanfiction is suddenly going to be getting extremely angsty, and I'm glad to share the love
A Magical Life:
By Preoperative
With love
"You can't expect to give your life to someone, and not leave a little part of yourself behind" – behind the grave, no one is ever truly lost to us forever.
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now.
Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
PROLOGUE
The Pianist
Everything was silent at number four, Private Drive.
The house lay soundless and dark in the moonlight; the windows dark and obscured, reflecting the slightly clouded nights sky. For three o' clock in the morning everything was exactly as it should have been: the occupants of the house obviously in deep and calm sleeps; the strangely cool summer air lulling them into peaceful dreams.
Harry Potter lay on his bed in the smallest bedroom the house possessed. The window was tightly shut, and the door was locked from the inside. Instead of the customary sprawl his belongings made, the room was suspiciously bare. His school trunk lay open at the foot of the bed, a few books resting on top of the black school robes.
This year Harry was not trying to finish a school assignment late into the night. From this point on in Harry's life, there would be no school assignments.
Harry had attended his last ever school year, and it had ended in the death of his beloved headmaster. Harry knew, deep in his heart, that Albus Dumbledore's death was terrible for a great many reasons. But to the mourning boy, the only one he could think of; was that the man had left him alone.
The entire country of England was coated in the same thick fog that had clung to the houses, lawns and agapanthus for almost a year. The street lamps that lined the road below illuminated the mist, lighting the thick fog with an otherworldly glow but being unable to penetrate the clinging substance.
Inside Harry's room, Hedwig let out a long, mournful hoot, ruffling her wings as much as the small cage would allow. At the sudden sound Harry woke with a start.
For a few moments he lay on the bed rigidly, emerald eyes glowing in the dark as he tried to remember what he had been dreaming about. Hedwig's eyes aligned on her master, and she barely blinked as he suddenly swung up and around and off the bed.
"I'm going mad, Hedwig" Harry muttered as he buried his head in his hands. Hedwig hooted her agreement.
For the past week Harry had been reading and re-reading his textbooks and brooding. Although the underage wizardry act was still in place, Harry had been doing his hardest to learn and remember all of the spells he had studied in his first, and only, six years of school.
Sleep had become a minor luxury for the boy-who-lived and the relaxing break he had just been having was one of the rare opportunities in which he had been able to cut everything out.
Hedwig's eyes followed him as he stood up and rummaged in his trunk.
The letters on his desk told the story of what would be happening once his birthday came. Correspondence with his friends, and notes written to remind himself of certain things, all made his desk look cluttered and messy.
Next to a particularly mixed up pile of parchment there lay a book that Harry had taken from Dudley. Across the cover the words 'The Pianist' spelled themselves out above the name of the author 'Wladyslaw Szpilman'. It had been one of Dudley's school texts, but the large boy had left it behind last year, and it now sat quietly, waiting for Harry to turn seventeen. Because as soon as he did, the book would become the victim of a portus spell aimed at The Burrow.
Harry was dressed in baggy and worn jeans along with a white, crinkled, polo. A plain black robe was draped across the end of his bed, waiting, just as the book was, for July 31st.
Harry stood up slowly and stretched, leaving his hands so they covered his eyes even when he was finished flexing.
"It's so dark Hedwig. Has it always been this dark?" with his hands still covering his tightly shut eyes, Harry stood blindly in the centre of his small bedroom invisible tears trying to escape the prism of his eyelids. Hedwig ruffled her feathers once more, becoming even more subdued as Harry let out one enormous sigh and collapsed onto the desk chair, hands falling limply to his sides.
Indeed, it was darker than it should have been. The street lamps outside seemed unable to glow with their normal brightness. The moon was hidden behind black, angry clouds, and had remained so for far longer than was natural. The stars seemed more distant than ever; as if a huge blanket of frosty glass had obscured the heavens. Dark shades shifted everywhere you looked, the failing light only casting longer shadows.
The clock on Harry's desk read 11:53 in luminous white block-numerals, and a date at on the top-most note confirmed the day to be July 30th, if only for another seven minutes.
Harry restlessly sorted the stacks of paper into some order before pilling them up on his bed. A small rucksack, worn and scuffed was pocking out from under his bed, and he pulled it out slowly before placing it next to the small tower of parchment.
A quick check with the clock informed him only a single minute had passed.
With almost deliberate slowness, Harry packed the papers into the rucksack, adding to the collection by throwing in a toothbrush, a money purse, a small packet of owl treats, a filled water bottle, a stick of wood (which he had found in the garden with a strange resemblance to a wand), a packet of crisps and some chocolate frogs, not forgetting to add a well-worn photo album to the bundle.
The clock now read 11:58.
Harry walked over to his open trunk and pulled out a clean pair of black socks and pulled them on, a feeling of inexplicable excitement rising in his chest as the seconds ticked by. When his trainers where secured around his feet he grabbed the robe and pulled it on over his jeans and top, the front fashionably open.
11:59.
Harry shut and locked his trunk carefully before standing up and fingering his wand nervously, watching the analogue clock for the second it would tick over.
As soon as the small number flipped with a small click Harry swished his wand upwards with one hand, grabbed the bag with his other, shoved the now shrunken trunk into the front pocket of the rucksack and turned to his desk, a slightly nervous look on his face as he glared at the challenging book. An old and decrypt piano picture stared back at him, the hat of an officer percher on the lid.
"Portus!" Harry watched with fascination as the book glowed blue and wobbled for a moment before falling back into the exact same position.
He grabbed the book and muttered to himself, in precisely the same way Dumbledore had at the end of his fifth year: "One… Two… Three…"
Still looking at the clock on his desk (12:01) and, just as the doorbell rang downstairs and the loud questioning voice of uncle Vernon rang out he felt the familiar sensation of a hook being jerked from behind his navel… and the world of Privite Drive disappeared; for the last time.
To be continued…