Vernon Dursley was a very normal man, living a very normal life with his very normal family, thank you very much. There was no freakiness in his life, nothing strange or out of the ordinary. At least, that was what he was trying to tell himself. He was just driving to work, like every morning, in his good ol' car, stopping at each stop and driving on the safe side. He shouldn't be nervous. Why should he be? Drops of sweat were gliding down his triple neck, his hands were gripping the wheel too tightly and he would brake too abruptly for him not to be nervous, though. And at last, he allowed himself to look at his side. At the thing sleeping cosily in his Dudley's baby seat. Before work, he would just stop on the side of the road to relieve himself of this burden. That was all. It wasn't anything to be nervous about. Everyone dumped their puppies on the side of the road, nowadays. And what was the different between a disgusting puppy and this thing?

Slowly, he parked on the side and with a last nod to himself, he stepped out of the car. Slightly dazed by the cars whooshing past him, he walked towards the other side of the door, unbuckled the thing from the baby seat and took it at arm length with him. There was nothing to be nervous. Pet would be happy he did it. She never could stand his parents. How could he force her to take care of their freak? But he couldn't help the flashes of memories of the first time he buckled his Dudley in his baby seat, the first time he watched him sleep, cry. This freak made him nervous. It was one of his tricks. Because there was no need for him to be nervous. It was him. He had to get rid of it.

Now.


In his office, deep in the castle of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, the great wizard destroyer Grindelwald, was concerned. It was only shown by the lack of twinkle in his blue eyes, but it was there, and two in the office could see it. Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape. They didn't know why they had been asked to come, nor why their colleagues weren't invited either, but they trusted Albus that it was a serious matter.

"Harry Potter is dead." And a serious matter it was. The moment those words escaped the mouth of the headmaster, the tense atmosphere in the office vanished to let another, heavier, settle in. Severus' eyes widened as his hands crisped behind his back as hundreds of ways to kill this man sitting in front of him flashed in his head. And Minerva gasped as she was thinking of that baby she had met only once, at Lily and James' Potter baby shower. That baby who kept laughing when Remus Lupin and Sirius Black kept arguing and who would stare curiously at all the magic present in the room that day. That baby could not be dead. Albus must have been wrong, got his source incorrect.

"Since… when?" Severus managed to ask between his seething anger and Albus noticed it, sitting noticeably straighter.

"I am not sure, my boy… But my guesses are on the same week his poor parents perished."

So, Harry Potter was dead. And nothing could bring him back to life.

The next day, with three shocked wizards who could not start to understand how this information leaked, the news was printed everywhere on the Daily Prophet and on the year Harry Potter should have been ten, the wizarding world learnt that the boy-who-lived wasn't as immortal as everyone first thought he was.