Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but a woman far away in Scotland was showing no sign of sleepiness. She was sitting as still as a statue in her chair in the staff room, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far door. She didn't so much as quiver when the staff room door was slammed as one by one, the teachers went to bed. In fact, it was nearly midnight before Professor McGonagall moved at all.
A man walked into the room.
"The Potters?" whispered the professor, to the short, fat, and rather young wizard.
He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Tenebris Noctumbra. He didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a room where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something.
"Dead"
The professor gasped, and looked sadly down at the floor.
"And You-Know-Who?"
"Vanished. The son is in safe hands, Minerva. His aunt and uncle have a daughter. He will make a nice addition to the family. By the morning, I am sure, the United Kingdom of Wizardry with be back to normal, and Harry potter all but forgotten. He will grow up according to his mother and father's wishes, a foot in both worlds. With any luck, he will not become another Voldemort. You will see him in ten years."
"And Albus?"
"He will become the new saviour of the Wizarding world."
Far away, a breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by 's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would become famous, and that a hundred years from now, people would be holding up their glasses of firewhisky and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!"
