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Following in the trend of many other authors, From a Dusty Attic is a series of could-have-been & just-might-be stories. Some will be epic in sheer length and might be moved to their own one-shot, others just short enough to be called a chapter. All are open for adoption on the condition of asking first and if some garnish enough popularity, I may flesh them out into longer stories or at least add an additional scene or two. In any case, the dust and cobwebs have been wiped away so without further ado, I hope that you all enjoy:


From a Dusty Attic

By Corvus no Genmu


"Harry Potter and the First Master"

At age… one year and three months…

The baby was crying, alone and afraid for the loud noises and flashing lights that preceded the painful agony that was a burdening upon his very soul and the inexplicable knowledge that his parents were gone and were never coming back. Even a baby may feel the death of loved ones though they may not fully comprehend it, and a magical child especially so, but a child such as this on this night of nights? Oh no, it had nothing to do with the ancient and forbidden spells his mother had cast moments before her death or the sliver of the dark lord's twisted soul stuck deep into the baby's forehead thanks in part to that same magic and the wizard's own arrogance.

It was thanks to that man in the corner.

That man stood watching the baby as a child might to an ant. Something like curiosity drew his gaze upon the wailing baby but it was a distant interest, an interest spurred by the explosive magical backlash that could be felt across the entirety of what was once his domain. The ant had bested a hornet, a rare improbability that garnered at least a cursory look if nothing else.

The baby rubbed at his forehead, wiping away the blood the wept from the wound that oozed with the foulest of magic. Silver cloth flowed like mother's milk and embraced the child in its invisible embrace and he smiled a smile of malicious fangs and wicked teeth hidden behind a mask of bleached wood.

He had wondered what had become of it and now that he knew, his intrigue rose with his opinion of the child. That which had no sense of life and was to its very essence, everything that was not alive, had reacted of its own accord to protect a living human child. It had accepted the baby as it had only accepted one other, he whom had given it form, function, and purpose.

He reached forth and pulled the material aside and saw once more the child.

"So… it is to be you…?" His voice was the echoes of shadows, the melodies of falling leaves, and the symphony of passing moonlight and his touch was a bitter cold to the bones, the familiar warmth to the soul. It was the touch of an old friend remembered but not one of welcome… but not tonight.

The man stepped back into the welcoming darkness and his eyes, hidden so deeply beneath his mask that only shadows remained, turned back to face the sleeping child. The thirteenth hour was in sight and the night had only just begun but he had seen enough this night of nights.

"Until next we meet… Harry James Potter…"


At age… two years and three months…

Petunia had no idea how long the man had been in her home but she knew the instant that she saw him that was worse than the freaks that her sister had dallied herself to the grave with. Worse than the foul, old man who had burdened Petunia's life with the presence of her unwanted nephew, the baby laying deathly still in his crib making not a sound as this man, this monster, approached him.

A hand cupped the face of her nephew and his eyes opened, glazed over from weakness of neglect and hunger. He reeked of his own filth, and his bones were clearer than the day was bright and the moment the man turned to face her Petunia knew. She knew that her blood would make the red of the sunset be as pale as mother's milk on the walls of her home. The moment that man had turned his masked visage upon her and was suddenly before her, towering to the ceiling when once he was no taller than she, a hand reaching upwards to her neck and past it to gently cup her face and stroke it like one would a lost lover.

The other hand went further beyond, up to the bone white mask that hid the face beneath a cowl of obsidian and as she squealed and struggled to close her eyes, to turn her head, to do anything in her power to not see what lay beneath that plain looking mask, it was all for naught. It came free and with it, reality itself shattered around Petunia.

No longer was she in the broken safety of her home but an abysmal graveyard where hundreds upon hundreds of skeletons danced beneath the midnight light of a crescent moon. They danced to the callings of ravens, the drumming of spiders, and the songs of wolves; a mad dance that had no rhythm nor reason to its movements as limbs twisted and turned and bones shifted between partners and back again in a chaotically sensible show of partnership between the long since departed.

And through it all, the man continued his fanged grin.

The world snapped back into place with the replacement of the wooden mask, the impossibly large grin hidden once more beneath it and Petunia fell to her knees with choked gasps whilst tears fell like rain from her sullied eyes.

A gesture of hands summoned up a bottle of formula that tingled with an ethereal glow of revitalization. A silvery shroud appeared from nowhere and moistened itself with this concocted and let Petunia's nephew suckle from its cloth. The man watched as the strength returned to the baby and replaced silver cloak with a proper bottle and let the silvery embrace vanish the child beneath its soft folds as he turned once more to Petunia Dursley.

"Next time… I will take the boy in your stead." His hand laid itself upon the other crib in the room and her eyes widened with horror. She tried to scream, to plead for her son, but Petunia's voice had run itself hoarse when she had been dragged into that ghoulish celebration of the dead. It didn't matter though, for even without her voice her eyes screamed on her behalf and the man knew that she would not transgress to this level ever again though she may never love or care for the child as she ought.

He turned his back to her, fully facing Harry Potter for the first time in a year, meeting his emerald gaze fully. There was no comprehension, no sign of recognition, but there was curiosity in those greened depths and there, just a flicker but still latched tightly, a flicker of a blackened soul. The man reached out and rested his hand upon the feeding baby, ruffling the black locks of hair that were starting to take a tangled life of their own.

"Until next we meet…"


At age… five …

If Harry Potter knew one thing about Halloween it was that it was a day spent locked inside his cupboard under the stairs just like Christmas, Easter Sunday, and many other such obviously important days and nights that had come before and after. In fact, he'd likely had never even heard the name if his cousin Dudley hadn't had a royal fit over attaining what was to be a country's worth of candy. So here Harry was, sitting locked in his cupboard under the stairs wondering just what was it about this day that made it a holiday. What was it that its very name had his uncle's mustache fluffing with rage and his aunt shatter the china?

"Would you like to find out?"

The lock on his cupboard clicked open, a midnight breeze flowing cool, welcomed air into the small space.

Harry had no experience with people beyond his family so he was not as shy or as cautious as a child his age should be. He welcomed the chance for open spaces and meeting someone who was not his uncle, aunt, or cousin. What he saw… well, he wasn't quite certain just who this person was other than a strange man. He didn't look at all like anyone Harry had seen passing by through the windows of the house. In fact, the only thing that Harry could say about the man with absolute certainty was that his face was covered behind a wooden mask that was whiter than the moon and held aloft beneath a cloak of the deepest black he had ever seen.

"Well?" The man held out his hand to Harry.

"Who… who are you sir?" asked Harry as he took the man's hand and felt the strangest of sensations, a coldness in his bones but a strange, almost welcoming, warmth from deep within… and was it his imagination or did he hear a faint hissing sound?

The man's mask tilted as he considered the question. "You may call me… Samuel. Samuel Hain."