A boy walked through the streets of stone
Beneath a magic veil.
In anonymity concealed
He eyed the goods for sale.
The shops and stores with enchanted doors!
He couldn't help but stare.
In colors and smells and hawkers' yells,
'Twas magic filled the air.
Through this the young magician passed,
Through endless sights to behold,
But one shop he could not ignore
For books were what it sold.
Minerva stepped before him then;
She said they ought not stay.
And knowing that her words were true,
He sadly stepped away.
And there that day in Diagon,
Beneath the summer sun,
The young boy asked the witch to tell
Of how the war was won.
She spoke of a nation and Ministry
Transfixed by unnamed fears,
And tales of death and sacrifice
That brought the boy to tears.
To Godric's Hollow he had come,
The Dark Lord Voldemort,
To James and Lily Potter's house
And killed them both for sport.
A scream! A laugh! A bright green flash!
So ended was the war.
And on the infant Harry's head
Was burned a lightning scar.
This Harry could not now recall,
So long ago the day
When Voldemort had fallen at last
And the Potters passed away.
And yet the few who saw through the veil,
Who knew Harry Potter was he —
They wept and knelt and touched his hand,
As if his were the victory.
"They shouldn't thank me," he complained.
"Perhaps — for who can say —
'Twas circumstance killed You-Know-Who,
Not who I am today."
But still he was the Boy Who Lived,
Whom Britain owed a debt,
And whether or not it was his to take
They would not soon forget.
And if it chanced that Voldemort
Was not completely dead,
Then hope for Britain, in the end,
Would rest on Harry's head.
'Twas bright and warm in Diagon;
No lightning filled the sky.
Young Harry walked beneath the sun
And watched the clouds go by.