Years later (just how many, he didn't know), Harry Potter would look back, and think that people did not take the prophesy literally enough. Not that it would change anything. The only thing a prophesy really did was state what was going to happen. It couldn't change it. You couldn't change it. Hey tended to be self-fulfilling.
The prophesy that didn't-change his life was made before he was even born.
Everyone focused solely on the "this small infant will rid us of a powerful dark lord, and ONLY this small infant could do it" part. And yes, the small infant did rid them of a powerful, if a bit lame, dark lord. They were right about that. What they didn't focus on was the MUST and EITHER before the "die" part.
Because really, that was the only important part to Harry. And now, somewhere around nine Terran centuries (reletivly speaking) later, he was still going strong. He had left, as soon as he figured that when he "died" he was reborn again. The first time, it was as a fetus. That was weird. The one in the body originally had died only seconds ago, and as the Master of Death, his soul had taken the vacated space. His mother that time was amazing. She had long, golden hair.
And brilliant, silver-grey eyes. She was one of the most loving people he had ever known. She was also a Time Lady. That had been a weird coincidence. He couldn't die, and he was born into a race of people that had more than one life available to them. A race of people that could regenerate when they neared death. Still not quite the same, but the best place he could be, considering the circumstances. He even fashioned himself a new name, The Doctor. Of course, those closest to him still knew his real name, but only those in his family. And so, as they say, time went on. Life went on. He had a family, a huge one. He became a husband, a father, a grandfather. Everything he could ever want. Everything.
It seemed, however, that wherever, and whenever he was, he was destined to be great. And so he was. He was a leader. They started calling him the Doctor, because e was so great, so wonderful. He was a healer, not necessarily of he body, but also of the mind, and soul. He was celebrated as wise and great, known throughout the planet and surrounding systems, but as with everything that seemed to happen to him, it went wrong. In his unintentional trek to greatness, he had made enemies. When he was away, for just one day, they killed ll he loved, and killed them again before they could regenerate. They were gone. And his fury was know. He returned the favor, tenfold, and them there was nothing for him, anymore, except the young princess, a girl he thought of as his own granddaughter, Susan. Not on Gallifrey. So he decided to... borrow a conveniently unlocked TARDIS, took her by the hand, and left.
He traveled for years an years, through so many galaxies. They went to so many planets. And met the most amazing people. And then, they finally went back to Earth. Back to where it all started. They stayed there, for a while, and he didn't have to worry about being recognized. It was only 1963, after all. Well before his original birth. And, if he guessed it right, his original parents were probably still infants. He had nothing to worry about.
They lived like that for about five months, before Susan, dear, oblivious Susan, was followed by her teachers, and they found out about the TARDIS. They all (The Doctor, Susan, Barbara, and Ian) traveled for a year, before he left Susan. She was a young woman now. He knew that. It was time for him to let go. She was his last connection to his home planet. The last of his family. But he had to let go. So he left her. And he moved on.
The cycle repeated itself over and over, with minor fluctuations sometimes. Like that time there was three of him. That had been surreal. It reminded him of the incident with Hermione's Time Turner. But for the most part, it was a mostly constant journey. Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon, Angels, and other weird creatures that even he had not run into before.
He met so many amazing people, amazing Humans. It was fascinating to see how small most of them were, how petty they could be. They looked so much different now, from the eyes of someone so old, someone who had seen most everything in their history, lived it all. He watched them as they first climbed down from their trees, a they migrated to caves (he even picked up a stray on that particular adventure. Never EVER doing tat again. No intelligent conversation.), when they gathered together to form towns, an when those towns turned into great civilizations. He saw when they started building the seven wonders of the world. He had met a very nice chap once, in Egypt, drawing up some plans for the Great Pyramids. The lad bought him their version of grin alcohol, so he may have given him a quick tip about the angle of the pyramids and how best to keep them up. Told him they'd last thousands of years. But, who could blame him, that stuff was strong.
And he saw the bad things too. Sacrifices, war, famine, disease, and one that hit particularly close to his heart, the Witch Burnings. All those girls, murdered for petty jealousy. They weren't even withes. They were just innocent girls. He saw he rise of Hitler, and all his destruction, and he...may have helped a little bit to end it, not that anyone would ever know. He sat in the shadows as Grindelwald rose top power. And he knew he could not interfere with that one. It was a fixed point. everything had to happen as it did.
And he met his grandparents. The original ones, that is, the human ones. Their names were Steven and Dora Potter. Well, technically, she was Dora Black at the time. They met at a party, thrown by a young chap he met down at the Leaky Cauldron. That lad loved banana Daqueries Funny enough, it seemed Steven loved Dora, and Dora hated Steven with a passion, just like his own parents. It was only 1939 then, it took them 15 more years to get together, and six more years after that to have his father.
He left Earth after that. He knew he wouldn't be able to resist trying to stop Voldemort and spare his younger self if he didn't. So he left, returned to Gallifrey, and landed himself right smack dab in the middle of a Time War. He was elected to lead, yet again, and be the Sign of Hope for the peoples of Gallifrey. But instead of delivering them, they were losing. And he knew he would have to make an awful, horrible choice. And he did. he put Gallifrey under a Time Lock, and condemned two races to an eternity of death and destruction. He destroyed them. And he ran. ran so far way, that no one had ever even heard of him. He stayed "under the radar" so to speak, and set out to wallow alone. And hate himself alone, and die alone. Needless to say, that didn't met a young boy (boy being in a reletive sense, this planet was over 400,000 lightyears away and they didn't have quite the same definition of genders), who was crying. He could never leave a crying child, of course, and when he asked the boy why he was crying, all he said was "you looked so sad, and alone. It made my heart hurt". And the boy made him promise not to be alone, and not to be sad forever, because someone with such a face should always be smiling. And it wouldn't do to frown as it was considered very silly to frown on that planet. Why frown when you could be doing so many other things?
And so he went back to Earth, again, and met more people, and had new adventures.
He traveled for so long, and so far. He even met someone. Though, that was a weird situation. If he didn't know that time was all weebily-wobily, he would have sworn she was crazy. The bird practically came out and told him she was his wife the very first time he met her! And then, before he could even explain, she went and got herself stuck in the data banks of this biggest library in the universe! Spoilers, she says.
And now, she had him at gun-point. Literally. She had a blaster pointing at his face. He wondered who he would end up as next. Would he even be a boy anymore? Hmmm... this would take some thinking. He knew he would die. well, The Doctor would die. He wasn't sure about his soul, being the Master of Death and all that. Hell, considering all he had done in his life, he wouldn't be surprised f he came back as a squirrel, or something equally as annoying. And when River shot him again before he could regenerate, the word went black, and he was floating again. Two months later, the brightest frickin light there ever was was shining in his eyes, and someone was trying to get him to cry by slapping him, and there was a woman sobbing. And so, he cried. and was handed to the sobbing woman, and someone said something about having a baby boy, and he was cuddled between two bodies. Then next thing he knew, he was being passed round between a bunch of people, and someone was asking about a name. The now no longer sobbing woman waited a few seconds before she replied with a "Sherlock", and the man who was cuddling him earlier Repeated her, but added a "Holmes" to he end. Oh, This would be interesting.