The house was eerily quiet, as if reproving his defiance. But driven by a force he could not explain, Harry continued on his search.
A sour-faced, black-clad man guarded the door to one of the rooms, so it might be Ardila's. Thus, when the man was distracted, he darted into the room.
And everything distorted, spiralling into colourful blur.
And Hathaldir was born in the land of Dorthonion, the only child of a warrior-farmer couple. He grew up as a loved but unspoiled boy, with an older child named Dagnir as his surrogate older brother and best friend. Taught the code of honour since an early age, he grew to adore and be loyal to the Lord's House, especially another older boy named Beren, who was himself an only child and quite approachable.
As bleak as the current situation was, given the ongoing assault of the Dark Lord all over the land, nothing deterred Hathaldir from living his life the best he could. He showed his love to his parents and best friends shamelessly, and explored the nature around him with ferver as long as no enemy troop was nearby. He did not want to waste the time he had, for something in the back of his mind told him that he was lucky to be born into this life. That 'something' also told him that his time with this merry, sturdy, chivalrous and hard-working lot would be short.
He grew into a young warrior by the age of thirteen, loveable by nearly all and trusted for important tasks by both his parents and lord. He throve on all the attention he got and strove to do better, clinging fast to the few treasured things and people he had. But sadly, it soon changed. A large battle broke after years of relative peace, and his father alongside nearly all of-age men in the land were sent to help in it.
And his father, alongside many others, did not come back.
The next year was a torture for them all, as the Dark Lord's forces sivened the homesteads one by one, cutting their number and resources. Then at last Emeldir, the wife of the current lord, proposed for the women and children to seek refuge in a hopefully-safer land. Families were broken, and hysterical farewells or quarrels were an ordinary sight. Hathaldir was not out of the count.
Together with eleven other warriors, he stood by the Lord when everyone else fled the country. They became fugitives in their own land for the next four years, living on the few scraps left in the abandoned farms and moving each night from one hideout to another. But there was just so much they could do, being starved and desperate and hunted. One day one of their own number betrayed them out of misguided love, and their current hideout was ambushed by enemy forces.
Hathaldir breathed his last just before dawn.
And Harry James Potter opened his eyes with a shriek.