Well, I've begun with something new. It's an idea that's been rattling around my head for a while and I finally thought I should write it down. I am still sort of feeling my way through though, so the first few chapters are likely to be a bit short. Also, anyone expecting to read Elvish in this story will be disappointed, because I'm rubbish at it, so I'll be writing the Elves' speech in English. I hope you'll still give this story a chance despite that.

Well, that's it for now. Here's the first chapter up, and I hope you like it. Do Read and Review!

Chapter 1 – A Brief Summary

The tale begins as it usually does with a young hero, in pain and expectation, distrust and humiliation. One that continued for 11 long years before the lad was given a precious gift. A reprieve from his many hurts for 10 months out of 12, in a place that came from straight out of a fantasy book. And he took it, eagerly.

He was a bright boy, for all his circumstances, eager and willing to put in the time and the effort to better himself at whatever task he applied himself to. His chance came at the age of 5 when he was allowed to attend school 'like normal children'. The lack of opportunity at the school did not deter his bright spirit, though a mind gradually made cunning through the measured application of pain and punishment, found ways to ensure that his proficiency would never see the light of day.

Privately, he found employment with his neighbours, all of whom liked the quiet, hard-working lad, and did not fail to give him some form of payment in either cash or kind. Both he accepted with disarming humility, knowing the risk his benefactors took with each gift, but grateful all the same for each of them.

The money he deposited with a gentle grandmother whose granddaughter had but recently passed away, and who loved the boy for her sake. She helped him with his school work and baked him little treats, and kept safe for him everything he bought with his savings, particularly his books. The food he smuggled into his den of a cupboard, there to lie in wait until he was banished into its all-consuming darkness in malicious satisfaction.

And there, in the darkness of night, hidden from the world, he lived in silent secrecy, holding onto a secret that was all his own. For in the night, he was filled with power, he glowed with it. The boy was thankful that his relatives never saw him so late at night, because if they ever had, he'd have found himself out on the street – or dead – sooner than he could say 'Dursley'.

It had started when he was four, beginning from his chest and spreading gradually over his entire body, lasting for a good two hours. And when it had faded, all the beatings and bruises and he had received that day would be gone, leaving behind only a dull ache throughout his body that needed only a night's sleep to recover from. But natural or not, healing was a painful thing. Mending cuts and scars and bleeding gashes, not to mention the occasional rib or dislocated shoulder that was forcefully wrenched back into place. So even though all he wanted to do, was to scream as loud as a banshee, the boy bit his tongue and lay silently on his thin mattress, jerking in helpless pain, just waiting for the light to do its work and fade away. Then and only then could he remove his head from the confines of his thin pillow that he used to muffle any involuntary sounds he might have made, and drop into an exhausted sleep.

Until. . .

"BOY!"

It started all over again the next morning.

Of course, things had become a bit better ever since he'd begun going to the school his late parents had attended and at which he himself was now a student. He'd had his own room for four years now, and had a few friends. He had an owl and a snake for companions and a house-elf that was devoted to him. Add to that a cool sword soaked with Basilisk venom, and an unbeatable invisibility cloak, and he had all he needed to rule the world. Honestly, nobody really bothered about just how powerful house-elves truly were. But then, neither had he, once.

His years at school, on the other hand, had been a series of the most outlandish adventures, and ones that he hoped would never find their way into a Harry Potter collection of books. Not that he would see a Knut's worth of royalty from any of those proceeds even if they did. Anyway, that sword and Basilisk mentioned earlier? Truth. Didn't have to have happened to him, but wasn't it just convenient that he could speak to snakes?

Magical people in Britain were the worst sort of hypocrites, he decided.

He'd been a very different person back then; still wanting to give his new world a chance. That was until, at the end of his second year at school, he heard a conversation between the Headmaster and his hated Potions professor. The longer he stood there and eavesdropped, the less the conversation shocked him. What did shake his perception of the known was the role reversal of the arguing antagonists. In the face of Snape's obvious support of his person, there was little enough effort required to believe the worst of the bearded old man who sat at the head of Hogwarts.

When the drama of the evening had concluded with the unplanned but permanent acquisition of an over-eager and fanatically loyal house-elf from the enraged House of Malfoy, he'd made his way to the closest bathroom, showered and changed into clean clothes, and then proceeded into the depths of the dungeons.

The honest, blunt, no-holds-barred exchange that ensued, assured him of two realities. Snape's loyalty to him, and his own naiveté. Which he spent the next year in rectifying. He refused to be anyone's pawn, and certainly wouldn't stand for being bred to slaughter. With Snape's aid, he learnt much more about his new world, in terms of both magic and history, and his own place in it. On his first visit to the local village, he took advantage of a certain magical cloak, to visit Gringotts Bank, where he spent the day learning about his finances and family responsibilities. But the most important thing he accomplished, was to obtain his Heir Ring.

He'd been resigned to wait until his majority before making any bold moves for freedom, but the Fates had dropped the Tri-Wizard Tournament in his lap like a gift worth eleven years of pain and three years of manipulation. He still laughed at thinking about the stupidity of magical people.

The thing with ancient magical contracts was that a few hundred years down the line, almost no-one remembered how they operated or what consequences they inflicted for using them. The Wizarding World worked by the maxim: 'If it isn't broken, don't fix it'. Which meant that when the champions for the Tri-Wizard Tournament were chosen by a really old, glowing, fire-breathing goblet, not a single person so much as thought about how it worked, much less how detrimental it could be for those who were bound to it for the duration of the Tournament.

And then, of course, since Harry Hunting hadn't really stopped even at Hogwarts, somebody'd had the bright idea of entering him in the Tournament with a historically high death rate - like on one of those wild-card entries on reality t.v. shows - demonstrating once again, the unbelievable obsession the magical world has long held with the names 'Harry' and 'Potter', but especially when put together.

With the way his life had been progressing over the past 14 years, he should probably have expected something like it.

Anyway, once the deed was done, and having seen where the battle lines had been drawn amongst the Hogwarts student population, there was only one thing any reasonable person could have done. He went to the library to get some answers.

Of course, it wasn't like he expected the Hogwarts library to have any truly useful information. So he went where no-one had gone before. At least for several weeks. And a few centuries before that.

And sure enough, he hit the jackpot. No-one ever said that the Four Founders were the sole embodiment of the characteristics their houses were recognised by. Hufflepuffs were as brave as the Lions, while Slytherins were as intelligent as the Ravenclaws, and any other mix of characteristics one could think of. And the Library of Salazar Slytherin's Chamber was a treasure trove of knowledge long since forgotten.

Like the fact that the Goblet of Fire was a construct created by the magic-wielders of Merlin's time to keep the oaths of their retainers and servants, binding them and their loyalty to the house they served. Each family wealthy enough to have servants had their own small Goblet holding the Gubraithian Fire, but the one that had survived the ages to eventually be taken in intact by the Wizard's Council much before the International Statute of Secrecy in 1692, was The Brazier, the Goblet of Fire housed within the castle of King Arthur himself.

In the hands of the Department of Mysteries however – that was the only remnant of the old ways to exist within the new Ministry of Magic after it's creation in 1707 – The Brazier was experimented upon with the intent of destroying the enchantments of servitude, leaving a long and bloody (but secret) history in its wake, before some old retainer decided to leave it well enough alone. But by then, they had managed to tweak the spells on it enough to leave it holding the powers it was introduced with in Harry's fourth year.

Even then, it might have remained hidden away and eventually have become lost to obscurity, if, of course, some crackpot Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports hadn't decided that it would be the perfect vessel for binding the participants of a sport to a specific agreement of a specific duration, to ensure impartiality and fairness.

To encourage the idea that it was perfectly safe to bind one's magic to an undiscerning magical object for any length of time, a sub-clause was included in the games rules stating specifically that participants must be in their majority, and any participants entered and chosen by the impartial judge would by default be considered of-age.

Which brings the tale back to the Tri-Wizard Tournament in Hogwarts, when our brave but beleaguered young hero was thrown to the dragons (literally), at the behest of an inanimate, Everlasting Fire-holding object, with the intention of competing, and possibly even winning, the event. Whether the prize was the sack of 1000 Galleons, or one's life, was anybody's guess.

True to form, the hero trained himself and prepared for what was to come. He entered into the arenas and with a veni, vidi, vici, won and walked away from the first two tasks, creating ripples throughout the school and the British wizarding population at large, to whom the Tournament was being broadcast live through the Wizarding Wireless Network.

Having gained the respect of his fellow competitors, he ended up going to the Yule Ball with them; the three boys having chosen to escort their only female companion together. A more obvious and sportsmanlike show of solidarity there could not have been, and indeed it was unprecedented in the history of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The old Headmaster Graybeard knew who culprit was, but could do nothing in the face of the clear approval from the other officials.

The last event, however, didn't end quite the way the hero had expected. Indeed, no plans could have been made for this, despite knowing that the entire Tournament was some kind of vast ritual created for the Dark Lord, in which he, Harry, was the primary and most important ingredient. Of course, he had to be tempered before use, hence the game rigmarole. And now, with the help of a cowardly rat, Harry's blood and a flawless potion, Lord Voldemort had achieved a successful resurrection. Along with distinctly serpentine features as well as a reptilian agility.

In the duel that followed, Harry was outmatched. Defeated. Killed.

In the span of but a few minutes, the hope of the Wizarding World was no more.

In Dumbledore's office, a number of priceless artefacts exploded, waking several sleeping portraits and making many more scream at the top of their painted lungs.

The bright light that was Harry Potter, rose from the churned, abraded and bloodied mud of the earth, and drifted towards the light at the end of the tunnel, it's only subconscious objective being to reach the conclusion of it's story.

And it was here, in the place between death and the beyond, that Harry Potter met the Lord of Death.

"Well met, Harry Potter. Do you fear Death?"