Warning: Torture, murder, and coarse language in flashback scenes

HAYDN JAMES POTTER
b. 31/07/1996

(2nd child of James F. Potter and Lillian D. Potter née Evans)
*By express notice of Rhys Harri Evans, maternal grandfather,
this page's first name must not be spoken out loud for fear of
summoning grieving wraiths.
 Conduct all personal, professional, and business matters with the
benign 'Harri' or 'Harry'.

— from Magic and Love, Ch 15.

Lily and James Potter renamed their son Harry, in the hope that he'd have a softer destiny.
They were only delaying the inevitable.

Eleven years ago, Sally, Harry, and Percy were murdered in No. 3, Privet Drive. Halloween midnight of 2001 was the changing point when all three woke up with the Patron's blessing.

Sally awoke miles away on the top of a remote hill. She rose with the dawn, shivering and severely confused. A celestial bronze bracelet was clamped onto her upper left arm. An odd thing because she was mortal and could not be detected by enhanced metals.

Except she suddenly was. And she could not remember a thing from that night.

Percy awoke underwater. He blinked up to watch a raging river rush all around him. Freshwater had never been so welcoming before. The world was new and beautiful to his regenerated body. He watched his fingers twitch as skin grew over it. His bones were sensitive and he could hear the cricks in all his joints. His jaw felt stretched. Percy recalled running his tongue over his new teeth, counting several more than he'd expected.

But he could not remember a thing from that night.

Harry remembered.

He didn't want to.

Five-year-old Harry Potter remembered it all.

On midnight of Halloween, Percy had woken him up, thirsty. Harry had told him to get a glass of water himself. He wandered down to the kitchen, while Harry was distracted by an unusual noise from the neighbouring bedroom.

Curiosity overwhelmed his sleep and little Harry stuck his thumb into his mouth and toddled into Sally's room.

She was dead.

She was on the floor, with a pool of blood dripping from her skull that was split open. Harry stared at the cracked bone underneath her matted hair. He didn't understand.

"Ye be the bitch's runt?" a gruff voice spoke from the shadows.

Harry gawked at the several men that appeared, almost by magic. Or maybe he just hadn't seen them?

"Which one did he say?" another man asked.

"Dunno. Orders just said to get rid of them. Leave a warning for anyone 'oo comes looking."

Harry throat closed up. His teeth clamped around his thumb and the pain jerked him out of his petrified stance. He stumbled back, pulling his aching thumb out of his mouth.

"She bit me," a third man whined. "I get him."

"Quit yer whining!" the first man growled. He was bald with bushy grey eyebrows. "Just take 'em to the cellar."

The third man grinned but Harry didn't understand the humour. Nothing was funny. Mum was lying on the ground, really really hurt and she wasn't moving at all. Strange men had come into the house, and were saying bad words that Harry had only ever heard from Smelly Gabe.

The man approached Harry and swiped him off his feet. He gasped and twisted away from the rough hold the man had on him. The others stepped over Sally.

"Mum!" Harry cried but a huge hand came down and slapped him so hard his entire head whipped to the side.

Something cracked in his jaw and white hot pain burst from the side of his mouth. An invisible force jammed his mouth, crushing both jaws into each other and Harry screamed, but the sound was muffled through the clamped mouth.

"Mac, Benning," the leader ordered. "Head over to no. 4 to get the kid."

"They have two."

"Get both," the first man said, exasperated.

Two walked ahead of the man carrying Harry. The group trouped down the stairs.

Agony grew. The world spun in and out of Harry's vision.

He was brought to the basement, whimpering through a broken jaw. He could hardly move it, but tried to wrench it open because the screams inside his throat had to get out! Nothing had ever hurt him like this. The pain was electrifying and indescribable, changing the child's tolerance forever. He wanted the pain to stop!

A flash of accidental magic burst from his hands and the man holding Harry dropped him with a startled curse.

The man gasped like he was burned. Harry scrambled up the stairs, trying to reach the living room.

He saw Percy gazing down at him in horror.

"... et … 'elp," Harry tried to say through the mounting agony and tears blinding him.

But the two men who'd been sent to the Dursleys never made it to the door. They spotted Percy, clutching a glass of freezing water.

"Another one!" the short one sighed and plucked him off the floor.

Percy shrieked and kicked him promptly in the stomach. The man grunted before his face twisted into rage.

Harry's shriek was once again caught in his lungs as he watched them throw Percy down the stairs.

Percy hit the cold ground, his hands breaking upon contact. The boy cried.

Harry turned back up just in time to see a heavy boot swinging his way. The steel toed boot caught him in the face.

He must have been kicked down the stairs, back into the basement. He wasn't sure.

The world burned.

Blood filled his eyes, replacing the tears at some point.

He was pushed into an old broken tub in the basement, filled with stagnated water. Maybe to quench the fire threatening to engulf him.

Harry Potter died for the first time in that basement. Drowned because someone had ordered strangers to murder a small family in mundane Privet Drive.

He died, clutching onto life, bleeding and screaming underwater.

He didn't know one of the oldest goddesses of the universe would bestow immortality.

All he knew was Sally, the woman who loved him like a mother, was killed by those same hands. All he saw was Percy beaten to death by those red hands.

Harry died, leaving behind a vengeful ghost, as many murdered magical children are wont to do.

Haydn was the manifestation of his rage and id, of his promised vengeance, his undead wraith that was bound to the house he was murdered in.

Nobody expected Harry to wake up. Least of all Haydn.

But the boy did and he made the choice to lock the wraith in the basement using the bloodwards from the Dursley house: an unconscious but powerful feat. Harry was five and newly awakened, knowing that should this strange, undead imitation of him were to find freedom, it would wreak bloody havoc.

Haydn was the grieving, vengeful wraith that his grandfather had feared many years ago. Harry locked him up, swearing to never reveal him to the world, for this spirit was the ultimate proof that Harry Potter was immortal.

Until December 2012, it worked.

And then Percy had to revisit the house thanks to the Spirit of Delphi.

One of the few similarities between Harry and Haydn? They both loved Percy. But only one of them forgave him for abandoning them.

"You won't leave me," Haydn whispered now, his thin corpse arms tightening around Percy's warm, stiff neck.

Percy couldn't breathe. He couldn't control himself. His power threatened to explode out of him, the terrifying blue light burning his veins and making him glow otherworldly.

Haydn's memories (Harry's memories!) had bled into his mind. Percy knew the truth.

The blue power emerged from his gut, raging into his heart and limbs. Percy was going to explode. He was so close to… breaking everything. To burning everything…

His eyes glowed bright blue.

Sally Jackson named her son Perseus, in the hope that he'd have a happier destiny.
She was only delaying the inevitable.