I think it goes without saying, but I'll just write a token note here to be applied to every chapter of this story. Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and any original characters, plot themes, etc. from the Harry Potter series do NOT belong to me, but to J.K. Rowling. There. Now you know.
To Dance Alone
Prologue
There was a time when I had hope for myself, but my life is different now. I'm a different person. Changed. Now the life of a soldier is all that I know. It consumed my soul, everything that together makes up who I am. They trained me for the destiny that has been meant for me since some mad old bat prophesized it nearly seventeen years ago. The message she channeled was fairly simple in content: kill or be killed. It was a task rather more complicated than her message suggests.
At the tender age of eleven they had already begun shaping me, their weapon. Early life with an uncaring relation and her incredibly self-absorbed family hardened me against the verbal abuse and hunger they doled out in such liberal portions, and made me accustomed to taking orders without question – and there was the very first rule of living with the Dursleys:
Don't.
Ask.
Questions.
Was it part of their plan to mold me? Perhaps. Either way, their work was half done when I received my letter. Curly green script in an elegant hand, set down on thick parchment. Harry Potter, the name familiar to an entire world, for reasons known to just about everyone within that world – except for me.
Once my guardians had been convinced, it was no great task to have me enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I arrived to find that my name was whispered in the corridors as I passed, teachers let missteps slide, and awed classmates gave me preference – and that wouldn't do at all.
So after a dramatically eventful year, in which my newfound friends and I faced grave danger, only escaping unharmed by some miracle, I was offered what sounded like the perfect opportunity. By that time I had fallen in love with magic – I felt as if I'd found my calling, even as young as I was. The chance to receive one-on-one training seemed both romantic and exciting, to my young and inexperienced mind. And maybe romantic wasn't so far off, although it was never the warm and fuzzy, happily-ever-after kind. No, it was more of a tragic, lonely sort of romance, rather like that of the man who lives in solitude up on the mountaintop, pining for his lost sweetheart, determined never to love another. Yes, that sort.
And maybe I'm growing altogether too soft in my analogy.
In any case, I took the opportunity, ignoring feeble complaints issued by the respected and revered headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin First Class, and so on and so forth. I have since come to realize that his protests were for the most part a show – he wanted me to go with the Auror as much as I did, and it fit into his plan perfectly. Dumbledore was not devious or underhanded, nor was he maliciously manipulative, but he would and did use me for his own purposes in order to serve the wizarding world. Being a naturally self-sacrificial person, I can accept the hand that he dealt me, in the name of the lesser evil, but I suppose there will always be a part of me that remains a little boy, undernourished and unhappy, that blames him for it.
At the time, though, I was fond of the old man, and his words carried weight with me – they still do, but I am wiser now. Despite my respect for him, I went, vowing to protect my friends by isolating them, distancing them from me so they could not be hurt by the association. Upon viewing the focused hatred in the Dark Lord's eyes, I had known that he would never hesitate to use any leverage against me, and he would never, ever stop hunting me. Strange, isn't it, the intuition children can pick up?
So I left them. It hurt to say goodbye to them, to lie to them, my first real friends, knowing that I might never see them again. Knowing that two and a half months later they would return to Hogwarts and they would not understand why I was no longer there.
I was trained by none other than the most prestigious Auror in all of Britain – one Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody. I endured a rigorous level of training that men twice my age would have balked at. In some ways, my age was a boon: I had very little to unlearn; my mind and my body were malleable. I was taught with strictest military discipline, but where I had already been conditioned only to take orders, now I was also being instructed in how to give them.
And when it was time to relinquish the classroom and move into the field, I excelled there as well. I was not perfect by any means, and my teacher could still outfight and outthink me two times out of three, but by that time I had set my sights on becoming the best. I thought, with the arrogance of youth, that I was invincible.
I wasn't. At fourteen I was captured, and though I was swiftly recovered, it was not soon enough to prevent the second rise of he who called himself Lord Voldemort through a ritual performed using my blood. The scars from that encounter, those both visible and unseen, linger still.
And so the Second War began. Quietly at first, but then growing more violent and extensive as the wizarding world realized the danger it was in.
My tutor died a year into the war, saving my life. Grief was something I had been browbeaten into ignoring, and so I did not waste time on it. My training was complete, and I was ready to be set loose on the world.
I was sucked into the conflict not only within my own country, but also in nations across the Continent, and beyond. France, Italy, and Bulgaria, as well as Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Russia, India, and much of the Middle East became involved. Even America joined the fighting. But the final battle was considerably smaller than the others, and was fought with considerably greater intensity. It was one fight that I relished, though, because I knew that it would be the turning point, and that one way or another, I would have fulfilled that destiny that I cursed so well. Dead or alive, I would be free.
ATTENTION ALL READERS!
I would like to give you
ALL
a chance to
CONTRIBUTE to this story. If, as I go, you think of something that YOU would like to see in the story – a
SCENE, a
PHRASE, an
ARGUMENT – please, let me know. I can think of a plethora of things I could do with this story (although you'll get the shape of it more in the next installment) but I want to hear
WHAT YOU WANT TO READ. I can't
GUARANTEE that I will be able to include your suggestion, but I'll do my best.
Thank you in advance for your help with this!
Ribhinn Maraiche
formerly known as
Shpadana Zizais