Lily Potter knew that this day would come. With every passing winter, she felt that time was drawing near.
Lily found herself clutching her coat tightly around herself, hoping it wasn't too late to save him, in the shadow of the mound of earth, she desperately worked to complete the preparations before the last rays of light slipped beneath the horizon.
Blood dripped from her wrist, creating a small pentagram into loose earth around her. She was desperate, beyond reason and understanding.
She steadied herself, skin as pale as snow itself she desperately tried to resist the feeling of death that slowly crept under her skin, resting a small bundle onto the pentagram she readied herself.
"The blood tainted with rot, for the one destined to burn thy plague away." Lily sang, her voice choked and gasping for air.
"I offer the soul of one for another, I offer the many for one, I offer myself to stand in the Infernal court for one." The last few words were barely a whisper.
Hot, that's all she could describe it before a blood-curdling scream escaped from her mouth, and a deep sense of nothingness set in.
--𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊--
Mr. and Mrs Dursley considered themselves perfectly normal, with a steady income, a decently sized house with a son who acted like any other 9-year-old.
As Mr. and Mrs. Dursley settled into their evening routine of dinner and TV, they sat watching the news, and a strange report caught their attention. It was about unusual occurrences happening around their little town-reports of missing animals and stolen property all seemingly disappearing into thin air.
Mr. Dursley scoffed at the absurdity of it all, dismissing it as nothing more than sensationalism. But Mrs Dursley couldn't shake the feeling of unease that settled in the pit of her stomach.
Later that night, as they tucked their son Dudley into bed, Mrs Dursley couldn't stop thinking of the disappearances. It had taken some time but the family had come to the same conclusion.
"Do you think it was 𝐇𝐈𝐌?"
Mr Dudley just rolled his eyes and replied, "Bloody hell woman, of course, it has to be 𝐇𝐈𝐌!"
"The moment that thing ended up at our door, the thought of normality went through the fucking window."
But as Mrs. Dursley kissed her son goodnight and turned off the lights, she couldn't shake this unsettling feeling in the pits of her stomach that something would further shatter their illusion of normalcy forever.
As the night fell, a thin layer of darkness draped over the unkempt bed where Harry Potter lay. His hair, which was jet black, was wild and untamed, as if it had a life of its own, defying all laws of physics.
His eyes were a brilliant shade of green, so bright that they seemed to emit a faint glow in the dimly lit room. However, his skin was almost deathly pale, a result of the harsh living conditions he had endured for quite some time.
Despite his youthful appearance, his complexion betrayed the hardships he had faced, making him look older than he was.
'Why?' Harry asked himself this for years now, why was he so different? Many would believe this was an innocent question most children would've asked, but for Harry, it meant something more.
As Harry lay in bed, the darkness of the night enveloped him like a heavy cloak, his mind drifted to the question that haunted him relentlessly: Why was he so different?
With each passing day, it seemed the weight of his differences grew heavier, pressing down on him like a burden too heavy to bear.
He couldn't escape the feeling of isolation, of being utterly alone in a world that he could never fully belong to.
But it wasn't just his unusual appearance that set him apart. It was the memories that lingered just beneath the surface-memories of loss, of pain, a deep longing for more.
No matter how hard he tried to bury them, they clawed their way back to the surface, a relentless reminder of another difference between him and the other children.
And then there were the whispers, the rumors that followed him wherever he was at school. The whispers of "Weirdo", "Freak" the single notion that it had been his birth that caused the death of his parents.
As he lay there in the darkness, Harry couldn't help but wonder if he was doomed to be different forever. No matter how hard he tried, he would always be an outsider looking in, a solitary figure lost in a sea of faces.
The darkness that he so desperately tried to ignore threatened to consume him 'But would it be so wrong?' he wondered, Harry was never that afraid of the dark, unlike most he tended to glide towards it like a moth to light, he shed a single tear as the sweet embrace of sleep finally caught him in its forgiving arms.