Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Parallel: Harry Potter ❯ No Rest for the Wicked ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Parallel: Harry Potter - No Rest for the Wicked

Author: Shadow Rebirth

Rating: T

Chapter WC: 2,102

Story WC: 2,102

First Written: July 31, 2008

Last Edited: November 15, 2008

Posted: November 15, 2008

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This work has not been endorsed by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Publishing, Warner Bros., or any of the others holding copyright or license to the Harry Potter books, movies, and products. No connection is implied or should be inferred. Other names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author receives no financial gain from its production or distribution.

 

Summary: The world had ended in flames. And then Lieutenant General Harry Potter, commander of the Magical Tactics Squad, woke up and found himself staring into the impossibly green eyes of a three year old Harry Potter. Time travel, no pairings.

 

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Parallel: Harry Potter

 

Chapter 1

No Rest for the Wicked

 

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Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

 

--Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

 

The world had ended in flames.

 

It had been a long time coming, if Harry was entirely honest with himself. The Voldemort shit he'd been involved with as a kid had only been the tip of the iceberg. Though it took a while for anyone to realize it, the absolute moron of a dark lord's attempts to take over the wizarding world had had an undesired effect: the muggle world had become aware of wizards. It was from there that things had gone to Hell.

 

It had started off slowly at first, mainly because many muggles had refused to believe that magic existed. Things would have been fine had everyone just let the matter lie, but then someone got their hands on some muggleborn wizards and everyone was given undeniable proof that wizards existed.

 

Like all humans, muggles feared what they could not understand. And they definitely couldn't understand magic. In only a few days time the entire muggle world managed to work itself up into a frenzy. They declared that wizards were evil and unnatural. They decided that wizards had been trying to take over the world. They ruled that wizards had to be stopped—had to be killed.

 

It was the witch hunts of the Dark Ages all over again, only this time worse. The masses were crying for blood and even though the governments of the world knew the truth about wizards, they were only too ready to give the people what they wanted, if only to avoid persecution themselves. Muggles began hunting and killing anyone even remotely suspicious. They became terrified, panicky, and were quick to cut down anyone in their path.

 

It didn't take too long after this for the wizarding world to realize what was happening. Before long the terror began to build in their society and everyone began to try to hide.
Unfortunately, terrified wizards are obvious wizards, and many, many people all over the world were caught.

 

Fortunately, not long after that the wizarding world managed to unite. People were angry and afraid and were just as ready to persecute muggles as muggles were ready to persecute them. Within a year the wizarding and muggle worlds were at war.

 

Before Harry had turned twenty five, all of the muggle British citizens had been evacuated. At first the magical government had thought that the muggles were been fleeing and they'd celebrated, sure of their victory. But then the muggles didn't something that no one had ever expected: They'd dropped nuclear bombs. And the wizards had found out in the worst way possible that while their shields and wards stopped muggles from finding them, it did nothing against fire and radiation.

 

Of course, the massive casualties only managed to anger the magical community further and soon witches and wizards were fighting back harder than ever. It had been a terrifying time to live, whether you were magical or non-magical. Magic made wizards powerful, technology made muggles powerful, and human emotions made both into killers.

 

It was an impasse that could only be resolved with death. And indeed, that's what had happened. Humans ended up destroying each other. In their terror, in their rage, they ended up tearing the world apart.

 

The world had ended in flames.

 

And then Lieutenant General Harry Potter, commander of the Magical Tactics Squad, woke up, staring at the door to the cupboard under the stairs.

 

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Harry was a sweet little three-year-old. He always did what he was told, he was always polite, and he always stared with wide green eyes that just begged for his cheeks to be pinched. Not that his relatives noticed. Harry didn't care though; he was too young to notice. Too young to be anything but curious about the world.

 

And so when in the middle of one night Harry suddenly woke up, he found himself curious. He didn't know why he'd woken up, but he knew, somewhere deep down inside, that it was important. The young child stared curiously at the door to his room—which was in fact a cupboard under the stairs—his green eyes shining. He reached out and gripped the golden handle and pushed the door open.

 

The young Harry's great surprise, there was a man standing outside his bedroom. It wasn't his uncle, or even one of the neighbors. It wasn't someone he'd ever met before. And yet, the man felt incredibly familiar, as if he'd known him his whole life.

 

As Harry stared up at the man curiously and the man stared back with a shocked expression. He had dark hair and emerald green eyes, just like Harry, but he wore no glasses. His face was marred with lines and scars that aged him beyond his years. One particularly ragged scar ran down the entire right side of his face, standing out in stark contrast with his tanned skin.

 

The man's clothes reminded Harry of a movie he'd seen his uncle watching recently. His clothing was all black and made of thick material. What looked like a modified version of a bulletproof vest was over his shirt and that was covered by a long jacket that almost swept the floor. On the jacket, over his left breast, was a strange crest made up of a staff and a rifle crossing beneath a roaring griffin. Above the crest were three silver stars.

 

Young Harry cocked his head to the side curiously, still studying the strange man. He couldn't help it then: He smiled.

 

This seemed to break whatever had been holding the shocked man in place. He took a single step back. Then another. Instead of bumping into the wall behind him however, the man began to go straight through the wall, as if he wasn't corporeal. This shocked the man much more than the sight of the young child and he stared with disbelief for a moment before suddenly turning and running.

 

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Harry Potter stared incredulously at the door to the cupboard under the stairs for several long moments. A quick glance around revealed that he was standing in the hallway in the Dursley's home.

 

But that wasn't possible.

 

Number Four Privet Drive had been destroyed with the rest of London during one of the first attacks on Great Britain nearly ten years ago. Harry had personally seen the wreckage of the home. There was no way that he could be here.

 

But then, there also wasn't a way for him to still be alive. Harry closed his eyes to fend off the painful memories. They'd lost. Not just the Magical World, but the entire world. Humans had lost to themselves. To their anger, to their fear, to their jealousy.

 

Harry's eyes snapped open when the door to the small cupboard suddenly creaked open. He tensed on the balls of his feet, ready for anything; ready to fight or flee. Or at least he'd thought he'd been ready for anything.

 

But nothing in the world, none of the horrors he'd been through, the atrocities he'd committed, could have prepared him for the sight of a pair of impossibly green eyes staring at him curiously from behind a pair of too-large glasses. Harry felt as though his breath had been frozen in his lungs. He couldn't breathe, didn't dare breathe, lest the apparition before him suddenly disappear.

 

Almost against his will, Harry felt his eyes sliding up towards where a pale lightning bolt scar was cut into the child's forehead. It was impossible. It was completely and utterly impossible.

 

And yet it was there.

 

The young boy—Harry Potter, his mind whispered treacherously—tilted his head to the side slightly, staring at him curiously. Then he did something Harry never would have expected: He smiled.

 

As though a petrification curse on Harry had been broken, he suddenly found himself taking a shaky step backwards. His mind was racing a million miles an hour, desperately trying to make sense of what was happening. He took a second step, but instead of meeting the wall of the hallway like he'd expected, his back met air. Surprise, Harry turned his head away to look at the wall—

 

—Never take your eyes off the enemy!

 

But he's just a child!

 

Harry flinches as a young muggle boy, enraged by the death of his parents, begins pounding on Harry's chest with his tiny fists. Tears of frustration and fear run down the child's face and he sobs, desperate, so desperate—

 

—Only to find that half his body is sticking out of the wall, as if it's not really there. Harry stared in disbelief for several long moments before the reality of the entire situation finally overwhelmed him. He did the only thing he could then: He turned and ran. Ran from the childhood home that shouldn't have been standing, ran from the smiling little boy, ran from what couldn't, shouldn't, be.

 

He ran and he ran until he couldn't take it anymore. He collapsed then, but it wasn't from exhaustion—Harry realized belatedly that his muscles weren't straining how they should have been, that his heart wasn't pumping, and that even if he held his breath for an eternity, he didn't need the air—but rather sheer emotional pain. He found himself shaking uncontrollably in the middle of a street, paying no attention to the cars—cars too old, he noticed; they looked nothing like the models he was used to—that passed straight through him as though he wasn't even there.

 

That was about the sum of it. It was like he wasn't there. It was as though it was he, a warrior riddled with memories no one should have, was the one who didn't belong there. London, intact and bustling with life, was all around him, untouched by the War. He was out of place in world that shouldn't be there.

 

Harry felt like screaming at the top of his lungs. This was wrong. So very, very wrong. Nothing was as it should be, everything was wrong.

 

But no matter what Harry did, no one paid any attention him. It really was like he wasn't there. Like he was just some silent observer. Angrily he swung at a passing car, but his fist passed straight through. He pounded at the ground, but it didn't hurt. Even though he was sitting on the solid ground, it still felt like he was hitting air.

 

Harry knew that he doubtlessly looked like a madman to any observers. But there were no observers. No one took any notice of him. No one could see him. He was like a ghost.

 

He didn't know how much time he spent meandering the streets like a pale wraith. He felt as though his mind had broken and yet he was still the same. He just watched with hollow eyes as people went about their daily lives. Normalcy was something he hadn't witnessed in a long, long time.

 

At one point Harry found himself drifting through Diagon Alley—miraculously untouched and filled with people who weren't used to the horrors of the War, who had never seen the Hunts or fought against technology that shouldn't have existed—but still no one took any note of him. That ruled out the ghost theory then; wizards should have been able to see him even if muggles couldn't. Even other ghosts couldn't see him, apparently.

 

Harry felt more alone than he ever had before. He was separate from everyone and everything.

 

Except for one little boy.

 

Eventually Harry found himself drifting back to Privet Drive. He paid no mind to his relatives, who, incredibly were alive just like everyone else—Dudley had smiled at him for the first time and wished him luck just before he'd left on Harry's eighteenth birthday, when the wards had come down. Harry had never heard from him again—but instead stayed with the young child.

 

Too used to lectures about magic not existing even at his age, the three year old never mentioned the man that followed him around like a grim shadow to his relatives. In return Harry never left the boy, the only connection to life that he had left. He was always there no matter what, hovering over his shoulder and whispering encouraging words into his ear. Harry, both young and old, never smiled, but he found himself feeling something that he hadn't in a long time: Contented.

 

And at night, when the Dursleys were tucked in theirs bed, Harry would hold the young boy tightly and tell him stories of another world.

 

"Once upon a time there was a magical school called Hogwarts..."

 

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A/N: Yes, I know, I'm only supposed to be working on Shades of Gray this month, but inspiration struck and I just couldn't help myself. This is an idea that I've been playing around with for a while now. I'd absolutely love to write a full out story with it, but at the time being I just don't have that time. Three epic-length stories are giving me enough to work on.

 

No Rest for the Wicked would basically be about an older war-scarred Harry acting as an unseen guardian for young Harry. By the time young Harry goes to Hogwarts he'd already know just about everything about the Magical World and would have been taught a lot of magical theory, among other things. As I said before, it's an idea I'd love to expound upon one day.

 

On that note, any of the ideas in this collection are open to be used by anyone. Please just accredit it and let me know when you post it, because I'd certainly be interested in reading the story.

 

--S.R.