The Time Game

the gift

Thunder clapped overhead. There had been torrential downpour on and off for the past two weeks, even though it was end of july. There were floods in some parts of the country. The government was getting quite anxious as to the sudden climate change; the weathermen were baffled as to the reason for this, and the BBC were being bombarded with calls from angry citizens who had been leaving the safety and security of their homes for the foretold sunshine, only to be met with heavy downpour. Amidst all this chaos there was one teenage boy lying lethargically on his bed in the smallest bedroom of number four Privet Drive who hadn't noticed; in fact, this boy had barely noticed anything for just over a month. The thunder and heavy raindrops splattering on his window were nothing more than meaningless, irrational noise, after the loss of his godfather, Sirius Black.

Harry Potter was an orphan, his parents murdered when he was only a year old, by the most evil wizard to emerge in over a century, Lord Voldemort, leaving him with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead when the curse that had killed thousands of fully grown witches and wizards had backfired on its originator. The only reason he had survived was because his mother had sacrificed her life for him, thereby sealing an ancient spell. This scar was what he was famous for in the wizarding world. This scar had burdened him with a life of worry and unhappiness. It was this scar that made him marked man, a human target, and although he hadn't known what it meant until a couple of weeks ago, he knew that he was going to be targeted by Lord Voldemort ever since his first year at Hogwarts.

He'd just finished his fifth year ― and he wished the end of the year had never arrived, he wished he had learned Occlumency properly or been smart enough to realise that Snape could not have spoken more clearly in front of that cruel hag they called a teacher, Umbridge; he should have recognised the glance Snape had given him as one of assurance that his message had been understood, and he should have come back to find out after they had led Umbridge into the forest. Maybe then, just maybe, Sirius would still be alive, maybe Harry would be with Sirius right now, maybe he wouldn't be here, jealous of the Dursleys, of all people going about their daily lives as a family. He wasn't included in their nice normal family , but it would have been nice to have a family he could call his own, and he had killed the last chance he had had at getting that.

Professor Dumbledore had eventually come clean with him, telling him that he had been prophesised to be the one with the power to kill Voldemort, he was destined to kill or be killed by Lord Voldemort. Oh, how he hated the word destiny. Did he not have a choice? Could he not have his own life, where no one dictated what he was to do? Or who he saw or met? Where he went? His entire life seemed to have been controlled by one person or another, and at the very top of this control hierarchy lay Dumbledore and Voldemort. All his misfortunes seemed to lead back to one or the other ― intentional or not was a different matter, but the result was the same.

Voldemort was officially back now. Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, who had adamantly denied his return for the past year and sought to discredit both Harry and Dumbledore, had been forced to admit that he was back after the fiasco at the ministry. The

Daily Prophet had done a complete one-eighty and portrayed Harry as a tragic hero who was "the lone voice of truth, forced to bear ridicule and slander." Never mind the ridicule and slandering was done by them. The articles portraying Harry as a stupid, attention-seeking teenager who wanted to stay in the limelight had bothered him last year, but now they seemed like a petty thing to have been worrying about, a mere nuisance that he could have done without because they caused no real harm.

He wished that he didn't have to worry about such morbid things, and that the reality of war hadn't really hit home and had affected his godfather in the worst possible way; and to top it all off he had the prophecy to worry about; the prophecy that was the cause of his parents' death and now Sirius'.