Harry Potter and the Path to Nowhere

Chapter 1: A Little Nightmare

In a cupboard under the stairs lies a boy. Dirty, grimy, and far too small, he shivered beneath his thin, holey blanket. It wasn't so bad during the summer months, where the heat stuck to you like a fly on filth. The thinness of the blanket was favorable during those times.

But those times had long passed. It was now deep into fall with winter close enough you could shake its hand. Perhaps he would soon freeze to death, the thought more pleasant than it had any right to be. At least then he might not suffer so much, even if he was carted forth into hell.

A shiver ran through his bony, corpse-like body. He could feel a drowsiness come over him, luring him into the land of dreams. Once upon a time, sleep would offer a refuge to his thoughts and the burdens of his life, one he would gladly seek out. However, recently, his dreams have changed. If one could even call them such.

About a month ago he had visited a castle. Nothing strange about that, at least not at first. Looking at it from the outside, it became apparent, rather quickly, that there was something not quite right about the architecture. It leaned in far too many directions for one, and bulged like a bloated, tumorous whale for another.

A moat protected it from intruders, nearly a hundred feet below, with water so black it may as well have been oil. If he looked hard enough, he could see wiggling underneath the surface. Like a million worms dancing to a tune he couldn't hear.

The air was dank and musty, like an old basement, and carried with it a chill. It was unlike the cold from his cupboard, as the feeling didn't come from the temperature. More like the temperature came from the feeling. It was something else, something that he couldn't explain, coming from a sense he didn't know existed until this very moment.

There was no way to enter the castle, save for an old, rickety rope bridge, covered in moss and vines, and all manner of muck. The boy decided to cross, almost feeling compelled to do so. Like being peer pressured by people who you know don't care about you, but still you obey them in the hope of acceptance.

Although, who he was hoping to be accepted by, he didn't know. He only knew he should cross, and that was that.

He took a step on the bridge, clinging to the stiff, coarse ropes with a desperate need, the muck on the wooden planks somehow both slippery and sticky. The bridge swayed in the gentle breeze as step by step he crossed, trying to ignore the wet squelching sounds he made with every footfall.

He wished now more than ever he was allowed shoes. The feeling of the black sludge, whatever it was, on his bare feet was most uncomfortable.

As he neared the center of the bridge, the wind took that moment to attack, almost like it was waiting in ambush. A fierce gale swept in from the north, and the gently swaying bridge became a tumultuous deathtrap. The boy clung to the rough, worn rope desperately, his hands burning from the effort.

After a few moments that seemed like hours, the wind died down, returning to its previous calm nature. The boy sighed in relief as he fell to his knees. That was too close.

However, nothing is ever so easy.

His ears twitched as a peculiar sound reached them. Like tearing, or perhaps ripping. Turning his head his eyes widened in horror. The ropes holding the bridge together began to unravel, becoming thinner and thinner with each passing second.

Was that why the wind stopped? Because it no longer needed to try and knock him into the murky depths below? Or was that what it was trying for the whole time? Destroy his only means of crossing safely?

There was no time to ponder these things, he had only precious few seconds before the bridge collapsed in its entirety. Ignoring the sludge beneath him, he sprinted across the bridge.