Salchows and Serendipity (Harry Potter/Winter Olympics Xover)

1. Prologue

Harry was just twenty years old when he realised his life was anything but what he wanted it to be. His fame made it hard to go out and he had retreated to the life of a virtual hermit. He'd broken up with Ginny, because their every move seemed to be printed in the Prophet and it had put such a pressure on the relationship that it hadn't been able to last.

For a while there, stuck in his little flat, he had considered simply ending it all and letting the world go on without Harry James Potter, but he hadn't quite been able to bring himself to do it. It would have devastated his friends and surrogate family and he couldn't do that, not even when he found their love as stifling as the rest of the Wizarding world. Everyone saw the saviour, they did not see him and he could not cope with it anymore.

That was why he had decided to take drastic measures. Harry Potter was not going to die, but he was going to disappear, possibly for a long time. His childhood had been taken from him and Harry had heard of something that might be able to give it back. It was not legal and could possibly kill him, but given the alternatives he was willing to take the risk.

He had arranged all his finances and created a whole new identity ready to step into, which just left the spell ritual itself. It was part potion, part spell and part will. He was sitting, naked in a cast circle in his living room, a piece of parchment in one hand and a small bottle in the other. It was time to say goodbye to Harry Potter.

Lifting the parchment, he read the words over one more time; they were not English, and they were not Latin, but he had learned them phonetically and he knew he could read it perfectly. The parchment was more of a security blanket than really necessary. Taking a deep breath, he spoke the first three words and felt the circle take up his magic.

Looking at the bottle he knew this was it, once he drank it there was no turning back and, feeling little more than a fraction of a second's regret, he downed it in one. It burned his throat and tasted foul, but he could feel it beginning to work instantly. The magic seeped into his cells and he spoke the last four words of the spell before his voice was taken away.

His whole body froze, and he focused his mind on his eleven-year-old self. He knew how he wanted to be, and he had to keep it right there at the front of his thoughts. For a moment it was as if his life had simply stopped, maybe it had, but then it was as if he was being crushed by an enormous force. It was as if a black hole had opened at the centre of his body and was sucking the rest of him in and he choked out a cry.

He had never felt anything so excruciating and he couldn't breathe. He could feel himself shrinking and changing and all he could do was force his mind onto the image of himself the day before he ever heard of Hogwarts. In the end everything went black and with consciousness went Harry Potter.