Prologue

It was dark and snowing lightly when Professor Albus Dumbledore walked into the Hog's Head pub. That day had been among the worst in his life and his face showed it. The normal sparkle in his eyes were gone and his frown gave him an appearance of a storm cloud entering the pub. The pub was nearly empty and had its usual smell of goats. The only other person besides Albus in the pub was its owner, Albus' brother Aberforth.

"I take it from how you look, something terrible has happened?" Aberforth said from behind the counter.

"Indeed," Albus grumbled as he sat down on a stool.

"What exactly happened to cause you to come here and talk to me?" Aberforth said in slightly sarcastic tone.

"You were right. As usual," Albus replied as he tried not to give into his feelings of knowing he was wrong and that someone he cared about may have payed the ultimate price for it.

"That's good to know. I don't know why you invited me to Order of the Phoenix meetings if you don't bother to listen to me more then half the time..." Aberforth said even more sarcastic. "So what is your latest blunder?"

"Harry's aunt and uncle tried to murder him," Albus said mumbled feeling guilty about what happened to son of two of his late former students and friends' son who he though of as his grandson despite being distantly related to each other.

Aberforth looked a little shocked.

"Lily's sister tried to kill Harry Potter?" Aberforth said in disbelief.

"Well, she more or less encouraged it from what I was told. It was his uncle Vernon that was the one caught in the act. Harry's cousin was the one who told the muggle police about Petunia..." Albus replied solemnly before a tear rolled down his cheek.

"I never envisioned that happening so you can't say I was right. And so would everyone else who objected to your decision to leave Harry with his closest living relatives. The worst I imagined was him getting abused for being a wizard but I would never have thought they would use dangerously excessive force." Aberforth replied shaking his head.

"Yet you said that blood wards would not be able to protect him from harm caused by those who he was closely related to either by blood or magic just days after my decision. I've know that for years and ignored the fact the Dursleys hated magic and now Harry is in an unknown Muggle Hospital not expected to survive..." Albus said before more tears came.

"You mean to say that you don't know where Harry is? You said you placed a tracking charm on him..." Aberforth said very concerned.

"The charm won't work now. It was keyed to the wards, when they collapsed when Harry decided to call the police just before the beating we lost the ability to locate him... He told the person on the other end of the telephone he was scared and didn't want to die..." Albus replied, now finding it impossible to hold back.

"What about the small magic shock waves underage witches and wizards emit? Since no two children emit the same type of wave, the Ministry used them to locate missing children."

"I masked them."

"So that if Harry was to leave the area around his home, no one would be able to locate him. That I agree was a wise decision on your part considering the number of Death Eaters still on the loose at the time and how long it took to round them all up. And even then, some pleaded imperi curse and got away with everything they ever did," Aberforth replied trying to reassure his older brother.

"But now we can't find Harry at all and its all my fault! It doesn't matter if Harry lives or not but if word of this gets out, it will be all out war between wizards and muggles! And I caused it!"

"Calm down. Its not the end of the world. I doubt people would believe the famous 'Boy-Who-Lived' could be beaten up by muggles. If you fear if this could lead to war, make Muggle Studies a required course for all wizard raised students attending Hogwarts. You always said peace can be kept through understanding."

"Maybe I should. But doesn't right the wrongs I've made! This will be twice I've set forward a chain of events that lead to someone I care about being killed because of my lack of judgment!"

"I know. But Harry isn't dead. I know how Muggle medicine and treatments can be so unreliable and barbaric but he may survive. He survived the impossible once. We can only hope he does again."

Chapter End Notes:

There's the beginning of the story. I've had the idea of Harry having a brother that's similar to a character introduced in chapter 1 in my head for a while. It didn't start to take the form it is now until after I started reading "Mirror Image". If you read my collection of story ideas and drafts, you'll see what I mean. Only now am I writing it down. I'm still working on "Snape's Second Chance", "The Chosen One", and the "Best of Intentions". Before you ask, I've talked with the author of "Mirror Image" before posting this here. Both of our stories, while having a similar premise (Voldemort accidently making another horcrux he was unaware of), are taking different different directions. You'll see what I mean soon enough.

Updates maybe a little slow. Anyways, reviews please!

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