Disclaimer: As with every other writer on I am a mere cheap rip-off from the real thing. (Not that I'm trying to put anyone down.) I am using characters and places created by JK Rowling. No money has passed hands (I can only wish) and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Alternative Universe. Harry, stolen away by house-elves from the disaster at Godric's Hollow, grows up away from the world. What exactly will he become, raised by eccentric elves? What will the world say to the return of The-Boy-Who-Death-Mourned?

The Latens Child

• eQuasarus •

Chapter 01

• Prologue •

It was a remarkably clear night, which seemed to irritate a huge black dog that was sitting at the end of an empty street. In the distance, a fire lit up the moonless sky. Pausing for a second, the dog wheezed a tired breath and then, with a surge of energy beyond what it seemed to have, bound forward toward the source of the light.

The dog entered a walled estate through a set of gates, using his nose to push them far enough to the side to slip through. After a brief search, he came upon the charred remains of a house and paused again, this time quivering as if he were cold.

When he started forward the second time, his steps were slow and loose, his breathing ragged. His dark wet nose dropped to the ground and sniffed, moving around along the ground until it came to rest on a pile of rubble. With renewed vigor, the dog ripped and clawed at the ground until several of the larger pieces of rubble were pulled aside. Something barely recognizable as a human body lay underneath, burned far beyond any visual recognition. Next to the body lay a pair of glasses, as black as the dog, smashed beyond any repair.

There was a moment where everything seemed to freeze; no breath escaped the dogs mouth, no lazy wind blew past as it had been for most of the evening. The moment passed, and as it always does, time continued. The dog whined lovingly, prodding the charred body with his muzzle almost hopefully, as if dogs could express such emotions.

Still, no movement came. The dog renewed his search, only to expose a second charred carcass, burned even worse than the first. Nearby clumps of charred red hair were the only way to identify the second body.

The dog stood once more, now looking more like a shadow than a live creature. He dropped his nose one last time and moved through the house for several minutes, quietly sniffing the ground. Eventually, he returned to a spot near the woman where it looked as though rubble had been moved before he'd arrived. The huge canine sniffed for a full minute, going in circles, until finally he sat on his back haunches and howled into the night air.

The howl, long and mournful, was heard for miles around; people later claimed to have heard it echoed hundreds of miles away.

One man, slumbering semi-peacefully until that moment, woke with a start. After taking a moment to put on his half-moon spectacles, he looked around the room, then breathed an intense sigh as tears slipped from his eyes. The howl echoed through his head and heart, an agonizing memorial to someone dear, forever lost.

The same phenomenon happened time and time again, as if a despondent wind was passing on the grief of the dark beast.

When the howls finally stopped, the dog was gone, and once more the night was calm and still.

Updated 08.17.04