Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything that comes with it. This is not meant to make money, only for entertainment. This disclaimer goes for the entire story, so I won't repeat it after this initial chapter.
Well then. I'd have to say that this is my first HP fic. I intended to make it part of my Avatar of Chaos, but I found that it focused to much on Harry Potter and not enough on Ranma, so I made it a separate fic. I have no idea how long this will become, but knowing myself, if I want to finish it, I can't make it too long. I'm great with initial ideas, but I suck in follow-up. It's not that I mean it like that, it's just that after the first couple of chapters, I come across a piece in the story that I didn't calculate in and I have no idea how to write. I try to fill those gaps, but it doesn't always work. Ah well, who knows, maybe this'll be my first ever completed fic.
A warning for anyone who intends to read this. There will be deaths in this fic as well as violence, both verbal as physical. Relationships, I have no idea about. If any, they'll be superficial at best. I'm not much on the emotional writing. Well, positive emotions that is. BTW, this'll be a crossover. I'm not saying with what though.
This fic starts at the end of year 5, right after Harry's finished saying goodbye to his friends. So much for introductions, lets get this rolling.
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A Different Path
Chapter 1
It seemed to Harry that getting his relatives threatened by Moody had it's merits. Uncle Vernon even went so far as to haul his trunk in the back of the car. Dudley didn't dare say a word to Harry, lest something bad would happen to him. And Aunt Petunia smiled. Or rather, she tried to. It was one of those forced smiles that didn't even reach her shoes, much less her eyes and weren't likely to fool anyone. Still, she kept silent, so Harry supposed that that was something at least. Hedwig didn't like the car, so Harry decided to let her fly home. She liked that so much more anyway.
"See you it a little while, Hedwig." He said as the snowy owl got out of the cage. Said snowy owl turned to Harry and nipped his finger affectionately before spreading her wings and taking off.
"Alright, boy, get in the car so we can go home." Uncle Vernon said in a forced calm voice. Harry silently got in the car and waited for everyone else to get in so they could leave. Uncle Vernon even put on the radio, something he never did otherwise. With one last look from Harry at the train station, they were underway.
Nobody said anything, so the only sound that was heard was the radio playing and the quiet sounds of cars driving around them. That was fine with Harry. He didn't think he could've handled a round of accusations and name calling. He was still grieving for Sirius. The prophecy also took up a big portion of his thoughts. Which brought his thoughts back to Dumbledore and Snape. And his anger with both of them. Anger aimed at Dumbledore for hiding the reason for his need to learn Occlumency and at Snape for being a worthless teacher at it, just as he was with potions. After a little while, the rhythmical sound of the radio and the swaying of the car made Harry sleepy, so he closed his eyes and dozed off. When the other occupants of the car noticed this, tension drained away. The Dursleys never liked magic. More likely that they hated it with a passion. Maybe not Dudley, he just liked to bully his freaky cousin. But the elder Dursleys hated it. Thought it was abnormal. An aberration. Still, they couldn't do anything against it. However, soon the boy would be of age in his world, and then they wouldn't need to see him ever again. They couldn't know that their wish would be fulfilled much sooner.
The way home was a rather long one. After some time, Dudley had nodded off as well and Petunia wasn't far behind. Vernon was still awake, but the tediousness of the trip was getting to him. Coupled with the fact that he was replaying the meeting with the freaky-eyed weirdo in his mind, made it so that he wasn't really paying attention to the road. Had he done so, events might have run a completely different course, but alas, they ran as they did.
Coming from the opposite direction was a gasoline truck. It's driver had taken over a shift from a friend who had fallen ill at the last moment. Having made a run just before that himself, and with no other drivers that could take over in a pinch, this meant that the man had not slept in over 38 hours. He too was falling victim to the tediousness of the boring road he was driving. He could hardly keep his eyes open. He knew there was a gas station not far from where he was though, so he promised himself he'd stop there and take a short nap. Then, with some coffee, he'd be good enough to continue driving.
A slow curve was coming up and Vernon began his turn. Something in the river on his left side momentarily caught his attention however. And it the few seconds that he took his eyes off the road to see what had caught his attention, he didn't see the truck, whose driver had fallen asleep despite his best effort to remain awake, barreling right at him. When he finally did notice, it was far too late to do anything.
The truck clipped the car and both vehicles continued in the direction of the river. The car was spinning head over heels in the general direction of it while the truck headed straight for one of the trees that stood next to the river. With a mighty crash, truck met tree and the cockpit of the truck was folded inwards as if it were made of tin foil. The tree itself was uprooted, and lifted the truck in the air, causing it to fall over on it's side, cracking the tank containing thousands of liters gasoline. It stopped before falling into the river itself, leaving a trail of gasoline behind and leaking more of the stuff by the second.
The Dursleys car came to a stop a little distance away from the truck. It was on it's roof. In it, the occupants were in a bad condition. Petunia had hit her head very hard in the initial collision and was now bleeding profusely from the wound. She wasn't moving and was getting pale from the blood loss. Vernon's face was littered with lacerations from his side window that had shattered from all the tumbling the car had done. One of his arms was broken and bent at an extreme angle. He too was unconscious. Dudley was, more or less, unharmed. He was in the back of the car and he'd worn his seatbelt, though it had been stretched to its limits to contain the whale-like body size. He was a bit banged up, but other than some scrapes and bruises, he was fine. Harry however, wasn't.
Much like his uncle, he'd been pelted by glass. Problem was, some yahoo had banged against that door about a week before they went to pick up Harry. Being the man that he was, Vernon had a new door installed instead of repairing the damage done to the old one. However, the glass from that door was a different kind than the rest of the glass in the car. It wasn't shatterproof. It was normal glass, if somewhat re enforced. Not that the shatter proofing did the other glass in the car much good, seeing as it was shredded to pieces. Still, the individual small pieces of glass were kept together because of the proofing. But in Harry's case, the window just broke. In both large and small pieces. And one of these large pieces had pierced his right shoulder. Luckily, if one could call it that, the shard had not penetrated the chest area, so he didn't have internal wounds Also, major arteries had not been hit, so the bleeding was less than it could have been. Unluckily, the shard was big enough to nearly amputate the arm. As it was, the only thing still connecting the arm to the shoulder was skin, tendons and muscle. The re enforced glass had cut straight through the bone.
We might never know why or how, but Harry was conscious. Through the agonizing pain in his shoulder and loss of most of the feeling in the arm below, he managed to get out of the car, acquiring a new collection of scrapes from the glass that was spread out through the car. Holding his right arm tightly to him, he stumbled away from the car. His vision swam and his stomach was seriously threatening to dump its content on the ground, but holding still for a few moments calmed his stomach a bit. He fell to his knees and lifted his head so he could assess the situation. He saw the car upside down. He saw the truck a bit farther away. He also saw the flames that began to form around that truck. A truck that happened to be a gasoline truck.
'Shit.'
That was the only thought that had time to form before the truck exploded and engulfed everything in a radius of 100m in flame.
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Hermione Granger was glad to be home. True, she loved Hogwarts, but she still loved being home with her parents. She had just had dinner with her parents and was now relaxing in the couch while her parents were doing the dishes. If you can call filling the dishwasher doing dishes... Still, it felt nice being home. She looked at the clock and saw that it was time for the news, so she got up and turned to TV on to the local news station.
'... and with that, the Mayor hopes to increase the number of jobs in the construction sector.
In other news, earlier today just outside of Little Whinging, a tragic accident occurred. A car, recently found to be belonging to one Vernon Dursley was hit by a gasoline truck. Both vehicles got off the road and nearly ended up in the river. Investigators are still trying to determine how the accident occurred, but what is certain so far, is that none of the people involved in the accident survived the crash and the following explosion. The gasoline truck exploded and destroyed everything around it for at least 120 meters in every direction. An investigation has been started ...'
Hermione was in tears by this news. This couldn't be happening. She had only said goodbye to Harry just hours before.
"No... no, it's not true. Harry's not dead. No, please... don't let it be true. Oh, God, no... NOOOOOO!!!!!!"
Hermione's heart rendering wail brought her parents running. They had no idea what could set off their daughter like this, when she had been happy only minutes before. Hermione herself didn't offer any explanations. She just continued sobbing and saying that 'no, it couldn't be true' every now and then.
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That's it for chapter one. Tell me what you think. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the next chapter out soon, but keep in mind that I'm starting my exams next week, so it might not be for the first few days.