After the Dawn: The Philosopher's Stone
Epilogue: A Story Worth Writing
A thirteen-nearly-fourteen year old Harry Potter penned the last words with a flourish and looked around at the beaming faces of his five greatest friends, and his godfather. They were all of them at Potter Mansion, and it was the beginning of the holidays after their fourth year at school.
The past two years of school had changed them a lot, starting in second year when Luna Lovegood, an old friend who had known Harry in a different disguise, an odd Ravenclaw who was a year younger than they were, had joined their group.
Harry had found an enchanted diary in the toilets, and had, foolishly enough, told it that he was, in fact, Harry Potter, and told it the entire story behind his past. He hadn't told his friends of this, however, but when the diary used Ginny Weasley to come to life, Harry and his friends had gone to her rescue in the fearsome Chamber of Secrets, which had entailed Harry taking on a basilisk with the aid of a phoenix and a sword.
With that rescue, Ginny had joined their group and they had become quite close, though Harry had not revealed his secret, not yet at least.
In Harry's third year, one of the Death Eaters from Azkaban, one Rodolfus Lestrange, had escaped and come after Harry, because someone had told him that this 'Nemo Protectium' had threatened the Dark Lord and needed to be eliminated.
Throughout that year Harry had been constantly accompanied by Sirius, in the form of Ardeo. Dementors had been guarding the school, and Hogsmeade, as they were in various other concentrations of human life.
Harry disliked the Dementors immensely, but he coped. With another old friend of his parents teaching at Hogwarts that year – Remus Lupin – Harry and Sirius had kept a low profile. However, Remus had taught Harry, in the form of Nemo, the Patronus spell to protect him from the Dementors.
At the end of the year, Harry and his friends had discovered that Ron's rat, Scabbers, was actually Peter Pettigrew in his Animagus form. Pettigrew had used a spell to disguise his form, just as Sirius had, but one month he had been lax in applying the spell to the Marauders Map, and Sirius had caught him, taking him to the Shrieking Shack.
It was ironic that the day Sirius caught Peter as the same that Lestrange caught Harry. Harry's friends had followed when Lestrange had dragged Harry to the Shrieking Shack, as a private place to kill him, after first interrogating him about his family.
Therefore the entire lot of them had been in one big happy group, though Ron Weasley had been very dense when it came to realising that Scabbers was not only a human, but a Death Eater, and that Sirius was no danger to anyone.
Lestrange had been restrained by Harry and Sirius the moment that it was possible, and the entire story had been revealed, how 'Nemo' was really Harry Potter, and how Sirius was not a Death Eater but a loyal supporter of the Light.
The group took Lestrange and Peter Pettigrew up to the castle, bound in manacles to Sirius and Remus, with Harry, Neville, Blaise and Hermione walking in a loose circle around them, wands at the ready.
Plans, however, were disturbed when the full moon revealed itself, something that they had all – including Remus – forgotten about. When Remus transformed into a werewolf, the two fugitives escaped, and Sirius transformed to try and keep the children safe. Harry had done his best to throw magic after the retreating Death Eaters, but the Dementors were already approaching, and Harry had to turn and fight them.
He'd managed to get Sirius out and his friends to the castle, but Remus fled. Sirius had followed him, and now the three of them lived in Potter Mansion. Harry had managed, with some difficulty, to wipe Ron's mind of the entire thing, and even went to the trouble of buying him a new rat, one that was identical to the form that Scabbers had showed to the world.
Hermione, Blaise and Neville, however, Harry would not try to do that too, and so told them the full story. Now, a little over a month later, they were all at Harry's house, and they had just written about Harry, Neville, Hermione and Blaise's first year at Hogwarts. Soon, they would start on their second and third years, only this time with the help of Ginny and Luna… but as for me; my adventures with this merry gang of pre-teens are over. I hope you enjoyed it all as much as I did.