AN: uhm, prue1912, will you be alright?
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Chapter 2
Harry Potter was a private man, as much as he could possibly be, of course. It wasn't easy with his fame and well-known story. He took comfort in the fact that even though everyone seemed to know his story, at least they didn't all recognise the face to go with it. He already had the problem of getting mobbed every time he set foot in London and word about his identity got out.
Well, the story that ran through London was famous, but sometimes he wondered if that Harry Potter was the same as himself… In any event, he liked living outside the spotlights. And the only place he could do that was in his country house. He rarely invited any company over there, except for his closest friends he considered family.
As a two year old lad, Potter's parents had been eliminated by dark wizards, together with the whole Potter family on a Halloween celebration. To this day, nobody knew how, as a baby, he had survived the poison that had been laced through the food of every plate at Godric's Hollow, neither did they know who was really responsible for his family's death. It wasn't even known why they had been killed.
The Potters had been peace loving wizards and witches, but rumours went that exactly these tolerant beliefs would have been the cause to the attack. Muggleborns were not highly regarded among wizarding folk, but the Potter family had never bothered with prejudice. So when Harry Potter's father had wanted to marry the Muggleborn Miss Lily Evans, no objections were made from the side of the family.
That was all before that fateful Halloween. Of course, the elimination of a whole family at once, such a powerful and highly regarded wizarding family too, had made many waves through the magical world. As such, the name of Harry Potter had become famous.
As an orphan, Harry had been entrusted to the care of his godfather, Sirius Black. Sirius Black was a colourful gentleman, and much could be said about him. Unfortunately, as much as that man had loved his godson, he had become obsessed with finding the ones responsible for the deaths of the Potters. In the meantime Harry had practically been raised only by Dobby, the House-Elf.
Solitary years passed, before he was admitted to Hogwarts, as any magical child of a respectable wizarding family. There he met his best friend to date Ronald Weasley, and through him the whole Weasley family who had come to love him as one of their own.
As a growing boy, Harry came to understand why his guardian was away so much, and he learned to accept the same goals for his own life. When he lost his beloved godfather at the age of sixteen, he had been devastated, he had vowed that he would finish the search for his parents' murderers, as well as investigate the mysterious circumstances in which his godfather had died.
He had spent a year at the Dursley's trying to recover from his godfather's death. They had been the only living family at his mother's side, Muggles. Awful as they were, they taught Harry a valuable lesson before he turned of age: Muggleborns should be treated with more respect, since they got to deal with prejudices from both sides.
After his graduation he was invited to stay with the Weasleys, but he had not imposed long on them, for two reasons.
The first was simple politeness. The family already had numerous members to house in the Burrow, and Potter wanted to move into the Godric's Hollow as soon as possible. The second reason was more of a complicated reason. Cho Chang had been staying there too.
She had lost her parents as well, but in an awful splinching accident, and since her family had been friends with the Weasleys, they had taken her in to avoid Cho getting sent back to Japan. The reason why Mr. Potter hadn't wanted to stay in the same house as her at that moment in time was complicated.
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy her company, quite the contrary… She had been his Hogwarts' crush. But she had been engaged to be married to another man. And what was worse was that that other man was his partner in the Auror training he had started his two last years at Hogwarts. Cedric Diggory.
Not a year out of Hogwarts, tragedy struck Harry Potter again. He had managed to put aside his lingering feelings for the foreign beauty Cho Chang, as well as the slight jealousy he had felt for his partner. He had become quite close to them both, also considering them as family.
But fate had never really smiled upon Potter, and Cedric had been stabbed in the back at night. Guilt had overwhelmed Harry. He should've been there too, that evening, but he'd received a lead on his family's murder case, and Cedric had assured him he would do fine alone… The murderer had been quickly identified and put away by Harry himself.
From there on, his life had taken an unsuspected turn. A month after Cedric's death, Cho had come to visit him. She was with child… Hysterical about the scandal it would arise, Cho had pleaded for help. Harry's honour had guided him to make a proposal he would regret to some extent later.
He had proposed to marry her, and raise Cedric's child as his own, so the child wouldn't grow up to be called a bastard. Cho had accepted and the hurried formalities so close after the death of her fiancé had raised more than one eyebrow in the wizarding community.
But to the outside world, it was clear when the announcements of their marriage and the pregnancy followed so closely after each other, that it wasn't just a question of Harry Potter finally getting the girls of his Hogwarts' dreams.
Privately, though, in those few months of marriage during Cho's pregnancy, they had manage to find a delicate new balance for their friendship. They hadn't discussed the future too much, since they were both still mourning respectively their friend and fiancé.
Cho may not have been the love of his life, but what happened next hurt Harry Potter deeply.
During the childbirth many complications arose. The painful consequences were that at the age of nineteen, Harry Potter found himself in tears cradling the dead born heir of his deceased friend, over the unconscious body of his wife.
Harry Potter had used every resource available to cure his wife from her ailment, but she remained unconscious. He felt as if death surrounded him sometimes. Recently, more then ever… He was slipping into a life without hope, and the only thing keeping him going was his revenge that still needed satisfaction.
Now, two years later, the need for an heir rose. His job was still dangerous, and he wanted to live for someone. He needed to be needed, to be given hope. But he refused to dishonour his wife by having a 'public-secret'-affair with some witch and conceive an illegitimate child. Besides, he wanted to be a real father to his child, not having to pretend it wasn't really his while paying for his education.
And he absolutely refused to give up on Cho by letting her go. Besides the damage it would cause to his reputation when he'd let her die, and that of his friends by association, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he consciously caused Cho's death.
Harry Potter still talked to his wife. He had made the choice of believing she could hear him, and discussed everything important in his life with her, hoping against hope she would one day respond.
He had formed a plan, a plan he had informed his wife of, and a plan to get his heir to raise and love without having his reputation tarnished…
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