Harry Potter and the Elements of Valor

Harry Potter and the Elements of Valor

(Sequel to: Harry Potter and the Dangerous Choice)

Prologue: Your Life Flashes Before You

It's funny the way people say that at the moment just before you think you will die, your life flashes before you. Anyone who has not experienced this sensation must think it sounds unlikely and in fact, impossible. However, as you gulp the mouthful of water just before you sink below the surface for the last time, or as the telephone pole and the hood of your car make shattering contact on a dark and foggy road, or as you lay upon a battle field with a mortal wound; your life most certainly does flash past you in vibrant detail, as though that last instant contains all the time you need to view the entirety of your existence.

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, would have smiled to himself at the irony of it if there had been that much time. He didn't expect to last that long as he lay on his stomach sucking in, what he was sure were his last few breaths.

Clarity. That's what he had. Complete clarity. The sky above him was perilous with huge, unnatural, black clouds and wild lightening, like crazy fireworks or an ever-changing spider web of jagged light. The very air around him was pulsing with electricity. It was bizarre really, as his own frail circuits were about to fail for good.

There was certainly noise around him but he couldn't hear it. His ears were not admitting any sound. Perhaps his senses were shutting down, one by one. His mouth was dry as brittle leaves. His lips would not part to let out a cry for help. He tried to will his finger, just one finger to move against the surface upon which he lay. No movement. No feeling. No smells of battle filled his nostrils, no whiff of smoke, no acrid scent of blood.

He had pushed the spell too far...much too far. He wished he knew if it had been enough.

Harry allowed his eyes to close and wished hopefully for the only thing remaining to him, he wished to see his parents, and perhaps Sirius beckoning to him with open arms. The pain was nothing now. He knew he should be feeling it, but it simply was not there; just a leaden body that he could no longer stir into action and a soul that was restless to be free of it. Then, unbidden, the flash of memory came. In it, he saw the whole of the past months rush through his head in vivid detail. It took but an instant.

Authors Note: And so begins Harry's memory of his last year at Hogwarts and the final battle to fulfill the prophecy of a now dead seer. Harry's recollections hang upon the weakest of dying breaths. Within them, he relives how he has arrived at this deadly moment where, if nothing else, valor triumphed over all.