Chapter 1: A Meet & Greet
Summary – Eleven Years. For eleven years he did everything he could to break the curse that bound him to life. The Veil was the only way to rid him of the nightmares. It worked. But Harry hadn't planned to wake up in a land of no magic. And now he was sitting beside a kid who was telling him that his whole town was magical? Well, how could he say no to that?! Smart Harry! Wizard harry! Doctor Harry! MOD Harry! Harry X Emma & Prince Charming X Snow White.
Disclaimer – This is a work of purely speculative fiction. It is not intended to infringe on any rights by and of the companies and/or individuals involved in the production of any series mentioned here. The characters involved are the intellectual property of their respective authors/creators except for the ones that are listed as an OC, which are mine.
A/N – 1. Some of the characters from Once upon a time would be different in how they are and react. For example, Regina will be a bit crueller and more wicked in her plans. And make no mistake, she will be the villain of this story, not the misunderstood character who lashes out because of her past hurts.
That is all. Enjoy the chapter.
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There was an enchanted forest filled with all the classic characters we know.
Or think we know.
One day they found themselves trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen.
Our world.
But someone else found his way there as well… A wizard.
This is their story...
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Harry sighed as the rotund man finally stood up from his seat as his stop arrived. After a ten-hour shift at the hospital, finally having a seat to his ride home felt like a godsend. It had been a rather difficult day too. Having thirteen code blues in his ER in a span of two hours and then requiring to do an emergency Coronary artery bypass on a woman with a piece of nail file jutting out of her airway had not made it easy to hang onto the grab rail with one arm the whole way to his stop.
Tired, he slumped onto the seat the man had just vacated with a muffled groan. Straightening up for a moment to pop his back, his green eyes caught sight of his fellow passenger sitting beside him looking out the window.
It was a kid.
Frowning, he looked at the back seat and saw two sulking teenagers looking forlornly at the empty condom dispenser beside the exit door listening to music that even with their earphones, was still very much audible. Shaking his head in mild amusement, he turned to his side and saw a rather amorous couple busying themselves in an attempt to count each other's teeth with their tongues.
Cringing a bit at the languid display of affection, he stopped his search. Nobody in his general vicinity looked like they were here with a kid, if he discounted a creepy looking old man who gave him an equally creepy smile when he saw him looking his way, which he did.
Harry finally shrugged. There probably was someone who had brought the kid with them. There probably hadn't been enough space to sit together. This route that most buses took usually went through Atlantic Avenue and Devonshire street and both were known to house working folks and most office buildings in Boston. Even the hospital he worked at, Massachusetts General, was smack dab in the middle of it too. So for most of the working class, the bus was the best way to get there.
Leaving the issue at that, Harry took a relaxing breath. He already had quite a few things on his mind tonight without adding another minor mystery to the list.
Tonight marked the four year anniversary of his arrival.
A day that brought mixed feelings in him whenever he thought about it.
Like clockwork, every year on October 22, his dreams returned to the place he had left behind.
He wasn't particularly looking forward to sleep in his bed tonight. There was no doubt in his mind that their faces would return in his dreams. Calling him back.
And despite how much he missed his world, missed what few friends he had left, he had made peace with the fact that he would never be able to return back to the Wizarding world. There was nothing left for him to go back to. After the war, despite everything returning to how it had been, the one thing that mattered to him the most, the magic that had brought him back, it was as though, it was lost to him in that place.
He remembered his monotonous life and the struggles that had followed the years after Voldemort's defeat.
It had been constricting. Like he was being suffocated, slowly…painfully.
And so he had decided to leave. Hoping that the next great adventure would take him to his loved ones who waited for him on the other side.
It had seemed like a good idea then. Take a plunge to the Veil of Death. Hear the whispering voices. Find among them the one voice that he remembered distinctly well.
The soft murmur of his name on her lips. The love with which she called him to her.
'Harry…'
He could never the time he had heard her whisper his name in the Forbidden Forest when he had called her shade and his father's and others who had died before their time.
The memory of her, floating above the dry grass, looking at him with only love in her green eyes, stretching her hand to touch him even though she knew she couldn't…it had done much to erase the past choes of her screaming and pleading voice as she bargained for his life with a monster.
But when he had taken the plunge, all he had felt was darkness and echoing silence that would have driven him mad had the veil not spat him out on to the lonely streets of Dorchester.
It had been a long ride since, one that had involved shocking revelations of learning that this world had no magic in it whatsoever. And more so upon discovering that yes, even his magical core, large though it was, would one day run out of gas – so to speak – with no way for it to gain more magic.
It had taken some time for that realisation to set in.
And then after six months of moping around and fending for himself, he had decided to do something that he knew he was good at.
Helping people.
Having had completed his training, that of a Journeyman Healer just before coming here, he knew that despite the lack of potions and other tools, all he needed to heal people was a willingness to learn how to. And he had that in spades.
Two years shadowing a brilliant but lesser-known surgeon in the small clinic in Boston streets as his intern and a whole lot of studying with judicious use of his occlumency and he was prepared.
Getting a degree and medical license for practising medicine, albeit with more than a little prevarication of details to the relevant parties and a little magical help, had been somewhat hard, but he had thoroughly embedded himself within the system. Though it had taken him more than a week to understand which system he should be embedded in the first place.
Finally, two years after his arrival, one Harry James Potter had found himself with a job as an ER specialist in Boston General, healing people, one at a time.
And if he was being honest with himself, he liked the freedom this new world gave him.
Here, he wasn't the chosen one, or the boy-who-lived, or even the man-who-conquered. Here the only expectation of him was to do the best he could to save the people that came through his ER and give them a new life.
He liked the fact that he could be anonymous here. Well, as much as he could be given the muggles and their tendencies to peel off one's anonymity just to satisfy their curiosity.
He had lost count how many times he'd had to confound people whom he had saved using what little magic he could use because instead of thanking him, they had decided to sue him for doing the voodoo shit on them.
But that was life. Dealing. Sometimes dealing with stupidity.
But the point was that here, he was simply Harry. Or rather Doctor Harry Potter.
Harry closed his eyes having had enough of the repetitive thoughts that cropped up every year.
A shuffling noise gained his attention as he saw the kid beside him was attempting to turn a page of his rather large book using what little space he had.
"Here," Harry said sliding a little to give the kid a little more space to read properly.
"Thanks," the boy replied smiling.
It was an odd happy smile too, one that Harry hadn't seen much of today and that made his own lips tug upwards, even if a little.
"What book are you reading?" he asked, genuinely curious seeing such a large thing in his little hands.
"This…it's more than just a book." The boy replied, his smile dimming a bit.
"Oh?" he arched a brow. "How so?"
The boy paused, thinking for a moment as he looked at him with his hazel eyes before he returned to his reading without saying another word.
Harry shook his head ruefully at the boy's precociousness. "A'right little man. Keep your secrets." He said with a chuckle and closed his eyes, resting them a bit.
It was after six more stops had passed and the bus was almost empty, did Harry's eyes opened. His stop was next and there were only two more ladies left in the bus beside him and the kid, a girl listening to the iPod on her wrist and an older lady who was looked his way and smiled politely.
Frowning again, he looked at the kid. "Your grandma?" he asked, discreetly pointing at the older woman.
The boy looked up from his book and turned to see where he was pointing before he shook his head. "No," he said simply.
Harry blinked at the short reply. The kid was being evasive on purpose. But if the older lady wasn't with him and it didn't really look like the other girl was either, then the boy was travelling by himself.
How very odd. Not to mention dangerous.
Harry had seen first hand how cruel, Boston's streets could be. There was a knife fight in every street and most people who had worse done to them than a simple stab to the gut ended up in his ER.
Harry had no wish to see the kid anywhere near his workplace as his work.
With some seriousness to his tone, he decided to nudge the kid to give up some info. "So you're travelling by yourself?"
"Yes," the boy replied without even looking away from his book.
"A bit dangerous, isn't it?"
"I have to go see my…someone," the boy replied, tripping over some words in an obvious attempt to be evasive.
"That's all fine and good, little man, but at this time of the night? Important business?" he probed, little worry starting to tinge his tone.
The boy finally turned to look at Harry and looked him straight in the eye. "Look, I have to do this. And tonight might be the best chance I get. So, please don't try to stop me. It's…It's important." The boy lowered his head back to his book and muttered something that caught Harry's interest. "Many lives depend on it."
That piqued Harry's interest.
The boy seemed smart enough. He had the look of someone who had seen a bit much that someone his age probably should have. Not necessarily bad, but certainly something that had made him grow up a little faster than necessary.
Harry was somewhat happy and a little sad that he could see a small part of himself in the boy.
Headstrong. Defiant. And yet, just doing the right thing.
"Alright. I won't stop you." Harry said with sincerity. "Only…" he paused gaining the boy's attention, "…if you tell me the truth about why you're here alone. Deal?" he asked lifting his hand for a shake.
The boy looked at him with a small frown and a crease on his small forehead, blinking. A while passed before the boy agreed and nodded. "Deal," he said and then continued in a slightly higher voice, "but only if you don't call me a liar. I don't like being called that." He scowled, possibly remembering something from his past.
"I can do that," Harry replied agreeably and nudged his shoulder with the boy.
The boy looked at him once more before he nodded and shook his hand.
"My name's Harry," he introduced.
"Henry," the boy replied, "Henry Mills…"
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