Henry had always known weakness. From the moment he drew his first breath, his body seemed to betray him. Asthma had plagued his childhood, leaving him gasping for air while the other kids ran and laughed. School had been no refuge only a stage for cruelty. He had been mocked, shoved aside, labeled fragile, worthless, weak. The name-calling, the whispered laughter behind his back, had carved itself into his heart, leaving scars that never healed.
At eleven, the cruel universe delivered its final verdict: terminal heart cancer. The diagnosis left him confined to a bed that had become both prison and world. Days blurred into nights under the sterile hum of hospital machines. Pills and treatments could not mend the body that betrayed him, nor the spirit that had been quietly withering under relentless judgment.
Yet in the small hours, when the world felt still, he found his solace. Not in the doctors, not in the nurses, but in the stories of a faraway world: Hogwarts. He had memorized every spell, every adventure, every hero and villain. He had watched the films countless times, tracing the wands and charms with trembling fingers, imagining a power that could make people respect—or fear—you. A power he had never known in the real world.
His grandmother's visits were the only balm to his suffering. She never scolded, never pitied; she simply believed in him. When she smiled, it was as if the world outside the hospital walls could be momentarily forgotten, a place where Henry was not defined by weakness. But he knew he would never see her again. The relentless ache in his chest had spread too far, and even her presence could not bend the laws of fate.
Regrets swirled in his mind like a storm. Moments wasted in silence, words left unspoken, dreams surrendered before they could bloom. A quiet rage had been growing within him all these years, a burning desire for the strength and respect that life had denied. And now, as his chest tightened and darkness pressed at the edges of his vision, Henry felt the last thread of life slipping away.
He closed his eyes, longing for one final breath, one last chance to make his presence matter. And as the steady beep of the monitor faltered, a strange warmth spread through him different from the pain he knew so well. It was fleeting, almost imperceptible, but it whispered of possibilities he had never dared imagine.
For the first time, Henry felt something beyond fear and pain. Something powerful. Something that promised… change.
And then, his heart stopped.
But the story was far from over.