3 The Winds of Change

Later that night, after the witch left, the couple could be seen bawling their hearts out for almost an hour. It was way too much for them who had never seen anything like they just witnessed an hour ago.

But eventually, they calmed down and went to bed.

While all of this was happening, there was another person who was listening to everything.

The one listening to their conversation was a child wrapped up in a fluffy blanket lying inside a whitish cradle in the room to the left side of the stairs.

He had jet black hair, his blue eyes so clear that they could hypnotize almost anyone with just a look.

He barely looked a year old with his chubby little hands and tiny feet. But his most distinctive feature was a scar on his forehead. It was in the shape of a lightning bolt.

The child was listening to everything they were talking about. Although the sound was not too clear, he could still roughly figure out what they were talking about.

Especially, when the witch told the frightened couple the name of the child.

At that moment he literally screamed, but all that came out of his mouth was "aaaaaa...weeeeee....woooo...eeerrrrrr".

After a few minutes, he got a hold of his bearings and started analyzing his situation.

His name was Daniel Wolf or Danny for short and he was a final year student pursuing computer science at MIT. He was a top class student who always aced his exams and had written numerous research articles that had been published in renowned journals.

He had multiple job offers in his hand but he did not commit to any company. He wanted to go through a few campus placements since he was waiting for an offer from Google which was attending the job fair.

That's why he was on his way to attend the campus placement in his college auditorium.

There was some construction work going on near his hostel so everybody was supposed to take a roundabout route so as to avoid any accidents. But as he was getting late, he decided to go through the construction site. Never has there been any accident reported so he didn't think too much about it.

But fate had some other plans for him.

That day, the chief engineer was on leave, and his replacement was a trainee who got the job through some connections.

He had very little knowledge as to how the construction site machinery worked. But in his arrogance, he decided to operate the heavy crane for lifting steel pipes to the top floor.

It was only for a second when he lost his focus, but at that moment, the cables carrying the hundreds of kilograms of heavy duty steel pipes snapped and all the pipes directly fell down from the top.

Co-incidentally James was passing by that very spot at that moment and before he could even understand what happened he saw a huge shadow falling on his head. There was very little pain and it was an almost instantaneous death.

Just before his end, all he could feel was regret. He had his whole life ahead of him and his future looked really bright. Ever since his parents' death two years ago, he worked really hard since he knew he had almost no inheritance and the only way to survive would be to make the best use of the university scholarship he had earned and then get a good job after graduation.

He lived frugally and didn't waste a single dime on any source of entertainment or luxury and spent every waking moment in either library or inside the lab doing practicals.

After trying to wake him up from his crazy routine and failing repeatedly, his friends eventually distanced themselves from him.

So in order to cope with the loneliness, he drowned himself in his studies even further. And when it was finally time to reap the benefits of his efforts, fate played a cruel joke on him.

He had sacrificed everything in the past two years: his friends, his relationships, his free time and lived like a madman just so he could live a better life, a life that his parents would have been proud of. But all of that ended in an instant. If he knew things were going to end like this, he would have relaxed a little and enjoyed himself more.

However, there is no pill for regret, so all he could do at this point was to accept the harsh reality and try to move on.

As he pulled himself out of his reminiscence, he started checking out his surroundings with his blue eyes.

From what he could see from his cradle, the room appeared to be pretty average with slightly worn out wallpapers and stained window panes. There was a slight scent of a room freshener in the air as if the room was recently cleaned.

Eventually, he heard someone talking outside and tried to listen. After listening to everything the witch and his supposed uncle and aunt were saying and failing in his attempt to curse out loud due to underdeveloped vocal cords, he reorganized his thoughts:

"What the hell is going on?

I thought I died after being crushed by those pipes. But I am still alive and from the looks of it, I am now in the body of this infant.

How is this even possible? Have I been reincarnated?"

But most importantly, he remembered the names of the people from the conversation he heard a few minutes ago.

"The Dursleys, Petunia, Minerva and above all, Harry freaking Potter!"

He felt like his heart was going to burst from a mix of fear and excitement because if what he heard was correct and if this was not a dream, then he has most likely reincarnated into the world of Harry Potter as Harry himself.

By the time his thoughts reached this point, he was already feeling light headed. He suddenly started feeling sleepy since he was just an infant and had gone through a lot this evening, all with his parents' death and then getting here and all. Also, the memories of the original Harry also popped up in his head. As it turns out, when the dark lord tried to kill Harry and failed, Harry actually didn't come out of it unscathed.

The death curse was something that directly affected the soul and the only way to be free from any repercussions of the curse is to stay away from it completely.

But since the curse touched his skin, the lighting shaped scar being the proof of that, he suffered from the side effects of the death curse.

His mother's magic saved his life but his soul was still damaged by almost 70% and it was at this moment that Danny's soul entered his body and assimilated with the original soul.

Since Danny's soul was intact, he was able to retain his consciousness, all the while getting the memories of the year-old Harry.

Even though you can't remember anything from your infancy when you grow older, the memories are still there in your brain somewhere buried deep inside. As his consciousness was pretty strong after assimilation, he was able to recall whatever original Harry saw just before dying.

After sorting out the memories, he felt that there was something weird about that night and things weren't as simple as it was told in the original story in his previous world.

But all of that would have to come later as his tiny brain couldn't take any more activity. Even though his soul was stronger than an average adult, his body couldn't keep up with the stimulations and the emotional roller coaster he had suffered that day.

So he slowly drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

Outside the window, there was a slight breeze blowing and the dried leaves were dancing in the wind as if celebrating the advent of a great change about to occur in the world.