By Popular Vote, I will compile all seven of the 'A New Player' series books into one new compilation, remastering and tailoring the old story to what I hope to call my more sophisticated style of writing after ~6 years of doing fanfiction... My it hasn't felt like that long...

I have no real plan on a set schedule on posting this one, as it is not a priority like Stormreaver or Rise of Darth Veneficus, but as the entire story is written, just awaiting editing, don't fear that this will be put on the back burner. It takes a bit of doing, but its not impossible for my to edit these chapters, depending on how bad I felt about the one in particular, so it will be at least 2-3 times a month at the lowest.

Regardless, here is the Prologue, and what I think I want to do is briefly, at the end of each chapter, go over what changes I made and why I felt they were needed. *If you are new to the story, I strongly recommend skipping the commentary at the end until you either go back and read the whole of the original or this project is finished, as it may or may not contain minor spoilers.*

Without further delay, I wish to present the newly redesigned Prologue... enjoy... ~F

Harry Potter and the Age of Magic

Year 1: A New Player

Prologue:

Enter the Third

Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, October 31, 1981

A light breeze rippled through the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which had previously lain silent and tidy under an inky black sky. It whispered down the road until reaching a man whose name was Albus Dumbledore. This man, a powerful wizard, gazed out at the rows of terribly nondescript buildings through world-weary eyes. The wind slightly tossed his silvery hair and beard, and blew the purple cloak he wore around his tall and robed frame, and Albus pulled his clothing tighter around him to prevent the chill as he strode down the street in great strides. The wizard stopped on the corner and glanced back at the house labeled number four, where he could just barely see the small bundle of blankets he had deposited on the front step of the house moments ago.

Little infant Harry Potter had suffered so much already, and Albus was dooming him to another ten years of misery, this he knew from the moment Hagrid had brought the lab to him less than half an hour previous. But some sacrifices had had to be made, to ensure the boy's safety from those who had already orphaned and attempted to murder him. in truth, it was nothing short of a miracle that little Harry had survived at all, and even Albus' ingenious mind was hard pressed to understand just how such a thing had occurred.

Even as an infant, the youngest Potter had great magical potential, and with time he would probably reach heights of magical power that even Albus couldn't dream of, but at this moment, with him being sent to live with his only living family left, who lacked the skills to care for a wizard so bright and powerful, he was forced to seal off a great portion of the boy's magic, solely for his own safety. In time, when Harry was old enough to handle his power maturely and with the care required, Albus would loosen the spell, but that was not for many years yet to come.

Raising his wand, he intoned the incantation to an ancient ritual spell, chiefly referred to as blood wards. The boy's mother, dear, sweet, brilliant Lily Potter had set the foundation of the powerful countercharm against the evil that would seek out her son to harm him, sealing it with her own death. It was only proper, and indeed Albus felt it his duty to his fallen friends, to see the charm completed, and thereby protecting Harry in the most powerful Light wards possible.

That ward, now channeled through the small letter with baby Harry, would activate fully the moment Petunia Dursley held the rough parchment in her hands to read it, and she would be compelled, by her own grief for her sister naturally, and aided by only the smallest amount of magic, to take Harry in. It was a pity that such compulsion, however small, was needed, but poor Petunia was not the most forgiving woman Albus had known, even if it was only by letter. The vendetta against all things magic ran deep, ever since she was denied going to Hogwarts herself when she and Lily had turned eleven.

But that was then, and the present was now. What must be done must be. 'For the Greater Good, Albus,' sounded the voice of Gellert Grindlewald in the aged wizard's mind. How he mourned that saying, and its constant effects over the course of his life thereafter. Albus felt forever haunted by the memories of his former friend and long time foe. But, again, the past was long gone now, and he had pressing matters in the here and now to tend to.

The war with Voldemort may be finished, but his followers were as powerful as ever. With a flick of his wand, Albus did the last of his needed magic. Weaving a web of power over the infant so far away, Albus set a block of his own design upon the baby's magical power. While potentially detrimental in the long run for Harry, Albus felt that it was needed to prevent any wizarding people from locating the boy prematurely. He swore to himself that he would remove it, once the world was ready for Harry's full potential, and when Albus himself could devote the time to train Harry in the vast capabilities that his parentage afforded him; it was simply too much magic for a baby wizard growing up in the Muggle world to have, and Albus feared the worst if he allowed it to continue unhindered.

"Good luck, Harry Potter," Albus murmured to himself, when all was done. How he wished that he, or another from the wizarding world could take the boy in instead, but it was not meant to be. Between the necessity of the Blood Wards and those who would rend earth and sky in their attempts to take the boy under their control, and away from any who actually meant the child well, it was safer for him to just disappear into the night, and stay hidden away until he was old enough to have a say should someone try to take control of his life.

By then, Albus knew, he would be more than in position enough to counter any and all who sought to wrest Harry from his rightful place, but it was still too soon just now. There would be time for happiness for the young boy, but sadly it was not for a while yet. Sighing with mixed emotions, Albus then turned on his heel, and, with a swish of his cloak, vanished.

Appearing back in his office at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he looked about in muted sadness. It had been mere hours previous that the aged wizard was here, pouring over tomes and scrolls for any means of assisting in the war against Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark sorcerer that had risen in many generations, when he felt and heard a powerful blast of magic, as well as the din of his many magical instruments flaring to life. These signs had all pointed to one thing; the Potter family had been attacked.

If not for the blasted prophecy, Albus mourned, the bright family could have been spared, but the Dark Lord's wrath at knowing their only son could potentially be his downfall drove him with a mad vengeance, aided by betrayal, to attempt to slaughter the entire Potter bloodline.

Both Lily and James had fallen, striving to defend their child, only for the Dark Wizard to fail to kill the boy himself. How this was so, even Albus did not know, but he suspected that it was brilliant Lily's doing, somehow causing the Killing Curse to rebound off the baby, leaving young Harry with only his soon-to-be famous scar, but obliterating the Dark Lord entirely.

Nevertheless, Albus felt no ease at Lord Voldemort's death, and he suspected that they had not seen the last of the Dark Wizard that nearly all else feared to even call by name. This was the reason he isolated the baby boy with his Muggle relatives, shrouded behind blood wards for his own safety. Not only the Dark Lord's followers would be after the boy, but all wizard-kind would clamor after his name. It was no life to live, surrounded by fame and adoration, especially if one was needed to rise up and fight the same evil that he was renowned for defeating once before.

No, Harry needed to grow up away from all that bad influence, safe and humble with his family, so that he could enter his world again and see immediately the wrongs that he alone could fix. Albus wished that there was another way, but he could not find one that could allow Harry as normal a life as possible. Voldemort had marked him as his foe, and there was little to nothing that Harry would be capable to do to stop the madman from pursuing him to one or the other's death.

Hopefully, with the aged Headmaster's guidance, young Harry Potter would not only survive that confrontation, but save the world in the process.

~~Sina tea kirma : This is a line break~~

Had the aged wizard remained in the dingy Muggle neighborhood a few moments longer, Albus Dumbledore might have realized that he wasn't the only person left standing in the street. Another man, tall and wizened with age as much as Dumbledore, if not possibly more so, crept out of the shadows between the houses numbered Five and Six, and glanced around for any other signs of movement.

The man wore a robe of deep azure outlined with silver tassels and carried a large blackwood staff topped with an imposing sapphire in one gnarled hand. He shifted his grip on the staff slightly as he moved cautiously toward the doorstep of Number Four. As he arrived, he regarded the sleeping baby on the porch with his piercing blue eyes, partially screened by a mass of grey-black hair.

"Harry James Potter," the man said softly to the sleeping infant, "Dumbledore leaves you here for your safety, and safe you will be within these blood wards. But… at what terrible price, I wonder?" The ancient wizard glanced up at the unlit windows of Number Four in thought. Or more accurately, he stared past the building before him, his crystal gaze piercing cloud and sky to see far into a world that time had all but forgotten, and the wrinkled face seemed to smooth momentarily as he listened to something indiscernible to the slumbering infant.

Returning his attention to the infant and shaking his head sadly, the sorcerer stooped to softly stroke the sleeping babe's face. "I shall do whatever I can to keep you far safer, young one. Your destiny is great, but you will need all the help to be had if you hope to achieve it. The path Dumbledore sets you on alone only leads… to death…"

Tears filling his crystal blue eyes, the man spoke again, his voice changing to a light sing-song tone dramatically different to its previous deepness, "Tincya haba coia a' sina hin ten'oio."

Brilliant blue lights slowly emerged from his hand, while bold emerald lights wafted upward from the slumbering infant as the old man wove his spell-like song. The twin energies danced and swayed in the air before they merged into one, connecting the two into a bright golden radiance. The new power then encircled the little baby and the old man, and slowly faded into both people.

The mysterious wizard smiled warmly as the baby turned in his sleep, closing a tiny hand on the letter wrapped with him in the blankets. "Little Harry," the man said, slowly pulling his hand away from the baby boy, a look of pain on his face, "We must part for a time, but fear not, precious one, we will reunite very soon." Chuckling softly, the old man turned and walked away down the street and into the night.

"May the light of the Valar guide your path, until we meet again, sweet child Kentano," the man intoned, standing roughly where Dumbledore had minutes ago. Suddenly, the blue clad wizard turned on his heel, vanishing with a little pop just as Dumbledore had; leaving the night as still as before the wizards had arrived.

If any passerby happened to listen carefully to the wind that night as it sailed across the island of Britain from the east, they would have heard a soft singsong voice repeatedly chanting, "A' i' quenat en' hin haba coia auta sil'," over the night air.

Kentano : Potter

tincya haba coia a' sina hin ten'oio : Join mine life to this child's forever.

a' i' quenat en' hin haba coia auta sil': to the body of a child my life go now.

Potential Spoilers ahead, you have been warned!

~F: So, as I said, I will now comment on what changes were made, and why in my opinion... to be fair, I added A LOT to the prologue, as I had many reviewers from the original not fully understanding where I was going, who the characters were, and personally I didn't like the overwhelming shortness and almost narrator-like feel that the whole chapter gave, which clashed with the rest of the 7 stories' 3rd person perspective.

So I altered the beginning to be half Dumbledore's perspective, adding in more detail regarding who the characters were and what had occurred, just for the sake of argument that someone reading this had never seen Harry Potter before, and also because Albus was completely absent in perspective until halfway through book two, and I wanted to fix that, while the other half of the chapter retains a bit of the mystery of the overarching narrator feel, but now it stands out properly in the prologue instead of just feeling off throughout the whole of the chapter, which I believe draws more attention to it, which it ought to.

I clarified some of the Sindaren a touch, adding a bit more so that we can link the mysterious character to who he reappears as later on, as well as reemphasized that Albus was doing the best he could think of at the time. He is not a villain in this story, merely heavily misguided in his thoughts due to lack of challenge to them, and that was a plot point that I think fell rather flat, and it saddened me as that was one of the more interest things I felt while writing it.