Author's Note: This is not a multi-chaptered story. It is not my take on what will happen in the fifth book. It is merely what I see as the reactions to the unexpected death of Harry Potter in a way that no one would ever expect. I expect (I love that word…expect (but not really)) that I might write 3 chapters at the most, the most important and interesting of which will be Voldemort's reaction to Harry's death. I can guarantee you'll want to read about that, as I am extremely excited about writing it, and even more excited about the reviews I'm gonna get from you people when I do. To all my previous fans: No I didn't abandon "14". I was banned from the computer for two weeks and am currently writing the next chapter. You're gonna love that too. Without further ado..enjoy…and please review.

Disclaimer: Why, oh Why was I not the one to come up with Harry Potter? Because JK Rowling is an absolute genius, and beat me to it, that's why.

"The Boy Who Lived is Dead: Harry Potter Beaten to Death by Muggle Uncle". Thus did the front page of the Daily Prophet shock the wizarding world on the morning of the first of August, 1996. The entire paper was devoted to the story, though few got through the heading of the paper before spewing coffee or tea all over it, ruining the paper, making it quite difficult to read. It was impossible . It couldn't be true. No one could harm the Boy Who Lived, not even the Dark Lord himself, but there, sitting right in front of every paper-reader in the wizarding world, was the story of how that boy, the young and noble Harry Potter, had perished not by wand, a deadly curse, but by the muggle brute force of his own relative.

The rumors swept quickly over all the world from the front page to the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies. Owls ruled the sky, gossip ruled the air, and confusion ruled the streets of the wizarding communities throughout the world. But shock reigned supreme.

In the Weasley household, the Burrow, Arthur Weasley woke up with a start as he was bombarded by owls. The first one he read demanded his immediate presence at the ministry for an absolute emergency. He woke up his wife, Molly Weasley, in his rush of putting on clothes and getting ready to leave and gave her the quick explanation of "Ministry emergency" before disapparating from the house. The other owls left to follow him.

Molly Weasley, awoken beyond the point of returning to sleep, dressed and began to prepare breakfast calling loudly in the voice only multi-child mothers can use for her daughter and three sons (Percy had moved out) to wake up and come down to breakfast, as she had done every morning thus far this summer. She hummed happily to herself as the sausages and bacon sizzled in their respective pans. Her four youngest children entered the kitchen laughing as Fred and George were playing keep-away from Ron and Ginny with what looked like one of the twins new inventions (she had resigned to herself that the "troublesome twins" were going to follow through with their joke shop no matter what she said). She smiled. She loved watching her family laugh. It was so…contagious.

As they approached, however, a sudden pop made her turn around to see her husband, returned from whatever the "emergency at the ministry" had been. She was just about to give him a welcome back kiss when she saw that his face was extremely pale, and he held a newspaper. Slowly, he turned it to face her, allowing her a full view of the headlines. She gasped, and her face quickly matched the white color of his own, losing all traces of color in her usually rosy cheeks. She held the newspaper now, not knowing she had taken it from him.

The twins, still laughing and noticing their parents focus on the paper, but not the color of their faces, nimbly swiped the Daily Prophet from their mother, who was about to drop it in shock anyway. The two stopped laughing abruptly. Ron and Ginny, finally able to take something from their brothers, swiftly stole the newspaper…and also stopped laughing.

Ginny fainted. Molly Weasley was in tears. Ron was opening and closing his mouth, wordlessly. Arthur Weasley had his eyes on the floor, trying to comfort his wife with an embrace, as he himself could not seemed to bring a single word from his throat. The twins were thinking wordlessly of how The Prophet HAD to be wrong, and yet knowing…that a close friend, and their major contributor, was dead.

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Hermione Granger woke up to what she expected to be a normal day, listening to the usual sounds of her parents making a normal breakfast downstairs. She promptly got dressed in her normal muggle clothing, and continued her typical morning routine as she went downstairs happily greeting her quite normal muggle parents. They were having pancakes (no syrup of course, it was bad for her teeth). Mid-breakfast, however, an owl flew in the kitchen window, carrying the usual Daily Prophet and, as usual, startling her parents, who had yet to grow accustomed to the sight of owls in their home.

She paid the owl the normal amount and, after the owl had left, continued with her normal breakfast. She took a swig of her normal glass of milk as she unfolded the paper and proceeded to spew it all over the paper as she read the Daily Prophet headline, which was most certainly NOT normal.

As her eyes quickly darted back and forth across the page, her dentist parents watched her face rotate quickly between several very UNusual colors. She proceeded to turn white, then red, then purple, then a sickly green, then an even more sickly pale white before collapsing on the floor. Her parents, unsure whether or not to perform the Heimlich maneuver, looked at the paper, and then quickly dropped to their daughter's side in attempts to comfort her.

*********

Vernon Dursley sat in a muggle jail cell, still unsure of what had happened. He thought back to the previous night. There was nothing unusual about it really. The boy (Harry, the name sounded ugly and common even in his mind) had burnt the Dursley's dinner. Was it so much to ask for him to look after a pot on a stove after all the Dursleys had done for him? Honestly, the boy was a complete idiot. Vernon just didn't understand how he had passing grades at that so called "school" he went to.

The boy, Harry (Even in his mind, he spat the name) had been daydreaming, Vernon had only been trying to wake him up. Vernon had always maintained that a good beating would have cured the boy of his problems, but beatings were looked down upon…and Vernon Dursley would be looked down upon by nobody. Vernon had given him a simple punch in the face. He hadn't even meant to punch the boy very hard. The boy was SUPPOSED to duck! He always ducked. And now the boy was dead.

He still didn't know how a single punch to the face could kill someone, although he had heard talking when he had been…arrested.

"Hit his nose straight up into his brain," a policeman had said, "Must have died instantly…Most likely painless." But Vernon hadn't meant to, he was only trying to wake the boy up. His reputataion, Oh God, what would they say about Vernon Dursley now?…

*********

"What!!!" screamed Fudge, "What do you mean he's DEAD?" It was just after midnight on the first of August. "Harry Potter cannot DIE!" A picture was placed in front of him. It was a muggle picture. A picture taken by the police. There lay Harry Potter, on the floor of a kitchen, glasses broken just to the side of his head, eyes open in shock, blood flowing into a puddle on the floor from his severely misshaped nose. The minister of magic had only just accepted that Voldemort might have returned, and now the one of the only two people who could possibly defeat him, and the only one EVER, to defeat him before, was now dead, killed by a muggle of all things.

What would happen when people picked up the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning? Terror? Chaos? Riots? And, most importantly, how could he blame this on someone else?…

*********

Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the man who everyone went to when no one knew what to do, was in shock. The safest place in the world for Harry was at his relations' house, he had made sure of it. No evil wizard could ever touch him there, not even the Dark Lord himself. But he had been a fool. How could he have been such a fool?

What would he do now, now that everyone would turn to him for help, as they always did? Or…would they turn on him? Everyone, the Weasleys, Sirius, Arabella Figg (who lived just down the street from Harry and was another of his protections around Privet Drive) and Harry himself had pleaded with him to let Harry stay somewhere else. But no. He had to be a fool. No dark wizard could ever touch Harry, but how, HOW could he have overlooked the muggles he lived with. What would happen to the Order of the Phoenix now, and how would they ever be able to combat Voldemort without Harry? The Boy Who Lived is Dead, he thought, what on earth do we do now?…

**********

Voldemort sat on his thrown, looking doubtfully and distastefully at the man who cowered before him. "Would you care to repeat that?" He asked.

Lucious Malfoy repeated his words, still kneeling before his master. "The Potter boy is dead, My Lord, his Uncle killed him. It was, apparently, an accident."

"That is impossible," Voldemort said, "Harry Potter can not be killed by a muggle. I have failed to kill him four times now. He is a powerful wizard, though only fifteen, as is expected of the Heir of Gryffindor. His escapes from me were not entirely luck. The Heir of Gryffindor cannot be killed by a muggle. I am disappointed in you, Lucious, do not bother me with such tales." A picture was handed to him, the same that had been handed to the minister of magic only an hour before, by the same man.

"It is not possible," the Dark Lord said, but this time he doubted himself. Muggle pictures, much as he hated to admit, were very plain, obvious, and truthful. "Killed by a uggle…unbelievable." He was most definitely not laughing.

The Dark Lord, obsessed with winning in everything, and ruling everything, was also obsessed with honor. That, in fact, was the reason he was obsessed with winning everything and ruling everything. He wanted to be seen on high by all. This victory, the one he had been trying to achieve for nearly fifteen years, was most assuredly NOT honorable.

Imagine…a muggle, doing, by accident, what he could not do in years of trying. This would not do…

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Author's Note: Wow, the Daily Prophet exaggerated as usual. In Daily Prophet math, Oops, I didn't mean to equals beat to death. Remember I said you would really like reading Voldemort's reaction. I am nowhere near done with him yet. (grins evilly) There is definitely, definitely, more to come.