Disclaimer: I don't own it, never have, and most likely never will, unless JK decides to give me the rights of Harry Potter for my birthday (May 2nd).

A/N: This is my version of the Seventh book, so I'm trying to make it as true to the other books as possible. Please correct me if I do something wrong!

Please REVIEW!

A boy lay on a bed in number 4, Privet Drive. Light from the streetlamp filtered in through the curtain-less windows. The room was full of shadows that wavered whenever the streetlamp flickered.

The boy did not move. He laid silent, glasses on, staring at the alarm clock on his bed side table as it ticked closer and closer to midnight. There were five minutes left until Harry Potter's seventeenth birthday.

Harry wasn't sure what was going to happen when he turned seventeen, he just knew that the second he reached adult hood, the magic that had protected him since he was one-year-old would cease, and he would be on his own.

His wand was clenched in his right hand, and his whole body was tense. Four minutes to go.

Maybe, at twelve-o-one, Voldemort would burst through the door. Maybe nothing would happen.

Harry's mind raced. He had three more minutes of protection, before he would be vulnerable, free for the world to attack. Harry didn't know what to do. All he knew was what Dumbledore had told the Dursleys that night last summer:

"The magic I evoked fifteen years ago means that Harry has powerful protection while he can still call this house 'home.' However miserable he has been here, however unwelcome, however badly treated, you have at least, grudgingly, allowed him houseroom. This magic will cease to operate the moment that Harry turns seventeen; in other words, at the moment he becomes a man. I ask only that you allow Harry to return, once more, to this house, before his seventeenth birthday, which will ensure that the protection continues until that time."

That was all he had learned, and all he had ever learned.

Thinking of Dumbledore brought a lump to Harry's throat, but he forced his emotions into the back of his brain; he didn't have time for them now.

The clock ticked on, unaware of Harry's urging for it to slow. Two minutes.

The streetlamp flickered again, and for a moment, all was dark. Harry's whole body tensed. His fingers slowly uncurled around his wand, before clenching it tighter.

Harry's breath was quick and shallow. One minute to go. He stood up carefully, wand raised, slowly rotating, eyes darting.

Thirty seconds.

His mind was oddly blank.

Twenty seconds.

Harry froze, as a noise came floating through the window.

Ten seconds.

Was it a twig snapping?

Nine seconds.

The whirl of a cloak?

Eight.

The pop of an apparating person?

Seven.

The murmur of a spell?

Six.

Or was it nothing?

Five.

An owl?

Four.

The wind?

Three.

A car?

Two.

Silence.

One.

Silence.

Zero. Midnight.

Nothing.

Harry rotated, eyes snapping between the door and the window.

Nothing.

His unmoving silhouette grew brighter and brighter as the sun rose over Private Drive.