Cursed Halfway to the Grave

Prologue

Harry's post-Voldemort life was going about how he expected it to.

The war had been brutal, thousands of magicals killed and that didn't even include the deaths that Voldemort and his Death Eaters had caused prior to his fall that fateful October 31st.

Most of Harry's friends and family were dead now, thanks to the war. Neville, Remus, Tonks, and Hagrid had been killed during the final battle. Ron was the last Weasley still alive after vampires had attacked the Burrow a week after the war had ended. Even Fleur, Andromeda, and little baby Teddy had been killed during the attack at the Burrow. Hermoine was still alive but it would have been kinder if she had died, Ron wouldn't hear a word of it, Harry was pretty sure even though Hermione was trapped inside of her mind that if she died Ron would kill himself or go on a homicidal spree, depending on the day and his best friend's mood swings. Hermione was Ron's last anchor to life. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been killed in an attempt to bring Harry out into the public eye during the war. Dudley was still alive though to curse Harry's name.

Life post-war was often unbearable and filled with heartache. However, everything shifted on Harry's birthday, as it seemed to do quite frequently.

His 17th birthday decided to screw him over big time, although this is probably something he should expect at this point. A quiet life was never meant for him. How different his life might have been if he was who everyone believed him to be, himself included.

When Harry had opened his eyes on the morning of the 31st of July, he thought it was just going to be another day. As he stumbled into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, he knew it was going to be anything but.

As he stared into the mirror, a stranger looked back at him. He raised his arm and watched as the reflection perfectly mimicked his movements. His father's messy uncontrollable dark brown hair was gone, replaced by crimson red hair, that reminded him of his mother's. The hair fell in gentle waves around his face down to his shoulders, the ends curling up just slightly. The killing curse green of his mother's eyes had been replaced with a stormy gray near his pupil but the outside of his iris was a thin emerald green ring with spidering cracks that seemed to be trying to reach his pupil.

His cheekbones sat higher on his face, casting shadows in all the right places. His once sharp jawline had softened, giving him a more youthful appearance. Even his once broad shoulders seemed narrower now, but in a way that made him appear graceful and elegant. And his skin, oh how it had changed. Where once it had been sickly pale, now it seemed almost incandescent under the glow of the bathroom lights. His teeth had also transformed, straight and gleaming white enough to blind someone in its brilliance. It was like looking at a completely different person in the mirror.

The only thing that remained the same was his disappointingly short height. He was almost pressed against the mirror, examining the changes in his eyes and his face when he realized that he wasn't wearing his glasses but he could see, in fact, he could way better than he ever had as he watched several motes of dust floating in the air.

"What the hell?" Even his voice sounded different, smoother, not as deep. Had he been cursed?

His first reaction was to call Hermione to see what had happened to him, but then his mind caught up to that fleeting thought and he felt his gut clench in a mixture of despair and anger that still hadn't abated even months after the war had been ended. It probably would have hurt less if Hermione had been killed during the war, instead the brightest witch of her age was now trapped inside her mind, comatose.

Shaking his head to rid himself of such depressing thoughts he tried a finite on himself but that didn't do anything but make his hair a bit staticky. Maybe he should see the goblins? After the war ended Harry had paid a very hefty fee to repair the damages incurred when they had broken into and then back out of the bank, but thankfully the goblins didn't hold a grudge since he had removed a dark artifact from their bank and ended Voldemort once and for all. Small mercies.