i meant second draft woops

Chapter 1: War's End

10 pm, 31st October, 1981

Godric's Hollow, Sedgemoor, Somerset

It was a frigid, misty, cloudy evening in Godric's Hollow. The air was joyful, as it was also Hallowe'en night, but it was slowly coming to an end. Fewer children were going door to door, and the sky grew darker until it was completely dark. Then a figure appeared at the end of High Street, which connected the village to the motorway.

This person was unlike anyone who had ever entered this place before. Although his hood obscured his face, he paced with the determination of a man who clearly had something very important to get to.

Unfortunately, he wasn't here for trick-or-treating – he was here for something far more sinister...

Two children dressed up as bright orange pumpkins passed close to the man, but he barely paid any attention to them, until–

'Nice costume, mister!'

One of the kids complimented the man's costume. This deeply offended him, as what he wore was not a costume but his normal clothing. He slowly turned to look at the child with disdain, and as soon as the child saw his face under the golden streetlamps, he fell silent and ran away down another lane.

He briefly contemplated ending the small Muggle's life, but decided against it – not because it was immoral, but rather because, in his thoughts, it was inefficient.

He had something more important to do, and he continued with his stroll – with even more determination than he had been before this evening – and went on further down the cottage-lined lanes, and then to the left down a final lane, where he could finally see the cottage he was looking for, the second cottage from the end.

Clearly, the Fidelius Charm had been exposed, and Wormtail hadn't lied to save his "friends" – he could see the Potters' cottage, and even more clearly, he could see a golden-lit window with its curtains still drawn on the ground floor as he approached. Shortly, his eyes were level with the very top of the hedge, and he could see a tall, skinny man, with jet-black hair and wearing round glasses, standing in the sitting-room. He was using his wand to blow out different colours of sparkling smoke to entertain a small, young child in blue pyjamas – who looked remarkably like his father in front of him – sitting on the carpeted floor, while also using his tiny fists to grab at the coloured puffs of smoke.

The cloaked man behind the hedge stared at the boy coldly.

That was him. That was the person who was going to threaten his entire existence.

He frowned slightly at this; the boy was barely over a year old.

.**..yet somehow this child was prophesied to be the end of him. How could such a weak creature do that?

Just then, a dark-red-haired woman entered the room and spoke. Although the cloaked man could not hear what she was saying, the man in the cottage then scooped up the child and gave him to the woman, and she then went back through the door to the main hall she had entered from moments before. The father then tossed his wand onto the sofa nearby and stretched out his limbs and yawned.

Such a pity – so much trouble the Potters had to go through only to be betrayed by their own friend... Love and friendship really aren't everything...

The cloaked man pushed the metal gate as it creaked sharply, although the man in the sitting room didn't hear it. The cloaked man stretched a white hand into his cloak to reveal a wand that looked like a pale white bone with a skull on the very end of the handle, and raised it at the wood-panelled door, prepared to blast it apart...

A little ways into the heavens of the moonless night – directly above the low overcast – an elderly merchant named Perkins was speeding past on a broomstick from Sheffield, heading towards Ottery Saint Catchpole. He had been flying for three hours and was starting to get exhausted. Suddenly, while flying above Godric's Hollow, a brick (which Perkins had stolen from a Muggle cottage in Yorkshire believing it would have "magical Muggle properties") that had been tied to the very front of his broom slipped clean off. This was due to the fact that Perkins didn't actually know how to do a knot properly, which led to the brick falling off the broom. Perkins immediately stopped to look back down at it, but the brick had already passed beneath the clouds and out of sight.

Perkins decided against going back down to retrieve the brick, as he had an important delivery and needed to get it to the Lovegood family in the hills of Devon, as they had ordered a batch of Hebridean Black Dragon claws to brew a cure for Dragon Pox (Mrs. Lovegood had contracted it but was still in the early stages) from a magizoologist in Yorkshire who happened to have some. And so, Perkins set off, the brick still falling chaotically towards the ground, ready to hit at any second...

BANG!

Out of all the places it could hit – the brick hit the best place it could have at this moment. The cloaked man's head was slammed sharply by the intense impact, while his body also launched forward by the momentum, going face-first into the cobbled footpath leading to the front door, along with the brick, which had shattered upon impact, and his bony wand, which flew several feet away, as his cloak shifted all over his body and eventually settled down.

Lord Voldemort was dead.

And that's the truth.

He was vanquished not by a child – but rather by masonry that appeared (although no one even witnessed it) to fall out of the sky with no clear origin at all.

+++

Indoors, James Potter cursed in annoyance at the sound.

'Language!' Lily Potter called from upstairs.

'You're not my mother,' James called back while stepping up the stairs, 'and did you not hear that bang?! I'm sure it's that same group of teenagers setting off firecrackers. Firecrackers! At 10 p.m.! Are they mental?!'

'Just let it go,' Lily said, exhausted, as James reached the landing.

'I will – eventually – but they shouldn't even be setting them off yet, Guy Fawkes Night isn't for another five days, and–'

'James, I'm trying to get Harry to sleep; could you just be silent for at least 10 minutes?' Lily said with slight annoyance.

'Okay, fine, I'll let it go – at least it will only be a week or so of this...'

Harry fell asleep swiftly that night, and James failed to even notice Voldemort lying in their front gate when he closed the front curtains an hour later before going off to sleep. However, even though the Potters were asleep, many things began to happen that night...

First Chapter arriving 1st September 2026 11am London time on Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net

The Boy Who Stayed Normal

by GredAndForgeWeasleyLover69

CHAPTER 1 - He Who Shall Not Be Named

It was a misty, cold, and dark evening in Godric's Hollow. It was Halloween night, so some people were trick or treating door to door, but it was already so late that most people were asleep and combined with Godric's Hollow being a small town, it made the Halloween traffic rather weak.

A skinny hooded figure walked down the cobbled dimly lit pavement with a slight rush in his step. He looked up the road at a home with its interior lights on and smirked with his shadowed face - the house of Lily and James Potter, and their son Harry Potter.

“Oy! Nice costume, what's it supposed to be?” Spoke an innocent voice.

A kid dressed up as a Hobbit from the novel with the same name was speaking to the figure. The figure turned his head to look at the small child, to which the child then screamed in absolute terror and ran away at the sight of it's face:

Pale white, more pale than any person ever - even whiter than Scandinavians; clean, smooth scally skin that resembled more a snake than any typical human; long, gaping slits for nostrils - infact, not even any nose structure to be on his face; and deep, red, catlike eyes that gazed without a soul; and finally, a thin, long, cheshire grin that was barely resembled mouth.

He was basically a monster, which gave the kid a deep motivation to run for his life as clearly whoever that person was, was not human.

Voldemort, or You Know Who, or He Who Shall Not Be Named, or The Dark Lord - whatever you might call him - He contemplated killing the muggle with the Killing Curse right then and there, but decided that it wasn't worth the trouble, and spared his life to focus on his ultimate goal: To vanquish the child mentioned in a prophecy that threatened his legacy.

He approached the wooden gate in between the cobbled fence, and looked up at the two-storey cottage where the Potter's resided. He slowly opened the gate.

+++

Up ahead in the dark and moonless sky, a middle-aged merchant on a broomstick hiding above the low cloud cover was travelling ahead to Lower Cornwall, when a brick (which he stole from a muggles home believing it would have “magical muggle properties”) fell from the back of his woven bag through a hole he had not noticed and descended through the clouds and out of sight.

+++

Voldemort began walking down to the Potter's residence when he was hit on the back of his head by the brick which suddenly appeared completely out of no where from the sky. He almost immediately fell forwards onto the ground, and hit the surface at the very same time as the brick.

+++

The merchant looked down, and decided that the brick was lost forever and decided not to retrieve it, and instead take another brick from another muggle.

He'll never know what that brick did to save the entire world…

+++

Voldemort was dead.

Yep.

The Dark Lord, who threatened the future of the British Wizarding World - and the entire world, muggles, wizards, witches, and every living being - was killed by a simple accidental brick that fell from the sky.

What a disappointing way to die…

+++

“Did you hear that?” James asked his wife.

“Hear what?” Lily replied.

“I heard like- a brick falling outside, but it might have been an Owl hooting - I didn't catch the sound very well.”

“Well I didn't hear anything.”

“Must of just been my mind.”

“Come on, let's go to bed, it's getting late.” Lily persuaded.

“Yes, yes…” James said “I'm feeling very tired.”

The next morning, Lily would wake up to go outside, and scream at the fact that Voldemort was lying right there, dead in their backyard, and the entire wizarding world would celebrate the death of Lord Voldemort - who died to a fate most people still don't understand…

[end of draft]

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So on Earth, jet engines use oxygen from the air and fuel onboard to react and provide thrust

If we used this method in a Hydrogen based atmosphere, using hydrogen from the air oxidiser from onboard tanks, could it still work in that way? Or maybe work with some engineering changes?