What would it be like, to have a dream of yours come true? To discover that yes, all the impossible things denied in life were suddenly possible to obtain?

What would you do, then, when you discover that all that wonder and joy was real, but out of reach? And then, that those around you cruelly mocked you for being unable to attain what should have been yours – could have been yours! – if not for a cruel quirk of fate.

Soul crushing despair, perhaps? Demand a refund? Or curse the fact that, apparently, wish-fulfillment operated on Monkey Paw logic and rules?

All of the above. I went through the Five Stages of Grief when I learned and experienced that hard, horrible truth.

To explain what I mean, I have to explain what happened to me.

What happened is I died.

I got hit with a car when trying to cross a bridge over the Duwamish River in Seattle, Washington. I died because the asshole driver knocked me over into the river, and paralyzed by pain and a pair of broken legs, I ended up drowning.

The experience was… unpleasant, to say the least. I died trying to scream, and was reborn screaming, fittingly enough. I was a loud baby, from what my parents told me as I grew up.

Still, that was that. I died. And then, for some reason, I was reborn into the world of Harry Potter.

How could I tell? Well, the fact that, when I was starting to gain – or, more accurately, regain – awareness of my surroundings I swiftly realized I was in an old, Victorian style house. I wouldn't call it a manor, but it was bigger on the inside than outer appearances would allow for.

Objects floated around and did things by themselves, my parents walked around with pointy sticks that shot jets of sparks and colorful light, and there was a wide-eyed, floppy eared horror known as a House Elf that did the chores around the house.

So, yeah. Kind of obvious, once my previous life's memories started to trickle back in around the time I was one and a half years old. By the time I was three, all of my former memories and experiences had returned, and I began to learn about the situation I'd ended up in.

On April First, 1976, I was reborn as Erroneous Edwards Hunch Jr., to Erroneous Hunch, head of House Hunch, and Wisteria Hunch nee Kettlepoke. Everyone called me Edward, thankfully.

I had brown hair and blue eyes, with ears a bit bigger than normal, and had a fairly average looking face, save for my oddly pointy chin that I inherited from my father.

I had a brother, two years younger than me, named Rudolf. God, I pitied his name. Better than mine, though, but only slightly. At least I could go by my middle name. He didn't have that luck, and ended up being called Rudy by friends and family alike. At least he had a normal chin.

Regarding my new family in this world, the Hunches were a Pureblood family, and a very minor noble one at that. So minor, that it was in name only. We had the title, but little else. No vast fortune, not a lot of land, and hardly any magical secrets or talents. And certainly no seat on the Wizengamot!

To make ends meet, mother brewed potions for Saint Mungo's, and father was a lesser clerk in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Rules and Regulations, which was a sub-division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It didn't bring in a lot of money, but we lived comfortably. It helped that we owned the house we lived in, and like many older families, had access to centuries worth of clutter and junk that was worth a pretty penny – or knut in this case – if we were forced to find additional income.

I'd learned that magical families were pretty spendthrift in general. Why buy new chairs when a spell could not only fix 'em up, but change their look and feel completely? Dirt and grime were silly little things compared to a Scourgify or persistent House Elf. And who need electricity when a couple runes etched onto some copper provided all the light you needed for free? Magic let our hidden society do away with the need for the rampant capitalism the Muggle world took for granted.

Oh, and something else I discovered as I grew up was that father was a Death Eater. Yeah, that'd been an unpleasant shock. He'd strutted around the house with his sleeves rolled up for months after his 'initiation,' proudly displaying that accursed skull tattoo to all of his family members.

Up until November of 1981, of course, at which point he began to cover up his mark and walk around with a lot less confidence and swagger.

Father dearest almost bankrupted us and used up numerous favors to get the courts to drop his name from the list of Death Eaters. He pleaded the Imperious, and just barely managed to escape Azkaban.