Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury and Scholastic. I also don't own "The Raven", but I don't know who does or if Poe's works are common literary property like Shakespeare's. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has changed hands.

A/N: I was inspired to write this story by reading Dizzy Wiz Bang's "The Raven" and "The Raven II". They are marvelous and I highly recommend them. II isn't finished yet, but it's shaping up nicely! I decided to take a slightly different track with this one. Will eventually be D/H, but not for some time.

Enjoy!

Harry Potter watched the wind in the trees from his perch at the top of the highest one and pondered how his seventeenth birthday was turning out. Harry's life had never been what you'd call normal, not even before he knew what he was. Normal children didn't have to stay in the cupboard under the stairs rather than live in a normal bedroom, nor were they treated like a slave in their own home. Normal children didn't find out that their entire existence prior to their eleventh birthday had been one lie after another. Normal children didn't have the curse of an Unforgivable Curse emblazoned across their forehead.

Nor had his life following his introduction to magic prove to be even remotely normal, even for a magical world. Normal children didn't stand up to the wizarding world's worst enemy since Grindewald and live to tell about it. Normal children didn't have the abilities of their attempted murderer foisted onto them. Normal children didn't have to deal with a lying press and the people who believed it. Normal children didn't live in constant fear that their own personal nightmare was going to murder the people they loved and not be able to do a damned thing about it. Normal children didn't witness murder, especially casual murder. "Kill the spare." Normal children were never told that the fate of the world rested on their shoulders.

No, Harry Potter's life was not normal. But the person that he was underneath all his life threw at him was fairly normal, if a little too foolhardy for his own safety at times. At least, that had been the case until just that morning. Now, he thought bitterly, he would never have a chance at normality again. And he would inevitably fail those who were depending on him. Because now, there was no way in Hell he would be able to defeat Voldemort when he faced him. He couldn't even use a wand any more. Now he would have to go to that confrontation and die, knowing that his abnormal life had ended as it began, at the tip of Voldemort's wand.

He sighed, doing some swift calculations in his head. Straight line flight, it was four hundred and fifty miles from Surrey to Hogsmede. That was a bit much for him to even think about right now. His best bet would be Diagon Alley, but he wasn't sure how to get in there any way other than through the entrance at the Leaky Cauldron, and that was going to be problematic at best. Oh well. Best get started while there was still some light. London was a fair stretch away, and he was going to be exhausted by the time he got there. He stretched his new wings and jumped off the branch he had been sitting on, flapping his way upwards until he had enough altitude to glide a bit. After all, he would need to conserve his strength.

As he flew, following the roadways so he wouldn't get lost, Harry thought about the past twenty-four hours and how, in the nondescript day that was his birthday, he had accidentally been transformed into a raven, and by the least likely person; his cousin, Dudley!

That's the intro. Tell me what you think!