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Lights that had mysteriously turned off when an old man appeared turn back on as if nothing out of place had just happened in this little corner of England. The strange looking man with the long white hair and the curious bright robe nods his head, turns on his feet and disappears, making a sound like a car backfiring.
The November night is cool and quiet for a moment in Privet Drive; the only sound is the soft rustle of fabric that comes from a basket left in front of Number Four.
The occupant of said basket is a baby boy with a raw-looking scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on the middle of his forehead. He’s sleeping fitfully and moving as much as he can within the confines of a tightly wrapped blanket.
If nothing changes soon, he’ll wake up crying, and his loud wail will wake the woman that lives inside the house, who is the boy’s aunt. If nothing changes soon, the woman will wonder about the noise, go down the stairs and open the front door to find the son of her estranged little sister abandoned on her doorstep, with only a vague letter telling her she must take him in. If nothing changes soon, the little boy will live the next almost ten years of his life sleeping in a cot inside the cupboard under the stairs, doing most of the chores of the house and eating only when it was permitted, until his eleventh birthday when his life would drastically change with the arrival of a particular letter.
Just as the boy is about to wake, however, something happens. That future shatters into a million pieces of maybes, letting a new one, a very different one, unfold and take shape.
With a loud crack, the stern-looking woman who can take the form of a cat reappears, as if from thin air. She walks up to the basket with sure but quick steps and picks up the bundle inside, pulling the babe to her chest and hushing him softly.
The baby whimpers, but calms down when she rocks him. He goes right back to sleep, peacefully, and Minerva McGonagall takes a moment to just look at him.
“Albus, you big fool,” she says, and waves the wand in her free hand over the basket. With a muttered incantation, the basket disappears from sight.
Minerva sighs when the baby scrunches up his nose and wakes with a yawn. The baby blinks up at her, confusion in his bright green eyes—eyes that are just like Lily’s—and Minerva can’t help but smile at him.
“Hello, Harry,” she whispers as he makes an inquiring noise and tries to reach for her glasses. “I fear we must be going now, dear. It’s much too cold to be out and much too early to be awake.”
With just a little bit of regret, she spells the boy unconscious and walks away from the house. (Apparition is uncomfortable even for adults who do so themselves, so it’s better for Harry to be out of it for a side-along apparition.)
Once she’s far away and out of sight, the witch turns on her heels and she’s gone.