Hello everyone! This is my first story, so please hold the flame. Sorry for any mistakes, English is not my native language so be kind :)
*(I own nothing, except few details and/or few characters.)* Read and review! Thank you.


Dark Mystery

The moon was high and the sky was cloudless. Every occupant in Privet Drive was sleeping peacefully, except one black haired teenager with strangely shaped scar on his forehead. His name was Harry Potter.

For more than a year Harry was unable to sleep through the night without being haunted by Voldemort torturing and/or killing innocent. But last week was totally unbearable – after Sirius's death he didn't managed to nap for more than two hours. Boy barely slept, barely ate – he was starting to look like corpse. He was white like sheet, very skinny, too skinny to be healthy. Bags under his eyes was one of the signs of insomnia, another and probably the worst one was his eyes, once beautiful green eyes now was just black hollows. Even Dursley's didn't have a heart to punish Harry like they always did. In fact his so called family were almost civil now, well almost. Lupin and Moody did a good job threatening them.

But this night was different. After reliving all deaths for which Harry felt responsible, he started to feel something new, but also very familiar at the same time. Voldemort was trying to breach Harry's mind barriers. Of course he was fighting it, but no matter how hard teenager tried to push the monster out of his head, he was unsuccessful…

Suddenly pushing stopped and Harry found himself standing in the dark room with stone floor. He was unable to see anything or anyone, although he felt one person, he felt that Voldemort was near.

"Tom, show yourself" Harry said trying not to wince from the pain his scar was emitting.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk… Not very polite way to say hello to old friend Harry" Voldemort hissed, hiding anger after hearing his real name.

"What do you want Tom? I'm very busy man, you know" boy exclaimed with slight smirk.

"Arrogant brat!" this time all emotions were on surface, Dark Lord's face was screwed with anger.

"Crucio" he yelled and let out high pitched laugh while on the floor Harry was writting in pain.

"This will teach you a lesson" Voldemort hissed before lifting the curse.

Harry was lying on his stomach, his face pressed to the cold floor. Panting heavily he was trying to cool his scar which was burning in pain much worse than his whole body was. Meanwhile Voldemort was circling him with wand in hand. Slowly boy sat up and then pulled himself onto his feet which were shaking badly. He tried to reach for his wand only to find it missing at first he panicked, but then remembered that this was Voldemort's playground and rules were his too.

"You had enough?" boy jumped slightly, before remembering that he was not alone.

"I'm just warming up, Tom" Harry spat, before turning to face man, most powerful dark wizard ever whom was feared by most of the wizarding world. Although boy seemed not affected, he looked to those red slits and not even blinked. He though that this monster was merely a bully in the school like Dudley and his gang. Harry even smiled at this thought. Voldemort noticed boy's smirk, stopped circling and pointed his wand at boy.

"I see you're slow learner, Harry. I'll teach you in a harder way." He hissed and smiled, but it don't even ressembled a smile it was a horrible grimace.

"Avada Kedavra" sickening green jet shoot form Voldemort's wand into Harry's direction.

Harry didn't even move he was just looking at the incoming curse shocked. Killing curse was something he hadn't expected. But just before it was going to collide with the boy's chest everything suddenly went black. Harry opened his eyes, then closed them and opened again. The only thing he saw was a blurry ceiling of his bedroom. He never was happier to wake up and to be at the Privet Drive. Of course he hadn't left his room this night, although for a split of second he believed that he was somewhere far away in Voldemort's hands and that he was going to die. He truly was happy to know that Voldemort or his minions can't reach him here.

Harry looked to his left to the newly repaired clock which was showing 4:32 AM and realised that he had slept his portion. He put on his glasses and grabbed quite large book from the night table and started to read. At the beginning of summer he vowed to himself that he'll train hard to defeat Tom Marvolo Riddle. He was learning all kinds of spells every night after waking up from nightmares. His hands almost itched to try the practical part, because theory was starting to bore him. Luckily this night he grabbed DADA book, so he had no worries about boredom, after all defence was his favourite thing. Harry stopped thinking about his latest dream and continued his "late studies". Today he was going to learn how to conjure a psychical shield. After Dumbledores and Voldemort's duel he knew that it was only defence against the killing curse. Latest nightmare was only reinforcing his desire to know how to defend against the "Avada Kedavra".

Another beautiful morning came to Little Whinging. Most of the houses were quiet although some people were already preparing to leave for work. One of them was Vernon Dursley, he didn't bothered to be quiet, because his wife and son was already up, and he didn't cared about fourth occupant in their house. Of course he stopped mistreating boy, but he still hated that freak.

Harry was woken by thunderous footsteps, Dudley's diet was over and his aunt had finally given permission to both of Dursley's men to eat real food. All that noise meant that it was breakfast time. Harry opened his eyes and tried to remember why his head was aching. He looked around the room, but saw only blur – he wasn't wearing his glasses anymore. After small search boy found them lying on his chest and after few seconds he put them where they belonged. Harry closed book and put it on the table. He slowly got up and dressed his new clothes casual jeans and t-shirt. Tonks was very kind and bought him a new wardrobe as a present to lighten up his mood.

After getting dressed he made up his bed a lied on top of the covers. Harry wasn't hungry; he wasn't going to leave his room, not now at least – while all Dursley's were in kitchen. After Vernon will leave to work, Petunia and Dudley will leave the house too as per usual. His Aunt mostly go to the garden and his cousin to meet his gang. Then Harry will be free to roam the house. Of course he only need to go to bathroom and get something to drink, after that he'll probably will come back to his room and just lay in his bed all day. He remember now, how it was his dream to be left alone in the house all day. It looks so childish now, after fourth year his life has changed so much - it's almost impossible to believe.

After Harry's now daily journey, he was back in his room, thinking about Sirius again. He was lucky that he managed to take a nap during his "late studies", because now he wouldn't need to fight sleep all day. Boy knew that Sirius was gone because of him, because he was too weak, too weak to learn Occlumency, too weak to keep Voldemort out of his head. Harry blamed himself and decided that no matter what, he would learn how to shield his mind from Voldemort, that his friends would be safe and prophecy will be left unknown.

Prophecy… Harry would have never believed that few words said by lunatic can do so much damage, but now he does. At first his parents, then Cedric, Sirius, so many got hurt, just because 16 years ago Sybill Trelawney told these lies. But Harry knew that prophecy was true, no matter how hard he tried; deep inside his heart he felt that prophecy was not a lie.

Lie… So many lies... Why Dumbledore told him now? Why he didn't tell Harry earlier? Probably Sirius would be still alive… Harry was angry at old man. Boy's mentor betrayed his trust once again. But after week of thinking about it, he realised that Dumbledore was doing it for him, well not for him, but for all of them. He was just trying to keep the propecy known for as few people as possible. He was doing it for the greater good.

Harry was again sitting on his bed with book in hand, this time it was "Advanced Transfiguration". He was following James and Sirius footsteps; he was learning first steps of animagi. He already knew how to discover his inner animal; there was a spell, very complicated one, it puts caster into deep trance and lets him to see through animal's eyes, that animal will be his animagus form. Harry had memorized incantation; it was "Ostendo sum Bestia". He would try it as soon as he can. After all he can't have too many advantages at war, especially then it's against Voldemort.

He was rereading chapter about animagi for the third time, then he heard light scratching. Harry looked and saw dark brown owl hovering behind window.


Do you like it, do you hate it? Tell me :) I'm waiting for your reviews.

I don't know how often I will update. I can guarantee it'll be some time before chp.2'll be uploaded :) sorry, but that's how I am :D
Of course reviews may speed up everything ;D

thanks for reading,
Almius.