DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or any other recognizable aspect of this story. I intend no copyright infringement and make no profit from the writing and publishing of this fan fiction.
Seven years ago, I began a story entitled "Rebirth." I was 15 at the time, and have since grown as an author and a person. Time and maturity have changed my ideas for the story, and so, because the original idea no longer meshed with the ideas I have now for it and because the writing no longer flowed together, I took it down. Over the course of several months, I have revamped it, changed much of the original story, and have decided to begin reposting it. To those who read the original, though the core of the story has remained, the rest has changed. I hope you enjoy this revamping, and to those who never read the original, welcome to the beginning of what I hope will be a good story.
To Every Story, There is a Beginning
He'd seen the portraits every day of his life. They had never been moved. Hell, the subjects of the paintings never moved either! Every other painting's subject moved and spoke; these did not. He didn't know why it bothered him so much; he only knew that it did.
He was seven the first time he'd heard the tragic tale of the people portrayed by a Muggle artist so many years ago. He'd badgered the portrait of his great-grandfather until he'd gotten the story.
"Tragic, it was," he'd begun. "Matthew Potter was the eldest son of Elizabeth and Jacob Potter. He was twenty-six when he died of the flu, a deadly disease back in those days, even for a wizard. He'd just married a Muggle, the woman in the portrait next to him. Her name was Morgan. Married just six weeks when he died, they were. Poor girl was devastated. Her parents were dead; she had nowhere to go when he died, so Elizabeth and Jacob kept her with them for the next several years 'til they found her a new, Muggle husband. Never knew what became of her after that-details of the story have been lost since then, it having been about four hundred years and all. 'Fraid that's all I can tell you, m'boy."
He'd never been able to learn anymore about them, though they still fascinated him. He'd searched his family's books, begged his parents for answers, even read the books on Pureblood families in the library at school. Nowhere could he find any more than Archibald had said about Matthew and Morgan Potter. He knew they had had no children. He knew that Morgan had remarried a Muggle. And he knew they were important; he just didn't know why.
"Prongs, you about done staring at those portraits?" a voice from behind him asked, seeming rather irritated. He turned, tearing his eyes from Morgan's portrait. He wasn't sure how long he'd been there, but it had evidently been awhile, judging by the irritation in Sirius' voice.
"Sorry, Padfoot," he mumbled. "What'd you need?"
"Oh, nothing," Sirius snapped. "Just that it's time to leave for King's Cross, not that it's important or anything. Not like you made Head Boy AND Quidditch Captain and it'd look really bad for you to miss the train."
James let out a laugh. "No need to get snarky, Pads. I get it. I'm coming."
As the two boys made their way downstairs, Sirius looked sidelong at him. "What's so captivating about those portraits, mate? You stare at them like they're going to suddenly speak to you."
James sighed. "I don't know. I think they're important, but that's insane. They've got nothing to do with me, mate. I just can't help it."
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"Thank Merlin!" Lily muttered as she boarded the train. Another summer with her sister was finally over. Petunia seemed to live just to make her miserable these days. Dragging her trunk behind her, she quickly found an empty compartment (not hard when she was one of the first at the station) and claimed it for herself and her friends, desperate for the train to take off and take her far away from her awful sister.
Naturally, this morning had to start off with a fight between the girls. Petunia was in a bad mood, as she always was when Lily was around. Lily was exhausted, having hardly slept the previous three nights. Petunia's boyfriend, Vernon, had come over for breakfast before he and Petunia went to visit his mother for the weekend. Lily had shuddered in disgust as she watched her sister kiss her rather…large…boyfriend. This did not go unnoticed by said sister.
"What, freak? Upset you've got no one who loves you?" Petunia had taunted her. Lily had decided not to reply, instead turning her attention to breakfast. Exactly what did she want? As soon as she settled on cereal, she thoughtlessly pulled her wand from her pocket…and summoned a box of cereal to her.
Petunia shrieked as Vernon began to splutter, watching the cereal box fly, seemingly of its own accord, across the room. Lily had stared at it in horror as it dawned on her what she had just done.
Needless to say, the rest of her morning did not go well.
Lost in thought, she didn't hear the compartment door slide open behind her.
"Lily!" she heard from behind her, the exclamation startling her. She turned to find two of her friends entering-Marlene McKinnon and Mary MacDonald. She smiled at them, relieved to not have to get off the train to find them.
"Hello," she laughed as she embraced them each in turn. Marlene stepped back and examined her, holding her at arms' length.
"Lily, you look exhausted. Rough morning?" Marlene could read her like a book. It was rather frightening, really. She shook her head.
"No, dreams again," she answered with a laugh as she moved to help Mary put her trunk in the overhead. Mary was four inches shorter than Lily and often had difficulty reaching places Lily could get to easily. Behind her, she heard Marlene cluck her tongue. Her friends knew all about her dreams.
"Find him…find Matthew…you must find him!" the woman in green cried, her red hair blowing wildly in the wind coming off the sea.
"Who is Matthew? Why must I find him?" Lily cried, desperate for answers she knew this woman could give her. The woman simply shook her head.
"Find him, Lily. You must find him."
Lily shuddered as the strange woman's words echoed through her head. She'd seemed so urgent, so desperate…but no, it was only a dream. Dreams meant nothing.
"Lily dear, I think it's time you spoke to Professor Mopsus about these dreams," Marlene began. Lily groaned. Marlene was a believer in dreams, and had pestered Lily since their third year to tell the Divinations professor about the recurring dreams she'd had since…well, as long as she could remember.
"Marlene, I'm not going to bother him with something as simple as a teenager's confusing dreams," she sighed. "He has much better things to do with his time than tell me there's no meaning behind my dreams. They're probably just from something I read a long time ago."
"You've had them for as long as we've known you," Mary piped up suddenly. As Mary was normally the quiet one who rarely got involved in any discussion that might lead to a dispute, her interjection surprised her friends. "I think Marlene might be right-they might actually mean something."
Lily stared. Marlene's mouth dropped open in shock, and then she let out a shriek of victory. "Yes! I knew someone would see the sense in it someday!" she cried. "See, Lil? Even Mary is on my side now!"
Defeated, Lily nodded. "Fine, I'll talk to him. Then you'll have to concede defeat, Marlene!" The other girls laughed as the compartment door slid open again, revealing a bemused looking Alice Ross.
"Conceding defeat so early in the year, Marlene? This does not bode well for you debate skills," Alice teased as she hugged each of the girls in turn.
Marlene grinned. "Yes, well, at least I wasn't the last to show up this year! Where were you? Off snogging Frank again?"
Alice had the good grace to blush. "Yes, well, I'm here now, what's it matter where I was?" she muttered, stowing her trunk with the others. Turning back to her friends, she put her hands on her hips, adopting what she deemed her 'serious' pose. "Now, what are you conceding defeat about?"
"Lily's going to tell Mospus about her dreams," Mary explained. "She thinks he'll tell her she's right, that they mean nothing, and Marlene will have to admit she's wrong."
Alice nodded in understanding. "Well, one of you will be conceding defeat, that's obvious. How about we make it interesting?" Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
"What do you mean?" Lily didn't trust Alice's ideas of making things interesting-they had the tendency to work out poorly for her.
"If Lily is right, Marlene has to do something embarrassing, whatever Lily decides," Alice ventured slowly, clearly enjoying whatever thoughts were flitting through her (rather twisted, in Lily's opinion) mind. "If Marlene is right, Lily must do whatever embarrassing thing Marlene comes up with. And I mean anything, from dying your hair pink with green polka dots to confessing your undying love to Potter."
Lily gaped at her. "That's just cruel."
"Chicken?" Marlene quipped, a taunting grin on her face. "Because if you are, it's only because you think you're going to lose."
"I do not!" Lily cried. "Fine! Have your interesting wager, Alice. Deal."
Alice squealed with glee. "Shake on it!" she cried. Rolling her eyes, Lily shook Marlene's hand.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," she muttered, "I have a Prefect's Meeting to lead with the Head Boy."
"Do you know who it is?" Mary asked. Lily narrowed her green eyes.
"Potter," she hissed, turning to walk out the door before her friends could respond.
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And because I can, I'm going to end chapter one here. I do warn readers of the original story that this one will be much slower going, though the main elements of it remain the same. I will try to get chapter two up quickly; meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter, and please review! ~Aideen Nicole