A/N: Well, my first fanfiction. Wish me luck, and please don't sue me for copyright. Will try to post the next chapter some time before the year is out. And I will love you forever and ever if you leave a review ;)
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, or anything associated with it. All that I own are my characters and plot.
It was, for once, not raining in the Lake District. The clouds still stormed darkly overhead, but they weren't pouring down yet. Two teenagers walking through the woods, rucksacks on their backs, jumpers around their waists. They hand obviously just been walking; there really wasn't much else to do here. The two were talking to each other, laughing, clearly enjoying each other's company, and the lack of anyone else.
The girl was tall, had skin that could pass for tanned Caucasian. The bronzy glow was there year-round though. Her hair was dark brown, verging on black, and hung in big curls around her mid back. Her facial features rather defied pinpointing, being a mix of middle-eastern and British. Her eyes were a pale, clear grey, and not rendered unattractive by the glasses in front of them. Especially not to the boy who walked by her side.
He was around the same height as her, although they appeared to be either fifteen or sixteen. He was black, definitely, and also wearing glasses. His face looked friendly; always the type to break into a smile, though there was a definite measure of intelligence behind his dark eyes.
'One day, Ayesha,' he proclaimed happily, 'we'll come back here, you and me. And I'll turn all the trees in the lakes to blue and purple, just for you.' His accent was that of a Londoner, a working class one. You really expected him to say 'bruv' or 'innit' at any moment. Ayesha laughed at him.
'Don't be moronic, Jack,' she replied, her voice contrasting to his with its upper-class accent. 'You can't turn all the trees in the county blue! And why would you bother?'
'Because blue's your favourite colour, Yesh,' was his earnest reply. He wasn't normally like this around anyone. Back home - if you could really call the London estate where his family lived 'home' - quoting poetry was a sure fire way to get you dumped, and quickly. There, you'd just show a girl your gang symbol, tell her she was a 'hot bitch' and she'd be pregnant within the hour. But that would probably get you cursed into oblivion by Ayesha.
They were reaching her family's house. Well, estate was probably a more accurate name. It was a tourist attraction, Satterthwaite House. Built in the 1600s, apparently. According to Ayesha, the land had belonged to her family – on her father's side, of course, as her mother was from Iraq – for much longer than that.
The house loomed up ahead. Jack was glad to be back, and sped up slightly, looking at the ground. Ayesha, though, had stopped dead, and was staring up at the house with a feeling of dread filling her heart. There, above the house, looming in an oddly florescent light, floated the mark that every witch or wizard fears finding the day they come home.
The dark mark.
Jack noticed she wasn't following and stopped, turning around to look back at her. Her horrified expression made him stop, and turn. Then he saw it too.
Ayesha screamed something in Arabic, dropping her backpack to the ground and starting to run up to the house. Jack, moving faster than usual, managed to rugby tackle her.
'Are you mad, Yesh?' he asked, through her bursts of frenzied Arabic and occasional, nonsensical English. 'What if they're still in there?' This made her twist around and look at him.
'My mother! My little sister!' She shrieked, though he held firm. She muttered something which sounded very much like a curse.
'You're not even of age!'
'Neither are you!'
'Exactly!' This appeared to stump her. Jack relaxed his grip a little, and Ayesha didn't try to run away again. She just sat there, staring up at the house, a dead look in her eyes, muttering to herself. Jack manoeuvred himself so that he was just sitting next to her. He put his arm around her; it seemed like the right thing to do.
They sat there for an hour, maybe two. The clouds cleared in a fraction of a second, and were back again in a second more. The Dark Mark slowly began to fade. Th teenagers got up, not looking at each other, dreading what they would find. Jack took Ayesha's hand. That, too, seemed like the right thing to do. She squeezed it as hard as she could; he did not flinch.
The house was deserted. They searched every room on the ground floor; nothing. Nor on the second. On the third, however, they came to Maryam's bedroom. There was a body there, though not that of the innocent six year old who was sister to Ayesha. Rather, it was that of her father. Maximillian Satterthwaite had been handsome in life; he was handsome in death too. His eyes, the same clear grey as Ayesha's were wide open. Their expression was not one of fear though, but of determination. Ayesha sobbed, kneeling down and pushing those lids down. A single tear rolled down her cheek; she knew the real crying would come later.
There was nothing to be done with his body except put it into a more dignified position. His eyes were closed now, once they had placed him on the six-year-old's bed, he looked like he might have been sleeping. Ayesha felt dead, empty. This was her father, half of his genes were hers. So half of her was missing. She stood there in silence for a few minutes, before Jack gently tugged on her hand.
'We have to go,' he told her, and she nodded, still not trusting herself to speak. The rest of the house was empty, although they searched it from top to bottom. Ayesha murmured the word she had screamed earlier. Jack assumed that it meant mother.
They came down to just outside the house, sitting down on the stone steps. Just fifteen minutes ago, they had been ordinary teenagers, enjoying a holiday in the lakes. Now, everything had been turned upside down.
A silver light appeared from the woods, it appeared to be travelling towards them. Jack shook Ayesha's arm, and she looked up. A patronus in the shape of a water vole swam to them through the air. Ayesha felt hope begin to blossom in her heart as she saw her mother's patronus. It spoke in the light, sweet voice which had, in the good old days, sung her lullabies and told her stories.
'My brave daughter, I am sorry. We are in Melmerby,' it said, as Jack stared interestedly. He'd heard about patronuses being used to carry messages, but never seen it himself. Ayesha pulled on his sleeve.
'Let's go,' she said.
Well, that wasn't so terrible, right?
...
Right?