It's been quite a while since I've written anything of substance and this is half passionate project, half writing exercise. This chapter, the prologue, was written some time ago and I'm picking it up again. Therefore there may be some stylistic differences as I shake the rust.
Thanks to BTT and the good folks of DLP for their help.
Disclaimer: This is a work of Harry Potter themed fanfiction and as such I hold no rights to anything written below or in subsequent chapters.
Summary:
Most believe the Dark Lord to be dead and gone but Lord Voldemort had always been adept at inspiring loyalty.
His most fanatical supporters have never given up on him, striking from the shadows for years and causing untold hurt. Harry Potter is in greater danger than ever.
Prologue
Vernon Dursley liked to think of himself as a patient man. At work he dealt with obnoxious, pompous clients working for international corporations as well as local contractors, eager to get the finest Grunnings' machinery on site. At times he could scarcely tell who were worse, but he always dealt with them politely; many were of the opinion he was quite a charming man.
If that wasn't enough he'd had the patience to go along with it when his wife's hippy sister got herself killed and landed them with another mouth to feed. He'd taken the boy in with a minimal amount of fuss and though he proved to be quite a challenging child, Vernon knew he was well regarded in the community for taking in such a burden without complaint.
Today, though, he was running out of patience.
Every day for the last week at precisely a quarter to four a man appeared on the corner across the street. He would sit on the bench outside the bakery and stare across at Grunnings' yard, alternating between the gates and Vernon's window. He was a tall, thin man with a disgustingly unkempt pair of mutton chops and a garish, multi-hued woolen jumper. He looked like exactly the sort of dreg who clogged up the nation's dole queues only to spend the money on cans or worse.
He was interupted from his brooding when the shift bell rang through the yard and with a heavy sigh he gathered what little paperwork he needed, stuffed it into his briefcase and grabbed his coat. Today was the day he'd confront the man and demand to know exactly what his business with Grunnings' was; unless of course the stranger broke from habit and decided not to follow him. If that was the case it wasn't worth the risk of being seen talking to such a runt.
In fact, he supposed, it made no sense for the stranger to continue following him day after day. After all it was only for a mile or so before he lost interest. Perhaps, he thought, the stranger was just in a routine that had absolutely nothing to do with himself and he was simply being overly paronoid.
He could hardly blame himself for the occasional bout of the willies; his nephew by marriage had everyone in the house wound up tight as a swiss clock with his weird antics. He still didn't believe the poppycock he'd been told by Petunia over the years but the boy definitely wasn't quitenormal. Thank goodness Dudley had turned into a decent child.
Yes, it was hardly anything actually sinister, no need to confront the man.
Vernon locked his office and headed through the small hallways towards the management car park. He climbed into his not quite new but definitely expensive BMW and pulled out of the yard. To his relief the man on the corner was now reading a newspaper, not paying the slightest bit of attention to him.
You deserve a holiday, Vernon. A long one.
By the time he pulled into a garage to fill up on petrol he'd forgotten about the strange vagrant, his mind filled with visions of a week in Spain with Petunia and Dudley.
He finished at the pump and headed inside to pay, muttering darkly at the crowd of tracksuit wearing youths half blocking the shop entrance. They moved aside all too slowly for his liking; their lack of manners clearly a product of lenient schooling and a growing immigration problem. The boys at the social club were always talking about these ruffians.
He reached the counter and handed the cashier his card, enjoying the look on her face as she realised it was a corporate edition. As he turned to leave something made him stop mid stride; out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a man reading a newspaper in the seating area of the garage. He had a hideous wool jumper, dirty mutton chops and wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to Vernon. He hurried from the shop, leaving behind a pack of bacon fries he'd tacked on to his petrol bill. He ignored the teenagers on the way out, practically threw himself into the car and drove from the garage at something that barely resembled the speed limit.
It was at least five miles from work to the petrol station, farther than the stranger had ever followed him before and there was absolutely no way he could have beaten him there on foot. He had to have taken a motorcycle, probably passed him out when he was stuck in the damnable junction that used to be Portshead roundabout. That made the most sense, he thought. Yes, no use getting worked up over another coincidence. His breathing started to slow as he relaxed.
Another fifteen minutes driving and he was well into suburban Surrey and back in his comfort zone. The well kept lawns and hedges helped restore a sense of order to his day and the neat rows of near identical houses eased his mind.
That sense of ease was shattered as he turned to drive into Victoria Close and he noticed the man with the mutton chops leaning casually against the bus shelter. This time he stared, looking Vernon dead in the eye. His lips twitched into a gastly smile, exposing yellowing teeth. There was something so overtly sinister about it that Vernon nearly missed the turn and avoided ploughing into Mr. Stokes' hedge by half a foot.
The man was on the move now, following him in a light jog as Vernon drove off more sedately. He couldn't very well rally his car the whole way through the close into Privet Drive no matter how deranged the man looked.
He glanced a look in the mirror and saw the man keeping an easy loping stride behind him. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck as he monitored the stranger's progress. He needed to get home, bolt the door and call the police. That was the sensible thing to do, for all he knew the man could be some sort of escaped mental patient, murderer or worse. He could be one of his nephew's supposed lot.
He was rapidly approaching the turn off for Privet drive when the strangest thing happened. The man in his rearview mirror stopped abruptly in the middle of the road and pointed to the sky. A flash of light erupted into the sky and when Vernon looked again he was gone. He stopped the car and looked around, trying to catch sight of where the man could have disappeared to but the street was empty. The man may as well have turned into smoke.
He was sweating profusely now, utterly unnerved by the spectacle he had witnessed. He simply sat for a moment in the car, refusing to believe what he'd just seen. Surely he'd just been under too much stress at work. The Quinn account had taken a lot of his time and he needed them to buy the heavy bore machinery in bulk. Petunia had told him he'd been overworked lately.
He calmed himself and pulled off again, driving down the rows of houses into Privet Drive and pulled into his driveway.
He'd resolved not to tell his wife of the day's events. He didn't want her to think he was going bloody mental after all.
The rest of his day after that went more to plan. Petunia had cooked a wonderful dinner which his nephew had swallowed as quickly as he could before running from the table. At least the boy being ungrateful was business as usual.
By the time he turned in for bed that night he had all but forgotten about the days' events and had resolved to take a long weekend once the Quinn account was settled. He'd earned that much at least.
The next morning came and Vernon woke to the smell of bacon coming from downstairs. He threw his legs out of the bed and wiped at his face groggily before donning a robe and lumbering downstairs.
His nephew was turning bacon on the hob and buttering a stack of bread slices, Dudley was staring at him waiting patiently for a breakfast that was in all probability taking longer than was reasonable.
What was strange was Petunia. She was standing in the conservatory rattling off into the phone when she spotted him. She made a quick polite excuse and hung up.
"Oh Vernon, you'll never guess what has happened."
"Hmm, what's this?" He asked, sitting down at the table and pouring himself a cup of tea.
"The Cresswells at the end of the road. They were found dead in their beds this morning. Brian, Yvonne and the two boys."
Vernon's head snapped up at the news. Brian Cresswell was a close friend of his from the social club and while not in what Vernon would call particularly good shape, his wife was certainly a looker and fit as a fiddle to boot. "What happened?"
"They think it was carbon monoxide poisoning, all four of them just lying dead in the house. I've been telling you we need to get one of those alarms, Vernon. We can't have that happening to our Dudley."
"No. No you're quite right. I'll pick one up from the hardware on the way back from work." He said.
Petunia seemed mollified and hurried off to ring one of her friends to break the news. Vernon just stared into his cup of tea, trying to suppress the cold feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.
Vernon and Petunia attended the Cresswell's funeral service and grieved appropriately. He shook hands with Brian's brother and wrote a heartfelt tribute for his friend in the social club's periodical. Time passed as usual though and soon even the rumour mill had died down. Wild theories had become exclusively the domain of the strange and paronoid fringes and carbon monoxide alarms had been bought and installed in every home belonging to anyone halfway responsible.
The stranger never again appeared outside of Grunnings' yard and though Vernon remained on edge for quite some time he never spoke a word of the events of that disturbing day. He had quite enough on his plate without people thinking he was completely off his rocker.
Everything had returned to normal by and large. Even his nephew's strange incidents had decreased in frequency. He was becoming increasingly reassured that "magic" was a load of rubbish and he was simply a normal man under the pressures of high station. A lot of responsibility rested on Vernon Dursely's shoulders, it was really only natural for the stress to build from time to time.
Christmas came and went in a flurry of disaterous weather conditions and expense. Dudley had come up with a christmas list of astounding length, oil prices were through the roof and the damnable government were introducing carbon taxes for industrial vehicles. Traditional home grown companies such as Grunnings' which were the backbone of Englad were going to be hit the hardest and Vernon had a team of eggheads working double time to find a loophole.
All in all, February found him to be extremely stressed. It didn't help that Dudley was finishing his last year of primary school and preparing for his first year at Smelting's. He was proud of course but Petunia had just been dithering around like an excited sparrow and it was all he could do not to snap at her.
He was seated in his office staring at a thick folder filled with numbers, quotas and incoming legislation changes, trying to follow what the reedy man in front of him was saying when the phone rang. Inwardly, he sighed in relief at a chance to interrupt the whinging idiot.
"Apologies Francis, we'll have to carry on with this later. Important business." He nodded to the phone and the man nodded understandingly and gathered to leave. He answered the phone as the solicitor closed the door behind him.
"Verno-" He started before being interrupted by his wife's frantic voice.
"There's a fire, Vernon! There's a fire at the school!" Petunia roared down the phone.
He was up and out of his seat even as he tried to clear up the situation. "What? Is Dudley alright?"
"I don't know, Mrs. Chorley rang me. Vernon get down there quickly!"
He slammed the phone on the hook and hurried from his office, not bothering to explain to his secretary as he passed, trying to throw his coat on over his shoulders as he heaved himself into the car park.
It took him less than fifteen minutes to make the journey to St. Andrew's Primary and he was quite sure he'd been extremely carefree with the concept of safe driving on the way. When he was five minutes away he could see the smoke rising into the air in a thick black column and his blood ran cold. Surely if there was that much smoke the building was utterly gutted.
He turned to approach the school only to find the area cordoned off. Police cars and fire engines lined the street and dozens of cars were parked haphazardly as terrified parents were directed to class groups being shepherded by their teachers. He caught sight of the school itself then; it was a truly horrifying sight and he imagined he could feel the heat of the inferno even while seated in the car. Flames danced through the air and billowed coal black smoke. The flames were so dense he could barely make out an outline of the building. He abandoned his BMW beside a minibus and headed straight for the nearest group.
He quickly sighted Mr. Stone, the deputy headmaster of the school whom he occasionaly ran into at social events. He regarded Jonathan as a friendly acquaintance and reasoned he'd get the most news from him.
"Jonathan!" He called over the clammering crowd. The red haired deputy turned to look at Vernon and a dark look crossed his features.
"Where are my son and nephew, John? Is Dudley safe?" He asked, panic still coursing through him.
The deputy sighed and ran a hand over his face wearily.
"Mr. Dursley. Young Dudley and Harry are both safe and sound. We do however need to have a long talk."
As he said that he realised his conversation had been watched and two grim looking policemen were walking towards him.
"Now see here I'll talk to you when I see my son is safe, John." He sputtered.
The policemen had approached and lay a hand on his shoulder. "It's alright, Mr. Dursley. We'll take you to your boys."
"What is this about?" He demanded.
The younger officer grimaced and looked away, slightly awkwardly while the other's face remained impassive.
"Just come with us, Sir." He said. His tone betrayed nothing but Vernon was suddenly shaken with apprehension.
Several hours later Vernon sat in an empty conference room in Little Whinging's police station, his hands cradling his head.
He'd been brought there in a squad car along with Dudley and Harry and when they were in the station an officer had pulled him aside to explain what had happened.
Apparently Harry and Dudley had smuggled a large amount of fireworks into the school and set them off in the schoolyard. A few had veered through the window of the school's small library and set the place alight as if it were dry tinder.
Thankfully it seemed that nobody had been hurt in the incident but the school had been entirely gutted by the flames before the fire brigade could arrive. It was all they could do to stop the mass of fire from spreading.
Words were exchanged. Indignant denials on his part, claims of irrefuteable evidence on theirs, damage estimates with entirely too many noughts tagged onto them. It had been a nightmare.
It had to be the boy.
He had taken him in, fed him and gave him a home for a decade. Everything he had given his nephew had meant his son had to receive a little less and after everything, after he had done his utmost to stamp out the boy's innate weirdness, he had been repaid with this stunt.
He'd always been afraid that such close exposure to his oddity would taint his son and now, it was happening. His worst fears were coming true. Potter had become some sort of delinquent pyromaniac and was ruining his son's reputation. How would Dudley ever get into Smelting's now? He felt utterly sick with suppressed anger.
He looked up as the door opened and the young officer from earlier entered the room.
"Mr. Dursley. Your sons are outside with your wife. Due to the sensitive nature of the investigation and the ages of those involved you're all free to go home. I will need you to come in tomorrow morning to discuss where we go from here." He said, curtly.
"Did the boy confess yet? Dudley would have had nothing to do with this. You ask him and he'll tell you himself. Dudley is a good lad." He was trying to reign in his anger. Badgering the policeman would do nothing for him but anger still seeped through his tone.
"We'll be disclosing more of the investigation tomorrow, I'd advise you bring your solicitor along." The younger man replied before leaving.
Vernon's moustache quivered and he grabbed his coat.
The drive home was filled with furious accusations, threats and frantic denials. Dudley was in tears as he protested his innocence which only made Vernon angrier in his verbal lashing of his nephew. The boy denied all, of course, saying that it wasn't his fault.
"Well then how do you explain the bloody school burning down! They saw the fireworks, boy! If the CCTV survived you're in for it. It'll show everything and exonerate Dudley to boot!"
"It wasn't me I swear! It wasn't even Dudley!" His nephew protested.
"Well explain then! I've had enough lies from you, Potter. If this is another incident of yours, I swear I'll cart you off to the borstal myself! Where did you get the fireworks?"
"There weren't any fireworks at all, I swear! It was this weird man. He was dressed really funny and had a weird had beard that didn't cover his chin or lips. He wa-"
"What did you say?" Vernon interrupted. His foot eased on the accelorator as his blood ran cold.
"His beard was odd, it didn't cover the front of his face. But he wa-"
Vernon interrupted him again. "What did you say he was wearing?"
"A strange multi-coloured wooly jumper. That doesn't matter, what matters is..."
Harry had continued talking but Vernon had stopped listening entirely. His mind raced back to all those months ago when the strange man with the mutton chops had followed him home only to disappear across the road from the Cresswell's house. Surely the boy wasn't telling the truth? The teachers had seen the fireworks after all.
"Dudley, you'd better be telling the truth. Was there a man like that there?" Vernon asked quietly.
Dudley looked up from the window, surprised. He'd mostly been left out of the questioning from his father.
"I don't know, Dad. There was a weird looking man talking to Harry and then another weird man came and... I dunno. I reckon they gave him the fireworks." Dudley said replied quietly.
Two strange men?
"There were two of them? Is that where you got the fireworks, Boy?" He pressed.
"No! I just said. The man with the beard was shouting stuff at me when the other man appeared from nowhere. He was this big bald black man. As soon as he appeared they started shooting lasers at each other! I swear I know it doesn't sound real but I'm telling the truth. Dudley, you were there you saw it!" Harry pleaded with his cousin.
Dudley simply turned away with his eyes down and muttered something about fireworks.
Vernon pulled in on the hard shoulder and looked across at his wife. Petunia's mouth was in a small grim line and she was whiter than he'd ever seen her since the night her nephew was left on their doorstep.
"Petunia?" He asked quietly.
"Just get us home, Vernon. Please do it quickly." She said in a small voice.
Vernon pulled out and set course for Privet drive, feeling more confused and worried than ever.
Nothing much was said when they returned to the house. Harry was sent directly to his room. Due to the stress of the day Petunia broke from habit and ordered a takeaway. When he was alone with her he asked the question that had bothered him the whole drive back.
"Pet, could there be any truth to what the boy is saying?"
She didn't look at him as she shuffled around the kitchen. "Don't be ridiculous, Vernon. He's clearly lying and has far more of his father in him than we thought."
"Petunia?" He pressed.
"What, Vernon?" She snapped. "What do you want me to say? He's telling the truth? I don't very well know, do I?"
"When the boy landed on our doorstep, Petunia, you said your sister had gone and gotten herself blown up. You told me about the weirdness they were into and how he was probably going to be just as weird. We said we'd not let him go that way," he stammered.
"He's always going to be that way, Vernon. It's what he is. He's one of their lot!" She groaned, sitting down on one of the new armchairs and sinking her head into her hands.
"You keep saying that. You say that and then you ramble on about your sister and some school in Scotland for people different than us. That night you said they were witches and wizards. You said they used magic!" He demanded.
"What difference does it make what I said? You never believed me and how could you? It's all insane!"
"Petunia, I saw the man the boy described. Months ago. He followed me home and shot some sort of laser into the sky the night the Cresswells were murdered."
Vernon said this quietly, as if sharing a secret with himself. He'd intended never to tell anyone of the strange incident and let it fall away into the back of his mind where he could happily ignore it along with other uncomfortable topics like homelessness or homosexuality.
If it was possible, Petunia paled further in front of him, visibly wilting. "Oh Vernon. Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"What does it matter? I was sure I was imagining things."
"It matters because it means they know where we live!" She half wailed.
"You think... you think we're in danger?" He pushed.
"As long as he's connected with that lot we are." She said miserably.
Just then the doorbell rang and they both jumped out of their skin. Vernon chuckled weakly. "That'll be the Chink."
He fished a twenty pound note from his wallet and opened the door only to come face to face with a tall man with sparkling blue eyes and a long silver beard dressed in what could only be described as a fluffy bathrobe. The man smiled genially and held out a bag that looked suspiciously like Vernon's chinese.
The tall stranger spotted the twenty Vernon clutched in his hand and laughed.
"No need, my good man. I bumped into the delivery man on the way here and elected to buy you dinner. May I come in?" He asked politely.
Usually after being bought dinner and asked in such a polite fashion, Vernon would have felt obligated to invite the man into his home. It happened to be a very unusual day, though, and he didn't feel like taking any chances.
"Who are you?" He demanded.
From behind him he heard a small scared voice. "Headmaster Dumbledore?"
He turned to Petunia. "You know this man?"
"Yes, come in quickly, now," she said, as if she were scared of him being seen on their doorstep; which due to his appearence Vernon thought entirely reasonable.
The old stranger inclined his head and stepped in as Vernon moved aside.
"How are you, Petunia? It's been some time since our last correspondance."
"What are you doing here?" She demanded.
"Ah, straight to business then. No need to offer me dinner, it was after all a gift." He walked through into the living room and eyed the furniture before taking a long stick from his dressing gown and waving it.
The air left Vernon's lungs all at once as a large comfortable armchair appeared out of thin air and the man settled into it.
Petunia winced at the display but didn't seem very surprised.
"What in blazes is going on here?" He demanded, still holding the takeaway.
"I'm afraid it's about today's unfortunate events." The headmaster's tone became quite a bit darker as he continued. "The man responsible for the fire has unfortunately not been apprehended."
The man responisble. Did that mean the boy had been telling the truth? "We were told the boys had let off fireworks, are you saying something else happened?"
"Quite. I'm sure to those not, how we say, "in the know," it would have looked like quite the fireworks display. The truth unfortunately is far more sinister. One of the followers of your sister's murderer, Petunia. He figured out where Harry was attending school and came for him. If it were not for the timely intervention of Auror Shacklebolt I'm afraid we might have lost Harry."
"The boy did say there was a man there today. A man with mutton chops." Vernon said quietly.
Dumbledore grimaced. "Yes. A man by the name of Ignatious Doyle. We believe him to be responsible for the recent murder of a family living nearby."
The news came like a hammer blow to Vernon. He hadn't been going crazy when he thought the man was responsible for the murders and Petunia's nephew might very well have been telling the truth.
"Why does he want the boy?" Vernon asked tightly.
"Ah. As to that we can only speculate. Who knows why madmen do what they do? Be that as it may, I believe Harry to be in quite some danger. If he were to stay in this house or the surrounding area he would be fine. Doyle would never be able to overcome the protections that lay in your blood, Petunia."
Vernon sputtered indignantly. "What did he say is in yo-"
"Shh Vernon. Later," she admonished him. His moustache quivered but he let it lie for the moment.
"As I was saying. Harry would be perfectly safe here." Dumbledore continued. "However, Doyle has proven himself to be not only resourceful but uniquely ruthless in his willingness to disregard the statute and murder innocents. As the time of Harry leaving for Hogwarts grows nearer I fear... significant collateral damage. Were it not for our decision to place a guard around Harry after the Cresswell murders well, things might have ended badly."
Vernon sat down heavily. He felt very much as if the walls were starting to close in on him.
"What do you intend to do about this, Headmaster?" Petunia demanded. "When I agreed to take him in I did so understanding that my family wouldn't be in harm's way. Can you guarantee we're safe?"
"I have long since learned to make no guarantee casually, Petunia. While I believe you would indeed be quite safe I am not willing to risk the safety of others in the area. With your permission of course, I'd like to take Harry away from here where he can't be reached by this Doyle fellow. He'd be leaving for Hogwarts in the next few months anyway but at least if he's not here Doyle will have no reason to attempt anything reckless."
Petunia nodded in agreement. "Fine, you have my permission. I just don't want anything happening to my family over the head of this."
Dumbledore inclined his head in agreement. "Shall I fetch the young man then?" He asked.
"No I will, don't worry." Petunia said, darting out of the room.
Vernon stared at the man in the armchair in silence for a moment. He leaned forward in his chair and narrowed his eyes, weighing up the man before him.
"Do you have something you wish to ask me, Mr. Dursley?"
"As a matter of fact yes I do." Vernon replied, leaving further forward. "Where the bloody hell did you pull that armchair from?"