At The Heart of Winter

At the heart of winter,

on a cold, wet night of thunder

is an eye awakened at dawn

thus blink the cluds on and on

so turn the screws of time

with green a blinding light

the icy chill seeps in, and

chaotic bursts throw apart,

the simpering throbs of innocent hearts.

Dreams together rope in,

a twisted tale of shards

broken that were once,

together they love as one.

At the heart of winter,

on a cold, wet night

of thunder

Chapter 1

Jacqueline James

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Djark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

It was a cold, wet night. Tiny drops of rain trickled down the window of the room above the bar in the Hog's Head Inn. Misty words drowned away under the sound of the pattering rain, and wind wheezed across the foggy window, covering the glass in a haze. A lone raindrop slithered down the window over the fog, and the soft words echoing from the room slowly begun to die away. An eavesdropper outside the room was being thrown out of the Inn. He had heard but enough; enough to tell the Dark Lord what was coming.

October 31, 1981

Dordogne, France

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"

"Not Harry, please, no, take me, kill me instead—"

"This is my last warning.h"

"Not Harry! Please…have mercy…have mercy…Not Harry! Not Harry! Please…I'll do anything…"

A flash of blinding green light, and a searing pain in the head had the baby screaming at the top of her voice, awakening her parents who had been sound asleep for the last three hours. Louis and Celia exchanged an exasperated yet amused look as they made to leave the bed. Louis gestured to Celia to stay in bed, and with a grateful, groggy smile, she yawned and fell back onto the pillows. Louis quietly followed the sound of his daughter's wails and ventured into the nursery next to his and Celia's bedroom, and spotting little Jacqueline squirming in her crib as she cried, he quickly scooped her up in his arms. As he rocked her back and forth while muttering sweet nothings in her ear, Jacqueline's breathing slowed down and as did her screams, while Louis tried not to think about why the night seemed so unusually gloomy.

July 31, 1993

Dordogne, France

Jacqueline Pierce hated that searing pain in her head every time she awoke from that nightmare. It was always the same, the throbbing on her forehead, as though something sharp was cutting through her skin. The nightmare remained the same as well: always that baby crying in the crib, a woman shielding it, and a blinding flash of green light. She hated this nightmare, and she hated how much her skin felt scorched every time she saw it. Today was no different. She had awoken with a gasp and that pain in her forehead, and as she shook her head to be fully awake and forget that nightmare, she spotted the two gift-wrapped boxes at the foot of her four-poster bed.

And suddenly the nightmare vanished from her mind and a smile enveloped her features as she quickly hopped off the bed and grabbed one of the boxes. When Jacqueline finished unwrapping the box, she nearly squealed in joy spotting her new Quidditch robes. She had missed that thrill of flying for weeks now, since the Muggle-world did not quite appreciate one flying around on a broomstick outside of their houses. And frankly, Jacqueline didn't think her haughty French neighbours would enjoy her broomstick crashing into one of their neatly-grown dandelions while she looked for the golden snitch. Her dad usually took her to a field far away from town where Muggles were rarely found lurking, and to keep them safe, he'd secure the area through some repellent spells that would keep the nosier ones away while Jacqueline practised her flying skills in peace.

She hoped she could wear her new robes today and dad would take her to the field again. Her seeker skills needed some polishing. Perhaps she could learn from a trained seeker, but Jacqueline hardly knew anybody in the nondescript French town she lived in with her parents. Jacqueline's parents, Louis and Celia Pierce had moved to France twelve years ago, shortly a year after Jacqueline was born. After You-know-who begun his search for power, it became almost impossible to escape, but Louis and Celia managed it with the help of some of their friends back in London, and it was all Jacqueline knew about the terror of someone known as the Dark Lord among his followers.

France had been welcoming of them, and even though Jacqueline was well-prepared to join Beaubaxtons for her wizarding education, Celia preferred to home-school her daughter. Despite Jacqueline expressing that she would love to join a school of witchcraft and wizardry, Celia had already decide she wouldn't send her child to a wizarding school and would be the teacher herself along with her husband Louis.

Jacqueline couldn't do much else, since her protests were shut down almost as soon as they begun, but she loved her parents enough to know that they would do what's best for her. And since Louis and Celia were such good teachers, she didn't mind being home-schooled, although she'd have very much liked to make some friends. She did know a muggle or two, but that was about it, for they lived in too small a town, and it was hardly occupied by anyone that Jacqueline would find remotely interesting.

Jacqueline snapped out of her thoughts about Quidditch when there was a knock on her bedroom door, and Celia's entered, followed by Louis.

"Happy birthday, darling!" Louis exclaimed as he pulled his daughter into a tight hug. Jacqueline grinned and hugged him back as best she could, given his burly build.

"Thanks, dad," she said, pulling away only to have Celia place a soft kiss on her forehead and wish her a happy birthday as well.

"Do you like your presents?" Celia asked, settling beside her husband and daughter on the carpeted floor.

"I haven't opened the other one, but I love the new Quidditch robes!" Jacqueline answered with a grin.

"Well, open the next one, then," said Louis, nudging the neatly wrapped package close to her.

Jacqueline unwrapped the package to find an old copy of A History of Magic, with a few notes scribbled here and there right on the cover. She smiled, realizing that her parents knew of her love of collecting copies of old books from wherever she could find. It was a strange liking she had towards tattered books and she would spend hours arranging her mini-library every week. Now she had another book to add to her collection.

"Thank you!" she grinned at her mother. "This is perfect."

"Shall we get some food in your tummy then?" asked Celia as she got up, indicating that Jacqueline should be down in the kitchen when she was done freshening up.

Jacqueline gave an enthusiastic nod as she admired her presents, and her parents left the room in time to let her get showered and dressed. The moment she returned from breakfast, Jacqueline immediately grabbed the book her mother had given to her a mere hour ago, and proceeded to go to her mini-library in the next room so she could stack away the book amidst all the others. As she looked for an empty space to put it in, she flipped through the pages absent-mindedly, only to have something fall out of it and onto the wooden floor of the library.

Jacqueline bent and picked up what looked like an old, moving photograph of a family of four. She squinted as she looked at the smiling faces of the man and woman, who were holding a girl and a boy respectively. The man was tickling his daughter, who appeared to be giggling in mirth, while the woman was watching her husband and daughter happily along with her son, who was pulling on her hair as he grinned. Jacqueline allowed herself a smile, for the family looked a happy one, but something seemed far too familiar in the photograph.

Did the girl child look like Jacqueline when she was a baby, or was she just imagining it? Did all babies with brown hair and brown eyes look alike? Frowning, Jacqueline placed the book on the table that stood in the middle of the room with a chair behind it, and stared closely at the photograph. Her feet led her towards the drawer that she kept her photo album in, which had pictures of her childhood in it.

She held the photograph in one hand as though she was afraid it was going to disappear were she to place it anywhere, and pulled out the photo album with another. Placing it on the table, she took the chair and went through the album, searching for a match. To her surprise, each photograph of hers seemed to match the one that she had found in the book, and her confusion only deepened.

Jacqueline had never seen that family, but she thought perhaps they were friends of her parents back in Britain, and were babysitting her that day when the photograph was taken. Although it did seem a bit odd to include someone else's child in a family photograph. Since it hardly seemed plausible for Louis and Celia to have another child whose traces were wiped out years ago and their faces remarkably turned into people Jacqueline had never met, she concluded that there was something she needed to know.

"Dad?" she called out without taking her eyes off of the photographs. When there was no answer from Louis, she called out again.

Louis suddenly appeared in the library, and Jacqueline looked up from the photo album up to her father.

"Who are they?" she asked, lifting up the photograph of the family she had found in the book so Louis could see.

Colour seemed to have drained out of his face as Louis looked at the photograph his daughter was holding.

"Dad?" Jacqueline probed when he didn't appear to be moving or attempting to speak.

Louis snapped out of a daze and took a seat on the floor beside Jacqueline's chair.

"This is James and Lily Potter," he began, as though he was about to tell her a very interesting story. "We were friends back in Britain."

But something seemed to hit him, and he stopped, lifting his head to look at Jacqueline. "I think your mother needs to be here for this," he said.

Before he could go and fetch his wife, Celia appeared at the door and raised a brow.

"Stuck in the library again, you two?" she smirked as she strode in, wiping her flour-covered hands on her apron. Noticing her husband's pained face, she frowned and walked in closer.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"She found the photograph," said Louis. "We've been looking for it since ages. It never occurred to us to look into this book where we'd forgotten we hid it."

"Is someone going to tell me why I am in this photograph with some people called James and Lily Potter?" Jacqueline asked, impatient to know what was going on.

Celia sunk into herself as she let out a breath, staring at the photograph for a while, and then at Louis.

"You're in the photograph because you're their daughter," said Celia.

If someone had asked Jacqueline to relive her recurring nightmare once again, she'd happily do it, for those words coming from her mother seemed to have caused a pain far worse.