Chapter 1 Prologue
The fire is dancing in front of my eyes, I blink trying to forget, trying to forget my memories and dreams. One memory doesn't want to leave my mind, it's repeating itself again and again and again. It came to me this night, in the form of a nightmare, I try to forget, but I want to remember. When I unconsciously start moving my hands over the fire, I move them in circles and twists. So the fire can start playing, and it does, it doesn't even resist me, the fire shows me a girl, a little girl with long curls I know to be black, a little girl with big eyes I knew used to be sparkling blue and full of life, now empty, dead…hunted. The girl looks at me when the fire starts whispering '' what have you done? How could you? They loved you.'' I want it to stop, I want the fire to stop playing, but my hands wouldn't stop sending magic to project my nightmare in the flames. The scene changed and I'm now looking at the same girl standing in front of a burning house. The girl doesn't scream, doesn't cry and doesn't move. She just stands there, frozen, not understanding or wanting to understand what's happening. Then she turns and starts running, whilst running she changes into an animal, a lion, she jumps and in the middle of the jump she turns again, only now in a owl. I look at the girl, I see or rather feel the confusion. It was her trigger, my trigger, the trigger that changed it all. The death of my parents, brother and sister, my family. That was my trigger. The trigger that woke the animal inside of me.
I dropped my hands and the silent screams from the fire I hadn't heard stopped, the scene of the flying owl disappears and back are the unruly flames. I never understood why people are scared of flames, they burn you when you touch them, but they are warm if you don't go too far away, the flames are wild and crazy, but when you want them to listen they quickly obey.
I stand up and walk to the stairs leading to the dormitories, I don't know why but at the last second before disappearing around the corner I turn around and look at a spot next to the fireplace, I frown, asking myself why I turned, why I was looking at a wall, why was I feeling as if being watched, why…? I turn back and go to the 7th year's dormitory, changing into a grey cat before jumping on my familiar's bed. I try to sleep, but those last few seconds before I left were twirling in my mind not wanting to let me go, I had to focus, I had to rest for tomorrow, but my brain didn't listen. Tomorrow is my familiars first day of school, tomorrow I was expected to be in top shape, tomorrow everything will change again. If only I had known it then.
When morning came my dead eyes had lights in them again, they were curious and big, as if I never had a nightmare. I stretched and stood up to wake Lily, my best friend and familiar, I first pawed her face and grinned inwardly thinking of multiple things I could do to wake her. Deciding to just first sit down on her head I went to do so, sadly that didn't bother her. Although on the other hand, that meant I could try different approaches. 5 minutes later I had tried almost every way I knew of waking her, but she was still playing the role of sleeping beauty so I grinned and went to do one of the worst things you can do to wake someone up. I turned into my human form, walked to the bathroom, filled a big glass with ice cold water, returned to Lily and emptied the glass on her head while grinning like some kind of mad man, seriously I think I'm losing it! Sadly my grin only got bigger when a spluttering girl with red hair and green eyes shot up to glare furiously at me. It took all my willpower to not burst out laughing that very moment, I am afraid I have completely lost the remaining respect Lily had for me when she saw my way-too-big-for-my-face smile. ''Good morning sunshine!'' I somehow managed to squeeze out of my mouth in a very high pitched voice. She grunted some reply before she stood up and walked to the bathroom, I immediately followed, but stopped in front of the bathroom door that was thrown shut in my face ''Oooh Lilypiee, are you ready for your first day of school?!'' I called out to her knowing that she would get pissed at me, and indeed where my expectations correct when I heard her scream at me to not use that tone or word, because obviously I sounded to much like the absolutely horrid, horrible, blablabla James Potter I grinned and shook my head. I know he has a crush on Lily, no scratch that, the whole bloody school knows that he's absolutely in love with Lily, but I also knew that Lily had a secret crush on the poor boy, but because she is way too stubborn for her own good she tries to hide it, for a reason I don't know, but I'd probably think it would be a stupid reason...
I sighed and walked into the bathroom ignoring the fact that I was completely infiltrating her privacy, she would just have to life with it. ''Hey Lily just so you know, this year I have decided to take charge of your wardrobe and with that I mean that you actually have some nice clothes now'' I yelled at her, trying to be loud enough to be heard over the water from the shower, but also not really trying for I did not want her to know just yet.
''WHAT DID YOU DO LYA?!'' I heard her scream form underneath the shower, I grinned and quickly left the bathroom before she could start screaming again. After about 5 minutes she walked out of the bathroom with a very pissed and angry look on her face, her green eyes were looking me directly in the eyes, sending 100 daggers every second. ''You wouldn't dare'' she said deathly quiet and it was scaring the hell out of me. But of course my uncontrollable mouth had to take over so after it had changed into a grin it started speaking '' you know very well I would''. Her eyes widened as the realisation dawned on her that my traitorous mouth was probably right. I couldn't disagree, somehow my mouth could take complete control of my body and it made me do things without consulting my brain or anything/anyone that would try to communicate. After what seemed like ages but probably where just a few minutes she sighted and turned her head away ''I guess I can give it a try'' I heard her say with a defeated voice. Another crazy grin tried to split my head in two, before I nodded enthusiastically and turned on my heels to walk back to Lily's bed. I went to her trunk and pulled out her uniform for the day, I saw her look sceptically at it so I chuckled before telling her that I had only brought skirts and dresses, well unless you count pyjama's and one pear of jeans that would have brought me my death if I hadn't taken them with me. After I told her that she stood there looking at me with a calculating look in her eyes, I could practically hear her brain buzz trying to figure out if I was lying or not. Eventually she decided that she would have to believe me and would have to accept it too, because she didn't really have a choice in the matter anyway. She put on her uniform and then after a quiet heated discussion she sat down to let me do her hair and make-up, during all of this my crazy grin hadn't decided to leave me just yet, so while I was doing the finishing touches on her hair that I had put into a gorgeous braid with little braids going through the think red hair, I was still grinning like some maniac. During our discussion we had apparently woken up Marlene, who then proceeded to hurry up so she could join us when we would go for breakfast and told us all about a very cute Ravenclaw boy. Before we left I quickly changed into my cat form and we turned to leave the Gryffindor tower for breakfast.
When Lily got her timetable it was quickly decided that I wouldn't tag along until after lunch, because I absolutely refuse to go to either potions or muggle studies, both of which I think are real rubbish. I used to tag along to potions, but when Lily started bugging me about telling her oh so precious Severus about my secret I got so angry I refused to go with her anymore, nor would I even look or come near the evil boy again. Lily had soon realised that there won't be a friendship between us and had agreed to let me skip potions. With muggle studies it was a lot easier, I just simply quit going with her, and if she would take me with her I would just sneak out again. There is no stopping me!
So here I was sitting in front of a window in some tower in the east, which let me see the sun rise out of the lake. Being in my cat form, I enjoyed the sun touching my fur and the quietness around me. No sound was heard and the moment was just perfect for me.
That was until the one and only Sirius Black came to sit down next to me. Originally I'm forbidden to be around him or let him pet me, but seeing that Lily wasn't anywhere near me I didn't really care. Not that I would have cared about being seen with one of the marauders if Lily was near, but being cautious is always smart. I glanced at the boy and instead of the happy, laughing boy I knew from former encounters, I saw a serious, sad boy sitting there looking out of the window. I turn to look at him before standing up, jumping on his lap and laying down again. I was just getting sleepy when he started talking ''Hey girl, it's been a while hm'' I heard him whisper before he chuckled and shook his head ''Look at me, talking to the cat… again! I think I'm losing my mind'' he finished the sentence sadly and then he turned his head to look at me, I want to look up to him, but I had no strength, I was so tired, and something about him… something made me want to trust him. Made me want to fall in a peaceful sleep, knowing I'd be alright for he was here. Eventually I did actually fall asleep, in the beginning I was still half listening to Sirius's rambling about some girl he'd seen once, but couldn't find again. I fell asleep and it was the first peaceful sleep I had in the 8 years since the accident. When I finally woke up I was in the Gryffindor common room and felt better than ever. Looking around I noticed there weren't any students around so I stood up and run up to the girls dormitory to find it empty, I sighed and turned to run downstairs towards the great hall, but it is how I did it, that was the mistake that would cost me my secret. Because I quickly changed to my human form to open the portrait and them immediately back into my cat form before starting to run downstairs, no one was there I knew so for sure, I hadn't smelled, seen or heard anyone, so I run, I run over all the stairs and through all the halls until I was in the great hall where I noticed it was already lunch time. I quickly run to Lily and jumped on the empty seat next to her. She turned to look at me and smiled happily, I gave a quiet meow back before turning to the food on the table, waiting patiently for Lily to fill my cup with milk and to put some salmon on my plate I jumped on the table being careful to not touch any food while sitting there. I smiled inwardly, everything will be alright. And I started eating.
My nightmare was forgotten and my eyes weren't dead anymore, only when the sun would go down I would lose the lights that seemed so bright in my eyes during the day, only at night I would sit down in front of the fire and replay my nightmare to then scream on the inside. To then wonder, wonder that if memories come back to you in dreams, why then could you not change them, why could you not change the memories in your dreams while you could change dreams? I know you can't change your memories, no matter how hard you try or how hard you believe, I just want to know why? Why could you change dreams but not memories, why didn't anything work? The 4 word sentence was being repeated in my head during the night. He told me that, he told me that and with every memory I heard him say it again.
''You will never forget.''