In a small village in the English countryside called Smiths Grove several cloaked figures were moving swiftly down the dark high street. They were spread in a formation that was clearly pre-determined and they were all constantly looking around them and glancing back where they'd been as if expecting to be set upon at any moment.
Eventually reaching a junction in the street the group came to a stop and the leader of the pack looked left and then right before setting off again to the right at a quicker pace than before causing some members of the group who had been gazing around to have to jog to catch up. The group eventually reached a cottage that was in immense disrepair, there were several broken windows as well as missing tiles from the roof and the front door had the upper right hand section missing.
"This is it" hissed the leader of the group in a high voice "you will all do as I say and we will complete this mission with no problems. If you do not then I shall have to teach you what happens when people make me angry. Is that clear?" the person finished as they drew a wand from the folds of their cloak. The rest of the group all nodded, nervously eyeing the wand in the person's hand.
They all turned to face the house and all drew their own wands as they got into line next to each other. "Now!" cried the leader of the group and as one they all raised their wands and shot identical yellow lights at the cottage, as soon as the first spell hit the cottage it burst into flame where it had been hit and the whole building was soon covered in flames. The leader of the group began cackling with laughter and threw down the hood covering their face to reveal a woman with shining black hair and dark, heavily lidded eyes. She strode up to the house and called into the inferno "If you agree to come with us peacefully we shall do our very best to heal your burns!"
The rest of the group were laughing and pointing at the burning house with apparent glee before something very strange happened, the flames surrounding the house seemed to freeze for a split second before they were sucked in thin golden arcs into the house through a hole in the roof leaving the house slightly blackened but still standing. The group stopped laughing immediately before turning to their leader, one of them stepped forward "Bellatrix, what do we do now?" the man asked before he was suddenly knocked off his feet and bleeding from a deep gash that had appeared on his chest.
The rest of the group looked in fear at the woman called Bellatrix who was pointing her wand at the fallen man "What sort of cowardly question is that!" she shrieked "We go in there and capture that piece of scum by force!" She turned on her heel and marched towards the cottage with the rest of her group trailing fearfully behind her before she suddenly stopped and stared at the little building as the front door slowly opened.
A man stepped out onto the house's decrepit porch; he wore a simple white buttoned shirt and black jeans with dark boots. His face was still in shadow as he faced the would-be arsonists. "May I help you?" he said in a quiet but clear voice
Bellatrix smirked "Yes you may. The Dark Lord requires your services and I am under orders to escort you to him" she said pleasantly "Whether you want to or not" she finished, no longer smiling.
The man didn't answer; he simply stood there watching Bellatrix and the other Death Eaters who were beginning to form a circle around him. The man didn't move an inch but instead sighed.
Bellatrix was losing her temper "You will either peacefully comply with the Dark Lords wishes or we will drag you with us half dead! Believe me if the Dark Lord hadn't expressed how important you were to his plans I'd already have you writhing in pain on the floor" she sneered at him.
"I'm afraid I have no intention of going with you, or complying with Voldemorts wishes" the man said taking a small step forward
Bellatrix's eyes widened and she snarled at the man as she aimed her wand and shrieked "Crucio!"
The man immediately dropped to the floor in a squat as the curse flew over his head and hit the wall behind him setting it alight once again, the other death eaters charged forward together and started throwing spells at the man who quickly flipped to the right out of there way and then straightened up and held up his hand, he flicked his fingers forward causing a fireball to leap out of the flames Bellatrix's spell had caused. It flew quickly at the group of death eaters and hit one square in the chest and exploded catching some others in it who all fell to the ground either dead or unconscious but all sporting terrible burns. The man flicked his fingers forward a few more times to take out the remaining death eaters until only Bellatrix was left.
"Tell your boss that I won't go as easy on you if you come for me again" said the man as flames engulfed his hand.
"Your time will come!" screamed Bellatrix pointing at him "The Dark Lord will make you suffer for your crimes against him!" she then turned sharply and dissapparated
The man let the fire on his hand disappear and then with a wave of his hand the fire consuming the wall was extinguished. He put his hands in his pockets and sighed "looks like I'm moving again" he said as he turned to go back inside.
In a darkened room a skull faced man sat in a throne, staring at the huge double doors at the opposite side of the room waiting for them to open. Every so often a huge snake would slither into view as it moved around the room before it slunk back into the shadows of the room. Voldemorts red eyes swept around the room once before the double doors burst open and Bellatrix marched in before throwing herself to the floor in front of the throne. "My Lord, I'm afraid the mission to capture the-"
"Enough Bella" Voldemort cut across her in a low voice "I know of your failure"
"It's not surprising" laughed a female voice from the shadows behind Voldemorts chair "sending this little girl after him you stood no chance" Bellatrix scowled but held her silence as an unnatural coldness swept over her "he's too powerful for beings such as you, as is the boy" the voice continued with a small titter "that is why we are here…"
Miles away a boy called Harry Potter woke up suddenly with a yell and promptly fell out of bed. He froze for a second listening intently to make sure he hadn't woke his uncle in the next room. Hearing nothing he quietly detangled himself from his duvet and got up and crossed to the window, he rested his forehead on the cool glass to lessen the pain in the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead but then he realised that there was no pain. So used to waking up with his scar hurting and his head filled with horrific visions of Voldemort that it was quite a shock to find that it wasn't old snake face that had woken him, but then what was it?
He cast his mind back to when he had been sleeping to try to remember what he had seen to wake him up in such a way. He closed his eyes and strained his mind; a dark shape swam into focus in his mind's eye. It moved forward and it became a bit clearer that it was some sort of animal with four legs and a tail, suddenly two appendages burst from its back and beat the ground as a burst of flame came forth and Harry opened his eyes. What had that been about? Well it certainly wasn't Voldemort that's for sure he thought. But for some reason it seemed familiar to Harry, it seemed like it wasn't new to him although it clearly was.
Confused Harry moved over to his desk and picked up the closest thing on it, which happened to be a copy of the Daily Prophet. Although the Prophet had been doing its best to disgrace Harry in the past few weeks since he had arrived back at Hogwarts clutching the body of Cedric Diggory and claiming to have seen Lord Voldemort rise again he still felt that it was worth getting so he knew at least some of the things that were going on in the wizarding world, despite the various jabs at himself and Dumbledore every few pages. Although Harry was grateful to Dumbledore for believing him it was difficult not to get annoyed at the good professor for sending him back to his so called family, cutting him off entirely from world he belonged to and then asking Harry to sit tight and let him handle it.
Harry quickly stopped that train of thought before he got too angry; he'd dwelled on these thoughts too many times in the past two weeks. It was only because of his friends writing to him whenever they could since they'd all gone home for the summer that he'd stayed sane. Ron's latest letter had gone like this:
Harry,
The cannons lost again at the weekend but they only lost by 30 points, 30 points! They shouldn't have lost in my opinion because the Kenmare Kestrels were playing at home which obviously gave them the advantage. Anyway hope you're ok? And the muggles are treating you well? You read the Prophet lately? They keep saying you're lying about You-Know-Who and that you're just saying it for all the attention. Like you'd do that! You wouldn't use You-Know-Who to get more fame everyone knows that. Don't listen to them mate.
Anyway I'll write again soon but I'm kinda busy at the moment, dad says we're going somewhere soon but won't say where.
From Ron
These letters from Ron were a little annoying for Harry, he was grateful to Ron for sticking up for him against the Prophet but he didn't need reminding of it all the time in such a tactless way.
The letters from Hermione didn't come as often as Ron's because it turned out she was on holiday.
Harry,
I really hope you're doing okay and your relatives aren't treating you bad. I'm currently on holiday in Spain visiting my Nan; she has a villa here so we can come here quite cheap. I've been trying to research Spanish wizarding customs a little, but mostly I've just been on the beach with my mum. I did find a cluster of magical shops but there weren't very many books there so we didn't stay long.
Oh I told my Nan about being a witch, we haven't visited her since the year before I started at the Hogwarts, she took it quite well but I don't think she realised I was serious but oh well.
I've finished all my homework of course. Hope you have too.
If you have any strange dreams again or problems with… what happened, I'm here if you want to talk about it.
Love, Hermione
P.S Ron says that he's moving somewhere, any idea where?
Harry smiled when he thought about this; Hermione at least understood he didn't need reminding of the whole world being against him. He considered writing back to Hermione about the strange creature in his dream but decided against it, he was pretty sure it wasn't Voldemort so there was no point in worrying Hermione over what could have been just a normal dream.
Harry moved back over to his bed to look at the clock, he saw that it was almost 4.30 in the morning. Yawning slightly upon this discovery he lay back down and pulled the covers back onto himself and waited for sleep to take him again, as his mind began to close down an image arose once again in his mind's eye of several cloaked figures wearing Death Eater masks that were cowering in front of a towering figure that had a long face, a tail and two appendages coming out of its back, the creature roared an ear splitting roar and Harry awoke and promptly fell out of bed once again.
"Bloody hell" muttered Harry as he picked himself up from the floor for the second time that night; as Harry threw the blankets back on the bed he heard a small noise behind him, slowly turning around he was confronted with a swan sized bird silhouetted against the street lamp outside sitting on his window sill facing him. The bird spread its wings and beat the air a couple of times to move it across from the window sill to the edge of the bed, now that the light wasn't behind it Harry saw that the bird was crimson red with flecks of gold and had a long magnificent tail, a Phoenix. Harry stared for a moment and the thought floated through his head that this was Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes, but then he noticed a feather on the right hand side its head that was a deep blue which he was positive Fawkes never had.
"Err…" started Harry before he blinked and a man was sat where the Phoenix was sat a moment before, he wore a simple white buttoned shirt and black jeans with dark boots and his hair was long and unruly looking as well as jet black just like Harry's with a deep blue streak in it on the right hand side. His eyes were a golden colour and shone through the darkness as he smiled at Harry who was too shocked to speak.
"I'm guessing you'd like an explanation?" he said