A Note from Trisky's Desk:
Welcome to my first real attempt at a Harry Potter fanfic. I have started two others, one about Remus and another involving a young Sirius but have found myself blocked for sometime. Whilst trying my ass off to continue those stories while I took a holiday to Europe, I found myself starting this story involving Harry and one of my crazy OC creations. It came to me on one of my many flights and it has taken over my brain much like my other current fiction 'Seeking the Truth'. I apologize for those that are waiting for updates on my other creations and perhaps one day, with luck, I will finish them and feel accomplished for once! I am consistently writing scenes but I just need to find a way to string them together and make them coherent!
Summary:Mairi, an orphan from the First War, is trying to come to terms with her past or lack thereof. Her life hasn't been easy – something that helps a formidable friendship blossom when she finds herself attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is a story about another friendship and complication in Harry Potter's world – told from the perspective of our young feminine protagonist.
Chapter One: Prologue of an Orphan
The street was cold and damp, chilling to anyone who dared enter the night. It was a dark evening filled with shadows and darkness – streets were silent as the grave. The only sound made through the silence was that of feet, eager and quick moving – clicking rhythmically down the lonely, rain soaked, cobblestone street.
The woman's face was shrouded in the shadows the late hour granted, her identity unknown to any bystander or watcher that could have been about. The obvious bulge that pushed out through her robes indicated pregnancy, but the most peculiar and interesting part of the situation was the two year old girl that was sleeping, bundled in her arms.
The child was wrapped tightly up with a trundle blanket, the color blending into the night as the woman walked manically down the south side of the petite and solemn Knoxbury Road. The scarf that hung from her delicate neck was being lifted with the wind, flapping around her tousled, mousy colored fine hair. She looked like a right beggar, but those in the wizarding world would have known better upon closer inspection. Though the reign of Voldemort had been defeated six months before, some were still forced to hide from his silent, but yet still deadly followers, who felt obligated to finish or continue his work of domination.
With tears streaming down her face, the mysterious woman came to stand in front of a looming rod iron gate that would lead her to her final destination. The young woman stood before the gate, her mind racing with possibility and options.
She needed courage. Courage to do the hardest thing she would ever have to do in her life.
Minutes went by as she stood in the darkened street, rain now pounding down on her. The rain seemed to wake her out of her guilty stupor, as brief as it was, springing her into action before she could lose her nerve. Hunching over the bundled little girl to prevent the rain from soaking the sleeping innocent, the woman opened the gate and walked briskly to the large stair that led to the door.
Panting with exertion, the shrouded mother pulled the blanket covering the young child back, revealing the angelic and peaceful face of her daughter. The clouds of the night had parted at the action, supplying a luminescent moonlight to see by - a cosmic reaction to an event that was about to take place. Little did the young mother know that she was about to set events in motion that would change her life forever.
"Remember to love. Please, please don't let hate grow in your heart." The young mother pleaded wisely with the sleeping form in her frail and wobbling arms. Her heart was breaking, but she knew with all certainty that this was the only chance she could give her daughter to live.
As she gazed down at her daughter, the product of a love with a man that now was dead to her in every way; she knew that she had to be doing the right thing. She was giving her little girl a chance, she was sacrificing her conscience to give her little girl a safe life where she wouldn't have to live in fear or ridicule for her name – a name that would link her to a traitorous murderer for the rest of her life if she were to stay and grow in the wizarding world. Yes, she was doing the right thing.
Kneeling down, the young and tattered women set the child down with care and love on the stoop. The two year old stirred with the change but did not wake, rather the young child adjusted to the new environment and continued to sleep; her face falling back into the peaceful state of innocence.
With one last forlorn look at her first born, the woman turned abruptly and sprinted to the best of her ability and hid herself in the shadows of the street. The gate provided a nice spot to hide behind as the accomplished witch pulled out her wand and flicked her wrist. Immediately, the round and gothic door knocker began pounding against the oak, waking the small bundle that sat beneath it.
The banging kept up drawing shrill and heart piercing screams from the small baby. The witch kept hidden but found that keeping her own cries of anguish silenced was becoming harder by the second. Tears stained her abnormally aged face as she waited for someone to answer the bloody door before she lost her nerve and grabbed her daughter back.
The breaking point was near when suddenly a ray of light burst into the darkened world that the frazzled mother occupied. The door to the front of London's Orphan Asylum opened, unveiling a matronly elder woman dressed in her nightly robes. The matron stared at the screaming child on the step in front of her, completely bewildered. But it was only that one moment that she hesitated before she scooped the child up and held it close to her chest to provide warmth.
The wind was blowing her long gray hair around madly as she picked up the little girl, turning and looking for anyone that may still be near enough to help solve the riddle that she was now holding in her arms. The desolate surroundings gave the matron minimal hope and so it was with a resigned and pitiful sigh that she took the girl into the foyer of the Victorian orphanage and shut the door quietly behind her.
Thunder grumbled in the distance, the heavens undoubtedly expressing their emotion at the events taking place - their dissatisfaction clear. Lightning snapped through the sky, booming and rattling homes and waking their occupants with alarm. The entire city of London must have woken that night from the intensity of the storm, a storm that none of them realized had been created to extinguish the grieving cries of a mother, who had just sacrificed her soul and conscience.
She sank down onto the wet side path and howled, screaming her pain into the night, forgetting herself completely. It was after some time that the stirring of the baby that was still in her womb calmed her slowly. This child would have a chance she thought. No one knew who the father was – she could keep this life and shelter it the way she wanted to shelter her first born.
It was that thought that gave her the strength to pull herself up and walk, even if she did cry and hyperventilate incoherently all the way home.
The old woman rocked the little girl in her arms steadily as she rocked back in forth in her old rocker, watching the unexpected storm play out from the window before her.
"Poor little child." She murmured lovingly. "So beautiful you are, who could give you up in such a fashion?" she continued in her soft and entrancing voice.
She rocked and pondered as the blonde haired girl began to fall into the realms of sleep, falling limp on the old woman's lap.
"I think we shall call you Mary, after the holy mother." She muttered, feeling the enticing form of sleep carry her away.
Even this muggle knew that the girl she held against her was special - special and in need of strength and love. What better way to start the process of providing, she thought sleepily, than by giving the frail girl a strong and giving name.
Note: So, its short I know but it's a prologue! Tell me what you think! Are you intrigued? Reviews equal Updates, strange formula that! ;)