I never, never wanted this.
I always wanted to believe,
But from the start I'd been deceived.
I never, never wanted this.
Inside a crumbling effigy,
So dies all innocence.
But you promised me.
-"The Great Disappointment," AFI
CHAPTER ONE: Prelude
Lily pointed her wand at the large bookcase, determined to investigate the odd-shaped crack she'd noticed. Harry had given her permission to turn the old house inside out in her search. A thick layer of dust had settled over everything in the twelve years since anyone had entered it, but after her months of searching, much of the dust had been stirred up. In last night's investigations, she had discovered a straight-edged rectangle crack, just big enough to fit a person if they were to crouch down. She quickly hovered the bookshelf away and let it crash down onto the floor, spilling its few volumes over the dirty floor. Lily pulled back her long, black curls into a messy bun to keep them out of her face. She then proceeded to wipe at the grime on the wall until the crack was definitely visible. She pocketed her wand and pulled out a silver pocketknife, inserting it in the crack and prying away the plaster, piece-by-piece until she dug out a hole. It was a grueling task, but as soon as she had a big enough hole to look through and reach her hand through at the same time, she stuck her wand inside and whispered "Lumos." A small cavern-like hole was illuminated. She peered into the dimly lit area and saw on the floor a large, cardboard box. It was unmarked and looked rather boring, but she knew that this was what she had been waiting for her entire life.
When she lifted it out, she carried it to the middle of an old, threadbare rug and lifted off the lid. In the box were piles of old photos waving up at her, mixed in with notebooks and journals, scrolls and spare bits of parchment. On the very top was a thick leather-bound journal. She picked it up and opened to the first page.
"My name is Jaclyn Alayne Carter. I am engaged to Sirius Marius Black. (Please note, I think his middle name is rather funny.) I am nineteen years old and we are living in dark, dark times. Therefore, I have decided to write down our story, for the future, in case we do not make it. Many have died or gone bad. Sirius thinks I'm being paranoid, but even I see the worry in his eyes. They've been going gray lately, not quite so blue, but occasionally I can make him forget and it sparks back up – he sparks back up into the man I love…"
Lily scanned through the rest until she reached the last few paragraphs.
"From here on, I will tell our story, of the early years, of the love and the pain, of everything we went through, and then everything we will go through from here on. I fear, though, that it will not be too good at all. Anyway, I'm making this prelude as long as the journal. I will finish it now and actually write something important."
Underneath that was scrawled a quickly-jotted entry, dated November 4, 1981.
"It was Peter. He betrayed Lily and James, now Sirius is in Azkaban, and I'm left eight months pregnant. All because of Peter. Mom and Dad are dead, Jon with them. I have nowhere to go but the States. Before I do that, though, I will hide this journal where no one can find it until it is long over with. I just hope that– Wow, hope is an interesting word right now, isn't it? But it's here. We have it. The Dark Lord is gone and Harry survived. However small, we have hope, and it rests in that little boy. Hopefully, he will bring the world around, clear Sirius, and be his father's child…his mother's child. But I won't be around to know it, I know. Before I leave this journal in its box, I must give it a name, though. And I know just what to name it, too…
The Great Disappointment
Fitting title, no?"