Disclaimer; YES!!! I DO own Harry Potter! I wrote all the books when I was six, but a nasty lady on a train stole them off me! I think her name was, like, Joanna or Jackie or something. And I'm not sure about her surname but I think it was Rowland or Rowlson.

Hello! In Rockabilly! This is my first story so please don't be too harsh. And please don't flame me cos I'll start crying and come and snot on you or something. I also have a Machete I'm willing to use. Oh! Thank you a gazillion times to Mooncheese, my bestest bestest friend who regularly encourages coughTHREATENScough me if I can't be bothered to write. This has taken me AGES. Oh, and you should probably be nice and go read her lily/james fic cos it is WAY better than this.

Out of flesh and blood

The house lay in total darkness, an eerie silence penetrating the paper thin walls. It had lain, apparently abandoned for the last three days, though none of the villagers had particularly wanted to venture near it to investigate.

The people who had lived there had been unfriendly beings- they made no effort to fit into the community and had kept themselves to themselves for the most part- though their frequent visitors had not gone unnoticed. Very odd they were too- they seemed to appear out of nowhere, often masked and cloaked. So when the lights had gone out and all had gone silent there was a noticeable lack of nosy gossipers peering in at the windows.

If only the villagers had been a little more enquiring, they would've been met with a scene creepily reminiscent of that of the Mary Celeste. The dinner table, set for three, had been untouched, the food lying cold on the plates. The living room grate showed the remains of a log fire and a child's toys lay scattered haphazardly across the carpet. And silence.

If they had gone further, climbing the stairs, they still would have seen and heard nothing. But the house was not abandoned. Under the bed in the nursery lay a small child, her dark, heavily lidded eyes wide with fright as she clutched at a small ragged doll in her hand. She had not slept or eaten in three days. She could remember the events of three nights ago as if they had been photographically printed in her mind.

She remembered as the two men came to visit, one large and thickset, the other little more than a boy, with thick sandy hair. They had spoken in whispers to her parents, their faces taught nervously. Her mother had paled and she had sent her daughter to bed. Then later the doorbell had rung a second time. She remembered the shouts and cries had followed, bangs and flashes of green light which lit up the small child's room as she hid under her bed in terror.

It was a further two days before the girl slept, overcome with hunger and fatigue. She would not remember the tall, grey- bearded wizard who came later that night to take her to her new home. She would later remember just snippets of the life she had spent in this house. And sometimes she would wish she couldn't remember anything at all.

Aliothe Coombes smiled to herself as she walked through the avenue of trees on her way home. It had been a good summer really. She had just collected her OWLs results: she had received outstanding in Charms AND Defence Against the Dark Arts as well as exceeds expectations in Transfiguration, Herbology and Potions. She wished she could've taken them at Hogwarts with the other witches and wizards of her age- but Susie and Jack HAD said they would let her go this year if her results were good enough. They surely wouldn't go back on their word again?

She sighed. Her foster parents had been good to her and she was fond of them, but they always seemed to be at loggerheads over whether she could attend the school of witchcraft and wizardry. They had been promising her since the age of eleven, practically, but every year she got the same thing

"It's not that we don't think you can cope, Ali dear, but all the same, kids can be very cruel. We just don't want you to get hurt! Is that so wrong of us? You know what will happen if they find out about your parents! We just want what's best for you love."

Aliothe sighed again, her good mood regarding her results rapidly evaporating. She had had the same dream again last night, the one about when her parents left. She felt the familiar surge of anger at the thought of her real parents

'Damn them!' she thought angrily 'Why'd they have to go ruin my life by existing! It's like, I can't even be myself without people thinking I'm gonna turn out like them! I can't even go to school like all the rest of my kind!'

She had been going to a muggle school now ever since she could remember and Jack had been giving her private lessons in magic at home. She didn't dislike her school, but it was obvious she didn't fit in. She couldn't make any friends; not without living a lie. How would she explain her house? The talking clock that knew everything about you? The Nimbus 2003 that had been a present from her parents last birthday? Her wand? Her spellbooks?

Pushing these things to the back of her mind, Ali tried to concentrate on her results. She smiled. If she admitted it to herself she had not expected them to be anything like as good. She knew Jack and Susie would be proud of her. Brightened by these thoughts, she jogged down the lane to her house. So pre-occupied was she with imagining her parents reactions that she failed to notice anything wrong as she stepped into the warm homely cottage.

"Hello?" the house seemed unusually quiet "Jack? Susie? I got my results!" There was no response. Suddenly she heard a noise coming from the sitting room.

"Susie?" Her mother was lying on the floor, sobbing quietly to herself.

"Susie??! What's wrong? What happened?!" Susie seemed unable to speak, she was mumbling incoherently. She looked up at her foster daughter, and Ali was shocked by what she saw. In the space of half an hour her mother had aged ten years.

Susie's eyes, usually so immaculately made-up, were wide and terrified, her mascara in watery streaks down her face. The woman seemed insane- she was tugging at her hair as if she wished to pull it out, and she seemed to be succeeding as little clumps of it were woven round her fingers. Her lipstick had smudged around her mouth, but what most shocked Ali was the expression on her face.

For the first time in her life, Susie Coombes looked completely and totally broken.

Finally she seemed to want to speak, though the sobs still raked her body, almost choking her.

"Haven't you.....seen it?" the tears were pouring down her face "It's all m-m-my fault! I only...w-w-went out for a m-minute! They.. must've c-c-c-come then!! And now he's g-gone and it's all my f-f-fault!"

Ali was scared now, she had barely ever seen Susie lose her cool before, never mind break down like this.

"Whose gone?! What's your fault!? What is it Susie?!! What haven't I seen?"

"J-j-jack! He's GONE!!" she broke down again pointing at Aliothe to look out the window. And it all became horrendously clear.

Over the lawn a huge, smoky green skull had appeared, a serpent protruding from between skeletal teeth.

The Dark Mark.

Ok now. I have a teeny tiny request... REVIEW!!!! I need to know what you think! If you do I will give you Haagen Dazs Ice cream (come on, EVERYONE loves that). If you don't I will somehow manage to track you down with my machete. Love you! cheesy smile