Prologue
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
"You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.""
-Genesis 3:1-4
"Do you think she's started to show signs?"
The chestnut-haired man leaned into the wind as torrents of rain pelted fellow wizards and witches fleeing the cobblestone streets in search of shelter. The night sky was black as ink and only the soft lamp light shining through the shop windows illuminated him and his companion as they stared into the warm glow of The Leaky Cauldron. Droplets of freezing water dripped from his sopping hood and silently fell away in the gale force winds that swirled the fabric at his feet. Soon the two mysterious figures were the only souls left out in the perilous conditions.
"It appears she still lives a normal, pathetic life. Typical of a retired hero," the flaxen-haired woman sniped above the sound of the storm. Her azure eyes scanned the small group gathered around the worn table inside the welcoming pub. Pulling her drenched cloak tighter around her petite frame, she glanced up at her tall comrade with a questioning lift of her delicate eyebrow. "Settling seems so unbecoming don't you think, my love?"
A sudden savage gust of wind blasted through the night, so strong that it rattled the windows, causing the tenants inside to glance nervously in their direction. For a moment, the pub went silent in anticipation, staring out into the darkness where the couple stood. To the crowd, the window would've only revealed a framed view of the obsidian night and foggy condensation; an illusion constructed by the cloaked woman outside.
"She seems...content," he replied, as if searching for a word that he had long forgotten the meaning of. Inside the pub, the woman they had been searching for smiled brightly at her fellow bar mates and said something the two of them couldn't hear. Her three friends grinned in return as the bar noise picked back up to normal levels and everyone turned back to their glasses and conversation. "Are you sure she isn't excluded from the effects?"
"Do you doubt me, sweetling?" the woman asked, feigning affection. "We will need her. I cannot say why it has not shown itself yet, but it will. In the meantime, we will collect what we need and search out the others, starting with that blithering feline."
A blaze of lightning illuminated their features just as a clash of thunder resonated through Diagon Alley, causing merchandise to shudder in the storefronts. The blonde turned sharply on her heel after one last, ominous look at the young woman in the pub; her towering companion following close behind and the two disapparated. No one would ever know they had been there.
Hours later, after the tireless downpour of rain subsided into tiny, gurgling streams flowing down the gutters, the sought-after group exited The Leaky Cauldron a little less sober than they had arrived. Stumbling down the street, the tallest of them threw his arm around the tawny haired witch.
"I 'ope you 'ad a good birfday 'Mione," he slurred in her ear, leaning a little too heavily against her.
Grunting under his weight, she hefted him more securely on her shoulder. "It was great, Ron," Hermione responded, steering him in the direction of her apartment. "My 20th year is already off to a great start."
As the sounds of camaraderie faded in the distance, the city landscape fell into a deafening quiet and the moon finally poked through the thick curtain of cloud. A sliver of light fell upon the cobbled street in front of The Leaky Cauldron, as if to illuminate what nobody would ever see coming.