Chapter 1
The forbidden forest was as dark and misty as ever in the clearing where Harry Potter had nearly died. The trees all around were thick with the things that had been there before the story of Harry Potter had even begun. The light was dim and at points you couldn't see a thing. Of course, if you were a wizard you could just go 'Lumos' and the world would be lit. As it happened, it was now a station for wounded and old centaurs. Bane, the lead centaur, has foreseen that he was going to die soon. He now just sits in the middle, with many lady centaurs kneeling before him; to do their time of worship to show thanks for what he has done.
Suddenly, they heard someone, or something, coming out of the darkness. As one, the centaurs stopped breathing. They wouldn't give away their position or surrender their leader, to whatever is out there.
A girl appears, wandering through the trees. A girl that you and I know of as Gabrielle Delacour. A weak little girl with no known ambition whose sister was entered into the Triwizard Tournament a great many years ago. This 'girl' was always known as innocent, but the war between good and evil had changed her. She became a woman of high standing strong enough to take Minerva McGonagall's place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The centaurs breathed out, relieved the noise wasn't one of Aragog's descendants. For, you see, even though Aragog had died on the night Harry drank Felix Felicis, he had many descendants to do his work after he had gone.
"Hello. It's a wonder seeing you here." says Gabrielle Delacour, the new transfiguration teacher and head of Ravenclaw house at Hogwarts.
"You see us here everyday, Gabrielle." Bane growled in response, as if to say that she had lost her mind.
"I know, I know. But I just want to practice my English."
Gabrielle stepped forward into the heart of the clearing. Swiftly, she bent over, gasping out in agony. "What is it, my sweet?" asks Firenze, the amazing centaur who went against his kid to teach in the post of Divination teacher in the absence of Professor Trelawney. "Ouch! My foot! My foot! I have hurt my foot!" cries Gabrielle while clearly in pain. Firenze trots over to her in order to comfort Gabrielle. She had in fact stepped on the resurrection stone, but she doesn't know that yet. Gabrielle faints, but Firenze catches her and takes her up to Madame Pomfrey, the wonderful Hogwarts nurse who had healed too many people to count, for help.
Two hours later, Gabrielle woke up, to find that she was aching all over. "I must have fallen hard," she thought. She clenched her hand to find the stone was freezing cold to her touch. A gripping pain came over her body. It seemed to be coming from the stone. Realizing this, she tried to let go of the stone but it was stuck fast to her skin. Madame Pomfrey bustles into the room, but stops short of her desk at the sight of Gabrielle wriggling around as if she was under a curse. "Oh no!" she shouts and runs out of the room.
Seconds later Arthur Weasley arrived on the scene. He ran over to where Gabrielle was still in pain. "What is it? What has hurt you?" exclaims Arthur franticly. Gabrielle weakly tries to opens her hand. He notices the stone and attempts to pull it out, but it won't budge. He whisked out his wand and said "Wingdardium Leviosa!" The stone flew out of Gabrielle's hand and she immediately stopped twitching. She lay there quiet, exausted from her ordeal. Madame Pomfrey rushed in to catch the stone but Arthur swats her hand away. Instead he caught it with one of the sheets on Gabrielle's hospital bed. "That is dangerous. You must not touch it." scolds Arthur. Madame Pomfrey nods meekly. "Stay there and look after her. Our friend here has found something very dear to us." He stopped abruptly and turned and walked out of the hospital wing.
The headmaster's office was a very curious place indeed. When Dumbledore was Headmaster, the password would be whatever sweet he liked best that year. Every previous headmaster has their picture on the wall so they could give advice to the new ones. Arthur Weasley, the new Headmaster had found a great many relics belonging to Dumbledore's reign of power. One was Tom Riddle's destroyed diary and another rather peculiar item that seemed like a ring but it had no stone to complete it. Now he had at last found it after weeks and weeks of searching. He looked closely at the stone. It appeared have markings on it. He could see a triangle with a circle inside, which had been split down the middle.
He gasped in surprise. It was the deathly hallows sign. Now he understood why Albus Dumbledore had kept himself so secretive that last year. He was protecting two of the deathly hallows, the first being the Elder Wand, which is said to be the most powerful wand in the world. The second being the resurrection stone, a stone that can bring back the dead. The one he never got was the Cloak of Invisibity, which can hide you from all the people in the world. Put the three together and you would be the master of death.
"I need to keep this safe. It could prove useful to me at some point," Arthur thinks. He wrapped the stone in the fabric he first used to catch the stone and put it, as well as the diary, back in the locked desk drawer.