Power and Responsibility: Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

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The Beginning:

It was the middle of summer, the sun high in the sky, beating down relentlessly upon those unfortunate enough to be outside without protection.
Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, grunted as he hauled a large rock across the garden of 4 Privet Drive, his developing muscles cording from the strain.
Dressed in tattered jeans three sizes too large and held up around his waist by a frayed cord of rope, white t-shirt stained by several unrecognisable substances, badly damaged sneakers and his patented circular black glasses held together by tape, the young wizard wondered if life could get more dismal.

It turned out it could.

Harry ground his teeth as his aunt ordered him to re-do the fencing for the herb-garden for the eighth time, her shrill voice jarring his senses horrendously and antagonising his headache.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," he muttered, setting down his trowel and trudging sullenly over to the area he had been forced to re-work for the last four days. Picking up the spade and yanking out the fence posts visciously, he muttered dark threats under his breath as he worked.
"Does poor Duddeykins have to work? Does Dudders have to strain and grunt and re-do a single row of fencing for four days!? No! He just sits on his fat butt and stuffs his chubby, evil, piggy face. I hope he has a heart attack from cholesterol overdose!"
Suddenly he felt his spade hit something solid as he began to dig again to lower the fence posts to an acceptable level.
Tossing the spade to the side, he leaned down and stuck his arm down the hole he had dug and rooted about, searching for that which had impeded his progress.
After a minute of grubbing in the dirt, his fingers closed around an oddly shaped rock - far too smooth to be natural - and pulled it out. Eyeing it distrustfully for a moment, he lightly dusted off the worst of the dirt and grime to expose that which lay beneath. He blinked as the dirt fell away to reveal a pristine hourglass, the connecting glass a dizzying number of blue hues and framed by an ornate latticework of silver or platinum. It took him a moment to realise that the sand inside was a mixture of blue and gold.

Looks a bit like Lapus Lazuli, he thought to himself.

Then it began to grow warm.

Alarmed, Harry attempted to release the item, but found he could not uncurl his own fingers from around the cylindrical object. It took him a moment to realise that the sand within had suddenly flowed from the top to the bottom in a singal, smooth movement. A glow manifested itself on the upper part of the hourglass, and he mouthed the words that had begun to glow on the blue-tinted glass that roiled like an angry storm on a warm summer's eve.

Ambulare mane apud tempus,
Timere umbra spiritus vir mane.
Orare ad rex brumalis.
Heros voluntas venire.

As soon as the last word passed his lips, he realised he had spoken the words aloud instead of staying silent as was his wish. He dimly heard his Aunt screeching something about 'none of that magic nonsense in this house' when the sharp tug at his navel that signalled a portkey activation washed through him.

With a lurch, Harry Potter disappeared, the hourglass hovering in the air for a moment before a loud 'pop' signalled its departure, silver motes of light glittering in the air to fall to the squashed grass below.

End Prologue.