Disclaimer: Most of the characters in this story belong to J.K. Rowling, I could pretend they were mine but that would not be very fair to you or to me now, would it? If you have tastes similar to mine, you will notice that I use several bits and pieces from movies, books, and TV shows. I will credit them, but I feel like letting you guess which bits are from where. A chocolate-covered gold star to whoever guesses them all! Emily McKeown is a character of my own creation and if at any point in this story she begins to show signs of Marysue-itis I hope you will forgive me, I'm still not entirely sure at this point whether I'm going to even post this story so try to bear with me here. Enjoy.

emilyshka

Prologue

Emily McKeown was wandering down the smoky streets of London in the purple glow of dawn with her husband of two years, David, a heavy suitcase and an increasing feeling that she was going to be sick.

As a frantic kick in her belly caused a fresh wave of bile to bubble up her throat she gestured wildly at David to stop and leaned over a helpfully positioned bush, heaving violently. 'Joys of motherhood my ass', she thought bitterly before ducking into the foliage once more. David was sympathetically stroking her back and at the same time feeling entirely out of his depth. He helpfully pulled the hair back from her face and took a moment to glare at the staring passerby. They would need to get a taxi, he thought desperately, the plane would be leaving in half an hour and they were going to be late. 'Nothing new there,' he thought wryly. They had developed something of a reputation, he thought, both of them preferred to be punctual and then irrevocably arrived late. Meanwhile Emily was straightening up and looking at him.

"Well, I suppose we could always get a taxi."

He smiled quietly and turned to hail one of the big black cars driving by. Emily looked down tiredly at the mess in the bushes and sighed. Three days with little to no sleep. Morning sickness for the past month, swollen ankles, underwear that didn't fit...she sighed again. She loved children, though preferably when they weren't kicking her from the inside at the most inopportune moments. 'Perhaps I should have taken Mom's advice after all,' she thought, reflectively, 'pregnancy is as good an excuse as any for missing a wedding, even if the bride is your sister. And I'm so tired.'

'And then I could forego the experience of Maggie's fiancé altogether' she thought, for the tenth time at least, 'until she's trained Chaz not to refer to me as "that snooty bitch you call a sis —Oh, hi Emily." '

Smiling slightly, she spat squarely in the dirt to rinse the bitter taste of bile from the back of her throat, wondering absently if she could get away with throwing up on Chaz's tux before the ceremony if she blamed it on morning sickness when she spotted a small movement in the alleyway behind the bushes. It was one of thousands of alleys about London: thin, with high walls of deep dusty red bricks and a dirty ground covered in newspaper and rubbish. Also there was a black trail of some heavy cloth slithering around the corner at the end of the alley. Curious, she leaned forward and tried to peer around the end of the alley, but she couldn't see anything except a mud-spattered edition of Cosmopolitan. She looked around thoughtfully at David who was leaping out of the way of a taxi that had not bothered to stop, splattering him with dirty water and she grinned when David began yelling and shaking his fist after the car.

"Oh, what the hell," Emily murmured, "one last bit of adventure before the wedding". And, with no small amount of difficulty, she stepped over the bush and walked down the alley pausing only to motion that David should follow her.

The alley was, in fact, much longer than it appeared and she was well down it by the time David had caught up. "Em, do you really think this is a good idea?" he looked at her through cool gray eyes, "I mean, the whole dark deserted alleyway aside—we're going to be late as it is." She looked back at him with an even blue gaze and a wicked grin that didn't match it.

"Oh, c'mon Dave. Do you really think they have anything this interesting in Minnesota? Not likely." She tried to walk faster, which resulted in nothing more than a rather unattractive and ungainly waddle. "Just humor me for a minute, I thought I saw something interesting."

And there was something interesting waiting at the end of the alley. Several somethings of great interest wearing long black robes and white masks and (if anyone had bothered to look closely) a rather tasteless tattoo on each of their left forearms. The somethings were still there several minutes later when Emily and David McKeown rounded the bend. One near the front said something that Emily could not hear and the long wooden stick that she hadn't noticed that was in his hand pulsed suddenly, sending a shock of green light at David.

Emily had been too shocked to scream; she felt the life leave David's body as he crumpled to the ground next to her like so much cloth. She only regained feeling when one of the somethings grabbed her from behind. She fought with every ounce of her strength and she heard the something gasp with pain as she kicked in the general direction of his legs. Another of them, 'The leader' she thought, held up one of the sticks and it pulsed again, red this time. She felt a moment of shock as she stared at the lump that only a few moments ago had been her husband and then the light hit her.

Then she felt nothing at all.

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emilyshka