The first chapter of this story. Thanks to changes suggested by peggy77, this chapter has been edited. Nonetheless, if someone finds a mistake, please inform me.
Wolfoenix
It was the dark night of All-Hallows eve of 1981, the thirty first day of October when the Wizarding Wireless announced, just a few minutes from midnight, in the very cheerful voice of Radio Jockey Ross Butler- You-know-who is dead! Celebrations all around, and with this, the wizading wireless stopped broadcasting for a week, probably in order to facilitate its employees to celebrate. Yes, this was a very brief announcement, more like an ecstatic exclamation, but one must understand that the announcer himself was ecstatic at the news he was announcing. After hearing the news, the world exploded into a flurry of activities, people congratulating each other, bursting firecrackers, feasting, and celebrating in general.
But I reckon that the reader does not know who this you-know-who was.
It was the start of the seventh decade on twentieth century, the year 1970, when the first unusual incident happened. A muggle family, that is, a family of non magic users was murdered in their home in a semi wizarding village called Godric's hollow. A flurry of such incidents near wizarding enclaves alerted the Ministry of Magic that somethimg weird was definitely happening. Alas! It was too late. A mysterious wizard, who addressed himself as Lord Voldemort had already declared war on all non-magical humans, their magical children, often called muggleborns or mudbloods ( by Voldemort sympathisers) and all their sympathisers. This war waged for years to come, nearly seven to be precise. Within these years, his terror had become such in wizarding population that it earned him the monkier 'He-who must not be named'. 'You-know-who', when spoken, also referred to him. It was his destruction, vanquishing, or demise, whatever you call it, which was being celebated in the wizarding world. On the day, which is said to bring the darker half of the year, darkness was vanquished.
Nearly 8:30 PM, 30th day of October, 1981
Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, reputed to be the most powerful wizard of him age, was sitting in his office, clutching his head in obvious worry. If anyone had seen the wizened old man in such a state, they would have recoiled in shock as not mamy people knew the wizard properly and thought him to be all-powerful, infalliable, someone who has remedy to all worries and answers to all questions. Albus was completely spent in leading the wizards in the war against an evil that was slowly gaining power and Albus could not find any remedy to this problem. The Potter and The Longbottom families had already gone into hiding, per his instructions, losing him his three best fighters as well as his best researcher, inventor and innovator. His vigilante army, called The Order of the Phoenix, had already depleted from its original strength of 270 experienced fighters to just about 100 amateur ones. This war had lost him a lot of good friends. And those who were alive were mourning for their own losses.
His train of such morose thoughts about the outcome of the war were put to a stop when a device behind his desk started beeping presistently, indicating that the security on the safe houses of either the Longbottoms or the Potters had been breached. His stomach churned and leapt to his throat, knowing that the worst had happened, Voldemort had found the retreat of one of the families.
Leaping from his chair at a speed that belied his true age, Albus went to grab his wand, but retreated in shock when his hand got burned as he touched the wooden handle of the stick. In front of his eyes, a black mist rose from the wand and flew out of the window, heading south towards England.
Unknown to the Headmaster, who was shocked at his wand's strange behaviour and desperately trying to remember where he had kept his other wand, so that he could go and help the endangered families, a grey coloured cloak was heating up to a level which would have easily burned a normal fabric. Coming out of it were multicoloured beams of light, stripping off all the enchantments added over it during the passage of time. At the end of this process, a black beam came out and shot out in the fog covered night sky of Scotland.
Little Hangleton was a fairy backward rural settlemt in England. Till a few decades ago, the lives of the people to this village were the definition of normal. But in mid 1940s, a fearsome incident happened which instilled extreme fear in the inhabitants of the village.
Riddle Manor was perched at the top of a small hill in the village. It was the home of the most affluent family of the community, or more precisely, used to be. Because the Riddle family had been murdered during the scorching summer season of the year 1944. Now, the Riddles' place was taken care of by their very loyal Gardener, who lived in the mansion's servents' quarters. Even after the man's care, once beautiful Victorian style manse now looked like it was made of black marbles and gave creeps to whoever dared to look at it. Many oddly dressed individuals were seen near the manor, all of who gave off dangerous vibes, just like the mansion.
Another odd place in the village was a downtrodden shack which had detoriated with weather, having been abandoned long ago. The former inhabitants of the shack, the Gaunts, were oddly stiff natured despite their economic conditions. They mysteriously disappeared one by one in the 1920s.
On the dark Halloween night of 1981, some people who were skulking near the cottage lost their ability to hear after a shrill scream tore out of the shack. They too noticed the fore-mentioned black mist tear out of the shack at an unbelievable speed.
10:00 PM
Godric's Hollow
While the Headmaster frantically searched for a wand, a hooded figure peeked inside a cottage door. Said cottage was a small, two storied, cream coloured house and looked like the residence od a fairly normal family. The figure's eyes were met by the scene of a fairly normal living room, a raven messy haired young man, no more than 25 years old, was sitting with a beautiful ginger haired woman, presumably his wife, in deep discussion. He knew what was the topic of their discussion. He.
"I don't know Lils, we cannot possibly leave."
"But James, I have a bad feeling, something is going to go horribly wrong, and we will not be able to protect ourselves from it", the woman replied to her husband.
"How can fidelius fa-" He was not able to finish his sentence as the hooded figure blew up the door and glided in, with his robes sweeping up behind him. "Lily, take Harry and run". The man abandoned his intended comment and exclaimed to his wife to take their son, Harry, and run. It was clear, this hooded figure was Lord Voldemort.
As the dark lord sweeped in, the man confronted him, wandless, as he had left his wand on the dining table while playing with his son. Bravery and determination to save himself and his family shone brightly in his hazel coloured eyes. Alas! He was not armed, unlike his enemy, a green coloured spell shot out of Voldemort's wand and in the blink of an eye, it connected with the man's chest and he slumped to the ground.
A fierce, intelligent and beloved warrior, James Potter was dead.
Leaving James' body lying in the living room, at the base of the stairs, Voldemort moved towards the nursery towards which the woman had run.
The rest became history. In a few minutes, Lily Potter was dead. So like a mother she had begged for her son's like, hoping that he would live. Harry Potter son orphaned. Voldemort levelled his wand towards baby Harry, who was eyeing him with curious emerald eyes, still not able to understand what was happening around him. "Avada Kedavra!" ,hese words were uttered as a victorious shout.
Just as the spell was about to hit Harry, black mist came from three seperate windows and formed a pitch black shield around Harry. The dark lord's victorious shout changed into a shriek of horror when his spell, instead of killing the child, bounced back from the shield and hit him. In a huge surge of power, the dark lord's body disappeared, leaving only his raven robes behind in a pile.
Taking a calming breath, Professor Minerva McGonagall tried to relax in her chair, as much as one can in a wooden stiff backed chair. The news was disturbing and she barely managed to keep her tears at bay. Just a moment ago, she had recieved a patronus message from Albus saying that James and Lily Potter were dead. It was said in such raw and blunt tone that she nearly spilled some tears. After losing so many good friends from The Order of the Phoenix, she had lost her favourite students too.
When she finally got control of herself, she remembered that they had a son. What had happened to him? Rushing to Dumbledore's office, she knocked sharply on the door just once and entered.
"Where is Harry, Albus?"
"He is alive and well Minerva, do not worry. I have yet to decide where to place young Harry, there will be quite a bit of danger to his life and if he grew up in wizarding world, he may get an inflated head too." Albus' statement answered her question clearly. There was only one muggle family which was related to little Harry. Since, Lily's parents had already passed away, oly her sister Petunia was left. He clearly wanted to place Harry with Petunia. But why would Harry get an inflated head. The question tugged at her mind and she vocalised it. The reply she got was not anything she expected, "Because he vanquished the Dark Lord of course." It was spoken in a tone that said that it was common knowledge and she should keep in touch of the world. Well, like any sort of news reached Hogwarts easily unless it was not time for a Daily Prophet or Albus Dumbledore saw fit to make an official announcement.
After getting her answers, she knew what she had to do. Rushing out of Dumbledores's office and the castle, she apparated as soon as she was out of the range of the anti-appriation wards to a muggle suburb.
Privet Drive, Surrey
Privet drive was the ideal neighbourhood a normal person would want to live in. All the houses were well maintained and looked like they all had been cut by the same cookie cutter.
Minerva keeled back in shock as soon as she got her first look at the neighbourhood that Albus had chosen for Harry Potter to live in. The boy would go mad if he remained here. She remembered his father's Hogwarts years rather well, he was such a spirited and independent boy and she was sure young Harry would be the same.
Since Lily had only mentioned her sister Petunia once in her many letters and only gave a passing mention that she lived in a town called Little Whinging and Privet drive neighbourhood, the transfiguration professor was in dilemma about which house Petunia lived in. As much as she could, in her panicked state, she asked about Petunia Evans who lived in the area to a few scarce passerbys and discovered that the woman was called Dursley now, distasteful name in her opinion.
In a few a seconds, a cat with strange square markings around its green eyes was standing in the place of the tall woman.
Rubeus Hagrid made his way towards the ruined cottage where his friends had once lived. Though not awfully close to either James or Lily, he had known them just nicely enough for their death to leave a few scars on him.
He gave a horrified gasp as he saw the ruined stage of the small house. The top floor was nearly completely blown off and smoke was steadily making its way out of there due to burning debris.
Opening the front door, Rubeus crept into the living room, only to discover a dead body at his entrance. Seeing the dead, emotionless face of the lively child he has once known was just enogh to make him brawl. But thee was no time for it, he had been assigned by Dumbledore to get Harry to him in order to be handed to his new guardians.
Ducking through the small doorway that led to the stairs, he climbed up to the first floor and entered the nursery, Lily's body was sprawled in front of the crib which was pushed at the far corner of the room. Inside the crib was the most beautiful child he had laid eyes on. The child's brilliant grren eyes, inherited from his mother, were shining like torch bulbs and spreading an aura of power, well as much as a crying toddler can.
