Reincarnation hurts like fuck. Only just now is Lightning learning this. GYAAAAAAAAH! She thinks, or very well would have screamed, given the pain, if she had a mouth, but no, she is but a soul, a soul in horrid pain. WHAT IS GOING ON WHY DOES THIS HURT SO BAD?! This pain is usually something that causes the prior life to be blocked by the subconscious, but, even though Lightning has long since given up in pure agony, she still lasted through the pain long enough to retain her memories in the next life. Why does reincarnation hurt so much? Having your soul ripped from your body, everything in your body shutting down, having your soul stitched into a new body, and having your whole body being shoved out of a small hole as you are born, all at once. It is about… ten times as painful as it sounds. And that is exactly what Lightning is going through right now.
The pinkette soldier finally gets free and is bathed, going home with her new parents and new name. Her mother got past the pain fairly quickly and Lightning herself, or rather himself, is a very strong baby. Harry Potter. I get the luck to be reincarnated and I'm not only the wrong sex, but I sound like a bearded clay molder. After all me and my friends have been through, ALL THAT, we get killed by a sniper. We couldn't ever get a break, could we?
Not even three months later, Lightning's parents die. They die violently, all because of some asshole without a nose. Just as the soldier girl is warming up to them, too. His mother is on her knees, begging for the baby with oddly colored hair to be spared, but is cut off and struck down with a bolt of green lightning not only mid-sentence, but mid-word. Lightning boils with fury at this slaughter of innocents, and not just innocents, but her new family! She turns red, even, and her mark, which somehow returned with her reincarnation, begins to glow. Voldemort, the pale, imposing figure he is, leans over the basket, raising his hand, and firing off another deadly green bolt… just as the pink haired baby casts shell. The bolt is deflected back at the unsuspecting noseless dark wizard.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, are proud to say that they were perfectly normal, in fact. They are the last people you'd expect to be involved in, or care about anything strange or mysterious, because they just don't like such things.
Mr. Dursley is the director of a firm called Grunnings, a producer of drills. He is big, beefy, and having almost no neck, with an amazingly large mustache. Large being long, not to be confused with far to the sides, like a handlebar mustache. Mrs. Dursley is thin and blonde, having enough neck for both her and her husband, very useful, in fact, given how often she monitors the neighbors by very obviously shoving her head over the fence. They have a small little brat they call Dudley, mostly because that is his name, and they feel as though he is truly the finest boy to have ever graced the earth. If the wording has not made it obvious, it shall be said straightforward. He is not the finest to have ever graced the earth. Damn near the opposite, actually. But we'll get to that.
The Dursleys had absolutely everything they desired, but the fact is, they have a secret, one that is to them absolutely horrid, and their greatest nightmare come true would be for someone, or something, to learn of it. The Potters. Mrs. Potters was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but Mrs. Dursley avoids her like the plague, having not seen her in years. In fact, she pretends her sister doesn't even exist! All because she and her husband were far too un-Dursleyish to be bothered with by any true Dursley. The Dursleys know about Harry, or rather Lightning, as well, and to them it is only one more reason to keep them away, for they don't want their oh so precious Dudley mixing with such a child.
When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley wake up on a dull, grey Tuesday our story starts… again. There was nothing in the grey, rainy clouds outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would be happening all about the country. Mr. Dursley hums a particularly dull and average tune, with nothing about it to suggest he didn't just make it up randomly on the spot as he actively searches for the most boring tie in his collection, and when he finds it, he puts it around his neck while Mrs. Dursley gossips away happily to no one in particular as she attempts to force Dudley into his high chair.
Neither of them notices as a large owl flutters past the window.
At half past Eight, Mr. Dursley picks up his briefcase, gives his wife a kiss on the cheek, and tries to do the same to Dudley, but he misses, as the child happens to be having a hissy fit, throwing his cereal all about the room. "Little Tyke," chuckles Mr. Dursley as he leaves his house, getting in his blue car, and backing out into the road.
On the corner of the street, Mr. Dursley thinks he sees a cat reading a map, the strangest thing. When he checks again to make sure, there is in fact a tabby cat, but no map whatsoever in sight. What was he thinking? It must have been a trick of the light or shadows or something. No map. Never was there, never will be there. NO MAP. Mr. Dursley stares at the cat that somehow managed to give him more than two minutes worth of thought. He looks away, and continues his drive, and looks into the rear view mirror to see the cat reading-no, looking at a sign, as cats can't read signs or maps. As he drives off, he turns his mind back to drills somewhat forcefully, as he needs to focus if he wants to get that big order to get filled.
At the edge of town, however, his mind is taken once more from the subject of drills. As he sits in traffic, he can't help but notice a large number of people in cloaks milling about. The beefy drill salesman can't bear oddly dressed people, what with their idiotic getups. It must be some stupid new fashion. He finds something else interesting to him, though, that sometimes the cloaked people gather together and whisper excitedly, as if they just won a million dollars, but didn't want everyone to know, while at the same time wanting SOMEONE to know. The mustachioed man in his blue car finds himself red in the face to see that the cloaked fools weren't even young at all! There are people twice his age huddling in their cloaks! He decide they must be collecting money for some cause or another as he pulls into the parking lot at Grunnings, and his mind switches back to full on "drills" mode.
Mr. Dursley always sits with his back to the window in his 9th floor office. If he didn't, he would've notice the many owls swooping past in broad daylight, which had so captured the attention of those milling about the streets. All in all, the big muscled man had a wonderful, owl-free morning, complete with yelling at random people, important phone calls, and even more yelling. A great day for him, and it stays that way until lunchtime, when he decides to walk across the street and buy a bun from the bakery for his lunch.
He forgot about the cloaked people. They just unnerve him entirely. He walks past a group, and notices they lack any collecting tins. There goes that theory… He thinks morosely. Mr. Dursley also walks close by another group, and overhears, "…the Potters…" "… their son Harry…" which unnerves him much further. Wasn't his wife's sister's kid named Harry?
Mr. Dursley, after the fact, has a lot of trouble focusing. He runs back up to his office and barks at his secretary not to let anyone bother him. He sits up there, thinking, worrying, and almost calling his wife several times, reassuring himself that maybe it's a different Harry, or the Harry he's thinking of isn't named Harry at all. It helps… very little, though. When five in the afternoon comes, he leaves as quickly as possible, nearly knocking down an old man. "Oh, I'm sorry!" Mr. Dursley grunts, only to find that the old man seems to be wearing an emerald cloak. Whereas he would be upset in the position the old man is in, the man simply grins, exclaiming, "Oh, there's no need to be sorry on such a joyous day, now that you-know-who has finally been killed! Even Muggles like you should be rejoicing in happiness!" punctuating his outburst with a hug, before running off to another group of cloaked people. The mustache rocking beef monster just stares on in confusion, before hurrying off even faster than at first.
When he gets home, he finds that the news is turned on the TV, with the reporter speaking, for whatever reason rather animatedly, of the owl sightings and shooting stars everywhere. Mr. Dursley looks to his wife and asks slowly, "Petunia… have you spoken to your sister recently?" Petunia Dursley's head quickly snaps towards her husband. "What about her, Vern?" She snaps, causing Vern to recoil slightly. "Well, I heard some cloaked people talking about Potters, and, I thought they might be, you know, her crowd." He explains, and Petunia doesn't seem to calm down as much as quiet down. "Didn't she have a little brat, Harold, or Harvey…?" Petunia grumbles slightly before answering, "Harry. What a horribly common name." Vern pales, making his mustache seem browner than usual, and mumbles, "Yeah… horrible…"
That night, Vern has trouble sleeping. Why were those strange people milling about, talking about Harry? What did he do? What did his parents do? He thinks, and it is just that which is keeping him from sleeping. It certainly doesn't help when the street lights go out. Wha-? What just… What just happened?! He silently panics for a few minutes before the lights return, and while his is still rather concerned, his tiredness finally catches up to him, and he falls into a restless sleep.
In the morning, Vern wakes up to a horrid screech, courtesy of his wife. He bolts up, and books it out of his room and down the stairs as quickly as possible, and when he reaches her, she only points out the front door and down. Vern looks to where she points and finds a basket, in it, a baby wrapped in cloth, with bright pink hair and green eyes, glaring at them slightly. On its lap is a letter, which Vern bends down and picks up. He unfolds the piece of white paper, and begins to read,
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,
As you may or may not know, Mr. and Mrs. Potter are dead. They were killed by a rather evil wizard known as Voldemort. When Voldemort attempted to kill Harry, something stopped him. If you have not figured it out by now, the baby in this basket is Harry. Hagrid assures me that though Harry is quite cold seeming and serious, he is still rather nice. Also, I checked, his hair is naturally pink, don't ask why, because I don't know.
Best Regards,
Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Vern reads the letter up and down several times, trying to make sense of how any of this is possible, but he is interrupted as Petunia snatches the letter away from him as Lightning watches suspiciously from her basket. She reads the letter several times, making absolutely sure it is authentic, before crumpling up the letter and tossing it in the trash bin all the way across the house in fury. Miraculously, it goes in. "What do we do, Petunia?" Vern asks fearfully. You shut up and let me sleep. Lightning thinks to himself. "What do you think?" The thin blonde asks, "We take care of the little brat." Her face is twisted into a horrid scowl as she says this, causing the small baby to think to himself, if I were bigger…
End Chapter 1-End Chapter 1- End Chapter 1