House: Slytherin

Category: Short Story

Prompts: Manslaughter (Action/Event)

Characters: Tom Riddle, Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall

World: AU

Rating: T- I had to change my entire prompt because of the rating. I do plan on writing a Wolfstar fic, so stay tuned :)

Word count: (Excluding Author's Note, but including entire Short Story and Title)

Summary: Lightening has struck, but when the Games begin, Harry Potter, the keeper of the Horcruxes, is no where to be found. Presumed dead, the Order moves on without him and the weight of the survival of the Wizarding World is placed upon their Champion's shoulders.

Author's Note: This can't be anymore AU (Alternative Universe) even if JK Rowling herself came to tell me that never happened (LOL). In a bid to start my last prompt (been busy with work), I wrote the very first thing that came to mind. Granted, it isn't my cup of coffee. And I like mine with sugar AND creamer, and this has neither, haha. Though something I would never had written even in my fabulous past lives, I loved how it came out.

Note: Something to get the blood in my fingers flowing. Leave me a line, yes?

As always, enjoy

-Carolare Scarletus

Phoenix Rising

The search for the lost Horcruxes lead them to a secluded cave just off the shores of Naples. With the roaring shores pleading their already sore and weakened backs, the Marauders Apparated to the location that their leader presumed that they would find what they were searching for. Had the weather prevailed and they were in the storm, they wouldn't have discovered that he had been wrong again.

"Let us go back," Fred Weasley, proud missionary of the Order commanded, his cloak stripped back bearing the wind of the terrain. His dirt-covered face lifted to the sky, reading the signs of the coming fire like a tarot card. All around them, the wind howled in a congregational warning. Night would soon fall, and who knew what sort of animals they would come across on their way back to headquarters. "We shall tell Sirius that our information had been wrong."

"Do you know what could have lead us astray?" asked his brother, his face holding the identical feature of absolute disappointment.

"I can't tell you that, George." He took out his wand, pointed it to the ground and murmured a soft charm. Collecting this piece of ground, he stuffed his wand back into his sleeve and looked at his companion. "Let us make hast!" Crestfallen, he bid him a nod and in a blink of an eye, the soul-twisting journey of Apparation took them again, their destination already in mind.

Not a fortnight had passed before they received word of their travel. They had been hand-picked by their captain themselves to see if the delivery of such news was even worthy of their exploration, but, alas, it had been wrong.

Fred and George Weasley, members of the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore Army, were on a mission.

Before the break of dawn, they had been set to find an artifact that would potentially lead to the end of Voldemort's reign. Had the information been true, they would be one step closer to taking him down. As it turned out, these objects had been made into containers for his soul. To split it up into six accounts, he was near indestructible. A few months back, their leader Albus Dumbledore, had been murdered in a duel between him and one of his most trusted allies. Never in the history of mankind had they known anything sadder, and that was precisely why they were so determined to find whatever else that may draw this evil from their lands and vanquish it once and for all in the depths of hell.

He had killed many, leaving children without their parents, families torn because of grief and illness. He was a plague that swept across the land, and it was only this night that they were celebrating a breakthrough in their cause. With two horcruxes already destroyed, they had hoped to find the third. Of course, sometimes dreams don't always go according to plan and adjustments must be made. Even with this major setback, they were still able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and celebrate anyway.

When they came back into themselves, the twins strolled down the concave landing. Up through the hills and trees, they arrived at a seemingly bland juncture of the brush. But, with a wave of their ends, the gates lifted before settling down back around them. At their arrival, the bustle of the village softened slightly before picking up right back up again.

"Ah, sirs Weasley." came Slughorn as he came up to greet them. When his usual carefree smile was met with that of misfortune, he knew then that the raid had been unsuccessful. "I take that the journey didn't yield anything that we were hoping for."

Neither of them spoke. Their silence was all the answer he needed.

"Alright then," he said, grateful for their usual keenness to aid. "Very well. I shall see that Sirius is informed. In the meantime, relax. Enjoy in the festivities. The night is neigh and the stars have finally aligned."

He spoke of the yearly tradition in which the invisible moons of Neptune, completely unknown to Muggles, come to dance. Every night yielded a new step. It was upon this anniversary of the planets and stars that they had come to the realization that all hope had been lost and their fruitful desire to rip themselves from the tyranny reign of the carnage that Voldemort induced was naught by an occasional dream. Grabbing a chalice from a nearby table, the twins came up to the bar that was set up by a line of tens. There, they greeted their long-lost friend, bidding him a greeting with their arms crossed over their chest as their bodies dipped into a low line.

"You two are back early," Neville Longbottom said with a mischievous smirk that would have rivaled their own if given the chance. "Well, where is it?"

"It was a hoax," said one side.

"A fraud," confirmed the other.

Neville let out a huge sigh, gathered his unkempt hair as his fingers carded through the strands. He had been the most afraid of this turnout. Knowing the risks they took to even travel all the way to Naples and come up short, the twins both gave him sympathetic looks before pouring themselves a hearty glass of wine.

Taking a sip, Fred said," Can't rely on the old fool's annotations, anyway. Whatever Potter found inside his will, we'll never know. The faster we find him, the better. I'm sick of holding down the fort without him."

"Aye."

"Suppose we couldn't get another cup, eh, Longbottom?" asked George, having finished his chalice before his brother.

Neville looked between the glass and the supply. With a smile, he poured them another drink and one for himself for good measure. Ending the night totally plastered didn't sound half as bad. They were in a more sustaining village, anyway. One more wouldn't hurt.

"Don't go around and telling people I've been giving out free drinks."

"Aye," they said in union, already feeling the effects of his special brew. "We'll need something except the moons to cheer us up, now. How's Granger holding up?"

"She's holding, though I doubt she'll want to talk to either of you. She's already scared enough as it is."

"Can't be worse than Ron." Fred shrugged. "I heard he tried to take her place."

"That, he did." Neville though for a moment before adding," She'll be fine. She was the best of our year, after all."

Suddenly, a yell tore their little world of conversation, and within seconds, they ditched their cups and were running toward the commander's tent. There, they found that their efforts were not of a complete waste.

"We are out of options," he told him in a booming voice. "Voldemort has taken refuge somewhere in the far North and there is nothing that we can do about it. He is completely set on these games."

In the shadows of their commander's tent, a group of soldiers stood around a makeshift table, all conversing to one another in in loud whispers at their chief's orders. They had traveled far and wide; they had seen all signs of destructions and bloodshed that it preyed on their weakened states even now at the brink of twilight. Through the wards of broken warriors, the Order of the Phoenix, a renegade group hell bent on fighting against the growing army of Lord Voldemort.

It's been several long months, and they were no closer to finding his stronghold than they were taming a wild dragon. But, in the midst of all adversity, they believed they have found one of his housings where rumors say that he's holding one of their most precious weapons, Harry Potter.

One face remained supreme through the mass chaos. Its contour was a ragged shape of rocky mountains; the eyes the deepest variation of red ever to be witnessed; and, the terrain, though the sickly shade of white akin to snow-trenched hills, was vivid against the army. His figure was but a dot against the blanket, but his demanding presence was ever more noticeable as they reached the far northern stronghold of their land. Standing atop of the hill, gazing out as far as his eyes allowed him, Albus Dumbledore saw first-hand what pure evil could do to a vulnerable soul.

He was their leader.

Their only hope in this storm of vicious wind.

Brown hair pulled back and eyes enraged by years of fortitude, he looked at the threshold of their rivals and muttered a single command to his advisors.

"Are you sure, sir?" he asked. "Their numbers are large, and ours is so small."

"Have I ever lead you astray, Lupin?" Sirius asked his old-time friend. Staring out at the post-battlefield of their cause, he took a moment to reconsider what he had just asked of his soldiers. He could already see the bloodshed and it frightened him.

He had advised a plan to seek them out in the dead of night, under the watchful eye that Trelawny had provided. They all had taken their Potions of Invisibility, but their magic was no match to Voldemort. He attacked them very much like a roaring fire. All at once, hundreds of their people were taken down and in the red river of their loss, Voldemort's heartening cries ruffled up the land and set shivered down their spines. In an attempt to save what little men and women that could still fight, they cloaked themselves underneath the stargate power of the planets and that is where they had remained for the last several months. Albus', though dead, was very much alive and it was through him that Sirius was able to witness the power of the evil that Voldemort had become.

Blood and tear-stained faces of the fallen- whatever could this monster in the face of a Wizard could create? Hadn't he already tasted enough of the dead. Hadn't he lived the life that he imaged, scorned by all and loved by those too frightened to go against him? These Games was his on ploy to control them. Pitting children against each other, fortifying his already secured mountains had to be the most ingenious, yet, discursive thing that Voldemort could do.

In a blink of an eye, Sirius was back inside of his tent, all eyes on him. He looked nothing like the man that they remembered him, even before his capture. It was only recently that he had been set free and his time in the Games had been nothing short of shocking and life-alternating.

He had lost enough warriors as it was, and it seemed he was going to lose one more.

In this world, death was not kind and neither was this life.