Prologue


Drip… Drip… Drip…

A tall dark man cringed as each drop of crystalline water liberated itself from his hair to splash against the smooth stone floor below him.

He could not afford to be heard.

Encased in black, he seemed to melt into his dimly lit surroundings, and much to his distress, he was not alone inside the dingy cavern he had taken refuge in.

His pale face contorted into grimace of concentration as he strained his ears to detect the exact location of the muffled whispers he could hear coming from deeper within the bowels of the earth.

This was Death Eater country, being alone and an uninvited guest was almost always a bad thing.

A soft echo was made as the friction from his boot twisting across the grit that caked these floors - he hoped he had not been heard. Steeling his nerves, he broke into a quick soundless dash down a low hanging tunnel towards the space he now knew his hosts occupied.

It was dangerous to charge headfirst into battle with no concept of the opposing numbers but what could be deduced from the careful listening to of the echoes of far away voices. But he and danger got along just fine.

Entering into a seamless roll as he crossed the line that marked the end of the tunnel and the opening of a large antechamber housing no less than five Death Eaters, jets of red and green light sailed over his head.

Gracefully springing back up to his feet, with a long – but quick - swish of his wand three of the five lay sprawled across the ground, immobilised. Sensing the warmth emitted by the curse aimed toward him on the back of his neck, with a split second reaction, he dived to the right, rolling on his shoulder back up to his feet, and thrusting his arm back to release a responding jet of green light, in the general direction he knew the spell had come from; the ensuing thump of a lifeless body crumpling to floor alerted him to his aim being true.

Only one left now…

Straightening, the dark figure turned on his heal, wand lowered, to regard his last opponent trough steely cold, and critical, malachite eyes.

Even under his dark cloak and through his face mask, he was obviously no more than a boy, too young to bear the mark by far, too young in most people's eyes at least, but Harry Potter had learnt that Lord Voldemort - or Tom as he liked to call him – didn't believe in the concept of "too young."

It was almost pitiful to watch him wet his pants, but Harry could afford no pity for those marked in his line of work… heroism didn't allow it.

With a horizontal slash of his wand, Harry cut the boy down where he stood, and then cautiously made his way over to the Death Eater's two fallen comrades, checking for signs of life; Harry reaffirmed their deaths by snapping the two stunned cloaked bodies' necks.

Reaching under his robes, and into the inner lining, Harry withdrew what looked to be a flip-out mobile phone. But upon closer inspection, it was evident that where on a regular Muggle cell the screen would've been, there was nothing but an empty chasm that was for all intents and purposes, bottomless.

Reaching back into his robes again, from the same pouch, Harry withdrew a small pouch tightly sealed by a thin piece of string tied off at the top. With a gentle tug, the string came undone, and grabbing a pinch of the powder inside the pouch, Harry sprinkled it into the hole in time and space that was bizarrely situated where his cellular phone's screen should have been.

The hole responded with a flash of light, indicating that the device was ready for use.

Harry pressed a series of nine buttons in rapid succession, followed up by a verbal request for the desired Floo Outlet, "Auror Headquarters."

The TeleFloo was an ingenious invention, truly the Twins' best work, and also their death sentence. Voldemort couldn't afford not to cease their ceaseless stream of inventions, that were beginning to give the Ministry such an edge in the war.

Out of the hollow screen sprang a beautiful face he did not expect to see, made of dancing flames, and accompanying it, the silky and exceedingly sultry voice of Bellatrix Lestrange, "Why hello Harry."


Hopefully that was a Cliff-hanger…

R+R! .

1)Malachite is a famous and very popular semi-precious stone. It is named for the Greek word for "mallow", a green herb. Its banded light and dark green designs are one-of-a-kind, and give it a unique ornamental quality unlike that of any other stone. The light and dark green bands are so distinctive that malachite maybe one of the most easily recognized minerals by the general public. A popular design of ceramic ware which imitates this banding is named after the mineral malachite. It forms the banding from subtle changes in the oxidation states of the surrounding pore waters, but the exact mechanism is still not well understood.