A/N: Ya please give this a chance, it should be pretty good, this is just setting the scene, chapter one should be up very very soon. Like…..now! so just read and review…..:) Oh yea the paragraphs are kinda messed up...im trying to fix that......
~PROLOG~
******************************Remus Lupin***************************
Dear Mr. Remus Lupin,
I do hope this letter finds you in good health, It has been too long since we have seen each other. I haven't much time so I will go straight to the point. You are aware, of course, of the incident at Hogwarts last year during the triwizard tournament in which a young student lost his life. I have every reason to believe that this was the doings of Lord Voldemort, risen again. All of the signs are here Remus, and they can not be ignored. Unfortunately, the officials at the ministry do not share my view. In short Remus I once again need your help. You are one of the smartest and bravest wizards of your time and your assistance will be invaluable to our cause. I have sent Sirius to your house, he will need to remain in hiding. I ask that both you and Sirius would meet with me at the glen in the Forbidden Forest at 9:30 PM on August the 9th (I Have taken the liberty of checking the lunar calendar to make the date the most convenient for you.) Please sent me a response once Sirius arrives, if I do not get a letter by the 25th of July I will assume that he has been apprehended and will then inform you of a new course of action.
I remain yours truly
AlbusDumbledore
Remus looked up from the letter and rubbed his eyes. It had to have been the 50th time he read the letter since it had arrived two days ago. It was all beginning again, he thought to himself, it wouldn't be long now before war was once again upon them. Slowly he walked the length of the room, and in his present place of residence (not "home", for even Hagrid would be appalled at this shack) meant that he had crossed from the sitting room, through the dinning room and to the kitchen. Gazing out at the moor in front of him he tried not to let his thoughts wander to far. But that was a lost cause.
How could he possibly help Dumbledore now? He had been out of step with the rest of the wizarding world since his resignation from Hogwarts two years ago. Being a professor at the school was a high profile job in the wizarding community and as such news of his condition had spred through out England like wild fire, making it hard to find another job, or place to live. All in all Remus liked his solitude, he was never the social butterfly his friends were in high school and after. He had only had two meaning full relationships with other women, well three if you counted her….but he preferred not to think about that. He was used to being alone, and he thought it suited him.
But that was not what was really troubling him. It was the last bit of the letter. "I am sending Sirius….If I do not get a letter by the 25th of July I will assume that he has been apprehended." Of all those involved, well maybe save Harry, Sirius' situation was the most desperate. Remus hadn't heard a word from his old school friend for three months, and with Dumbledore's letter his anxiety grew.
"Tea." He muttered aloud "I need some very strong tea."
With a somewhat tremulous hand he took his wand and taped the kettle, only at that very moment something else tapped the door. Remus stopped and strained his ears. Then he heard it again, only it wasn't so much as a tap as it was a faint scratch. Putting the kettle down Remus went to open the door….
**************************Arabella Figg ******************************
She turned the corner and headed down the stairs,
not having the time nor the patients to wait behind the line of people
standing nonchalantly on the escalator. The underground was usually busy
at this time of day, but the flood of people pouring down into the trains
had slowed to a steady stream. The noise and thick smell of petrol were
overpowering. She slid two gold coins to the man in the booth and pushed
past the turn style. Adjusting her over packed purse she hurried to an
open bench and sat down. The clock over the tracks told her that it was
9:35 am and that the next train would be coming in five or ten minutes.
Heart rate slowing and legs relaxing she leaned her head against the stone
wall and began to think about the last week. So much had happened. Her
eyes wandered the grimy station, searching the grim faces of the businessmen
late for that first meeting and the groups of teenagers taking advantage
of their last weeks of freedom. Her eyes came to rest on her black canvas
purse which was sitting complacently by her left foot. Her hand slipped
into the opening, it's fingers searching for their prize and when the had
captured it finally between the thumb and forefinger they brought it to
the light. It was a cream colored envelope displaying fine hand writing
and a rather involved seal which had long since been broken. She carefully
opened the letter and spred it on her lap. Since it had arrived two weeks
ago she had read it more than 100 times. 10 at her breakfast table and
around her garden, 50 on the long ride to London and another 40 in her
hotel room. Her hazel eyes once again scanned the paper which had made
her hurry down the train stop.
Dear Ms Arabella Figg,
I hope this letter finds you and your grandmother well. I have yet to thank her for the delightful cabbage casserole she sent me last Christmas. But I am digressing. I have written to ask a favor of you. As you know the school year starts up again on September the 1st and we still have no one to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. I was hoping that you would reconsider my previous offer. We need someone of your skill and dedication to help guide the students. As you know the next few years will be some of the most crucial in our world. I can understand your reservations and I ask only that you meet with me at The Three Broomsticks on July the 25th, I assure you that this meeting in no way binds you to the position of professor. I'll await your owl
Yours Truly
Albus Dumbledore.
Arabella sighed, it couldn't hurt, could it? It was
just to meet with the man after all. She would just explain again that
she was still obligated to her past job and couldn't take a year off to
teach. The bench began to shake, there was a low rumble and a rush of dense
hot air as the large train pulled up to the station. Stuffing the letter
back into her purse Arabella squeezed her way through the crowd and onto
the car. There was a soft ding and the doors slid shut as the train
headed for down-town London leaving a trail of swirling papers and coal
in it's shadow.
****************************** Severus Snape*******************************
The air in the dungeons was thick with the saturating steam from the boiling potion in Snape's office. Three black cauldrons had their bottoms engulfed in green flames over the stone and wood stove on the floor. The cauldron farthest to the left contained a frothing blue brew. A simple base solution used in the formation of many first year potions. In the middle was a boiling yellow brew. This was a more complicated potion, it was an antidote actually. The Fifth years were starting on some more dangerous and complicated potions this year and seeing as how he would have to be teaching these to Neville Longbottom Snape thought it best to keep a store of antidote handy. But in the last cauldron, the one hidden in the far right of the room, was something different. The last cauldron was hiding a thin green liquid that was simmering at a gentle boil. It was over this cauldron that a wiry figure could be seen, hunched over stirring meticulously. Severus Snape's face hovered over the cauldron the thick sickening steam condensing on his cold sallow skin and black greasy hair, giving it more shine than usual. With a shaking skeletal hand Snape lifted a crystal vile and poured silverweed ,the last ingredient, into the green abyss. The broth hissed violently and the putrid yellow froth spilled over the cauldron's rim and oozed to the floor. Snape watched the cauldron with clouded eyes. His face did not betray the tempest of thoughts storming threw his mind. This potion would be the only thing that would stand between him and death tonight.
It had been 16 years since he had last made Latidum, the only known counter to Veritaserum. If it worked correctly the potency of Veritaserum would be worn down just enough so that the physical conditions of one under it's spell would be unmistakable but the person would be consciously aware of what was happening and what they were saying. Thus if properly trained one could take Veritaserum and control what they said. Five other wizards, besides Severus, knew how to make the potion, three of them had died when it failed to go into effect. That would be his fate if the potion didn't work before he was summoned to Voldemort's side. Tonight was the Ulto Peniso, the death eaters trial. All those who had abandoned the dark lord after he was defeated would have to prove their innocence of treason by answering Voldemort's questions while under the bewitchment and then prove their loyalty by completing a task assigned to them. If they failed they would be killed, if they did not attend they would be killed. Snape closed his eyes and listened to the potion slowly quite down.
A searing pain suddenly shot threw Severus' left
arm down his spine and despite himself he heard himself utter a sharp cry.
He was being summoned. Quickly, he hurried, grimacing through the pain,
to his cupboard to grab a lead goblet. The hook nosed man dunked the goblet
into the boiling cauldron, burning his hand, and drained the potion from
the glass, feeling the hot liquid scorch his esophagus. Shuddering as the
mixture entered his blood stream Severus straightened and headed for the
door. It was time.
* A/N again: if any one is at all interested in this story and would like to help me with it please email me at Ophelia_Ghost@yahoo.com, I can give u a detailed plot summary and some chapters to read for any criticisms Thanks! *