Disclaimer: If you recognize it, then it's not mine. I am not,
have not, and do not plan on making money on this story.
Summary: With his sixth year of Hogwarts rapidly approaching, Harry has more on his mind than homework. After his godfather's death, he becomes depressed but determined. When Hermione and Ron discover a shocking secret about his past, what will happen to our tragic hero's already emotionally hazardous life?
Warnings: Umm...will eventually be a spin on Severitus, though I don't think it will match all the criteria. Mild language and violence. PG for now.
A/N: So, for those of you who may recognize my user name and wonder why I'm writing this when it's been SO long since I've updated 'Suffering', all I can say is I hit a roadblock, and then this little idea popped into my head. I plan for this piece to have more of a plot than 'Suffering"...I would like to completely rewrite that one. It will be finished, but there's a good chance I will rewrite it first. Thanks for your patience ( Anyway, I'm trying to decide if this is a story I should run with—its Severitus (ish) but it's got a side to it that I don't think has been used before. Reviews are welcome, be they good, bad, or ugly.
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Harry Potter and the Rise of War
Chapter One: Praying for Daylight
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Remus Lupin watched the retreating backs of the Dursley family with something akin to satisfaction. Behind him, Tonks asked interestedly, "So who was it that told Dumbledore we should do this?"
He turned around and eyed her pink hair appreciatively. "You know, I think Petunia Dursley was more frightened of you and your hair than she was of anyone else."
"Really?" The young Auror looked amused. "And I was thinking it would take green skin and a wart-covered nose to scare them."
Remus, who was familiar enough with Muggle culture to catch the reference, chuckled slightly. Alastor Moody looked at the pair of them as if they were insane. Arthur Weasley, Muggle fanatic that he was, may have understood if he wasn't so busy watching the passing travelers with rapt fascination.
"Thanks for that, Remus, but don't think you were sneaky, changing the subject like that. I haven't forgotten my question. Who tipped off Dumbledore?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said dryly.
"Oh, go on!"
"It was Severus."
"Snape?" Tonks's face was a mask of disbelief.
Remus nodded and turned to leave the station, oblivious to the shell- shocked young witch standing behind him as he whistled 'The Man on the Flying Trapeze' just a little too cheerfully to be convincing.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Hermione stood glued to the spot as she watched Harry's 'welcoming committee', as Ron had called them, leave.
"Hermione!" Ron's voice cut through her stupor without an ounce of subtlety.
"Hermione!" he repeated, waving a hand in front of her face. "Aren't your parents over there?"
"Yeah," she said dismissively, still looking at the spot where Lupin had been standing and not even glancing where Ron pointed. "Just listen for a minute, though. I just heard Lupin saying Professor Snape was the one who told Dumbledore to scare the Dursleys."
Ron stared at her skeptically for a moment before he burst out laughing. "Snape? Greasy git of a Potions Master, you mean? You've done too much studying, Hermione. I reckon you've gone round the bend—"
"No, Ron, Lupin was just telling the others—right after they threatened Harry's aunt and uncle!"
"You probably heard wrong, Hermione, I—"
"Come on, Ron, we've got to get going." Mrs. Weasley tapped her youngest son on the shoulder.
"I've gotta go, Hermione, I'll owl you."
"Bye, Ron." On impulse, she stood on tiptoe to throw her arms around him and give him a kiss on the cheek, ignoring the hoots and catcalls from Fred and George.
XXxXxXxXxXx
The next morning, the sun rose over Privet Drive far earlier than anyone cared to be awake, save one bespectacled boy residing in Number Four.
Harry Potter had been awake since three, when his sleep had been so disrupted by nightmares that he gave up on any idea of slumber. He had spent the three or so hours since lying flat on his back and staring lethargically at the ceiling. Every time he had even started pondering sleep, images of Sirius floated to the surface of his thoughts: laughing and smiling in the picture of James and Lily's wedding...earnestly asking Harry to come live with him...and, most painful of all, falling backwards through a black veil that fluttered as though from an undetectable breeze.
As the first pink rays of dawn fanned across the room, Harry let his heavy eyelids fall in hope of a few hours' uninterrupted sleep.
xXxXxXxXxXx
It seemed like he had scarcely blinked when Aunt Petunia's shrill, piercing voice woke him abruptly.
"Get up! I want you to make breakfast!"
Getting out of bed was a heavy task, and Harry's body protested in exhaustion. He began a laborious search for a pair of Dudley's old clothes that fit even slightly. It seemed that the Order's threat, while frightening the Dursleys into feeding Harry, had done nothing to quell their hatred for him.
Yesterday, when the family and Harry (who didn't really count) had returned from King's Cross, Uncle Vernon had grudgingly taken Harry's trunk up to his room and thrown him an extremely dirty look before slamming the door behind him, making it all too clear he wasn't welcome at dinner. The rest of the Harry's evening had been useless, composed of the alternating restless pacing and apathetic blanks he had become prone to the summer before. When sleep had finally descended upon him, it had been agonisingly painful.
Finally discovering a T-shirt that didn't fall past his knees, Harry dressed as quickly as his tired limbs would allow and headed to the kitchen. Aunt Petunia was already there, making toast. She sniffed the disapproving sniff she used every time she looked at Harry and shoved a spatula in his direction.
"Fry the bacon." She didn't say 'please', nor did she make any attempt at politeness. Harry shrugged and did as he was told.
Fifteen minutes later, Uncle Vernon came lumbering down the stairs in all his elephantine glory. His great bushy moustache quivered slightly as he looked his nephew up and down. "Boy!" he suddenly spat, more viciously than Harry would have preferred, "Every summer you show up back here, freeloading off our charity. You're going to start earning your keep around here."
"Mmm-hmm." Harry didn't bother pointing out that he had been earning his keep since he had gained the ability to walk.
"You're going to help your aunt with the housework today."
"Fine."
The beefy man narrowed his eyes and said, "None of your funny business, either. Freak friends or not, if there's a repeat of last summer you'll be in your old bedroom for the rest of the holidays."
"Whatever you say."
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Hours later, Harry fell onto his lumpy mattress in an exhausted heap. It turned out that 'helping with the housework' really meant doing hours of hard labour while Aunt Petunia flitted about, spying on the neighbours and occasionally dropping criticisms before she retreated to the house to watch on melodramatic soap opera after another. He himself hadn't gotten a moment's rest all day, but he didn't particularly mind because the long, tedious tasks had given him little time to ponder Sirius's death.
Not that there was much to ponder, really. No matter which angle Harry viewed the situation from, it was his fault. A thousand if-onlys chased themselves in torturous cycles about his head. If only he'd learned Occlumency...if only he'd used the two-way mirror...if only he'd remembered that Snape was in the Order too...if only he'd never touched the prophecy...
Harry let out an anguished half-moan and rolled over. It was still very early in the evening, and he knew a shower would feel soothing on his aching, sweaty limbs, but he couldn't even master the energy to get to his feet.
With a great heave, he propped himself onto his elbows and glanced briefly at the mirror hanging on his wardrobe door. His eyes only scanned over the reflective surface for a moment, but something in the image made him freeze. His reflection looked quite normal now, but an instant ago he could've sworn he'd seen a flicker of something else.
Staring very hard at the mirror, he saw it again. It was as though his reflection had very quickly rippled to something else, but shifted back before he could comprehend what he was seeing. Harry gazed at the glass for another long moment and decided he had imagined it all.
He toppled off the bed onto his wobbly legs and stretched his arms, turning to read the dimly blinking digital numbers on his battered nightstand. It wasn't quite nine in the evening and Harry wanted to wait as long as possible before going to sleep, hoping to evade the nightmares through mental and physical exhaustion.
He had chosen to skip dinner (Aunt Petunia had given him a nasty look and Vernon had proclaimed in a loud voice that he wouldn't be blamed by 'those freaks' if Harry lost weight), but suddenly he felt his empty stomach churning as though to bring up its non-existent contents. He began to get the unfortunately familiar feeling that his senses were being invaded. A sort of eager anticipation filled him, and he knew only Voldemort would be influencing him like this. The emotions stirred with his own, confused and turbulent, and threatened to overcome Harry as his heart began to race with thrill.
Before he was swept away and lost in Voldemort's mind, he grounded himself and began an attempt to push the foreign feelings out. He had never really gotten the hang of Occlumency, but cleared his mind as he had been told to on countless occasions. It took several minutes of mental struggling before he was finally able to push the unwanted presence out of his head completely.
Feeling much to vulnerable, Harry looked around for a distraction. He walked to his open trunk and stared thoughtfully at its contents, considering his books. He didn't have and holiday homework yet, since he didn't know his O.W.L. results, but had vowed to himself to work harder, especially if he had somehow scraped the 'O' he needed in Potions to progress to N.E.W.T. level. That thought in mind, he pulled out his slightly worn copy of 'One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi', making a mental note to try and get hold of some books to study Occlumency, Potions, and Defence Against the Dark Arts over the summer.
Feeling rather Hermione-ish, he settled onto his bed and started reading the book from the beginning. He kept the vigil, even as the hour grew later and it became more and more difficult to stay awake. Some time near midnight his head grew too heavy to continue...
xXxXxXxXxXx
Emily Thorpe tossed restlessly, attempting to find some semblance of a normal sleep. Finally giving up, she rose from the bed she shared with her husband Mark and slipped on a bathrobe.
Padding softly across the room's cheap-but-soft carpeting to where their three-month old daughter, Rachel, lay in her cradle, she gazed at the child. Rachel lay sleeping soundly for once, looking completely undisturbed. All the same, Emily could not shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong.
She wasn't superstitious per se, but Emily didn't take it lightly when she felt something amiss. The last tome she'd had a feeling like this, her great-aunt Catherine and died in her sleep. Though quite along in years at ninety-six, Catherine had been fit and spry, so Emily had seen her death as more than coincidence.
She had it now, that feeling of impending doom, had been feeling it ever since earlier that evening. She tried to convince herself that it was only because of the strange deaths she'd heard about on the nightly news, but that was hundreds of miles from their small town of Waterbury.
Emily had just decided to go back to bed when a noise from the hall of their small, one-story home startled her.
Frantic with fear, she hurried to her husband's side. "Mark!"
Bleary-eyed and clad only in sweat pants, Mark sat up. "Em?" he murmured, stifling a yawn. "What time is it?"
"Mark, I think someone's broken into the house!"
His composure changed from tired to tense and alert in the blink of an eye. "Stay here!" He strode purposefully to the door.
Before he was even halfway across the room, however, someone else opened the door. Half a dozen robed strangers entered the bedroom, each sporting a white mask and a long, thing stick of wood.
Mark had no chance to react. One of the intruders shouted a foreign- sounding word that Emily couldn't catch, and a bolt of light flew from the stick in his hand. Suddenly, her love was on the ground writhing and screaming.
"Mark!" she cried, forgetting her fear as she rushed to his side. "Please, stop!" she begged the trespassers.
The man who had shouted laughed coldly, and another one kicked her viciously in the side so that she fell out of the way. They continued torturing her husband, even as she kept pleading for them to stop. When Mark's screams stopped and his arms and legs quit twitching, Emily knew it was the end. Desperate with grief, she crawled back to his side.
Through heavy sobs, she whispered his name, tugging at his hands. They were still warm.
Loud, piercing cries distracted the group. They turned to the cradle, where Rachel had chosen completely the wrong moment to wake up.
"A baby?" laughed a mocking voice with a distinct female quality. "A baby? Surely we can kill it, too, Lucius."
"You know the master's wishes better than I, Bella. It wouldn't do to leave one of the filthy Muggles alive." The man who was leading the aggressors spoke once more.
"No!" screamed Emily, lunging toward her child.
"Shut up!" cried the woman. She shouted a gleeful phrase that sounded suspiciously like 'abra cadabra' to Emily's ears. There was a flash of light, and Rachel's cries stopped. A distraught Emily didn't need to look to know that her daughter now lay dead as well.
The woman laughed cruelly, an inhuman sound of pure sadistic pleasure, before turning back to the remaining survivor. She shouted the same foreign phrase that the man had shouted earlier at Mark.
Emily's back arched in pain and she began to scream. Pain filled her body: every nerve and tissue and bone felt as though it were engulfed by flames. Her limbs flailed and flopped uselessly, swinging in all directions. When the pain finally subsided, she felt as though the torture had lasted hours instead of minutes. Everything felt fuzzy, and she could no longer think clearly.
She heard, as though from a great distance, the man tell the woman to hurry up. He said yet another strange word and something burst out of his thin stick—wand?—and hovered in the sky, visible through the gaping hole that had suddenly appeared in the roof of the house.
The woman laughed again, and it sent shivers up Emily's spine. She repeated the words she had yelled at Rachel and the last thing the woman was conscious of was a great flash of green light and a soft whooshing sound, as though an invisible angel of death was bearing down upon her.
xXxXxXxXxXxXx
Harry woke with a yell, sweating and shaking uncontrollably. Somehow—somehow he had felt the pain as the Death Eaters tortured the Muggles. Tremors racked his body. The pain, though very real, had felt like a watered-down version of the Cruciatus. If it had been the full-scale curse, he would surely be dead.
He was quite sure the events of the dream had actually taken place, like the ones he had when his connection with Voldemort sparked, but there had been no trace of the madman formerly known as Tom Marvolo Riddle. The absence scared rather than relieved him.
When the tremors finally ceased, Harry was startled by the sound of footsteps approaching his bedroom door. He collected his wits, knowing he would shortly have to deal with a tired and angry Vernon. Sure enough, his uncle appeared a minute later, silhouetted by a dim sliver of light from the hall beyond.
"What's wrong with you? Do you realise what time it is? Stop your infernal yelling!" Vernon, ever-talented at changing the colour of his face, had turned an interesting shade that caused him to bear great resemblance to a raspberry.
Harry jumped to his feet indignantly. "I didn't do it on purpose!"
"I don't like your attitude!" His uncle began to advance, raising a thick fist.
"You can't control me like that anymore!" said Harry, swiftly sidestepping the enraged man and pushing back the sick, icy feeling in his stomach that could have been fear. "If you even touch me this summer, you'll have fully grown—" he almost said 'wizards' but stopped himself: even the Order's threat had its limits on the scope of Vernon's fear—"you'll have my kind coming up the front walk before you can get in a second blow."
Uncle Vernon stopped abruptly, looking very much as though he wished to test this theory, but instead he turned around with one fist still raised and stormed out of the room.
As he sat back down on his bed, Harry had to swallow several times to overcome the sudden dryness in his mouth. Despite his confident words to Vernon, he was terrified the man would forget the Order's threat and 'discipline' Harry physically—the way he had before Harry got his Hogwarts letter. If his uncle did strike him again, in a fit of rage, he wasn't sure the Order would find it enough of an emergency to come to his aid. They seemed pretty sure the Dursleys wouldn't try anything, and he was, after all, safe from Voldemort at Privet Drive. With the war going on, the Order of the Phoenix no doubt had bigger fish to fry.
Harry began pacing restlessly. The thought of the coming years didn't fill Harry with excitement or nervousness about taking N.E.W.T.s and graduating Hogwarts, rather it almost made him sick, because any chance he might ever have had at a normal life was gone. What was it that seemed to make fate work against him? Of course, the war would affect everyone, but none of his classmates were marked from birth—none of them had to fulfil some awful, looming prophecy. He couldn't decide whether or not to tell Ron and Hermione that he'd heard it. He wanted them to understand that he had no choice but to fight but was afraid they would treat him differently once they knew. Moreover, he was afraid of putting them in danger.
As an outlet for his anxiety, Harry decided to write to Dumbledore to tell him about the vision and his ability to experience it sans Dark Lord. He thought he might as well also write the Order with assurances of his well being.
He sat down at his wobbly desk, spreading a bit of blank parchment before him. Harry didn't know what exactly to say to Dumbledore, so he simply decided to write the Order first.
'Dear Everyone,
Everything's fine here. The Dursleys are treating me all right, mainly because they're terrified of what will happen if they don't. Thanks for stopping them in the station—if you hadn't, they probably wouldn't be feeding me. Just the same, I'd really like to get out of here soon.
Harry'
He gave the letter a quick read-through and decided it didn't give away any 'top secret' information. It was short and blunt, but he didn't care a great deal.
The letter to Dumbledore was proving much harder to write. Harry didn't know how to address the man in writing, and the last time he'd spoken to him it had been in the ruins of an office he himself had smashed.
'Headmaster Dumbledore,' he finally wrote,
I think I should apologise to you for my behaviour at the end of last term, after the battle at the Department of Mysteries. My actions were destructive and irrational, and I will pay for any lasting damages I have caused.
Last night, I had a vision—but Riddle wasn't in it. It was his followers torturing some Muggles. There hasn't been anything in the Prophet yet, but I think a lot of them have escaped from prison since we last spoke. There's something I don't understand: how did I see and experience everything if Riddle wasn't there? I'm sure it was real. They put the Cruciatus curse on a couple and killed them and their baby.
I really think I should continue Remedial Potions lessons, for reasons now apparent. If the professor is unwilling to give me a second chance, I suppose I can understand that, and I will learn it on my own.
Although my aunt and uncle are treating me a bit better than they have in previous summers, sir, I would very much like to leave here soon.
Thank you,
Harry Potter'
He reread this letter also, particularly scanning for something that might give away Snape and the Occlumency lessons. Nothing jumped out at him, so he rolled up both letters and tied them to Hedwig's leg.
"Dumbledore first, then Grimmuald Place, okay Hedwig?"
She hooted in acknowledgement and took flight. Harry checked the time again and saw it was just after 2 A.M. He sighed and found his place in 'One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi', which had fallen to the floor. He began reading about the magical properties of belladonna, counting the hours till dawn.
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A/N: So, what do you think? Did you notice insomnia as the reigning theme in this chapter? So what if I wrote most of it at night...and I'm an insomniac. Its not one of my longest or best chapters, but I'm happier with it than I am with my first chapters of "Suffering". Let me know what you think...please? (sticks out lower lip, pouting)
Summary: With his sixth year of Hogwarts rapidly approaching, Harry has more on his mind than homework. After his godfather's death, he becomes depressed but determined. When Hermione and Ron discover a shocking secret about his past, what will happen to our tragic hero's already emotionally hazardous life?
Warnings: Umm...will eventually be a spin on Severitus, though I don't think it will match all the criteria. Mild language and violence. PG for now.
A/N: So, for those of you who may recognize my user name and wonder why I'm writing this when it's been SO long since I've updated 'Suffering', all I can say is I hit a roadblock, and then this little idea popped into my head. I plan for this piece to have more of a plot than 'Suffering"...I would like to completely rewrite that one. It will be finished, but there's a good chance I will rewrite it first. Thanks for your patience ( Anyway, I'm trying to decide if this is a story I should run with—its Severitus (ish) but it's got a side to it that I don't think has been used before. Reviews are welcome, be they good, bad, or ugly.
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Harry Potter and the Rise of War
Chapter One: Praying for Daylight
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Remus Lupin watched the retreating backs of the Dursley family with something akin to satisfaction. Behind him, Tonks asked interestedly, "So who was it that told Dumbledore we should do this?"
He turned around and eyed her pink hair appreciatively. "You know, I think Petunia Dursley was more frightened of you and your hair than she was of anyone else."
"Really?" The young Auror looked amused. "And I was thinking it would take green skin and a wart-covered nose to scare them."
Remus, who was familiar enough with Muggle culture to catch the reference, chuckled slightly. Alastor Moody looked at the pair of them as if they were insane. Arthur Weasley, Muggle fanatic that he was, may have understood if he wasn't so busy watching the passing travelers with rapt fascination.
"Thanks for that, Remus, but don't think you were sneaky, changing the subject like that. I haven't forgotten my question. Who tipped off Dumbledore?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said dryly.
"Oh, go on!"
"It was Severus."
"Snape?" Tonks's face was a mask of disbelief.
Remus nodded and turned to leave the station, oblivious to the shell- shocked young witch standing behind him as he whistled 'The Man on the Flying Trapeze' just a little too cheerfully to be convincing.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Hermione stood glued to the spot as she watched Harry's 'welcoming committee', as Ron had called them, leave.
"Hermione!" Ron's voice cut through her stupor without an ounce of subtlety.
"Hermione!" he repeated, waving a hand in front of her face. "Aren't your parents over there?"
"Yeah," she said dismissively, still looking at the spot where Lupin had been standing and not even glancing where Ron pointed. "Just listen for a minute, though. I just heard Lupin saying Professor Snape was the one who told Dumbledore to scare the Dursleys."
Ron stared at her skeptically for a moment before he burst out laughing. "Snape? Greasy git of a Potions Master, you mean? You've done too much studying, Hermione. I reckon you've gone round the bend—"
"No, Ron, Lupin was just telling the others—right after they threatened Harry's aunt and uncle!"
"You probably heard wrong, Hermione, I—"
"Come on, Ron, we've got to get going." Mrs. Weasley tapped her youngest son on the shoulder.
"I've gotta go, Hermione, I'll owl you."
"Bye, Ron." On impulse, she stood on tiptoe to throw her arms around him and give him a kiss on the cheek, ignoring the hoots and catcalls from Fred and George.
XXxXxXxXxXx
The next morning, the sun rose over Privet Drive far earlier than anyone cared to be awake, save one bespectacled boy residing in Number Four.
Harry Potter had been awake since three, when his sleep had been so disrupted by nightmares that he gave up on any idea of slumber. He had spent the three or so hours since lying flat on his back and staring lethargically at the ceiling. Every time he had even started pondering sleep, images of Sirius floated to the surface of his thoughts: laughing and smiling in the picture of James and Lily's wedding...earnestly asking Harry to come live with him...and, most painful of all, falling backwards through a black veil that fluttered as though from an undetectable breeze.
As the first pink rays of dawn fanned across the room, Harry let his heavy eyelids fall in hope of a few hours' uninterrupted sleep.
xXxXxXxXxXx
It seemed like he had scarcely blinked when Aunt Petunia's shrill, piercing voice woke him abruptly.
"Get up! I want you to make breakfast!"
Getting out of bed was a heavy task, and Harry's body protested in exhaustion. He began a laborious search for a pair of Dudley's old clothes that fit even slightly. It seemed that the Order's threat, while frightening the Dursleys into feeding Harry, had done nothing to quell their hatred for him.
Yesterday, when the family and Harry (who didn't really count) had returned from King's Cross, Uncle Vernon had grudgingly taken Harry's trunk up to his room and thrown him an extremely dirty look before slamming the door behind him, making it all too clear he wasn't welcome at dinner. The rest of the Harry's evening had been useless, composed of the alternating restless pacing and apathetic blanks he had become prone to the summer before. When sleep had finally descended upon him, it had been agonisingly painful.
Finally discovering a T-shirt that didn't fall past his knees, Harry dressed as quickly as his tired limbs would allow and headed to the kitchen. Aunt Petunia was already there, making toast. She sniffed the disapproving sniff she used every time she looked at Harry and shoved a spatula in his direction.
"Fry the bacon." She didn't say 'please', nor did she make any attempt at politeness. Harry shrugged and did as he was told.
Fifteen minutes later, Uncle Vernon came lumbering down the stairs in all his elephantine glory. His great bushy moustache quivered slightly as he looked his nephew up and down. "Boy!" he suddenly spat, more viciously than Harry would have preferred, "Every summer you show up back here, freeloading off our charity. You're going to start earning your keep around here."
"Mmm-hmm." Harry didn't bother pointing out that he had been earning his keep since he had gained the ability to walk.
"You're going to help your aunt with the housework today."
"Fine."
The beefy man narrowed his eyes and said, "None of your funny business, either. Freak friends or not, if there's a repeat of last summer you'll be in your old bedroom for the rest of the holidays."
"Whatever you say."
xXxXxXxXxXxXx
Hours later, Harry fell onto his lumpy mattress in an exhausted heap. It turned out that 'helping with the housework' really meant doing hours of hard labour while Aunt Petunia flitted about, spying on the neighbours and occasionally dropping criticisms before she retreated to the house to watch on melodramatic soap opera after another. He himself hadn't gotten a moment's rest all day, but he didn't particularly mind because the long, tedious tasks had given him little time to ponder Sirius's death.
Not that there was much to ponder, really. No matter which angle Harry viewed the situation from, it was his fault. A thousand if-onlys chased themselves in torturous cycles about his head. If only he'd learned Occlumency...if only he'd used the two-way mirror...if only he'd remembered that Snape was in the Order too...if only he'd never touched the prophecy...
Harry let out an anguished half-moan and rolled over. It was still very early in the evening, and he knew a shower would feel soothing on his aching, sweaty limbs, but he couldn't even master the energy to get to his feet.
With a great heave, he propped himself onto his elbows and glanced briefly at the mirror hanging on his wardrobe door. His eyes only scanned over the reflective surface for a moment, but something in the image made him freeze. His reflection looked quite normal now, but an instant ago he could've sworn he'd seen a flicker of something else.
Staring very hard at the mirror, he saw it again. It was as though his reflection had very quickly rippled to something else, but shifted back before he could comprehend what he was seeing. Harry gazed at the glass for another long moment and decided he had imagined it all.
He toppled off the bed onto his wobbly legs and stretched his arms, turning to read the dimly blinking digital numbers on his battered nightstand. It wasn't quite nine in the evening and Harry wanted to wait as long as possible before going to sleep, hoping to evade the nightmares through mental and physical exhaustion.
He had chosen to skip dinner (Aunt Petunia had given him a nasty look and Vernon had proclaimed in a loud voice that he wouldn't be blamed by 'those freaks' if Harry lost weight), but suddenly he felt his empty stomach churning as though to bring up its non-existent contents. He began to get the unfortunately familiar feeling that his senses were being invaded. A sort of eager anticipation filled him, and he knew only Voldemort would be influencing him like this. The emotions stirred with his own, confused and turbulent, and threatened to overcome Harry as his heart began to race with thrill.
Before he was swept away and lost in Voldemort's mind, he grounded himself and began an attempt to push the foreign feelings out. He had never really gotten the hang of Occlumency, but cleared his mind as he had been told to on countless occasions. It took several minutes of mental struggling before he was finally able to push the unwanted presence out of his head completely.
Feeling much to vulnerable, Harry looked around for a distraction. He walked to his open trunk and stared thoughtfully at its contents, considering his books. He didn't have and holiday homework yet, since he didn't know his O.W.L. results, but had vowed to himself to work harder, especially if he had somehow scraped the 'O' he needed in Potions to progress to N.E.W.T. level. That thought in mind, he pulled out his slightly worn copy of 'One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi', making a mental note to try and get hold of some books to study Occlumency, Potions, and Defence Against the Dark Arts over the summer.
Feeling rather Hermione-ish, he settled onto his bed and started reading the book from the beginning. He kept the vigil, even as the hour grew later and it became more and more difficult to stay awake. Some time near midnight his head grew too heavy to continue...
xXxXxXxXxXx
Emily Thorpe tossed restlessly, attempting to find some semblance of a normal sleep. Finally giving up, she rose from the bed she shared with her husband Mark and slipped on a bathrobe.
Padding softly across the room's cheap-but-soft carpeting to where their three-month old daughter, Rachel, lay in her cradle, she gazed at the child. Rachel lay sleeping soundly for once, looking completely undisturbed. All the same, Emily could not shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong.
She wasn't superstitious per se, but Emily didn't take it lightly when she felt something amiss. The last tome she'd had a feeling like this, her great-aunt Catherine and died in her sleep. Though quite along in years at ninety-six, Catherine had been fit and spry, so Emily had seen her death as more than coincidence.
She had it now, that feeling of impending doom, had been feeling it ever since earlier that evening. She tried to convince herself that it was only because of the strange deaths she'd heard about on the nightly news, but that was hundreds of miles from their small town of Waterbury.
Emily had just decided to go back to bed when a noise from the hall of their small, one-story home startled her.
Frantic with fear, she hurried to her husband's side. "Mark!"
Bleary-eyed and clad only in sweat pants, Mark sat up. "Em?" he murmured, stifling a yawn. "What time is it?"
"Mark, I think someone's broken into the house!"
His composure changed from tired to tense and alert in the blink of an eye. "Stay here!" He strode purposefully to the door.
Before he was even halfway across the room, however, someone else opened the door. Half a dozen robed strangers entered the bedroom, each sporting a white mask and a long, thing stick of wood.
Mark had no chance to react. One of the intruders shouted a foreign- sounding word that Emily couldn't catch, and a bolt of light flew from the stick in his hand. Suddenly, her love was on the ground writhing and screaming.
"Mark!" she cried, forgetting her fear as she rushed to his side. "Please, stop!" she begged the trespassers.
The man who had shouted laughed coldly, and another one kicked her viciously in the side so that she fell out of the way. They continued torturing her husband, even as she kept pleading for them to stop. When Mark's screams stopped and his arms and legs quit twitching, Emily knew it was the end. Desperate with grief, she crawled back to his side.
Through heavy sobs, she whispered his name, tugging at his hands. They were still warm.
Loud, piercing cries distracted the group. They turned to the cradle, where Rachel had chosen completely the wrong moment to wake up.
"A baby?" laughed a mocking voice with a distinct female quality. "A baby? Surely we can kill it, too, Lucius."
"You know the master's wishes better than I, Bella. It wouldn't do to leave one of the filthy Muggles alive." The man who was leading the aggressors spoke once more.
"No!" screamed Emily, lunging toward her child.
"Shut up!" cried the woman. She shouted a gleeful phrase that sounded suspiciously like 'abra cadabra' to Emily's ears. There was a flash of light, and Rachel's cries stopped. A distraught Emily didn't need to look to know that her daughter now lay dead as well.
The woman laughed cruelly, an inhuman sound of pure sadistic pleasure, before turning back to the remaining survivor. She shouted the same foreign phrase that the man had shouted earlier at Mark.
Emily's back arched in pain and she began to scream. Pain filled her body: every nerve and tissue and bone felt as though it were engulfed by flames. Her limbs flailed and flopped uselessly, swinging in all directions. When the pain finally subsided, she felt as though the torture had lasted hours instead of minutes. Everything felt fuzzy, and she could no longer think clearly.
She heard, as though from a great distance, the man tell the woman to hurry up. He said yet another strange word and something burst out of his thin stick—wand?—and hovered in the sky, visible through the gaping hole that had suddenly appeared in the roof of the house.
The woman laughed again, and it sent shivers up Emily's spine. She repeated the words she had yelled at Rachel and the last thing the woman was conscious of was a great flash of green light and a soft whooshing sound, as though an invisible angel of death was bearing down upon her.
xXxXxXxXxXxXx
Harry woke with a yell, sweating and shaking uncontrollably. Somehow—somehow he had felt the pain as the Death Eaters tortured the Muggles. Tremors racked his body. The pain, though very real, had felt like a watered-down version of the Cruciatus. If it had been the full-scale curse, he would surely be dead.
He was quite sure the events of the dream had actually taken place, like the ones he had when his connection with Voldemort sparked, but there had been no trace of the madman formerly known as Tom Marvolo Riddle. The absence scared rather than relieved him.
When the tremors finally ceased, Harry was startled by the sound of footsteps approaching his bedroom door. He collected his wits, knowing he would shortly have to deal with a tired and angry Vernon. Sure enough, his uncle appeared a minute later, silhouetted by a dim sliver of light from the hall beyond.
"What's wrong with you? Do you realise what time it is? Stop your infernal yelling!" Vernon, ever-talented at changing the colour of his face, had turned an interesting shade that caused him to bear great resemblance to a raspberry.
Harry jumped to his feet indignantly. "I didn't do it on purpose!"
"I don't like your attitude!" His uncle began to advance, raising a thick fist.
"You can't control me like that anymore!" said Harry, swiftly sidestepping the enraged man and pushing back the sick, icy feeling in his stomach that could have been fear. "If you even touch me this summer, you'll have fully grown—" he almost said 'wizards' but stopped himself: even the Order's threat had its limits on the scope of Vernon's fear—"you'll have my kind coming up the front walk before you can get in a second blow."
Uncle Vernon stopped abruptly, looking very much as though he wished to test this theory, but instead he turned around with one fist still raised and stormed out of the room.
As he sat back down on his bed, Harry had to swallow several times to overcome the sudden dryness in his mouth. Despite his confident words to Vernon, he was terrified the man would forget the Order's threat and 'discipline' Harry physically—the way he had before Harry got his Hogwarts letter. If his uncle did strike him again, in a fit of rage, he wasn't sure the Order would find it enough of an emergency to come to his aid. They seemed pretty sure the Dursleys wouldn't try anything, and he was, after all, safe from Voldemort at Privet Drive. With the war going on, the Order of the Phoenix no doubt had bigger fish to fry.
Harry began pacing restlessly. The thought of the coming years didn't fill Harry with excitement or nervousness about taking N.E.W.T.s and graduating Hogwarts, rather it almost made him sick, because any chance he might ever have had at a normal life was gone. What was it that seemed to make fate work against him? Of course, the war would affect everyone, but none of his classmates were marked from birth—none of them had to fulfil some awful, looming prophecy. He couldn't decide whether or not to tell Ron and Hermione that he'd heard it. He wanted them to understand that he had no choice but to fight but was afraid they would treat him differently once they knew. Moreover, he was afraid of putting them in danger.
As an outlet for his anxiety, Harry decided to write to Dumbledore to tell him about the vision and his ability to experience it sans Dark Lord. He thought he might as well also write the Order with assurances of his well being.
He sat down at his wobbly desk, spreading a bit of blank parchment before him. Harry didn't know what exactly to say to Dumbledore, so he simply decided to write the Order first.
'Dear Everyone,
Everything's fine here. The Dursleys are treating me all right, mainly because they're terrified of what will happen if they don't. Thanks for stopping them in the station—if you hadn't, they probably wouldn't be feeding me. Just the same, I'd really like to get out of here soon.
Harry'
He gave the letter a quick read-through and decided it didn't give away any 'top secret' information. It was short and blunt, but he didn't care a great deal.
The letter to Dumbledore was proving much harder to write. Harry didn't know how to address the man in writing, and the last time he'd spoken to him it had been in the ruins of an office he himself had smashed.
'Headmaster Dumbledore,' he finally wrote,
I think I should apologise to you for my behaviour at the end of last term, after the battle at the Department of Mysteries. My actions were destructive and irrational, and I will pay for any lasting damages I have caused.
Last night, I had a vision—but Riddle wasn't in it. It was his followers torturing some Muggles. There hasn't been anything in the Prophet yet, but I think a lot of them have escaped from prison since we last spoke. There's something I don't understand: how did I see and experience everything if Riddle wasn't there? I'm sure it was real. They put the Cruciatus curse on a couple and killed them and their baby.
I really think I should continue Remedial Potions lessons, for reasons now apparent. If the professor is unwilling to give me a second chance, I suppose I can understand that, and I will learn it on my own.
Although my aunt and uncle are treating me a bit better than they have in previous summers, sir, I would very much like to leave here soon.
Thank you,
Harry Potter'
He reread this letter also, particularly scanning for something that might give away Snape and the Occlumency lessons. Nothing jumped out at him, so he rolled up both letters and tied them to Hedwig's leg.
"Dumbledore first, then Grimmuald Place, okay Hedwig?"
She hooted in acknowledgement and took flight. Harry checked the time again and saw it was just after 2 A.M. He sighed and found his place in 'One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi', which had fallen to the floor. He began reading about the magical properties of belladonna, counting the hours till dawn.
xXxXxXxXxXx
A/N: So, what do you think? Did you notice insomnia as the reigning theme in this chapter? So what if I wrote most of it at night...and I'm an insomniac. Its not one of my longest or best chapters, but I'm happier with it than I am with my first chapters of "Suffering". Let me know what you think...please? (sticks out lower lip, pouting)