This is my first go at publishing fan fiction, so hopefully it'll go down okay- Clouds is a Marauders generation Potter fanfic, and the main characters are my own. Please review and tell me what you think and how I can improve!

Soundtrack for this chapter: Whispers in the Dark (Skillet) Cemetery Drive (My Chemical Romance) and Drive (R.E.M)

So this is Clouds- Hope you like it!

~TreesAreGreen~

Chapter One

Aaron

It's the only place open this late at night. Tinderbox light shines out through the grimy windows, casting tentative reflections across the sodden concrete. Rain slashes and seeps across the grey ground, and runs sorrowfully down the glass.

Rumbles crash across the sky as I stand there, staring numbly into the bar. I can feel the rain trickle slowly down the back of my neck. I feel the rivulets glance off my face, drip from my hands to the ground. My lip curls in distaste at the thought of going in, but I'm soaked and I have a few hours to kill.

As I push through the door, the warmth hits me. The bar is quiet, the light dim. To one side there is a mist of cigarette smoke that seeps through the air to form storm clouds at the edges of the walls. Several Muggles sit cluttered around a table, drinks in their hands and cigarettes propped between their fingers, discussing something fervently in low voices. Another two men sit in silence on high stools by the bar, with vacant expressions. On the other side of the bar, away from the fog of smoke, a slim teenage girl sits perched on a stool, toying with a half-full glass of some brown liquid.

I run a hand through my hair, shaking the rain off, then make my way to the bar, sitting a few stools away from the Muggle girl. I can feel her sideways glance and ignore it. I slide a handful of Muggle coins across the counter and the barman takes them, jerking his head at me.

'What's for you?' he asks in a rough voice.

'Whatever that is.' I say, gesturing at the translucent brown liquid swirling in the Muggle girl's glass. The barman frowns as he turns away, reaching for a glass. So what? I think, scowling. Why should I know what Muggles drink?

A moment later a glass of the brown substance slides across the counter into my open hand. The barman nods grimly and walks off to the other side of the bar.

'Brave of you.' A quiet voice comments to my right. I can hear the smile in the Muggle girl's voice and I ignore her, lifting the glass to my lips. The acrid, burning taste hits me like a blow to the head. I choke on my first mouthful then feel it slide, smouldering, down my throat. I turn my head to stare at her. A wry smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Her face is pale, and tangled brown hair tumbles over her shoulders. She looks somehow familiar. Memories tug at the back of my mind.

'You look cold,' she says, her head on one side. I turn away, placing my drink back on the counter and blocking her out. I'm determined to ignore the shivering wet and cold seeping through my bones, now that she's pointed it out.

I flinch as a sudden surging, humid heat rises up through me, and steam rises from my instantly dry clothes. A rush of warm air, and I feel like I've been standing in the sun for hours. I stare once more at the teenager sipping nonchalantly from her glass, a quiet laughter in her hazel eyes. Her long legs swing forwards and backwards as she looks me up and down. 'Better?' she asks. That's when I look down to see the wand wrapped in her thin, tapering fingers, half hidden in the beaten combat jacket.

I look round quickly, studying the faces dotted around the bar. No one noticed. I return my attention to the smiling face beside me and glower in return. 'You didn't have to do that.' I mutter.

'Doesn't matter.' she shrugs. 'Don't see why you didn't.'

'I thought you were a Muggle.' I say before I can stop myself. I eye her up and down- it was an easy mistake to make, she doesn't dress like a witch. Not that she would in a place like this- hard to be conspicuous dressed in robes and a cloak. Like her jacket, her jeans are faded and torn. Her T-shirt is clings tightly to her slim figure, and now I realise it bears the legend Wyrd Sisters. I figure her to be about seventeen or eighteen; that much made obvious by her wandwork.

'I knew you weren't.' she says confidently. There's a soft Irish burr in her voice that makes the swirl of recognition stir again at the base of my spine.

'What?'

'I knew you weren't a Muggle.'

'How?'

'You've got no clue about Muggle money- you just forked out enough for about fifteen drinks. And your hand keeps going to your wand. And I recognise you from somewhere.'

I look down and see that my fingers have again drifted towards the pocket where my wand is stashed. And I know where she recognises my face from. But I'm not planning on reminding anyone of that.

'Huh,' I nod non-commitally. Maybe she'll stop talking. Maybe she won't remember.

'So what are you doing here?' she asks bluntly, taking another sip of her drink. I catch myself wondering how she can possibly enjoy the acidic taste.

'Nothing.'

'Ah, of course,' she says with a conspiratorial wink. 'And it tastes like raspberries, by the way, if you slow down a bit instead of choking.'

'What?' I realise she's referring to the drink. Can she read minds?

Her lips twitch in a small half-smile. 'I can't read minds. Just faces.'

I shake it off and reach for my glass again, taking another burning gulp. Against my instincts, I hold the liquid in my mouth and feel the fire suddenly melt away. In an instant, the taste is sweet and fresh against my tongue. She's right. It tastes like raspberries, and summer, and sunshine poured out, light and saccharine.

'Told you,' she says, slightly smugly. 'It's one of mine.' She gestures to a dusty bottle on a shelf, the last in a row of bottles that vary in size and colour. I guess that each bottle contains a different Muggle drink.

'Yours?'

'It used to be something dull,' she says thoughtfully in her light, lilting voice, 'Some Muggle drink. So I had a bit of fun with it.' I nod and take another mouthful, waiting for the burning sensation to melt into coolness. I can feel her curious eyes on me again. 'I swear I know you from somewhere!' she says, exasperated, rapping her knuckles on the counter and gazing at me as she tries to figure it out. This is my cue to leave. She won't want me around anyway when she realises who I am.

'Yeah, well.'

I shove my still-full glass away and get up, moving towards the door.

'Wait!'

I open the door just in time for the wind to blow the downpour straight at me. The night is dark and the air smells of tin, fresh and biting. I walk out into the street. I can see her shadow moving next to mine when I pass under the orange glow of a streetlamp, and I walk faster. She has to take three steps for every one of mine. I take a left turn, edging past a white van and down an alleyway.

'Why are you following me?' I ask over my shoulder, scowling down at my new shadow.

'I don't know. Maybe I'd find out if you waited.' her voice is disarmingly bright, and for some reason that kindles a white-hot tongue of rage, flaming inside me.

'Well, stop!' I shout the last word, glaring down at her, feeling the anger shuddering through my body. She stops dead under the half-light seeping from the other end of the alleyway.

'Why are you like this?'

'Like what?' I yell.

'So angry,' she finishes quietly.

'I think,' I say in a low voice, breathing heavily as I try to control myself, 'If you were like me, you'd be angry too.' I turn away, and start walking again.

'And just what makes you so special?' I don't know how I hear that soft voice over the storm, but I do, and when I look back she hasn't moved an inch. The rain cascading down between the buildings has soaked her, and her curls are drenched and stuck to her face. The drops move like tears down her face.

'I know where you recognise me from,' I say, not meeting her eye.

'Where?'

'I'm-' I begin and she says the name with me, recognition in her eyes. '-Aaron Cloud.'

'Yes.'

She falls silent. I look into her eyes expecting disgust, hatred, fear. What kills me instead is the understanding and empathy that shines out of them. I turn on my heel and run.

I run through dead streets, scattering the reflections in puddles as I go. When I'm four streets away, I stop, gathering my breath and waiting for the white lights to stop dancing in my vision.

I look up. The sky curls angrily in on itself, and in the distance lightning splits the clouds with a pointed tongue. I can smell it, metallic and sharp, like the stab of winter.

My wand is in my hand, and I focus on a place in my head- an empty tube station, the wind whistling like a voice through the tunnels. The world begins the whirl sickeningly and the pressure squeezes me from all sides. I hear the crack inside my head as I Apparate, and the dark street disappears, but not before I see the line; it hovers in midair, thin and thread-like, glowing cerulean blue, streaking through the street away from me and vanishing around a corner, thrumming at the rate of my own heartbeat.

So what did you think?

Next chapter coming soon!