The girl kept running. Her long, dark hair was flying out behind her, and her breathing was ragged and came in short, terrified gasps. She stumbled on a tree root and fell sprawling to the ground, her usually thick, luxurious hair falling in limp strands onto her face. She looked around wildly before picking herself up and struggling on.
Her legs ached with strain and exhaustion.
Inside her mind thoughts whirled faster than a tornado, as she fought to keep striving onwards towards – towards what? She didn't know where she was. She had used a Portkey to get to the now dark forest earlier tonight. All she knew was that when she saw His face, she couldn't go through with the initiation. She could never become a Death Eater like her father. She had screamed and fled into the trees, dodging the curses thrown at her by the Death Eaters. But now she had left their angry cries and the high-pitched hiss of the Dark Lord, and was alone in the world, running to an unseen destination.
Finally, her legs refused to hold up any longer, and she flopped, defeated, under a tree. "Father must want to kill me now," she thought bitterly, but then her mind was taken back to a happier time, when her mother was still alive. Pictures flitted in and out; a day trip to the seaside with her parents; splashing in the warm waters of the Mediterranean; the hot sun smiling down on the small village near Marseilles, France, that was her home.
Home.
She wondered if she would ever see the village again, or the manor house where she had lived for four and a half years. Suddenly, the image was gone, and the stern face of her father appeared in her mind, and his secret meetings with the Death Eaters, devising their cruel plans to rid the world of "Muggle scum." She stirred, the disturbing memories making her heart beat faster once more, but eventually, she fell into a restless sleep as exhaustion took over.
xXx
She woke to the sound of a twig snapping nearby, accompanied by a low growl, and she sat up sharply, confused for a moment as to where she was, until her protesting muscles gave her a painful reminder. She stood slowly, wand in hand, straining her ears to where the sound had come from. She inched around the trunk of the large tree she had been resting against, and came face to face with two narrowed glowing yellow eyes, set in a huge, dark, growling shadow.
"Stu, Stu, Stupe…" she stuttered, raising her wand with a shaking arm, but the wolf pounced, and she was knocked to the ground. Sharp teeth sunk into her leg as if it were butter, and a spasm of pain convulsed her body. The already shadowy canopy and glinting full moon darkened to blackness above her head. In some semi-conscious part of her brain she fancied she saw a light in the trees, and a male voice uttering a spell she didn't recognise, but the images quickly gave way to nothing, and she knew no more.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Nearly a thousand miles away, Harry Potter was having another nightmare.
He lay on damp grass, still holding the Triwizard Cup. He turned his head to see a beautiful girl with long dark hair holding the other handle. She was apparently unconscious.
He moved to check if she was OK, when a high-pitched voice hissed,
"Kill the spare."
"Nooo!" Harry cried and threw himself over her body. He saw her large brown eyes fly open in surprise before rough hands shoved him aside. He looked up, only to see Voldemort and a tall Death Eater standing over the girl. He whipped out his wand, and tried to scramble to his feet, but the strong hands held him down, and forced the wand from his grasp.
He heard the girl whisper, "Father, please…don't…" but there was a flash of blinding green light, and when Harry looked up again, she lay there, eyes wide open, a single tear trickling down her pale cheek. She was dead.
Harry screamed as unthinkable pain exploded in his scar and surged through his body in a wave of terrible agony. Blindly, he reached out to her, but suddenly he was falling. All around him faces appeared, faces he knew and cared for – Ron and his family, Hermione, Professor Dumbledore, Cho, Sirius, his parents…But on all their faces he saw looks of utter disappointment, and heard their voices in his head saying "It's your fault she's dead Harry, your fault." He put his hands to his ears, crying "No, no!" but he couldn't block out the sound. Then his parents' faces came closer than all the others, and he saw that his mother was crying.
"Harry – how could you?" she asked, and wept on James' shoulder.
Harry looked into his father's eyes, and saw no emotion there, just emptiness. "You are not my son." He stated in a flat voice. Then Harry's tears blurred his vision, and the world turned to black.
xXx
The Boy who Lived woke up on his bedroom floor in a cold sweat, his scar still aching dully. Hedwig hooted at him softly as he fumbled for his glasses. Shakily getting to his feet, he mopped the sweat and tears from his brow, and waited for his breathing to return to normal. Then he moved over to his tiny desk, sat down and reached for a quill and some parchment.
Dear Professor Dumbledore, he began in his messy hand. After thinking for a moment, he continued.
I just dreamt again about Voldemort, but this time there was a dark haired girl with brown eyes who I didn't recognise there instead of Cedric, and the Death Eater who killed her was her father. My parents were there too, and Ron and Hermione and everyone, and they blamed me for her death. The pain in my scar was worse this time a swell. I don't know if these changes mean anything, so I thought I should tell you.
From Harry
He then picked up a second piece of parchment and wrote:
Dear Snuffles,
More nightmares. Getting worse. Am going to Ron's tomorrow so should be OK. Hope you are safe, and try not to worry about me too much!
Love, Harry.
He rolled both pieces of parchment up and crossed the room to Hedwig's cage. She obediently stuck out her leg for him, and he tied both scrolls to it. "Let Dumbledore read both letters first, then take Sirius' to him please. I'll be at the Weasley's when you get back." Harry whispered while giving her an Owl Treat, thinking that Dumbledore should probably know just what he was writing to his godfather. Hedwig nipped his finger affectionately, before soaring through the window Harry held open for her. He watched her glide silently into the night before closing the window and going over to check he had everything packed in his trunk for the hundredth time.
Finally satisfied, Harry started to get back into bed when he heard something small and soft bounce off the window outside. Startled, he hurried over, opened the window and looked down to see a happily hooting small pile of fluff in the gutter just below.
"Pig" he muttered, and lifted the tiny owl into the room. Once inside, Pig seemed immensely proud of himself and began flying round and round the light fixture, hooting non-stop.
"Shhh!" Harry hissed. "Do you want to wake every Dursley in the county?!" He plucked the bird from the air and held its beak closed with his fingers while he removed the note from its leg.
Hi Harry! read Ron's untidy scrawl.
Just checking you're OK for tomorrow. We're picking you up at 9am sharp. Hope the Dursley's are treating you OK, and hope Pig arrives there before we do! Stupid bird doesn't know which way he's going half the time.
See you soon,
Ron.
Harry smiled and looked over at the owl that was drinking Hedwig's water, then at his Muggle alarm clock that showed 5:30am. "Looks like you just made it, Pig," Harry murmured, before going over to check his trunk one more time.
