The Two Angels
Arc 1: In the Shadows
Chapter One
A shooting Star's Fleeting Radiance
Fifteen year old Harry Potter scowled at the wilting flower bed, sweat causing his glasses to nearly slide off his face, the heat causing his shirt to stick to his back, fingers stained brown from the dirt.
Despite the heat and the expression on his face, Harry didn't hate this chore that had been shoved onto his shoulders.
Instead, his scow was caused from his thoughts and memories.
A student had died right in front of him, murdered by the same man who had killed his parents and had attempted to kill him as well but had failed… spectacularly.
Now the problem with this was that no one believed said murder to be back and the newspapers were calling him bonkers, mad, not right in the head, you get the drift.
His fingers jammed into hot earth, the scowl deepening, taking his frustration out on the ground.
And it didn't help that he was having creepy dreams.
"Who are you?"
The brown haired boy smiled and shook his head, saying nothing.
A sense of regret and determination filled Harry's chest but he did not know why.
Blue eyes locked with green and the other boy smiled brightly despite wounds and bruises coating his arms and legs and who knows where else.
"Why are you here?"
The boy made a shushing gesture, eyes twinkling still even as he shook his head as if at a loss.
"Why won't you speak? Why won't you tell me?"
And Harry would wake up with the sense of "I can't tell you yet." Leaving him to feel lost and confused. Who was that boy? And why did he keep seeing him?
What did It mean and why was he always hurt?
Harry didn't know and it bothered him.
Just as he finished weeding, his aunt, Petunia Dursley called him in.
"Boy." She greeted, her face taught with worry and a pain that was supposed to be hidden, but Harry could see it plain as day, having seen the same look on his own fac,e in the mirror ever since Cedric had died.
Harry knew that the Dursley's were going through hard times, that his uncle was under suspicion of embezzling money and that Dudley had finally gotten into big enough trouble that the cops were involved.
And most shocking – to him anyways – was the fact that his aunt was worried forhim as well, even though she tried to hide it.
At night, those horrible nights when he couldn't sleep for fear of the nightmares looming over his head, those horrible nights when Cedric's lifeless body was before him and Voldemort rose again, those nights when he wandered through the pristine halls like a gaunt gawky ghost, he found her looking into a chest full of little childhood trinkets coated in dust and stamped by a happier time, when she was a young girl and she would clutch the dirty dust coated things with her boney hands and weep over them, her tears washing the items free of dust.
"Lil's what have I done?" a barely audible whisper of remorse. For now – Harry realized – his aunt was seeing the results of her actions clearly for the first time in a long time.
It made his aunt seem more… humanalmost. And Harry himself was starting to notice that the Wizarding World was not the glamorous , charming world he had been introduced to when he was eleven.
Indeed, Harry was beginning to see that the mundane world was far more advanced than the Wizards' and that the divide was going to keep on growing until something split and the Wizarding World would erupt into chaos.
But Harry kept these thoughts to himself, knowing from years of experience that it would do no good, that nobody would listen to a snot nosed brat like himself.
Exhibit A being when he was eleven, McGonagall had refused to believe him when he and his friends had told her about the Philosopher's Stone, Exhibit B when he was fourteen and everyone had turned their backs on him and now more recently, when he had said Voldemort had returned and no one but Dumbledore, Ron and Hermione believed him.
Harry trudged up the stairs and headed into the shower to quickly freshen up and get as much dirt off as he possibly could so he could retire into the sanctuary of his room.
Soon after he finished scrubbing himself squeakily clean, he slipped quietly into his pleasantly messy room, an island of chaos in the ordered perfection that was the Dursley's, messy black hair slightly damp.
With a tired sigh, Harry sunk onto the chair near his open window, where nearby, his owl Hedwig's cage hung open, the winter owl having gone off to hunt while he was in the shower.
It was getting dark now and a warm breeze played tug o' war on Harry's black bangs, revealing flashes of brief moment, a jagged lightning car that rested on his forehead. Despite himself, Harry fell asleep and once again began to dream. But this time, it was different.
Very, very different.
