Chapter 2: The Sorcerer's Mirror

The Black Sorcerer went out into the moonless darkness, again performing what had become his nocturnal ritual for the past three months. He carried a black, smoking cauldron. "Tonight," he thought. "Tonight I shall find them, and It."

Down a long flight of steps, he went into a deep, green hollow. Upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree stood an ancient silver basin, wide and shallow, and beside it an equally ancient silver ewer. He dipped the ewer into the cauldron, and filled the basin to the brim. He breathed on it. Then he turned his eyes to the water.

Stars reflected in it at first, but then went out. The black water grew grey and foggy. Then the fog cleared, and he resumed his search, again looking deep into the distant past. Then, finally, he saw them: two small figures climbing upon the brink of a sheer cliff, overlooking livid, festering marshes. To the West meandered a great river. A dark line of mountains and smoke hung in the East; intermittently a tiny red gleam flickered above it.

The Sorcerer stared at one of the small figures, bending upon it every fiber of his will and concentration. For an instant-- for a brief, flickering instant he saw it: a Wheel of Fire. He reached for his wand. "Come to me," he whispered, his breath rapid and uneven. "Come to me Now."

He gently touched his wand to the water, placing it upon the reflection of the figures. He pushed the tip of his wand through the water, and then brought it out sharply, crying "Veni! Veni! A Meus!" When the water became still, he looked into it again. To his great satisfaction, he saw that the figures had turned, walking into a mist. They approached a castle—and then vanished from the Sorcerer's sight.

His face changed. He knew that he had successfully brought the figures and their Burden into the future. How could he not see them? And then he realized what must have happened. Through luck or some capricious trick of fate, they had materialized on the doorstep of Hogwarts. With Dumbledore. And that accursed Potter boy! Of all places on Earth for them to have appeared—the one place they would be safe from him, at least for a little while. He chucked grimly at the sheer irony of it.

The chuckles turned to laughter and then to screaming.