Love Lost is Love Gained

Chapter 2 – A Dinner Disaster

Artemis walked up the stairs and into her room, ignoring Paris's questioning of her whereabouts. She looked out the window, just in time to see Harry walk in the front door of- number Four?

"Oh no," she said quietly, "He's not related to him, he can't be related to him, please no." but there was no doubt... "Did Dudley say Four? He might have said something else, anything else. I wasn't really paying attention; please let it not be number Four."

Just the there was a knock on the door, "Art?" It was Paris. "Come on Art, we have to go, or we're going to leave without you."

"Paris, um, what's Dudley's address?"

"Dudley's what?"

"Address, you know the number on the front of every house."

"Oh, no need to be sarcastic, I didn't hear you. I think it was number Four or something."

'Oh, damn,' she thought. "Hey, Paris, does Dudley have a brother?"

"Not that I know of,' he opened the door and asked, "Why?

"No reason, just wondering."

"Uh huh, well, we're leaving in a few minutes, 'kay?"

"Yeah, shut my door." He did what he was told; Artemis heard the creak of the stairs and knew that Paris walked away.

She left her room and walked silently down the stairs, and into the kitchen, swerving to avoid the towering piles of boxes that littered the hall.

Emerging suddenly from the kitchen was her father holding a large rolled up carpet. "Artemis," he said, "We're going to be leaving in five minutes, okay?"

"Yeah, Paris told me."

He walked into the living room, and Artemis opened the kitchen door to see her mother unpacking dishes and placing them in cabinets.

"Why don't you change your shirt?" she asked, looking over a small pile of plates sitting on the counter.

"Why? I like this shirt."

"Change into something a little nicer for dinner."

"I don't see why it matters."

"Just please do it, I want our family to make a good first impression."

Artemis turned and headed back out of the kitchen, back up the stairs and into her room.

She lay down on her mattress that was lying on the floor, moonlight filtered through her window. Shadows stretched across her walls and ceiling, she watched them in a strange fascination. She got her iPod out again and began listening the Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven". Author's Note: I love that song, it's so sad. The first time I heard it, it made me cry. Do you know who it is about? Anyway I'll tell you, about 10 or 15 years back Eric Clapton's son fell out of a window and died. (Isn't that sad?) and he wrote this song. This is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard. I know that these things probably get annoying, but I like reading comments, it's interesting in my mind.

"Art! We're leaving; now get your arse out here!"

Artemis sat up and walked over to her wardrobe where she changed into a plain green shirt. She left the room and walked down the stairs to be awaited by a very disgruntled looking Laura.

"Took you long enough," she snapped. "We're fifteen minutes late now." Artemis nodded; she wasn't all that hungry and thought longingly of her bed, she could use a nap.

The Byrnes family then set off down the drive and across the street to number Four. It was Paris who rang the bell, and Harry who answered.

"Artemis," he asked. "What are you doing here?"

Artemis didn't answer didn't answer, but Paris did, "Who are you?"

"I'm Harry, wait- your Dudley's dinner guests?"

"Yeah, we are," said Paris, who was looking rather hungry.

"Oh," said Harry, an odd look came over his face..."Yeah, well come in."

Everyone walked in the house, Artemis was last to go, but before she could walk in Harry grabbed her arm and began pulling her aside. After about two seconds of direct contact with her an electrical shock ran through Harry. All of a sudden his head was spinning, images of babies kept going through his mind, so quickly that he couldn't separate them. Next thing he knew he was on his back, lying flat on the porch, with Artemis leaning over him. He could see her mouth moving, but couldn't hear a sound.

'Oh, my God,' he thought. 'I'm deaf. What's going to happen to me?' He sat upright; as soon as the feeling came it disappeared. He took one look at Artemis and took off, running at full speed up the stairs.

Artemis stood up, feeling perplexed, 'What happened?' she thought. Suddenly she felt like vomiting again. Walking into the house she whispered to her mother that she felt ill; her mother didn't argue when she saw her pale and clammy looking daughter. Artemis said hurried apologizes to the Dursley's and made her way out of the house, completely unaware of a certain green-eyed someone watching her from his bedroom window.

Harry looked out his window, his eyes following Artemis's dark hair making its way across the street. Sitting on his desk was a quill and a roll of parchment that read:

Professor Dumbledore,

This may sound odd, but I met a girl today, I thought she looked familiar, and something happened when I touched her arm. It felt like an electrical shock, and I passed out. You told me to keep you posted on anything peculiar that happened and this seemed very peculiar.

Hope to here from you soon,

Harry

P.S. - I case you need to know, her name is Artemis Byrnes.

After Harry saw Artemis enter her house he sealed the parchment and tied it to Hedwig's leg. She took off, a small white speck in the inky black sky, she reminded him of a shooting star.

Artemis walked up the stairs and into her room; she quickly changed into pajamas and lay back down on her mattress. She still felt like vomiting, 'What happened to him?' she kept thinking, decided it was best to try and push it out of her mind for now, but was having a very hard time doing so. She decided to watch October Sky for two reasons, 1) It would take her mind of Harry, because it was interesting, and kind of sad, and 2) Jake Ghyllenhaal is gorgeous, and he usually took her mind off everything. Author Note: I love Jake Ghyllenhaal, and if you are to dispute his hotness, we may have a problem.

Harry was pacing his room, waiting for Hedwig to return. Author Note: I'm in a chatty mood at the moment, and my partner, Lizzy, hasn't been in contact, so I've written everything my self, thus far. Hint to Lizzy when she reads this. Anyway, I decided I'd interrupt the story with a little back round information on the story, I can interrupt the story because I'm the author. If you don't like it, scroll down to the ending asterisk. Anyway, South Park is on in 8 minutes! Yay! I'm not the biggest fan of Chappele's Show, which is on now. Isn't Butters adorable on that show? So, it's 9: 52 PM on Sunday August 1, 2004. How did this story start you ask? Well, it's a rather colorful story. It all started on a wonderful morning on either Wednesday or Thursday. Either way, that day in a nutshell went, swimming by friends' house, friend got mad, me and Lizzy left, friend came over to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which if you haven't seen it, is a fabulous movie. Friend fell asleep, so Lizzy and myself began talking about what the story would be like if Sirius had a daughter (if you haven't figured that part out yet, sorry to have ruined it for you. You would've found out soon enough anyway. Maybe I should have but a spoiler warning. Oh, well, now you know.) So, where was I? Yeah, so we began talking about it, and we made out first draft on a bunch of Post It notes. Then I went home and drafted it (so far I'm on chapter four) then I typed it, now I'm talking to you. And now, if you'll excuse me; back to the story.

'I need to know what happened,' he kept thinking. 'I know something happened.' Ten minutes later Hedwig swooped thorough his window and landed softly on his desk. "Finally," he said. "Now let me see..." he untied the scroll from her leg and read in Dumbledore's familiar hand writing:

Harry,

It is probably nothing, sometimes wizards and Muggles have different reactions. It would be best to forget about it. Be in contact soon,

Dumbledore

'What is he talking about?' Harry though, 'I don't buy that. Reactions? That makes no sense; I would expect him to think of something better. I know something happened.' Author Note: Yeah, I know there are a lot of these in this chapter, but I would like to take this opportunity to say that in Prologue: A Window to the Past, Aiedail (in case you couldn't tell she's Artemis's mother) mentions about Harry being Artemis's Secret-Keeper. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, 'Secret-Keeper on a person? How would that work?' Now, this is a tricky little charm that doesn't have a name, mainly it's a variation of the Fidellius Charm, which is explained in Prisoner of Azkaban. Okay, so the variation from the original is that Pure Blood wizards can't see her, which explains why Harry can see her, because he's a Half Blood. Okay, James and Sirius can see her because they have direct contact. James is her god father and Sirius is her father. During this particular charm, direct physical contact between the Secret-Keeper and the Secret-Keepee (I know that's not a word) will lift the charm. So when Harry touched her arm that broke the charm, which is also why he had all those 'visions' go through his head. They weren't visions; they were memories of the two of them. Are you following? Anyway, I know people can't remember infancy, because all those memories were from when they were infants. Let's say Harry was a little over a year and Artemis is about four months younger, the charm enabled him to retain those memories, so when he came to meet her he would be able to identify her. Okay, I think that's all. Back to the story, or...should I go to Casa Bonita?

Artemis was still watching October Sky; Author's Note: Homer's Friend: What's on Awk? Geeky Guy: It's a flightless bird. Friend: What, like a parakeet? she was at the part where Homer goes to the Science Fair and his rocket thing gets stolen, when Paris burst into her room with a huge smile on his face.

"Art! Art! You'll never guess what happened!"

"I probably won't guess, so what happened?" She paused the movie and sat up, rather interested in what happened.

"Okay, so the Dursley's made this huge dinner and then out of no where the light above the table fell and crushed the turkey, broke all the glasses. Food and glass everywhere! It was wicked! Look what happened!" He pulled the shoulder of his shirt down to reveal a deep cut about two inches wide.

"Oh my God, Paris!" Artemis stood up and rushed over to him. "How did that happen?"

"I'm not sure, either a knife or a broken wine glass," he said proudly.

"Does it hurt?"

"No, I took care of it by the Dursley's."

"Alright, where are Mum and Dad?"

"Helping the Dursley's clean up. We're going out to dinner with them tomorrow to make up for this one."

"Okay, go to bed."

"I'm going to go watch TV."

"Fine, I'm going to bed. G'night."

Paris left the room and Artemis lay back down on her bed and resumed watching October Sky.

At number Four, Harry wasn't as content as Artemis. He kept saying, "Come on Dumbledore, remember what happened last time you left me in the dark? That's not going to happen again." He pulled out another piece of parchment and wrote:

Professor,

I really think something happened, I know something is wrong. Don't leave me in the dark; I know you remember what happened last time. I'm not going to let it happen again. I expect a reply,

Harry

He sent the letter. An hour passed, two hours, three hours and still no reply. Abandoning his pointless hours of staring out the window and hoping to see a white speck among the mass of black; he flopped down on his bed and picked up Quidditch Throughout the Ages, and then drifted into an uneasy sleep.