Stormy Weather

Inside the smallest bedroom of 4 Privet Drive, a rather skinny boy lay inert on his bed, listening to the storm that brewed outside. The windows shook with the intensity of the pounding rain but he stared straight at the dull ceiling, with only his open eyes and a heaving chest to show that he was alive. He had spent most of the summer like this, moving only occasionally to look outside. His bedside lamp struggled to provide light to the room but it was enough to cast a pale light on his face. Harry Potter, like his cousin Dudley was 16, but they could not be more different. Harry was now quite tall, with a pale face and jet-black hair that constantly stuck up at the back. His bright green eyes were hidden behind a pair of thin-rimmed, round glasses in a stark contrast to Dudley's piggish brown ones. Also unlike his cousin, Harry Potter was a wizard.

It was now one month to the day since he died. It took a long time for Harry to admit to himself that Sirius was actually gone, but the truth had finally settled in. Like his mother and father, Sirius Black was no more. Killed by one under the service of the most powerful and evil wizard the world had ever seen. The same one responsible for the death of his parents when he was only a baby. Harry rolled on his side and shut his eyes tightly, as the storm outside raged on. The events of one month ago were clear in his memory. The arrested look on Sirius' face as he fell through the veil, the cruel sing-song voice of Bellatrix Lestrange, and the laugh; a high-pitched laugh so cruel and cold that it would constantly ring in Harry's mind and make his scar burn white hot. Harry suddenly clutched his hands to his forehead and opened his mouth in a silent scream. A pale snake-like face and furious red eyes stared at him out of the recesses of this mind. Harry snapped his eyes back open. The room shook with a deafening boom and was momentarily illuminated as the lighting struck a house down the street. His eyes were wet with the extreme agony of remembering his past. Harry feared to close his eyes again, lest he see once more in his head the wizard whose name no one dared to speak, the man who Harry alone could kill, or no one else would. Voldemort.

All because of a prophecy made before he was born, before he was famous for being the one person that Voldemort wasn't able to murder. Harry once again turned his attention towards the window, which was struggling to repel the endless rain. On Harry's mouldy desk lay countless scrolls of paper, all sent from his friends Ron and Hermione in an attempt to condole him.

Ron and I are worried about you Harry; you've not returned our letters. I can't even imagine what you're feeling right now but you have to talk to us. Owl me soon, okay?

Harry knew deep down that he would eventually move on from the death of his godfather, but he couldn't see how that would be possible at the moment. The grief was still to close. Even the Dursley's were giving him a wider berth than usual, although Harry knew better than to think that this was out of concern for him.

Another flash lit up the room. Harry froze all of a sudden. He sprang upright on his bed and directed his vision towards the window. Harry gasped at how dark it had become. Surely, thought Harry, it must be night. But Harry's cheap digital watch displayed 9:30 AM. The lighting could not have struck more than a hundred metres or two away. It took another moment for Harry to realise what was wrong. He heard no thunder. He stared through his window where the lighting tore a path through the sky. The window was shaking with the rain now, but he heard nothing but his own breath. There was no light coming from under the bedroom door. Wasn't the stairwell light on before? Harry didn't recall hearing the sound of footsteps on the creaky steps. Harry instinctively snatched his wand from beside his table just as his failing lamp flickered off. He was now blanketed in cold darkness, and some deep instinct within Harry told him not to illuminate his wand just yet. He felt a surge that tingled through his body that he couldn't explain; yet it was strangely familiar.

It was at this moment that another bolt of lighting struck with a resounding boom and at the same time cast a brief light upon his room. His heart jumped to his throat as Harry drew in a petrified breath at what he had seen. A face, visible only for an instant, appeared by the window. Harry sprang up immediately and pointed a shaking wand arm towards where he saw it last, while he tried to take in that which he saw. He recognised the face he saw at once, but this was not so disturbing as the thought that occurred to him immediately afterwards. The face belonged to someone who he knew to be dead.