Disclaimer: I disclaim everything but the plot. (and there is a vague one, I promise; but I'm still working on it.) JKR owns all.
Okay, restarting this story for the 3rd time...
A/N this is a revision of a revision of a revision—just to let you know, but hopefully this is the last time. Be sure to give me 50 lashes with a wet noodle if I do it again.
Also, i think this chapter is best read while lestening to Mascott's "Song from a dream" which you can hear at launch.com if you're logged into a Yahoo account. I sound like a commercial, huh?
The Beginning
"Harry, dinner is ready!" Came a sickeningly sweet voice from downstairs, not unlike that of Harry's former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Dolores Umbridge. However, the voice coming from the kitchen was his Aunt Petunia's. She and the rest of the Dursleys had adopted a similar voice since they left the train station, where Harry's guard had threatened them into treating him properly.
Harry just ignored his aunt's call. He wasn't hungry. He was never hungry anymore; the sinking feeling of guilt and the searing pain of grief he felt constantly didn't allow him to feel much else.
Harry was sitting at his desk, trying to work on his summer homework, but finding it hard to concentrate. Aggravated, he leaned back in his chair to look at the clock on his bedside table. It was 6:34. He had been working on the same transfiguration essay for a little over two hours and hadn't gotten past the first paragraph. Fed up, he put his quill down and looked out the window. His eyes unfocused....
A little filmstrip began to play on the backs of his eyelids. It was Sirius and Bellatrix. They were in the Department of Mysteries, dueling again. It happened in his mind exactly as it had happened in real life, but Harry found himself hoping that it would end differently this time; that Sirius would make it....
Bellatrix cast the spell, and Sirius began to fall backwards in slow motion towards the Veil. If only he could regain his balance, or push himself away...
It ended as it always did in his memory—as in reality.
"No!" Harry said.
"No!" He whispered. "No, no, no..." He banged his head softly on the desk.
His memories were more real to him than anything. He could see veil and the dais and Sirius more clearly than the four walls closing in on him. He could feel the cold stone beneath his feet, his soul tearing away at the edges of his skin because his body couldn't move fast enough to break his godfather's fall. The voices and spells were louder than the screaming silence around him. He could even smell the dampness of the dungeon.... The memories, clouding his thoughts, his senses; haunting him...
Slowly, he wiped his face with his sleeve, stood up, and left the room.
"Leaving." He said to the Dursleys as he passed the dining room without stopping, and slammed the door behind him.
He began to run. Harry had been running quite a bit for the past two weeks; in fact, ever since he got back from Hogwarts. As soon as he reached Privet Drive, he began running, and wouldn't have stopped if it weren't for the Order members trailing him. It was quite funny at first to hear them pant as they tried to keep up. At one point, Mundungus Fletcher actually asked him to stop so he could regain his breath.
Now, however, whoever was following Harry had cast some sort of spell, and there was no sound of heavy breathing or footsteps falling. Apart from vaguely wondering who was trailing him, he had nothing to distract him from his thoughts...
It was happening again. The filmstrip began to play, the images just as clear as when they actually happened.
Sirius was falling...
Harry began to run faster; the sucking feeling that formed in his lungs as he ran somehow helped to lessen the intense pain of the hole in his heart.
Sirius was falling slower than ever...
Harry ran faster still.
Sirius fell though the curtain, and Harry hit the ground with a thud—he had run so fast that he had fallen over. He lay there for a minute, smelling the grass, gasping for breath, when he felt a hand on his back. For a moment, he had a flashback to his fourth year, bringing Cedric's body back.
Sirius didn't have a body to bring back...
"Harry?" He heard a voice say. It was Lupin. Harry turned over. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Harry said in the direction he assumed Lupin to be. "I'm fine." He got up slowly, brushed the gravel from his elbows and face, and began to walk towards the park.
"Have you eaten anything today?" Lupin asked from behind.
"Yeah." Harry lied. There was a tense pause, in which he could tell Lupin was trying to decide whether or not he was telling the truth. Harry did his best to look full, and Lupin said no more.
Harry reached the park. The streetlight flickered over the disheveled swing set; all but one had been trashed by Dudley's gang last summer. Actually, Harry thought as he sat down on it, Dudley seemed quite subdued this summer. The worst he and his little crowd had done was smoke cigarettes in the alleyways then right nasty things on the walls with their ashes. He had seen "F u Harry Potter" on more than one wall, and didn't doubt that it had something to do with their encounter with the Dementors last summer.
All of the sudden Harry felt a wave of guilt at having been thinking about such petty things as his cousin's little gang; his godfather had just died...
If I hadn't been such an arrogant little git and trusted those stupid dreams...
He kicked into the dirt as had as he could. He felt as if he needed to break something, tear it to shreds, rip it to pieces.... He curled his hands into fists, clenched his teeth, trying with all his might not to "do anything rash."
Standing, he picked up the swing and threw it as hard as he could over the top bar of the set. There was a small crack; the last swing was broken.
Breathing in deeply, Harry sat down on the merry-go-round. He didn't like them very much ever since Dudley spun him so hard he got sick and then fell off when they were little.
Now, however, he didn't care.
He kicked hard into the ground again, and the merry-go-round began to turn. Harry kept kicking and kicking and the merry-go-round kept turning and turning, faster and faster until he could feel the centrifugal forces trying to pull him off. Harry closed his eyes.
It was all too much to take. Everything that had happened ever since he entered that maze—since he began Hogwarts, really—no-one should have to go through that.
If it weren't for that stupid, damned, God-forsaken prophecy...
Actually, if he wanted to get down to it all, that was the reason for everything. If he really got down to it, Sirius didn't die because of his stupidity; he died because of the prophecy, just like his parents, just like Cedric....
It was because of that damned prophecy he had no parents, no Sirius, no real home, no real life...
It did give me something; this scar. But like anyone would want that...
Harry scowled and looked down at his shoes; at his fingers playing with the laces. Out of the corners of his eyes he could see the world whirling by him...
Harry walked back to the Dursley's slowly and dizzily, not wanting to return. Sure, they didn't bother him with chores or shout at the sight of him, but somehow having the room cleared every time he entered one seemed worse. It made him feel as if he didn't exist.
He hadn't spoken directly to his relatives—or anyone really—since he returned form Hogwarts. It was always just a call to dinner or a sentence or two in the general direction of an Order member, as had happened earlier, but never anything more than that. No real conversation. Nothing to stabilize his sanity, bring him back down to earth.
His feet became increasingly interesting. Going without telling him so. Taking him to places he didn't want togo. Moving, moving, moving. Stepping, stepping, stepping. Leaving, leaving, leaving things behind.
"Bye." He said to the invisible Lupin as he reached the ill-lighted doorstep of Privet Drive.
"Bye." Lupin whispered, and Harry went through the door.
The Dursleys were in the living room, watching the eight o'clock news, his Uncle Vernon making loud comments about the new law banning smoking in pubs. "They'll ban drinking in pubs before too long! These new-age activists, messing with tradition..."
Feeling slightly guilty about having lied to Lupin, Harry went into the kitchen and took down a slice of sandwich bread. Upon eating it, he realized that he actually was hungry, so he made a sandwich with some of the ham leftovers from his relatives' dinner.
He thought for a moment, nibbling on his dinner, about joining the Dursleys in the family room to watch the news; they would just get up and leave—claim they had to brush their teeth or something. The thought was actually quite appealing. Ron and Hermione had told him in their last letters (and there had been quite a few of them already) that a lot of things had been happening lately, and not just to the magical world; the muggles had been taking notice too. Having canceled his subscription to the Daily Prophet, the muggle news was Harry's only resource; his friends weren't too specific in their letters.
He was right. As soon as he entered the room, Uncle Vernon's face turned read, Dudley looked as if he was trying to sink into himself and disappear, and Aunt Petunia's lips thinned. But before anyone had to endure too much of this torture, all three of the Dursleys decided to go wash the dishes, and Harry was left in peace to watch the news.
There was a report about an armed robbery of the local courthouse and another of a serial killer on the loose before, "A third fire with a mysterious skull and snake floating above it occurred in Bath late last night. The fires, which only began appearing about a week ago, have officials scratching their heads.
"The fires seem intentional, and investigations of arson are underway, but the symbol floating above each is completely inexplicable. No-one seems to know how it is projected or what it means.
"Reporter Dana Turnmount recently spoke to Dr. Howard Martin, professor of physics at Oxford University, about how the symbol is made."
'It seems to defy logic. It is said to be translucent, but it is uninterrupted by other objects that might deflect it, so the possibility of it being a projection—our only hypothesis so far—is ruled out. However, my colleagues and I are conducting further research, in hopes of not only solving this perplexing mystery, but finding potential clues to the identity of the criminal.'
"The death count has now reached 11," continued the newscaster, "but just as strangely, none of the victims' neighbors seem to remember anything about the incident. Consequently, we have no footage of these strange and villainous occurrences.
"Citizens are advised to start a neighborhood watch and to be wary of wandering strangers. If you have any information on this, please call..."
Harry sat there for a moment staring at the television, not taking in a word. He had been expecting Lord Voldemort to act for over a year now, but now that he had, Harry found that he wasn't quite ready. Sure, he had 'battled' with him several times before, but an actual war had always seemed like something of the distant future. But it was here. It was now. It was happening.
A/N Thanks to my first reviewer Jo0608! the next chapter should be up before then, but i learned long ago not to make promises like that.
Could someone please tell me what year Alicia spennet, katie bell, and angelina johnson were in in the 5th book?
you pick: longer chapters or faster updates?
Now finally, please review!