A/N: Be aware that this fic is a HUGE AU, both in AU-ness, and length. This will eventually stretch to the end of seventh year, with (hopefully) many one-shots for Christmas, and the like. The first two years will be similar to canon. Third year and beyond will be very AU. No plot developments are going to be revealed (I hope, but the Christmas fic I have planned is in 5th year, so some perceptive people might root out some spoilers). Thanks, and have a good time!
Disclaimers: I do not own the rights to the "Harry Potter" series. They are copyrighted to J.K. Rowling, starting in 1997 through 2003-2004. I thank Ms. Rowling for allowing pathetic, unemployed wretches like me mangle her work of art.
Sarah
Pre-Year 1: The Girl who lived
A man appeared on the corner of Privet Drive, in Little Whinging, Surrey, Startling a tabby cat that had been watching the corner for hours.
Nothing like him had ever been seen in the area before. He was named Albus Dumbledore, and he was tall, thin, and old, as evidenced by the pure silver of his beard and hair. Both were long enough to tuck into his belt.
He didn't seem to realize that everything about him, from his long purple cloak, and his high-heeled boots to his half-moon spectacles were unwelcome in Privet Drive.
He started to rummage in his cloak for something, when he realized that he was being watched. He glanced up, and saw the cat, which, for some reason, amused him.
"I should have known," he muttered, and then laughed quietly.
He found what he was rummaging for in one of his presumably many inner pockets. It seemed to be a common Zippo lighter. He flicked it open, held it up, and clicked it. The street light closest to him flickered out. Eleven more times he clicked the Put-Outer. Each time, another street lamp flickered out. If anyone looked out the window, even the extremely nosy woman in Number Six, they wouldn't be able to see a thing happening on the pavement.
Dumbledore slipped the device back into a pocket, and set off down the street to the wall of Number Four, next to the cat. Remarkably, it didn't run away when he sat down next to it. He didn't look at it, but after a silence filled minute, he spoke to it.
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."
He turned to smile at the cat, but it had gone. Instead, he was facing a rather severe-looking man who was wearing oval glasses exactly the same shape of the cat's markings around it's eyes. He too, was wearing a cloak, emerald instead of purple. His long orange hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He looked just a tad ruffled.
"How did you know it was me?" he asked in a distinct Irish accent.
"My dear professor, does a real cat sit so stiffly?"
"You'd be stiff after sitting on a brick wall all day." said McGonagall, stretching.
"All day? When you could have been out celebrating? I probably passed a dozen feasts and parties coming here. Perhaps even more. I stopped counting after twelve," the eccentric old man said, grinning at his stoic colleague.
Professor McGonagall scoffed angrily. "Che. Everyone's celebrating, all right," he said, starting to rant. "You'd think they'd have the sense to be more careful, but noooo! Even the Muggles have noticed. It was on their news." He jerked a thumb at Number Four's living room. "I heard the whole thing. Flocks of owls... shooting stars... even leprechaun comets over Dublin... Well, they're not completely below a shark's IQ level. They were bound to notice something. Leprechaun comets in Dublin — I'd bet a year's salary that me no-good brother got them drunk on butterbeer. Never had much sense, the git." The irate professor finished, trying hard not to jinx a mailbox.
"You truly can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently, trying to mollify the Irishman. "We've had precious little to celebrate for almost twelve years."
"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's still no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."
He threw a sharp glare at Dumbledore, as if expecting him to tell him something, but he didn't, so he continued. "A beautiful thing it would be, if on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles discovered our world. I suppose he really has gone, Albus?"
"It truly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"
"A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."
"No thanks," said McGonagall coldly, as if he didn't think this was the proper time for lemon drops. "As I said, even if You-Know-Who has gone— "
"My dear Professor, surely such a sensible person like you can call him by hisname? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense— for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his actual name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was rummaging for another packet of lemon drops, did not seem to notice. "Fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself, and it all gets so confusing if we say 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen a good reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."
"I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows that you're the only one he was afraid of."
"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have, nor consider having."
"Only because you're too—noble isn't the right word...—righteous to use them."
"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."
McGonagall shot Dumbledore a sharp look and said "The leprechauns are nothing compared to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"
It seemed like he had reached the point he was most anxious to discuss. The only reason he had waited on a cold, hard garden wall al day, for neither as a cat, a human, or the fox he had been transfigured into in sixth year, had he fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as he did now. It was clear that he wasn't going to believe what "everyone" was saying until Dumbledore said it was so. Dumbledore, however, was searching his cloak for something and did not answer.
"What they're saying," he pressed on, "is that last night, Voldemort showed up in Godric's Hollow. They say he went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James are... that they're... dead..."
Dumbledore sighed morosely in answer. Professor McGonagall blanched. "Gods... Lily and James... I can't believe... that he got them, of all people..."
Dumbledore reached out and patted him on the shoulder. "I know, I know... we both taught them back at Hogwarts."
Professor McGonagall's voice didn't seem as strong as he went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the twins. But after he killed Harry, he couldn't kill Sarah. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Sarah Potter, his power somehow broke—and that's why he's gone."
Dumbledore nodded glumly.
"It's true?!" exclaimed Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed.... He couldn't kill a little girl? It's astounding... How in the name of Gryffindor himself did Sarah survive?"
"We may never know."
Professor McGonagall discreetly used the corner of his cloak to wipe his eyes. Dumbledore gave a huge sniff as he checked a golden watch pulled from one fo his pockets. It was a strange watch. It had twelve hands, no numbers, and had little planets moving around the edge. It obviously made sense to Dumbledore, as he placed it back in his pocket and said, "Rubeus is late. I surmise he was the one who told you I would be here, by the way?"
"Yes," said McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you'd tell me why you're here, of all the places?"
"I've come to bring Sarah to her aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley. They're the only family she has left since James's parents died."
"You don't mean—you can't mean them?!" cried McGonagall, jumping to his feet and pointing at Number Four. "Albus—you can't. I've been watching them. You couldn't find two Muggles that are so... so... Muggle-ish! And they've also got this son—I saw him kicking his mother, going up the street, screaming for sweets and toys. Sarah Potter come and live here!"
"It's the best place for her," Dumbledore said firmly. "The Dursleys will be able to explain everything when she's older. I've written them a letter." 'Besides,' he thought, ' Petunia might surprise you, Geoffrey.'
"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall incredulously, slumping onto the wall. "Honestly, Albus, do you think all this can be explained in just a letter? These people will never understand her! She'll be famous—practically legendary—I would not be surprised if today was called 'Sarah Potter Day'—there will be books written about her—every man, woman, and child in our world will know her name!"
"Exactly why she must stay here," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over his spectacles. "She would not comprehend the attention. Just imagine, famous before she can walk or talk. Famous for something barely, or nor remembered. Can't you see how much better off she'll be?"
McGonagall opened his mouth, changed his mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes... yes, you're right, as usual. But how is she getting here, Albus?" He eyed Dumbledore's cloak as if he expected Dumbledore to pull Sarah out and yell "Surprise!!"
"Hagrid's bringing her."
"Do you think it wise to trust Hagrid with something this important?"
"I would trust Rubeus with my life," said Dumbledore.
"Albus, it's not that his heart's not in the right place," said McGonagall grudgingly, "but you cannot forget his tendency toward carelessness. He does—what the...?"
A low rumbling broke the silence around the odd pair. It grew steadily louder as they glanced nervously around for a headlight. As ley looked up, the noise—surprisingly like a motor vehicle— crescendoed above them. A huge motorcycle flew out of the darkness and landed right in front of them.
If the bike was large, the man straddling it was giant. He had to be at least ten or eleven feet tall, and possibly half that wide. He looked too tall to fit in anywhere, and he looked so wild. His long, bushy black beard and hair masked most of his face, his hands were the size of pizza pans and his feet looked to be about three feet long. In his huge arms, bulky with muscle, he was holding a small bundle.
"Hagrid," said Dumbledore happily. "Finally. Where did you get the motorcycle?"
"Borrered it, Professor, sir." said the huge man, climbing gingerly off the "borrered" bike as he spoke. "Sirius lent it to me. Don't worry, I've got 'er."
"No problems, then?" Dumbledore inquired.
"No, sir. Sirius 'elped me find the little tyke 'fore the Muggles started swarmin'. She fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."
Dumbledore and McGonagall lent forward over the bundle. Inside, barely visible, was a baby girl, fast asleep. Under one of her jet-black bangs, they could see a strange cut, like a bolt of lightning.
"Is that—?" whispered McGonagall.
"Yes," said Dumbledore. "She'll have that scar as long as she lives."
"Couldn't you do something about it?"
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy sometimes." Dumbledore said mysteriously. "Well—give her here, Hagrid— we'd better get this over with."
Dumbledore took Sarah from the gentle giant and turned toward Number Four.
"Could I-I say good bye to her, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his huge, shaggy head over Sarah and gave her a bristly kiss. Then, without warning, Hagrid howled like a dying wolf.
"Shhh!" hissed the cat Animagus, "you'll wake up the Muggles!"
"S-s-sorry," sniffed Hagrid, taking out a huge, pink handkerchief, and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it—Lily, Harry an' James dead— an' poor little Sarah goin' to the Muggles—"
"Yes, Hagrid, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself or we'lll be found." McGonagall whispered consolingly, patting Hagrid on the arm gently as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid the last Potter gently on the step, took an envelope from his cloak, tucked it inside Sarah's blankets, then came back to the other two.
For a good five minutes the three strange people stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid trembled as he attempted not to cry, McGonagall blinked back tears furiously, and Dumbledore's twinkling light that usually shone in his eyes had gone out.
"Well," Dumbledore finally choked out, "That's it. There's not point in staying here. We might as well join the festivities."
"Yeah," said Hagrid sadly, "I'll be takin' Sirius' bike back to 'im. G'night, Professors."
Wiping his eyes on a handkerchief pulled from a pocket, Hagrid swung onto the bike and kicked the engine to life with a roar; it rose into the air and into the deep darkness.
"I shall see you at Hogwarts in the morning, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to the Animagus. McGonagall nodded in response, followed by a discreet swipe at his eyes with a cloak sleeve.
The aged Headmaster of Hogwarts turned and walked to the corner. There, he paused and pulled out the Put-Outer. One click later, Privet Drive glowed orange, and Dumbledore could make out a tabby cat creeping around the corner at the other end of the street. He glanced at the small bundle on the step of Number Four.
"Good luck, Sarah," he murmured throatily, as if he was stifling tears. He turned on the high heel of his boot, and was gone.
A breath of wind rustled the leaves of Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, where no one would expect amazing things to happen. Sarah Potter gurgled in her sleep and rolled over quietly. One minuscule hand closed on Dumbledore's letter and she slept on, not knowing that her parents and brother were dead, not knowing that she would be woken in a few hours by Mrs. Petunia Dursley's startled gasp as she checked to see it the milk had been delivered, nor that her arrival would stir Vernon to pulling his mustache out. She wouldn't know that people meeting at various strange places were raising glasses of strange drinks and toasting her: "To Sarah Potter—the Girl-That-Lived!"
Prologue Fin
A/N: I know that people might complain about the extreme closeness to canon, but.... I DON'T CARE!!! This is how the first chapter is written. Deal with it.