Prologue

October 31, 2002

Los Angeles, California

It was near midnight on Halloween night and Angela Powell and her boyfriend were parked away from any major streets, in an old parking lot paved with broken and crumbled asphalt, an abandoned and condemned house in the lot beside them.

Angela's "Sexy Angel" costume, with its low-cut front, super-short skirt, and Victoria's Secret style chicken-feather wings seemed to have worked on her boyfriend. As the song goes, they were barely seventeen and barely dressed, in the back of Plague's 1983 hearse. She was letting him go farther than she ever had because, they had decided, tonight was the night. Bauhaus was blaring from the monster speakers Plague had installed in the back, and Plague had on nothing but his vampire cape and black silk boxers.

As Plague ran his hand clumsily through her long, dyed black hair, kissing her neck and delaying the inevitable, the music thumped loudly in her ear. It was too loud, but hypnotizing, and she imagined that Plague, really a skinny, pale, wannabe Goth kid, was Peter Murphy, hanging upside-down from the rafters and kissing her neck, getting ready to bite.

With this, Angela began to feel a little doubtful. She really didn't want to do it tonight, not really, but with all the things going on overseas…the things people were talking about back east…how much longer would she have on this earth, anyway. She didn't want to die a virgin.

Plague was slipping off Angela's panties when suddenly the large back door of the hearse was ripped open. Plague shot off of Angela and squatted scared in the corner beside the driver's seat. Angela, still on her back, tilted her head up, too horrified to move. There were three strange people there. She couldn't tell if they were man or woman, because they wore billowing black cloaks with hoods, and white masks that covered the whole face, save the eyes. The mouths of the masks, painted on, were different on each person. One of them, a cruel, smiling mouth that twisted into curls on the ends painted on, got very close to her face. She could see the eyes, a grey-blue color. They squinted at her, and it looked like he was smiling under the mask.

"You're right, Severus." Said the man, with a Texan accent. "The Dark Lord'll love this one."

"Don't say his name, you idiot!" Came a screechy woman's voice from a mask with full, bowed black lips. She had some sort of British or Irish accent; Angela could never tell these things. "And she's far too brown."

The grey-blue eyes darted back toward the woman. The man was still bent over to her, very close. "You British cunts wouldn't know anything about what a tan is, of course. And don't worry, Pansy, we'll get rid of the other one."

Angela was staring at the third masked person. They were smaller, narrower of frame than the Texan and shorter, so Angela thought maybe it was a woman, but what sort of name was Severus? Whoever they were, they were standing stock-still. The meager light of the interior didn't cast illumination on the figure, and the full, oddly green moon just backlit the figure, so they looked just like a sullen ghost, just a thin, horizontal straight line as a mouth.

Because Angela was watching the other figure, she didn't at first see the Texan pull out his wand, but the movement caught her attention, and she saw it. It was short and black, with a silver handle.

So the rumors are true. Angela thought. There really are Wizards among us.

She followed the line of the wand, still moving only her head, unable to move anything else. The wand was pointing straight at Plague, who, it seemed, had wet himself in fear and started crying. She had a momentary flash of anger toward him, but a real flash, the flash of a bright green light, interrupted it. The Texan had yelled something, and Plague slumped over against the interior wall, like he was asleep.

Angela opened her mouth but couldn't speak.

What had he said?

"Alright, pretty one." The Texan said, suddenly jovial. "Out of the car." He was pointing the wand at her, now, right between her eyes. Angela didn't budge.

"I said OUT!" The Texan screamed.

"She can't bloody move with your wand right there, you idiot."

This voice was foreign, one that hadn't spoken yet. Dark and silky, with a slightly nasal drawl to it. She looked again at the still figure, but they hadn't moved.

"Alright!" The Texan growled, again grumpy. He moved his wand, but the one called Pansy had her long, red-coloured wand pointed at her. The Texan stepped back and held his wand on her, as well.

Angela rolled over slowly. Her wings were still on, and she began to remove them, but the silky British voice said, "No. Leave them on."

Angela began to feel nauseous as she pulled herself out of the hearse. It felt strange to stand, and it was freezing cold. Somewhere off in the distance was a siren, but it was too far to give any hope. Plague had chosen a very remote location. The Bauhaus CD had switched to Nine Inch Nails by this time.

Her stomach was extremely queasy now, and the sounds of "Head Like a Hole" didn't help. Now that she was standing, she noticed how much taller the British man really was than her. And the other two towered over her. She started shivering uncontrollably. What were these three going to do to her? And who the hell was the "Dark Lord"?
"Wh-…I-is Plague dead?" Angela had finally found her voice,

The girl snorted loudly. "Plague?"

"The Avada Kedavra curse. No one lives through that." The Texan laughed and crossed his arms in front of him. "Not even Harry Potter."

He started laughing and the girl shrieked the most annoying giggle Angela had ever heard. She didn't see what was so funny. In her mind, she registered that Plague was probably dead, but she couldn't let herself feel anything about it. She couldn't go into hysterics when she was still in mortal danger.

Almost like he had read her mind, the British man said, "We're not going to kill you."

"We're gonna take you for a little ride!" The Texan crowed. She grabbed her, extremely rough, by the elbow and pulled her toward the condemned house. With his wand, he blasted the door open and flung her in. She looked around quickly and as covertly as possible. It was a tiny house with a fireplace, two windows, boarded up and high in the wall, and two doors that presumably led to bedrooms or such. Before she could even think of making a break for it, the Texan grabbed her again, and the other two strode into the house, their footsteps sound against the bare, cracked plaster walls. The Texan shoved her near the fireplace.

"Pansy, you got the Floo powder?"

Pansy held up a small bag, bouncing it on her palm.

"Well, let's go!" The Texan yelled. He was impatient and antsy, bouncing from foot to foot now. Pansy reached into the bag and took a handful of the substance. It spilled out of either side of her closed fist and she threw in into the cold hearth. A fire roared to life, but it was a strange fire, green in color.

"Come on." The Texan shoved her in. She tried to stop herself, but fell directly into the weird fire. She screamed, expecting intense pain, but she realized, sitting in the dirty hearth, that it was actually a warm, nice sensation. She stopped shivering a little. The others, Pansy and the Texan laughing at her scream, stepped into the fireplace, crouching down and then straightening up into the floe.

"Hogwarts Castle." The dark man mumbled. Angela screamed again, and actually grabbed the dark man's leg as she began to spin wildly. The man made a sudden movement, surprised, but didn't kick her off his leg.

Suddenly everything stopped and Angela spilled onto the floor, hitting cold, hard stone. It was much colder here than in California, and Angela began shivering uncontrollably again.

Pansy and the Texan were giggling at Angela again and Pansy kicked her in the side when she walked by.

" I wish the Dark Lord could figure out to remove the damned Apparation block." The Texan groused.

"Do you indeed? I shall have to let him know that."

Everyone, including the dark man spun quickly toward the voice. It was deep and sensuously female. The woman it belonged to was nicely matched to the dusky voice. She was tall and thin, deathly pale, with long, waist length, but ratty black hair. Her dark brown eyes, sunken into that hard and skinny face, were rimmed heavily in black kohl. She wore an intricately embroidered, Regency-era black frock that hung unpleasantly off her sharp bones. The only fat thing about her was her ruby red lips, full and overbearing on her face. She had a broad, white forehead and two thin, angry-looking eyebrows painted on. Between them, in the gloom, a light blue, diamond cut stone hung from a braided silver circlet.

The mad Queen… Angela thought, horrified.

The woman's black-gloved fists were clenched and she was glaring daggers at the Texan. "Well, did you bring her, Kail?"

The Texan pulled off his mask, finally, letting his hood drop. He was a surprisingly wholesome-looking man, with short black hair and those sparklingly grey-blue eyes. He was young and his bones structure was good. The only disconcerting thing about him was the corner of his lips; they curled up madly when he smiled, making him look deranged.

He looked uneasily, and then said, "Yes, my Lady. She's…erm…" He looked down. The woman followed his gaze. Angela gave a start when the woman's gaze fell on her, and sat up, but didn't try to stand.

"She has wings?" The woman asked.

"Fake." Pansy piped up. She, took, had taken off her mask. She was pug-like in facial expression, but pretty otherwise, with long, blonde hair curled at the ends.

The woman was striding toward Angela, then, still just staring at her, as if trying to read her. The woman's oversized lips twisted upward.

"Yes, I can read your mind, little Muggle. What's a Muggle, you ask? A Muggle is a rather useless creature. Ineffective, non-magical, filthy. If it were up to me, you wouldn't step foot anywhere near this castle. But, alas, the Dark Lord wanted one of you for his…uses, and luckily for you Severus spotted you on a little recruiting trip. And you are, indeed lucky." The woman crouched in front of Angela, her face very close. "Never doubt that you are lucky." She said slowly, deeply. "I could kill you in an instant."

Angela jumped and screamed when the woman made a sudden move, snapping her fingers. She and Kail and Pansy laughed hysterically then, and the woman stood up, moving out of the room.

"Come with me, then. It's time to meet the Dark Lord...perhaps you will die tonight, after all."