A/N 12/13/2005: For the first time in a LONG time, I am giving this story another rewrite. I know that the fifth book has come and gone, as has the sixth, but I honestly had no desire to ever write on this story, at least not in it's current form. Then, one day, I finally had the brainstorm I wanted for this story. Sadly, it required me to start a rewrite. More work than I wanted to put into a story that was over four years old. So I made a deal with myself: if someone made a 200th review, I would rewrite it. I got my 200th review.

In honor of MysticTears, I present the rewritten prologue and beginning to the rewrite. I hope it even pleases the unpleasable flowerfunleah.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and any familiar characters do not belong to me. All other characters and plot (semi in the plot case) belong to me.

Prologue

The rain softly pattered outside, the murmur of life. A cool breeze wafted through the window carrying the scent of fresh moist air. It was a shame, really, that the air never made it to one of the occupants of the room, for she would have loved to have smelt it.

As it was the sound of the rain was lost under the popping of the boiling cauldron, and the scent to the foul one of the solution within the cauldron.

Jenna Whimfy scrunched her nose against the stench, wondering why she'd even bothered to leave the window open. There was only a single window in the entire room, and it was enchanted to never allow any air out, even though the air could come in. It was why she'd chosen this room, in fact. Still she'd hoped the air coming in would freshen the up the smell she knew was coming. Sadly, it did no such thing.

Beside her, a thick leather bond book laid open on a short coffee table she'd pulled from some random room. It was old, the book. She was suspicious it was older even than her own family line (and her family line was ancient.). The words were faded, made darker through a spell, and handwritten. She didn't think had opened the thing in centuries let alone look at it, before it had been doctored about month ago. It even had quite a few spells holding the book itself together.

The book was open to the particular potion-spell she was currently trying with unknown success to make. She'd been working on it for little over a week, ordered by a superior to make the potion, and had been order to secrecy. She was suspicious her someone had gone so far as to alter her memory, because she couldn't remember who had come to her and sworn her secrecy.

A violent sputter from the concoction in front of her snapped her to attention. She coughed and cursed. She wished she knew what to expect from this thing, but from what she remembered, not even the operative knew. She couldn't figure it out, even after reading and re-reading the formula. She didn't know if she could complete the it successfully. She wouldn't even have gotten involved with the project, if the project hadn't come from the top. And when the Dark Lord wanted something, the Dark Lord got it.

The potion turned a neon green, and she was careful to contain her sigh. It was a good sign. She was near completion.

She turned to the book, keeping an eye on the potion. Blood of a man, the potion needed blood, and quite a lot at that. She shook her head at the cliche of it. All dark spells seemed to call for blood these days. Nevertheless, she reached over to a table; taller than the first, and littered with potion bottles. She took hold of the neck of a vial, holding it like she was holding something disgusting and vile. The rusty red liquid within sloshed with the movement.

Men are so touchy, she thought as she poured the liquid in, ignoring how it seemed to ooze instead of flow. What's so wrong about wanting a bit of someone's blood for a potion I know nothing about. And to call me mad! The potion turned a light gray. It didn't say exactly what color gray it was supposed to turn, so she took it as another good sign.

Next step, flesh of a woman. Jeanna sighed again, and rolled up her selves. She left the potion for the first time since starting to approach the only occupied corner of the room. Pressing herself against the wall was a woman, older than Jeanna's thirty-one years, whimpering and sobbing. Jeanna had had to restrain the woman after the woman had attempted to try and gauge her eyes out.

First the man, and now the woman. Everyone had become far too touchy and clingy to life lately. They should be happy. They were going to make the Dark Lord happy. And besides, the woman was muggle, she'd be dead soon anyway when the above mentioned Dark Lord got rid of all the filth.

She didn't waste any time slitting the woman's throat. The woman hadn't stopped gagging when Jeanna took a slice out of woman, the cut coming out jagged because of it. Jeanna hissed at all the blood. It was a pity the spell didn't need blood of woman. This one certainly had more than enough...

She cleaned herself with a simple wave of the wand, and stepped back up to the potion, which she dropped the flesh into. The potion reeked even fouler than before, and she fought with the rising bile in her throat to read the next step: bones of the diseased.

She picked up the little, wool pouch that had been sitting as a paper weight holding one side of the book's pages down. Inside, she knew there was a single pearl white tooth. Like the potion, the operative hadn't been able to tell her who it belonged to. Ignoring the growing feeling of unease, she dropped the tooth into the potion.

The potion turned a pitch black the instant the tooth touched the surface. The gentle breeze from outside stilled for the first time in hours. Jeanna, shivering, rubbed at her arms as the room's temperature dropped drastically. Every breath she released puffed in a momentary cloud of moisture.

She was finally to the last step. For better or worse, this is what it all came down to. Dipping her wand at the concoction and beginning to stir, she fought to keep her teeth from chattering as she said:

"Привидения того из тех умирали перед мной, я вызываю к вам для того чтобы возвратить одно к это тело принадлежит. Я предлагаю это дыхание для того чтобы быть дыханием жизни и даю жизнь к этому человеку."

Silence.

Jeanna didn't breath. Time itself seemed to stand as still as the breeze as the words came to a halt. In that single, seemly eternal moment, she feared the potion was a failure.

Then the moment shattered. The breeze from outside came back with a vengeance. She cried out, and shielded her face with her arms. The typhoon easily tossed the little vials to the floor. The tables, no match for the strong wind, hit the floor with a clatter of wood splintering and glass shattering. If the potions maker's eyes had been open, she might have seen the almost nonexistent wisp of smoke. Might have seen how it circle her - once, twice - before doing the same to the potion. She might have seen it disappear into the murky liquid of her questionable potion. But her eyes were closed behind her covered face, and she didn't see.

Abruptly, the silence returned.

Jeanna didn't move, even when she felt the breeze; a gentle caress that came as an innocent child would. As if it hadn't just destroyed every glass piece in the entire room. Even the murmur of the rain didn't stir her.

A shifting sound, the sound of something sliding, like flesh on rock, finally stirred her. She bought her arms down, expecting something wicked from the potion; the potion itself: a failure and her death signature; a bird. She could have given a rather long list that her mind was thinking up in her moment of anticipation that she expected to see.

What she did see would never have made it. Sure, a body might have eventually popped up on her list of expectations, but the naked body of a full grown man that looked perfectly healthy and like all the other...

She stared a long moment at the back of the man, curious what she had just brought upon herself. Black hair; nice muscles from what she could see, but that didn't tell her anything other than the person was male. Had she conjured the devil? Or something like him? It didn't seem beyond the things she would expect from the Dark Lord. As she pondered her eternal damnation, the man turned and she got a look at his face.

Jeanna had risen the dead.

And not just any dead: The dark lord had had her raise James Potter.

Her mind froze again, as she stared in disbelief at the person - the dead person - before her. It didn't seem to connect for a full thirty seconds that it was impossible for the person to be dead, as he was breathing, but her mind simply refused to believe it. Every rule in the book said it was impossible.

And yet that was what the potion-spell did.

"...Where... am I?"

It took her a moment to realize that the man was speaking. Another to get her mouth to catch up. "What?"

He glared at her shoulder. It didn't seem he could really see her. Again in his raspy, whispery voice, he asked; "Where… am I?"

She blinked. Then tilted her head to the side as if she were considering answering the question or not. She found no harm in it. "Godric's Hollow."

The man squinted at his surroundings, his face scrunching up with the effort to see. Finally he settled for glaring in her general direction. "What did you... do to me? Where... are my clothes?"

Jeanna couldn't help but snort. The final piece of the puzzle falling into place. The tooth; the grizzly potion; the clothing... All of it made sense. It was finally the thing to completely snap her out of her amazement. "Nothing terrible, Mr. Potter." She hollowly reassured, as she retrieved the robes and shoes from the bag by the door. "In fact, I did the best thing that happened to you in fourteen years." She dropped the bag in his lap. "Get dressed."

She turned her back to give him a little privacy. She could hear him stumble, presumably to his feet and fumble with his clothes. She turned back around just as he was getting the shoes on.

"Who are... You?" His voice was getting a little stronger, she noted. She didn't really care. He was alive like the Dark Lord apparently wanted, and so would she be tomorrow, when this was over.

"I'm going to hand you a port key. Take it or I will force you to take it." She commanded, ignoring her tiny beginnings of a guilty conscience. Why did she care what happened to this man? She didn't know him, not personally. She had no love for him, and he wasn't anyone special. This was just another job. Another day she would survive until the end of the war.

But it's not the same.

She bit her lip. No, she had to admit. Never had she seen the face of her victim. Never had she given life to another though her potions. Damn it! she growled to herself. It's not the same as giving life to a child! He wasn't hers. He wasn't her responsibility. Yet she found herself thinking in such a manner; a warped manner at that. She had given this person his life back, and she was handing him over to someone who would use and kill him.

Slowly, she held the port key, a stone as common as the ones outside, and couldn't stop the thought: I'm sorry. Nothing personal.

To be continued...

(Before I start getting the hate mail) Note on the translation: I don't speak russian, I don't pretend to. All I did was put in it the Babel Fish translator and push: translate. This is what it was meant to say: Ghosts of those of those who have died before me, I call to you to return the one to whom this body shall belong. I offer this breath to be the breath of life and give life to this man. If anyone would like to translate it into russian for real, I would be thrilled. In the mean time, please review!