Contemplations of a Phoenix Chapter One, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter One:

Phoenix was lying awake in bed, pondering her years at Hogwarts. She had first found out that she was actually a witch when she was eleven, having received her Hogwarts letter at her aunt's and uncle's house, where she had lived her whole life due to the death of her parents. She had believed that they died in a car crash, only later to find out that they had actually been murdered by the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort. Her introduction into the wizarding world hadn't been as smooth and as she would have hoped, as she also found out that she was something of a legend. She had been the one to destroy Voldemort, a feat that she didn't remember, and the only proof that she actually did it being the lightning bolt scar on the left side of her back. Because of it's position, she attracted less attention in public because people could not see the scar, but when she was introduced to anyone, she saw the same reactions cross their face, time and time again. First, their face was shocked, next it turned to awe, and then they either turned into blithering idiots or they did everything they could to impress her. She hated it all. Why did the whole wizarding world have to know that she was Phoenix Turner? Why did they worship her so? It's not like she did anything special, she couldn't even remember it! All that registered was that her parents were dead, she was alive and had been forced to live with her only remaining relatives who treated her like scum.

It had been a relief to know that she wasn't doomed to a life with her aunt and uncle though. A new start had been opened up to her, even if everybody knew her name. In her first year of Hogwarts, she had been sorted into Gryffindor, and also discovered that although Voldemort was believed dead, he was still plotting to come back. She, along with her now best friend, Hermione Granger, had discovered a plot involving the of the time current Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrel, in league with Voldemort to steal the Philosopher's Stone. Hermione, herself, and two other friends (who were both males by the names of Ron Weasley and Harry Potter) and foiled their plans and the headmaster had destroyed the stone.

In her second year, the four had become good friends. Then, the Chamber of Secrets had opened and people were being petrified left, right and centre. Both Hermione and Ron had been petrified, although at different times, and her and Harry had found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, along with that year's Defence teacher, Professor Lockhart. She thought back at how they had discovered that both Harry and herself could speak Parseltounge. Harry apparently had natural abilities in the language, whereas she had received the power from Voldemort, Dumbledore had explained, and that she also had a connection with him, that some of his powers had transferred to her that night when she defeated him.

In her third year, a prophesy was made by their divination teacher to Harry, about a servant rejoining his master, and something else, but she couldn't exactly remember what. Ron's rat had turned out to be an ex-Death Eater, Peter Pettigrew, who had gone into hiding after Voldemort was presumed dead. The new Defence teacher was closely linked to Harry, being a friend of both his father and godfather, so the year was fun with him around. Harry's father, James Potter, and his godfather, Sirius Black, came to Hogwarts immediately by the request of Remus Lupin (the Defence teacher) when he identified Peter Pettigrew, one of their former friends. They attempted to murder him, as he had tried to had over other friends of theirs, the Longbottom's, to the Dark Lord. He had failed in the attempt, but later, another death eater returned and tourtured the Longbottoms to insanity to 'finish' the job. Their son, Neville was in her grade at Hogwarts, and they were fairly good friends, as he shared a dorm with Harry and Ron. When Pettigrew (or as he was known to his friends, Wormtail) was found, dementors had been summoned to take him to Azkaban, the wizarding prison. That's when she had found out that dementors brought back the memories of that night she had supposedly destroyed Voldemort.

The next year, her fourth in the wizarding world, The Triwizard Tournament was held at Hogwarts, with two sister schools joining them to compete. Three champions had been selected, one from each house, but something else, something surprising occurred. She was too young, the rules said so, and she didn't even try to enter the competition, but somehow, she had been selected to compete. As a fourth champion. Somehow she managed to get through the tasks, but at the end of the last task, something went horribly wrong. Her and the other Gryffindor champion were the first to reach the centre of the maze (the task set for the third and final challenge), and they agreed to take it together. It then transported them to a graveyard, where Lord Voldemort had planned his resurrection. He had killed Cedric, and captured Phoenix to use her blood in the potion to revive himself. They had duelled after that, and during this, Dumbledore, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Mad Eye Moody (the defence teacher that year) and other wizards she didn't know had apparated into the graveyard. They took on the other Death Eaters who had been there to witness the resurrection of their Lord, and James Potter was killed in the fight. Harry and his mother, Lily, had been devastated.

In their fifth year, Harry had blamed Phoenix for his father's death, and they had a huge fight and their friendship practically ended. The Ministry for Magic didn't believe that Voldemort was alive, and they used the Daily Prophet to ridicule both Phoenix and Dumbledore for claiming such and absurd thing. They placed a Ministry member in the school, at first as the Defence teacher, and then as more than that, with power to control everyone in the school. Her and Hermione had created a club to teach students the proper Defence skills they would need, as Umbridge (the Ministry member) was totally unqualified and didn't know a thing about actually performing spells. Phoenix and Harry had both taught the class, Harry having resignedly agreed to help out, considering the dire state of things. Later in the year, Phoenix had a vision that made her believe the people she had grown to think of as a family (the Weasleys, The Potters plus Sirius and Remus) were all in danger at the Ministry. She didn't know how to help but her and five other friends whisked away to the Ministry in London, only to find that it was a trap from Voldemort, as he wanted a Prophecy made apparently about her and Voldemort. He had only learned of it after he had been resurrected and believed it could help him to conquer the world. He didn't succeed in getting it, but he did manage to seriously weaken the Order of the Phoenix (ironically it wasn't named after her, nor was she named after the order, it was just a large coincidence) by the death of both Lily Potter and Sirius Black. Harry was now an orphan, just like her. The Weasleys of course made him come live with them, as Lupin couldn't offer him a steady home, with being a Werewolf and all, and he definitely didn't want to go to his muggle relatives. Unfortunately, this drove the rift between her and Harry even further, him blaming her even more. Why was his family dying around him? And why did it always have to be because of some kind of mess that Phoenix had gotten into? She wished that it didn't happen, that none of it happened. That she had never been the one to defeat Voldemort. Why couldn't it have been someone else? Later, Dumbledore had showed her the prophecy, revealing that it had been made to him. It had said : "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..." She had questioned why this was supposed to relate to her, as she wasn't a he, she hadn't been born at the end of July, and as far as she knew, her parents never faced the Dark Lord three times. Dumbledore had replied that not all aspects of a prophecy are fulfilled, and that the part that mattered was that the Dark Lord had marked her as his equal. By this she presumed her scar, the fact that he had marked her with the scar. This also meant that she was to be the one to kill Lord Voldemort once and for all.

Last year, a lot of things had happened. She had found out how Voldemort had survived the killing curse, that he had ripped his soul into seven pieces and made what is called Horcruxes, which are items that contain part of his soul. Because the soul that had been hit by the killing curse was only one of seven, he was able to stay alive. This meant that in order to destroy Voldemort, first the remaining five Horcruxes had to be destroyed. One was unknowingly destroyed by herself in her second year, the diary she had stabbed with the fang of a basilisk. Dumbledore had also destroyed one over the summer. That left three that she now had to find and destroy herself. The more distressing fact of last year was that Dumbledore had been murdered by their Potions master, Severus Snape, and had been helped by one of the Slytherins in her year, Draco Malfoy, who was also Harry's main enemy at school. It was a terrible loss, and the whole wizarding community mourned his loss.

Now, she was back for her last year at Hogwarts. She needed to learn all she could this year before she would have to go in search of those dammed Horcruxes. She would also work on researching and looking for them throughout the year, and Hermione had promised to help her with that. Ron and Harry had both drifted away from them, splitting the foursome into the two boys and the two girls. Harry no longer talked to Phoenix, but he sometimes talked to Hermione, and Ron was his best mate, so they talked all the time. For her it was opposite. Ron sometimes talked to her, Hermione all the time, as they were best friends, and Harry, well he never talked to her, as he still blamed her for his parents' and godfather's deaths.

She sighed and rolled over onto her side, revealing the lightning bolt scar on her left shoulder. It could be a pain sometimes, as it burned, depending on Voldemort's emotional state, and right now it was itching, indicating that he was probably annoyed. This had only recently started up again, as for a while, Dumbledore had said that Voldemort must have been aware of their connection, but now she was starting to think that Dumbledore had cast a spell to stop her from feeling what Voldemort was feeling, that was slowly fading now he was dead. She looked out past the golden bed-curtains and out the window. It was getting light out, soon it would be dawn and she really needed to get some sleep, as she had classes the next day, but her mind was too busy with thoughts. She didn't know how she was going to manage to kill Voldemort. It was just so great a task and she didn't think she could handle it. And then their was the problem of Harry. She couldn't stand the death stares he sent her at times, when he was feeling particularly angry. He blamed her so much he didn't have to say a word, she could feel it emanating from him. She wanted to help, she wanted to fix it, she couldn't stand seeing him hurting. She wanted to help him ease the pain, wanted to be a shoulder to cry on, as she knew what it was like to live without parents, to live without any real family connections.

She sighed again and rolled back onto her back, staring at the gold canopy of her bed. In the few times her and Hermione had been into the boy's dorms, she has seen that their bed spreads and curtains had been a maroon colour, and thought for a little how the girls had gold and they boys had maroon, the Gryffindor colours. She wondered if the other houses were like that, with the two colours for the two different sexes in the dorms. She should ask Hermione one day, as she was the only person who had read Hogwarts: a History, and would probably know, being Head Girl and all. Although she had been offered separate dormitories, she had refused, preferring to stay with her friends that she had spent all of her years at Hogwarts living with. The other three girls in their dorm, besides herself and Hermione were Lavender Brown, Pavarti Patil and Ginny Weasley. Although Ginny was in a younger grade, their were too many girls in the grade below their's by one and Ginny had offered to sleep in their dorm, which had a spare bed. Although she had her close friends in her own year, Ginny had become quite close to Phoenix and Hermione. Pavarti and Lavender tended to stick to themselves, after all, they had different views on many things than the other three, and that suited her fine. Lavender had gone out with Ron in their sixth year, and that had created quite a rift between her and Hermione, as everyone knew Hermione and Ron were meant for each other, even if they themselves didn't know it yet. She laughed at the bet she had made with Harry about how long before they realised, but then grew sobre again, as she realised she was no longer friends with him. Oh well, friend or no friend, she was still going to cash in on that bet if it turned out she won and they got together by Christmas this year.

She finally drifted off to sleep as the birds around the castle started to sing their little hearts out to the dawn, thinking about how to fix things with Harry.

The next day, she woke from Hermione shaking her shoulders roughly.

"C'mon, you've overslept! What time did you get to sleep last night anyway?" Hermione said as she rushed about, pulling out uniform robes for Phoenix.

"Around dawn," she mumbled back.

"Jeez, no wondered you slept late! And I bet you weren't even spending the time to study!" Hermione exclaimed.

"'Mione, it's only the second week back at school, why spend extra time studying if I don't have to?" Phoenix replied.

"Honestly, you're just like Ron and Harry, always putting it of to the last moment!" Phoenix looked away at Hermione's comment. "Oh, right sorry, touchy subject. C'mon, get dressed! I'm hungry and as it is we'll be late for Charms if you don't hurry!" Hermione bustled out of the room to find where she left her quill the night before. Phoenix resigned herself to get ready for the day, preparing herself to face those death stares once more.

AN: Sorry for the very long, boring descriptive start to this chapter, but I needed to get the background bit out of the way for the story to progress. Thanks for the reviews! Hopefully you will all have more to say this time, but even short reviews are very welcome! I absolutely love reviews! Also, sorry if I spelt any names, terms or anything else from the Potterverse wrong, as this is unbeta'ed and I'm too laszt atm to re-read and check, OK? Expect an update in one - two weeks. By for now!