Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 1: The End of the Beginning
The year was 1996. The greatest wizard and headmaster of the modern age was chased out of his school by a toad. The most dangerous dark wizard in the world was running amok while the Ministry of Magic, the institution that was supposed to be protecting her citizens, was totally ignoring the problem, thus allowing for this dark wizard to conduct his terrorism nigh unopposed. In is within aforementioned ministry that this story begins. Inside the Ministry of Magic was the only hope for the wellbeing and future of the wizarding world, a fifteen-year-old boy named Harry Potter. But Harry had no idea of his destiny as the hero of this story and of witches and wizards nationwide. He thought he was just an ordinary boy with a madman out for his head. Alas, his ordinariness was the last thing on his mind for he was currently being chased by several dark witches and wizards intent on stealing a small, yet very significant glass ball that was clutched tightly in his hand.
Now this glass ball was just like Harry, extraordinary. For the whole school year, the most dangerous dark wizard in the world, Lord Voldemort, had been solely interested in the recovery of this glass ball and until recently, Harry had no idea was this little ball could be. The reason for the extraordinariness of the object was twofold: what the object is and what its contents are.
The object in question is a prophecy. A prophecy regarding Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter. Now what the language of the prophecy was another conundrum itself. Unknown to all except one individual, the prophecy basically stated that Harry must be the one to kill Voldemort or Voldemort must be the one to kill Harry. Should Harry succeed in killing Voldemort, the wizarding world would be ushered into an era of peace and happiness, which is something that it desperately needed. On the other hand, if Voldemort kills Harry, the world would be drowned in darkness and despair for nobody, save Harry, can kill the powerful dark wizard. As one can easily deduce, such a responsibility for an individual so younger, regardless of how kind-hearted and courageous, is almost bound to cause said individual to take drastic measures to make it happen.
Let us move to the introductory scene of the story. In the Ministry of Magic, in the basement on level 9, is the most secretive department in the Ministry, the Department of Mysteries. There are many rooms and chambers dedicated to life's most peculiar aspects, such as divination, thoughts, space, time, and of course, death. And it is in the Death Chamber that our brave heroes have come to battle with the evil Death Eaters. Harry and his friends had just received assistance from Albus Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix, a group dedicated to the downfall of Lord Voldemort. Fortunately for Harry, his beloved godfather, Sirius Black, was amongst those Order of the Phoenix members that came to fight the dark wizards. This is fortunate because Harry had been led to believe that Sirius was being held captive by Lord Voldemort as Voldemort had sent Harry a vision earlier in the day through their mental link that Sirius was held captive by the evil wizard. As it turns out, Voldemort just need Harry to come to the Department of Mysteries to retrieve the prophecy regarding the two of them. Alas, Voldemort's plan worked, and Harry was hoodwinked to believe Sirius was in danger. But seeing Sirius alive and looking positively furious gave Harry much hope as he turned to combat the nearest Death Eater.
"Stupefy!" spelled Harry at the Death Eater. With a quick spin out of the way, the masked wizard yelled back.
"Avada Kedavra!" Harry rapidly dived to get out of the way out of the Killing Curse and managed to fall into the ledge of the stone dais that led to the Veil.
Distracted by the Veil, Harry stared into it, hearing the same eerie voices he heard before. Hearing a shout behind him, Harry quickly erected a shield to block an sickly yellow spell screaming toward him. Refocusing his attention back on his opponent after one last glance at the Veil, he shouted out a bludgeoning hex that hit the wizard on the shoulder. Seeing an opportunity to knock the wizard out of the battle, he sent a stunning spell that effectively knocked out his opponent. Looking around for another Death Eater, He noticed his godfather crackling while dueling the dangerous Bellatrix Lestrange.
Now Bellatrix Lestrange was a very infamous witch for many reasons. Publicly, she is known as one of the deadliest dark witches under Lord Voldemort's rule. And not only that, she was also one of the most diabolical and insane, which is never a good combination. She fought with only the darkest of curses that aimed to maim and kill in the most horrific ways possible. Combined with a deadly precision and fierce loyalty to her master, she was a foe to truly fear and avoid, for not many fully trained wizards could hope to best her in battle.
Alas, Sirius Black was one such wizard to never back down from a challenge, especially from his manic cousin. Yes, dear reader, you read that right. Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange were cousins. Bellatrix was born Bellatrix Black before she married her husband, Rodolphus Lestrange. While Bellatrix was a traditional Black – read: a Slytherin – Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor. He was quite the mischief maker when he was just a lad, constantly rebelling against the wishes of his parents and patriarchal head of House Black. Combine these facts together, and a duel between Sirius and Bellatrix was always one fought with power, precision, and emotion.
Pulling himself back from his thoughts, Harry turned his attention back to the duel between Sirius and Bellatrix just in time to see a scarlet curse hit Sirius and for him to fall back into the Veil, frozen in seemingly statis. In panic, Harry rushed forward to grab his godfather before he ultimately fell all the way through the Veil. Time slowed down as Harry reached for Sirius. Someone behind him, most likely Remus Lupin, yelled for him to stop, but Harry, in all his stubbornness, was not one to give up on the only family he had left. As Sirius was starting to disappear through the Veil, Harry reached his left hand in to grab him. As his hand passed through the unknown magical object, the voices coming from the Veil grew louder, speaking in an unknown language. And then the cold hit.
Harry's hand was cold. It was so unbelievably cold that it felt as if his hand was on fire. It was the cold of death and of realms unknown. A cold that reached his very soul. And, boy, did that scare him. The voices from the Veil continued to grow louder and louder until it felt like they were screaming in his ears, thus drowning out the voices of his companions yelling in despair at his current predicament. With a mighty amount of strength, he reached his hand out of the Veil and cradled it against his stomach.
The fighting at all but ceased around him, with all the duelists becoming mere spectators, both in awe and fear. Never before had a wizard or witch reached into the Veil and come out. Even if a single hair on aforementioned person was placed in the Veil, they were sucked into nothingness with no hope of return. But this is Harry Potter. He routinely lives the impossible. Somewhere to his left, he heard of voice yell out,
"Harry, your hand!"
As he gazed down at the appendage, still feeling the touch of absolute zero in his entire body, he froze in shock. His hand had previously been blemished with a nasty scar reading, 'I must not tell lies', but now, the hand was completely and utterly blackened. It was as if the hand had shriveled and died. He raised his, now dead, hand, he looked at it with utter terror and sadness in his eyes. He tried to move the digits on his ruined hand, yet to no avail. In his quickening panic, he attempted a minor healing spell, but it too was all for naught. The appendage was ruined. He had no feeling it in aside from the unbearable cold that encompassed his previously working hand.
Hearing manic laughter in the background, he turned around to see Bellatrix Lestrange, the murderer of his beloved godfather, crackling at him. With his face contorting in rage, he launched a spell that he had promised himself he would never use:
"Crucio!"
Next up on The Honour of Peverell...
"I will destroy you, you insane witch!" responded Harry with a cough.
"Let's how good you are at 'destroying me' when you are locked in cell, continuously tortured by my great and powerful master."
And with that response, Bellatrix walked over and grabbed Harry by the shirt and apparated away to Little Hangleton, where the Dark Lord would be waiting eagerly to torture and maim the Boy-Who-Lived.
