A/N Here with the first chapter. I know it's been long since the prologue, but i'll not be here telling you the usual excuses you give in this cases, because you already know them and uderstand them (hopefully) :) And thanks really much for the reviews you gave me, i'm so glad you liked it! I hope you'll like this too. So go on with it and don't forget to review with your opinions/feedback etc. i except everything but mean comments, of course. Enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything about Harry Potter, that is all of our Queen J.K. Everything you don't recognize, that's mine. And this is absolutely no-profit, of course.

Chapter 1

The Breakfast Plan

"No! Don't! Cedric...no!"

It was always the same.

"Do-don't kill him! He has nothing to do here! It's me that you want!"

Every night.

"Cedric, I'm sorry...I didn't..."

Everything is quiet, at night.

"NOO..."

But not in the Potter's house, not that summer.

The cries echoed through all the house, and James and Lily Potter woke up with a start. Opening their eyes in the darkness of their room, realizing at once what was happening, with their heart beating fast, they climbed out of bed, and, without talking or even looking to each other - though they took hands as they reached the door, clutching so hard it hurt – they left the room and started for the corridor.

Once they had reached the door from the other side of which came the moans and screams, they didn't hesitate: they opened it and were inside in a moment. They didn't turn on the light, because they didn't need it to locate the bed and its sojourner.

"Harry, sweetheart, wake up, wake up, it's okay..." Lily told her son once at his side, shaking him gently.

And the boy who was sleeping in his bed, having a nightmare identical to every other he had had every night since the summer holidays had began, woke up. His large green eyes burst open in the dark, distraught; sweat dripping from his temples and enveloping his body, soaking his sheets, Harry breathed heavily, as if he were still in his dream – as if he were still in that cemetery, with Wormtail, Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and the body of Cedric Diggory.

Only when he had calmed down, did he became aware of the presence of his parents leaning over him, and of the hand of his mother that sweetly stroked his hair, pushing it aside from his face.

"Darling, my darling, it's okay, it's all over now, you're safe," Lily said once again, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking anxiously at Harry and taking his hand. He laboriously sat, his breath still uneven. James meanwhile had lit the lamp, and a slight glow had spread in the room, illuminating their faces.

The three Potters looked at each other silently.

Every night, it was always the same.

The sun was slowing rising behind the hills above the city, its rays that had started to enter in the room of the first floor of the house through the window overlooking the back garden, when James' elbow, placed on the desk beneath it, decided to slip, sending its owner to slam his face painfully on the hard wood.

"Ouch, holy..." he groaned, suddenly opening his eyes, blinding himself temporarily from the bright sunlight in the process, and rubbing his nose - which luckily wasn't bleeding – meanwhile he straightened on the chair on which he slept.

He looked around: Harry and Lily were sleeping in Harry's bed on the other side of the room and hadn't woken up.

James sighed. Getting to his feet, his back cracked and he was tempted to swear again, but stopped himself.

The day already didn't promised to be the best.

Before leaving his son room, - which was spacious and airy, with wooden furniture and decorated in Gryffindor colours, filled with Harry's school-and-not things and pictures of his friends and family – went to tuck the two sleeping beauty, with a slight smile on his face.

He lingered then to watch Harry, finally serene in his sleep, with the scar on his forehead that stood out under his jet-black, untidy hair; reflecting sorrowfully. He would have to talk to Lily, later.

He left.

He was already dressed, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the Daily Prophet, when Lily came down, too.

Hearing footsteps, James had looked up from the paper, and Lily immediately understood from his expression that she wouldn't have wanted to know what was written in it at all.

"Hey, good morning," he greeted, with an attempt of a smile.

"'Morning," replied Lily; she then approached James to give him a kiss on the lips, before turning around and starting making tea, falling silent for a while.

At length, though, Lily could not resist anymore not knowing, as masochist that could be, and demanded, staring in front of her: "What does it say?"

James knew immediately what she meant. "The – er – the usual." And there was no need to say more.

Or at least, it was enough to cause Lily to seethe with anger, that she could not hold within herself anymore than a boiling pot can with water.

"Why?" she snapped, placing her hands on the kitchen counter in search of support, then continuing to talk frantically, her voice sometimes broken; "W-why do they do this? Don't they understand that...and they are so...how, how I wish..." But at that point the kettle became to whistle and she, wanting to remove it from the fire, grabbed it, unconsciously, with her bare hands, and burned them. She groaned aloud.

James immediately rose from the table e came to hug her from behind. "Hey, shhh...calm down..." he said in her ear, taking her hands that she had already passed under the cold water; he felt her, in his arms, tremble with anger. "We can't let them affect us this way, or they would have reached their aim..." he continued in a tone that was meant to be reassuring, while repressing his own, same anger, "...to demoralize us, demotivate us...but we are stronger than that; neither Voldemort nor the Death Eaters can overwhelm us, and Fudge and the Ministry even less." Oh, how he was wrong.

Lily nodded, closing her eyes to try to relax and leaning back on his husband chest. She breathed deeply, one, two times.

"One day they'll pay: everyone of them," she said at length, in a firm, final voice.

"Yes."

At that point Lily turned, and husband and wife embraced; James firmly wrapped his harms around her hips, burying his face in her ginger hair, while Lily encircled his neck, placing her head on his shoulder.

They stood like that for what seemed an eternity – tired and tested by a long queue of sleepless nights, worried than ever for their first born and his destiny, and for the lives of all of them – clinging to one another as the only existing buoy in the middle of a stormy sea.

And this, did not stray far from the situation they were experiencing.

After a while, James started to say: "Lily, so, I was thinking that, maybe..." but was interrupted, however, by a voice from behind him.

"Ugh, stop it, or you'll make me sick this early in the morning, c'mon!"

The couple broke away as if burned, and turned toward the entrance of the kitchen, where, surprisingly, stood their second child.

"Emma," Lily said, confused, "How come you're already awake at this hour? And dressed? It's only seven...where are you going?" Eyeing her suspiciously.

"What question do I have to answer first?" was all she replied, winking and entering the room. Her mother was about to retort, but stopped, upon seeing that behind Emma came the rest of her children – except Harry – who, with their 'Good mornings' and conspiratorial smiles, took each one a seat around the table. James and Lily exchanged a puzzled look.

"Wait, wait, what's going on here? Merlin himself would rise from the grave, just to see this miracle," James told the kids, half amused, half alarmed (you never know, with a Marauder's kids, they could be planning to burn out the house). They simply widened further their smiles.

"What's for breakfast, Mum?" asked then Will, the youngest (almost eight years old, with his father's dark and dishevelled hair and hazel eyes, and her mother's freckles and smile, he was called 'Snitch' by everyone in the family, because when he was in trouble, you spent hours trying to catch him).

"Oh, no, first you all have to tell us what you're up to, young man, because I don't like your mischievous expressions, at all," replied Lily.

She crossed her arms, waiting.

The kids leaned over each other across the table and started whispering frantically, as if considering whether or not tell their parents the reason they were here (and actually, it was so).

Lily looked at them with an eyebrow arched, but a glance towards James at her side told her that now he was finding the situation rather amusing, judging from his smile, and she could not help but smile back.

Finally, the children ended their council, and Claire, Emma's twin, – the two of them, shortly thirteen years old, were identical (with hazel eyes and freckles, tall and thin) but for their hair; the first one had it black, the other dark red – got to her feet and began:

"Mum, dad, what we're doing here it's a secret." Her parents were about to protest, but then she added; "But you will soon find out, and you'll like it, too, I assure you." with the biggest grin.

Claire was relatively one of the most reliable of their five children, so James and Lily chose to believe her.

"So wait and see," added Emma, reflecting her sister's expression.

Their parents exchanged one last look, then complied.

Refraining from questioning over, Lily started to prepare a proper breakfast – it was so long, she thought, since the last time they did it together – while James sat once again at the table started talking with his children. Little Beth, at his side, - nine years old and a redhead, she was the second youngest and the only one, beside Harry, that had inherited Lily's eyes – grabbed her father hand beneath the table and James immediately squeezed her.

When eggs and bacon, toast and sausages were ready, the atmosphere could be considered almost cheerful.

If an outsider had seen them, he maybe wouldn't have believed that this was a family who was having the hardest (yet) time of their life. Everyone, as a matter of fact, tried to be cheerful, in those days, tacitly agreeing to pretend that nights weren't but silent, and that everything was right as ever.

James and Lily hadn't the faintest idea of what their children, who from time to time stopped eating as if in this way they could better listen to some kind of noise coming from the ceiling, were waiting for, but they found out, eventually.

Harry arrived in the kitchen about ten minutes into breakfast, irritable and gloomy; and once again, his parents marvelled that he was awake.

"Harry, honey, why are your already up? You could sleep a little bit more, seeing that..." began Lily, but stopped, because the subject of Harry's nightmares was never discussed during the day.

"There was some kind of noise, upstairs; I don't know where it came from, but it woke me up, and then I couldn't fall asleep anymore," explained Harry, and he didn't seem pleased: James noted the twins share a look, before turning quickly on their breakfast; he arched an eyebrow.

Lily filled Harry's plate with every kind of delicacy, but he barely touched any; conversation was tried to be made, but he answered in monosyllables. The boy kept his eyes lowered, meeting anyone's gaze.

They so ate in silence, thereafter – and awkward, tense silence. Lily couldn't remember the last time Harry smiled.

The Potter firstborn, last to arrive, was the first to finish his breakfast; he rose from the table, asking permission lo leave, which was – reluctantly – granted, then he started for the door.

It was then, with a mutual look of understanding, that they took action.

Four chairs were moved back, scratching noisily the the floor, and the four Potter kids rushed toward their big brother before he could even realize what was going on.

Will jumped on his shoulders, throwing his bony arms around his neck, while Beth got him by encircling his side, blocking his path.

"Hey! What is...what are you...let me go!" were Harry's – unheard – protests, while he struggled to shake his brother and sister off himself.

James and Lily had in the meantime got to their feet, and watched the scene shocked.

Emma and Claire went past Harry and stood in front of the door to prevent him to escape.

"Really! What's gotten into you? Let me go! And you two, move!" shouted Harry, as he tried with one hand to remove Beth's arm from around him, and with the other to part Will's hands from around his neck; the latter, however, had surrounded his waist with his legs, welding himself on his back, and Beth had tightened one of his legs with her own, so it wasn't possible, for Harry, to tear loose.

"Harry, listen to us," Beth started to say between laughs, but she was interrupted by one of her sisters: (Lily and James had by now come by this side of the table and had started asking for an explanation, but they were ignored) "You, Mr. Harry Potter of Winterbourne Stoke, Wiltshire," began Claire, in a solemn tone, taking a step forward and pointing her finger right in front of her brother's face, to which Harry glared, "have been challenged."

"And if you don't accept it," came Will's high-pitched voice in Harry's ear ("You idiot, lower your voice or I'll become deaf!"), "you'll be proclaimed as the most slimy snake in history!"

"What are you talking about, you morons?!" Harry asked heatedly, looking annoyed at his sisters in front of him; he wasn't in the mood of doing anything his stupid siblings had in mind, and it would be better if they started immediately to leave him alone.

"We're talking about you, us, and Quidditch! Emma, here," Claire went on, pointing at her sister behind her, "believes that you have softened, and that you wouldn't be able to beat us even if we were blind and armless, so..."

"I don't have time for this rubbish, stop it!"

"SO, it's your turn, now, to prove to Emma that you're worthy of being the youngest Seeker of the century." Claire left her last words to echo significantly through the room.

Silent fell, everyone looking at Harry, and Harry was now uncertain, caught off guard; Lily had started to smile, finally understanding her children's purpose, an inexplicable glint in her eyes; James, also smiling, threw an arm around his wife waist, leaving a kiss on top of her head.

Harry Potter had just spent the most dreadful month of his life: worse than those where all Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry students had thought of him as the heir of Slytherin, worse than those when he had to attend the Triwizard Tournament, when he had been always waiting a new task that could have easily killed him, always accompanied by anxiety and fear; and that month had been horrible, because Lord Voldemort – the most feared dark wizard in recent history, who Harry had inexplicably defeated as a baby – was back. And he – Harry – had seen his return.

It had happened the day of the last task of the Tournament, in june. Harry and the other three contenders had entered into a maze grown by Hagrid, the gamekeeper at Hogwarts, on the Quidditch pitch, where they had to find the Cup that would have designated the winner. Harry and Cedric Diggory – a Hogwarts Hufflepuff student of seventeen, and Harry's rival for the heart of a Ravenclaw girl, Cho Chang – had arrived first at the infamous Cup, and decided to take it together.

The Cup had been, as it turned out, a Passport, and it had led them into a cemetery. Peter Pettigrew, named Wormtail, Voldemort's loyal servant that had escaped from Azkaban two years previously, and once a friend of Harry's father James, before he – Wormtail – betrayed him, had been there, with what remained of Voldemort himself, and had killed, suddenly, before the two boys could have even realized where they were, Cedric Diggory, seventeen-years-old, an Hufflepuff student loyal and clever and brave, with a whole life ahead of him.

It had been Harry to ask him to take the Cup together.

And Wormtail, once committed the homicide, had bind Harry to a tomb; but this, you already know.

Harry had managed to escape thanks to the spirits of the people killed by Voldemort's wand – including Cedric – that had gave him the time to run away and come back to Hogwarts with the body...

And now, Cedric Diggory was dead, and it was all Harry's fault.

Voldemort was back, and still because of Harry.

This, at least, was Harry's opinion, and all he had thought of during the summer.

He hadn't showed up yet, Voldemort, until now; he worked in the shadows, creating confusion among the Wizarding World, making sure that no one believed the words of that boy with a lightening-shaped scar who claimed to have seen him come back.

The Boy Who Lies: so now they called Harry in the Daily Prophet: to denigrate, discredit him; Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, didn't want to believe in Voldemort return, so no one had to believe it, and Harry had to be reviled for who he was, a liar.

His family threw him glances when they thought he wasn't looking, but he knew, he understood, that they felt pity for him, for the Boy Who Lies.

He had so closed in on itself (a/n ?), Harry, locking himself up in his room in protest against his parents that persisted to not let him leave the house, because it was too "dangerous": to hide from him every new article in which he was mentioned; to not telling him Voldemort's movement of which they, as member of the Order of the Phoenix, – a secret society founded by Dumbledore in the 70's to fight against Voldemort – knew about, had to know. They persisted to not let him join the Order itself, when, come on, who more than him had the right to be part of it?

He was scared, too, fifteen-years-old Harry, although he would never admit it, and how could he not be? The image of Voldemort bursting into their house and killing all of his family and the people he cared about, haunted him.

But not as the death of Cedric Diggory did; every night, every single damn night, he relived it, and the fact that he had kind of hated the boy when he was alive only increased his all-consuming guilt.

And now here they were, his stupid siblings, who wanted at all costs that he played Quidditch with them (ah, he missed Quidditch; fly, fly high in the sky, with the wind in his hair and the world beneath him, with the adrenaline coursing through your veins as you're about to catch the Golden Snitch in midair...), and deep down he wanted to, he wanted it so much, to let himself go, to let himself be, maybe just a little bit, happy, thoughtless, a boy of his age...but how could he, if Cedric Diggory was dead? If Voldemort was back?

"Listen, guys," Harry then began, "Really, you're very sweet in wanting me to play, but..."

" No, no, no, Harry, maybe you didn't understand," cut him off Emma, as if talking to a naughty child, "you don't have a say in this; you either play, or you'll have Beth and Will stuck with you all day singing no-stop The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, and only the chorus."

Harry's eyes widened, then he looked down at Beth, who was still holding him around his waist, and saw that she had a mischievous smile on his pink, freckled face. The twins in front of him wore the same grin; and Harry could instinctively tell that Will did, too.

He was trapped.

Shit.

"Well, it seems," intervened Mr. Potter at that point, with a smirk from ear to ear, "that I'll miss a great game; but, sadly, duty calls and I have to go to work."

He pecked Lily's cheek, who was half laughing, half crying, then he went through his children; he ruffled Will's hair ("Good grip, Snitch.") and winked at him, he kissed the top of Beth's red head, hugged with an arm Claire who smiled at him and gave Emma a high five. Before walking out of the door the latter had left free for the passage, he turned toward Harry and, putting a hand on his shoulder free, said to him, in a tone and with a smile and look that wanted to communicate many things – that he was proud of him; that he, Harry, had to play and have fun, because he deserved it, because he had no fault in what happened; that he had to be strong, because harder time awaited them; and that he never had to doubt that his family would always be at his side, because it would, always believing in him: "You beat them all, Harry."

Harry, in that moment, felt almost a surge of affection for his father, but then, thinking about it, his resentment was back, more bursting than before.