AN

I've reuploaded the 1st chapter, putting the prologue as an interlude.

I don't love the prologue, but it does contain some important info as to the setting of the story. So unless I figure out a better way I like to integrate them into the story, the prologue will now stay here as an interlude.

If you're reading this after 3/1/2021, welcome! I hope you enjoy the story.

If you've read this before 3/1/2021 and are now rereading, nothing else has changed, the story hasn't gotten shorter, I just combined the prologue with the first chapter.

AN - 12/5/21

I wanted to make note of the importance of dates in this story. Especially in later chapters (such as The Weight of Damocles). A rewrite of this story may or may not be in the works (very slowly), so for now, this story is left off where it is.

Thank you all for reading!

Chapter 1

A Door in Stone

June 20, 2001

She trudges up the hill outside of town, working her way around rock and short brush. The sun is low in the sky, casting a pale, baleful glow across the hillside, throwing the crags of stone into sharp relief. The path she is following is hard to pick out among the scree. It is seldom used; it probably hasn't seen anyone pass by in decades if not centuries. The town below is surrounded with many popular hiking trails, it tends to be a tourist destination in the summer, people coming for the fjords, the midnight sun, and hiking. But this is a forgotten path, an old path, one only used by a select few since it was first walked. It has taken her ages to learn about it.

As she climbs further and further up the hill - more of a mountain really - the landscape grows from scree and scrub to large, hulking boulders jutting up against the yellow sky. The path twists and turns, winding through the stones, and soon she has lost all bearing of whence she has come. It feels, for a moment, in the sharp silence that fills up the space between the tall rocks, like she has disappeared from the rest of the world; separated and lost. The silence brings her world down to just inside her perception. But, it is because of all this, she knows she is close.

The path seems to level out finally, and, with her legs burning from the ascent, she pauses for a moment and looks around. The path is fainter up here. She can barely see it's twisting path through the field of stone. The silence feels pervasive still, her ragged breath the only noise.

The sun is closer to the horizon, and it's dark here among the rocks. She glances down at her watch, it's two minutes til midnight. She has to move faster, but the path is so hard to see. She knows she must be close, she can feel magic tingling along her skin.

She trudges on.

And then there is it. Around one turn and then another, in a deep hollow surrounded by a ring of tall stones, she sees it. It appears first as a deep shadow between two of the stone pillars. But then it catches her eye as she notices the surrounding rocks are lit up by bright sunlight - the shadow is artificial. The spot of darkness isn't just a shadow, but a void of light in the space between the stones. It has a physical presence, the void seems to exist. She wouldn't be able explain what that means if she tries, but she can sense it, sitting there between the towers of stone, lending a malevolence to the hollow she's standing in.

The hollow is completely silent, no wind, nor animal can be heard. Her footsteps don't even make a noise as she walks across the tough grass to the crevice. She feels like she is tingling all over, her nerves feel alive in the absence - she can sense the magic at play here.

Each step brings her closer to the void.

She reaches one pale hand out, stretching through the space between her and the nothingness.

And then her fingers brush against it.

And there is silence in the hollow. No noise. No wind. No movement. No one. The hollow sits as it has for the past thousand years. Undisturbed and untouched by the outside world. No sign that a girl had just traversed its empty crater. And between two tall pillars of stone a dark void fades into gentle shadow as the sun brushes gently against the horizon.

~ Interlude ~

As A Child

"III"

As a child, she used to love sneaking out to the broom shed, steal a broom, and then fly all night around the orchard. She would throw apples in the air as high as she could, then race to catch them before they hit the ground.

She used to love climbing the tree by the pond, wiggling her way out onto the branch that hung way over the water, and sit there - imagining herself off on great adventures - before she would jump off into the water and swim around.

She used to love to climb out of her bedroom window onto the roof of Percy's room and scramble back to the notch hidden under the stairs that went up to the higher landings. From there, she was hidden from the rest of the house, she could watch the sunset across the rolling hills and orchards.

She used to love hearing stories of Harry Potter when she was younger. She would always request them as her bedtime stories from her Mum and Dad. Her mum would tell her stories of the gallant young savior, coming to a princesses rescue while her dad would tell stories of his great adventures off with friends. She liked her dad's stories the best. After he told them, she would lie awake for hours imagining up great adventures she would take with Harry, performing amazing special magics, saving towns, finding lost treasures.

But then she met Harry.

She first met him when she was 10, standing on the platform, waiting for her last brother to leave her, wishing with all her might that she could go to Hogwarts a year early. She met him without realizing who it was. She scolded herself quite fiercely later, How could you not know who he was! It's Harry Potter you daft girl. Harry Potter! Seeing him in person, made him real. She now had a face to put to her adventure companion. She just knew they were going to be friends.

After one whole year of dreaming of all the great things she was going to do at Hogwarts, it was finally her year to go. She was already planning what her, Ron, and Harry Potter would get up to. They could sneak into the kitchens like Fred and George told her about! They could go for broom races late at night - they'd have to sneak out of course, but she'd been doing that for years, it couldn't be that much harder at Hogwarts! They could explore the great castle and find all the secret rooms and passageways. It was going to be amazing.

But it wasn't amazing. Not at all. Ron was always off with Harry and Hermione, off in their own little world and she was left on her own. Ron ignored her, and it was like Harry didn't even know she existed.

But at least she had Tom. Tom would listen to her.

"I"

It took about a month of me writing in the journal consistently before I realized Tom was up to no good. At first, I felt great relief at having a friend, someone I could talk to, who would pay attention to me unconditionally. He was always so concerned with my wellbeing, asking how I was feeling, how I was getting along with all the difficult schoolwork, with my brother and his friends ignoring me, without being able to play quidditch anymore.

That's what tipped me off. He was so negative! Constantly nagging me, trying to bring me down. When I began to focus on it, I could feel the draw of the diary. It was like a small force in the back of my mind, pushing me. Write more, write down how you're feeling and everything will be better. If he was pushing me, could I push him?

So I kept on writing him, writing more and more, but never my true feelings, never my true thoughts, and slowly but surely, that niggling force in the back of my mind began to disappear. I had to be sneaky, Tom couldn't know what I was doing, I had to ask him questions in a way that made it seem like he was getting more from me.

Tom, I'd write, don't you think that Hogwarts is a special place? Wow, that question alone got him to go off on so many tangents. He kept on going on and on about how at home he felt at Hogwarts and how he alone had found all the secrets it could offer.

That question still stands out so clearly in my mind because that was when I first felt it, the diary - or the diary's essence, whatever it was - was pouring back into me. I could feel it growing in me, my magic felt tingly.

I felt powerful.

"III"

She was always told she was special. Her mum used to like to say, "you're the seventh child of the seventh child, you're one in a billion." She felt special too. She has a birthmark, a cluster of them really, in the perfect shape of the Seven Sisters on her side. When she was a little girl, her father would tell her the stories of the Seven Sisters, and her mum would tell her about how they could trace her lineage all the way back to Merope on her mother's side.

That made her feel powerful too. She was a direct descendent of one of the old gods!

The number 7 ran through her bloodline, storing magic and power, all of it landing in her.