Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the Harry Potter franchise by J.K. Rowling. This is a purely non-profit work purely for fun and entertainment. Characters mentioned do not reflect the lives of any person living or dead. Thank you!
It Started With a Scream
Chapter 1: It Hath Begun
Number 4,Privet Drive
Little Whinging,
Surrey
The night warm and windless, a 15-year-old boy sat in his room, contemplating the snowy owl in her cage on his desk. He had black hair (unruly, like his father's, so he'd been told) and green eyes hidden behind the lenses of his round wire-framed glasses. This boy's name was Harry Potter, and an unusual boy was he.
See, Harry was awizard,and he went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He had finished his fourth year there, and this September, he'd be a fifth-year.
His parents, James and Lily Potter, were magical too. They were killed when he was only a year old, on the Hallowe'en of 1981. Lord Voldemort, originally Tom Marvolo Riddle, had killed them in some fit of premeditated rage. But of course, Harry didn't know much about why as much as he remembered his parents' last moments.
James had been killed first, telling Lily to run and take Harry with her. She did so, and ran up to Harry's nursery. Voldemort burst through the door, having killed James with ease and now telling Lily to move aside (why, though, Harry never really understood, perhaps he should ask Dumbledore). When the strong-willed woman refused, he killed her too and turned his wand to the child. But somehow, the curse didn't kill Harry, but rebounded and destroyed Voldemort's physical form.
And that is how Harry became famous in the Wizarding World (or Wizarding Britain, at least... Harry had to do more research on other Wizarding communities, especially after the events of last year) - because he lived when his parents (and so many others) had died.
Barely a couple of months had passed since the end of last year - where he'd lost a friend and witnessed the rebirth of a now blood-sworn enemy - but it felt like everything was over, like Voldemort had won.
Harry had been forced into the Tri-Wizard Tournament last year, and had to compete with Cedric Diggory (an upstanding Hufflepuff), Viktor Krum (the Durmstrang Champion), and Fleur Delacour (the Beauxbatons Champion) against Dragons, Grindylows, Acromantulas, Sphinxes, even Blast-Ended Skrewts! And in the final Challenge, at the end of the maze, he and Cedric took the Cup-turned-Portkey together, intending for a Hogwarts win, but were instead transported to the graveyard of Little Hangleton.
Harry hated thinking about the events that happened that night, but he thought about them none-the-less. Could he have done anything else? Maybe if he'd taken the cup himself, Cedric would have lived even if Voldemorthadto return; and maybe if Cedric had taken the cup, he'd have avoided lingering there and taken it back to Hogwarts!
"Hoot!"
Harry sighed, smiling slightly despite himself. He got up from his bed and went over to the desk, letting Hedwig nip at his finger between the bars. "You're right, girl," he said quietly. "I guess it's just best to focus on what Icandonow.I just wish things weren't so damn hard..."
He trailed off, his gaze drifting towards the open window. It was a rather warm and stifling night, so he'd just left it open. Or at least, that was how he rationalized it. Inwardly, he knew he just kept it open out of that small, tiny hope that he'd getsomegood mail from his friends soon, somethingimportant,something thatdidn'tconstant ask what he was doing or how he was doing. From the letters he got from Ron and Hermione, it sounded as if they were together in the same place. 'Good for them,'he thought to himself. 'Or at least, I hope they get together. Merlin knows the two've had enough beating around the bush for ages.'
Harry snickered softly at his own cupid-ish ideas, his amusement fading away when he noticed the newspapers he'd secretly been fishing out from neighbors shuffled with the ones he got from the Daily Prophet.
Cornelius Fudge (with as much chivalry as his name implied) had been taking to squashing down any insinuation that scary dark lords and their scary spooky followers were out and about in his perfectly corrupt town, and he did that incredibly explicitly in the one form of social media that reached almost every Wizarding house - the Daily Prophet.
Harry sifted through the papers, more out of habit than interest really, just blankly reading the latest headlines, not really taking anything in.
Boy-Who-Lies... Attention Seeker... Dumbledore Gone Senile... Mad House... You-Know-Who is Dead... No Dark Wizards have Returned... Lies...
Fudge reallywasan idiot. An overgrown man-child idiot in a green bowler hat who somehow managed to get one of the more influential seats in the already-corrupt form of government the wizarding world had.
Something felt missing to Harry. Granted, there was a lot missing from Harry's life. But something felt profoundly wrong. Sitting back on his bed and ignoring Hedwig's hoots of disapproval, Harry dwelled on his latest target for mentally venting all his latent anger, cracks echoed through the streets.
Crack. Crack. Crack, crack, crack!
Harry sat bolt upright. Those were the sounds of apparition. Was Dumbledore finally getting Harry out of this hell-hole?
"Aaaaaaaaaagh!"
That was Aunt Petunia! Maybe she was screaming because of the robes whoever was getting him was wearing.
"Kill them!"
Or not.
Harry grabbed his wand off his pillow, hastily breaking the small lock on Hedwig's cage. She hopped out, amber eyes almost glowing in the dark. "Go, girl," Harry whispered under his breath. "Get to Dumbledore or something!"
With that whispered, and in retrospect, ridiculously naive command, Harry gripped his wand and collected himself before throwing open his bedroom door and storming down the stairs. There were a handful of Death Eaters... along with Lord Voldemort. Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastan Lestrange - the terror trio of the Death Eaters, or so the old Daily Prophet papers had christened them - ahh, Harrylovedthe life he lived.
But before Harry could cast a spell or do or say anything, light flashed around from the spells cast by the death eaters, and the swooshing of their robes as they moved was almost enough to make the incantations incoherent to his ears. As the chaos died down, he could see Aunt Petunia being held by Bellatrix, Uncle Vernon fighting Rudolphus's iron grip, and Dudley whimpering softly while held captive by Rabastan. The looks of terror on their faces cut Harry to the core. Those expressions were something he'd never seen before, and it was with a jolt that Harry realized that Vernon was yelling and calling obscenities, practically ordering Voldemort to let themallgo, not just Petunia and Dudley.
As for Harry, he was wrapped in ropes from somebody'sincarcerous, and he couldn't speak or move. He felt numb, light-headed almost. He was aware of everything around him - Vernon's yelling, Dudley's pathetic whimpers, the death eaters' laughter - but he couldn't think. It was as if his mind went on hold, as if he was an observer, not a participator...
Voldemort chuckled at Harry's expression, casting animperioon Vernon. "Kill your sssson..." Voldemort whispered, but his voice carried to everyone. Helpless and angry, Harry could only watch as his uncle went slack in Rudolphus' grip before standing up, grabbing a knife, and-
Harry shut his eyes and tried to block out Dudley's pleas and Aunt Petunia's pained screams.
"One down, Harry Potter," Voldemort said in an infuriatingly mind tone, and Harry's eyes opened of their own accord despite his numbed-down reluctance. "Next up...diffindo!"
A jet of light shot to Uncle Vernon's neck, almost severing it as the whale of a man (who Harry had never truly thought of as a family man) collapsed to the floor.'So much blood,'Harry thought dazedly.
"Too easy," Voldemort sneered, making the Lestranges laugh.
"Let us go!" Aunt Petunia screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks, and Harry's dazed state did nothing to affect the way his heart skipped a beat painfully at the inflection of his aunt's tone.
Voldemort glanced down at Harry, smirking in amusement. "Shall I, Harry?" he asked mockingly. "Shall I let you go? Hm... I don't think so. That would besomuch less enjoyable. How about I kill your last living relative, Harry Potter? Hm? Wouldn't that be so much easier? Three mudbloods in one evening!"
"A perfect tally, my lord," Bellatrix cackled.
Harry tried to move, to speak, to say anything to stop Voldemort, but all in vain. Two leisurely incanted words and a jet of tell-tale green light, and Aunt Petunia's body fell limply to the floor. Another whispered word, and Harry slumped down too, alive, but blacking out completely.
The Headmaster's Office,
Hogwarts,
Scottish highlands
Dumbledore paced his office rapidly in a private show of uncharacteristic panic. All his machines that were linked to a certain house in Surrey were buzzing and bleeping and even smoking. Something was wrong. But he couldn't figure out what. And hehatednot knowing something, especially if it meant the safety of somebody he loved.
He jumped to his desk and scribbled a bunch of calculations he hardly understood anymore in his panicked haze. And when he got his answer, he stumbled back, dropping his quill and making Fawkes squawk in concern for his human friend.
"Harry..."Dumbledore whispered brokenly, and Fawkes understood the unspoken command. In a flash of flame, the two were gone, and a paper of two fluttered onto the floor, the one on top reading Dumbledore's final conclusion-
The blood wards have fallen.
Author's notes:
1. This is my first fanfiction that I'm uploading, so please bear with inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and tropism. I wrote this ages ago when I first started writing, and I'm trying my best to re-work this to make it better.I'll try to work on longer chapters and balanced update intervals.
2. Reviews are always welcome, and I would really appreciate constructive criticism. Reviews, however, that cross a line via language (as in foul language) or any extremity that I can't really think of, will be reported.
3. This fic is basically an AU of OotP - what I think could have happened if the blood Voldemort took in the graveyard meant that he could technically bypass the blood wards. Dumbledore isn't omniscient. He isn't perfect, and I wanted to highlight that in a way that shows his humaneness and not bash him.Saepe erramus.
4. That's probably it for now, but if I do need to edit something, I'll add it here at the bottom. Once again, thanks for reading, and please leave some reviews!