Harry Potter and the Secret Within

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter & co and never will

Chapter One: Dawn

As so many times before, the sun had risen lazily above the roofs of Privet Drive, caressing the sleeping neighborhood with it’s gentle rays. The cloudless sky and the bright light that glinted off the prisms of dewdrops foretold an extraordinary Sunday.

But, no matter how marvelous the day would be, nothing could make Vernon Dursley forget the calamity that had descended upon his house so many years ago. The calamity was Harry Potter, his almost sixteen year old damn nephew. Harry had returned from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (or in Vernon’s words, that school of weirdoes and freaks) nearly three weeks previously. Ever since then the simple fact that they lived under the same roof was giving Vernon a migraine that refused to go away. The pain was driving the already-irritable man to new heights.

On that beautiful Sunday morning the Dursleys were sitting down to breakfast. Petunia, all-knowing and kindly, perched herself delicately on the edge of her chair. Her sweet and gentle-hearted son Dudley sat carefully, wary of the chair cracking beneath his weight. Vernon, the almighty father and head of the house, settled himself down with a small grunt of pleasure.

God bless! That insufferable boy is still upstairs in his room. For once I will have a peaceful breakfast, he thought as he began to serve himself. But it appeared that God was not with him, because just as he topped off his plate with a large helping of bacon the most infernal piercing noise came from Harry’s room.

"Damn it!" he raged, waving his fork and spattering his wife and son with eggs, "can’t I even eat breakfast without that awful bird of his making a racket?" When no one answered he grunted again and dug in.

What he called 'breakfast' most people would call 'a copious dinner'. Since the previous year when Dudley, the light of his parent's lives, had begun boxing, things had changed. The meager diet they had imposed to help their beloved son loose weight was replaced by an opulent one. It was high in protean and energy to help Dudley get through those horrible hours at the gym spent honing his brilliant pugilistic talent.

Seeing the delight with which his son took to the new diet, Vernon had begun to use it himself. The result was forty-four pounds of extra fat on his already beefy frame, making him gasp with every effort. But this morning Vernon had barely begun his bacon when the loud shrieking noise came again from his nephew’s room.

"Boy, you'll keep that bird silent!" he shouted menacingly, letting the threat hang in the air as his face went increasingly dark shades of red from anger.

It appeared, however, that Harry had decided to blissfully ignore his relatives that morning, as the bird's wails were still carving huge chasms into Vernon's already sore brain.

Dudley looked up from his food for a moment to look ecstatically at his father's swollen, furious face. He hadn't seen his dad this close to the boiling point for quite some time. Nearly a year had passed since that incident, and the mere thought of those d-d-dementors was still sending icy shivers down his spine.

Seeing the fanatical look on her husband's face, Petunia rushed up the stairs in a desperate attempt to put and early end to the circus that was about to begin. Reaching the upstairs hall, she tried in vain to open Harry's door. She might have had more luck opening up a wall. And that bird was hooting, and hooting...

"Harry Potter, open the door this instant!" she demanded.

But once again, Harry decided to ignore them.

Petunia heard Vernon climbing the stairs, puffing, his face red from exertion, and a mad glint in his piggy eyes. Dudley followed him, not wanting to miss the show.

"This is it! I can't take it anymore!" boomed the fat man.

"Vernon, the boy closed himself in", Petunia said pleadingly.

"Oh yeah? I'll show him who's the boss around here!" And, with a sudden lunge, Vernon threw himself at the door.

He was a human mountain of fat, and Harry's door was hardly made to defend against intruders. When the frenzied amalgam of bones, meat, and fat that was Vernon made contact with the wood it exploded, shattering apart. Unable to stop his momentum, Vernon found himself flat on Harry's floor, sweeping the dusty carpet with his moustache.

With a nearly unbelievable effort, Vernon rolled over and sat up, mumbling something which might have been a request for help getting to his feet. Not receiving an answer, he focused his gaze on the two people who were standing in the doorway.

Aunt Petunia was goggling with terrified eyes at something in the opposite corner of the room, her face snow white. It seemed that she couldn't control the slight flutter of her lower lip. Dudley matched his mother perfectly, and even did her one-up: his mouth was wide open, and through his teeth chunks of food were clearly visible.

Swallowing the knot that had formed in his throat, Uncle Vernon turned and dragged his eyes slowly across the small bedroom. A huge wooden trunk lay open in the middle of the floor, filled with books, scrolls, a cauldron, and objects of questionable use. Sunlight coming through the closed window (opposite the hole that had once been a door) was blocked by a large birdcage--perhaps this is why he hadn't noticed the scene on the other side of the room at once. But it didn't take him long to notice. The white owl made sure of it, flying circles over the bed and hooting loudly, her wings thumping the ceiling.

Lying on the bed was a slender young man with raven black hair and green eyes. The boy was sleeping, and he was dreaming...

It was one of the oddest dreams he had ever had, and considering the dreams that had haunted him before, that was saying something. He was floating in a sea of endless darkness. He couldn't see his body; he wasn't even sure if he still had one.

An image started to appear before his eyes, like a movie projected upon the silver screen. He could see a group of people, himself included, in a dimly lit, amphitheater shaped room. He watched in slow motion as a beam of light hit a man straight in the chest; he saw him bending through the air, a look of confusion and bewilderment carved on his face; and he saw him passing through a black veil, never to return to the land of the living again.

"Sirius!" yelled Harry just as his image did, feeling his heart ripping itself to shreds because of the pain. The image started to fade away, but he continued to shout through his tears, repeating the name. Sirius... the one man that had been something of a father to him for a short period of time. His eyes stung and his throat became like paper, but he couldn't stop. Nothing mattered anymore except the grief and the pain of Sirius's death. The pain was rising from his heart, ripping bones and flesh and skin in a desperate attempt to engulf his very being.

"Harry...Harry...look at me. Please put an end to the tears and look at me. Please..." It was a voice he knew well, a voice full of love and understanding. A voice that had the power to dry his eyes and ease the beating of his heart.

I know that voice, Harry thought. "Hermione?" he mumbled, opening his eyes.

It wasn't her. Instead of his friend he saw his mother, Lily Potter. She was smiling at him with those green eye so much like his own, eyes full of love and understanding. He felt as though he had not a care in the world as long as her eyes, her brilliant green eyes, were locked with his. Harry knew that she had taken away his pain with just a glance of her beautiful red, flaming eyes. Snake-like eyes with vertical black pupils; eyes just like...

"No. No, no, NO! This is not happening! This can't be... this is not real!" Harry cried. He started two twist and turn in a fruitless struggle to put distance between himself and that nightmare in front of him. But it was all in vain, because wherever he turned, whatever he did, he could not lose the gaze of those lidless, red, glowing eyes.

"Oh, but this is real, Harry", his mother continued with a suave, sweet voice. "Don't be afraid. This is what I really am inside, and through me, you are as well. Embrace that which has been given to you, don't fight it, for this is the only way..." her voice slowly drifted away, her face melting into the shadows with a warm smile on her lips.

Harry was alone again in the darkness, alone with only those red, glowing eyes to keep him company. He couldn't do anything but open his mouth in a silent scream as they burned his soul, his memories, and his will, turning them to cinder. He felt pain like he had never felt before, this new sensation making Voldemort's Crucio feel like a cute, innocent tickle.

Harry was dreaming...

When Uncle Vernon's eyes finally landed on the spot where his nephew slept, his heart stopped and his expression turned just as horrible as his son's.

Harry lay in a pool of his own blood, his lifeless face white as chalk.