CHAPTER ONE
SHADOWS OF THE DAWN
The Riddle House of Little Hangleton had become busy with activity again. Not that any of the residents of Little Hangleton knew that. As far as they knew, the house had been torn down after being taken over by the government. This, however, was far from the truth.
This was all just an illusion built by the Dark Lord. He had turned the house of his Muggle grandparents into the headquarters of the Death Eaters. It had worked very successfully. Who would have suspected that Voldemort would have moved to a small town in the south of England?
The surroundings had been wearing him down, though. He needed to get out; his history on the Muggle side had actually been getting to him.
He then spoke to his servant, Wormtail.
"Wormtail, we have been failing miserably. Simply murdering nomads in the Middle East will not lead us to our goal."
"We have been given some information, my Lord."
"This will not be able to get me the Eternal Cup. Fool, Wormtail, don't you understand? All our other efforts have failed. Protection from his mother saved Potter and near destroyed me, Potter blocked my attempt to get the Sorcerer's Stone five years ago, 4 years ago he destroyed Tom Riddle's diary. Priori Incantatem saved Potter two years ago, and then last year, out of sheer blundering I am told, he thwarts me again by destroying the prophecy. We then went on to anger him even more and put him even harder toiling against me by killing Black. Without the cup, I will not have the requirements to build the Sorcerer's Stone and defeat Harry Potter. Without his defeat, I will have NOTHING!"
"But my Lord-"
"Wormtail, I will not have any more of your "buts." Again it is time that you experience some pain to teach you to not blunder when serving the Dark Lord. Crucio!"
Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke up, screaming.
He was quite glad that in his first letter to the Order, he had had Lupin pop into his room, without the Dursleys even knowing, to put a Silencing Charm on his room that was active only when Harry told it to be. This had helped him a lot, since this summer Harry was more miserable than he had been all the previous summers combined. On most nights, he would uneasily fall asleep, then an hour later wake up screaming. Every night since he had returned to Number Four, Privet Drive, Harry had had dreams. Horrible dreams. Dreams of first his parents dying, then Cedric dying, and finally Sirius dying.
Sirius…
Just the thought of the only "family" he had ever had in his life brought tears to his eyes. Sirius Black had been the best friend of his parents, and his godfather. For twelve years imprisoned in the wizard's prison, Azkaban, for a crime he did not commit, Black, at the first news he got that Harry might be in danger, had escaped from the prison and come to Hogwarts to protect Harry. Wormtail, the real perpetrator of the crime, had been uncovered to a few, but before Sirius's name could be cleared, Wormtail had escaped. To flee from capture, Sirius had left, aboard a hippogriff named Buckbeak. He had returned, while Harry was having problems with his scar hurting, and had been one of the first wizards back in the fold of the fight against Voldemort.
Harry was unusual even considering that he was a wizard preparing for his sixth year at Hogwarts School. He had grown to at least six feet, not that he had an accurate measurement. On his face usually resided a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Behind them were startling emerald green eyes, and above his eyes on his forehead was a lightning bolt scar.
This scar was what made Harry most unusual. It was the surviving memento of his first defeat of the darkest wizard in a thousand years, Lord Voldemort (whose name many people still feared to speak). On Halloween when Harry was one year old, Voldemort had shown up at the Potters' house. Harry knew how it happened. He knew how, tipped off by a prophecy to kill Harry, Voldemort had come after him when he was an infant; knew how his father, James, had tried to head off Voldemort and give his mother and Harry time to escape; knew how his mother, Lily, had plead with Voldemort to kill her instead. Voldemort had killed her, too, before finally turning his wand on Harry…
And there he had met the downfall of his first reign of terror. Harry had survived, Voldemort had transferred some of his powers to Harry, and the curse had rebounded on Voldemort, leaving nothing but a scar on Harry. Powers gone, horribly weakened, bodiless, Voldemort had fled…
But two years ago he had returned. Through an ancient potion, Lord Voldemort had risen again, then tried to kill Harry once more, but was thwarted by the core of his wand, a phoenix feather given by the same phoenix that gave the feather in Harry's wand.
The Dursleys were what had made his summers the past few years miserable. The Dursleys were the only blood relatives he had left. Aunt Petunia was his mother's sister, but she treated him like dirt, even if he was family. The Dursleys were what were called Muggles by the wizarding world. They had not a drop of wizarding blood in their bodies, and were very normal. For the first ten years of Harry's life there, since he had been left on their doorstep fifteen years ago, they had kept him as downtrodden as possible, hoping to squash the magic out of him. Alas, they had failed, and Harry had taken up at Hogwarts. The Dursleys had gone on to explain that he spent his school time at St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys.
He quietly walked over to his desk, pulled out a quill and parchment, and began to write.
Dear Moony,
Thanks for ducking in for that Silencing Charm. It's helped me a lot with the Dursleys.
The reason I'm writing is another dream I had, like the visions I have been having. I was watching through Voldemort's eyes. Apparently we were in the same house as the one I had the vision of two years ago. Dumbledore will know where that is. He was talking to Wormtail, discussing plans he had involving the Eternal Cup. Apparently his plans have not worked well, and he put the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail to vent his anger.
Do you have any idea what it means? If so, tell me.
Harry
Harry looked over the letter, thought it covered all bases appropriately, and walked over to Hedwig's cage. His snowy owl was wide awake.
"Up to flying to London?"
Hedwig clicked her beak. He took that to mean 'yes.'
He tied the letter to her leg.
"Off you go, then. Send it to Moony."
She nodded, nipped his finger affectionately, spread her wings, and launched herself into the moonlight.
In a suburb of London, another witch was wide awake at the moment. Hermione Granger had had trouble sleeping ever since she had gotten home from Hogwarts. She was fraught with worry: some about the situation the wizarding world was in with the new threat of Voldemort, but mostly about her best friend, Harry Potter.
She was extremely worried about Harry. He had ever so much pressure on him since he started at Hogwarts, being the boy who lived. She, as Harry would readily admit, was one of the only people to see Harry as Harry instead of the boy who lived.
Funny, there was a flutter around her chest every time she thought about Harry, meaning her chest flutter almost all the time. She decided to check with her mother to see what that might mean in the morning.
But for now, she laid down, as did the black-haired boy on Privet Drive, both falling into an uneasy sleep.