Prologue
A New Beginning
Walking along the wood panelled floor of the pier Harry couldn't help but realize something dumb about what was happening, well something dumb other than the obvious he thought grimly. He knew the pier wasn't actually made of just wood, but this one at Bournemouth tried to make it look like it was, and he couldn't think why. Wood crumbled when touched by water over time, and Harry knew this wasn't the look the designers desired, so why not choose a metal, and thus safer, look instead? The only answer he could think of was that it was in fact made of just wood, and thus if he stayed on it for long enough he would eventually fall into the water when it crashed back down. Harry didn't like the idea of that, not one little bit.
`This is going to be sooo cool!' his friend said. While both of his friends were excited about what was coming, he couldn't help but dread it, the idea was just plain out stupid from his opinion. But to back out now wasn't a path he could walk, he didn't want to be the coward amongst his friends, so here he was walking to what could be his death. He had to admit he probably wouldn't die, but there was a chance. However small.
As they approached the end all three of them stopped in silence, each of them viewing the sea as if an enemy who was standing in their way. Moments passed by like minutes, each one of them not willing to take action first. In a moment that somehow seemed to both last forever in slow motion, but be over so quickly that he would never remember it properly, the friend to his left took a step forward, went over the railing and disappeared in a fall from the pier, the sound of an excited scream being all that was left of her. Harry took a step closer and peered cautiously over the edge, expecting to see something that would scar him for life.
"Get in, Harry, its gorgeous!" the dark haired girl yelped as she treaded water, Harry however did not quite believe her words. A 30 foot plunge off a pier into freezing cold water seemed a lot of things, none of which we're gorgeous.
"Watch this!" his friend shouted in excitement as he threw himself over the barrier, Harry's stomach dropping as he saw him do a simple yet excellent turn in the air before he hit the waters top. Bouts of cheering from the on lookers dropped Harry's stomach even more than before, and as he looked around at them he got the sight he knew he would, all their eyes now watching him as the last of the trio of today's pier divers. Both of his friends had already gone, both having landed it well, and even Harry knew that at least one in three messed up their dive and was the butt of laughs from the gathered crowds, which had often had him laughing in it at others. And now Harry was the last of three, and so the odds laid against him. Harry looked over the edge to see his friends, both of whom were having a play fight as they treaded water awaiting his jump.
"Come on Harry!" the girl screamed at the same time as she was hit by a volley of water from the other guy.
"Yeah, don't be so chicken, just jump on in!" he shouted up, making Harry take a step closer to the edge, now half his body hanging over the edge. He knew he must look less like an Olympic diver and more like a suicidal man preparing for that final lunge, than he would think was ideal. Looking down he watched as her hair bounced up and down on the waters top, bobbing up and down on the pretty rough water that you had when you on the end of a pier. It's pretty much the ocean out here, Harry thought to himself. And that was the problem. With most people it was the 20 or 30 foot drop that made them pause for thought, Harry didn't only not care about heights, but positively loved them. He felt free when he was high up, looking down like a bird on its flight, or an angel from the heavens. The problem was the rough water smashing its way up against the wooden foundations of the pier. He watched as the waves smashed so powerfully against these large blocks of wood that they seemed to reach their entire heights. Harry didn't like the idea of being in that water, he didn't even really enjoy being in a swimming pool, and no one ever drowned in the Dolphin Centre swimming pool. Drowning was very much a chance out this far on the edge of England.
"Hurry up, Kate's getting lonely!" his friend shouted from the waters edge getting a hearty laugh from her.
"If you don't hurry I might just be kissing Mike here instead tonight!" she shouted up at him giggling slightly.
Looking back towards the beach front, he guessed that it was about a 150 metres back to shore, in a swimming pool he could definitely make that, out here he wasn't so sure. Harry just wasn't a very natural swimmer. He looked along the peer and saw that now the on lookers were either whispering among themselves or shouting out mild insults at Harry as his hesitancy was still getting the better of him. There was no way Harry could bear to just give up and walk back past all of them, most of who would be taunting him mercilessly. But still he just couldn't bring himself to actually step over the edge and let himself plunge into that water. Harry grinned as he thought of the possibility that maybe he could just live on that spot on the pier for the rest of his life, scavenging for food amongst all the seagulls, ever a constant source of enjoyment for the travelling kids who could laugh at the worlds biggest choker.
He watched for a moment as Kate splashed water, giggling her head off as she treaded water with ease. It was all her fault, Harry told himself. He had been going out with her for pretty much two years now, since the beginning of year ten at Poole High, the school he had just finished a few months previously. And it had been her idea the whole time they were together that once they got their GCSE results, and thus had fully finished with school for the rest of their lives, then the three of them would have to jump off this pier as a `right of passage', as she called it. Mike loved the idea, Harry hated it. The two of them together hadn't let the idea slip, and Harry had spent months just looking at the pier like it was some sort of horrible Dragon, a test that stood directly in his way of leaving adolescence behind and becoming a man.
"You!" he heard a mans' voice shout at him, instantly breaking him from his inner dialogue. He watched as a security man bustled his way through the crowd of spectators, lots of whom were now shouting for him to hurry. "Get away from that edge now!"
Time seemed to stand still for a moment, he watched as the security guard closed in on him in seeming slow motion. Unconscious of why he was doing it he lifted his right foot, tilted his body towards the edge, and after a shocking moment of realization at what he was doing, he pushed himself off the edge.
Falling through the air felt like he had actually moved to a new world, a world where the law of physics didn't apply, where he floated and fell according to the push of the wind. He could feel the quick wind pushing through his hair, trying to push hard against his eyes, but neither of this provoked any danger in him, it felt just like a cool fan. Moments seemed to pass into minutes as his mind relaxed in the beautiful feeling of free falling, all thoughts or fear evaporated completely from him. He could do this for the rest of his life and never feel anything other than joy. Suddenly, and violently, he was snatched from this new wonderful world as he felt the sting of impact, which for an instance he couldn't place, until he felt the cool sting of water flooding over his eyes and mouth, invading his ears like some cold sucking fog. The feeling of drifting, of falling, through the water as the gravity and speed pulled him down was infinitely times worse than the fall. When he was falling he felt free, no pressure or surface against him other than the exercise of the wind in pushing back his hair, now though water was on all sides of him, seeming to crush him with their presence. And as he kicked his legs he wasn't really doing it to surface, but on the hope that he could escape the prison of this water cage, and get back to the freedom of the air.
As his face broke through the dark of the water and out into the brilliance of air, he felt it coursing through his lungs, not like air but like life itself, and the sun with its bright light blinding his eyes, saving him from the infinite darkness that the water held. In that moment the brightness of the sun seemed like Heaven casting light down into the depths of hell.
And when he heard the cheers from the crowds that accompanied every single successful dive, he felt like each and every one of them was directly cheering for him, for his brief found heaven, for his freedom.
For his passage out of childhood. For his beginning of being a man.
And, Harry grinned, for one absolutely flawless dive.
*
That's chapter one, hope it was alright. Story starts next chapter, so go and read that before judging it. This beginning was more for symbolism than any story, so really it's a little prologue.
Seeing as none of the story will quite be like this, and is very plot and character driven, please review and let me know what you think.
Oh, and for you people who don't know the English Education system (I'm guessing most here!), you take your GCSE's at 16. So this means that this chapter is set during the summer before Hogwarts Year Six…
Jms Granger…
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