Prologue
31st October 1981
Mr and Mrs Dursley of Number 4 Privet Drive are proud to say that they are perfectly normal, thank you very much - or as normal as an average human being is capable of. They are the last people you’d accuse of anything strange, simply because they aren’t the sort of people who hold on with all that nonsense and such things.
In fact, they’re so particularly normal that they live in the standard type of small semi-attached housing that you get all around their cul-de-sac, deposited right at the far end, and have a very normal car; the same old model in the same old grey that you can find everywhere in their little neighbourhood.
Mr Dursley is a big, beefy man with an excess of facial hair sitting upon his wobbly upper lip, and an observable lack of neck. He’s the director of a firm called Grunnings, which makes drills of the best quality. Mrs Dursley is quite the opposite, in nearly every way; a thin, wiry woman with strawberry blonde hair and a tinge of ginger at the very bottom, and twice the usual amount of neck, which she finds is very useful, seeing as she spends most of her spare time craning her head over the back garden fence that separates each semi-attachment, simply to spy and gossip on whichever unfortunate neighbour is available at the time.
All in all, most can describe them as being the perfect pair. One can always account for something the other can not, and they share the same sort of attitude on most things.
The couple also have a young child called Dudley; a little chubby baby with stubby hands and equally stubby feet, who they argue is the most finest boy in the world - none finer could be found anywhere on the planet.
So really, the Dursley’s have everything they could want in life, but they also have many secrets (as people are wont to do) and their greatest fear happens to be someone discovering them. The Dursley’s would never be able to bear the shame that would ensue, if someone finds out about the Potter’s. The Potter’s were family through marriage - Mrs Dursley’s younger sister was Mrs Potter, though neither have spoken in years (and how glad Mrs Dursley is for it. Truly. It’s a blessing); in fact, Mrs Dursely pretends she has no siblings at all, because her sister, and her sister’s good-for-nothing husband, and those strange, strange friends they call family are as unDursleyish and abnormal as one could possibly be. Furthermore, they had always seemed proud of it. What a disgrace.
Mrs Dursley also knows of the child her sister harboured - his name was Harvey, or possibly Harold - and it was all the more incentive to stay away from the Potter’s: they don’t want Dudley mixing with a weird child like that.
Yes, Mrs Dursley is so very delighted that she and her sister are estranged - she wouldn’t even care if she dropped dead.
***
In the West County of England, in a small little cottage, in a small little town, situated on a small little street, the silver gate of a particular abode creaks open ominously. The gate creaks open, and with the swish of a thin oaken wand, the door follows shortly. A young man comes running into the hallway, wearing a ridiculous jumper; his feet are bare and the brown skin upon his face is painted oddly. His dark hair is mussed up and sticking out at awkward angles, and he bears panic, and fear and also a sense of acceptance.
Within the house, there is a notable absence of hope.
However, the biggest absence undoubtedly is the wand, neither in his hand nor residing in his pocket, but still lying between the seats of their dark-red, upholstered sofa, lost between the TV remote and a discoloured and fraying rat toy that have been abandoned there. Funny really, how irony can be such a bitch. Those which are abandoned often are the ones that are capable of making the greatest change. What a shame that no one ever notices until it is far too late. Yes, what a shame indeed.
The man is shouting while trying to futile blockade the stairs, and the sound is so very irritating; it takes only a moment for the spell to be castand then a green light shoots out from his wand, a body revealed in the aftermath. Lying upon the floor, limbs spread out at awful angles, the marionette’s strings have been cut. All he really was, was a puppet. Still, it’s sad how quickly a life of 21 years can be snuffed out in mere seconds.
It angers.
It invigorates.
Ever so slightly, the world seems to go a tad dimmer. The sun will never shine as bright.
He steps over the body, cloak swishing along the corpse, before he glides up the stairs, slowly ascending. Somewhere, there is a child sobbing, and he follows the sound knowing he will soon meet his opponent.
When he reaches the doorway, he nearly laughs because of course, she would try to protect the child. After all, a mother’s love is too deep to abandon the thing they are forged to nurture, even when it would save their life.
He is magnanimous enough to ask, to give her the option of survival; a favour to a loyal servant. Unfortunately, the wench foolishly declines, instead begging and crying with her emerald eyes glimmering like uncut gems. In return he gives her the mercy of a quick and painless death, even though the dark core residing within him is imploring him to hurt and maim. She drops just as swiftly as her husband, hair fanning around her body in a halo of glowing flames. Maybe he should have taken that as a sign, that doom was to come. Death was chasing him, just as it had for them.
He missed it.
The wand then turns on the bawling child in the crib, who blinks up at him through tear-filled green eyes which are identical to his mother’s and a wailing brown face, which he inherited from his father. He cannot find it within himself to care; to feel sorry or apologise. Those worthless human emotions are long past him now. It’s the last time he’s going to cast this very spell tonight; however, he didn’t expect the backfire.
The green light rebounds, and all he feels is unimaginable as his body is ripped apart and his soul shatters.
***
The residents of Godric’s Hollow are awoken that night by flashes of green house within what was once a loving home, and a bawling infant in a destroyed house.
None shall forget this night, though many will forget the existence of those lost.
***
Sirius feels it all at once, as if someone has come at his very being with a cruel dagger.
The part of his soul that was lost as he was made, the portion that he had reconnected with in a boxed compartment upon a moving train at the ripe age of 11 disappears with an anguished shriek - torn from his clutches and never to be returned, not in this lifetime.
Sirius Black is dazzling - of that there is no doubt. He is a star and he shone brightly without James Potter, but he truly had glowed when the two were united.
One star dims, while another goes out, dying on a dreary night.
Sirius feels it all at once, and oh, how it hurts.
Oh, it hurts.
It hurts, hurts,
hurts,
hurts.
***
The wolf glares at the moon in anger, already ravaged by the glowing orb. It’s not until he feels the way his heart is being shredded that he finally howls at the ghostly galleon that hangs along the midnight canvas.
He bellows gutturally, as the magic dissipates.
The pack around him fells in terror, as the monster curls up and starts to wail.
His pack is gone.
***
The rat squeaks once: a frail sound that no one takes notice of, as usual. Large watery eyes stare up at the full moon in longing, as tears pool in the beds.
This was his choice.
There is no turning back now.
Nevertheless, he knows a betrayal has occurred, and he will regret everything before the sun has come up. He will reap what he has sown, before the night is done.
Instead of dwelling on his actions, the rat turns tail and flees.
***
Petunia Dursley wakes that same night with a loud gasp, doused in sweat which layers her body like a second skin. She breathes in and finds that she’s struggling; the air is nothing but lead and her lungs are too weak, too fragile to carry the weight of it. The sound of distant cries seems to ring throughout the room, seeping in from her nightmare, and she peers around the dark room, searching - searching for a sobbing child and a screaming sister, who’s shrieking her name. She’s their salvation, and yet salvation is too far gone for them to truly reach.
Petunia Dursley was estranged from her sister. She wouldn’t even care if she dropped dead.
Yet still, a shred of fear and doubt perseveres, digging its claws into that whole where her heart had lost a part of itself so many years ago. The screams continue to penetrate her dreams, forming words of rotting flowers, up until the sun rises, dim but nonetheless still there.
Small and timid, and waiting for its time to shine.
For most, life went on the same. For the ones that mattered, it would have been better if it had not.