Power Struggles

Prologue: Shadows of the Past

His long fingers caressed the dry crackling pages, making a lazy waft of perfume tickle his nose, as his eyes drifted across the large clear words on the book. Furrows appeared across the man's forehead and his foot tapped a slow beat on the plasti-marble floor. Unconsciously his fingers came up and pushed a lock of red hair out of his face.

He flipped a page slowly, concentration exuding from him, making his hallowed features appear almost interesting. He pursed his thin lips as his left hand unconsciously traced the entwined R and H on the cover.

Ron and Hermione Weasley. The most celebrated and remembered couple of their time. Of course, there was their school friend Harry Potter, famous since birth, but his fame diminished with age, whereas theirs only increased. Every magical child born in the past hundred years had to study this text, but this wasn't why the man was reading it with such intensity.

There was a dry sound as another page was flipped.

No, the man was reading his history - his family history. He was reading an account of the struggles of his ancestors after the Dark War. Political struggles. Social struggles. Economical struggles. But none of these interested the man. He was interested in the personal struggles, the pain of being a pariah, and the stigma that his ancestress was labelled with. Double-D. A blessing... yet a curse.

The society after the Dark War was fragile. Trust had to be rebuilt along with the buildings surrounding Diagon Alley. Muggles had to be pacified, for terror rampaged through the world's largest cities telling of strange men and women who killed with light. People were angry, angry for the pain that had come to their families. The bubbling, simmering anger had been bottled up in the Years of Peace had only just been set free to burn its course. But most of all, the people were afraid.

The people remembered. They remembered a charming boy who grew into the Dark Lord. They remembered the smiling ministry officials who donned black cloaks after dark. They remembered the betrayal that ripped at society's fabric. They were afraid of difference, of change. They clung to the old ways and shunned the new. They ostracised the different, allowing seeds of hatred to blossom.

The man's breath caught in his throat. His ancestress - Hermione Weasley - was different. She was Double-D.