The Rebels

    Harry Potter could see the moon above his window at number 4 Privet Drive. The sight was welcomed, though it reminded him of the tragic night at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, the night of Lord Voldemort´s rebirth. That night had changed him, in ways he had yet to discover. He had lost his boyish face; his eyes, once an emerald green had darkened and hardened and were marked by pain and sorrow. He was surrounded by an almost palpable aura of power and in the mirror he could see a young man, handsome and terrible. It was a tragic beauty, brought on by too much pain and suffering.

    A shadow crossed the moon and some minutes later Hedwig landed on his outstretched arm.

     "Hi girl, what have you got for me? More bad news?"

    Since The Dark Lord´s return to power, not a day passed by without some tragic death or another attack on Muggles.

    He untied the letter from her leg and gave her an affectionate pat. Afterwards, he begun to read, dreading what he would find out.

    Dear Harry,

    Things are getting worse by the day. With the Ministry´s pathetic denial of You-Know-Who´s rebirth the Dark Lord is having very little trouble rising to power. If things go on much longer, I think there will be no coming back. In a matter of weeks, if nothing is done, we will be in very big trouble.

    There was another attack on an old wizarding family. The Bruges are all dead except for their oldest daughter who is in St. Mungo´s in deep catatonia. They were a pureblood family, always on the light side. It´s strange to see You-Know-Who killing purebloods. He usually put them under Imperius or something, at least that´s what Dad told us. Apparently, You-Know-Who is being much more violent than he was on his first reign. I think he wants to get revenge for all his years of suffering, and as he has no one to blame, except you, he blames the whole world. It´s sick!

    Fudge has discovered a few of Dumbledore´s operatives and he is threatening to make him resign as Hogwarts´ Headmaster. Can you imagine what Hogwarts would be like, without Dumbledore? But the Minister isn´t as powerful as he was before. People are beginning to stand up to him, to ask for answers concerning all the dead people. With a bit of luck, they will make a few changes. We are in desperate need of a decent Minister.

    Hermione left yesterday for America. Dumbledore thought it would be much safer for her to leave the country, at least for the holidays (as she can´t perform magic and she is a likely target as a Muggle-born and one of your best friends). I guess she will enjoy herself. At least she didn´t go to Bulgaria.

Write back soon,

Ron

ps: Dad has asked Dumbledore if you could spend the rest of your vacations with us, but apparently, for some odd reason, he thinks you are safer there than here, in a house full of wizards.

pps: Mum is asking if you need some food or anything of this kind. Are the Muggles bad on you? Ginny says hi.

    Reading the last part of the letter, he sighed disappointedly. Apparently he would be stuck with the Dursleys for the rest of the holidays, feeling utterly useless. He hated to hide while other people died instead of him. Everyone knew that the person Voldemort wanted was Harry. Except that Harry didn´t fear him anymore, he was simply angry. Especially when he would wake up in the middle of the night to the horrible feelings that would wash over him. The pain in his scar, the nightmares, were nothing compared to this. He could feel what the Dark Lord felt.

    After that night, he had become a part of Voldemort and in return, Voldemort had become a part of him. Their connection that existed since the failure of the Killing Curse that had banished the Dark Lord to ruin for twelve years, had now fortified him as their mutual hatred had grown.

    And Harry was stuck at his uncle´s house, feeling utterly useless. In those moments, he thanked the gods for his daily chores. He was sure he would have gone crazy if he hadn´t had anything to distract his mind, so he just worked as if his life depended on it and at night studied as he had never studied before. He was in danger of knowing his books by heart, just like Mione always knew hers. And in the wee hours, he would fall in bed so exhausted that he blacked out and thankfully didn´t dream.

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    Ginny Weasley was seated at the big kitchen table at the Burrow. A small part of her mind noticed that Fred and George were sitting very quietly in a corner of the room, creating more pranks, for sure. Ron had a book in his lap, which was something rather unusual, but she was getting used to it by now.

    In fact, she was engrossed by her own depressing thoughts. She had a strange feeling of unreality. All the suffering, the deaths, and the pain around her weren´t real. She lost herself in the strange world of her own fantasies. In this state between consciousness and unconsciousness, she was seeing, as if in a film, all the most painful moments of her life, feeling the same pain, remembering the fear. She abandoned herself to the feeling, let her mind reel with the images. She remembered moments of her life, which she had willed herself to forget. At last she saw a baby, with bright red hair in her mother's arms, a baby which she didn´t recognize. And it all ended with a bright flash of green light.

    Waking with a start, she got up and ran to her room, she didn´t understand what had just happened, but she knew she had to think. She stopped in front of the big mirror in the living room. She had always thought she was lucky, as her skin, by some miracle of nature, didn´t have a single freckle and her hair, instead of the bright red of her brothers was a dark copper. She wasn´t a little girl anymore, she noticed, smiling slightly. She would need new robes this year.

    Looking at herself, she noticed that her face was very pale against her hair and that her cheeks were tear stained; she just hoped that no one had noticed. Suddenly she remembered the last image she had seen. She tried, with all her mind to remember the exact scene and slowly, it came to her, each part separately. Her mother seated in the living room, a baby in her arms. It wasn´t her, nor any of her brothers, she had seen photos of all of them, although it had the traditional Weasley hair. And she saw herself, as a baby, seated on the floor, at her mother´s feet and that she had seen it all through her younger self´s point of view. She had no idea who the baby was, but she wanted desperately to find out.

    But not now, she was tired, exhausted in fact, although she hadn´t been tired just a few minutes before. She felt the same as when a Dementor had passed nearby; she remembered what it was like, from her second year. Not a pleasant feeling at all, especially for her. At least she didn´t faint like Harry...

    She mounted the stairs slowly, as her body wasn´t responding properly to her brain. She couldn´t quite understand what had just happened to her, she didn´t know if it was bad or good, or if she was simply losing her mind. Maybe she should spend some more time in the library, and adopt Hermione´s motto: "When in doubt, search in books, there is always an answer in them".

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    Hermione Granger sat in her small hotel room, a spell book on her knees. But her mind wasn´t on her book; that was only a link to what she had left behind. She longed for Hogwarts and the entire magic world. Longed for her friends and her classes. She didn´t feel at home in the Muggle world anymore, she didn´t belong to it. She was a witch. And a powerful one at that. In spite of everything, she hadn´t been able to help Harry. He had suffered, and she hadn´t been able to help. What was all her knowledge worth if she couldn´t help a friend? She could see her reflection in the window. It was strange that her body chose to change at such a time as this. Each day she became more of the beautiful girl that had walked into the Yule Ball on Victor´s arm. She smiled as she remembered just how jealous Ron had been. It had been exactly what she wanted. To make him notice her, to make him see that she was a woman. She knew she had been cruel, but you can´t just sit and wait forever for your long-time crush to notice you. One day or another, you end up doing something.

    And then, there was Harry. She wasn´t sure how he would react if she and Ron became a couple. Last year, she wouldn´t have been very concerned about it, but now... He had suffered a lot during the last school year, she really didn´t want him to feel like he had lost his friends. Because he wouldn´t. She knew things would not be the same but she would always be there for him, and Ron would, too. At least she really hoped they would. The fact is, as you grow older sometimes you must make sacrifices in order to have what you want, or, in this case, who you want. She was quite sure that she loved Ron, despite the fact that she might be too young to know what love really was. But they had been friends for so long, she felt she knew him as well as, if not better than himself. She just hoped that Harry would find someone who loved him and he loved in return, someone who would help him heal.

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    Ronald Weasley was lying in his orange bedroom in the Burrow. He wasn´t doing anything really, just thinking. People usually didn´t notice, but he did think a lot. He was different from Harry, who usually did things and afterwards dealt with the consequences. He thought before acting, not that anyone noticed him as anything but Harry´s best mate.

    Harry had changed after that night. A cold shiver went down Ron´s spine. Dark times were coming, he knew it, he could see it in the news, he could feel it in the way people talked, not trusting as it once had been, but distant, afraid. He had no idea what he would do. People seemed to think that, as Harry´s friend, he would throw himself in front of a killing curse, or something just as foolish as that. But there was one thing that he had learned after so many years of studying with that prat, Malfoy. That was your life is worth more to you, than that of almost anyone else in the world.

    He smiled. He could imagine the answer Harry would most certainly give if he heard him saying that. Then, he was always the noblest one of the three, brave, reckless and noble. Hermione was always the intelligent one, probably the smartest witch to attend Hogwarts in a century, she must be proud of herself. But who was he? He had always been the third one, useless mostly, although no one would ever admit it. He felt he must be the one who gave moral support, rather than someone who did anything. He hated himself for being so useless, he felt he needed to do something. What was useful in times like these? He didn´t think that being a hero and getting himself killed was one of those things. He would much rather have a Dark life than a glorious death, but of course a glorious life was very appealing, too. Probably the thing he wanted the most in the hole world. And he would do anything to achieve it. Anything at all.

    He was thinking like Malfoy again... Bad influences.

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    Draco Malfoy sprawled on his king-sized bed, in his chambers inside Malfoy Manor. He wondered what his father would say if he ever saw him in such a position; he was always so tight about posture and manners. His father... He hadn´t seen him all summer, he was so busy serving the Dark Lord. His father, so proud, so full of vanity, the person that would punish him for the slightest wrinkle in a shirt and that now would kiss another´s man robes while crawling in front of him. It was so disgusting! And for what? Some more power? In his opinion, the Malfoy family had power enough and didn´t need to humiliate itself for anymore of it.

    Apparently, this wasn´t his father's opinion of the Dark Lord. He was great and powerful and would dominate the world. It was stupid really. Malfoys had a passion for power and success, but they were never ever ruled by anyone before. Malfoys ruled themselves. And his father had broken this tradition. The most important tradition of the Malfoy family.

    It was despicable. Humiliating. Malfoys may practice the Dark Arts, they might be cruel and cold hearted, but that was their way of relating to people, and it wasn´t necessarily bad. There was a huge difference between a Dark Wizard and an Evil Wizard. Malfoys were Dark, but not necessarily Evil. But there was one thing a true Malfoy never did, and that was they never, ever knelt to anyone. It had all changed when his father became the head of the family. He wanted power for himself, not for their family. And that would be the doom of everything his ancestors had struggled to build. Because of the greed of one member, an entire empire had fallen. His father may try to hide it, but the fact was that the Malfoys weren´t nearly as powerful as they had been for the last five centuries. He hoped he might change that once he inherited the Malfoy fortune. He wanted to restore his family to its former Glory.