Visitor from the Future

Chapter 1: Beginning and the Visitor

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Kill the Spare.

Come on, you can do better than that!

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Kill the Spare.

...The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...

Lily! It's Him! Take Harry and run!

Voices cry out in pain and fear.

Crucio!

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

...Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...

Flashes of bright lights: sickly greens, blood reds, vibrant purples, all flash around like a strange kaleidoscope...

Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!

Crucio!

More terrifying screams echo, and now shadowy faces accompany the voices...

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Kill the spare.

Avada Kedarva!

...Either must die at the hand of the other...

Crucio!

Have mercy!

A flash of bright red light, and, as it fades, all that is seen is a tattered veil, hanging in a stone archway, fluttering slightly...

Avada Kedarva!

More screaming...

Crucio!

More flashes of light...

...Either must die at the hand of the other for nei-

In the smallest bedroom of Number 4 Privet Drive, Harry Potter shoots up in bed.

The small, common night sounds seem overly loud to him. The water faucet in the bathroom down the hall is dripping loudly, each droplet pounding into the spotless sink basin. The snoring of the Dursleys is loud and terrifying, like wild animals. The sound of the wind outside sounds as harsh as a gale force, and even the almost non-existent sounds of the highway, miles away, can be heard by Harry. For some time, Harry just sits there, frozen stiff as a statue, trying to make sense of all the sounds invading his brain.

When the sounds finally fade back to normal, Harry brings his knees to his chest and buries his face in them. As the nightmares come back to him, Harry rocks back and forth, trying to stop the sobbing and shuddering that is overtaking his overly-thin 15-year old body.

The terrible apparitions that plague this young teenager are not normal nightmares, brought on by some horror film on the television, or through the latest horror novel. They are as different as Harry Potter is, which certainly says something, since Harry is no ordinary boy, by any far stretch of the word. Harry Potter is a wizard, who has just finished his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hidden high up in the northern Scottish highlands. Back at his relatives, the Dursleys, home for the summer, Harry is "the freak," "the delinquent," and any of the other numerous names that the Dursleys themselves have given him, because of his "abnormality."

Harry's relatives are not magical you see. His aunt Petunia, sister of Harry's mother Lily, his uncle Vernon, and their son Dudley are Muggles, non-magical people, who detest anything out of the ordinary or strange, including Harry, as well as the rest of the wizarding world in general.

Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter, were magical though. Well-liked by many, and staunch supporters of the Light, the Potters gave their lives fighting the Dark Lord Voldemort when Harry was just one year old. After Voldemort had ruthlessly murdered James and Lily, he had turned on young Harry. Using an evil curse that is supposedly unblockable, which had taken down countless powerful and well-trained wizards and witches before, Voldemort tried to kill the young child. However, the curse somehow rebounded off of Harry, who had been protected because of his mother's sacrifice, and hit Voldemort. Reduced to nothing more than a spirit, Voldemort fled, and the house the Potters had lived in was destroyed. Harry was rescued from the ruins, and brought to the Dursleys' home on Privet Drive.

While the wizarding world celebrated the end of an 11-year Reign of Terror by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, a young boy was left in the "care" of his last blood relatives for ten years. Those ten years however, were not peaceful or happy for Harry. Abuse after abuse, psychological, emotional, and physical, was heaped on the young boy, leaving this hero of the wizarding world, called The-Boy-Who-Lived, with numerous scars, both visible and invisible.

After being rescued from the Dursleys, and being brought back to the wizarding world, Harry was thrust into the spotlight, and experienced many adventures, some were good, though many were bad. Fighting Voldemort at only 11 years old and again at 12, Harry saw terrifying examples of how dark wizards can go. All that however, was pale in comparison to the past year. Watching Voldemort being reborn, a classmate being murdered in front of him, being tortured, and barely escaping with his life, Harry's childhood truly ended, if it had ever really begun in the first place. The months following were just adding insult to injury, culminating in Harry losing the one adult he had truly begun to trust, his godfather, Sirius Black.

Sirius Black had been accused of selling out the Potters to Voldemort and of 13 counts of murder, and was sentenced to life in the wizarding prison, Azkaban. He was innocent, however, framed by a former friend, Peter Pettigrew, more commonly known as Wormtail because of the rat form he could take as an Animagus, and had escaped only three years ago. The two years Harry had spent getting to know Sirius were the happiest he had, because, in Sirius, Harry found an adult figure he could see trusting explicitly. He had even planned on admitting to Sirius what his childhood with the Dursleys had really been like after the end of this past term. That however, was dashed when Sirius fell through the Veil of Death at the Ministry of Magic only a few weeks before, murdered by his own cousin, the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange.

So, Harry had returned to Privet Drive, numbed by his grief, and the recent knowledge that he was the only one who could kill Voldemort for good, courtesy of a Prophecy told by a Seer to Hogwarts' Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. In the weeks since summer holiday had begun, Harry hadn't been eating much, and had been unable to get more than two hours of sleep a night because of the nightmares. As a result, Harry, who was experiencing a growth spurt, shooting him up to a height of 5'10", was incredibly thin. His bones were easily seen if Harry didn't wear his oversized jumpers and jeans, which he had been given after Dudley, who was a whale of a boy, had grown out of them. Harry's face was drawn and tight, his eyes, normally a bright, vibrant green, like his mother's, were sunken and dull. His messy hair, just like his father's, was growing long and shaggy, and even more out of control than usual, which many would have considered an impossible feat.

As Harry's sobs tapered off, and his shudders ceased, Harry finally looked up, peering blindly around at his room, for his glasses were on the nightstand next to his bed. However, instead of seeing his small, messy room, Harry saw, in crystal clarity, a gray mist surrounding him, the room around him shrouded and almost hidden from view. That, however, was not what made the small gasp leave Harry's lips before he could stop it. His surprise was centered mostly on the figure near where his bedroom door should have been.

Long molten-caramel colored wavy hair was draped over the woman standing there in a dress with a full-length, flowing skirt and fitted bodice, all in a deep silvery-grey color, with what could only be described as golden sparkles covering it like a fine mist. The most remarkable thing was not this attire, nor the woman's sapphire-blue eyes, but the large, majestic wings coming off of her back, like an angel's. The woman's mouth turned up into a small, gentle smile, and in an exotic, almost hypnotic, soft voice, she addressed the frozen teen on the small bed under the window.

"Hello, Harry. Do not be frightened, for I mean you no harm, but it is imperative that I speak with you, for the future of the worlds is at a crossroads, with all roads leading straight to you, my child."

With that strange greeting, the gray mist intensified, and Harry suddenly found himself standing next to the woman in a swirling void, far away from Privet Drive.