Transformation

Transformation

Chapter 1: Invisibility

Morning had come to Godric's Hollow. First, the golden ball of fire came over the distant hills, extending its arms towards the black sky. The reds began to dance across the early morning sky, twirling with their grace and fire. The pinks came out, and subtly helped the sun on its journey, unnoticed. A goldenrod came out, and sang its solo with the sun, as they all rose in harmony. The cloudless sky slowly turned the color of the foaming sea. At long last, the sun cleared the hills, the sky turned the deepest blue, and the colors began to drop out. Soon, only the sun remained singing, its low bass resounding through the mountains.

On the top of one of the mountains, a shadow watched the orchestra. It stood breathlessly, watching the morning unfold in the silence of the world below. The shadow heard the different voices singing through the colors, heard the individual songs. When the sun rose to its full height, the boy on the hill turned his face to the sun, humming his own tune. To anyone listening, it would sound like a strange, unnatural song, a song without melody, a song with almost no rhythm. To him, it was the sound of nature, the sound of love, and the sound of the coming of the dawn.

The boy turned from the sun, pulling his thin cloak around him. Wispy tendrils of mist hung in the air, rebelling against the heat that was certain to come upon them, holding onto their last breath of life before assured destruction. A twig cracked from further down the mountain, and the boy fell silent. His sea swept eyes scanned the landscape stretching below him, seeing no sign of life. They turned to the slope in front of him, the winding path that only he knew. Someone was coming.

Without making a sound, the boy became a shadow once more, melding into the side of the cliff. Had anyone been watching, it would have seemed that he had become invisible. The casual onlooker would then shake their head and dismiss it as a trick of the light. But was it?

Just as the boy melted away, a man stepped onto the cliff from the path meandering down the mountain. He was dressed in a black robe, the hood pulled over to hide his face. Sunlight never penetrated the deep depths of his hood, and all he revealed were his pale hands, stiffly by his sides. He scanned the cliff, his sharp, cold eyes missing nothing. At last, convinced he was safe, he pulled back his hood.

Though the nothing stirred around him, the boy shifted, his eyes widening at the sight of this newcomer's face. A sudden breeze rustled the man's white blonde hair, causing a few of the thin, straight wisps to pull free, waltzing with the wind. His eyes had thick curtains drawn across them, revealing nothing about the feelings he harbored. They were the color of the strands of mist that wrapped themselves around his heavy boots, mixed with the color of the sky above him. He stood erect, as though being inspected for a position in the army, his eyes toward the rising sun.

The boy watched him for a time, puzzled by his behavior. No one knew about this place but him, or so he had thought. Then, the man began to change. His shoulders relaxed, and his posture slumped slightly. His eyes turned to the ground, and the curtains fell from behind them. He turned from the sun, much as the boy had done, and looked at the cliff wall, right at the boy. The man seemed to look right through him, to things beyond the boy's comprehension.

The boy noticed that now, the man's eyes were not shadowed, or hidden. They were full of emotion. His dark blue eyes met the glaciers of ice, and the boy almost cried out. The once icy eyes had melted in the heat of the sun, the results trickling down his face. It took the boy a while before he registered that the man was crying. He was not bawling, his eyes did not squint, nor did his face contort in any way. It was as if his grief was too much for him to bear any longer, and that the tears were coming without warning, without the usual dramatic pretence.

The man's eyes were endless wells of fog, grief and despair raining from all sides. Not a glimmer of hope dwelled in the depths of that well, not a single ray of light shone through a crack in the walls. But there were cracks in the structure. Huge, gaping holes that had once been filled by hope, friendship, family, and love. There was a small creature lurking inside one of the holes, a tiny spot of remembrance of what it had felt like to be cared for and loved in return. The creature was starving, dying, but still managed to stay alive, living of the moments that the guard went down on the heavily secured well. This was one of these times, and the small piece of memory climbed to the surface, reminding the man of all the things he had forgotten.

The memories came flooding back. Memories of love, happiness, family, and hope. He stood, letting the feeling wash over him, knowing he would never truly feel loved ever again. He felt rather than cried the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He knew that they came from his true heart, not from the false one he showed the world.

The creature felt the walls begin to harden once more, and knew that its time was over. It crawled back into its hole, knowing that the man would now pretend to forget his memories and put on an indifferent face. And so the man did. The tears stopped, his breath became normal, and he pulled the hood over his blonde hair once more. He silently left the cliff, walking down the winding path back to Godric's Hollow.

The boy materialized once more, pulling his cloak off of him. A wind had picked up, and the boy's black hair whipped around his face as he stared into space. He had thought knew the man that had been here. Just now, he had been proven wrong. He was still shivering from the shock of being locked eye to eye with the man, of seeing his never-ending grief and longing for love.

Slowly, James Potter turned, and began to climb back down the slope.