Backfire

PROLOGUE

Backfire:

1. to bring a result opposite to that which was planned or expected;

2. to start a fire deliberately in order to check or stop the advance of a larger, more dangerous one...

(Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary)

....a fire started in the path of an oncoming fire in order to deprive it of fuel and thereby control or extinguish it

(Dictionary.com)

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Broad tendencies in forest fires have long been known. Blazes accelerate amid evergreens, but sputter in leafy stands. They speed naturally downwind and uphill, and grow fiercer and faster in the late afternoon than at night. Such truths have traditionally dictated firefighting tactics. Years of experience and research into fire behavior tell firefighters whether a particular blaze is likely to flare or fizzle, to threaten a town or burn itself out harmlessly. Leaders must anticipate this, and adjust their efforts, like chess pieces, to head off danger.

Fires have many ways of starting. Deep in the woods, where the light does not reach, some small, lifeless, dried out vestige serves as the fuel. All it takes is a bit of carelessness, or worse, some evil, destructive purpose. Sometimes massive forest fires begin from ignorance or indifference. Sometimes they are the result of arson.

Sometimes they are created by both. This is the most dangerous fire--where ignorance, carelessness, and denial are supplemented and exploited by an intense effort to wreak destruction.

As the fire spreads, it leaves death and darkness, even despair, in its wake. The colors of life, of nature, are vanquished in favor of the brittle black of carbon. But the flora are not the only casualties. Fire consumes oxygen--as it proceeds it steals away the very breath of any who get in its way. It does not discriminate. It kills man and woman, young and old, rich and poor, weak and strong, friend and foe. It cares nothing for others. It exists only for itself and it will survive as long as there is a path to conquer, breath to steal, room to spread.

But the world consists of more than just fire and potential fuel. The Earth houses more than merely existence and destruction. There are forces that fight the fires. Whether it is the natural barriers of lakes and rocks or the sheer luck of rain pouring down at the right moment, something has always halted the fires. Life has always prevailed in the end. But in the meantime, the greatest of these fires cannot be stopped before they wreak havoc, before they take lives and destroy families.

One such fire was thought to be extinguished on Halloween night, 1981.

But it had begun to burn again.

The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry....

and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares

for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid, scarlet eyes

and a nose that was flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils....

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

There is a third way, after nature and luck, that these awful fires can be defeated. There is a grand Muggle expression that directs us, in desperate times, to "fight fire with fire." So that is what we do. A backfire is a smaller, guided fire that, while set purposefully by firefighters, is no less powerful or dangerous than the fire it was created to stop. Wise and experienced firefighters know that starting a backfire can head off and contain a great blaze that otherwise defies nature and fortune, a great fire that seems invincible, that seems as though it will explode and blacken everything in its path.

But this fiery monster is forced to halt if it collides with a backfire. If the position, the power, and the direction are just right, the line of the backfire cannot be breached. Though it is smaller in size, the death, the darkness, and the destruction will stop its ruthless progress. The flames will be contained and then carefully put out by the firefighters. Cool and quiet will return, and new life will emerge, like a phoenix, from the blackness and burning.

Lighting a backfire is an art; it must be set in the path of a moving fire, near enough to be sucked in by the powerful draw of the main fire, but distant enough to prevent damage to those creating it. When the two fires collide, the larger fire's momentum is slowed by the lack of fuel in its path. As well as slowing the advance of the main fire, a backfire can help steer the greater blaze into a lake or river, or clear smoke away to give firefighters a clear view of the target, sealing the destruction of the angry flames.

So you see, like with magic, there is good fire and bad fire. And as with magic, the fires that are born of ignorance and evil can be met and conquered by those that are set with purpose and guided by compassion and justice.

"You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?"

Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Harry, whose scar began to

burn so fiercely that he almost screamed in agony. "You all know

that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him.

His mother died in the attempt to save him--and unwittingly provided

him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen....I could not touch

the boy."

Voldemort raised on of his long white fingers and put it very close

to Harry's cheek.

"His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice....This is old

magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook

it....but no matter. I can touch him now."

And so we pick up our story now that this terrible conflagration has begun to burn again, now that it has burst forth from where it was thought to be contained for thirteen years. This is the second part of a tale of two extraordinary young women. Two women who never met, who only had two things in common: the fiery hair of the flames they represent, and their love for a remarkable boy with green eyes and messy black hair.

The first woman, the first backfire, failed. But because of her, that heartless, heinous blaze was contained just long enough for a new one to take her place. Now we return to a world that is once again slowly being engulfed by a horrible and familiar force that leaves only blackness in its wake, and we see that this second backfire is about to ignite.

The love of a mother could only contain this evil the first time. Will the love of a lifetime be enough to extinguish it forever? Will the one with the power of the prophecy be able to fuel that love and with it, douse the flames of evil in the end?