The Empath

Chapter 1: The Dark Mark and the White Tiger

The weather was horrific with treacherous winds beating against the mountain, and the fierce snow didn't appear to show any signs that it was going to stop falling from the sky. The only sound for miles away was the ear-splitting howling of the wind. In the distance, struggling to stay on course was a white tiger slowly climbing the side of the mountain. When the tiger finally reached the top, there was a loud crack, and it jumped behind a large snow covered boulder as two men appeared.

While the tiger watched their every move, they walked to the edge of the cliff and turned around. One of the men took out his wand, and in a commanding voice said, "Morsmordre." And a green colossal skull, comprised of emerald stars with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue shot out of his wand and hovered above the ground.

As it started to rise higher, the man then spoke again, "Alohomora." The serpent slithered into a round handle. He then grabbed the handle, turned it right, then left, and the skull disappeared leaving a smoky green silhouette of a door. He opened the door, and the two men stepped inside. The door disappeared behind them, and once again there was nothing to be seen.

As the tiger lay still closely watching the edge of the cliff, there was another loud bang and a woman appeared. She then did the same thing as the men before her did and everything disappeared again. More and more people came and did this, one small group after the next.

Hours went by before the door finally appeared again and the two men from before stepped out. There was another loud bang, and they vanished. The tiger's ears ached with all the noise, but it happened again and again with the same groups of people as before. It was late at night and the weather was even more treacherous than before.

After the last group of people disappeared, the tiger stepped out from behind the bolder as the door appeared again, causing it to retreat into hiding once again. The door opened and a man stepped out. It looked as if he was a really small man, but his cloak made him appear three times his actual size. The man stood there holding the door open as a taller, more slender man stepped out.

"Master are you sure it's safe to leave him here alone?" asked the squeaky voice of the shorter man.

"Yes, Wormtail, I'm sure. No one, but a few of my followers even knows that he's alive, let alone that he's here. My followers are the only ones that know that this place even exists and how to get into it. And he won't be waking up for a few days anyway. Besides everyone will be too worried about fixing the havoc we'll cause tonight to even think about anything else," the taller man said as a loud evil laugh filled the mountain.

With a loud crack, both of the men disappeared. The tiger waited a few minutes and then quickly ran to the edge of the cliff, turned around, and transformed into a human girl. The girl's long black hair tangled in the wind as she took a wand out of her cloak and pointed it just as the men before her had done.

She whispered the spell, and the door appeared in a puff of greenish smoke. She entered, not knowing quite what she expected to find, and realized she was in a huge room with a high beautiful ceiling. The floor was painted like a dartboard, a small circle inside of a larger circle, inside of a yet another larger circle. However, the girl wasted no time looking at the details of the room. Instead, she went straight to a door in the back of the room.

She opened it cautiously with her wand gripped tightly in her hand and pointed it straight in front of her. She stepped inside and quietly shut the door behind her.

This room looked very luxurious like the inside of a small palace. She surveyed the room with her wand following her eyes. She saw no one there and another door in the back of that room.

Quickly and cautiously she made for the door, tripped, and fell on the floor. Her wand still gripped tightly in her hand; she swung around to see what had tripped her. She saw a large snake with its fangs coming out of its mouth ready to attack her. She quickly pointed her wand at the snake, and shouted, "Stundeum - Snake!" Yellow sparks flew out of her wand and at the snake. The snake was stunned, and it fell to the floor.

"Hello, you must be Nagini. Do tell you master I dropped by when you awake, will you?" she laughed. "And tell him he might want to look into getting a better guard dog."

She stepped over the large snake and quickly walked to the door and after pulling it open she walked into a small room with three doors. With so many doors, she was starting to wonder if she'd ever be able to find her way back out.

"Let's see what's behind door number one," she whispered and opened the door. This door led to a stairwell spiraling downward with no end in sight. She stepped on the top step and closed the door behind her. Everything went dark.

She whispered, "Lumos." And her whisper echoed down the stairwell just as her wand lit up. She pointed it down to see what lay ahead; the stairs looked more like a bottomless pit, and she started to quickly run down them. She felt as if she had been running down the stair for about twenty minute before they ended, leading to a very old dirty looking door. She tried to open it, but it was locked. She pointed her wand to the lock, and whispered, "Alohomora." But the door didn't budge. Thinking, she stood back and pointed her wand toward the door a second time, and said, "Morsmordre." And a green colossal skull shot out of her wand. She whispered, "Alohomora." And instead of the snake turning into a doorknob, it went into the lock of the already existing door. She heard the door unlock and the skull and the snake disappeared.

She opened the door, and looked around cautiously. This room looked like a dungeon, old and dirty much like the door with spider webs everywhere. She quickly stepped in and closed the door behind her.

"Nox," she whispered, and the light from her wand went out.

As she untangled herself from a spider web she heard someone moan. Looking up she quickly ran to the man curled up in a ball on the floor. He had long black hair, messy and tangled on his head. He was filthy and his cloths were torn. What skin you could see through the dirt was bruised, scratched, and covered in blood which was in various stages of drying. She walked towards the man and touched his shoulder. He shuddered with pain, but didn't seem to acknowledge her anymore than that.

"I thought you might be a little out of it." She took a small vial out of her robes and pressed it to his lips forcing him to drink it.

After a few minutes the man started to regain his strength and became more aware of his surroundings. He slowly sat up and looked at the girl, with tears coming down his face. His eyes widened with amazement.

"My Hannah, is it really you?" he asked with a coarse, tired voice.

"No, my name is Lily. I'm here to help you," she whispered softly to him. "Can you stand? We'd better leave now before anyone gets back." The man nodded and tried to stand up, but found that he was chained to the floor. Lily pointed her wand at the chains. "Reducto," she said quietly, and the chains broke off of him and onto the ground. The man looked at her in amazement.

"How did you know this place was here? How did you get in? How did you get past everyone?"

"Well, for starters, no one's here. They all left. The rest can wait. We have to go before anyone gets back," she said quickly gesturing him to get up.

He stood up, and they walked to the door. Opening it, she lit her wand, and they ran up the stairs as quickly as possible. They were at the door at the top of the stairs in no time. She opened the door, and they walked into the small room with the three doors and the door leading to their way out.

"Nox," she whispered, and the light at the end of her wand went out. But just as she went to open the door she froze listening to a voice that was hissing and spitting. She turned to the man terrified.

"It's him!" Lily mouthed and he put his ear to the door.

"Wormtail, it seems we have a visitor. A young witch stunned my poor Nagini when she tried to kill her. When I get through with her, she'll be wishing Nagini had bitten her!" The voice said in a somewhat amused tone. "I'm guessing she's here on a rescue mission. How incredibly foolish."

"Do you think they're in the dungeon, my lord?" asked Wormtail.

"Let's go have a look."

Fear came over Lily like a heat wave through her body. She was so scared she couldn't move. The man grabbed her arm and pulled her to the third door. He pushed it open and walked in pulling her with him. They ran down a long hall towards another door and pushed it open without hesitation.

When they opened the door, there was nothing there. There was no room, at least there didn't appear to be. There was no floor, ceiling, or walls. Lily pointed her wand into the empty space and said, "Morsmordre." But nothing happened.

"How did you know how to conjure the Dark Mark?" the man asked suspiciously.

"I watched a man do it outside. That's how I got in here," she explained looking frightened. "What do we do now?"

"Anywhere is better than here!" he told her and pushed her into the room.

Instead of falling into the nothingness they stepped into snow. They were standing on the edge of the cliff.

"That's strange. This is where I came in," Lily said quietly.

"Voldemort would never use the same door that people lower than him used," the man told her.

"We better get going," she said turning to face him. Lily started to look at the man as if she was trying to ask him a question, but couldn't find the words.

"What is it?" he questioned her.

"We'll have to transform. I don't think that we'll be able to get down this mountain on two legs and I don't think you can Dissapparate without a dark mark.

"How did you know that I co-"

"Never mind that now. We've got to get out of here!"

"Very well, ladies first," he gestured.

At that Lily transformed into the white tiger she had been before. Te man transformed as well, but into an incredibly large black dog. Lily turned and started running back the way she came with the dog following her. It had been very late when they started out, and they were still climbing down the mountain when the sun rose the next day.

All of a sudden, the black dog slipped on a patch of ice and skidded wildly. The tiger quickly turned around and lunged to try and catch him, but it was too late- the dog had fallen and was rolling down the mountain at breakneck speed. He didn't stop until he slammed into a boulder and bounced off into the snow finally lying motionless. The tiger ran as fast as she could without falling herself to get to him. A few minutes later she reached the boulder and saw a man leaning against it rubbing his leg which was stretched out in front of him. She transformed into a human and knelt down next to him.

"Are you all right?" she asked breathlessly.

"My leg is broken," he replied, shouting over the roaring of the wind.

"Well, you can't make it the rest of the way."

"I have no choice," he said while trying to stand.

"You have no choice NOT to," she demanded, forcing him to sit down again.

"What do you suggest we do then?"

"I stayed in a cave last night before climbing the mountain. I could carry you there, go get my broom, and we could fly out of here," she shouted over the howling of the wind.

"You may be able to carry me to this cave as a tiger, but you can't hold me on your broom as a girl."

"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean that I'm incapable of -" the man cut her off.

"I didn't mean it like that. The fact that you got me out of that place shows you're capable of almost anything, but even you can admit that it's an awfully long and hard fly out of this place. We'll need someone else."

"We'll figure that out when we get to the cave," she told him.

She transformed into the tiger, the man put his arms around her neck, and she dragged him through the snow. When they reached a cave, she dragged him into it and leaned him up against the wall. She transformed back into herself, conjured up a blanket, and covered the man with it.

"Thank you, for - for everything. What you did took a lot of courage," said the man as he shivered under the blanket.

"You're welcome," she said as he watched her cover up his legs with another blanket.

"You look like her, you know," the man said softly. Pausing, she looked at him.

"Look like who?" she asked nervously.

"Your mother," he replied.

"You mean you - you know who I am?" she asked, shocked, as tears filled her eyes.

"I think I have a pretty good idea."

"How did you know?"

"Besides your black hair, you look exactly like your mother. I assume that you get your hair from your father," he said proudly. "You do know that that's who I am, right?"

"Yes, why else would I have come searching for you?"

"How did you find me?"

"I made a potion. The experience is somewhat like a Pensieve. After making it, you touch the substance that's in the cauldron. It captures you, and it shows you where the person that you're looking for is."

"I've never heard of a potion like that before," he told her.

"That's because I created it," she told him matter-of-factly, hoping to impress him.

"You created a potion on your own?"

"Yeah. When I was little, I was told about my mother- how her brother kidnapped her and no one ever found her, so I wanted to see if I could," she explained. "I mean, no one saw her dead, so I guess I always thought she was alive. When I started school, I had an idea of making a potion. It took me three years to do it, but I never found her. I tested it by finding some of my friends, so it did work." She paused with a feeling of regret.

"I didn't know you were alive until I heard that you had escaped Azkaban. I wanted to find you, but I couldn't bring myself to try. I didn't know what to say or do or if you would even care."

She took a deep breath. "When I finally brewed the potion, I found you locked in that dungeon, so I camped out in this cave for a few days to try and figure out how to get to you. I didn't even think about how frightening it would be, but when I heard Voldemort speaking Parseltongue, I couldn't breathe or move. So really, I should be thanking you. If you hadn't of pulled me out of there I'd be dead."

"You're quite an amazing girl. Did you know that? You created a potion to find people, you used it to follow Lord Voldemort around for Merlin knows how long, and he never even knew. You saved my life, and now you're giving all of the credit to me. You really are just like your mother," he told her with a sense of pride in his voice.

"Thank you," she said as the present circumstances dawned on her. "We can talk more, later, when we're safe. Right now we need to come up with a plan and fast, so that we can get as far away from this place as possible"

"Well you can't go to Dumbledore, you'd probably never find him, and I don't think that any owls live in this kind of weather. You could go t -to Harry," the man said uncertainly.

"Harry? You mean Harry Potter!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, he's my godson. I know he would help, but I'm not sure that it's safe for him to be this close to Voldemort."

"Well, he also might be upset if he finds out that he didn't get to help you when he could've," she said. "I should go then. I know someone that can tell me where he is." He grabbed her hand in desperation before she could get up.

"I would have given anything to find you. You need to know that. I searched. I - I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find you or your mother. I loved your mother more than anything in the world, and we both loved you so much and couldn't wait for you to come into this world. She would be so proud of you, as I am." Tears started to pour out of Lily's eyes, and she fell in his arms and hugged him.

"I love you, Lily," he told her as she was in his arms.

"I love you too," She pulled away and smiled at him. "We can talk more when we're safe."

Lily got up and transformed into the white tiger.

"Be sure to send word to Dumbledore and be safe and don't come back if it isn't!" the man yelled after her, as she ran out of the cave and bounded off into the snow.