Deadly Love

"Harry... Harry..." said a deep, hoarse voice. "Harry, come. I want you. I hate you! It was all your damn fault! I HATE YOU. Your life will be short. I'll make sure of it. I WANT YOU DEAD!!!"

~

"Ahhh!!!" shouted fifteen-year-old Harry Potter, waking up in a pool of cold sweat. His messy black hair was plastered against his face and his bright green eyes showed a look of fear.

Harry looked around his room in his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's house on #4 Privet Drive, in search of where that deathly voice came from. His room was very bare, since his aunt and uncle never really like him and didn't bother to furnish it very much. All he had was a bed, a table, and a closet filled with Uncle Vernon and his cousin Dudley's old clothes. In the room next door, the whale-sized Dudley had two television sets, three computers, video games that stacked up to the ceiling, and everything a fifteen-year-old could possibly imagine.

Harry never understood why his aunt and uncle disliked him until four years ago, when a mysterious letter came to him saying he had been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yes, that's right. Harry is a wizard, as were his parents. That's why his imagination-is-bad-and-nothing-weird aunt and uncle hated him and his parents. Then why live with them? Because Harry is an orphan.

Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter, died when Harry was only a year old. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always told him they died in a car accident, trying to keep him from knowing what he was. Not until he was eleven did he know the truth. His parents were murdered by the most powerful Dark wizard that ever existed in wizard history. Voldemort was his name, but most people preferred calling him You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Voldemort came to power over twenty years ago. Even the Muggles, non-wizarding people, sensed that something was wrong when he was around. At the height of his power fourteen years ago, Voldemort attempted to kill the Potters. He succeeded in killing Harry's parents, but lost his own soul and body when he tried to perform the same curse on one-year-old Harry. He left only a lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead. Lily Potter had somehow left a protection on her son. Voldemort could not touch him, so the curse rebounded on himself. However, this protection was lost a month ago, when Voldemort finally returned to power after years of trying.

During Harry's fourth year, a Triwizard Tournament was held at Harry's school. It had not been held for centuries because of the building death rate. Last year, the Ministry of Magic finally succeeded in reopening the contest, and Hogwarts was hosting it. The tournament was supposed to be a contest between three students, one from each participating school--Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. Mysteriously, Harry's name came up as the fourth competitor although he was underage and he never signed up to compete. At the end of the year, he learned that it was all planned by Voldemort. Voldemort, with the help of Peter Pettigrew, a former friend of James and Lily who betrayed them to the Dark Lord, used this opportunity to get blood from Harry to bring himself back to life. Because he now had Harry's blood in him, there was no longer a barrier keeping him from touching Harry. All the Death Eaters who stayed loyal to him came back as soon as he did, and Voldemort is thought to be even more powerful than before.

"Could it be Voldemort?" Harry asked himself, still wondering about that voice. He touched his scar. This time, it didn't hurt like it usually did when Voldemort was near or thought to be a potential danger to Harry. "It couldn't be Voldemort, could it?" said Harry, comforting himself. "If it was him, I would feel something, but I don't."

Harry looked at the cage by the window where his snowy owl, Hedwig, was sleeping soundly inside. "Should I write to Sirius?" wondered Harry. Sirius Black, Harry's godfather and his father's best friend, had told Harry to write to him or the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, if anything unusual happened. With Voldemort back in power, everybody was worried about him.

"This doesn't count as anything unusual," said Harry to himself. "I don't want everybody to worry about nothing. I mean, my scar doesn't even hurt."

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were Harry's best friends, and would be the first to worry about him. The three of them met during Harry's first year at Hogwarts, and had been friends every since, staying together through thick and thin. The last thing Harry wanted was for them to get worried over nothing.

He touched his scar again, making sure for a second time it really didn't hurt. Seeing that it didn't, Harry sighed in relief. "It was probably just a bad dream," he thought.

He looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand. The digital letters on it showed that it was only 3:00 AM, but Harry couldn't go back to sleep. He thought about Cho Chang, the most beautiful girl at Hogwarts in Harry's opinion. He realized he was in love with Cho last year. He even tried to ask her to the dance last Christmas after days of building up courage, but didn't succeed. It turned out that Cedric Diggory, the handsome yet kind sixth-year that every girl wanted, had already asked her. But Cedric was killed by Voldemort at the end of last year, and Harry blamed it on himself. He didn't want to think about Cho anymore, because he thought Cho and Cedric really did like each other, but he couldn't help himself.

With Cho's sweet face pictured in his mind, Harry drifted slowly off to sleep, no longer worried about the mysterious voice at all.

~

Outside, under the soft glow of the streetlights, a dark figure could be seen walking slowly away from the driveway of #4 Privet Drive. The dark cloak it wore trailed on the ground and a hood hid the figure's face. It was merely a looming shadow in the darkness.

In a deep, dangerous voice, it muttered, "I want you dead, Harry Potter. I want you dead."