The Thunder Within

The Thunder Within

Prologue: Only Innocent Lives

"Only innocent lives,' spoken by Sirius Black, PoA, The Servant of Lord Voldemort, page 275

Bitter tears fell from her eyes, rolling down her paper white cheeks, the dark rings circling her eyes becoming more pronounced. She was alone in the world, alone in the cold dormitory, alone in every possible way. She had no one left, no one that loved her like her parents had. Her blood shot emerald eyes looked towards the grey heavens that were promising rain in large quantities. They kept their promise, for rain it did. It lashed at the castle, pounding at the windows in a depressing rhythm. She laughed gallingly, for that depressing rhythm seemed to be made exactly for her mood. She never knew she could feel so much remorse, so much pain at once. Now she knew.. She felt it tearing at her heart, ripping it apart with no mercy. It was eating away at her very soul.

It was barley a month into the new school year at Hogwarts. Her very last year. She was Head Girl, a role model student and a person who was looked up to by the student body. Yet, she didn't fit in and she knew it. From the moment she had entered Hogwarts, she was aware of the ever-growing threat of Lord Voldemort, the Dark Lord causing chaos and destruction through out their world. She simply didn't feel that she would be able to live up to the role of Head Girl with everything else that had happened recently.

Over recent years it had got violently worse for everyone. Not only was he targeting Muggle-borns and their families, he had now added to the targeting list, anyone he thought would get in his way of taking over the wizarding world, including prominent pure-blood families who had refused, quite blatantly, to join him in cause. Of course, he did have his supporters, quite a fair few of them at that. The majority came from Slytherin. They were the people who were born for the purpose of carrying on a pure-blood lineage.. People who thought Muggle-borns should be tortured mercilessly and subsequently killed on the spot for ever thinking that they belong in their world.. She was a Muggle-born. Her parents had no magic flowing through their veins. But she did. However, she didn't fit in to either world. In reality she was far from what ordinary people would have called 'normal', yet also far from 'normal' by wizarding standards.

She had attended the local Primary school in the village as a child. If the truth was told, she would quite happily erase every memory she had from that- that place. She had been the outcast, the odd ball, the freak.. Intelligence wise, she was by far cleverer then any of the other children.. They had not liked that one bit, punishing her with tantalising songs and crude humorous jokes about her rather unique, appearance. The only friend she did make was with Winnie DeWitt. She was rather peculiar, with huge glasses, a large mass of uncontrollable frizzy hair and an unusual fetish for plastic jewellery found free in magazines. Unfortunately, for Lily, she was rather sickly and never attended school very much.

Voldemort, over the past six years, had been steadily gaining power. People were now afraid to say his name, flinching when they heard it being uttered. Though it wasn't as if that happened very often at all, for such bravery was scarce. When they wanted to refer to him they would use He Who Must Not Be Named or You-Know-Who and even then they preferred to whisper it under their breath, lowering their voices to the bare minimum. People were scared of travelling, going to work, to home, just in case the Dark Mark was floating above the building, throwing the area into a sickly green light and announcing to the wizarding public that 'You-Know-Who' had struck again. Even the Muggles were noticing the strange happenings, which was highly unusual as they never noticed anything.

'The Muggle Massacres' as they had been dubbed by the Daily Prophet, were the most violent of all attacks. The victims were mangled and tortured before they were finally killed, limbs severed off so they couldn't escape. It made ordinary people feel sick to the stomach. The Muggle government covered them up as best they could, telling ludicrous tales of escaped brutes from the local zoo to a small gas explosion. None of it was true. It was really as far from the truth as you could get.

As she sat, curled up into a tight ball, she wept silently. Dumbledore gave students plenty of time to grieve. And she knew that these types of deaths had been happening at an increasingly frequent rate, but she had never thought it would happen to her. Was that an insane thought? There were equal chances of death to anyone. Well, Slytherins had a smaller chance, yes. And maybe some pure-bloods. But Muggle-borns like her, with their 'tainted' blood...

This was what it all came down to. Her blood. It was all her fault that they were dead, that they had departed from the world in a flash of curses and a swish of a wand. Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters had murdered her parents. They were innocent people, victims, who only added to the number of murders by the hands of You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters. It seemed to double everyday. The difference was that this time those victims were her parents.

Lily wondered what they had covered her parents murders up with, each as laughable as the next. Being Muggle-born she knew her parents had had doubts about so many people dying around the country. She hadn't the heart to tell them what was really happening; they would have taken her out of Hogwarts before she could have had her say. She knew that was a selfish thought but she loved it in the Wizarding world. Or she thought she had. However, times were changing, and with recent events coming to light... how could she love such a place?

She felt sick to her stomach, a burning sensation choking her very thoughts, clogging her mind to an unbearable level. She didn't know quite what to do with herself, it felt like her whole world was crashing around her; things were never going to be the same again. And no matter what other people might say, it was her fault, at least partly.

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