Esprit de Corps

Chapter 1

Harry Potter rubbed his eyes and turned the page he was reading. It was quite late, but he didn't want to sleep, knowing that he would be haunted by images of his dead godfather Sirius Black, who had died at the Ministry...the one man whom he'd ever known to be a parent figure in his entire life...the one man who had loved him like his own son...and it was his fault that Sirius had died...

He continued reading, though his eyes ached from exhaustion. He only slept when he dropped off while reading, and he was invariably woken up in an hour or two by a nightmare...

And then there was the prophecy...

Harry had still not told his friends about the prophecy. They had visited him twice in Hermione's new car, and she'd taken the two boys out for lunch in a little Muggle restaurant nearby. Those were the only two proper meals Harry had taken since his return. Not that the Dursleys refused to feed him. Quite the contrary. He was not hungry at all. He was happy as long as he was with his friends, but the rest of the time he just felt awful...he felt he was cheating them by not telling them about the prophecy...they were hanging out with a potential murderer and they didn't even know that...they didn't know how dangerous he was to anyone close to him...

The letters of the book began to blur and his eyelids fluttered down involuntarily. Images of Ron and Hermione flashed through his mind...the laughing faces of his friends...their concern for him...Hermione rushing to hug him...Ron clapping him on the back...both of them cheering madly for him at the Quidditch pitch...Hermione reading through innumerable books for him...Ron tearing up his brother's letter for him...their sticking by his side when the whole school renounced him for being a Parselmouth...their anger on his behalf when Umbridge was mean to him...their refusal to let him face danger all alone...their unwavering support and unconditional love for him...

His eyes snapped open at the knock on his door. He jumped up, whipped out his wand and opened the door. A well-known figure stood there.

"What do you want at this hour?" Harry asked irritably. The figure stepped forward and punched his stomach. His wand clattered to the floor, out of his reach. Harry fell to the floor and received a kick from the intruder. The person laughed madly and held up a steak knife.

"Have you gone mad?" shouted Harry. "You can't do this to me!"

It was then he noticed that the eyes of his attacker were blank and unfocussed. Some one had placed the Imperius curse on the person.

"You have been cursed..." began Harry and tried to reach out for his wand. His hand was stepped upon. Two more figures appeared in the doorway, smirking broadly. They, too, were under the Imperius.

Harry received some more kicks and punches from the three laughing people. He noticed a fourth shadow standing at the door but he couldn't see the person properly, for his glasses had been knocked off and shattered. Then he saw a flash of metal and a sharp pain on the left side of his chest. As blackness overtook him, he dimly saw them leaving and a voice came which sent shivers down his spine...

"Stabbed through the heart...excellent! Master will be pleased. Obliviate!"

A wave of immense terror passed through Harry and he managed to move himself from the floor on to his bed, the mist in front of his eyes darkening rapidly. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the time on the glowing dial of his clock. 3:20 A.M.