The Saga Continues

Wake me up inside

Wake me up inside

Call my name and save me from the dark

Bid my blood to run before I come undone

Save me from the nothing I've become

Bring me to life

Bring me to life

Prologue - The Visitor

A girl with curly, black hair sat on a kitchen counter, watching her father prepare lunch. He was making grilled cheese. "Raven, do you want ketchup on grilled cheese?" he asked her, smiling.

"Good," she said seriously, still staring at him.

"Er, all right then," her father said, beginning to make the sandwich.

"Daddy! You forgot the ketchup," Raven pouted, jumping off the counter. She walked over to the refrigerator and held up a huge bottle of ketchup.

"Honey, you can add that to your sandwich when I'm done making it, okay?" said her father, flipping over the sandwich. Raven frowned at him, but didn't argue. She simply sat the bottle of ketchup down in the center of the kitchen and sat down next to it, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Harry!" a voice called.

"Ginny!" her father called back, amused.

Raven's mother appeared in the door of the kitchen, looking frantic. She was dressed in pretty light blue robes. "What? What is it?" said Harry, momentarily forgetting the sandwich and burning his hand on the stove. "OW!" he said, clutching his hand. Raven chuckled at this. That's what you get for forgetting the ketchup, she thought.

"I have that meeting, you know...the one with the editor of Witch Weekly? It's in ten minutes and I-I can't find my portfolio!"

Raven turned and looked at her mother, frowning. She looked ready to cry. What did she have to cry about? No one had forgotten to add ketchup to her sandwich. Her father, however, seemed to think that whatever his wife was whining about was important. "We'll find it," he said comfortingly and Ginny let out a sigh.

As her parents walked out of the kitchen, Raven stood up, smoothing out her lacy white dress. Her sandwich was still frying in the pan, and an idea occurred to her. Clearing her throat softly, Raven dragged a chair from the kitchen table across to the stove. She climbed onto it and reached over the hot surface to turn off the stove. Though her arm was directly over heat, she knew she would not be burnt. After picking up the bottle of ketchup from the floor she climbed onto the chair again, and looked at her sandwich. A very sneaky smile crossed over her porcelain like face.

Her tiny fingers unscrewed the bottle cap, and then suddenly, she flipped the bottle over with a swift movement. Her eyes flickered with a guilty pleasure as she watched the thick, red substance swarm over her sandwich until she couldn't even see the sandwich anymore. She let out a giggle as the ketchup continued to gush from the bottle onto the stove itself, sizzling on the hot surface of the stove. Giggling louder, she aimed the bottle above her, so that the ketchup hit the walls, splattering. Some of the ketchup found its way onto Raven's pretty dress, but she was feeling such satisfaction that this did not matter. All that mattered was the red that was now decorating the walls and floor and ceiling.

When there was hardly any ketchup in the bottle now, and she could hear the footsteps of her mother and father approaching. She quickly put back and the chair and sat down on the slippery, ketchup covered floor, crossing her legs.

"Raven!" her mother shrieked upon entering the kitchen. Raven felt a warm feeling in her stomach as she saw the confusion and frustration on her father's face. She let out a tiny sigh and he turned his eyes on her, looking suspicious. But her mother spoke again. "Why on earth did you do this?"

Raven forced herself not to smile and looked thoughtful instead. "Daddy forgot ketchup," she said, and with that, she walked out of the room.

Her parents began to argue about her almost immediately and Raven seized this opportunity to slink into their bedroom without being noticed. She knew exactly what she was doing as she stood in front of one of their bedroom closets. This was the closet that held all of daddy and mummy's broomsticks, and Raven loved Quidditch just as much as they did.

Raven undid the chain that held her father's old Firebolt into place and removed the broom from the closet, holding it in her small hands. She strolled decisively into the kitchen. Her mother was no longer present, and her father was sitting at the kitchen table, his head on the table.

She tugged on his shirtsleeve and he looked up from the table. "I want to fly," she said.

"Not now," her father said in aggravation.

But Raven Potter was a stubborn little girl who was used to getting her way. This made her persistence infinite. "I want to fly," she repeated.

"Not now."

"I want to fly."

"Not now."

"I want to fly."

"Not NOW!" yelled her father. Raven stared at him, unfazed. "Go to your room Raven."

She didn't want to go to her room. She wanted fly. "I want to fly," she said once again.

Suddenly, her daddy stood up and took hold of her hand. He led her down the hallway to her bedroom and took away the broomstick. "Play with your dolls for awhile, all right, sweetheart?" he said, pushing her inside of the room. A loud click told her that he had locked the door.

Raven banged on the door in defiance of being locked in. What did she do to deserve this? She began to yell very loudly, demanding to be let out. She whined and whined and kicked the door for emphasis, screaming louder and shrilly...knowing that her father was outside the door...

Suddenly, she couldn't hear the sound of her voice anymore, and the surroundings around her became nothing more then a blur. And Raven Potter, a little girl with curly black hair, felt herself spiraling into darkness...

Raven didn't know how long she lay there in the dark, she only knew that her heart was beating extraordinarily fast. She tried to open her ice blue eyes, but wasn't able to. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat and moaned helplessly.

As the moan escaped from her lips, the brightest light she had ever seen flooded her bedroom. Her eyes were able to see again. The curtains fluttered dangerously and her bed rattled a bit. What was oddest, however, was that the bright white light changed into a pale yellow and dissolved until it was only outlining the bedroom's contours and shapes.

The hairs on the back of Raven's neck prickled, and she knew that she was no longer the only one in her room. However, she wasn't frightened...much. "Who's there?" her innocent tone inquired, a soft whisper that seemed to echo throughout the room.

"Hello, Raven," a smooth voice spoke out from a corner of the room. A teenage boy, around the age of sixteen, was leaning casually against the wall. His hair was an inky black and his eyes were a dark, midnight blue. He was wearing long, black robes and a small smirk. He resembled her daddy strikingly.

"Who are you?" she said crisply, small eyes narrowing to slits.

The boy chuckled softly, so softly that she had thought for a moment she had imagined it, and then he said, "You're suspicious of me. Understandable." He paused. "You can call me anything you like."

Raven glared at him. "Why are you in my bedroom? Leave!" She indicated the door.

The stranger seemed amused. "I have a gift for you, Raven. Don't you like presents?" He talked calmly, but the words formed a sort of taunt that caused a bubble of anger to arise in Raven's chest.

"How do you know my name?"

A small breath exited his lips and he muttered something to himself that she couldn't hear. He then took a step closer to her, and Raven smartly took a step back at the same time. He chuckled again. "What's that all over your pretty white dress?" he whispered.

Raven looked down at her dress, still matted with ketchup. "I thought you were going to give me a gift," she said coldly.

"Spoiled are you?" The raven-haired boy smirked at her, but Raven failed to find something that was funny. Her eyes darted to his hands, which were now inside his robes. He extracted a small black book and strode over to her. Raven stepped away from him until her back was pressed against the door. The stranger stopped when he was only inches away from her, and Raven noted with fear that he seemed very strong. He towered over her as well.

"This is your gift, Raven," he said, holding it out to her.

She looked at the book disdainfully. "I don't want it!"

"Touch it."

"Why?"

The stranger's eyes bored into her own, alight with cold excitement. "Do you want to be powerful, Raven?"

Raven stuck up her nose at him. "I all ready am powerful. My father's Harry Potter and he defeated You-Know-Who."

The boy's face darkened. "Did he?" he said in an odd voice. "Raven, do you want to be more powerful than that?"

Raven swallowed, and ever so slowly, nodded.

"Then touch this diary. All you must do is touch it." He crouched down so that he was eye level with her and held out the black book to her again.

Not breaking their eye contact, Raven stretched out her right hand to the book. A sweltering amount of magic seemed to be surrounding this book - a sweltering amount of power. Her hand clutched onto the leathery book -

Dark red liquid squirted with a sickening noise out of the diary and sprayed her face. Raven started to scream and tried to release the book, but to no avail.

Her fate was sealed.

Her hand was connected to the book, as the rest of her body and soul would soon be.

The blood continued to shoot everywhere and Raven began to shake as though having a seizure. As the blood touched her skin, she felt something enter her body...something that was hot and cold all at once, making her scream in pain as it joined the blood running through her veins. Something Dark and magical and omnipotent.

The teenage boy was gripping her tightly by the shoulders, as she screamed, "Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Rid me of this BLOOD!"

Pounding on her bedroom door, she willed it to open, and open it did. Raven collapsed into her father's arms, eyes squeezed shut. The pain was now gone, but the tingling was still there. She opened her eyes and blinked as her father rambled.

The stranger vanished. The book had vanished. She fell limp. But then a voice entered her head as she once again closed her eyes. Don't be afraid, Raven. There isn't anything to be afraid of. You, little one, are now the most powerful witch on earth.

And she felt that power. Her eyes snapped open. Her father was looking at her, concerned. What had only moments before been dislike for him was now pure hatred. "Raven, what happened in there?" She followed her father's gaze to her dress, which Raven noticed, appeared as though it had never been touched by ketchup. "Are you all right?"

"Were you scared Daddy?" Raven asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I wasn't." She untangled herself from his arms and started to walk away, the memory of a boy with jet black hair fading away steadily.

She was suddenly very hungry. "Grilled cheese...ketchup," she murmured.

A small smile curled her lips, and her eyes, which had always been bright blue, flashed darker.