Never Many

It happened before time, before space and before life, as we know it...

His thin body rocked to and fro. His hands were clasped tightly together as he chanted words that could neither be heard nor understood. His lips cracked with the effort and his nose bled profusely, the blood staining his ragged brown tunic. A woman behind him laid her hand on his shoulder.

From the sand beneath their feet, fourteen shapes began to emerge. With this emergence, his rocking became more violent and his chanting, previously soft, became screaming. Magic streamed forth from his hands and power seemed to form around his head.

Four shapes halted their progress. He screamed louder and they rose again, more slowly than the rest, forming limbs, bodies and minds. Just as the birth was complete, an explosion tore at the land, sending fire raining to the earth, forcing volcanoes to erupt and shattering the terrain, forming deep gorges in the rock. As the dust, smoke and ash cleared, small fires still burnt and dead animals lay as far as the eye could see. The man stopped chanting. Blood pooled at his feet and dust caked his robes. Suddenly, the magic was gone and there was silence on the plain of death and destruction.

They stood before him, five women, nine men. Power glistened off their black robes and sparkled around their hands. Silver rings glittered on the middle finger of their left hands. Their tall, slender, powerful figures looked magnificent in the fading light. In the sky, ominous black clouds split and the rain poured down in torrents. It was a healing rain, and the surrounding area became lush again. But the rain did nothing to hide the piles of dead animals that littered the earth littered around them.

He spoke to them, calling in a voice that carried on the wind, calling, calling. No answer came. Four of the group, the four whose birth had been slowed, stepped away, but the remaining ten formed a circle. They joined hands and said a single word. Their voices were colder than the snow that fell on the mountains.

With the word came destruction. Screams of pain issued from the creator and the woman behind. Their bones fell to the ground as dust.

A cry came from behind one of the rocks. Two children emerged, streaked with sweat and dirt, one with a bloody gash on the forehead, the other with a long scratch down one cheek. The ten responsible for the deaths took a step back, as if they were one. The two joined hands and screamed once again. One of the ten fell, returning to the sand from whence she had come.

Again the nine figures joined hands. The chanted their curses, getting louder and louder, until the children screamed in agony. One roared a promise, the other a challenge. Then, they were gone.

The four that had not taken part disappeared to the caves not far off and then the complying nine were left. Lightening cracked behind them, revealing their eyes. Black, with no light to show soul and no warmth to show feeling. Just knowledge. Knowledge and power.

It happened before time and before space, and changed life, as we know it.

Chapter 1

Trying Friendship

True friends like diamonds, are precious and rare.

False friends like autumn leaves, are found everywhere.

It was a Friday and the Charms classroom was hot enough as it was. No one needed Neville to start yet another fire, but he did anyway. And after incinerating his sixteenth pack of cards, which he was meant to be enchanting to shuffle themselves, his desk caught fire to bring the temperature of the classroom to roughly 'blazing inferno'. Grumbles could be heard all round as Harry wiped the back of his sweating neck with an equally sweaty hand.

"Why couldn't we use a spell with such a high fire risk in the middle of winter? Merlin knows how welcome it'd be then." Ron moaned. "I swear, if I sweat any more I just may drown"

"That would be just like you, worried about yourself when there's work to be done! Stop acting like a child. You're seventeen. We have exams just after Christmas! Anyway, we are learning. That's worth some pain, isn't it?" snapped Hermione, whose cards had been mixing themselves up continuously for almost half an hour. She and Ron had been dating for about a year and the relationship had its ups and downs. At that moment it was doing a very sharp noise dive.

"Learning merits pain? Only if it's Care of Magical Creatures, but then I don't think you can avoid it." Ron replied.

"Oh, don't be so mean about Hagrid. He's been doing a very good job these days."

"The definition of very good being that no student has been savaged, ripped limb from limb or torn to shreds in the last month?" Ron viciously stabbed his quill into the desk.

"Oh.... I," Hermione was cut of by Harry's hand, which snaked out to cover her mouth.

"I will not let go till you two promise to shut up." Harry was getting annoyed.

"I don't know. I kind of like Hermione like this. She's really quite ... OW! That hurt." Hermione had stood rather painfully on Ron's instep. "Okay, okay. Let her go Harry. Though why you would even contemplate letting her talk again, I'll never know. It's like setting an angry dragon on a group of muggles. Ouch, stop doing that Hermione!" This time it was an elbow in the sternum.

"Oh, whoops. Did my elbow just hit you? Bad elbow, bad elbow. Or should I say good elbow, feel free to do that any time you like to anyone you..." Harry sighed and covered her mouth again.

"See what I mean Harry? She's completely off her rocker. Talking to her elbow now. What's next, wearing her shoes on her ears or her robes inside out? Oh dear, I forgot! She already did that." Ron was talking about the time Hermione had come pelting down the stairs in a dreadful hurry with her robes on inside out. "She's too far gone already, Harry. Put her in a home or something before she loses it completely."

Harry let go of Hermione's mouth and grabbed both her hands, for she may actually ripped Ron's nose right of his face if he hadn't.

"Where's all this aggressiveness come from Hermione? In the past you would have nattered on about something in some eight-thousand page book until I'd want to go and knock myself unconscious."

Hermione tossed her head. "I took a self defence class over the summer and I learnt the most painful places to hit." She smirked at the expression Ron's face.

"I don't care if you learnt how to break in to Gringotts, Hermione. Will you guys just shut up before I have to put a silencing charm on both of you?" Harry was losing his last nerve.

"Oh, you wouldn't put it on Ron, because he's your best friend, but you'd put it on me. I noticed you covered my mouth but it didn't even seem to cross your mind to grab Ron like that. You always do things for Ron like he's your only friend and you don't even like me!" Hermione said, just as the bell went and the three began collecting their books.

"Well, of course he wouldn't grab me like that because I don't whine like you do. You always do things for Ron like he's your best friend," mimicked Ron, doing a very good impression of Hermione's high voice. "You give us all an earache and a... Ahhhhhhhh, ouch, owww."

Hermione had finally gone for the big one- the groin- and Ron was rolling 'round the Charms classroom floor in agony. Harry's only thought was how lucky it was for Ron that they weren't in the corridor. That could have been very embarrassing.

"Get up, Ron. I'm starving, and I have to eat now because we have Potions after lunch and I won't have any appetite left after that." Harry continued to grumble impatiently as Ron dragged himself up using a chair. When Ron had recovered somewhat, the three of them set off to the Great Hall. They arrived as the last dribble of students filed in, and took their normal seats at the Gryffindor table. When the platters filled with food, Harry ate everything he could lay his hands on. The table was covered with delicious food, and he was going through a rather annoying growth spurt and seemed always to be hungry... except after Double Potions with the Slytherins.

After lunch, Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor seventh-years, including a grumpy Ron and a sulking Hermione, lined up outside the dungeon. The Slytherins, including a smirking Draco Malfoy, lined up on the other side, the two houses staying as far away from each other as possible.

Professor Snape's cape billowed behind him (although Harry, Ron and Hermione had come to an agreement that the cape had a spell on it to make it do that. They didn't see how his cape could billow if there was no wind inside) as he led the two houses into the dungeon. A sneer played about his thin lips.

'Here we go again,' sighed Harry, as he took his normal seat with Ron on his right and Hermione next to Ron.

The Potions class began in the normal way. Professor Snape read out the roll, stopping only to sneer and look disgusted when he got to, 'Potter, Harry'. Then came the part Harry hated most. Question time. The time when Professor Snape looked round the room and asked all the people he didn't like (Harry) really hard questions and ignored those that knew the answer (Hermione).

True to his ways, Professor Snape picked up a vile looking concoction and his black eyes scanned the room. His mouth had only begun to form the word "Potter" when the dungeon door exploded off its hinges.

Life before this

Life is a rocky road. The challenge is not to let it grind you to dust,

But polish you into a brilliant gem.

- John Milton Fogg

"Sorry about that," chuckled Professor Dumbledore as he brushed himself off, " The door was locked, and, ah, well... I was dared to. Never pass up a good dare."

When Snape had recovered having his door blown off by the headmaster, he managed to splutter, "Dared? By whom?"

Dumbledore smiled slyly and pushed a girl into the room. She was tall and slender with wavy black hair and deep green eyes, much like Harry's own, but they held a steely glint that just dared anyone to cross her. Her mouth was hard, but as she smiled, a light seemed to go on and she was very sweet looking, yet somehow still dangerous.

"Everyone, this is Susan Pott, she will be taking classes with you now. I know it is extraordinarily unusual for someone to join us at this stage, but she has been preoccupied. Susan, why don't you take a seat next to Mr Potter, there's an empty one there." Susan's green eyes flashed as she looked up at Dumbledore but he just smiled. She sighed and walked gracefully to the seat on Harry's left.

"Well then. I had better be going. Have fun." And with that Dumbledore winked at the class and disappeared, leaving a brand new (and bright purple) door on the hinges and the old one lying on the floor.

"Susan Pott." Snape's voice was laced with hate he reserved only for Harry. The thought that Snape did not save that hate exclusively for Harry had him quite miffed.

"I was just about to see if this class had even half of the knowledge they need to pass exams, but instead I think I shall ask you." Susan just smiled. It was not the same smile she had used before. It was a hard smile, but a twinkle in her eye gave away that she was about to comply with Dumbledore's parting words.

"What to you get when you mix Unicorn tears with a crushed Dragon tooth?

"A mixture known as Groeth potion or simply 'pain of the living'. A powerful potion that will make the drinker feel the pain of all those around them magnified a thousand fold."

"Hmm. How do I make a Clatasclus Potion?"

"You mix a fallen shooting star, earth dust and blood of the leader."

"What happens if I mix a truth syrup with a sleeping potion?'

"Lay down and get ready to die, Sir." She fired her answers off so fast that no one, except maybe Hermione, had time even to think of the correct one.

"Hmm. Very good, Miss Pott. You must have gotten your intellect from your mother, because your father certainly didn't have any. Potter's situation seems much like your own, but unfortunately in his case, both parents forgot to pass anything on to him. You two should be friends." Snape hissed malevolently. Harry felt at that moment that he should like to blast Snape with a very nasty spell, perhaps The Curse of the Bogies, which he'd wanted to see in practice since they had learnt about in their first year, but Susan laid a warning hand on his arm. Her touch was very firm.

"It seems, in that case, that you also have much in common with Mr Potter. Why are you not friends?" Her voice was soft, but it filled the entire room. There was complete silence. No one had ever, ever spoken to Professor Snape like that before.

"One hundred and twenty points from your house for your rudeness!" And he turned his back, not expecting a reply.

"But Professor," she said quite innocently, "I have no house yet. I have yet to be sorted." Professor Snape seemed to give up. He made a snorting noise and returned to the lesson, but Harry noticed he constantly looked over the heads to stare at Susan. Then his eyes would travel to Harry and back.

The potions lesson proceeded without another mishap. No melting cauldrons, no overflowing potions and no lost ingredients. As the two houses filed out of the dungeon, Harry grabbed Susan's arm gently.

"Would you like to have dinner with us?" he asked. She seemed to think for a minute, but then he was rewarded with a nod and a tiny smile. He pulled Ron over and introduced him, then Hermione. The two girls began a completely fascinating discussion the effects of the sleeping potion on the body ("It makes them go to sleep, what more do they want?" grumbled Ron) as they lead the way to the Great Hall. Ron and Harry trailed behind.

Over the Gryffindor dinner table, where Susan had joined them, Ron was disgusted with Susan when he found out that she didn't know a lot about Quidditch and she knew nothing about brooms. She and Hermione, however, got on exceptionally well, especially when Hermione found out that Susan was not only smart but that she had read Hogwarts: A History and even had her own copy.

After dinner, Dumbledore called Susan over to be sorted. Harry waited for her just outside the hall and almost fell over when she came out on the arm of Draco Malfoy. She was blushing and giggling at something he was saying. When Malfoy saw Harry, he whispered something in her ear, smiling, and departed.

"Hi Harry. Guess what! I'm in Gryffindor!" Susan squealed.

"That's nice. What were you doing with Draco Malfoy?"

"Oh, we were just talking. He seems nice and he's very funny."

"Nice, nice." Harry clicked his tongue in bewilderment. "Malfoy wouldn't know nice it rammed a sword through his chest, shot him in the leg, spat in his eye then ran around him poking its tongue out, screaming 'I'm nice, I'm nice!' And funny! Maybe if you turned him into a bunny rabbit or a watering can that would be funny. But without a spout or whiskers he is NOT funny. "

"I'm sure he would look good even with a spout." Susan said "And he'll get whiskers soon enough, and so will you."

"I didn't mean those whiskers...I meant rabbit whiskers. Turning someone into a rabbit means they look and act like a rabbit." Harry proceeded to show Susan exactly how a Rabbit-Malfoy would act.

"You know," said Susan thoughtfully, "You do a damn good impression of a rabbit when nobody has turned you into one."

"That is NOT the point!!"

"Oh, well what exactly is the point Mr Cotton Tail?"

"The point, the point is sharp and pointy." Harry was never any good at comebacks under stress.

"Oh, now I see. How ever could I have missed it? So simple, so easy. Won't happen again. But for now, goodnight. "At this point Harry and Susan split up and went upstairs to their dormitories

The next morning Harry rose late and stumbled, half-awake, down to the common room, where he saw Susan, Ron and Hermione having what looked like a captivating discussion. Harry felt a little left out until Susan looked over and beckoned to him to join them. He walked over to hear the end of Ron's question.

".... dare Dumbledore to blow the door off the dungeon?"

"Well, why knock when you can make a dramatic entrance? I had to dare Dumbledore to blow the door off, because I'm pretty sure students aren't allowed to do that around here. Are they? We could at my last school. It was great fun, but it got to the stage when the doors would hear a person coming and blow themselves up. We used to play a great game, sneaking up to see how close we could get before they'd blow."

"Isn't that a little dangerous?" Hermione asked. Susan shrugged.

"What was your last school? Have you done your O.W.L's?" Hermione pressed on.

"It was actually a College. The Unseen College. UC for short. Quite a joke around students. We learnt the same things you learnt here except I was the only girl in the whole school. I had plenty of time to perfect my Damsel in Distress act. And yes, of course I've done my O.W.L's."

A/N: The Unseen University is, of course, a creation of Terry Pratchett, which means that it's his and not mine. If you hadn't noticed, the Unseen College is the Unseen University with a word changed.

"What about your family. Where are they?" There was a few moments silence.

"My family was killed during the Voldemort Wars. He took my life." The venom in Susan's voice shocked them all for a few moments. "Thanks to Him, I grew up in a muggle orphanage. No one magical knew I existed except for Dumbledore and my godfather- but he doesn't care. My life has been spent in hiding and it sucks. I always wanted a brother or sister but I never had the chance to have one."

"Well, you can have one of my siblings. I charge 10 Galleons for one, a little more for the twins. They don't do much, though, except for make a lot of noise." Ron offered thoughtfully

"I've heard there is quite a clan at the Burrow. What do they all do?" asked Susan

"Well, Percy made it to Minister of Magic but he had an early burn out, and after disappearing for a year -Mum was mad as a snake- came back with a degree in journalism. He's working as the political journalist for The Daily Prophet nowadays. He married his girlfriend Penelope not long after that. You wouldn't want Percy, though. He's BORING, and Penelope wouldn't be too happy. Fred and George -Gred and Forge- have become respectable members of the wizard community."

"Yeah Ron, and leprechauns hate rainbows," snorted Harry

"Actually Harry, leprechauns do hate rainbows. They give them the flu." pointed out Susan helpfully.

"Only kidding," continued Ron with a dirty look in Harry's direction. "They opened a small magic shop in a corner of Diagon Alley and now have a whole chain of stores. Neither are married and, let's face it, are likely never to be. Maybe the fact they like to test new tricks on any girlfriend they've ever had had something to do with it. Charlie was asked to leave ("Kicked out of" muttered Harry) Romania after a nasty incident involving a group of tourists and a very angry Norwegian Ridgeback. From there, he moved on to China to do something with the Chinese Fireballs. That's where he met his wife, Mai Lin. Bill still works as a Curse breaker for Gringotts but he's also written two books. I think they're absolute drivel but mum loves them. They're called 'On My Own: A Touching Story of the Struggle of a Poor Boy Through the Ranks of Gringotts.' And 'On the Inside: What Really Goes On Behind the Gringotts Wall.' Real tearjerkers. Wouldn't believe a word if you paid me. Believe me, Bill tried. Plus, the titles had to be enchanted to scroll across the front in order to have any room left on the cover for Bill's name. 'William A. Weasley.' Ginny and me are the only ones still at Hogwarts." Ron finished his spiel, quite out of breath. "So, which one would you like?"

"Thanks Ron, but it's not quite the same." Susan glanced at her watch "Oh, sorry guys, I have to go. I promised to meet Draco behind the broom sheds. See you later." With that she dashed out the portrait hole and out of sight.

"What? She's gone to meet Draco? As in Draco Malfoy? The Draco Malfoy? I thought she had better taste! I don't even want to know what they're doing behind the broom shed. Harry, what are they doing?" asked Ron, going slightly red.

"How would I know? All I know is that she thinks he's funny and nice."

"Huh, he must have put a spell on her." mused Hermione, but Ron was losing it.

"Nice and funny!! Draco wouldn't know nice if it stripped naked, painted itself green and hung a sign around its neck that said 'I'm nice, believe me' and, funny? Ha, he would only be funny if he was hung upside down while wearing pink fluffy slippers and Dobby's tea cosy on his head!" Ron spluttered, face red.

"I hope he's wearing something in between the tea cosy and the slippers because I really don't want to get a mental picture of that," protested Harry. Ron glared and shuddered. The group fell into silence and sat staring at the fire. Shortly, the peace was interrupted by a piercing scream, followed closely by more of the same.

------To be continued------

A/N Draco in a tea cosy! That is something I want to see. I apologise to those fans of Draco who don't like my ridicule of him but the worst is yet to come. Believe me, Draco will never be able to look at a sheep without blushing when I've finished with him.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next one is better and should be out soon. Look out for some Star Wars references (which are terribly easy to spot) and 'First Contact.'

Thanks to my betas, Sarah, Shar and Alya Pascal.