Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:22:35 +0000
From: MeTA4 <meta4@meta4.org>
Subject: Harry Potter and the Rising of the Dark - Chapter 1

  HARRY POTTER AND THE RISING OF THE DARK
  by Meta4. Chapter 01.

  The Eleven (Elven?) Commandments
  ================================

  1.  Thou shalt bow to J.K. Rowling, creator of the Potterverse!
  2.  Thou shalt acknowledge all characters created by Her.
  3.  Thou shalt acknowledge the trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
  4.  Thou shalt not read the story herein if Slash offendeth you.
  5.  Thou shalt not read this story if thou art not old enough so to do.
  6.  Thou shalt not pass the work herein as thine own.
  7.  Thou shalt not gain profit from distributing the work herein.
  8.  Respect thy mother and thy father - only read this work when they are out.
  9.  Thou shalt acknowledge My copyright
  10. Thou shalt contact Me if thou likest or thou detesteth this work.
  11. Thou shalt never piss off an Elf...

  HARRY POTTER AND THE RISING OF THE DARK
  by Meta4 <meta4@meta4.org>


  CHAPTER ONE:: Meet the arseholes.

  Time does stuff to you physically, mentally and emotionally. Hindsight, always
being as damningly crystal clear as it is, allows me to recall with rather
embarrassing detail just how much of a shit I was.

  In my defense, though, even now I can place a fair amount of blame for my
attitude on my parents. No - really I can! My father was a businessman and a
very dispassionate and unscrupulous one at that. If he could make a fast buck
whilst cutting corners, exploiting people and generally screwing others out of
their money, he would. And, if "credit" is the right thing to give him, he was
very, very effective at it. I would normally say "good", but that word deserves
no place in the same sentence when referring to good old dad without an
appropriate negative being included.

  My mum? Well, she... She was blond, had big tits and would shag my dad as long
as the credit cards kept coming. She was sleeping around. He was sleeping
around. She knew he was, but as long as the money kept flowing, she couldn't
care less. He knew she was, but as long as there was food on the table and a
cunt for him to fuck at his whim he didn't give a monkey's. It was a truly deep
and caring relationship they shared.

  Yeah, right.

  As you can imagine, this loving, morally fortified background provided an
ideal environment in which to bring up a child. Me. Liam Blackdon, at your
service.

  I was a fuckwit. What's more, not only did I know I was a fuckwit, but I loved
and exploited the fact. You see, I wasn't exactly the most heavily built lad and
so, by the age of twelve, I had learnt to make up for this lack of physical
prowess with my wits and a sharp tongue. I was known in practically every police
station in south Derbyshire, mainly for petty theft, joyriding, vandalism and
miscellaneous breaches of the peace. However, thanks to the many Damoclean
swords of blackmail Daddy had hanging over the majority of anybody who was
anybody, including assorted law enforcement officers, council members, Customs
and Excise, Inland Revenue staff and various other government and military
personnel, our family was quite firmly in the "untouchables" section. Carte
blanche for me, then.

  As my body tried to keep pace with my mind, I suddenly twigged that I'm also
good looking and again, like any good shit would, I exploited and used that fact
to my advantage. Blond hair tied back in a short-ish pony-tail, grey eyes, tight
bod and a dick I'm certainly not ashamed of simply added to my impertinence and
self-assurance.

  By the age of fifteen, I was a living, breathing nightmare. Mum and dad knew
it. I knew it. So Dad treated this "problem" in exactly the same way that he
treated any other problem. Throw money at it.

  Now I'm not talking tens, or hundreds here. Not even thousands. Tens of
thousands of pounds were shoved in my direction at obscenely regular intervals
on the condition that I stayed out of my Dad's life and caused him as little
trouble as possible.

  It's amazing what happens when cash flows through your fingers like water. You
suddenly gain "friends" of all sorts. Chuck someone five hundred quid and you'd
be amazed what they're willing to do for you. Chuck the right person four
figures and they'll do anything at all - not the scenario you really want when
the guy conducting that particular orchestra is a fifteen-year-old who's two
sandwiches short of a picnic.

  One person managed to change all of this, however.

  The fateful night when this particular chain of events began was a clear,
frosty December evening. Mum was out with one of her boyfriends (for the third
night in a row), Dad was out of the country on business and so I could do
whatever I wanted. After a quite literally riotous evening with a couple of
"mates" I ended up absolutely thrashing the crap out of a "borrowed" Audi S3 as
the local police decided they wanted to talk to me.

  I can't be sure exactly why they felt obliged to have a little chat but my
feeling is it may well have been to do with the fact that I was doing over a
hundred miles an hour through Derby city centre, chasing some poor fucker who'd
mistakenly swerved in front of me at the previous roundabout.

  It would appear that my rate of progress displeased the law enforcement
officers and they wanted to let me know. The fact that I was fifteen and driving
at over twice the speed limit in a stolen car would have done nothing to help an
already helpless situation. Having evaluated this, I did what any other
unhinged, moral-less idiot would have done and allowed as many horses as the
turbocharged engine could deliver make their way unhindered to the four wheels
of the vehicle.

  I zoomed in and out of traffic, the tyres being almost torn from the rims as I
hurled the car round impossibly tight corners, the only things stopping me from
obliterating myself or some poor innocent pedestrian being some very clever
electronics and sheer dumb luck.

  I exited the city centre and dropped onto the A38, red-lining the Audi before
each gear shift. 89 miles an hour in second, a dip of the clutch and a chirrup
from the waste gates later and up to 125 in third, then a hundred and
fifty-something in fourth and then hard on the brakes as I cut across two lanes
of traffic out on to the exit I wanted and into the countryside.

  The police Volvo had just about managed to keep sight of me, blue lights
flashing, but the Audi had the same power with half the weight and a driver with
no instinct of self preservation at the wheel. Within another couple of minutes,
the police were nowhere to be seen. I didn't ease off, though - I was enjoying
the adrenaline rush far too much. Alternating between second and third gear, I
pushed the little S3 round the country lanes, not giving the slightest thought
to the potential of a deer leaping out from the undergrowth or another car
coming in the opposite direction.

  Strangely, even if I had been anticipating a deer or another car, it could not
have prepared me for what was about to happen. I rounded a sharp left-hander,
tyres making their protests known as the traction control fought to keep the car
going in roughly the right direction. Corner clear, I floored it down the
straight grinning insanely at the sound of the screaming engine and roaring
wind.

  Then it happened. Something flew out of the forest to the right of me at about
car roof height and, inevitably, we connected with a sickening crunch. The front
windscreen crazy paved immediately and I stamped on the brakes, swearing loudly.

  I tore off my seat belt, fought the door open and got out to assess the
damage.

  The front of the roof had been hit with such force that it had been driven
back a good couple of inches, allowing for a fist-sized gap between it and the
top of the windscreen. Marks that looked as if the vehicle had had a flame
thrower run from the dent at the front over the entire roof adorned the recently
flawless banana-yellow paint job. This pissed me off as the S3 was well fun to
drive and I figured I could've got at least another few days out of it. Whatever
had done this to "my" car was gonna pay.

  I slammed the door and walked, seething with rage, back down the road. The
night was crystal clear allowing the moon to cast a sharp white light over
everything, including a smallish black mound in the middle of the road. I
increased my walk to a jog until a reached whatever it was I'd hit.

  Initially I couldn't work out what it was until I rolled it over. I gasped as
I realised it was a kid a little younger than myself. He was wearing a long
black cloak held together by a clasp at the neck and clutching, of all things, a
broomstick.

  I swallowed, initially feeling sorry for having hit him but almost immediately
the dominant "shithead" part of my mind overruled the sorrow, turning it to
satisfaction. 'Little fucker,' I thought. 'Leaped out in front of my car, caused
a couple of grand's worth of damage and now he's paid. All settled then.'

  As you can see, I was a perfectly pleasant, rational person.

  I stood up, swore at the mass of flesh and cloak once more and turned back
towards my car. As I turned, I was faced by another cloaked figure, silhouetted
by the moonlight. Before I could do anything, the Halloween throwback pulled
something (at the time I thought it was a gun) from its cloak, pointed it
directly at me and uttered something in a voice that chilled me to the bone.

  Almost immediately, it felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach.
Winded, I staggered backwards and tripped over the kid I'd left in the middle of
the road. Dazed and confused, it took me a second to summon the power to get up
again. As I sat up, the cloaked figure who was now approaching stumbled mid
stride as if they'd suddenly lost all conviction in what they were doing, paused
for a moment and then ran off into the woods.

  If this wasn't enough, I felt the mass under me suddenly cough and splutter.
The little shit was alive! And, just to really make my night, my ears just
caught the sound of a police siren in the distance. I staggered up, looking
round a couple of times until my eyes focused on the tail lights of the car.

  "Th... Thanks," came a weak voice.

  I spun round again. The kid was half sat up, propping himself on his elbows
and looking straight at me.

  Oh fuck. He was alive and he'd seen me. And the police were coming. Hit and
run. Even my dad couldn't get me out of that one. I reasoned that the only way I
had any vague chance of getting out of this one was to take this little pain in
the arse with me before the police arrived. In one fell swoop I picked him and
his broom up and trotted as fast as I could back to the car. I chucked him into
the back seat and sat myself into the front. Putting my feet up against the
windscreen I pushed with all my might, popping it out onto the bonnet with a
crunch. Thankfully the engine struck up as soon as I touched the key. I slammed
it into first, dumped the clutch and sped off deeper into the countryside,
cursing as the cold wind streamed through the orifice left by the absent
windshield and stung my eyes.

  As we drove, I alternated between watching the road and the rear-view mirror.
My passenger looked very scared, but was keeping quiet. We weren't a million
miles away from my house and hence, not having caught sight of a police car for
a while, decided to head for home.

  I pulled into our lane and pressed the button to open the gates, drove down
the drive and abandoned the car round the back of the house. I got out, flipped
the seat forward and frog-marched cloak-boy into the deserted kitchen,
practically throwing him into a chair as I turned and dug a couple of cans of
Coke out of the fridge.

  I pulled the tab and downed half of the can in one go before I turned to the
kid who was sitting meekly at the kitchen table. I rolled one over the table to
him which he caught and stood upright.

  "So, what have you got to say for yourself?"

  The kid looked petrified. Good.

  "Uh... Th... Thank you?"

  "Wrong answer." I slammed the coke down on the table, spun a chair round and
sat straddling it, arms rested on its back. "The right answer," I continued, "is
'What do you mean, hit by a car, officer? I haven't seen anyone matching that
description!'"

  "Uh... I'm sorry, I... I don't quote follow..." he faltered. The kid looked
genuinely confused now.

  "Look - you just hit my car. I'm underage for driving and the last thing I
need is for you to go blabbing to the police that I hit you while you were out
walking minding your own business!"

  "Walking," he grinned. "Good one. And forget the car."

  "Damn right forget that!"

  "No, I mean that's not important," smiled the kid. "You saved me!"

  "Saved you?"

  "The... uh... the thing that tried to curse us - you saved me from him! How
did you do it?"

  "Woah - hold on a sec - you think I saved you? Fuckin' hell mate, I damn near
killed you!"

  Crap. Admission by me. Bad plan. However this kid was quite clearly insane.
Perhaps he had a concussion or something. Either way, whatever he was saying
just wasn't making sense. Perhaps I should try and calm him down a little - the
strong arm tactics obviously weren't working. Besides, if I could belt him at
seventy-odd with a car, send him flying over the roof and thud on the ground and
sit up moments later with ne'er a bruise to be seen then I was fairly certain
that my fists would have little if any impact whatsoever.

  "What's your name, kid?"

  "Colin," he replied, staring back at me avidly. "Colin Creevy." He was sat
right on the front of the chair, hands gripping the front edge of the seat as if
in anticipation of something. Indeed, his voice too confirmed the eagerness.
"What's yours?"

  "Liam," I offered.

  "Pleased to meet you, Liam," he gushed, and extended a grubby hand.

  Cautiously, I shook it. "It really is good to meet another wizard," he beamed.
"I mean, I would've thought you'd have been at school. Unless you're on
attachment too,"

  Totally cuckoo, this one. Definitely concussion. Against my usual judgement,
my compassionate side made a very rare outing. I surprised even myself.

  "Listen, Colin, how about you spend the night here - there's a spare bed made
up so you may as well help yourself."

  "Really? Oh thanks, Liam, that's really great of you! I mean, I'd hoped to be
back at Hogwarts this evening but I was starting to get really tired and..."

  "It's fine, Colin, honestly," I interrupted. "Just up the stairs, second on
your right,"

  He grinned once again and trotted out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I just
sat in disbelief at the kitchen table, not being able to comprehend exactly
what'd transpired that night. I looked at my watch: 2:12AM.

  I sighed and decided that an early (for me) night would be a good plan. I put
Colin's untouched can of Coke back in the fridge, killed the lights and trudged
up the stairs myself.

  When I got to the top floor landing, I punched in the night alarm code then
proceeded to my room, one further down than Colin's.

  I stripped off to my T-shirt and boxers, switched off the main light and
collapsed onto my bed.

  Colin Creevy... What kind of a name was that anyway? As I sat and contemplated
the odd things that had happened that evening, my mind kept drifting back to
Colin. He had very fair blond, scruffy hair and dazzling blue eyes and a touch
of a lisp when he spoke. He was built like a matchstick but despite that I
couldn't help thinking that he wasn't offensive to the eye. Verging on cute,
even.

  I mentally kicked myself for that last thought as I really didn't want to be
gay. I mean, as if I didn't have enough on my plate without knowing, deep down,
that I was terminally attracted to other boys. My Dad would chuck me out of the
house in the blink of an eye. The fact that I was even alive I'm sure displeased
him but to be alive and gay I was sure would be enough for him to dispose of me.
Not that he'd even notice if I bought another guy home and shagged him all night
- he had managed to somehow make me blend into the scenery - I was another of
the many things that he owned and in which he very quickly lost interest. Even
so, I wasn't willing to risk it.

  All in all, it had been one very odd evening. Consciousness left me in
moments.


  Initially I couldn't work out what had woken me. I never wake up in the middle
of the night without a reason. I sat up and listened - not a sound. Then I heard
the feint, rapid "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP" of the alarm panel by my bed. Zone
two, the downstairs hallway, had been tripped. Strangely zone one, the doors and
windows, hadn't been. Not taking any chances, I reached beneath my bed until my
fingers came into contact with cold metal.

  I closed my fingers around the baseball bat and pulled it out quietly,
tip-toed to my bedroom door and gently opened it a fraction. The dim night-light
from the stairs cast an eerie gloom down the landing, but it was enough to
confirm that there was no-one there.

  Carefully, I ventured along the landing, pressed tightly to the wall. As I
approached the hall's alarm panel, I could now see that zones two and five had
been tripped, five being a pressure pad on the top step. I took a deep breath,
stepped round the corner and swung, but my bat simply swished through thin air.

  I exhaled with relief, but it was short lived. I heard a creak from behind me
and, without looking, I made a wild swing in an arc with one hand. To my shock,
the bat made contact with, as best as I could see, thin air accompanied by an
"Oof!".

  I punched the lights. Of all the scenes I thought may have greeted me, the one
I was presented with certainly took me off guard. On the floor was a head, the
face of which was contorted in pain. Aside from the grimace, the most striking
feature was the head's bright red hair. For a moment I thought it was severed,
but there was no blood anywhere. A moment later, a hand brandishing what looked
like a stick appeared as if from under an invisible blanket. The head yelled
"EXPELLIARMUS!". An intense flash of red light shot directly from the end of the
stick at me which again took me rather by surprise, however when it hit it
simply made my hand tingle slightly.

  I advanced on the hand and head that was lying on the floor and, as they tried
to shuffle back, the invisible "blanket" they were wearing fell away to reveal
dress very similar to Colin's. Once again, the boy pointed the stick at me and
this time yelled "TARANTALLEGRA!". A similar flash of light hit me, this time
making my legs tingle ever so slightly. Eyes now wide with fear, the boy
continued to try and back away but this time I fell on him, pinning his arms
painfully with my knees and the baseball bat jammed hard under his chin.

  "COLIN!" I yelled. "CREEVY, GET YOUR ARSE OUT HERE,"

  A second later I head a thud from Colin's bedroom and the door was wrenched
open. Colin, bleary eyed, gasped as he saw me pinning the intruder down.

  "Ron! Ron is that you?"

  "Colin! Get this psycho off me!"

  "Liam, it's OK, he's a friend of mine,"

  "No, Colin, it's not OK - this lanky fuckwit just BROKE INTO MY HOUSE!" I
yelled.

  "OK, I'm sorry," the boy called Ron said, wincing with the pain of my weight
on his upper arms.

  "Let go of that stick thing!"

  "What?"

  "I think he means your wand, Ron," added Colin, wincing in sympathy with Ron's
grunts of discomfort. Ron let go of the wand and, after I picked it up, I
climbed off him carefully.

  "Bloody hell, Creevy, you don't half know how to pick 'em," said the
red-haired lad, rubbing his biceps alternately.

  "Colin, what the hell is going on here?" I asked.

  "I came to, uh, rescue him," said Ron, looking rather embarrassed. "We thought
he'd been captured or something,"

  "No, I'm fine, Ron," chirped Colin in his annoyingly perky manner. "Thanks for
the effort though," he smiled tentatively.

  "What kind of wizard are you, anyway? I mean, I know you can block spells like
those, but I never knew you could do it with out incantation,"

  I looked at Colin once more, confused as ever. "Colin, what the hell is he on
about?"

  "Well, we're wizards in training," he said quite candidly as if he'd just said
'oh, I like football'. "I assumed you were a wizard after last night when you
stopped the death curse on me."

  "Death curse? This bloke stopped the DEATH CURSE? No friggin' wonder I wasn't
exactly winning,"

  "Hold on, wizards? You're training to be wizards? Like with wands and dragons
and cauldrons and shit?" I asked incredulously.

  Ron continued, totally oblivious to my derisory tone. "Colin, Dumbledore needs
to know about this bloke. I mean, he's like indestructible or something! No
curse can harm him..."

  "But he's a Muggle! Ron, we can't just take a muggle back to Hogwarts!"

  Muggle? If anything sounded derisory, that did. "Err, excuse me - muggle?"

  "Non magical person,"

  "OK Liam - d'you mind if I try a little experiment?" asked Ron.

  "Knock yourself out," I grinned. This was just nuts. No, actually - THEY were
just nuts. No way could any of this be even half way true.

  "Could I have my wand back?" asked Ron.

  So far, the most this kid had managed to muster was a tingle in my fingers
and, as far as I could see, the most damage he could ever inflict would be by
throwing it at me. What the hell: I handed it back to him.

  "What're you gonna do Ron?"

  "The Cruciatus curse,"

  The blood quite literally drained from Colin's face. Before I could do
anything, Ron yelled "Crucio!" and yet another jet of bright red light hit me
square in the chest. This time, it felt as if I was in hot sunlight, my skin
feeling a gentle prickling of heat. Both Colin and Ron appeared speechless.

  "So I passed then?" I grinned. I wasn't sure if it was because of the sheer
lunacy of the situation or the fact that between them and myself, no-one would
ever know of our meeting, but I suddenly realised I'd dropped - for the first
time in years - my whole "attitude". For whatever reason, I was actually
enjoying their company. Either way, I didn't get an answer from them.

  "Well, I dunno about you two, but I'm going to bed again." I stated.

  "Where's Ron gonna sleep?" asked Colin, conscientious as ever.

  "It's a big enough bed - I'll let you two fight over it,"

  Turning my back on the two lads, I yawned and ambled back down the hall to my
room and closed the door behind me, leaving both Colin and Ron rather
speechless. I always liked dramatics.

  Back in my bedroom I had just enough coherence left in me to collapse into
bed, drifting into a sleep interspersed with dreams of weird and wonderful lands
inhabited by dragons and wizards and all manner of other strange creatures. That
night, I slept very soundly indeed.


  = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

  Well, that's all for the moment. Let us know what you think (good or bad) at
meta4@meta4.org, or visit our web site at http://www.meta4.org.