Always~Hinny

Prologue*

DISCLAIMER: Credit for all original scenes and characters goes to the amazing J.K. Rowling! Editor of this book: MallaHarkness04. "*" means the chapter has been edited. Enjoy!

It might have been a warm and merry summer morning, or perhaps a dark and blustery evening, but whatever the world outside was experiencing, the strange woman awakening from the darkness paid no care to it.

Her mind, one that hadn't been put to its full potential in years, flickered through the stifling cold to try and find the faces she so desperately missed. She would have let out a cry, had she been more distressed, but she wasn't and therefore didn't.

She was only cold.
And stiff.
And surrounded by walls of darkness... and was that?
Wood?

It was quiet, wherever she was, and as she decided - she did not like that one bit.
She was a mother to a one year old, and that in and of itself ought to be cause for chaotic noises. Her husband wasn't much better himself, although the had at least the right sense of mind to quiet down when they were alone.

Alone...
She was alone.
That wasn't right.
Nothing was right.

She anxiously opened her eyes, but it made no difference to the suffocating darkness both swirling in her thoughts and surrounding her. Panic set in, and in a valiant effort to fight it off, she concentrated all her energy into getting out of wherever she was.

A second passed.
Then another.

A budding scream started working its way up her throat, but she was determined to try again, this time inching a shaking hand to where her wand lay against her stomach. Letting out a whispered word, remembered through the shadows, she was free.

Cold, broken and lonelier than ever before, she looked around at where she had come from before turning away with a shudder. The bright sun shone down on her, freezing her very core and throwing dancing light across her auburn hair.

It wasn't right.

Why was she in a cemetery? Surely she hadn't taken a walk through for the sake of it. Or even if she had, why didn't she remember it?

She turned quickly, as though someone had called her name, and her gaze fell to the gravestone bearing her name. And then the one next to it, the name of her husband carved within the marble.

No, it wasn't right.

And the scream broke, tearing through the air and scaring the little beetles crawling merrily across the ground. The events of what could only be the last night started rushing to board her train of thought, and her fingers twitched viciously at her sides.

Her left hand, the one still firmly holding her wand, began to tap an uneven pattern on her leg as everything hit her like a train.

No! No!

"NO!!"

Nothing was right.
It was impossible, but somehow everything had gone wrong. Their foolish fool-proofed plan built on glass promises had come crashing down among them, and there seemed to be only one person to blame.

No one else had the ability to share the whereabouts of herself and her small family, but somehow, here she was in a cemetery. Alone.

She had seen her husbands... gravestone... - she choked even mentally on the horrid truth of the fact - but there was one thing she hadn't seen.

Her baby. Her precious son.

If her husband hadn't stood a chance, and she herself had found herself here, where - in all things calm - was her baby?

She shot a final glance at her husband's resting place before walking the short distance to her little family's house. Her little family's destroyed house.

"My baby!!" She wailed into the ever brightening day, thoughts flocking to her despair. "My baby - oh - oh Merlin... I - I'm sorry."

The gentle breeze of life pressed against her cheek as a single tear slid down from emerald colored eyes.

The only sound to be heard on that cold, broken street was the soft whisper of her pain.

"I am so sorry Harry...I failed you."