Warning! This story does contain slash. If you are unaware of what slash is or if it's just not something you have a care for, you probably clicked on the wrong link. Sorry. Life sucks, get a helmet. Anyway! Feedback and reviews are always appreciated and flames are mocked and the source of my endless amusement. All standard disclaimers apply. (What's mine is mine and what isn't, well, isn't.) This story contains spoilers for all four books. You have been warned.

The Losing Side

A Harry Potter Fan Fiction

Prologue - Warnings from the Unknown

By Antenora

       

"You've picked the losing side, Potter! I warned you! I told you you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember? When we met on the train, first day of Hogwarts? I told you not to hang around with riffraff like this." He jerked his head at Ron and Hermione. "Too late now, Potter! They'll be the first to go, now the Dark Lord's back! Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers first! Well- second- Diggory was the f--" Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

       

The letter had been short and straight to the point.

However, that was really the only good thing Harry could say about it.

Short and to the point.

He had thrown the envelope and the single slip of parchment it contained into the wastebasket beside his bed hours ago, but it's message had burned itself into his memory. Every time he closed his eyes he saw those ten little words scrawled in red ink across the pale parchment.

Do not return to Hogwarts. Only pain awaits you there.

This wasn't the first letter he had received which contained such a warning. In fact, he'd received so many during the past year that he wasn't quite certain why he still bothered to open them. However, there was something about this letter in particular which sent cold chills creeping up his spine. Perhaps it was the words, simple though they were, which seemed to express some hidden concern for his safety. Or the hurried style in which the words had been scrawled across the page, as if the person writing them had been in some great rush to put the words on paper and get the message sent before he or she was caught. But, whether it was the worry or the hurry, Harry found the note disconcerting to say the least.

Not that he intended to allow something as silly as a simple note of warning to prevent him from returning to Hogwarts. It was the only place that offered him comfort from the harsh world in which he was now drowning.

The past year, peaceful and uneventful though it had been, had only instilled him with a greater sense of dread. Every day he woke up half-surprised that he'd woken up at all. He went through each day waiting for something to happen, anything. But nothing ever did. And now he was sixteen years old and each day held only the promise that at any given moment his world may crumble around him, leaving him alone and afraid.

It had been a year and Cedric Diggory was still dead. Voldemort was still out there somewhere, plotting and planning some evil deeds which would probably result in more innocent deaths. Yet, despite these facts, the Ministry was doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. They instead treated the entire ordeal as if it had never happened at all. As if Cedric Diggory, a good person who'd been dragged in by Voldemort's plot and killed, had never existed at all.

Closing his eyes against the moonlight which shone through his window, Harry flipped onto his stomach to shove his face into the comforting coolness of his pillow. Tomorrow he was to meet up with Ron and his family in Diagon Alley to buy their school supplies and then he'd be going to stay with them before going back to school a few days later. With any luck he'd probably be so busy that he would forget all about the stupid letter and it's stupid warning.

Only a few more days and he'd be back to the welcome routine of Hogwarts.

Only a few more days.

With that comforting thought as his blanket, Harry soon fell into a deep and untroubled sleep.

       

Some distance away, both in mind and miles, a certain silver-haired Slytherin lay awake, starring up into the darkness of his room. A darkness so deep that it was only rivaled by the darkness of his mood. Hate and heat boiled within his mind, preventing sleep as it had most nights during the past few months. He hated this place, hated these people who were his family and hated, hated the fact that some unknown distance away the boy who slept did so easily without a troubled thought in his stupid, careless head. "Dumb sot. If you only knew what awaits you, you wouldn't be able to sleep so easily. If you only knew..."

~to be continued~

Author's Notes:
Well, this first part is short, but it's done. The other parts will be far longer and I think I'll probably add to this one further on down the line, but I'm satisfied with this part for now. Anyway, this entire story was obviously inspired by Draco's comment near the end of the fourth book and it's been smacking my muse around for the past few months until I finally sat down and started writing it out.

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