Gillian lived in one of the most disenchanting places in all of Europe. She lived at number 12 Magnolia Crescent in Little Whinging, in a neighborhood not unlike others, with houses not unlike the neighbors’. She had lived there for a large part of her life; fifteen years now. Gillian had come there as an infant, adopted from St. Paul's Children's Home by the Polkisses.

Mrs. Polkiss had been in her thirties at the time, married for ten years, and had been desperately attempting to conceive for most of them. She was short, dark-haired and thin, with small eyes and wiry framed glasses. She had a wispy sort of look, as though a breeze could take her away. Sean Polkiss, her husband, looked oddly similar to his wife. He was short, his dark hair peaked in a high, receding hairline, and he wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. After ten years, they had decided that having their own child was not a possibility, and at any rate, at their age, it could prove dangerous. So they adopted Gillian. She was young, so they could raise her as their own, and she even looked like them: overly thin and dark-haired. It would be best, they decided, to not tell her that she was adopted.

But things such as this do not always work out for a happily ever after.

A month after adopting Gillian, the Polkisses discovered that they had a child of their own on the way.

They already had Gillian, now, a daughter whom they loved dearly. They could not bear to give her up, but even they knew that things could not be as they had hoped.

And so, as the anxiety of the new baby swelled in the household, Gillian was all but forgotten, and the Polkisses were careless about their decision not to tell her she wasn't theirs. And so, Gillian grew up as the child they had not truly wanted, overshadowed by the child they had longed for for so long.

And, thus, a few weeks before Gillian’s first birthday, Piers was born.

Piers was a spitting image of his parents, and they loved him for it.

When they were both young, they may have been mistaken for twins, Piers and Gillian. But as Gillian grew older, her resemblance to the family faded. She was still dark-haired and thin, but the girl grew too tall to be a part of their family, and her eyes, blue in her infancy, had grown to a dark brown, almost black -- not to mention the strange tendencies she had developed.

As a child, she read a curious amount at an early age but not the normal books for young children. The first book she read was not about a dog named Spot, but Beauty and the Beast. Not only that, but the girl played make believe constantly and, as far as the Polkisses could tell, had no less than four imaginary friends. Her parents often worried that the little girl was unaware of the difference between the real and the imaginary.

And while Gillian played in her fantastic world of make believe, the Polkisses looked on, somewhat concerned about her inability to bond with the other children. At the same time their son interacted with the neighboring children on a regular basis. He would push them, bite them, and steal food from them whenever he could, and cried if he couldn't get his way. And, as happens with most parents faced with a difficult child, they didn't see anything wrong. They considered this normal, healthy toddler behavior.

Now, with Gillian 15 years old, Piers 14, nothing had changed. Gillian had stopped her make believe games as far as the Polkisses could tell, but she still was a loner who had never brought home a single friend. Piers, on the other hand, had his own group of friends that he visited daily. In truth, the visits consisted of beating up younger children, vandalizing the town park and throwing stones at passersby. But the Polkisses didn't know this and were pleased with their son. And, though they loved Gillian, they could not bring themselves to love her as much as their own, oh-so-popular boy. So, on the whole, they ignored her, and she was perfectly content with this.

Gillian was walking down Magnolia Crescent on her way to the park close to her home. It was an unbearably hot summer day, and turning into an unbearably hot summer night, but this didn't bother her. Everything about the summer had been that way.

The air was dusty with dirt from the parched and dying grass, causing her to cough painfully to clear her throat of the grime. She saw some people look out of their windows at her. She smiled. How sick she must seem, so skinny, coughing and pale. The neighbors weren't fond of Gillian, and she didn't attempt to change that in any way. She wore mostly black, often loose fitting clothes, and seemed to disappear inside of them.

As she turned the corner to the park, she saw that somebody was already there on the swings. Normally, this wouldn't have bothered her; there was still the merry-go round, which she liked to sit on and spin to stop thinking about the present and this disappointing world. But this wasn't just anybody sitting at the park. She hurried back around the corner again, and hoped he hadn't noticed her. The someone sitting there was a tall, black-haired, bespectacled boy. The Potter boy.

She peaked around the corner again, intrigued that she was so close to him. He was said to be big trouble, although nobody actually knew anything about him except that up until he was eleven years old he had been in normal school. Afterwards, however, he was sent off to some special school for delinquents during the normal school year. She had gone to school with him up until he left. She remembered that he was quiet, often distracted in class, and got into trouble for all sorts of weird things.

She also remembered his cousin Dudley. He was one of Piers' friends, and the meanest of them, as far as she could tell when she saw their gang at it. She almost felt sorry for Harry for a moment, since anybody growing up with Dudley and that horribly mundane Dursley family probably didn't have a chance. But this feeling didn't last long: she remembered the story she had heard about his scar.

Rumor was that he got the thin scar cut down his forehead in a fight in grade school. Apparently, before they had ever had class together, he had instigated a fight with another student. Harry had attacked him on the school grounds, apparently beating him up until the kid had to be sent to a doctor for stitches. When a teacher came over to see what had happened, Harry apparently ran, hiding on the school rooftop. When he was told to get down, he smiled and jumped down a whole story, deliberately, cutting his head when he landed.

She had grown up with someone almost as terrible as Dudley. Piers was no cup of tea. And thus far, she hadn't attacked anybody or jumped from high buildings to hurt those around her. Gillian’s pity for the boy passed.

She turned back around the corner and made her way up Magnolia Crescent again. She was sort of upset that she had to head home, especially when she saw Pier's gang stop at the crossing in front of her, and say their goodbyes. Piers started walking towards her.

"Hiya, Gillian," he said, in a voice that was bound to start trouble.

She wasn't in the mood. She swept her hair back, behind her shoulders, looked up at the sky, and quickly doubled back towards the park.

"Mum and Dad are going to be mad at you if you're late again!" called Piers, but she kept walking towards the only place she could. Even facing Harry Potter was better than letting Piers try to get to her.

Heading back towards Wisteria Walk, she was relieved to see that the park was empty now. She took a seat on the last unbroken swing and stared at the ground, with an expression that said, as she looked at the dirt, 'This is as good as it gets'.

But as Gill contemplated the waves of self-pity and woe that washed over her, she was jerked awake by very loud, very inappropriate screams. After all, it was almost 9:00! She jumped up. The screams didn't sound angry. They sounded scared. She began running toward Wisteria Walk, to help whoever was screaming, not quite aware that a skinny 15-year-old girl wouldn't be much help against whatever it was.

Suddenly, as the yells drew near, a terrible dark washed over her accompanied by a dreadful cold and a sick unhappiness the likes of which she had never felt, in all her glum. With all her strength, she continued forward, desperate to help. She could sense something around her. A presence…an eerie, unshakeable presence, and a sound like a death rattle, as she became colder and colder. Gillian shivered and lurched to her knees, suddenly vomiting in the street. There was a tempted pause in the presence, and she felt as though she could feel something standing over her, although she couldn’t stand to look up. She was relieved when the feeling suddenly dulled, fading away. But she was seized with fear again when she felt the invisible beast move towards…towards what? Two figures in the dark. One of them was standing, clutching something in its hand, and the other was behind it a bit, closer to her, cowering. Suddenly, she heard the standing figure say something, something she couldn’t understand, and a silvery, misty sort of light appeared in front of him, lighting up his face. He did it again and again. But whatever he was trying to do, it didn't help. With the last of her strength, Gillian crawled into an alley between two homes not far off. And, there, she fainted.

When Gillian came to, it was completely dark, although the natural kind that comes with night. She felt ill, and shook as she stood up. She tried hard to remember why she was there. The last thing she could remember was Harry Potter's lit up face, and then a silvery stag, looking at her curiously before galloping away. She wasn't sure if this had been a dream or not. But Harry was definitely there. And....(she gulped as she remembered)...there had been something else there...a dark something else that glided through the night, in an eerie, soul-crushing presence. She shuddered and attempted to shake the memory. She had to hurry home. It was bound to be late, and she was sure to be in trouble.

But on her way back, all she could think about was Harry Potter, and that terrible feeling that she could never be happy again.
Gillian was right about being in trouble. Her parents had the whole act down to the last tear; a scene straight from some teen movie: the parents, sitting in the front room, lights out, staring at the door with expressions of worry and anger mingled on their faces. Gillian didn't try to sneak in. She came in, just as you please, and walked straight into the front room where the light beside the couch flicked on.

Mrs. Polkiss was on the couch, face wet with tears, with Mr. Polkiss standing beside her, looking at Gillian angrily. He asked coolly, "What do you have to say for yourself, Gillian?"
Gillian glanced at the clock on the wall. It was one in the morning. She was shocked that she had been out for so long. She looked at her dad and shook her head.

"Nothing?" he demanded, his voice rising. "You have no explanation for this? My God, Gillian, how about telling us where you have been! Look at your mother! We've both been worried sick about you!"

Gillian still didn't know what to say. Who would believe the truth? But she tried anyway. She never was a good liar. "Well, I was heading home with Piers when," she knew she couldn't tell them their son was a nasty bully unless she wanted it to get worse, so she tried weakly, "when- I remembered that I had...um...left something at the park. So I doubled back to get it. And…well, while I was there I heard yells just off on Wisteria Walk." 'Please believe me!' she thought desperately, "And, so, I went to see what was the matter, because they sounded scared. And when I went around I saw Dudley Dursley and" (this was the part she was dreading to tell them) "Harry Potter."

The reaction was immediate. Her mother let out a sort of wail and her father stumbled in his pacing. "You got tangled up with that Potter boy?" he demanded weakly.

"No!" said Gillian quickly. "No! He didn't know I was there! But anyway, it wasn't him causing the trouble. There was--" she thought quickly about how to describe to her parents what the threat had been. She couldn’t very well to them that she was attacked by the dark. "�”there was a man there,” she continued shakily, “dressed all in black, like�”I don't know�”a kidnapper or something. Just not a nice person."

At this point, she remembered that her own clothes were solid black. She hoped they didn't notice this. "But, um, you see, he was advancing on them. And then he saw me, and--" 'Think fast!', she told herself, "--and he hit me! On the head with...something, I couldn't tell what it was. But I was flung back into an alleyway, and I guess I fell unconscious or something. Because it wasn't even totally dark when this happened and when I woke up it was pitch black out! I came home as soon as I could. I don’t even know what happened to Dudley and Harry.
“I think they got away, though," she added earnestly, "because I could sort of hear what was going on when I was knocked out. It kind of got into my dreams like when you're barely asleep. Someone came along, and," she thought for a moment, "well, helped them get away. I think that Dudley had started fighting them, and they got hurt. I don't know, I didn't see the whole thing, but," she finished lamely, with a desperate look at her parents, "that's what happened."

She waited for their reactions, which seemed delayed after taking all of this in. Then, after a moment's contemplation, her mother beckoned her forward. "Let me see your head," she said calmly.

Gillian came forward, her own hand running over a lump on the back of her head from where she had fallen backward onto the pavement in the alleyway when she had fainted. Her mother felt her head where she had been running her hand and gasped. "Sean," she said desperately, "her head! Sean, her head! There's a lump! She was telling the truth!" and with that, she broke down into tears, grasping Gillian tightly around the neck in a sort of strangling hug.

"Oh! Anne, come here!" he said, coming forward, and trying to get a hold on his wife.

"No, Sean! No! Think about what could have happened to her! I would never have expected something like--like this to happen in our neighborhood!"

"Come on, Anne. It's all right. She's fine. You need to get some sleep Come now, we'll talk to the Dursleys in the morning to make sure the boys are fine." He took his wife's hands, and started guiding her up the stairs. He glanced wearily down at Gillian.

"Why don't you go to bed, too, Gill," he said, "You've had a long night."

And with that Gill headed off to bed, a new fear taking hold of her. What would the Dursleys say? She had almost no doubt that they would deny anything of the sort happened. And what then? She lay awake for what seemed like hours, unsure of when she actually fell asleep. All she knew was that she wished she hadn't.

In her sleep that night, she visited a graveyard. It was old, and small, but there was a large tombstone in it. Also, she could see, indistinctly, robed figures nearby, watching something that the tombstone was blocking from sight. She began walking toward them to get a better look when her foot nudged something. She looked down and started to scream in horror. It was a person�”dead. Just lying right there on the ground, apparently forgotten. And not far from his left hand was a golden cup. Gill couldn’t control her screaming, but no one seemed to notice her.

She stumbled away from the boy�”the dead boy hardly older than her. She could barely see by the time she had reached the tombstone. She grasped at the stone, clinging to it for support. She walked around to the front of it, leaning back against the stone as the robed figures stared at something in their semi-circle. It was a large cauldron, bubbling and frothing…and a boy tied to the largest headstone in the graveyard. She stared at the boy, hidden in shadow, trying to make out who it was. But her attention was pulled elsewhere when, suddenly, she saw something rise from the cauldron. “Robe me," said a high cold voice. This time, she screamed louder than before.

She jerked up out of bed, still screaming. Her own voice had woken her. She lay gasping in bed as she heard footsteps approaching hurriedly. Her parents rushed into the room.

"What's the matter?" they kept asking, but she couldn't answer them. She had dissolved into tears, with her mother holding her, trying to comfort her. But nothing would work. She couldn't even sort out her own thoughts for comfort. The only thing she could think clearly was a single word, running through her head. She had never heard it before, but she knew what it was.
'Voldemort…Voldemort… Voldemort… Voldemort...'

Gillian didn't sleep that night. It had been about three o'clock when the dream had woken her. Her parents had shakily gone back to bed, but Gill went down to the living room and turned on the television, comforted by the noise. She stared at the ceiling, lost in thought and a memory that was not her own. 'Why did I see that?’ she thought to herself. ‘What happened on Wisteria Way? And,’ (most importantly) ‘who or what is Harry Potter, and why was he in my dream?’
The dream wasn’t like others. It didn’t shy from reality in the waking hours, but the blurred edges sharpened themselves making more sense as she woke. She could tell, now, that the boy tied to the large headstone had been Harry Potter. She knew it was all connected to him, that he had been the key figure in the dream. ‘He would know,’ she thought, ‘who the dead boy was and why I was there.’
Around nine o’clock, after the rest of the house had woken up, Gillian kissed both of her parents on the cheek and said she was going to the park. They watched anxiously after her but let her go. It was daytime, the neighborhood was awake and the park wasn't far from the house. Plus, she'd be safe with the neighborhood on the watch; that morning, no too long before Gillian left, they had called all of their neighbors whose numbers they knew and warned them, and told them in turn to tell everyone they knew. The news traveled quickly, it was wonderful gossip. "A man," they were told, "was spotted last night on Magnolia Crescent and he attacked Gillian Polkiss!"
The Polkisses had decided to go and visit the Dursleys that afternoon, but Gillian wanted to get to them first; she was going to see Harry Potter.
She arrived at the Dursleys and hesitated. They didn't really know her, and Harry definitely didn't. How would they react to her coming and asking about what had happened last night? Nonetheless, she rang the doorbell. She heard labored footsteps inside and soon a large, purple-faced man with an over-sized mustache opened the door.
"Yes?" demanded Mr. Dursley.
"Hi!" she said, trying to feign cheeriness. "I’m Gillian Polkiss, Piers’ sister. And, well, I was wondering if I could have a word with--" she faltered.
"Yes?" said Vernon again. He was still impatient, but had brightened up when she had said she was a Polkiss.
"I was wondering," she went on bravely, "if I could have a word with Harry Potter."
She watched his face. It grew even ruddier: purple and splotchy. It was contorted with fear and anger. "Harry," he hissed through closed teeth, "does not take visitors," and he slammed the door in her face.
She sighed audibly, and walked away. She glanced back up in the house and saw Harry watching the sky through a window, almost expectantly. He didn't notice her. She toyed with the idea of throwing a pebble and getting his attention, but decided against it. The others were sure to hear, and she didn't want to get into trouble with them.
She walked to the park, and sat on the merry-go-round. She laid back on it, staring up at the sky, slowly spinning, wondering. It did not seem appropriate to look at the ground anymore and compare the world to the dirt. It had just grown a lot more interesting.
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That evening, when the Polkisses returned from their talk with the Dursleys, they looked at Gillian pityingly. They recounted the details.
"Well, they weren't to happy to see us," said Anne, "and when we started telling them about last night, what you had seen, they said they had heard the rumors, and denied that anybody in their house had anything to do with it, and suggested that you need to see a therapist," she sighed. "They said that you had come by earlier, too," (Gillian's stomach knotted) "asking to talk with Harry Potter.”
They both looked at her accusingly. Gillian nodded. They both sighed. "Gill," said her dad, "I realize that it must be hard for you. Being adopted, never having known your parents. And we understand that we may not have been as good of parents to you as we should have been," his voice suddenly sounded higher, as though choking back a sob, "but you can't go looking for attention this way. Making up stories and putting yourself in harm's way. Dear," he took her hand, "we do try, and we don't want to see you hurt or in trouble. So please, forget this whole thing. And forget about Harry Potter."
She looked at them both in disbelief. She had expected this, but, still, she couldn't stand it. It had happened! And not only was Harry Potter there, but now she was seeing him in dreams that didn't seem like dreams at all! And they were telling her to forget it? What about the boy, lying dead, spread-eagled on the ground? What about the cauldron, giving birth to a man, an evil, to Voldemort...
Gillian's eyes filled with tears, and she began choking on her cries. She couldn't live like that! She couldn't forget what she had seen! And in her hopelessness, Gillian had failed to pick up on one finer detail they had slipped in.

"A therapist?" she cried, as they drove into the city. "Mom! Dad! I don't need to go to a therapist! The Dursleys are the ones who need to go! They're the ones who are in denial because they don't want their neighbors to talk! I don't need this! I told you what happened, I told you what I saw! I wasn't making it up," (completely) "I was telling the truth!" (as much of it as I thought you could handle).
They didn't answer, and she threw herself against the back seat in frustration. Piers was smirking at her from beside her. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he smiled that awful smile even wider. "So if you're not making it up, then you're seeing things, are you?" he whispered. "And you think we shouldn't take you to the psycho-quack because of that? You’re madder than I thought, Gill."
She turned away from him, and looked out her window, huffily. It wasn't fair. They didn't believe the truth, even after she put it in a way they could handle. And what if she told the whole truth, now? They'd probably put her in a straightjacket and toss her into a padded-room.
They arrived at a large, white building. They parked the car across the street, and headed up to it. Gillian walked slowly behind them. Maybe if they were late, they would miss her appointment. After checking with the receptionist, who smiled at them with in an empty, tired sort of way, they got onto the elevator and started for the tenth floor. 'Let the elevator break,' thought Gillian, 'Let the power go out. Make it stop, please…!'
But it didn't stop. They arrived in perfect time for her appointment. They checked in with Dr. Clark's receptionist now, who waved Gillian back into his room. "Don't worry, Ms. Polkiss. Dr. Clark is very kind. He'll help you through this."
Dr. Clark was a fat, balding man, with a pencil and pad of paper. "Ah, Gillian,” he began, "Do you mind if I call you, Gillian? Well of course you don't, and you can call me Ted."
Gillian glared at him. "I do mind you calling me Gillian. I wish you to address me as Miss Polkiss, Dr. Clark."
Gillian knew she was being ridiculous and childish, but she was too angry to care right now. He just looked at her, unruffled by her malice and chuckled, writing something down on his paper. "Fine, then, Miss Polkiss, as you wish. Now why don't you tell me what happened that brought you here?"
So that was how he was going to play? She knew this dance. She reclined back into her squishy armchair and tried to look nonchalant. "Well, it's all because the Dursleys are prats," she said simply, waving her hand in a pompously casual and dismissive manner.
He smiled at her, in a patronizing sort of way. "Now, now, Ms. Polkiss. The first step we need to take here is learning how to shoulder some of the blame. You and I both know that that's not why you're here. Now why don't you tell me what happened."
Gillian thought about this. What harm could it do to tell him the truth? He would only think she was lying. "Well, okay then. I was headed home one evening, when Piers ran up to me and got ready to knock my jaws about something. So I walked away and went and sat on a swing in the park. That’s when I heard raised voices. People yelling, like they were afraid. So I went to see what was the matter. I ran onto Magnolia Crescent, where I saw two people, teenagers, but I couldn't make out there faces, and then" now she paused and gulped remembering the 'and then', now too caught up in her own story to stop, "and then, everything just went sort of cold. Froze, sort of, and there was no noise but their yells. Then I got this horrible feeling that something was staring at me, and I heard this really faint noise, like a rattle.
“And I felt a terrible wave of fear. I felt sick, like everything happy in the world was gone forever. And cold. Very, very cold. And then, it lessened, it was almost as though I could watch the cold, some sort of sick shadow go after the other two. I had fallen on my knees, and I watched them for a while. And suddenly, there were these flashes, kind of like an illuminated silvery mist. It lit up their faces. And I saw that it was Dudley Dursley, and behind him, where the mist had come from, was Harry Pot-" but her words were cut off as Dr. Clark coughed suddenly into his coffee, spilling it down his front.
"Oh!" he said, "Silly me! Don't know what came over me!" but he sounded scared, and as though he knew exactly what was wrong. "Er...um...and then what happened?' he prompted.
"Ok," she said, confused. "Well, like I said, it was Harry Potter. And the light vapor appeared a few times. The...thing…shadows, I guess, had stopped moving toward him, but his cousin seemed to crumple, and yelped. Then, and this was strange, his head suddenly jerked up and then…raised…slowly, and his mouth opened. Even though it looked like he was fighting himself! At this point, I couldn't watch any more. I crawled into an alley nearby, and I guess I sort of fainted. And while I was like that, I saw a silver stag, and I heard voices. Someone had come to them, and was helping them now. A woman. I don't know who it was. It was kind of like their voices were just...invading on my dreams,” she stopped and shivered.
"Here, dear," said Ted, and he handed here a small piece of chocolate.
She took it, and ate it absentmindedly, and felt warmth start to spread through her again. "Miss Polkiss," said the doctor, "I think your parents are right. You must try to forget this. I don't think this is something you should trouble yourself over." Gillian gaped, and started to retort, but he held up a hand, silencing her. "It is the best way for this to clear up. I don't think that this needs to be taken any further, inside or outside of my office. You do not need to come back if you don't want to. I'll tell your parents this. No, if you will excuse me, I must go talk with them..."
"Wait!" cried Gillian. "Harry Potter--that name meant something to you! I could tell! What do you know about him? Tell me! Please!"
Dr. Clark smiled down sadly at her. "All I know about Harry Potter is that he is a very disturbed boy. Thank you my dear. You may leave now."
Gillian left his office grudgingly and didn't talk to anybody the whole ride home. She never went back to the doctor.

Four days after all of this, Gillian's life changed dramatically.

Gillian hadn’t been herself since that night. She grew increasingly distant and she hardly ever slept; she kept having terrifying dreams of the graveyard. She didn't know how to stop them. Every night she would start somewhere new in the dream and see just a little bit more than she had the night before.

She hardly ever left her room. Where previously she would leave the house all day, and only come back late at night to sleep, she would now hide away upstairs, too scared to go outside. She didn't trust shadows.

The biggest change in Gill, though, was her obsession with Harry Potter. He invaded her every thought and her dreams every night. He seemed to have strolled into her life, stomping all the way and leaving deep prints behind, and had then walked out again, with no explanation.

But it was four days later that Gillian left the house again. It was late, but her parents let her go, happy to see her leaving her room again. She didn't know why she left on this night. She just knew that if she stayed in that room any longer she would drown in her own thoughts. She didn't pay attention to where she was going, but she still found herself in front of the Dursleys' house. It made sense to her that she should come here, though she didn't mean to. The house did contain the person who had been unknowingly consuming all the waking and sleeping hours of her life. Gillian was standing outside the house, considering the door, when she heard a sudden crash from inside, followed by people talking. Many people. The streetlights suddenly flickered on, and she saw several people silhouetted through the window. They were all wearing robes and one or two had large pointed hats.

Gillian snuck into the garden and sat under a large Hydrangea bush, listening to the people through the open window.

"He'll be upstairs," said a male voice, "I'll go and fetch him."

"Right you are," said a second, eager voice.

But Gillian heard no footsteps. The first voice muttered something quietly, and there was a sound of a door opening upstairs. She had to see what was going on. She stood up, crouching, still, and peeked through the window. No less than nine people were standing in the kitchen at the bottom of some stairs. They were all wearing long robes, mostly black, and were wearing what appeared to be wizard hats. She might have found this funny in any other situation, but they all seemed too serious to be funny. She looked up the stairs and saw that a heavily bolted, drag chained, and otherwise locked door had been thrown open. Standing in the frame, illuminated by the lights of the street that seemed to pour onto him like a spotlight, was Harry Potter… and he was holding a�”

"Lower your wand, boy, before you take someone's eye out," said a low, growling sort of voice.

"Professor Moody?" said Harry, uneasily.

"I don't know much about 'Professor', never got round to much teaching, did I? Get down here, we want to see you properly."

Gillian watched Harry in wonder as his wand (her heart leapt at the word) lowered slightly, but he didn’t move. "It's all right, Harry. We've come to take you away."

She watched Harry relax and lower his wand. He seemed to recognize this voice. "P-Professor Lupin? Is that you?"

"Why are we all standing in the dark?" said a woman's voice. Gillian turned to look at her, interestedly. "Lumos."

Gillian almost cried out in surprise. This woman was also holding a wand, and when she had said the word the tip had lit brightly, lighting up the whole room. Gill could see the whole scene clearly now. At the head was a graying man, with very tattered robes, but an inviting smile. There was a tall black man, bald and with an earring, looking curiously up the steps. One short man, with an eager expression, who looked like some sort of terrier, waiting for a treat; a black-haired woman, with a pink face; a semi-tall, square-jawed man; an old, silvery-haired man another woman in emerald green. It was an eclectic arrangement of people, but they all�”every one of them�”were staring at Harry.

The woman with the lit wand had purple, spiky hair, dark eyes, and very pale skin. But she wasn't even the most shocking. The person Gillian now recognized as the gruff voice addressed as 'Moody' was short with long hair and a very scarred face. But, even more unsettling, were his eyes. One was small and brown while the other was large and shockingly blue, whizzing around in his head.

Gillian gasped, and ducked down under the bush again, pressing herself as flat to the ground as she could manage. That eye made her nervous. She would have to settle for listening now. "Oooh, he looks just like I thought he would," said a woman. "Wotcher, Harry!"

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Remus. He looks exactly like James," a booming voice said.

"Except for the eyes," said a woman. "Lily's eyes."

"Are you quite sure it's him, Lupin? It'd be a nice lookout if we bring back some Death Eater impersonating him," said the scarred man. "We ought to ask him something only the real Potter would know. Unless anyone brought any Veritaserum?" (This confused Gillian, because she had seen Harry, and he was quite obviously himself. Also, what was a Death Eater? And Veritaserum? She strained her ears even harder.)

"Harry, what form does your Patronus take?" asked the tattered man.

"A stag," she heard Harry answer.

Gillian had to hold back another gasp. A stag! She had seen a stag in the alleyway when she had fainted! That's what a Patronus was! That stag, it was something that he had made! She felt her heartbeat escalate.

"That's him, Mad-Eye."

She heard footsteps down the stairs, then, suddenly, "Don't put your wand there, boy! What if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!" said the gruff voice.

"Who d'you know who's lost a buttock?"

"Never you mind, you just keep your wand out of your back pocket! Elementary wand safety, nobody bothers about it anymore... And I saw that."

"How are you?" asked the one called Remus.

"F-fine..." answered Harry. "I'm--you're really lucky the Dursleys are out..."

"Lucky, ha! It was me that lured them out of the way. Sent a letter by Muggle post telling them they'd been shortlisted for the All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition. They're heading off to the prize-giving right now... Or they think they are," laughed the woman with purple hair.

Gillian wasn't too caught up in it all to notice the word 'Muggle' with interest.

Harry asked, "We're leaving, aren't we? Soon?"

"Almost at once," said Professor Lupin, "we're just waiting for the all-clear."

"Where are we going? The Burrow?"

"Too risky. We've set up headquarters somewhere undetectable. It's taken a while... This is Alastor Moody, Harry."

"Yeah, I know."

"And this is Nymphadora--"

"Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus. It's Tonks."

"--Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only."

"So would you if your fool mother had called you 'Nymphadora'," muttered Tonks. Gillian silently agreed.

"And this is Kingsley Shacklebolt---Elphias Doge---Dedalus Diggle--"

"We've met before!"

"--Emmeline Vance---Sturgis Podmore---and Hestia Jones. A surprising number of people volunteered to come and get you," finished Remus amusedly.

"Yeah, well, the more the better," said the scarred man.

"We're just waiting for the signal to tell us it's safe to set off," said Lupin. "We've got about fifteen minutes."

Gillian tried to stop her heart from beating so fast. Despite her fascination, she still knew that she shouldn’t be there. It was too risky to stay there for the next fifteen minutes. They seemed to be trying to conduct themselves secretly, and something told her that they all had wands that could do more than light up or burn off someone's buttocks. And, in any case, she decided that she was rather attached to hers, thank you very much.

Gill crept quietly out of the bush and around the corner of the house. She couldn’t hear them, anymore, but she hoped to catch a glimpse of them when they left. She waited for about ten minutes before they all came outside, one by one, each of them carrying...broomsticks. She could see them from where she stood, but she was confident that they wouldn't see here unless they knew where to look.

"Clear night. Could've done with a bit more cloud cover. Right you-" Moody spat, turning to...nothing it appeared at first. But when Gillian looked closer, she saw a strange flickering glimmer in the air�”and Harry's outline. She gaped at him. He looked like his insides had been turned invisible but his outline was still there. "--we're going to be flying in close formation. Tonks'll be right in front of you, keep close to her tail. Lupin'll be covering you from below. I'm going to be behind you. The rest'll be circling us. We don't break ranks for anything, got me? If one of us gets killed--"

"Is that likely?" asked Harry.

Gillian looked on. Killed? Who would want to kill them? And flying? They really could fly on brooms? Gillian's excitement was almost too much. Despite the last ominous comment, she wanted to jump out from her hiding place, run forward, and beg them to take her with them.

"--the others keep flying, don't stop, don't break ranks. If they take out all of us and you survive, Harry, the rear guard are standing to take over; keep flying east and they'll join you."

Gillian could hardly believe it. Harry was obviously either very important or in extreme danger. Or both. She couldn't believe that somebody like this had been living so close to her, and she never knew…St. Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys, they had told her! She was lost in marveled thought, when, suddenly, she saw red sparks fly up into the air overhead. "Mount your brooms, that's the first signal!" yelled Lupin.

Gillian peeked around the corner of the house and saw them all swing one leg over their brooms; the pink-haired woman with some difficulty as Harry's trunk was attached to the bottom. Green sparks. "Second signal, let's go!"

And with extraordinary speed, they shot into the air. They were some hundred feet ahead in no time. Gillian ran out from behind the house, and stared in amazement as they began racing off. Gillian thought she could see one of them turn their heads, and a blue flash, not unlike Moody's eye, but she couldn't be sure. All she knew was that they suddenly veered off to the left and were out of sight.