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...'
In Muggle World by Daedalus Plum
Chapter Notes: Once again, a hearty thank you to GryffGoddess, my wonderful beta reader. Her enthusiasm gives me hope that this story will eventually catch on.