Harry Potter fanfiction: “Fate unveiled”

Prologue
The lake twinkled in the setting sun, scattering the golden light into the twilight. Small blue birds twittered on the luscious green trees of summer-the sound of hope, purity and innocence. A tentacle rose, splashing the gold-tinted waters into the fresh air of dusk. In the dark green horizon of the Forbidden Forest, loomed a crimson sun- slowly hiding behind the depth of the greenery.

The Hogwarts' grounds were a picture of serene beauty. But in that beauty was something sinister…and terrible. On the clarity of the sparkling waters, danced the dark shadows of the magnificent castle. In the green forest, rose a haunted mist carrying the whispers of the ongoing war of the magical world. In the songs of the sweet birds was a hint of the broken dreams and lost hope of the innocent. The sparkling sun glowed with a red light.

Blood red…like the stain found on battlefields…blood of many brave warriors who gave their lives for a special cause…for freedom. Nature reflected the upcoming horror and bloodshed; the ongoing terror and panic, and the inevitable sacrifice of two lives to end it all-the sacrifice of two of the greatest wizards of the time!

Dumbledore looked away and sighed. The weight of the magical world, the weight of lives and hopes and dreams, the weight of choices, all lay on his shoulders. He had made a choice long ago- a choice which led him down the path of greatness, power, responsibility, and…guilt. He did not blame anyone. It had been his choice and his choice alone. He had wanted this leadership and accepted all the burdens which came with it….even the guilt. He was lucky in a way. He had had the privilege to choose. Others, like Draco and Harry, did not. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had just turned sixteen. It was almost time-time for him to shift the weight of the world to their shoulders…their inexperienced and childish shoulders. They were only children still…children who deserved to laugh and play, and not bear the guilt of stolen lives and broken dreams.

He sighed again. He wished there was another way, but there wasn't. Suddenly a bright red ball of fire appeared in front of him. It uttered a cry and burst into a dazzling display of light…. Fawkes' signal. It was time!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Harry had turned sixteen. It was almost time for Dumbledore to hit him with the final blow of reality….and Fate. The Fates' were twisted and ironic. They were heartless and ruthless. He had realized this a long time ago.

WHY? He asked for the millionth time. Why did the Fates' have to choose Harry? Why did they have to choose him to play in their little game? Why not someone else? Anyone else. Anyone but Harry-his best friend's son.
His son… He could accept it. He could try and understand it, if there was a reason or meaning for it, but there wasn't. Everyone kept saying it was for the greater good…to rid the world of evil. But what do they know? To them this is just a show. A show where other people fight, other people make sacrifices, other people die. Not them. Never them. They just watch.
He knew he was not being reasonable…he knew that it wasn't the people's fault….it wasn't anyone's fault but Fate's…By a whim of the Fates Voldemort had chosen Harry…but he still could not accept the fact….he still could not come to terms with it….why? Because he was one of the few who had to suffer. This wasn't for the greater good. It was just for Fate's pleasure- a pleasure for which the price was too high…

Innocence, happiness, blood and life.
Harry's life…his last link to a friendship…a friendship that had been ripped away from him by Fate. His last link to the fallen Marauders.
His last link to family. Any moment now, the signal would come and he would have to go and get Harry….any minute now…. Suddenly Fawkes appeared in a whirl of colours, and burst into flames. Remus stood up…NOW!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Exit light,Enter night,Take my hand,
We're off to never never land!- Metallica

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Snape Manor stood silent, dark and still. Lifeless. Lifeless except for the only person there…Severus Snape, who lay watching the dance of candle lights on the marble walls and pondering the fate of his godson…Draco Malfoy. It wasn't like he really liked the Malfoys. There was not a single family in the whole magical world worse than the Malfoys. But during the time when he was acting as a spy for Dumbledore, on the Dark Lord, he had to befriend Lucius Malfoy…it was one of the many precautions he took while acting as a spy…and it helped to keep him alive, and relatively safe from the Dark Lord's wrath, as Lucius was the Dark Lord's right-hand man.

Now Severus turned his thoughts to Draco…he had a soft spot for the boy. No matter how much he disliked the father, he could not fell the same towards the child. He loved Draco like a son. He could not bear to see Draco suffer, but he knew that nothing he did or could do could save Draco from Fate. Draco would have to do what he was meant to, but Severus would also do whatever he could to help Draco…or else he
Would die trying.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Now that the war is through with me,
I'm waking up, I cannot see, That there is not much left of me, Nothing's real but pain now!
-Metallica

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He felt bad for Draco, and that pity turned to love as he got to know the child better…the poor child was so blinded by his parents! They made him believe that his father was some sort of hero…they made him believe that supporting Voldemort was the most important thing in the world…the child never had any way of knowing how wrong he was to idolize his father like that. Luckily as the boy grew older and interacted with people outside his father's "friend" circle at Hogwarts, he began to understand that his father was not a hero, but a traitor to the whole magical world.

The child's life brought back memories of his own life, his own childhood…memories that he tried really hard to forget. At least he had been able to break away from his father's oppressive grip…he meant to help Draco do the same…he meant to make Draco break free from his father's beliefs and also help him become strong enough to face his father's sins. Now that Lucius and Nacissa were gone, it would be relatively
easy to do.

He didn't care about that Potter boy with his over inflated ego. He hated that boy and his father too. Hateful creatures! He half-wished that Potter would die while fighting
Voldemort……..as long as Draco was safe, nothing else mattered.

Suddenly the glow of the candle lights became brighter. A small ball floated in front of his face. He realized that the ball was burning. Fawkes! The time had come…he got up and set off at once.

* * * * * * * * * * * *
To be continued

By Trinity

"Spare the rod and spoil the child" still a belief?

A thin schoolmaster with thick lenses, with an even thicker stick on his hands is what comes to mind looking at the phrase above. Today to many of us this picture is not any more real than the scenes from a very old Bengali movie. To many other school-going children, however, this is till a nightmare they cannot break free from, as beating continues to be a commonplace phenomenon in many households and schools.

There is very little doubt about the fact that beating harms a child's mental development. Child specialists and psychiatrists strongly oppose physical torture on children. Educated parents today refrain from beating their children. They know that it harms their offspring rather than doing them good. These parents, however, consist of a very tiny fraction of our country's total population. Most of the people in our country are uneducated and they are ignorant about the bad effects of belabouring children. Many resort to beating to make children listen to them obediently. I have seen the servant lady in our house slap her frail child mercilessly just because the cherub wanted to get on his mother's lap while the mother was working.

Why teachers beat and humiliate pupils is one thing that really baffles me. Teachers are the ones who are providing education, so they must be educated and knowledgeable. So why do these 'enlightened' people take up such cruel and outdated means? Teachers from my grandfather's school used to think that beating was the only way of teaching a little brat decorum, but that is the tale from a long lost time. I do not know how the modern version of the thin teacher with a thick stick justifies his own behaviour, as I have never got the chance to meet such a person. The fact that such people still exist was made clear to me the other day when I met this poor small boy who has come from the village to live in the house of a friend of mine. My friend asked the boy why he had left school even though primary education was free. The boy gave a horrid description of how the headmaster made him stand in the sun all day because he failed in the exam and how the teachers used to beat him if he failed to memorise the lessons. So he preferred coming to the city with his father to work rather than to endure all that.

Though such severe forms of taunting acts are not practised in most schools in Dhaka, there are some schools that are far from free of these. A cousin of mine attends one such school. It is one of the most reputed Bengali medium schools in the city and its results in the SSC and HSC examinations are invariably some of the best in the country. The teachers in this school (I will not mention its name for it could offend the offenders) often slap young students if they make noise in the class. The students are made to sit up and down holding their ears for wearing dirty clothes and not cutting their fingernails. These humiliating and embarrassing experiences certainly lower the self-esteem of young children.

I am sure that neither the parents nor the teachers mean to harm children when scolding them. They just need to understand children's psychology better.