Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Rewritten - A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Prologue

A deathly quiet shrouded the village of Godric's Hollow. Hundreds of warlocks within their homes waited with bated breath. Thousands of magical creatures from tiny Gobble-Ants to gigantic Milk-Gazelles retreated to the warmth of their shelters. All had sensed the threat that swooped overhead and all maintained a deathly stillness lest they draw its attention. The night was black. Even the light of the waning crescent moon and the glitter of hundreds of faint stars had diminished. A gentle mist had already begun to cloak the village, a mist born of the creatures that floated through the air above, long black cloaks trailing behind them. The breath of those creatures rattled in their throats and every time they sucked in the air, the night grew colder and colder.

Lower down, on the branches of tall trees and on the rooftops of houses, stood more figures, also cloaked in black, but these were definitely human. They wore silver masks to hide their faces. Each hand clutched a slender wooden rod and each rod tip was glowing faintly silver. Indistinct silver vapor hovered above them, as though shielding the humans from the inhuman predators above.

But the dozen masked men and women were not watching the skies. Seemingly indifferent to the threat above, their gazes were fixed on a large five-floor house on the main road of the village. Every now and then, a jet of green light flashed inside that house, illuminating first the front windows and then the back ones. A long high-pitched scream sounded. A couple of the masked figures laughed. A minute later, yet another flash of green light came. Then the ground beneath the house began trembling. The house began to collapse, the floors crumbling inward upon one another, showers of brick and glass raining down upon the neatly manicured lawns below. A thick cloud of dust rose and covered the house for a few moments.

"He has done it!" called a woman's voice jubilantly. She pointed the rod in her hand towards the sky. It emitted a blue jet of light and a strange symbol was painted on the skies above; a white skull with an emerald serpent coming out of its mouth. From the treetops and rooftops, the masked men and women sent celebratory showers of sparks into the sky. Their excited cries and shouts filled the air.

Under the cover of the cloud of dust, a scarlet serpent slid out of the ruined house. Had the masked men and women not had their gazes turned towards the sky, they might have noticed and wondered at the haste it showed as it slithered onto the road. The serpent streaked away, down the main road and out of the village.

"Where is he?" called the same woman's voice. "Why does our great master not come out?"

A moment later, everything from faint pops to loud cracks sounded as two score people stepped out of thin air and onto the main road, directly in front of the slowly crumbling house.

"Our goal is accomplished! Retreat!" ordered a commanding male voice. With pops and cracks of their own, the masked figures melted into thin air.

"They've fled, the stinkin', flea-bitten cowards!" roared a booming voice. It belonged to a man who was more than large enough to match the loudness of the voice. When he'd neared the collapsing house, he was tall enough to peer into the broken window of the second level and big enough that he was wider round the middle than the pair of oaks in the garden.

Next to the giant was a man in midnight blue robes. He had bright blue eyes and a crooked nose that seemed to have been broken more than once. His silver hair and beard were long enough to tuck into his waist. A jet-black length of wood, clutched in his hand, was pointed at the still intact frame of the front door of the collapsed house.

"The attack on the school was plainly a distraction to ensure we would not be able to respond to the call for help in time. I fear the worst. Minerva, Severus, with me. Hagrid stand guard outside the door. Alastor, set up a perimeter around the block and ensure that the enemy is truly gone from here." Beckoning to a woman in tartan robes and a man in black ones, he strode off towards the house. The giant took up position outside the front door whilst the trio entered, spheres of white light glittering above their free hands.