Darth Marrs - The Firebird Trilogy 2: Firebirds Song

Reviews to the last chapter of Book I are available in my forums. I will continue to use the same forum for all future review responses. Also, there will be a little time-jumping at the first, but it will play out, promise. Thank you for reading, and welcome to book II.

The Firebird's Song: Book II of the Firebird Saga

A Harry Potter Fan fiction by Darth Marrs

Note: This is a direct continuation of Firebird's Son. If you haven't read the first, this will make no sense to you. Additionally, if you tried and did not like the first, you will undoubtedly not like this one. More comments are available in the Firebird Trilogy forum linked on my profile.

Standard Disclaimers apply. I don't own Harry Potter or his world. Plotting and OCs are mine, yes, but not much else. This story was not written for profit.

Chapter One: Once Upon A Train to London

Harold Fischer was just an ordinary bloke heading into London from his flat in Hounslow to meet his daughter and her latest boyfriend on the first day of August. At forty eight, overweight and balding, Harold accepted that his best days were behind him with a type of resigned cynicism that made him a rather dull dinner conversationalist. Worse yet, Harold was smart enough, and self-aware enough, to know that this tendency toward pessimism often ended up confirming itself like a sick and twisted self-fulfilling prophecy. Because he expected the worst, he was rarely disappointed, but even more rarely happy. "You're dead inside, Harold," his ex-wife said as she walked out of their home and his life. His last three attempts at dating just seemed to confirm he was meant to be alone.

Still, he did love his little girl, who at twenty years of age and two hundred pounds in weight was neither little nor a girl, and her invitations to meet were few enough that he would gladly hop on the rail to see her. In a real sense those brief visits were the only thing he had worth living for.

He pulled out his book and started reading with a tired sigh when he happened to overhear a very odd conversation from a couple sitting in front of him, hunched down so he could not see them. He really did not mean to eavesdrop, but when the girl said, "Do you think they'll kill us still?" he couldn't help but lean forward to listen more attentively.

Harold's urge to listen grew even more intense when the teen next to her said, "If they find us, I think they will."

Silence fell for a moment, before the girl said, "I'm hungry. Do you have anything to eat?"

Harold heard a rustling of cloth and then the crinkle of paper. "Here," the boy said. "Last one, make it count."

"Will we be able to eat in London?" The girl's voice was rather high-pitched and ethereal, as if she were speaking on the edge of a whisper all the time. Harold recognized she was attempting to be quiet, but he imagined it was rather her normal toneit was the voice of someone who was very young.

"Yeah, I think so."

Silence followed again, before, "Do you regret bonding with me, Harry, knowing they want to kill us both now?"

Suddenly Harold's mind started soaring with all the possibilities of this statement. He wanted very much to stand and take a look at them to see if the girl was Pakistani or not, because in his imagination they were a young, star-crossed pair of lovers going against the rules of her family, and fleeing so her father and brothers didn't slaughter them both, as had happened recently in the news. Honour killings, he thought they were called.

The boy said, "I was already a target. I can't regret it."

"Where will we go?" the girl asked again. In his imagination, the girl was looking at her young lover with a lost, hopeless expression.

"I'm not sure," the boy admitted. "I thought about maybe going up to Longbottom Manor, but as much as I like Neville, I'm not sure his Gran would take us in."

"It would be a terrible imposition," the girl agreed.

Longbottom? Harold thought.

"Plus there's mum's message," the boy continued. "I have to find Ollivander, wherever he is."

A brief pause, and then in a trembling voice, the girl said, "I'm scared, Harry," she said softy. "I don't want to die like Mum did."

Harold leaned back a little and discovered his eyes were moist. The girl sounded so very heartbroken.

But then the boy said something that shattered Harold's illusions. He spoke softly himself, just a touch above a whisper, while the sound of rustling fabric made Harold think the two were hugging each other. "It wasn't too bad, you know. Dying, I mean. When Voldemort killed me, there wasn't any pain at all, just a flash of green light. And then I wassomeplace else."

"Tell me."

"It was like I was on a mountain top between the clouds and heaven. Everything was clear and bright and perfect, and Mum was there waiting for me. She talked to me and touched my cheek, and she was real. I didn't really want to come back, not if it meant leaving her."

"It sounds peaceful," the girl whispered. "My mum was screaming when they killed her; they made me watch. I hope that when I die, she'll be there waiting for me."

Harold leaned back in his seat, trying to make sense of the impossible conversation. Voldemort? What kind of Pakistani name was Voldemort? And the boy died and came back? How did that work? Harold looked around the train, a sneaking suspicion growing in his mind that he was being had. Were there cameras around the train? Would he show up on the telly in a few weeks as the fat, bald, gullible man falling for a silly teenage prank?

Suddenly the girl said, "Harry, what's wrong?"

"They found us," Harry said stiffly.

"How do you know?"

"I saw it, just now."

"Butyou don't have a nose bleed."

"They're coming right now!" The boy's voice rose a little in concern. At that very moment, the door from the next car up opened and two women walked through. They were attractive women to Harold's eyes, with long, auburn hair on one, and shorter blonde hair on the other. Both wore rather poorly fitted floral-print dresses and, even stranger, thick black-leather dusters and heavy boots.

By this point, Harold was absolutely sure there was a camera in the train, because the boy jumped up from his seat, pointed a wooden stick and shouted, "Stupefy!"

Of course, nothing happenedno strange lights or sound effects. Harold was sure that would be added later in post-production. And yet the first of the two women flew back against the wall with a grunt. It was, Harold thought, a masterful performance by what had to have been a professional stuntwoman.

"What's going on?" a man a few feet down said as the boy continued shouting "Stupefy" at the remaining woman.

"Must be filming or summat," Harold speculated aloud.

Since that explanation made the most sense, people did not immediately panic, but instead sat back to watch what they thought was a show. The suspension of disbelief, however, was shattered brutally when the boy screamed in pain and suddenly flipped out and over his seat at an impossible angle, hitting Harold on the side of the head with one worn sneaker before landing with a grunt and an audible snap of bone in the centre of the aisle. People watched in growing panic as the boy raised himself from the floor clutching an obviously broken left arm while blood ran from a black spot on his right shoulder. From his knees, he raised his wand with that weakened right arm and screamed, "