Year Six

    She was begging him not to go, to check at before rushing blindly off to the Ministry of Magic on a mad rescue mission, but he didn’t want to bother with such trivial things as validating a dream. After all, his dreams could never be wrong, and Voldemort wouldn’t lie about such a thing, would he?

     Even as he watched he felt disgust with the dream version of himself. “Don’t go!” Harry pleaded with his dream self. He felt more frustration at his bull-headedness than Hermione apparently seemed to be feeling as she pleaded with him to exercise some common sense. Why wouldn’t he listen? She was being reasonable, logical. All she wanted him to do was to confirm what he’d seen before he broke the rules and got himself and his friends in trouble, or worse, killed.

     The dream shifted. Harry was in the kitchen, standing beside that hateful and vile house-elf, Kreacher, who was lying to Harry, rather gleefully, that Sirius was gone.

     “Don’t believe him you fool!” Harry told his own head, which was resting in the fire. He watched the look of triumph on his visage. He’d proven Hermione wrong. Sirius wasn’t at home, and now he could go rushing off to to play the hero. Harry dropped to his knees and snatched at his own head in utter futility. “Wait. Just wait. Go get the mirrors!”

     But the other Harry, the Harry of the past, couldn’t hear him. Harry scrambled to his feet and rushed up the stairs, passing by Kreacher and knocking him savagely to the floor. He reached Buckbeak’s room and found Sirius there alone, the hippogriff nowhere in sight.

     “Sirius, contact Hogwarts. Please. Tell me you’re here. Tell me so I won’t make this mistake again!”

     But Sirius didn’t move, he didn’t respond. He was still. So very still.

     Fearfully, Harry went over to his godfather. He knew before he reached Sirius that he wasn’t going to like what he found. “Sirius?”

     He touched Sirius on the shoulder, causing him to slump back in his chair. He was blue-skinned and stiff. Dead.

     Harry fell to his knees before his godfather’s chair. “I’m so sorry Sirius. Please, forgive me. Please…”

     Kreacher laughed maniacally from the doorway, but Harry had not the strength to turn on him, blame him, or rage at him. Instead he heard a groveling whimper and opened his eyes to find that now he was sitting in a chair, staring down at a man who was groveling at his feet.

     The man kneeling on the carpet had a vaguely pathetic arch to his back, as all men who are forced to grovel do. Anyone who was not aware of the groveling man’s past, was not aware of the things he’d done, the innocents that he’d harmed to put him on a path that led him to this moment would not pity him.

     Instead, they would watch eagerly to see what would happen, they would wait with baited breath, hearts pounding with anticipation for some cruel punishment to be meted out, even though the crimes of the kneeling man were far less heinous and far fewer in number than those of his master.

     “P-please, master,” the kneeling man squeaked. His round face glistened with sweat and drool foamed in the corners of his small mouth. Two protuberant teeth poked out from under his upper lip, giving him a distinctly rat-like appearance. “I-I didn’t mean to leave my post. I-I swear-”

     “Silence, Wormtail,” came the high pitched voice of the man sitting in judgment of Wormtail. It came from Harry’s own mouth. He looked down at the groveling man, disgust and loathing churning in his stomach. A pair of bone-white hands with unnaturally long fingers came to rest on his knees, looking horribly like gigantic white spiders. “The task was a simple one, and you have failed me once again.”

     “Not completely, master!” Wormtail groveled. “I lost track of him, it is true, but I heard where he was going. I heard what he was after.”

     “Did you,” his voice said, lower and deeper than usual. “And what is he after?”

     “He-he said he was going for a Horcrux, my lord.”

     Panic stabbed the master in his gut, dull and hot like an unfinished blade pulled from a blacksmiths fire. “He said Horcrux?”

     “Y-yes, my lord. Horcrux…that was his exact word.”

     “Where was he when you last saw him?”

     “Hogsmeade, my lord,” Wormtail said. This time he did not stutter. He seemed hopeful that he would escape punishment. “He was in the Hogshead.”

     “Get up, Wormtail.”

     Wormtail struggled to his feet, though he did not rise fully upright. Instead he remained in a sort of half-bow, his eyes coming to rest somewhere in the vicinity of his master’s chin.

     “You will deliver the boy to me tonight. Take him from his home and bring him here. If she resists, kill her.”

     “K-kill her? Kill Nar-”

     “Are you questioning me, Wormtail?”

     “No master, never! I will bring him tonight, within the hour, master.”

     The Master looked to his left and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall. His red, snake-like eyes momentarily startled him, and then he grinned. “It would seem that I am not alone in my own head.” He approached his reflection, and reached out toward the mirror’s smooth surface. “Get out!”

     The master’s bony fingers made contact with the mirror and suddenly everything changed. Pain stung in his forehead and in his left cheek, and he realized he was not in a room staring at his reflection, but he was on the floor of a room he couldn’t immediately place. He could hear his own voice screaming, and the blurry image of three people standing above him was momentarily blocked by more stinging pain as a bony hand collided with the side of his head.

     “Get off!” he shouted angrily, shoving at the woman who’d drawn her hand back to slap him again. He clumsily felt about the table above him for his glasses and put them on, his face still smarting, his forehead on fire as his scar burned white hot. He shoved his glasses on and the room came into sharp focus.

     Harry Potter looked up to see his Aunt Petunia kneeling over him, one hand drawn back in preparation to slap him again. Behind her stood her massive son, Dudley, and beside him, only slightly smaller, his uncle, Vernon Dursley. Petunia looked unsettled, looked purple-faced and angry (surely rolling about on the floor, screaming, was not normal behavior, and any abnormal behavior was justification for severe punishment in his book), and looked anxious.

     “You should let me hit him, Mum,” said, an ugly gleam in his eye. “I could really wake him up.”

     “Get away from me,” Harry said angrily, scooting back and getting unsteadily to his feet.

     “You were screaming,” Vernon Dursley said, wagging a sausage-sized finger at Harry, “writhing about on the floor like a mad-man. Explain yourself!”

     “I was having a nightmare,” Harry said, though he wasn’t sure if that were true. He had had dreams before, in which he’d seen things from the point of view of the wizard whose snake-like visage inspired heart stopping fear in most of the known Wizarding world.

     “Nightmares don’t cause people to fall into the floor and thrash about!” said. “I want to know what you were really doing! Some kind of funny business of your kind? Is that what you were doing in my house? Funny business?”

     “!” Petunia said anxiously. She grabbed one of his meaty arms. “Remember, they’re watching us.”

     “Yeah, that’s right,” Harry said, wanting the lot of them to leave so he could get back into bed and be shut of them for the rest of the night. The clock that he’d knocked to the floor read .

     Uncle Vernon looked as if he could care less whether or not he was under magical surveillance by wizards if it meant he could throttle Harry, but one look at the wand Harry had pulled off the nightstand was sufficient to cow him. He turned and stalked away.

     “No more of that funny business in this house, in the middle of the night! You wake us up like this again, boy, and I’ll toss you out on your ear. Let your kind take you in, I say!”

     He continued to grouse all the way down the hall to his room. dawdled for a moment outside Harry’s bedroom door, staring hatefully at him, but one glance at the wand sent him waddling back to his own room.

     Harry slammed the door shut, his face still smarting from Aunt Petunia’s overzealous attempts to wake him from a nightmare. Or vision, Harry thought. It was the first of its kind he’d had since he’d left Hogwarts two weeks before.

     It wasn’t as if he slept peacefully otherwise. His dreams were plagued by the repeating images of his godfather, Sirius Black, falling back into the thin, fluttering curtains of the mysterious veil during his duel with his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, at the Department of Mysteries. In his dreams he usually remembered what was coming and did his best to tell Sirius not to battle Bellatrix, to run from the room, but always Sirius ignored him. Always he fell back into the veil with that horrible look of mingled fear and surprise upon his wasted face.

     Just once Harry wished he could dream that he’d ran to his room for the two-way mirror Sirius had given him, and he’d confirmed his godfather was safe and sound. Just once he wished he could change things, talk to Sirius, tell him he was sorry for getting him killed, and tell him that he would do it all over again if he could.

     Harry went to his bedroom window and gazed out into the night. An unnatural and inexplicable fog had fallen over the country, grounding airplanes, halting school, and at times causing horrible traffic accidents due to poor visibility.

     The mist that that plagued the land was clearly of magical origin, baffling Muggles whose science failed to explain it’s origins, and though he spoke with Order members daily, none of them had offered an explanation for it.

     The mist wasn’t the only thing on the news. Harry looked to the television set the Dursley’s had put into his room on his first day back, at ’s insistence, which had surprised Harry. Knowing Dudley as well as he did, Harry figured Dudley was worried that his wizard friends, who had taken to popping in once a day, at no predictable moment, was worried he would be hexed or cursed with something much worse than a pig tail.

     So, they’d given him the television set, among other things. Petunia Dursley had taken him shopping for ’s summer clothes and had bought him four new pairs of jeans that actually fit him, along with four t-shirts and a new pair of Nike trainers. And meals had been much more plentiful for Harry this time around, also at Petunia’s insistence, so that for the first time in his fifteen years at the Dursley house Harry wasn’t going hungry.

     According to news broadcasts there had been several odd accidents that had taken place. The Brockdale bridge had collapsed, snapped perfectly in half as if cut with a surgical blade, which was impossible, of course. Over a dozen cars had plummeted to the water killing several Muggles.

     This had put the Muggle Prime Minister and his administration under a great deal of strain from the public. The bridge was only seven years old, and there hadn’t been an expert in the country to explain how the accident could have possibly happened.

     Then there were the murders, some of the names Harry recognized. He’d been shocked and dismayed to turn on the television for the afternoon and evening news, the only things he ever felt inclined to use the television for, to hear of the deaths of some members of the Order of the Phoenix. 

     What he didn’t learn on the Muggle news, he learned from reading the Daily Prophet. Emmeline Vance, a woman who’d been in this house the year before to escort him to Sirius’ house, was dead, as was Amelia Bones, the aunt of a student he attended Hogwarts with.

     Harry turned away from the window. He was unable to see anything anyway, and he didn’t fancy staring at the defeated look in his own face. He hadn’t been sleeping, plagued with guilt over Sirius’ death, and trying to find some way to alleviate the pain, to reason his way out of it. But there was nothing he could say to himself to excuse his folly the previous year.

     And then there were his friends. They had followed him faithfully to the Department of Mysteries, only to find themselves in a trap. He’d almost gotten them killed, and the thought of it made his insides burn with guilt. The faces of his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, swam before his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, trying to push out the memories of seeing the injuries they’d suffered.

     One after another they came to him, unbidden, images of Hermione collapsing from Dolohov’s curse, the brains attacking Ron, Luna flying helplessly through the air and landing like a rag doll on the floor, Ginny collapsing to the floor, and poor Neville writhing on the floor of the veil room, screaming as Bellatrix tortured him. And Sirius…

     “No…please,” he begged his own mind and heart aloud. Give me a break.

     Forgive yourself, Harry, said a familiar voice, deep in the back of his mind. It was Hermione’s voice. Would she be angry with him now that she’s had time to let what happened at the Department of Mysteries sink in? Would any of them be angry with him like he was angry with himself?

     He collapsed on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He’d have to tell them, eventually, about the prophecy, and what it could mean. He dreaded the moment when that time would come, but it would be unavoidable. They deserved to know the truth of what had driven Voldemort to try and kill him on more than one occasion.

     After a few hours of staring up at the ceiling, Harry finally drifted into a fitful sleep where he tried in vain to stop himself from going off to London and falling into Voldemort’s trap, dreams in which he tried, and failed, to save his godfather’s life.

~

~

     The next morning brought not sunshine but more depressing mist, which made even the afternoon look as if it were predawn. The mist, in addition to the daily visits from members of the Order of the , was doing nothing to improve his aunt and uncle’s moods. He sat down at the breakfast table where Petunia had set out scrambled eggs, toast, sausages, fresh fruit, and orange juice.

     Harry reached for the eggs and out of habit also reached out to snatch the eggs away before Harry could get any, but a lift of his eyebrow and the clearing of Aunt Petunia’s throat quickly stayed ’s meaty hand. With a pout he withdrew and Harry spooned breakfast onto his plate.

     “Given up on the diet, Big D?” Harry asked, buttering a piece of toast. scowled heavily.

     “I don’t have to follow it like I used to, not since I’ve become champion of my school wrestling team.”

     “Not that it’s any of your concern,” said from behind his paper.

     “Just asking,” Harry said, and put the paper down to look at him.

     “Don’t think that because you’re freaky little friends drop by to threaten us every day that you won’t have to earn your keep,” Vernon said, his face going from a pale lavender to a rich purple. His beady eyes nearly disappeared into the doughy flesh of his cheeks as he slammed a hand down on the table. “I expect you to mow the lawn today.”

     “What is there to mow?” Harry asked reasonably. “The sun hasn’t been out. The flowers are all dying and the grass hasn’t even grown.”

     “I-well-you-you-” sputtered. Aunt Petunia laid a hand on ’s shoulder.

     “Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure, ,” Petunia said in a consoling voice. Harry frowned.

     “You went to the doctor?”

     “Never you mind, boy!” shouted. He flicked his newspaper and disappeared behind the pages once more, nothing of his head showing but a tuft of blond hair and a sliver of mottled purple skin of his forehead.

     The doorbell rang as Harry finished breakfast. All three of the Dursleys looked at Harry before stood. “I’ll get it,” he said. “None of your lot would come to the front door.”

     But it turned out that was wrong. Harry nearly gagged on his orange juice to hear a voice he never would have dreamed he’d hear in the Dursley house in a thousand years.

     “Who the ruddy hell are you?” asked, rather rudely.

     “I am Cornelius Fudge; we met three years ago, when your sister, Marjory, suffered that rather unfortunate incident of being blown up? I am the Minister of Magic, you see. I’ve come to speak with your nephew, Harry Potter.”

     Harry left the table with his aunt and cousin trailing close behind. He found Fudge and two other men standing just outside the door.

     “What are you doing here?” Harry asked, unable to believe Fudge would come to his home, especially after what had happened the year before.

     Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of his school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had spent an entire year trying to convince Cornelius Fudge and the Ministry of Magic that Lord Voldemort had returned to power, but instead of trying to investigate his claims, instead of trying to rally the Aurors to put a stop to Voldemort’s return, Fudge had turned the Wizarding newspaper, the Daily Prophet, into a mouthpiece to spread lies about him and Dumbledore in an effort to discredit their good names.

     And Fudge’s vendetta hadn’t stopped there. He’d spent that year abusing his powers as the Minister of Magic to try and expel him from school, and to make Dumbledore out to be an old fool.

     Seething dislike for Fudge flared up in Harry’s stomach. He’d been reading the Daily Prophet, which was now bringing more accurate news to the Wizarding world, and Fudge’s popularity was slipping faster than stinksap down a dirty window. In the two weeks since Voldemort had been outed to the Wizarding world, the public had began to call for Fudge’s head. Harry knew he didn’t have long left in office, and he hoped that someone worthy would replace Fudge.

     “Ah, Harry! So good to see you, my boy.” Fudge said cheerfully. Harry watched in utter disbelief as Fudge pushed past and came at him, hand outstretched. Harry didn’t shake it. After a moment Fudge withdrew his hand and began to twirl his bowler hat in his hands.

     “What do you want?” Harry asked.

     “I’ve come to speak to you, Harry, about a most urgent matter…the well-being and security of the Wizarding world. You see Harry,” Fudge said, wrapping an arm about Harry’s shoulder and forcefully steering him into the Dursley’s sitting room, “the people of our world are frightened, and rightfully so. Joe! Set up in here.”

     One of the two men with Fudge came trotting into the sitting room. He took out his wand and conjured a camera, which sat on a tripod with golden legs, and began to load film into it.

     “I’m not giving anymore interviews,” Harry said coolly, pulling away from Fudge.

     “Oh, come now, Harry!” said Fudge, waving him off. “Don’t take that attitude. Look, I know we’ve had our differences in the past-”

     “All set, Minister,” Joe said. The other man took out an acid green quill, one Harry recognized immediately as a Quick Quotes quill, and a piece of parchment.

     Fudge took a stand next to Harry and Joe began snapping pictures.

     “Stop!” Harry said, but Fudge continued over him.

     “Harry, I’m here with these two representatives of the Daily Prophet to interview you, to capture your support for the efforts that the Ministry of Magic is taking to put a stop to…er…You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters. We just need a couple of quick quotes, a few pictures, and then we’ll be on our way.”

     “My support?” Harry said, and the Quick Quotes quill began zooming across the parchment. He couldn’t believe Fudge expected Harry to publicly support him after everything that had happened the previous year. He was so outraged he felt a dull throbbing slam into his temples and his stomach clenched tightly, beginning to burn so that he wished he hadn’t eaten so much for breakfast. “You spent an entire year trying to get me expelled from Hogwarts! You openly ridiculed me, called me a liar, tried to discredit Professor Dumbledore!”

     Fudge’s phony smile was glued to his face now. He bounced from foot to foot, trying not to wither under Harry’s rage.

     “I admit, Harry, I’ve made mistakes,” Fudge said. “I shouldn’t have been so hasty to dismiss you, and for that I’m truly sorry. But we…er…you…must put aside your personal dislike of me and stand with me for the good of the people. Surely you see how important that is?”

     “For the good of the people, Cornelius?” said a soft, aged voice, “or for your good?”

     Harry looked over at the door to find Albus Dumbledore walking past a quietly enraged Vernon Dursley, a worried looking Petunia Dursley, and a frightened Dudley Dursley, who seemed to be in a battle with himself not to grab his considerable buttocks to ensure he was not growing another tail.

     “Dumbledore,” Fudge said, his smile now looking like a grimace, as if he’d taken an extremely hard suck off a lemon. “Dumbledore…”

     Dumbledore walked over to the reporter and snatched the parchment from his hands. “‘My support?’” Dumbledore read aloud, “‘of course you have my support, Minister. I am willing to do whatever it takes to help the Ministry put an end to You-Know-Who and his followers. Despite our past differences, you can count on me.’” Dumbledore peered at Harry over his half-moon spectacles, down his long, crooked nose. “I find it very difficult to believe Harry Potter spoke these words.”

     “I didn’t, sir,” Harry said, seething with anger.

     Dumbledore gave a flick of his wand at the camera Joe had set up. The film came out of the camera in one long string, ruining the exposures forever, before curling into a neat roll. Dumbledore then tapped the roll which disintegrated into dust, which vanished into thin air before it could fall onto Petunia’s immaculate carpet.

     “Cornelius, did I, or did I not forbid you to speak to Harry Potter outside of my presence?”

     Fudge’s chest puffed up, “I am the Minister of Magic! You forbid me nothing Dumble-”

     “Where Harry is concerned I most certainly will forbid you!” Dumbledore said angrily. The air seemed to crackle with static electricity and waves of power rolled off of Dumbledore so that Harry felt his skin begin to crawl. Fudge took several steps back, his hat twirling faster and faster so that it was a green blur.

     “I have every right to do what needs to be done to ensure the welfare of the Magical community,” Fudge said.

     “Then you should have listened to me when I told you Voldemort had returned,” Dumbledore said. The cameraman knocked over his camera, the reporter blanched and turned white, but Fudge only sneered hatefully at Dumbledore.

     “Oh, yes, I see, I see,” he said. “You’re just waiting for me to fall, aren’t you, Dumbledore. You think you’ll be made the new-”

     “We have already had this conversation, Cornelius,” Dumbledore said noticeably calmer than before. He strode slowly over to Fudge. “You know full well that I have no ambitions to become Minister of Magic. You are paying for your folly last year. If you would have listened to me and warned the public that Voldemort was returning you would be the most beloved Minister the Ministry of Magic has ever known. Instead you will go down as the most hated. You have no one to thank but yourself for your predicament. As for this interview, it is over.”

     Fudge looked ready to argue, but he stopped spinning his hat and looked at Harry. “You will not show your support for the Wizarding community then, Harry?”

     “Of course I will,” Harry said, “I’ll toast your replacement with everyone else.”

     Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled as Fudge gave Harry an ugly look of loathing. Fudge nodded at his companions and with three loud cracks, they all disappeared.

     “Can you believe that man?” Harry asked Dumbledore, but in that moment it occurred to him that this is the first time Harry had ever seen Dumbledore at . “Sir, what brings you here?”

     “You, Harry,” Dumbledore said, taking a seat on a chair in the Dursley’s living room, looking perfectly at home, as if he owned the place. He studied the Dursley family without a trace of the usual warmth with which he regarded most people. “Do have a seat,” he said. For a moment looked as if he would protest, but he quickly wilted under Dumbledore’s steady gaze. He took a seat, followed by Petunia and .

     “You will undoubtedly be pleased to know that in the Wizarding world men and women come of age at the age of seventeen,” Dumbledore continued. “This means that Harry will only have to return to this house once more, and then all future visits from him will be strictly at his discretion. I ask that you agree to allow him to return to this house next summer.”

     “After that, what?” Petunia asked. “What is my…obligation…to him?”

     Harry knew she had not forgotten the Howler she’d received last summer, and she did not wish to do anything that would earn her another. Dumbledore studied her calmly. “I ask that you remain open to the idea of allowing him to call this place home, even after he reaches adult status in the Wizarding world.”

     “It sounds to me as if you want us to allow him to free load after he graduates from that freak school of yours,” said, speaking to Dumbledore for the first time.

     “Not at all,” Dumbledore said. “I merely ask that you remain open to the idea, Petunia.” Dumbledore stressed Petunias name. She nodded.

     “Very well,” she said.

     “And what happens if we change our mind?” asked.

     “By agreeing, your wife has entered into a magically binding contract which cannot be broken without…unpleasant consequences befalling either of you.”

     The Dursleys looked alarmed, which brought a smile to Harry’s face. He didn’t bother to try and hide it. The days of fearing his aunt, uncle, and cousin, had drawn to a close.

     “Now!” Dumbledore said, rubbing his hands together. “On to other business. I have come to settle a small matter of Sirius’ estate. As you may have guessed, Harry, Sirius named you his sole beneficiary. Everything that belonged to him has gone to you. However, there is the question of what to do with the house on .”

     “I won’t go back there,” Harry said resolutely. He didn’t really know how to feel at the idea of owning Sirius’ things. Grimmauld place had held nothing of value for Sirius, no fond memories, no personal items of sentimental value. His godfather had wanted to be shut of the place, and so did Harry. “I’d rather stay here, Professor, than live in that house.”

     “I thought you would say as much. Truthfully, Harry, I cannot say that I blame you. There is one matter to discuss-”

     “Pardon me,” Vernon Dursley said, stepping forward by a very small measure. “Did you say a house? This boy has a house?”

     “Yes, he inherited it when his godfather, Sirius Black, passed away a few weeks ago,” Dumbledore said. He stared at , waiting for him to speak again, and when he did not, he turned back to Harry. “There are magical bonds and charms on the house that may have prevented Sirius from leaving everything to you, as he’d planned. If this is the case, then there is the danger that Kreacher could fall into the possession of Bellatrix Lestrange and her sister, Narcissa Malfoy.”

     “How do we find out if I truly own the place?”

     “By learning if you truly own Kreacher.”

     “I don’t want to own that lying, vile little-”

     “I’m well aware of your hatred of Kreacher, Harry, and I understand it better than you may imagine. However, we must keep him out of their hands if it is at all possible.”

     “Fine,” Harry said grudgingly. “How do I summon him, sir?”

     “Simple. Call for him.”

     Harry raised an eyebrow and then shrugged. Licking his lips, half-hoping he didn’t own the little monster who’d lied to him and led Sirius to his death, he took a breath and spoke. “Kreacher.”

     There was a moment of utter silence when it looked like Kreacher would not, or did not have to, obey the summons. Then there was a loud crack and Kreacher the house-elf appeared a few feet before Harry, still dressed in his filthy little loin cloth, his body as wrinkled and mottle-skinned as ever. Petunia gave a gasp and Harry looked up to find her, , and gazing at Kreacher with a mixture of disbelief and horror upon their faces. Petunia looked ready to faint at having such a filthy little beast on her immaculate carpet.

     “The Potter boy calls for Kreacher,” Kreacher said, under his breath. He sounded every bit as bitter as Harry felt. “Kreacher wonders how he does it.”

     “Well, that does it,” Harry said.

     “Not quite,” Dumbledore said, gazing at Kreacher in something that resembled pity. It made Harry angry. How could anyone pity Kreacher, when he’d purposely lied and gotten a human being killed? “Give him an order.”

     “The old wizard,” Kreacher started, muttering under his breath again, but he was getting angrier, and the angrier he got the louder the muttering, “forces me to betray my family, oh yes, how I hate him, how I hate him indeed. I hate him almost as much as I hate the scarred brat who summoned me. Oh, how I wish I could lead the Dark Lord to him, oh yes, I’d lead him here just like I led him to that Sirius Black. How Sirius’ mother hated him, but I got him! Oh yes, I got him in the end-”

     “Shut up!” Harry said angrily, stepping forward, ready to throttle Kreacher. Immediately Kreacher’s muttering came to a stop and he bowed deeply, reluctantly and resentfully but still deeply, at Harry’s feet.

     “Kreacher must do what master orders,” he said. “Though I hate him,” he added under his breath.

     Dumbledore heaved a sigh. “Well, that’s settled then. You may dismiss him Harry.”

     “Where will he go?”

     “I am willing to offer him a place in the kitchens, if you would be willing to send him there to work. At least there he won’t be able to sneak out and give warnings to Bellatrix or Narcissa.”

     “Good idea,” Harry said, nodding. “Kreacher, go to work in the kitchens at Hogwarts until I tell you otherwise.”

     Kreacher bowed resentfully and disappeared with a crack.

     Once Kreacher was gone, Dumbledore went with him to his room to pack his things by magic. Once that was done he led Harry down to the sitting room where the Dursley’s stood in a tight knot, watching the pair of them take a position in the center of the room.

     “Sir, may I ask where we’re going?”

     “The Burrow,” Dumbledore said.

     “How are we getting there? Floo?”

     “Oh no, Harry. We haven’t time to set this house up on the network. We will be Apparating.”

     “But I don’t know how!” Harry said, his heart racing. He’d always wondered what it was like to Apparate, but he had no idea how.

     “Never fear, Harry. Leave all the work to me. Got a hold on Hedwig’s cage? Good. Mrs. Dursley, Mr. Dursley, young master Dursley,” Dumbledore said pleasantly. With a tip of his head, he bade them good-bye, and then he gripped Harry’s arm very tight. There was a sudden feeling of being squeezed through a tight tube. It was painful, stealing his breath and crushing him, and then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over.

     Harry blinked and found that instead of facing the Dursleys’ fireplace, he was facing the beautifully crooked house that was the home of his best friend, Ronald Weasley.

     The Burrow.