Author's note: Sorry, sorry sorry… I know I didn't update this story for a long time… In fact, I've been working on it to re-write some parts of the chapters and I worked a lot on the end of the story… Now I've 26 chapters written which will be all posted in due time… Once again, sorry for not updating in so long… (It's not easy to rewrite something you already wrote :-)
Chapter One: Trapped.
Three days… It had been three days since the beginning of the summer holidays - holidays that had never been favourites of Harry's. He was at the Dursleys, as usual. Since the end of fifth year and the talk that the members of the Order had had with Uncle Vernon, the Dursleys had been off his back. He still had to do his share of chores but they were not so quick to criticize his work anymore. In the three days Harry had been there, he had reconnected with the reality - spending some time in the morning to read carefully the newspapers that his Uncle left on his chair, or listening to the news on the television or on the radio. Harry was trying to learn of Voldemort and his plans.
After all, no one had heard from him through out the sixth year. And Harry knew that he must be pretty mad that the prophecy had exploded under his nose. But nothing had happened so far and Harry was slightly worried. Oh, through the year, he had not thought about it or about Voldemort for that matter. But now, without his girlfriend occupying his every thought, he could manage to think straight and see what he had missed. There was nothing… nothing in the muggle world, nothing in the wizarding world. No great escape from Azkaban (where Malfoy senior was always detained), no great mass murder of any kind… It was as if Voldemort had disappeared from the earth's surface. Harry knew that this was not the case.
Although his scar had not hurt him the whole year, Harry knew it was only the calm preceding the storm. And that the storm would be pretty violent. Harry returned to the flowerbeds and watered them. The drought that had hit England the preceding year was over and now, Aunt Petunia was very eager to have the most beautiful garden ever. Harry had to water the flowerbeds, cut the grass, cut the edges of the garden and make everything fine. On top of that, he had the chores to do inside: cooking breakfast (something he was used to doing and that he was good at), cleaning an already spotless living room, and taking out the garbage… But Harry didn't mind all the chores… It was taking his mind from a certain fact. The fact that it has been three days since his sixth year at Hogwarts was over. Three days Harry was without news from Mary.
It had been three days since the holidays had begun. Three days that she had been at home. Far away from Hogwarts' library, far away from Ron and far away from the boy she was in love with. Being at home was good. For once, her parents had decided to take their holiday in August. She had the whole first month to think and to grieve. She had decided that she would not talk about the way her relationships with her two best friends had gone down the drain in their sixth year. She suspected that her mother already knew that something was wrong. They hadn't talked in the way back from the station. They had all remained silent. Usually, she was telling stories about what had happened through the year. But what did she have to tell this year?. She had barely seen the outside world, constantly being locked up in the library. She had learned much more this year than she had in previous years… She could even have passed her NEWTs a full year in advance of her classmates. "Well, less work for me in seventh year," she thought. Once she was at home, she locked herself up in her room, pretending to unpack. This day, she went back downstairs late. It was time for dinner. She ate, participated to the family life as usual but her heart was not in it. Her heart was, in fact, in Little Whinging, Surrey, desperate to see a certain boy waiting for letters from another girl.
The next days were similar. Her parents had to work and so she had plenty of time by herself. She did some shopping, bought new clothes, new muggle books, she wrote to her muggle friends, like she always did at the beginning of the holidays. Mainly, she was in her room, thinking back over the past year, on what had gone wrong and on what little had gone right. The only thing that was right was her excellent results at the end of the year. She hadn't cared for the House Cup like the other years, nor had she cared for the Quidditch Cup as she in the years before. She didn't even try to fight to keep her best friend. Maybe that was her mistake. When Mary had isolated Harry from all other girls, she should have fought her to be able to stay at Harry's side no matter what. Instead of that, she had stepped aside and let Mary have her way… God knows what they had done through the year. She had tears in her eyes, just by thinking about it. She crumbled onto her bed and cried some more. She was fine when her parents came home… The first three days of the holidays were similar: a bit of shopping, a lot of thinking - with all thoughts taking her back to Harry and his girlfriend Mary. And so she ended all her afternoons crying on her bed and all her evenings pretending to be fine for her parents
Ron was happy. Oblivious to Hermione's problems and to Harry's new girlfriend, he had found perfect love with Lavender Brown. Better yet, she loved him back. Could life be more wonderful? Yes, of course. Lavender Brown was living not very far from The Burrow. Just behind the meadow where Ron and his brothers played Quidditch, there was a forest. Not very thick, and not forbidden. And on the other side of the forest, the first house from the nearby village was the house of Lavender's grandmother. Of course, they were not joined at the hip yet. Their love was new for their families and they certainly did not want to jeopardize what they had by proclaiming to everyone that they were in love. Ron suspected that her mother knew and he had made sure that his brothers, especially the twins, didn't find out any too soon. He would never have heard the end of it. They had met two times in the first three days, secretly. It was fun for both of them, they had the feeling they were spies or something like that. It was far better than writing to her and waiting for her answer. However, they kept writing to each other to maintain appearances…
Life was fine for Ron. The only person to know the feelings he had for Lavender was Ginny and she had been sworn secrecy on that matter. Ron wondered what Harry and Hermione were doing right now. No doubt Harry was writing to his new bimbo girlfriend. And no doubt Hermione had her nose in a book, maybe even a muggle one this time. She had done that a lot this past year, wait no, not a lot, she had barely done anything else. She had not come to watch the quidditch matches, she had not come to Hogsmeade once. She kept studying, and studying and studying some more… Even for Hermione, it was not normal, not healthy. But Ron couldn't point out why she had done it. Of course he and Harry had found love early in the year and she hadn't. No wonder, she was always in the deep end of the library where no men had gone before. But that did not explain everything. Ron had no clue as to what was bothering her, only that something sure was. He was thinking about taking a quill and writing to Hermione to see what she was up to when a owl jumped through his open window. He recognized immediately Lavender's owl and all thoughts about Hermione left his brain.
Harry was deep in thought. Through his sixth year Mary was his sunshine, his joy, his pride, and the force that allowed him to continue to live. Closing his eyes, he was remembering the train ride home. The last kiss they exchanged before separating for the summer. Two long months. They promised each other to write each other as often they could - every day if possible. Harry was remembering sending Hedwig with his letter on the first day, at night. Now, it had been three days and Hedwig had not come back. Harry took a few steps away from the nightly frame of the window. It was indeed night already as Harry decided to go to bed, without any news of Mary. Ten minutes later, Harry was slumbering slowly… A light noise woke him up. Hedwig was back and with her, there was another bird that Harry did not know. Harry fetched the two letters from the birds. Hedwig went into her cage and the other owl flew through the open window. The first surprise for Harry was to see that one of the letters he held in his hands was the one he sent Mary a few days earlier. The other letter bore no address or any sign. But Harry recognized the forms of the letter: it was a letter from Mary. He sat down on his bed to read. Colour drained from his face as he read the letter to the end:
Harry,
I've never had so much trouble writing a letter to someone, though I must do it. There is no other way to put this. I have done a lot of thinking about our relationship over the past year. My conclusion is that I don't think it is wise for us to continue to see each other. I don't want to invoke my reasons in this letter. This would be too long and it wouldn't change a single thing in our history. We are over. I just hope we can see each other at school next year and be civil about it. I don't want you to answer this letter. As you see, my decision is made and I don't want to discuss it. I'll see you at Hogwarts in September. By that time, we will have had plenty of time to accept the fact that we are no longer a couple.
PS: I know I've hurt you and I don't hope staying your friend after you've finished this letter. As for me, I'll keep an excellent memory of our time together.
Reading the end of the letter brought tears in Harry's eyes. So this was it. Harry had never had his heart broken by a girl before. On top of the sadness he was now experiencing, he felt a cold anger rising, a surge of dangerous blind animal rage. The tears were falling freely now as he tore the letter in pieces. He rummaged in his trunk for a while, getting all the notes and all the letters Mary had written during the year and he tore them too. For a while, the anger was controlling him. He destroyed some more parchments, photos of Mary, poems he had written since the beginning of the holidays… Every single thing that reminded him of Mary the Traitor was now destroyed around him… A little calmer now, he was thinking about how miserable his life was… Tears were continuing to fall… He lay down on his mattress, burying his face in what served him as a pillow and he cried himself to sleep. He was so depressed…
Meanwhile, somewhere else, a hooded man with a silver hand was receiving instructions from another man. The hooded man was nodding at the instructions:
"Be careful Wormtail. I won't accept any more failure from you… All you have to do is spy and report what you see… If you get caught, you'll pray to be in a prison cell in Azkaban before I'm finished with you… Do you understand?"
"Yes master" answered the hooded man, shivering.
"I wonder… Anyway, my plan to bring the boy into a place where I can reach him is already operating… So go to this address and watch…". The tall silhouette was giving the hooded man a piece of parchment.
There was a moment of silence. And then the hooded man referred to as Wormtail spoke: "Master, if we have his address, why don't we go and…"
He was never able to finish his sentence, the man referred to as Master pointed a wand at him and yelled "Crucio". An unbearable pain shot throughout his body. The voice of the man pointing the wand was shaking with anger: "How many times should I repeat myself?. I cannot reach the boy as he is under a very powerful protective spell while he is in this area or with this muggle lover Dumbledore…"
Finally, the cruciatus spell was stopped and Wormtail could stand again. Without a word, he apparated to a location near the address that had been given to him. There, assuming his rat form, he trotted the rest of the way to the garden of a house. This house bore the number 4 and it was located on Privet Drive…