Chapter 02.
Present day.
It was nearing the end of June, and the sun was shining through the windows at Privet Drive, people were standing outside chatting to each other while the children were having a water fight in the middle of the street, you could hear cries of terror while boys chased the girls around with water balloons and birds chirping in the trees. There was not a single wind blowing and the heat was beginning to take its told on the inhabitants of the street, only the children were not sweating, well at least not the ones drenched in cold water running around.
A very fat boy walked down the street with his hands firmly in his pockets of his mangled jeans, the size of the boy was enough that some people thought him to be a full grown man, a very fat, full grown man of course. Dudley had just been out with his gang, once again reigning terror on the kids around the neighbourhood, not the close one of course, no need to alarm his parents of his little escapades.
Dudley was about to walk into the house on Privet Drive number four when a water balloon came flying gracefully through the air and hit the back of his head with a loud sound, water splashing all over the top of his shirt and he gave out a yelp, holding out his arms and shaking from head to toe, he spun around searching for the culprit but all the children were gone, they had run the instant they saw Mark Evans threw the water balloon and he himself ran around the corner of the hedge without looking to see if his bomb had hit its target, but the loud yelp confirmed his great aim and he giggled silently to himself as he ran away as fast as his legs could carry him.
All this was totally oblivious to a young boy sitting in his room staring at a book in his hands. He was not a happy boy, you could see it in his face, how the eyes were glazed over and the dark circles beneath them was a sure sign that this boy did not sleep well and had been crying at some point. You would not think much of him at that point, but this boy was very special to thousands and thousands of people.
His name was Harry Potter and he was famous in the world of wizards. What made him special to all wizards was his defeat of the dark lord Voldemort when he was one year old, and for that he has been on the lips of almost all wizards in the world.
What really made him special to some very fortunate people was the fact that he was their best friend, those people were Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, his two best friends, they knew what kind of person he was, what kind of heart he had, what kind of mind he had and that he always were there for them, even in great danger.
But at this time, his two best friends was not on his mind, what were on his mind was the fact that he had just lost the person closest to him, his godfather Sirius Black, the notorious murderer of twelve muggle people whose deaths he was not responsible for, but for the majority of the wizard population they did not know this fact, only Harry, his two best friends, and a select group of people knew about his innocence, and now no one would know what kind of person he was, and had been for Harry.
His fathers closest friend, Harry had quickly come to love him like he was his father, and the precious time they had spend with each other would forever be carved into his mind as the greatest moments of being like a family.
But those times were in the past now, forever gone, but not forgotten as he remembered how he died.
Harry's mind replayed the scene over and over again in his head, how Sirius disappeared through the veil in the Department of Mysteries.
"Sirius, I miss you…" he cried, and looked again at the picture of his parents wedding where Sirius was standing beside his father smiling madly and waving to the photographer, the faces of his mother and father became obscured a little by Harry's tears running slowly down the picture.
Harry had been at the Dursleys for nearly 3 weeks now and the only thing he had done in that time was to go down and get some food, and then locking himself in his room.
Even though the Order still visited him from time to time, to the great regret of the Dursleys, he still had no clue as to what was going on in the world, what Voldemort was up to and if his friends was safe.
Even if Dumbledore had said that he would not hide anything from him, did not mean that the other members of the Order thought differently, so he never got any real information when they visited, only snippets and rumours and such, but that was not enough for Harry, he wanted to make sure that all of his friends were safe, but as long as they were somewhat connected to Harry they would be in great danger.
And that was the thing he had been worried about for the last week or so, how close it really came to them loosing their lives in the Ministry of Magic, seeing Hermione laying on the ground lifeless, how Luna flew through the air, and Ron acting weird while being devoured by the brains. All of the people he had brought along to save Sirius had in some way or another been harmed, only Harry had managed to escape without any real physical damage and that thought made him feel even worse.
In the back of his mind a voice told him that they wanted to be there with him, but he was ignoring that voice, and had been since his first ideas of how he could manage to protect them from harm.
So for days now he had been silently getting himself ready for one thing, to run away and stay away, hoping that with doing that he could somehow protect his friends.
He had written a letter to the Gringotts bank requesting that a substantial amount of his gold galleons was to be exchanged to muggle pounds, he wrote that he wanted 2000 pounds in 100 pound notes and they should be delivered to him via the ordinary muggle mail system just to be sure, besides Hedwig would have severe trouble flying with a heavy bag of money.
The money arrived the day before yesterday, upsetting Vernon so much that even his earlobes were beginning to show a reddish glow, Harry had to work one whole day in the garden just for that stunt. But he took the punishment in silent content, knowing that in just a few days he would be gone from here, for good.
The day approached and he was getting more and more anxious, worrying that something would go wrong, that Vernon might catch him and lock him in the cupboard, his old home for 11 years. Just the thought of that made his blood boil and his hands curl into fists.
"Sirius, I am leaving this stupid place now, and I hope you don't think badly of me for doing what I am about to do" Harry whispered to the picture. In there, Sirius looked at him with a big smile and Harry thought he saw a slight nod, but when he blinked his eyes in disbelief the Sirius in the picture was looking at his mother and father saying something to them, then they all laughed.
He began to collect his things.
Harry had waited until the evening to escape, he watched from the window how everything slowly began to fade down, the children being called in for dinner and the light coming on the lamps all throughout the city, how the sun cast a faded red light all over the green trees and houses making very long shadows and the sound of cars gone.
Finally the sun went down and darkness spread, he decided that Hedwig had to fly off to Ron and stay at his place, but he had a hard time convincing her that he would eventually join them there, it was as if she could tell he was lying but at the end she hooted loudly and nipped his earlobe before flying out the window.
Harry stood there looking at the disappearing form of his most beloved pet, and a tear started to fall from his right eye.
"Goodbye Hedwig, have a nice life", he turned away and opened the door.
He walked down slowly to the telephone and called the central for a cab, telling them not to use the horn to alert him, as he would already be waiting out by the street, it would be there in just 8 minutes he was told, and hung up the phone.
Just then he heard something creak behind him and he spun around.
"What were you doing talking on the phone at this time?" Dudley asked, while walking all the way down the stairs.
"That's for me to know and for you to not care about" Harry said.
"I looked into your room" Dudley said with a smirk. "You are leaving, right?"
Harry just stood there looking at the boy who had been his own little Peeves for the last 15 years, but a lot more physical.
"But you were told to stay here at all times, I remember the weird guy with the weird eye saying that," Dudley began.
"His name is Moody, and what do you care?" Harry snapped at him while pushing him away and walking up the stairs after his trunk and broom.
"You are right, I don't care, what I care about is getting rid of you and everything about you" Dudley said as he slammed the door to his own room.
That was a nice goodbye even for him Harry mused as he gathered his belongs and went outside to wait for the cab.
Harry got into the cab and looked at the driver.
"Where to mate?" the cabdriver asked.
"Anywhere but here" Harry whispered.
"Excuse me?" the cabdriver turned around to look at him. "I did not get that"
"Oh sorry, just take me to 12 Grimmauld Place, it's in London" Harry extended several 100 pound notes to the cabdriver.
"Holy cricket, well sure! Let's get going then" the cabdriver had a smug smile on his face from getting all those money even if the drive would be a while.
Harry sat back, and looked behind him one last time, the look in his eyes told the whole story, pain because he had to live here, and relief for finally getting away from it. The memories of that place were something Harry planned to forget as soon as possible, it was never really a home in the right way of the word.
"Goodbye cold place" Harry whispered as the cab made a turn and Privet Drive disappeared forever from Harry's sight
"What can I call my home now? maybe Hogwarts was my home but not anymore" He thought
His thoughts, the somewhat comfort of the backseat and the slow movement of the cab made his eyes close together and he drifted into a sleep.