Harry Potter and the Tome of Truths

Author’s Note: If you lot couldn’t tell already, punctuality isn’t my strong point. I got kicked out of my house a couple weeks ago (I went to live with my mom for a week), until I got a decent paying job, and my dad let me come back home. On top of that, I’ve actually been working on two other novel length Fic’s (Because I clearly suffer from ADD or something); so my writing has been spaced up between all of that.

I was contemplating waiting a little while longer to post this, so I could give you chapter four simultaneously (For lengths sake), but I decided I’d just give this to you now. I’m on my final edit for Chapter 4, so realistically it shouldn’t be nearly as long a wait between chapters. I also want to find a Beta for the AU fic I’m working on (If you want a rundown of the premise, send me an email).

I’m still in the process of moving this plot along; chapter 5 they reach Hogwarts, and we’re introduced to a pair of obvious plot points, yay! Be patient with me! Thanks to all my reviewers for the support. Thank you Sondra for half-beta’ing, and keeping me company the last few weeks; and thank you Libby for being the only person to read all my fics and encouraging me to keep at the lot of them! So without further adieu!

Chapter 3: The First Barrage

Several days passed and Harry wore a fairly genuine smile most of that time; it only managed to falter when he noticed two or three people whispering furiously and then suddenly ceasing and heading different directions as he approached; which actually seemed to happen a couple times a day at least. Truthfully, by the time he reached the fourth night at the Burrow, he was growing kind of tired of it.

They’d had a pretty boring couple days; going outside wasn’t really an option, so instead the three of them spent a lot of time reminiscing and playing chess/exploding snap/gobstones and various other wizarding games. Just the day before Harry beat Ron for the first time at Wizards Chess; Ron claimed his mind was elsewhere. Thinking on it, Harry decided ‘boring’ wasn’t the right word for the last few days. Quiet. Quiet was the word; and he went to bed each night enjoying the simplicities of a summer at the Burrow.

Lying in his bed staring at the ceiling he slowly turned his head over and was quite sure Ron was sincerely asleep. Harry gave a deep sigh; he’d had this intense urge since arriving to talk to Ron about the dreaded prophecy. He knew Ron would take it better then Hermione; so he’d convinced himself it would be easier telling her if it was the second time he relived it. Part of him wanted to keep it secret; part of him even wanted to flee from them… spare them; but he knew he never could, and he also knew if they had a say, they’d never let him.

It was eating a small hole in him and he had to get it off his chest, but he couldn’t bring himself to shatter the nice quaint life they’d been living since he and Hermione had come to the Weasley’s. He decided finally he’d let them know when they arrived at Hogwarts. Now wasn’t a good time. Harry closed his eyes lazily and drifted off into a deep sleep; aided by the singing wind.

A loud chorus of 'Weasley is our King' was being chanted from somewhere in the distance; Harry, seemingly trapped in a small room with one hundred doors, pondered slightly before moving. He made to open one door and yet he appeared to come out another door, entering the same room. Odd. Slightly confused Harry took to listening at each door in hopes of hearing where the chant was coming from. After checking three quarters of the room, Harry opened another door that led into a long Hallway, Harry ran for what seemed an hour before he reached the end, where there was a single battered wooden door.

A dim blue light emanated from underneath, and he pushed it open; the chorus of 'Weasley is our King' became supremely louder and slightly painful to his ears. He took in the room; there were dozens of blue flamed torches surrounding the room and hundreds of people Harry didn’t recognize loitering and drinking to their hearts content. It appeared to be a party; Harry looked around for his friends, and he finally spotted Ron, who for all appearances had noticed Harry enter five minutes before. His red head friend slowly ambled over to; equipped the most superior look on his face he could manage and said.

'Harry… Harry, wake up!'

Tangled in his blankets and a small amount of sweat on his face, Harry slowly opened his blurry eyes and hazardly searched his bedside table for his glasses and finally throwing them on.

'You sleep like a rock mate; I’ve been trying to get you up for near twenty minutes now, its almost , come on.' And with that Ron yanked the blankets from Harry and tossed his clothes roughly onto his face. Harry slowly dressed, and, as was a forced habit by this point, stared outside the window into the pouring rain. Just the other day Harry had thought he’d seen the same dark shadow floating ominously; he’s wiped his eyes furiously to rid of the image, and succeeded in eliminating it from his line of sight; further implying his madness. He slowly descended the long narrow stairs, playing that dream over in his head, but again, he couldn't make heads or tails of it, so Harry shrugged it off, entered the kitchen and was a bit stunned by the sight that met his eyes.

Hanging from the ceiling was a huge banner, emerald green, with the ivory white letters 'Happy Birthday' written on it. On the table was a pile of presents, large and small, various colors and patterns... and yet, surrounding the table was the biggest group of frowns he'd ever seen at a 'celebration'. Ginny even appeared to have tears in her eyes. He briefly wondered if his own birthday, which he'd completely forgotten himself, was such a horrible experience. This was of course ridiculous and that was enforced by the sight of two copies of the Daily Prophet sprawled on the dinner table.

Hermione looked up slowly from the paper and put on a forced painful looking smile, 'Surprise.' was all she could say.

The rest of the party; Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Mrs. Weasley all chimed in with unenthusiastic Happy Birthday's and 'Surprises' of their own, as Harry made to the table; swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, to grab one of the papers. He didn't have to look hard to determine what everyone was so glum about; infact Harry had only read the front page headline and already he was thinking of the horrible implications. Free of any generic play on words that the paper usually used, this was straight to the point; 'Forty-Five Dead; Thirteen Dark Marks Later...'

Harry looked darkly at the only image on the front page; the too familiar Dark Mark, lingering over top a pile of ruins that looked to have once been nearly the size of Hogwarts. He scanned the related article and was struck again by another sudden pang of distress; the rubble in question happened to be Durmstrang Institute. The only relieving part of that scenario Harry noted not too soon afterwards; was that the school was completely empty, so no one was harmed. Harry flipped through the pages, his scowl becoming ever more pronounced.

'...family of four muggles, dead... ex-auror Sigmund Lark, dead... healer Priya Patil, dead...'

'Patil...' Harry murmured.

He looked up from the paper at Hermione and knew at once his fear was indeed founded. He suddenly felt like he was going to be sick; tossing the paper lightly back on the table, Harry turned around and stumbled back up into his room and collapsed face down onto his bed. Forty-Five Dead; in a single night, how on earth could this happen? Harry pondered that for nearly a half hour, thought of ways they could have prevented it; how the Order 'should' have prevented it... or the Ministry even. Then of course the obvious oddity that was the lack of warning; Harry could almost always sense these things… What did it mean?

Yet still, his thoughts rested primarily on Parvati and Padma; two individuals he didn’t know on a particularly deep level... Who had lost what he assumed to be their mother; without much evidence mind. How could he possibly express how sorry he was... You can't; was the only response his brain gave him.

'This is all my fault...' Harry cursed under his breath.

But Merlin forbid allowing Harry to mope, there was a small knock on his door in the middle of his thoughts; and whoever it was didn't wait for a response to enter. Harry sat up roughly in his bed and saw Ron sitting on his own bed now, staring right back at him a bit apprehensively. He made to open his mouth once; but closed it quickly again, then said ever so slowly, and incredibly solemnly.

'Look... I know, this is really distressing for you... and... and everyone else but... Mum had a cake baked before the mail arrived and... and you have all those presents to open still.' Ron looked down at his feet midway through his sentence and didn’t bother looking up.

Wanting less then anything to face they day, he sighed; Harry figured he may as well; if only to get the whole event over with so he could simply go back to wallowing in his own misery. So he nodded his head very slightly and rose from his bed. Ron followed close behind as they both descended the stairs and entered a slightly less miserable kitchen. Mrs. Weasley seemed to have taken it upon herself to get everyone in a better mood, she was handing out pieces of chocolate cake for many plates, though not nearly as many as he'd thought. He noticed quickly that the twins seemed to have vanished, as had Luna; he wondered for what reason briefly before Mrs. Weasley interrupted his thought process.

'I hope you enjoy it Harry dear; and Happy Birthday.' as she gave him a large hug, 'No one deserves it as much as you do.'

Harry cringed a little at this proclamation, but thanked her and slowly ate the cake, although his appetite had effectively vanished along with any good mood he'd had upon arriving at the Burrow. Even Ron appeared to be intaking his food at an amazingly slow pace in comparison to his usual eating habits; Ginny only took about two bites of hers before she pushed it away, and Hermione only managed to mutilate her piece with her fork.

Sensing the uncomfortable nature Mrs. Weasley rushed in and cleared the table of plates (and most of the cake from three of the four plates; Ron of course managed to maintain a decent appetite), and quickly procured a decent pile of gifts that were promptly pushed directly in front of Harry. She sat down and he was suddenly very aware of how close all his friends were to him. Hesitantly he reached over and grabbed the top present, rectangular in shape and about the size of a shoebox, he only half wondered what it was; and opening it, sure enough Ron had done the usual junk food thing. He wasn't exactly surprised, but it did usually manage to last him the better part of the year. He thanked him quickly then turned back to the pile and grabbed the next present.

Without even having to guess; he 'knew' it was a book; he was only surprised when he saw that it was from Ginny and not Hermione. He eyed her as he unwrapped it; she had a small sincere smile on her face. He thanked her quickly for the Quidditch book, throwing the best smile he could in her direction, though truth be told it was still fake, he just couldn’t bring himself to smile at a time like this. He went through the gift from the Twins; small samples of their new products; some random colored bean shaped items, and something that looked like a chocolate galleon. He made a note to put them at the very bottom of his trunk for fear of turning into a Canary. He received another book, this time from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Then there were only two left.

He grabbed the smallest one, small enough to sit comfortably into the palm of his hand. He noted that it was from Hermione as he tore off the dark blue paper, and opened the pull up lid. There was only a small scrap of parchment inside; he pulled it out and read it slowly to himself; eye’s darting from left to right down the scrap of paper. He shook his head slowly, smiled, and looked up at Hermione. Harry gave her a curt nod then slid the paper into his robe pocket.

As he reached for the last gift in its crimson red wrapping, there seemed to be a collective intake of breath from around the room. Harry eyed each of them individually before Harry checked to see who the gift was from. Sirius. Harry looked around the room, perhaps delusionally thinking that Sirius had dropped this off himself. Get a grip. No, Sirius wasn't here he thought.

How on earth was this from Sirius? Perhaps someone found the idea humorous. He looked around the table; Mrs. Weasley smiling slightly at him, Ron suddenly very interested in his finger nails, Ginny looking at it… anticipating, and Hermione with a slight frown on her face. Harry stared at the box again for a good long minute then spoke softly.

'Thanks a lot for the gifts everyone... I think... I'm going to go lie down for a bit... Thanks, for everything... Yeah.'

And with that, Harry rose; Sirius' present in hand, and climbed the staircase. He entered his room, placed the gift on the desk and collapsed onto his bed, staring at the box he'd received from his dead Godfather. He was so grateful coming to the Burrow, being able to avoid unnecessary reminders of his late Godfather, and yet here he was popping up unwelcome in a place he felt he could be safe and comfortable.

On top of that he had the unpleasant nature of Voldemort sending his minions out to kill innocent people; and somehow Harry just couldn’t warrant being happy here anymore. He rolled over facing the wall, eyes swelling slightly, and dozing into an unhappy sleep.