Chapter 1- Are You Home?
There had never been a seemingly longer, more boring 6 weeks of summer by Harry's standards. The sun rose early in the day to the sound of birds chirping and seemed to hang, frozen in place, radiating sweltering heat down on the world below it until late in the evening. A bead of sweat rolled down from jet black bangs, leaving a streak across a dusty, flushed cheek as Harry lazily pushed off the hard dirt ground for what must have been the thousandth time that day. Harry often found refuge from the pestering Dursleys on this old swing-set in the park off Magnolia road, where he sat in frustrated silence attempting to come to a conclusion as to what was happening in the world he was cut off from. All he could think about was gaining revenge over his godfather's horrific death; forcing the one who had caused him to relive Sirius' death every night, jolting upright just as Sirius fell through the demonic veil and feeling the heavy weight of agony settle on his chest, as he lay sweating and shaking within his twisted covers, feel the same terrible pain that he suffered through every day. Voldemort was still at large and Harry was sure that the newly captured Death Eaters he and his D.A. friends helped captured last year were bound to escape Azkaban any day now, if they hadn't already.
"Don't think of that," he silently told himself, as he often found himself doing. "Besides, I've got another visit with Mrs. Figg later this evening."
Harry practically lived for his meetings with his batty old cat-loving neighbor, Mrs. Figg, who shared limited news with him regarding the Order's movements in fighting Voldemort. He had even grown accustomed to the odd smell of cabbages mixed with the potent smell of her many cats. Unfortunately, these meetings were only held once a week for that was the only time both Harry and Mrs. Figg could meet in private secrecy. The Dursleys still wanted Harry to have strictly limited contact with anything pertaining to the wizarding world and magic, and Mrs. Figg had only just managed to persuade the Dursleys to allow Harry to visit with her in her home every Friday evening. Mrs. Figg had claimed that she needed Harry's help with her housekeeping, as she was aging "oh too rapidly".
A few minutes passed with Harry lost in thought, mainly of Sirius and how he had ever managed to live this long without him, until a boy walked past, waving at him.
"Hi, Harry! I'd like to stop and chat but my mum's expecting me home. I'll see you around though!"
"Alright, see you Mark," Harry said back as the boy continued. He had always felt a bit sorry for the boy, relating to him since Dudley beat him up, but also took a liking to him as at the same time he stood up to Dudley. Over the summer they became friends a bit; every once in a while Mark would stop by the park and talk for a while.
Another few minutes passed as the sun began to set. Glancing up from the ground, across the fence to the houses across the street, Harry caught a quick flicker of movement in some bushes, and immediately tensed up as he automatically jabbed a hand into his pocket to grab his wand. Naturally, he was very relieved and released his caught breath as he saw a cat climb out of the tangle of branches. The cat strolled across the pavement, weaving under the lowest fence post and trotted up to where Harry sat, watching the cat journey towards him.
A slight grin spread across his face as Harry welcomed the cat.
"Hello, Tibbles. What are you doing so far from Figgy's?"
The brown cat just turned his blue eyes up to meet Harry's green ones and meowed. Harry had the impression that the cat could understand him as much as Crookshanks could, and it unnerved him slightly.
Shaking off the feeling, Harry stretched out a long, toned arm to pet the cat behind its ear, while the cat smiled and pushed back against his hand in obvious pleasure.
After a few strokes through the brown fur Harry pulled his hand away and heaved a great sigh.
"Let's get you home. Mrs. Figg will be worried."
Tibbles meowed again in concurrence and turned, trotting off towards the park fence. Harry stood from his spot on the swing and followed, leaving the swing swaying slightly behind him. After vaulting the fence Harry turned and trudged down the street with his hands deep in his jean pockets, lost in thought. He couldn't help but get the ominous feeling that tonight he would receive the news that he had been dreading, that the Death Eaters had indeed escaped. He now understood why he had to stay at the Dursley's every summer, but that didn't mean he accepted his forced imprisonment in the muggle world any more optimistically. Once again, Ron and Hermione and all of his friends in the Order were out there, fighting Voldemort, while he was stuck here, and Harry hated it. He hated not being able to do anything, when he was the only one who really could…. he was the one to kill Voldemort…. And the fact that Ron and Hermione were spending even more time together without him didn't exactly please him much either; he wanted to be with them, to hear Ron joke, to turn to see Hermione smiling at him……
Harry started as Tibbles wound himself around his legs, and he looked up to see that they had reached Mrs. Figg's house. Upon opening the front door, he was greeted with a strong smell of cabbages, as always. Dust was collected on every surface and Harry thought that perhaps he really could help out around the house as Mrs. Figg claimed he was doing. Tibbles walked past Harry and jumped up on a couch, sending a cloud of dust into the air, as Harry stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
"Hello," he timidly yelled, "Mrs. Figg, it's me. Are you here?"
Nothing but his own echoing voice returned an answer so he shrugged and sat down in the living room near Tibbles, creating a cloud of dust so thick that he coughed and had to wipe off his glasses to see. He hoped that she would get here soon; he was anxious for the news update and her absence made him uneasy; she was usually home at 5:00 on Fridays in order to greet Harry. Looking at the table next to him, Harry spotted the photos of all the cats that Mrs. Figg owned: Snowy, Mr. Paws, Tufty, and Mr. Tibbles; he could recall a story about every one of them easily after all the times Mrs. Figg forced him to look at them. Even during their meetings over the summer she had made him look at each of them in turn at least once; Harry determined that he would be quite happy to never lay eyes on one of their pictures ever again.
Just as he was examining the picture of Tufty, a loud CRACK sounded out through the house and the sound of breaking china came soon after. Harry was standing with his wand out before he knew it, staring wide-eyed towards the upstairs landing he could just see from his position in the living room (the front foyer opened up to the living room on one side and the staircase leading upstairs began in it, leading up to the landing towards the foyer ceiling and back wall). Mr. Tibbles bounded off the couch in an instant and ran upstairs, and Harry tried desperately to make him return.
"Tibbles get back here!" he whispered frantically. He wasn't sure what was lurking upstairs but he was pretty sure that whatever it was would quite easily destroy the cat. "Shoot," he quietly cursed, and creped over to the staircase, taking a deep breath. He had just placed his foot on the first step when he heard voices coming from upstairs, and it was quite obvious that they were making no attempt to keep quiet.
"Damn vase!" someone swore upstairs. "I thought we had a clear place to land."
"Yeah, so did I," a second voice responded, "Of course this house is so cluttered it's no wonder that we landed on something. Now, come on, we'd better hurry up and find him."
The sound of pounding feet told Harry they were on the move and as soon as one of them was in view he instinctively yelled, "STUPEFY!" as a jet of fiery red light shot out from his wand and hit the man, causing him to keel over. But before Harry could shout out anything else, the second man barreled down the upstairs hall, out onto the landing and shouted, "ACCIO WAND!" and Harry's wand was yanked out of his grasp and flew right up into the other man's open hand. Panicking slightly, Harry was just thinking of what to do next when a familiar voice spoke to him.
"Geez Harry, kill us why don't you?" said Lupin as he stepped out of the shadows of the upstairs corroder and into the light of the landing.