Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter 2: Spinners End

Harry closed his bedroom door and rushed over to the window to let Hedwig in. The owl gave him a satisfied look as it stretched out its leg for Harry to remove the note. He untied it wondering who the letter could be from, but as he opened it and saw the tidy handwriting he knew immediately who had written it.

Harry,

It's been a while now, how are you? I just arrived at You-Know-Where after staying with my parents for a while, and it looks like you might be here for your birthday.

Harry stopped and looked out the window, as if he was expecting a car to be parked outside of it. For most people this would seem an absurd thing, but having already experienced it himself, Harry never knew quite what to expect. He turned back to the letter.

Don't want to spoil anything, but it seems that Ron's mum can't stand the thought of you having to celebrate alone on your sixteenth birthday. I am looking forward to seeing you again, and I hope that you aren't suffering too much over there. Study hard in your spare time!

Love From
Hermione

Harry folded up the letter and placed it on his desk grinning from ear to ear. He wouldn't have to endure the Dursley's for much longer, and that was something to look forward to. The letter didn't say when they would come for him, but his birthday was just a little over two weeks away, so it couldn't be too much longer.

He looked around the room and noticed that his things were everywhere. If he was going to be ready when they came for him, then he would have to keep his unused things in his trunk. He started to pick up his room a bit, not bothering to really clean it, when a knock came from his door.

"Come in," he called as he picked up the Sneak-o-Scope that Ron had given him. Aunt Petunia opened the door slowly and came in with a confused look on her face like she didn't know how she got into Harry's room. Harry looked at her in mild surprise. "Er - yes?"

"I just… how much longer are you going to be here?" Aunt Petunia asked with a tone that was half-way between intrigue and disgust.

"I'm not sure," Harry replied. "They said that they would pick me up before my birthday." He looked at her for a moment before adding, "The thirty-first," just in case she had forgotten.

"I know when your birthday is," she snapped. She looked around the room, lingering on some of the obviously magical items thrown about it, and it occurred to Harry that she had never in his memory actually entered his room.

"Er… anything else?" Harry was beginning to get slightly nervous from her presence. He had been quite content with the Dursley's just ignoring him, but it seemed that they were intent upon making sure that they knew enough about what was going on to not be surprised. He was sure that they were torn immensely being forced to ask about such things.

She silently shook her head and left, causing Harry a lot of confusion. Aunt Petunia normally, more so than Uncle Vernon, seemed to think that Harry would go away if ignored, which wasn't without merit. He often did distance himself from the Dursley's unless they were talking to him for some reason.

Harry looked around his room and continued to pick up his school belongings off his floor, placing them in his trunk. He was setting his History of Magic essay into his trunk when he noticed a shiny object at the bottom he didn't recognize. Reaching into the trunk to pull it out, he knew precisely what it was the moment his hands clasped it.

He felt his heart lurch as the broken mirror which Sirius had given him came into full view. The cracks seemed fitting to Harry, who wistfully looked at all the images of himself in the pieces. Push it down. Put the mirror back and push the feelings down...

Harry jerkily tossed the mirror to the bottom of his trunk and covered it with the work that he had been doing in his room. The paper and books covered up the symbol of his loss, and he readied his quill to finish his Transfiguration essay.

Within a week Harry had managed to finish all of his homework, and he noticed a definite improvement in both his ability and stamina on the gym set. Harry supposed that this was due to the fact that the only two activities he really did were completing his homework and exercising. He was beginning to get anxious having finished the homework, and had taken to writing longer and longer letters to his correspondents, sometimes leaving him to wonder if he was burdening the poor owls.

It was only four days until his birthday before Harry received any other notice that he wasn't going to stay at Privet Drive all summer long. He had been reading his Charms homework again to see if there was anywhere he could work on it some more, when a frantic tapping abruptly started at his window.

Harry looked up and was heartened to see Pig trying to get in, rather like a hummingbird. He opened the window and waited for the ecstatic bird to calm down before removing the letter. He hadn't received anything from Ron in a few days, and Harry was eager to learn about what Ron had been up to lately. From what he had deciphered from Hermione's letters, Ron was with his family at the burrow and she was with her parents on holiday.

Having coaxed the bird into holding still, Harry removed the letter and began to read it, his ravenous eyes looking for a glimmer of hope among the words.

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you... I've been busy helping Mum around the house. She's been entirely unbearable this summer, but at least that's coming to an end, right?

See you soon -
Ron

Harry reread the note, trying to figure out when the letter was going to get there and how. Would it come by owl? If they were going to send it by a normal owl, then why couldn't Ron just put it in his letter? He looked around, trying to find something to occupy himself, ardent at the thought of leaving Privet Drive, and no longer satisfied by busying himself with finished homework.

He swiftly packed away all his things and locked up Hedwig's cage, hopeful that they would come for him tonight. He went down to the kitchen for lunch and was wondering how to tell his Aunt and Uncle that he'd be leaving soon so as to not have a long conversation, when the most peculiar looking white bird caught his eye out the kitchen window.

The Dursleys were all eating and were not facing the window as Harry began to realize that whatever was outside the window it wasn't a bird, and it was heading right for them. Aunt Petunia, who was directly across from Harry, noticed the expression of interest and guardedness on Harry's face and turned just in time to see a paper airplane float in through the open window, and land right in the middle of the table, stuck in the butter.

They stared at it for a moment, as if mesmerized, until Petunia picked it out of the butter and unfolded it. Harry kicked himself, quickly realizing that it must be a letter and that he should have grabbed it off the table. Petunia's lips got thinner and thinner as she continued on, until finally she gave Uncle Vernon a knowing look and handed the letter to him.

It only took Uncle Vernon one line for his face to turn purple. He rounded on Harry, as if the letter was his fault, and thrust the paper into his hands, apparently not wanting to speak.

Petunia,

Sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore

Harry looked up at his Aunt with an odd expression on his face. What was Spinners End? Harry had never heard of such a place, but she obviously knew where it was, and by the expression on her face, Harry assumed that she probably wished she didn't.

Trying to get out from under the Dursley's silent glares, Harry excused himself and ran up the stairs for his belongings. He began bringing his trunk with Hedwig attached down into the entry way, but something was nagging him. Why couldn't they just pick him up here?

By the time Harry had gotten all his things together, he noticed that all the Dursleys were dressed to leave, and Harry looked up at Petunia questioningly. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on.

"Don't you have some way to… disappear?" Aunt Petunia flustered. Harry stood shock silent for a moment before nodding and moving towards his trunk. What was going on? Did they really want to not be seen with him so much that they'd rather he do magic to prevent it? Harry dug into his trunk until he pulled out the light cloth of his invisibility cloak.

"We'll take care of the packages," Uncle Vernon said curtly, motioning for Dudley and Harry to go to the car. Harry, not wanting to question their thoughtfulness, promptly followed Dudley to the car under his invisibility cloak.

Within minutes they were off, Harry remaining as silent as ever. There was an unspoken tension in the air, and Harry could see it in all of the Dursley's faces. Aunt Petunia had thin lips telling of her anxiety. Dudley was twiddling his fingers, his eyes darting around as if looking for a specter passing by. Uncle Vernon was driving, his eyes staring straight ahead though seemingly unfocused, and more than once as they drove out to the countryside, Uncle Vernon narrowly missed hitting another car, swerving just in time.

As they drove on, the silence became far too thick for Harry, and so he ventured to strike up a conversation.

"Where are we going?" Harry had forgotten that he was still under the Invisibility Cloak and was only reminded when all three Dursleys jumped at the sound of his voice, Dudley looking slightly frantic. He began to remove the cloak, but as soon as he did Aunt Petunia hissed back at him.

"Are you a fool?! Put that back on!" Harry quickly put the cloak back over himself, waiting for her to continue. "We're going to Spinners End." Harry's face, although concealed was terribly confused.

"And just where is that?" Aunt Petunia turned around to look at him, though he knew she couldn't see him.

"You just wait till we get there and stop asking questions." Aunt Petunia's normal look of intense displeasure was on her face, but as she stared at Harry, he could have sworn that there was a cold fear in her eyes which he had never seen before, and Harry knew that somehow he was the cause of it.

The hours dragged on, and dinner time had come and gone by the time Uncle Vernon pulled off the highway onto a small two lane local road. Harry wasn't sure exactly where they were, but he knew that it was somewhere up north.

As the sun pulled its long rays across the fields they were passing, Harry saw a clearing up ahead and felt sure that it must be where they were headed. The clearing was marked by a single tree which towered over the dirt, its leaves drifting slightly in the breeze, a canopy on an otherwise featureless patch.

Uncle Vernon turned the car into a gravel driveway and parked near the tree, getting out and moving to the back of the car. Harry looked around the dirt clearing and felt sure that they weren't going to stay here; after all, there was nothing here but a tree. However, after Dudley and Aunt Petunia also exited the car, Harry felt sure that he was supposed to as well, and moved under his cloak to catch up to the Dursleys.

Dudley was helping Uncle Vernon unpack Harry's things, and suddenly it dawned on Harry what was going on. They were leaving him here. They were going to abandon him here and have nothing to do with him. A small panic began to set in and Harry scampered after his Aunt who was walking over to the tree.

"Aunt Petunia!" he called, making her look up startled, trying to figure out where he was.

"Take that cloak off," she told him plainly. He removed it carefully, setting it down at the trunk so that he knew where to find it.

"Why are you leaving me here?" Harry asked quickly. He didn't want to waste time beating around the issue, he just wanted answers. "Dumbledore won't be happy."

"We're not just leaving you boy, this is where we are supposed to drop you off." She gave him a disapproving look, as if there was something he was supposed to have figured out.

"Oh, right in the middle of nowhere!" Harry fumed. He felt his face flush and knew that he was getting too worked up, but at the moment he didn't care. "Just drop me, will you? You all have never really liked me, but at least you haven't abandoned me! I never thought you'd stoop this low!" The effect of this on Aunt Petunia was quite unlike what Harry had been expecting. Her face was somewhere between abject horror, shame and reproachfullness.

"You aren't the only one who knows what its like to be abandoned Potter." She spat out his surname like it caused her terrible pain, and Harry at once softened his approach. "At least your parents didn't have a choice in the matter."

Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of that. He felt a twinge of anger at hearing Aunt Petunia refer to his parent's deaths so casually, but it was accompanied by something else which he had never associated with Aunt Petunia. Could it be… sympathy?

"Er - I'm sorry," Harry clumsily apologized, for it was something he had never had to do with either his Aunt or Uncle out of guilt. "I guess I just - well, what's going on?"

"You're always so ungrateful, all the things we go through." Aunt Petunia looked like she was hurting to even consider the words she was forming. "If only you knew the danger we were in, the danger you are in. But that fool won't let me tell you." She surveyed Harry for a moment before proceeding. "We brought you here because that old man of yours asked us to. We won't see you again until next summer," she affirmed curtly as Uncle Vernon and Dudley brought Harry's things over to them by the tree. There was a look in Aunt Petunia's eyes that Harry was sure he'd seen before but never understood, as if she was torn at sight of him, but concerned that he'd be alright.

"We're ready," Uncle Vernon said solemnly, looking straight at Petunia. She glanced between Uncle Vernon and Dudley before turning back to Harry.

"Spinners End can be found at 6 Rogpath Road, Cornsay," she said slowly and clearly, and right before Harry's eyes, a barn appeared next to him that he was sure had not been there before with a small hand carved sign above the door which read "Spinner's End - The Rendezvous".