The next morning Harry was hunched over 'Petunia's' flowerbed under the front windows. He was once again weeding it. He began to think the Dursleys might be importing weeds, since he seemed to constantly be doing this. The simple repetitive nature of the job didn't help him; it allowed his thoughts to wander while his hands worked on autopilot. He tried to focus on the job at hand while Petunia criticized his 'slow and sloppy' work through the window from the relative comfort of inside the house. Harry only looked up when he noticed she had stopped talking. Her eyes were big and focused on something behind him. Harry turned around just in time to duck a feather-covered missile. The owl struck the side of house with a resounding 'thud' and promptly fell into the flowerbed. Petunia shrieked. Harry recognized the owl almost immediately as Errol. He quietly sighed.
"Get that disgusting... diseased BIRD out of my garden!" Petunia exclaimed.
"He's just old and overworked Aunt Petunia," Harry said in quiet exasperation. He wondered why Ron hadn't sent Pig instead. He picked up the old owl and found a scroll attached to his leg addressed to him, but not in Ron's messy handwriting, but in a neat curly script, obviously written by a girl. Relieving Errol of the scroll, he placed him upright on the lawn and watched as Errol staggered a few steps before taking off again.
Harry cautiously looked around. Noticing that Aunt Petunia had retreated further inside and was no longer at the window, he broke the seal and unrolled the scroll.
Dear Harry,
After he returned from school, Ronald finally told me about everything that happened during the last year and at the Ministry last month. I must tell you that I am seriously disappointed that you brought Ron and Ginny into yet another dangerous situation, one where they both got badly injured. As such, you are no longer welcome at the Burrow this summer.
I fear that you have become a bad influence on both of them, bringing them along with you on all of your 'adventures'. I feel that it is best for them to spend some time away from you and instead with their family that loves them. I will not lose any more of my children because of you.
I think that you need to realize that if you continue to insist on taking matters into your own hand, those choices will have consequences that you will regret and have to live the rest of your life with.
Molly Weasley
Harry was shocked. Mrs. Weasley didn't want him around. 'She's right though,' he thought. 'I'll have to live the rest of my short life knowing that Sirius is dead because of me.' He just sat there letting that thought sink in.
"Which one of your freak friends was that from?" Petunia asked with disgust, startling Harry with her sudden reappearance.
"My friend Ron's mum. She doesn't want me to visit them this summer. She says I'm a bad influence on her children," he let slip before he could think about it.
"I'm glad someone in your world has some sense."
Harry sat there dumbfounded, his world was collapsing around him. Mrs. Weasley and Aunt Petunia agreed about something.
<>
Hermione looked up from the book she was reading when she heard a tapping at her bedroom window. She leapt from her bed when she recognized the snowy owl.
"Hedwig! You've got a letter from Harry?" she exclaimed as she opened her window to let the bird in.
Hedwig held out her leg in response. Hermione quickly untied the parchment. Her smile quickly turned to a look of pain and hurt as she read the letter in her hand. She had to read it twice to be sure it said what she thought.
Hermione,
I'm sorry.
The-Boy-Who-Still-Lives
Hermione burst from her room.
"Mum! It's Harry, something's wrong!" Hermione called as she ran through the house trying to find her mother.
"I'm in here dear," came her mother's voice from the sitting area.
"Something's wrong with Harry. Look at this." Hermione shoved it at her mother, who glanced at the short letter as soon as she was in front of her.
"Hermione," Emma said trying to calm her daughter. "Boys don't like to write long letters. It's against their nature."
"I know that mum! But this is way too short, even for Harry! And that's without reading between the lines, or line as it were." Hermione sighed and sat down on the sofa next to her mother. She forced herself to calm before going on.
"The way he signed it alone screams something is terribly wrong. Harry has always hated the title The-Boy-Who-Lived that was bestowed upon him by the press. Yet he signs this as The-Boy-Who-Still-Lives. Do you know what that means? It means he doesn't feel like he deserves to live. He's feeling guilty about Sirius - his godfather - dying for sure, but that's probably brought up memories of a fellow classmate that died in front of him a year ago, his parents, and everyone else who's been hurt by Voldermort and his Death Eater's including me.
"And what is he sorry about? About him not writing me before? About not believing me when I told him that it was a trap? About me getting hurt? There are so many things he blames himself for, most of it out his control. He takes the blame for all of that pain and suffering onto himself so easy. The Dursley's probably taught him that everything is his fault. It doesn't help matters when the wizarding world claims the same thing half the time.
"Harry looked like a broken man carrying the weight of the world when we left Hogwarts. I can only imagine what he is like after he's been back at the Dursley's for a couple of weeks. I fear that he might not care if he lives or dies, maybe to the point of being suicidal."
Hermione started to cry again. "I can't lose him now, not when I love him so much. It was hard enough watching him try to date another girl this last year. I don't know what I would do if he killed himself." Hermione collapsed into her mother's arms, sobbing wholeheartedly.
"Are you sure about this dear? You could be reading too much into it, letting your emotions and imagination get the better of you."
"Read it again Mum." Hermione handed her the letter.
"Maybe you're right dear."
"I ought to be. I've been watching and studying him for years. I know him better than I know myself."
<>
Harry stood at the kitchen sink washing the remains of another luxury dinner that the Dursley's delighted in denying him any of, off the excessive amount of dishes they owned. His hands were once again on autopilot as his thoughts wondered. Suddenly a spike of pain shot up his arm. Harry looked down into the sink and saw his blood flowing down the drain with the water. He stared at the fresh wound bleed freely in the palm of his left hand and then the steak knife that Vernon had used laid beneath it, stained with his blood.
'Blood,' he thought as he watched the crimson fluid leave his body. 'It always seems to come back to blood. Pureblood, mudblood, halfblood, MY blood that brought back Voldermort.'
Harry picked up the steak knife, twirling it in his hand. The hours of chopping roots, herb and assorted ingredients in Potions gave him a practiced fluidity to his movement. He brought the edge of the blade to his wrist wondering if it would cut through his skin as smoothly as it had cut through his uncle's steak. Oh, what he wouldn't give to be free of this world and Voldermort.
He moved his hand to draw the serrated blade across his wrist when a vision of Hermione came to mind. Hermione in a world ruled by Voldermort. One where she would be the one tossed around in the air by groups of Death Eaters like he saw at the Quiditch Cup. The knife slipped from his hand as he steadied himself on the edge of the sink, his knees suddenly weak. The sight of his blood, imagining that it was hers, made him fight to keep the small ammount of contents of his stomach down.
<>
Emma watched as her daughter fidgeted at the table, barely touching her dinner. She had obviously been on edge all day since Harry's letter arrived that morning and didn't show any signs of it lessening.
"Hermione dear, he will be okay."
Hermione put her fork down and looked up from her plate at her mother, the worry and anxiety clear on her face.
"I want to believe that, I do. I just... I just don't know. Dumbledore still telling me he can't leave yet."
"He'll be fine. Nothing happened to him last summer, why would this one be any different?"
Hermiones eyes suddenly got wide, unshed tears making their surface shine.
"We have to get him out of there now!" she practically screamed in a panic.
"But you told us that Dumbledore said..." Dan Granger started to say.
"Right now, I don't care what Dumbledore said."
Emma was completely caught off guard. Hermione always spoke kindly, almost reverently, about her headmaster. Something must have really shaken her up to effect her this badly. She shared a look with her husband.
"What do you expect us to do Hermione? Just drop everything and drive over there and pick him up tonight? No phone call or advanced notice?"
The look on Hermione's face told Emma that was exactly what she had expected. Hermione dropped her head.
"I know it's not logical, but I also know that Harry is in trouble and he needs me," she said in a small but determined voice. Hermione raised her head back up and looked at her mother straight in the eye, not wiping away the tears that were now falling down her facing. "Harry needs me... and I need Harry."
"Okay, we'll pick him up."
Emma suddenly found herself in one of her daughter's rare bone crushing hugs.
"But it will have to be tomorrow." Hermione started to protest but was cut short by her mother again. "FIRST thing tomorrow okay? It's a long trip and I don't want to do it in the dark. He'll be fine until morning, okay?"
"Right, he'll be fine until morning," Hermione said quietly, obviously trying to convince herself.
<>
Well after sundown Harry dragged himself into the smallest bedroom and sat down on the small bed with the thin, threadbare sheets. The house was quiet and the darkness was beginning to consume him again. He could feel the nightmare stir at the edge of his conscience.
"Dobby?" he hesitantly called into his room.
A few seconds later a small flash and a 'pop' announced the arrival of a worried looking house elf.
"What is wrong Harry Potter Sir? What can Dobby be doing for you?"
"Thank you for coming Dobby. I didn't know if you would be able to."
"No matter where you is, Dobby will always come when Harry Potter is needing him," Dobby said with a slight hint of pride in his voice.
"Can you do me a big favor Dobby? Could you put up silencing charms around my room so my relatives can't hear me?" Harry paused for a second. "And not have the Ministry send me another owl?"
Dobby got a sheepish look on his face. "I can be doing that Sir. Last time... last time Dobby had to be making the Ministry believe it was you... Sir."
Harry could see that Dobby was fighting between the urge to punish himself, and the need not to do it in front of him.
"That's okay Dobby, as long as you keep that promise to not to save my life again without me asking for it, okay?" Dobby nodded, the tension eased from his small frame. "Can you do the silencing charm, and not have to come back every night to redo it?"
"Oh yes Sir. That be the kind of magic house elves are best at." Dobby turned around and wiggled his finger in an intricate pattern towards each wall, then the ceiling and floor in turn. "It is done Sir. Can Dobby do anything else for Harry Potter Sir?"
"No thank you Dobby. You better get back to Hogwarts before they know your gone. I'll see you in September."
"Any time Harry need Dobby, just call and I will come. Goodnight Sir," Dobby said with a small bow before he disappeared with a 'pop'.
Harry slowly got ready for bed, dreading the nightmare he was sure to have, watching the only person to never abandon him die in front of his eyes again. As he put his glasses on the nightstand and pulled the sheets up around him, his only consolation was that his Aunt and Uncle wouldn't hear him scream.