Disclaimer: None of it's mine. Rats. The name you're looking for is Rowling. JK Rowling.
A/N: This is the beginning chapter I wrote while working on Here With Me, another story posted here on Portkey. I originally cut this bit to jump right into the action in the Forbidden Forest that sets up the conflict for HWM, frankly because almost everyone's done Privet Drive before sixth year, most quite probably better than this! I've posted it now because people have asked and because it does ultimately blend into HWM, just in case anyone cares. Two more chapters follow this, allowing Harry some revenge on the Dursley's and getting him his books in Diagon Alley and back to Hogwarts for his sixth year. As I noted in chapter 11 of Here With Me, only two details from this story are truly integral to that, and I will do my best to explain them thoroughly there. Enjoy if you are interested, and thanks for reading.
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Harry opened his eyes, peered blearily at the dimly lit clock by the bed and let them fall closed again. Half six. He had fifteen minutes until he should get up and start the Dursleys' breakfast, twenty if he wanted to wait for the pounding on his door. He stretched cautiously, feeling the stiffness in his shoulders from the previous days' occupation: trimming the privet hedge that enclosed his relatives' back garden.
It was ironic really; that the year Harry finally had staunch defenders in the Order of the Phoenix to put a real fear of magic into Vernon and Dudley Dursley arrived just when Harry himself ceased to care. About anything at all. He was quite content to store his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs this year; the only Hogwarts things he brought up to Dudley's old spare room were a couple of text books, Hedwig's cage and his wand. The texts and cage he placed upon the desk and dutifully opened occasionally or cleaned as necessary while Hedwig was out hunting of an evening, the wand he hid under the mattress. Constant vigilance be damned. He was half ready to let Voldemort have at him at this point, and welcome to it.
Brave words, until he lay down to sleep and the memories of the Department of Mysteries came back full force. Sirius's expression as he'd disappeared through the veil. The torturous pain in his scar and the subsequent horror that was having Voldemort inside his head and forming words with his lips. Hermione, and the way his mind had buzzed with helpless panic as she lay wounded before him until Neville had found her pulse. He was scared then, bloody terrified, more like. Not that his wand would have made the slightest difference in any of it, really.
At first neither Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia had worked up the nerve to remind Harry of his usual summer occupations at Privet Drive, but Harry saw no real point in changing the well established pattern of the last four summers. As the weeks past he came to welcome the mindlessness of the routine, the tiredness that pervaded his body after the days' labors. His sole goal for the summer break was to slip into the comforting numbness of forgetting, and his one act of aggression was to relieve Dudley of one of his three CD walkmans. He spent his small hoard of muggle money on some CDs on a furtive side trip during an extensive and gut-wrenchingly (for Harry, at least) boring day-long excursion to kit out Dudley in baby-whale sized summer clothing. That night he allowed himself a luxury Hogwarts denied; listening to some really loud, angst pulverizing music locked in the private world of earphones. Not all muggle things lacked magic. It had become a nightly occurrence since.
It had occurred to Harry just the night before, when Hedwig had flown in the window with a freshly caught mouse for her dinner that he had hardly spoken in the weeks since arriving at King's Cross. His voice as he had greeted the snowy owl had sounded hoarse and strange, unfamiliar. Nothing the Dursleys said to him required an answer other than his physical obedience.
He had dutifully written to Ron ("Fine, thanks. What are you up to? Played any Quidditch? Privet Drive is the same as ever. Well, better get back to the lawn. See you. Harry.")
Hermione, however, had been a much more difficult proposition.
Dear Hermione, my brain is slowly dissolving, and I am beginning to like it…
Dear Hermione, are you real, or did I imagine you? Is Hogwarts just some fantastic dream I made up to make myself feel almost normal? After everything we went though together third year to save him, did I really kill my own Godfather by being completely clueless? Is Sirius really gone?
Dear Hermione, my heart stopped the moment you fell. I lost myself in the time it took for Neville to find your pulse and I don't think I can ever let myself love anyone, ever again. Maybe the scar is supposed to be a warning: Danger! Doomed individual! To maintain personal safety please remain at least ten feet back at all times!
Dear Hermione, the back of my hand tells me I must not tell lies… Umbridge carved it there forever. I'm beginning to think you mean more to me than I knew, and I am so damned scared.
In the end he wrote;
Dear Hermione, how are you? I am okay. Thanks for checking on me. I haven't heard a word from Dumbledore, so I don't know if or when I will get to leave Privet Drive. It might just be safer to stay here - I wouldn't mind much if a Voldemort plot backfired on the Dursleys! I hope you are feeling better. Stay safe. Good luck when your O.W.L.s arrive. love, Harry
He'd cranked the CD player really loud that night.
Harry sighed and rolled from the bed, looking for clothes. His wardrobe situation was truly dire this summer. The Dursleys could no longer pretend that Dudley's cast offs would ever fit Harry. Recast from overweight school boy into the role of boxing athlete, Dudley loomed larger then ever. Harry was no longer the scrawny, underfed waif he had been when he entered Hogwarts at eleven; five years of decent meals at school and exercise playing Quidditch and the sheer adrenalin pumping fear of surviving gold old You-Know-Who had taken care of that. He would never be as tall as Ron, but he'd filled out okay for his size… it was just that his size happened to be significantly less than half of Dudley's. Realizing this, and fearful that Harry might try to mow the front lawn in his Hogwarts robes, Aunt Petunia had attended the St. Brutus' School for Incurably Criminal Boys' jumble sale to kit him out. He knew there was probably a great deal to be read into her clothing selections, for he now more closely resembled the thug they had always made him out to be. Holey old black jeans and t shirts that had clearly known a prison laundry made for hot work under the summer sun.
Padding down stairs in his socks to avoid prematurely rousing either Dudley or Vernon, Harry began making their breakfast to the buzzing, mosquito-like annoyance of Petunia's nasal whining about the decline of civilization since the day before.
Just another lovely day in Little Whinging.
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After the breakfast dishes Harry made his way out to the back garden to finish the last section of hedging behind the garage. He lost himself in the rhythm of the work under the warming sun, the swish and clip of the loppers, the fresh-cut smell of the privet as he bent and layered the trimmed branches into piles, his mind blank. The two sharp cracks of apparition behind him shocked him out of his numbness with enough force to drive his heart halfway up his throat.
"I think we surprised the boy, Fred,"
"I think we almost killed the boy, George."
"Alright then, Harry? Didn't mean to creep up on you like that.."
"… just trying keep clear of the muggles."
Harry swallowed, trying to find his voice. The twins grinned, enjoying the effect of their entrance.
"We're on our way to the shop. Ron wanted to come,"
"But Mum had other plans for him today. He's gardening too, you might say."
"Crookshanks sicked up a gnome at breakfast this morning and Mum's on a right rampage about the state of things around the house. Good thing Charlie's owl came when it did…"
'Crookshanks? Hermione was at the Burrow? I wonder if Hedwig found her there.' Harry thought, a stab of something threatening the comfortable numbness.
"Almost took her mind off it, I tell you. Haven't heard from Charlie in a good while, things being what they are. He sent a lovely long letter too, nice and chatty, he's found himself a girl in Romania…"
"And he sent along something for you."
Fred or George, Harry wasn't entirely sure which was which, held out a small package wrapped in brown paper and string. He took it, puzzled. Harry hadn't seen Charlie since the Tri-wizard tournament almost two years before.
"Open it, Harry,"
"We promised Ron we'd tell him what it was."
Harry undid the knot in the string and folded back the brown paper to reveal… a tooth. A long, curved, sharply pointed fang of some sort, about three inches in length gleamed palely in his hand. The upper root portion had been drilled through and wrapped with silver wire to form a loop and hung on a length of black leather cord.
"Cool!" the twins chorused, peering over his shoulder.
Underneath the tooth was a folded scrap of parchment. Harry extracted it and opened it to find a handwritten note.
Dear Harry, it began.
Mom wrote to let us know about Sirius. I can only imagine that it must be a wrench losing him so soon after just getting to know him, and having him to talk to about your Mum and Dad. I'm sorry. Seems good news is thin on the ground these days.
Something of an understatement, that, Harry reflected.
The enclosed is a baby tooth from one of the hatchlings of the Hungarian Horntail you "met" during the first task. I've been working with the young ones and the first to hatch was a male, black and mean as could be, just like his mother. Always had to be on my toes around that one! You could have knocked me over with a feather when he actually approached me and dropped the tooth in my hand. Dragon's teeth are pretty magical on their own, but 'the tooth of a dragon, willingly given' is very potent and used in some really powerful potions and charms. I would have kept it myself, but the odd thing was that the little guy kept looking at me with those yellow eyes, staring and staring, and all the time he did your name kept running through my mind. Finally I held the tooth up and said "Harry Potter?" and the bloody thing like as nodded its head and waddled off. So there you are. What it means I haven't a clue, but Ron always said strange things happened to you left and right so this ought to fit right in.
Hope it helps out somehow.
Charlie
"Well, Harry, that's a bit of good luck, then, isn't it?"
"Ron'll want to see that, alright. Any luck getting sprung from the muggles yet?"
Harry shook his head, running his thumb along the smoothness of the tooth.
"Well, let us know if you do. What with Perce still playing the prat and Dad working overtime at the Ministry the Burrow's getting entirely run over by females…"
"Mum, Ginny, Hermione, and Loony Lovegood's good as taken up residence lately for all that she lives in the next village. We're outnumbered. At least we can escape to the store. Ron's had to discover his feminine side, he has."
"We'll be off, then Harry."
"Give us a shout if you're in Diagon Alley!"
And with twin cracks! the twins disapparated. Harry ducked his head and settled the cord around his neck, tucking the tooth beneath his t shirt and turned back to the hedge. Only now, the nothingness seemed to have escaped him.
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Dudley's repeated flushing of the loo effectively spoiled any pleasure Harry might have taken in his shower before dinner, as the knowledge that any remaining dirt would cause Vernon to banish him without his meager meal kept him from leaping out of the alternately boiling and freezing water to throttle his cousin. When he appeared in the kitchen that evening to serve up the Dursley's dinner Harry was scalded as well as hungry, and to be honest more than just a tad pissed off as well.
After setting the table and carrying the serving dishes for his Aunt, Harry sat in his customary place, steeling himself for the nightly ritual of Vernon's displeasure at finding him at the table. Dudley watched avidly as his father found the smallest potato, gristliest piece of meat and limpest vegetable to serve his nephew. At sixteen, he was still not beyond kicking Harry beneath the table if he felt things were going too smoothly. Petunia kept up her usual nervous chatter, asking about Vernon's day at the office and trying to distract him from thinking about Harry. Harry sat in silence and pondered how one stupid prophecy could have ended him up here.
"Well, boy, did you finish that hedge today?"
Harry nodded. Vernon looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"What is that?"
Harry felt Vernon's eyes at his neck.
"That thing. That thing around you neck. What is it?"
Harry considered his options and quickly realized there weren't any.
"Just a dragon's tooth." He pulled it free of the neck of his t shirt so there could be no question. Vernon's face began its journey to puce.
"There's no such thing! Where did THAT come from? We locked your school nonsense in the cupboard. I haven't seen that before. What unnaturalness have you been up to now, you freak! Answer me, boy! I'll not have you exposing Dudley to any of that rot."
"My friend Ron, his brother sent it from Romania." Harry knew better than to mention that the twins had been within a mile of Privet Drive after their visit to retrieve him fourth year had resulted in Dudley growing a four foot long tongue when he snuck one of their deliberately dropped ton tongue toffees.
"Give it here, then. You look enough like a delinquent as it is without a great pointed fang hanging around your scrawny neck. You'll be getting things pierced next, I'm sure. And for the last time do something about that hair!"
Harry was beginning to see red, and it wasn't just Uncle Vernon's face. It always came to this, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how careful he was. They always found something, pushed and prodded until it came to a line Harry just couldn't cross. He took a deep, shaky breath and picked up his fork, poking at his baked potato, imagining Dudley's fat moronic face instead.
"I told you to give it to me, boy!"
"I have a name, and it's not boy," Harry growled, looking up through his fringe without lifting his head, trying to veil the anger growing in his eyes.
He heard Aunt Petunia's gasp and knew things were heading rapidly downhill. Well then…
It was time.
"My name's not boy; my father wasn't a drunk or a layabout and my parents were NOT killed in a car crash. They were killed standing up to an evil maniac whose fondest dream is to rid the world of disbelieving, non-magical muggles like you, and I've been bitten by basilisks, tormented by dementors, tied to a tombstone and had my blood stolen trying to stop him. I've seen people killed, watched my friends suffer just for knowing me. So if you want to hide here in Surrey with your head in the sand and pretend that nothing exists that you can't see, that's fine with me. But I'm not giving you this," and he stood, tucking the dragon's fang back into his shirt, "And I'm not cutting my hair, because it'll just grow back anyway, and while we're on the subject I'll pierce anything I bloody want if I want to, because it's my bloody body and I'm sick to death of listening to this tired old line of crap from you!"
Harry noticed vaguely that Petunia was in tears; much as she might want to share her husband's point of view, her own sister's life and death exposed the truth and she knew it. Dudley was dumbfounded, immobile, mouth gaping at his cousin's audacity. Vernon rose to his feet as well.
"Give it to me, boy. You've gone too far this time. I will not be spoken to that way in my own home by some son of a freak! Give it to me, right now." He extended one beefy, shaking hand toward Harry. Harry noticed the other still holding the carving knife. He'd always known Vernon as a bully, although most of the actual bullying of his youth had been perpetrated by Dudley. He didn't think Vernon had it in him to be a killer, but he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to put any theories to the test tonight.
"No." Harry edged round the table, clearing his shot to the hall.
"Right now!" Vernon reiterated, spit flying with his barely restrained fury. He began to make his way round the other side of the table. Harry made his break for the front of the house, reaching the hall just steps before his uncle. Much as he wanted to flee the house he knew that he needed his wand first. At least he knew he could get up the stairs faster than Vernon… If he held true to pattern his uncle would probably just lock him into his room again. There was no real reason to think he wouldn't. Unpleasant, but nothing new; he'd lived through that before. He raced up the stairs and into his bedroom, threw himself face down on to the bed and scrabbled beneath the mattress for his wand.
Tactical error - or major miscalculation of his opponent.
He heard his uncle behind him closer than he'd thought possible, felt a crushing weight on his lower back and a sudden strangling pressure around his neck. Vernon grabbed the leather cord with one hand, held Harry's head down with the other and pulled, his knee pinning his nephew to the bed. The cord bit into his neck but refused to break. Harry continued to try and reach his wand, hand reaching blindly under the mattress as the cord tightened. The pressure on his back was too much; Harry heard something crack and felt a sharp, stabbing pain shoot through his right side. Just when the tightness around his neck had begun to claim his consciousness it slackened and then bit again. Vernon let go of Harry's head and hauled him off the bed using only the cord around his neck, spinning him around and crashing him against the wardrobe. Still it held. Harry felt himself slide to the floor, blinded on one side where his head had struck the corner of the door, blood running from his forehead into his eye.
Vernon reached down with a grunt of victory to claim his prize…and squealed like an enormous pig when his hand connected with the tooth. He fell back howling, flapping his hand as if he'd been burned. Aunt Petunia raced through the door to his side, pulling him well away from Harry on the floor.
"Leave him! Vernon, Vernon, we'll just lock the door again. I'll put his meals through the cat flap. You'll forget he's even here."
"He's burnt me with that thing, look! What if it's poisonous? Or c… c….cursed! It must have come from something hideous from the size of it." Vernon gabbled, allowing himself to be led away. Petunia murmured something about ice, assuring him it just couldn't be poisonous.
Dudley lingered behind in the door frame, eyeing Harry intently. When he saw him roll onto his side without rising and clearly vulnerable, he strode over with a confident grin, stomped on his hated cousin several times soundly while whistling happily and retreated, laughing, locking the door as he went.
The sound of the locks hurt, but it was the laughter that almost made him cry.
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Harry lay on the floor, too tired, too sickened and sore even to crawl to the bed.
What now? Sooner or later someone from the Order would be sent to check on him; Mrs. Fig might report not seeing him out and about the yard and Tonks or Lupin would arrive to see how he was doing. He was alright. He was fine. Then why was he crying? Stop. Breathe. Don't think. Just don't think.
His eyes closed, but he couldn't stop shaking. He'd really done it now.
A scrabbling sound at the window stirred him, and he lifted his head and peered blearily through his uninjured eye to see Hedwig waiting at the window. With a soft sigh he drew himself up to a sitting position and grabbed the edge of the bed to rise and let her in. As he pulled himself to his feet a wave of pain in his side from whatever Vernon had cracked by kneeling on him washed over him and he sunk back to his knees. He tried to crawl from the bed to the window but felt suddenly sick to his stomach and had to stop, the floor tilting wildly beneath him. He gave up then, easing himself back down. Later. Hedwig would be fine, she was a smart bird. A little rest and he'd let her in. He barely registered it when the tapping noise ceased and Hedwig flew away.
The next thing Harry knew was a popping sound directly above him and a bright golden feather floated down beside him, a scrap of parchment rolled around its tip. Fawkes. Fawkes meant Dumbledore. Harry pushed himself up and propped his back against the bed, unrolling the note. His glasses lay broken on the floor beside him. His hands shook as he put them on; he had to squint a bit to see through the cracked lens.
Harry, it began,
I have been monitoring the activity of the wards as closely as possible this summer in an attempt to learn from the mistakes of the past. I do not know what has gone wrong, but indications tell me something has. Hold on, dear boy, help is on the way.
APWBD
Wow. Something of his frustration and despair certainly must have finally gotten through to Dumbledore during that last conversation in his office. He remembered how after he had smashed his way through the Headmaster's delicate silver instruments in his anger and grief for Sirius the old wizard had locked the door and forced him to hear the truth, the truth about how Dumbledore himself had become too fond of Harry to reveal the prophecy that was inexorably guiding his life until that moment.
He had finally explained to Harry that night why he had to spend time at the Dursleys' each year to renew the magical bond his mother had bestowed to save his life. He knew that his Headmaster had long tried to turn a blind eye to Harry's trials with his Muggle relatives, believing the protection outweighed the danger. Rationally, Harry knew the difference between discomfort and danger, knew that he was in no where near as much danger with Vernon or Dudley as he was facing the Death Eaters or Voldemort. Each time he rose to the Dursleys' feeble bait he only showed how far he was from readiness to face Voldemort. But did it always have to be this way, black or white, either/or, one or the other?
Another soft crack pierced the silence of the room, and Harry turned to find a tall figure with a flaming red ponytail haloed in the gleam of the streetlight outside the window. Ron's eldest brother, a member of the Order as well.
"Hey there, Harry," Bill Weasley said. "What's up, then?"
Harry tried to smile, but it hurt his eye. "Same old, same old. I'm okay, really. That was fast."
Bill crouched down on Harry's level and gave him a look over.
"Looks like time to go to me. This just isn't right, Harry. Dumbledore understands that things are changing faster now, it might not even matter about the, well, you know. Don't need to explain things to you. Let's just get you back to the Burrow and let Mum at you. You can always come back later if you have to. Or Dad or I can collect your trunk. I'll just explain to your Uncle and then we'll be off, right?"
He stood up and tried Harry's door, securely locked from the other side. Harry heard something that sounded suspiciously like 'arseholes' followed by an 'alohamora' and then another. And another. And another. "Bloody fucking hell!" said Bill Weasley, revealing the probable origins of Ron's favorite phrase. "How many locks have they got on here? You'd think you were bloody Houdini or something, Harry. Reducto!" The door banged open at last, probably permanently. A quick glance at the clock revealed it was eleven pm and the hall beyond the door was dark.
"We should probably just leave him a note," Harry called softly as he could, but Bill was already across the hall to Vernon and Petunia's bedroom, flicking the light switch off and on like a beacon. Harry heard Vernon's bellow of fright and fury followed by Bill's grim 'Hallo there, Mr. Dursley. I'm Bill Weasley. You and I need to have a little chat." The door shut, muffling whatever was said.
Harry rose to his feet, hissing at the pain in his side, and retrieved his wand from the mattress. All he wanted or needed from this place now. His spirits rose slightly at the thought of spending time at Ron's home even if it was only overnight. Harry adored the Burrow, loved its tatty, familiar comfort overrun with Weasleys. And Hermione, too... Who would have thought being almost strangled by Vernon could have an upside?
"Lovely seeing you both again, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley. You'll be able to move in an hour or so, and the horns and tails should fall off in about a week. I'm sure the neighbors won't notice a thing in the meantime. Take care, then. Harry'll be in touch," he heard Bill say, and the door across the hall shut again. Bill reappeared in the doorway; face suffused in a wide grin, and removed an old fashioned hoop key ring from the pocket of his robes.
"Up to a portkey yet? Good. Just grab hold and away we'll go. On three."
The familiar tug behind his navel hadn't felt so good since it had saved him and Ced… Nope, didn't want to go there. Never mind.
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Dumbledore and Bill might have discussed removing Harry to the Burrow if necessary but clearly no one had informed Molly Weasley. Bill and Harry's sudden appearance in the Weasley's comfortably worn kitchen was greeted with a shriek and the sound of breaking china.
"Goodness, Harry! Whatever's happened now?" she gasped, stepping over the remains of a soup bowl and pulling out one of the chairs at the well-scrubbed table. "Reparo! Sit down at once. Bill, I thought you were…"
"I was," Bill interrupted, cutting off whatever it was he had been up to before Dumbledore's summons. They still wouldn't speak of Order business in front of him, for all he was supposed to save the whole of the Wizarding world at some point. Harry realized he no longer cared quite so keenly; whatever secrets they had, they were more then welcome to them. He had, as Dumbledore had said, 'quite enough to be going on with' without more to consider.
Harry dutifully sat while Molly bustled back to the sink for a bowl of clean water, shouting for Ginny.
She appeared at the bend in the stairs with a "What, Mum?" pushing her flaming Weasley hair behind an ear. Her eyes grew round as she took in the scene below. "Harry?"
"Harry?" came another voice from behind her on the landing, and Hermione quickly skirted her and clattered rapidly down the remaining steps.
"Harry? I had the oddest feeling you were going to turn up soon," a faintly dreamy voice informed him, and Luna Lovegood appeared behind Ginny.
"Like the chorus from a Greek tragedy in here," Bill said, laughing.
"Ginny, run and bring me the emergency potions from upstairs please. No, Hermione, don't hug him love, wait, you'll get all bloody. Luna, would you bring some clean towels from the airing cupboard? Bill, if you don't have to run right off perhaps you'd start some tea."
Hermione seemed to quickly deduce he was only really seeing her out of one eye and moved round to his good side. If her expression was anything to go by, he looked quite a bit worse off than he probably was.
"Hi," he said, attempting reassurance with normalcy. She was dressed in muggle clothing, knee length jeans and a pale lavender tee shirt that somehow made her dark brown eyes seem enormous. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and her skin was browned by the sun, nose dusted with freckles. She looked vibrantly healthy and lovely, as thought the clash in the Department of Mysteries had been long months rather than mere weeks ago, and Harry felt like something that belonged under a rock beside her.
"Oh, Harry," she said again, and the little furrow between her eyebrows that spelled worry on Hermione's face appeared. Harry felt his heart give an odd, unrhythmic pulse, regret that he'd brought it out on her face warring with a small fierce pleasure that he even could. Molly set a bowl of warm water on the table and handed Hermione a tea towel. "Clean up that eye a bit, will you, and we'll see what needs doing to mend it." She bustled back to the sink and Luna sat down on Harry's other side. Hermione dipped the tea towel into the water, rung it out and began cautiously dabbing at Harry's forehead, pushing his fringe out of the way.
"Looks like your scar might have company for a while," she said, biting her own lip as she worked. Harry closed his other eye as the water ran slowly down his face and neck, reveling in the gentle comfort of her touch.
"Right through his eyebrow isn't it? Those are the devil to heal, they're shallow but they'll bleed and bleed. The twins were forever banging their heads into each other just there when they were little." Molly's voice came from somewhere behind Hermione. "Here's a fresh towel, wipe up the drips and I'll have a go at… Merlin, Harry, whatever happened to your neck?"
Harry swallowed and felt the ghost of the cord against his throat.
"Looks like someone tried to do you a Nearly Headless Nick, mate," another voice added. Harry recognized Ron and smiled. "Hey, Ron."
"Nearly Headless Harry!" Ginny snorted, depositing a basket of clinking potion bottles before her mother.
"Ginevra Weasley! That's not a bit funny. Goodness me; Harry, one of these on your neck is quite deep. I think perhaps we should flue Dumbledore and have Poppy Pomfrey look at you. None of the children ever managed anything like this. I'm afraid it might be a bit beyond any of my homemade potions to set you right. You'll need a healer for that."
Harry knew he should add his suspicions about where Vernon had knelt on his back to the list, but it was so warm and comfortable there in the kitchen surrounded by Weasleys with Molly mothering him and Hermione sitting almost in his lap, gently cleaning his eye. He wanted it to go on and on, to forget Privet Drive and Grimmauld Place for a bit and pretend it was just another summer evening at the Burrow and that he was part of whatever pleasant activity they'd been in the middle of.
"No, it's fine, really," he protested. "I just… please, I'd rather stay here, if that's alright. I'm just tired."
"Hungry, too, I'd wager, aren't you Harry?" Ron said hopefully, his own dinner already forgotten. Bill reappeared in Harry's limited line of sight with a collection of butterbeer bottles.
"Seemed more the thing than tea," he said, passing them round. Molly began applying some sort of dark blue potion to the cut on Harry's neck. It stung fiercely and Harry forced his shaking hands down to grip his own thighs rather than anything breakable.
Bill sat himself on Hermione's other side and attempted to distract him.. "So, what set that fat git of an uncle of yours off this time? I'll need to put something official down in my report."
"He was… upset… about the dragon's tooth from Charlie. The twins brought it by this morning and I'd forgotten I had it on. He was trying to pull it off but the string wouldn't break."
"So that's what it was. I should think not. Who'd put a dragon's tooth on something flimsy enough to risk losing it, I ask you. Valuable things, dragon's teeth," Bill said. "Nice of Charlie to send you one."
Harry sensed rather than saw Hermione's hand move toward the cord and pull it free of his shirt. He suddenly remembered his uncle's reaction to touching it and was about to warn her when he saw her finger run down the smooth ivory colored surface without evidence of discomfort.
"That's wicked, that is," Ron said. "What kind of dragon was it? Did Charlie say?"
"A Hungarian Horntail. He said it was one of the hatchlings from the dragon I drew in the Tri-wizard Tournament. It's a baby tooth."
"But why did that make your uncle want to hit you?" Luna asked dreamily, her eyes wandering vaguely over Harry.
"Don't blame the poor dragon's tooth! He's never bothered with an excuse before," Ginny said stormily. "He doesn't like anything magical at all, from what Dad says."
"That's it in a nutshell," Harry admitted tiredly. "I really tried this time, just to get along and do what they expected and keep my head down. I think it's gone on too long, it's rubbed him raw. He was just looking for an excuse to explode… but I gave it to him. I think the exact words were something along the lines of 'My name's not boy, my father was not a drunk or a layabout and my parents were NOT killed in a car crash…' I told him how I knew now that they died standing up to an evil maniac whose fondest dream is to rid the world of disbelieving, non-magical muggles like him. Smooth, right? You'd think I'd've learned to just shut it by now."
"Don't!" Hermione said fiercely, setting her bottle down with a small slam on the table. "Don't apologize and don't make excuses for them, Harry. There's no excuse for this, no reason could make this, what he did to you right. It has gone on too long for all of you and we've all let it, Dumbledore most of all. It's never once worked the last four summers, why should this be any different?"
Harry thought of the prophecy, but the idea of trying to explain Dumbledore's real reason for sending him back to the Dursleys' seemed insurmountable just then. "It was different this time, though, Hermione," he pointed out gently. "Dumbledore was watching the wards; he knew somehow that something had gone wrong. He sent Bill."
"And a good thing, too," Molly broke in. "Now it's well past time for all of you to go to bed. Bill can ask Poppy to come in the morning, then. Tomorrow will show itself soon enough and I'm sure Dumbledore will have made a decision about it all. Go on. Off you go, the lot of you."
Harry staggered to his feet and followed Ron toward the stairs, pleasantly aware of Hermione's steadying presence behind him. Ginny and Luna trailed after her, yawning widely.
"Never a dull moment with you, Harry," Luna told him as the girls turned off to Ginny's room. He grinned at her as best he could, feeling the pull at his swollen eye, and continued on towards Ron's. At the door he paused and turned, trying to catch Hermione's eye to say goodnight, but she had already disappeared behind Ginny and it was she who caught his look instead.
"Night, Harry!" she chirped.
Ron found spare pajama pants for Harry, brightly emblazoned with the Chudley Cannons' logo. He stripped down and donned them quickly, rolling his bloody shirt into a ball to deal with in the morning.
"Merlin, Harry, you really are a right mess. What's that on your back?" Ron asked, settling into bed.
Harry twisted gingerly but couldn't manage to move far enough to see whatever Ron did. "D'nno. Bruise, I guess. Thanks for the… well thanks for everything. How about you? Have you had a good summer so far? When did Hermione and Luna arrive? I thought Hermione was going to France with her parents."
"She did. Lasted about two weeks and said she couldn't enjoy it worrying about her O.W.L.s. You know her, she's mental. She's been here about a week. Luna's been almost two weeks now. Her Dad's on some snorkel horned expedition or other and Ginny invited her to stay. Too many bloody girls everywhere if you ask me. Good to have you, mate. Hope they let you stay. Sorry about, well… Sorry."
"Thanks," Harry said.
Ron yawned, and Harry lowered himself carefully onto the spare bed across from him under the window, taking off his glasses and setting them on the sill with his wand. It seemed to take no time at all for Ron's breathing to deepen, but tired as he was sleep remained elusive for Harry. His side hurt if he lay flat but his eye throbbed if he tried to lie on his other side. He heard a soft 'purrt?' and Crookshanks leapt onto his bed.
"Hallo, fur face," he told him fondly, tickling behind ginger ears and enjoying the thrumming purr it produced. Ron had never liked Hermione's cat and the feeling was mutual, but he usually tolerated Harry happily enough. "I hear you've been sicking up gnomes this summer. That's just not nice, you puss."
Crookshanks had the distinct look of a Cheshire grin about him and settled down in the crook of Harry's arm. Then last thing he heard that night was Ron's snoring and the comforting rumble of Hermione's cat.
It beat the snick of a lock and Dudley's nasty laugh hands down.
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