Leaving Privet Drive

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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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Nothing worth suing about. Put down the pen, nice and slow.

Leaving Privet Drive

Chapter 2 of 3

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He realized he must have slept deeply and dreamlessly, a real rarity for him. He awoke utterly disorientated and very stiff and sore, blinking in the sunlight pouring in the window beside him. The angle was low and Ron slept on in the next bed so it couldn’t be all that late. Harry realized he had become accustomed to waking in time to make the Dursley’s breakfasts and his brain hadn’t remarked that the change of venue meant he was relieved of that particular chore, at least for today. He allowed himself a soft sigh, eased back into the comfort of his pillow and stretched.

And almost let out a growl of pain that would have plastered his sleeping friend to the ceiling if it had come loose. He bit his lip, curling on to his side and breathing hard through his nose. Holy hell, but that hurt. Bloody Vernon Dursley. For the first time Harry felt anger poke its head through his usual forced acceptance and take a good long sniff round. And after its’ little reconnoiter, anger seemed to find it kind of liked what it saw from this vantage point, thank you very much. Why yes, it would stick around.

Harry was well and truly tired of cowering around Vernon and Dudley. He remembered his cousin watching him last night as he lay on the floor and what had followed. Hermione was right, there wasn’t any excuse for it, and he was a bloody idiot to keep on walking back through that locked and cat flapped door as if he didn’t really mind so much the way they treated him as long as they kept him sheltered. He wasn’t eleven any more, and Voldemort had stolen his blood to make his new body and touched him and everything, so how was the shelter of his mother’s blood relation any real protection anymore?

There had to be another answer. He wasn’t going back there, ever again. Voldemort could go suck an egg. As could Dumbledore for that matter, although he had been watching the wards and sent Bill… And Vernon Dursley; well, Harry’d opt for a Hungarian Horntail egg for him, with its Mum nice and close and thoroughly brassed off nearby. That would give him a taste of magic he’d never forget. Don’t worry Uncle Vernon! They don’t really exist! Much.

Harry’s stomach rumbled and he realized that he hadn’t eaten since his meager Petunia-provided lunch of a half sandwich and half-rotten apple at noon the day before. He’d exploded at Vernon before eating his dinner last night, another thought to file away for future reference. Eat first, argue later. Except it didn’t really matter, because he wasn’t ever going back there. He pushed himself cautiously into an upright position, turning to find the floor with his feet. He felt vaguely dizzy, from hunger, he decided, and his vision was obstructed by the still obviously somewhat swollen eye. “Wash up, Harry,” he told himself, sternly, but his recalcitrant self was thinking longingly of just laying back down on the nice soft bed. Just for a minute. Or two…

He heard a door along the hall open and close, and footsteps descend the stairs toward the kitchen. He knew those footsteps. Sure, even, purposeful. Hermione. Getting up abruptly won the battle.

He found his jeans with no trouble, but his shirt was an unattractive blood-stained ball on the floor where he had left in the night before. He helped himself to an old one of Ron’s from the bottom of his drawer and made his way gingerly to the loo. It was a brief interlude before he was heading down the stairs as well, thankful that no one else had been around to hear the Weasley’s bathroom mirror’s comments on his appearance. Like he didn’t know he looked like something a dragon wouldn’t stoop to eating. Thanks ever so. Save it for Percy.

He made his way into the kitchen to find Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and Tonks of all people. Another wave of guilt hit Harry and the pain of it became real when he found even mental squirming translated into a flinch that did nasty things to his side. Tonks had come out of the Department of Mysteries skirmish rather badly and been in St. Mungo’s for awhile; she was wearing her auror robes but must have only been newly returned to the job because she looked a pale, wan version of her usual colorful self. Her hair was brown for goodness sake. Mousy brown, at that. And it was all his fault she’d been hurt, his fault that Sirius was gone.

“There’s the one and only. Wotcher, Harry. You look like something…”

“I know, the mirror clued me in, thanks,” he snapped, far from angry with her for noticing his misery but pinched and miserable from picking up on hers. They exchanged wary glances. He really liked Tonks, but he wasn’t going back, even for her.

“Don’t take anything that old mirror tells you seriously, Harry,” Mrs. Weasley told him, bustling about the stove. “There’s only so much one mirror can take over the years from six boys without getting slightly hasty in its opinions. That one is long past due to be replaced. It’s gotten so Arthur can’t find a tie that pleases it in the morning at all anymore; he was almost late for work two days ago. Come and get some food into you and you won’t feel so snappish.”

“Not snappish,” Harry mumbled, dropping into a chair and hating himself; because he was too snappish and he knew it, but he despaired of feeling any different.

Hermione brought him over a plate of still-warm pancakes running with butter and set a small pitcher of syrup on the table near his elbow. His stomach rumbled again.

“Goodness, Harry,” she said. “Mrs. Weasley’s likely right. When did you eat last?”

He admitted it was lunch the day before, though not what he’d eaten or the reason he’d missed dinner. It didn’t seem to matter; Mrs. Weasley banged a pan rather unnecessarily loudly on the cooker and told Tonks in no uncertain terms that the Dursleys had no business being responsible for a child of any sort, magical or not.

“And he’s not just magical, is he; he’d been orphaned and exposed to an unforgivable. He’d got a curse scar, for magic’s sake, any number of excellent, experienced witches would have taken him in and loved him like their own. There was little Ron, only nineteen months old at the time, it would have been nothing to have another one then. Ginny was still in her swaddles, it would have kept him out from underfoot. But no, Albus wouldn’t hear it, not even from Minerva McGonagall. She said she watched that house for hours before Dumbledore and Hagrid showed up; she knew what they were like.”

Harry squirmed again at the thought of Ron as a toddler and Ginny in her blankets, and snorted when the sharp bite of pain re-attacked his side. How different could his life have been if he’d grown up here? Normal, or relatively at least, and understanding magic and magical things… And quite probably getting the family he loved killed. There was no way the Weasley’s could have had a normal life with him around; he’d have spoiled just what he loved most about them.

Hermione’s dark eyes leveled on him assessingly over her pumpkin juice. She was soaking in every word as if there’d be a bloody test or something, and he was uncomfortably sure she knew what he was thinking.

“We’ve always been told he had to stay there because it was safe,” Tonks admitted, stirring her half-empty tea listlessly as she spoke. “But none of us ever could figure out what was so safe about it. No offense, Harry, but they never seemed a bit pleased to have you around.”

Harry raised his head and looked at her incredulously; could she not actually see him or something? She’d just told him what he looked like, or tried to. What did she THINK had happened? “Erm, no,” he said. “They weren’t. Ever. And I’m not going back again, so if you’ve come to take me you can just pi… um, forget it.”

Mrs. Weasley’s face clearly reflected a battle between sympathy and taking a strip off him herself. Harry knew he was out of line, but he was finding it hard to rein his anger back in now that it had found its head.

“Of course you aren’t,” Hermione said, as if the conclusion of the matter were forgone.

“We’ll see what the Headmaster has to say, I’ve invited him for breakfast and he should be here shortly. Hermione, be a love and tell Ron and Ginny and Luna it’s past time to rouse themselves, will you?” Mrs. Weasley said.

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Harry was just finished his pancakes and pumpkin juice and not contemplating the thought of anything more strenuous then digestion when Professor Dumbledore stepped surprisingly lightly through the Weasley’s kitchen hearth and into the room. Bill Weasley followed shortly behind him.

Harry noticed Dumbledore’s eyes looked far from twinkley this morning and his face was lined and grave. And that was before he’d locked gazes with Harry. Harry sensed the Headmaster wasn’t looking forward to a repeat performance of the scene in his office, but Harry wasn’t in any hurry to reveal he was in no shape to pull it off, either. Let him sweat it a bit first

He greeted Mrs. Weasley and accepted her offer of a cup of tea, but asked if there were someplace he could meet privately with Harry before partaking of his pancakes. Harry was half-hoping there wasn’t, but she led him to the door to the little room that was nominally Mr. Weasley’s study, but in reality little more than a cache of cast-off of Muggle items that had captured his curiosity. Dumbledore indicated that Harry should follow him, and disappeared inside.

Harry pulled himself stiffly to his feet and prepared to follow; Hermione’s hand brushed his reassuringly as he passed her, and squeezed his fingers. The single touch warmed his hand like a open flame. It was July, and hot enough in the Burrow already even though still quite early in the morning. How did she manage to make it feel even warmer still? He tried to grin back, but his eye was still swollen and sore and he was afraid it probably came off as more of a grimace.

Way to go there, Harry.

Dumbledore had seated himself in Arthur’s chair and was sipping his tea with evident enjoyment. Harry took the chair he was fairly certain the Weasley boys were sat in when they were about to get a talking to, only he reckoned Dumbledore could stay on topic and maintain his anger a bit longer than Mr. Weasley probably could. Of the two of them, he’d have chosen Mr. Weasley, anyway. He could feel something within him stiffen even further with resolve not to go back, but much like everything else today he found that his resolve ached too.

“Harry,” said Dumbledore, inclining his head.

Harry stayed quite motionless and only swallowed, still angry, but when Dumbledore raised his craggy face again to meet Harry’s he could see that there wasn’t any anger there to sustain his own. Dumbledore looked… regretful. Not pitying, or impatient that Harry hadn’t been able to keep his temper and handle things as he had been expected to, but as if Dumbledore were truly regretting something that was beyond the control of even the most powerful of wizards.

It was the last thing Harry had expected, and so it was his undoing. He suddenly felt everything he’d kept locked away for so long about the Dursleys come bubbling up through him like an uncapped spring. Why? Why were they so mean to him, why couldn’t they love him, what was wrong with him, why had life chosen him for this? It took his breath away and gagged him with a single un-issued sob; his nose prickled. Please, oh please let him not actually cry.

He heard his own voice inside his head issuing the words of challenge to Vernon that had led to his present condition: My name’s not boy; my father wasn’t a drunk… my parents were NOT killed in a car crash…. I’ve seen people killed, watched my friends suffer just for knowing me…if you want to hide here in Surrey with your head in the sand and pretend that nothing exists that you can’t see… I’m not cutting my hair… I’ll pierce anything I bloody want if I want to…I’m sick to death of listening to this tired old line of crap from you!

Everything he had felt vibrated again through his anger and resistance as if his own body and mind were at war with each other and oh, but it really, really did hurt, both his recent injuries and in deeper and darker places within him. And then Dumbledore seemed to break their gaze and the legilimency with it.

Seemed to, because it took Harry a moment to realize that wasn’t the case. The surprise dawned in Dumbledore’s eyes around the same moment it came to Harry that the Headmaster hadn’t intentionally broken anything off. He had. Harry had. He’d occluded his mind against Dumbledore.

“Whoa,” said Harry.

“Indeed,” said Albus Dumbledore, cleaning his already sparkling glasses with the sleeve of his robes and slightly shaking hands. “Most impressive.”

“I’m sorry, Sir, I don’t know…” Harry began, but Dumbledore shook his head and replaced his glasses.

“You are not truly sorry, Harry. Nor should I expect you to be. Do not start apologizing for your strengths, or you will never stop. Just remember that with increasing power comes the increased potential for misuse, and be wary.”

Like skipping around blithely in other people’s minds and playing God with your decisions, Harry thought, vowing that that would be one thing he never learned to do. Harry’d grown up in a cupboard with nothing; the sanctity of his thoughts was the only thing he’d truly owned and something he’d never violate in anyone else. The raw feeling of being forced and intruded on by Snape was with him still. Just because Dumbledore was more subtle and painless about it didn’t make it right.

“Exactly,” said Dumbledore wryly, “but then, you never told me any of this, did you?”

He’d obviously gotten right back in, smart arse. So much for newly powerful Harry.

“Don’t do that,” Harry told him, shaking.

Dumbledore smiled gently. “I didn’t. You may have grown a great deal in your mental magic, Harry, but your face is still something of an open book.”

Figures.

“It is I who should be sorry, Harry,” the Headmaster told him. “I always knew things were not going to be pleasant with the Dursleys, and I confess to being surprised to learn the extent to which they had hidden your true self from you when you joined us at Hogwarts five years ago. Surprised, but not dismayed, because you were still all, indeed perhaps more, than I had hoped for when I laid your basket on their doorstep.”

“What, you’d hoped for less that an entirely clueless cupboard-stunted little runt who was just desperately grateful to escape?” Harry asked, truthfully if rudely. “You knew how I lived; those letters were even addressed to the exact cupboard.”

“A most charming, strong-willed and resilient cupboard-stunted runt,” Dumbledore countered, “who’d managed to make two indelible friends by the time he stepped off the train to school, and many more after that. Not a spoiled, pampered princeling who for all his privileges still twists like a fish on a hook, like certain of your classmates.”

It took Harry more than just a moment to associate those images with himself and Malfoy.

Dumbledore continued on into his stunned silence. “None of this is what I would have wished for you, Harry. I am sure I will have much to answer for if ever I see your parents again. But never think for a moment that I have been unthinking in my choices. If I have made mistakes, I am truly sorry, but there were reasons to believe better could have come from each one.”

Harry gave in to the mental shrug he employed more and more now, when there was nothing to be gained from fighting the past and everything to be said for getting on with the future. “I’m not going back there,” he said.

“Clearly,” Dumbledore agreed. “Although in deciding so, you are forfeiting the protection I told you of last time we discussed the matter.”

“I know I’m still a year from being able to make that decision myself,” Harry admitted, eyeing him.

“Harry, none of us would send you back now against your will. To ask a young wizard to risk living in an abusive situation without benefit of his magic to protect himself profits no one. There is that possible option, though. What if we were able to win you a dispensation from the Ministry to be able to use your magic in the Dursley’s home for reasons of self protection alone? Could you handle it? You are not twelve any longer, or thirteen. You are both more mature, and conversely, more capable of wreaking far more havoc than blowing up your aunt.”

“She’s not my aunt,” Harry said poisonously. “She’s Vernon’s sister.”

“Proving my point,” Dumbledore agreed. “They are none of them close to you, nor do you bear the slightest fondness for them. If I let you go back there with magic to even the playing field you have suffered such injustice on, could you manage to use it wisely?”

It didn’t take much to come to that conclusion. Harry didn’t know if it was Voldemort’s return, losing Sirius, shifting magical abilities or teenage hormones, but he didn’t exactly feel very responsible at the moment.

“No, Sir,” he admitted. “Probably not.”

Dumbledore nodded. “I should have to agree. Still, keep in mind Harry, that it is no small thing to speak the truth or truly know yourself that well. Both are signs that maturity is close on the horizon if not yet within reach.”

“Great,” said Harry tiredly. “Brilliant. Only what does that mean for me now?”

“First things first, I suppose. Madam Pomfrey is visiting with her niece and unavailable at the moment, and I do not wish the more public spectacle and resultant questions of a visit to St. Mungo’s for you. I should like this whole incident to go as unnoticed as possible by both the Ministry and Voldemort’s supporters, not to mention those special few who are members of both categories.”

That made two of them. Look, they agreed on something!

“I’m fine,” Harry said.

“You are, as I said before, resilient. They are not one and the same. In any case it would behoove us to have documented proof of your injuries if questions were to arise. I only meant it would Evening before Madam Pomfrey will arrive, and I was hoping you would allow me to assist you until then. I believe I can add a little to Mrs. Weasley’s good-hearted efforts if you will permit me.”

“Are you going to make me better, or just make me feel that way?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“I believe I can do quite a bit of actual repair to the most grievous wound that is keeping your eye closed. Even if you fail to feel better, which I do not believe will be the case; it will certainly not fail to relieve the rest of us. It’s actually quite difficult to speak with you at the moment without…” Dumbledore allowed his own eye to shut in a small grimace and reopen. “Simple human empathy, Harry. Do us all the favor, if not for yourself.”

Put that way, it was hard to refuse. Hermione had been looking at him rather avidly; he hardly wanted to walk around making people either wince or itch to heal him.

“Okay,” he agreed, and Dumbledore rose from Mr. Weasley’s desk chair and moved around the desk to his side. Harry removed his glasses and Dumbledore gently cupped his aged but still surprisingly strong fingers over his eye, and murmured several charms Harry recognized from years of repetition over one bit if him or another. The difference between Madam Pomfrey’s wand and Dumbledore’s fingers was striking though. He could feel his own magic rising up to meet Dumbledore’s, circling it like a cautious dog and finally allowing it through. The sense of healing was far more extensive and immediate; where Madam’s Pomfrey’s bone-mending sort of tickle-itched, Dumbledore’s snicked the bits firmly and somehow irreversibly in place; his eyes watered with it, but he was quite sure that particular bit would never break off again. The anti swelling charm actually seemed likely to suck his eye out; Dumbledore clucked once thoughtfully and readjusted it. Harry just hoped he still had an eye when he was done. It simply drove home, however, that Dumbledore’s power was no myth, and Harry was not entirely unsure that wasn’t more the message than the healing.

At last the Headmaster seemed satisfied with his results and stepped back appraisingly.

“Much better,” he said. “With all the bleeding within the eye itself, you almost seemed to have had one of Lord Voldemort’s revolting red ones. Most disconcerting with the other being green. Stop and go at once, you know. I think you’ll find this an improvement. And now, breakfast!”

Harry put on his glasses again, and followed him reluctantly back to the kitchen.

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It was decided that Harry should be allowed to stay with the Weasley’s for the rest of the summer, as Grimmauld place was busier than ever as a center for piecing together the slow trickle of sightings and events that made up the Order’s meager knowledge of Voldemort’s movements. And Merlin forbid he know anything about the movements of the man who was sworn to kill him! Tonks and Bill were to help with reinforcing and adding additional wards to the Burrow.

“It’s only four weeks, really, just August left and you’re off to school again,” Mrs. Weasley fussed. “It seems you lot only just got home; there are robes to let down and trunks to air out and books to buy…” Her eyes grew suddenly round. “Harry, it’s your birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?”

He did some quick mental calculations on the date. So it was. He nodded, but hastened to follow it with, “Please, don’t feel you have to make anything out of it, they never would have back there and I won’t notice the difference. The best part every year was the cards from all of you, being with you is even better. Really,” he added hastily, when he saw her determined look.

Ron just laughed. “Give over, Harry. You won’t stop her. Sit back and enjoy the cake.”

He supposed he could do that.

They were sent outside while the adults talked again, but since it was a gorgeous scorching late July day it was hard to mind. They weren’t allowed far (‘and don’t even think of getting on a broom Harry Potter!’ Mrs. Wesley had reminded him, quite unnecessarily for once) so they made for the nearest and deepest patch of shade they could find.

Hermione had brought their Newt Potions text to read ahead; Ron had a newly-arrived Quidditch magazine. Luna was happily braiding some particular weed into a long, apparently meaningful chain. Harry settled gingerly down beside Hermione and tried to find a comfortable position in which to become oblivious while Ginny skittered around like some corporeal form of Ron’s patronus from one to the next of them, restless and bored. Harry, apparently unoccupied, became her focus of interest.

“We could play Gob Stones,” she suggested. “I could go and get mine.”

The thought of being spat at was even less appetizing than usual. “No thinks, Gin.”

“Exploding Snap, then.”

Not with reflexes as frayed as his were now, he wasn’t. “Nope. No thanks.”

“Wizard’s Chess. We don’t have to use that cheating set of Ron’s, Bill has his home.”

He supposed Wizard’s chess was safe enough, although all he really wanted to do was take a nap in peace. He was just about to agree reluctantly to a game when Hermione came to his rescue. Without looking up from her own book she said mildly, “He’s meant to be resting, Ginny. Your Mum’s new Witch Weekly came with the Owl post this morning.”

Ginny bounced off to retrieve the magazine and Harry managed to get himself reasonably comfortable, although the holey black denim St. Brutus’ cast offs were sticking to him even in the shade. Thank goodness the shirt he’d borrowed from Ron was overlarge and moved even with the occasional feeble breeze.

He dozed and woke; drifted, woke and dozed again. He felt something creeping along his knee and shook it carefully; both were still bruised where he’d fallen on them. At least it wasn’t a spider, he reassured himself, or Ron would have surely noticed and tore off screaming by now.

Whatever it was moved to his thigh and began climbing upward, light and skittery. He slapped it away, but his eyes flew open when he realized they were fingers. Ginny grinned cheekily at him.

“I’m bored,” she reiterated, as if it were Harry’s fault somehow. Which he guessed it was; technically, since it was his fault the half the Order was now in the Burrow discussing things. But what was he supposed to do about it? He let his eyelids droop closed again.

“You could try sleeping,” he suggested. “It wasn’t boring me at all a moment ago.”

“Okay,” she said, and plopped herself down next to him. Right next to him. Almost on top of him next to him. And started to hum.

Harry opened his eyes again to find hers disconcertingly close but thankfully closed. He glared beyond them to Ron for a moment until he was sure he was about to ignite his best friends’ ear. Ron rubbed at it absently and suddenly saw Harry’s predicament.

Harry mouthed him a question that included the words “what’s” “up” “with” “your” “bloody” (more than once) and “sister.”

Ron shrugged helplessly, torn between amusement and sympathy.

Harry shifted away as subtly as he could, considering movement was still not his first choice of activities at the moment. This direction, however, brought a whole new set of concerns with it; namely Hermione, who was sitting cross-legged and reading her book. She grinned at him and shifted position, straightening her legs out before her to give him more room. He shifted gratefully closer and still further away from Ginny’s absent minded droning.

He closed his eyes again and felt himself begin to relax into the heat like melting candlewax, the stiffness of his injuries growing slowly more pliant and his mood gradually improving as they did.

Luna announced to no one in particular that she needed more Lugewort and wandered happily off to go and find some. He heard a soft snore some moments later and opened one eye to find Ron effortlessly asleep under his magazine. Lucky bugger never had the slightest trouble falling asleep.

Hermione was still reading on his other side, twisting several strands of her hair mindlessly around her finger as she did. She was so peaceable, Hermione, you could certainly count on her….

Not to be doing that! Bugger him if that wasn’t Ginny Weasley’s hand under his shirt. Ron’s shirt. Her brother’s shirt; his best friend’s chest. Harry’s chest. There were so many things wrong with that it wasn’t even funny.

Harry lay absolutely still and took stock of the situation while Ginny’s fingers explored bits of him that while harmless enough he had no interest in sharing with her. Or did he? Nope. But how would he know? Well, he’d have to be a bloody idiot not to know the answer to that, wouldn’t he? She was Ron’s little sister, Mrs. Weasley’s only daughter. She was moody and mercurial, and to be honest bore a strong association with Voldemort for him; the cold, wet taint of the Chamber where she’d lay dieing and thrust him into the role of basilisk-bait. It wasn’t him she liked; it was that jumble of hero worship and gratitude. And he wasn’t feeling anything he oughtn’t to, which he ought to if he actually wanted her to be doing it, right? Now if those fingers inching their way steadily down toward the button of his jeans were Hermione’s, say….

Oh, no, no, no, no. Don’t say it, then. Don’t think it. Holy hell, stop that!

He was certainly feeling something he ought not to be feeling now, something that until right this particular minute he had never consciously associated with Hermione, either. His eyes flew open as he brushed Ginny’s hand from his stomach, and settled not on her but across from her on Hermione, deep in her book and entirely unaware of the mind-bending revelation exploding through Harry beside her.

He watched, mesmerized, as the slight breeze lifted her hair slightly and his bookish best friend changed into a something more before his very eyes. Her face was entirely the same, and yet he suddenly noticed keenly the composition of her features within it; it was as if he was seeing her for the very first time all over again, but at sixteen rather than eleven. He’d panicked helplessly when he thought she was dead in the Department of Mysteries, agonized over what that meant about her as his friend earlier this summer, about what he meant to anyone who loved him. He killed his friends, he couldn’t possibly love her. And now some very irrefutable physical evidence was telling him that not only did he love her for all that she’d always been for him, he might actually, erm… love her, because he’d sure as hell wished it had been her touching him in place of Ginny.

Holy bloody hell.

Not to mention he was having a now fairly obvious physical reaction in front of not-quite-fifteen-year-old Ginny Weasley, who was quite evidently not unaware of it. She smiled beguiling at him and he sat up abruptly, every Dursley-ized muscle screaming at him to stop while the last coherent portion of his brain urgently told the rest of him to shut up and sit down. Now!

Hermione turned from her book to find him obviously agitated and shaking slightly, glaring at Ginny. Ginny seemed rather flushed and extremely pleased with herself at the moment and Hermione wondered what she had managed to prank Harry with. She’d had the feeling all morning that Harry was unhappy and on edge, perhaps for more than the obvious reasons, though there was certainly enough in the obvious department to save one the trouble of really having to look any further.

She guessed that he was tired and sore and just not in the mood to be played with. Hermione had thought Ginny’s childish obsession with Harry had quite thankfully moved on to fondness (with a residual propensity to tease for the purely satisfying physicality of it) when the reality that he didn’t return her feelings had finally set in. God only knew, Harry didn’t seem fully capable of really recognizing or returning anyone’s feelings, and given what they were finding out now, who could blame him?

“Leave him alone, Ginny. You’ll only make him crankier. Let him sleep. Look, I’ll even play Gob Stones if you like,” she offered.

“Never mind,” Ginny grinned impishly. “I think I’ll go find Luna for a chat. She must have found loads of Lugewort by now.” She moved off, all but skipping.

Harry groaned inwardly; there was no comfortable and yet truly obscuring position open to him. Ron snored away blissfully beside him, and once again Harry reckoned he had no idea how good he really had it. On the plus side, Hermione had an open book on her own lap and had never been one to notice anything like that before when reading material was available (or to comment if she did. For all he knew she noticed it all, she’d been for all intents and purposes living with two best friends who were boys since the age of eleven, hadn’t she?) Her eyes met his, and he did his best for a change to keep them there.

“Are you alright? What did Ginny get you with?”

Her hand making a beeline for my zipper, but I’m only hard ‘cause I wish it was you. Harry thanked every remotely concerned Saint and Wizard both that she had never shown the slightest interest in legilmency herself. Yet.

“It’s my own fault, I let her get to me,” he mumbled, neatly avoiding the issue of how. “I never like to just tell her to piss off because of the whole Chamber thing I guess, but she really is a…. tease. It sounds awful to say, her being only a year younger than us, but I can’t wait until she grows up a bit.”

And moves on to some other oh-so-lucky boy who can deal with the manic moods swings and six older brothers.

“She will,” Hermione said confidently. “She only teases you because she likes you Harry, and it’s the only way she knows to get a rise out of you.”

Brilliant. Double meaning, or completely innocent? How the hell were you supposed to tell?

“Well, I wish she’d quit liking me then,” Harry said, shifting his arms over his lap and trying to drag things back into the open where he could hopefully understand what was being said. “I like her well enough as Ron’s little sister, but that’s the end of it for me.”

Hermione nodded, seeming to understand, and he was just starting to relax (although not enough, and he suspected that had something to do with the fact it was still her he was talking to) when she said “You’ve just got to be consistent with her then, because Ginny does get her hopes up. You two are exactly opposite that way. She’s very open, she’s been adored all her life and she loves very easily. You… don’t.”

Well, that was the painful truth, wasn’t it?

“No,” was all Harry could think to say. It was certainly helping in the deflation department, anyway, to realize she thought of him as distant and unloving. “Sorry.”

Her eyes softened appreciably, even to him. “No, I am. That wasn’t very tactfully put, Harry. I’m not very good at this sort of thing, really. I just know that when Ginny talks about you, I don’t recognize the person she’s talking about… and I like to think I know you better than that. You aren’t exactly ideal boyfriend material for her sort of girl, but you are a great boy for a friend.”

‘What about your sort of girl?’ buzzed around in his head; unsaid. She’d seemed to have a bit of a thing for Ron for awhile there, while Harry had always appeared to be more or less a project, something to try and keep safe but not get too attached to. He didn’t know if she still thought about Ron differently, but he hadn’t seen her with anyone else since Viktor Krum, either. Actually, Viktor seemed to have been what mostly put the stopper on the whole Ron thing; she hadn’t like living with Ron’s jealousy any better that Harry had.

“Thanks,” he said, but something of what he was thinking must have seeped through the single word, because she continued to stare at him thoughtfully.

“Do you know, Harry, I know you aren’t feeling a bit of it at the moment thanks to those awful people, but you’ve grown up a lot this summer. Sort of come into yourself or something. You look different than when we left you at King’s Cross. Sort of…” Hermione seemed to struggle a bit to find the right words. Hermione stumped for words! He never thought he’d see the day. And she was sort of blushing too; a most becoming flush of pink colored her cheeks and made her dark eyes darker still. Harry found himself entranced. “I expect you’ll find yourself getting all sorts of attention from the girls next year,” she finished, evidently giving up on ways to describe his newfound … whatever it was. “Maybe if you find someone you like, Ginny will accept that you just aren’t interested.”

“‘Look, if you find me in the least bit fanciable perhaps Ginny Weasley won’t.’ Now there’s a line sure to bring them running,” Harry laughed, but he felt a small irrational flicker of hope somewhere inside him that he’d do anything to keep flickering. She thought he’d grown up. In a good way. Him.

If he could just lose the red-eyed evil sidekick, he might actually have a chance.

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Nothing worth suing about. Put down the pen, nice and slow.

Leaving Privet Drive

Chapter 3 of 3

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They’d set out from the Weasley’s that evening shortly before midnight and floo-ed to Mrs. Figg’s house; Mr. Weasley, Bill, Tonks, Ron and Harry. The plan was simply to retrieve his stuff. The adults had allowed Harry along to make sure they got all of it since he’d steadily maintained he was never going back, and Ron because he said Harry wasn’t going anywhere near those vicious snot bags without him along as well. Mrs. Weasley had used an ear tweaking charm on him and told him to watch his language, but uttered not another word against his going after that. Harry was grateful for his company. He got the feeling that they were all behind him this time and their solidarity had helped convince Dumbledore that further argument was useless. Tonks had tried to go during the day disguised as an utterly normal looking muggle (less of a stretch than usual thanks to her currently muted appearance) but Petunia had apparently taken on a suspicious look once his name had passed her lips and announced Harry Potter no longed lived there and she might try one of the local prisons, Wandsworth, perhaps.

The irony wasn’t lost on Tonks, and she’d insisted on joining them as well.

Mrs. Figg greeted them cheerfully and gave Harry a rather enormous and deeply embarrassing hug that hurt like nobody’s business afterward. Thankfully she seemed to take his eyes watering with the pain in his side for emotion.

“Not that I haven’t enjoyed it, dear, not a bad home for the kitties all these years, but I’ll be glad to be off now. They were awful to you, those people, and I never liked to watch it. It was wretched; always making sure you never really enjoyed yourself here, knowing they wouldn’t send you back if you did. I wouldn’t have done it for anyone but Dumbledore and I’m won’t be sad to see the back of them. Off to the country we are, nice little cottage with a field full of mousies next to it. Mr. Tibbles’ll be in his element, and all his lady friends with him.”

He managed to choke out something about being very happy for all of them, by now feeling if not remotely close to tears at least fairly bad that she’d lived for almost fifteen years in a neighborhood she’d never actually liked just to watch over him. It was an awful thought. He remembered how utterly floored he’d been to learn she was a squib and a plant of Dumbledore’s after he’d saved Dudley from the Dementors the summer before.

He’d thought they’d be right off then, but they hung around Mrs. Figg’s kitchen, seemingly waiting for someone or something.

“What’re we waiting for?” Harry whispered to Bill.

“Lupin,” Bill said back in quite a normal voice, his eyes on Tonks. “He wants to help out, same as the rest of us. He’s hated having to get you out of there before himself; it’ll be nice for him to see you shut of them.”

Tonks brightened before Harry’s eyes. Visibly. Her expression remained the same, perhaps even a shade quieter, but everything else seemed almost to shimmer. Her skin glowed; her hair took on the most interesting highlights.

“Oh hell,” she said after a moment, noticing them staring at her, even Mrs. Figg. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Bill nodded, grinning. If Harry wasn’t imagining things, Ron’s dad just blushed.

“That’s right, lets all play tease the Metamorphmagus,” she said, and sighed gustily.

“He really is coming, any minute now,” Bill told her. “And you should just tell him…”

“I have! He knows! He just has to get over the stupid idea that he’s bad for me and being a werewolf is like the curse of death for his friends. I know he’s lost so many, but it wasn’t like it was his fault..”

Tonks was talking about Lupin. Tonks liked Lupin. Rather more than liked Lupin, obviously. Where the hell had Harry been once again? Why was he suddenly noticing this all this stuff? Sirius had fallen through the veil and taken life as Harry knew it with him; nothing was familiar anymore, even his friends.

He glanced sideways at Ron, who met his gaze with a shrug.

There was a clatter from the hearth in the next room, and Lupin himself appeared in the doorway with his familiar, ragged smile. Tonks gleamed at him, and the smile grew ever so slightly, and deepened.

“Well, Harry,” he said, “ready to leave home for good, are you?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They moved quietly across the dark pavements to #4, familiar and foreboding both to Harry. It had been a constant in his life; a constant pain in his arse and elsewhere, but a constant none the less. To understand he was leaving it forever both thrilled and frightened him a bit. He had a sense of snowballing change, carrying him too fast toward a fate he didn’t yet understand how to meet.

A whispered Alohamora from Remus took care of Vernon’s costly and elaborate locks. They entered, closing the door after them once inside.

‘My trunk should be under the stairs,” Harry told them softly. “There are just a few text books and Hedwig’s cage up there.” He pointed to the floor above.

Bill unlocked the cupboard door and Ron scooted ahead of Harry to help him lever the trunk free. “Not you, mate,” he whispered. “Take it easy this time, yeah?”

And so he watched his best friend, unable to fit through the door, drop to his knees to guide the corner of his school trunk through to the hall. From that angle he could see Ron’s eyes taking in the whole of his earliest memories. It had not been an unhappy room for Harry; only the notion that he was different and his relatives felt the need to hide him had bothered him at first; the space itself had seemed cozy, private and secure to a young boy. He might not have liked the sound of the latch, but it shut the others out when it shut him in, and then he was safe. It was only as he grew older it truly became a prison.

He realized suddenly just how accepting a child he had been. All of his instincts had been to get along, get by, cause the least fuss, draw the least attention.

Was he naturally that passive? Or had Dumbledore somehow charmed him as an infant to withstand it all, and it was the charm that was somehow breaking down inside him now? Because something inside him was surely going to pieces.

Once the trunk was removed the little cupboard was almost empty; all that remained was the lumpy mattress that had served for his bed those years ago, his one holey blanket still neatly folded at the foot. Suddenly Harry couldn’t bear the evidence of it; he wanted the cupboard to be nothing but a cupboard again, reveal no clue it was ever anything else. He turned to Bill. “Can I borrow your wand?” he whispered. “So they don’t know it’s me? Just for a moment. One spell.”

“Have at it,” Bill told him softly, handing it over.

“Evanesco.”

The blanket and mattress disappeared, leaving nothing but a faint cloud of dust to settle on the almost empty floor. Almost empty, because one small object remained.

It was a child’s bedraggled stuffed dragon with disintegrating velvet wings, flattened somewhat by the weight of the mattress upon it for some thirteen years and no more than 15 centimeters from tip to tail.

Ron picked it up gingerly and blew on it, raising a plume of dust like smoke from its nose.

“Forgot something, mate,” he said.

“I never had a toy,” Harry heard himself respond, but something in him recognized that dragon. Preverbal flashes of memory assaulted him, jumbled images that included bits of it; the snout against his pillow, stuffing the tail between the bars of his cot. He could remember just how the wing felt between his fingers, soft and thick and… chewy.

He saw Dudley, a terrorizing toddler Dudley, yank it from his grasp, heard or imagined his own howl that surely must have followed. What came after was unclear, not an actual memory so much as something pieced together from remembered emotions. Harry knew Petunia would have defended Dudley’s right to take it from him, could imagine her response.

Stop that noise this instant, you nasty little boy. Diddy doesn’t want that filthy thing, do you Diddy? Diddy’s got lots of lovely soft toys. Look, lovey, here’s your hippo. We’ll just put that horrid thing away until you stop that crying. Did you hear me? Stop it at once!

It wasn’t real, he knew it wasn’t, but his mind could fill in the blanks all too easily. What was real was the blurry vision of Petunia slamming the cupboard door, only this time he was on the outside, beating his small hands on the door to get it, to get in. It hadn’t been his room yet, and Vernon had probably thumped the mattress down on top of the dragon later without ever noticing it when they’d moved him in there after he outgrew his cot.

He’d never known it was there. Time had passed and with its comfort beyond his ability to reach he had given up and forgotten it entirely. He reached for it now and took it from Ron’s hand, examining it more closely. It had been handmade; imperfect, quirky and clearly a work of love, its happy expression having nothing to do with a real dragon’s fierceness and everything to do with coaxing a smile from the one it had been made for. Him.

“Thanks,” he told Ron. “Forgotten all about her.” Because it had been a she to him, he knew it had. She had even had a name but it was just beyond his grasp, lost in the depths of his own mind, and there was no one left to remind him. He stuffed her into the back pocket of his jeans as if she was no more than a mislaid pair of socks, but inside of him whatever was cracking stilled.

He turned to hand the wand back to Bill to find his Uncle, glowering, at the foot of the stairs. Tonks and Lupin’s wands were already out and leveled at his chest.

“What is the meaning of this?” Vernon ground out furiously. His eyes had the same slightly manic, pushed-too-far glaze they’d had the night Harry left and the reminder was unpleasant to say the least. The pair of short, curved goatish horns still sprouting from either side of his head probably accounted for at least some of it. Bill was good. He bet none of them had left the house since he had.

“We’ve come to get my stuff,” Harry told him, careful to meet his piggy little eyes head on. “I’m leaving.”

“And not a moment too soon! How dare you sneak in here in the middle of the night, allow these freak friends of yours in our house…”

“Here, now,” started Mr. Weasley equally furiously, and it was the first time Harry had seen a flash of temper to truly match his wife’s in mild Arthur Weasley. “Don’t you speak to him like that. You’re bloody lucky he’s not pressing charges. He could still, you know. That’s assault with batteries and child, er, misuse at the very least. We know how your laws work even if you haven’t got a clue about ours!”

“Watch your tongue,” Remus added in a low growl. “And don’t make a single move anywhere near the boy.”

“We tried to come in the middle of the day; and in your sort of kit too. But your wife told us to check the prisons for him. It’s you that ought to be in prison, beating a child not allowed to defend himself…” Tonks spat at him.

“He’s not a child! He’s not even human! He’s a bloody freak and a nuisance, he’s been an imposition on us for too many years now…”

“So sorry about the imposition of cooking your food and scrubbing your floors all those years, Uncle Vernon. How rude of me. And mowing your lawn, trimming your hedges, cleaning out your bloody gutters. How ever did you stand it?” Harry asked him grimly. “Best of luck getting that ruddy great whale you call a son to do it now.”

“You shut up! We kept you safe from that Lord Voldythingy. Petunia explained it to me after the dementoids. Without us you’d be dead by now, not like that would be any great loss to anyone!” Vernon shouted, and Petunia and Dudley appeared around the corner at the top of the stairs as his voice raised dangerously close to neighbor-alerting levels, huddled together.

“You keep saying it as though it’s just me he wants,” Harry shouted back, unable to stop himself any longer. He felt Ron’s hand land on his shoulder, but it was steadying rather than stopping him, and he raged on. “He only wants to kill me because I’m supposed to be able to kill him too. He wants to kill you just because you exist. And you think you protected me?”

Harry laughed, though it felt more like choking. “That blood bond protected you too. You broke it yourself when you attacked me, and now you’re the one who’s helpless. Voldemort may come after me, but at least I stand a chance against him. He can come after you any time he wants once I walk out that door and what will you do? Yell at him? Go ahead. Try hitting him. There’s no underage magic laws at work on him, he’ll point his “thingie” at you and you’ll be dead before you take the second step. So how does it feel to be the helpless one for a change, Uncle Vernon? How does it feel to be hated just for being what you are?”

Vernon’s face slowly drained of color and his eyes rose to the top of the stairs. “Is that right, Petunia? If the boy leaves, is it… are we… can that …”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I don’t understand it, I never really have. Dumbledore just said that it was something Lily did to protect him, I don’t know how it works.”

Bill leveled his wand at Harry’s trunk and shrunk it to pocket size.

“Boys, go up and get anything Harry needs from the room upstairs. Quickly now,” Mr. Weasley told them. Remus and Tonks kept their wands leveled on Vernon as Harry and Ron went round him, probably quite needlessly as he was now pale as a ghost and trembling. Petunia and Dudley drew back fearfully as they passed.

Harry found his textbooks and completed essays had been destroyed, the pages ripped out and shredded around the room like feathers, the covers partially burned in the metal rubbish bin. Dudley, most likely. His few things were all broken, ripped or smashed beyond repair, including Hedwig’s cage. Even his parents’ picture, Dudley’s own Aunt, for all he never knew her. Nothing was left worth taking; he turned to see Ron’s stunned expression, surveying the damage, and shook his head. Harry picked up the pieces of his parents’ ruined photograph and they turned without a word to head back downstairs.

As they passed his Aunt and cousin to descend the stairs again, Petunia reached out and grasped Harry’s wrist, her bony fingers surprisingly strong.

“Don’t do this, Harry. She wouldn’t have wanted it, your mother. It won’t happen again.”

Harry tried to pull free of her but she clung tightly.

“How do you know she wouldn’t?” he said angrily. “I don’t reckon she would have wanted you to take me in and then treat me like you did, either. And who’s going to stop him? You never lifted a finger to before.”

He shook his arm again but failed to displace her grip and it was starting to hurt, his fingers numbing from the raw terror of her grasp. “You knew,” he accused her. “Vernon didn’t understand but you knew all along. You knew about Dementors and Azkaban and Sirius being my godfather and you never said a word to me. You never gave me a single good word about your own sister to hold on to, never even told me the truth about the way my parents died. You pretended nothing was ever going to happen and I didn’t need to know. Well, just keep pretending. Maybe you’ll be fine.”

Ron raised his wand at her and growled “get off him, then” in a voice unlike Harry any had ever heard him use before.

Dudley flailed at the close proximity of the wand and shoved Ron away, hard. He stumbled into Harry, the force of it prizing his arm from his Aunt’s desperate hold. Harry managed to hang on to him and they caught each other precariously at the top step. He grabbed hold of Ron’s wand hand, pushing it down and muttering urgently ‘it’s not worth it, Ron; you don’t want to end up expelled over him,” but Bill had already loosed a spell from the bottom of the stairs. Dudley was briefly bathed in a warm orange glow.

“What was that?” Petunia shrieked, and Dudley began to circle around himself like a dog chasing its own tail. “Mummy! Mummy! What did they do to me this time?”

“What was that, Bill?” asked Ron interestedly as they carefully descended the stairs, skirting Vernon once more.

“D’nno,” said Bill with a grin and loud enough so Dudley could hear him. “Something the Egyptians used to use on cat mummies. I memorized it one summer while we trying to break the curse on a necklace for Gringotts; I spent the whole day cleaning sand out of the hieroglyphs for it in the tomb. I sort of memorized it by accident. Could be anything, really.”

Harry reckoned he was pulling Dudley’s leg, but with Bill you never knew, and who cared? With any luck Dudley would spend the rest of his life trying to research what it was to get it lifted. How perfect.

“We’ll be leaving now,” Remus said, locking eyes with Harry, who nodded.

“You can’t!” Vernon said, trembling with apparent rage; only now with his friends securely around him and knowing he wasn’t returning Harry could see it more clearly for the frightened bluster it had always been.

“Watch me,” he said, and walked to the front door and opened it. Ron and his Dad followed and passed through without a backward glance as Harry held it open. Bill grinned and waved his goodbye. Tonks and Lupin remained with their wands leveled, taking no chances, and indicated he should go before them.

“The words you want to worry about,” Harry told his Uncle seriously, “Are Avada and Kedavra. If you hear the first one duck and say your prayers to whoever might still listen to you, because by the time you hear the second one, you’re dead. It’s only ever not worked once, and you don’t want one of these either,” he said, lifting his fringe to reveal the scar. “Remember that then. It’s my payment for what you think I owe you. Oh, and you might want to move or something. Don’t worry about a forwarding address. It was… well it hasn’t really been nice, has it? So I guess it’s just goodbye.”

“You’ll be back,” Vernon told his departing back. “You mark my words; you’ll be begging to sleep in that cupboard when your lot see you’re nothing but a boy with a scar. Where will you be then? You can all wipe each other out with your bloody war for all we care.”

“You’ll know if we have,” said Lupin, holding the door for Tonks. “When there’s no more magic left in this world, even your kind will know. Good evening.”

They proceeded in silence up the darkened road toward Mrs. Figg’s floo. Harry halfway expected something huge and dynamic to happen; for number 4 to explode in flames or shimmer out of existence or be over run by Death Eaters. It remained dark and prim, perfectly respectable, irreproachable, really.

The neighbors would never know.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry woke the next morning in Ron’s room again, but the two awakenings could not have been more different. He was still stiff but the pain had dulled considerably and he was no longer disorientated at all. His first thought was that he would never again make Vernon and Dudley Dursley breakfast. His second was that it was his birthday, and that first thought just might have been his best present ever.

They had reported to Dumbledore by way of the fire when they returned last night and he had counseled Harry to tell no one of the change and think of it as simply visiting his friends before returning to school just a little earlier than planned. “For all they have wronged you,” the Headmaster had told him, “They are defenseless now. It will not take long, I think, for fate to catch them up if they do not acknowledge that all they refused to believe in is true. You know how deep your connection to Riddle runs. Don’t give him reason to believe anything has changed and the time you buy them may mean their lives.”

Dumbledore had refused to discuss what might happen next summer with him, and Harry reckoned his reasoning was two-fold. If the option for the following year was pleasant and he looked forward to it, there was every reason to believe Voldemort would pick up on it, and even if he didn’t, there was also always the chance Harry wouldn’t survive long enough to need a shelter next summer, pleasant or not.

Still, for the moment at least he was finally sixteen, not of age yet as a wizard, but, after a fashion, free. It was with considerably more optimism that Harry dragged himself from his bed and went to face the Weasley’s picky mirror. He wondered if reminding it that today was his birthday would buy him any slack.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The weeks before school passed in a completely different sort of blur for Harry.

The busy comings and goings of the Burrow helped keep his mind distracted from the events that had so haunted him alone at Privet Drive. There wasn’t a night Harry didn’t lie down to feel the empty place in his heart that the comforting presence of Sirius in the world had once filled, but during the day time he could mostly keep the thought at bay. It was healing as well to be with Ron and Hermione and Luna, and even Ginny; to be able to see and hear and feel their recovered health and well-being after all that had befallen them at the Department of Mysteries. It eased his conscience a bit. He’d made a mistake he hoped he’d never make again, and their very continued presence around him was a constant reminder.

He still suffered nightmares, both his own and others that reminded him that Voldemort knew he could reach Harry despite his best efforts at the mystery that was Occlumency. He couldn’t quite grasp what Snape had been trying to teach him even though he continued to practice on his own, and he feared his abruptly severed lessons might leave him a failure at that particular magical skill forever. He often found himself wondering if that wasn’t in fact Snape’s actual intent.

Still, it was far easier to wake up to Ron’s weary shaking (he’d taken to putting silencing charms on himself each night, but his thrashing around still sometimes woke his friend in the tiny room) or, one particularly memorable afternoon when he’d fallen asleep and dreamed outside in the Weasley’s magical hammock (no trees required!) to Hermione’s anxious eyes.

The dream cruciatus he’d been sweating out in a net at Voldemort’s feet had almost seemed worth it to be awakened by her attempts to soothe him. He’d realized the hammock had been the net in his dream as soon as she’d tried to help him extricate himself from it; her helpfulness had landed him flat on his back on the ground below with one trainer still tangled thought the mesh above him.

The anxious, self-reproachful look that came over her face as he thumped abruptly to the ground had been enough to push him over the edge into laughter. Laughing turned out to be a really useful emotional escape valve, because he’d surprised himself with the rawness of his urge to pull her down on top of him and snog her senseless once he landed. Hermione! To his greatly mixed delight and dismay she’d flopped down beside him and given in to laughter of her own.

What was happening to him? Why was he suddenly so aware of her when nothing had really…. Well, come to think of it, everything had changed, hadn’t it? He thought back to his revelatory image of her in the shade the day Ginny had been teasing him. Was he having some kind of usual sixteen year old hormonal flare and all would go back to normal if he ignored it, or did he really have feelings beyond friendship for one of his best friends? He’d always talked to Hermione about the weird things that happened to him; it felt strange not to be able to go to her now.

They lay peacefully in companionable silence after their laughter gave way, sunk in the too-tall grass and watching clouds drift lazily across the summer sky. Harry’s trainer was still stuck in the hammock above, but it wasn’t twisted or anything and he left it there, swinging gently. The Dursley’s would have been outraged by the condition of the Weasley’s yard, but Harry was very comfortable with it. He doubted witches and wizards were any different from muggles, really. There must be good and bad ones, neat ones and sloppy ones, uptight and laid back types. Lacking family he had no idea what he might have been, but growing up Dursley seemed to have pushed him firmly toward the Weasley end of things. He wondered what his own nature really was.

He could hear the faint chatter of gnomes from somewhere behind them and Crookshanks stalked stealthily past, whiskers twitching. No matter how the rest of them fared, Crookshanks was having a brilliant summer.

“All prepared for start of term then?” he asked. It seemed best at the moment to stay on familiar ground where he could trust his own behavior. “You seem to have finished most of the books by now.”

“I’m not entirely happy with my conclusion for Professor McGonagall’s transfiguration essay, the one on using liquids to simulate solid objects. Did you go with texture or displacement as your primary focus?” she responded.

He let his head flop sideways and grinned sheepishly.

“Please tell me you’ve at least started it…”

“I did start it. I read the assignment and I even tried it out. I can do the tea to a book one, but the pages were all stuck together. Water is even trickier though; I keep forgetting you need to do something about the glass as well.”

“Well, that’s something I suppose,” she grumbled. “Ron hasn’t even started his.”

“It’s harder to get motivated here, there’s always something interesting to do. I did mine back at the Dursley’s,” he admitted. “That was one of the few to survive Dudley.”

“That might have been the only good thing about them, then.”

He snorted at that, feeling too content and lazy to dispute her. There was nothing good about them; he’d had to sneak the books up there to avoid having to do a summers worth of homework on the train ride back to school. It’d be such a shame not to have time for his biennial bout of train wide insults with Malfoy.

“This is nice,” Hermione said suddenly, “just you and me for a change. I love the Weasley’s too, but sometimes there’s so much going on at once I just can’t take it all in. It’s exhausting. I think it comes from being an only child. Do you ever feel that?” Her serious brown eyes were watching him, waiting for his answer. He wondered when her eyelashes had multiplied and grown so long.

“Sometimes. I don’t mind it, really, it’s nice compared to what I knew, but I can see where it would get on anyone’s nerves eventually. It’s good that they’ve got all this space outdoors to get away from each other when they need a break.”

Hermione rolled over onto her stomach, supporting herself on her elbows so that she was looking down on him. “What are you going to do this year, Harry? Now that everyone knows he’s back? Has Dumbledore said anything? Is there a plan?”

Dumbledore in truth had said little about any plans for Harry. He did know that he was being pulled from the regular DADA class for extra instruction in wand work and “self defense” but other than that no one had mentioned anything to him.

“Not that I know of anyway, but then I never get to know anything. That’s the worst part. I’d feel better if I had any idea of what was coming next, even if there wasn’t really anything I could do to stop it happening.”

Hermione nodded sympathetically; Harry could see she had thought of the issue before herself. Just knowing that she and Ron were thinking the same thoughts and wondering the same questions even though in theory it was not their fate to have to do so warmed Harry; he felt so much less alone.

Looking up at her caused her hair to take on a nimbus effect, a halo lit by the sun dancing through the leaves behind her. He closed his eyes against the brightness and wished almost to the point of aching that she would touch him now the way Ginny had, that she would suddenly see him the way he had begun to see her.

“Mum says dinner’s ready,” came a voice from behind his head, and Harry stiffened, recognizing Ginny, as if by merely thinking of her he had called her into being.

He sat up to attempt to extricate his foot but the position pulled on the sore spot he’d never gotten around to doing anything about and the sudden, sharp bite of it in his side made spots dance before his eyes. He fell back and closed his them, mumbling his thanks for the summons. “Be there in a minute.”

He heard Ginny make a stifled sound that could have been anything from a sob to a snicker and then head back toward the house. He felt Hermione’s fingers working around his ankle and his foot fell free of the hammock.

“Thanks,” he told her.

“Harry, are you sure you’re alright? You haven’t seemed quite yourself… I mean, I know you don’t get over being attacked in a day or anything, that’s the problem with magic, isn’t it? We can make things look all better, but there isn’t always a spell to clean up the rest.”

He opened his eyes again to find hers fixed unblinkingly on him, puzzling him out. “I’d say it was missing Sirius, but much as that hurts it shouldn’t be making you actually flinch,” she said thoughtfully.

Much as it could be a pain, having someone know you that well was a reassurance also. Harry’d seen how Mrs. Weasley knew each of her sons for all their differences; none of them could truly sneak a thing past her for long despite the different ways they went about trying to do so.

It was a comfort somehow. Having another person being so attuned to you made you real. It proved you existed, grounded and anchored you when you might have drifted off into any kind of self-deception, unnoticed. He’d always known on some sort of level within himself that he liked being bossed about by Hermione because he needed it; he had greater patience with it than Ron because no one else had ever bothered about him enough to do it for him. For the first time he saw it less as being picked apart or told what to do as… loved. You had to care about someone to invest that much of yourself in their inner workings. Much as he cared for Ron, his voice had never spoke up for Harry’s conscience. They were friends and they lived and let live comfortably within those boundaries.

If Hermione loved him that way, was it even possible for her to think of him in the other way he’d begun to hope she might? Could she still see him as someone touchable? Snogable? Or did that mean she only felt responsible for him? Why was it such a mine field suddenly?

“I’m okay,” he told her, although part of him wanted to show her the place that hurt and ask for her help. The other part was desperately afraid that it would be just one more thing to pity him over, and all of a sudden he wanted so more from her than that. “Really.”

“Good,” she after a moment, her face unreadable. And then she abruptly threw herself at him in the kind of hug she hadn’t employed since third year, fierce, bone-bending and unmistakably Hermione. It was too sudden to tense himself against the assault of it, but as her weight came against him he felt instead of the expected pain a quicker stab and shift, as if something nagging and out of place had moved back where it belonged. He could still feel it, but it was the duller ache of something that would heal instead.

“Please don’t let us change,” Hermione said stormily into his neck. “I always want to be your friend, whatever it brings.”

“You’ve got it,” he told her, letting himself draw her close. She felt wonderful, warm and sweet with the smell of grass in her hair, and he was lost. Even if she never felt any more for him than that, he knew with certainty he was lucky with what he had. “You always will be. No matter what.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There was, as far as Harry could tell, no overt sign of increased activity on Voldemort’s part. From what he could glean from an occasional comment between Mr. and Mrs. Weasley or Bill when he came by the members of the Order were busy with pre-emptive moves; closing ranks and circling the thestrals, so to speak.

Because of the general busyness of the adults and the chafing assessment that increased risk making it impossible to go without them, the trip to Diagon Alley for school supplies finally took place the day before they were set to leave for Kings Cross. “About bloody time,” Ron said when they were informed the night before. “We could have easily gone ourselves, but no…”

Mrs. Weasley herded them into the floo for the twins shop bright and early after breakfast and sent them stumbling out into the sunshine of Diagon Alley, blinking, almost as soon as they got there.

“Go on, go on!” She urged them before her, “You’ll have plenty of time to visit with the twins and play with that nonsense once you’ve got your books and things.”

“Doesn’t like to think that Fred and George left before NEWTs for a joke shop,” Ron explained as they walked ahead. “They’ve done well though. Won’t tell anyone where the money to get it all started came from, but they must have more than paid it back by now, whoever it was. Likely Bill, I expect.”

“Good investment for him,” Harry agreed, mentally tallying his own list for the day to keep from grinning.

The trip was made to Gringotts for funds, but took twice as long as usual with the new security measures in place. They were checked and double checked for polyjuice and the presence of an imperius curse before they could ride down to the vaults. Back out on the streets and ready to shop the changed spirit of the Alley struck them once more; people hurried from shop to shop glancing worriedly around them as they went and window shoppers were few and far between. Many shop owners only unlocked their doors if you rang the bell first and a few had security measures almost as strict as Gringotts.

“Well that’s taken the fun right out of it,” grumbled Ron, and Harry had to agree. He felt he was getting particular scrutiny and the response was mixed. A few people shook his hand and assured him they’d always believed him, several others moved away from him as if he’d caught some visibly contagious disease.

They worked their way steadily down through their lists, and this years’ traditional sighting of the Malfoys took place at Flourish and Blotts once more, thankfully without Gilderoy Lockhart looking on this time. Malfoy Sr. secured at least for the moment in Azkaban, it was Narcissa who was buying Draco his books; although as Ron pointed out, from the back it was sort of hard to tell the difference.

Harry had laughed at that, and Draco spun around, glare already in place.

‘Yuck,’ thought Harry. ‘He recognized me by my laugh. That’s just not right.’

“Potter,” Malfoy sneered.

“Malfoy,” Harry acknowledged him. “Made your way down from the luggage rack I see.”

He said it softly enough; Malfoy’s Mum was nearby conversing earnestly with Pansy Parkinson’s while Pansy sneaked a copy of Hideous Hexes: Show Them You Really Meant It under her Herbology text, her dark eyes glittering at Harry’s when they caught him watching.

Great. Just what the world needed; Pansy, fully primed.

Malfoy had, to Harry’s surprise, grown somewhat this summer as well. Or perhaps it was just the difference since having left him hexed spineless on the train at the end of term. What ever it was, he looked different somehow. His hair was longer though no less immaculate; still he seemed to be deliberately trying to hide behind the fall of it, a ridiculous notion because who else had hair like that? Harry would have sworn the scornful icy blue eyes were spooked and that Malfoy himself was just about ready to jump out of his own skin. Interesting.

Ron came up to get his back, and Draco’s sneer deepened. “And if it isn’t the Weasel.”

“Mind your cauldron this time Ginny,” Ron said, eyeing him distrustfully. Harry actually looked back to see what she was carrying. She had a pile of books in her hands and an expression that Harry had never seen before on her face. There was a trickle of fascinated fear there, but something else as well, something he’d seen in her eyes when she looked at him lately too. Double yuck. How could she possibly share expressions for him and Malfoy?

Hermione suddenly caught his eye from halfway up the stairs to the second floor and motioned to him to follow her. He wasn’t sure if she had something to show him or she was just trying to keep him out of trouble, but he nodded and began to move away anyway.

“Still obeying the mudblood’s every whim,” Malfoy noted, but Harry only looked pointedly at Pansy, then Hermione and back at Draco, his message given in the international language of boys everywhere, wizard or muggle, and his meaning clear. Better mine then yours!

Draco lunged, but Harry was ready and swung round the banister onto the bottom step of the stairs, well clear but not fast enough to seem like he was running. Ron followed him apparently leisurely, but swinging well wide, his hand closed over the end of his wand protruding from his pocket. Draco took a grim interest in a stack of discounted Quidditch books near where they would have to return, as if they had been his only goal all along. Narcissa chattered nervously on to Pansy’s mother, apparently unaware of it all. Mrs. Weasley was having a moment to herself in the amongst the memoirs.

Harry tracked Hermione to the third aisle from the end on the second floor, in the history section. Just the smell of the books there made him want to yawn, and he wondered what she wanted to show him. Ron seemed to agree.

“It’s like just reading the names of the books makes me want to sleep,” he observed. “How could all this stuff be so dead boring?”

“Dead boring to you, maybe,” Hermione scolded him. “But this is… oh never mind. You wouldn’t listen anyway. Try this instead.” And she quietly pushed the stepstool at the end of the aisle back and crouched down to peel back the edge of the worn and dusty carpet beneath her feet.

There was a sizeable crack between two floor boards beneath the carpet. So sizeable Harry started to wonder about the structural integrity if the whole building. Still, i was probably all stuck together with magic somehow, so what was the big deal? He was at a loss what Hermione was showing him.

“What’s directly under history?” she whispered.

“More history?” whispered Ron back with a grin. “They dig it all up, don’t they?”

Harry tried to envision the layout of the lower floor and failed.

She pointed and motioned them to look. Taking a quick peek around to make sure no one was observing them they dropped to their knees and pressed their eyes to the floorboards.

The top of two heads came into view, black and blond. Draco had evidently left his post at the bottom of the stairs and was perusing the shelves, and Pansy was attempting to distract him.

Flourish and Blotts did not have a Dark Arts section; Harry wondered what Malfoy might be finding so fascinating on the shelves below. He was definitely looking for something; his fingers running nimbly along the spines and every so often taking out a book to thumb through it. Pansy prattled on as he did, mentioning the names of several other Slytherins in their year and the one ahead of them.

“Did you hear?” she said suddenly. “Adrian Pucey’s died. He was on a… jaunt, with Flint and some older ones. Up in the mountains. It was unsuccessful.”

“No,” said Malfoy.

Though he showed no sign of particular interest Harry got the feeling he was listening intently.

“He tried to explain why,” Pansy said with a shudder. “I heard his own brother finished him off after; he was beyond saving. A puddle.”

“Idiot.” Malfoy blanched visibly at the puddle part. Harry remembered his own brief experience under Voldemort’s cruciatus, when he felt like his bones themselves were melting.

“Has even one of those been successful yet?” Malfoy asked, still intent on the shelves.

Pansy looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so, or they would have stopped, wouldn’t they. Good thing school’s starting or it could have been you next, and Crabbe and Goyle with you.”

“And you and Bulstrode, he’s hardly a chauvinist when it comes to fodder for his doomed ideas,” Malfoy sneered. “He’s got other plans for me. He wants me at Hogwarts this year especially. I’m alright.”

“Is that why you’re suddenly browsing the Herbology section?” Pansy sneered back, stung. “Not content to be Snape’s pet any more? What’s Sprout know that could possibly get anyone anywhere?”

Harry glanced across the crack and saw Hermione’s lip curl at that; it was such a Slytherin thing to say. Knowledge was useful only if it advanced one’s options in the game.

“That’s for me to know,” Malfoy told her, “and you to find out. Now off you go. I need to make sure of what I’m looking for before we leave, can’t find it at Hogwarts even in Snape’s stuff. If this works there might not have to be anymore of those… jaunts, for any of us. Tell my Mum I’ll meet her in Slug and Jiggers next if she’s ready to go on.”

“Alright,” Pansy agreed reluctantly. “Find a good poison for Potter while you’re at it. Something slow acting and painful with a built in muffling charm so we don’t have to hear about it while it does him in. Oh and leave him unmarked; he might belong in grotty Gryffindor but he’s come up rather nicely over the summer. He’d do a lovely open coffin.” She kissed him then, a lingering open-mouthed affair out of sight of their parents. Harry saw Malfoy’s eyes stray to the shelf in the middle of it.

Ron had pulled back from the floorboards at the kiss, repulsed, and cracked heads with Hermione with an audible thump and a hastily bit back ‘bloody hell!’ Harry stilled himself, afraid Malfoy’d look up but saw he was instead staring intently not at the shelf in front of him but the one just across the aisle. Ginny was there, replacing a book back on the shelf. She looked up and noticed Malfoy’s eyes on her, and froze like a trapped rabbit. Just as Harry was about to pound down the stairs to defend her, teasing pest or not, she seemed to come to herself and finished shoving the book into its place before hurrying away.

Harry wasn’t sure whether to be chuffed or disgusted by Pansy’s comment; Ron was holding his head but trying desperately not to laugh. Hermione seemed thoroughly unamused.

“It’s going to be an interesting year,” she told them both.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The trip to King’s Cross was its usual Weasley chaos; Harry and Hermione had both learned from previous years to get their things ready ahead of time and stay well out of the way. Even with just Ron and Ginny going this year there seemed to be twice as many left out items or last minute repairs. Bill and Tonks were to escort them along with Mrs. Weasley; Mr. Weasley was once more working overtime at the still defensive Ministry.

Bill had managed to borrow a car, so the trip itself was not bad at all and achieved in record time with only a single obliviation of a muggle police office. (Tonks seemed a bit put out about the paperwork involved; Bill just grinned widely and kept quiet.) There were quite a lot of very official looking wizards patrolling the parameters of the Hogwart’s Express platform, and if the student boarding was as crowded and rowdy as always the parents on the platform seemed unusually subdued.

Mrs. Weasley fussed anxiously as they loaded their trunks and found their places. Hermione and Ron said their goodbyes and went ahead to the prefects carriage. Harry took a last look round the platform, remembering Sirius’ gamboling across it the previous year. Mrs. Weasley’s face suddenly softened as though she recognized what he saw, and he found himself enveloped in a tearful hug.

“You keep safe,” she told him fiercely. “Be careful. Stay out of trouble. Listen to Dumbledore. Oh and Harry, enjoy yourself, dear. Do try.”

A tall order if there ever was one. He hugged her tentatively back instead of just allowing it, and thanked her for his safe August haven, and then the train was moving and she was shouting instructions to Ginny. Harry moved on toward the back of the train searching for a friendly face.

It was like Diagon Alley all over again; he was hailed by some who claimed to have always believed him while others physically shrunk back as if his taint was catching. Some of the younger student’s eyes grew wide when they saw him, and fingers pointed. He was enormously relieved to find an empty carriage at the end of the train and to hoist up his trunk and settle down in it. Luna arrived shortly thereafter and he helped her with her trunk; she gifted him with a vague smile and set to her magazine without another word. Neville showed up several moments later, still clutching Trevor with one hand and his cactus – far more of a familiar to Neville in Harry’s eyes than Trevor had ever been – in the other. He too had grown over the summer, both taller and less hesitant, and Harry was certain that the events at the Department of Mysteries that he had found so devastating had been galvanizing instead for Neville.

Perhaps Neville was the one after all. Except now, with all that Harry had been through and all he knew, he would not wish that role on his worst enemy, little alone someone as decent and likable as Neville Longbottom. If Dumbledore told him he could walk away now and let Neville take over, would he?

The answer was no, and he knew it. Whether it was to avenge those loved and lost or simply a saving people thing about those he still had, he didn’t know. Harry reckoned there was something inside him, something about the magic that had protected him from that first deadly spell that would not let him stop now.

He was ready for another year at Hogwarts.

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A/N: And that’s that – the next chapter to this would be Chapter 1 of Here With Me. I think that stands alone without this, but I always said I’d get this up and now it is, updated and all. Hope you enjoyed it. ~Lindsay