"Come on, boy." Vernon said gruffly. Harry noticed the man was a bit leaner, as if he had been eating less.

"Is everything alright, Uncle?" he asked.

The man grunted. It was an average response, but Harry found himself less able to read it than he remembered.

It was a nearly silent drive home to Privet Drive, and Harry thought about his first year at Hogwarts.

It had been... wonderful, he decided.

A small smile was all that told his thoughts to the world, and before long Harry was home.

"Welcome back." his Aunt said primly.

Harry almost gasped. The woman looked almost the same as ever, but her hair was carefully managed, and her expression was clear.

"Aunt Petunia? Is something wrong?" he asked.

As far as he was aware, the woman had been intoxicated for most of his life, and he had almost never seen her without her nursong a drink.

"Of course not, dear." Petunia replied with a small smile. "I just can't believe I've been drinking so much all these years."

Harry couldn't either, but the change was more of a surpriae than the actual behavior. She had never even mentioned sobering before, and now she looked as if she had been for months.

Harry shook his head to throw off his confusion as he dragged his trunk upstairs, depositing it in his room.

It was from his bedroom window that he caught sight of the backyard.

Brown, flaky leaves on thin, cracked vines. The lattices and soil were black with dead grapevines and ivy. It hurt Harry to his soul. This wasn't the work of his Aunt being bad at taking care of plants, nor deliberate sabotage.

It was ignorance. This was the garden of a woman who completely ignored the watering and trimming and pruning and harvesting of her plants.

He ruahed downstairs and outside, missing the expression on his Aunt's face. If he had seen it, he would have known that she had known exactly what happened, and didn't try to fix it.

As it was, he dropped to his knees in the backyard, carefully digging through the dry dirt and gently pulling aside the dead plant in a desperate search for something.

No matter how hard he looked, he found only two living parts of the vines. Harry carefully cut them out, knowing that the only chance for him to save the plants at all was to take the cuttings and grow again.

He put them in a small pot, with a bit of lattice for them to grow on, and set them aside to the corner of the backyard.

He didn't speak to his Aunt as he went up to his room and cleaned up, nor did he come down for dinner.

It felt like a betrayal. The vines were the one thing that brought him and his Aunt together, and she left them alone the second he left.

Line Break

The weeks that followed were the strangest of Harry's life, as his home seemed strange. His Aunt hardly touched her alcohol, preferring instead to clean and arrange the house to look normal, while Vernon and Dudley were eating less.

That's not to say there wasn't food, just that every meal was no longer a three course banquet. His Aunt cooked, and Vernon seemed to work less overtime.

It almost felt normal, compared to other people in the neighborhood, and that was the issue.

The Dursley's had never been normal, and Harry wasn't an exception.

This change unsettled Harry, even as his family started to relax back into the habits he was used to from them.

"How can they change so much?" he asked himself.

His answer would yet come, but not for some time.

Line Break

The death of his grapevines and the change in his family unsettled him, so even after his Aunt seemed to return to alcohol, his Uncle to food and work, and his cousin to sweets and games, Harry didn't react.

Before long, everything was back to the way it had been, and Harry was more confused and frustrated than before.

He sent for the Knight Bus, and disappeared to the Wizarding world with but a note to his Aunt.

Not even hours later, Harry was inside the home of Amelia Bones, and his friend, her niece, Susan Bones.

"Hiya Susan." he called cheerfully.

"Hiya Harry." she returned with a grin.

Amelia Bones glared at her niece.

"Why aren't you home?" she asked Harry.

Harry shrugged. "Crazy stuff. Susan says she sent me some letters, but I haven't seen any. My Aunt was acting strangely. Also, I was a bit bored." he answered with a smile.

Amelia sighed in annoyance, and Harry saw Susan's grin grow.

"Fine. Don't make a mess." Amelia relented.

Susan caught her eye, and Amelia rolled hers. "That means yes. He can stay."