Chapter 1: The Return to Privet Drive
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and associated characters and events mentioned within the text of this novel-length fanfiction is property of J.K. Rowling with her granting publishing rights to Scholastic and Bloomsbury Books. The plot ideas for this fictional work are my own with possible contributions coming from reviewers, other fanfiction authors (both named and unnamed) and is published digitally for my own enjoyment and those who enjoy this and similar works and is strictly not-for-profit.
A/N: This first section is written in first person narrative from Harry's POV. I won't be changing POV often, but I felt it was necessary for this section.
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As we travel down the highway from London to Surrey, I just sit here and look out the window. The return trip from King's Cross Station has indeed been a quiet one. The Dursleys are still in the same stunned silence that had engulfed them since meeting the members of the order. Uncle Vernon, the walrus, is grinding his teeth again causing several veins to pop out on his neck as he shoots me a dirty look every now again via the rearview mirror. Aunt Petunia, on the other hand, looks pale. She normally has very light skin, but her face looks as white as a set of new bleached bed linens as she just stares straight ahead. Sitting next to me, my cousin Dudley seems no worse for the trip until something startles him. His eyes dart in all directions as he places his hand over his fat rump so as to feel for a tail or any other unnatural appendage. I can't help but smile at the memory of Dudley receiving pig's tail from my friend Hagrid when I first found out that I was a wizard. sighs Yup, you heard right. I'm a genuine wizard.
That's why this family portrait is anything BUT normal. I may be related to the people, but they definitely ARE NOT my family. I have no family. I was orphaned at the ripe old age of one when a certain Dark Lord tried to kill me. They say that my mother died trying to save me, but I'm beginning to think that it was just dumb luck. Since then, my life was been one version of hell followed closely by another. I learned early on that it did no good to cry or complain.
Need an example? When I was five, Dudley had just come back from a Halloween Party with all sorts of cakes and candies. I made the mistake of trying to get some for myself. That's when I met the "silencer:" a wooden ruler with a metal straightedge. I couldn't just receive a tap on the hand – Oh no. Vernon gave me the full, formal introduction. Both my hands were a bluish-purple color and were bleeding from multiple cuts before I was introduced to my new bedroom under the stairway. When I cried, my hands were bound and a sock stuffed in my mouth. I haven't cried again since. I won't let myself become that weak ever again.
I now find myself stuck in this latest version of hell. If I thought any of the others were bad, I was sorely mistaken. This one is testing my resolve more than any other. Usually, whenever the next purgatory came knocking at my door, I would have to let it into my life. I may have opened one door, but I closed my mind and my spirit off with another door. This time, the rest of my life seems quiet, but I am trapped in the nightmare of my own minds and thoughts.
As I stare out the window, I'm not really focusing on anything. My gaze watches the sunlight flicker in and out between the tree foliage. To unfocused eyes, it looks like a shimmering veil swaying in the wind. I see my godfather Sirius falling through that veil time and time again, meeting his death. I see the surprised expression on his face as his feet leave the floor. I see him turn his head while airborne as he realizes where his current path will land him. I see his serene expression as he turns his head forward again and looks straight at me. The look in his eyes is not one of fear or panic; only one sadness and resignation. I can almost see him telling me goodbye through his eyes. That's when my heart and soul hit the floor.
THIS must be hell.
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Harry suddenly awoke at the sound of Hedwig squawking in her cage. He opened his eyes and slowly looked around. He pulled a deep breath and sighed. "So nice of them to wake me once we got here," he said sarcastically. He was still sitting in the car, which was now parked in the driveway at Number 4, Privet Drive. He figured they must've arrived several hours earlier as it was now nighttime. Hedwig stirred in her cage again, she seems very anxious to go out hunting. Harry pulled himself from the car and placed the owl cage on the roof and opened the cage door to allow her exit into the night air. After watching her disappear over the park somewhere, Harry pulled his trunk from the boot and gathered the cage and set out toward the house.
When Harry entered the house, he saw a row of suitcases by the front door as well as several hanging garment bags and dropped his load to the floor. He examined the baggage and saw at least one suitcase for each of the Dursleys. When he saw Vernon walking from the family room to the kitchen, Harry spoke up. "Hang on. What's this all about?"
Vernon Dursley paused for a moment before spinning on his heel and approached Harry whilst grinning from ear to ear. "We have decided to go on an extended vacation." Harry looked dumbfounded as his uncle continued, "Petunia and I decided before you came back that we were going to take a short vacation. But plans changed when your bloody lot tried to threaten us at the station. We are now going to be either on vacation or at Marge's until the end of summer. If you are so bleeding important to those freaks you hang around with, then they can take care of you themselves. I'm...not…doing it." Vernon placed special annunciation over the last sentence.
"You mean I'm staying here? Alone?!"
"That's right." Vernon answered in a lighter tone before turning serious and speaking a low, menacing tone. "But just you remember, if I find anything missing, anything destroyed, or even anything so much as out of place when we return, you can forget staying here next year. You'll be staying in a jail cell." Vernon turned away and was toward the kitchen when turned and looked at Harry over his shoulder. "We're leaving in the morning."
With as much indignation as he could muster over his hanging bewilderment, Harry retorted, "Right, I guess it'll be nice to have a quiet summer for once."
He gathered his belongings and went up the stairs to his room. He closed the door behind him and put his things in their customary places. Harry unceremoniously flopped onto his bed and began to examine his surroundings. "Well, I guess I should be thankful that at least some things haven't changed." He fell asleep on his bed shortly after, paying no attention to his state of mind as he drifted off to sleep.
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Another restless sleep was beginning to envelope Harry Potter. His muscles were violently reacting to the dreams that were playing in his mind. Given all that happened last year, the subject of those dreams was no surprise and was a frequent source of pain.
"No. Oh God, no! Hermione wake up! You can't be dead!" His features relaxed momentarily. "Oh, thank God! Neville, you have to get her out of here! Now!"
"Sirius! Look out!!" Harry suddenly sat bolt upright in his bed with his arm reaching toward his godfather's image. "NO-OOOO!!!"
"Sirius?" Harry sat still in his bed trying to assess his surroundings and catch his breath for several minutes. His t-shirt was clinging to his body through the cold sweat that had covered from him during his tormented sleep. His heart sank when he remembered his dream. A rapping noise at his window finally startled him from his trance. He glanced over to see Hedwig was perched upon the windowsill with a letter tied to her leg. He got up and walked across the room and opened the window.
"Sorry girl. I was a little lost in my thoughts for a second."
Hedwig gave a few quick flaps to land herself upon her cage and stretched out her leg. Harry obliged by removing the letter and looked at it. 'From Hermione. Hmph. Probably just telling me that it wasn't my fault,' Harry thought and dropped the unopened letter to his desk and returned to his bed as Hedwig looked on crossly.
The next week passed by slowly. Thirteen letters now lay on Harry's desk unopened as he sat in a chair looking out his bedroom window. He sent out roughly the same letter once a day to one of three people: Remus, Hermione, and Ron.
Dear addressee ,
I'm fine. The Dursley's aren't harassing me and have left me alone.
HP
This way someone got a letter every three days. The last thing he wanted was a pity party or a bunch of people popping in to check on him and ask how he was. He knew it cruel to say that 'the Dursley's have left me alone' in the context he had, but he countered by saying that it was essentially true. At least if no one felt the need to come out and check on him, no one would get hurt.