Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Harry Potter.
Ratings K+
"Where is Potter?"
That was the headline in the local newspaper the "Daily Prophet". Molly Weasley was in the kitchen with a cup of tea in one hand and handkerchief in the other. The room was warm from the sunlight coming in the window and the aroma of fresh baking filled every corner. The house was quiet Arthur Weasley had left for work a half an hour earlier and the younger members of the family were still in bed.
Placing her reading glasses on to the bridge of her nose Molly decided to take a few minutes and read the paper. She came across a story that was very close to her heart. The article referred to a young boy by the name of Harry Potter. Harry was the best friend of Molly's son Ron. They were both starting fifth year together in September at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry under the principal Albus Dumbledore. Harry was orphaned as a baby and ever since the first day Molly had met him she had treated him as one of her own. He didn't live with them but when he came to visit he was part of the family. She continued to read on down through the article:
"Last night the parents of the late Cedric Diggory were holding a memorial service in their home town for their son that they tragically lost a few weeks ago at a school event. Everyone is aware of how the tragedy occurred, but is that the real story we are asking today, or have we once again fallen for one of Albus Dumbledore's stories."
"Stories," Molly snorted placing her cup back down to the table. She read on:
"The question on everyone's lips is where is Harry Potter? The boy-who-lived disappears every Summer, but where does he go? Mr. & Mrs. Diggory may not blame Harry for the death of their son but we feel this is only out of politeness. The only person to really know what happened that night is the boy himself and once more he is nowhere to be found. Rumours have it he doesn't spend his Summer in the wizardering world. So where does he go? Looking at his family history we have recently discovered that the murderer Sirius Black is the boy's godfather, so is Harry Potter taking after his godfather murdering one of his own colleagues and then making up a story abut he-who-must-not-be named and blaming him. Did anyone see him that night, no; yet again it was the imagination of Harry Potter.
It is not the first time the stability of Mr. Potter's mind has come into question. The loss of both parents at such a young age is bound to leave some mental and emotional scaring, not to mention his physical scar that he has on his forehead. Unfortunately violence and creating stories about he-who-must-not-be named is a good place to start. Mr. & Mrs Diggory refused to comment last night. To read more turn to pages 2 and 3"
"Attention seeking" Molly said as she pulled back her chair scrapping it across the floor boards. "Poor Harry, what that boy has gone through and they still find ways of taunting him." Tears stung her eyes and as the owls arrived with the post she snatched the mail and quickly shooed the birds away, causing the birds to screech in protest.
"What's up mum?" George Weasley appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Nothing dear, nothing" she replied banging the saucepans together.
"What's all the noise?" Ron Weasley said coming down the stairs behind George, "I'm starving mum, what's for breakfast?"
"Is that all you think about Ron, when that poor boy" she stopped raising her handkerchief to her eyes.
"What is she talking about?" Ron whispered to George as they took their seats at the table. George shrugged his shoulders to say he didn't know but then his eyes fell on the open newspaper and turning the paper towards him he read the headline "Where is Potter?" He nudged Ron and shared the paper with him. The article continued on to the next two pages describing Harry and the fact he went missing every Summer. Some wizards were questioned as to where the boy went and one was quoted, "Well if he-who-must-not-be named is back maybe the boy lives with him all Summer, or maybe he's working for him that's why he's always talking about him." Another wizard was quoted in saying, "wasn't his father the same, an attention seeker."
Ron had to stop reading he was beginning to get annoyed, this was his best friend they were writing about.
"He'll be alright mum," he said
"Well I'll make sure of it dear" she responded, grabbing the paper and ripping it up into pieces.
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"Wake up boy, wake up" shouted Uncle Vernon, as he pulled the covers off Harry. Hedwig screeched in her cage and Harry jumped up startled soaking with sweat, his scar hurt and now his shoulders were hurting from the weight of Uncle Vernon shaking them.
"Get off me, I'm awake, ok, get off" said Harry as a fuzzy Uncle Vernon stood above him. He reached out for his glasses that he kept at the side of his bed on his locker.
"Shut up screaming Potter in the middle of the night, and shut that ruddy bird up before I do, by accidentally knocking the cage out of the window."
"You won't touch Hedwig" said Harry, but Uncle Vernon had already left Harry's room and had returned to his own room. "It's alright Hedwig, I won't leave him touch you and I'm sorry if I gave you a fright. I didn't realise I was screaming in my sleep again. Voldermort is getting stronger, I can feel it." Hedwig gave Harry a reassuring hoot and put her head under her wing to return to sleep, but Harry had decided he wasn't going back to sleep tonight, he had seen and felt enough for one night.
He looked at his watch, 4.00am, what would he do for the next couple of hours, he was wide awake. The he thought of the homework that he was given. Yeah; he'd start that, maybe Professor McGonagall's essay would put him back to sleep, he thought to himself grinning. He could just hear McGonagall with her strong Scottish accent, "I want a foot and a half written from each of you, yes even you Mr. Weasley and yes only a foot and a half Ms. Granger."
How he missed his friends. He read the title of his essay "The benefits of transforming a frog into a fork. Discuss?" He re-read the title over and over, but he couldn't think of any benefits. "Stupid essay! Stupid title! Stupid Voldermort for waking me up!" he said angrily. "I didn't ask for this, most people go to bed to rest, oh no not me!" He touched his "famous" scar, it was still tender and he winced from the pain, Harry Potter was not in a good mood, he was tired and grumpy.
Twenty minutes later Harry was still looking at the parchment. He had written one line, "There are many benefits and drawbacks when transforming a frog into a fork because…." Harry lay back on his pillow, "were there any benefits at all" he thought. As he tried to think of a benefit, he heard a tapping on his window. Pig, Ron's owl was outside with a letter attached to his leg. Harry left the small owl into his room and throwing his essay aside, he took the letter from the bird.
"Hi Harry,
How are you doing mate? I hope those awful Dursleys are treating you better than last year. I was going to use the felly-tone or the jelly-tone or whatever those muggles call it but I decided this was easier." Harry laughed to himself "it's a telephone Ron" he said as if Ron was in the room with him. He read on down through the letter, there wasn't anything very exciting in it. Ron mentioned Fred and George's latest trick that they had done to Mrs. Weasley and how she didn't find it very funny, so the boys were grounded for the remainder of the holidays, and how Ginny was becoming really good at Quidditch and that someday she would try out for chaser on the school team.
As Harry went through the letter he could feel that Ron was holding back with something, because Ron never wrote this much and especially as there wasn't that much news happening since school had finished a few weeks earlier. He then read:
"Ok, Harry look mate, as you can tell I've been waffling on a bit but only because I have something to tell you."
"Please don't tell me that you and Hermione are together or something like that because I'm not in the mood to read that" Harry thought. He knew Ron had a soft spot for Hermione he had for years now but the two were so stubborn they had never done anything about it and secretly this pleased Harry. It wasn't that he was jealous of Ron because he fancied Cho Chang and it wasn't that he didn't want his two best friends to find love, but did they have to be to each other! He didn't want to suddenly become the gooseberry of the group and have to make excuses just so they could be together. He told himself to stop worrying unnecessarily and wait and see what Ron had to say.
"Well you see mate, it seems there was an article in the Daily Prophet about you and your family. It was awful Harry, and mum didn't like it and she threw the paper out straight away, so I couldn't send it on to you because I know you don't get it. It said that you loved the fame, you loved the attention like your dad did when he was in school and that you were helping you-know-who by giving him information."
Harry's heart thumped in his chest, he was getting very fed up of journalists and everyone reading about his life and the rubbish they wrote about him. "Yeah, that's right, I'm helping Voldermort, makes perfect sense", Harry could feel the anger getting stronger inside of him.
"Helping Voldermort is that what they think now. Helping him! I hate the git, why would I want to help him, huh! Why?" he said grabbing his transfiguration book and throwing it across the room. The book hit Aunt Petunia's picture and knocked it off the wall. "Great!" he sighed as he waited for his Uncle to come out of his bedroom and give out to him for making noise, Harry held his breath, but his Uncle didn't appear.
Turning back to Ron's letter he quickly skimmed through the rest of it and finally finished the letter, well at least he was still invited to the Burrow for the month of August like every other year. But Harry wasn't happy, he thought a letter from his best friend would have cheered him up but now he felt worse than he did earlier. "Helping Voldermort" he repeated as he lay back down on the bed and drifted off to sleep.
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Harry was in a room, there was a fire place in front of him with a huge fire blazing and to the right of him a man Harry recognised very well was sitting in a big armchair.
"Are you warm enough master, do you need anything?"
"Stop sucking up Wormtail and update me on what is happening"
"Well master" replied Wormtail, there isn't a lot to report. Lucius is currently at home working on his son and preparing him for when he is ready to join us, along with his two school chums Crabbe and Goyle's boys."
"Good, good! Lucius is a good man, very loyal and he respects me, he won't leave me down. Have you spoken to Severus? I haven't seen him for a while; it's time he checked in"
"Last I heard master, was that he was lying low as not to arouse the suspicions of Dumbledore and Harry Potter"
"POTTER! How dare you mention his name" Voldermort shouted pointing his wand at Wormtail. "Will you ever learn?" As Wormtail felt the pain from the first Crucio that he sent in his direction, Voldermort continued "Potter will die this year once and for all."