All right, so I really shouldn't be starting a new story, since I have a lot of stuff to do on my other account, but I couldn't resist. For the sake of this story, DANNY, SAM, TUCKER, AND ALL OTHER STUDENTS IN AMITY PARK WILL BE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD.
Warnings: Half Blood Prince spoilers. Nothing else, I don't think.
Disclaimers: Sadly, I don't own Harry Potter or Danny Phantom. And surprisingly, I don't really want to.
Please read and review! INSPIRE me, people!
Today, Privet Drive was abnormally sleepy, the only signs of life being the lights inside of the boring, orderly houses lined up neatly side by side. A small storm had brewed yesterday, but had now rained itself to a small drizzle. At 4 Privet Drive is where the tale begins, with an ordinary looking boy slumped over his chair, head leaned sleepily on his hands.
Looks can be deceiving, they say, and in this case those words have never been truer. This 'average' boy was, in fact, Harry Potter, a teenager who had survived a deadly curse cast by the most evil wizard all mankind had ever known when he was only a baby. The curse had rebounded and hit the wizard, Voldemort, instead, causing him to lose all his powers. He became a mere shadow of his former self and fled. However, Harry's parents had been killed trying to protect their son.
In Harry's fourth year at the wizardry school, Hogwarts, Voldemort returned after an unforeseen incident in the infamous Triwizard Tournament. Harry escaped in time and alerted the magic community of Voldemort's return. Unfortunately, they didn't believe him.
It changed in Harry's fifth year. He and a group of other students had ventured into the Ministry's Department of Ministries on a rescue mission. It turned out to be a trick of Voldemort's, used to lure out Harry and a prophecy about him, but, once again, Harry escaped. This time Harry's rash act had serious repercussions: Sirius, Harry's godfather and father figure, was killed by his cousin, a Death Eater.
Harry's sixth year of school had been the most memorable, in a bad way. He learned that Voldemort had split his soul into seven pieces, some of which were inside of objects called Horcruxes. Three had already been destroyed, but four were still out there. Worse, Harry didn't know what some of the Horcruxes were or where to find them.
And Snape had turned traitor.
He had killed Dumbledore, the man Harry had respected most.
To Harry, Dumbledore had been more than his headmaster. He had been the grandfather he had never known, a guardian, of sorts, who would always help Harry out of tight situations. Without him, the wizarding world would fall to pieces soon. Snape's act of betrayal went deeper than any hate, and Harry was almost sure that, the next he met the greasy git, he would kill him. Sooner or later, he would hunt him down.
Harry gazed out the window at the rain pattering softly against the glass. The Durselys had left him alone the whole time he had been at 4 Privet Drive (which wasn't that long—the holidays had only started two weeks ago). Harry mostly stayed in his room, coming out only for meals, the bathroom, or a breather. As stuffy as his room was sometimes, he couldn't stand the glares and the tension created every time he stepped in a room his aunt, uncle, or cousin was in.
Harry didn't have much contact with the wizarding world so far, but from what he read in The Daily Prophet, things were going from bad to worse. When Dumbledore was still there, the magical community still retained a slight semblance of order. Without him, Muggle-born witches and wizards were already disappearing left and right, and the Ministry—useless as usual—was thrown into chaos. The worst of it was that, from what Harry heard from other people who lived through Voldemort's last reign of terror seventeen years ago, this was probably just the beginning.
The Order of the Phoenix hadn't been in touch with him, and neither had Ron and Hermione, for the most part. He hoped they were okay. He couldn't imagine what it would be like if—
Crash.
Harry shot out of his bed, startled by the loud noise that was soon followed by a piercing Aunt Petunia-ish scream.
"MORE OF THOSE AGAIN?" came an unmistakable roar from downstairs. Definitely Uncle Vernon.
Death Eaters or the Order? Friends or foe? Harry crept out of his room and down the stairs, poking his head past the doorway into the living room. He smiled in relief when he saw a group of about seven people that most definitely were not Death Eaters.
"Hello, Professor Lupin—"
A nod and a smile.
"—Moody—"
A gruff twitch of the head and an electric-blue eye swiveling to glance at him briefly.
"—Tonks—"
"Wotcher, Harry," Tonks said, forcing a half-hearted grin.
"—Mr. Weasley—"
A cheery "Hi, Harry!" and a brief but interested glance at the TV.
"—Kingsley—"
"Hullo."
"—er, I don't believe I've met you before—"
"Name's Richard Madson, Harry, nice to meet'cha."
"—Professor McGonagall?" Harry asked, surprised. "I wasn't…er, expecting you."
Professor McGonagall certainly looked worse for wear. Her hair, usually up in a tight bun, was slightly disheveled, and she had large bags under her eyes. Her wrinkles seemed to have multiplied like bunnies and her cloak was frayed and had a washed-out look to it.
"We had very few people to spare at the Order, Potter," she answered, voice tinged with fatigue. "As you may know from reading the Prophet, V-Voldemort certainly hasn't been wasting his time."
Harry nodded, glancing towards his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Uncle Vernon was, unsurprisingly, purple in the face with blotches of red around his cheeks, while Aunt Petunia and Dudley were crouched behind him, peering out carefully from around his shoulders. A shattered vase lay on the ground, no doubt the remains of one of Uncle Vernon's unsuccessful and unneeded attacks against the Order. Harry was reminded of the time Mr. Weasley had been forced to dodge flying ornaments when he crashed through the Dursleys' fireplace, and suppressed a chuckle.
"Come on, Harry," said Lupin. "Let's get upstairs and pack your trunk. Sorry about the unexpected visit, by the way."
Harry grinned. "S'okay. Most of my stuff hasn't been unpacked yet, so it won't take long."
Ten minutes later, Harry's trunk was downstairs and the group of wizards and witches were ready to go. Under the glares of the Dursleys, the Order, with Tonks lugging Harry's trunk, departed 4 Privet Drive.
They walked down the street for a few minutes, shielding their heads from the light drizzle with their hats and hoods. A question suddenly sprang up in Harry's minds.
"Er, where are we going to…wherever we're going?"
"The headquarters?" Tonks answered cheerfully. "By bus, since we can't Apparate near the Order, and flying on brooms is too dangerous now." Leaning closer to Harry, she whispered, "But I think it's 'cause McGonagall's afraid of heights. She can't fly very well, y'know. Near knocked Moody's head off his shoulders when she tried flying on a broomstick last week. Ah, here we are," she said, straightening up.
The group had long left the clean, orderly houses in Little Whinging and was now trudging towards a rusty, lopsided bus stop. A one-eyed hobo glanced at them suspiciously, then saw Moody's mismatched eyeballs and grinned.
Me and you both have weird eyes! We can be Freaky Eye Buddies! his body language seemed to say.
Moody glared.
A few minutes later, a rickety bus that spewed thick, black smoke screeched past the bus stop. Realizing he had passed the group of people waiting to get on, the driver cursed and drove back with a sharp twist of the wheel. Tonks squeaked when the bus ran over the curb and almost flattened her foot.
"Do Muggle bus drivers usually drive like this?" Lupin asked, bemused. "I haven't been on that many Muggle vehicles. Guess you'll have to help us out, eh, Harry?"
Harry paled. He was not looking forward to showing a group of wizards how to ride a Muggle bus.
Elsewhere, all the way in Amity Park, USA, a black-haired boy was abruptly awakened by a bald, overweight teacher snapping a ruler on his desk.
"Mr. Fenton, may I inquire as to why you're asleep in my class again? Need I remind you that this is the third time this week?" Mr. Lancer asked, putting a strong emphasize on the last few words. The class sniggered. This was an almost daily occurrence during class, but they still found it funny each time. However, Danny's two friends, a Gothic girl named Sam Manson and a tech-whiz named Tucker Foley, didn't laugh and instead glared at the class.
Danny rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Uh, sorry. I stayed up late last night, um…doing my homework."
"Which you did not, by the way, turn in today," Mr. Lancer added dryly. Raising his eyebrows, he asked, "Is there something going on at home that I need to know about?"
"Nope, everything's fine," Danny answered. Except for the fact that I'm always up in the middle of the night trying to fight the never-ending number of ghosts that keep appearing out of the Fenton Portal, he added silently.
Mr. Lancer sighed and walked past his desk.
"Now, who here can characterize Sara Louise from—"
As his teacher's voice droned on, Danny drifted off to sleep again, only to be rudely awakened by a ball of paper bouncing off his head. Looking up to see who had thrown it, he saw Sam motioning toward the paper with her hand.
Hey Danny, which ghost escaped last night?
Skulker. You think he'd give up after the 43rd failed attempt to 'lay my pelt at the foot of his bed,' but noooooo…
Ha! By the way, have you heard that the house beside yours that's been for sale since forever has finally been bought?
No, I was busy fighting ghosts.
Well, rumor has it that they're a super-rich family from Britain with three teenagers, and they want to live a "quiet, peaceful life in America" or some crap like that. My parents are probably clamoring to kiss up to them already.
From Britain? Bet they're going to be rich little snobs who like to have 'tea and crumpets' or whatever—"Passing notes, are we?" Mr. Lancer said, looming up from behind Sam and Danny. "Well, I'm afraid I'll have to take that." He snatched the paper from Danny's hands and was about to read it when the bell rang.
"Well, whaddya know!" Sam said as she sprang up from her seat. "Bye-Mr.-Lancer-see-ya!" she said as she quickly yanked the note out of Mr. Lancer's hands and hurried out of the classroom. Danny and Tucker followed her, hot on her heels.
"Just one moment—" Mr. Lancer called out to the trio, only to discover they were long gone.
"Teenagers…" he sighed, rubbing his bald head.
The bus driver practically threw them off the bus when they arrived at Grimmauld Place, muttering angrily about "crazy foreign lunatics." Harry suspected it had something to do with they way Mr. Weasley repeatedly pulled at the emergency brake string and how Tonks and Lupin (well, Tonks actually—Lupin played peacemaker) had started a fight with an old couple who had been scandalized by the age difference between the pair when they saw them holding hands. Of course, there was the fact that Richard had accidentally Vanished the door…but everyone was 99 percent sure that no one saw it—except the bus driver. Moody even tried to persuade Professor McGonagall to wipe his memory.
"Oh, quit being so paranoid, Mad-Eye," Tonks chirped, looping her arm around Lupin's elbow. "Muggles like him always find some excuse for magic." As the group marched up to a ramshackle house that seemed to have suddenly appeared out of nowhere, Tonks caught Harry's look of apprehension. She glanced at him reassuringly. "We won't be there long," she explained vaguely.
"…oh. Are we going somewhere?" he asked casually.
"You'll see," McGonagall cut them off shortly.
Lupin took his wand out and tapped on the door. Harry heard the familiar sounds of chains and locks clanking, signifying the door unlocking itself. They were soon packed inside the small area right inside the door while Kingsley fumbled for a light.
"It's here…somewhere…almost got it—ah-ha!" Immediately the hallway was flooded with lights. Harry looked around. The house was about the same as the last time he was here, although it was slightly less mildew-infested. The troll-leg umbrella stand was nowhere in sight, although he could still see some moldy curtains hanging over something in the wall. Harry heard a group of people walking noisily down the stairs and glanced up.
"But that's all the way in—"
"I know, but security's—"
"I think it'll be fun experience for you, don't you agree, Fred?"
"Marvelously, George—"
"You're not the ones going all the way—"
"Er, hey guys," said Harry.
"Harry!" Hermione and Ron shouted in unison. "How are you? We picked you up as early as we promised, didn't we?"
Harry grinned. "Sure did. How's everyone?"
"Oh, everyone's okay…well, as okay as everything can be while all this…stuff with…Voldemort is going on…" said Hermione, grin vanishing.
"—but, hey, did you know Bill and Fleur already have their wedding planned out?" Ron asked, hurriedly changing the subject. "Of course, they had a slight change of plans, since we have to leave soon—"
"Just where are we going, anyway?" Harry asked. "Everyone's been saying we'd be leaving, but where are we leaving to?"
Mrs. Weasley suddenly poked her head in the room and beamed when she saw Harry, immediately going up to him and smothering him with a hug. "Harry! How are you, dear? Have the Dursleys been treating you all right? You lot come in the dining room now, we're about to have a meeting, and, yes, you're allowed this time, as it concerns your future plans in Hogwarts."
Harry, Hermione, and Ron all followed Mrs. Weasley into the dining room, where Professor McGonagall was sitting at the head of the table. Lupin, Tonks, Mad-Eye, and Mr. Weasley sat next to her, leaving a few empty seats for the trio. Mrs. Weasley bustled around, preparing dinner.
"Potter," McGonagall began primly, "I'm afraid to inform you that Hogwarts…is no longer safe from Voldemort after…after the death of the headmaster." At this, McGonagall gave a suspicious sniff. "There are…some suspicions that the castle has been broken into recently."
A collective gasp came from the three teenagers. Hogwarts? No longer safe?
"Does that mean I'll have to go back to the Dursleys?" Harry asked, disappointed.
"Nope," Tonks answered. "In fact, I think you might like this arrangement. We're opening Hogwarts as planned, but with extra Auror protection—the Ministry's finally coming to its senses. However, this is just to throw Voldemort off. You, Ron, and Hermione will be sent somewhere else, and I assure you that security will be extremely tight—we employed more than twenty Aurors, so it had better be worth it. Besides, as McGonagall said, quote there is nothing more important than your education unquote. Hopefully Voldemort won't notice our little trick until your school year's over."
Harry frowned. He didn't like the thought of going to school when everyone else would be busy doing useful things like fighting Voldemort. And he still had the Horcruxes to go after…
But better to know what was going on, right? "Where will we be sent?" Harry asked.
"Amity Park, USA."
Wow, that was a lot longer chapter than I usually write. I'll try and make other chapters as long as this, but I'm not promising anything. Sorry. )
Remember what Mr. Lancer said about Sara Louise? Whoever can guess which book she's from gets a free cyber-cookie! She's from one of my favorite books.