A/N: Hi guys! Back with another chapter... hope you like this one as much as you seem to have liked the others. We love hearing from you and can't tell you how much your feedback helps us... So please don't forget to review your thoughts and ideas for the fic.

Now, without any more ado, here's

Chapter 8

Albus Dumbledore had been a happy wizard... until just thirty minutes ago. Now, he was a frustrated man. For the life of him, the headmaster of Hogwarts couldn't understand why the tracking charms he had on one Harry James Potter weren't functioning at the moment. In the first flush of anger, he'd flooed out of his office to the Leaky Cauldron, where his not-so-brainy groundskeeper had supposedly left Harry. He'd found from Tom, the owner and barkeeper of the pub and hotel, that Harry was supposed to be in room number 14, but was at the moment out with a muggleborn's family into Diagon Alley.

Tom had no opportunity to ask the Supreme Mugwump and Chief Wizard as to why he was asking after the young wizard, before Dumbledore swirled out to the back of the pub, to the enchanted doorway of the Alley, cursing under his breath all the way. But once he was at the doorway, Albus stopped for a moment and contemplated the situation... his train of thought bringing him back into the pub, this time looking a bit pensive.

"Tom... would you be so kind as to tell me what the mu-"

Whatever the old headmaster was saying was lost in the noise created by a bunch of rowdy young wizards that had just entered the pub and were trooping to a booth at the back, much more quietly after they'd noticed the great and powerful Albus Dumbledore standing there

"I am sorry headmaster, I couldn't hear what you were saying..."

Twinkling blue eyes behind half moon spectacles and a grandfatherly smile greeted the barkeep, and he started to feel oddly relaxed. In a strange, soft voice, Dumbledore asked the question again, this time biting down the term he had been about to use for the young first generation witch or wizard Harry Potter was out with.

"I was asking you whether you got a chance to find out the name of the muggleborn family that young Harry is out with Tom?... It would be tremendously helpful to an old man if I had a name to work with"

The warm blue eyes were twinkling down madly upon the middle aged wizard, making him feel warmer and safer. He knew in his mind that whatever information the headmaster wanted, it would be best to just give it to him. After all, he was the most powerful wizard alive and if you couldn't trust Albus Dumbledore, who could you trust?

And so it was, in a curious monotone, that Tom gave Dumbledore the information he needed.

"It was a family of three... Two parents with a young witch, she was also going to Hogwarts this year. The name is Granger"

It was probably a good thing that by the time Tom snapped out of whatever influence he was under, Dumbledore was already striding away to the enchanted doorway, his wand rapidly tapping the sequence of bricks that would give him access to the magical alley. Because if Tom had been able to see the headmaster's reaction to the mention of the name Granger, he might've thought again about giving the old wizard the name.

Hermione Granger had never seen something like this in her life... she'd never felt something like this in her entire eleven, almost twelve years on the planet. In fact, she was sure, that she'd never even known that such things, such people existed. Until now. Until this moment, when she looked at the liberally bruised and battered body of her new friend... and maybe something more.

She might've been scarily brilliant at most things, but even then, she was after all a young witch of eleven, at most twelve years old, who'd lived an almost sheltered life with two loving parents and a complete lack of knowledge about physical abuse or even mental abuse till now. But even she could tell that this sort of bruising and scarring wasn't due to carelessness or ineptitude. No... there was too much of it to have been self-inflicted, too widespread to have been the result of one or even a few sessions of physical assaults. No... this almost screamed of regular, over long years, continuous and even planned physical abuse inflicted on a young boy by someone who just couldn't be human. No normal human or even someone with borderline decency could stand for this, certainly not inflict this sort of pain on another, much less a young person like Harry.

She didn't even know who or what had caused all the scars and bruises she was able to see that were not covered by the hospital gown, shuddering at the knowledge that there definitely were more being covered by the garment, but the young witch knew for certain that she hated, absolutely and completely hated the person or people who had done this. The inability to do anything about the situation clawed like an angry beast at her, as she stood there silently, not even trying to stem the tears that were tracking down her face in a continuous, never ending stream. The amount of grief and sadness she felt for her newest friend, which she was trying so hard to keep from exploding out of her in loud, angry sobs, was making her shake.

Hermione fought to keep herself still and stop her from making any noise that might alert Harry to her presence, as she didn't want to make him feel bad about her knowing. She knew that while any of this had definitely not been Harry's fault, he would still blame himself for causing Hermione grief and the others trouble, because that was the kind of person he was. It was all Hermione could do to stop herself from running to him and hugging him, tell him that she was there for him and he would never be alone again, because that was all she felt she could do at the moment. But even as her feet started to move, the young witch knew that it might be better if Harry didn't have to deal with people knowing about his past.

Having grown up in a normal household, with two loving parents, she hadn't even thought about how life could be for children who'd lost wither one or both of their parents. Her life had always been a comfortable one, not extravagant, her parents didn't spoil her or anything, but she'd never wanted for anything. Hermione knew that some children were not as blessed in their family situation as she was, but she'd never even tried to think or learn about any of it. And how she was wishing she had, because at the moment, all she felt was a debilitating sadness that was rapidly turning to anger at being able to do nothing to prevent what had happened to Harry or at least help him in any way.

As her anger at the nameless, faceless people that Harry Potter had been left with since his childhood, grew exponentially with every second that passed, Hermione Granger found something inside her expanding, growing alarmingly, almost suffocating her with the emotions and feelings that were coursing through her young body. What she couldn't see, was that she had started to glow with a white hot aura, her magic visibly swirling around her, sparks and streaks of magic shooting off of her in a golden brown colored localized lightning storm. Her bushy hair was standing on its end as if electrified, which it might've actually been, such was the amount of power pouring off of her. And then Harry turned, squinting at her hard, because he apparently couldn't see anything clearly now that his glasses were off, and she lost it.

Harry Potter played with the ends of the pale green hospital gown as he sat at the examination table inside the bank's medical quarters. The moment Healer Barfang had told him about the full physical, he knew that this would be the ultimate outcome. He'd been through this whole thing too many times for it not to happen again.

There had been the time Uncle Vernon had broken his arm and run out of the house and collapse on the street, in full sight of the neighborhood gossip three doors down. That was the first time the Dursleys had had to take him to a doctor, even if it was, to only keep up appearances of being utterly normal, respectable people. That time had been a revelation to the five year old Harry James. A young, nice looking nurse had taken care of him, and told him that what the Dursleys did to him was wrong. That was the first time Harry had come to know that not all children were treated like he was.

Again, almost two years after that, he'd literally been beaten to unconsciousness by Dudley and a few of his gang, resulting in another uncomfortable stay in another hospital. This time it had been a doctor that appeared concerned at first, but left Harry as he was when Vernon Dursley threatened him. There had been a couple of occasions after that, once even at the second hand shop where Aunt Petunia had bought him his glasses very unenthusiastically, after his teacher at school had complained quite extensively about his vision or lack of it, and tumbling grades. Over and over, he'd been told by people that he wasn't being treated properly, but no one it seemed had the guts to do something about it, because no one ever did.

Of course, he'd wondered about their treatment of Dudley and come to the conclusion that it was because Harry wasn't their own child. But then Aunt Marge wasn't Dudley's mum, but she too hated Harry with a passion and showered affection and presents on Dudley.

At the end of his contemplation, Harry'd come to the conclusion that maybe something was wrong with him after all, making it impossible for people to like him, much less love him. The impression had been almost solidified in the next six odd years, and it might've stayed etched in his brain, if it hadn't been for one very tall man and a bushy haired young witch.

Hagrid had been the first person who'd shown affection towards Harry without expecting anything in return. By the time he'd met Hagrid however, Harry had come to know that while something was definitely different about him, nothing was actually wrong. It was the Dursleys that had something wrong with them. The nice nurse had told him at five, that he wasn't being treated as he should be, but after a couple of visits, when he'd been taken out of the hospital, he had neither seen or heard from the nurse again.

While it had given Harry an insight into the fact that his treatment wasn't normal, it had also served to lessen his respect for and dependence on adults. He didn't know whether the young nurse couldn't or simply didn't do anything about his situation, but Harry was sure that he would never trust an adult with the control of his life from then on. He would just have to stay out of the line of fire as much as possible while he was at the Dursley's, try to stay out of any trouble, but the moment he felt he was old enough and could live on his own, Harry had planned to leave his aunt, uncle and cousin and never return.

But of course, he'd been pipped to the post by the appearance of the letter from Hogwarts and later, Hagrid. While the magical world was a new opportunity for the young wizard, he knew that here too, people were waiting to take control of him, explained more by what Ragnok had told him just fifteen minutes ago. Thinking about all this and knowing what he did now, Harry had just decided that no matter what, he wouldn't let anyone else, no matter who it was, control him or his life anymore. That was when he started to feel extremely sad and angry at the same time. It was almost as if the feelings were battling for superiority inside him, making something inside him expand almost uncontrollably. Harry tried to tamp down on the feeling, succeeding partially, before it went out of his control.

This puzzled him quite a bit, before he remembered the soul bond thing that Ragnok had explained... or rather he himself had explained. If he was feeling sad and angry at the moment without any good reason, that meant Hermione was feeling these emotions quite strongly at the same moment. Also, something behind him started to glow, sending his shadow careening off the walls in front of him and Harry, unable to contain his curiosity, turned and squinted at the indistinct blur that he was sure was Hermione Granger standing not four feet away from him. He hadn't remembered that he wasn't wearing his glasses at the moment and had to squint quite hard to see even the blur he was seeing. But even he, half blind as he was, could see that she was surrounded by a white aura, with sparks and streaks of golden brown magic shooting off of her haphazardly.

The penny dropped, as Harry realized that Hermione had seen the bruising and scarring on his body. He'd expected her to be scared and disgusted, but that wasn't what he felt almost rolling off of her in waves. No... this was definitely anger and sadness and a liberal dosage of guilt that he couldn't quite understand. Because he knew that she hadn't known about this till this moment and couldn't have done anything even if she had. After all, she was but a kid like him and by now he knew that no one, absolutely no one other than himself could take him out of his current living situation with the Dursleys. He could only hope that he remained alive till his was old enough to move out on his own. Another thought struck him... this about the Potter properties and the money that he now seemed to have, according to Ragnok and a sudden gladness filled his heart as he contemplated leaving the Dursleys earlier than he'd planned.

But thought had to remain unfinished and uncherished, as Hermione chose that exact moment to literally explode with magic. Harry could only watch open mouthed, as the young witch in front of him let loose a tidal wave of magic, her emotions finally going out of her control. The wave of magic felt surprisingly like a comfortable, warm blanket as it rolled over him but somehow, Harry knew that that wasn't going to be it's effect on everyone else. How he knew that he couldn't say... maybe it was the Potter codex working automatically or it could be his bond with Hermione. Either way, now Hermione knew and if her expression was anything to go by, a lot of people would be knowing of his past very soon, and a lot of people were going to be very inconvenienced. The first part due to him, the second, entirely due to Hermione and her wave of angry magic.

Albus Dumbledore was liberally cursing under his breath as he stepped out of the enchanted entrance to the magical shopping center that was Diagon Alley. He barely noticed the people stopping to stare at him or offer him their salutations respectfully, he was past all that today. The last piece of information that he'd tooled from Tom's mind, the name of the Granger family had made something inside his devious brain click and his temper had gone through the roof.

All Hagrid had to do was take the damn boy out of Privet Drive and get him to the safety of Hogwarts and bring him under his control. The dumb half giant wasn't supposed to get to Harry till two days before the term started, the damn letter wasn't supposed to be delivered to him by the Hogwarts automatic addressing system, he'd actually seen to it. But apparently, Harry James Potter had not only received his letter earlier than usual, Hagrid had also been unable to restrain himself from visiting the boy earlier than he, the headmaster had planned.

This had of course resulted in utter and complete chaos, with Hagrid leaving Harry unsupervised at the magical pub while he himself returned to Hogwarts. It was in fact quite surprising to Albus that Harry was still staying where Hagrid had left him. He'd half expected the boy to have run away, but apparently, there was still something to be said for children's belief in magic and it's ability to make everything right.

But again, fate had thrown the headmaster another curve ball by having Harry Potter meet the one mud- muggleborn family he really shouldn't have. There was no way Albus could stop Hermione Granger from getting her introduction to magic and coming to Hogwarts, at least not without a good bit of suspicion falling on him, but he'd had no ideas of letting the young Miss Granger have anything to do with Harry Potter while they were in the school that he controlled. Harry would be surrounded by people who would help Dumbledore keep him under control, keep his natural abilities, if he had any, hidden and make sure the boy was ready to sacrifice himself for the supposed 'Greater Good', when the time came. A time, that would of course be orchestrated by him, the greatest wizard ever born, the man who was creating the stage for the biggest chess game the magical world had ever seen.

A chess game that involved Tom Riddle being the Black King, while he himself took the mantle of the white ruler, Harry James Potter being told that he was an important knight, while in reality, all he would be, was a pawn that could be sacrificed when the time came, so that the Black King would be in the right position for the forces of light, or as he envisioned it, Dumbledore's army, could take him down, giving Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore the mantle of the savior of the magical world once again, allowing him to rule over his numerous subjects the way he liked, allowing him to shape the British magical society the way he wanted, for a long, long time to come. Especially now that he had the means to making the Elixir of Life.

But all those careful and grandiose plans had been jeopardized by a ruddy rook of a Hagrid, just because the Dursleys were slapping the boy around a bit. Something the great Albus Dumbledore found himself wanting to do to both the half giant as well as the absent Boy-Who-Lived when he found them. And this had to be something of a joke because left on his own, who does the boy meet the next day? The one bloody family that he had history with, the one group of people who might know the truth about Harry's past, the one damn name that could make all his carefully laid plans go to waste... The Grangers.

As the frustrated and angry Albus Dumbledore strode deeper into the alley, trying to latch onto anything that felt like the Potter boy's magical signature, he unfortunately didn't feel the immense wave of magic that was rushing towards him before it was too late to even think of the shield spell. Not that it would've helped. The wave of magic was so strong, that even the strongest shield that Dumbledore might've been able to put up, would've crumbled like dry sand in front of it... and it was a blessed fact that he didn't know. Because like every other witch or wizard in Diagon Alley at the moment, he was lying on the ground, unconscious.

A/N:

So there it is... another chapter all done.

And yeah, a little clarification if I may, Hermione's angry magic affected only witches and wizards and it was protecting Harry so he felt it like he did. No goblins or humans were harmed by it. Bet Albus gets up with a doozy of a headache... hehe (vbeg) But that's the story for another chapter.

We love hearing from you and incorporating your feedback into the development of our story, so please don't hesitate to click the little blue button below and leave us your thoughts and ideas. And stay tuned for the next chapter which should be up in a week's time.

Oh and before I forget, EAS is gonna be done with her exams in about two weeks, so we can expect some amazing stuff from her once she finishes those... Can't wait!

Lotsa luv and cookies

MB and EAS