Prologue:

The smallest bedroom at number 4 Privet Drive was a mess. Harry Potter looked around at the books, parchment, newspapers, letters and quills strewn all over, and thought that the state of his room perfectly reflected his state of mind. One of the letters from Hermione told him about the stages his emotions should go through: denial first, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance, or something like that. Hermione's books had it wrong about Harry; his stages were in some random cycle. He had a few days where he thought he had come to terms with the loss of his godfather, but the day after one of them, he dug the broken pieces of a two-way mirror out of his trunk, cast a Reparo and spent over an hour shouting "Sirius!" at the mirror. It showed Harry only his own screaming tear-streaked face.

The Dursleys left Harry totally to himself. This was an improvement over their usual treatment, but it left Harry starved for human interaction. Maybe even the routine hatred of his relatives would have been better than nothing, but Harry wasn't in any mood to seek that out. Perhaps this made him a little more receptive when Albus Dumbledore appeared in his room about a week before his birthday.

"Hello Harry," he said quietly. Harry had been having a "numb day," and hardly seemed to register that someone else was in the room.

When his eyes finally showed a little more focus, his eyebrows drew down and he said, "What are you doing here."

The Headmaster seemed to take some cheer that Harry's reaction wasn't angrier and he gave a slight smile and said, "Harry, I don't expect you to either forgive or forget my many mistakes in my dealings with you, but I came in the hope that we could start building the trust of a new working relationship together."

Harry looked at him quite thoughtfully, and the twinkle returned to Professor Dumbledore's eyes as he continued, "And I also come bearing news." As he finished speaking he drew from his robes some thick official-looking parchment envelopes.

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Chapter 1: Letters

Ginny Weasley had taken to carrying an extendable ear everywhere, usually more than one. In fact, she almost always had one in use; even if the ear part was only stashed in a pocket, it still enhanced what she could pick up on, and it was easy to rapidly deploy it further. The charms to make the fleshy string dangling from her ear blend into whatever background must really be working, she thought, because no one had commented on the extra appendage she'd been wearing most of the summer.

She knew from eavesdropping on her parents that they were worried, despite the lack of news about Voldemort or Death Eaters in the Prophet. The Order didn't have a lot of information, but it seemed that they thought that Voldemort was quite busy reorganizing and gathering forces, without giving up many leads for the Aurors or Order to track down. The lack of more open hostility had lulled most of the public, and unfortunately, most of the Ministry, including Fudge, into being lackadaisical about new security measures.

Just thinking about the Minister of Magic made Ginny's blood start to boil. He was such an incompetent, corrupt, shortsighted, selfish... well, the list could go on and on, but the way he treated Harry was just appalling. So much of his life was so unfair. He really deserved so much more. He was her personal hero, of course, after her first year, but he was a genuine hero for the whole wizarding world. She had finally gotten some of the stories out of Ron this summer, and Hermione filled in some details when she arrived at the beginning of August. Harry had faced Voldemort and prevented his return is his own first year!

It was into this line of thought that Hermione's squeal interrupted. Ginny moved up the attic stairs, closer to Ron's door to hear what was going on. Hermione had sounded happy—had her brother finally made some kind of move? Her ears had detected no sign of progress on that front for the two weeks Hermione had been at the Burrow.

What she heard now wasn't about Ron, though. "It's Hedwig!" Ginny's heart beat faster, and she let the ear leave her pocket and travel to just outside Ron's door. She'd get to hear something about how Harry was doing! It was one more iniquity in his life that he was still cooped up with those Muggles.

Hermione's voice was cooing to Hedwig, and Ginny could imagine her taking a letter off her leg. Any second she'd hear an envelope tear and news being read out to Ron. What she heard instead was, "Ron, we should find Ginny."

"What?" came Ron's deepening voice.

"It's addressed to all three of us." Ginny was a bit stunned at this; she was being let into communication among the Golden Trio of Gryffindor? Of course, she realized next, it must be something pretty trivial to let her in on it, and Harry was just being nice. He was always nice to her, even when she had that ridiculous crush.

"Well," said Ron, "Just tear it open now and we can give it Ginny later." Ginny wanted to storm in there, but it would reveal her eavesdropping.

"Ron," Hermione chastised.

"Oh, all right," he said, and Ginny heard his stomping feet approach the door. She barely had time to duck around the corner of the stairs and pull back the ear before he shouted her name down. The ear had retracted, but was still inserted and the amplified shout made her wince.

She quietly padded closer to her own room before calling back, "What?"

"Letter from Harry!"

She tried for a mildly interested tone, "Oh? What's he say?"

"We dunno—Hermione's waiting for you to open it, it's addressed to the three of us."

"Oh." It was easy to show no surprise. "Okay, I'll be right up."

When Ginny got in Ron's room, Hermione dropped the act of patience and tore open Harry's letter. It was just somehow expected by all of them that she would be the one to read it aloud to the others.

"Dear Hermione, Ron, and Ginny,

How are you all? I don't really need to ask, you've been great with sending me letters. It's about time I sent back a substantive reply. I'm fine."

Ginny and Ron snorted at the same time.

Hermione smiled and said, "Shush, listen," and went back to the letter. "Alright, I do know by now that you know that's a lie. I'm not fine." Ginny couldn't believe Harry was being this open! She was sure that Harry told Ron and Hermione everything, but after getting to know Harry better last year and talking to Ron and Hermione the past couple weeks, she knew that Harry really kept things bottled up. She couldn't dwell on this, as Hermione kept reading.

"I think I'm getting a little better, though. There are good days, and bad days—and the bad days can still be pretty bad. It helps that I've been able to keep pretty busy for the past few weeks."

"What can he be doing locked in that house?" Ron said.

"Shush, Ron. I want to finish the letter before we talk about it. Let me keep reading."

Ron kept silent as Hermione went on. "This is a good day, so I've made myself finally write you all. I don't think it'll be a big secret to reveal that Prof. Dumbledore is teaching me Occlumency himself. I didn't really want to start that again, but I know that it's necessary. I was a little angry with Dumbledore at the end of term, but he's still miles better than The Greasy Git as a teacher. Actually, he's pretty amazing at it. I'm sure Hermione particularly wants to hear all about it—I'll tell you when I come there, which should be in only a day or two."

Ginny almost shouted and clapped her hands, but she held back. Ron and Hermione both exclaimed their pleasure at the news. No one at the Burrow had been able to get any information about when or if would have any time there this summer. Ginny's Mum would only report that Dumbledore said Harry could come when he was ready. What exactly that meant remained a mystery.

Hermione went back to the letter. "Actually I have a couple of other things to tell you that don't exactly fit in a letter. I know I need to talk about some things, so I'll take the easy step of saying 'tell you later' now, and I'm sure you'll remind of that when I'm there. The main thing I was mad at Dumbledore about was keeping information from me, and I realized that I don't want to do the same thing with my friends. I've had a lot of time to think about it this summer.

Oh! I should have said this earlier. Your birthday gifts were all really super, thanks a lot. Ginny, Ron, tell your Mum that the cake she sent was brilliant. My relatives don't think I warrant any treats, but they have been feeding me this year. Otherwise, they have nothing to do with me. I think I have Mad-Eye to thank for it, it looked like Uncle Vernon almost pissed himself when Moody pushed his hat up at Kings Cross.

And Hermione, I got seven OWLs, with an O in Defense. Congratulations on all those Os. Congratulations to you too, Ron—did you know Hermione passed on your scores to me?

Well, this looks like a real letter. I know I still don't deserve all the letters you three have sent, but it's something. I'm really looking forward to seeing you soon.

-Harry"

Hermione harrumphed as soon as she stopped reading. "Well, his Aunt and Uncle might be giving him decent meals, but they're the reason Harry doesn't think he deserves letters from his friends when he's depressed."

Ron growled and said, "When he turns seventeen, Harry should turn them all into slugs."

"Ron!" said Hermione with a frown, but then the corners of her mouth turned up and she said, "I turn seventeen next month, maybe I could skip out one day and visit them."

She looked at the expressions on Ron and Ginny's faces and said, "Oh, you know I wouldn't do anything. Harry probably wouldn't want me to, anyway, but it's fun to think about."

Ginny thought that turning the Dursleys into slugs was too good for them, maybe setting some flesh-eating slugs ON them would be more appropriate, but she didn't say anything. Instead she said, "I wonder what Harry knows about Voldemort."

"Huh?" said Ron, "He didn't say anything about that."

"Honestly Ron," said Hermione, "He's been with Professor Dumbledore a lot, and 'things don't fit in a letter?' He could have said something about whatever it was if he wasn't afraid of his owl falling into the wrong hands."

"Oh, right," said Ron. Merlin he could be so thick sometimes, thought Ginny.

"Let's go tell Mum Harry liked her cake. She'll be thrilled to hear it."

"Yeah," said Ron, "and maybe she'll know more now about when Harry's coming." That was really what Ginny was interested in, of course. Hermione saw her little smile, caught her eye, and grinned back. Ginny blushed a little, but Hermione figuring things out was nothing new.