After a terrible fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry had to come back to the Dursley home on four Privet Drive, where he had lived since he was a year old, under Albus Dumbledore's instructions. Dumbledore was a wise man who wore half-moon spectacles, and had silver hair and beard long enough to tuck them into his belt. He was the headmaster of Harry's school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry really appreciated Dumbledore, but also thought that deciding to send him back to his Uncle and Aunt hadn't been his finest hour. Aunt Petunia was Harry's mother's sister, and she loved him as much as she had loved her sister – apparently nothing at all in Harry's opinion - after all, Aunt Petunia always pretended she didn't have a sister. Aunt Petunia despised her sister for being a witch, and now Harry was treated just the same because he was a wizard himself– her husband Vernon and son Duddley felt the same way she did, which made Harry's life very unpleasant.
The Dursleys were extremely mean to Harry, and also, they were still feeling a bit resentful about what happened two years ago to Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon's sister. Harry had lost his temper over Aunt Marge's description of Harry's parents, and accidentally inflated her as a human zeppelin. Harry had stormed out of the house afterwards, pointing his wand towards Uncle Vernon's face when he tried to stop him. Harry ended up spending the night in The Leaky Cauldron, the pub Harry and many other wizards living in the muggle world - non-magical people were called muggles by them - used as a passage way to Diagon Alley, the place where all new students bought their school supplies.
Harry had learned not to care over the years, because at this point he was used to be treated badly by the Dursleys, and also knew, he would be returning to school in no time. Hogwarts had become Harry's favorite place in the world since four years ago, when he received a letter asking him to join them on the next term, and Hagrid the Gamekeeper and now also teacher of Hogwarts, had come to collect him to start his education as a wizard. He had learned so much already, although not always from a class, and was eager to learn more.
His parents had been the wizard James Potter and Lilli Potter, who sadly died when Harry was only a year old. Harry had had the chance to find out more about them in school, and about what happened to them as well, giving him a reason why he lived with the Dursleys in the first place.
Before he returns to school however, Harry will be staying in Ronald Weasley's house, one of his very best friends and classmate along with Hermione Granger, so he is really looking forward to it.
Harry tried to forget what happened last term at the Triwizard Tournament. This competition had not taken place for almost a century, and last year it had happened at Hogwarts. In Harry's opinion… everything happened the past year. Ron had been angry to him, Rita Skeeter - the nosiest woman alive - had written horrible lies about him in the Daily Prophet - The Wizarding Newspaper -, someone forced his name into the deadly competition, and Lord Voldemort arose to his full strength once again.
Harry had been trying to continue his life as normally as he could, concentrating on the good things, which for now seemed to be very few. He couldn't help being afraid of what Lord Voldemort would do to him if he showed up at the Dursleys home. He was sure that without any help from the wizarding world, he was an easy target. Even though, he had escaped Voldemort a couple of times… four actually, he still felt that without anybody on his side, he wasn't going to be able to defend himself. No matter how many times he had escaped, he didn't even have his wand now. It was locked in the cupboard under the stairs along with his other wizarding possessions as Uncle Vernon always demanded every summer he went back.
Every night, Harry remembered every piece of it. The images inside his brain hadn't stop playing since it happened. He could see how Voldemort killed one of his fellow students, Cedric Diggory, who was also participating in the Tournament; he could see how Voldemort came out of a steaming cauldron and into this world again; and also, he could vividly remember his mother and father's ghostly echoes helping him to escape a horrible death once again. The nights were unusually long, and almost every night, he woke up sweating with a silent scream that stopped his breath, feeling a painful knot in his chest. He couldn't tell this to the Dursleys, he was forbidden from talking about anything in the Wizarding world. Besides, Harry knew they wouldn't care, and also would be very angry knowing he could be dead now, and wasn't. Harry thought in telling Sirius, his godfather, but every time he started the letter, he suddenly found out he didn't know how to explain what he was feeling in words that made sense. Harry had tried to call Hermione for some advice, but Uncle Vernon unplugged the phone and took the cord with him. Harry was being extremely careful around him this days, he was furious at Harry - a natural, common thing. Last week, Harry had tried to reach for his wand in the cupboard under the stairs, Harry's previous dormitory. He had been feeling increasingly unsure about walking around the muggle world without his wand. Who could blame him, Voldemort was out there and his most powerful weapon was put away. The Dursleys just didn't understand. When Uncle Vernon had tried to stop him from getting near the door of the cupboard, Harry reminded him he hadn't sent any recent letters to Sirius.
Sirius Black was accused of murder and was on the run, of course, he was innocent, but Harry always chose to forget about this last detail. Harry told Uncle Vernon his godfather would be checking on him by owl post, seeing if he had any trouble or wasn't happy. He told him Sirius would come to his rescue at once. Uncle Vernon had turned a nasty shade of yellow and had told Harry off to his bedroom. However his voice had been more like a request than harassing. Harry knew some of the fear from the Dursleys towards Sirius was wearing off because he had never actually been in the house, but they still fussed when Harry mentioned him.
One morning, Harry woke up to see a beautiful shiny day. Without even noticing it was his birthday again, but, as was usual, the Dursleys were planning on not to pay any attention to this whatsoever, so he wasn't really expecting them to say anything about it at all. He was used to this, every birthday he had seen so far had been a complete mess around them. He tumbled up, and said good morning to Hedwig, Harry's owl. Hedwig seemed really eager to fly, so Harry let her out of her cage. She flew out the window, and Harry said to her just before she left "Have a nice day!" in a tone also meaning "Thanks for remembering my birthday!" Harry went downstairs for breakfast, wearing Duddley's old clothes, tripping with the huge pants he wasn't able to fill. Harry was small for his age, skinny, with jet-black untidy hair which made Uncle Vernon go berserk. He had brilliant green eyes, on which he wore a pair of round spectacles. And on his forehead was the mark that made him famous around the wizarding world, a lightning-shaped scar made by Voldemort himself the night he killed Harry's parents. Harry sat down at the kitchen table, while Aunt Petunia moved around the kitchen finishing breakfast.
"Morning!" said Harry raising his voice over the click of the dishes. There was no answer. Sometimes, Harry thought the Dursleys were obviously aware when it was his birthday but intended to make him feel as miserable as possible. But then again, he thought this would be paying too much attention to him, a thing the Dursleys tried to avoid more than anything else. Anyway, he wasn't expecting much food either, because Duddley, his cousin, was on a diet and everyone had to eat the same food, and in Harry's case, the crumbs Duddley didn't eat. Even the very particular behavior from the Dursleys towards him, was something good to distract his mind, for at least a second, of bigger problems.
"Good morning" said Uncle Vernon behind the newspaper, while reaching his own chair in the kitchen table in a not-now-I'm-busy voice. He was a beefy man, with hardly any neck, which he hid behind an overlarge mustache.
"Where's my breakfast?" said Duddley just behind Uncle Vernon, with his detestable tone of every morning. Duddley was still overweighed making his bottom fill at least two of the tiny kitchen chairs. It looked like he had doubled himself during his last school year at Smeltings, uncle Vernon's old private school. With Aunt Petunia sending food over the holidays, plus the food Duddley managed to get from other students by beating then up, he had been far more than well fed. However, the school nurse had added a letter along with the next year's supply list, saying he needed to follow the diet chart she sent to them.
"It's coming, sweetums" said Aunt Petunia in a sugar-and-love kind of voice, pouring some porridge into a small bowl in front of Duddley and his pig-like face, which hadn't changed a bit over the years, only widened. Duddley's diet had changed from "only vegetables" to some "milk products and grains." Almost immediately after Aunt Petunia settled the bowl, Duddley snapped into a red-face filled with anger, refusing to eat the porridge. "What is this? I want some real food and I want it now!" He threw the blue bowl out of his reach, hitting Harry on the shoulder and spilling all its contents on the dining room floor.
Uncle Vernon stood up and yelled towards Harry. "What, are you stupid boy? Look what you've done!" Harry answered calmly but firm. "I didn't do anything." Aunt Petunia, who was a skinny-looking woman with an extraordinary large amount of neck, helpful every time she looked at other people's houses looking for new gossip, covered her mouth with her bony hands to hide her surprise at Harry's response. She mouthed speechless, and turned around rapidly to see Uncle Vernon's reaction. Harry looked at her and instead of feeling sorry, he though "Why don't they all stay speechless more often? That way I won't have to listen to so much nonsense all the time!" Uncle Vernon simply rolled up the paper and pointed upstairs. Harry looked up and raising his voice said once more "I didn't do anything!" But Uncle Vernon, this time, took a deep, very deep breath and said in a lower voice "Up… stairs." Filled with indignation, Harry got up from his chair and walked furious toward the stairs.
Once in his room, Harry crossed out another day on the calendar he had made for himself, a little bit harder than he had intended to, because he made a hole on the parchment. He was counting down the days to return to Hogwarts for the next term on September first. Harry had a lot of things going on inside his brain: getting away from the Dursleys would be nice, after all, another huge worry was Voldemort and Harry didn't feel neither safe with them nor calmed. Hagrid had been telling him he shouldn't worry until things came to happen, but with the Dursleys he didn't have a lot of things to distract him from the problem. He believed once inside the castle he wouldn't have to worry so much about being attacked, and not worry at all if Dumbledore was by his side. Apart from trusting him, Harry knew the only known wizard Voldemort feared was Albus Dumbledore.
Suddenly, something broke the silence making Harry jump to his feet. He heard the crash of some sort of glass against the kitchen floor. He tried to listen what was going on, nearing himself to the door. The voices were loud, but so babbling he could hardly understand them. However, the voices belonged undoubtedly to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, which made Harry feel a lot calmer. For a moment he had gotten a bit edgy and thought of making a run for his wand.
"What are we going to do?" said Aunt Petunia in a voice that could only mean trouble.
"Calm down, Petunia, we'll find the way out of this problem!" said Uncle Vernon in an angry and extremely loud voice.
"I refuse to live in poverty father, you better do something to fix it!" added Duddley in an exasperated tone and Harry was able to hear him rushing upstairs, so he closed the door, leaving a sliver opened, glancing at the figure of his whale-shaped cousin shutting the door to his room in such an angry manner that the windows of the whole house trembled.
Harry couldn't hear anything else, so he decided to close the door completely, move the loose floorboard under his bed and eat some of the food he had hid in there. Mrs. Weasley, Ron's mother, had always treated him as another of her children; she was the one who kept sending food to Harry. He was very grateful for it, because if it wasn't for her cooking, he would probably starve.
After eating enough Corn Cake staring at the darkening sky for what felt like a couple hours, he heard a cracking noise near the house. He put the food back in the box, and hid everything under the bed. He opened the window, and leaned through it, but his room was too far from the front door. It was impossible for him to see anything. He was still slightly resented about the porridge accident, but he told himself he wouldn't let the Dursleys upset him this summer. He had enough to worry about at the moment. He pulled the door open, walked downstairs slowly, trying not to catch Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia's attention, but when he was about to reach the door knob...
"Just what do you think you're doing?" said Uncle Vernon, who was standing behind Harry, purple faced, clearly still upset about the long discussion with Aunt Petunia.
"I...I...nothing" answered Harry, thinking about what story to make up, but he couldn't think of anything fast enough. There was something about Uncle Vernon's large purple face which made Harry feel uneasy. He was supposed to be upstairs in his room. He couldn't say he was there to see if there was something strange outside the door, or that he wanted to know about their fight.
"I don't believe you!" said Uncle Vernon pulling Harry by the shirt.
"I...needed to...drink water!" said Harry as fast as the words came up in his head.
"Very well" said Uncle Vernon dragging Harry all the way to the kitchen. "Drink and then go to your room!"
"Alright" said Harry. He thought if he took long enough drinking a glass of water, he would be able to see through one of the windows if there was anything odd just outside, when...
Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock.
"I'm coming! Could you just hold on for a ruddy second!" said Uncle Vernon in an exalted tone rushing towards the front door - which was being banged as it never had - and pushing Harry out of the way so he couldn't see who had come, closely followed by Aunt Petunia. Maybe it was the Weasleys coming to collect him once again, although that was a really unlikely idea. Last time they had shown up in the Dursley residence, they traveled by Floo powder, and got into the house through the chimney, that is of course after they managed to unstuck themselves from inside it; possibly Hagrid, coming to tell him he miscount the days and he should be in Hogwarts right now, or maybe…
"Hi, my name is Tatum. I'm looking for Mr. Harry Potter" said a girl with strange glasses, a deep purple coat, black high heeled boots, a really funny hat with peacock feathers on top and bushy red hair standing at the entrance, holding her hand in the air trying to shake Uncle Vernon's, but all he did was shut the door closed in one quick movement. Harry saw her from the kitchen, and instantly realized she was from the magical world, and apparently Uncle Vernon had too, for the way he had replied.
All of a sudden, before Uncle Vernon turned around to yell at Harry once again for something he didn't have any fault of, the door slammed him in the face getting out of its frame in a couple of pieces with a soundless explosion. And the girl outside let herself in, stepping on the trashed entrance hall.