Somebody Said Goodbye

Chapter 1

The Ultimate Rejection

Harry turned his right hand slowly allowing the light to reflect off of his now faded scar, then back again to obscure the writing, and finally let out a heavy sigh. He wasn't sure why he had expected things to be different, as though he would some how be vindicated by proving Voldemort's return to the general magical population. It hadn't worked. There had been a brief period in which he had been hopeful, but needless to say it had been short. 'Yeah one whole week' thought Harry bitterly to himself.

After the wizarding worlds startling revelation that Voldemort was indeed alive, and the Ministry of Magic had been actively trying to conceal this fact, repercussions for the Minister were severe. Minister Fudge's sacking had allowed the wizarding community to direct its outrage at the supposed source of the scandal, whilst permitting them to forget their own part in the campaign against Harry and the Headmaster. Harry could have lived with this however if the Ministry had truly tried to reform, and prepare for the battle against Voldemort. Harry's gaze drifted over to the latest addition of the Daily Prophet lying open on his desk before they once again reverted back to his scarred hand. He simply could not face finishing reading the paper once he'd reached page 7, which consisted of a rather long winded article listing the achievements of one Dolores Umbridge within the Ministry, and congratulating her on her well earned promotion, complete with accompanying photo of Umbridge shaking the hand of the newly appointed Minister of Magic. This had only been the final straw for Harry; the previous articles were just as disconcerting in his opinion, consisting of the arrest of Stan Shunpike for death eater activities and speculation on the Chosen One's next move in the fight against You Know Who.

If Harry was honest with himself however, he would acknowledge what he knew to be true deep down, that the Ministry's lack of ethics was not what was affecting him most. He had returned to his imprisonment at the Dursley's, which as he had been told numerous times was "for protection", but felt more like punishment. It did not help that his mail consisted of the same uninformative letters similar to the previous summer, but without the comfort he began to rely upon from his Godfather. While Harry and Sirius were not ones for gushing about their feelings, for Harry to know that there was someone he could turn to that would always be on his side, there for him and not the Boy Who Lived was more than enough.

"BOY!" Harry's reverie was quickly broken by Vernon Dursley's yells.

"Boy, if you don't get down here right NOW!"

Harry sighed before lifting himself off of his bed to answer his uncle's calls; nothing would be improved by keeping the man waiting. Harry located the Dursley family seated around the kitchen table eating dinner, and without further interaction Harry joined them. The Dursleys had taken to ignoring Harry with the exception of Petunia instructing Harry on his chores each morning, and calling him for meals, Moody's warning had had some impact at least. Harry didn't mind the work it wasn't hard just tedious, but he welcomed the distraction and generally finished an hour or two before dinner, leaving the evening free for homework, which he was in danger of completing before the end of the second week of summer. Harry amused himself for a moment by imagining Ron and Hermione's opposing reactions to this news.

"… so of course I had to correct it. I've heard that he's a nephew of one of the senior partners, which is the only way he could have conceivably gotten that promotion, completely incompetent…"

Harry was quite used to blocking out his uncles rants, but was always relieved when his aunt or cousin managed to distract him from his lecture on what ever had offended him that day.

"Who's Sirius?"

Except when they used him to do it.

Harry froze in his seat fork still raised with a scoop of mash potato precariously balanced on it, before making eye contact with his cousin across the table. While Dudley had been more tolerable than usual (mainly because he had avoided Harry like the plague since the Dementor incident) the cousins were far from being on good terms.

"Why do you care?" Harry managed to grind out, whilst silently trying to convince himself that hexing Dudley's mouth shut was not a good plan.

"Watch your mouth boy!"

"I heard you shouting it last night, you woke me up." Far from sounding concerned about Harry's nightmare Dudley was clearly happy to have hit a nerve with his cousin, and confident in the fact that he could satisfy his curiosity without any magical consequences due to his parents presence. Harry also recognised a situation in which he was bound to be punished for Dudley's taunting, and so put down his fork and pushed out his seat to leave the table. Petunia anticipated this.

"I will not have you wasting food," she warned. Harry only just managed to hold back a snort at the idea of Vernon or Dudley letting any food go to waste, but moved forward to continue eating. He still vividly remembered periods of time in which he was denied food as a punishment, and did not wish to push his luck even with the Order's threat still looming over the Dursley's heads.

Dudley however was not one to be ignored.

"I was just wondering if he's your new boyfriend, since you stopped yelling that ova guys' name. What was it? Oh yeah, Ced…"

But Dudley was not able to finish that vicious sentence, and his questions became one of the few actions he was genuinely ashamed of after what followed his taunts. The series of framed photos depicting the Dudley at various ages along the wall of the kitchen shattered, sending shards flying in all directions showering the occupants of the dinner table, which caused varying reactions. Petunia's shriek filled the room as she flung herself at her son in an attempt to shield him from the falling glass, but Harry failed to notice this, as he fell off his chair and skidded across the tiled floor. He was blinded by the pain in his head, and an irrational fear that Voldemort was once again trying to enter his mind, but that didn't explain why he had flew across the Dursley's kitchen, or why the pain seemed to originate on the left side of his face and not his scar.

"Vernon no!"

Harry felt himself being lifted off the ground by the collar of his shirt, and roughly shoved against the wall, and remained pinned there by one of his uncle's pudgy hands. Harry opened his eyes to reveal a red faced Vernon Dursley fist raised threateningly level with Harry's face, and growing angrier by the second.

"No Petunia enough is enough!" spit flew in all directions as Vernon began his tirade. "Every summer he comes back and causes more trouble! Ignoring his freakishness is one thing, but having him endanger my family is another! No, I'm doing what I should have done last time, he's got to go!" With that he released his nephew's top allowing him to slide to the floor clutching his head still in pain, whilst his aunt and uncle debated his fate.

"Vernon," Petunia continued frantically "that man won't allow it! You know what he said about the protection, we need it for Dudley! What could we do against those freaks if they came here?"

"But Pet, why would they come here if we didn't have the Boy? That lot have just been pushing him onto us because they don't want to deal with his delinquent behaviour! Well I say it's high time they have him back! We've done more than our fair share its time he went back to his own sort!"

Petunia Dursley bit her lip in thought, trying to weigh the benefits of keeping Harry against her deep seeded dislike of him and everything he represented in her mind. Sensing his wife's hesitancy he decided to proceed with his plan to extract Harry Potter and his freaky friends from his life permanently.

Vernon turned purposefully towards his nephew "Right Boy, I'm giving you an hour to pack, and then your out of here, you understand? I don't care where you go, but you are not to come back, and don't try bringing those…those friends back here, because it won't work. You've brought this on yourself, you've endanger my family for the last time with your abnormalities."

Harry remained silent throughout his uncle's rant slowly letting the words sink in. It took him a moment to realise he was upset, it's not that he would miss the Dursley's, far from it in fact, but for years Harry had imagined leaving the Dursley's on his own terms at seventeen not being forcibly removed over a year early. Harry knew that the Dursley's didn't care for him, but this was somehow worse, the ultimate rejection.

"Dad you can't, you can't just chuck him out, I mean…" Dudley turned towards his mother for support, but for the first time in his memory his mother did not jump to his aid.

"Dudley," Vernon turned and put a comforting hand on his son's shoulder "it's very kind of you to say that, but you don't understand the danger he's putting us in, the danger he's putting you in."

"But Dad he's just…"

"Its ok Dudley, but thanks for trying. I'll go get my stuff now." Stunned silences meet Harry's statement, and he began walking towards his room before it could be broken.