Harry Potter and the Binding Magic

Chapter 1

Leaving the Dursleys

Dawn found Harry Potter as it always had, starring at the window blankly, trying to find some kind of refuge from the pain and guilt that had been tearing at him for the past month, since that day. Thoughts like 'It's my fault he's dead' and 'If I could have mastered that bloody Occlumency then none of this would have happened and Sirius wouldn't be d-d-d-dead.'

Fighting back another wave of depression, a completely random and terrifying thought crossed his mind, making him blanch, "the prophecy said 'AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES....' If it comes down to just me and Voldemort then everyone I care about is in danger Ron, Hermione, Ginny, everyone! Death by association," he thought bitterly, "one of Voldemort's favorite tactics. Which means ...."

Unable to finish that thought, his heart heavier than it had been less than five minutes ago, Harry turned to his desk and gathered up the letters from his friends that were strewn all over it, and threw them in the garbage. He had been getting at least two letters a day from both the Order and Ron and Hermione, even Ginny had been sending him letters. He hadn't opened them earlier because he hadn't been able to deal with their constant 'are you OK's', he had a better reason to ignore them now.

Sighing and mentally preparing himself for a long summer, Harry turned back to his bed to read, well, memorize actually. Harry was determined that if there was no way to avoid the prophecy then he would do everything in his power to make sure that the result would be exactly the way he wanted it – with him as the victor. And after seeing him duel Dumbledore, Harry knew that he had a long ways to go before he was ready.

About five hours later, when Harry had almost finished the book and was preparing to practice wand movements, he heard a gentle knock at his door. Puzzled, the Dursleys had left him completely alone since getting here (the only good result of Mad-Eye's warning to the Dursleys), he grabbed his wand and slowly opened the door.

"Hello, Harry," said a quiet voice that Harry had hoped not to hear at all over break.

It was Albus Dumbledore, newly reinstated Headmaster at Hogwarts, and currently the last person in the world that Harry wanted to see, even Voldemort would have been more welcome than him. The sight of him had sent cold rage rushing through Harry's veins and he had to fight to control the strong urge to strangle him.

As if sensing his rage, Dumbledore said hesitantly, "Harry?"

Slowly, still fighting the urge to attack him, Harry looked up into his headmaster's face. What he saw there shocked him: gone was the trademark Dumbledore twinkle that had always been present in his eyes, instead he saw that exhaustion, grief,

pain, and suffering. The same with his face, Harry had always known that Dumbledore was old, but now he looked ancient beyond belief. currently at a loss for words, he stood back to let his headmaster in.

As soon as Harry had closed the door, Dumbledore said from Harry's window, "Mr. Potter, I am here to inform you that the Ministry has seen it fit to allow you to use magic as you leave the your relatives for the rest of the summer. Further more, the Ministry has also granted you an Apparation permit due to the fact that we need to know you can move great distances safely." While he was saying this, his eyes had moved from Harry's face to scan the room. and when his eyes found the trash bin, Harry could have sworn that he saw a flicker of anguish in his eyes, but it was gone so fast that he couldn't be sure.

Harry was also puzzled that the Headmaster was calling him 'Mr. Potter' and not Harry, as Dumbledore had never called him that before, but not enough to cool the rage that was still coursing through him. "Is that all, Headmaster?"

"No, Harry," Dumbledore paused, then continued, "Do not push your friends and all who love you away, for the results will be disastrous. I know, I did the same thing and the results almost killed me. Farewell Mr. Potter, and I will see you in a few days." And with that, Dumbledore swept from the room and Disapperated with barely a sound, leaving behind a still raging, but now very confused Harry Potter lying on his bed.

Tap, tap, tap. Harry was pulled out of his dream like state to find Hedwig perched at the window asking to be let in. Scowling at being disturbed, Harry obliged, and rolled off of the bed to let her in.

As Hedwig flew in, Harry stayed at the window a little longer, watching the stars twinkling in the night. Realizing that his gaze was being pulled to a certain dog star he spun around to find his snow-white owl glaring at him with a smoking red letter in her beak. "Bloody Hell," Harry said softly as he finally realized that his owl was holding a Howler in her beak.

Reaching over to take it, Harry had barely gotten his finger under the slit when Ginny Weasley's voice exploded around the whole house. "HARRY JAMES POTTER HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO US! TRYING TO PUSH US AWAY AND MAKING US HATE YOUBY NOT ANSWERING OUR LETTERS! YOU'VE MADE MUM CRY TWICE WHEN HEDWIG CAME BACK WITHOUT LETTERS, AND REMUS ISN'T MUCH BETTER! IF YOU DON'T ANSWER OUR LETTERS SOON THEN I WILL HEX YOU INTO NEXT WEEK! AND WHEN -" But Harry never got to hear the rest of Ginny's threat, for at that very moment Uncle Vernon's voice shook the entire foundation of the house.

"THAT'S IT! I WILL NOT HAVE ANY MORE OF THAT UNNATURALNESS IN MY HOUSE ANYMORE! I AM GOING TO TEACH THAT FREAK A LESSON THAT HE'LL NEVER FORGET!" BAM! Harry's door flew off its hinges to revel his uncle charging at him, his face purple with rage.

"I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU AND YOUR UNNATRALNESS! YOU ARE NOT GOING BACK TO THAT SCHOOL!"

Wham! Uncle Vernon's overly large fist came slamming into his chest forcing Harry into the wall behind him. The pain of that punch and all those that followed caused Harry to go into a daze. He was only dimly able to register a second pair of hands joining the first, which meant that Dudley had woken up and decided to join in on the fun. When what seemed like hours had passed, Harry felt a quill and parchment being forced into his hands. "Right, you are to write to those freaky friends of yours and tell them that you are perfectly fine here and don't want to go back."

It took Harry a little while to write the letter due to the mass amounts of bruises that he had received. After he had finally finished and sent the letter off with Hedwig, Harry received one last parting punch from his uncle sending him into his open wardrobe's mirror. The force of the crash caused his ribs to snap and the mirror to shatter sending many shards of glass into his back, and making him cry out in pain.

He slowly dragged himself back to his bed, his glasses miraculously unbroken, but upon reaching it, collapsed on the floor too weak to pull himself up.

It was business as usual at Grimmuld Place when a great snowy owl swooped into the kitchen and dropped a letter in front of the sixteen-year-old black haired girl sitting at the table watching Hermione trying to get Ron to do his homework and Ron complaining that he still had two whole months to finish it, and laughing at their expressions.

Looking up as the letter dropped, she reached up and grabbed it before it could reach the table. Opening and reading it, the laughter on her face slowly faded with each line read.

"Dinner's almost ready; would you get the rest of the crew down here?" Remus asked walking up behind her, "what's that, Laura?"

"I'm not sure. Hang on; I'm going to ask Ginny something." Answered Laura before getting up and sweeping from the room, passed Ron and Hermione who were still fighting over his homework.

Laura found Ginny a few minutes later in the room Neville Longbottom was sharing with Ron, and Harry, when he got there. "No, I don't think that will work, Hermione's too smart to fall for it." Neville was whispering to Ginny.

"Oh, come on Neville. It's the best we've got. And we ne -"

"Don't you two know it's rude to whisper? And even more, it's inappropriate for Ginny to be in here alone and unsupervised?" Laura asked, leaning on the doorway.

Both Ginny and Neville jumped and looked guilty until they saw who it was. "Merlin, Laura, don't do that to us. You nearly gave us a heart attack." Ginny said grumpily, and then paused, "You want to join us? We're trying to figure out how to get Ron and Hermione together."

Grinning, Laura said, "They need some one to, cause from the looks of it, they'll never do it on their own. But I can't help right now. I need to ask you a question, Ginny."

"What?"

"Did you send Harry that Howler that you were thinking of sending?"

"No," the answer came a little to quickly and Laura raised her eyebrow, "Oh, alright. Yes I sent it to him. And if you ask me, the bloody idiot deserved it."

"Thanks, Gin. You may want to try locking their wands in a separate room and make them work together to get them out." the black haired girl answered before heading back down to the kitchen. "Oh, and Remus says dinner's ready."

By the time that Laura had gotten halfway down the stairs Neville and Ginny had already overtaken her in a race to the kitchen.

Remus Lupin looked up from the stove when he heard the door slam against the wall and two teens scrambling to be the first to get to the table followed by an extremely angry Laura. "Well, judging from the look on your face, what ever answer Ginny gave you to your question wasn't a good one."

"Judge for yourself." was the reply he got followed by a letter soaring at him. Grabbing it with the same reflexes that Laura had previously demonstrated, Remus looked down at the letter and what had remained of his good mood since Sirius had died vanished completely.

The letter read:

"Dear who ever is reading this,

I am perfectly fine at the Dursleys and would like to stay for the rest of the year, not going back to school. Life is especially great when you are living here against your will.

Harry

P.S. Tell Ginny that her letter was a great hit with my uncle.

Remus looked up, his face a mixture of horror and rage. "Is this –" he spluttered, too angry to speak.

"Yes," the tone of her voice said that she wasn't any happier at what the letter contained than he was, probably more, given her history, "Ginny just confirmed that she sent the Howler, and judging from what I have heard about the Dursleys, and the fact that there are fresh blood stains on the letter. You're a werewolf, Remus, you should have smelt it."

Sniffing it, his face darkened, if possible, even more, "You're right. It's Harry's blood."

"Remus, I've just confirmed that Laura's theory on the blood charm around Harry's house it true. I need you to be ready to pick him up tomorrow after sunset." They turned around to find that Dumbledore, Tonks, and Kingsley had just entered the kitchen. Hearing Harry's name the four teens at the table had turned to face those at the stove. Wordlessly, Laura took Harry's letter from Remus and handed it to Dumbledore.

"Is this genuine?" The words contained a barely suppressed anger. One look at their faces gave him his answer. "Bring him back, NOW! Laura, go with them, I have a feeling you'll be needed."

As the four raced from the house, Dumbledore whispered, "and give whoever did this to him hell," before turning to deal with four very confused teens and one very angry Molly Weasley.

Harry regained consciousness to hear yelling going on downstairs; "I DID NOT DO ANYTHING TO THAT BOY THAT HE DID NOT ALREADY DESERVE! HE TOLD YOU FREAKS THAT HE DOES NOT WANT TO LEAVE. SO GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

This was answered by a voice colder than anything Harry had ever heard, "Vernon Dursley, if you and your wife do not move out of our way I will have no problem what so ever on cursing you into next week." From the sudden silence and footsteps on the stairs, Harry guessed that who ever the Order had sent was coming up to him. However, when he tried to push himself up, he just collapsed from the intensity of the pain his body was sending him.

"Harry, Harry, are you alright?" the voice of his former DADA teacher, Professor Lupin loomed over him and he could see that Ginny was right, Lupin did look a lot worse than the last time he had seen him.

Even still, Harry could not help but answer the obvious question with a sarcastic comment, "I'm just great, professor, a few bruises, but nothing serious or life threatening."

Lupin gave a hollow laugh, "Well at least your sense of humor is still intact. Must be a Potter trait, Laura, the sarcasm and the timing of it, both your fathers had it too. And call me Remus, Harry, I haven't been your professor since third year."

A girl about Harry's age suddenly walked into his view, "I remember, it used to drive Aunt Lily mad that Dad and Uncle James would joke about something in the middle of something dead serious. Now stay still, Harry, while I have a look at you."

Harry suddenly found himself suspended in midair with nothing holding him up. Surprised, he started to struggle, and felt himself being forced down by air pressure. He struggled even harder, there was no way that he was going to let any girl, never mind one that looked like she was only a year older than him, 'have a look' at him."

"Calm down, Harry. Laura needs to see how much damage has been done before we decide what to do and just how much to punish your uncle for what he has done." Harry turned his head to see who had spoken, and saw Kingsley and Tonks, who was causing all of his things to be packed in his trunk, standing guard at the door. "I'm sorry, Harry. I should have done more to stop Bellatrix from hitting me with that curse."

This statement confused Harry, then he remembered that Kingsley was the one who had been fighting Bellatrix before Sirius. He shook his head firmly, "My fault, not yours. If I hadn't been so bloody – ARG!" Laura had pressed her hands against Harry's chest causing an explosion of pain. "What was that for?"

"'Just a few bruises' has got to be the understatement of the year. You've got a broken collar bone, one really nasty bruise on your neck (not to mention all the other ones), at least eight big shards of glass in your back (not counting the smaller ones), and…" she paused and felt his ribs again causing another round of pain, "Holy Shit!"

"What is it?" Remus asked, his fists clenched as to not start swinging at things.

"You're not going to like it."

"I doubt we will. But we need to know."

"If I tell you, you have to swear that you will leave any punishing that is to be done to Dumbledore."

"Alright! We swear! Just tell us already." Tonks exploded unable to deal with the stress any longer.

Laura seemed to be considering what to do, then, "alright, I'll tell you. He's shattered his rib cage."

There were blank looks all around the room even Harry, who had thought he knew every injury possible due to his frequent visits to the Hospital Wing, had no idea what that meant, just that it wasn't good.

"Honestly! It means that every bone in his rib cage has been broken into pieces. He's lucky that there was no damage to his spine. If Harry moves anymore, at all, there's a good chance that he could end up not being able to play Quidditch ever again."

This little piece of news shocked Harry and he suddenly stopped trying to get out of whatever spell had him suspended in midair. "Harry, look at me, we need to get you to a safe place to take care of you. As Voldemort has figured out a way to get passed the spells here, Grimmuld Place is the safest place for you. I know that it would mean going back there sooner than you would like to, but it has to be done." Remus looked into Harry's eyes and did not look away when he met the gaze and nodded.

"Great, Laura, it would probably be best if you were the one to bring Harry back. Tonks, Kingsley, and I will...." he trailed off his eyes widening and suddenly walked to the door, "Damn it, we need to leave now."

"Why?" this came from Tonks.

"They're here. And unless you want to face them, then I suggest we leave now."

"How long?" Kingsley's tone was suddenly brisk and no nonsense.

"Five minutes, max. And from the sound of it, probably less." Laura said before Remus could open his mouth.

Suddenly Harry's scar exploded with pain. The closest he could get to explaining it was that it came close to the pain he had felt the night Voldemort had tried to posses him. Through the pain he could hear Voldemort's maniacal laughter echoing through his head. Reaching blindly around to get someone's attention, he grabbed someone's arm and whispered, "He's here."

Laura's voice told him who's arm he had grabbed, "Damn it, then make it one. We need to get out of here now." BAM! There was an explosion that shook the whole house. "Shit. Everyone leave now!"

"Laura, take Harry and GO! We'll hold them till then." Through another blinding burst of pain Harry felt arms wrap around him and a voice yell, "AVADA KADAVRA!" and Laura counter, "MAGIC SHIELD CIRCLE 9."

Then everything went black.