"Harry Potter and the Phoenix-y Order"
PG-13 because I like to curse in my author notes. The story is clean.
Target Audience: "Veteran" fanfic readers- meaning those of you who've been here a long while, and who are jaded from the typical Potter fanfic. Not that mine is Mein-Gott!-unique, it's just the ideas of someone who's been around Potter fics for a long time, and who knows what annoys her and know what new things she wants to see in OotP (Order of the Phoenix). He he: "ootp".
Chapter 1: New Places
Disclaimer: Wakanda is mine. The Green Letter is mine. That's...it in this chapter. Would WB actually sue anybody on FF.net if they forgot to put a disclaimer?
Author's Note: I figured that if I called my fic what J.K. intends to call the fifth book, my fic would get lost among all the other Orders of the Phoenix, so I got creative. Gods save us. The inspiration for the intro paragraphs to this story came from me being half asleep and trying to perceive what was going on around me at the same time, which I have decided is a highly recommended way of jump starting your neuro-cognitive thingy when you have writers' block. So here it is, my version of the fifth book. I actually did as much research as one can before writing a Potter fic. This is a bit more omniscient than J.K.'s books. I also don't go into explanations, so if you haven't read the Potter books, don't read this because I'll probably lose you very early on. I'm doing this because if you assume your readers know what's going on, why waste their time with explanations/introductions? (Or long-winded author notes while I think of it, but that isn't the point. It's almost over.) Thanks to Mom, J.K., all my favorite music groups- U2, Suzanne Vega, Chemical Brothers, etc.- for being there in the background, and especially to FF.net, and to all you beautiful people out there who are going to tell me SPECIFICALLY what is wrong with this story so I can fix it. Oh, yes, and a special thanks to the beautiful and charismatic Ms. Idaho...no, wait a minute. Huge gigantic thanks to my dear friend/beta-reader-goddess "Alice" and her eternal support and witful discussion AND to Chris the sex god who also beta-ed. And to Mom, who also beta-ed. Christ, maybe I'm working on perfecting this story a bit too much.
Final Note: I respond to reviews! If you say "Sentence 3 in paragraph 400 of chapter 39 seems uncomfortable because Ron sounds too heady", then I will go look at sentence 3 in paragraph 400 of chapter 39 and if you're right I'll change it! Critique/flame your hearts out! Now on to the God damned story!
Dear Mr. Potter,
As you well know, the wizard community of Britain has suffered greatly in this century at the hands of Dark Wizards. The darkest and most destructive of these wizards was also the most recent to plague us.
After fourteen years, many people have been able to reconstruct their lives and forget about the existence of He-who-must-not-be-named. The Ministry of Magic has encouraged this in hopes of rebuilding the wizard world. While it was important to restore our world during that time in order to remain hidden from those without magic, recent events mandate that we not let the Dark Lord become He-who-gained-power-a-second-time-because-we-don't-even- speak-his-name-and-standing-up-to-him-seems-basically-out-of-the-question. We would like to inform all our current and future readers that the Dark Lord has regained power through the help of a complicated spell preformed by his followers, the Death Eaters. We ask that you not bombard the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Albus Dumbledore, with owls trying to confirm this. Dumbledore has openly told this to his students and first reported these happenings to us. It is true, and we repeat:
the Dark Lord has been returned to his former body and power.
We also ask readers not to try to confirm this with Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, who is apparently trying to keep quiet this admittedly shocking and potentially dangerous information in the Daily Prophet and abroad. Fortunately, there is still a publishing available to readers who are willing to accept the harsh truth. The Green Letter has been in existence for nearly two decades, and was included in the Evening Prophet in the dark days of He-who-must-not-be- named. When He disappeared, the Green Letter had little to follow since there were no Dark Wizards, and it was excluded from the Prophet. There were few who followed it. Because of recent developments, we both advise and appreciate your subscription to the Green Letter so that you will always be posted on His actions and believed whereabouts. We hope that you will consider a subscription, and wish you happiness and safety all of your days.
Faithfully,
Armina Riehlman
Harry Potter snorted into his grapefruit: "Admittedly shocking and potentially dangerous information" indeed. He supposed it wasn't prudent to accuse the Ministry of Magic of censorship, but the obvious attempt of the letter writer to both tell the truth and stay on the good side of the law amused Harry. He pulled an order form out of the envelope and got a pen from a cup in the living room.
Harry's uncle, Vernon Dursley, grunted disapprovingly. Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin were all sitting around the kitchen table eating breakfast. Though most people liked getting mail at this hour, the Dursleys certainly did not like it that Harry was getting mail at all. They didn't appreciate either the owl that was sitting on their table staring pointedly at Harry's grapefruit.
"Go ahead," Harry urged it, and it pecked gratefully as Harry filled out the form to receive the Green Letter. He finished the form about the time the owl had finished the only breakfast he could expect from the Dursleys as his cousin Dudley was on a diet. The oddity of Harry not eating because Dudley was on a diet was far from an oddity in the Dursley's house.
Harry gave the form to the owl. It flew out the window Harry had opened to let it in, and Harry got up to close the window. When he returned to the table, everyone was glaring at him.
"I don't want to see any more of those foul birds at the table," Uncle Vernon growled. Aunt Petunia was viciously scrubbing the table when the owl had been. Harry subtly raised an eyebrow at his aunt's obsessive nature.
"All right. I'll leave them at the window from now on. The neighbors may see them, but that's a consequence we'll just have to accept," Harry said impishly to his uncle.
"Go to your cupboard- room!" Uncle Vernon angrily corrected himself. He had told Harry to go to his cupboard for eleven years, and it was obvious that he had preferred keeping Harry in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry did not protest his fate. His little grapefruit had been violently maimed and, for the most part, devoured by the owl. Also, conversations with his guardians and cousin never quite attained the level of "fun" or "enjoyable".
Harry locked his door and turned to his desk. He had a fruit basket there from the Weasleys, as well as some Bulgarian food sent to him from Hermione, and, of course, assorted birthday cakes from everyone. His friends did not hold with Aunt Petunia's idea that tiny Harry should diet alongside elephantine Dudley.
Peeling the skin off an orange, Harry began again on his griffin essay for Hagrid. It wasn't going too well because Harry's school books didn't cover all the topics that Hagrid had asked them to write about. The authors of the text books obviously did not believe most students would need to write three paragraphs on how to prepare food for ailing griffins that might just happen to show up on one's doorstep. Harry needed more books. He wondered if he could request a book from the Flourish and Blotts bookstore, but he would probably need an order form for that. Even so, he still didn't have the means receiving the book; Hedwig was delivering a letter to Hermione, who was visiting Viktor Krum. Harry had a fleeting thought to use the Internet, but as Dudley had never let him on his computer, Harry didn't know how to use it. And he didn't think that wizards used the Internet. Perhaps they had an alternative, but Harry wasn't aware of it. What was he supposed to do?
Well, he would feel like he was accomplishing something if he at least found and filled out an order form. He flipped to the back of his Care of Magical Creatures book, and found a paper that advertised Wakanda Library- "Every magical publication ever printed. Back copies of every paper or magazine, preserved manuscripts. Great for students." Harry read further, and the ad said patrons could get there by Floo powder, Apparition, or by poking a little red dot on the advertisement itself. Immediately, Harry crammed his essay writing necessities into his bag, and poked the dot.
Whoosh! It's a Portkey, his mind told him before he hit a large mattress that cushioned his fall, saving his ink bottle from certain death. Harry found himself standing in an immense room with a glass ceiling. There were giant brown bookcases twice as tall as Hagrid, and old-fashioned ladders that rolled along them so that one could attain any book. Witches and wizards were bustling everywhere, trying to be quiet. Harry recognized Madame Pince, the Hogwarts librarian, shushing people nearby. Perhaps this was her summer job.
"Excuse me," he said to her- quietly.
"Mr. Potter," she said, regarding him in austere shock. "Why are you not at your Aunt and Uncle's house?"
"I needed information for an essay for school and I saw an sign for this library. Is something wrong?"
"No. No, Mr. Potter, of course not." She didn't sound nervous, but she wasn't reassuring either.
"Did something happen? Ron-" Madame Pince was making him uneasy, but she cut him off.
"As far as I know, your friends are fine. But, well, with You-Know-Who coming back I should think you would be more careful." She looked down at him disapprovingly.
"Looks safe here," Harry remarked. Madame Pince sighed curtly and impatiently, and then looked down at him again.
"There's a card catalog over there." She pointed. "Alert myself or another librarian if you think you're being...followed, or anything of the sort."
"I will," Harry reassured her, and went in look of sources.
When Harry had finished his essay, he meandered about looking at all the books. He wondered if Hermione knew about this place. The thing he liked best about it, beyond the glass ceiling and quaint, rolling ladders, was the smell. One could almost taste the gentle decay of the paper. Eventually, around eleven o' clock, Harry started to get hungry- having had only little bits of grapefruit and orange to eat thus far that day. There weren't any food stalls, ostensibly because librarians were afraid the patrons might get food on the books. Harry went to the information desk.
"Er, how do I...get home?" Harry asked a man behind the counter, feeling rather stupid for not having thought about this previously.
"The Floo fires are over there." The man pointed kindly to several very obvious fireplaces where wizards and witches were lining up to go home.
"My house isn't...er, hooked up to the Floo network," Harry said.
"Muggle born?" The wizard asked benignly. Harry tipped his head down so his scar wouldn't be noticeable and told the man "yes" to simplify things.
"Well, do you have any friends' houses you could go to using Floo?"
"Yeah, I guess." Harry hoped the Weasleys wouldn't think he was imposing. The wizard seemed to know his concern.
"People get used to other wizards popping up in their homes without notice. Don't worry about it."
"Okay." Before the man turned to the next person in line, a thought crossed Harry's mind, and he asked, "How did I get here? I mean, how did that spell with the dot work? I thought Portkeys were timed."
The wizard smiled. "There are different forms of Portkey, aren't there? Some are timed, others are used in place of Apparition, like the one we use. Nice little spell, though a bit too advanced for a student, I'd say. Hogwarts is even spelled so you can't make Portkeys to it, but I'm sure you know that." Harry thanked him, and went over to the Floo fire lines. Then, after only being there for a few moments, he went to the card catalog, found what he was looking for and finally checked out "Hogwarts: A History". Hermione would be so proud.
* * *
The librarian had been right; the Weasleys certainly weren't affronted or upset when Harry turned up in their fireplace. "Look, mum, let Harry spend the night, and we'll send Dumbledore an owl asking if he can stay the rest of the summer." Ron's suggestion had gone over well among the Weasley children, but their mother had insisted on taking Harry back to the Dursleys.
"Dumbledore has his reasons for wanting Harry to stay there, I'm sure," Mrs. Weasley had said. "Fred, go get me your father's old boots from the hall closet- just one will do." She quickly created a Portkey, which was fairly easy for adult wizards and witches to make as they had to be mass- produced for events like the Quidditch World Cups. Luckily for them, Harry had a piece of carpet thread from the Dursley's living room stuck to the bottom of his shoe, and Mrs. Weasley used that to define the Portkey's destination.
They said farewell to the Weasleys, and Mrs. Weasley poked the Portkey with her wand. Though Harry felt it tug at his stomach the way the Portkeys he had used before did, this one did not behave the way other Portkeys had. This one did not take them to their predetermined destination. Where they ended up, Harry could only assume that they were about five miles away from his house, on a residential street that looked similar to that of the Dursleys'.
"What happened?" he asked Mrs. Weasley, who looked just as confused as he did. They both cried out when they felt their hands being sharply twisted behind their backs, but there seemed to be no thing or being touching them.
"Who are you and what do you think you're doing trying to get into Harry Potter's house?" The voice was gruff with age and definitely belonged to a woman- a witch. For it had to be magic that was holding them
Mrs. Weasley and Harry twisted their heads, but could see no one.
"Oh, it's you. Molly Weasley?" Mrs. Weasley nodded, very confused. "Bringing him home?" The disembodied voice asked sharply. Mrs. Weasley nodded again. Their arms were released from the spell that had held them. "Put your hands out," the voice commanded, and Harry still couldn't place it. They both extended their hands toward the voice, which may not have been the wisest thing to do, but they felt gnarled, cold, old-people hands grasp theirs, and were instantly transported to the Dursley's living room. "Sorry about that," said the voice. "Can't take any risks though."
"What..." Harry started in a whisper, but stopped because he knew that Mrs. Weasley didn't know either. Dudley wandered into the room, where Harry and Mrs. Weasley and the Invisible Senile Wonder stood. Dudley looked confused to see someone standing with Harry. Then, making the assumption that Harry only kept company with a certain type of people- which was admittedly quite clever of him- he ran out of the room, one hand on his backside and the over his mouth.
Mrs. Weasley was confused by this, having never met Dudley, but she dismissed it as routine Muggle oddity, and turned to Harry.
"Dumbledore has told me that you're safe here. Maybe the person who brought us here is watching out for you. I do wish you could come stay with us, and we'll see when it gets closer to school time. We'll definitely pick you up to go to Hogwarts." There was a little pop, and Mrs. Weasley and the disembodied voice left.
The Weasleys had sent Dumbledore an owl immediately asking if Harry could come visit them. Dumbledore agreed that Harry could come for the last week before school, meaning that Harry's sentence at the Dursley's was not a long one. A Ministry wizard came out to the Weasley's house and got Mrs. Weasley's permission to perform several spells to make the house particularly safe from Dark Wizards. Harry mentioned briefly that he would be leaving to Uncle Vernon, who perhaps did not hear him, and certainly did not care.
PG-13 because I like to curse in my author notes. The story is clean.
Target Audience: "Veteran" fanfic readers- meaning those of you who've been here a long while, and who are jaded from the typical Potter fanfic. Not that mine is Mein-Gott!-unique, it's just the ideas of someone who's been around Potter fics for a long time, and who knows what annoys her and know what new things she wants to see in OotP (Order of the Phoenix). He he: "ootp".
Chapter 1: New Places
Disclaimer: Wakanda is mine. The Green Letter is mine. That's...it in this chapter. Would WB actually sue anybody on FF.net if they forgot to put a disclaimer?
Author's Note: I figured that if I called my fic what J.K. intends to call the fifth book, my fic would get lost among all the other Orders of the Phoenix, so I got creative. Gods save us. The inspiration for the intro paragraphs to this story came from me being half asleep and trying to perceive what was going on around me at the same time, which I have decided is a highly recommended way of jump starting your neuro-cognitive thingy when you have writers' block. So here it is, my version of the fifth book. I actually did as much research as one can before writing a Potter fic. This is a bit more omniscient than J.K.'s books. I also don't go into explanations, so if you haven't read the Potter books, don't read this because I'll probably lose you very early on. I'm doing this because if you assume your readers know what's going on, why waste their time with explanations/introductions? (Or long-winded author notes while I think of it, but that isn't the point. It's almost over.) Thanks to Mom, J.K., all my favorite music groups- U2, Suzanne Vega, Chemical Brothers, etc.- for being there in the background, and especially to FF.net, and to all you beautiful people out there who are going to tell me SPECIFICALLY what is wrong with this story so I can fix it. Oh, yes, and a special thanks to the beautiful and charismatic Ms. Idaho...no, wait a minute. Huge gigantic thanks to my dear friend/beta-reader-goddess "Alice" and her eternal support and witful discussion AND to Chris the sex god who also beta-ed. And to Mom, who also beta-ed. Christ, maybe I'm working on perfecting this story a bit too much.
Final Note: I respond to reviews! If you say "Sentence 3 in paragraph 400 of chapter 39 seems uncomfortable because Ron sounds too heady", then I will go look at sentence 3 in paragraph 400 of chapter 39 and if you're right I'll change it! Critique/flame your hearts out! Now on to the God damned story!
Dear Mr. Potter,
As you well know, the wizard community of Britain has suffered greatly in this century at the hands of Dark Wizards. The darkest and most destructive of these wizards was also the most recent to plague us.
After fourteen years, many people have been able to reconstruct their lives and forget about the existence of He-who-must-not-be-named. The Ministry of Magic has encouraged this in hopes of rebuilding the wizard world. While it was important to restore our world during that time in order to remain hidden from those without magic, recent events mandate that we not let the Dark Lord become He-who-gained-power-a-second-time-because-we-don't-even- speak-his-name-and-standing-up-to-him-seems-basically-out-of-the-question. We would like to inform all our current and future readers that the Dark Lord has regained power through the help of a complicated spell preformed by his followers, the Death Eaters. We ask that you not bombard the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Albus Dumbledore, with owls trying to confirm this. Dumbledore has openly told this to his students and first reported these happenings to us. It is true, and we repeat:
the Dark Lord has been returned to his former body and power.
We also ask readers not to try to confirm this with Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, who is apparently trying to keep quiet this admittedly shocking and potentially dangerous information in the Daily Prophet and abroad. Fortunately, there is still a publishing available to readers who are willing to accept the harsh truth. The Green Letter has been in existence for nearly two decades, and was included in the Evening Prophet in the dark days of He-who-must-not-be- named. When He disappeared, the Green Letter had little to follow since there were no Dark Wizards, and it was excluded from the Prophet. There were few who followed it. Because of recent developments, we both advise and appreciate your subscription to the Green Letter so that you will always be posted on His actions and believed whereabouts. We hope that you will consider a subscription, and wish you happiness and safety all of your days.
Faithfully,
Armina Riehlman
Harry Potter snorted into his grapefruit: "Admittedly shocking and potentially dangerous information" indeed. He supposed it wasn't prudent to accuse the Ministry of Magic of censorship, but the obvious attempt of the letter writer to both tell the truth and stay on the good side of the law amused Harry. He pulled an order form out of the envelope and got a pen from a cup in the living room.
Harry's uncle, Vernon Dursley, grunted disapprovingly. Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin were all sitting around the kitchen table eating breakfast. Though most people liked getting mail at this hour, the Dursleys certainly did not like it that Harry was getting mail at all. They didn't appreciate either the owl that was sitting on their table staring pointedly at Harry's grapefruit.
"Go ahead," Harry urged it, and it pecked gratefully as Harry filled out the form to receive the Green Letter. He finished the form about the time the owl had finished the only breakfast he could expect from the Dursleys as his cousin Dudley was on a diet. The oddity of Harry not eating because Dudley was on a diet was far from an oddity in the Dursley's house.
Harry gave the form to the owl. It flew out the window Harry had opened to let it in, and Harry got up to close the window. When he returned to the table, everyone was glaring at him.
"I don't want to see any more of those foul birds at the table," Uncle Vernon growled. Aunt Petunia was viciously scrubbing the table when the owl had been. Harry subtly raised an eyebrow at his aunt's obsessive nature.
"All right. I'll leave them at the window from now on. The neighbors may see them, but that's a consequence we'll just have to accept," Harry said impishly to his uncle.
"Go to your cupboard- room!" Uncle Vernon angrily corrected himself. He had told Harry to go to his cupboard for eleven years, and it was obvious that he had preferred keeping Harry in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry did not protest his fate. His little grapefruit had been violently maimed and, for the most part, devoured by the owl. Also, conversations with his guardians and cousin never quite attained the level of "fun" or "enjoyable".
Harry locked his door and turned to his desk. He had a fruit basket there from the Weasleys, as well as some Bulgarian food sent to him from Hermione, and, of course, assorted birthday cakes from everyone. His friends did not hold with Aunt Petunia's idea that tiny Harry should diet alongside elephantine Dudley.
Peeling the skin off an orange, Harry began again on his griffin essay for Hagrid. It wasn't going too well because Harry's school books didn't cover all the topics that Hagrid had asked them to write about. The authors of the text books obviously did not believe most students would need to write three paragraphs on how to prepare food for ailing griffins that might just happen to show up on one's doorstep. Harry needed more books. He wondered if he could request a book from the Flourish and Blotts bookstore, but he would probably need an order form for that. Even so, he still didn't have the means receiving the book; Hedwig was delivering a letter to Hermione, who was visiting Viktor Krum. Harry had a fleeting thought to use the Internet, but as Dudley had never let him on his computer, Harry didn't know how to use it. And he didn't think that wizards used the Internet. Perhaps they had an alternative, but Harry wasn't aware of it. What was he supposed to do?
Well, he would feel like he was accomplishing something if he at least found and filled out an order form. He flipped to the back of his Care of Magical Creatures book, and found a paper that advertised Wakanda Library- "Every magical publication ever printed. Back copies of every paper or magazine, preserved manuscripts. Great for students." Harry read further, and the ad said patrons could get there by Floo powder, Apparition, or by poking a little red dot on the advertisement itself. Immediately, Harry crammed his essay writing necessities into his bag, and poked the dot.
Whoosh! It's a Portkey, his mind told him before he hit a large mattress that cushioned his fall, saving his ink bottle from certain death. Harry found himself standing in an immense room with a glass ceiling. There were giant brown bookcases twice as tall as Hagrid, and old-fashioned ladders that rolled along them so that one could attain any book. Witches and wizards were bustling everywhere, trying to be quiet. Harry recognized Madame Pince, the Hogwarts librarian, shushing people nearby. Perhaps this was her summer job.
"Excuse me," he said to her- quietly.
"Mr. Potter," she said, regarding him in austere shock. "Why are you not at your Aunt and Uncle's house?"
"I needed information for an essay for school and I saw an sign for this library. Is something wrong?"
"No. No, Mr. Potter, of course not." She didn't sound nervous, but she wasn't reassuring either.
"Did something happen? Ron-" Madame Pince was making him uneasy, but she cut him off.
"As far as I know, your friends are fine. But, well, with You-Know-Who coming back I should think you would be more careful." She looked down at him disapprovingly.
"Looks safe here," Harry remarked. Madame Pince sighed curtly and impatiently, and then looked down at him again.
"There's a card catalog over there." She pointed. "Alert myself or another librarian if you think you're being...followed, or anything of the sort."
"I will," Harry reassured her, and went in look of sources.
When Harry had finished his essay, he meandered about looking at all the books. He wondered if Hermione knew about this place. The thing he liked best about it, beyond the glass ceiling and quaint, rolling ladders, was the smell. One could almost taste the gentle decay of the paper. Eventually, around eleven o' clock, Harry started to get hungry- having had only little bits of grapefruit and orange to eat thus far that day. There weren't any food stalls, ostensibly because librarians were afraid the patrons might get food on the books. Harry went to the information desk.
"Er, how do I...get home?" Harry asked a man behind the counter, feeling rather stupid for not having thought about this previously.
"The Floo fires are over there." The man pointed kindly to several very obvious fireplaces where wizards and witches were lining up to go home.
"My house isn't...er, hooked up to the Floo network," Harry said.
"Muggle born?" The wizard asked benignly. Harry tipped his head down so his scar wouldn't be noticeable and told the man "yes" to simplify things.
"Well, do you have any friends' houses you could go to using Floo?"
"Yeah, I guess." Harry hoped the Weasleys wouldn't think he was imposing. The wizard seemed to know his concern.
"People get used to other wizards popping up in their homes without notice. Don't worry about it."
"Okay." Before the man turned to the next person in line, a thought crossed Harry's mind, and he asked, "How did I get here? I mean, how did that spell with the dot work? I thought Portkeys were timed."
The wizard smiled. "There are different forms of Portkey, aren't there? Some are timed, others are used in place of Apparition, like the one we use. Nice little spell, though a bit too advanced for a student, I'd say. Hogwarts is even spelled so you can't make Portkeys to it, but I'm sure you know that." Harry thanked him, and went over to the Floo fire lines. Then, after only being there for a few moments, he went to the card catalog, found what he was looking for and finally checked out "Hogwarts: A History". Hermione would be so proud.
* * *
The librarian had been right; the Weasleys certainly weren't affronted or upset when Harry turned up in their fireplace. "Look, mum, let Harry spend the night, and we'll send Dumbledore an owl asking if he can stay the rest of the summer." Ron's suggestion had gone over well among the Weasley children, but their mother had insisted on taking Harry back to the Dursleys.
"Dumbledore has his reasons for wanting Harry to stay there, I'm sure," Mrs. Weasley had said. "Fred, go get me your father's old boots from the hall closet- just one will do." She quickly created a Portkey, which was fairly easy for adult wizards and witches to make as they had to be mass- produced for events like the Quidditch World Cups. Luckily for them, Harry had a piece of carpet thread from the Dursley's living room stuck to the bottom of his shoe, and Mrs. Weasley used that to define the Portkey's destination.
They said farewell to the Weasleys, and Mrs. Weasley poked the Portkey with her wand. Though Harry felt it tug at his stomach the way the Portkeys he had used before did, this one did not behave the way other Portkeys had. This one did not take them to their predetermined destination. Where they ended up, Harry could only assume that they were about five miles away from his house, on a residential street that looked similar to that of the Dursleys'.
"What happened?" he asked Mrs. Weasley, who looked just as confused as he did. They both cried out when they felt their hands being sharply twisted behind their backs, but there seemed to be no thing or being touching them.
"Who are you and what do you think you're doing trying to get into Harry Potter's house?" The voice was gruff with age and definitely belonged to a woman- a witch. For it had to be magic that was holding them
Mrs. Weasley and Harry twisted their heads, but could see no one.
"Oh, it's you. Molly Weasley?" Mrs. Weasley nodded, very confused. "Bringing him home?" The disembodied voice asked sharply. Mrs. Weasley nodded again. Their arms were released from the spell that had held them. "Put your hands out," the voice commanded, and Harry still couldn't place it. They both extended their hands toward the voice, which may not have been the wisest thing to do, but they felt gnarled, cold, old-people hands grasp theirs, and were instantly transported to the Dursley's living room. "Sorry about that," said the voice. "Can't take any risks though."
"What..." Harry started in a whisper, but stopped because he knew that Mrs. Weasley didn't know either. Dudley wandered into the room, where Harry and Mrs. Weasley and the Invisible Senile Wonder stood. Dudley looked confused to see someone standing with Harry. Then, making the assumption that Harry only kept company with a certain type of people- which was admittedly quite clever of him- he ran out of the room, one hand on his backside and the over his mouth.
Mrs. Weasley was confused by this, having never met Dudley, but she dismissed it as routine Muggle oddity, and turned to Harry.
"Dumbledore has told me that you're safe here. Maybe the person who brought us here is watching out for you. I do wish you could come stay with us, and we'll see when it gets closer to school time. We'll definitely pick you up to go to Hogwarts." There was a little pop, and Mrs. Weasley and the disembodied voice left.
The Weasleys had sent Dumbledore an owl immediately asking if Harry could come visit them. Dumbledore agreed that Harry could come for the last week before school, meaning that Harry's sentence at the Dursley's was not a long one. A Ministry wizard came out to the Weasley's house and got Mrs. Weasley's permission to perform several spells to make the house particularly safe from Dark Wizards. Harry mentioned briefly that he would be leaving to Uncle Vernon, who perhaps did not hear him, and certainly did not care.