It Takes Love

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am an American male, not an English female. I'm trying my hand at writing for the first time, so please be gentle.

Chapter 1

Harry Potter was sitting in the back seat of his Uncle Vernon's car as it was heading down the M3; he was just home from his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yes, Harry is a wizard. Not just any wizard, mind you, but just about the most famous wizard of modern times. He is the 'Boy Who Lived.'

Now, why would anyone be famous for living, you ask? Well you see Harry Potter is the only known person to survive being hit with the killing curse, the Avada Kedevra. The curse was believed to unstoppable, nothing could block it. Harry's parents were both hit with the killing curse and died instantly. But when the most evil wizard in the last century, Lord Voldemort tried to kill Harry, who was just fifteen months old at the time, the curse rebounded off of Harry and struck Voldemort, ripping his soul from his body. The only thing Harry received from the attack was a lightening bolt-shaped scar on his forehead.

This past year had been very hard for Harry at Hogwarts; what with Professor Dumbledore ignoring him; that toad from the Ministry that thought she was a professor, Delores Umbridge, not teaching them anything in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but theory and then becoming the 'High Inquisitor' of Hogwarts; the Inquisitorial squad, made up of little Death Eater wanna be's; his lifetime ban from quidditch, because of getting into that fight with Draco Malfoy; Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, being killed and the prophesy.

Sirius's death, yeah that was a big one. If it wasn't for his inability to learn occlumency… no that wasn't right. If it weren't for Snape's inability to teach occlumency correctly, how to shield his mind from outside influences, then he would have been able to keep Voldemort out of his head. It was Voldemort that was able to plant images of Sirius being tortured into Harry's head. Harry, thinking that Sirius was in trouble, left Hogwarts along with his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and their classmates Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood and Ron's younger sister Ginny, traveled to the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic in London to save him. But it had all been a trick to get Harry to the Hall of Prophesies. When they arrived in the hall they found no one there, but they did find a small glass sphere marked with Harry's name. When he picked it up, a dozen of Voldemort's Death Eaters surrounded them, demanding the glass ball, that unbeknownst to Harry contained a copy of the prophecy made about him and Voldemort. In the battle that ensued, all of the students were injured, but were saved when members of the Order of the Phoenix came to their rescue.

The Order of the Phoenix was an organization started by Dumbledore during Voldemort's first rise to power. Its purpose was to fight against the Dark Lord. Sirius being a member of the Order and knowing that Harry was in trouble was also there.

During his duel with his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius was hit with stunner in the chest, causing him to fall behind the shrouded arched veil that stood upon a raised dais. The veil was also known as the 'Veil of Death.' It was once used to execute Witches and Wizards, before Azkaban prison.

Then there was the prophecy… "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

That's something to have hanging over your head, isn't it? The weight of the world rested on the shoulders of a fifteen-year-old boy. Professor Dumbledore showed the prophecy to Harry just after they arrived back to his office, from the Department of Mysteries.

The silence was tense in the Dursleys' car as it headed toward Number 4 Privet Drive. A lone tear made its way down Harry's cheek, not noticed by anyone except Harry's aunt, Petunia.

Harry's mother, Lily, was Aunt Petunia's sister. Petunia was a skinny, blonde woman, with a longer neck than most people had.

'What has he been through this past year?' she thought.

They arrived at their home a short while later. As they were exiting the vehicle, however, Aunt Petunia asked Harry to hand her Hedwig's cage. Hedwig, Harry's beautiful snowy owl, hooted softly at Harry as he handed the cage to his Aunt.

"It's ok Hedwig," Harry said reassuring his owl.

"Dudley, please help Harry upstairs with his trunk," Aunt Petunia told her son.

"Why should I help that freak?" he whined. Dudley was the size of a small whale and hated anything to do with his cousin.

"Because he is your cousin and I told you to!" she snapped at him.

"Petunia, dear, are you alright?" Harry's uncle, Vernon asked. Vernon was also large man with a large moustache.

"I'm fine Vernon, but things are going to change around here concerning Harry. I'll talk to you later, ok?" She said.

Vernon just nodded and continued on into the house.

After putting the trunk down at the foot of the bed in the smallest bedroom, Dudley beat a hasty retreat out of Harry's room. Harry just sat on his bed and put his head in his hands. The feeling of losing Sirius and everything that happen at the end of the school year was starting to crash down on him.

Aunt Petunia carried in Hedwig's cage and placed it on his desk. She turned to Harry and stared at him for a moment, before sitting in the chair at his desk. "What happened this year, Harry?" she asked softly.

Harry looked up at his Aunt and took in her concerned expression. "How much do you know about what is going on in my world?" he asked.

She sighed and sat in the chair at Harry's desk. "I know that the man that killed your parents is back."

"Yeah, he came back last year. There was a competition held at school, called the Triwizard tournament. The Triwizard tournament was between the three largest wizarding schools, of Europe, Durmstrang, Beauxbaton, and Hogwarts. There was a champion chosen from each of the school's to represent them. I was forced into participating in the Triwizard tournament as the fourth champion. We had three tasks that we had to complete. During the third task, we had to navigate our way through this maze. At the center of the maze was the Triwizard cup. The first person to touch the cup was the winner of the tournament. Well, me and the other champion from my school, Cedric, were the first to center of the maze. We fought together against this giant spider as the last obstacle before the cup. I had injured my leg during the fight with the spider, so I told Cedric to take the cup. He started towards the cup and then stopped. He said that I had made it there first, so the cup belonged to me. I argued with him about how he was closer and that with my leg being hurt I couldn't get to the cup before him. We finally agreed to take the cup together, that way it would still be a win for Hogwarts. He helped me limp over to the cup and we grabbed it together. What we didn't know was that the cup had been turned into a portkey. Do you know what that is?"

She nodded her head. "Your mother explained them to me once." She remembered how her sister, Lily, had explained the tugging feeling behind the navel and being transported to where ever the portkey was set to go.

He nodded his head also and continued. "Well the cup transported us to a cemetery. Did you know any of my dad's friends, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin or Peter Pettigrew?"

She again nodded her head. "I met them at your parents wedding."

"When my parents went into hiding, they used the 'fidilius' charm. That is a spell, which hides the location of whatever you're trying to protect within a person, the 'Secret Keeper.' Only the 'Secret Keeper' can give out the location. Peter Pettigrew was my parent's 'Secret Keeper'. It was supposed to be Sirius Black, my dad's best friend, but at the last minute switched to Peter to throw off Voldemort. Well, he gave out our location to Voldemort; he was the traitor that sold us out to him.

"Voldemort came to our house killed Dad and then Mum and then tried to kill me. But the spell rebounded on him for some reason. Professor Dumbledore believes that it was my mother's love for me and her sacrificing herself was what saved me. The rest of the story you know. I came here because of you and Mum being sisters. The blood protection that my mother's sacrifice gave carries on through you.

"Well here's the part you probably don't know. Nobody but Mum, Dad, Sirius and Peter knew of the change. So, when Sirius checked on Peter that day and found that he was gone, he went to check on my parents. But, it was too late - they had already been killed - so he hunted down Peter the next day and cornered him in an alley in London. Peter, Sirius and my dad were all animagus-they could change into animals. Dad was a stag, Sirius was a big black dog, and Peter was a rat, nicknamed Wormtail. Well, when Sirius cornered Peter in that alley, Peter started yelling: "Sirius how could betray Lily and James like that. They were your best friends!"

Wormtail had his wand behind his back. He cut off his finger and blew up the street killing twelve Muggle bystanders. Then he transformed into the rat and ran into the sewers. Sirius was arrested and thrown into Azkaban Prison, the wizard prison, without a trial for twelve years. He escaped two years ago. We caught Pettigrew and found out the truth, but before we could turn him over to the authorities, he escaped. Wormtail returned to his master, Voldemort, and was helping him to return to his body.

"When we, Cedric and I, grabbed the cup it sent us to a graveyard, where Wormtail and Voldemort were waiting for us. Voldemort ordered Wormtail to 'kill the spare.' A human being referred to as a spare, can you believe that! Well, two words and a green light later and Cedric was lying dead next to me. Wormtail tied me up to the gravestone of Voldemort's Muggle father. He then began a ritual to return Voldemort to his body. It required: the bone of the father unknowingly given, flesh of the servant willingly given. Wormtail cut off his own hand at that point. And blood of the foe forcibly taken."

Harry rolled up his sleeve to the elbow to show Aunt Petunia the scar from where Wormtail took his blood. She gasped at the scars on his arms.

"He mixed everything into this huge stone cauldron and out came Voldemort with a body. He called his servants, the 'Death Eaters,' to him to show them that he had returned. He then untied me, returned my wand and we started to duel. He wanted to show his Death Eaters that he was stronger than me. Well, it turns out that our wands share cores from the same Phoenix. So when we were dueling, our wands connected and created a dome of golden thread. I forced these beads of energy back into Voldemort's wand and it started producing shadows of the last spells performed. Cedric came out, then an old man and this woman that worked for the Ministry of Magic, and then… m- my mum and d-dad. They told me to hang on and that they would help me get away. Cedric asked me to return his body to his parents for burial. So, when they gave the word, I broke the connection and ran for Cedric's body and grabbed it. Then I summoned the cup to me to return us to Hogwarts. That was at the end of my fourth year.

He went through the rest of the highlights of his fifth year to her. He explained about Umbridge giving him detentions because he was telling the truth, about Voldemort's return, and how she made him write lines using this quill that cut into his hand.

"Let me see your hand," asked Aunt Petunia. Harry showed her his hand. 'I will not tell lies,' was carved into the back of it.

"Did you report this to anyone?" she asked.

"At that point there wasn't anyone to report it to. Umbridge had been appointed the Hogwarts High Inquisitor and then Headmistress." Harry explained. "Anyways my scar links me with Voldemort. Sometimes I can see what is going on with him and it save my friend Ron's fathers life over the Christmas break. He unfortunately figured out the connection too and was able to send me false images in my dreams. It got really bad when I was taking my exam for History of Magic. I saw Sirius being tortured by Voldemort. I tried to contact him, I tried to tell someone, but there was no one left at school to tell. So, five of my friends and I flew to London and went to the Ministry of Magic. We found our way down to where I had seen Sirius being tortured, but he wasn't there. It was a trap to get a copy of a prophecy that had been made about Voldemort and me. We ended up fighting a dozen Death Eaters in our trying to escape. Sirius and others came to our rescue. While he was dueling with his cousin Bellatrix, who is a death eater, he was hit in the chest and pushed through this stone arch, called the Veil of Death." At this point tears were streaming down Harry's face. "I got my godfather killed," he sobbed.

Aunt Petunia got up from the chair and sat next to Harry on the bed and gathered him up in her arms in a hug as cried into her shoulder. She rocked him back and forth, rubbing one hand up and down his back and her other one through his hair; whispering in his ear that it was not his fault. After a few minutes, he started to quiet down. He pulled from her embrace and wiped the tears away with his sleeve.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"No, Harry, I'm the one who is sorry. I had no idea of what you've been through the last few years. I have treated you so badly, because of my petty jealousy. Yes, I was jealous of Lily and what she could do and I couldn't. But that is no excuse for the way we have been treating you and for that I'm deeply sorry. Can you ever forgive me?" she asked pleadingly.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia, I can forgive you." Harry said as he gave his Aunt another hug.

"Thank you Harry," she said. She now had tears coming down her own face. "Now what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Professor Dumbledore said that I couldn't leave the house, because of the blood protection it offered."

Aunt Petunia sat there next to him for a few seconds, before she got up and headed to the door. She paused at the doorway and looked back at him, "Your Headmaster is only in charge of you while you are at school, isn't he? How can he control what you do during the summer? I heard your father once say that it is better to be proactive than reactive. Think about that." And then she was gone.

Harry sat there on his for quite a while thinking about what she had just said. He lay back on his pillow and went to sleep.

While he was thinking in his room, Petunia and Harry's uncle, Vernon, a large man with very large mustache, were having a talk in their room.

"Vernon, we need to stop being so cruel to Harry." Petunia started.

"Why should we?" he asked gruffly.

"Did you not listen to those people on the platform? They obviously care a lot about Harry. I talked with him earlier he has a rough last couple of years. Last year the same man that killed his parents killed a boy that he went to school with right in front of him. This year his godfather was killed in front of him while trying to save him from the some of the followers of that man. He's been fighting for his life the last couple of years and we haven't been exactly kind to him over the years. Plus he also saved our Dudley from those things last year." She explained to Vernon and then went on to relate the things that Harry had told her

"He did all of those things, and is still alive?" Vernon asked unbelieving.

"Yes, he has. You could tell he was telling the truth by the tone of his voice, he wasn't bragging, he was simply stating fact." She confirmed. "All of this abuse will stop. Think about this, if we had died and Dudley had went to live with Lily would we have want Dudley to be abused like that. Many things she may have been, but she was still my sister, Vernon."

"I'll think about what you have said. Goodnight Petunia." Vernon said as he got into bed.