Trials and Tribulations: Chapter One
Disclaimer: I don't won HP or any affiliates.
A/N: this is a new type of story for me… so please R&R, and try and find a better title... I need a new one. TY every1!
Oo00ooOOoo00ooOOoo
Harry Potter, the defender of the Light Side of the Wizarding world and a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was trapped.
Behind him, a crowd of people gathered, trying to fend off the Death Eaters from killing them all. When Harry turned around, he recognized the ones he could see. His best friend, Ron Weasley, was dueling with a menacing Death Eater. He looked to be holding his own with the man, but Harry could see his power was dwindling. He looked frantically at the other people in the crowd. He could make out his other best friend, and Ron's steady girlfriend, Hermione Granger. She was battling with her own death eater, a crowd of small children cowering behind her. She was a brilliant witch, and could hold off the one Death Eater easily. That wasn't what worried Harry at the moment. What worried him was the fact that there were three other Death Eaters heading towards the pair, their purpose clear: kill the witch, and the children. Harry knew she had no hope against four grown Death Eaters. He tried to call out to her, but his voice was lost in the confusion.
He recognized many others in the crowd: several of his teachers at Hogwarts, and many of his friends. He couldn't help them. He seemed to be apart from the crowd. Try as he might, he was helpless, watching the hundred or so Death Eaters take out, slowly at first, then faster as they got the rush of death, the hundreds of people in the crowd at Harry's back. He could do nothing to stop them. He was helpless, his worst fear.
When Harry could look no longer at the pain and horror he saw in the crowd, he turned and faced what was keeping him still. The Dark Lord. Voldemort.
Suddenly, Harry could move again. He also had his wand back in his hand. Where and when he had lost it he had no idea, but it didn't matter now.
As he took a quick look at his surroundings, he concluded that he had absolutely no clue where they were battling, and that it didn't matter. He quickly turned and faced the Dark Lord, the root of all the world's troubles in the past fifty years.
"Sso, Harry," the Dark Lord hissed out his snake like mouth. Harry repulsed at the look of that mouth, and the gleaming red eyes above it. "We meet again." The Dark Lord continued, circling Harry like he was a present he couldn't wait to rip open. "I trust you had a nice, peaceful few years since I last saw you." Voldemort threw back his head and laughed evilly. Harry gave an involuntary shudder listening to the terrifying sound. It gave him the feeling of nails screeching down a chalkboard, only a thousand times worse.
Harry gripped his wand tightly in his hand, resolving to teach Voldemort a lesson in the dealings with wizards from the Light Side, even if it killed him. He would not play that stupid little game that Voldemort had tried to get him to play years ago, when he had first risen back to power. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
He raised his wand deftly, and ran towards the Dark Lord, screaming the nastiest curse he could think of. Voldemort suddenly stopped laughing, and raised his own wand, pointing it straight at Harry's heart.
Harry's curses did no good. They were simply absorbed by the powerful wizard. Harry didn't care. He was crazy with anger, fear, and hate towards the Dark Lord. He raised his wand to try a final attempt, at the same time that Voldemort raised his.
/Stupify!/ Harry shouted, just as the Dark Lord shouted his own famous curse.
/Avada Kadavra!/ There was a jet of green light screaming towards Harry, as a jet of blue light flew towards Lord Voldemort.
Time seemed to slow to an impossible rate, and Harry saw the jet of deadly looking green light slowly advance on him. His thoughts moving at the normal speed, Harry instantly thought of that last duel with the Dark Lord, where his wand had performed the strange ritual of /Priori Incantatem/, when two brother wands dueled. He knew what would happen again.
Much to his surprise, the bolt of green light hit his own blue, and bounced it off, advancing still on Harry. Harry had no idea what had happened, but prepared himself for the worst. He closed his eyes, and time returned to normal, he heard the swish of death upon him, and the rest of the sounds faded. There was only that light, screaming faster and faster towards Harry.
The light hit, and Harry fell…
…Out of bed. He wrestled wildly with his covers, and finally untangled himself. He looked quickly around the room. He was used to the constant throbbing of the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, and ignored it now. He swiftly checked every corner of his room on Privet Drive, making sure nothing lurked in the shadows. When his fears of the darkness were assuaged, he sat back down on the bed, breathing hard, and trying to remember his dream.
It had not been a vision this time, simply a nightmare. He had them more and more recently. It was always the same. He, Harry, not being able to help the ones he loved, being forced to watch them die before his eyes, and then being killed by the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort. Harry shuddered at the memory, and went to his open window to let the cool summer breeze ease his troubled mind.
He stood at his windowsill, starring out into the calm, quiet night of Privet Dive. His mind wandered to the days gone by; when life was simpler, and he didn't have to worry about the greatest Dark wizard in centuries coming to kill him. His thoughts dropped into one memory, the summer before second year, when Ron had illegally flown his magical car here to come and save him from the Dursley's. He smiled at the thought. They had been so young and ignorant then. He wished with all his being that he could go back and be young again; not have this constant weight on his shoulders, the weight of the entire wizarding world.
His thoughts drifted again. He thought of the horrors that had taken place over that last few years at Hogwarts. His fourth year, the Triwizard Tournament, betrayal of the supposed Mad-Eye Moody, and the Dark Lord's initial return. So much had happened since then, it seemed.
His fifth year, he thought, had been the toughest. Getting used to the heightened security around the castle, the daily reports of the killings that happened outside the grounds of the school. Being helpless, yet again, to stop it all. The fifth year students had barely had time to worry about their NEWTS, perhaps that was why they had all done so badly at them. All except Hermione that was. She had done fantastic. But it hadn't really mattered, had it?
The news had come at the end of the year that Azkaban had been released of the Dementors. Every person that had been imprisoned there had been released, and joined with the Dark Lord, along with the Dementors. That had been the year that the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had been murdered in his home. He had never had the chance to agree with Dumbledore, and Harry wondered often if he ever would have.
News came daily, in those last few months of the school year, of attacks on wizards and muggles alike. Five students total were called into Dumbledore's office to hear the disastrous news: their houses had been attacked, or their family was gone, courtesy of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Harry sighed. That year, nothing had happened directly to the school, but when all of the students went home, Harry suspected they had lived in fear of being attacked during the summer holidays. Nobody was safe. Miraculously, everyone came back to the school for Harry's sixth year, the worst year of them all.
The classes were a joke; no one paid any attention, and even the teachers' hearts weren't in it. Everyone was worried about their family at home. Hermione, Harry and Ron had spent the year to themselves, trying to boost their confidence and hope that their homes would still be there when they got back. Harry remembered the train ride to King's Cross vividly. Too vividly, for his comfort.
Harry, Ron and Hermione had been in the prefects' car, eating sweets, and talking about such inconsequential matters. They had heard the screams even from there. When they had rushed into the hall, they could see everything. The Death Eaters, attacking students left and right, the screaming, the running, and the gigantic boom that had ended it all. The crash. And then the Dark Lord.
Harry had felt him getting closer with every fresh wave of pain in his scar. He had stupefied as many Death Eaters as he could see, but they just kept coming. And then He descended. He walked down the hall from the back of the train, his cloak, the color of the deepest night, swishing around him. Harry could see it in his mind's eye. He came down the corridor, with his eyes on only one person on the train. Harry Potter.
Harry had screamed at Ron and Hermione to run, but they wouldn't. They would never abandon him, they had said. As the Dark Lord got closer, the children on the train drew back into their compartments, terrified of the power billowing around Voldemort. Harry watched him come, knowing the inevitable was about to take place, and worried only for the others on the train. His scar had sent wave after wave of pain to his head, and Harry ignored it. He looked only at the Dark Lord, approaching slowly down the train, deliberately.
He remembered also, yelling at the others on the train to get away, run. Most of them hadn't needed to been told twice. They smashed the windows, and escaped through them, ignored by the Death Eaters, whose attention had been fixed on Harry and their Lord.
Harry had managed to get Hermione and Ron to stay in the compartment, but they wouldn't leave, they had told him. Harry watched as Voldemort advanced, watched, and waited.
He hadn't had long to wait. The Dark Lord advanced, and Harry glimpsed the Death Eaters advance behind him. Harry remembered feeling absolute terror at those eyes, which had not changed since the powerful Dark wizard had dueled with him at the end of his fourth year.
Harry trembled and gripped his windowsill at the memory. He closed his eyes, urging the tears that were welling there not to come. He had promised himself once that he would not cry. With the events in the past few months, that promise had been very hard to keep. He wished he could forget it all, but he knew that was impossible. He would have to deal with this, as he dealt with everything else in his life. As Ron had so eloquently pointed out in his fourth year: everything always happened to him. Ron had eventually come to understand that Harry had no control over that, and he knew Harry hated it. All of his friends knew that now.
He stared into the night, willing the thoughts not to come to him, trying to forget the memories of that one train ride, if only for a few moments. As he watched the sky turn from deep black to pre-morning grey, he saw a shape start to form a ways away, flying steadily towards Privet Drive. Harry knew at once what it was, but continued to stay at the window. He waited patiently for the object to come to him.
Minutes later, Hedwig was soaring through Harry's window, a small mouse in her beak. Harry held out his arm for her, and she grasped it and held with her talons. He set her gently on her perch, petting her and crooning softly what a good owl she was.
When Hedwig was settled, Harry turned back to his bed, and saw his summer calendar hanging on the wall, the one he used to count down the days until school started every year. There were X's on every day up to July 29th. Harry sighed. Tomorrow would be his birthday. His 17th. What friends he had left would all send him gifts, and no one would know what to say or write to comfort him. It had happened the summer of his fourth year, after that first attack form Voldemort. Ron and Hermione had sent presents with no letters, not knowing if he was ready to talk yet. Harry couldn't blame them. Sirius had tried, at least. He had written Harry a letter telling him to stay strong and not be scared. Harry had sighed, and wondered if anyone in the world could know what he was going through or how he was feeling. He had known that one person would always know how Harry felt, and would always try to comfort him, and be there like a father. But that person was gone now, and Harry didn't want to think about that.
It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his friends' respect, or his godfather's attempts to cheer him; he loved them all for it. But they didn't, and wouldn't ever, understand what Harry was going through all the time. The weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders, the publicity, the attacks. Harry often thought that maybe it would have all been better if Voldemort had killed him that night, so long ago, along with his parents. So many people would not have had to suffer… So many need not have died…
A groan of floorboards interrupted Harry's thoughts. He sat up immediately, looking at his closed door, listening hard. He knew that there were charms on this house, but he had no idea if they had been connected to his protector, and now that he was gone?
Harry stopped thinking about it, and rose from the bed. He crept to the door; silent, listening to the floorboards creak as someone went up-or was it down?- the stairs. When he reached the door, he opened it just as quietly, to peak out of a small sliver of space. He could see nothing, but Harry didn't trust that. He opened the door a bit more, and heaved a collective sigh.
Dudley. Dudley was creping down the stairs, trying desperately not to be heard. Harry shook his head, and looked down at his watch.
5: 53.
Dudley was trying to get food. The only reason he would ever get up this early would be to sneak food while his parents were asleep. They had kept their word to his school nurse and her diet when Dudley had lost 20 pounds on it that first summer. The boy was a bit slimmer now, two summers later, but still no pixie. Harry turned away, and went back into his room. He wouldn't bother Dudley now. Let the sorry pudge eat what he wanted.
All hopes of sleep now were gone. He went to his trunk in the corner of the room and opened it, getting out a pair of jeans and a faded green shirt that he had bought had Hogsmeade one year. He dressed quickly, not knowing what he was looking forward to.
The Dursleys had not warmed up to him in any sense in the past few years. They certainly had showed their disgust at an almost-full-grown 'freak' in their household, and missed no opportunity to hint that fact at Harry. Harry ignored them, and, for the most part, they lent him the same courtesy.
Harry had also noticed a general change in the last few summers. If he hadn't known better, Harry would have guessed that his Aunt and Uncle were worried, but about what, Harry had no idea. They most certainly could not know about the Wizarding World's past few years of terror, or the horrendous crimes that the Dark Lord committed towards muggles daily.
No, Harry was sure it was about something smaller than what he had to worry about, probably problems with Dudley at his school. Harry was certainly sure that they hadn't heard about the train crash, and the atrocious murder of the Light Side's most powerful wizard… Harry closed his eyes, not wanting those particular memories to come any closer. They refused.
Harry shook his head. He had had enough of these depressing thoughts. He got up from the bed with a small creak and headed downstairs to get something to eat, not caring how early it was. Maybe he would get lucky, and not have to try and behave civilly towards his 'family' over breakfast.
And so began Harry Potter's day.
Disclaimer: I don't won HP or any affiliates.
A/N: this is a new type of story for me… so please R&R, and try and find a better title... I need a new one. TY every1!
Oo00ooOOoo00ooOOoo
Harry Potter, the defender of the Light Side of the Wizarding world and a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was trapped.
Behind him, a crowd of people gathered, trying to fend off the Death Eaters from killing them all. When Harry turned around, he recognized the ones he could see. His best friend, Ron Weasley, was dueling with a menacing Death Eater. He looked to be holding his own with the man, but Harry could see his power was dwindling. He looked frantically at the other people in the crowd. He could make out his other best friend, and Ron's steady girlfriend, Hermione Granger. She was battling with her own death eater, a crowd of small children cowering behind her. She was a brilliant witch, and could hold off the one Death Eater easily. That wasn't what worried Harry at the moment. What worried him was the fact that there were three other Death Eaters heading towards the pair, their purpose clear: kill the witch, and the children. Harry knew she had no hope against four grown Death Eaters. He tried to call out to her, but his voice was lost in the confusion.
He recognized many others in the crowd: several of his teachers at Hogwarts, and many of his friends. He couldn't help them. He seemed to be apart from the crowd. Try as he might, he was helpless, watching the hundred or so Death Eaters take out, slowly at first, then faster as they got the rush of death, the hundreds of people in the crowd at Harry's back. He could do nothing to stop them. He was helpless, his worst fear.
When Harry could look no longer at the pain and horror he saw in the crowd, he turned and faced what was keeping him still. The Dark Lord. Voldemort.
Suddenly, Harry could move again. He also had his wand back in his hand. Where and when he had lost it he had no idea, but it didn't matter now.
As he took a quick look at his surroundings, he concluded that he had absolutely no clue where they were battling, and that it didn't matter. He quickly turned and faced the Dark Lord, the root of all the world's troubles in the past fifty years.
"Sso, Harry," the Dark Lord hissed out his snake like mouth. Harry repulsed at the look of that mouth, and the gleaming red eyes above it. "We meet again." The Dark Lord continued, circling Harry like he was a present he couldn't wait to rip open. "I trust you had a nice, peaceful few years since I last saw you." Voldemort threw back his head and laughed evilly. Harry gave an involuntary shudder listening to the terrifying sound. It gave him the feeling of nails screeching down a chalkboard, only a thousand times worse.
Harry gripped his wand tightly in his hand, resolving to teach Voldemort a lesson in the dealings with wizards from the Light Side, even if it killed him. He would not play that stupid little game that Voldemort had tried to get him to play years ago, when he had first risen back to power. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
He raised his wand deftly, and ran towards the Dark Lord, screaming the nastiest curse he could think of. Voldemort suddenly stopped laughing, and raised his own wand, pointing it straight at Harry's heart.
Harry's curses did no good. They were simply absorbed by the powerful wizard. Harry didn't care. He was crazy with anger, fear, and hate towards the Dark Lord. He raised his wand to try a final attempt, at the same time that Voldemort raised his.
/Stupify!/ Harry shouted, just as the Dark Lord shouted his own famous curse.
/Avada Kadavra!/ There was a jet of green light screaming towards Harry, as a jet of blue light flew towards Lord Voldemort.
Time seemed to slow to an impossible rate, and Harry saw the jet of deadly looking green light slowly advance on him. His thoughts moving at the normal speed, Harry instantly thought of that last duel with the Dark Lord, where his wand had performed the strange ritual of /Priori Incantatem/, when two brother wands dueled. He knew what would happen again.
Much to his surprise, the bolt of green light hit his own blue, and bounced it off, advancing still on Harry. Harry had no idea what had happened, but prepared himself for the worst. He closed his eyes, and time returned to normal, he heard the swish of death upon him, and the rest of the sounds faded. There was only that light, screaming faster and faster towards Harry.
The light hit, and Harry fell…
…Out of bed. He wrestled wildly with his covers, and finally untangled himself. He looked quickly around the room. He was used to the constant throbbing of the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, and ignored it now. He swiftly checked every corner of his room on Privet Drive, making sure nothing lurked in the shadows. When his fears of the darkness were assuaged, he sat back down on the bed, breathing hard, and trying to remember his dream.
It had not been a vision this time, simply a nightmare. He had them more and more recently. It was always the same. He, Harry, not being able to help the ones he loved, being forced to watch them die before his eyes, and then being killed by the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort. Harry shuddered at the memory, and went to his open window to let the cool summer breeze ease his troubled mind.
He stood at his windowsill, starring out into the calm, quiet night of Privet Dive. His mind wandered to the days gone by; when life was simpler, and he didn't have to worry about the greatest Dark wizard in centuries coming to kill him. His thoughts dropped into one memory, the summer before second year, when Ron had illegally flown his magical car here to come and save him from the Dursley's. He smiled at the thought. They had been so young and ignorant then. He wished with all his being that he could go back and be young again; not have this constant weight on his shoulders, the weight of the entire wizarding world.
His thoughts drifted again. He thought of the horrors that had taken place over that last few years at Hogwarts. His fourth year, the Triwizard Tournament, betrayal of the supposed Mad-Eye Moody, and the Dark Lord's initial return. So much had happened since then, it seemed.
His fifth year, he thought, had been the toughest. Getting used to the heightened security around the castle, the daily reports of the killings that happened outside the grounds of the school. Being helpless, yet again, to stop it all. The fifth year students had barely had time to worry about their NEWTS, perhaps that was why they had all done so badly at them. All except Hermione that was. She had done fantastic. But it hadn't really mattered, had it?
The news had come at the end of the year that Azkaban had been released of the Dementors. Every person that had been imprisoned there had been released, and joined with the Dark Lord, along with the Dementors. That had been the year that the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had been murdered in his home. He had never had the chance to agree with Dumbledore, and Harry wondered often if he ever would have.
News came daily, in those last few months of the school year, of attacks on wizards and muggles alike. Five students total were called into Dumbledore's office to hear the disastrous news: their houses had been attacked, or their family was gone, courtesy of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Harry sighed. That year, nothing had happened directly to the school, but when all of the students went home, Harry suspected they had lived in fear of being attacked during the summer holidays. Nobody was safe. Miraculously, everyone came back to the school for Harry's sixth year, the worst year of them all.
The classes were a joke; no one paid any attention, and even the teachers' hearts weren't in it. Everyone was worried about their family at home. Hermione, Harry and Ron had spent the year to themselves, trying to boost their confidence and hope that their homes would still be there when they got back. Harry remembered the train ride to King's Cross vividly. Too vividly, for his comfort.
Harry, Ron and Hermione had been in the prefects' car, eating sweets, and talking about such inconsequential matters. They had heard the screams even from there. When they had rushed into the hall, they could see everything. The Death Eaters, attacking students left and right, the screaming, the running, and the gigantic boom that had ended it all. The crash. And then the Dark Lord.
Harry had felt him getting closer with every fresh wave of pain in his scar. He had stupefied as many Death Eaters as he could see, but they just kept coming. And then He descended. He walked down the hall from the back of the train, his cloak, the color of the deepest night, swishing around him. Harry could see it in his mind's eye. He came down the corridor, with his eyes on only one person on the train. Harry Potter.
Harry had screamed at Ron and Hermione to run, but they wouldn't. They would never abandon him, they had said. As the Dark Lord got closer, the children on the train drew back into their compartments, terrified of the power billowing around Voldemort. Harry watched him come, knowing the inevitable was about to take place, and worried only for the others on the train. His scar had sent wave after wave of pain to his head, and Harry ignored it. He looked only at the Dark Lord, approaching slowly down the train, deliberately.
He remembered also, yelling at the others on the train to get away, run. Most of them hadn't needed to been told twice. They smashed the windows, and escaped through them, ignored by the Death Eaters, whose attention had been fixed on Harry and their Lord.
Harry had managed to get Hermione and Ron to stay in the compartment, but they wouldn't leave, they had told him. Harry watched as Voldemort advanced, watched, and waited.
He hadn't had long to wait. The Dark Lord advanced, and Harry glimpsed the Death Eaters advance behind him. Harry remembered feeling absolute terror at those eyes, which had not changed since the powerful Dark wizard had dueled with him at the end of his fourth year.
Harry trembled and gripped his windowsill at the memory. He closed his eyes, urging the tears that were welling there not to come. He had promised himself once that he would not cry. With the events in the past few months, that promise had been very hard to keep. He wished he could forget it all, but he knew that was impossible. He would have to deal with this, as he dealt with everything else in his life. As Ron had so eloquently pointed out in his fourth year: everything always happened to him. Ron had eventually come to understand that Harry had no control over that, and he knew Harry hated it. All of his friends knew that now.
He stared into the night, willing the thoughts not to come to him, trying to forget the memories of that one train ride, if only for a few moments. As he watched the sky turn from deep black to pre-morning grey, he saw a shape start to form a ways away, flying steadily towards Privet Drive. Harry knew at once what it was, but continued to stay at the window. He waited patiently for the object to come to him.
Minutes later, Hedwig was soaring through Harry's window, a small mouse in her beak. Harry held out his arm for her, and she grasped it and held with her talons. He set her gently on her perch, petting her and crooning softly what a good owl she was.
When Hedwig was settled, Harry turned back to his bed, and saw his summer calendar hanging on the wall, the one he used to count down the days until school started every year. There were X's on every day up to July 29th. Harry sighed. Tomorrow would be his birthday. His 17th. What friends he had left would all send him gifts, and no one would know what to say or write to comfort him. It had happened the summer of his fourth year, after that first attack form Voldemort. Ron and Hermione had sent presents with no letters, not knowing if he was ready to talk yet. Harry couldn't blame them. Sirius had tried, at least. He had written Harry a letter telling him to stay strong and not be scared. Harry had sighed, and wondered if anyone in the world could know what he was going through or how he was feeling. He had known that one person would always know how Harry felt, and would always try to comfort him, and be there like a father. But that person was gone now, and Harry didn't want to think about that.
It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his friends' respect, or his godfather's attempts to cheer him; he loved them all for it. But they didn't, and wouldn't ever, understand what Harry was going through all the time. The weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders, the publicity, the attacks. Harry often thought that maybe it would have all been better if Voldemort had killed him that night, so long ago, along with his parents. So many people would not have had to suffer… So many need not have died…
A groan of floorboards interrupted Harry's thoughts. He sat up immediately, looking at his closed door, listening hard. He knew that there were charms on this house, but he had no idea if they had been connected to his protector, and now that he was gone?
Harry stopped thinking about it, and rose from the bed. He crept to the door; silent, listening to the floorboards creak as someone went up-or was it down?- the stairs. When he reached the door, he opened it just as quietly, to peak out of a small sliver of space. He could see nothing, but Harry didn't trust that. He opened the door a bit more, and heaved a collective sigh.
Dudley. Dudley was creping down the stairs, trying desperately not to be heard. Harry shook his head, and looked down at his watch.
5: 53.
Dudley was trying to get food. The only reason he would ever get up this early would be to sneak food while his parents were asleep. They had kept their word to his school nurse and her diet when Dudley had lost 20 pounds on it that first summer. The boy was a bit slimmer now, two summers later, but still no pixie. Harry turned away, and went back into his room. He wouldn't bother Dudley now. Let the sorry pudge eat what he wanted.
All hopes of sleep now were gone. He went to his trunk in the corner of the room and opened it, getting out a pair of jeans and a faded green shirt that he had bought had Hogsmeade one year. He dressed quickly, not knowing what he was looking forward to.
The Dursleys had not warmed up to him in any sense in the past few years. They certainly had showed their disgust at an almost-full-grown 'freak' in their household, and missed no opportunity to hint that fact at Harry. Harry ignored them, and, for the most part, they lent him the same courtesy.
Harry had also noticed a general change in the last few summers. If he hadn't known better, Harry would have guessed that his Aunt and Uncle were worried, but about what, Harry had no idea. They most certainly could not know about the Wizarding World's past few years of terror, or the horrendous crimes that the Dark Lord committed towards muggles daily.
No, Harry was sure it was about something smaller than what he had to worry about, probably problems with Dudley at his school. Harry was certainly sure that they hadn't heard about the train crash, and the atrocious murder of the Light Side's most powerful wizard… Harry closed his eyes, not wanting those particular memories to come any closer. They refused.
Harry shook his head. He had had enough of these depressing thoughts. He got up from the bed with a small creak and headed downstairs to get something to eat, not caring how early it was. Maybe he would get lucky, and not have to try and behave civilly towards his 'family' over breakfast.
And so began Harry Potter's day.