I do not own Harry Potter, so don't sue me. Please R+R!

I had to rewrite this chapter (sorry!) because I didn't like the length and tone of it. Anyway, the title's changed too…

Chapter 1 – The Spare Bedroom

~*~

Harry tried to gulp down the extremely watery and nasty porridge with a puking feeling. Shooting a nervous look at Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, he ate it slowly and carefully trying to not gain attention. It had been a horrible wreck for them, though not for Harry, yesterday, on his birthday: Sirius, Harry's godfather, came in for a visit! But of course, Sirius Black was still a wanted man and he dared not to transform till he was in Harry's room. Aunt Petunia had shrieked and attempted to kick the poor Snuffles out and Uncle Vernon had started yelling at Harry about his visitation rights – which was none. Dudley scrambled out of the room clutching his large bottom as fast as he could but Snuffles ran past him, tripping him, and got himself tranformed into a human.

This was just the typical life of Harry Potter. After sneaking Sirius through the window, Harry shut himself in the room and the two were slightly panting from the trauma. Sirius gave a grin and gave him a pair of new unbreakable stay-on glasses for a present. These were much better than Harry's old ones as they were – well – unbreakable and stays on you pretty good!

"Sirius, you can't be here, or you'll get caught!" hissed Harry, "I don't exactly have the lowerest profile right now, especially with Voldemort back on the loose."

Sirius just chuckled, "What? I can't visit my favourite godson now? So Harry, anything of the scar?"

Harry averted his eyes and looked at the floor. He didn't want to get Sirius worried, but he couldn't help the fact that his scar was hurting more than ever now. There had been images of Voldemort in his dreams too, but it was all very confusing. Voldemort was talking about using Muggle stuff, disgusting, but necessary. Harry thought about this and then decided to say, "Well, not that much, but I did have this dream about Voldemort talking about the muggles."

"Hmm, well, pay careful attention to every one of your dreams, Harry, they may become very useful." Sirius gave a nod and he immediately transformed into Snuffles the dog. Harry gave a pat on the head and then watched it sneak out of the window.

Now at breakfast, Uncle Vernon barked at every little thing Harry did. As soon as Harry stood up ready to pounce back to his bedroom, Uncle Vernon roared, "Watch it, boy! Don't sqeak the damn chair!"

Harry gulped and then to make matters worse, Hedwig came flying in dropping a letter on Harry's head. "That bloody owl!" Uncle Vernon's face was bursting purple now.

'This will be my cue' Harry grabbed the letter and lept upstairs, closing the door in time for Hedwig to come in.

He ripped open the letter at the familiar handwriting of Hermione's and his heart lept. Just as she has promised, she was inviting him over! What luck! Two weeks at Cho's in July and three weeks at Hermione's in the coming August! Harry smiled at the thought of Cho. It wasn't exactly the most easy thing getting her as a girlfriend, but he succeeded last year. He also found that Mr. Chang was an excellent Quidditch player too.

After telling Uncle Vernon that Hermione was a friend he once met at King's Cross and that her family was non-magical, Uncle Vernon was more than glad to be rid of this black haired green eyed seventeen old boy. Harry hadn't really lied as Hermione's family were non-magic, but herself, that would be another matter.

~*~

When Harry arrived at Hermione's house, Ron was not there yet. He dragged his trunk through the door and looked all about. It wasn't as tidy as Aunt Petunia makes it at home, but much more interesting, because it looked like a real home. Hermione led him through the livingroom and then upstairs to her room. Harry felt a little self conscious in his uncle's old socks as he had to take his shoes off for the carpeted floor. In Hermione's room, there were all these interesting wizarding things as well as muggle stuff. A pile of her subscribed Daily Prophet sat in a corner. Next to it was a pile of Witch Weekly which she subscribed to too. Next to that did not surprise Harry was a couple of book cases with a few hundred of huge books neatly stacked in alphabetic order.

Noticing where Harry was looking at, Hermione quickly added, "That's my book collection. Of course, most of the muggle books are stored down in the basement because as I'm in Hogwarts right now, and my parents agree too, that it would be the most convenient to put the wizard books in my room whenever I need for reference."

"Wow," breathed Harry, "did you buy the library or something?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, "Oh Harry. Anyway, you and Ron will be put in the spare bedroom. Come on, let me show you."

"Ok, and when's Ron's coming?" asked Harry.

"Tomorrow," said Hermione with a smile.

Harry was shown to his room which had two beds, a table, and another couple of bookselves with more books stacked on top. "Oh, those are my mother's books," Hermione told him. So that's where she gets her freaky book loving genes, thought Harry.

Just then, someone knocked on the door. Harry's insides froze. It happened everytime a door gets knocked on because with Voldemort on the lose, you never know who's coming through your door. Hermione just put on a big grin and said, "I'll get it. Be right back."

Harry turned to the spare room as Hermione raced down the stairs for the door. He looked around it for a bit and noticed that it was quite bare and empty other than the bookshelves. Wiping his forehead of sweat, he started dargging his trunk in. He dragged it to the bed near the window and then sat down on the bed, looking around once more. He heard happy voices downstairs and therefore was relieved it wasn't Voldemort who came knocking.

Suddenly as he turned his head back to the room, he saw something that wasn't there before. His heart gave a quick strong beat of distress. There was a huge grandfather clock right next to his bed. It wasn't there before, thought Harry crazily, maybe Hermione's house includes magic too? No way, underage witches and wizards can't use magic. Harry breathed and examined the creepy clock.

It was about a foot taller than him, and was painted in a beautiful bronze with a golden strip of – well, gold - all around it. It was carved beautifully with an enormous golden snake carved on the very top. Harry's mind jumped to Voldemort, but the possibility of him being here was quite absurd. Harry shivered at the sight of the eyes of the snake. They looked so endless and deadly, but couldn't quite be so as the eyes were made of blood red rubies. The clock had roman numerals numbers and there were three handles, for hour, minute, and second. It was ticking strangely loud and seemed to be getting louder by the second. Below the clock head, was these columns of year numbers. Each year was written in gold lettering on a small rectangular silver piece, and they were all lined up neatly. Harry's eyes flickered to the current year, 1997. How could this very old clock have the current year? Something else Harry noticed too, that as he looked towards the older years, more silver pieces seemed to be appearing, like the year column was scrolling with his eyes. Harry's head seemed to spin as he scrolled down to the 1920s, and then he looked back up again. There was 1940 instead of 1997 on the top block, so he stared at it for a moment till the year column started spinning back to 1997.

Harry blinked and then flickered to the year of his birth, 1980. Harry inhaled a deep breath and then his right hand seemed to lift by itself up to that year number. He was about two inches away from touching it. Harry felt like he was touching something very old and sacred and that shouldn't be touched at all. Then he heard a voice, "Harry?"

Harry dropped his arm and blinked. "Harry? Are you ok?" the voice continued.

Turning towards the voice which came from the doorway, Harry suddenly lit up, "Ron! Why are you here already? I thought you were coming tomorrow?"

Ron grinned and waved, then started pulling his trunk, "Thought I'd surprise you guys. Anyway, Hermione's downstairs helping with dinner with her mom and Mr. Granger is talking to the fellytone. These muggle stuff are so weird!" He was now looking at the table which had a few pens, a calculator, some books, and a radio. He played around with the radio a bit.

"It's a radio, Ron," said Harry. Then he suddenly thought of the dream about Voldmort. Muggle stuff! What if Voldemort knew that he was coming to Hermione's and he might try to kill him by doing something to a muggle item! However, how would the Dark Lord know? It was all sounding terribly crazy. Should he tell Ron about it? No, now isn't the right time.

"Definitely not like the one we have at home," muttered Ron, "well, we don't have these funny knobs and a long metal thingy. Anyway, what were you doing staring at the wall?"

Harry then remembered the clock and turned saying, "What wall? It's a clock -." He stopped, and stared at the wall. "The clock – it was – a minute ago – it – it…" Harry shook his head and reached his hand, but only felt the cold hard white stone wall.

"Are you ok? What clock?" asked Ron suddenly with a concerned and distressed look on his face.

"Oh, er, nothing, yeah…" muttered Harry, then added, "I saw this really cool creepy clock a minute ago here or… I thought I did. Anyway, nothing, it doesn't matter. Hermione's house has no magic in it. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine."

"Hallucinations maybe, Harry?" Ron chuckled, "but I have to agree with you, Hermione's house is not exactly the most normal."

True, thought Harry, but not the way you may think it, Ron.