The Ministry has fallen. Scrimigeour is dead. They are coming.
Harry blinked, jumped to his feet, drew his wand.
Protego!
So many voices cried the same spell. Many cried others. In the crowd, he saw Hermione. And Ron. And Ginny. But again, they were lost in the crush of people.
He tried to reach for them when he could, but before long there were more masked figures than there were party-goers. His world became a whirl of white masks and black cloaks. Then, in the panic, he felt his visage come melting back. It was only a moment; in one second he caught his reflection in a silver dish and found that he was no longer Ron's distant cousin Barney.
They noticed. It was time for him to go.
He turned on the spot and spun into crushing darkness. Sight and sound were lost to him as he shimmied through space, desperate to escape the melee behind him. Out from the black he stepped—
And found himself on Privet Drive.
Harry stumbled, fell, and landed on the cold asphalt. The moon shone brightly above him, the houses on either side leaning in. Panic siezed him as he realized his stupidity. What had ever possessed him to return here? What little safety there had once been here was gone — blown out in the same breath as seventeen birthday candles.
It was then that he noticed the blood rushing from his left shoulder. Pain lanced through to his collarbone and he faltered.
Splinched.
Harry paled, temporarily at a loss. In his trepidation, he had apparated haphazardly, and healing was one of the major lapses in his education, something that he now regretted wholeheartedly.
The summer night was hot and humid, leaving him no need for his heavy dress robes. He ripped them off, bundled them, and held the fabric to his weeping wound. Standing proved difficult, but eventually he made it, wobbling slightly on legs that were still pumping on adrenaline.
Privet Drive hadn't changed at all since he had last seen it. The clapboard houses all lined up in the same rows, as they had since he had first arrived, riding on a flying motorcycle and carried by a half-giant. There was, however, one little difference.
When Harry, Dudley, Vernon, and Petunia had left, the eve of July 31st, Number 4, Privet Drive had looked cold and empty. As he soared away in the sidecar of Sirius' old motorcycle, it shrank away into one little dark dot among the lines of porch lights.
Harry turned instinctively toward it, thinking of sheltering there until he regained his head, and stopped. Everything was the same as it had been, but for one thing.
A porch light glimmered softly, illuminating the front door of Number 4.
Then he saw — really saw — the changes that had festered in his absence.
A car in the driveway. Curtains of drab blue to replace Aunt Petunia's flowered ones. Through the gate, he could see a little castle in the backyard, home to some very happy, spoiled little boy. It was then that he truly knew he had no home left in the world.
He knew it was a risk. He knew it was stupid. Perhaps it was the blood loss that prompted him to walk up the sidewalk, to raise his finger to the doorbell, and finally, to ring it.
Dizziness played havoc with his muscles, and so his hand stayed there, pressed to the doorbell until suddenly the door gave way. Harry fell inward, against something warm and soft and living.
"Hospital," he managed to mutter.
"Harry?" Someone asked in disbelief.
A face leaned in and peered at him. A face that he suddenly recognized.
"Trevor?"
