It was two o'clock in the morning, and all the inhabitants of number 4,
Privet Drive, were fast asleep, and had been for several hours. All but
one... One who was so preoccupied and worried, he hadn't had a proper
night's sleep in weeks. One who missed his friends and his school so bad,
there was no possible way he could ignore the pain-like feeling that had
overtaken his mind and body in their absence. It was Harry Potter.
Harry lay on his bed, fully awake, his glasses still on his nose, wondering what was happening at this very moment in the wizarding world, and asking himself for the hundredth time why no one had even taken the time to write to him yet. He would have expected his best friends, Ron and Hermione, to send him something, a note, a letter, or the invitation to stay at the Burrow that Ron had promised him at the end of last year. He would have hoped that them, at least, would be concerned with his being worried and lonely. But nothing had come...
Harry shook his head. "No," he thought. "They would have written by now if they could." Maybe something was wrong. Maybe they didn't write because something had happened to them. Harry didn't even want to think about that dreadful possibility. He nervously turned over and over again in his head the painful memories of what had happened just a few weeks ago, at the end of the school year: the return of Lord Voldemort, Cedric Diggory's death, seeing his parents, and being separated from the wizarding world and the only people who cared for him all too soon...
Ever since he had returned to Privet Drive, he had felt even more scared, and, for the first time since he had discovered he was a wizard four years ago, helpless and vulnerable. He had no way of knowing what was going on at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or at the Burrow, or with all his friends or his godfather, Sirius, and if they were all safe. No way of knowing where Voldemort now was, and if he had yet regained his full powers. If he had, he could turn up on Privet Drive and kill Harry without anyone noticing, without Harry being able to defend himself. Voldemort was the most powerful dark wizard of all times, and he, Harry, was an underage wizard, who had barely completed four years of training at school.
These thoughts tormented him so much that he didn't fall asleep until half past three, and even then, he kept dreaming of cold, high-pitched voices and flaming red eyes.
A few short hours later, Harry woke up as someone knocked repeatedly on his door. He sleepily rubbed his eyes, and saw on the clock that it wasn't even 6:30. He also saw something else on the calendar right next to it: today was July 31st, Harry's fifteenth Birthday! How could he have forgotten about it?
He sat up in bed, thinking that he had probably just been too preoccupied to remember it, when he heard a small voice come from the other side of the door:
"Harry, could you come downstairs... p-p-please?" said Harry's cousin Dudley, sounding unusually both nice and scared.
Dudley had said "please" to Harry - what was going on? Now wide awake, Harry shook off his blankets and went to open the door, to find a white and shaking Dudley who leapt out of his way and motioned him downstairs.
Wondering what this was all about, Harry went down the steps and found his Uncle Vernon there waiting for him, his face a sort of palish green, and who muttered through gritted teeth:
"Happy Birthday Harry."
Harry's jaw dropped in amazement: this was the first time in fourteen years that the Dursleys had remembered his birthday. Harry had given up hope number of years ago that they would ever take any notice of it - least of all wish it to him. Had Voldemort come here over night and put them all under a spell?
However, the explanation to this mystery was obviously in the living room: Aunt Petunia kept peering around the kitchen door where she had taken refuge and glancing into the living room with terrified eyes before gasping and turning away, and Uncle Vernon pointed a large, fat finger towards it and mumbled a few words that sounded somewhat like: "... someone... for you... waiting..."
A bit apprehensive as to who he would meet, Harry walked into the room, and felt instantly both intense relief and surprise: next to the chimney, his back turned to him, stood a tall, dark-haired man clasping his hands nervously behind his back. There was no mistaking that silhouette.
"Sirius!" Harry exclaimed.
Sirius turned around and gave him a feeble smile.
"Happy Birthday, Harry..." he said in a kind yet weary voice.
Harry ran to him and started asking:
"But why... when... I mean, how did you get here?"
"There's really no time to explain now," started Sirius.
Harry was shocked to see how exhausted he looked: he had a four or five-day beard and his eyes were all swollen from fatigue, as though he hadn't slept in days.
"I've come to take you with me, Dumbledore's only just informed me. It isn't safe here anymore."
"What do you mean?" asked Harry. "When was it ever safe here?"
"Can't tell you right now, we have to hurry. Go grab your things and be back down here as soon as you've got them."
Harry saw the look of concern on his face and thought it best to do as he said and ask questions later. He ran upstairs, got dressed, packed all of his Hogwarts materiel and his clothes, as well as his invisibility cloak, his firebolt broom, and the leather photo album of his parents - his only true belongings - as fast as he could, then went back downstairs, dragging his trunk behind him. Sirius was waiting for him at the front door.
Only when he was just about to step outside did he remember his snowy owl, who hadn't come back from her nightly stroll yet.
"Sirius, I have to wait for Hedwig!"
"Don't worry, she'll be able to find us," Sirius replied as he pressed Harry through the door.
"But... how are we travelling?" asked Harry, puzzled to see they weren't using Floo Powder. "You didn't come on Buckbeak, did you?"
"Of course not," smiled Sirius. "You'll find out soon."
Harry gave only one look back at the Dursleys, who were cowering in a corner of the hall. Whatever it was he was leaving for, dangerous or not, it had to be better than what he had been enduring the past few weeks, isolated as he had been. He followed Sirius out onto the road.
He hadn't even walked three feet, however, that he already had to stop as he gasped for breath.
"Hum, Sirius?" he said, panting from the effort of trying to carry his trunk. "Do you think you could..."
"Oh, I'm sorry Harry," said Sirius as he walked towards Harry. "Don't know where my mind is... Been a bit preoccupied... I'll take care of that for you," he added, looking at the trunk and pulling a brand-new wand out of his pocket.
At this, through the open door, Harry saw the Dursleys scream in terror and run up the stairs. Sirius looked at them in exasperation and muttered:
"Muggles."
He then looked up and down the street, but no other Muggles were in sight. So he whispered a spell (unknown to Harry), and a few sparks flew out of the wand before landing on the trunk, which instantly began shrinking, and jumped into Sirius' hand, now the size of a walnut. He gave it to Harry:
"You'll want to hold on to that, make sure you don't loose it. Happens to me all the time."
"What spell was that, Sirius?" Harry asked, happy to see magic around him once more.
Sirius smiled. "Well, its name is very explicit: it's simply called a shrinking spell. There are shrinking potions, and shrinking spells. Personally, I think the spell is much simpler, but you really need to get the grip of it before you start using it, or else the object you used it on can just go on and on and shrink until it's disappeared. I reckon your father once tried it on one of the school's best broomsticks," he added, laughing silently at the thought of it. "The Quidditch captain was so mad at him, he wanted to kick him out of the team; but then, he really couldn't afford losing a player like James..."
He had finished the sentence in a rather quiet tone, talking to himself more than to Harry. Harry knew that his father had been Sirius' best friend, and he could just imagine the feeling of pain and sadness that he had experienced at his death. Harry could understand it very well. If anything ever happened to Ron or Hermione... He forced that idea out of his head, and asked Sirius instead:
"Where did you get the new wand?"
"Well, no wizard worthy of that name can possibly go wandering without a wand, now, can they? Dumbledore found one for me."
"You've seen Dumbledore? After - I mean - since... since the end of last year?" Harry's throat tightened painfully as he pronounced these words. Remembering the Tournament was always hard.
"Yes," grunted Sirius, his face hardening as he too recalled the event that had him, Harry, and Dumbledore meeting together. "Been helping me get around other than in my Animagi form."
An even worse feeling settled in Harry's stomach as he realised something. "Sirius, shouldn't you be careful not to be seen? I mean, I know it's early and everything, but it's already daylight. Someone is bound to notice you..."
Sirius was considered an outlaw in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds. Only a few people knew him to be innocent.
"I'd much rather a few Muggles spotting me than someone trying to come and attack you," Sirius responded. "At least, if someone comes, I'll be ready to fight right away."
"Attack me?" started Harry, but Sirius cut him short.
"We're not going far anyway..."
"Where are we going?" Harry asked, realising that he still had no idea of how they were going to find means of travelling in a Muggle neighbourhood.
"I can't tell you where we're going just yet. But I can tell you how: have you ever travelled by portkey?"
Harry nodded slowly. He had done it several times last year, and, finally, had been unfortunate enough to touch one that transported him directly to Lord Voldemort. Sirius seemed to remember this only now, because he added, suddenly looking sad:
"Oh... that's right... I'm sorry..."
But it wasn't long before Harry thought of something else, something which puzzled him enough to forget momentarily his preoccupations:
"But how can there be portkeys around here? There aren't any other wizards or witches who live in this neighbourhood."
"Actually, Harry, there are," said Sirius.
He smiled at the look of astonishment on Harry's face, and added: "But they weren't the ones who prepared the portkeys... You see, since you left Hogwarts a few weeks ago, things have changed - just a little, but we got some other people to believe us, especially because of the current events, and who started helping us by, for example, setting up portkeys and secret rendezvous points all over the country..."
"What events?" interrupted Harry. He had a nasty feeling about Sirius not wanting to tell him what was going on.
But Sirius disappointed him once again. He sighed very deeply before answering: "I'd rather not tell you now. You'll find out for yourself, all too soon..."
Harry found himself starting to panic a little: what if there was nothing left of Hogwarts, or Hogsmeade, or Diagon Alley or the Burrow, and Sirius simply didn't want to tell him the truth?
They had been walking in silence for a moment when Harry, looking up, realised that they were going by Mrs Figg's house, the old lady that use to watch over Harry on Dudley's birthday every year. Harry hadn't seen Mrs Figg once since he had come back from Hogwarts, and as they went past the house, he noticed that all the shutters were closed and none of her cats were in sight. He was wondering if she was sick, and maybe staying at the hospital, when Sirius suddenly said:
"Of course, they could have used Arabella Figg's house for the Portkey, but I guess they just thought it would be too easy a target now that she's gone."
Harry's eyes opened wide:
"You know Mrs Figg?"
"Of course I know Arabella!" laughed Sirius. "Who doesn't?"
Seeing that Harry manifestly didn't understand what he was talking about, he continued:
"Arabella is a very famous witch. Worked with Dumbledore a long time ago. She's a very powerful witch, Harry... That's why she was chosen to watch over you while you lived with the Muggles."
Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing: the old Mrs Figg, with all her annoying cats and her horrible chocolate cake, was a witch? And she had been watching over Harry all these years without him knowing it...
"Didn't you know?" asked Sirius, frowning at the expression of puzzlement on Harry's face.
Harry shook his head.
"No... No one ever told me there were other witches and wizards around here... And no one told me that I needed someone to look after me while I was living with the Dursleys."
A feeling of bitterness overcame Harry's mind: all the times he had felt lonely and worried, so far away from the wizarding world, and there had been magical folk living a couple of streets down... Why didn't anybody ever bother to tell him?
But something else was on Harry's mind, now. Why did he need all this protection? First Mrs Figg, now Sirius... He could only think of one reason: Voldemort was looking for him again. Which meant that he was putting whoever was around him in danger, too.
When he expressed his concerns to Sirius, the answer he got only confirmed his fears:
"Well... Voldemort is looking for you, Harry," said Sirius, looking uncomfortable. "But then, he has been ever since he lost his powers fourteen years ago. Is it revenge he seeks? I don't know... There are a lot of questions that no one, not even Dumbledore, knows the answer to. All I can tell you is that with Arabella gone, you were in danger at Privet Drive, and that's why you have to come with me."
"But..." started Harry, stopping suddenly on the sidewalk. He frowned and looked at Sirius, and before he had really thought of what he was saying he blurted out: "I mean - if Voldemort is after me, and he knows that I was at Privet Drive, well... won't the Dursleys be in danger, too?"
Sirius raised his eyebrows:
"Well, I guess I never really thought about that. I'm surprised you did. I mean, after the way they treated you..."
"Just because I hate them doesn't mean I want anything to happen to them," interrupted Harry hotly and speaking very quickly, amazed at his own words.
Sirius stared at him. He seemed to be doing some thinking. After a few seconds of silence, he said in a kind of exasperated, yet admiring tone:
"Well, you're a lot more forgiving than I would have been..."
Then, slowly: "Your father was that way. Always trying to make me keep my temper."
There was an embarrassed silence.
"Sirius, I didn't mean to." started Harry, afraid that he might have offended him.
But Sirius interrupted him. "It's nothing, Harry. I'm rather glad to see that your father isn't entirely gone: you're just like him, in many, many ways... I'll take care of the Muggles as soon as we reach our destination," he added, almost apologetically.
But Harry wasn't listening anymore. "I'm just like my father", he thought. He wasn't sure if this made him feel more happy or scared: if everyone expected him to be a hero like his father, what would they think if he turned out to be a pitiful, good-for-nothing wizard?
But he didn't have time to worry about that too long as they had arrived to the place the portkey was hidden. They were in a small park with a couple of broken swings and an old rusty bench. Harry looked around for the portkey, knowing that it would probably be a very common sort of object, like a newspaper, or an old bottle, which were used so that they would go unnoticed by Muggles. But Harry couldn't spot it. Sirius seemed to be having trouble finding it too; he walked back and forth across the park, scanning the ground, searching through bushes, muttering to himself. "What an idea, using a sock for a portkey in a big park like this... Hate portkeys... So inconvenient..."
Then he said, still talking to the ground, but obviously addressing Harry:
"If it wasn't so dangerous to apparate, right now, I'd teach you how to do it, we could travel ten times as fast..."
"You would teach me how to apparate?" asked Harry in amazement. "But aren't you supposed to have a license? And... isn't it very hard to do?"
"Nonsense!" said Sirius. "A brilliant mind like you could learn how to apparate in about five minutes..."
Harry blushed, but once again wasn't sure whether he was worthy of such a compliment.
"As for the license," said Sirius in a tone that strongly reminded Harry of the Weasley twins when they were up to mischief, "I don't think the Ministry would have the time to come after you right now - not with all the trouble they're going through."
Sirius seemed very pleased indeed by the 'trouble' the Ministry was experiencing.
"But why is it dangerous to apparate now?" asked Harry, suddenly feeling excited.
"Well, ever since Voldemort came back, strange things have been happening, I've told you that before. One of them is the spells that the Death Eaters have been conjuring all over the country, and that make apparating impossible, or very dangerous at the least."
Harry was wondering how the process of apparating could be stopped, when Sirius gave him a much better explanation:
"Last week, old Phillipus Cantarini tried to apparate from his home to Diagon Alley - more precisely, to the Leaky Cauldron, where he goes in secret every night to get a drink. Only somehow, the apparating went wrong, and he found himself stuck with an arm and leg in the Leaky Cauldron, and the rest at home," he said, chuckling at the thought of it. "His wife had forbidden him to go back there, so you can guess how angry she was. I reckon it took three days to get him fixed... Which was nothing compared with what it took to unhex him."
Sirius had barely finished his last sentence, when he exclaimed in triumph:
"I've got it!"
Harry ran to him and found him kneeling behind a tree. And, sure enough, an old ragged sock was lying at the foot of the trunk. Harry knelt down next to him.
"Okay, Harry. Ready?"
"Ready."
They both touched the portkey at the same time and almost immediately everything began to spin around Harry. He felt himself becoming lighter, travelling through the air, except it wasn't really air - it felt more like going through very thick clouds. He then came to a sudden halt and fell to the ground, Sirius next to him.
Harry lay on his bed, fully awake, his glasses still on his nose, wondering what was happening at this very moment in the wizarding world, and asking himself for the hundredth time why no one had even taken the time to write to him yet. He would have expected his best friends, Ron and Hermione, to send him something, a note, a letter, or the invitation to stay at the Burrow that Ron had promised him at the end of last year. He would have hoped that them, at least, would be concerned with his being worried and lonely. But nothing had come...
Harry shook his head. "No," he thought. "They would have written by now if they could." Maybe something was wrong. Maybe they didn't write because something had happened to them. Harry didn't even want to think about that dreadful possibility. He nervously turned over and over again in his head the painful memories of what had happened just a few weeks ago, at the end of the school year: the return of Lord Voldemort, Cedric Diggory's death, seeing his parents, and being separated from the wizarding world and the only people who cared for him all too soon...
Ever since he had returned to Privet Drive, he had felt even more scared, and, for the first time since he had discovered he was a wizard four years ago, helpless and vulnerable. He had no way of knowing what was going on at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or at the Burrow, or with all his friends or his godfather, Sirius, and if they were all safe. No way of knowing where Voldemort now was, and if he had yet regained his full powers. If he had, he could turn up on Privet Drive and kill Harry without anyone noticing, without Harry being able to defend himself. Voldemort was the most powerful dark wizard of all times, and he, Harry, was an underage wizard, who had barely completed four years of training at school.
These thoughts tormented him so much that he didn't fall asleep until half past three, and even then, he kept dreaming of cold, high-pitched voices and flaming red eyes.
A few short hours later, Harry woke up as someone knocked repeatedly on his door. He sleepily rubbed his eyes, and saw on the clock that it wasn't even 6:30. He also saw something else on the calendar right next to it: today was July 31st, Harry's fifteenth Birthday! How could he have forgotten about it?
He sat up in bed, thinking that he had probably just been too preoccupied to remember it, when he heard a small voice come from the other side of the door:
"Harry, could you come downstairs... p-p-please?" said Harry's cousin Dudley, sounding unusually both nice and scared.
Dudley had said "please" to Harry - what was going on? Now wide awake, Harry shook off his blankets and went to open the door, to find a white and shaking Dudley who leapt out of his way and motioned him downstairs.
Wondering what this was all about, Harry went down the steps and found his Uncle Vernon there waiting for him, his face a sort of palish green, and who muttered through gritted teeth:
"Happy Birthday Harry."
Harry's jaw dropped in amazement: this was the first time in fourteen years that the Dursleys had remembered his birthday. Harry had given up hope number of years ago that they would ever take any notice of it - least of all wish it to him. Had Voldemort come here over night and put them all under a spell?
However, the explanation to this mystery was obviously in the living room: Aunt Petunia kept peering around the kitchen door where she had taken refuge and glancing into the living room with terrified eyes before gasping and turning away, and Uncle Vernon pointed a large, fat finger towards it and mumbled a few words that sounded somewhat like: "... someone... for you... waiting..."
A bit apprehensive as to who he would meet, Harry walked into the room, and felt instantly both intense relief and surprise: next to the chimney, his back turned to him, stood a tall, dark-haired man clasping his hands nervously behind his back. There was no mistaking that silhouette.
"Sirius!" Harry exclaimed.
Sirius turned around and gave him a feeble smile.
"Happy Birthday, Harry..." he said in a kind yet weary voice.
Harry ran to him and started asking:
"But why... when... I mean, how did you get here?"
"There's really no time to explain now," started Sirius.
Harry was shocked to see how exhausted he looked: he had a four or five-day beard and his eyes were all swollen from fatigue, as though he hadn't slept in days.
"I've come to take you with me, Dumbledore's only just informed me. It isn't safe here anymore."
"What do you mean?" asked Harry. "When was it ever safe here?"
"Can't tell you right now, we have to hurry. Go grab your things and be back down here as soon as you've got them."
Harry saw the look of concern on his face and thought it best to do as he said and ask questions later. He ran upstairs, got dressed, packed all of his Hogwarts materiel and his clothes, as well as his invisibility cloak, his firebolt broom, and the leather photo album of his parents - his only true belongings - as fast as he could, then went back downstairs, dragging his trunk behind him. Sirius was waiting for him at the front door.
Only when he was just about to step outside did he remember his snowy owl, who hadn't come back from her nightly stroll yet.
"Sirius, I have to wait for Hedwig!"
"Don't worry, she'll be able to find us," Sirius replied as he pressed Harry through the door.
"But... how are we travelling?" asked Harry, puzzled to see they weren't using Floo Powder. "You didn't come on Buckbeak, did you?"
"Of course not," smiled Sirius. "You'll find out soon."
Harry gave only one look back at the Dursleys, who were cowering in a corner of the hall. Whatever it was he was leaving for, dangerous or not, it had to be better than what he had been enduring the past few weeks, isolated as he had been. He followed Sirius out onto the road.
He hadn't even walked three feet, however, that he already had to stop as he gasped for breath.
"Hum, Sirius?" he said, panting from the effort of trying to carry his trunk. "Do you think you could..."
"Oh, I'm sorry Harry," said Sirius as he walked towards Harry. "Don't know where my mind is... Been a bit preoccupied... I'll take care of that for you," he added, looking at the trunk and pulling a brand-new wand out of his pocket.
At this, through the open door, Harry saw the Dursleys scream in terror and run up the stairs. Sirius looked at them in exasperation and muttered:
"Muggles."
He then looked up and down the street, but no other Muggles were in sight. So he whispered a spell (unknown to Harry), and a few sparks flew out of the wand before landing on the trunk, which instantly began shrinking, and jumped into Sirius' hand, now the size of a walnut. He gave it to Harry:
"You'll want to hold on to that, make sure you don't loose it. Happens to me all the time."
"What spell was that, Sirius?" Harry asked, happy to see magic around him once more.
Sirius smiled. "Well, its name is very explicit: it's simply called a shrinking spell. There are shrinking potions, and shrinking spells. Personally, I think the spell is much simpler, but you really need to get the grip of it before you start using it, or else the object you used it on can just go on and on and shrink until it's disappeared. I reckon your father once tried it on one of the school's best broomsticks," he added, laughing silently at the thought of it. "The Quidditch captain was so mad at him, he wanted to kick him out of the team; but then, he really couldn't afford losing a player like James..."
He had finished the sentence in a rather quiet tone, talking to himself more than to Harry. Harry knew that his father had been Sirius' best friend, and he could just imagine the feeling of pain and sadness that he had experienced at his death. Harry could understand it very well. If anything ever happened to Ron or Hermione... He forced that idea out of his head, and asked Sirius instead:
"Where did you get the new wand?"
"Well, no wizard worthy of that name can possibly go wandering without a wand, now, can they? Dumbledore found one for me."
"You've seen Dumbledore? After - I mean - since... since the end of last year?" Harry's throat tightened painfully as he pronounced these words. Remembering the Tournament was always hard.
"Yes," grunted Sirius, his face hardening as he too recalled the event that had him, Harry, and Dumbledore meeting together. "Been helping me get around other than in my Animagi form."
An even worse feeling settled in Harry's stomach as he realised something. "Sirius, shouldn't you be careful not to be seen? I mean, I know it's early and everything, but it's already daylight. Someone is bound to notice you..."
Sirius was considered an outlaw in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds. Only a few people knew him to be innocent.
"I'd much rather a few Muggles spotting me than someone trying to come and attack you," Sirius responded. "At least, if someone comes, I'll be ready to fight right away."
"Attack me?" started Harry, but Sirius cut him short.
"We're not going far anyway..."
"Where are we going?" Harry asked, realising that he still had no idea of how they were going to find means of travelling in a Muggle neighbourhood.
"I can't tell you where we're going just yet. But I can tell you how: have you ever travelled by portkey?"
Harry nodded slowly. He had done it several times last year, and, finally, had been unfortunate enough to touch one that transported him directly to Lord Voldemort. Sirius seemed to remember this only now, because he added, suddenly looking sad:
"Oh... that's right... I'm sorry..."
But it wasn't long before Harry thought of something else, something which puzzled him enough to forget momentarily his preoccupations:
"But how can there be portkeys around here? There aren't any other wizards or witches who live in this neighbourhood."
"Actually, Harry, there are," said Sirius.
He smiled at the look of astonishment on Harry's face, and added: "But they weren't the ones who prepared the portkeys... You see, since you left Hogwarts a few weeks ago, things have changed - just a little, but we got some other people to believe us, especially because of the current events, and who started helping us by, for example, setting up portkeys and secret rendezvous points all over the country..."
"What events?" interrupted Harry. He had a nasty feeling about Sirius not wanting to tell him what was going on.
But Sirius disappointed him once again. He sighed very deeply before answering: "I'd rather not tell you now. You'll find out for yourself, all too soon..."
Harry found himself starting to panic a little: what if there was nothing left of Hogwarts, or Hogsmeade, or Diagon Alley or the Burrow, and Sirius simply didn't want to tell him the truth?
They had been walking in silence for a moment when Harry, looking up, realised that they were going by Mrs Figg's house, the old lady that use to watch over Harry on Dudley's birthday every year. Harry hadn't seen Mrs Figg once since he had come back from Hogwarts, and as they went past the house, he noticed that all the shutters were closed and none of her cats were in sight. He was wondering if she was sick, and maybe staying at the hospital, when Sirius suddenly said:
"Of course, they could have used Arabella Figg's house for the Portkey, but I guess they just thought it would be too easy a target now that she's gone."
Harry's eyes opened wide:
"You know Mrs Figg?"
"Of course I know Arabella!" laughed Sirius. "Who doesn't?"
Seeing that Harry manifestly didn't understand what he was talking about, he continued:
"Arabella is a very famous witch. Worked with Dumbledore a long time ago. She's a very powerful witch, Harry... That's why she was chosen to watch over you while you lived with the Muggles."
Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing: the old Mrs Figg, with all her annoying cats and her horrible chocolate cake, was a witch? And she had been watching over Harry all these years without him knowing it...
"Didn't you know?" asked Sirius, frowning at the expression of puzzlement on Harry's face.
Harry shook his head.
"No... No one ever told me there were other witches and wizards around here... And no one told me that I needed someone to look after me while I was living with the Dursleys."
A feeling of bitterness overcame Harry's mind: all the times he had felt lonely and worried, so far away from the wizarding world, and there had been magical folk living a couple of streets down... Why didn't anybody ever bother to tell him?
But something else was on Harry's mind, now. Why did he need all this protection? First Mrs Figg, now Sirius... He could only think of one reason: Voldemort was looking for him again. Which meant that he was putting whoever was around him in danger, too.
When he expressed his concerns to Sirius, the answer he got only confirmed his fears:
"Well... Voldemort is looking for you, Harry," said Sirius, looking uncomfortable. "But then, he has been ever since he lost his powers fourteen years ago. Is it revenge he seeks? I don't know... There are a lot of questions that no one, not even Dumbledore, knows the answer to. All I can tell you is that with Arabella gone, you were in danger at Privet Drive, and that's why you have to come with me."
"But..." started Harry, stopping suddenly on the sidewalk. He frowned and looked at Sirius, and before he had really thought of what he was saying he blurted out: "I mean - if Voldemort is after me, and he knows that I was at Privet Drive, well... won't the Dursleys be in danger, too?"
Sirius raised his eyebrows:
"Well, I guess I never really thought about that. I'm surprised you did. I mean, after the way they treated you..."
"Just because I hate them doesn't mean I want anything to happen to them," interrupted Harry hotly and speaking very quickly, amazed at his own words.
Sirius stared at him. He seemed to be doing some thinking. After a few seconds of silence, he said in a kind of exasperated, yet admiring tone:
"Well, you're a lot more forgiving than I would have been..."
Then, slowly: "Your father was that way. Always trying to make me keep my temper."
There was an embarrassed silence.
"Sirius, I didn't mean to." started Harry, afraid that he might have offended him.
But Sirius interrupted him. "It's nothing, Harry. I'm rather glad to see that your father isn't entirely gone: you're just like him, in many, many ways... I'll take care of the Muggles as soon as we reach our destination," he added, almost apologetically.
But Harry wasn't listening anymore. "I'm just like my father", he thought. He wasn't sure if this made him feel more happy or scared: if everyone expected him to be a hero like his father, what would they think if he turned out to be a pitiful, good-for-nothing wizard?
But he didn't have time to worry about that too long as they had arrived to the place the portkey was hidden. They were in a small park with a couple of broken swings and an old rusty bench. Harry looked around for the portkey, knowing that it would probably be a very common sort of object, like a newspaper, or an old bottle, which were used so that they would go unnoticed by Muggles. But Harry couldn't spot it. Sirius seemed to be having trouble finding it too; he walked back and forth across the park, scanning the ground, searching through bushes, muttering to himself. "What an idea, using a sock for a portkey in a big park like this... Hate portkeys... So inconvenient..."
Then he said, still talking to the ground, but obviously addressing Harry:
"If it wasn't so dangerous to apparate, right now, I'd teach you how to do it, we could travel ten times as fast..."
"You would teach me how to apparate?" asked Harry in amazement. "But aren't you supposed to have a license? And... isn't it very hard to do?"
"Nonsense!" said Sirius. "A brilliant mind like you could learn how to apparate in about five minutes..."
Harry blushed, but once again wasn't sure whether he was worthy of such a compliment.
"As for the license," said Sirius in a tone that strongly reminded Harry of the Weasley twins when they were up to mischief, "I don't think the Ministry would have the time to come after you right now - not with all the trouble they're going through."
Sirius seemed very pleased indeed by the 'trouble' the Ministry was experiencing.
"But why is it dangerous to apparate now?" asked Harry, suddenly feeling excited.
"Well, ever since Voldemort came back, strange things have been happening, I've told you that before. One of them is the spells that the Death Eaters have been conjuring all over the country, and that make apparating impossible, or very dangerous at the least."
Harry was wondering how the process of apparating could be stopped, when Sirius gave him a much better explanation:
"Last week, old Phillipus Cantarini tried to apparate from his home to Diagon Alley - more precisely, to the Leaky Cauldron, where he goes in secret every night to get a drink. Only somehow, the apparating went wrong, and he found himself stuck with an arm and leg in the Leaky Cauldron, and the rest at home," he said, chuckling at the thought of it. "His wife had forbidden him to go back there, so you can guess how angry she was. I reckon it took three days to get him fixed... Which was nothing compared with what it took to unhex him."
Sirius had barely finished his last sentence, when he exclaimed in triumph:
"I've got it!"
Harry ran to him and found him kneeling behind a tree. And, sure enough, an old ragged sock was lying at the foot of the trunk. Harry knelt down next to him.
"Okay, Harry. Ready?"
"Ready."
They both touched the portkey at the same time and almost immediately everything began to spin around Harry. He felt himself becoming lighter, travelling through the air, except it wasn't really air - it felt more like going through very thick clouds. He then came to a sudden halt and fell to the ground, Sirius next to him.