Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Chapter One
Out of the House
Bellatrix laughed maniacally, for she had just killed him. . .she had finally defeated the boy who lived. Bellatrix continued to laugh, and never stopped laughing until Harry awoke in a cold sweat.
She killed Sirius, she killed Sirius. He kept on dreaming she killed him, she killed him. He HATED her; he wished to make her suffer like he'd never wanted anyone to suffer before. She killed Sirius, he'd kill her.
Not for the first time, he just sobbed himself to sleep thinking of his godfather, Sirius Black.
Harry Potter woke up only a few minutes later to the maniacal laughter of Bellatrix LeStrange. He then thought of the mirror that Sirius had given him. . .He had reached it and whispered. . .Sirius Black. . .and suddenly a purple haze appeared in the mirror.
The door knocked loudly, and Harry, frightened, jumped and lay back in bed pretending to be asleep. Wait, but who would go knocking at his door at three in the morning? He reached over for his wand on the bedside table, and held it under the covers, ready. The door opened and Harry heard three voices, he jumped up, wand out and almost shot a spell at the startled Nymphadora Tonks.
"What're you doing here?" Harry laughed, relieved now.
"We come to take your mind off Sirius." Lupin said weakly, stepping forward, Harry tried not to cry at the thought of him, "and would you mind putting your wand down?" With all the surprise, Harry hadn't realized that his wand was still up, he quickly lowered it.
"But I've only been here five days," Harry replied, slightly confused.
"Well, it's never too early to come to Grimmauld," Moody said in his normal grin.
"Who is that?" Harry asked pointing to a man that he did not know. This man looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace even though he walked with a slight limp. This he had noticed as he walked up to Harry.
"So," the unknown man said, "you are the famous Harry Potter. You're not so special." At first Harry did not like this man, he didn't appear 'nice' or someone that would ever smile, or laugh, but of course first impressions aren't always wonderful. Then this man smiled, and Harry felt warm, warmer than he had felt in a long time.
"This is Cognatus Procer," Mr. Weasley said stepping forward, revealing the mix of angry and scared face of Uncle Vernon.
"It's just Cog." Cognatus rolled his eyes; he smiled, as did Tonks.
"We also thought you might like to see your friend's success at Diagon Alley," Tonks said to Harry, at first he was confused, but when he saw Mrs. Weasley look around sadly, of course he remembered the infamous exit of Fred and George Weasley and smiled the first smile since the death of Sirius.
"W-w-what are you doing in my house?" Uncle Vernon said rather weakly and scared. At this Mad-Eye-Moody just stared him back with his magical eye.
"We better be off," Moody said to Harry, "before your uncle has a heart attack . . . on second thought, let's stay a bit." Harry laughed his first laugh, this really was taking his mind of Sirius, and they hadn't left for number twelve.
"Well, we best be off," Mrs. Weasley stated quite commandingly. Moody grunted his agreement and Harry pulled out his school trunk, with all his stuff still in it, as he had not been out of Hogwarts for very long. He also grabbed Hedwig's cage and handed it to Tonks whose hand was out.
"Ah, there is your Firebolt," Tonks said enviously staring at the fastest racing broom they had ever seen sitting vacantly in the corner of Harry's bedroom.
"We'll be taking your trunk," Mr. Weasley said, looking at his wife, who suddenly produced two broomsticks leaning against the wall next to Uncle Vernon. They attached the trunk to their brooms with a silent spell.
Harry picked up his Firebolt, and just like that, they just flew straight out of the window away from the confused faces of the Dursleys.
"Why did you have to pick me up so early?" Harry asked rhetorically, just starting to get a little tired. He tried not to fly too fast on his state-of-the-art Firebolt racing broom. This day, they were not as picky about flying over cities and staying away from Voldemort as last year, because the ministry was finally smart enough to realize that Voldemort was in fact back. Of course, this time, Harry thought to wear something warmer.
"Did I ever tell you what happened the night that your parents were killed?" Lupin, who was flying near Harry, asked him.
Harry paused for a second, startled and simply said, "no."
"Sir . . .," Lupin sniffed, ". . . Sirius and I were out at the Hog's Head talking about our worries of your family being found-out by Voldemort, he, of course, assured me that no one would find them. At that point even I was not aware of them changing the secret-keeper to Wormtail, as we couldn't talk about it for fear of being overheard by a Voldemort supporter. We decided to check in on you, so we apparated a few streets down as not to lead anyone directly to the house.
"We were near the edge of Godric's Hollow when we heard Lily's screams and rushed toward them. We went in through the open door and came face to face with none other than Voldemort. We drew our wands but he disarmed us and laughed as he attempted to kill you. For some reason, he just . . . disappeared, we weren't quite sure what had happened, and we just assumed you were also dead; I just looked at Sirius in disbelief. I refused to believe that he had informed Voldemort of your family's location, that is why I let him go.
"I left the house in shock, walking down the street as I heard someone run up behind me and blowing up the entire house, I never really did put that piece of the puzzle together. I didn't even turn around as I was in so much amazing shock. I kept on pacing the street until morning, when Hagrid arrived. He told me Dumbledore had given him orders to take you away, I immediately told him that you were dead, as I really had not looked.
"He just reached into the smoldering rubble and grabbed you out of it. I was amazed. Then Sirius showed up on his flying motorbike, he gave it to Hagrid, and ran off muttering he was about to kill Peter Pettigrew. I couldn't understand at the time, and hated him . . . next thing I know, a young Cornelius Fudge appeared near the rubble, and I told him where Sirius was going, what he was going to do, so it was I that told the ministry on Sirius. It's my fault that Pettigrew lived; it's my fault that Sirius went to Azkaban in the first place." He let out a tear at these last words. Harry gaped at him in disbelief.
Finally Harry spoke, "you have to let it go." Lupin had not expected this from Harry, nor had Harry expected it from himself. Lupin just smiled at Harry's forgiveness of him.
The group arrived with very little trouble a few hours after departure at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Harry smiled at the site of it, it was almost like a home to him, but the site of it also reminded him of his late godfather Sirius.
Inside, he was most definitely reminded of Sirius, and Kreacher's betrayal. He hated Kreacher for this. Why had they ever trusted such a loathsome creature? He hated this house-elf, hated it so much.
"WHAT THE HELL!?" Came a sudden scream from somewhere inside of the house. Suddenly Ron came running out of the room filled with the heads of previous house-elves with black burns on his face.
"The room just. . ." Ron said trying to find a word, ". . . exploded!" The newly arrived party ran in to check on the state of the room. Indeed, the room, along with all of the beheaded house-elves was a dark shade of black.
"Oh dear," Mrs. Weasley sighed, "I guess we'll have to clean this all up in the morning.
"It is morning," Hermione said rubbing her eye as she walked in, then seeing the burned room, "whoa! What happened here?"
"We're not quite sure," Lupin replied facing now toward Hermione. Harry knew that it was his hate for Kreacher causing this wand less magic. In fact, he was amazed that an owl had not yet arrived for him stating that he was in serious trouble with the Ministry of Magic, as this was his fourth offense, well third if you don't count the one that Dobby did, but the ministry didn't believe him about that one.
"It's been a long night," Mrs. Weasley said, breaking the silence, "and I'm sure no one will mind sleeping until noon." They all muttered their agreements and went off to bed as the sun rose.