A/N: Hello Everyone! This is my first story for fanfic. Hope you guys like it! I may change it later as the plot develops, but hopefully you find it intriguing. Please review! I'd like to know what your opinions and criticism too. Thanks a lot! Luney
Addition: A special thanks to Crazy Girls Rule for her correction.
Chapter 1
Curdled Dreams
Harry Potter was not exactly your average teenage boy. No, he was far from it. Actually, Harry was a wizard attending the prestigious institution of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and this summer was supposed to be the last summer he would be staying with his horrible uncle and aunt, Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and their stuck up spoilt brat of a son, Dudley Dursley. It had been hell living at this perfectly manicured Privet Drive residence for the first ten years and the experiences of coming back every summer only made the bitter memories of his childhood with them even more sour. If only the most evil Dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, had had mercy on his father and mother…
Harry woke with a start. He was having that dream again. He could still hear his mother's voice crying, "No! Not Harry…" as his room melted into a bright florescent green. The light flashed against his cornea sending him into a hazy oblivion and leaving him conscious only to the sharp hammering pressures within his head. He felt nauseous. Gingerly he reached back from his sitting position to find his glasses on the bedside table and stuff them on his nose. Slowly, shapes came into focus as the lumpy objects of his room came to life in his vision.
Harry got up and opened the window carefully, trying very hard not to make any sound that might disrupt the rhythmic pattern of Uncle Vernon's sleep, which could potentially wake the man. When woken against his wishes, Uncle Vernon's persona naturally veered towards that of a raging bull going for the charge, and the target was usually Harry. The cool night air from beyond the window played gently on his features and made the sparsely growing facial hair on his face bristle and sway. Harry was rather enjoying this newfound growth of hair on his face and was getting rather used to his mature appearance in the bathroom mirror. Besides, he was too lazy to buy a razor and shave anyway.
He glanced out above the rooftops searching for any sign of Hedwig's signature white wings motioning gracefully as she flew to him. But there was no such sign. Hedwig had not been home to him for the past two weeks - her little hunting spree was either taking far too long or she was off bringing a message back from the Weasleys or Hermione. The latter seemed far more plausible an option. At this thought, Harry felt somewhat uplifted.
Harry dearly wished he could have someone to talk to – Hedwig was usually his only friend in the realm of Muggles, but at the moment he had none. He was very lonely and very much cut off from the magical world, much to his distaste. Hermione was off on holiday with her parents and Ron was undoubtedly with the Order someplace secret. Disappointed and feeling very depressed, Harry turned away from the window and the beckoning night sky and set about gathering the parchment on which his Potions essay was scribbled as well as his writing utensils and then crept cautiously under his bed sheets careful not to let the coils in his mattress creak.
It had been three weeks since school was out and still thinking about all the experiences of the past year seemed to wound him even more. Professor Dumbledore was dead. Sirius was dead. His heart was left bare and broken with the pain. There was no one he could turn to as a father figure anymore. Of course, the members of the Order of the Phoenix were there to protect and support him and the Weasleys as well as his best friends Ron and Hermione, but they had never and would never have the same relationship as he had with Sirius and Albus Dumbledore.
Harry sighed softly to himself as he slouched under the sheets with a flashlight dipping his quill carefully into his precariously balanced inkbottle. Aunt Petunia would probably have a fit if she discovered he was still doing his homework on his bed at night. She had discovered an ink-stain about a week ago and went absolutely beserk and had almost launched a shrieking fit about how she would 'throw the ungrateful freak' out of her house before she maintained herself and stomped off to throw Harry's sheets into the machine to soak. Even though she hated Harry, she hated the idea of Harry permanently staining her linen property even more.
Still, the episode made it clear that his Aunt had not forgotten the chilling Howler that was sent a couple of years back – at least Harry was in no immediate danger with Dumbledore's magic set on the house still guarding him and with no risk of being thrown out. Anyway, the Dursleys would probably burn everything Harry had touched after he left and probably transform his old room into a gaming room for their precious 'Dudders'.
The Dursleys were kept carefully oblivious to the fact that Harry's guardian was now dead, thankfully, or otherwise he may have been scheduled to leave the house for good far sooner than even he would have liked. Yes, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the boy who so dearly despised his Muggle relatives, wanted to stay at Privet Drive longer. For just as long as was absolutely necessary – for his own safety.
Mr. Weasley had written to him earlier in the summer and specifically told Harry that they would only be able to collect him much later in the summer due to business that could not be written off in a letter, clearly something most probably highly pivotal for all the efforts of the Order of the Phoenix, so he would have to stay somewhat longer with the Dursleys. This certainly was not what Harry wanted, though he had come to learn to accept the judgement of his elders since defying them in the past had led to serious consequences, the minorities of which Dumbledore mostly rescued him from. But he was alive to do so now anymore.
Harry yawned. The writing on his Potions essay had become large and illegible for the past five inches. He wondered whether what he was writing would not be worthy of a failing grade to Professor Snape, his former potions teacher who always seemed to find more new and exciting ways to dock points from Gryffindor and put down Harry. But he was not their potions master anymore. Now that he could not taunt Harry and constantly favour Harry's archenemy Draco Malfoy anymore, Harry wondered whether the house points system would be more rational and fair this year. Harry yawned again. It didn't matter anyway. It was pretty much the least of his worries at the moment.
He couldn't understand why his mind had suddenly taken this lackadaisical attitude to life. Maybe he was under too much stress and pressure what with Voldemort and his Death Eaters growing ever stronger and posing a greater threat everyday. On ever more frequent occasions Harry found himself joining Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon to watch the evening news. Even Uncle Vernon's attempts to get Harry out of his sight appeared to amount to nothing but futile and in the end he settled for forbidding Harry to spoilt his aunt's couch by leaving imprints of the pressure of his rear end touching the fabric on the furniture. It took almost all Harry's self-control to stop himself from pointing out the large dent and sag that remained in the sofa even when Mr. Dursley was not sitting on it, but in the end he managed to focus his attention on the news. Thankfully, Dudley never joined them, but he seemed to have taken a fancy to trudging by and wacking Harry on the head with his Smelting's stick - the number of occasions Harry felt like breaking it.
Towards the beginning of the summer, there had been multiple Muggle deaths and a couple of explosions of major Muggle buildings across Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England. However, of late, these destructive events seemed to be spreading to other countries like Hungary, Bosnia, France and Romania. It seemed Lord Voldemort was using his Dark Arts to draw new followers across Europe and persuade them to partake in his killing spree as well. It was very much like the terrorist society the Muggle reporters were blaming for these occurrences.
Harry's mind was in a whirl. He couldn't remember what the antidote to a Likeness-of-Death Potion was. No bezoars could be used here at least. He yawned again, much wider this time. Feeling drained and thoroughly at a loss, he quietly slipped his work beneath the loose floorboard under his bed and sank back under the sheets. His head was buzzing with the torturous experiences of last year: Snape the Half-blood Prince, Malfoy as Lord Voldemort's latest edition to his ring of Death Eaters, Professor Slughorn's memory… Dumbledore gone. They were clues. All clues. But they pieced together so poorly in his mind it was like curdled milk congealing and breaking apart or the Greenland ice caps under the influence of global warming. Harry furrowed his brows wondering why he was suddenly thinking about the Muggle climate report. And the Horcruxes… the necklace… And R.A.B.
Who was R.A.B.?
Harry sank deeper and deeper into mind-babbling thoughts and eventually slept the sleep of a disturbed and troubled man. Who was R.A.B.? He dreamt he was in Godric's Hollow on the verge of discovering the Horcrux and the man who thwarted the Dark Lord when Malfoy came in with the likeness of a snake's face and performed the Unforgivable Killing Curse on him. It was deflected by a prancing gold statue of a centaur with a long white beard and half moon glasses who shattered into a multitude of pieces and sank into a cloud of green light and blankness accompanied by a voice reproaching sternly and repeatedly, "I will not tell you Tom Riddle. You evil boy." and another saying with the calm concern of the Headmaster, "I did not die in vain Harry. Tell me I did not die in vain."
A/N: Well that's it. Hope you guys like it. Please review people!