Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
Chapter 1: Goodbyes
Harry Potter sat in his small bedroom of Number 4, Privet Drive holding a dust bin of owl droppings and an old Daily Prophet. Harry Potter was no ordinary boy of 17. He was a wizard. Harry and his close friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had gone to school at Hogwarts for the last six years. Then dumped the owl droppings into the garbage bin. Sitting back down on his bed, he plunged his hand into the trunk that lay before him. A stabbing pain greeted his unprotected finger and he pulled it out of the trunk. His finger was bleeding freely and was soon covered in sticky, red blood. He swore loudly and looked around his room for his wand. He saw it on the bed and grabbed it. He pointed it at his bleeding finger.
"Episkey" His finger snapped back into place and he proceeded back to his trunk to find the cause of his bleeding finger. Harry dug cautiously at the top of the contents of the trunk that he had had for the last six years tossing things absentmindedly into the pile of things he did not need. Suddenly he saw a gleam and the flash of a piercing blue eye. He glanced back at the shiny object that lay atop the pile of rubbish in his trunk and noticed that it was a small fragment of a mirror with a jagged edge, part of the mirror his late godfather Sirius had given him two years before. Harry picked it up cautiously and looked again. His bright green eyes glared back at him from under his black fringe that covered his forehead. He sighed and tossed the mirror fragment aside into the small pile of things he would be taking with him. For a second he had thought it was one of the eyes that had often pierced him, the eyes of Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore had been the headmaster of Hogwarts until last year, when he had fallen from the Astronomy tower after Snape had shot the Avada Kedavra curse at him. Suddenly anger blazed like fire inside Harry. Snape had been a teacher at Hogwarts for seventeen years, saved by Dumbledore's trust from the unforgiving Dementors of Azkaban. But the year before, Snape had betrayed him and then left Hogwarts with his Death Eater pals, only to return a few months later as the new headmaster of Hogwarts. Harry stared at the Daily Prophet he had recently tossed into the pile of rubbish he would be discarding. Severus Snape's black eyes stared out beneath his curtain of dark greasy hair, glaring at him. Harry punched the Daily Prophet to get rid of some of his feelings.
"Boy!" A shout from the kitchen downstairs greeted Harry and he got off his bed and proceeded downstairs in response to his uncle's summons.
"What?" he said.
"We," said Uncle Vernon, his great bushy mustache puffing out,"have visitors." Harry gloomily slumped into the next room to find two fully grown wizards standing there waiting for him. Dedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones stood there in a strange assortment of muggle dressing. Dedalus Diggle wore a pair of swimming trunks and a pin-striped tailcoat with pink high-heels.
"Mr. Potter! How lovely it is to see you again!" said Dedalus excitedly. "And Harry Potter's relatives! How absolutely nice to meet you!" Uncle Vernon frowned as Aunt Petunia and Dudley walked into the room. Aunt Petunia stared appalled at Dedalus's choice of dressing. No one had looked so out of place in Aunt Petunia's perfectly orderly living room in years. Harry looked from the witch and wizard to his aunt, uncle and cousin.
"Errr…" Harry said, "Hestia, Dedalus, these are my aunt, uncle, and cousin, Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley." After the introduction there remained a silence as thick as ice.
Then Hestia extended her hand and said, "nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley." Vernon nor Petunia extended their hand in return. Suddenly a loud chirping sound hit the air, making the Dursleys jump.
"Oh my!" said Dedalus as he pulled a peculiar pocket watch out of his suit, "we really must be going!"
"Going where?" rumbled Vernon Dursley, making Dedalus jump.
"To a safe place, my good man," said Dedalus swiftly, recovering his composure quickly.
"Hmm," grunted Uncle Vernon, clearly thinking that any "safe place" Dedalus described could not possibly be safe.
"Harry," said Hestia quickly, "the plan has changed. Mad-Eye is not going to take you by side-along apparition. It's too -"
"Then what is the plan?" asked Harry.
"Mad-Eye and the others will tell you when they get here, which should be in less than a quarter of an hour," Hestia said, looking at Dedalus significantly.
"Which means," Dedalus said in his squeaky voice, "we must be going."
"I ask again," boomed Uncle Vernon, "where too?"
"I'm afraid we cannot tell you, but we will be driving for an hour before we reach a place where we can safely apparate," explained Hestia.
"Which means," said Dedalus excitedly, "we must say goodbye for the present, Mr. Potter." He rushed up to shake Harry's hand enthusiastically. Dedalus and then Hestia wheeled the trunks out of the living room and out the door. Harry watched Dedalus struggle with Dudley's heavy trunk as Uncle Vernon cleared his throat.
"Well," he said gruffly, "this is, uh, bye, boy." And he stood there awkwardly after his sentence and then shuffled out of the room. Dudley walked forward and held out his hand.
"Dudley?" Harry said, surprised.
"You saved my life," he said plainly.
"Well, err…" Harry started awkwardly, "I'm, er, sure you would have done the same for me," Harry said untruthfully.
"No I wouldn't," said Dudley bluntly. "Not then, anyway. But, good luck, Harry."
"See you, Big D," Harry said, not unkindly, and Dudley slumped out of the room. Suddenly a sniff escaped a distant corner of the room. Harry looked around, surprised. He had thought he was alone. Out of a bare, pristine corner came Aunt Petunia.
In a voice that was barely audible, she said, "that night in Godric's Hollow, you not only lost a mother, I lost a sister." And with that she left the house, sniffing, leaving Harry standing alone in the empty, desolate house. He looked around, remembering memories from his past with the Dursleys. He looked at the red-patterned rug which Dudley two years previously had rolled around on the floor, his tongue enlarged to 10 times it's original size where Fred had "accidently" dropped a Ton-Tongue Toffee. Harry then strolled over to the fake fireplace which had been blasted apart the same year Dudley's tongue had resembled a small python. Leaving the living room, the seventeen-year-old walked over to a broom cupboard that was underneath the stairs. Now it contained cleaning supplies, but seven years previously Harry would have been awoke the next morning by a loud knock on the cupboard. He opened the door and looked inside. The shelves weren't covered in dust as they might be in another house (clearly Aunt Petunia's usual vigorous cleaning hadn't stopped because a trifle thing like moving was about to take place) and the small space brought back memories of being pushed around and made fun of. Harry scowled. No, he would not be sorry to say goodbye to this place which had housed most of his early torturous memories. He walked into the kitchen and thought about the beginning of his second year when the house elf, Dobby, had levitated a cake and dropped it on the head of a future business dealer of Uncle Vernon. Suddenly, Harry looked up at the clock. Twenty-five minutes had already passed; and he wasn't fully packed! Harry ran full speed up the stairs and into his room. Wishing he was seventeen so he could perform magic, Harry dug through his trunk throwing articles of clothing this way and that to find things he would need. He placed the shard of Sirius's mirror, the fake Horcrux, his Invisibility Cloak, the Marauder's Map, various sets of muggle clothing, the family album Hagrid had given him, certain helpful books, his potion-making kit, and his wand into an old rucksack he had found stuffed in a corner of his trunk. Harry then grabbed Hedwig and ran down the stairs with her squawking in protest. Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, Harry heard the knock of a cane or walking stick hit the door. Hastily pulling his wand out of the front pocket of his rucksack, he set Hedwig down carefully by the stairs and walked cautiously toward the door.
"Lumos," Harry muttered under his breath and as he opened the door he shined the wand light on thirteen very familiar people.
All of the sudden his eyesight was obscured by lots of brown, bushy hair and a voice from somewhere in it said, "Harry!"
"Hermione! Hi!" he said answering from within her bushy hair. She finally let go as the others walked in. Harry recognized the Weasley twins, Fred and George, their younger brother Ron, and an older red-haired man he had met called Bill. Mad-Eye Moody, Tonks, Remus Lupin, Fleur Delacour, Mr. Weasley, Hagrid and the dark-skinned Kingsley Shacklebolt followed. Harry went to close the door when he noticed a small dumpy man standing hesitantly on the front doorstep.
"Come in," invited Harry. The man gave him a furtive look that told him plainly that that was the last thing he wanted to do.
"Mundungus!" roared a voice from the other side of the room. The little man jumped and moved to the side, wrestling with the door knob Harry's hand was still clutching. Mad-eye Moody stumped over to the man, his bright blue magical eye rolling.
"I'm going to be keeping my eye on you," he said threateningly. Mundungus sneaked over to the longer of two lines, but Mad-Eye poked him with his wooden walking stick and the short little man slumped over the shorter of the lines, wincing. On one side of the room stood Ron, Hermione, Fleur, Fred, George, and Mundungus, looking sulky. On the other side stood Hagrid, Bill, Mr. Weasley, Tonks, Lupin, Kingsley, and Mad-Eye. This obviously wasn't a coincidence, and Harry wondered what could be going on. He was about to ask when Mad-Eye stepped forward.
"You-Know-Who has infiltrated the Ministry, so it would be unwise to apparate or do any such thing. So," Mad-Eye popped open his hipflask and a familiar smell hit Harry's nose and brought back memories from his second year. "We will be using this particular brew."
"No!" Harry shouted, for he recognized the thick potion that lay inside May-Eye's hipflask as Polyjuice Potion.
"Harry," Hermione said, "we're all of age and have agreed to take the risk."
"Technically," started Mundungus.
"Shut it, Dung," Ron snapped at the small man. Dung gulped and shrank back.
"Miss Granger, if you will," Mad-Eye said to Hermione as Harry felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck as several hairs parted from his head.
"Ouch! Geez, Hermione!" Hermione walked over to Mad-Eye and dropped the hairs into the flask. Mad-Eye swirled it and the potion turned into a golden froth. Hermione took the flask and stepped in line next to Ron. She lifted the flask to her lips and then with a grimace handed it to Ron. Then the twins drank and Fleur and Mundungus. Harry watched each of his friends turn into duplicates of himself.
"Wow!" said Fred and George, "we're identical!"
"All of you!" Mad-Eye barked as Hagrid pulled a sack from within his moleskin coat, "change!" Hagrid dumped the sack and seven pairs of identical clothing fell to the floor.
"Mad-Eye," said Harry over the scuffle for clothes, "I will not let this happen! All of you aren't going to risk your lives for me!"
"Yes we are!" said Hermione, "Harry, you're the one who can beat him! You're the chosen one! You have to destroy him, Harry. Bit by bit." Harry knew that she was referring to the Horcruxes, but didn't dare say anymore without revealing what she was talking about. Harry opened his mouth about to protest, but Mad-Eye spoke.
"Hermione, you're with Kingsley on a thestral, Fleur and Bill on another thestral, Ron on a broom with Tonks, Lupin with George, Arthur with Fred, Dung with me, and Harry with Hagrid."
"I thought I'd be only right to take you away from this place when I brought you here sixteen years ago," Hagrid said fondly.
"Right," Harry replied, aware of Ron smirking.
"And, what is the plan?" Harry asked.
"Right," said Mad-Eye, "The curse your mother made to protect you will break when you leave because you will never call this place home again or when you become of age. Because of this, You-Know-Who's bound to have a look out, so when a Death Eater or two see us they won't know which Harry is the real one. We'll try to out fly them and then head for our separate safe houses. Harry, you'll be going to Tonks' parents house, and the rest of you lot know where you're going?" Everyone nodded. "Once we get to our safe house we'll take the Portkey waiting to the Burrow. All clear?"
"Yes," said Harry. The guards and the seven Potters walked outside of number 4, Privet Drive for the last time. While the guards and the other Harrys mounted brooms or thestrals, Hagrid mounted a large motorbike with sidecar attached. It was clear Harry was supposed to squish himself in it along with Hedwig in her cage, his Firebolt and his lumpy rucksack.
"Is this Sirius's?" Harry asked, stuffing himself painfully into the sidecar.
"Yes," Hagrid replied, looking sad, "the very same."
"Quit the chattering!" yelled Mad-Eye from a specially modified broom and the muttering stopped.
"We'll have time for a cozy catch-up at the Burrow! We're taking off at the exact same time for maximum effect. One! Two! Three! Go!" And at Mad-Eye's word they took off. Hagrid's bike was flying, but then three Death Eaters headed towards them. Something had gone wrong.
To be continued!
Thanks for reading! This is the first chapter of the seventh book of the Harry Potter series of my fan fiction. If you want to read more, please email me at my school email.