A/N: This is set after GoF, before OotP. Voldemort is back and it's the summer holidays. I didn't want to set this after HBP, as HBP really just leads on to the real warring against Voldemort, and my story just doesn't have a place in the middle of all that action. So I put it here.
Hope you enjoy this story!
Chapter 1
"Fred, you're so – can't you just stop being annoying for once, and let me be?" the redheaded boy glared at his older brother, who was looking very cheeky and very happy indeed. "I'm trying to clean my broomstick?"
"Ah, but that's it, isn't it? Trying," and he winked at his twin.
"Well, I would be able to clean it if you didn't keep badgering me!" Ron Weasley declared furiously. "Just sod off, will you?"
Fred shook his head and sighed theatrically. "Ron, Ron, Ron."
"Wait till Mum hears you," George grinned.
"Give you a right good spanking, she would," Fred nodded.
The tips of Ron's ears, which had already been red, turned even redder. Giving a rather strangled yell, he jumped up, and the twins, seeing their cue, ran laughing up the rickety stairs of the Burrow.
This left Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter in the living room. Hermione looked exasperated; Harry and Ginny were laughing.
"You know he really shouldn't let Fred and George get to him," Hermione frowned, setting her copy of Advanced Transfiguration down on her lap.
"Yeah, but it really is funny!" Ginny laughed as the boys thundered around upstairs.
Harry smiled, too. He loved being in the Burrow. It was as much his home as Number 4, Privet Drive was just a place for him to stay in. And no matter what happened, no matter that Voldemort had just returned, and the entire wizarding world was in danger again, the Burrow was still as welcoming and homely as ever.
Ginny gasped suddenly. "Harry!"
"What is it?" Immediately Harry put down his own broomstick and came closer to Ginny, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor reading the Daily Prophet.
"Look at this…" she pointed to an article on the second page of the Prophet.
Harry took the paper up and read aloud, "'Sirius Black Sighted'." He quickly looked at Hermione, who put her hand to her mouth and hurried over to where Harry was sitting on the floor.
'Late in the evening yesterday Sirius Black was sighted near Hogsmeade by one of the villagers, a Mr. Eugene Brockers, who had been taking a walk near the outskirts of the village.
' "I was just minding my own business, mind, taking no heed of everyone around me, well, not that there were any, really, when someone just collided into me from the back," Mr. Brockers explained to Daily Prophet reporters. "If I didn't know better, actually, I'd think a dog or some kind of large animal collided with me. But anyway, this fellow almost bowled me over, and when I got to calling to him I saw he looked very familiar. Then he turned around, and right scared I was recognising his face – who wouldn't after his escape two years ago, and all those posters plastered all over the place? Anyway he pointed his wand right at me, he did, and Stunned me!"
'Mr. Brockers was found about an hour later by another villager, a Madam Rosmerta, who is the owner of local bar The Three Broomsticks.
'It has been two years now since the notorious escape of Sirius Black, who had been put into Azkaban –'
Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Neither could quite speak. Sirius had been hiding out in a cave near Hogsmeade for the past year. It was too much coincidence that he had been sighted there, and Mr. Brocker's comment of having felt as if a dog had collided with him almost certainly confirmed that Sirius, had, indeed, been sighted.
"Oh, Harry," Ginny said, "I'm sure – I mean, Sirius Stunning the man must mean he got away, doesn't it?"
"But why would he be running in the first place? Unless…" Hermione seemed reluctant to finish her sentence.
Harry did it for her. "Unless someone was chasing him."
Silence settled on the three. Finally Hermione spoke. "But if something was wrong, someone would've told us, wouldn't they?"
Harry didn't know. It could have been possible that Dumbledore hadn't known yet – after all, it wasn't as if Sirius had a tracker on him. But he should know by now, shouldn't he? Was this absence of news from anyone a good sign, or bad?
"Fred and George are so annoying!"
Ron stomped into the room, looking very bad-tempered indeed. "Look at this!" And he brandished five black fingers at them. "Experimenting around in their room, the whole place is full of traps…hey, what's wrong?"
In answer Harry thrust the Daily Prophet at him. Ron caught it easily and began reading. At the end of it he was silent, as well. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "But – he must be – I mean –"
Suddenly there was a roar of sound, like a hurricane had just started inside the room. Hermione and Ginny found themselves being flung backwards and they had to scramble to catch hold of a chair or a table before hitting the other side of the wall.
Hermione could barely see; there was so much wind howling around her. Her eyes stung, and she squinted to try and make out what was happening. Her free hand was rummaging around in her pocket for her wand. Through the whiplash of wind around her she thought she could make out a swirling vortex, and what looked like two people struggling to hold on to the rug.
Then, just as she felt her hand close around her wand, something whipped out of the vortex and grabbed onto one of the two's legs, and in less than a second he had been wrenched from his place, disappearing into what seemed to Hermione like nothingness.
She brought her wand out, but now her mind was devastatingly blank.
Spell, spell, give me a spell! she thought frantically.
But she had no idea what was going on, and she couldn't possibly think of a spell to counteract the impossibility happening just a few feet away from her.
Then her hand slipped, and she scrambled to get a better hold but – too late! The chair was out of reach. Hermione closed her eyes, bracing herself for impact – then she opened her eyes, and she was lying face-up on the floor of the Burrow. Getting up quickly, she retrieved her wand, which had fallen, and saw Ginny staring, open-mouthed. Hermione followed the younger girl's gaze.
Ron and Harry were gone. But in their place, looking disorientated and dazed, was a boy with blond hair, grey eyes and a pale, pointed face. Hermione did the only thing that came to her mind, the only logical thing she could think of. She pointed her wand straight at him and Stunned Draco Malfoy.
A/N: So? What did you think? Pretty short chapter, but it's just the beginning. I think (and hope) the rest will be longer.
Reviews are very much appreciated! Constructive criticism even more so! So get reviewing, people :P
