Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. That is owned by J K Rowling I am just borrowing her characters
Chapter 1: At the Dursleys'
Harry was angry. He was so angry he thought it would burst out of his skin. He wanted to feel sad. He knew he was supposed to feel sad, grieve, and do whatever it was that people do when someone dies. However, all Harry felt was rage. He could feel it simmering under his skin yearning to boil over and destroy. He thought he got it out when he, demolished Dumbledore's office but it was still there. Dumbledore wasn't the only person to whom he was angry.
Yes he was angry at Dumbledore, for ignoring him, for trapping Sirius in that house, for not listening to him, and for holding back the prophecy. He was furious that Dumbledore never told him that Voldemort could possess him. He was also angry with Snape for being a bastard and not teaching him Occlumency. He was mad at himself for not learning Occlumency in the first place, and for not being strong enough to protect Sirius, or his friends, or himself. He was furious at Bellatrix Lestrange for firing the curse that sent Sirius into the Veil. He was angry at Voldemort just because he existed. However, beyond all of that the one person he was angriest with was Sirius Black.
Harry threw his pillow against the door of his room. He was furious. How dare Sirius come into his life, promise him a family, promise to love and take care of him. How could he have the nerve to say he was going to be there for him? How dare he leave! That little part of Harry that still had hope for a family, which still somehow believed that good things happen to good people, that good things would happen to him if he just waited long enough, those thoughts in the back of his mind felt betrayed. Unfortunately in the smallest room in number 4 Privet Drive, there was no one to take his anger out on. So Harry paced and threw his pillow around and held it all inside until all he wanted to do was scream.
Albus Dumbledore was pacing back and forth in his office. Every so often he would look over to Fawkes, his phoenix, as if asking if the bird knew what to do. Ever since the events at the Department of Mysteries Voldemort had come out of hiding, there had been three Death Eater attacks and several recruitment parties. Things were going from bad to worse. So far six students had withdrawn from school their families deciding it was better for them to go into hiding than to wait and see what the Dark Lord would do. The ICW was panicking about not having the resources to handle another war.
The only good thing that had happened recently was that several death eaters, including Lucius Malfoy, had be caught and sentenced to Azkaban. However, this posed another set of problems. The more death eaters that were caught and placed in prison the more incentive Voldemort would have to siege Azkaban. If Voldemort managed to tap into the underlining power of that island and the dementors, there would be many, many more casualties. The war had truly started again.
A small white orb appeared in the middle of the office showing Professor Snape walking up the winding stairs to his office.
"Severus, do come in." Albus said before Severus Snape could knock.
"Headmaster, I have just come from a meeting." Severus told him, his voice a bit raspy due to screaming from the cruciatus curse.
"Ah yes. Do sit down. Do you need to see Poppy?"
"No, I took a potion on my way here, and will be fine until I get to my rooms. I am fully capable of taking care of myself."
"Do you have any news?" Dumbledore asked knowing that Severus liked to get straight to the point. He was not one for useless small talk, and the quicker he delivered his report the quicker he could head home and take his potions.
"I am no longer as trusted as I once was. I am kept out of many of the meetings and the members of the inner circle are very tight lipped around me. He is quite incensed about Lucius' imprisonment. He believed that Malfoy should have been able to talk himself out."
"I see. If we can get the Ministry to partially freeze his accounts. We could do great damage to Voldemort's financials."
"The Dark Lord has recruited three new members, most notably Charles Aveen from South France. The Aveen's hold much power in the French Ministry, not only that but, Aveen's grandfather was a collector of historical artifacts. I believe that The Dark Lord is hoping to find a clue to what he was been looking for." Severus told the Headmaster.
"Have you been able to ascertain what he is searching for?"
"I have tried glimpsing through several of the weaker death eaters' minds, however, whatever he is searching for he is keeping quiet for now."
"And what of Mr. Potter's vision have you found any leads into what he could have seen."
"At the time of Mr. Potter's episode there was no meeting so the Dark Lord was working alone. I could find no clue to an event that would cause Mr. Potters magical shock. I would hypothesize that since The Dark Lord has performed several rituals as of late perhaps the boy witnessed one of the darker ones. However, I am unable to deduce which ritual he could have seen as I know of none that would cause his symptoms. I gather the only way we will discover that information is if Potter were to remember. I do find it discouraging that Potter blocked the memory so thoroughly that I was unable to glean the information from his mind. I expect that it was truly horrific as Potter has seen several of the Dark Lords meetings and ministrations and has had no call to be traumatized from those visions as they are readily available in his mind."
"Thank you Severus. I am very concerned about what young Harry could have seen. I have asked Nymphadora to cover your watch on Harry's home tomorrow morning." Dumbledore told him in a soft voice.
"If that will be all I think I'll take my leave." Severus started to get up and head for the door.
"Would you like to take a lemon drop with you on your trip home?"
"No thank you." And with that Severus Snape quickly strode out of the office.
Harry sat, on the floor, in the middle of his room. His legs were crossed and he was shuffling the deck of cards for the umpteenth time. It had been four weeks since he had arrived back at the Dursleys and Harry was feeling trapped. A couple of people from the order had talked to his Uncle Vernon and since then Harry had become a prisoner. Harry never thought he would miss the endless backbreaking chores of last summer.
That first night back he was thrown into the cupboard under the stairs as soon as he walked into the house. He could hear his family discussing what to do with him. Now it wasn't just some vague threat from a wizard they have never met but a face to face with Moody was quite different. That night Harry could hear Vernon hammering and drilling and he knew he was not going to like the results. The Dursleys were truly scared and that scared him.
The next day Harry was moved back into Dudley's second bedroom. The locks were reinforced and the bars put back on the windows. The Dursleys had reemployed the cat flap method of feeding; namely by shoving a small plate of leftover food through a cat flap in the door into Harry's room twice a day. It wasn't enough and Harry refused to beg.
With no contact from his friends Harry was feeling lonelier than ever.
Three days ago Vernon had come home in a rage. He was passed over for a promotion instead they promoted Derrick Peters a boy fifteen years younger than him who was barely with the company for six months. Worse still his co-workers world jokingly refer to Peters with the W word. They kept calling him the Computer Wizard. So what if the brat graduated top of his class in Computer Science what the hell did the kid know about being Supervisor of Resource Management a title Vernon had been working toward for the past seven years.
So when he returned home Thursday evening he was furious and the only person he could take it out on was the Potter brat. So he ran up the stairs not even bothering to remove his work shoes and unlocked the door to the bedroom. Harry didn't have time to process what was happening before he was backhanded to the ground and kicked in the stomach.
It wasn't the worse beating he ever received but it was the first one in a long time. When Vernon left Harry had a sprained wrist from trying to catch himself whilst falling and rather large bruises forming on his abdomen and forearms. Harry was also pretty sure he had a minor concussion.
That was the last time he saw any food. Twice a day his aunt Petunia would roll a bottle of water under the door and twice a day she would let him out to use the loo where he would use the time to refill his water but Harry was starving. Vernon was steadfastly refusing to feed him saying he shouldn't be responsible for spending money on the freeloading waste of space.
Every time Vernon would walk past the room he would mutter horrible insults to the boy within. "No one wants a little freak like you; they unloaded you on us." He would say. "You're nothing, a waste of space. If your freaky friend really wanted you around why aren't you with them." The worse one was said last night, "The useless freak got another one of his family killed maybe that's why no one wants you around." Harry mind was repeating that over and over in his mind.
"I got Sirius killed. It was my fault." Harry muttered as he dealt the cards for another round of solitaire. Harry wasn't sure if it was the hunger or the anger he had finally turned inward but he didn't care. He was getting more and more depressed. For the first time since he was nine years old and Dudley had broken his arm by pushing him down the stairs Harry was having frequent thoughts of suicide. Honestly, he didn't care if Voldemort were to break into the room and cast the killing curse right then and there. He wanted to give up. He didn't want to be a weapon against the Dark Lord or be solely responsible for saving magic for a bunch of people he wasn't even sure deserved it. He just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up again.
Harry didn't know what to do and he was nearing a breakdown. He literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders, a prophecy, and a destiny. Not only that but he also did not know how to deal with what happened at the Department of Mysteries. Sirius was dead. Gone, he had fallen through a magical veil, something no one would explain to him other than to tell him that there was no coming back from there.
Harry stood up and started to walk around his room. He knew that he had to start something. If he kept sitting around then he would die whether by his own hand or not hadn't been decided. However, it wasn't only his life that mattered, magic would die, Voldemort would continue killing, and well everything would go to hell in a hand basket. Harry moved over to his desk. It was old and worn and Harry was sure that Dudley had jumped on it at some point because the wood was cracked and it wobbled on uneven legs.
"I need to make a list." Harry said to no one. He had gotten into the habit of talking softly to himself since he had no one to talk to at the Dursleys. The loneliness of summer was getting worse as years went by. When he was young it didn't bother him so much but now, after spending months surrounded by friends and hundreds of active students, well it made it all the worse. Now he knew what he was missing and it hurt.
"List, list, list, list," Harry chanted. Hermione always went on about lists and organization and planning. 'Lists are important,' she told him. Harry was thinking as he pulled out an old muggle notebook and a pen. He definitely missed notebooks and pens at school. He never knew how much he loved those little lines on paper until he had to struggle to write in a straight line on parchment. He was surprised his professors even read his homework during his first year. Well most of his professors. Snape just failed his papers and wrote comments complaining about his chicken scratch.
Harry sat at the desk pen in hand and just stared at the paper. He hated lists and studying schedules. "Arg!" Harry shouted and threw the pen across the room. "My brain just doesn't work like this." And Harry was right he was never any good at thinking ahead, he was more of a follow your instinct kind of guy. He knew he needed to do this sitting around thinking and planning, but it was driving him crazy. If Hermione could see him right now she would call him immature. But well she wasn't there and she didn't have everything and everyone counting on her to figure things out before it was too late.
AN: Thank you for reading. Please leave a review I really do love feedback.
