See end of Chapter #1 for main author's notes.

Thought for the Day: Reason begets doubt, doubt begets Heresy.

Chapter #6

Harry's alarm clock read 6:00AM when he opened his eyes. Happy that he had gotten up in time to fix his family their morning meal as usual during his summer vacation Harry sat up and began to stretch.

Harry's sore ribs brought him up short.

Then the fact that he should have got up at 4:00AM hit him. Hard.

Running down the stairs he realized that that he was the only person in the house that was awake. Looking out the window he saw that his uncle's car was gone.

'Damn! He left without us! What was Vernon thinking?'

Running back up the steps he rushed into Dudley's room. Pounding on his cousin's bed and yelling at him to get up or else Mr. Reynolds was going to have them running laps until next week Harry ran to his aunt's room and began pounding on her door.

"Potter! In the name of God if you don't stop that racket right now I'll string you up and not even Dumbledore will be able to stop me!", He aunt Petunia screamed from the bed. Backing away from the door Harry waited by the door for his aunt to open it while a confused Dudley soon joined him. Finally the sleep-deprived face of Petunia Dursley stuck through the crack in the door and asked sharply "What!".

"We need you to take us to the gym now! We're already two hours late!", said Harry, his voice breaking into a higher octave thanks to vocal cords that were still maturing.

"You two aren't going today. We have today and the next two days off from that madness at the gym while your 'coach' cools off from wanting to kill your uncle!" Petunia practically screamed.

"Why?", asked Harry.

"Because you complained to them how we treated you! They're fre- they're just like you, and even though we've given you the best of everything despite what you are, now we have to go into debt buying you new clothes and food! Your taking food out of my little Duddy-kins mouth so we can satisfy you!".

As Petunia started to break down Harry decided he'd had enough being her emotional punching bag and headed down to make everyone some tea. After the water had been brought to a boil and Harry had left the tea to step he heard his aunt and cousin come down the stairs. He could hear Dudley gently trying to explain that his cousin couldn't box while wearing his old pants and shirts and that the coach was right to ask for a new wardrobe.

Petunia addressed Harry directly, saying "I've been 'ordered' to see to it that not only do you have proper workout attire but also that you have several pairs of every-day wear, shoes, undergarments, a work-out bag, and… hell he gave my Vernon a whole list! He had his niece (another freak like you!) give me your measurements and told me that I had to bring the clothes and receipts to him today or else he isn't training either of you two. And then he'd turn us in to child welfare!" Petunia began to sob.

His heart rather lacking any sympathy for his aunt and uncle's plight, Harry poured all three of them a cup of tea, and plunking one of them in front of his dejected aunt and handing the other to Dudley he proceeded to head back towards the stairs.

"I'll be damned if I'm going to be seen in public with the likes of you! I have your measurements, so I'm only taking Dudley to help pick out the clothes." Petunia snarled

Harry looked back at Dudley, and gesturing with his open hand palm down so as to make a like just below the knees Harry said, "This is the length my shorts had better be." Seeing Dudley's smile Harry quickly added "and no pink!".

Deciding that he was well and truly wide-awake Harry made use of the bathroom before getting dressed for hopefully the last time in his cousin's clothes. Sitting down at his desk Harry grabbed his Charms essay. Noting a few simple spelling errors and modifying a few sentences to read a little more clearer took only a short while, and by the time 8:00AM rolled around Harry had finished re-writing his essay with only a minor hand cramp.

Stomach grumbling Harry headed down the stairs to make himself some toast. On his way down he saw his aunt and Dudley heading towards the car. With his snack then completed Harry went back upstairs to begin his next assignment. Realizing that he had a choice between Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, Potions, Transfiguration, and History of Magic, Harry decided to do Prof. McGonagall's Transfiguration report first.

Harry hit a snag almost immediately, however. 'Explain how magic can be used to generate a particular outcome in the Schrödinger's Cat Experiment after it has started without directly observing the cat or removing the poison. Use the attached passage from Dr. Stephen Hawking's book 'A Brief History of Time'.' Harry noted that this was an assignment that was combined with several other classes. Students only in Transfiguration had to write two feet on a possible Transfiguration spell that would do the job. Students in Ancient Runes and Arithamancy had to prove their solution by showing their work for using a possible spell and/or rune combination to make a solution with or without a spell, while those in Divination compared different methods of prognostication in order to conclude which would be best to used in this situation. Finally, students in Muggle Studies were required to write about why muggles where inherently cruel beings who hated animals (especially cats), while those students had to explain to Prof. Binns exactly just who this 'Hawking fellow' was.

Mildly annoyed at this Harry looked at the other possible assignment choices. Here he found that once again his instructors had banded together in the name of making his life miserable (though he figured that it was Prof. Snape who was really making things difficult by choosing the assignment length).

"Research and write three feet each on two flora and two fauna species, one of each being magical while the other not. In your paper discuss their habitat, care and feeding. Also you must list all possible potions in which their body parts can be rendered down for use in."

Harry decided that the fauna for his second report would be a cat and a kneazle, and that for 'natural habitat' the answer would be 'according to Schrödinger', in a box with a vial of poison!'

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Soundtrack Theme #14

Artist: Jeremey Soule

Title: Track #8: Sorcery and Might

Album: Dawn of War Soundtrack

Three hours of annoyance later Harry had the report for Profs. Hagrid, Snape, and Sprout completed and in final copy form. Depending on who was grading it (meaning Snape) he might get dinged for writing about two animals that were almost exactly the same type of creature, but he figured knowing everything he could about cats would help him with his other assignment from McGonagall. Shaking out his hand Harry went downstairs to make a non-cheese sandwich for lunch.

Returning to his room a little later Harry decided another break from studying was in order. Grabbing a random book from his pile of G.W. stuff Harry sat down to read "Codex: Chaos Marines" for a short while. Midway through reading this book about the plethora of disloyal Space Marines who were insane, deranged and monomaniacal deamon worshiping sociopaths Harry came across the article dealing with one of the main antagonists of the Imperium. This individual was a leader unit called Fabius Bile and embodied the 'mad scientist' aspect of the Chaos Marines. He could (for price) genetically modify some or all of the Chaos Marines in the army he accompanied/led to make them much tougher, stronger, and faster than the 'Average' Marine. The down side of this was the Chaos Marine player ran a thirty-three percent chance that some or all of the Marines in each affected squad would be killed when they tested at the beginning of the game to see if any squad member was gripped with madness or pain and lash out at his brothers.

A quote attributed to Fabius Bile caught Harry's attention. 'If a man dedicates his life to good deeds and the welfare of others, he will die unthanked and unremembered. If he exercises his genius bringing misery and death to billions, his name will echo down through the millennia for a hundred lifetimes. Infamy is always preferable to ignominy'

"Reminds me of a certain Dark Lord.", Harry mused to himself. There was a kernel of truth to this quotation, though. Going over in his mind the little of his History of Magic classes he paid attention to he noted that most of the time was spent reviewing the actions of Dark Wizards or Goblin Rebellion leaders. Usually the fighters on the side of Light were barely mentioned. In fact, aside from Merlin and three of the four Founders of Hogwarts few if any individuals were ever named as 'the Good Guys'. Instead the 'Ministry of Magic' took credit for the ultimate victory that eventually occurred over the forces of evil. Wondering if this was perhaps intentional on the part of a Ministry trying to re-write history to show themselves in a more favorable light than the gross incompetents that they probably were, Harry could understand his natural dislike for the subject of History and the Ministry in particular.

Hell his parents' were known as the 'Parents of the Boy-Who-Lived' rather than a couple who fought the Dark with all their might and who's actions were instrumental in the defeat of Voldemort.

"I must not doubt in the power of good!", Harry admonished himself. The teachings of the Dark were seductive, driving even good men to doubt. The will-sapping power of doubt was probably the reason weak-willed people like Peter Pettigrew gave their loyalty to men like Voldemort.

Still, Harry always had hated it when he was being fed a line and in the past had thought himself good at spotting when someone was trying to do just that. Looking back at the school year he had just completed he found that just like everyone else he had missed many signs and warnings concerning Voldemort and the false 'Moody' that was posing as the man that was supposed to be his DADA professor.

In truth, Harry realized that much had gotten past him in his last several years studying at Hogwarts. 'Constant Vigilance' was all fine and good, but at some point a person also has to learn when to make the mental connections necessary to recognize the hidden threat which, like that traitorous animagus Wormtail, could hide in plain sight.

Harry turned back to the book in his hands. Looking at the eyes on the charcoal and pencil drawing of the Chaos leader injecting the petrified body of a captured Imperial Guards with some, undoubtedly foul chemical concoction gave Harry pause. The eyes were what really drew the parallels as far as Harry was concerned. The world's current Dark Lord might not wear power armor or a robe made from the flayed skin of his enemies, but the madness in his visage and the petrifying terror he generated in those he captured matched that of the figure drawn in the book.

Then again, Fabius Bile still had a nose and long sideburns on his mostly bald head so the analogy could only be taken so far.

Finding that he was no longer in the mood to read a book about the deranged, Harry turned back to look at the reading material for his Transfiguration/Divination report before also tossing that to the side in disgust. Giving up on homework for now Harry began looking for other things to do and settled on trying one last time to contact his friends. In light of the increased danger posed by Voldemort, Harry thought that perhaps Hedwig's letter deliveries had been blocked by new wards being set up around his friends' houses.

Soundtrack Theme #15

Artist: Jeremy Soule

Title: Track #10: Urban Wasteland

Album: Dawn of War Soundtrack

"But who would put up wards around the Granger's home. If Fudge's reaction were anything to go by the Ministry won't be gearing up for war. And if the wards were blocking Hedwig then why would she be returning without the letters I sent with her?"

Logical arguments tended to fly in the face of magic in general so for this reason Harry decided to do things the muggle way. A quick trip downstairs netted him several envelopes and postage stamps. A much more time-consuming dig through his school trunk helped him locate Hermione's address and a letter the Weasley had sent him muggle style many years ago so that he had their address also.

Harry quickly rewrote the letters that he had sent to his friends previously including the ones meant for Ginny. Then, because he never wanted to waste his time like that ever again he proceeded to recopy the letters just in case something else mysterious happened to the new ones.

A short walk out of the house down to a mailbox (Harry wasn't about to put anything in the Dursley's mailbox with the possibility of them opening his mail) and Harry was once again without any major tasks to do. The outside sky was overcast with dark clouds threatening a summer thunderstorm. Between the humid heat that had built up in the middle of the afternoon and the fact that he needed to rest his ribs made returning to the cool confines of his room the most preferable option.

Harry had just made it back into his room when he heard the sound of the front door of the house slamming open and the complaints of Dudley that he was hungry fro dinner already. Realizing that he'd be forced to help unload the car regardless of anyone's orders concerning his ribs Harry hurried back down the stairs.

Dudley stopped him with a simple "We got it already" as Harry made his way to the front door. Turning to look at his cousin he noted that at least thirty bags from five stores hung from every limb.

Dudley smiled at his cousin and asked "Aren't I strong, Harry. My work at the gym is paying off." At this point he overbalanced but thankfully landed on the couch. Shrugging out of the suddenly-to-heavy-to-lift load Dudley began passing him the bags with his new clothes while his mother entered the kitchen to start dinner.

Dudley explained what was in each bag as he handed them to him. "Harry, these are your pants and shirts for every-day wear. This bag here has your shirts for the gym." Reaching into the last bag that he had yet to give Harry, Dudley pulled out something pink. "And these are you gym shorts." Dudley stretched the elastic before taking aim and fired them at Harry's head. Unable to duck due to the heavy load he now held Harry caught the extremely short pink ladies shorts with his face.

"Actually, mom got those to replace the ones you borrowed from Ms. Edenton. She figured that even if you were both magical she probable still figured she'd see he shorts as infected with boy-germs or something.", Dudley explained.

"Knowing your mom and how much she likes us 'special' people you had to sneak these in with the purchases just so you could embarrass me with them."

Dudley just grinned while replying, "Well, a guy's got to have a little fun on a shopping trip. Otherwise he'll go nuts."

Harry sighed at his cousin's antics and took the parcels back to his room. Stepping back out into the hallway he saw Dudley carrying some packages into his room. A few minutes later Dudley returned with several boxes of Games Workshop products and a couple books.

"Hey, Harry. Can I store this stuff in here?", Dudley asked.

"Sure.", Harry answered, surprised that Dudley would be kind enough to ask first.

"Good, because some of this is for your army.", Dudley stated while lifting several of the boxes up so Harry could briefly see what they were before dropping them on his desk.

"Where'd you get this?", Harry asked him.

"Well, after the third hour of clothes shopping I mutinied. Mom dropped me off at the Games Workshop store at Epsom. Unfortunately for her she let me barrow a credit card and I used it."

Looking back at Harry while he left the room Dudley said, "Come by my room in a few and we'll play a game with our armies. Bring your squads and some of my old, broken things so we will have some terrain."

Nodding his head in agreement Harry turned to study the new boxes and consider what he was going to do with them.

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An hour and a half later saw Harry scratching his head. Because he had never gone to the trouble of writing an official 'army list' which detailed what equipment his units carried and how many points the army was worth in total, Dudley had just let him use every Space Marine he had.

Even though Dudley informed him that he now out-massed his Ork Army by a sizable amount points-wise, Dudley still kicked his butt. Trying to grasp the rules of how to move and attack with his units turned out to be the easy part. The difficulty of the game came from knowing when to move and what to attack with his units while anticipating what his opponent would do in response, all the while trying to keep in mind the objectives for the mission he was fighting.

"Harry, this is a 'Cleanse' mission", said Dudley while pointing at the mission objective in the rulebook. "Since where playing this with 'Alpha' level rules that means that we only win by meeting mission objective, not by annihilating your opponents units like when the 'victory points' rule is in effect during Gamma and Omega level play. You need to get a unit that hasn't suffered fifty percent casualties in as many quarters of our table

Dudley tried to help him out with hints like 'I wouldn't move my infantry squad within charge range of that huge Boyz mob if I were you, they're axes will chop right thru your armor next turn if you do', and 'Maybe you should concentrate your anti-tank weapons on this unit over here rather than that one over there'. Despite the heavy losses Dudley's Orks took as a result of these helpful hints, by the end of the game all Harry's units besides his Librarian with Terminator Bodyguard where either fleeing the battlefield or completely wiped out.

The icing on the cake came in the form of said Librarian's final hand to hand fight of the game. Facing off against the last of the Ork army's Gretchin (the little green 'House Elves' of the Warhammer 40,000 universe), Dudley consulted a chart in the rulebook and announced that the only way Harry's character would fail to hit (and immediately annihilate) his enemy was by roll a one on every six-sided die he would get to roll.

The result was a handful of dice all coming up ones.

Harry and Dudley both broke down laughing at that. With the end of the game Dudley picked up the Gretchin and asked Harry to repaint and convert it in such a way as to capture its true greatness (or luck, as it were).

"Besides", Dudley admitted, "you do better paint jobs than me. In exchange I'll show you how to make an army list that won't get it's ass handed to it every game!"

Readily agreeing to this Harry put the model in his room before returning with parchment and his army's codex. Sitting at Dudley's desk Harry looked like a student ready to take notes from his professor.

"Now then", Dudley began in his best Vernon Dursley voice," having lascannons in every infantry squad is a good idea when going up against armies with a lot of tanks in it, like the Imperial Guard. But against armies with lightly-armored but hard hitting infantry, like Orks or Tyranids…"

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After a hearty dinner (which for a change) left Harry stuffed and Dudley still slightly hungry, Harry returned to his room to do his homework.

Not that this was assigned by any instructor at Hogworts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. No! This was assigned by Dudley Dursley himself!

'Ronald Weasley has Quiditch', Harry mused, 'Dudley has Warhammer 40,000.'

Harry's latest assignment was to 'come up with several army lists at various point levels which would counter each of the playable factions in WH40K, including another Space Marine army, using the models he already had and those he had just been given.'

"And what are point limits again?", Harry asked Dudley.

"Point limits agreed upon by players allow for 'balance' in a game. Two players that want to play against each other on a fairly even footing choose a points limit and them try to take units and upgrades worth a points value less than or equal two that number. If a strong player wanted to give a weak player a handicap so that the game would still be challenging for both of them he might spot his opponent some points value above his own. Kind of like when golfers spot their opponent a couple strokes or a chess master takes away a rook or a queen."

"Okay.", said Harry. "When do I need to have these lists done by?"

"Well, Mike and the other boys want to get a campaign going, but some of them are still painting up their armies. I'd say make these lists by this time next week, and make them for values between five hundred and two thousand points - in increments of two hundred and fifty points, and built for Alpha, Gamma, and Omega level play. Use the other armies' Codices as a guide. Here, take these White Dwarf magazines."

"OOOffff!", Harry grunted.

"They contain battle reports complete with army lists and strategies you can use to counter your enemy's units. And these printout here in this 66mm binder.." "Uuuffhh!"" are army lists posted on various forums and peoples' responses to them after either analyzing them in detail or simple taking a look at them and saying 'it sucks!'"

On a roll, Dudley continued with "this book here," "Whack", "is Sun Tzu's 'Art of War'. You really need to read that to be any good at all. There's a lot of common sense stuff in there."

"Oh, and here's a letter mom said came in the mail for you.", said Dudley, placing the last item on to of the stack that was sorely testing his lifting ability.

Rushing back to his room Harry tilted the pile so that the letter landed on his desk and dumped his new library on his bed. Turning back to the letter and fearing that it might be a portkey he used his Exacto Knife and a pair of tweezers to open it before dumping the contents on the bed. Inside he found a note, some letters, several Daily prophet newspapers, and some Weasley Wizarding Wheezes products.

Harry started with the short note. In scribbled handwriting was written a short missive.

Dear Harry,

If you are reading this then my owl, Pig, manage to deliver this letter to the mailbox across the street my family's hiding place. Please don't panic! Hermione says that you have a 'saving people thing', and I want you to know that we are not in any immediate danger right now.

My family, myself, Hermione, Prof. Lupin and Snuffles are together at a secure location. I can't say where we are as it is magically protected to the point that I literally don't know where we are. The point is that we are safe.

Many of the people we know, including some of our teachers and some Ministry Aurors floo in about every other evening. This usually happens around the time that Dumbledore (who set up this safe place) calls a meeting which my brothers, Hermione and I are not allowed to attend. From the little bit we've overheard from the adults talking to each other outside of their meeting we think that they're part of a group call the 'Order', and that Dumbledore is the leader.

The reason I am writing to you like this, and that I'm the only one that has written to you at all this summer assuming you are reading this, is because I overheard Prof. Lupin talking to Snuffles. They were arguing quite loudly about several things, and one of them was that the Order has posted a guard to watch over you at all times and all letters by owl going into or coming out of your house are being intercepted by that guard.

I can understand why Dumbledore might block incoming mail considering that someone can charm a letter into a portkey, but why would he block outgoing mail? What's even fishier is that Dumbledore made us promise to abide by 'your' rules. He told us when we got here that you were 'distraught', and that you had asked him to tell us that you would owl us when you were ready to start talking to us again. He also told us that if that happened we were to inform him about it and not tell you where we were or what was going on.

Since I've overheard Prof. Lupin and Snuffles conversation I have only told the twins about it. Unlike Ron they can keep a secret real well, and while I love her like a sister I'd never tell Hermione because I'm afraid she'd go to someone in authority and it would get back to Dumbledore. Then the adults would start watching all our mail and we wouldn't have any peace.

What's really irritating is that we can owl anyone else we know, just not you. Because of this, Hermione has been driving my brother nuts writing to Victor Krum. I think I'm going to lock them in a room together if this kind of thing keeps up just to spare the rest of us the pain of listening to them argue.

Since your cut off from the magical world with those muggles I figure I'd give you a glimpse of it. Thinking about it, however, I really think that shouldn't have included the newspaper. Minister Fudge has been working hard to make you and Dumbledore look bad, and the Prophet has gotten so bad that mom won't let us read it after the adult are done with it. I had to rescue these to papers from the rubbish bin (sorry if they've got any food on them).

Anyway, I'll try to send you a letter every week with any newspapers I can fish out of the garbage (though I have to agree with mom that that is were they should probably stay). I've included copies of the last few letters I've sent you.

Please remember to keep writing to us as if you don't know what is going on with the mail. You can let the letters taper off after a while, but for now don't do anything that will tip the Order of to what you know, and don't try to send a letter back here the muggle way. The address I used is bogus and will never reach us here.

Sorry about the one-way communication.

Love,

Ginny

As happy as he was with Ginny's efforts Harry was angered by the news. The fact that it was Ginny and not his two closest friends Ron and Hermione that had written him was irritating. Once again the two he trusted most had failed in their loyalty to him, with the 'smartest witch of her year' and 'the loyalist friend' showing a distinct lack of initiative compared to someone younger.

Harry reserved most of his ire for Dumbledore, however. The isolation that he was subjecting him to was putting a lot of strain on him. He had gotten mad at his friends over something that really wasn't their fault, and he was being left in the dark about what was going on in the magical world.

Irritated, Harry moved Ginny's other letter to the side in favor of the several days old Daily Prophet newspapers. The first headline read "MINISTER SAYS HARRY POTTER IS THE-BOY-WHO-CRIED-WEREWOLF!", with a picture of Minister Fudge's smiling face below the headline answering questions at a press conference. Further reading did not improve Harry opinion of whatever common sense magical Britain had. The paper was covered with articles detailing 'leaks from sources at St. Mungo's mental ward' stating that he and Prof. Dumbledore were undergoing treatment for various mental disorders.

Thoroughly pissed at the world, Harry looked around the room for a distraction. Focusing on the mountain of WH40K data, the new models he needed to paint, and his 'regular' homework Harry's eyes finally rested on the Gretchin model that Dudley had asked him to 'do up right'.

"It's always the little things that trip us up.", Harry sighed while picking up the model that looked like a green-skinned version of Dobby, his favorite house elf.

Published on: 06/18/2008