Chapter 7 – –Look at what we found!
.
As soon as the door was opened the Cerberus reared its ugly slobbering heads. This of course had everyone taking a step backwards except for the Minister who squealed and tried to hide behind Professor McGonagall. Dumbledore calmly conjured a music box and the Cerberus promptly fell asleep.
"Dumbledore I am assuming that you will be taking us on the safe direct route through your little maze and not making us play with your little traps?" Madam Bones asked leaving the impression that Dumbledore best not do otherwise.
Dumbledore did a little wand waving act and a set of stairs appeared leading down through the devil snare. Professor Flitwick waived his wand and the flying keys all fell to the floor. Professor McGonagall's simple wand wave had frozen the complete set of large chessmen that had been awaiting the next game of chess.
The next room contained a dead troll even larger than the one in the bathroom. However at that moment I noticed we were missing one of the key professors. I leaned over and whispered to Madam Bones, "The room after the room of fire, if there is anyone in that room, beware, they are probably quite dangerous, lethal even." Madam Bones just nodded her head.
Snape begrudgingly undid his walls of fire. We had all entered into the next room before Quirrell, who was intently concentrating on a large mirror, turned and sneered. Quirrell yelled 'Avada Kedavra' and the lethal fighting began. One of the Aurors jumped on me, forced me to the ground, and covered me with his body. While I was trying to free myself the well-meaning Auror the next A.K was blocked by Dumbledore. Dumbledore transfigured something into a round shield of stone. Quirrell's shield fell from a barrage of serious curses knocking Quirrell to the ground. His turban fell free exposing one hell of an ugly face attached to the back of his head. Rolling to avoid the Auror's spells Quirrell threw a few more deadly curses before he disintegrated in a pile of ash. This let the Auror let me get back to my feet just as a black smoky wrath exited the ash and head straight for me. This was not funny but here I was sitting with a powerful staff with memories of the future embedded in my head and here this stupid wrath was either going to kill me or possess my body?
Nothing my staff could produce would affect the wrath. That was another thing, wasn't I just swearing that I would never come down here? The wrath suddenly stopped...Appeared to look at me and decided something. The smoky wrath thing turned and disappeared through the wall. They found the Minister of Magic hiding in a corner trembling in fear and mumbling...I'm going to die...I'm going to die.
/Scene break/
A short time later our group could be found in the Headmasters office where many of the adults were consuming Ogden's finest whiskey with shaking hands.
While Dumbledore was trying to remove the bottle of whiskey from the Minister, the Minister was loudly yelling at Dumbledore over his selection of professors and demanded a larger glass.
"Mister Potter I need a word with you, would you mind answering a few questions for me over this insanity?"
"I'd be happy to Madam Bones though I don't know if I have any real answers for you, but of course Madam Bones ask away." I said as we looked for an empty classroom.
"My niece and her friend Hannah have been writing me letters and at first I thought you were putting them on or insane. My asking Dumbledore is like asking a wall to move out of my way. Is what we just saw...was that an illusion... can you add anything to help clarify what we saw... And what in the Dickens is going on?"
"Madam Bones please call me Harry but as to your questions, Voldemort somehow didn't die when he killed my parents but was turned into a wrath. You just saw that wrath attempting to obtain the Sorcerer's Stone and most likely planning to use it to attain a real body. How he is doing all this is something that Dumbledore might know but as you said good luck trying to get it out of him." The special portion of my head was simply silent and was not giving me anything to add.
/Scene break/
I made it to France for our first game against the Paris team. As the announcer called out Harry Evans I felt a rush of adrenaline as I sped onto the pitch. I was doing this for the enjoyment of the game and it was good not to hear the whining about my loosing house points from my team mates. Last night I got another rush of information covering Quidditch and my supposedly being fantastic at Hogwarts as the Gryffindor seeker. It was their bad luck I never went down that street.
At least my French was good enough to understand the announcer, "It's the first game of the season folks..."
What both teams were waiting for was the normal, "Right, attention please, I want to clean game..." from the referee, the toss of the Quaffle and the whistle starting the game.
The Snitch was gone in a blink so I did a quick lap to see if I could spot anything but I was not that lucky. So I put one eye on searching around pitch for the Snitch and keeping the other eye on how the game was progressing. The other seeker was floating along with me and was having the same luck that I was having, zilch.
Peggy tossed the Quaffle to ANGÈLE who scored, the keeper tossed the Quaffle in a high arc towards midfield to his teams chaser and a sped to the hoops. Meanwhile the other teams seeker must've thought that I had gone to sleep and pulled a fake ploy as he sped across the field. This was obvious as he was looking at me more than where the snitch was supposed to be located. Meanwhile Peggy had the Quaffle and tossed it to Jane who did a double fake and scored. The keeper again tossed the Quaffle in a high arc towards midfield to his team's chaser, whoops!
We were up 60/20 when it was Jane's turn to score again. I was in already on my way to midfield when the Paris keeper did his looping toss. I literally grabbed the Quaffle out of the opponent's hands and did an upside down U-turn and sped for the Paris hoops. Hay, it was only a game and it was really fun, I thought, until I had to barrel roll to miss a Bludger aimed at me while the other beater attempted a head-on crash.
By the time I got to the hoops area the broom was maxed out speed wise so my toss was nowhere near a hard throw. While I was flying backwards trying to get my broom to take me away from the hoops the Quaffle hurtled through the far hoop. This started a timeout and screaming from the opposing team that was illegal for a seeker to performance as a chaser. The rulebook stated otherwise.
After my death defying dive to capture the snitch Lyon won 250/80 and I have a large smile on my face as I headed back to Hogwarts.
/Scene break/
The school year ended up with Dumbledore insisting that I return to the Dursley's even after Vernon had been arrested for child abuse. My first question, to myself, was what I was going to do over the summer. As I boarded the train for King Cross station more of my future memories leaked. This gave me a good idea what my next project this summer was besides facing Vernon with my loving family and playing Quidditch.
"Come on Harry let's find a compartment before they all get filled." Susan squealed as she dragged down the corridor of the train car. Hannah was following us and giggling at Susan's antics.
After we had secured a compartment and basically settled in Neville joined us followed another girl Neville seemed to know. The train had not even begun to move when the girls that was with the troll in the bathroom slipped in, "Can I hide in here for a while?" Hermione asked. I was trying to remember why I didn't remember her other than the troll incident.
"Of course, and who may I ask are you hiding from this time Hermione?" Asked Hannah.
"Ron Weasley has suddenly decided he's madly in love with me. That's who I was hiding from in the bathroom when that horrible troll came along. That Weasley is just gross!"
I started snickering which caused Hermione turned in my direction with a glare. "Sorry, I was just remembering my first night here and him spitting food all over the table. I moved to the other in the table that night and I have made sure I don't sit anywhere close to him since."
"Well he's just gross, and I'm not sure he ever takes a bath?" Hermione's nose wrinkled up when she asked, which gave her a very cute look.
"I have no idea, thankfully I've got my own quarters and I don't have to listen to him snoring all night an overloaded chainsaw."
The compartment door slid open and there stood Ron Weasley, "You mind if I join you all, everywhere else is full?"
"You don't have any luck on this train do you? As you can see this compartment is full so I suggest you find a different compartment. Standing in the corridor is such a drag." You could see that he did not like that answer but he left without making a scene which was unusual for him.
"Harry you are coming over to my place to visit aren't you? We have a nice swimming pool in the backyard." Susan flirted.
I wish I could come but the Headmaster doesn't want me to be seen outside of the house and the Dursley's don't want to me to be seen outside of my room. The only reason I'm going back is because I don't want the Ministry and Dumbledore hunting for me when I leave, I have plans for the summer. Vernon is not nice people, in fact I haven't heard if he got convicted of the child abuse charges.
"WHAT! Surely you could put a restraining order out on him?" Hermione looked confused.
"I'm sure Albus took care of the charges with some wand waving. I haven't seen Dumbledore in jail over his attempted kidnapping of me last summer."
The compartment finally got Hermione calmed down over me insulting the great Albus Dumbledore.
/Scene break/
Of course Vernon was not there to pick me up at the Kings Cross station. I had my trunk shrunk it in my pocket as I headed for a secluded alley and 'apparated'. I arrived in a clump of trees in the park close to my summer confinement quarters.
It was nice evening for a walk and gave me some time to think. I was wondering if there was any logic or plan on when and how much future memories were going to be leaked into my brains. I was chuckling to myself over the insanity of what is happening. Here I have a corner my brain chuck full of my future memories, which I never lived, being leaked into my 12-year-old brain. I guess the Lady with the staff knew what she was doing because it would be very boring to know what was going to happen tomorrow. But then again if you knew that you were going to get your butt beaten to a pulp wouldn't you run down a different street to avoid that future? Then again the Lady with the staff had said you can't change the future even if I felt like I was changing everything.
I was happy to end that line of thinking because it was now time to face the Dursley family. First thing I noticed was that his car was not in the driveway. The second thing was that the front door had a new lock. I slipped to the rear of the house to find a new lock on the back doors as well. As I was returning to the front of the house I glanced up at my bedroom window. I was wondering if Vernon expected me to enter my room by flying up to the window. My fantasy of actually flying up there ended abruptly as I noticed the new bars on the window.
Moments later, and a little wandless magic, I entered the front door. All I knew was something was definitely wrong as it appeared that nobody was at home. I ran up the stairs as my curiosity was running wild.
When I had left I put a locking charm on the door as well as a 'Duro' charm on the walls and door. I didn't think my little threat to Vernon was going to stop him from entering my room and most likely destroying everything therein. When I got to the top of the stairs I bent over double laughing. No, Vernon was not able to enter through the door nor attach anything like locks to the door so he did the next best thing. He had stopped entry into the bedroom by bolting one end of a steel bar cage to the ceiling and the other end into the floor right against the bedroom door. This was spiteful rage on his part as there was no door through the steel bared cage.
Being the poor defenseless kid that Vernon knows I am I made do with the situation. I hit one of the bars with 'Evanesco' there now was room for me to slide through but Vernon would never be able to squeeze his bulk through that space. I then vanished the bars of the cage that was against the bedroom door. The window bars received the banishing charm while I stood there feeling stupid. Why didn't Vernon enter through the window? Logically he was too fat to climb up a ladder so he must've had paid to have the bars installed on the window. The answer was never let the outside world know what freakiness resides in the smallest bedroom of number 4 Privet Dr.
I spent the rest of day unpacking, charging my cell phone, and watching a local channel on TV. I soon found that all the food had been removed from the house so I used Vernon's downstairs phone and ordered Chinese take-out.
/Scene break/
A month had passed and it appeared that the Dursley's had taken off for a summer vacation. So what was this poor defenseless kid going to do besides Quidditch? I had been going to the cinema, window shopping and working on becoming an Animagus, all those teenage things the average freak kid does. This Animagus thing turned out to be some serious work for 12-year-old. I had my arm and hands turned into some very hairy appendages with some serious sharp claws so I was making some progress.
I was getting bored when I suddenly had a brilliant idea. I sent Hedwig to find out if she was busy the next day?"
Susan was free and so was her guard. But she couldn't possibly go anywhere without Hannah and Hannah thought it would only be right to invite Hermione who had been in touch since they had gotten off the train. The next day we all met up at the Leakey Cauldron and squeezed ourselves into a cab with Susan sitting in my lap. After a bit of travel we spent the entire day doing wild rides and eating all kinds of strange things which were all fantastically delicious. The next day the four of us spent the day at the Bones mansion and their fine swimming pool. The girls seemed eager to teach me how to swim. I was also noticing Susan and Hermione were always very close and constantly in contact with me.
/Scene break/
By the end of the second month of my return to Privet Drive the four of us, plus one guard, were terrorizing London's cinemas, ice cream parlors along with the girls mandatory window shopping. All three girls parents worked during the day and I was free to do as I wished. In the evenings I was practicing to be an Animagus and it was obvious that I was going to be a large bird as I had partially transformed with a white Eagle type head.
By the end of the third month I made my first full transformation. I thought it looked good as a Griffin but the humongous wings I could do without, at least that was my first impression.
I have been spending the early mornings watching the sunrise which I found quite soothing. The urge to leap out the window and go soaring among the clouds was almost irresistible. I had become even more vigilant and sensitive because of my Griffin form, the slightest sound I could hear and could feel any nearby presence. That's when I heard a car in her the driveway followed by the front door slamming. "Boy! Get down here and help carry the luggage upstairs."
Vernon must've been taking stupid pills while I was away at Hogwarts either that or he had a very short memory. I slid through the bars and ambled down the stairs. I'm not sure if it was that I took so long in coming down the stairs or if it was the new nice clothing and suntan I was now sporting but Vernon charged at me. It looked like he was planning on snatching me up to where my face could be exposed to his bad breath and a tirade of insulting words. What I found hilarious was the big fight in Privet Drive lasted only three seconds when Vernon was introduced to my Griffin form, one could say face-to-face. He passed out cold on the floor.
Vernon was quite stupid as he started again the next morning, "Where do you think you're going you little freak?" He must've thought he looked intimidating with a cricket bat that he was holding menacingly.
"Out to visit my three girlfriends like I do every day."
"No you're not, your going to do the chores around this place."
Thought to myself why am I putting up with this crap? I can do wandless magic and I have enough money in my vaults to last a football team ten lifetimes, " ENOUGH!" I yelled and turned charging backed up the stairs. Vernon attempted to do the same thing but his bulk slowed him down to a jiggling waddle which came to a screeching halt at the steel bars.
I shrunk everything in my room that was of any importance and packed it in my trunk which I then shrank. I returned the room itself to its original shabby state and came to the realization that Vernon was blocking my escape route. Taking out my broom I re-shrank my trunk, put it in my pocket, hopped on the broom and was out the window in a flash. As soon as a past the window frame I lowered myself to the ground hoping that I had not been seen. I then trotted off toward the park and 'apperated' to Bones Manor which was my original destination for the day.
"Hi Harry the girls will be here in a minute. Why don't you change and head out to the pool."
"I'm sorry Susan but I can't make it today."
"Is there something wrong Harry?"
"Sort of, had another fight with my uncle Vernon and I'm just not up to it anymore. I'm going to find a place to rent and spend the rest of summer without all of the yelling and screaming."
"Harry I know I can invite you to stay the night so let me talk to my auntie and see if you can't stay here for the rest of the summer."
Amelia Bones was more than happy to have me over and keep Susan company. What remained of the summer was enjoyed roaming London or just splashing in the swimming pool.
Of course the fun and games were soon over and I was again heading to Kings Cross station for my second year at Hogwarts.
