All right, so number four is my least favorite book, which I find rather amusing as the number four is J.K. Rowling's least favorite number, or at the very least a number she doesn't like. (Learned from Pottermore, a great site and its free to join.) This aside, I do plan to try my hardest to actually write through it instead of summarizing it, though there will likely be a lot of skipping. I also would like to forewarn you there will be a lot of description in this "chapter" about places and people not fully described in the books nor properly represented (in my own theory) in the films.
Summer had started pleasantly at first, but then it had become rather boring for Harry. He spent most of his days in his room, trying to keep up on homework, which the Dursleys always made difficult, and writing letters to all his friends, originally only adults though mostly Theodore Nott nowadays. Theodore's owl was a rather large and heavy Eurasian Eagle-Owl, which was more golden than the standard, named Fleabit because of the black speckles on her chest which made her look fleabitten. She seemed to get along well enough with Hedwig, though they sometimes squabbled when they were aiming for the window at the same time, a conflict that always sent Vernon in running if he happened to be home.
Then Harry had had a terrible dream, a nightmare, about Voldemort that was bad enough to cause his scar to hurt. He didn't tell Theodore about it, figuring his friend didn't really want to know about "You-Know-Who" and his connection to Harry. As far as Harry was discovering about Theo, it seemed the boy wanted nothing to do, not even hearing, about the Dark Lord. Harry of course had decided not to tell Sirius Black, his godfather, nor Remus Lupin, a good friend of his father and of Black, nor Professor Snape, Harry's favorite teacher and his Head of House, nor Hagrid, the gamekeeper of Hogwarts and a teacher of the Care of Magical Creatures and Harry's first friend ever. He figured telling the adults would only cause them to worry and he didn't want anyone worrying over him. For once this year, he wanted to have a normal year at Hogwarts. Didn't he deserve as much?
Summer didn't start looking up until he received a letter from Theodore explaining a pick-up time for Harry and details for his "respective guardians" on his stay with the Nott family. It appeared as if Theodore had written it, but it had been signed by a Maximilian Josiah Nott, whom Harry could only assume was Theo's father. Apparently, Theo would be arriving with his father as they would be Apparating rather than using Floo, since Harry was smart enough to inform Theo that the fireplace had been blocked, and they would keep Harry for the day before the match and the rest of summer afterwards. While the Dursleys had seemed a bit reluctant to let Harry go since it was something Harry wanted to do, the prospect of not dealing with their little wizard nephew raising suspicions from the neighbors outweighed this malice and they had agreed for Harry to go, not that they seemed to understand a word of the letter concerning Apparation.
Harry, admittedly, had never apparated and was therefore very nervous to. Theo had described it as a very unsettling feeling and very difficult for those who were not good at it. Theo had also told Harry they would be arriving several streets away and walking to the house because Apparation was very loud and they needed to make sure they only did it where no one would see them coming and going.
They had set the time of their arrival to five o' clock on Sunday and Harry was so apprehensive he was sure Vernon was absolutely giddy with himself at spying and pointing out the sweat on the back of Harry's neck. Vernon was of course dressed in his best suit and Dudley and Petunia had also put on their best, though only to look impressive for their guests. Vernon made several crude comments while they waited for the Notts' arrival and asked if Mr. Nott would be driving.
"They'll be walking." Harry mumbled. "Don't think they own a car."
Vernon scoffed at this, but didn't say much more. Harry fidgeted, worry rushing through him. Theodore was from a family of supposed "Purebloods" and knew very little about Muggle and Muggle behavior. Harry was absolutely certain that whatever happened here this evening would be positively horrific.
Five o' clock rolled around, but no one arrived. Six o' clock came and went too. Vernon was aggitated and complaining and Harry was tapping his foot up and down in mounting terror. What if they had changed their minds and they didn't want Harry joining them? What if they had lost their way? What if...
Seven o' clock chimed and there was a sure knock on the door.
Harry bolted to it, but Vernon, amazingly prow for his size, got to it first and opened the door to glare intimidatingly at the incredibly wizard-looking man on the other side.
Maximilian Josiah Nott was a tall lean man with a face that had probably once been very handsome, but had been twisted and gnarled with age and lots of frowning. His ice blue eyes were bright beneath heavy white eyebrows eternally pinched into a scowl and a pointed nose dipped down towards his thin grimacing lips. He had a stringy appearance, much like his son, as if he had been given too many long bones in his body, but not enough meat to go over them. His skin was stretched and fuzzy as it hung about his face and white whiskers poked out unevenly along his cheeks and chin in the imitation of an overworked nag. About his body, he wore heavily embroidered black wizard's robes and on the top of his head a pointed wizard's hat. Sparkling and glinting on his fingers were many intricately detailed rings heavily facited with large expensive-looking jewels and around his neck a heavy-appearing amulet hung down past his chest level and caught even the attention of Mr. Dursley. The man was so overburdened with the display of his wealth and prestige he probably weighed as much as Vernon, even though his own body mass was only a sixth the size of Harry's uncle.
He didn't wait for an invitation either, but slipped right in, pushing Vernon aside with a frail-looking, but clearly powerful hand and placing himself right into a chair in the living room, piercing eyes darting about at the very Muggle surroundings he most certainly did not fit in.
Then his eyes flicked over to Petunia and he stated in a voice that, despite its age, demanded absolute obedience. "Tea. Black. Plain. Now."
Harry was immediately given the impression that Mr. Nott didn't believe Petunia would have been unable to understand a question as he commanded her in the way one would a dog or someone who was stupid or at least didn't know very many English words...but Petunia didn't argue. She simply left to do as she was told.
Theodore entered the room, a bit taller and hair trimmed a little shorter and eyes a little keener than last Harry had seen him, and gave Harry a tiny smile, which was barely even a flick up of one corner of his lips, though it was all Harry needed to know that Theodore was glad to see him.
"Packed?" The boy asked.
"Of course." Harry grinned.
"I didn't realize you were staying for tea." Vernon grumbled at the wizard in his living room, who wasn't even bothering to look at him. Harry wondered if he was even listening. "If you had been planning so than it would have been..." He cleared his throat. "Considerate to...inform us...and arrive on time."
This last bit grabbed Mr. Nott's attention and he stated very clearly as if enunciating for the benefit of a young child, "I was not late."
"You said five o' clock." Vernon growled and waved at the clock on the wall. "It is clearly past seven!"
Mr. Nott didn't even look at the clock as he informed Vernon (in a tone implying that Harry's uncle was perhaps mentally unstable therefore in need of gentle treatment and care), "Your clock is broken."
Then with a flick of his wand, which had appeared out of no where, the clock's hands turned back until they were a minute past five.
Vernon's lips tightened. "There is to be no magic in this house!"
Mr. Nott raised his head in a superior way and Harry instantly knew there was about to be a power struggle. Apparently, Theodore noticed as well and interrupted.
"Father, I do believe it's probably best if we set off sooner rather than later. I'm sure the Dursleys would much rather return to their plain normal lives while we return to our much more...well, wizardly lives."
Mr. Nott considered this and stood. "Inform that girl not to finish the tea. We'd much rather not share your company and I'm sure you feel the same." He turned to Theodore. "He's packed."
"Yes." Theodore nodded and Harry abruptly realized that Mr. Nott wasn't bothering to look at Harry.
After an awkward farewell, Harry, along with his trunk, Hedwig, and broom started off with Theodore and Mr. Nott into the quiet dusk of Privit Drive.
"Rather dull House." Theodore commented as he assisted Harry with the luggage.
"Muggle." Harry murmured back, glancing at Mr. Nott, who didn't seem to be listening.
"Never been in a Muggle house before." Theodore admitted.
"And you never will be again." Mr. Nott shot back at them in a nasty voice, far more unpleasant than the one he had adopted while in the Dursleys's household. Harry flinched, but The cast him a reassuring (he really hoped it was reassuring as Theo was just as hard to read as Professor Snape) glance.
They eventually arrived under a bridge where cars would pass over ever so often. Mr. Nott took hold of his son's shoulder and Theo grabbed onto Harry with the muttered warning of "don't fidget". A car started to pass overhead, hitting a bump in the road, and they apparated at the same time.
It was one of the worst sensations of Harry's life, almost indescribable, and it left him feeling sick and dizzy.
"First time apparate." He heard Theo saying as Harry bent over himself and tried to retain the contents of his dinner.
"He'll be fine." Came Mr. Nott's reply as he started away, clearly not concerned.
Harry finally straightened. "That...wasn't too bad."
"Handled it like a true wizard." Theo twitched another smile. "Well, let's get us up to my room. It's late and we have to get up early."
"Where are we near?" Harry asked, surveying the dark about him.
"The closest town is Ottery St. Catchpole." Theodore informed him as he started packing Harry's trunk up some steps Harry hadn't noticed before.
"That's near the Burrow!" Harry gasped.
"That hodgepodge of walls the Weasleys call a home?" Theo snorted indignantly. "Yes, sadly, we're neighbors, though thankfully distant neighbors. We're also neighbors to the Fawcetts, the Diggorys, and the Lovegoods."
Harry gave a "huh" and then stopped dead in his tracks as he stared at exactly what he hadn't expected. Before him were a few steps leading up to a small stone building no longer than Vernon's car, though as tall as a doorway. Peering around, Harry realized they were in the center of a rather large cemetary and what they were walking towards was no doubt the entrance to a person's tomb.
"Don't look so alarmed, Harry." Theo snickered lightly as he started in. "We're not going to be sleeping with corpses if that's what you're worried about."
With these words, Theo disappeared inside and Harry, not wanting to be left in a crypt and certainly not after the dream he'd had earlier in the summer, dashed soon after him.
Down a staircase brought Harry into a long hallway ever reminiscent of the dungeons at Hogwarts with stone walls and a damp floor, but this turned out only to be the entrance hall and soon Harry was stepping down into a rather luxurious living room with black leather and wine red velvet couches and dark wooden furniture and a large fire with rearing stone hippogriffs on either side of it. Honestly, it wasn't what Harry had expected from a Slytherin home as he had often imagined them decorated in emerald and silver.
Three rather large basset hounds, clearly overweight with ears big enough to fly with, all turned their heads to look at him, but none made any effort to get up from where they were sprawled out on the large floor with its grand thick carpet. Harry's eyes wandered around the room at the expensive decor, heavy tapestries, and large paintings before realizing abruptly that the room was circular and, not only that, there were four doors opposing each other on each "side" of the room, with the entrance hall opposite the great fire place.
"Servents quarters and stations, which include the kitchens are through there." Theodore pointed to the far one on the right then to its neighbor closest them. "And dining hall through this one."
He motioned to the closest left side one. "That's the hall for guests and extra rooms for storage." Then he started to the far neighbor of the guest hall. "And this one is family only. My father's study and the library are down this way. Don't go in them. He's really particular."
"I'm just going to follow you." Harry told his friend and he was led down the new hall, which was as warm and comfortable as had been the sitting room. All the doors were on the right side leading into the different rooms and the hall was very long. Theodore, apparently, had his room at the very end.
His door opened up to another set of stairs, this one spiraling down into a large living area with a bedroom and private bath. Another bed had been moved into the living space for Harry and this had pushed all the furniture into a more cramped area. Unlike the living room above, these rooms were bedecked with Slytherin motifs everywhere from banners to bed makings in emerald and silver to posters of the Quidditch team to a giant silver snake intertwining with itself across the ceiling. Harry grinned at it all, enjoying it thoroughly and wishing he could have decorated his own room similarily. The other thing about the room that Harry liked were the many book shelves and the potions station tucked in a corner.
Theo introduced him to his black cat named Slinkers who had a rather ugly mug from getting in fights with some of the creepy crawlies down here and showed him some of the magical items his father had given him over time, or more rather that he had earned through hard work of pleasing the nearly impossibly difficult to please man he called a father. He only had two things: an odd egg-shaped item he had finally figured out had a charm on it to ignite curiosity, but did nothing else, and a strange rock that let out a low humming, but he had yet to discover its secrets. Apparently, his father wouldn't tell him what the items did, but rather forced him to work it out on his own. Harry thought this was a bit cruel on Mr. Nott's part, but he also felt a tinge of jealousy, which he masked, at the idea of Theo getting something, anything, from his father when Harry could never even hope for such a thing.
It wasn't long before a sourceless voice ordered them to bed and Theodore explained that his father had a spell on the walls so all he had to do was think about who he wanted to talk to and the words would reach them.
They changed and crawled into their beds, which were further apart than Harry had wanted them to be. Silence hung dead in the air, interrupted only by Slinkers' occassional batting at the walls and furniture.
Finally, Harry whispered into the dark, "Are you still awake?"
"I am."
Harry only hesitated a moment before asking, "Does your father not like me?"
Theodore shifted in his bed, but did not respond immediately. "He's not fond of you, but he's into ancestry and...and...well, what does his opinion matter, Harry? You're my friend. He's just going to have to deal with it."
This made Harry smile. "Yeah, you're right."
"You want to just come sleep over here, Harry?" Theodore asked then. "It's big enough for both of us to not even notice. That bed seems too far away."
Harry climbed out of bed almost instantly at the request. "Sounds much better."
Sleep came quickly after Harry had settled down again.
And that's the end of this chapter. Hope you enjoyed the update! Review if you want.
