A temporary hiatus ensued after the breakthrough in the Hunt for the Horcruxes. Of course, the Gryffindorian trio continued attending classes and had to be extremely cautious with the Death Eaters, but for a couple of months none of them, apart from Hermione's pride, had been seriously injured: every morning the girl had to put on grey robes which looked like a hybrid of a shroud and a prison uniform.

In the beginning of October, while all three were still in high spirits thanks to the successful operation against Umbridge, Harry and Ron decided to reach the basilisk's fang – one of the possible weapons capable of destroying the Horcrux's dark magic. They chose to infiltrate the Chamber of Secrets during one of Hermione's detentions when the headmaster was busy. They doubted that the decomposing corpse of a giant snake was still resting in the castle – it was more logical to assume that it had been removed at the end of their second year. However, the logic of the former headmaster was, as always, too complex for their understanding, because the basilisk remains had indeed been left to calmly decay in the depths of the sealed Chamber. Unfortunately, someone had already taken the fangs.

Saddened over this failure, they had devoted the next few weeks to deliberations while guarding the locket in turns (Harry was the exception – he had such a strong headache when approaching the Horcrux that he was unanimously excluded from being one of the locket's warders).

In early November an unexpected message came from Ginny. Ron went to meet her in Hogsmeade and brought back, in addition to the sent regards and assurances of everyone's well-being, some strange news, which the three were now discussing, sitting on a sofa in the Room of Requirement.

"That's a very idiotic provocation for a large-scale-thinking Dark Lord, don't you think?" Hermione said critically. "So, he had been looking for Harry for four months without any luck and then suddenly had the brilliant idea to use his aunt as bait… It's just crazy."

"I can't vouch that You-Know-Who isn't a little bonkers after creating so many Horcruxes, can you?" Ron retorted. "Or maybe you want Harry to fall into the Death Eaters' clutches?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Ronald," the girl snapped. "Of course, I want to endanger Harry no more than you, but let's think logically. Harry's aunt got in touch with the Order of the Phoenix through Mrs Figg and said that Dumbledore had left something for him. It stands to reason: she knew Dumbledore, and Dumbledore knew that he was getting closer to the Horcruxes and, being aware of the growing danger, he passed on something through her –"

"And why didn't he give it to Harry himself?!"

"Because it's Dumbledore! Why didn't he give the Snitch to Harry himself? Or the sword? Especially if he knew that the Ministry would deal with his will? Why was he silent about the prophecy at the fifth year? Why did he trust Snape?"

"Are you implying that Dumbledore was also a little bonkers?"

"Sometimes you're really impossible," Hermione shook her head wearily. "I'm implying that Dumbledore always had far-reaching plans, which he did not share with the Order, Harry or even his own Pensieve. Why, among all these plans, couldn't a role be assigned to Petunia Dursley?"

"And why couldn't You-Know-Who get the idea that, at the mere mention of 'secret' and 'Dumbledore', Harry would come running like a dog with two tails?"

"I don't have two tails," Harry interjected weakly, breath-warming his fingers and glancing from one speaker to the other. He had made up his mind some time ago, but, as a true Gryffindorian, could not deprive his friends of the opportunity to have their say.

"Because, since Harry's majority, the Dursleys have not been interested in his fate! No offense, Harry…"

"None taken, they weren't interested in it even BEFORE –"

"…And he was not interested in theirs. None of them tried to get in touch with each other. Snape is well aware that Harry stayed at that house only due to the protective charms, which means it is known by You-Know-Who. What's the point in using, as bait, people who Harry doesn't care two figs about? Besides, the Order kept an eye on the Dursleys, and if they contacted the Death Eaters, Professor Lupin would tell us that instead of letting Ginny pass on Mrs Dursley's request."

"I'm going to put on the Invisibility Cloak," Harry finally interrupted their flow of speech.

"What if –"

"I'll have a sneakoscope on me."

"Your aunt is so malicious that the sneakoscope will drill a hole in your pocket!"

Hermione rolled her eyes – with their love for twirling glowing gizmos her friends were sometimes direct proof of Darwin's theory.

"It makes far more sense, of course, to take a primitive device with you rather than to strain your brains and use the 'Malus revelio' spell, which I read about in one of Snape's books. It's so much more fun to have something spinning like a top at your side, isn't it? Don't you think, Harry, that it's necessary to differentiate the danger emanating from your aunt and the threat of the Death Eaters waiting for you?"

"'The danger emanating from his aunt'?" Ron giggled. "Will she set his cousin on him or something?"

"I'd rather be bitten by Ickle Dudleykins than get 'Avada' right between my eyes," Harry joined in the debate, as always, at the most interesting part.

"Imagine that you came to Snape's lesson all bandaged up and covered in healing ointment."

"And he's like: 'Have you been fighting with Malfoy again, Potter?' and I'm like: 'No, sir, my cousin bit me!'"

"Rabid!"

The boys burst out laughing. Hermione measured them with a weary-irritated look. Perhaps they had time to mess around like that, but the girl certainly didn't – in addition to the usual homework and routine detention at Snape's she still had to do some extra studies for the NEWTs to which only a few months remained.

"I'll bite you myself now," she snapped at last. "Do you think it's funny? Do I gain all this knowledge at Snape's detentions so you can roll around on the floor laughing and playing with idiotic sneakoscopes? Maybe you're going to bewitch it, so it not only glows, but sings songs as well? One tune for Voldemort, another – for Death Eaters?"

Ron bent over in another fit of laughter.

"Right, right, Hermione, sorry," Harry was still breathing heavily from laughing hysterically, but managed to sense the danger in the girl's voice and raised his hands. "Could you remind me the movement of the wand, though? I haven't practiced it for a while."

"Why am I not surprised?" Hermione muttered, barely audibly. Sometimes the boys' behaviour really made her angry – being at the epicentre of the war, they, at times, acted like immature first-years. She could understand such an attitude of those jackanapes who had put on the firework show for the ministerial inspection – for them the war was something abstract, an excuse to manifest their legendary Gryffindorian courage. Though, to Hermione's taste, their stunt had been nothing more than a brainless prank for the appetite of the identically brainless pseudo-heroes. Harry and Ron, however, knew more than anyone else what was at stake, and yet, from time to time, they got carried away by some kind of infantile folly. It seemed like they were about to start shooting the Carrows with a slingshot or dragging her Crookshanks by his tail. She'd rather they devoted their energies to a good cause… Like catching the missing toad at least because Neville had already started asking about it.

XXX

Surrey in November was a very dreary sight. Snow wasn't expected until Christmas, the last autumn flowers had already been removed from their beds, and now Little Whinging was robed in grey – roughly reminiscent of the colour Mudbloods wore at Hogwarts. Harry winced. Heavy clouds threatened torrential rain and, judging by the puddles, far from the first this week, but for the time being it was confined to a nasty drizzle. The Invisibility Cloak was, of course, enchanted with water-repellent charms, but Harry's shoes got wet almost instantly. He should ask Hermione to give him some training on applied magic, because usually he paid more attention to combat. More useful for the war, of course, but he could do without taking a Pepperup Potion.

He turned into Privet Drive without feeling the slightest hint of nostalgia. He had truly felt alive for the first time only when he had arrived at Hogwarts – the world that was revealed to him there was his to the core of his heart and the annual return to the Dursleys was perceived only as a payment for future freedom. Now the relatives, who for years had turned his life into a bleak series of reproaches and domestic chores, finally remained in the past, together with the rows of sickeningly neat fences and lawns competing among themselves for the Cup of Normality. A normal town with normal people as, in fact, his aunt was (it's not like she had been torturing him with a red-hot iron, after all); still, Harry was extremely happy that he was paying a visit rather than returning home.

The house at number four appeared from behind an overgrown hedge. His aunt's heart must be bleeding from such desolation: after their departure in July, there was no one to maintain the garden in perfect condition, and now, perhaps, it was causing displeasure among the respectable neighbours. Harry could vouch that the juniper bushes were inhabited by spiders, and some birds, raising a family, had made their nests in a tree and were now actively crapping on the path. He hoped that he wouldn't have to use 'Rennervate' to revive Aunt Petunia, who, without a doubt, had already managed to estimate the size of the disaster. Indeed, what could be worse in life than a crapped-on garden path? Voldemort would be green with envy if he knew what a simple way Muggles have to torment others; a couple of well-fed thrushes instead of a torture curse or potion, and the job was in the bag.

The gate and the front door were deliberately open – Harry had warned his aunt through the Order that he would come only on such terms. There was no point in using an invisibility cloak if you had to open doors. It was clear to him without the grumbling Hermione.

"Malus revelio," whispered Harry. No response.

The spell had been acquired by Hermione almost a month ago, but Harry still had great difficulty in casting it; partly due to a lack of training, partly due to a complex movement he had to perform with his wand-holding hand. The spinning squiggle, which he had to draw, turned out to be too angular, and the spell faded away at the tip of his wand with a pale silvery light. If successful, the light would be red for danger and white with the absence of it.

"Malus revelio."

This time it worked. Harry felt quite relieved seeing a white glow. Well, either Snape had palmed them off with a defective spell in order to sabotage the anti-Voldemort campaign or Aunt Petunia really only wanted to fulfil the headmaster's request.

'The ex-headmaster's request,' Harry corrected himself, but almost immediately he stubbornly shook his head. 'No. The headmaster's and that's final.'

Actually, so far, it was Hermione who had brought the most benefits to their mini-squad. Even if not to take into account the ruined potion and the discovery of the Pensieve's location, the spells she had been obtaining from Snape delighted even Ron, who was generally indifferent to studying, and their great value for the fight could not be overestimated. Take for instance a 'Quanticio' which allowed determining the number of people in a room. At least now it was possible for Harry to make sure that, instead of a dozen Death Eaters, there was only one person waiting for him at number four. Snape had really made a huge mistake underestimating Hermione, eventually she'd make him pay for that.

Porch, hall, living room. Having all these years the Invisibility Cloak and Doxys in his pants, Harry had learned to move like a shadow – inaudibly. And now he could see Aunt Petunia before she knew about his arrival. His aunt was nervously walking from the table to the fireplace: her thin lips compressed, her face even sharper than before, her hand packed in a plaster splint. What had happened to her? Harry frowned: he certainly had no warm feelings for his aunt but didn't want to be the cause of her misfortunes either. Although if Voldemort had really attacked the Dursleys, nothing would remain to be packed in any plaster.

"Aunt Petunia," Harry removed his cloak and appeared before his aunt in all his beauty… or rather in the beauty of Neville Longbottom.

Mrs Dursley gave a subtle scream and recoiled, either from the manner of his entrance or from his strange appearance.

"It's me. Harry," the boy continued, not wanting to frighten her. When the woman turned to face him, the shadows under her eyes and her almost unhealthy thinness became especially visible. The horse, which his precious aunt used to remind him of, definitely needed good veterinary care these days. Almost instantly Harry felt ashamed of his thoughts. If Hermione had heard him, he would have to listen to her lectures up until Christmas.

"Of course, it's you," Aunt Petunia interrupted his self-flagellation in her most disgusting tone, which she usually reserved for those cases when her nephew blew up guests or set Dementors on her son. "Who besides you would creep up on normal people with the intention of frightening them to death?"

Harry did not object. Last thing he was inclined to do was to listen to his aunt's complaints: she would hardly come up with anything new – in sixteen years of living with the Dursley, the list of his transgressions was so long that it would be possible to hang all the Death Eaters on it. It seemed, however, that Petunia wasn't in the mood for a long, fruitful conversation either.

"Take it."

With these words, she grabbed a huge package with her healthy hand and, wincing with disgust as if a horrible stench was coming from it, held it out to Harry.

The boy, however, did not hurry to accept it and, thanks to Hermione's emphatic recommendation ("Have you lost your mind, Harry? Don't even think of taking anything from her hands without checking it for dark magic first!"), drew his wand over the package. If Professor Snape (why would he call that oily-haired bastard 'professor' in his mind? Must be the pernicious influence of Hermione) knew that Harry Potter was using his spell to protect himself from danger, he would jump from the Astronomy Tower, and that, in fact, would serve him right.

If Snape's spell did not lie, Harry could safely accept his aunt's gift. His fingers closed on something solid and smooth. The boy unfolded the hard wrapping paper. Merlin's striped socks! Basilisk fang! So that's who had taken it from the dead beast. He would never tire of admiring Dumbledore's foresight! And of being horrified by it, if to be honest…

However, one logical twist was clearly missing in Dumbledore's thoughtful plan – why now?

"Did Professor Dumbledore give you any specific instructions when you should deliver… erm… this to me?"

Aunt Petunia turned quite scarlet at the mere mention of the headmaster's name.

"'Instructions to deliver'? Do I look like a courier?" she exploded. "I passed it over to you when I could! It's enough that this trash couldn't be thrown into a dustbin. Do you think it was a pleasure for me to keep your ugly things in my house? 'Instructions', ha! Taking orders from that kooky old man, that's all I need!"

Her words certainly made sense. Whatever brilliant plans the wise professor concocted, he always forgot to put into the equation the factor of the Dursleys' incessant 'love' of their nephew. But at least now it became clear how the fang came into Harry's hands instead of ending up in a Muggle dumpster.

That was enough chit-chat for one meeting – Harry wasn't in the mood for reminiscing about the sweet moments of life at Privet Drive, and Aunt Petunia looked like she was about to start screaming beyond ultrasound.

"What happened to your arm?" Harry asked before parting, although he was not particularly interested in the answer. After all, his aunt would hardly be worried if he had been wrapped in bloody bandages from head to toe. But this simple, humane question seemed to be the last straw. Petunia breathed in the air with a deafening whistle and yelled in a way she had never yelled, not even in the peak years of cupboard-under-the-stairs therapy.

"'What happened to my arm?' How dare you ask what happened to my arm?! As if you don't know what that damn old man did to us?!" (Huh? Professor Dumbledore broke Aunt Petunia's arm? Did the 'damn old man', by any chance, have red eyes and two snake-like slits instead of a nose?) "Where was my mind at the moment I accepted you into my family?! I should've driven that manipulator out of the door the minute he knocked! I should have known that there would be more trouble from you than from your scampish mother! Only my kind heart didn't allow me to send you to an orphanage!" (Not to mention a decent saving on servants, too!)

"What does Professor Dumbledore have to do with your arm?" Harry tried to steer the flow of her words in the right direction.

"Don't you know? That ugly thing your lot does to make people obey you!" (Professor Dumbledore cursed Harry Potter's aunt with an Imperio? Sounds like a sensational headline for a Rita Skeeter article.) "Do you think I enjoyed keeping this stuff in my house and not being able to get rid of it? To run from it? Less than a month after our departure, Vernon had a car accident, Diddy caught some nasty bug, and I fell off a ladder!" (Well, Uncle Vernon loved cutting people off, Diddykins must have gorged himself on unwashed fruit, and the dear aunt took a tumble while trying to wipe non-existent dust. Why would Dumbledore curse the Dursleys? Unless…)

"When were you supposed to give me the fang?"

"I wasn't –"

"When? After Professor Dumbledore's death?"

"He's dead? Well, good riddance –"

"On the day of my majority?"

Auntie sniffed tensely. That meant a solid 'yes'. Well, that made sense – a simple spell and a person who did not fulfil their promise got a whole arsenal of trouble. A primitive form of the Unbreakable Vow adjusted for Muggles by Dumbledore's humanity. Harry assumed that now that he had received the object, the spell would be broken.

"If you'd just handed me the package when I turned seventeen, you would have avoided all those nasty incidents," Harry shrugged, losing by the second what little sympathy he had for his relatives. To do something against the wizard's request simply because he was a wizard – it was so much like them! Amid the Dursleys' hatred of magic even Voldemort looked like a model of tolerance.

"It's all your fault!" Aunt Petunia bridled at his remark. Her aggressive madness reminded Harry of Bellatrix Lestrange. Perhaps, it was fortunate that only Lily possessed magic in the Evans family – otherwise the Dark Lord would have one more devastating supporter. "Insolent brat! All your lot are a bunch of psychos! They should have locked my sister up in a nuthouse the very day that rubbish... that magic came out of her!"

The woman spat out the word 'magic' with such disgust that Severus Snape could take lessons from her – even he did not put so much poison into the 'Potter' that was squeezed out through his clenched teeth.

"Instead, our half-witted parents made such a fuss of her as if she was a winning lottery ticket. If it hadn't been for the need to keep a secret, the whole neighbourhood would have known about our shame in a matter of seconds! Yet I understood it at once – my sister was a freak. But year after year I had to endure her scattering her nasty textbooks, dirty feathers and ugly robes about the place, while our mother was blissfully moved by all of this!"

Harry listened to her and was amazed at his emotions, or rather their absence. Was it the fight with Voldemort that had made him tougher or the realisation that he was free to interrupt this insanity at any moment by just turning his back and leaving the threshold? In any case, the insults that Aunt Petunia showered upon her sister no longer had any power over him. He knew enough about Lily Evans from the stories of her teachers and friends to hear in Petunia's poisonous words only red-hot envy boiling like a potion in a cauldron.

"If I'm not mistaken, mum spent almost the whole year at Hogwarts. She could hardly get on your nerves so badly," he said calmly.

"Is that so? How about those filthy owls that crapped on our windowsills round-the-clock? One would think Lily was corresponding with every lunatic in the kingdom. Or those sticks that were waved in front of the neighbours in broad daylight! You see, they were forbidden to use magic, but no one forbade them to break off branches and practice the hand movements." The last bit was clearly a quote. "Or those ever-hungry blokes that looked like escaped convicts. One of them always hung around our neighbourhood, waiting for the opportunity to steal something!"

Harry suppressed a grin as he pictured wealthy James sneaking across the lawn, attempting to steal Aunt Petunia's TV.

"When she was in school, I could at least pretend that we were normal, but can you imagine what it was like before she was taken to that ugly castle of yours? And then during the holidays? She'd been slacking around with that ragged freak from the age of nine. Thought I hadn't known she sneaked food for him, or that I hadn't seen the way he looked at her. I can bet he has grown up to be a right criminal!"

The boy felt that he was losing the thread of the story: Petunia was quite sure that his father was a slacker and a potential delinquent; therefore, she was making these assumptions about someone else.

"Mum had a wizard friend before Hogwarts?" He was certain that his Muggle-born mother had learned about the School of Witchcraft the same way he had – from a letter that had arrived in her eleventh summer.

"'A friend'," the aunt snorted. "He told my sister she was a witch. Big deal! A crazy freak! They made quite the pair."

Whoa! His mother had been friends with someone who'd opened her eyes to her magical self. Surely that person had studied at Hogwarts as well? Something inside Harry fluttered, as though he felt closer to his mother. The moment when he had found out that he was a wizard was the most joyful in his whole life, and it was a real magic to know now that such dazzling happiness had been given to his mother by someone who might still be alive. That person could remember her as a child, remember how she was amazed, gasping at the sight of the world that had opened before her! Pictures streamed before Harry's eyes: someone out there knew how his mum first pushed a trolley through the wall onto platform 9¾, how she unrolled her first Chocolate Frog on the Hogwarts Express and, holding her breath, read a note about some wizard on its card (who knows, maybe she received Dumbledore as well!), how she froze with admiration when she saw the castle and its scratching-the-dark-starry-sky barbed spires, how a feather rose to the ceiling, carried away by the power of her first 'Wingardium Leviosa'… That was a thousand times more important than all her academic successes which teachers never got tired of telling him!

"What was her friend's name?" Harry could hardly recognize his own voice, it sounded so hoarse with the excitement that overwhelmed him. "The one that told her about magic?"

"I have better things to do than remember some bastard psycho from thirty years ago! A vicious pretentious twerp who looked as if I stank!"

Hmm, well, almost a reliable description of Aunt Petunia herself, now wrinkling her long thin nose in disgust.

"…was so vain about his magic, as if in fact it was something more than a shameful disease!"

How very fortunate it was that the Death Eaters were not hiding in Privet Drive's closets – they might not have enough endurance to listen to this, and the Dark Mark would most definitely deface the respectable appearance of Little Whinging.

"He was even crazier than Lily. Such deviants must be isolated from normal people behind barbed wire! I'm sure he ended up being a drunkard or has been in prison for a long time, eating up the money of decent taxpayers!"

Well, so far, from his aunt's verbal exercises, the boy could only grasp the existence of his mother's friend – epithets, assumptions and speculations could be omitted, attributing to some bias of judgments inherent in Mrs Dursley.

"Trailed along her like a mongrel but imagined himself no less than a prince! Mental shag-rag."

"Where did he live?" Harry interrupted her. He wasn't sure he could stand any more mention of abnormality. After all, he had more important things to do than spitting from the verbal slops poured on him. He still had to finish two scrolls of Potions homework and to feed Spooky.

"I have no time to stand here with you and dawdle!" Aunt Petunia snapped and, while casting a short glance at the accumulated dust on the mantelpiece, hurried to the door.

"Where. Did. He. Live?" Harry surprised himself with his harsh tone, but dinner could no longer be deprived from him for his misbehaviour, therefore… "I'm already seventeen and I can use magic."

Petunia drew in a sharp breath and jerked as if trying to throw herself at his throat.

"Where?" the boy raised his wand menacingly.

"I hate you," his aunt hissed, resembling in her anger a wrinkled turtle stretching out its neck.

He had no doubt – she really hated him. Always. The only difference was that he no longer cared about it…