According to the clock on the wall, it was about nine in the evening.

Harry flipped through his Transfiguration textbook, paused, flipped back a little, then looked from the paragraph to the essay he was writing.

It looked promising, so Harry rephrased it in his own words before writing it down – outlining how the Reparifarge incantation would reverse a partial transfiguration by returning an object to its natural state, and specifically how that meant that an object that had already been transfigured could be reverted even if one did not know the original form. This was an exception to the rule of visualization, and a helpful counterpoint.

Harry's tail flicked from side to side behind his chair as he wrote, though he had to stop to erase a droplet of ink that fell on the table. It took three tries to rub it away, and Harry frowned at the result.

It was sort of good and bad, really. Bad because it meant that the ink-erasing charm he'd put on his quill at Hogwarts was starting to wear off, and it meant he really should have refreshed it before they got on the train.

Good, because this was one of his last few essays, so it vindicated his decision to do all his homework as soon as possible.

Hedwig hooted, and Harry put his quill down in the inkwell. "I'm in here, girl."

The tent flap blew open with a whoosh, and Hedwig slipped through the narrow gap before pulling up and flaring her wings to gently come to a halt – just on Harry's forearm, which he held out for her.

"Thanks," he told her, taking the letter from her leg, and she preened a little before flying over to her cage. The door was open, as it had been for most of the last month, and she settled in before tucking her head under her wing for a nap.

Harry opened the letter, which was from Hermione like he'd expected it to be. It said that visiting on Friday was fine, and that she was glad to help.

Harry put the letter to the side with a grin, and was about to go on writing when he remembered that it had been a while since dinner. So he got up, pushing the chair back, and walked around the table to the fridge.

Pouring some milk into a tin mug, he inhaled before carefully flaming it for about thirty seconds. The milk heated quickly, bubbling up to a boil, and Harry dashed some cocoa powder into it before giving it a stir.

It tasted just about right, and Harry drank half of it before sitting back down to continue with his essay.

Half an hour later it was done, and Harry blew over the parchment to dry it before rolling it up and putting it with the rest of his finished homework.

The clock said it was getting quite close to ten, so Harry washed out the mug he'd used and gave it a quick scrub. Putting it aside to drain, he turned off the light in the kitchen and made his way through into the library.

The sight of it still made him smile, even after a month of living in Privet Weyr. All the shelves along the walls had books – there weren't enough to more than half-fill them, but they were certainly there – and other books along with most of his other possessions lay in a pile on the floor, covered over with a heap of dozens of still-present Hogwarts letters.

Harry used his tail to flick the light on, then thought better of it. Turning the big main light off again, he instead turned on a small bedside lamp he'd moved from one of the bedrooms and which rested next to his bookmarked copy of The Phoenix Guards.

Another few chapters before bed sounded nice, and Harry rolled over onto his back to hold the book over his head. It was sort of a confusing one, with Dragons being a type of elf (only they weren't called elves, they were called Dragaerans) and also a thing that sounded a lot more like the sort of dragon Harry thought of when he thought of dragons, while Jheregs were criminals and also miniature dragons that couldn't breathe fire. And that wasn't even getting into what Issola were – Harry thought maybe they were herons?

Still, it was a fun read, and just the thing after a hard day's cooking, cleaning, eating Dudley's broken toys (he'd got presents for his birthday a week or so ago, and many of them were already broken) and doing essays.

The next day, Harry's alarm clock woke him at about half past six in the morning.

He rolled off his sleeping pile and stretched, wings going up and out as he flexed all his claws and muscles at once, then checked his calendar.

He had two more essays to do, which were going to be done tomorrow, but today was a day he was going to be going to Diagon Alley to meet up with Mr. Lupin and do some shopping. They were planning to meet for lunch, and Harry's rough plan was to be back to Privet Drive by about three in the afternoon, so he felt he had easily enough time to do the cooking like he'd told Aunt Petunia he'd do. (He was thinking of doing a risotto, and it had been difficult but he'd persuaded Aunt Petunia to get the ingredients.)

After a quick breakfast (two slices of toast, one lightly heated and one carbonized) Harry cleaned his teeth and then went into one of the bedrooms of his tent. He didn't use it, because of the risk to the sheets, but it did hold his clothes – which mostly consisted of his Hogwarts robes and cloak, admittedly, and Harry carefully put one of his sets of robes on – mostly for the pockets – before going down a quick mental checklist.

His money bag… wand… backpack to carry the things he was going to buy…

That looked like everything, so Harry went into his kitchen and sat down at the table to read for a while.

There wasn't really any point leaving before eight in the morning, after all. Flying to Diagon Alley didn't take all that long.

Harry left a locked tent behind him and his heavy trunk on top of the way into the loft, took off into light drizzle, and flew for about half an hour through low cloud to reach the Leaky Cauldron about nine in the morning.

Several people looked up as Harry walked through the streets, but Harry was quite pleased to see that he didn't get anything like as much attention as he had last year. How much of that was the months of time to get used to the idea and how much was just that he'd been visiting for the past few weeks was something Harry couldn't really answer.

His wings were aching a little, not in warning but just letting him know he'd given them a good workout, so he rested them a bit as he picked up some money for shopping – both in the mundane and wizarding worlds.

That done, he went into the largest Quidditch shop to have a look. There were some very costly and flashy brooms in the window, things like the Nimbus Two Thousand And One, but that didn't interest Harry all that much the way he was feeling now. It was too much money on one broom, and he much preferred the idea of being able to share the feeling of flying. Whether it was just around the expansive grounds of Hogwarts or maybe going for a flight during the holidays, it felt like a nice idea – and he was, apparently, the most well-off of his friends (aside from maybe Neville, who he knew had quite a big house but none of the details) so he could maybe do something like that.

It was worth thinking about, but Harry didn't come to a conclusion. Maybe he'd have a better idea after he was sure whether or not he was going to be having a growth spurt? But that would be a reason to put it off forever, so perhaps not.

Harry had a bit of a poke around in some of the other buildings in Diagon Alley as well, along with the side streets (though he stayed away from Knockturn Alley, which was clearly a rather unpleasant place). The Museum of Muggle Curiosities was quite funny, if only to see someone with a magic wand explaining in hushed tones about the amazing powers of a microwave, and Harry actually decided to get something in the entirely mirror-themed shop called Janus Galloglass (though neither the shop owner nor the person at the desk actually had either name, since it had been founded some decades before).

He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do with a pair of enchanted mirrors that let you talk to the person who had the other end, but there'd probably be something.

It was when he was looking into the window of a shop that sold plants, picking something out for Neville, that Mr. Lupin called his name. "Harry!"

"Oh, hello!" Harry replied, turning around carefully so he didn't knock over any of the plants. "I think we're a bit early?"

"I had some books to get," Mr. Lupin explained. "It's good to see you, Harry."

"Then let's go to the bookshop," Harry invited, not seeing a problem there at all. "I do need to get something from here, first… it's for Neville."

Mr. Lupin smiled, accepting that, and began asking Harry about how his summer was going as they went inside.

"You're a bit different from your father," Mr. Lupin said, some time later, as they ate seafood from a shop called Brews and Stews – Harry hadn't eaten there before, and had decided it was his treat. "It might just be how I remember it, but your father was a lot more… boisterous."

"He was?" Harry asked, interested. "I don't really know… you mentioned how you were in a group called the Marauders."

"Yes, we enjoyed playing pranks," Remus agreed, then frowned slightly. "Though sometimes they went too far."

Harry nodded an understanding of that. "All right… maybe I should tell my friends Fred and George about that, and not to go too far. They play pranks a lot, like I said in that letter."

"Yes, and so long as they can avoid the temptation to prank something that might hurt them they'll probably do quite well," Mr. Lupin mused. "I always found that that sort of thing inspired us."

He paused, looking both ways, then ate some of his prawns. Harry was abruptly reminded of his own meal, and they ate for a few minutes in silence.

There was quite a stir some way up the Alley as a sphinx came through, making her way to the bookshop, and Harry smiled – remembering when that had been him.

It looked a lot like that was Professor Flitwick with her. Maybe he didn't have much else to do when it wasn't term time at Hogwarts?

Shrugging it off, Harry turned his attention back to Mr. Lupin. "What kinds of things?"

"Well…" Mr. Lupin said, looking around, then bent down to Harry. "I'm afraid some of the things we did weren't exactly legal, Harry. Obviously James and Peter are dead, and Sirius is in Azkaban and never getting out, but I'd like to ask you to keep it private because some of it reflects on me."

Harry had to think about that.

"The only time I'd tell someone about it is if it would be more dangerous to keep it secret," he decided. "Is that okay?"

"All right, Harry," Mr. Lupin agreed, bending a little closer. "You see, we were all Animagi. James was a stag, Peter was a rat, and Sirius is a dog."

Harry snorted.

"Like the Dog Star," he said. "But, wow – I read about the Animagus potion once. It's really hard to brew and you have to hold a leaf in your mouth for months, I'm really impressed."

He tilted his head. "What are you, then?"

"Well… I'm something else," Mr. Lupin replied. "I'd rather not say, sorry."

Harry accepted that, and frowned for a moment.

"What about my mother?" he asked. "What was she?"

"She wasn't one of the Marauders," Mr. Lupin told him. "She actually didn't like your father for most of their time at school, but eventually – well, James said that he'd won her over, but I always thought it was more like his affections delayed her deciding she liked him."

Harry had to admit that relationships always seemed very complicated, especially in books.

"So… what's second year like?" he asked.

"Well… you do get into more complicated magic," Mr. Lupin replied. "There's some things you go back over from first year, but the plants you work with get more complicated and so do the spells. I think you cover a lot of the material around the Statute of Secrecy then as well."

"That's always confused me a bit," Harry admitted. "But I don't really have secrecy trouble, so maybe I can't relate properly."

He shrugged, finishing off the last of his seafood with a bannock that he used as a wiper. "What about astronomy?"

"I… think you do the rocky planets and the asteroids, mostly," Remus said. "Sorry, it was a long time ago, and I never liked astronomy very much."

After lunch, they spent another couple of hours talking – mostly about Harry and his childhood, this time, along with at least half an hour just talking about books.

Harry mentioned how he was a bit worried that he didn't know what the second-year course books were yet, and Mr. Lupin told him that there would be a letter some time in early August. Apparently it was hard to tell before then because they needed to have all the teachers assign their course books, and the Defence teacher was always a bit of a wild card.

Then Mr. Lupin told Harry about a wizarding book on the first wizard to ride a dragon. Harry was sort of interested, though he wondered how that could work, and the fact that the book was called The Short And Glorious Life Of Borin The Foolish suggested that maybe it hadn't worked very well.

It was a very nice experience, all around, being able to talk to an adult who understood some of Harry's life, and it was a bit of a shame that Harry couldn't invite him around. Mr. Lupin seemed to understand the Muggle world quite well for a Wizard, but he doubted that Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia would appreciate a visit from anyone magical if they could possibly avoid it.

They might have considered Hermione okay, because her parents were dentists, but Dean… Harry had the feeling that it would be "probably not".

Making it home at about half past three, Harry did a few chores outside (which gave him quite a nice snack, as there were dandelions to be removed from the front lawn) and then got to work on dinner. The risotto was a mix of leek, bacon, peas and the risotto rice itself, and it was cooked for long enough that the sauce had a slightly tacky consistency, and while Uncle Vernon grumbled Harry was sure he was onto a winner (if only because Dudley ate all the leftovers).

Feeling pleased with how the day had gone, Harry carefully wrote out a note and wrapped the glory-of-the-snow plant he'd got in a box. Some wrapping paper went on the box, and he added an envelope addressed to Neville before putting the whole thing in brown paper.

"Can you take this to Neville's grandmother?" he asked Hedwig. "I know it's a long way."

Hedwig nibbled his talon, clicked her beak twice, and set off with the whole thing out the window.

Harry smiled after her, glad that he had such a matter-of-fact pet (or was it companion? He'd certainly have been impressed by a fire-lizard as bright as Hedwig) then crawled through his tent flap and got back to the book he'd been reading earlier.

By contrast with the Tuesday, Wednesday was a stay-at-home sort of day. The showers that had characterized Tuesday had turned into a deluge of heavy rain, and Harry felt no compunction at all about retreating into his weyr and trying his paw at sketching.

He'd never be as good as Dean, but it was a nice little thing to try out, and it would probably come in handy for Herbology – as well as Runes, probably, if he decided on doing that subject, and even Astronomy could benefit.

Hedwig got back halfway through the afternoon, and Harry helped her dry off before sketching her as she dozed in front of the stove. He thought it looked quite good, though Hedwig took one look and cuffed him with her wing hard enough to knock his glasses to the floor.

Harry also got his last remaining homework essays done, which was something he considered quite an achievement – it was only halfway through the holidays – and celebrated with a chocolate frog. He got a card for Newton Scamander, putting it with the rest, and wondered in a sort of idle way whether chocolate frog card people would talk to one another.

Thursday was a day Harry had been looking forward to for weeks, and it dawned bright and clear. He took off not long after breakfast, flying to London, and referred to a battered old A-Z to find where he was aiming for – a nice big bookshop in Picadilly, six floors high.

Harry had a fairly substantial budget with him, and he spent hours walking up and down looking through all the new books he could pick. It was terribly hard to choose, and a particularly dragonish part of Harry's mind wondered if he could just kick everyone else out and live here now, but that was a nasty thought so he ignored it – instead making a mental shortlist of the books he actually wanted to buy.

In the end, he went with quite a wide selection. There was a beautifully-illustrated book about dinosaurs and humans living together, called Dinotopia, and then there was a big omnibus book about the deeds of someone called Paksenarrion (presumably, anyway), along with a science fiction book about someone called Cordelia.

Then there was a new Redwall book, Salamandastron, which were always exciting even if it did seem like far too few of the rats were actually nice people – but then, far too few of the Goths in the books about Rome were nice people, so perhaps it was the same sort of thing.

He decided to try the Animals of Farthing Wood series as well, wondering if maybe he should show them to June next time he was up at Hogwarts, and finished off his purchases with a book magazine (for more inspiration) and a big three-volume set of the first three books in the Dragonlance series.

They filled his backpack, but Harry didn't mind in the least – nor did he mind the slightly difficult flight home, even after he'd stopped off halfway to have a rest and buy some lunch from what he privately referred to as 'a Scottish chef'.

That afternoon, over dinner, Uncle Vernon reminded them all of how he had an important after-dinner meeting at home on the coming Friday.

"Uncle?" Harry asked. "Would it help if I wasn't here for the day?"

"What?" Uncle Vernon said, blinking. "Yes, I suppose it would. They don't know about you. I'd have said you should make no noise upstairs and pretend you weren't here."

"All right," Harry replied, glad to have helped. "I'll go over to a friend's house."

Really, that had made it all much easier to sort out. All he really had to do now was to make sure he had Hermione's address right, and fly over there on Friday morning before coming back on Saturday.

In case it was needed, Harry took his tent with him. He sent Hedwig to Hermione and followed her, the snowy owl staying close enough that Harry could keep her in sight, and they flew over the Thames a lot further upriver than Harry would have normally gone. There were several large parks on the way, some of them with lakes and gardens and all of them full of families, and Harry smiled a little before coming down to land on a leafy street with quite large houses and gardens both front and back.

Hedwig flew into the window of one of the houses, and Hermione waved out not long after. Harry waved back, and his friend vanished into her house.

The door opened about a minute later, and Harry made his way inside.

The Grangers were quite a nice family, and apparently they'd coordinated their time off work so they could both be at home during much of the time Hermione was home from Hogwarts. They seemed to be still a little overwhelmed by how Hermione had turned out to be a witch, and that they now had a wizard visiting, so Harry made sure he was all smiles and shook their hands one by one.

Hermione said that she wanted to show Harry a film or two for his birthday, which sounded nice to Harry (who was quite happy that she'd remembered that it was his birthday), but before they did Mr. Granger cleared his throat to ask something.

"Ah… Hermione?" he began. "Which of your friends is this?"

"This is Harry, Dad," Hermione replied. "You know. The dragon."

"Oh, so this one's the one who's a dragon?" Mr. Granger asked. He looked at Harry, and frowned. "I'm… well, you said that people who didn't have magic couldn't see that he was a dragon, and I certainly can't."

"You can't?" Harry repeated, intrigued, and spread his wing. "What does it look like I'm doing now?"

"Reaching out your arm, of course," Mr. Granger replied.

"What?" Hermione said. "Dad, that's his wing."

Harry experimented by putting both wings out, standing on his hind legs, and shaking Mr. Granger's hand. The man's eyes watered, and he put his free hand to his temple.

"That's very strange," he said, as Harry furled his wings again. "For a moment it looked like you had your arms out, then suddenly it looked like you had one arm out and were shaking my hand with the other one..."

"That must be some very impressive magic," Hermione decided. "It's a pity you can't really see Harry, though, and that I can't show any of you any magic because there's a law against it. All I've managed is to show off those ink-erasing quills and some magically moving pictures."

"Actually, I do have an idea about that," Harry said, reaching for his backpack. "Do you have a large room I can set something up?"

Harry was very proud indeed of how Mr. and Mrs. Granger reacted to his tent, and his invisibility cloak went down nicely as well – that was something they could try out, vanishing completely while it was on and until they took it off again.

"So, what do you use this for?" Mrs. Granger asked. "I hope it's nothing naughty."

"I don't really use it at all, actually," Harry told her. "I'm sure there'll be something, but right now it's just nice to have because it belonged to my dad."

After that, though, Hermione had to insist that they watch a film, and so Harry squeezed into a comfortable spot in the living room as they watched Star Wars.

It was amazing. Dramatic and funny by turns, with some things that made Harry sure they must have been doing magic at some point, and with a tense climax that left Harry nervously holding his breath until the final explosion.

Hermione seemed very pleased with his reaction.

After that they had lunch, which was pleasant – Harry enjoyed being able to talk about Hogwarts, and it seemed like Hermione enjoyed being able to have someone with her who'd been in the same classes and involved in many of the same events. They had French bread, with ham and cheese, and Mr. Granger cried out in surprise when Harry ate the bag until Hermione reassured him that Harry did that sort of thing all the time. Harry proceeded to demonstrate by asking for something hard they were throwing out (it was an old spoon where the metal bit was coming out of the handle) and biting it cleanly in half, chewing it and then swallowing it down.

"That… goodness," Mrs. Granger said, staring. "That would be a lot easier to swallow-"

She stopped, chuckling at her own mistake, then continued. "I mean, that would be a lot easier to accept if we could see that you were a dragon, Harry. As it is, we know from those sketches Hermione's friend did what you look like, but as far as we're concerned we just saw a human boy bite the head off a spoon and eat it."

Hermione tried her hardest not to giggle.

"Well, that being said," Mr. Granger added. "Do you two want to go out and do anything?"

"I want to show him the next Star Wars film," Hermione told her parents. "I think he'd enjoy that one a lot as well."

Harry wasn't really sure what to make of the way that Mr. and Mrs. Granger smiled, but he gathered that he'd probably enjoy the film.

"I wonder if this Darth Vader is like He Who Must Not Be Named," he mused, after the bit with the big walking machines when they'd moved on to the bit that was in space.

Hermione stopped the video, and looked over at him. "Why?"

"Well, he's called a lord, like the Dark Lord bit," Harry explained. "And everyone calls him Vader or Darth Vader, but that sounds like a silly name – well, a bit silly," he amended, thinking about people like Luke Skywalker, Biggs, Leia Organa, General Veers and Admiral Piett. "So maybe that's a name he picked for himself, like Voldemort is, and his real name's one he's ashamed of, like Tom Riddle is."

Hermione found that very funny, for a reason Harry didn't understand, but before they could continue watching The Empire Strikes Back there was a sudden pop! as a little House-Elf in an old pillowcase appeared.

The House-Elf took one look at Harry and bowed, and then Hermione cleared her throat.

"Excuse me?" she asked, sounding annoyed at first, but her tone quickly changed to shocked. "Um… are you all right? You don't look very well."

"Harry Potter!" the House-Elf said, then jumped. "And – who is this?"

"I'm Hermione Granger," Hermione replied. "And this is my house..."

"What's going on?" Mrs. Granger asked, poking her head around the door. "Oh! Goodness, Hermione, you didn't tell me we were having another visitor."

"I wasn't expecting us to have another visitor," Hermione said. "He just appeared in the living room."

"Well, hold on a few minutes and I'll get the biscuits," Mrs. Granger said. "What's his name?"

"We don't know that yet," Harry volunteered. "What is your name?"

"Dobby, sir," the Elf told him. "Just Dobby."

"And do you like tea, Mr. Dobby?" Mrs. Granger asked, and got a hesitant shake of the head. "I'll make some Ribena then."

A few minutes later, they were all seated at the kitchen table – Dobby, Harry and Hermione, while Mrs. Granger put out some plates of biscuits. Dobby seemed terribly amazed at being served food by a human, and Hermione had to explain what she knew about House-Elves.

They were (as she put it) magical beings that could cast quite powerful magic without a wand, but who were thoroughly used to the idea of being servants. She also said that they were usually treated quite well, though Dobby didn't look like he'd been treated very well.

Everyone was quite alarmed when Dobby agreed with her, and then started hitting his head against the table while saying that he was a 'Bad Dobby'.

"Hey!" Harry yelped. "Why are you doing that?"

"Dobby must!" Dobby replied. "Dobby must punish himself if Dobby speaks ill of his family, sir!"

"That's terrible!" Mrs. Granger said, though Harry thought just the same thing and he was sure Hermione did as well.

Dobby looked torn between agreeing and not wanting to hit his head against the table again, so Harry decided to try changing the subject.

"Um… Dobby?" he began. "Why are you here? You seemed surprised to see Hermione, but this is her house – not mine."

Dobby's eyes went wide, and he mumbled something about how Harry Potter was very intelligent. Harry wasn't at all sure about that, because it seemed quite an obvious question, then went into a little detail.

Apparently – and Dobby didn't explain it very well, so Harry wasn't sure – there was a plot to hurt him at Hogwarts, so it was very important that he didn't go back to Hogwarts. It was something to do with a wizard, but whenever they tried to ask a question that got any more information Dobby had to start hitting himself or banging his head on the table.

Mrs. Granger was looking increasingly worried by it all, taking charge and asking why Dobby had to hurt himself (Dobby didn't seem to understand the question as such) and who his family was (more head bashing on the table) when Dobby mentioned about how he'd hoped that keeping Harry's letters from his friends from him would make it so he wouldn't want to go back to Hogwarts.

That made Harry scowl, feeling unaccountably angry – the idea that someone was keeping his things from him wasn't nice at all, and he had to hastily restrain a growl.

"But that's silly," Hermione said, blankly. "If Harry wasn't getting any post from us then he'd just want to come to Hogwarts anyway to ask us, even if he didn't just fly over."

"Hold on," Harry added. "I thought I was getting letters."

"Oh, Dobby did not want to stop Harry Potter's owl, sir," Dobby explained, looking nervous. "Dobby could not anyway, Harry Potter's owl is very hard to catch! But there were other letters that Dobby stopped!"

He produced a sheaf of them, and this time Harry did growl slightly.

There was a flash, and everyone looked over in surprise to see Mr. Granger with a camera.

"I had to get a new roll of film," he explained, taking another picture. "I already wanted to see if we could see Harry's dragon-ness on film, but now I've got a photo of Mr. Dobby as well."

"Dobby is not a mister, sir," Dobby replied matter-of-factly. "Dobby is a house elf, but Dobby is just Dobby."

He brightened. "But Dobby has an idea! If Harry Potter is caught doing magic outside school, then Harry Potter cannot go back to Hogwarts!"

"That's awful!" Hermione said.

"And it probably won't work – especially now he's mentioned it," Mrs. Granger added.

Dobby looked so suddenly lost that Harry sort of felt sorry for him, even though he'd stolen some of Harry's things.

"Stopping my post isn't going to help," he said, then. "Look, I'll keep my eye out for whatever it is, but I'm kind of hard to hurt. If I'm careful, it should be really hard for whoever this wizard is to stop me."

Harry's reassurance did seem to help a little, but it took at least another half an hour before Dobby left. He kept trying to impress on Harry how terribly dangerous it was to go to Hogwarts, and Harry replied that it hadn't been very dangerous so far and he'd only got a few bruises.

At the same time, Mr. and Mrs. Granger exchanged several glances as they asked Dobby about what work he normally did, and how he had to 'punish' himself, and Hermione actually went to get some paper before coming back and taking notes.

When the House-Elf finally left, it was without Harry's post, and he sighed in relief.

"Thank you," he said, pulling the pile over to himself. "All of you. I… really don't think that would have gone well if it was at my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's house."

He frowned. "But… he said he might fake it being me who'd done magic, and that might get me in trouble. What should I do?"

"So long as you have some responsible adults able to vouch for you, that should be all right," Mr. Granger said, examining the quick-developing Polaroid he'd taken later on in the discussion. It showed Harry as a dragon, to Harry, but when he asked Mr. Granger said that Harry still looked like a boy to him.

It was clearly very impressive magic.

"I'm not sure my Uncle would," Harry admitted. "My Aunt could do, but I'm not sure, and Uncle Vernon especially doesn't like magic at all."

"Maybe you could ask Neville if you can stay with him?" Hermione suggested. "That's a magical household, and I bet he'd be glad of the company – I think something happened to his parents, but when I asked he got all quiet so I didn't keep asking."

She made a bridge of her hands. "And I think I need to do some research on how you're allowed to treat House-Elves. If you treated a human the way his family treated Dobby I don't think it would be legal."

"I think you're right, dear," Mrs. Granger agreed. "You should be careful about it, but definitely don't forget about it."

She turned her attention to Harry. "I'm sorry about all this, Harry. Nobody deserves this kind of thing on their birthday."

Harry smiled, still pleased by the reminder that it was his birthday and he was able to celebrate it, then looked at all the letters that Dobby had left.

Some of them looked suspiciously package-shaped.

"I… think I've got presents," he said.

"That sounds like a good opportunity to open some presents," Mr. Granger said. "Hermione?"

"Right!" Hermione agreed, turning to go upstairs.

Harry's birthday had presents. Which was nice.

There was a month's worth of letters, which seemed to be from whenever anyone had tried to send him a letter that didn't go via Hedwig, and those included packages from Ron, Dean, Neville and Hagrid, as well as from Mr. Lupin.

Ron had sent him a pile of old electronics, saying that he was sorry it wasn't anything more impressive but that his dad had loads of them in the shed. None of them really looked fixable, and some of them Harry didn't even know what they were (as such), but they did look tasty so Harry decided to treat it as being given some sweets for his birthday.

Dean's gift, meanwhile, had been a book – specifically a big collection of myths, fables and legends, including just about every Muggle legend about dragons and from all over the world. It was quite big and full of small type, and that was just the kind of book Harry liked (because it meant there was more of it) so he was really very pleased with that as well.

The package from Neville turned out to be slightly different. It was a book as well, but very much a magical book – it was about a period of late Roman history, but from the magical point of view.

It sounded very interesting, to Harry, and when he asked Hermione if he could borrow the book he got her for Christmas to get the Muggle perspective she admitted that she'd already wanted to ask him the same question in reverse.

Hermione next gave Harry her own present, a set of three books called a Player's Handbook, a Dungeon Master's Guide and a Monstrous Compendium. Harry wasn't sure at all what they were, at first, and when he opened one he found that it wasn't about actually running a dungeon at all so much as designing one.

"They're for a game," Hermione explained, seeing Harry's quizzical look. "I thought it was the sort of thing you'd be interested in… the game has dragons in the title, anyway. And you get enough books that it's a bit hard to surprise you with a new fiction book."

Harry had to admit that that was fair. He wasn't sure if he'd actually play the game, but some of what was in there sounded interesting anyway.

Hagrid got him a big bar of chocolate, which was apparently magical, and Harry wondered just how magical it was – if it was like a chocolate frog, it would try to escape, so he decided to save it for now. And finally there was what Mr. Lupin got him, which was a dressing gown that had some holes in it for his wings.

It was a nice touch, and Harry felt really quite happy about his presents.

The next thing they did was that Harry sent that letter to Neville, and then Hermione reminded them that they had the rest of The Empire Strikes Back to watch.

The fight at the end was much more intense than the one in the first film, raw and full of emotion, and Harry caught himself leaning forward unconsciously to watch more closely as the implacable Darth Vader and the young, hotheaded Luke Skywalker clashed back and forth.

Then Luke lost his hand, Harry gasped, and then came the real surprise of the film.

When the film ended, Harry retrieved his glasses – which had fallen off, not that he'd noticed until then – and sank back onto the floor.

"So, what did you think?" Hermione asked, sounding very pleased with herself.

"You should have seen how Hermione reacted when we first showed her," Mr. Granger supplied. "I think it was about the same as you."

"Yeah, it was… yeah," Harry agreed.

Then he had an awful thought.

"I hope I'm not too much like Luke Skywalker," he said. "I did live with my aunt and my uncle, and I was certainly told that my parents both died… but what if I'm actually Tom Riddle's son?"

"Don't be silly," Hermione told him. "Your proper name is Harry Potter, and James Potter was a real person – we've met loads of people who knew him. And Tom Riddle's too old."

On thinking about it, Harry had to admit that that did all make sense.

"So what happens next?" he asked.

"I think we should wait for that one until after dinner," Mrs. Granger suggested. "Speaking of which, I'd better go and get it ready. Have you ever had Chinese food, Harry?"

"No, but I'm sure I'll like it," Harry replied, interested in trying something new.

After the dinner, and the cake (Hermione and her parents had made sure he had a cake for his birthday!), and the third Star Wars film, and playing a game where you had to describe a word without using any of the other words on the card, and everything else that happened that day, Harry bedded down in his tent (which was set up in the Grangers' spare room) with a happy sigh.

He'd been looking forward to today all week, but it had been much better than he'd expected… even if there was that odd House-Elf to wonder about. But even with Dobby's unexpected appearance, it had been a quite wonderful introduction to being twelve.

AN:

It continues to be 1992.