The next morning, a letter came back from Neville saying that he'd asked his grandmother, and staying with him over the rest of the summer holiday would be fine – they'd meet him in Diagon Alley around eleven o'clock.

Harry wrote a letter to his Aunt and Uncle, telling them about the change of plans and saying that he hoped the dinner had gone well (and wishing them a lovely summer), and posted it through the nearest postbox that morning. It cost money, while asking Hedwig to handle it would have been free, but it was worth the price to make sure that his Aunt and Uncle weren't too annoyed.

Then it was packing up his tent, putting it in his backpack, thanking the Grangers for their hospitality, and quickly planning with Hermione that they'd all go shopping for their school things on the same day after the letters had been sent out. Mr. Granger had a video camera out, this time, and carefully filmed Harry as he took off.

Harry wondered what that video looked like, but he did have to meet the Longbottoms so he couldn't really spare the time to fly back and ask.

It was a little before eleven when Harry arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. He dug his wand out of his bag and opened the way into Diagon Alley, then looked around for a good spot to wait where he'd have a great view of the Alley.

A moment later, he found the perfect spot, and the way he did that was that Neville and his grandmother were there. Mrs. Longbottom (or was she Granny Longbottom?) was tall, thin and bony, wearing a quite remarkable hat, and there was really quite a contrast between her and her shorter, somewhat rounder grandson.

But then, Neville was still young, so maybe he didn't look quite like he would as an adult yet.

"Ah, there you are," the woman in question said, with a sharp nod. "Mr. Potter, lovely to meet you. It is a bit of a surprise, I must admit, but I'm glad to help you."

"I'm glad you can help," Harry replied, shaking her hand. "How was your birthday, Neville?"

"Oh, um – it went well," Neville told him. "There weren't as many people as last year, and I think I preferred it that way."

He brightened. "I liked the plant. And the spider plant's doing really well, my room's full of them now."

Over the course of the next hour's shopping (which took place at the insistence of Neville's grandmother) Harry decided that the appropriate term for her was definitely Granny. She was a little different in a few ways, perhaps, but a lot about her reminded him of Granny Weatherwax and thinking about her that way helped Harry know how to talk to her.

Then they went to Longbottom House by Floo, which was somewhere Harry didn't really know what to expect. It might have been anything from a slightly taller town house to a twenty-room mansion, mostly magic or mostly mundane, a small Norman castle hidden from the world by magical means or anything else.

In fact it was a large-ish country house in the middle of a hollow in the Yorkshire dales, made of stone, with gardens sweeping away on all sides and with four rows of four windows along the front. There were surprisingly few touches of magic visible from the outside, when Harry got a chance to fly around and look, and about the only thing he could really spot was that there was no road leading to it.

Indoors, however, it was another matter. Granny Longbottom told him quite proudly that the Longbottom family home had been continuously inhabited by eleven generations of Longbottoms, and there were signs of it everywhere – from the many moving paintings on the walls, some of whom went running off to get other paintings from elsewhere in the house to look at Harry, through the occasional magical curiosity or keepsake resting in glass-fronted cabinets, to the slightly bewildering way that going up or down a set of stairs wouldn't necessarily lead to the floor of the building that you'd expect. Neville's own bedroom was up one set of stairs and down one, and yet it was manifestly on the top floor of Longbottom House; Harry was put in a room on the first floor which was only about ten seconds away from Neville's room but was two floors down and on the other side of the building if you tried to use the windows to work it out.

And then there was the House-Elf, Tandy, who wore a teatowel embroidered with what Harry guessed was probably the Longbottom house symbol or something. She was just as shocked as both Neville and Granny Longbottom to hear the full story of what had happened with Dobby, and assured Harry that she would be making sure that no 'silly elvses' got involved with him while he was at Longbottom House.

Compared to Privet Drive – which no longer contained Harry, so couldn't really be said to be a Weyr – Longbottom House was certainly a new experience.

It was a long way out in the countryside, so it was harder to visit a library, with the closest really large town or city probably being York or Middlesborough or Leeds. On the other paw, it was private, and Harry didn't have anything in the way of chores to do (Tandy was quite scandalized by the thought of someone who wasn't her doing chores) and there was a quite respectable collection of magic books.

Neville still had a bit of homework to do, so Harry was quite happy to join him in the study and occasionally help out – not by sharing his answers, but by talking about class. And Trevor seemed much less prone to get lost in the familiar surrounds of Longbottom House, while a bit of digging around meant that Harry even found an old Quaffle which he suggested they should play a game with – taking advantage of the Quaffle's way of drifting through the air instead of falling to play catch, which worked out surprisingly well with Harry flying and Neville on the ground.

The days didn't exactly all seem the same, as such, but it was quite easy to lose track of time as Harry's reading list slowly turned into his read list and the only House-Elf around was Tandy… until a letter arrived for each of the Gryffindor soon-to-be-second years about halfway through August, telling them what they needed for Hogwarts.

Opening his letter, Harry checked that the stuff about catching the Hogwarts Express on September the First was the same as normal. That did make him wonder if the young witch he'd met on Skye would be coming down to catch the Hogwarts Express in a few years – it seemed silly to travel what must be about four hundred miles from Portree to Kings Cross and then take the Hogwarts Express all the way back up to Hogwarts when it would only be about fifty miles from her house. But then again, Hogsmeade was the only all-Wizard village in Britain and people from there took the train, so maybe it was just something everyone did. (And now he thought about it it couldn't be hard to do it, with the Floo.)

While Harry was feeling sorry mostly for any Scots Muggleborn, who didn't have the option of the Floo, he moved on to the book list. There was no extra equipment, but there were several new books – the second grade Standard Book of Spells, and seven books by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Neville had the same thing, and they wondered whether it was a second-year thing or a Defence thing. Granny Longbottom sniffed dismissively when she saw their book list, saying that Gilderoy Lockhart was a sensationalist and that his books were entirely overpriced for what they contained. (That left Harry worried for his friends – Hermione would be all right, and so would Neville, but Dean's family wasn't exactly well off and he knew Ron had to rely on hand-me-downs a lot of the time.)

Scheduling when to go and buy their books was easy, though, as they'd all agreed to go on the next Wednesday after their letters arrived.

"It's going to be pretty busy, isn't it?" Harry asked. "If they only sent the letters out this late, I mean, every day is going to be busy because everyone going to Hogwarts has to get all their things and there's only about two weeks left."

Both of the Longbottoms agreed, and Granny Longbottom added that she wasn't sure at all what Albus was thinking to send out the letters so late in the year.

While they were waiting for Wednesday, Neville somewhat hesitantly told Harry something about his family.

Harry had sort of assumed that Neville was a bit like him, in not having any surviving parents because of Tom Riddle. But it turned out that that wasn't quite correct – they were both still alive, but they'd been badly traumatized by a very nasty spell right at the end of Tom Riddle's terror campaign and had trouble recognizing him.

For some reason (and Harry felt quite guilty about it) it was that, rather than the loss of his own parents, which really brought home to him what Tom Riddle and his followers had actually been like.

He told Neville that it was nothing to be ashamed of, and that none of their other close friends would think less of him – but also that it was also okay to be nervous about it and to not want to share. It seemed like the right thing to say, and Neville seemed to be a bit more comfortable, so Harry felt he'd been learning the right lessons from all those books he'd been reading.

He hadn't found one that described in sufficient detail how to wield a sword, though – and he was keeping an eye out.

On Wednesday morning, Tandy made them a French breakfast – twisted pastries she'd baked herself, with vanilla cream and chocolate chips for filling. It was really very nice, though Harry had to admit to himself that he found it quite hard to think of something he'd eaten which had actually tasted bad rather than less nice, and it filled them up nicely before they all headed to the Floo Room.

Now that Harry had had time to think about it, it wasn't surprising that there was a Floo Room in Longbottom House. It was one of the main ways Wizards got around, and so it obviously made sense to have a room specially for it – one with tables and chairs for people to sit while they waited for someone to arrive, and with nice thick carpets to catch someone if they stumbled a bit.

They were leaving this time, though, and Harry went first. He threw some powder, announced where he wanted to go, and spun through the Floo network before landing with a rush of air from his wings in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Look, mummy!" someone said, very excited. "That's a dragon!"

"Where?" their parent asked. "I can't see-"

"Look!" the boy insisted. "Right there!"

Harry explained about how people who didn't have magic couldn't see him as Neville and Granny Longbottom arrived, and wondered a bit about how the Floo actually worked. He knew he couldn't be Apparated, but he could be Flooed – maybe it was like the way the route onto Platform Nine And Three Quarters worked?

Wondering how he could test how his resistance to magic worked without hurting himself, Harry followed Granny Longbottom out into Diagon Alley. There was a small crowd down the street, which looked like it was centered around Flourish and Blotts – probably trying to get the school books for the year – and they sat down by the entrance to the Alley to wait for the others.

"I hope that's not still there when we go there," Neville mumbled. "Maybe we should come back tomorrow?"

"Hermione and Dean are going to have to come by Muggle transport," Harry pointed out. "So we could, but we'd miss them."

"Right," Neville agreed. "I forgot about how much harder it is for Muggles to get around."

They'd been waiting about fifteen minutes when Dean turned up with his mum, who Granny Longbottom looked up and down with a sharp gaze before offering her hand to shake. Mrs. Thomas seemed a little put off by Granny Longbottom's hat, which included a stuffed vulture, but then Dean was saying hello to both of them.

"Hey, dragon-man," he chuckled, shaking Harry's hand. "Or is it dragon boy? Is there a word for it?"

"I quite like 'drake'," Harry supplied. "There aren't any actual things called drakes, so it's a nice word to use."

Neville shook Dean's hand as well, glad to see him after more than a month apart (though there'd been several letters back and forth, mostly using Granny Longbottom's screech owl in Neville's case) and then Dean asked why it was that they weren't surrounded by loads of people interested in how it was that Harry was a dragon.

"I'm not sure," Harry replied, thinking about it. "Maybe it's that almost everyone's used to me now? There was someone in the Leaky Cauldron, though… so it could be that it's just that standing in the corner like this is a lot like clinging to the ceiling."

"That sounds about right," Neville agreed, trying not to laugh. "You could call it, um, Wizards Don't Look Left Either."

It took them several minutes to explain to Mrs. Thomas why they all broke out in giggles.

Hermione was the next to arrive, and unlike the others she already had an opinion of the author Gilderoy Lockhart. Apparently he'd shown up a few times in the more recent books outlining great deeds, usually involving dealings with dark creatures (though Harry had to ask whether some of the creatures named in the book titles actually qualified as dark creatures; Banshees, Hags and Vampires were clearly Beings, while Ghouls were beasts but were ranked at only two-X out of five on the scale of danger.)

It did seem as though the Defence teacher's subject matter for the year would involve dark creatures, unless everything else was going to be in the book they'd got last year.

Mr. Granger also took the time to let Harry know that the film he'd taken of Harry lifting off into the air was just baffling to him. Hermione saw Harry spread his wings, jump into the air and fly off, but the best that Mr. Granger could do was see Harry jump and then become strangely much less relevant and not worth noticing.

Nearly-identical twins with orange-red hair went past, giving Harry a long look, and for a moment Harry wondered if he'd forgotten what Fred and George looked like – until the actual Weasley family all came out of the Leaky Cauldron, joining Harry and Dean and Neville and Hermione for shopping.

"Everyone's got to get the Lockhart books," Ron grumbled. "Mum loves them, but the one we've got is all full of obvious stuff – you know, throwing gnomes, that sort of thing."

He snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, that reminds me. You've not met my Mum, or my Dad or my sister, right?"

"Don't think so," Harry replied, thinking about it.

"Right, okay… Mum, this is Harry."

Mrs. Weasley was a sort of plump-looking woman, and very different from either Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia. While the former was heavy-set but inclined to get very angry at the slightest provocation, and the latter was thin and quick to criticize, Mrs. Weasley's first action was to draw Harry into a hug and say how awful for him it must be to be separated from his aunt and uncle.

It was quite a nice experience, though Harry did have to explain that he'd learned over the years that his aunt and uncle seemed more comfortable when he wasn't around. He did do his best to accommodate them, and it depended on their moods, but Uncle Vernon on the whole was probably happier when he was somewhere else.

That made Mrs. Weasley look quite sad, or possibly angry, and Ron next pulled his father over.

Mr. Weasley was a different proposition entirely, full of questions, and seemed absolutely fascinated with Muggle gadgetry. He asked all about how Muggles handled post without owls to do it for them, and about how they made books in large quantities without magic, and when he heard that Harry sometimes cooked for his relatives he asked all about how the oven worked.

Fred and George (or was it George and Fred? Harry could never remember) interrupted a couple of times, trying to explain Muggle things to their father in a way that made Harry fairly sure they knew what they were talking about, but even so more than once Hermione, Harry and Dean had to share slightly baffled looks.

"Dad, stop it..." Ron grumbled. "You can talk about this stuff later… and this is Ginny."

Ginny seemed to have been trying to hide behind Percy. Harry gave her his nicest smile, remembering that some humans were scared of dragon teeth so making sure to keep his mouth closed, and she blushed a little.

"Ginny's got a bit of a crush," one of the Twins judged.

"I don't!" Ginny replied. "It's, um..."

"Oh, it's worse than a crush," the other Twin said, as their sister squeaked.

The first one looked at his fellow. "Worse than a crush?"

"Worse than a crush!" the second one agreed. (Harry decided that the second one might be George, and that therefore the first one might be Fred.)

"What could be more embarrassing than a crush?" Fred demanded.

"Well, you remember all those books about the Dragon Club?" George asked.

"I do!" Fred agreed. Harry remembered them too, some of the books he'd got in his first visit to Diagon but hadn't really understood.

"I think our sister's remembering all of those," George explained.

"Shut up!" Ginny groaned, blushing even hotter than before. "It's the first time I've met him and – and now he's going to think I'm weird!"

"What, because you liked books about dragons?" Hermione asked, snorting. "Not really. That's normal to Harry."

Harry decided not to mention his opinion of the books. It made a lot more sense if they'd been meant for young girls anyway, and he wasn't going to think someone was silly for reading the best source of dragon books they had.

After managing to get Mr. Weasley away from a conversation with Mrs. Thomas and the Grangers about what Ceefax was, they headed around the Alley to sort out getting things. Ginny was the only one who needed to get a complete first-year kit, some of which Mrs. Weasley said she'd have to get second-hand to sort out their budget, and they needed to go to Gringotts anyway.

Percy needed some things for his NEWT level classes – apparently he'd got twelve OWLs at Outstanding, which Harry was really impressed by – and Fred and George had some things to pick up for fourth-year. It all got a bit complicated, in fact, though the three Muggle parents seemed fascinated by everything magical around them. It reminded Harry of how amazed he'd been when he first came to Diagon Alley, surrounded all of a sudden by the magical world, and that was what made the whole thing so pleasant.

There was a queue outside the bookshop when they got around to going there, but it seemed as though everyone wasn't actually going in yet. Harry was a bit confused by that, until he noticed the banner over the front of the building which announced that Gilderoy Lockhart was going to be signing his autobiography from twelve thirty to four thirty that day.

"Oh, I hope we get to meet him!" Mrs. Weasley said, sounding very pleased by the idea.

"It's about quarter past twelve," Mr. Granger contributed, checking his watch. "So they should be starting the signing in about fifteen minutes."

"Should we wait and come back for that?" Hermione asked. "It must be worth it, he's written so many of the books we're going to be studying this year."

"Why don't we just go in and get our books?" Harry suggested. "Or look around for what else to get? I know I could spend easily that long picking out books… I was meaning to ask if they have anything about swords."

That announcement made most of the group look at him in surprise, and Harry explained that he meant because of how Neville had mentioned he was interested in that sort of thing in a vague way.

They decided to split up, with Hermione and some of the others joining the queue, but Harry went straight in to ask about what he was interested in and look at the new releases section.

Inspecting the Dragon Club books, Harry flipped through one to confirm his assessment of it – the dragons in it were still being treated more like broomsticks (or flying motorcycles, one of which Hagrid had parked in a little lean-to next to his hut) than like an actual flying animal.

Still, they did involve dragons.

Putting the one he'd been inspecting back on the shelf, Harry moved on to pick up a new crime book. This one seemed to be set in Uganda, which was interesting, but before he'd really started reading it someone spoke up.

"My word! Is this – can this be-?"

Harry looked up, and a man in pale blue robes and with wavy blonde hair held out his hand.

"Harry Potter, I'm sure of it!" the man announced. "It can only be you, there's only one dragon like you! Sly devil, coming in here before the start of the proper book signing – I like your pluck!"

He smiled a winning smile, and Harry shook the hand because it seemed like the done thing.

"It's a pity you're here now, rather than in a few minutes," the man went on. "Harry Potter and Gilderoy Lockhart – why, that would make the front page!"

"I think a lot of things make the front page of the Daily Prophet," Harry replied. "There's just not all that many wizards."

"Hah!" Mr. Lockhart laughed. "A fine point, but there's always competition – there's always competition, Harry. And to be on top you have to always be on top of your game."

"On top?" Harry repeated, tilting his head. "I thought you were talking about being on the front page, Mr. Lockhart."

"That's what I mean!" he explained, sounding positively enthused about it. "The great game! Once you've written five bestselling books, what other ways are there to keep score?"

He waved his hand. "Galleons? Why, any fool can inherit great wealth! But for your name to be on everyone's lips, that's the true contest!"

Harry wasn't really sure he was following this conversation.

"I know you had a good start, Harry," Mr. Lockhart went on, with a wink. "But sooner or later you'll learn how to really compete – how to really be famous, to keep your name in the headlines not with a single act but with continuous great deeds and foul things vanquished – and you can call me Gilderoy, of course, Harry."

Harry was now quite sure he wasn't following the conversation at all, and Mr. Lockhart ushered Harry over to the signing desk before taking one copy of each of the books on the booklist – and a copy of Magical Me, the autobiography – before signing the lot with a flourish and giving them all to Harry just as the book signing itself started.

There was a flash as a photographer took a photo, and Gilderoy went on to announce that he would be the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this year.

Some minutes later, Harry had donated his collection of signed books to Hermione on the grounds that she was more likely to enjoy them. Hermione had offered to swap with him, but Harry had just gone back in to buy some more instead, reasoning that he was the one who had the most money to buy books and the one who hadn't got had to buy them so far.

When he came back from the counter with his backpack full of Lockhart books, it looked as though Ginny or Ron or one of the Weasleys had been the beneficiaries of Hermione's spares. Mrs. Weasley was waiting in line to get the books signed anyway, with most of her children, while Dean and Neville were queueing up to get their actual school books.

"Potter."

Harry's ears perked up a little, and he looked over to the door at the man who'd just spoken.

"Hello," he replied, smiling (without teeth) at someone who looked quite a lot like Draco. "Are you Mr. Malfoy?"

"Indeed," Mr. Malfoy confirmed. "Draco has told me a lot about you, Mr. Potter, and I've heard more from other sources."

His eyes flicked aside, to where Hermione and Mr. Weasley and some of the others were standing. "And about your taste in friends, as well… one wonders why you bother with them."

"Well, I think mostly it's because I met them on the train," Harry said, thinking about it. "Actually, a lot of the people I know I met on the train. But I did meet Draco, as well, and I suppose I'm not much of a friend of his – we don't spend any time together except in class. He didn't seem very nice, but maybe it was just a bad day."

Mr. Malfoy looked slightly confused by that, and looked back at his son – who was standing nearby, Harry noticed.

"I told you, Father," Draco said.

Harry waved at him, wondering what exactly it was Draco had told his father.

"Really, one wonders why Dumbledore even wants you in his school," Mr. Malfoy went on. "Hogwarts is for humans."

"Is it?" Harry asked, honestly confused. "I don't remember that rule being anywhere."

"There are some things you don't have to write down," Mr. Malfoy said. "Or shouldn't, anyway, though if Dumbledore is letting beasts in-"

Harry was going to object that he wasn't sure he was a Beast, because he was quite interested in getting involved in politics when he was old enough, but Mr. Weasley interrupted and asked Mr. Malfoy why he was wasting his time talking to people he clearly didn't think much of anyway.

It looked like there was going to be an argument, but then Granny Longbottom had brandished her wand and asked them both to please calm down. Then one of the employees at Flourish and Blotts had asked them all to leave as they were blocking the queue to the signing, and there'd been a bit of a crush on the way out because Granny Longbottom clearly agreed that they should stop getting in the way so much.

Harry certainly didn't want to disagree with her.

After a few more hours of just spending time together in Diagon Alley, including looking through some of the less normal shops off in the back streets, everyone headed home. Hermione and Dean left through the front door of the Leaky Cauldron, to take the tube home, while Ron and his family filed through the Floo one at a time. Neville went next, then Harry, and Granny Longbottom followed them back to Longbottom House.

It was only as he was going through his purchases, however, that Harry found something odd – an extra book that he hadn't intended to get. He had no idea where it might have come from, but the front page said that it was a diary for 1943.

Harry opened it up, wondering, and the smudged name on the first page caught his attention.

Property of T M Riddle.

Apart from that, it was blank.

After contemplating it, Harry put it in the bottom of his collection.

Maybe he'd ask Professor Dumbledore about why it was blank. Clearly Tom Riddle had put his name in it, so he should have used it… maybe there was a way a diary could be made so it could only be seen by the author? If it was, then if Professor Dumbledore could break the spell it might be useful.

"Okay, so… hold on," Harry asked, flipping back through the book. "What's your armour class?"

Neville checked his scribbled notes. "Um… six?"

"Right," Harry replied, and rolled one of the twenty-sided-dice. "That means… it just about misses."

He thought for a moment, then went on. "The orc's blade glances off your sword as you raise it, and he grunts something angry at you."

"I'll attack him back," Neville said. "Can I hit him with my shield?"

"I don't think so..." Harry picked up one of the other books and looked through that instead. "Oh, here we are. Yeah, but you get penalties and stuff. And you lose the bonus from the shield."

"This is way harder than Aragorn makes it sound," Neville frowned. "I wonder if we're doing it wrong?"

"I think that's what the levels and stuff are for," Harry replied. "Aragorn is meant to be a really high level, and so are the others. You're just starting out, like Aragorn was back when he was, um… Elfstone?"

"I thought it was Thongoril," Neville contested.

"No, I think that's when he's working for the Steward," Harry said. "Hold on, I'll go and check."

"No, wait," Neville said, and Harry paused. "I know what you mean. I'll just use my sword instead. So my THAC0 is twenty… let's see how this works."

He rolled his dice, they compared the numbers, and Harry nodded.

"Okay, you hit him."

Neville rolled the damage, which was a high number, and the orc fell over.

After they'd decided that the game was interesting, and Harry had decided that maybe he should try and put something together which involved dragons a bit (instead of just a fight between a new Ranger of the North and a band of four orcs), they spent the rest of the day reading through their new Defence textbooks.

The odd thing about them was that they didn't actually seem to be very good, as textbooks really. They told the story well, and it was quite exciting, but it didn't really explain how the things were done – in the Wanderings With Werewolves book, he explained how he'd defeated the Wagga Wagga Werewolf by casting a very complex charm that turned the werewolf back into a human (which sounded very useful) but all he said about the charm was the incantation and that it was very complex.

Meanwhile, in Magical Me, he mentioned the Patronus Charm (which Harry was naturally very interested in after seeing it last year) but not how to cast it. That seemed to be a trend, and Harry hoped that what was going to happen was that they were going to use the material as a basis for practical lessons.

Neville did have an interesting idea, which was that maybe the important bit of Troubles with Trolls or Year with a Yeti was all the stuff that happened before the actual battle. The hard bit, going out and finding the problem, or finding that there was a problem at all. Those bits seemed to be a lot more detailed in how Mr. Lockhart went out and did his job, and that was interesting enough that Harry re-read the ones he'd already done with that new view on things.

Compared to that, though, the Standard Book of Spells for grade two wasn't actually all that novel or interesting. It was more of a reference book, though that was quite enough to be going on with, and Harry noted down several spells he was interested in trying out himself if their class didn't handle them.

Harry took one more trip to Diagon Alley before the end of the holiday, and it was still quite busy there. Ignoring Quality Quidditch Supplies (which seemed to be mostly full of very expensive brooms), he went to Brigg's Brooms and got two Cleansweep Sixes – which seemed to be a good combination between being cheap and being good. They weren't the newest of the Cleansweep brooms, with the Seven having come out just a few years ago, and apparently that had helped bring the price down.

Harry also only just resisted flying out into London to look at what new books he could get. The back of one of the ones he'd got around to from his backlog mentioned one called Dragonsbane, which was one of those titles where he was interested to see if it really was about a bane of a dragon or whether the title was ironic, but there was that worry about whether Dobby would try and do something if he went out into the Muggle world on his own.

It really was quite annoying, this whole Dobby business, and Hermione had been trying to find out what the laws were – but her letters said that she was having trouble, in between getting ready for their next year of school and getting herself caught up with maths and science and things like that over the summer.

It was on the last day of August, the day before they were going to head to Kings Cross, that Hedwig flew in through the window.

Harry looked up from Break with a Banshee, holding up his arm, and Hedwig landed on it before dropping the envelope for him.

"Thanks, girl," he told her, giving her a scratch, and she accepted it with a preen before taking flight and heading over to her perch. She fluffed her wings and settled down for a snooze, and Harry looked at the envelope – finding that it had his name on, in blue ink, but no address. And a stamp, for some reason.

Slitting the envelope open with his claw, Harry unfolded the paper underneath and read it.

Apparently it was from Aunt Petunia, who asked whether he could do one better than this summer and not come back next summer at all. She did say that Uncle Vernon had done well in his meeting, though, getting the contract he'd been after, which was nice – and that maybe if he could come around for long enough to do the gardening once a week next summer that would be ideal.

Harry was fairly sure that he would have to go to his official home address at least once a year, so he'd have to disappoint Aunt Petunia – but then he reached the bottom of the letter, which was a complaint about how his 'dratted' owl had flown in the window, gathered together a pen and paper, dropped them in front of her and glared balefully until she wrote something out.

"Hedwig, you didn't need to do that," he said. "I don't mind, really. And now you've annoyed my Aunt and Uncle."

Hedwig shook her head.

"You certainly annoyed Aunt Petunia," Harry went on, then realized – it was Monday, so Uncle Vernon would have been at work. "Well, at least you picked a weekday for it."

Hedwig made a self-satisfied prek noise.

AN:

Longbottom House here is a quite well-off English country house in the Yorkshire Dales, plus magic.