Harry Potter was awakened by a familiar Preck; Hedwig his familiar was back; she had left early to hunt last night and hadn't returned before he went to bed. She was bearing a letter, which might explain her absence. He would recognize that precise hand anywhere, Hermione had written him! She hadn't written during this part of the summer last time round, so something must have changed. "Perhaps I should have read that contract before signing it," he mused.
Dear Harry,
I hope you are doing well, and have been working on your Homework! It's very important to keep up your studies in the summer months. I just hope the Dursleys aren't giving you too hard of a time. I was thinking about writing you this morning and Hedwig showed up in my room without a letter and waggled her leg at me... I think she is trying to tell me something.
The thing that prompted me to write was a strange dream I had last night. I wrote most of it down in my new Dream Journal that I started keeping for Divination class, but I think I need to talk to someone about it. It was so strange, not like a normal dream at all, I could feel things, smell things, there were snippets of different places, creatures people and perhaps times... I really am not sure what to think. Could I have had a true prophetic dream? It doesn't sound like any of the types in my books. I've included a copy of the page from my journal in the letter, please read it and give me your honest opinion. I am worried that I might need to discuss this with a professor, but McGonagall seemed very much against Divination as a discipline.
Well, enough about that for now. My summer has been fairly normal for my family. We're staying in a rented flat in France near the beach. We got a chance to visit the magical district of Paris and I picked up a few books and some potions ingredients I didn't recall seeing in Diagon. Apparently French potion making is like French Cuisine, in some ways... There are quite a few extra steps or alternate ingredients in some of their recipes to make better tasting and looking potions. There are quite a few books on ingredient preparation and interactions that would have been very useful to know in first year, but apparently the English versions of the books haven't been on the Hogwarts reading list for the last thirteen years or so and have gone out of print.
There is apparently a Veela enclave near the beach we are staying at for my parent's Dental Conference. The regular people just think there is a modeling company nearby doing photo shoots, those that even notice the warded stretch of beach that they tend to congregate in. I met a few very nice young ladies who were kind enough to recommend a potion to add to my shampoo; it was apparently invented by one of your ancestors, a Fleamont Potter, to help with the Potter family's unruly hair; it's called Sleekeazy's. I thought you might want to consider purchasing a bit to try and tame your own hair. Just a bit in my shampoo turned my frizz into waves. I never would have approached them but the older girl, Fleur, seemed very familiar to me somehow, but upon talking with me, she assured me that we had never met.
We should be heading back to England next week so I can give you a call if you can let me know when the best time to call is? I don't want to get you into trouble with your family. Harry, do please read over my dream journal entry, and
Oh, Mother is calling, I need to send this off. Have a great summer Harry!
Love,
Hermione
Apparently Hedwig was able to fly to the south of France and back to London in a single night. Good to know. Either Hedwig was a super Owl, able to fly three times the speed of a normal bird of her species or there was some kind of Post Owl magic going on. It should take a normal Snowy owl over a day to make that trip. At least according to the book on Owls in the Little Whining library Harry had checked out after first year. Owls like Hedwig usually only travel about fifty kilometers an hour occasionally traveling up to eighty. To make a thousand fifty kilometer flight should have taken over twenty hours without stopping for rest or food. Ah well, Sirius might know he thought.
The included Page from her dream journal was much messier and rather than being written in Hermione's precise calligraphy, was written in a messy sprawl with a Biro of some sort. The first line was written in a different ink than the rest so was probably from a previous entry
...Green Eyes
Hippogriff Pewter Grey wings, sharp talons, Awe, disgust a Ferret. Flying on a winged steed, Elation Terror, concern clutching someone Warmth, safety. Ring Wraiths storming the castle. Terror, hopelessness, loneliness. Red Hair, anger disappointment A large black dog, fear and surprise. A Werewolf, fear and trust? A cruel man with an electric blue Eye... spinning. Anger, fear, pain. Four dragons, Red, Green, Blue and Black. Awe, Terror, elation. A periwinkle blue ball gown, a Tall dark stranger dancing with me. Joy, elation, sadness longing. Maroon and Lace, Anger frustration Deep underwater, cold, fear drowning blackness.
The entry took up most of the page, there was an unevenness to the ink that probably indicated differing pressure with the Biro, but not being trained in handwriting analysis Harry wasn't sure, especially with this being a copy. Knowing what most if not all of the images in the letter meant didn't help much with composing a reply. Technically Hermione was having prophetic dreams, but with any luck, almost none of them would come true.
Opening the door to head downstairs after offering Hedwig an Owl treat, Harry found Padfoot curled up just outside his door on a rug that wasn't there last night. Waking the sleeping dog, Harry realized that the rather distinct odor from last night was gone, apparently Sirius had bathed himself and the treatment transferred to his animagus form. Padfoot awoke with a start, then blinking yawned climbed to his four paws and stretched as only a dog can finishing by rearing up and quickly becoming human. Sirius had done more than bathe, he had shaved his beard and trimmed it into a quaint and somewhat old fashioned style. His hair was also quite a bit shorter and much more even. His clothes were that odd mix of modern and Victorian that wizards tended to wear, but as they had probably been in the house for the last thirteen years might be somewhat out of style.
"Did Kreature not clean your bedroom Sirius?" asked Harry with a grin.
"I couldn't sleep in there," replied Sirius, "I kept thinking about Voldemort coming after you and needed to guard your room, or at least Padfoot did. I had to make sure you were safe."
"Well, I am as safe as I can be in a house full of cursed antiques and bric-a-brac" joked Harry as he walked with Sirius down the hallway that was mercifully free of paintings. Last night before leaving the entryway, Sirius had ordered Kreature to remove all the portraits and paintings to a single room, and clean the walls in preparation for the restoration of the House of Black. Incidentally this kept Phineas from being aware of any changes as he was moved from one dark room to another and the room containing the portraits of the House of Black was quite thoroughly silenced. Kreature had been busy in the night, in addition to the two bedrooms, the hallways and the kitchen were almost spotless, the only stains were those caused by moisture and time and could not readily be cleaned, only covered.
This energetic response was directly because of Harry's use of the Memory Projection Illusion spell to show Sirius the Horcruxes. Kreature had been watching and after hearing Harry's declaration that the Objects needed to be Destroyed, as well as hearing that one of them had been destroyed by Harry he knew his unfinished task was soon to be over.
Soon the story of Regulus' sacrifice was told to Harry, while Sirius listened. The locket was presented to Harry and Kreature begged for assistance in completing Regulus' last request. "Kreature, have you the strength to Pop to Hogwarts and back to communicate a message to a specific elf?" asked Harry
Kreature's ears fell slightly as he shook his head sadly, "Kreature is old, and the house has been without a master for so long he lacks the strength to Snap or to Pop. Mistress has forbidden Kreature from cleaning like a muggle, so the house has fallen." Tugging his ears he begins what Harry suspects is going to be a much more reserved 'Bad Dobby!' session and so Harry cuts him off.
"Kreature, can Sirius or I gift you with our magic to strengthen your bond with the House of Black and give you the strength you need to carry out your duties?" He quickly asked. This was one of the issues brought up by Destiny repair. The symbiotic nature of House Elves and their tendency to become insane and die or become creatures that feed off of fear if left alone and unbound.
Taking Kreature's frantic head nodding, and what may have been under the wrinkles a jubilant expression, as confirmation Sirius, and then Harry, had in turn placed their hand on Kreature's head and reaffirmed the bond between Kreature and the House of Black, freely giving of their magic to cement the bond. Kreature had been without a true bond since the death of Sirius' mother as Sirius had never bonded with the Elf as his brother did.
The effect of the re-bonding on Kreature couldn't be overstated, he seemed to loose years, his posture his skin his eyes, even his nose and ears all firmed up and became brighter, and more filled with life. Soon with new orders in hand he appeared in the Hogwarts Kitchens as no elf from the House of Black had done in almost two decades. His cleanly pressed Tea Towel clearly bore the coat of arms of the House of Black, and he was there to seek out and retrieve a certain hyperactive elf.
Dobby was in fact working at Hogwarts already, He had spent about a month looking for employment but found no family that would take on a House Elf without the Bond to ensure the elf would remain sane and keep the family's secrets. Eventually he agreed to work for the Headmaster but didn't accept a bond to the school.
Simply living in the castle could sustain most House Elves until they were so old that they lost the ability to draw on ambient magic. At that point the ancient elves would close themselves into small dark places and wait to die. Wizards had seemingly never noticed, or perhaps forgotten, the connection between House Elves and Boggarts, but the connection still existed in the Muggle world with tales of Brownies becoming Boggarts if they are mistreated. House elves can sense their master's needs and anticipate their desires, this subconscious Legilimency allows them to provide instant service, the masters approval strengthens the bond and feeds them more magic. Boggarts however, their Legilimency is used to know what your greatest fear is and manifest as it to feed off your fear. The act of confronting something you fear causes most magic users to 'push' their magical aura towards the threat warding it off and shielding the wizard. Boggarts siphon off this excess magic and use their mental connection to strengthen the flow.
Soon Dobby was in Grimauld Place sword in hand. Dumbledore was out of the office, in Surrey actually, tracking down leads on Harry Potter and so Dobby took the opportunity to swipe the sword as Mr. Harry Potter Sir had requested. His greatest wish was to become the elf of Mr. Harry Potter Sir once Mr. Harry Potter Sir had come of age and could accept him into the House of Potter. Shortly after that, the Locket was destroyed by the sword of Gryffindor though Harry did wear his dragon hide potions gloves handling both the locket and the sword just in case. Dobby returned the Sword to the Headmaster's office and nobody was the wiser, after all elves are completely beneath the notice of most portraits. Unlike last time, Harry didn't bother trying to Open the damned thing, just pierced it through and through with the sword.
This morning the house couldn't look more different. The dust and cobwebs, as well as spiderwebs and nests made by various creatures had all been removed. The walls and floor were clean, and the drapes were drawn back allowing the windows let in light. Despite the dark green and silver motif, the house seemed much more welcoming than it had the night before. Harry suspected that Dobby may have assisted Kreature with the cleaning but didn't offer said opinion.
It was August seventh, last night he had left the Dursleys forever. He didn't return to Hogwarts for three more weeks, and needed to spend at least some of the time reacquainting himself with his first three years of school including graded homework. Suddenly turning in sixth year level essays just might get him noticed. One thing he did need to work on was his penmanship. Writing with Quills was not easy, and he had not, even in his sixth year, mastered the art, mostly due to lack of instruction. Perhaps Sirius could be prevailed upon to help? After all, the Weasley's wouldn't be back in England until the twenty fifth. If the lesson went well he could practice a bit before replying to Hermione, He certainly wasn't going to send Hedwig out again so soon after a flight like that. But first things first. It was time for breakfast, and for the first time in a month, Harry was going to eat until he was full.
The early afternoon light of the warm August day made the suburb of Little Whining, Surrey seem like a wonderful place. It was diffused through light clouds that allowed the warmth but softened the glare. As Albus stood in the play park near Wisteria Walk watching the children at play he couldn't imagine why Harry would choose to leave a place as tranquil as this one. True living with out magic would have been harsh, ten long years of hardship for a Magical born child who had experienced the wonders of the magical world for the first fifteen months of his life. But surely this oasis of peace would have been better than the chaos and pressure of being the Icon of the Wizarding world had he not been in hiding.
His purple robes with animated golden snitches dancing across them and his pointed toe, buckled dragon hide boots would have stood out like a sore thumb in this utterly mundane neighborhood, so they were carefully transfigured into a much more somber attire similar to the garb popular with professors of Oxford thirty years ago or so. Not that he kept up with Muggle Fashion, but that Tolkien fellow was a sharp dresser, and the Muggleborn had been comparing him to Gandalf for years. After all, as the saying goes, 'A good suit never goes out of style!'
After speaking with the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad that had been summoned to deal with Marge Dursley last night, as well as his long time ally Mrs. Figg he was quite sure that Harry had left in a fit of pique and would soon turn up as long as he was not found by one of his many enemies first. Marge had left for home earlier in the day, none the wiser, nor worse for wear from her accident, having no memory of the event. Now it was time for Dumbledore to speak with Petunia. Stepping out of the shade of the old tree in the park he became visible to passers bye, though he maintained a low level notice-me-not field to prevent those he didn't interact with directly from paying him any attention. Approaching number four he noticed the meticulously cared for flowerbeds and professionally trimmed edges in the yard and marveled that such could be done without magic. He himself had never had much flair for Herbology, it was one of the things that prevented him from truly achieving his goal of becoming an alchemist as proficient as the Flamels. Ringing the doorbell, he stood on the step and soon heard approaching footsteps. "Hello Petunia" he said eyes twinkling as he briefly touched on her thoughts. He did not like what he saw.
"You!" she hissed before almost slamming the door in his face, A quick twitch of his wand hand and the door wouldn't budge.
"Petunia we need to Talk."
Hermione was just stepping out of the shower, having come in from her day at the beech and needing to wash off the remnants of the sunscreen, salt, and sand when she heard a familiar 'Preck'. The strange thing about this was that her window had been closed before she stepped into the bathroom adjacent to her bedroom, so she was unsure how Hedwig had gotten in. Her robe firmly wrapped around her, and a towel drawing the water from her hair turban style she quickly stepped into her room. Yes the window and door were both closed, not quite a locked door murder mystery but still worth thinking over.
She had not been expecting a response this quickly, after all, Hedwig was a Snowy Owl, not a Great Snipe. Calling "One Moment Hedwig" and dashing down the hall of the bungalow to the kitchen she retrieved a bit of Lard Grillé or cooked streaky bacon leftover from breakfast for the Owl as a treat and thanks for the letter sadly they had no rashers of 'real bacon'.
Dear Hermione,
I have been working on my penmanship as you can see, apparently I have been holding the quill wrong for the last two years and no one explained quite how to go about maintaining the quill point to ensure clean text. Ah, well it was probably mentioned in the Muggleborn introduction that I never got. Got your letter, sorry to hear that your dreams have been troubling you. That's usually my shtick and it's no fun at all, especially when I wake up with my Scar bleeding!
I suspect that that won't be a problem any longer though, it's mostly healed up now, and starting to fade, I think when Fawkes cried on my arm to heal the Basilisk bite, it may have helped my scar as well?
But back to your dreams, I had a rather strange dream the night before last myself. I'd rather not talk about it via letter, perhaps when you return to England we can get together, just the two of us without all the Weasley's and talk it over? There might be something to your idea.
I've moved out of my relatives house. I will not be staying with them anymore. I can't stand living with people who are so wretched to me and say such vile things about my parents. I had a bit of accidental magic and blew up inflated Dudley's Aunt Marge like a balloon. I was going to write I blew her up, but I thought you might get the wrong idea. Anyway after that I grabbed my things and left. I am staying in a safe place with an old friend of my parents who has taken Oaths regarding my safety. He would quite literally die before deliberately harming me. On a related note, I think you might be interested in looking into magical Vows, Oaths, and Contracts, and any other ways to bind a person to a course of action.
I am pretty sure that either the Weasley's or the Headmaster will be contacting you soon asking if you've heard from me, but I suspect that they just want to force me to go back to my relatives despite me not ever being legally placed with them in either world. According to my new Guardian the wards that the Headmaster placed on my relatives house were little better than tissue paper and collapsed the moment I said I no longer considered it my home. Those wards were supposed to be impossible to breach for anyone intending me harm, unfortunately, they didn't protect me from my relatives, and now that they are down, they can never be brought back up. Something about Intent and broken faith in the magic means I can never call number four my home again magically.
I would prefer you not mention having heard from me, preferably without lying as the Headmaster can scan your thoughts to detect lies in person... that's what the twinkling eye thing is, passive mind reading. It's called legili-something, I'll look it up later. Why yes there is a library of magical books where I'm staying... what's that you say, of course my homework is done. I'm just doing a bit of light reading. Legilimens, is the name of the technique, it can be done naturally by some but there is a spell that can be cast wandlessly and silently via eye contact, or the traditional method of pointing your wand and shouting the incantation. Technically illegal for a non-natural Legilimens to probe peoples mind outside of certain circumstances, but the Headmaster is also the Chief Warlock he is immune to several laws and bringing him up on charges is almost impossible due to his popularity.
There is a book on protecting your mind here that apparently you can also get in most magical book stores, it's just never mentioned at Hogwarts. According to the copy I have the first step is meditation and clearing your mind. There are quite a few steps after that, but rather than transcribe the book, I'll just recommend it to you:
Guide to Advanced Occlumency by Maxwell Barnett
I think learning to guard our minds may be important in the future, I am sure that Snape has been in my head, it's the only thing I can think of that would make sense. It takes a lot of focus and concentration at first, and can take weeks to see much result, so I doubt Ron will be interested, but I suspect the Twins may already know some of it, how else have they managed to keep from being caught so often? Unless the Headmaster just lets them get away with the pranks for some reason.
Enough about that though, So far my summer has been working in the yard and avoiding my cousin and his friends. After having the bars pulled from my bedroom window by the twins last summer the Dursleys decided to have me in the yard working all day rather than under lock and key. At least I wasn't being fed half cans of cold soup through a cat flap and let out once a day for a five minute bathroom visit like last summer.
Since I have left the Dursleys though, things have been much better; I ran into an old friend of my family that had been out of the country for the last few years who was checking up on me. He was surprised I was leaving, but agreed to help get me to a safe place where people like Draco's father can't find me. Apparently the spell he tried to cast on me last month before being stopped by Dobby was the Killing Curse. I didn't hear the whole thing but it started Avada- I haven't found any other spell that starts with that. I would rather not try to bounce another one of those off my forehead again. One scar is bad enough, can you imagine if I had two lightning bolts up there... I might as well break out the white face-paint and join KISS.
Well, perhaps not, the idea of me in white face-paint with two black lightning bolts across my face just seems silly. Also I can't play an instrument and my voice is changing so I can't even sing at the moment. I have quite a lot to tell you in person, so let me know when you will be available to receive a phone call so we can get together. Looking over my letter I can see I got a bit silly a couple times, just ignore that and chalk it up to my being happier than I've been in a long time. Other than that moment when you came into the great Hall after being petrified. That hug is still the best one I can remember getting.
Let me know when I can call you!
Love Harry
By the time Hermione had finished the letter she had cried, gasped in shock and anger, stopped to take notes, laughed, snickered, and found herself shaking her head fondly. What was she going to do with that boy! First thing of course was to pick up the book he mentioned. She could see the sense in protecting her mind from invaders after all; just look what happened to Lockheart! The Headmaster could hang if he even thought about putting her Harry back with those monsters.
Hedwig watched her Harry's intended read the missive she had carried and was happy to see the resolve on her face. She had spent six summers in the Hell-of-No-Bacon and Not-Enough-Room-to-Move that was the Dursley house and had no intention of doing so again now that she and her Harry had been given a second chance. She would just have to keep an eye on things and do what she could to ensure her Harry was safe and loved. Being able to ghost about when flying made things much faster though.
Authors Note. I realize it has been quite some time, but I assure you that none of my stories are abandoned... they are merely waiting in the garden where I left them. I do intend to finish what I have started, but I am a slow writer at best, and I do have other stories I am working on as well... I didn't make the mistake of publishing any of them though... not till I have many thousands of words ready to go. I do not have a beta, other than my son shoulder reading so please feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors. Thank you for reading. P.S. I had formatted the chapter with the letters indented... FFN cleared my formatting.
