The GOOD summer day
By Gemma_@SoftHome.net
Notes: Thank you so very much for your reviews for part one! Your kindness is just what I needed to continue working on this. It's been so much fun to write so far. One note on the typos and blatant writers errors: I should have said something about in the first part; I am posting this cold without a beta reader. Mine went off to a topical island or something and didn't take me. I did run part one and two thought MS Word 97 grammar and spell check. It only shows that a computer isn't the same at a human. *Grin* I have made every attempt on my own to catch them all, but like always some slip by. I am sorry about that. When I get done posting them all I will gather them back up, do a re edit, and re post them as one full story. This story takes place after book four. I don't own anything.
Part two - Back to reality, for a little while . . .
"I knew it! I just knew it! Its all that work he's be doing." Harry heard someone say. It seamed so far away, almost like a dream.
'Yes, that's is a dream. Any minute I'll wake up to Dudley sitting on my chest pounding on my head . . .'
"Dudley, move back, he needs air." His Uncle said.
'Her it comes . . .'
"Its all that studying, trying so hard to make his par -" His Uncle said.
Harry's eyes flew open. Over him were his Aunt and Uncle and Dudley looking down at him. He was sitting in a chair in the kitchen. Their looks of complete worry told him he was still in the twilight zone. Just to make sure he asked them if he was in trouble. His Aunt gasped,
"No! Never Harry, my dear. It must have been when I bumped into, did I hit you with the door?? Oh I hope not. Vernon, we should take him to the hospital! He may have a concussion! Oh Oh . . ." She broke out into a sob.
'Maybe I did hit my head, or maybe they all did?' Harry couldn't help thinking. "I'm fine, really." He said quickly. Despite all that the Dursleys had done to him, he couldn't make them feel guilty. They looked so - normal, in an un-normal way. He desided to play along till he figured out why the whole world had gone crazy. "I'm fine. I was working with a position before I came down, its homework, and Its a sleeping potion. I must have got a whiff of it. See, I'm fine, really!" He sat up.
They all looked at him doubtfully. Uncle Vernon finaly came around and grabbed his shoulder. "Well, if Harry says that all it was, than that's good for me! Just be a bit more careful, okay? You could have taken a tumble down the stairs!"
'I think I'm going to be ill. This is too strange . . .'
Aunt Petunia dabbed at her eyes with a hanky. 'Harry, would you like breakfast? I'll make some fresh for you; this is much too cold. Harry watched as she took away a heaping plate of all kinds of good things to eat. "Nothing but the best for my children!" She declared, milling around the kitchen. "Oh, and help yourself to the biscuits and honey on the table. I know you must be starved."
'She doesn't know the half of it! Or at the very least she should.'
"Oh Dudley dear, would you fetch out the grape Jelly? Harry likes that better. Oh dear, oh dear! I should have thought about that and set it out sooner!"
"Sure Mum." Dudley said getting into the cupboard. He set the jar down in front of Harry with a grin. "Everything set for today?" He asked Harry. Having no idea what his cousin was talking about, he just nodded. Dudley smile broadened. "Great!"
'Maybe there trying to kill me by shock?' He thought, then wondered about the grape jelly. He had never had any before, he wasn't alowed. He split open a biscut and smeared some on. Taking a small bite he realised he did like it, a lot. Before Harry would wolf down the biscuit, his Aunt set down a plate that even he didn't think he could finish.
"Wow!" was all he could manage before he tore in.
As he ate, he couldn't help but think about the strangeness of his situation. What could do this? Barring himself, or the Dursleys going insane . . . It had to be magic, but why? He was sure he couldn't have done it. In the past when he was younger he had made small things happen, normally when he was upset, or really wanted something . . . but this had to be more than that. He was sure it had to be the work of a powerful witch of wizard. But who and why? A wizard like Dumbledore would never do anything like this. The laws prohibiting magical dealings with Muggles unless absolutely necessary were quite strict. And Voldemort and his followers wouldn't ever do anything so nice. Who else could it be then? Dobby? No never, this kind of power is beyond an house elf. Sirius perhaps? Yes, maybe. He's wanted by the law. One more thing wouldn't do any more harm . . . Maybe it was an early birthday present?
Dudley asking to be excused from the table interrupted Harry in his thinking. It was his asking that shocked him. As he left he winked to Harry and left the room. "I'll be upstairs in my room Harry." He called out over his shoulder.
'Maybe it was Voldemort, and he's hoping all this good treatment will drive me insane?'
"Harry did you see the robes I hung up in your closet?"
"Uh?" Harry sputtered. 'Uh yes . . . thank you."
"Your Uncle and I have talked about it, and decided you can wear them, but only inside, and out in the back yard. I know how your school is with keeping such things hidden. I hope that's okay? And as for your broom, you can show it to Dudley in the back yard, but you can't fly here. You will have to wait till later today when I take you to Cricket park, its a week day, and there are places there quite out of the way so no one will see you."
Harry wore the expression many deer do when caught by the head light beams of an oncoming car at night.
"Harry? Oh Harry! We do this only to protect you; we don't want you getting into trouble with your school. It would be just horrible . . ."
"Yes, that school was the best thing that ever happened to you Harry, we don't want to throw that away." His Uncle added.
Finaly Harry snapped out of the daze he was in. "Show Dudley my broom?"
"Why yes of course! He's been talking about it all week. Remember once you got all your homework done you would have the time to show him?" His Aunt said.
"Show Dudley my broom!" He repeated.
"Oh Harry please, it's all he has been talking about."
'Maybe I should figure in my own insanity into how this day came to be?'
Both his Aunt and Uncle were looking at him with a pleading look.
"Uh well, sure. Can't let him down."
"Wonderful" Uncle Vernon boomed, setting aside his paper. "I am off to work. I'll be home at six." He picked up his brief case and headed for the door. Good bye everyone! Bye Harry!" He smiled, "Bye Dudley!" He called up stairs.
"'Bye Dad!" Dudley called.
Breakfast was gone, and Harry was quite stuffed.
"Maybe you would like to invite that friend of yours, that charming child of the Weasleys?"
'Charming?'
"You mean Ron?"
"Yes, yes, that's his name. You don't have him over nearly enough. Why not this afternoon when we go to the park?"
"Uh sure . . ."
"You can use the floo powder stuff you set by the fireplace . . . I never did like that stuff, always feel as if you will get burned on the way there or back." She commented, picking up his plate. "Was that enough? I can cook you a bit more, only take a minute -"
"Uh, oh, no thank you, I'm full. Couldn't eat another bite."
She smiled. "Good."
Harry got up from the table and went to the living room to get away from the strangness he had seen so far. Sure enough, there was a pot of floo powder, the fireplace was not boarded up with a roaring fire, so he could use it. Harry took up a pinch, remembering what he had been told before. Think of a place strongly, pitch the powder into the fire and call out were you want to go. He fixed his mind on the Weasley's home, but before he tossed in the powder a thought hit him, what if everything is working on reverse, the Dursleys nice, the Weasleys not nice? He tossed that idea aside, it just couldn't be! He threw the floo powder into the fire and called out, "The Burrow!"
With a poof he was gone.
The first thing Harry saw as he stepped out of the fireplace was entire Weasley clan gathered around the table having breakfast.
Ron leaped up. "Harry! What's wrong? Did you run away again??"
"Harry! Ms Weasley said jumping up and running over to him. "Did they hurt you, are you okay? How did . . ." It was to hear her the entire chorus of voices asking if he was okay.
'Well at least everything here is still normal.'
"Yes, yes, I am fine." Ms Weasley ushered him over to the table and found him a chair.
"You must be starved." And started dishing him out food.
"No, no thank you, really I already ate - at the Dursleys."
"I know what that woman calls breakfast! Your must too polite Harry, here have -"
"No really, let me explain." Harry told them his story.
When he got to the part about breakfast Ms Weasley put her hand on his head, "you must be ill, its living in that rat trap of a room they make you live in -"
"No no really! I know this sounds crazy, I can't figure it out myself, but its true I tell you. Look at what I am wearing! I have shoes that fit me for the first time in my life. At least I think they do, I never had a pair that did to compare." He slid away from the table and held out a foot to prove his point. "They are from them! You should see my room, is incredible! And they are really being nice!"
They all wore the same deer-in-a-headlights look he had not long before. George and Fred both held a fork of food half way to their mouth, staring at him.
"I'm not making this up!" He insisted.
"No, no I am sure you didn't Harry, but it seams to hard to believe. You are describing the people we met before? They were so so . . ." Mr. Weasley started.
"Rude!" Ms Weasley finished. She then turned to her Husband. "We can't let him go back, sounds like they snapped. It might not be safe."
'Not sane for being nice? Okay, maybe in this case, yes.'
"Uh, that reminds me, they asked me to come over to ask if Ron could come over for the day. My Aunt wants to take us to the park to play Quidditch." Harry couldn't believe he just said that.
"Hey Dad! I gotta see this! Harry's relatives are being nice!" Ron said with a grin.
Mr. Weasley thought it over for a minute. 'Well, what do you think?" He asked, turning to his wife.
"I don't want him going alone -"
'Harry will be with me!" Ron said. His Mum shot him a sour look.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it. Since your nearly late for work, I'll go over with them and see if everything is all right. I must see if this muggle woman is really starting to act normal."
Ron cheered.
"Sounds good. While I am there I have a few things to check into as well. As much as I would hope those muggles are on the right track, this just isn't right, magic must be involved," Mr Weasley said echoing Harry's thought earlier.
Nearly half and hour later Harry, Ron, and His mum stood ready to go back to the Dursleys. Ron had a bag slung over his arm, and his broom in his hand. Harry had seen Fred and George pull Ron aside earlier, and had a bad feeling they might have given him a few things from their joke collection.
"What's in the bag?" Harry asked Ron.
"Oh, just a few things," he said, then changed the subject. "Did your Aunt really ask for me to come over?"
"Yup, to quote her: 'That charming child of the Weasleys.'"
"Child!" Ron growled.
"Charming?" Ms Weasley said, overhearing them. "Now I know something is wrong with that muggle!"
"Mum!"
Before Ron went off any further, Harry suggested they go. One by one they went through the fireplace with floo powder. Harry went last; just before he went through he wondered if everything would be the same back the Dursleys.
This is part two of five. 'Part three - Dudley on a broom?' coming very soon. This is my first Potter fic, please PLEASE let me know what you think!