CHAPTER 1- The Rude Awakening

CHAPTER 1- The Rude Awakening

Running, running, running, from something, but what? Harry looked wildly around, hoping, searching for some explanation for what was happening. He remembered a girl, with golden red hair, almost, no exactly, like the Weasley family. A girl with astonishing green eyes, much like his own. And this girl he knew nothing about. One moment he was standing there, beside her, watching a river gush to its full potential, and listening to the cheerful chirping of the birds overhead. And then the next, he was running from something, or rather someone, that, he strangely felt, he had met before. But it couldn't be the girl, because it was almost like she wasn't even there, for she hadn't moved, spoken, nor even blinked when Harry was standing beside her. She couldn't have just broken her 'trance' and chased after him in an odd outburst of fury. So Harry settled on the idea that whatever, whoever, was chasing him, had given up their effort, and gone away.

Unfortunately, he was wrong. A familiar face appeared from over the closest blueberry bush. A face that was deadly white, with slits for a nose, and blood-red eyes. A face that noone in their right mind would wish to meet, and that only the wizards, or witches, composed of only pure evil and hatred would ever faithfully serve. Lord Voldemort.

Harry quickly reached for his wand and found it to be absent, not in his school robes, which, for some odd reason, he had on. Lord Voldemort crackled in a high-pitched laugh that made Harry tremble. The dark lord took three carefully chosen steps towards Harry, each step, Harry retreated back a step, making Voldemort no closer to Harry than what he was before.

"You have defeated me too many times before, young Harry Potter. But not this time, it seems that your luck has...Burnt out." Voldemort said, his snake-like nostrils flailing.

"You really think that you can defeat me? You don't even have your faithful follower, Pettigrew, now, do you?" Harry replied, sounding more determined and ready than he thought.

"No, Potter. But ever since I received your blood, I have become more and more powerful. It seems that you have a much more capability to be evil than you think. You were lucky, you thought. You got sorted into Gryffindor at Hogwarts, but you were almost put into my house, Slytherin. You remember that, Potter?"

"No, no, you don't know that. That isn't true."

"Oh, but it is, Potter. I happen to have many faithful followers, at Hogwarts, other than Mr. Severus Snape. And that is how I manage to get in to the school so easily. And that is why you have met your doom, and why I must rid of you now, I will try to make this as painful as possible. Just think, soon you will be joining your parents, Potter, all too soon."

"No! You can't just kill me, and without a fair fight! I would have thought that Lord Voldemort would think of a more powerful defeat of his most hated rival. If you beat me fair and square in a duel, you will become even more powerful in the eyes of the entire wizarding world. But I guess that you want to slowly work your way up there, don't you, Mr. Tom Riddle?"

"How dare you use that vulgar name of my father, and for that, you must pay."

Voldemort advanced to Harry, his eyes flaming with hatred. He glared down at Harry, who only stood a few centimeters down from him. Lord Voldemort pulled out his wand and in a few seconds, Harry was in the Full Body Bind. His arms locked to his sides and his legs clasped together, he fell to the ground, struggling to get up. Once again, Voldemort laughed and then lowered his wand to Harry. "Good-bye, Harry Potter!" he crackled, and then yelled, "Avada Kedavra!" In a flash of green, and in only one mere second, Harry knew that this spell couldn't be stopped, and that he had met his doom, and like Volemort had said, it was all too soon.

Harry screamed for his life and shut his eyes tight to block the awful scene of his fate. He found himself looking up at Mrs. Weasley, Ron, the twins, George and Fred, Bill, and Charlie. His forehead was matted with his hair that had been drenched in a cold sweat, and he was burning up, from head to toe, with embarrassment.

"Harry, dear, are you alright?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking more worried and scared than she sounded.

"Yea, Harry, what made you scream? That scared the bloody wits 'outta me." George chimed in, still in his black and gold boxers.

"Harry! What was…" Ginny came in enthusiastically, her pajamas askew, and her hair flying out in all directions, and stopped half-way across the room, looked down, and blushed deeply, she slowly made her way across the room to the group of people.

Ginny had always been shy of Harry, always blushing, and not speaking a word to him for fear of offending him. And after Harry's second year of Hogwarts, things had been, well, weird between them.

"I'm fine! Really, I am. Just a bad dream." Harry explained, he made eye contact with Ron and gave him a "I'll tell you later" look. Ron nodded and headed back to his bed a few feet away from him.

"Alright then, you all go to bed now! We have a big day tomorrow. Shopping at Diagon Alley." Mrs. Weasley said, rushing them all back downstairs to bed. She closed the door behind her and the loud thumping of the multiple pairs of feet rushing down the creaky stairs continued for quite a while.

Ron got up, and flipped on the lamp on his nightstand, which used to be Percy's, and before him, Bill's. Harry looked over at him and squinted, not yet used to the light.

"So?" Ron asked, the light from the lamp quivering, casting an odd shadow onto his face.

"Okay. I dreamed that Volem…He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named was chasing me in some weird forest, it looked tropical, and there was a girl, with red hair, and green eyes, and…"

"Whoa! Harry! Slow down! Blimey!" Ron said, hushing his voice so as not to attract unwanted attention.

"Right, right. I was in a tropical forest, standing by some girl with red hair, and green eyes, only she acted like she wasn't alive, because she didn't move, at all. Then I was running from something. When I stopped to get a breath, Lor…" Ron gave Harry a gasp. Harry corrected himself, no wizard likes to hear Lord Voldemort's name, "You-Know-Who, sorry, came out from behind the bushes," Harry paused, deciding not to tell him the part about there being more than one of Voldemort's followers at Hogwarts, " and he finished me off."

Ron's eyes opened wide, and a scared look crossed his face. He wasn't a brave guy when it came to the evilest of evil, and of course, spiders. "Blimey, Harry. You could really be in danger."

"Look, Ron. I have beaten Him when I was a baby, in first year, second year, and I confronted him in fourth year at Hogwarts. I survived, Ron, and only with this lightning scar on my forehead. I'll be fine, and I really don't think that He will come after me too soon. But I know that it's coming." Harry said reassuringly. He yawned and pulled the fallen bed-covers back onto the bed, fluffed his pillow, and then turned to face Ron.

"Yea, I guess that you're right." He said, yawning into his pillow, and at the same time, flipping the switch to turn off the lamp, who's light had gone down a few notches, and needed a new light bulb.

Harry turned around and rested his head on the pillow, once again looking out the window, which showed the full moon throwing a beam of light onto the floor, in front of the bed. He watched the moon slowly fall, and the sun quickly rise, piecing the darkness with colors of the sunset. No matter what Harry did, he could not fall back asleep.

What if he was in danger, Harry thought. What if Ron is right about Voldemort? "Well, I guess I will find out in due time, huh?" Harry whispered to Hedwig, who was staring bead-eyed at him. He glanced over at his trunk, filled with all of his Hogwarts supplies, and sighed at the mess that it held. He knew that he needed to get new robes, for he had grown two and a half inches since last year. He also needed the usual supplies: quills, parchment, ingredients for potions, and the books. But then, he needed to get a new broomstick for quidditch and new dress robes, for the Yule Ball, and some other miscellaneous stuff. But the problem was that he couldn't buy all of that in front of the Weasley's, for they had a limited amount of money, and were famous for hand-me-downs. Maybe, he thought, he could get Hermione to get all the extra things for him and have her give them to him at Hogwarts, that way he wouldn't feel bad in front of the Weasley's.

Harry got up from the bed, checked the clock, 5:03, and headed over to his trunk. He pushed the lid open, which was pretty heavy, and dug around in it, searching for unused parchment.

He threw aside Uncle Vernon's old sock, a book, Quidditch Throughout the Ages, and an old pair of sneakers, and finally, he found a blank sheet a parchment. Now he pulled out an inkbottle, which was in a separated place in the trunk from the rest of the supplies, and a quill, and began to unscrew the top to the bottle. Once the quill was dipped in the ink, Harry wrote:

Hermione,

Hello! How was your summer? I was hoping that you could do me a favor. Could you buy the following things for me and hand them over at school? You know how the Weasley's are financially, and I don't want to make them feel awful, so if you could, just let me know. The money is enclosed.

Newest brand of broomstick

Dark forest green dress robes (no frills, and nothing around the rims or the collar)

Dark blue dress robes (no frills and nothing around the rims or the collar)(for Ron)

Thank you!

Harry

P.S. Owl me back at Ron's house, which is where I am.

Harry folded the parchment up, placed it in a recently found envelope, and then reached for Hedwig. Harry opened the cage without a sound, and stroked Hedwig's glossy feathers that shined in the sunlight that must have woken up all the rest of the Weasleys, except for Ron. He could hear the familiar sound of the various voices arguing over this thing and that. Harry smelled Mrs. Weasley's homemade pancakes, and a hint of bacon.

Harry quickly tied the string around Hedwig's leg, in a hurry to eat, and whispered, "Get this to Hermione, as fast as you can, Hedwig!" then he got up from the floor, and opened the window, guiding his snowy owl out into the sunlight. He watched the bird fly off, and then Harry quickly got up, walked to his trunk, and hastily dressed into his normal clothes.

Hurriedly waking up Ron, he went downstairs to eat. The kitchen was full of bickering people, all with flaming red hair. What a sight it was. The twins shoving eachother with mischievous expressions, and Mrs. Weasley scolding them with a spatula in one hand and a spoon full of batter in the other. Bill was outside, even though it was still half-dark, chasing a gnome that had, unmistakably, gotten hold of Bill's fang earring. Charlie was wrapped up in a book entitled Muggle's Tales and Myths of the Dragons. And he was calling out, " Well blimey! Muggles don't know nothing!" And in the midst of all of this chaos, Mr. Weasley was trying to read the Daily Prophet, and drink his coffee.

Harry walked over to where Ron had came in and plopped down, and sat in the chair next to him. Mrs. Weasley's eyes lit up when she saw them, and scooped out five pancakes with maple syrup to each of the two boys. " Sleep well, you two?" she asked, setting down the spatula.

"Well, I guess that you could say that." Ron replied, looking tiredly over at Harry. He could tell that Ron was tired due to the dark rings around his eyes, and the way he yawned continuously. Harry nodded, and smiled sleepily at Mrs. Weasley.

He pierced the pancakes with his fork, cut a piece off, and shoved the whole lot into his mouth. Ron was already down to one pancake by the time Harry was finished with his first bite.

"George! Fred! Enough with the bickering! Sit down now!" Mr. Weasley yelled, clearly irritated. The two boys did as they were told, shooting nasty looks to eachother. Ron held back a laugh, and continued eating his last pancake.

"I got it! I got it! I got it!" Bill charged in from outside, which was now fully lit with sunshine. He jabbed the earring into his ear, and took a glance back at the crestfallen gnome that had almost gotten away with taking Bill's earring. Bill shrugged and took a seat at the table, which was already full enough with five people sitting there.

Mrs. Weasley served everyone their breakfast, which is, " The most important meal of the day!" The chatter went on, and everyone was engaged in at least three conversations.

" So, how is Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes coming along?" Harry asked, munching on some pancakes. "Great, only it is even more secret, now that Mom will not be hearin' of it again." George replied, talking through a mouth full of pancakes and bacon. " Yea! We have improved our Ton-Tongue Toffee. Now it changes the color of your tongue permanently for three weeks!" said Fred, " We've also invented a type of candy where when you eat it, it tastes like fruit, but soon enough, your skin turns that color of the fruit! So bloody cool, huh?" he added. "Yea, cool. Try it out on Percy sometime, if we ever see him again." Ron said, chuckling to himself. Harry could just see Percy, an overachiever at all that he does, with red skin.

The talk went on for quite some time, the Weasley twins telling Harry about all their new inventions. But soon enough, Mrs. Weasley got them all ready to go, and led them all to the fireplace.

Charlie dipped his hand into the flowerpot that held the Floo-Powder, and scattered some into the fireplace, the flames turning an emerald green color, he stepped in and yelled, "Diagon Alley!" Everyone else followed the same procedure, and Harry found himself the last person in the Burrow, which is what the Weasley's called their house.

Knowing what to do, Harry took some Floo-Powder, and sprinkled it into the fireplace, the flames once again turing an emerald green. He took a half step into the fireplace, then withdrew his foot. A thought of an adventure roamed into his head, "Maybe," he thought, " I could say 'Hermione!' or 'Granger!' or, hum, let me think. Possibly 'Leaky Cauldron!' or 'Diagon Alley', after all, that is what I am supposed to be at."

"Later Harry, we have to get there, and maybe me and you could do some venturing tonight." Harry whirled around to find Bill, who had a twinkle in his eye, and smiled. He nodded, "Yea, Bill. Okay, later on tonight." Harry replied.

Now, whole-heartedly, Harry stepped into the flames, the thought of traveling by Floo-Powder made him queasy, but, nonetheless, Harry yelled, "Diagon Alley!" And in a moment he was whizzing past many fireplaces. Some short, some tall, some narrow, or wide, but finally he reached his destination, followed shortly by Bill, who still held that particular twinkle in his eye.

"What took you two so long?" demanded Mrs. Weasley, crossing her arms, and looking impatient. "Oh Mom," Bill said, Harry saw that glint in his eye fade away, " Just forgot to get my billfold. That's all." Harry nodded, looking very convincing.

"Oh all right then. Let's all meet back at The Leaky Cauldron in," Mr. Weasley looked at his watch, " three hours, which will be at noon." Everyone nodded in agreement at this, and then split up. Harry, Ron, and the twins went with eachother, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley went together, and Bill and Charlie went off alone.

"Three hours is enough to get our supplies, get some snacks, and maybe even get into some trouble." Fred said, that wicked smile coming over his face that meant that he was up to something. Ron nodded, and replied in a not-so-happy tone, " Yea, Malfoy." That was all that he needed to say, because everyone had their own grudge against Malfoy, but for many different reasons.

The four of them headed into the first shop that caught their eye, the quidditch shop. Harry glanced into the display window on the way in. Lying on a red velvet pillow was the newest broom, the StarChaser.