Chapter Nine
Harry, Ron and Hermione hurried back into the house and, soon after, Harry put his cloak back on and walked with Lupin in silence to his house. Lupin fixed them both a cup of tea, noticing that Harry had taken great interest in the fireplace.
"You heard something at the Weasleys', didn't you Harry?" he asked. Harry tried to look as innocent and ignorant as he could, but dropped the act when he noticed that Lupin wasn't upset.
"As much as I love being miles away from the Dursleys, I think this is stupid. I should just go back."
"Out of the question," Lupin answered, and Harry guiltily tried to hide his relief, but he wasn't about to let the matter lay.
"But Dumbledore can't fight Voldemort on his own! It's too risky. If he should fail, no one will be able to stop Voldemort's return to power!" Feeling Lupin's stare upon him, Harry mumbled the last part of his speech. "I'm not worth it."
"Don't be ridiculous, Harry. There is no limit to the worth of a human life. And trust me, you'd be missed."
"Well, why doesn't someone else take the Polyjuice Potion too, turn in to one of the Dursleys, as unpleasant as that does sound?"
"Can't. The Ministry would have a field day with that. They take the Muggle Protection Act very seriously, and I doubt that Arthur's reputation would skyrocket if that got out."
"Well, why don't we just move the whole family to safety? Tell Voldemort they've gone on holiday, and then we could keep them at Hogwarts until we think of something better."
"The whole point of this is to catch some of the people after you, Harry. But I agree, we all have our reservations about the situation. Let's just keep things how they are until we hear the news from Sirius and Dumbledore."
"Maybe I'll just cross my fingers for another mental attack. Then we'll know it won't matter where I am."
"We're working on that, Harry. Why don't you just go to bed? Sirius may even be here by morning."
With that, Harry went off to Lupin's guestroom, hoping that Professor Dumbledore was having a better time of being Harry Potter than he was at the moment.
******************************************************************************************
It was morning at Number Four, Privet Drive, and the Dursley family was sitting around the kitchen table, unaware that they had the world's most powerful wizard passing them the bacon.
"Get the mail, boy," barked Vernon Dursley.
"It's right in front of you," answered Dumbledore, making this the fifty-seventh mental tally of rudeness on Mr. Dursley's part. He had decided that, for every cruel or callous or nasty remark the Dursleys threw at Harry, a point would go to the Gryffindor House. They'd have the house cup by mid-afternoon.
"How did it get here so quick?"
"I'm just quick I suppose."
"Dudders, see if he's quick."
With that, Dudley began chasing Dumbledore through the Dursley house with his Smelting stick. This is how his mornings had been ever since he assumed Harry's identity three days ago. He had received communication saying that Sirius was still following leads on Arabella's disappearance and that Harry was doing fine with Remus and the Weasley family. Meanwhile, Mr. Dursley had made him clean the house, serve Dudley breakfast, give up his dessert to Dudley, tend to Mrs. Dursley's garden, along with countless other meaningless chores. Mrs. Dursley just acted as if Harry, or Dumbledore-Harry, was never born, which was just fine by him. And Dudley was either beating him senseless or else taunting him for his lack of friends and parents. Dumbledore had a feeling that Harry wouldn't stand for Dudley pushing him around, but it was hard for Dumbledore to keep an eye on things if he was locked in the cupboard for sticking up for himself.
"Harry deserves Order of Merlin just for putting up with these people," Dumbledore muttered to himself as he picked his glasses up off the floor and inspected the damage done by the Smelting stick. It would be a tolerable situation if there had been any word on an attempt to harm Harry, but Arabella was still missing and the only change came when Voldemort was spotted in Northern Wales. Dumbledore had entered this mission expecting a confrontation with Voldemort, but was beginning to believe that the presence of some trained Aurors would be wise in just taking care of the Muggles! Perhaps, a few years ago, Dumbledore would have been confident of his victory against any other wizard in the world, but now he was nearly 160, hardly a young man. At that moment, something Vernon Dursley said distracted him.
"Boy, get yourself cleaned up. We're going out."
"Where are we going?" he asked. Mrs. Figg, before she had disappeared, had told him that Harry rarely went anywhere with his family.
"That blasted Prune woman has gone stray (probably chasing after one of those damned cats) so we're stuck with you."
"And you better not ruin my Dudleykin's birthday celebration!" broke in Mrs. Dursley. It was the first time she had spoken to Dumbledore in the past day and a half, something that he was most thankful for.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he muttered, marveling at how quickly he had adopted Harry's sarcasm. Even being in the company of Severus Snape for several years had not had such an effect on his tolerance as staying with these people had.
"We're going to the cinema, so here are the rules!" spat Vernon Dursley, staring at Dumbledore with his beady eyes and rutabaga face. "You sit a full row away from us. Don't even bother asking for candy or a drink, because it will never happen. And no funny stuff! I catch you so much as looking at us funny and it'll be back to the cupboard before you can blink. Now go fix that hair of yours and be quick about it."
Despite being wary of spending an afternoon out with the Dursleys and Piers Polkiss, who in truth hadn't be so terrible to Dumbledore and instead kept talking about the "snake incident", Dumbledore couldn't help but be excited to go to his first Muggle movie theatre. Besides, it had to better than sitting around the house all day, trying to avoid Dudley Dursley and his swoons over his new scooter, DVD player, IMac, and forty other presents. Dumbledore was a bit disappointed in not being able to try some candy, but Harry had some chocolate frogs stashed away in his cupboard and Dumbledore was sure he wouldn't mind if he took a few.
The Dursleys, Piers and Dumbledore all piled into Mr. Dursley's new company car, which the neighbors were very impressed with, thank you very much, and soon they were off to London for lunch and a show. Dumbledore tried hard to focus on anything stationary, as he had never quite gotten used to travelling by automobile. At the restaurant, one of the waitresses looked Dumbledore up and down and brought him out a free lunch (Mr. Dursley, when the orders had been taking, had looked pointedly at Dumbledore and said "He'll just have a water."). Upon the arrival of an exquisitely prepared club sandwich and a double portion of chips, Vernon and Dudley Dursley nearly exploded.
"Excuse me, but he didn't order anything!" warned Mr. Dursley, surveying the plate before Dumbledore as if assessing the cost.
"Don't worry, it's on the house," smiled the girl. Dumbledore noticed her eyes travel up to where Harry's scar would be and realized that he remembered the young woman from the 1992 class of Hogwarts…a Hufflepuff if memory served.
"Excuse me?" asked Mr. Dursley, obvious confused as to what was going on.
"Yeah, it's MY birthday!" whined Dudley. "And he's got more chips than I do!"
After hesitating a bit to come up with a convincing lie, she simply said that anyone who bought four meals got the fifth one free of charge. Giving Dumbledore a small smile and wink, she returned to the kitchens to fix Dudley his dessert, since he had inhaled his lunch between whines. Ignoring the daggers coming from Mr. Dursley, Dumbledore enjoyed his first real meal in days and busied himself with studying the posters on the wall, wondering if these "Beatles" knew they had spelt the name wrong.
Soon the group was sitting in a darkened theater, watching a rather intriguing but disgusting film about a man eating another man's brain. During the more gruesome scenes, Dumbledore's eyes danced across the room, noting where the sounds and the picture were coming from. He had always been disappointed that the magical community had neglected pursuits in the performing arts, what with more pressing matters on hand these days. Perhaps, once the struggle against Voldemort was over, he could persuade the school governors to provide funding for some kind of art program at Hogwarts. He smiled as he pictured Severus Snape trying to teach Neville Longbottom the art of piano playing. Just then, the screen flickered a rather disturbing picture of a man-eating hog that returned Dumbledore's mind to more serious matters.
It was nearly nightfall when the Dursleys began their journey back to Privet Drive, having just dropped Piers off at his home across town. Dudley was rehashing every bloody detail of the movie, taking delight in the queasy moans coming from Mrs. Dursley, who obviously preferred more sensible and romantic films. Dudley was in the midst of making a particularly nauseating sound effect when he suddenly let out a squeak of fear and covered his eyes. Mr. Dursley braked the car to a halt, screamed "What the bloody hell is that?" and rounded on Dumbledore so fast that he was afraid he was about to be smacked. Then Dumbledore saw what had caused the commotion. There, hovering above Number Four Privet Drive, was the Dark Mark.
"Everybody stay where they are," he said very calmly and slowly, as he made to open the car door.
"Where do you think you are going, boy?" screamed Mr. Dursley. Mrs. Dursley was too busy surveying the neighbors' houses, making sure that nobody was seeing this monstrous green projection above her house to pay Dumbledore any mind.
Dumbledore, meanwhile, hadn't the patience to deal with Harry's uncle. "See that mark there? That is a very bad sign. And it is possible that the very bad people who leave these very bad signs are waiting for us in the house. So you lot just stay put and you may live to yell at me later for this." With that, Dumbledore made himself invisible and left the car.