A/N: Here's the long-awaited chapter 2! My apologies to everyone for making you wait so long for me to post it! Thanks to everyone who reviewed!

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CHAPTER 2: EXPLANATIONS, SORT OF . . .


Ron woke up early the next morning, hoping to catch Harry before he went into his place of work. (After searching through his memory for a while, Ron remembered it was a state-of-the-art computer manufacturing plant.) By a quarter past seven, Ron was already out the door. He headed to Hermione's house, to pick her up. Ron didn't have the nerve to confront Harry by himself, and he had a feeling that Hermione would be pretty angry if they had a reunion without her, so he called her last night.

When he got to Hermione's house, she was already on her front porch, waiting for him impatiently.

"What took you so long!" Hermione said indignantly. "Harry's probably already been there for an hour!"

"Hermione! Not everyone wakes up at 5am just so they can go to a place they don't even really want to be." Ron told her.

They drove down many streets and finally arrived at the plant. The sign by the main doors read: KILOBYTES, Manufacturing Plant.

"Strange, isn't it," Hermione commented.

"What's strange?" Ron asked.

"It's strange that Harry would pick a profession that seems to fit him the least. Harry never liked computers."

"Don't you see, Hermione? Harry doesn't want to be found. He's working somewhere that no one would think of looking for him." Ron told her.

"But still . . . You'd think he'd pick something he'd be even remotely interested in . . ." Hermione's thoughts drifted.

Ron parked the car and the two got out and went into the lobby of the building. A young secretary was sitting at a desk nearby. Ron went to her and asked quite awkwardly, "Has Ha-er- . . .Jerald Whinterston come in yet?"

The secretary smiled at him, typed something very quickly on her computer and replied, "Well, yes, and no."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron asked her.

"Well, he was here, but he left a little while ago saying something about pigs and warts. I think he also called me dumb. Didn't make much sense, but he seemed quite distraught." The secretary told him.

"Did he say where he was going?" Ron asked the secretary urgently.

"Like I said before, he wasn't making much sense. But I did hear him say he was going somewhere, oh what was it, something about owls, and eyes-"

"Thanks! That's all I needed!" Ron exclaimed as he ran out the door, pulling Hermione with him, leaving the secretary looking very confused.

"He went to Eeylop's Owl Emporium!" Ron told Hermione. "I think he's going to owl Dumbledore! If we hurry, I think we'll be able to catch him; Eeylop's is usually pretty crowded!"

The two took off at a run to the car. Ron started it as quickly as he could, and sped down the street towards The Leaky Cauldron.

"Hurry Ron! Faster!" Hermione exclaimed. "Ooh! Here! Let me!"

"Switcher Autopasserous!" Hermione said. The next thing Ron knew, he and Hermione had switched places. Hermione muttered something else, and now they were going about 90m.p.h, and they seemed to be going right through the other cars.

"Where do you find these spells?" Ron asked curiously.

"Don't you read?" was Hermione's reply.

At the speed the car was going, Ron and Hermione reached the old pub known as The Leaky Cauldron in no time. They ran through the building, not looking where they were going, and ran right into someone in a hooded cloak. The man tumbled to the floor and his hood came down, revealing his face.

"HARRY!" Hermione gasped. Ron just stood where he was, not believe his eyes. Harry looked around in horror and saw Ron and Hermione.

"Oh, God, Ron! Hermione! Help me!" Harry gulped. A look of pain crossed his face, then his expression went blank, like he couldn't recognize where or who he was any more. "Terribly sorry about that," Harry said in a strange voice. "Jerald Whinterston. And you are-?" As he spoke, Harry's face changed so that it looked quite different from how it should.

"Harry! Harry, what are you talking about?" Hermione shrieked. "You're Harry Potter! Not Jerald Whinterston!" Hermione looked almost crazy. People were looking at them strangely. They hadn't seen when he looked like Harry; they only saw a stranger. Harry was looking behind him to see whom Hermione was talking to.

Ron grabbed Harry/Jerald and pulled him into Diagon Alley. They made their way down the crowded street towards a shop called "Weasley Wizard Wheezes".

"Oi! Ron!" called Fred from behind the sales counter of the very large shop. "What do you think you're doing? Let that man go!"

"No!" Ron yelled as Fred advanced on him. George heard the noise and came out of the back room.

"What's going on out here?" he asked curiously.

"Listen to me. I know this is going to sound crazy, but this man is Harry!"

"He's lost it," Fred said to George.

"No, it's true!" Hermione said. "I saw his face!"

"I can see his face too, and that's not Harry. You've both lost it." Said George.

"Not this face! This is a disguise! Harry's under some kind of spell. He can't control anything he does, and somehow his face was altered. The spell wore off long enough for Harry to send an owl to Dumbledore explaining this whole thing, hopefully. That's when we saw him in his true form; as Harry." Hermione explained.

"Are you sure?" Fred asked.

"Positive. We just need to keep him hear long enough for Dumbledore to figure out where we are." Hermione told them.

At that moment, Dumbledore came into the shop quite quickly. A man they all recognized as Mad-eye Moody was following him. (A/N: This is the real Moody, not the person who stole his identity in the fourth book, so he does not know any of them.) He stopped abruptly when he saw Harry in his new form. Harry was watching them all curiously.

"Oh, my!" said Moody. "Harry Potter!"

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A/N: How did you like it? For all you people reading that are not die-hard Harry Potter fans, Moody has a fake magical eye which can see things other people can't. The next chapter should be out very soon. I'm finally getting into the story. We will get more into what Hermione and Ron do for a living nowadays and what the heck is happening with Harry.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the author of the Harry Potter books and claim no credit for characters or places mentioned in this story. I only own the plot.