Harry Potter and the Great Dark Lord/ chapter 2

A Surprise Birthday Present

There, sitting on Harry's bed were not only a big pile of birthday presents, but also Ron and Hermoinie!

"That took you long enough! We were waiting for you for about 20 minutes!" Ron explained.

"Guys, what are you doing hear?" Harry asked excitedly!

"We've come to give you these," Hermionie pointed to the presents on Harry's bed , "and also to give you a Dursley free birthday!"

Harry, suspecting that they had probably come to collect him and take him to Ron's house for his birthday, implied cautiously, "Er- how exactly are we going to get to the Burrow this time?" Harry had gotten the Weasleys into quite a lot of trouble over the past 3 years because of the fact that they had broken some rules of wizarding in rescuing him from the Dursleys.

"Oh, well actually" Hermionie stated with a glimmer in her eyes, "We're not going to the Burrow until next week. We're going somewhere else first."

"Where are we going?" Harry questioned suspiciously.

"Only the best place in the world of course, you might say that it's our home away from home," Ron implied, and Harry understood. But how on earth had Hermoinie and Ron persuaded Dumbledore to let them stay at Hogwarts, when nobody had ever been allowed to stay there during the summer holidays before?

"How on earth did you persuade Dumbledore to let us stay at Hogwarts for a week?" Harry replied, utterly amazed! Ron and Hermoinie still had that same glimmer in their eyes, and Harry knew that they were both trying to figure out how to state their answer so that it sounded special.

"Well, it took a long time. I'm telling you, though, Harry, you're definitely Dumbledore's favorite student. We just kept on asking him, and he spoke to the Ministry of Magic, and they agreed that since you live in such horrid conditions, it wouldn't hurt to have three kids at Hogwarts during the vacation. We have the entire castle all to ourselves for next week!" Hermoinie explained so excitedly that Harry thought that she would jump up and shout "YES!" any time now.

"Pretty cool, eh?" Ron said, almost as happy.

In a state of complete consternation, Harry replied with a simple, "yeah!" This was by far the greatest way that he was ever going to spend his birthday, but there was just one thing that was nagging him, and destroying his complete happiness. "There's just one tiny little problem," Harry indicated to his friends.

"What is it?" Hermoinie asked, sounding a little bit taken aback.

"Well, I very much doubt that the Dursleys will let me go with you guys" he explained gloomily, although Ron and Hermoinie didn't look nearly as disappointed.

"Has that ever gotten us down before?" Ron said, obviously surprised that Harry would pay so much attention to that problem. Ron was in fact right. Harry had been rescued by the Weasleys two times before this, and both times, no matter what had happened with the Dursleys, he had always managed to make a narrow escape. Plus, there was no doubt a back up plan to this whole thing, so Harry decided to forget about the Dursleys, and have some fun while he could.

"Ok. So, what now? Are we going to be able to get the Hogwarts Express?" Harry implied pointedly.

"We've got it all worked out!" Hermoinie re-assured him. "We'll collect all of your things, and you can go tell your aunt and uncle that you've been invited to you're friend's house, and tell them simply that you'll not be bothering them for the rest of the summer! If their at all reasonable, they will buy it! After that, we'll get a muggle taxi to Kings Cross. The train is scheduled to arrive at 10:00, which means we have an hour to do all that. We'll arrive at Hogwarts at around 5:00 tonight. We'll eat lunch on the train, and dinner a few hours after we arrive. The only person who will be accompanying us throughout the week is Dumbledore!"

"Sounds like a plan!" said Harry, more happy and more impressed than he had ever been in his life. He was finally getting to spend his birthday with his friends, and at the one place that really felt like home!



*****Author's Note*****

Ok, sorry it took so long to write this. I hope it is sounding good so far!