Chapter 3:

Takes place in the summer after fourth year.

Harry hated his relatives with a passion and that summer they were even worse than all of the summers before. As if it wasn't already enough that he had just dealt with a year of severe bullying and witnessed not only the death of a school colleague, but also the rebirth of Voldemort, he had also had to deal with a year full of comments and snide remarks about his new appearance. The scars he acquired when he was attacked by the transformed Professor Lupin were easily visible for anyone. The Daily Prophet had had a feast when they got an excuse to take pictures of him because of that bloody tournament he didn't even want to participate in. Almost the whole school had thought that he himself had put his own name in the Goblet of Fire, even Ron. He surely had a lonely year behind him. Without Hermione he probably would've gone crazy.

Then the year ended and he had to go back to the Dursleys. When they saw him they were furious. They screamed at him that they knew that he must've gotten himself intentionally injured so they would look bad when the neighbors saw him like that. Since his last summer the neighbors had supposedly pestered the Dursleys about him, which didn't sit well with them at all, so they decided to change a few things. They forbade him to leave the house and took away all of his school stuff as well as his wand. He once tried to sneak out, but uncle Vernon caught him. The consequences were unpleasant to say the least. Although Harry was almost fifteen he was still weakened from the tournament and what followed after. He had not eaten much ever since, his appetite being mostly gone, and at the Dursley's he never got much to eat either, so he wasn't at best health. Which is why when Vernon caught him and gave him the worst beating of his lifetime, he couldn't do much to fend him off. Luckily his uncle had dragged him to his room before the real beating began, so at least he didn't have to get up the stairs bleeding, aunt Petunia would have had a fit. There seemed to be small mercies after all.

While Harry was still nursing his newly acquired injuries he heard a loud noise coming from outside. When he turned to look out of the window he saw his uncle putting back the bars in front of his window that were forcibly removed three years ago when Fred, George and Ron came to get him. Great, now he couldn't let Hedwig out anymore. His only option was to wait for his friends to write him, but he didn't really think they would. They hadn't properly answered any of his letters up to that point and only wrote short, unpersonal answers. Something was going on, that he was sure of, but his friends seemed determined to keep him in the dark about it.

Time passed slowly that summer. The Dursleys were locking his door again, only providing him with food and water through the doggy door. He was allowed to use the toilet three times a day and shower once a week. With nothing to occupy his mind his holidays were spent mostly with sleeping and staring at the ceiling or out of the window. It was maddening.

Harry's nights, and more and more often days, were plagued with nightmares. He mainly dreamt about Cedric's death, but not exclusively. To his internal embarrassment he also dreamt of his uncle hurting him. But then there were also other dreams, weird ones that he couldn't quite place. They showed him places and people he had never seen before and more often than not an act of violence was committed in them. The most sickening about these dreams, though, is when he dreams that he is the one doing the violence, the killings and the torture. Time and time again Harry would wake up in a cold sweat, trembling and trying his hardest not to throw up from what he had seen. He felt awful.

Harry spent the next weeks of his holiday like that, even his birthday. He received four birthday-cards that day which he had to carefully wiggle through the small opening of his window and through the bars. The cards were from Hermione, Ron, Sirius and Fred and George. Just like before there wasn't anything new about what was going on in the wizarding world, no questions as to why he had stopped writing them, nothing. He felt abandoned and it felt horrible. The days passed uneventfully until five weeks into his holidays there was another owl. Lazily Harry got up, having already stopped hoping for anything useful or interesting. The letter was from Dumbledore, informing him that he would be picked up the next day at eleven o'clock. Where he would go afterward, however, wasn't included in the letter. He could only assume that he was supposed to spend the rest of the summer at the Weasleys. Though he was glad to finally be able to leave the Dursleys he couldn't shake off that pang of betrayal he felt whenever he thought of them. They had left him here to rot, without a single word of information. As much as he wanted to get away from the Dursleys, he didn't want to spend the rest of his summer with the Weasleys. He considered telling Dumbledore of his thoughts, but figured that the old man would send someone to pick him up regardless. He never was one for acknowledging Harry's wishes, otherwise he wouldn't be at the Dursley's in the first place. The decision was taken from him when the owl flew away before he could've written a reply.

The next day came and Harry got out of bed. He knew that someone would be there to pick him up in thirty minutes, so he removed his PJ's (or rather Dudley's old PJ's) and looked at himself in the mirror. His body was pale and horribly thin. When was the last time he had properly looked at himself? He couldn't recall. He stepped closer to the mirror and examined himself. His face was a mess; long and deep scars ran across his it, denting his nose and almost splitting his lip at one spot. His curse mark, however, had remained fully intact. But his face wasn't the only part of his body that bore evidence of the attack that had nearly killed him one year ago. Harry's neck, chest, arms and stomach were also littered with scars – once deep gashes that took weeks to heal. Even his legs were somewhat scarred, though by far not as bad. The scars had never fully stopped to hurt. Whenever he had to stretch his skin or made a sudden move his scars would hurt. It was something he just had to live with.

Looking away from his own reflection he put on his cleanest clothes and took out his comb for the first time that week. While he wasn't planning on coming with them, whoever they were, he still wanted to look somewhat presentable.

Eleven o'clock came and Harry could hear the door bell ringing. He gulped. The fear of how his so called "family" would react if he had told him that "freaks" would be coming to their house prevented him from saying anything. He could only hope that they wouldn't retaliate afterwards.

Harry could hear loud arguing from downstairs, but eventually it quieted down. Then he could hear people coming up the stairs. Moments later his door was opened and none other than Alastor Moody peered through the door. Behind him stood two other people he didn't recognize. Harry felt kind of squeamish in the presence of Moody. He once thought he knew that man and then said man tried to kill him and turned out to be a Death Eater in disguise. No, he did not feel at ease in the presence of that man.

"Hello Potter", Moody addressed him, "My name is Alastor Moody, although you already know that, right? This is Auror Nymphedora Tonks and this is Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt. We are your escort as per Dumbledore's wish." Moody looked just as he remembered him from school, Kingsley was a middle-aged, dark skinned wizard that wore long, dark-blue traditional robes and Tonks looked… interesting. They had colorful blue hair, wore black nail polish and an array of both men's and women's wasn't exactly sure which gender Tonks belonged to, as they looked neither completely female, nor male. But Nymphedora sounded female, didn't it? Harry was confused, but they were the least of his problems at that point.

If any of them were disturbed by Harry's scarred face they didn't show it, for which he was silently grateful.

Harry just stared at the three people for a moment, trying to figure out how to best formulate what he wanted to say next.

"Hello Mr. Moody, it's nice to meet the real you, I guess. It's also nice to meet you Mr. Shacklebolt and Auror Tonks. Tonks had a happy twinkle in he eyes that she couldn't quite successfully hide when Harry addressed her as "Auror Tonks" He would think about that later.

"While I am grateful for you coming here to get me I have to politely decline. I do not wish to leave. Furthermore I would wish that you leave my uncle's house before I'll get the brunt of his anger for you coming here just because Dumbledore assumed I wanted someone to get me. I will not go with you."

The Aurors were stumped, they obviously had not expected that reply and even Moody was at a loss of words momentarily. When he finally answered he spoke slowly: "Why would you want to stay here? From what I gather these muggles aren't exactly the nice sort and you look like a dead man walking. You have to get out of this environment and get healthy again. Come with us, for your own good."

Harry laughed a humorless laugh. "For my own good? Since when did anybody care about my wellbeing or what was good for me? If anybody cared then I wouldn't even be here", Harry said, starting to get angry: "If Dumbledore had cared about my wellbeing then he wouldn't have brought me to the Dursleys to begin with! Who authorized the headmaster of a school to take an orphaned baby and place them with whoever he wanted? I'm sure that's considered illegal by the Ministry of Magic, yet no one ever cared. My so called "family" hates me to the bone and made sure I knew it for all of my life. Excuse me that I trust the one responsible for that even less than I want to spend my summer here. I don't even know where you want to take me since nobody ever tells me a bloody thing! So no, I will not come with you and I ask you to leave right now as you have no legal grounds to be here and I do not want you to be here. Goodbye!"

The Aurors were speechless. Was it all true? Did Dumbledore intentionally place Potter in an abusive home? Moody had much to talk about with Dumbledore, even he had known that Lily's sister hated magic with a passion. Truly, why did Dumbledore place the boy with her? He had much to think about.

"I see, Potter", Moody said after he had collected his thoughts, "we will not force you to come with us and to be completely honest I understand your reasoning. We will take our leave but before that I will have to speak to your family."

"No!", Harry immediately said, "didn't you listen? They hate magic and they'll only punish me harder if you talk to them again!"

"This is non-negotiable, Potter. But I promise you that they won't punish you."

He gulped and nodded, which other choice did he have?

The trio turned away, Tonks and Shacklebolt murmuring a "Goodbye" as they descended the stairs. After a few seconds Harry could once again hear shouting, angry voices, undoubtedly those of his relatives, but they quickly quieted. Many minutes passed until he heard the front door opening and closing once more. He expected to see his uncle storming up the stairs, fists raised and purple-faced, but nothing happened. He waited and waited but still no one came. Harry was relieved, he didn't know how Moody had done it but he held his promise.

The next days passed quickly. Mad Eye undoubtedly threatened the Dursleys, there was no other explanation for the fact that they actually allowed him to access his belongings and work on his homework. Aunt Petunia grudgingly brought him three meals a day instead of just one and his door was no longer locked. Even Dudley didn't harass him, although he glared at him whenever he saw him. Harry was allowed to go outside and uncle Vernon even removed the bars from his window so that he could finally let out Hedwig. He had no clue what Moody had said to them, but he was unbelievably glad. Having nothing else to do he finished his summer homework in the span of four days and used the rest of his time to draw.

Not a single letter came after Harry refused to go with Moody.

A week passed and Harry was startled out of his daydreams when a foreign owl pecked on his window. He quietly let it in and took the letter it offered. After he gave the owl a little treat it flew away again, obviously not expecting a reply. Harry opened the letter.

"Dear Harry,

I know we haven't talked in a long time and I'm not sure if you even want to talk to me. What I did to you was unforgivable, whether it was intentional or not. I still don't understand why you protected me in front of the Ministry. You really didn't have to, I deserved whatever the Ministry deemed a fair punishment. But you didn't want that for whatever reason and I didn't want to go against your wishes. However I can't express the shame I felt when I saw your numerous injuries. I don't know how you look now, but I can only assume that you have very plainly visible scars marring your body. This should've never happened, you didn't deserve it, nor did you deserve anything else that happened last year, from what I heard and read.

I also want to apologize for not writing you sooner. I didn't know what to say, to be honest, and thought that you wouldn't want to talk to me or hear from me. But now I heard that you didn't want to accompany the Aurors that were to escort you. They told us about what you said to them and once again I have to apologize. I failed you, Harry, more than once. I never should've let Dumbledore place you with the Dursleys, but I was too caught up in my grief over my friends to do anything. But that is no excuse and I know that. Then I failed you again. I could've at least checked on you to see if you're doing okay, Dumbledore's orders be damned. But I didn't. I blindly followed him and did nothing to make sure you are safe. I am sorry.

I understand if you want to have nothing to do with me after everything that has happened, I really do, but I still feel like I have to at least try. I want to make up for my past mistakes and I want to really get to know you, but only if you want to, of course.

If you don't wish to have any contact then I will refrain from contacting you ever again, even if it would pain me. But if you do decide to give me another chance I will do everything in my power to not disappoint you again.

I heard that your windows are barred, so I don't expect a written reply, but I want to give you the choice of meeting up. I will be in the park closest to your house this Sunday evening at eight p.m. If you do want to meet me I'd be very happy, but I will respect either choice you make.

In hopes to see you soon,

Remus Lupin"