Harry Potter and the Refuge
by DaBear

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Chapter Two
~~The Attack~~

Quickly and quietly shutting the door Harry hastily heads over to the desk and grabbing up one of Dudley's old ballpoint pens and, with a second of searching, grabs a crumpled up piece of parchment from out of the wastebasket. Harry quickly jots down the situation to the Headmaster, 

Professor Dumbledore,

At 2 in the morning on July the 4th Death Eaters have broken into my home at Privet Drive.
I am sending Hedwig to you to let you know and… well let's hope I'm not dead when you get this.

Harry Potter

Spinning around towards the window after finishing the note Harry is about to grab Hedwig when he notices that his window is once again locked and barred from the outside of the house. There is no way Hedwig will ever fit through the gaps. Groaning in sespair Harry turns his head to Hedwig.

"Do you have any ideas on how to get outta here, girl?" She just looks at Harry and hoots sadly.

A shouted Cruciatus Curse and his cousin's screams quickly follow the noise of Dudley's door being broken down.

"Crap!"

This galvanizes Harry into action, as the pain filled shrieks of his cousin provides an eerie backdrop in Harry's ears while he hears the door across the hall from him, the guest bedroom, also being broken down. But rather then an Unforgivable the noise was followed by frenzied barking. A short yell is heard followed by a muted curse word and then there is a pained yelp from Ripper, as the Death Eater kicks the dog across the room.

Aunt Marge's shrill voice is heard yelling, as Harry is making his way across the room with his wand ready, about her precious Ripper and how 'you freaks' are going to pay, and pay dearly, when she calls the police. Her rant comes to an abrupt and final end the uttering of "Avada Kedavra!" The house shudders as Marge's corpse fall to the floor.

In Harry's room his hand has frozen on the doorknob at those words and his eyes close in pained grief while he mouths the words "Not again." Harry slumps against the wall as flashes of memory run roughshod through his mind. Harry sees Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Seeker, lying dead in the graveyard, staring at him in seeming accusation, with his empty eyes. He hears his parents' voices echoing inside his mind shouting out their defiance and denial.

"Take Harry and run…"

"No, not Harry…"

"Wands out ya reckon?"

That last memory manages to shake Harry out of his recollections. Gripping his wand tightly he takes a large breath, in preparation of going out into the hallway and to what, Harry was sure, was going to be his last blaze of glory. Harry had no illusions of his ability to hold off multiple fully trained wizards, but he feels that he has to try. Harry is sure that it will turn out similar to the ending of a movie he had seen while he was younger, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." But Harry could not allow them to hurt the only family that he has left in this world.

About to turn the knob of his door Harry hears the master bedroom's door being flung open quickly followed by the booming of his uncle's shotgun. The scream of the Death Eater that he had just shot is almost enough to drown out Vernon's bellow "Get out of my house you ruddy freaks!" Another shot soon follows the first; again garnering a scream of pain and also what sounds to Harry like a tumble down the stairs.

Uncle Vernon's standoff quickly comes to an end though as multiple people shout out the Killing Curse, both from the hallway and from Dudley's room next door. Harry flinches as the floor shudders under both Dudley's and Vernon's weight.

Aunt Petunias' wail of grief soon rises up and is as quickly silenced.

The silence that follows is deafening. Harry's head is shaking franticly in denial, tears leaking from his eyes, which are closed tight in grief. In just under one minute Harry's life is irrevocable changed as every one of his relatives are murdered by Voldemort's Death Eaters.

~They're dead. They're all dead, Vernon, Petunia, Dudley… they're all dead. Just like Cedric, just like Mum and Dad.~ Harry wipes the  tears of rage and sorrow off his face and he backs away from the door, hearing footsteps approaching from outside.

~Weep for the dead later Potter, escape is the need of the moment.~ Gripping his wand tightly enough to make his knuckles go white, and the holly creak, Harry nods to himself and looking around the room for a way out he wracks his brain looking for a locking spell, a barrier spell, any spell… that would give him the time that he needs. Harry is beginning to get desperate when something in his mind clicks…

~~Flashback~~

"Hey Harry, come look at this."

Harry looks up from the dusty tome on protective charms that he is skimming through to see Hermione waving to him from a bookshelf near the table that they were using to research spells for the Third Task. Getting up from the table Harry walks over to his bushy haired friend and the book that she has open in her hands.

"What did you find Hermione?"

"Look, I found a barrier spell that is resistant to most Unlocking Charms, even Alohomora."

Briefly looking over her shoulder and quickly reading the entry on the spell he pats his friends shoulder before saying, "That's nice, but I don't think that they will have me locking any doors in the Third Task, do you?"

Hermione nods her head in agreement after giving it some thought, but then smiles up at Harry and says, "Yes, but it's still an interesting spell."

Laughing at his friend, Harry heads back to the table to continue looking through his book.

~End Flashback~

Blinking his eyes to clear them of tears Harry brings his wand up to the ready position and focusing on his memory of the spell and its effects Harry brings his wand down in a snapping movement and praying to God, Quidditch and Albus Dumbledore, says the spell as forcefully as possible "Forismunio."

An orange light leaves his wand and shooting across the room it splashes upon his door like liquid light. As the doorknob begins to turn; the light spreads out across the wood of the door and then across the doorframe as well. Once it completely covers the frame it flashes briefly once before quickly dissipating from view. The doorknob finishes its turn with a click. Harry catches his breath, as he watches the door… not open. Harry lets out his breath explosively, and then jumps as the door shudders under someone's shoulder as they try to force it.

"Some brave Gryffindor I am." He mutters to himself at his start. Harry quickly folds up the letter that is still clutched in his hand before tying it to Hedwig's leg and turning back to the window Harry again brings his wand up. Remembering the library had triggered another memory, this one of the Reductor Curse that Harry had tried to use on the mist and the hedge during the Third Task. Harry flicks his wand forward and putting as much desperation into the spell as he possibly could yells "Reducio!"

Needless to say Harry is mildly surprised, as not only the window and the bars behind it are flung away from the house with the magical pulse of rust colored light, but also the entirety of the wall itself is blasted across the whole of the backyard. Harry blinks to himself in amazement and turning to Hedwig, who seems almost as surprised at the display of power as Harry, is about to say something when the door shudders again, this time under a duplicate of the spell Harry had just used.

Harry files away in his mind the need to inform Hermione of the spells durability as he thrust his arm into the air to give Hedwig a head start in taking off. "Take that to Headmaster Dumbledore as fast as you can Hedwig!"

After watching his owl fly off into the night sky Harry again looks down into the yard below and briefly wishes that he had thought to shrink his Firebolt as well. Stepping back a bit from the hole in the wall in order to get a running start at it, Harry hears the increase, both in number and strength, of the spells being thrown at his door, and as he is not recognizing more then half of them, decides that its now or never. Harry runs up to the hole that he had made in the side of the house and leaps from it with all of his might.

TBC…

Spells and other Odd words:
1) forismunio : from foris; a door, opening, entrance and munio : to fortify, defend, protect.