Harry Potter and the Curse of the Jade

Chapter One - Startling Objects and Announcements

It was not Harry Potter's first summer away from Hogwarts where he went for school. And it was not a regular school at that. Hogwarts was a school for Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was founded by some of the magical world's most powerful wizards. It was also home to many great wizards and witches, and also home to some very cruel and evil people.

Harry had been woken up by his pet owl Hedwig that morning. It was quite unusual the way she did it also. That morning, Hedwig woke up to a startling site. When she saw what was in Harry's room, she started hooting and fluttering all around in her cage until the cage door flew open then she flew over to Harry and started flopping up and down on him.

Harry woke up, reached for his glasses, and when everything came into focus and he saw that site, he froze dead in his tracks. There lay a cobra coiled up right in the middle of Harry's floor. Harry heard his uncle snort in the next room over and so he knew that they were still asleep and so it had to be early in the morning still. In fact, the sun was rising outside Harry's window and the sky was still morning pink.

"What do you want?" hissed Harry. Harry could talk in snake language. Or, in the magical world, it was referred to as Parseltongue. If you heard Harry talking to a snake, you would just hear the hissing but if you were Harry, your brain would translate it so it sounded to you like you were speaking clear English.

"It's coming, He's coming," hissed the cobra. It then slid out of the window causing no damage or anything or anyone.

Of course, Harry knew who the snake was talking about, Voldemort. People in the magical world dared not say his name for he was the most evil wizard in the past century. So, they just simply referred to him as 'You-Know-Who'.

"Why would a snake come and tell me that? Everyone knows that Voldemort's power is now rising up and again and he is getting stronger by the day." said Harry softly to Hedwig while filling up her food bowl with more owl food and some water.

Voldemort had lost his powers the night he killed Harry's parents. You see, Voldemort used a killing curse on James and Lily Potter and just when he was about to use it on Harry, it backfired somehow (nobody quite knows), and it destroyed Voldemort's powers and made him very weak. So, over these past 14 years, Voldemort has been getting stronger and getting his powers back with the faithful help of his friend-betraying servant, Peter Pettigrew, or now known as Wormtail.

That is why the name Harry Potter is known throughout the whole magical world because that night, he survived the curse of one of the most powerful wizards and he even had a lightning shaped scar where the curse hit and backfired on his forehead that whenever people met Harry, their eyes always flicked up towards the scar and they got a nervous looking expression on their face.

Harry heard his aunt and uncle's bedroom door open and then heard the bottom stair creak twice as each of them stepped on it going down to the kitchen.

"Potter, get your butt down here and start out breakfast! You're late!" shouted his Uncle Vernon.

Harry changed his clothes as fast as he could and in the next minute after his uncle yelling, he was heating up the stove and getting the eggs and bacon out of the refrigerator.

"Hurry up, stupid boy!" yelled Uncle Vernon as he took another sip of coffee while skimming through the daily paper.

Soon Harry had the eggs done and was scraping them out of the pan and onto everyone's plate except his cousin Dudley's. Dudley is a very large and overweight boy who bullies around Harry every chance he gets. He wouldn't physically abuse him but he would just insult him on being too skinny or something like that. But, it wasn't his fault he was a twig. His cruel aunt and uncle practically starve him.

"You need to be getting up a lot earlier and start cooking our breakfast! I am already late for work! I have an important meeting I need to attend to in thirty minutes!" Then he mumbled some things under his breathe (which happened to be very nasty smelling, like every morning) and went back to sipping coffee and skimming.

Uncle Vernon worked for a drill making company and they barely had meetings even though with a company like that, you would've thought they would have some everyday.

"Petunia, Dudley!" said Uncle Vernon as if he just remembered it. "I have something to say!"

Harry then turned around from making seconds and both Dudley and Petunia looked up. Dudley had a terrified type of look. He was probably nervous because two nights ago he had broken one of Aunt Petunia's favorite glass ceramics and hid the pieces in a cloth in the basement.

"I will be getting a promotion today!" he said, then turning to Harry and changing the tone of his voice. "If I get my seconds fast and get to work in the next fifteen minutes!"

"Oh, Vernon, that's terrific!" said Aunt Petunia gleefully walking over to Vernon, to soon give him a big kiss, with tears in her eyes. Dudley looked relief then lowered his head again eating his celery and carrots for his diet.

"Isn't that great, son?" asked Vernon.

"Um, yeah, sure. . ." mumbled Dudley loud enough to hear.

Then, Harry heard it again.

Hoot. Hoot.

He ran upstairs to his room after Vernon told him to shut that bird up and was hoping something wasn't in there again. Luckily, it was only Pigwidgeon, his best friend Ron's tiny owl.

Pigwidgeon, or as Ron called it, Pig, was a very unique but hyper owl. It could fit in the palm of your hand but the cons of it were it couldn't carry anything large. In fact, the only thing it could carry was small cakes or other small food and small pieces of parchment.

Harry then tore open the envelope happily while Pig was flying all over the room. He then read it aloud to himself;

Dear Harry,

How's it going with the Muggles? Well, it must be pretty bad. I have sent along some little cakes with Pig for you so the cruel Muggles don't starve you to death. We wouldn't want that now would we? I wouldn't have anyone to hang out with at Hogwarts besides Hermione, but she is always reading or studying or doing both and never catches the conversation! Didn't you say that they put those metal bars back onto your window? That must also be horrible! Too bad we don't have the Anglia, we could come break you out again! Maybe I can see if we can come with Floo powder and sneak you out to our house!

Maybe not, oh well, see you soon!

Ron

And then there Harry grabbed Pig after a struggle and untied the package with the cakes. He then posted the letter along with the others in the past year onto his bulletin board. He noticed some greasy fingerprints and thought of Ron eating salty potato chips or something close to that.

Harry then went outside after his aunt yelled for him to go pull weeds in the garden. When he was out there, which happened to be all afternoon, he noticed there was a leprechaun in the bush next to him. It seemed very unlikely to him that there was a little leprechaun at Number Four Privet Drive. When he saw it run under the fence and into the next yard startled, he remembered last year at the World Quidditch Cup, Ireland against Bulgaria. Each country got to bring a mascot from their country. The Bulgarians brought veela which were beautiful dancers on the outside, but on the inside, giant bird type creatures.

And of course, Ireland, being Irish, brought the leprechauns which teased Bulgaria throughout the game with phrases such as "HEE! HEE! HEE!" whenever the other team had a penalty.

Harry, exhausted, walked up to his room after cooking dinner and fell asleep short after tumbling down on his bed.