One night, shortly after coming back to the Dursleys', Harry was sitting by the window. The reason he could not sleep was presently wreaking havoc all over Europe, cursing wizards and Muggles alike, roaming the continent on a horrific killing spree. The reason he could not sleep had a long, snakelike face with thin red eyes and pupils that were catlike slits, and a high, cold voice. Lord Voldemort, recently risen from the realm of the undead, haunted Harry in his thoughts and in his dreams. He was an omnipresent threat in and to Harry's life. Every night, Harry slept in fits and starts, drifting and dreaming, but waking abruptly after graphic nightmares, a scream trying to escape through his clenched teeth. Tonight he had fallen asleep dreaming of playing Quidditch.

The referee blew the whistle and Harry kicked off from the ground. He suddenly felt free and unrestrained; the wind whipped his hair and he soared high into the sky. But as he looked down at the other players, he realized that he was the only person wearing his uniform colours, Gryffindor's scarlet and gold robes. The other team wore black robes with the hoods up, and all of them wore leering grins. Harry recognized some of them. There was his archnemesis Draco Malfoy, and his father Lucius. He saw Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, and huge, burly men who could only be their fathers. There was Peter Pettigrew, the treacherous turncoat who had handed over Harry's parents to Voldemort almost fourteen years ago. Harry realized suddenly that all of the other players were Death Eaters, Lord Voldemort's nefarious disciples. He was surrounded. He also realized that he wasn't on his regular Firebolt, but was riding a Comet 1, a cruder, slower model,, and that he was without his wand. He was seventy feet above the ground and completely defenseless, and the Death Eaters were quickly advancing on him, every one mounted on a swift, speedy Nimbus Two Thousand and One. Harry desperately dipped and wove around them, trying to manoeuvre his own awkward broomstick, but it was to no avail; the Death Eaters swooped and looped around him easily, each pulling a crooked twig from the end of Harry's substandard broom till he was riding nothing but a long, thin pole. Looking down at the stands, a face stood out of the crowds, and Harry felt his insides turn to ice as he found himself staring into a pale, snakelike face with narrowed red eyes. Lord Voldemort was in the crowds, hexing him, and in his dream Harry screamed, because Voldemort was raising a wand. A deadly curse was imminent, but Harry couldn't stay in the air on his skeleton broom long enough to wait for it. He screamed as he fell, the cold air rushing past his face, and the ground rose up to meet him-

Then Harry had woken up. His scar had been searing excruciatingly as he jolted awake, and now, several hours later, as he sat by the window, his scar still burned a little. He had tried drinking warm milk before bed as he had done at Mrs. Figg's house, but he had discovered that for some odd reason, it didn't work so well at number four Privet Drive. It had taken some time before Harry remembered that the milk he had drunk had always been prepared by Mrs. Figg, and that she was a skilled Potions maker; she had obviously been mixing in some kind of Sleeping Draught.

Outside the window, it was drizzling, as it had been for the past few days. Hedwig had left the house the day before, and Harry was loath to think of her out in the rain, getting soaked. But he couldn't blame her for wanting to be free of her cage; he himself longed to abandon the Dursleys and number four Privet Drive. Harry yearned to run away and leave everything behind, to desert everyone and move to someplace where no one knew his name, and where magical scars didn't wake people up in the middle of the night, stinging with enough vengeance to crack people's heads in half. Where evil wizard lords didn't exist, and Voldemort was just a made-up name. But-here Harry checked himself, and stopped his imagination from dreaming up a fantasy world. He was here and now, in this world where Voldemort was a very real global threat. The world would never achieve that utopian state if Harry didn't do something-but that was part of Harry's problem, too: no one would tell him what was happening, and he wasn't being allowed out of Privet Drive, besides his stay with Mrs. Figg the month before.

Harry gazed despondently out into the rain, then frowned curiously when he noticed a large white speck against the fat white moon, getting bigger and bigger. Harry realized what it was just before it crashed into the house, and hurriedly opened the window to let in Hedwig and a tawny owl, carrying a large, heavy parcel between them. Both owls were waterlogged and looked exhausted, but after Harry had dried off the tawny owl it hooted appreciatively and took off again. Harry shut the window behind it and turned his attention to Hedwig, who, when she was dry, hopped into her cage and fell asleep. Only then did Harry open up the parcel, which had been tightly wrapped in plastic and bound with twine. He cleared away the plastic wrap and discovered a pile of textbooks, new rolls of parchment, and spare quills. There were also two envelopes with his name and address on each. Harry recognized the first as the annual letter from Hogwarts telling him what materials he would need for next year-but curiously, it was already opened. The other envelope was addressed in his godfather Sirius Black's scrawl, and Harry ripped open the letter eagerly, hoping for news of his godfather's situation and an explanation for this strange package.

Dear Harry,

Surprise! I have taken the liberty of getting you your new school things for your fifth year. Now you have everything on the equipment list, which is enclosed, and you didn't even have to leave Privet Drive and go all the way to Diagon Alley. You know, I expect profuse thanks for doing this errand for you.

Snuffles

Harry gaped at the letter. Then he looked at the books, and then read the letter again. Profuse thanks? Going down to Diagon Alley had been the one thing he had been looking forward to since Mrs. Figg had left, and now they wouldn't even let him go. He balled up his fists in outrage. Did they think he was still a child, that he couldn't be trusted to look after himself? Did no one trust him?

Harry flopped back on his bed. Then he furiously crumpled up the note and shredded it into tiny pieces, and threw them into his wastebasket. I'm fifteen years old and no one trusts me to go buy books, Harry thought irritably. Yeah, thanks a lot, Sirius.

* * *

During the night, the rain slowed to a drizzle and then stopped entirely. When Harry fell asleep at last, a shadowy figure stole out from behind the hedge and tiptoed across the Dursleys' slippery wet lawn. But she found that some kind of invisible barricade had been erected right through the middle of Petunia Dursley's flowerbed. Figuring that it was at least worth a try, the witch stepped back and drew a wand from inside her robes.

"Avada-" she began.

Suddenly a cat with dark square marks around her eyes and a gold ring on her right paw appeared jumped out from the azalea bushes and surprised the witch. The cat sprang at at the witch and knocked the wand from her hand.

The cat gave a yowl and a young wizard appeared suddenly. He was a tall lean Black boy of twenty-three, with purple eyes (the result of a tiff with a friend in the Department of Experimental Charms, who had promptly died without leaving the countercurse) and a golden ring on the little finger of his right hand.

The wizard drew his wand and aimed at the witch. "Stupefy!"

The witch collapsed, unconscious, in Petunia Dursley's prized hydrangeas.

The wizard, Quintius Croaker, heaved a sigh. "That was close, Minerva."

He turned to the cat and found a grim-faced witch beside him. Her ring had stayed on her hand through the transformation from cat to woman. "It was a rather clumsy attempt, Croaker," said Minerva McGonagall, "but it was a close call. We must tighten up security." She looked up at Harry's window. "Fortunately, the boy still doesn't suspect a thing."

The wizard put out his hand and felt a wall that he could not see. "I don't understand what's going on here. Albus hadn't time to explain. Could you tell me quickly?"

"Well, as you know, since Voldemort came back in June, his old followers have been stirred up a bit. A lot of them, wanting their master's esteem, have tried to come here and kill Harry Potter. Presumably Voldemort sees Potter as some sort of symbol for the magical community. He has a mad obsession with killing Potter, even when the boy's no threat to him anymore."

"Isn't he? What happened to the one not being able to touch the other for the pain?"

"Voldemort went round that one. He used Potter's blood in his resurrection potion. He took rather the long way round according to Dumbledore, but it was still effective. But he's still fixated on Potter, and Dumbledore thinks that's how we might get him. These Death Eaters," she gave the witch at her feet a little kick, "they keep coming to kill Potter, so Voldemort obviously wants him dead somehow."

"But he's not sending them," said Croaker. "That's not his style. His approach is going to be much more roundabout, just like his way of avoiding the pain from Potter. I think he'd rather like to do the job himself." Minerva McGonagall shuddered, but Croaker took no notice. "He knows that there are few people he can trust to do it. Even his loyal Death Eaters let their ambition overleap them and make critical mistakes. Some of them are complete bunglers, like our would-be assassin here. And do you know, I think Voldemort would get more satisfaction out of killing the boy himself."

"He has been chasing Potter forever," agreed Minerva. "But until he comes himself for the boy, we can at least arrest and convict some of these blundering traitors. You're to take her back to Dumbledore for questioning and imprisonment. Heavens, I don't know where we can put these people. Azkaban is out of the question, in Albus' opinion. He doesn't think it's secure enough, but he can't convince the Ministry."

"You're staying here?"

"Yes, but my shift ends at two-thirty. Cassius Egg is next on the schedule, I believe."

"And you'll be putting up new curseproof bulwarks?"

"Yes, Croaker. I know what I'm doing. Now be off with you."

Croaker stooped to pick up the witch in the hydrangeas, but gasped and drew back, his violet-irised eyes wide. "Ellie!"

"You know her?" Minerva asked, surprised.

"Yes, Eleanor Lovegood-she was a friend of mine when we were at Hogwarts."

"Ah yes! I remember teaching you two. Always chatting away in the back of the Transfiguration classroom like my lectures didn't matter."

"But we were in Hufflepuff, not Slytherin! I never would have imagined that she'd go in with Voldemort!"

"Dumbledore will be waiting," said McGonagall. "Go on."

Quintius Croaker vanished, carrying Eleanor Lovegood. Minerva McGonagall changed back into a cat and resumed her post, skulking behind the bushes.

Upstairs, Harry Potter slept soundly.