CHAPTER 3:

Read, Review, and Enjoy!

(a/n: I think I'm finally done with complete updating ... sorry it was such a mess for a while there. I'm in college now and updates will be scarce but I'll try hard to get some more chapters up! And just to clear this up before questions arise: this is NOT going to be a pity me Draco story...I said in a previous chapter that there were ship-hints in the chapter 2, but I ended up taking them out, so there ended up being none. I do want to add some lovin' but not sure at the moment how or who... a little undecided at the moment. )

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Mrs. Weasley was still in a bad mood by the time the book lists had arrived the next morning.

"Mum, can we go to Diagon Alley with you? We haven't been there in ages... I want to see the twins new shop..." Ginny pleaded with her mother over breakfast. Mrs. Weasley shook her head while looking very obviously in Harry's directions.

"I can stay here," Harry muttered, "Really ... they want to go," he said gloomily. He didn't want to inflict changes in other people's lives more than he had to.

"No, dear, that's quite all right, because none of us are going," Mrs. Weasley said sternly. The previous night she had sent them all to bed hours earlier than she normally would have, and when Ron went to talk to Ginny and Hermione he was yelled at for about an hour. Harry was happy to be alone for that time, even though the shrieks were disturbingly loud.

It was a quiet breakfast followed by an even quieter day. Hermione locked herself in the bedroom she was staying in to read, Ginny sulked around complaining about nothing to do, Ron napping on the sofa, and Harry had locked himself back in his room, trying to ignore the emotions that kept dragging him down. This went on until around lunch time when Mrs. Weasley called them all into the kitchen. Upon entering, Harry saw others would be joining them to eat. Sitting at the table looking rather tired were Tonks and Mundungus Fletcher.

"Hello Harry," Tonks said to him. Her hair was straight, to her waist, and midnight blue today. Dung had very bloodshot eyes and kept shaking himself every few seconds, but inclined his head in greeting.

"Tonks and Mundungus are escorting us to Diagon Alley. We are strictly going for books and school necessities then coming straight back here for a while, all right?" Mrs. Weasley said, still looking rather stern.

"What do you mean, back here for a while? Aren't we staying? Mum we aren't going to le-" Ron abruptly stopped talking at a glare from his mother. Harry didn't blame him in the slightest, if he had received a look like that, he wouldn't have continued his sentence either.

"We wouldn't be going if it wasn't for Tonks having to go to London today. And Mundungus has some rubbish down at Diagon Alley to collect," Mrs. Weasley said hollowly. Mundungus sat up straighter.

"Pardon me, Molly, but it's a very good business opposition."

"Yes, yes," Mrs. Weasley said in a hurried, off voice, "Whatever you say, Fletcher. Now floo powder is the easiest way to go. Luckily the twins shop has a fire..."

"I'll meet you by the fire, send Harry along first, then the others. Come once they are gone," Tonks said and with a loud crack she was gone. Harry couldn't help but think this was an awful lot of unnecessary planning to simply travel by floo powder. Nonetheless, he obeyed and went first into the fire.

Harry was amazed by the twin's shop. Though they were rushed out of there by Mrs. Weasley who was tutting at the chaos, Harry and the others couldn't believe all the people.

Diagon Alley was depressing, Harry thought as they wandered out into the street. It seemed as though the bookshop and Fred and George's store were the only places that had any customers. Even the main road was deserted. In the windows of the empty shops there were warnings of the Death Eaters who escaped before Voldemort was announced back by the Ministry of Magic. Next to each of the escaped convicts sheets were lists of wanted Death Eaters. On top of eerie silence in Diagon Alley, Mrs. Weasley was defiantly in the worst state Harry had ever seen her. While she would bustle the others inside a shop, she herself would stay near the door with her hand clutched in her robes as though she expected she would need to hex anyone who walked in through the door. Once inside a shop, Tonks, having previously collected money from everyone's vaults, would tell the store assistant exactly what everyone needed and in a matter of seconds they would be leaving to go to the next shop.

"Okay, well I think we are done with our shopping, we'll just get a drink in the Leaky Cauldron and be on our way," Mrs. Weasley said only an hour later, and Harry was glad to see she finally looked as though she was breathing again. Just as Harry was about to step inside, he felt a hard nudge in his ribs. He turned to Hermoine, annoyed, when he saw what the nudge was about.

"Look at him..." Hermione whispered in an odd voice. It took a moment for Harry to realize the tone was pity. Draco Malfoy walked straight past them without even glancing in their direction, but it was hardly the Malfoy that Harry remembered. His usual sleek backed hair was now long and messy, his robes wrinkled and frail. Ron interrupted Harry's mental comparison by snorting.

"His mum and him are devastated by Lucius Malfoy's imprisonment. I don't see his father getting off anytime soon. That's why Tonks is in London, you know, she's being called as a witness. With her, Kingsley, and Moody all presenting their case against him... I don't see how anyone expects him to get off. Kingsley is a top auror and Fudge has always trusted him. Moody, well, they think he's a bit insane, you know, but he's defiantly brilliant and Tonks has been pretty well-respected herself..." Ron said in an undertone so the none of the adults would hear their topic of conversation.

"Fred and George left some extendable ears for us to use, and I heard Mum talking to Bill about Azkaban. Dumbledore himself sealed some very heavy charms on the prison, and though it's not as depressing as it was when dementors were there ... it's really annoying for the Death Eaters locked up," Ginny started with a small smile. "They thought it'd be an easy escape but they're getting angry enough to start strangling each other. Plus, I heard Dad talking to Charlie and he reckons that you-know-who isn't looking to rescue them right away. You-know-who thinks that it's the Death Eater's stupidity that revealed him. Of course, this can't be too good because now he has recruits and nobody has the slightest idea who they are..." Ginny piped in a very gossip-like fashion. Ron gaped at her.

"How come you don't let me in on any of this?" His question wasn't answered though, because as there drinks came, greetings were being exchanged with Remus Lupin, who had arrived and was seated before the four even had noticed.

"Remus Lupin?" said a voice from a table nearby. A middle-aged man with sandy blonde hair who was sitting alone drinking from a smoking goblet was turned in his chair looking directly at Lupin. Harry exchanged a confused look with Ron, but Lupin seemed to know who he was as he stood up to greet the man.

"That man..." Hermione said, her eyes closed tight in concentration. "We've seen him before..." Moments later they were introduced to the man whose name was Eric Baltrox. Hermione was still quiet as the man sat down to join them with his smoking goblet. Harry couldn't help but thinking he looked vaguely familiar as well.

*****

A half an hour later and Harry was back in his room at Grimmauld Place, staring miserably at the sheet covering Sirius's great great grandfather Nigellus.

"The fact that you feel pain like this is your greatest strength..." Dumbledore said distantly in his memories.

He felt the anger sweep over him as if it were yesterday. Greatest strength? Pain made him weak. If anyone saw the pain and hurt he had inside. . .if he didn't plaster on a fake smile. . .pain is weakness. Pain is life. Defeat or be defeated.

Hours later, a knock at the door disrupted his thoughts. He blinked heavily and looked at the door, Mr. Weasley's face appearing in the small opening.

"Harry, your Aunt would like to talk to you in the kitchen," Mr. Weasley said before disappearing. Harry distantly heard footsteps going downstairs and shook his head. His Aunt? He only had one Aunt. Aunt Petunia. Maybe Mr. Weasley was becoming insane? As he stood up and crossed the room, he wondered if he had a long lost Aunt or if Snape had been slipping things into the food at Grimmauld Place.

Upon entering the kitchen, though, Harry saw it himself. Horse-faced, bony, blonde Aunt Petunia was sitting alone at the kitchen table. . .the kitchen completely deserted. Was this a trick? Harry remembered the fake Mad-Eye and on instinct, gripped his wand from inside his pocket as he sat down at the other end of the table. Minutes passed, Harry staring blankly at her, holding tightly to his wand, and Petunia holding her nose high in the air looking around the kitchen in disgust.

"I didn't want to come here," she said simply. Instead of waiting for him to answer, which he mentally told himself he wouldn't talk to her at all, she continued, "I'm here because I have to be. Don't even get the idea that I wanted to come here."

"You don't have to be here," Harry said hastily, forgetting his promise to himself not to talk. Though she had been considerably kinder in the past year, he didn't forget the 14 previous years, which in his opinion, outweighed the slight kindness by far.

"I didn't hate your mother you know," she said, ignoring his statement and emphasizing the word 'hate.' "We had a rivalry, yes, but I didn't despise her. Vernon did. He despised your kind, as you know already. When I married him your mother took it personal. She was invited to the wedding, I don't see the fuss. But when she married that man months later ... we weren't invited. And that is when we stopped talking."

Harry couldn't understand after years of ignoring that she had a sibling, she would be telling him their situation. Either way, he didn't want to hear it. He never knew his mother.

"Years afterwards," she continued, "we both had our own children, our own lives. A man showed up at our door when Dudley and you were around a year old. Short pudgy man, rat-face. He asked if I knew where Lily was. Of course I didn't! I hadn't spoken to her in years at this point, and Vernon and I didn't speak of her at all. A few weeks later, she died."

Harry felt his heart quicken at this story. Peter Pettigrew had showed up at the Dursley's? Now, more than ever, the two separate worlds had meshed together seamlessly. He could no longer see where the smuggle world ended and the magic world began.

"I still don't see why you have to show up at Grimmauld Place," he muttered bitterly.

"Grim-old place did you call this dump? Yes, well that suits it," she said, looking around the room again. "I enjoyed seeing Lily showing her magic...I suppose that was before they were banned on holidays. I never despised magic until my parents were killed...by the same person who killed my sister."

"What? Voldemort killed your...my grandparents? Why?" Harry gaped.

"In her last year of school, over the holidays. I had just finished having tea at a friends house on Christmas Day. walking home I distantly saw this bright skull floating above my house...I wasn't even let inside to see the remains..." Petunia sniffed lightly, her bony hands pressed together. "Albus Dumbledore was there, and explained that he didn't know why my parents were victims."

"So. Voldemort has taken your family and mine," he said quietly, more to himself than to her.

"Harry," Petunia began, her voice now sharp again. Harry's head snapped in her direction. He couldn't remember the last time she had even said his name. "The headmaster of your school says you should come back home."

"Home?" Harry asked suspiciously. Since when had she ever referred to Number 4 Privet Drive as his home as well as her own?

"He has already explained to you the importance of blood that runs with both you and I. He has told me the more time you spend at home the safer things will be."

Harry nodded, his hand now sweating from the tight grip on his wand, he stood up and followed her to the fire, where Mr. Weasley stood with a pot of floo powder.