Chapter 5
65 Little Chesterton Lane
Harry walked home an hour later juggling three grocery bags that were loaded down with quite a few heavy items including three pans and the makings of several decent-sounding meals. He did not know if after he was finished with the ingredients they would be as tasty as Cassie had made them sound but at least he figured he would probably not starve.
He entered the quiet street where his house was located and walked past the first two houses on the street. He stood between the second and third houses and looked at the empty space between them. Shaking his head in amazement, he set the grocery bags down on the lawn and looked up and down the street. It was definitely deserted, just what he needed. He fished in the pocket of his jeans, a more difficult task than usual as they were extremely snug with the wand and the fact that they were already very small. He pulled out the first piece of paper, no . . . that was Cassie's phone number. His face pinkened slightly. He pulled out the next piece of paper, thicker than the first. Yeah, this was it, the parchment piece that Dumbledore had left with him the night before. He opened it and read the address of the house on it, 65 Little Chesterton Lane. He shouldn't be surprised to see a house suddenly grow in front of him, pushing the two houses to either side out of its path. He shouldn't be surprised because he had seen the house at 12 Grimmauld Place do this two years ago several times, but it always amazed him nonetheless. He gathered up his bags and climbed the front steps, pausing at the door. "Password" the doorbell said to him and Harry said "Sir Cadogan" quickly, anxious to get inside the door and to safety. The doorbell said, as the door swung open on silent hinges, "It's about time you got in, you know. You've been gone too long." Harry rolled his eyes. Just what he needed, a doorbell that dispensed advice about his coming and going.
He locked the door behind him as Dumbledore had instructed. He did not exactly understand how these locks worked but apparently they allowed the house to once again disappear so that the Fidelius charm would be effective. Harry set the bags on the rickety table in the kitchen. By now, he was starving and thought that if he didn't get his bacon cooked pretty soon, he was going to have to get desperate and actually eat some of the multi-grain cracked wheat sprout type of bread that had somehow mysteriously taken the place of the white bread in his cart as he had pushed it to the check-out stand.
After breakfast, Harry finished putting away the groceries into the small fridge and rather rickety looking cupboards. He took the piece of paper with Cassie's phone number on it out of his pants pocket once again and stuck it to the fridge with a magnet. The note on it was brief: "Call me if you have trouble remembering any of the recipes I gave you."
She had shoved it into his hand as she had left him before he paid for the groceries. She had been pushing her rather overloaded shopping cart out into the parking lot. "My mom will be here any second to pick me up. I've got to run, but here" and then she had been gone. Harry was not sure, looking at the number now, whether he would dare call her or not. There was a phone in the house and he knew that it worked because he had checked last night before he went to bed, just out of curiosity. But he was not sure whether using the phone was a smart idea. He was supposed to be "lying low," pretending to be dead, staying by himself, etc., etc. He was not sure that calling pretty (and she really was, he thought, very pretty) Muggle girls was on the Dumbledore list of approved hiding-out activities. He seriously doubted it. He decided that he would not call her unless he desperately needed her for some really important reason and even then, maybe he would use a payphone down the street rather than risk making the phone call from his "invisible" house.
He left the kitchen and walked into the main room of the house. On the desk, Dumbledore had left him a quill, some ink, and a rather thick stack of parchment, along with some envelopes, before he left the night before. Dumbledore had instructed him that he was to write him every day with a report of his activities (another reason calling Cassie would probably not be a fantastic idea), and mail the letter in the post box at the end of the street.
Harry had visions of sending out letters addressed to "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, somewhere in Scotland," but Dumbledore had assured him that if the letters just went to this regular Muggle street address, a friend would forward them by special owl post. No reason that Harry had to risk sending anything by owl. "And if I need to speak to you, Harry, I will send Sir Lionel here and he can give you any critical messages." He had then handed Harry a fairly small painting of a dusty-looking old knight who was sleeping away in his frame. "I have had a painting of him installed in my office. To the best of my knowledge, only these two paintings of him exist so no one else will be able to eavesdrop on our conversations." Harry had asked why he could not just send Sir Lionel to Dumbledore rather than work through this convoluted mail and owl system, but Dumbledore had explained that sending a picture to convey a message was a minor bit of magic, but if someone was really looking closely for magic in unexpected places, it might be a tip-off. "Obviously, Harry, if it is an emergency, then go ahead and use Sir Lionel, but make sure that the risk is worth it."
Harry obligingly then wrote the first note to Dumbledore, stuck it in the envelope, stuck a stamp onto it, and put it near the door. He would take it out when he went clothes shopping later. He had not mentioned Cassie. He was not sure why he hadn't. Maybe, he decided, he just didn't want to take a chance that Dumbledore would send back a message telling him that he was never to contact her again. That was a risk that Harry was not quite sure he was willing to take.