Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
A/N: Hello again! I'm sorry this took so long, I tried to get it written by Christmas, but it is now the 27th, a tad-bit late. I'm sorry. Well, hopefully I can write this all tonight, but the roommate could come back at any moment. I greatly dislike it when they are here. Anywho, I always seem to talk about them, I'll shut up now. Here's the story.
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Harry ran down the hallways as fast as he could. He could only imagine what his friends and professors were thinking. And he especially didn't want them thinking that he was hurt, or worse, caught by Voldemort. As he rounded the corner, mere feet away from the portrait of the Fat Lady, he ran smack dab into none other than Snape.
"Great." He muttered to himself. Of all the people who had to find him, it had to be Snape.
"Well, well, well. Mr. Potter, I think you have some explaining to do." he said, grabbing him by the neck of his robes and dragging him in the direction of Dumbledore's office. As soon as Professor Snape opened the door, he knew he was in trouble. It appeared as if half the damn staff was congregated in the room, forming a search party of some sorts. Not only were there teachers, there were also many Weasley's. Four of them to be exact. Molly, Arthur, Charlie, and Bill Weasley were looking at him with something akin to fear, joy, and extremely ticked off. He was dead meat, and he knew it.
"Where the hell have you been?" roared Mrs. Weasley, rounding on him as soon as she saw him. She hadn't meant to sound so course, but the thought of losing him again was too much to bear. "Are you out of your mind? You had us sick with worry!" she grasped him by the shoulders and bore her eyes into his. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." he said, averting his gaze from her own. He felt like the embodiment of crap. He should have paid more attention to the time. "I'm sorry, really, I just lost track of time. I didn't even notice until Cedric pointed it out…" he stopped in mid-sentence, realizing what he said. He noticed that all in the room, who hadn't previously had their eyes on him, now did. "Way to go, dumbass.'
"Harry, you said Cedric. You mean Diggory?" asked Professor Dumbledore. Harry thought the headmaster looked slightly alarmed. He was also fairly certain that Dumbledore would believe that Cedric couldn't come back because of the way he died. Little did he know. But he didn't know if he could tell this certain secret or not. He also knew that if anyone would understand, it would be Dumbledore.
"Harry, are you sure you're feeling alright?" asked Sirius, walking up towards his godson.
"Apparently, Black, your godson has gone off his rocker." said Snape sardonically. Harry noticed for the first time that the greasy haired git still had a hold of his robes.
"Shut the hell up, Snape." hissed Sirius, practically pushing Harry into Snape's body. "My godson is perfectly sane, unlike some people I know." he said, drawing even closer to the man he hated most.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, BLACK!" he yelled, face to face with Sirius.
"Now, now, you two, I think that is quite enough." said Professor Dumbledore, making his way towards the two arguing in front of him. The two eldest Weasley son's made to drag the two away, but before they got the chance, Harry reacted. The whole time his godfather and his potions professor had been arguing, they had been getting progressively closer and closer to each other, squashing Harry between them. This was not a feeling he liked, confinement. As the two grew closer, Harry could feel himself panicking, and a weird sensation started inside of him. If he didn't get the two off of him right then and there, he thought he would explode. And he did.
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Ron sat in his dormitory, Hermione by his side. She had long given up on the rule of no girls in the boy's dorms.
"Guess what!" yelled Colin Creevy, entering the room without knocking. Ron and Hermione looked up in mild interest, never believing that Colin would have anything constructive to say. "They found Harry!" he said, clapping his hands together like a giddy child. Before they had time to process the information, Colin left the room again. They looked at each other in a moment of silence, and then it hit them.
"Oh my god!" yelled Ron, jumping up from the bed, dragging Hermione with him. "They found him, yes, yes, yes!"
"Come on, let's go see where he is." They started to leave the dorms, when they heard a strange noise coming from behind them. It was Harry's trunk, it was bouncing up and down like something was trying to get out of it.
"What's that?" asked Hermione, edging closer to the trunk.
"I don't know. Shall we check it out?" he asked, also moving towards the trunk.
Hermione just nodded her head and cautiously unlocked the trunk. As soon as she did, Harry's staff came flying up, it was glowing as they had never seen it do before. They jumped back in surprise.
Ron looked at his friend in complete shock, before they both ran out of the room. They had to get to Dumbledore.
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Before Harry knew what was happening, he felt as if he was being surged by power. He saw streaks of blue light, but he couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then he felt it explode, the light, the energy, all of it, coming from inside him. He saw professor Snape and Sirius go flying through the air, and also saw the others in the room being thrown against the walls, or knocked onto the floor. He had to get control, he was hurting them. With all his energy he focused on controlling the power that seemed to emanate from him. He could feel it dying away, as if it had never happened at all, except for the fact that the room looked as if a tornado had just blown through.
He stood there, regaining the breath he seemed to have lost.
"Harry," asked Dumbledore cautiously. He was pretty sure he knew what just happened. Harry had felt trapped, and had reacted. Violently. "look at me." Harry slowly brought his head up and locked gazes with the headmaster. To his sides, he could make out the others picking themselves up off the floor, or wherever they had landed.
"Are you calm?" asked Dumbledore.
"Yes."
Snape looked on the verge of killing someone. "Potter, you idiot, are you trying to get someone killed."
Harry, however, looked on the verge of tears. "I didn't mean to do that." The thought of hurting someone, involuntary or not, brought back all his feelings of guilt. It brought back the haunting image of Cedric Diggory lying dead on the ground. 'I thought I was over that.' Apparently not.
Snape advanced on Harry so quickly that Harry took a step back in shock. The man moved fast. "You may not have meant it, but it happened. What the hell was that?" he asked. He had never seen anything quite like it.
"I don't know." said Harry, who found his godfather standing next to him. When did he get there, he didn't know.
He felt crowded, like there were too many people in the room. "I need some air." he said, walking towards the door. But Snape stopped him.
"Wait just a moment, Potter." he looked semi afraid. The thought of getting blasted across the room again wasn't all that appealing. "You still have some explaining to do."
Harry stopped in front of the door and turned around. "I lost track of time, it won't happen again."
"What about Cedric Diggory?" pushed Severus.
"Wishful thinking, nothing more." he stated, and then walked out the door.
"What in the world just happened here?" asked Professor McGonagall, who was nursing to a cut on her arm, compliments of the wall slamming into her. However, at that precise moment, Ron and Hermione burst into the room.
"Dumbledore…" began Ron, but stopped when he noticed that half his family was gathered in the headmaster's office. "What are you doing here?"
"We came to help look for Harry, but that is no longer necessary. We found him." explained Molly.
"We know he was found, but we came for a different reason." Hermione broke in.
"And what reason was that Ms. Granger?" Dumbledore had sat down at his desk, looking extremely tired.
"Harry's staff…" began Ron, but stopped when he noticed the looks he was getting.
"What exactly happened with his staff?" asked Snape. Ron sneered at him before addressing Dumbledore once again.
Ron looked at Hermione to explain. "Well, it kind of came alive, I guess you could say. It nearly broke out of Harry's trunk, and then it started glowing again, but it was brighter than ever before."
"That explains a lot then." said Sirius. "We shouldn't have been crowding him. It scared him." He seemed about to spit fire at Severus.
"Don't look at me. It's more your fault than mine."
"That's enough, from the both of you!" bellowed Dumbledore, and immediately the two quieted down.
"I suppose we'll have to help Harry learn to control the staff." mused the headmaster.
Without another word, Dumbledore left the room, followed by the teachers. Ron and Hermione gathered around the Weasley's and Sirius.
"What just happened here?" asked Hermione.
"Harry happened, dear." replied Mrs. Weasley.
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In the next few months, Harry was taught to control the staff, and the power which threatened to explode anytime Harry felt he was in danger. But soon, he no longer even had to think about it and the urge to 'explode' was suppressed. However, he was becoming more and more anxious of the impending visitation with his uncle and his family. Spending the entire break with them was beginning to worry him. Due to the 'incident' earlier in the year, he hadn't been having the regular sessions with his uncle, and he began to worry again. He was sixteen years old, and the fact that he was scared of his uncle kind of ticked him off. But if his uncle did decide to attack him, it would be useless. His uncle outweighed him by at least 200 pounds. He also couldn't use magic, which sucked in his opinion. But his social worker, Indra Rostau, had reassured him time and time again that his uncle was changing. Today was the last visitation with his uncle before the Christmas Holidays.
As he sat in the common room of Gryffindor Tower, he heard the Portrait slide open behind him. He turned around and saw that it was Indra. Harry looked at her confused.
"Where's my uncle?" he asked.
"He's waiting in the Great Hall. I just wanted to have a little discussion with you before we head down there. Is that alright with you?"
"Yeah, sure." he said. He actually had wanted to talk with her privately as well. He heard from his godfather that it was Indra who had discovered he was alive. He wanted to thank her for that.
"Well, for starters, what do you think about your uncle? Do you feel secure when you're around him, or do you still feel as if you can't trust him?"
Harry paused for a moment to consider the question. He honestly didn't know how he felt. Sometimes he felt as if his uncle had changed, other times, he couldn't tell. "Well, I don't think I could ever trust him again, and I really don't feel secure when I'm around him. I don't think I ever will. Because of what he did, I don't think I'll ever feel safe around him."
"That's perfectly understandable, Harry. You have every right to feel untrustworthy towards him. But I have the feeling that he is trying to change. He wants you to trust him. And Harry," she began and looked at him very seriously, "if he does try anything, I'll feel it, especially if you call out to me."
Harry looked at Indra as if she had lost her mind. "Call out to you?" he asked.
"Precisely."
Harry still looked confused. "You heard me, didn't you?" he asked, realization dawning on his face. "When I was…down there. You heard me."
"Yes, Harry, I did."
"But how?" he asked, still not completely absorbing the information.
"I guess you could say I have a rare and special gift. I can sense when someone is in pain, emotional, physical, or otherwise. But I have to be close by to feel it. That is why I became a social worker, Harry. As soon as I enter a home, I can feel whether or not that child has been abused. It gives me the strength I need to take a child away from their caregivers and know that I'm doing the right thing. Do you understand?"
"Yes, but what if you're too far away to hear me?"
"Call out to me, use your mind. I'll hear it, no matter how far away I am." she patted his hand lightly, but I honestly don't think you'll ever have to use it. I feel the change in him. He desperately wants you to trust in him."
"Thanks Indra, it helps to know that."
"Sure thing, kid." She stood up from the table and motioned for the door. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah."
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Before he knew it, Christmas Break had arrived. He was so nervous he was shaking.
"Don't worry, Harry, everything will be fine." said Sirius, although he wasn't sure he believed it himself. "You mail me every day, you understand?"
"I will, believe me, I will." he said, dragging his trunk over to the door. "Sirius?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry for slamming you against the wall that day." he had been wanting to say that to him for a long time, but had honestly never got the chance to do it, what with everything that had been going on.
Sirius grasped Harry's arms and pulled him into a hug. "Don't you worry on it. It's in the past and I don't want you to feel bad. It didn't hurt me, so forget about it, alright?"
"Thanks, Sirius."
"Anytime." Sirius hugged Harry tightly, never wanting to let him go. He had a feeling about this, and it wasn't a good one. "Be careful, promise me."
"I promise."
"If he does anything, you get a hold of someone, we'll come and get you."
"Don't worry, I will."
"I'm counting on it." whispered Sirius.
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As Harry was about to board the Hogwarts Express, he was surprised to see Dumbledore coming towards him.
"Hello, Harry. I just wanted to give you a little present before you leave."
"Oh, okay." he said, unsure of what his headmaster would want to give to him. As he stood there waiting, Dumbledore pulled a medium sized mirror out of his robes and handed it to Harry.
"A mirror?" he asked, wondering want in the world he would do with a mirror.
"It's a magical mirror, Harry. Think of it as a looking glass. You will be able to talk directly to me through it. And if the need arises, you can use it to bring you directly back to Hogwarts."
Harry was amazed, he never felt so cared about in his life. "Thank you Dumbledore, but if this is a port key, won't it bring me straight back when I touch it?"
"Not exactly, Harry. It's not the same as a port key. If you feel you are in danger, just touch the mirror and say 'return.' You will immediately arrive in Hogwarts, in my office to be exact." said Dumbledore. "Oh, and Harry, always keep it with you."
"I will, Professor."
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The second Vernon had Harry in his hands, he was jumping up and down inside with glee. Now all he had to wait on was that stupid social worker to make her unannounced visit. Thankfully, he had overheard the woman on the telephone talking to her boss. He knew precisely when the visit would be and also knew it would take place only one time the entire break, much to Rostau's dismay. Apparently they needed her elsewhere, and thought he was progressing just fine.
What did they know, anyways?
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A/N: sorry to leave it here, but I thought it was about time for another cliffy. Besides, I need to come up with horrible ideas on what Vernon could possibly do to Harry. I have one in mind, and you'll probably shoot me for it. You'll just have to wait to find out. Review!!!!!!!!! And maybe you'll get the update tomorrow!!!!!!!! MAYBE!!!!!!!!
Lily Evans: I'm very glad you liked it!
To whom it may concern: Ah, you cried through four chapters? Cool. I'm glad I had such a profound affect on you. Thanks on the complex imagination. I hope to only improve on that trait in the next chapters! Keep reading!
CCChute81: If you are reading this, I'll think on it.
Lanfear: Prepare yourself, the Dursley's are coming full force next chapter in all their evilness. Well, hopefully you'll have two updates by the time you're back. Thanks for the cookie!
Deity: Thanks! I love these kinds of reviews! Well, as long as you kept reading it, that's awesome. Keep up with your work, though. Never mind, just read my story! Characterization is always good and I tried with Cedric.
Dream: It's what I live for, to keep you in suspense, of course. Updated! Be a happy person!
MixedUpAgain: I tried not to make the last chapter a cliffy, but this one sort of is. Vernon's all revved up on hurting Harry again. Why does a math class want to know what your career will be? Shouldn't they be more concerned with, say, math? Babies are awesome. I love 'em. Of course Cedric's back. I can't answer whether or not he'll die again, but don't count on it. I hate it when people don't update like immediately. SO I at least try to do it a few times a month. Sounds interesting with the LOR thing! Shit, I died! I don't know what they actually say, but it sounded good.
Jade Caminus: Oh, I'm tearing up. One of the best stories you've ever read. Cool. Just so you know, I have a person who was reading my story in class and ended up yelling when something bad happened. It was hilarious. She had to come up with an excuse for yelling out. Like everyone was looking at her. I'll read your story as soon as possible.
Burnin broom gal: I'm sorry about the dream, but I figure I should warn you now, it's gonna get worse! That dream you had is seriously disgusting. I would have freaked out. Yes, the finals are finally over.
Lei Dumbledore: I love them too! I was listening to them on my musicmatch jukebox the other night, although it's not Christmas anymore, oh well. I've discovered that living on your own sucks. I've also decided that I'm never living with anyone else ever again, at least until I find the perfect guy. Glad you liked this chapter! Thanks and good luck with the rest of the semester, and grad school, if you go!
Weird: Long time no see! It's alright. How are you doing on that story of yours? Last time I checked you hadn't updated. Not that bored, I'm still going.
Masty2424: I am very glad you won! I've noticed a story where they had Harry kill himself on a tower, but that is definitely not what I was going for. In fact, those stories aggravate me. I just can't ever picture Harry killing himself, he's too strong for that. But that's my opinion. I'm here, just hang on, ms. I review on every chapter! Ha, just kidding.
Iniysa: Glad you liked it.
Autumn Breeze: I know, that is exactly what I thought. Harry couldn't possibly kill himself. It's just not right. And Harry will remain Harry. Kind of. Thanks!
JaimeyKay: Oh you! Hermione and Ron! Cool, just read the next chapter and review a very long review!
Amy Potter 13: Your wish is my command.
Ta Ta for now.