In Every Darkness
Chapter Twenty: Happy Birthday Harry
31.8.1996(Morning)
Harry awoke on the morning of his birthday feeling as though a happy cloud surrounded him. Getting up, he looked down at the clothes he was wearing, realising that he'd pretty much been wearing the same clothes for the past several days.
Sure, he'd been cleaning them with charms, but that wasn't the same thing. Searching through his wardrobe, he eventually settled on black, wide pants, a black t-shirt and a light, dark blue hooded jumper.
Pulling the hood up to shield his face, Harry went around his room, pulling out everything that he was taking with him. He was going to leave most of it at Grimmauld Place, since he would be going away for most of the year anyway, and it would be safer there, away from the Dursley's.
Once he had everything in a pile, he settled down on the bed with Return of the King (he'd finished the other two parts of the trilogy) to read until whoever came to pick him up arrived.
Just as he was getting to a good bit in the story, he heard a commotion out near the front door, and then a crash as someone entered the house. "What the?" he whispered, standing up.
He listened hard, what had happened? Then there were screams of pure terror and pain – the cruciatus, that was the only spell that Harry knew to cause such a sound in human throats.
Suddenly there was a crash by his window, Harry spun around, wand leaping up wards, a spell half said before he realised it was Tatsu and stopped. "What's going on out there?" Harry demanded, stepping towards his door – the screams of those he could only assume to be the Dursley's seemed to be driven into his skull, he could not escape from them.
"Don't go out there. The man that was protecting you is dead," Tatsu's voice was cold and angry. "Your relatives will soon join him – there is nothing you can do."
"There must be something," Harry snarled, desperate, taking another step towards the door to the main house.
Suddenly Tatsu was across the room, his hand holding onto Harry's shoulder with a grip that was almost painfully tight. "I cannot allow you to go out there. It would be a suicide," he informed his young student.
"With you helping it wouldn't be!" Harry protested angrily, trying to shake off his tutors restraining hands.
"There are limits! I told you that! I cannot do everything, and there are too many Death Eaters out there for the two of us to take on! You and the world will gain nothing by you going out there and inevitable getting killed! Now, shrink your things, and get on a broom, we need to get out of here!"
Harry took one, last regretful look at the door, before doing as he had been instructed. Shrinking everything that he'd pulled out, he and Tatsu quickly stuffed it all into various pockets.
"Now, your broom?" Tatsu asked him.
Harry held out the Firebolt. "Don't you want to do something about your house though? Won't they go there?"
"There are wards around my place already, boy. We must get out of here. Where is the nearest place likely to be connected to the floo network?"
"One second," Harry responded, "I'm sorry Hedwig," he added to his owl, "but I'm gonna have to put a spell on you. I'm going to make you invisible, and you are going to fly to number twelve Grimmauld Place, got that?"
Hedwig hooted forlornly. Harry knew that she understood what he wanted; she just didn't like the idea of having a spell put on her. Harry sighed and waved his wand. "I'll get someone to take it off when I arrive," he told his owl.
There was a hoot from somewhere near the window – it seemed that Hedwig was already on her way. "Now, Harry, we are out of here!" Tatsu informed him sternly.
The screaming had stopped, Harry noted, as he mounted his broom, leaving enough room for Tatsu to sit behind him. Once more, Harry performed an invisibility charm, this time on himself and his passenger.
He could almost sense Tatsu modifying it – but that was impossible, wasn't it? Deciding to worry about impossible things later, Harry kicked off the ground, swooped out of his room, circling round to the front of the house.
There were several Death Eaters standing guard. Harry saw some Muggles, stunned and tightly bound, lying on the ground nearby. They must have tried to interfere.
He saw a flash of green light – how many times had Avada Kedavra been used inside his house, he wondered.
When all of the Death Eaters trooped out of the house, Harry knew. All of his relatives were dead. He was truly alone in the world now.
"Harry, moving?" Tatsu hissed at him.
Harry ignored his tutor, still watching the Death Eaters below. All of the Death Eaters – there were thirteen – turned their attention to the house.
Harry could see a figure lying in front of them, near the doorstep. This was the person who'd been going to take him the Order of the Phoenix today, he realised. But who was it?
He knew that he didn't dare go any closer to find out. One of the Death Eaters kicked the figure roughly inside of the house, and then all thirteen pointed their wands at the house.
Harry did not hear the words that they used, but he saw green light blazing from their wands. The house crumbled and fell. Harry stared at it.
"Fifteen years I've lived there," he whispered. "Fifteen years of complete hell … and now it's gone …" Tatsu just rested a hand against Harry's shoulder.
Twelve of the Death Eaters disappeared. The last one waved his wand and at the Muggles, and, one a time, the Muggles died, hit with the green light that was Avada Kedavra.
The man seemed about to Disaparate, then paused a moment and threw something on the ruins of Harry's house. Then he was gone. Harry didn't hear the crack that would have accompanied his coming; he was more intent on what was happening to whatever it was that the Death Eater had thrown on the house.
"Harry, let's go," Tatsu urged him.
"No, I want to see what thing that the Death Eater threw on the house was," Harry replied determinedly.
"I can't let you go down there to check it out. Death Eaters have been known to leave spells that will make the house blow up in the face of whoever first approaches it," Tatsu told him firmly.
But it turned out that the warning was unneeded. Just as Harry was preparing to argue, an eerie green light began to glow around the house, and then a Dark Mark leapt into the sky, but underneath it was writing, in the same, eerie green colour.
Happy Birthday Harry.
Harry gave a low snarl of absolute fury.
"Harry, calm down. You help no one by losing your temper. Have I taught you nothing? Seek the Centre, now!" Tatsu ordered him.
Harry hesitated, but his mind was already dropping through the levels until it reached the Centre. There, he was calm, and he embraced it, welcomed it with open arms.
"Now, Harry, let's go and find a place where we can floo to Grimmauld Place," Tatsu suggested softly.
Harry nodded. His anger and guilt had faded away, almost completely, and he knew that now he had to watch out for his own survival.
The pair of them soared over the houses, but not for long. Soon Harry was heading downwards once more, finally alighting on the street beside a house.
"This is Mrs. Figg's house," Harry explained to Tatsu. "I don't know if you know of her, but she's a Squib who's sort of been looking after me."
"I know of her."
"I'm fairly sure that she'll have access to the Floo network, and we will be able to use her fire reach Sirius's house – we could not use a fire if it would give away the Order's hideout to one who did not already know," Harry stated.
Tatsu smiled. "Good, boy. You know what you are doing – that is always important when it comes to being an Auror."
Harry smiled slightly at the complement, and swiftly removed the spell that concealed them. He knocked on the door of Arabella's house.
A moment later the door was opened. Arabella looked at him, obviously surprised to see him there. "Boy! It is not safe for you outside your relatives house, especially without anyone to guard you. You are supposed to be at Grimmauld Place by now!" she hissed at him.
A pained expression played across Harry's face, and he turned to point over the house-tops in the direction of Privet Drive. Arabella Figg looked out and gasped. "Come in, quickly. They might be still in the area," she cried, practically hauling him into the house.
Tatsu stepped in just before she closed the door. "Hello Arabella," he greeted her calmly. "The Death Eaters are gone now, we watched them depart. But we must contact the Order, immediately."
Arabella nodded. "This way. I'll give you some Floo Powder. Someone will come around and tell me what's going on, sooner or later. Right now the most important thing is that Dumbledore learns what has happened here."
"Thanks Mrs. Figg," Harry said, snatching some Floo Powder and disappearing for Grimmauld Place in seconds flat.
"You're welcome Harry," she told the fire, even if he couldn't hear her. Before she could say a word to Tatsu, he'd followed the boy into the fire.
*** Point of View Change***
Dumbledore was waiting expectantly with almost everyone else in the Order for Harry to arrive. They had a large birthday party planned, and everyone wanted to get started.
"They're late," Mrs. Weasley remarked disapprovingly. "I thought you said they would be here almost an hour ago, Albus!"
"They should have been," the venerable wizard responded, and there was worry in his voice.
Ron and Hermione were both silent and pale, praying that nothing had happened to their friend. Dumbledore was fairly sure that most people in the room were doing the same – he knew that he was!
Suddenly the fire glowed green. There were several indrawn breaths – this wasn't the way Harry was supposed to arrive!
Harry stumbled out the fire – alone.
"Harry! What happened? Where were you? Where's …"
The questions stopped as the fire went green a second time. Harry had not spoken a word – he looked tired, angry and confused.
Everyone looked expectantly at the fire, waiting for the man who'd gone to fetch Harry to step out of the flames. But it was not who was expected that came.
"Tatsu Kendo?" Breathed Dumbledore, and immediately everyone's attention was on the new comer.
"The man you sent for Harry is dead – he died trying to stop Death Eaters from storming the house."
Those were the only words that Tatsu spoke, but they reduced the entire room to silence once more, as everyone grieved in their own way. Another of their number was gone.
Harry looked around the circle of sad, friendly faces. He spoke one word to them: "Who?"
****
Well, there's as good a place as any to leave off. I was gonna leave it at the 'Happy Birthday Harry' place, but I decided that the chapter wasn't long enough … So you got a different end instead! REVIEW!
~WolfMoon~