DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JKR, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Any language written here that ain't English will have a translation at the end of the chapter and anyone expecting me to repeat this disclaimer before subsequent chapters will have their still-beating hearts dug out with a spoon.

Chapter 1: Another Dursley Summer

Harry woke up to find the morning sunlight streaming in through his dingy window. He rolled over to glance at his alarm clock—it was already eight o'clock. Aunt Petunia would be storming up the stairs to yell at him any minute now. Sighing, he dragged himself out of bed a little reluctantly. It had been such a long time since he'd had a proper night's rest uninterrupted by dreams filled with the same images of Cedric or Voldemort replaying in his head over and over again, like a muggle record gone crazy.

Of course he suspected that the dreams would never really go away. How could they, when year after year he got to experience more horrific and traumatic situations than most of his peers had faced? Harry was still surprised by the almost shocking normalcy his life had returned to after the events of his last school year. After all it wasn't every day you fought in a great battle with monsters that had been resurrected from the dead by the most terrible Dark Lord of all time, not to mention being healed by a dragon. Even if he was the Boy-Who-Had-Lived-Countless-Times-And-Still-Refused-To-Quit. Surprisingly enough, the carnage of the battle Harry had found himself in the midst of during the last school term hadn't made any cameo appearances in his dreams either.

He fumbled for his glasses and glanced at his own reflection in the mirror. Harry had grown quite a bit over the summer (although he was probably still a bit too skinny), and his once too-big glasses were now ridiculously small. Besides, his vision was still blurred even when he was wearing them. He sighed, realising he hadn't seen any shops selling glasses in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. Harry contemplated owling Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall to ask where they made their glasses, then decided they were probably too busy to answer silly questions like that. He'd have to sneak out to a muggle optician somehow or get Hermione to teach him a spell to fix his glasses for him.

He made his way down the stairs a little distractedly, not really noticing how the Dursleys had all been keeping a safe distance away from Harry ever since he'd come back from his "freak school" with a bit of that old fire back in his emerald eyes. Dudley was still on his diet, but if anything, he seemed to have managed to gain even more weight than Harry had thought possible and now required a custom-made chair to sit on after breaking three of the sturdy wooden kitchen chairs.

Harry pushed his celery around his bowl a bit, waiting for Uncle Vernon to finish his coffee, while Dudley eyed the remainder of his breakfast greedily. Dumbledore had finally agreed to let Harry spend the last week of the summer with the Weasleys since Voldemort and his army were likely to be still recovering from their last defeat, but knowing how badly the Dursleys' last encounter with wizards had gone, he had a bad feeling that it would be a very difficult task convincing Uncle Vernon to allow any adult wizard to accompany him to The Burrow.

"It's a pity that old Mrs. Figg died, or we'd put this freak with her." Uncle Vernon said to his wife.

"She's what?" Harry asked, shocked out of his thoughts.

"Dead." Uncle Vernon said, disgruntled. "Died a few months ago."

"How?" Harry asked, his heart growing cold at the way they were treating their neighbour's death as a mere inconvenience. Harry hadn't exactly loved the cabbage-smelling old lady who was overly obsessed with her cats, but she had been nice to him.

"Stop asking questions." Aunt Petunia snapped. "Anyway, we're going to the country to visit Marge during the last week of summer and we're not taking you along."

As if I would want to come along, Harry snorted.

"I could put up at my friend's place for the rest of the summer," Harry suggested hopefully.

Uncle Vernon's eyes narrowed to distrustful slits.

"You mean the…barbarian who blasted away half the living room the last time with those hooligan brats of his?"

Dudley whimpered at the reminder of the Ton-Tongue Toffee episode, causing Aunt Petunia to rush over to him immediately and glare at Harry as if mentioning the incident would give him ideas to try something funny at her precious Dudley-kinns.

At least they'd bother to rescue me from the maltreatment from my family, Harry thought crossly.

"Don't give us that look." Aunt Petunia said venomously, cradling her Dinky Duddydums's pudgy head in her arms in what was supposedly a comforting fashion. "Only freaks like you would want you."

"Get yourself over there as soon as you can, since they'll take you." Uncle Vernon agreed.

Harry bit back a retort and just nodded, not wanting them to change their minds.

/I wish I had friends like that. /

Harry blinked and looked up from stabbing at his celery. Had he just heard Dudley say that?

"What did you just say?" He asked Dudley.

"I didn't say anything," Dudley said, paling and eyeing him suspiciously, looking like he was going to bolt (or more likely, waddle) out of his seat as fast as his legs would carry him.

Just then, there was a loud tapping on the window and a shriek from Aunt Petunia, and the kitchen erupted in a flurry of commotion, nearly causing the poor owl outside to fall off the windowsill. Dudley, on the other hand, did fall off his chair and managed to topple his chair and dent the new kitchen linoleum in the process, while Harry hurriedly opened the window before Uncle Vernon could stop him and grabbed the owl, running up the stairs to his room two steps at a time.

"HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I WARNED YOU ABOUT THIS? I WILL NOT TOLERA—"

Harry slammed the door shut, cutting off Uncle Vernon's rant. He placed the rather traumatised bird on the perch next to Hedwig and gently took the letter from it. It had a Hogwarts seal on it, but it was much thicker than usual. Besides the list of required items for the next school year, he found a letter:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDARY

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have achieved high O.W.L.s in Divination, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures, as well as satisfactory grades in your Transfiguration, Potions, History of Magic and Charms O.W.L.s, and are now eligible to enter the sixth-year standard of your magical education.

You will find your certificate and a list of books and equipment you will require for the courses you have opted for enclosed with this letter.

Congratulations on your results.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall (Deputy Headmistress)

He put the letter down, deep in thought. As Ron had predicted, they'd had scrying for their O.W.L.s. He hadn't seen anything, much to his relief, so he'd just foretold his own gory and tragic death, pleasing Trelawney immensely. But Harry had rather expected Snape to fail him because of Kera. And speaking of Kera…

Harry glanced at the paper he had pinned on the wall counting down the days to September the first. It would be the 31st of July tomorrow—his birthday, but hers as well. Grabbing a quill and a piece of parchment, he started writing his first ever letter to her.

*~*~~*~**~*~*~~*

Harry woke up at midnight to the sound something bumping against the window pane. The moment he opened the window, something small and grey zipped in like a very feathery rocket, nearly knocking his glasses off.

"Alright, alright, keep your feathers on," Harry chuckled as the over-excited Pig zoomed chirpily around despite having a rather sizable package tied to its feet.

He was followed by two tawny school owls which eyed the enthusiastic little owl disapprovingly and perched themselves on the back of his chair since there was no more space on Hedwig's perch. They turned out to be from Hagrid, Sirius and Remus.

Hagrid had sent him a rather edible cake, which he admitted Madame Maxime had helped him bake. Sirius and Remus had also sent him a cake (slightly lop-sided and with the icing put on in a rather haphazard way) and Harry had a good laugh reading about the mess they'd made trying to bake it.

After a few unsuccessful tries, he managed to grab Pig long enough to relief him of the package.

"Wow." Harry's eyes lit up when he saw the tiny golden ball engraved with a minute 'HP'. It turned out that Hermione had pitched in with Ron to get him a Seeker practice kit with a monogrammed Snitch. Enclosed with the parcel was a card from Hermione and a letter in Ron's messy scrawl:

Harry,

Happy Birthday, mate! Hope the Dursleys aren't giving you any grief. Can't wait for you to get here so we can have a few games and you can try out that Snitch! Dumbledore's got your transport for all arranged, but Dad won't let on what it is. I reckon he's still angry over the Ton-Tongue Toffees.

Speaking of the twins, you won't believe this, but Fred and George have gotten themselves a shop in Hogsmeade selling their Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Mom's furious, but they won't say how they got the money. I'd say something fishy's going on—first the dress robes, now this. Do you think they managed to get their money back from Bagman after all?

Ron

P/S: Ginny says happy birthday too

Harry grinned, happy to know that the twins were making good use of the Triwizard Tournament winnings. He was arranging his birthday cards on the dresser when Hedwig suddenly started hooting loudly.

"What is it, Hedwig?" Harry asked, hoping she hadn't woken the Dursleys up.

He heard the distinct dull clacking of talons on wood and turned around.

A rather unfriendly and unfamiliar spotted owl was sitting morosely on his windowsill. It blinked its pale eyes, tossed an envelope at a very astonished Harry, and soared away into the night. There was no address, but the envelope was sealed properly and the blob of green wax was marked with an elaborate insignia much like the one Malfoy had on the clasp of his dress robes. Wishing he could have used his wand to open it, he broke the seal warily, prepared to fling it out of the window if it exploded like Voldemort's Howler. But it turned out to contain only a photograph with a short note:

Dubhan probably won't wait for your reply, he has a mind of his own.

K. Ladon

Surprised and feeling rather pleased that he had sent her a birthday greeting after all, Harry turned his attention to the photograph. It was a normal coloured muggle snapshot of two girls wearing Hogwarts robes, standing in front of Honeydukes. The taller girl had a pair of brilliant green eyes and red hair that partially covered the Gryffindor crest on her robes. She couldn't have been more than fourteen, smiling and carefree, the younger version of the woman in the photos Harry had in the album Hagrid had given him in his first year. The other girl was wearing Slytherin robes and had hair a strange sheen of bluish-black. She was smiling shyly at the camera in a way that made Harry feel she was really smiling at the person behind the camera. Only "To Deirdre, Love Lily" was written at the back of the photograph, but he hadn't needed a caption to know who that other girl was.

We've both got our mothers' eyes, Harry thought with a sad smile.

[A/N: Sorry I took so long…I was writing this other fic (it's purely for fun and it's a little silly) called "The Gates Just Opened". You can choose your own ending (except that neither choices so far have resulted in an ending ^_^||). It's still a work in progress, but you can check it out if you're interested…there's a link on the author page.

My timeline for this chapter may be a bit mixed up because I couldn't decide whether to follow the book or the movie. Just…assume that it's right. =P]