Chapter Three: Immediate Withdrawal

Hedwig had returned the next day empty handed. Since then, Harry had spent most of his time pacing up and down his bedroom wondering whether he was getting out of Privet Drive, or whether Moody had even received the letter at all, surely he would at least send a reply. It had been three days and Harry had not left his room, Aunt Petunia had slid a bowl of tomato soup and a slice of bread through the cat flap in his door twice a day. Life seemed to continue as normal for the Dursleys, they had completely ignored his presence, or lack of it. Though Dudley had taken to banging on the wall loudly for long periods of time, knowing full well Harry was bolted in his room and was powerless to resist. Harry decided to get all his homework out of the way, but even Snape's monster essay on aptitude-enhancing potions hadn't occupied him for more than a couple of hours, for some inexplicable reasons Harry found that when he put his mind to it, he did know a lot of the things he would usually ask Hermione to help with, maybe she'd had an impression on him after all.

After all his homework was done Harry read the book Ron had given him, which turned out to be quiet interesting. He had then re-read some of the Defence Against the Dark Arts books Sirius and Lupin had presented him with last Christmas, thinking about how these would be very good for DA, maybe he would be allowed to restart it this year. Even with Umbridge gone, the DA would be a good place to raise awareness about Voldemort at Hogwarts. Though, ultimately it was Harry who would have to deal with him, many of those at Hogwarts now may go on to fight Voldemort, in the Ministry, as Aurors, some may even join the Order of the Phoenix. After he had reread all his Defence Against the Dark Arts books, Harry had remembered that Hermione had sent him a copy of Hogwarts: A History. Harry flicked open the book, roughly the size of shoe box, at the beginning. The contents spanned nearly five pages of tiny black ink. But something leapt out at him straight away.

Hogwart's Secrets

…The Forgotten Rooms

…The Chamber of Secrets

…Secret Tunnels

The forgotten rooms had piqued Harry's Gryffindor curiosity. He flicked to the corresponding chapter, it was rather large, Harry scanned the introduction first.

It is said that the founders of Hogwarts each created a secret room, aside from the Chamber of Secrets (see page 4125). They were originally to be used as dormitories for each of the Founder's house, each founder built there room in a place they thought represented the quality's of their house and placed enchantments upon them to make them invisible to everyone except their house. Unfortunately, there was a flaw in their protection, only a true member of each house could access it. But by the time the problem had come to light, it was too late to undo their charms, so they abandoned the idea and used the Password system still in use today.

However, it is rumoured that the rooms were not completely lost, the Founder's used the rooms to store many of their most precious possessions, as only they could enter the rooms. When they died many of their affairs were supposedly placed in the rooms, artefacts the founders thought too dangerous or powerful to be used by other wizards. The location of these rooms were lost forever, as so few people could actually see them, and only one of the artefacts placed inside them is known, the…

At that point a loud knock sounded at the Dursley's door, Harry slammed the book shut and threw it into his trunk. As Harry approached his bedroom door to listen a huge crash sounded through the room.

"VERNON!" Harry heard Aunt Petunia scream.

"NOW ALASTOR! THAT REALLY WASN'T CALLED FOR…" Said another voice, Mr. Weasley's voice. Harry welled up with excitement, they had come to get him! He quickly packed the remainder of his possessions not already in the trunk, grabbed Hedwig's cage and pushed hard on his bedroom door. The rusty old bolt gave way and Harry found himself on the landing looking down at a very peculiar scene. Mad-Eye Moody was leading Arthur Weasley, Lupin and Tonks through the kitchen door and into the hallway. Tonks knocked a vase of flowers over on the way in, spilling water everywhere. Uncle Vernon strode out with a shotgun in his hands, pointing it at Moody. Aunt Petunia was again behind Uncle Vernon's back and Dudley was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm warning you! I won't have people like you just striding into my house and…"

"Don't point the ruddy muggle wand at me Dursley!" Moody screamed, raising his wand.

"Don't you point that at me!" Uncle Vernon said, a look of terror on his red face. "I'm not afraid to use this you know!"

Moody didn't look in the slightest bit bothered, "I told you Dursley, if I got wind that you were mistreating Potter in any way, I'd be up here. And I'm a man of my word Dursley."

"He lives in my house so I'll do what I ruddy well like with him. I will NOT have him endangering my family…"

"Don't be such an idiot, we've had wizards guarding your house all summer" Moody retorted, wand still at Uncle Vernon's throat.

"I… wha'… you people, here? Watching?" Uncle Vernon stammered, sending spit everywhere, "That's the last straw, either you leave my house right now or I'll…"

"You'll what, use your muggle wand? Don't make me laugh!"

"I, I, I'll kill you that's what I'll do! It's self defence, I'm just protecting my family!"

"I've had enough of this Dursley" Said Moody calmly, seemingly uncaring about the gun pointing at his face. "Impedimenta!"

"ALASTOR!" Mr. Weasley cried.

A jet of light erupted from Moody's wand and Uncle Vernon shot across the hall into the door at the other end, Aunt Petunia ran to his side, wiping his dazed face of blood and screaming loudly.

"What have you done to him!?" She sobbed at Moody.

"He'll be fine." Moody growled, putting his wand into his pocket, "Now, where's Harry, we really must be off." Harry took his moment and ran down the stairs, trunk and owl in hand.

"Ah, ready to go Potter?" Moody said pleasantly.

"Err.. yeah" Harry glanced at Uncle Vernon's bloody face. Mr. Weasley seemed to be trying to convince Aunt Petunia to let him heal Uncle Vernon, but to no avail. Aunt Petunia had simply resorted to shielding his lifeless body. Tonks was smiling behind Moody, she had bright canary yellow hair down to her shoulders. Tonks was a metamorphagus, meaning she could change her appearance at will. Aunt Petunia was not impressed.

"Hello Harry" Said Lupin, Harry's old Defence Against the Darks Arts teacher. Lupin was a friend of his fathers, and a werewolf. He looked worse than ever, pale, clammy skin, watery eyes and hair even more ruffled than Harry's. Harry remembered it was a full moon last night, Lupin really shouldn't have come…

"Hello Professor." Harry said, smiling. But at that moment the massive body of Dudley Dursley lunged out from the kitchen and into Lupin, his fist made contact with Lupin's jaw hard, spraying blood against the wall with a horrible cracking noise. Moody and Tonks span around, wands pointed towards Dudley. But Dudley was not one of the country's top young boxers for nothing. He was instantly at his feet and jabbed Moody hard in the stomach, Moody fell forward and red sparks shot from his wand, burning the side of Dudley's face. If it weren't for the situation, Harry would have been impressed at Dudley's bravery. Dudley had a lot of bad run ins with wizards, leaving him with a pigs tail, and a very large tongue for one. Yet here he was, taken on four fully qualified wizards.

"Dudders no!" Aunt Petunia shouted, her eyes red from furious crying. Arthur Weasley was on his feet, he shot a well aimed leg-locked curse at Dudley who was heading for a shocked Tonks, who had broken another vase. Dudley fell over, completely petrified. Aunt Petunia cried even harder, she seemed too distraught to move, let alone speak. Moody and Lupin slowly rose to there feet, Lupin's frail visage was covered in blood and his jaw was askew.

"You better get out of here." Shouted Mr. Weasley, who was now wrestling Aunt Petunia to try and get to Dudley. "I daresay I'll clean up here…"

"Where are we going?" Said Harry anxiously.

"Grimmauld Place," Said Tonks cheerily, Moody shot her a disgusted look, "Oh, err, sorry, it's a secret, right… Hermione and the Weasleys are there, much more convenient than the Burrow."

"We'll be going by portkey." Moody growled, answering Harry's unasked question. "That's if Tonks leaves something unbroken that we can use…" Tonks blushed, having just smashed her third vase. "This'll do," Said Moody, pointing his wand at a very expensive ornament in the shape of a swan. Aunt Petunia looked positively terrified. "Portus."

Moody, Tonks and Harry all put a finger on the porcelain bird. Harry felt a jerk behind his navel and an unpleasant sick feeling. He appeared in the kitchen of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. It was a strange sight. The table was surrounded by a very anxious looking bunch of people. Harry counted three redheads, a plump, motherly looking women, Mrs. Weasley. A tall, gangly looked boy of around Harry's age, Ron Weasley, and Ginny Weasley, who was also a lot taller than when he had last seen her. Between Ginny and Ron sat Hermione, she was about Ginny's height and had a large amount of thick, bushy brown hair.

As Harry, Moody, Lupin and Tonks emerged in the room they all gave a large sigh of relief and exclaimed, "Harry!". Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and Ginny all rushed forward to give Harry a hug. After Harry had hugged each and every one of them for the third time and was feeling rather squashed he manage to gasp a hello.

"Where's Arthur?" Said Mrs. Weasley, suddenly realising her husbands absence and looking very worried.

"There was an… err… incident, he stayed behind to take care of it." Said Lupin, Mrs. Weasley gave a sigh of relief and sat back down. Mr. Weasley emerged in the room a few minutes later, panting.

"Well, I managed to get them all back to normal and tried to explain, but they weren't happy about it." He shot a nasty look at Moody, "There wasn't really any need for such force, the man was just protecting his home, and… Dudley is it? Was very brave, after that trick Fred and George played on him last year. I'm sure if we'd just explained…"

"Ah, they wouldn't have listened Arthur. Ruddy muggle fools, locking Potter up like that." Moody said wisely.

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to show Harry to his room now," Said Mrs. Weasley, getting to her feet, "We've a meeting in a few meeting."

She ushered Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione out of the room. Grimmauld place looked a lot better, the hall was much brighter, the wallpaper was now a light beige colour and the carpet was a sky blue. What's more, many of the ugly artefacts the Black family had left here were gone, after all, the family had died with Sirius. The house elf's heads were gone from the wall, and Harry noticed there was not curtain on the stairs.

"Where's Sirius' mum gone?" He inquired.

"Kreacher took it." Replied Ron, "He knew how to take down a bunch of this stuff, just didn't tell us. We said he could take it if he told us how to get it down."

"Take it where?" Harry asked, even more puzzled.

"Well, when Sirius… well, you know, there were no Blacks left, so Kreacher was free," Hermione answered this time, "But he wanted to go work for the Malfoys, Mrs. Malfoy is a Black remember. The Malfoys needed a house elf, since you freed Dobby. So they took him. And they were more than happy to take a lot of the stuff he brought, very valuable to some people."

"Wait…" Harry had suddenly realised something, "Who owns this house now?"

"Well, you do." Said Ginny.

"Sirius named you as his sole heir" Said Hermione knowingly, "You got a lot of money too, and everything in this house."

"We figured you wouldn't mind if we stayed here." Said Ron grinning.

"Well you'll be paying rent." Joked Harry. They all laughed.

So Harry owned the house… he didn't really care, it's the Order's house really, and all that stuff, just memories of Sirius. It seemed so unfair, Harry had inherited too large fortunes now, just because the people he loved had a habit of dying. Maybe he'd give it to the Weasleys, he didn't need it after all, and the Weasleys had done so much for him. But he knew how sensitive Ron was, they wouldn't accept it. There were more important things than money.

"Where are Fred and George?" Said Harry, breaking the silence.

"Well they've got their own place now haven't they? Above their shop, they're doing really well you know, well you saw those dragon skin jackets they had on last year, very expensive." Ron sighed longingly, "I guess people just need a laugh right now. With all that's going on."

"Well here we are," Said Ginny, they had come to a set of double doors on the top floor of the house, a long landing  with soft red carpet and cold stone wall, small torches lit by an enchanted green flame gave some dim light. "Mum made the room up for your, it used to be Sirius'." Harry pushed open the heavy oak doors, revealing a large room. It had a blood red carpet, crimson wallpaper and a high white ceiling, engraved with some kind of story, Harry could make out the carved shape of some dragons… and a wizard dressed in long, robes, on a throne. A huge crystal chandelier lit the cavernous room. At one end stood a magnificent four poster bed, a bigger version of Harry's bed at Hogwarts, it was made of deep brown oak and also had the shapes of dragons carved into it, and some kind of writing. Empty gold frames hung on the wall, their subjects obviously removed during the cleaning.

"There's a bathroom through there." Said Hermione, pointing to a oak door on the left side of the room.

There was also a large oak wardrobe, with six drawers underneath it. There was a large table, complete with inkwell and several bookcases next to it.

"Some of those books are a bit… err, dodgy." Said Hermione, "But there's some useful ones too."

Harry felt like a king.

Author's notes

See, I told you I'd do it quickly. So what do you think of Harry's new bedroom? And I'm glad I got a nice brawl in there too, I think we might have an appearance from a certain headmaster soon. I still haven't found a beta-reader (Hey, if anybody feels like it, email me.), so they'll be some mistakes. Again, please review, I'll try and respond to them.

Until next time.

Review Responses

Panther28: Ahh damn, I had a feeling it was.

Brittany Michelle Granger: I don't celebrate the Fourth of July, I'm English. ;)

violingirl7: Yeah, probably because I've read the Harry Potter books constantly since four came out, kinda rubs off on you. I dunno where I got Henrietta from though.

SnichyPup: I hate them too J