Chapter 1: The New Guest

The Ministry of Magic held many things that many witches and wizards did not know or could ever thought possible inside its walls. One particular section of the Minisitry of Magic that was kept very secret was the Department of Mysteries. Harry Potter, a skinny teenage boy with messy hair, found himself to be walking the very same corridors to the Department of Mysteries. He had walked down these corridors many times before in his dreams and also once with his team of friends. However this time, Harry was going in a different direction. Harry thought he was headed for the door that opened to a veil, the one that had lead Sirius to his death. The veil was something that Harry thought over a million times in his head, trying to figure out the mysteries it held, he researched about it as much as he could and even asked Hermione for help. But all his efforts in unlocking the mysteries of it wasn't much help. It was strange to Harry that so much of this particular room was unknown even though it was situated in the Ministry. As his eyes were locked onto the door with the veil, he tried focusing on moving himself there.

But instead, he found himself headed for the door in the Department of mysteries that, the last time he had checked, could not be opened. While he was approaching this door, he remembered that this was the door that Dumbeldore had mentioned .

N-no...it can't be, thought Harry, as a wave of emotions flooded through him.

He moved closer to the door, which was now glowing with a very powerful light. His eyes were blinded from seeing anything but the beaming rays radiating from the door.

This is it, this is the answer to so many questions, thought Harry in as much fear, as excitement.

Harry needed to know what was waiting for him behind that door, but as he reached and turned he handle, to his surprise, something happened that didn't occur before.

The door had opened.

The light glowed brighter than it ever had before for a moment, and then stopped suddenly. Harry's mind was filled with such excitement and anxiety but as the door swung open, he was confused.

The room was dark.

To his surprise, there did not seem to be anything inside this room. The cloud of darkness covering the room had sent chills down his spine. There was absolute silence, and Harry could hear himself breathing. He pulled out his wand and whispered, "Lumos" and the tip of his wand lit with light. Harry was searching the room, for anything, any bit of information that could help him. His hunger for knowledge for this room was just as strong for the room with the veil. The strange thing was that this room held nothing.

Even old houses have spiders, or dust for that matter, Harry thought to himself.

He moved farther and farther into the room until he could see two red glowing lights ahead. They were beaming bightly from across from where he was standing. His walk developed into a run and started getting closer to the lights.But as he moved closer, he realised that the red glowing objects were not lights at all, but eyes.

"How can h-he be here?" Harry questioned himself with fear rolling up and down in his stomach.

Slowly, a shadowy figure was forming infront of him and grew to become clearer. It appeared to be a robed man, but his skin and face was badly scarred, as if he had fallen in a pool of acid, making his face look very deformed. But his eyes, they were as bright and glowing as Harry had remembered before, with the same cat like structure. They were glowing vigorously. He had unusually long and slender fingers which appeared to look as the flesh had been ripped off his bones.

Harry looked directly at Voldemort- the one responsible for his parents death, one who made his life a living hell and the one whose firey eyes were staring right back at him. But Harry however, noticed something differnent about Voldemort. He wore a slight, yet obvious grin on his face. Suddenly Voldemort started to laugh manaically and was about to speak. Harry remembered this laugh, but before it was coming out of ihis/i own mouth. The skrieking sound was flowing throughout the room and he did not want to hear another sound from Voldemort and yelled out, "EXPELI-"

but before he could Voldemort drew out his wand and screamed "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Harry thought he was immune to this curse and at first, had not had a trace of slightest fear. But suddenly, he felt such pain like he had never felt before, he felt like all his strength, drained out of him. He could not feel anything, because the curse was slowly numbing him. His bones were weak and brittle, and his eyes were growing unfocused. He realised he could not see anything but a blur. And then as he felt as if he could not take another breath-

Harry woke up from his dream. brbr Sweat was running from his head to his face, and Harry was feeling like he had almost experienced death. It was worse than anything he had felt, and far worse than the Dementors. He had felt such fear and anger like he had never before.

Harry got out of his bed, looking around his room. Everything was there, his books on the floor, along with a couple of his clothes, couple of sweets that Hermoine and Mrs. Weasley had sent and Hedwig, the owl Hagrid had bought him for his eleventh birthday, was perched in her cage on his desk, sleeping. Harry had many strange dreams before but nothing compared to the one he had just dreamt. Harry thought that maybe all these strange dreams with Voldemort must be connected to the fact that he and Voldemort had some sort of mental link. He could break into Voldemorts mind without knowing, and see what he was planning and doing. However, Harry could not be able to enter his mind. It puzzled him why he couldn't read Voldemort's thoughts, but he could only think of one reason why.

Voldemort was growing stronger.

It was the only explanation that could answer his questions. Voldemort must have been strong enough to withstand him breaking into his mind. And Harry also knew that the dream he had must have been Voldemort's idea of a cruel joke to torment Harry. He could not block out Voldemort breaking into his mind because he had not practiced enough Occulemency, the mind's defence of blocking out external forces. He did not know how and why last year was when this started happening, nor could he do anything about it. He tried practising, but clearly, nothing worked.

Harry, almost automatically, walked over to his desk, took out a quill and a piece of parchment and started writing until he stopped. He had just realized what he had written:

Dear Sirius,

I just had a dream with me and Volde-

This had been the third time Harry had written to Sirius without realizing that he was indead, gone.Harry crumpled up the parchment he had been writing on and threw it in the dustbin. He drowned his head into his hands, thinking about Sirius. He was the only relative he had left, his godfather. Sirius had always tried to be there for Harry, warning him about things, and giving him critical advice. He even transformed himself in his animagus form, a black dog, and stayed in a cave near Hogwarts to be closer to Harry. Harry had remembered what Ron had said that time they visited Sirius,"He must really like you, to be living off rats.." Harry then, remembered why Sirius had died in the first place, because of HIM. Harry blamed himself continously for causing his godfather's death.

"If only I hadn't been so stupid ... if only I listened to Hermione ...if only I could," Harry said with his voice breaking.

Tears started falling from his eyes into his hands. He could never forget about Sirius and knew that this guilt inside of him will istay/i inside of him until he dies. Harry wiped away his tears and looked outside his window, the sun was shining brightly.

It wasn't long until Aunt Petunia, the only sister of his mother's, yelled for him to come down and help to make breakfast. Harry had dressed in his cousin, Dudley's, hand-me-downs. He was wearing large pants, and a sweatshirt in which Harry had to roll up the sleeves several times to fit. As he walked down the stairs into the kitchen, he saw Uncle Vernon looking deeply immersed in his newspaper and Dudley, already finished his breakfast, trying to steal his father's last piece of toast. Harry sighed.

This was a normal morning in the Dursley household.

Aunt Petunia was sipping her tea and staring directly towards Harry.

"You're late for breakfast" she said bitterly, "So now you have whatever is left of your own."

Harry looked towards his plate, with half a piece of toast, a bitten apple, one piece of bacon and only one third of glass of orange juice. He didn't mind, for he had far worse things to worry about. Harry scrumbled through his breakfast and before Aunt Petunia could speak, he replied, "Yes, Yes, I know, do the dishes" with a sigh. Only a week had passed by, and Harry knew this summer with the Dursleys was going even slower than usual.

He went up to his room and fell onto his bed. Suddenly, a strange looking owl came flying in. It was none other than mail from Ron. Harry rushed and quickly opened the letter that was tied onto Pigwigeon's talons. He opened his letter and read it out:

Dear Harry

We're going to Romania this summer. Isn't that wicked? We're going to visit Charlie this summer instead of him coming to visit us. Mum decided it was better to check out where he stayed. I'd reckon we're going to leave in a couple of days, so I had to write to you and tell you that I won't be in the Burrow this summer. We'd ask to come Harry, we all really would, but Dumbledore advised us not take you along, with all that going on with You-know-who. I'm really, really sorry Harry, but the good thing is, I can still write letters to you from Romania. I'll send Pigwigeon when I'm there and you can send him back to me. With a letter with him ofcourse. I hope you write back and tell me what you've found out this summer about... You-know-who.

Ron

"Nothing" said Harry coldy, "I've found out nothing."

And it was true, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Harry knew now this summer that the Weasleys could not take him away before school started. This was going to be a very long summer. Harry knew what Dumbledore meant, he had told him before, that Harry was safest in the Dursleys household. As much as Harry hated to hear it, it was true, Voldemort could not touch him here. As long as his mothers blood lived under this roof, Harry was safe. Even though Lily was dead, her sister, Aunt Petunia carried with her the same blood.

Harry however tried to find out more about Voldemort, he, again, tried to listen to the news. Aunt Petunia did not allow him to sit in the flowerbed like last year, but Harry had found another way to listen to the news, Portable-ears. It was the new creation by Fred and George. They sent Harry the Portable-ears just a day afer he arrived at the Dursleys. They thought Harry might need this to find out any information without being caught. Portable-ears were like Extendable ears, but much more improved. They had the same characteristics as Extendable ears, to listen to something without being in the same room. Portable-ears however, did not have any strings attached to either end. It was easier for Harry to use these since the Dursleys could not catch him listening to the news, which they thought for a fifteen-year old boy was absolutely barbaric.

Harry put the recording ear of the Portable-ears near the television. He hid it inside the cabinet near the speakers the day when the Dursleys went out. The other ear, the listening part, he kept close to his own ear in his room, which he spent most of his day in. It seemed that twins' business was doing exceptionally well and they thanked Harry repeatedly for giving them his Triwizard Tournament winnings in his fourth year. Harry listened closely to the ear and so far, nothing out of the ordinary was in the news.

He opened his drawer and took out the Portable ears. He turned them on and listened closely. Today however, he could not listen clearly through his listening ear. He thought there might have been a glitch in the ear. However, Harry soon found out there was a disturbance outside. He looked out of his window and saw a large truck pulling up infront of the house next door.

"Someone is probably moving in," Harry thought "But no one ever moves in.."
But now sound was coming out from his listening side of his ear. It seems that he wasn't the only one who noticed the truck.

"I always knew the Wellingtons would move out ... the neighbours said that they found a new house ... but I think they moved because of the boy ... strange things have always been happening in our house ... oh what will people think ... that the BOY is a freak .. that WE ARE freaks.."

Aunt Petunia's voice came out of the ear. Harry put the ear away before he could hear anymore. Aunt Petunia was always paranoid of people finding out about magic, especially that a wizard was living right under their noses. He still couldn't imagine how Aunt Petunia was related to his mother and how last year, she knew so much about Askaban and dementors. He thought there might be more to her -but before he could finish his train of thought, the people outside were moving inside their new home.

The family consisted of a brown-haired man with his wife, who was tall, thin and had blonde hair. Behind them followed a girl, she looked about Harry's age and had golden hair, with pale green eyes. As Harry stared at the girl who was going to be their neighbour, her eyes caught Harry staring, and she smiled at him. Harry felt embarrased but also confused at the same time, how could she have known he was looking at her?

"HARRY, come down here now!"

Aunt Petunia called Harry to come downstairs at once.