A Place Where I Belong

Harry Potter/Stargate XOver

by Corwalch

Finally!

July 30, 1998

Harry Potter kept his eyes firmly fixed on the repaired alarm clock as it counted down the remaining minutes until his 18th birthday. He had been waiting for this day for a very long time. In just a few more minutes, he would be a legal adult in both the muggle and wizarding worlds. Last year on his 17th birthday, he had gotten a letter from the Ministry of Magic, stating that he could now do magic outside of school, but it had also contained a warning about being careful about using magic around muggles since he lived in a largely muggle area, or the privilege would be revoked. He hadn't bothered availing himself of that privilege, because the Ministry was still able to track the magic he did with his wand. Fudge would have been only too glad to find some excuse to come down on him, since he blamed Harry and Dumbledore for his loss of popularity after it was proven that Voldemort had indeed returned. Given that the Dursley's had never paid that much attention to his birthdays, they had probably forgotten that he would be eighteen soon and allowed to do magic without getting in trouble for it. If Petunia had remembered, she certainly wouldn't have let him back into their 'precious' home when Dumbledore insisted he had to return there until his 18th birthday.

He had no intention of calling this place 'home', because he considered #4 Privet Drive more of a prison than a home. To him, a home was some place where you were wanted and loved. The Dursleys house had never fit that category. Personally, he couldn't see why he had to return to the Dursleys. It wasn't as if Voldemort or his Deatheaters were a threat to him any more. Voldemort was gone, destroyed by Harry as the prophecy predicted, before the end of his final year at Hogwarts. And those Deatheaters, who had survived the final battle were in Azkaban, guarded by Aurors instead of Dementors.

When he'd asked Dumbledore to give him a good reason why he had to return to the Dursley's, instead of getting himself a place in Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, or even Muggle London, given that Voldemort was no longer a threat, all the manipulative old bastard would say was that the blood bond would continue to protect him.

He hadn't called the old man on it then, but Harry still wondered what Dumbledore would have said, if he told him that the protection provided by living with the Dursley's was practically worthless. During his sixth year, while he was wandering around the castle alone, Harry had found a hidden room in the oldest part of Hogwarts If Hermione could've seen the contents of the Founder's study/library, they would've had to drag her out of it with chains, probably hooked to dragons.

Those old books had proved to be a gold mine of information. There had even been a book on protection magic that included a section on blood protection spells.. One thing stressed in the book was that the strength of the protection provided by a 'blood bond' charm depended a lot on how much the protectee; Harry was loved or cared about by the protector; Aunt Petunia. It had also indicated that if the protector hated the one being protected, then instead of providing protection, the 'blood bond' would leave the one being protected, vulnerable to attack from their enemies. He supposed he should be grateful that Aunt Petunia didn't hate him enough to wish him dead, otherwise he would've had a target on his back for any Deatheater who wished to find him.

His silence regarding the truth about the 'blood bond' hadn't been out of respect for the Headmaster. He'd lost all respect for Dumbledore after Sirius' death, when he found out the scheming old bastard had deliberately kept secrets from him and claimed he'd done it to protect him and because he cared about him. Yet all the while, he had been manipulating events from behind the screens, so that Harry and those around him were forced into dangerous situations. The only reason, he'd remained silent, was because the blood protection magic was very old magic and Dumbledore might not have known that Petunia had to care about him for it to work properly.

Harry was fairly certain that the only reason Dumbledore wanted him where he could quickly lay his hands on him was because the old bastard had some great scheme he wanted to con Harry into playing a major role in. Or else he had another one of those "I've been keeping something from you" secrets that he was going to show up and reveal, to ruin Harry's life again.

Harry smirked. Whatever Dumbledore had planned this time, the old fool was going to be in for a helluva a surprise. He was going to find out no longer that this puppet had cut its strings. He had his own plans for the rest of his life and none of them involved the wizarding world or Dumbledore, in any way.

That hidden chamber had turned out to be a gold mine of information and useful spell books left for their descendants by the three remaining Founders of Hogwarts. Those books had allowed him to come up with his plans for what he was going to do if he survived his final battle with Voldemort.

Harry had also learned the other reason that Voldemort wanted his family dead, while he was in the Founder's hidden study and it was something he doubted even Dumbledore knew. There was a book that when opened by a Founder's descendant, would show their family tree. His mother wasn't muggle-born as many believed. She was in fact descended from squib lines of Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor. And interestingly enough, though he doubted that his father had known it, through the Potter line, he was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.

The reason Harry hadn't made much of a fuss about being sent back to the Dursleys, even though it was the last place he wanted to go, was because of his need to do some research and finalize some of his plans. He wouldn't have been able to keep any of his activities secret if he'd stayed at the Burrow, not that he'd invited him to come this summer. And he definitely hadn't wanted to deal with the stares and whispers that would've followed him, if he'd stayed in the wizarding world.

That didn't mean he was ignorant about what was going on in the wizarding world, far from it. Moony had been keeping him very well informed, especially about Fudge's scheme to make him out to be the next Dark Lord. His other 'supposed' friends hadn't mentioned Fudge's actions or the lies appearing in the Daily Prophet, in any of their letters to him, not even as a passing comment on the assumption that he already knew about it. Nor had Lupin made any mention of Hermione, the Weasley's, Dumbledore, or any of the Order members, who knew him well, stepping up to defend him in the press.

While he wasn't really surprised that Dumbledore hadn't defended him, given that his usefulness as a tool had ended with the Dark Lord's demise, he would have thought that Hermione, with her passion for justice and truth, or the Weasley's might've spoken up for him. Moony had intended to, until Harry talked him out of it. It had taken him reminding the last Marauder that the wizarding world saw him as a werewolf and therefore a Dark creature to stop him.

His speaking out would not have helped Harry. All it would have done was cement in the mind of the wizarding public that Fudge's lies were true. Harry also didn't want Lupin to become a target for the Wizarding world's wrath when he was gone.

12:00am

Harry watched as a red mist poured out of his wand and vanished. The spell that monitored his use of magic was now gone and he could now work any magic he wanted with it, excluding the Unforgivables. Not that he needed a wand to work magic. Around the same time he had found the Founder's hidden room, he had discovered that he was able to do magic without a wand. He'd kept that fact to himself, having learned the bitter lesson of the Wizarding world in his second, fourth, and fifth years: not to appear too different, or else you would be treated with suspicion and thought of as evil. From what he had learned in the chamber of the three remaining Founders, Harry had gotten very good at glamours and other spells.

Even though he was allowed to work magic once he'd passed his 17th birthday, he hadn't wanted the Ministry to figure out what he was up to, so other than the occasional minor charms and transfigurations in his room, to keep them from getting suspicious the way they would have if he'd worked no magic at all that summer, Harry had done the all the spells he really needed to do wandlessly. He'd figured out that as long as the magic wasn't extreme, like when he blew up Vernon's sister Marge, it wouldn't be detected by the Ministry of Magic and he could be free of the Dursley's and being The-Boy-Who-Lived at least for a while. He'd spent time in Diagon and Knockturn Alleys among other places over the last two summers acquiring the things he was going to need when he finally left.

Using his wand Harry cast a silencing charm on himself then shrank his trunk and put it in the pocket of one of the pairs of Dudley's old pants, glad that this would be the last time he would ever have to wear his cousin's cast-offs. He had other clothes in his trunk that he would change into once he was away from the Dursley's. Harry waited another ten minutes before completing his preparations to leave. He wanted to see to see if any owls would arrive from his supposed friends with gifts or at least a card for his birthday, but nothing came. Moony had sent his a few days ago with Hedwig, since tonight was gong to be a full moon.

He picked up a stack of letters, checking to make sure he had all of them, before giving the top one to Hedwig. "You know what you're supposed to do?"

Her head bobbed, then Hedwig gave a sad little hoot.

"I know girl, but we've been through this. I wish I could take you with me, but I can't." Harry stroked her feathered chest gently, tears filling his eyes. Other than Moony, Hedwig was the only one he was really going to miss. Ever since Hagrid had given her to him, she had been his constant companion and one of the few real friends he'd had in the last seven years.

The thought of Hagrid, the first friend Harry had had in the wizarding world, brought more tears to his eyes. The gentle half-giant hadn't lived to see Voldemort defeated, but he knew that he like Sirius and his parents had been there in spirit, along with all of Riddle's other victim's wizard or muggle, when the final spell had been cast.

His thoughts returning to the present, Harry told the owl, "Hedwig, from all I've read, this trip through the portal is going to be rough and I don't want you hurt. Moony will give you a good home and take care of you. And I know that you will take good care of him."

Hedwig gently nipped his fingers, then her amber eyes locked with his as if she were trying to make him change his mind either about going, or about taking her with him.

"Ready to go, girl?" Harry extended his arm.

Realising she couldn't stop him from doing this, Hedwig reluctantly stepped on to his arm and let him drape the invisibility cloak over them, before they left the Dursley house forever.

(AN: Answers to questions asked in the reviews can be found in the Loprogue. Usually after the next update.)