Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story related to Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling. Other than the plot and a few (very few) Original Characters, it's all hers. Lucky duck, she thought of it first. No OC in this chapter. I own nothing here other than my plot and witty jokes. *ducks as readers throw rotten fruit*

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CHAPTER 1: Summertime Blues

            Harry ate his dinner, not looking at his aunt and uncle. This ritual was getting old. He avoided looking at his cousin too; the pig was shoveling food into his mouth as much as ever.

            "Have you written your . . . friends yet? How long since the last letter?"

            "Not yet, Uncle Vernon. Three days," he said in a bored voice, staring idly out the window and then back down to his plate.

            "Er, why not?"  Vernon Dursley's voice was a strained calm.

            "I haven't had time." That wasn't true, he just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

            "No time? What do you bloody do all day?" his voice rising and face starting to turn just the color of a beet and vein at his temple throbbed. "I mean, be sure to write after dinner, Harry. Wouldn't want them to think anything's wrong."

            Harry didn't say anything. Let the big oaf sweat it a while.

            "There isn't anything wrong, is there?"

            "No, Uncle Vernon. I've just been busy."

            "With what?" asked his aunt, attempting politeness.

            Harry wanted to scream. His aunt, uncle, and cousin had been walking on eggshells all summer. They responded well to threats. "I have homework. And I took that job, remember?" After a week of this strained politeness the Dursleys had been inflicting on him, Harry knew that he couldn't just hang around the house all summer; it would drive him absolutely mad. But he couldn't face wandering around Little Whinging again all summer either; he thought the sheer boredom of that would kill him. So he went and took a part-time job. This hadn't sat well with the Dursleys at first, but they responded so well to threats, and Harry's friends had threatened them . . .

            "A lot of work?" she asked.

            "Yes. Homework multiplies. One of my friend's says he swears that while everyone's asleep the textbooks breed."

            "Don't talk about such strangeness!" his uncle said in a whisper-shout. Petunia looked around wildly as though expecting the walls to sprout ears.

            "It was a joke," he said dully. "A joke. Ron Weasley is a funny person. He likes to make jokes. You remember Ron's dad, don't you?"

            There was silence.

            "Don't you?" he repeated.

            "Yes. He's charming," his Aunt Petunia replied, stiffly.

            "In his last letter he said that you were welcome to go over for dinner if you wanted to."

            Aunt Petunia pursed her lips, "Isn't that nice?"

            "Yeah. But I told him that you'd much rather prefer him and his other friends to come here."

            "What?" Dudley asked, clearly terrified. Harry's cousin finally wrenched his eyes away from his plate. His mouth hanging slightly open, Harry could see bits of food between his teeth and still his mouth; he wanted to puke.

            "I told him that you'd love to have them all over for dinner Saturday, but he said Saturday wouldn't work for him and that they'd have to come some other time."

            "You're not to go inviting people like them, you understand? I don't care what they say they are not coming over for dinner!" his uncle was whisper-shouting again.

            Harry got up, took his plate to the sink, and went upstairs.

            Even tormenting the Dursleys had become less fun than usual, but maybe because they'd become so much easier to torture. He hadn't mentioned dinner or even food in the last letter he'd sent Ron's dad.

            He entered his room and noticed something by his window. "Hey, Hedwig, where are you going? Come back here." He went to the window and the snowy owl jumped lightly on his hand. "Going out hunting? I've got a letter for you to deliver first. Tonks gets it today."

            He went to his desk to add the finishing touches to his letter and then reread it.

Dora,

           Hello, I'm doing well. That job is working out well still. There are some interesting birds this time of year. I've been wondering, do you have any particular information on cardinals or finches? If you do, have your brother or sister send it to me. I look forward to seeing you again, and our other friends. I haven't heard much from them. Do you think I will hear much from them soon?

James

            He sealed the letter but didn't write a name on the outside. "Give this to Tonks for me, Hedwig." He tied the letter to her leg.

            She hooted softly and flew out the open window. Harry watched until she became invisible against the sunset. He threw himself on his bed, not wanting to do his homework. His scores from the tests he'd taken at the end of the previous year of school had come back, along with a list of homework for all the advanced classes he'd be taking. Not that they'd sent out the booklist yet, they obviously must still be missing a teacher. And Harry had a hunch of what class they were missing a teacher for. He sighed and picked up his Potions textbook. It was time he got to work on his essay: the 12 uses of dragon's blood—explain and discuss, and give 3 examples in which dragon's blood is used for a different purpose in each potion.

            Harry opened the trunk at the end of his bed and took out a parchment, a bottle of ink, and a quill. The end of the quill was a bit worn away at where he'd chewed it, trying to think of what to write on previous occasions. He'd have to get a new one the next time he was in Diagon Alley.

*          *          *

            Harry was standing in a room much like an amphitheatre. He watched a man and woman dueling on a dais. Over the dais was a crumbling archway and a veil. The woman had heavily-lidded eyes. The man was handsome and gave a doglike bark of a laugh as he asked, "Is that all you've got?"

            They continued fighting until suddenly the man fell backwards through the veil attached to the archway. He was gone.

            "NO! Sirius! SIRIUS!" Harry tried to run after him but was held back by powerful hands, despite all he struggled.

            "No, Harry, no. He's gone…"

            Harry woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. He was breathing fast. He closed his eyes and picture two large pale blue eyes. As he concentrated on these eyes his breathing slowed and he grew oddly calmer. The first time this summer he'd woken, panicked, as he had tonight and those pale eyes rose out of his memory and seemed to make everything okay. He didn't know why but they did.

            Harry hated nightmares, and he had them regularly. Sometimes he'd watch his friend Cedric die, sometimes his parents, sometimes he'd see his godfather Sirius Black vanish behind that fluttering veil, all of them never to return again. He thought of those eyes again and dropped back into a dreamless slumber.

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If this isn't too horrible, would you continue reading it?