"Hermione!" shouted Harry as he sat straight up in his bed. Sweat dripped down the sides of his face, and his breath paced at an irregular rate. He searched around his room, making sure everything was in its place. His trunk leaned against his dresser with bits of clothing fed through the opening. Hedwig's cage sat empty on the top of his dresser. She was outside for the time being. Hedwig was only allowed out a certain amount of time to stretch her wings, because of Voldemort's return and he didn't want anything to happen to her. He wasn't allowed to write many letters to his best friends, because Hermione was afraid a Death Eater would intercept them.
Harry rubbed his scar stinging in pain. He was much used to this by now, but the dream he had was something new. He wondered why he would have a dream as horrible as that to happen to Hermione. Did he want that actually happening to her?
Pulling off the coverlet of his bed, Harry tiptoed over to his window, and gazed outside at the midnight sky. Not a cloud covered the black sky, and the stars twinkled eccentrically in a way Harry rather thought was annoying. He wasn't in much a charming mood those days. With having everyone just believing him about Voldemort's return, and losing the only one who he was closest to, he found himself willingly locked up in his room and lying on his bed day in and day out. He only left his room late at night when he didn't have to deal with his relatives, and he could do as he pleases—as long as it were the appropriate noise level.
Seeing no sight of Hedwig, he returned back to his bed, and collapsed on to it with a sigh. Time goes to slow, he thought. All he wanted was to be with his friends—the people he needed the most at the time. However, to his displeasing, he found his Aunt Petunia barging in throughout the day making sure he was still breathing, and then leaving harshly with the door slamming behind her. By her grave frowns and short grunts, it seemed like she wanted him dead. It wasn't much to his surprise. His entire life, the Durselys' thought of Harry as being a burden placed upon their lives; having to take care of him, feeding him, and just living within the same block as him brought despair to them. But Harry was just as miserable. If it were his choice, he'd be at 12 Grimmauld Place with people just like him.
Harry creaked open his door, and poked out his head to hear if his relatives were asleep. After hearing the assuring snores coming from his cousin Dudley's room and the constant mumbling in his aunt and uncle's room, he snuck down the stairs to the kitchen.
The extravagant full moon shined through the drapery, illuminating his pathway. As he pulled out the leftover chocolate cake from Dudley's birthday, he thought back to a time Ron stuffed his mouth with his chocolate cake after a win in Quidditch. His face was covered in chocolate frosting, and crumbs were stuck between his teeth. Harry could remember Ron's chocolaty smile quite clearly, and slightly sniggered at the image.
Closing the door of the refrigerator, Harry gazed outside at the moon. He knew Professor Lupin was morphed in to a werewolf at the time being, and began to wonder what he was doing. As he ate his late-night snack, he walked around the room and looked around through the moon lit house. He looked down at the corner of the foyer, noticing an indent in the wall, and remembering a time when he was six. Dudley as usual was giving Harry a cousinly beating, and pushed Harry in to the wall. His elbow slightly broke through the wall, and straight away Dudley snitched on him to Aunt Petunia. That cost an evening without food, and the rest of the day in the cupboard under the stairs. He didn't mind the cupboard too much. He had gotten quite used to it after the first five years of his life. He used to think of it as small fort.
Harry turned his head away from the foyer as he heard a sharp noise outside. It sounded like those poppers Dudley and his mates always threw at him whenever he minded his own business outside in the garden—which used to be always. He walked over to the doors that led out to the portico. Squinting his eyes, he hoped it was someone from the Order to come get him, but it wasn't—just one of the mysterious noises that was only heard in the dead of night. He turned back around as he finished up his slice of cake, and began walking to the sink. He didn't notice the darkened figure gliding up to the window behind him, but he heard a light tap on the glass that forced him to quickly turn back around.
Harry frantically searched around the glass that separated him and the outside, but he couldn't see anything—or thing didn't want to be seen. A light fog against the glass began to grow as Harry crept closer to it. He reached his hand out to the glass, and felt that the fog was forming on the other side. Harry bent closer in examination. His nose was so close; the glass could've come alive and bit him if it wanted to. But, there was nothing out there. Harry was about to forget about it until he heard smudging sounds against the glass. Words began to appear in the fogged area, and Harry began to sound it out.
"L-oo-k. Be-h-ind. Y-ou," he worded. "Look behind you?" Harry turned around, wondering, What's that supposed to mean?
Harry looked around behind him confused, not knowing what to do. Was it a Death Eater—or a Dementor? As he turned back around, he jumped in his skin as he saw a cloaked Death Eater standing eye-to-eye with him and Ron was in its clutches.
"Ron!" Harry shouted quietly. Harry looked up at the cloaked fiend, and he felt it grinning at him. Pulling out his wand, the creature began to back up in to the night.
Harry pulled out his wand, and reached for the lock of the door. As he began to push the door open, a loud CRACK erupted behind Harry and then another that forced him to pull back from the door. The Ron's petrified face disappeared immediately, and he now had a sort of malevolence expression flashing at Harry. Before Harry could turn around and see who was behind him, one pulled him backwards to the ground, and the other seemed to be shouting at the Death Eater.
"If you want him, come inside and get him!" shouted a softer sounding voice. Harry looked up at the glass doors, and saw the Death Eater and Ron outside sweep away in to the dead of night.
"Harry, what do you think you were doing?" asked a harsher sounding voice that laid on top him. The bloke pulled Harry up to his feet, and Harry once realised it was Mad-eye Moody, and Nymphadora Tonks stood by the doorway.
"Don't tell me you actually thought that was Ron?" Tonks asked. She looked different from the last time Harry seen her. Besides her sombre facial look, she had straight black hair hanging passed her elbows, her eyes were now a violet colour, and her face looked younger and had soft texture to it. Small-accessorised spectacles lied at the end of her short upturned nose. Harry continually looked back at them and didn't know exactly what to say. What were they doing here?
"Well speak, boy!" Moody grumbled. "This behaviour is outrageous! CONSTANT VILAGENCE!"
"Yes, Alastor, we know. Now, Harry, why did you open that door to two Death Eaters?"
"Two Death Eaters?" Harry blurted. He quickly turned his head towards the ceiling at the sound of rustling on the second floor, but brought his attention back as soon as the noise died away. "That wasn't Ron?"
"You don't think a Death Eater knows how to shape shift in to someone else?" Tonks asked suspiciously, wondering if Harry had fallen on his head over the holiday. "They have many ploys towards tricking someone. They knew you're mates with Weasley, and so they used him against you to pull you in to their clutches."
"Yeah, but I thought I was safe within the walls of the Dursleys' house?"
"Did you not just attempt to unlock this door, and walk outside?"
Harry hadn't realised what actions he did. He was more concerned about Ron and his safety.
"Kids these days. Full of ignorance," Moody grumbled. "CONSTANT VILAGENCE!"
"Alastor! We understand! Constant vilagence, yes!" Tonks shouted. Harry heard another sound above his head, and hoped his family hadn't woken up.
"Could you two be quieter?" Harry hissed. "I'd rather not have the Durselys' come down and see you two in their house."
"Yes, very well, Harry," Tonks agreed. "We have to be going anyway. Do you have your things packed?"
"No, I didn't know you were coming—"
"We were already here," Moody interrupted.
"Do you think we'd let you be by yourself with these people and Death Eaters being able to manipulate you like this?" Tonks asked.
"I was not manipulated!" Harry shouted, not caring if his uncle would hear him.
"Argue at will, Harry, but we have got to get going. Now lets get upstairs, and get your things packed."
Tonks left immediately, and walked up the stairs to his room. Before Harry could even walk in to his room, Tonks had already flicked everything in his trunk.
"Is that everything?" she asked.
Harry nodded his head, and grabbed Hedwig's cage. He knew she'd figure out where he was so he didn't bother looking for her out the window.
As Harry and Tonks began to walk down the steps, the hall light flicked on and at the other end stood a rather purple Uncle Vernon.
"WHAT'S GOING ON?" he shouted demandingly.
"I'm just leaving," Harry responded with a bit of pleasing tone in it.
"WHAT ARE THEY DOING HERE?" Harry was positive his uncle couldn't get anymore purple, but he was wrong.
"Helping me leave." Harry turned back around, and made his way down to the first floor. Tonks sent Uncle Vernon a peculiar, and followed behind Harry.
"GREAT!" he screamed. "GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!"
Harry heard his uncle's door slam shut, and a wild snort from Dudley's bedroom. He knew Dudley would sleep through an invasion, and rolled his eyes. Down in the kitchen, Harry and Tonks walked in on Moody glaring in disgust at a picture of Dudley grinning widely.
"He's related to you?" he asked, turning away from the picture towards Harry.
"Yeah," Harry answered as he glanced at the picture. Moody made a slight grunt through his nose. To Harry, it sounded almost like a laugh, but he didn't try and ask.
They walked outside and Moody waved his wand at the side of street. Instantly, the lights of a massive purple triple-decker bus blinded Harry. The Knight Bus screeched to a halt in the crisp night. Tonks and Moody constantly searched around them, and pulled Harry aboard, handing Stan Shunpike, the bus conductor, a Galleon.
Harry sat down on one of the vacant cots, and perched himself against the wall as he stared out at the deserted street of Privet Drive. Tonks and Moody were in discussion with Stan Shunpike as Harry felt himself drifting off to sleep. Just as he felt the bus get ready for its departure, a shaggy black dog appeared out of the shrubs and caught Harry's attention. It didn't connect in his until the bus took off, and he then immediately stood upright and yelled, "Sirius!"