Hope the mutinous mob aren't coming to my house…Hope this starts to make up for my transgressions…Please don't hate me, lol.

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"You'll sleep here. If you hear someone coming down the stairs, its probably Dudley, so feel free to practice whatever curse you feel like." Harry unrolled an assortment of blankets onto the couch as he said all this. His face was taunt and looked almost indifferent of the situation, a stance he had adopted since the funeral.

"Ron and I will be upstairs if you need anything. We'll leave in the morning, this is only a technicality." His voice was hollow and empty as he spoke.

"Alright, I'll see you lot in the morning." With this, Harry and Ron left Hermione to sleep. They went up to the small bedroom at the top of the stairs. Harry glanced behind him as they reached the top, remembering another time he had looked down those stairs and, instead of seeing an empty landing, had been met with many familiar faces there to take him away. No one was going to come get him now. He had to leave on his own.
Well, not entirely on his own. Ron and Hermione had come with him, just as they had said they would. Arriving on the Dursley's doorstep that afternoon, Harry had only said they would be spending the night and leaving the next morning.

"Now, see here," Mr. Dursley had blustered, but Harry had only turned and looked at him.

"We're staying the night. We will be gone before you wake up in the morning. If you have a problem, we'll just put you in your rooms and lock the doors."

"Ah, but you can't practice magic! You can't practice magic away from school!"

"Actually, I can't practice magic outside of school until I'm of age, which, if my watch is right, is in 3 hours and 32 minutes, however Ron and Hermione are allowed to use magic whenever they want if you don't want to wait." A look of terror ignited in Vernon's eyes and he backed away from the door, allowing them in. Mrs. Dursley came around the corner as they entered the living room.

"What's this!"

"Don't argue, dear, they're staying the night! Tell Dudders to stay in his room, and don't let him come out.

"The Dursley's had disappeared upstairs after this and had not been heard from yet. As Harry and Ron entered the room, Harry ran around kicking some of Dudley's forgotten possessions out of the way.

"I've got a sleeping bag, you take he bed."

"Whatever you say, mate." Ron and Hermione had realized that arguing, even in Harry's best interests, was not advisable at this point. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine, I'm just anxious to leave this place behind me," Harry replied.

"I can understand that."

After spending a couple of weeks after the funeral at the Burrow, the trio, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, had gone to Grimmauld place to check on things and do some more cleaning, hoping to make the house livable in the event Harry decided to use it after he came of age. While there, Harry had stumbled upon an old locket. Immediately kicking himself for forgetting, he had first seen it the summer before his 5th year, when cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms. The second time he had seen it was, of course, in the Pensieve, with Dumbledore showing him the memories of those gone. Immediately, Harry had found a hammer and began smashing the thing.

Ron and Hermione were shocked at his sudden outburst, but even more astounded when the locket, instead of breaking, began screaming, yes, screaming, then burst open. A cloud of dust burst into the air and soon materialized to form the all to familiar face with slits for eyes and skin pulled taunt. Harry immediately pointed his wand at the locket, still on the floor.

"Reducto!" The locket burst into pieces and the dust hovering above it disappeared. Harry fell to his knees as Hermione ran over to him and Ron moved to stand over the hundreds of pieces of broken metal that had once been the locket.

"Harry, was that, was it…"

"Yeah." Hermione continued shaking next to Harry.

"Obliterate," Ron muttered at the pile of rubble, then walked over to rap his arms around the still shaking Hermione.

"What, heavens, what's going on, what happened!" Mrs. Weasley burst in, rather flustered having been interrupted, it looked, while de-doxying another room in the house. The trio glanced at eat other, desperate for an excuse other than the truth. No one else knew about the Horcruxes and it would be easier to keep it that way.

"We found a boggart, we were just finishing it off. Sorry, mum," Ron replied quickly. The other two nodded as Mrs. Weasley shook her head and returned to her other part of the house.

"Well, another one down," Harry muttered to himself. They had returned to the Burrow that night.

"Harry, are you sure you want to go through spending a night with those awful muggles?" Ron asked for the hundredth time.

"I have to go, Dumbledore wanted me to. You don't have to come, but I need to go."

"We'll come with you tonight, Harry, just like we promised. Right, Ron?"

"Alright. But we're only staying one night, right?"

"Right."

"Are you really not coming back to school, Harry? I really think you should reconsider. I mean, it'll be really hard to get any kind of job, even with everything going on, and you really don't want to leave, do you?"

"I don't know, Hermione. I mean, it'll be so different there. I don't know if I could handle it." His shoes had become very interesting all of the sudden.

"Come on, mate, my mum says I need to finish, she said she won't hear any more about drop-outs in the family. I guess Fred and George kind of blew it for me."

"Ron, you can't leave, they're going to make you head boy if you stay."

"You don't know that, and I'm not staying if you're not."

"Hermione, talk to him! He can't leave, his mum'll murder both of us."

"She won't have to do anything if you both screw your heads back on and come to school this fall."

"Fine."

"What?" both Ron and Hermione said at the same time.

"Fine, I'll come back to school. I mean, McGonagall will be Headmistress, at least its still someone in the Order. She'll have a lot of hiring to do, though."

"That's right, she has to find a replacement Transfiguration professor, as well as someone for Defense Against The Dark Arts. Gryffindor needs a new head of house as well. I imagine Slughorn will stay on and will take the place as Slytherin's head of house, not that there are many of them left. If not, we'll be needing a new Potions professor as well."

"It'll be almost an entirely new set of professors. And our NEWT year at that!" Ron sqeaked.

"It'll be alright, we'll make it through. It can't be harder than last year, can it?" Hermione implored.

"I don't know, this year we're looking for Horcruxes along with everything else. This could be a lot to try and take on…"

"But you'll do it, won't you, Harry?"

"Yeah, I'll be there." Harry looked up as he said this.

"We should get ready to head out. I don't want to get there too early, but if we get there after they're all in bed, they may call the police thinking we're trying to rob them or some rubbish." Ron and Hermione nodded in consent.

Now, lying on the floor of his old bedroom, Harry rolled over to look at his alarm clock. 11:55pm. He was suddenly reminded of another year, when he had seen the time read the same.

Five minutes to go. It seemed like so long ago. He hadn't even known about his parents, about witches and Hogwarts. Four minutes. Quidditch didn't exist, brooms didn't fly, there was no way Dudley was going to grow a tail. Three minutes. He hadn't heard of the Daily Prophet, or Gringott's, or Diagon Ally. There were no Ron and Hermione, no Weasleys, no Ginny. Two minutes. Ginny. He had to let her go. She was good about it. He had to. There was no way he was meant to have that kind of happiness. Not until Voldemort was gone. One minute. Voldemort. There had been no Voldemort in that old life. There had been no Avada Kedavara or Crucio, just what was visible, what was tangible. Thirty Seconds. Was it an easier time? Yes. Was I better? No.

"Happy Birthday to me," Harry whispered. It had been easier, but it had been empty. This life may be hard, but it was full of people, places, and things to make it more real that the old life had ever been.

More coming…