A/N: Well, this is the fifth chapter to my story… And may I say again, if those of you reading my story have not read my short story 'university', then go read it…… it contains a lot of explicit swearing, but they are 19 year boys and if you can hear my brother and his mates talk, you know how a lot of 19 year old boys talk to their mates? Please review it!! Anyway…
On with the usual…
Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Harry Potter, or the characters. But Rene Walker does belong to me, so there.
Chapter: Fights and suspicions.
**Double asterisks and italics equals flashbacks**
Italics equals a letter.
Fights and suspicions.
Five days had passed since Harry had received the crystalline figure. He had been in a faraway state since then. He would sit around the house totally oblivious to his uncles shouts of him to do things, and his aunts shrieks of 'get off our new sofa, your denting it.' He would think of the message that had been projected on his ceiling, that fateful night. It had been replaying over and over in his mind. And he still could not bring himself to admit the inevitable facts that were coming to the surface. The figure that had caused his mind wonderings, (among other events) was now sat on his window sill, reflecting the dazzling light of the sun at every direction in his room.
He was currently sat on his bed thinking about what happened on his birthday.
** He had met with Rene again by the lake when he had gone for his evening jog. She was sat at the edge with her feet dangling in, and a very grim look on her face. As Harry had drawn closer he could see faint tear streaks making their way down her cheeks. She picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. As it landed it splashed her lightly and she let out a small chuckle. Harry went and sat down beside her, she didn't seem to notice and when he said,
"You ok?" she let out a small scream and toppled into the water. As she came up gasping for breath he rolled onto his back in laughter. She gave him a rather dirty look and climbed out, onto the bank. As Harry stopped rolling around, he looked up and was met with her glare. Feeling a little ashamed at laughing at her when she was obviously upset he gave a small cough and said in a very apologetic voice,
"I'm sorry, it's just, you know… oh… I'm sorry." He finished as she burst into a wave of fresh tears, now mingling with the water from the lake rolling down her face. He scooted over to her side and feeling a little uncomfortable, awkwardly put an arm around her shaking shoulders and was surprised when she grabbed hold of his shirt and buried her face into his chest. She cried for little more than ten minutes and after she had wiped at her eyes and apologised repeatedly for getting his shirt wet she sat up and gave an annoyed snort. After a few minutes thought she harshly pushed at his chest to get out of his arms and stood up. She looked down on him with her hair half dried and matted, and what little mascara she had on making her eyes look black from the water. And with that she walked away without looking back.
Harry, who had been very confused for the rest of that day, was doing his evening exercises when the doorbell rang. Ignoring it altogether he carried on with his sit-ups and tried to block out his uncles persistent yelling. After feeling as if his head would explode and not wanting whoever was at the door to get too scared by his uncle. He ran up the stairs from the basement wearing only shorts and a sleeveless shirt clinging to his frame due to the build up of sweat. He opened the door and a startled gasp came from the visitor. Rene was stood there holding a package tightly in her hands and was staring at Harry in shock. He looked away embarrassed and tried to un-stick his shirt from his chest. After a few moments of Rene's intense staring and the heat gradually rising on the back of his neck he went to say…
"I'm sorry" only to hear the exact same words from Rene's part. They both laughed awkwardly and Harry let Rene speak first.
"I'm sorry about earlier" she stated. "I know you didn't deserve that kind of treatment and well I was just upset because…" she trailed off quietly. After taking a deep breath she held out the package and said,
"Happy birthday." And provided him with a small smile. He took the present while muttering a quiet thanks. He was stood there with the package in hand for a few seconds before he apologised for earlier as well,
"I shouldn't have laughed at you. You were upset and I know it must have seemed as if I was mocking you, but I would never do that." When she accepted the apology he invited her in and they went up to his bedroom. Totally forgetting about his presents displayed openly around his room, he groaned as she picked up the book that Hermione had sent him. He had started reading it that morning and left it on his desk. He quickly went to grab it as she spun around and tried to read it. Hoping that it would work on this occasion he grabbed the amethyst gem and held it in his hand he quietly muttered,
"Amythey activey urgentei" as he muttered this, he thought about Rene 'stealing' his book and he smiled as the gem heated up to a deep red colour and Rene dropped the book. Dearly wishing that she had not managed to read anything incriminating he picked up the book and placed it safely back in his draw.
Shaking her head slightly Rene tried to get rid of the words in her head that she had read on the first page, and tried to look as innocent as possible. She was still confused as to why Harry had just happened to mutter some sort of chant when the book was practically forced out of her hands.
She moved over to the figurine on the window sill and gasped in awe. 'It's so beautiful' she thought as she reached out to touch it. She heard Harry's cry of…
"No, don't it's really fragile" she let her hand drop and sat down on his bed.
Breathing rather heavily Harry sat down beside Rene on his bed and started to open her gift. What his eyes met was not what he had expected. He was looking at a beautiful photo frame made of solid glass that curved slightly, with pictures and patterns carved around the edge, sprinkled with dustings of glitter and a gold rimmed edge. Inside was a picture of a younger Harry smiling shyly, stood next to a younger Rene. His messy hair giving him a natural sweetness of a child, with his wide glassless eyes (he did not need to wear glasses at this age) staring back at him innocently. He was wearing his school uniform and it generally fit him well, save for his trousers being a little too large. Rene was wearing a grey skirt and buckled shoes; she was smiling brightly, showing off her buck teeth, with her freckles showing brightly on her rosy face and her longer brown hair falling just past her shoulders, half up with a red ribbon. They were in the school grounds with parents hugging their children in the background.
Turning to her with his eyes silently asking the question she knew he would ask she answered with,
"My mum took it on our last day of school when we were 7." She said smiling slightly at the memory. "You were the closest to me, so I pulled you into the picture and you being as shy as you were just stood there and smiled." Harry had gone back to staring at the picture and when he heard her ask,
"Well do you like it?" he replied with,
"No, I don't like it…" at seeing her face drop he finished with,
"I love it" and gave her a quick hug. She laughed and gave him a playful punch in the arm. He opened her card, a little teddy bear with a balloon saying 'Happy Birthday',
"It's all we had in the house" she said sheepishly as he put in on his desk. Their conversation that followed seemed a bit forced to Harry and when he saw the sadness looming in her eyes he asked her,
"Are you ok? You've seemed really upset today." She took a deep breath and said,
"It's my mother. She was taken into intensive care this morning and they don't think she will make it through the night." She paused as Harry put an arm around her again and carried on,
"I wanted to go and see her but my dad got angry and said it would cause her more harm. It's affecting him really bad you see, and he keeps snapping at me." Now Harry had a vague idea of how Ron and Hermione must have felt when he kept snapping at them for no apparent reason.
After another 10 minutes, Rene got up and said her farewells. After watching her walk down the street he went back down to the basement to carry on with his exercises.
He was just about finished when Dudley came down the stairs noisily and picked up one of the mats on which Harry usually lay for certain exercises.
"What's this?" he asked moodily.
"It's called an exercise mat dudders, you know to exercise on" he smirked at the look of anger that passed across his cousins face and started packing up the equipment.
"I know what it means you idiot. I just want to know where you got all the money for this junk. Mum and dad don't give you any of their money. And you don't have a petty job that only someone like you would be able to get. Did you steal it?" he asked with a nasty glint in his eye. Feeling he had to set his cousin straight before he went running down the road shouting it out and causing the neighbours to hate him even more he said,
"No Duddikins, I didn't steal them and where I got the money from is none of your business." Hoping that was the end of the conversation he stood up and made his way to the stairs.
"It can't possibly be money that you're parents left you. After all, they didn't work did they? All they did was wave around those stupid sticks you people use and get themselves killed." At hearing those insulting words Harry turned around slowly and placed the mats on the floor.
"What did you say Dudley?" he was seething in anger and he felt a new kind of power running through his veins as he stood glaring at his cousin.
"What, deaf as well as blind?" he stated snorting loudly. But before he could say anything else he found his younger cousin pinning him against the wall.
"What the fu..." he was cut off as Harry sent a punch to his jaw. He retaliated with a punch to Harry's stomach, making Harry gasp for breath for the second time that summer. Just as he was about to punch Harry again, said person moved out of the way and kicked him in the head. Dudley fell to the ground with a cry of pain and was holding his head gingerly.
"You crazy bastard" he shouted as he made for Harry again, this time he was more lucky and punched Harry in the eye.
Blinking rapidly through his currently painful eye Harry cursed, and as he felt a surge of power run through him he made for Dudley again, he was stopped however when his aunt grabbed hold of him from behind and his uncle came thundering down the stairs and grabbed Dudley. He was turned around swiftly by his aunt and he let out a hiss of pain as she sharply slapped him across the face. Tasting blood he brought a hand to his lip and saw that it was split. 'Her ugly ring must have done it' he thought bitterly as he shook her off and made his way up the stairs. He vaguely remembered his uncle shouting at him telling him that he was not allowed out of the house for a week, and no meals for the next five days. Frankly he didn't care as he traipsed into his room and shut the door. He collapsed on the bed feeling very sore and still rather angry and rolled over trying to get in a position where something didn't hurt. He settled for, slightly on his side, staring at the window where the moon was fast rising. And he drifted off thinking, 'what a fantastic birthday.'**
'Wow' he thought sarcastically, 'my life really is great'. He got up off the bed and went over to his calendar, 'only 25 days until I'm back at Hogwarts.' He thought as he ticked off yet another day. He heard his aunt call up the stairs for Dudley to go and eat dinner, and waited for his call. It had been five days since his uncle had set his punishment and even though at the time he didn't care, he sure did now. When the call did not come he went downstairs anyway and walked into the kitchen where his aunt had set 3 plates full of a delicious roast meal. He heard his stomach rumble and apparently so had his aunt because she turned around with a look of disgust on her face.
"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" she asked sharply.
"Well I was kinda hungry and as my punishment for not having dinner for five days is up I thought maybe I could eat something?" she looked at him with annoyance then spotted the slowly healing cut on his lip, of which she had inflicted upon him, and glanced back at the pots and pans of which she had just served up. She let out a harsh sigh and went to get him a plate. When she turned around and he was still stood there dumbly she said,
"Well go and sit down. Don't think you will be able to eat this in you're room." Not waiting to be told twice he scrambled into the dining room and sat down. He looked over at Dudley whose jaw had been dislocated in their scrabble together the other day and the bruising was just starting to go down after having it put back in place. He also has a cut lip to match Harry's, but he was sure it wasn't from his mother. When his aunt brought out the food he was surprised to find that his plate nearly matched the amount of food on everyone else's. Apparently so had his uncle and cousin, and after a few minutes furiously arguing they reluctantly agreed with her that the boy would need a decent meal after so many days without one, and they did not want him complaining to those 'freak' friends of his.
The meal he had to admit had been delicious and he could still taste it as he was sat up in his room that night. He looked in the mirror and saw that his eye's swelling was going down and was now a slight blue and red rather than black and purple. He poked it gingerly and found that it didn't hurt much anymore but he had to hand it to his cousin, he had one hell of a punch.
At the return of Hedwig a couple days ago with Dumbledore's reply saying that it was perfectly ok that he did not wish to be a prefect. He had decided to give her a couple days rest before he sent her off with Ron and Hermione's letters. Deciding that he should get to work in writing those replies he grabbed his crystal figurine and turned on the switch. Ignoring the message being projected onto the ceiling he set about writing, first to Ron…
Dear Ron,
Hey man, thanks for the amethyst gem, it really came in handy the other day. This girl I have been chatting to over the holidays from my old school was round the other day and she found Hermione's book of curses that she sent for my birthday. She opened it up and everything so I grabbed the gem and did the chant and stuff and I thought of her 'stealing' my book and it fell out of her hands. She did seem a bit suspicious though? I don't think she read anything too obvious? I hope not. Anyway Fred and George's new invention sounds very interesting. If they ever get them sorted out then I will buy a bag of them. I think I could probably use them this year. Did you get you're O.W.L results yet? Mine didn't come with the letter from Hogwarts and I was wondering if yours said anything about when we would get them? I bet Hermione got like 20? I know I must have failed half of them.
And to you're first question. At first I did blame myself for Sirius's death, but I have realised it's not my fault. But I will feel bad whenever it's mentioned you know, he was my godfather, it will just take time ok. Don't worry about me.
I had a pretty bad birthday but I don't want to bore you with that. I can't tell you why I have to stay at the Dursleys, well not yet anyway. I just hope we can arrange something soon, another 3 weeks here with no one but Dudley and Rene to talk to I think may go mad!
Well see you soon, I hope.
Harry
P.s. Sorry it's a bit late, I had to give Hedwig a rest from flying to Hogwarts and back, don't ask!
Feeling satisfied with that he folded it and put it in an envelope and sealed it. He set to work on Hermione's letter.
Dear Hermione,
I'm ok now thanks. I had a rather weird and painful birthday, (don't ask) but I'm better now. Thank you for the book. It's very interesting. But my friend Rene from my old school came round the other day and she just happened to find it, but thanks to my present from Ron, I saved her from finding out any incriminating information.
I do not blame myself for Sirius's death, not anymore anyway. I have faced up to the fact that it's not my fault for everything that happens around me. But I might take a while to get over it. He was my Godfather. I'm glad you had a good time at you're grandparents house and I'm sure you look lovely in that necklace.
Don't worry; I'll try not to be as snappy anymore. I've said the same to Ron, I can't tell you about why I have to stay here, not yet. I'm not ready ok! It's not as simple as it sounds trust me.
Lots of love
Harry
P.s. I have sent this letter with Ron's just so you know.
As he set down his quill again he placed the letter in an envelope and sealed that as well.
"Hedwig" he said while whistling for her to come over.
"Here you go girl, another delivery." He stroked her feathers as he tied the letters to her leg and told her who to send them to and where they lived. As she set off out the window he sighed loudly and looked at the figurine that was giving off the only light now.
"My young griffin" he muttered as he changed into his nightwear. The nights had become a little cooler and he was now wearing a shirt. He turned off the light just as he looked out the window to the street below. What he saw made him gasp and lean out for a closer look…
A/N: *cackles* That's sort of a cliff hanger I have been told… *he he*… yay!
The only way to find out what happens next is to read the next chapter. And to read the next chapter you would have to inspire me to write it. Therefore resulting in you're reviewing! *grins*
Please read and review…. Please make me happy.
And thanks you so much for all my reviewers so far (looks below for individual thanks). You help me write more! I hope you keep reading my story. This chapter was over 3,000 words long, that's just the chapter.
A/N: This is another challenge that I would love for you to try. I have posted this at the end as I cannot post them as 'stories' because they are 'not' stories… blah blah… Anyway… review and tell me if you will attempt at turning my ideas into stories: *smiles* here we go…
Challenge 2:
Ok right …. I know that there are MANY time-travel fics out there …. But this one has a twist ….. Harry is attending Hogwarts in his 5th or 6th year … depends on whether you want it pre-OOTP or not? And he's in a stress shall we say … he bumps in2 some-one … *your choice who* just make it someone interesting? He gets sent back to the time of the founders of Hogwarts….. There he learns more magic and powers and that he looks extraordinarily like one of the great four. Which one? While Harry is wondering why the founders are doing the same thing, *they don't know he's from the future … he didn't tell them* anyway … various things happen and just when secrets are about to be revealed …. Harry stumbles across another time-turning device and is thrown into the future…… Where in the future?.... only to the time when his parents were in school….. He has to make up excuses as he also looks extraordinarily like his father and struggles to keep his secret …. Little does he know that a certain Red-headed, emerald eyed girl is falling for his courageous and kind nature….. You choose what happens between Harry and his mother …. Just don't make them go together ….*that's just sick* maybe a kiss from her part…? Any way something happens to scare Harry and he runs into someone who knows him for who he is? Who is it? ….. Harry is taken by someone … somewhere…. And so the search begins … we have people in his own time searching for him … we have people from the Hogwarts founder's time looking for him... And we have his future parents and their friends looking for him …. How will it all turn out? ….only you can decide ….
*and be sure to let Harry get bashed around a bit ….*
I know it's a bit of a long explanation …. And you're very welcome to change some of the ideas …. But I would really appreciate it if someone could try out these ideas… I'd love to see it all written up in a story!!
What do you think?
Review!!
Thanks to my reviewers:
Saffire shadow ~ Thanks, glad I describe more than other people…Lol…Yup hope you like the rest of my story.
Saffire Shadow ~ thanks again…glad it wasn't to long…
Saffire Shadow ~ Lol…I should have had her take a pic, it would have been funny … lol…Thanks.
GinnylovesHarry ~ Ok…I shall …hope you like?
Lindz ~ Thanks you…I will *smiles*
Xyverz ~ Thanks for your, *is that right? Soz I'm really bad at them* email. I will try in future glad you like though *grins*
Gina ~ Oooh…perfect way to introduce a new character…I like that!! *he he* Thanks…
Gina again ~ Thanks you. Glad I'm like you. So you think the characters are good? *jumps up and down* …I will check out your fanfic …and about your secret…*leans in and whispers* 'I'm sorry to break it to you mate but…everyone can read what it is in your review!!!!'
Well …unless I just practically told everyone that you wrote a secret in your review…causing them all to be nosy parkers and go read it now! *Gets out gun ready for any snoopers*…In which case I'm ever so sorry *cries*!! *grins evilly* Lol…just thought I'd point it out!!
Ideala2 ~ Thanks sweetie…mwah!! Luv you!! *grins* Awwww you sweet!
Kemenran ~ Ok…
Ooops…Gina again! ~ Yay….thanksies!! *Well that was pointless …..ah well I had to reply to the review*
Calimora ~ Thanks…I was hoping it was a sort of cliffhanger…ish…?
Hpcrazy ~ Glad it was longer…and about your questions…You'll have to wate and see….*taps nose* …Oh by the way, you gave me like 5 copies of this review? Sorry … just weird … *scratches hed*
Noraseyes ~ Hope this chap satisfied your need for chapters?
I-love-Sirius73 ~ Thanks…
The author who writes ~ your account name is v. true by the way … lol… and im sorry this chap wasn't the next day but I hope it came soon enough?
Skydragon ~ Thanks glad you think its cool. I will cool off his temper a liccle bit… but in this chap and the next chap he does get a bit angry and violent so you should be looking forward to that *grins evilly* Harry's pairing will be revealed when it is ….
LittlebigEars sis ~ Sprry about the swearing… but hey!! They are 16 year old boys (and girls) They are bounf to swear sometime and I did say at the beginning that if you don't like the swearing just skip it *grins* thanks anyway…
Smackskiller ~ Yes a cliffie…So glad …Hope you like this chappie … soz another cliffie *hides*
Jkreviewer ~ Right…*stretches fingers, clicks knuckles…cracks neck…* I'm ready… Your review confused me????????? Um…what did I do wrong? If you mean that I've said there's only two weeks left of his holiday after his birthday … then I didn't say that!!! Its just he said he would probably get sent to his room in the next 'few' weeks…that can mean 3, 4 may be 5 weeks? I didn't say a couple of weeks…??? Is that what you meant? Sorry I'm really slow at comprehending people!?! But I'm glad you think my stories not as rushed as yours…my other one was rushed so I decided to slow this one down… and you will find out about the crystal figurine when I will write about the crystal figurine! …. So um….*grins triumphantly* I hope I cleared up the misunderstanding … though think im the one misunderstanding…*shakes head* Ah well who cares…
Next Chapter: Shocks, unexpected meetings and tears.
LuvaboyDan*Hesmyman ~*XxX*~