Disclaimer: What I choose to do with someone else's characters is none of your business!
Umm…is anybody reading this? Oh well, even if no one does, this is so much fun to write! But I do feel kind of stupid writing these little introductions for myself so I'll just have to pretend! Goodie2Shoe
Harry heard the whispering voices before he awoke.
"Don't, Ron! Mum said not to wake him – he came in the middle of the night."
"Ginny, I don't remember this being any of your business."
Harry could almost hear Ginny's sneer from the top bunk.
"Ginny's right, Ron, leave Harry alone," Hermione's voice suddenly chimed in.
"Oh, typical! Hermione, take Ginny's side for a change why don't you –"
Ron, continued, feigning betrayal.
"We can wake him up for you, Ronnieskins – it's our latest invention, we call it the Alarm Clock Wallop. The only problem is…he may be unconscious for a few hours afterwards."
"Yeah, we still haven't finished experimenting with it yet."
It sounded as though Fred and George had just walked in.
Not willing to risk becoming a vict– guinea pig of the said Alarm Clock Wallop Harry stirred in his bed and reached for his glasses on the nightstand.
Predictably, as he peered down from the top bunk of Ron's bed he saw a worried Hermione, sending a disapproving glance at the twins and a silent Ginny, scowling at Ron, who was facing the Weasley twins, perhaps weighing the pros and cons of walloping Harry awake. Ron gave a loud, phony sneeze, grinning guiltily, hoping that it would wake Harry.
"Nice try Ron!" Harry exclaimed, shocking all of his visitors and bringing a smile to everyone's face and a small flush to Ginny's cheeks.
"I told you we were going to wake him…" she trailed off.
"Harry, mate, nice to have you back!" Ron said grinning, despite Hermione's glare.
"Yeah, by the way – thanks for warning me that Snape was coming to Privet Drive! The muggles almost died of shock!" Harry exclaimed.
Harry had a lot of questions he wanted to ask Ron and Hermione about his sudden, although desired, departure from Privet Drive, but he didn't feel like asking them in front of an audience.
Harry sat up and dismounted the top bunk.
"I think they thought Snape would impale them with his wand if they gave him the chance,"
Harry added as the group headed down the creaking stairs, grinning to the sound of Fred and George's guffaws at the thought of the Dursleys cowering beneath the sharp angle of Snape's rather large nose.
It must have been midday because the breakfast things were already cleared away and Mrs. Weasly was setting lunch on the table as they entered the kitchen.
"Ah! Harry, you're awake. Wonderful! There are some people in the living room waiting to talk to you, dear."
Harry exchanged a meaningful glance with the others, silently promising them to tell them all about it later, and headed towards the living room, shouting over his shoulder,
"Ron, you had better save me some of those egg salad sandwiches."
Everyone was sitting down at the scrubbed wooden table and was too busy discussing Harry's arrival, Quidditch, and school to notice the deep furrows on Mrs. Weasley's forehead.
Harry entered the living room to find Professor Lupin and Tonks sitting on the couch waiting for him. Lupin's lips were drawn, and Harry imagined he was steeling himself for something while Tonks looked cheerful despite the somewhat serious atmosphere. Actually, Tonks couldn't have looked anything but cheerful with her daffodil yellow ringlets framing her face.
"Hiya, Harry!" she exclaimed.
"Hello, Harry. How are you?" Lupin asked, looking extremely worried. The semicircles of purple that seemed etched into his cheeks made him look extremely tired and old.
"Fine, thanks," Harry mumbled, sitting down across from the two, falling heavily into one of the Weasley's sagging chairs.
"Harry, we have a lot of other things to do today. It's a busy time for members of the Order, but Dumbledore was extremely worried and he wanted us to make sure that you know why you were brought here so secretively and suddenly."
Lupin paused for a moment and regarded Harry with an appraising look, as if to check if Harry could handle this information so far.
Harry nodded encouragingly, curious to receive the answer to the question. He had previously assumed that such information would be withheld from him. Like absolutely all the other important information, he thought.
Apparently Harry seemed stable enough to Lupin because after a few seconds he began to speak again,
"Now that You-Know-Who has returned to the open, he hastaken up some of his old activities. There have been some mysterious deaths, of both wizards and muggles, which the Order is monitoring.
I can't say anything more specific about these events, only that a muggle near Surrey was found dead recently with absolutely no apparent cause. It was in the muggle newspaper – "spontaneous asphyxiation," they classified it."
Suddenly, Tonks, who had previously been following a fly's progress around the room, took up,
"So you can see why Dumbledore would be worried, Harry. There was a second murder that took place last night at 1:30 am, a few streets away from you. Fortunately, we have some wizards monitoring these happenings, and Dumbledore was alerted immediately. He relayed the message to the Weasleys and sent Severus Snape to get you. We have been planning to get you for a while, but certainly not under such urgent circumstances."
Tonks smiled widely. "It's great to see you again, Harry. You've grown over the summer."
Lupin seemed slightly preoccupied and in a less conversational mood. "Harry, Dumbledore felt that it was important that you be made aware of these facts so that you can appreciate how precarious the situation is and how careful you have to be."
At this point, Lupin stood up and gave Harry a small smile. "I have missed you, Harry. I do hope you are okay. I'm so sorry about Si– " he began, but Harry didn't think he could bare to hear Sirius' name mentioned so he stood up quickly and interrupted him, his voice slightly elevated in volume, "Thank you so much for coming to tell me this, but I'm afraid that if I don't go eat soon, Ron will have eaten the lot."
Lupin seemed to take the hint, his mouth becoming drawn once more. Tonks waved before they both disapparated. Harry turned around and trudged back to the kitchen. For him the day had just begun, and he was already exhausted.
After lunch, which turned out to be comprised of sandwiches, egg salad coincidentally among them,Harry got dressed and signaled to Hermione and Ron that they needed to talk. Tiptoeing past the twin's room, they heard yelling. From what they understood, Fred and George had just tested one of their new inventions – Banshee Tea – out on Ginny, to her detriment. Covering their ears, Harry and Hermione followed Ron outside. As the three walked around the Weasleys' garden, Harry told them in whispered words why he had been taken from Privet Drive in the middle of the night.
Both fell silent when he finished, and Harry suddenly felt extremely guilty. A sickening thought had just crossed his mind. What if Voldemort killed those people so that he could get to me? Hermione seemed to sense this guilt and hugged him, whispering, "It's not your fault, Harry" into his ear. Ron, who had found a sudden interest in his shoelaces, announced quite loudly, "Maybe we should go back inside now – the others might wonder where we've gotten to."
The solemnity of that first morning at the Burrow seemed to lessen as Harry's time with the Weasleys elapsed. Harry didn't bring up the subject of the summer's procedings or Voldemeort again and neither Hermione nor Ron, who Harry supposed was put under strict oath by Hermione, mentioned it. Harry occupied himself with Fred and George's stories about their fledgling business, which already seemed to be flourishing, and with Quidditch. Fred and George's new merchandise, which they eagerly tested out on various unwitting family members, helped to keep the days interesting and Harry's thoughts off of Voldemort's activities. With Mr. Weasley's sudden transformation into a giant turkey at the breakfast table, having unwittingly sipped from one of the Twins' Gobble Goblets, and wands everywhere bursting into feather (trick wands were still one of the Twin's favorites), the sinister events that might be occurring elsewhere seemed so distant to Harry.
In fact, it seemed to Harry as though he had just arrived at the Burrow when Mrs. Weasly announced that their Hogwarts letters had arrived during an afternoon game of exploding snap. The days until their trip to Diagon Alley and their return to school passed by rather unremarkably except for one conversation Harry accidentally overheard. On the morning that the Weasleys were planning to go to Diagon Alley, Harry woke up early. Thinking that no one else was awake, Harry dressed quickly and tiptoed quietly down the hall from Ron's room.
He was about to descend the creaking staircase when he heard voices coming from Ginny and Hermione's room. Normally, Harry would have taken no notice of this had it not been for the fact that one of the voices was that of a boy. Yes, Harry was now certain that, in the quiet of the early morning, he could clearly hear a male voice in the girl's room. Perhaps Fred or George tried to wake Ginny and Hermione up with their Alarm Clock Wallop, he thought. Harry only heard snatches of the conversation… "…y will be mad…" "…I know that it will be diff…" "n, don't say th…" Although Harry didn't consider accidental conversation interception eavesdropping, he didn't want anyone to think he was spying on them. Suddenly, one of the muffled voices grew in volume, signaling that the owner of the voice was nearing the door. Harry dashed for Ron's room, not caring how much noise he was making. As he entered, he collapsed onto the lower bunk, his pulse racing. But it wasn't the sudden sprint down the hall that shocked Harry's pulse into beating twice it's usual pace– it was the fact that Ron's orange sheeted bunk was entirely devoid of an equally orange-haired person.
It was completely empty.