Well, chapter three (a.k.a the original chapter one…ideas-wise, anyway). Heh, this was a fun chapter to write, even if it's not nearly as long as the others. The Dursleys deserve to be put to shame ; Once again, and as always until I announce otherwise, this hasn't been edited, so please let me know if anything is wrong!

Chapter Three: Mayhem at the Dursleys

Not able to believe what he saw, Harry silently cheered. I'm leaving today, he thought. Leaving this filthy place. He rose out of his chair at the Dursley kitchen table, and ran to greet his friend Hermione.

Hermione looked equally delighted to see him, and that he didn't look too malnourished. "Harry!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him as she jumped into the house. "It's good to see you, Harry." She beamed.

"It's great to see you, too," Harry happily said.

Without the Dursleys' consent, their nephew invited this girl with bushy brown hair and slightly large front teeth into their house. Before any of them had the chance to say anything, Hermione burst out into all smiles.

"I'm so excited Harry!" she exclaimed. "We've received results from our exams, and I've… I've received eleven O.W.L.s!"

O.W.L immediately registered to Uncle Vernon as the way to spell the name of the species of bird his nephew had taught him to loathe.

"Oh," Harry said, simply. "I haven't received my results yet… I wonder–" He was interrupted by Hermione's academic ramblings.

"–is wonderful! I'll be able to continue with all my classes as N.E.W.T. classes, although I'll probably have to drop a few because of the heavy workload, and I can't get a Time-Turner since they were destroyed during the fight we had at the Department of Mysteries. This is so exciting!" Hermione seemed to have said all of this without taking a breath of air.

After Hermione paused, and Harry hadn't said anything, Vernon seized the opportunity to interrogate this person.

"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously. "What relation do you have to Harry? Is he your boyfriend? If he is, I'll be shocked out of my mind…"

"My name is Hermione Granger, and I'm one of Harry's friends," she growled, slowing down at the last four words, glaring at Uncle Vernon.

"So, are you one of them as well, or just someone he met on the street? And why in heaven's name would you want eleven owls? Don't you think one is more than annoying?" Hedwig hooted from upstairs, and Vernon screamed, "OWL!"

Hermione was losing her temper now, something Harry had never seen her do. He reached for his wand; anyone who dared mess with his friends faced his wrath.

Hermione shot him a worried look, and whispered, "Harry, put that away! You're in enough trouble with the Ministry right now, and you could be expelled from Hogwarts, even if you do one of the simplest, most harmless spells!" She turned Uncle Vernon, and continued losing her temper.

"One of them?" she nearly screamed. "One of them? I'm a Muggle-born, you know." Seeing the confused looks on Uncle Vernon's face, she elucidated. "Muggles are non-magical people. When someone in the Wizarding world (not "one of them") is 'Muggle-born,' that means they have non-magical parents. I believe Harry's mother was a Muggle-born, as well."

Uncle Vernon opened his mouth to probe further into the subject, but Aunt Petunia stopped him from talking about her sister. He closed his mouth without saying anything.

"As for O.W.L.s, you apparently are under the impression that we are talking about the species of bird, but we are not. O.W.L.s are Ordinary Wizarding Levels, an exam given to every Hogwarts student in their fifth year there. We just took them this past year, so we receive our results this summer." She turned to Harry. "So Harry, how'd you do?"

Harry looked surprised. Hermione normally paid attention. "Er… I already said that I didn't get mine yet."

Hermione looked surprised that she had missed that. "Well, not to worry, I'm sure you'll be getting them soon. We're headed off for the Burrow, of course." Harry brightened.

Uncle Vernon, while he wouldn't mind someone taking Harry off, suddenly snapped out, "So what, you come waltzing into our house, discuss you-know-what (which is a forbidden topic to talk about anyway), and then you expect to just waltz out with Harry?"

Hermione nodded.

"How do we know you aren't trying to kidnap him?"

Hermione suddenly lost her temper. "YOU ARE A FAT IDIOT!" she screamed. Harry stood back, enjoying the show.

Uncle Vernon took this insult personally, and defended himself by saying, "You're… a… you're one of them." He smirked with a look of victory. He continued, "And what is this burrow place, anyway. Sounds like a filthy place underground or something, and I don't know who in their right mind would want to live underground, like an uncivilized person." Aunt Petunia smirked as well.

It was almost immediately wiped off as Hermione continued on her rampage. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP! STUPEFY!" She withdrew her wand from her pocket, and cast the spell. A bright red flash of light hit Uncle Vernon squarely in the chest, throwing him backwards into the kitchen.

Dudley, angered at what this girl had done to her father, and delighted at the chance to practice his boxing, lunged at her, only to be thrown backwards as Hermione said 'Impedimenta!'

Hermione kept her wand pointed at her friend's cousin, and then hissed, "Tarantallegra." Dudley's feet scrambled all over the place, preventing him from walking. Harry remembered a Death Eater using this on Neville, which ultimately ended up in the breaking of the prophecy. He then remembered Sirius, and suddenly became very morose.

His thoughts were shattered by the pleas of Dudley for his mother to help him, and he was quieted when Hermione firmly said, "Petrificus Totalus." The full Body-Binding spell locked Dudley's legs together, which ceased the wild movements of his legs from only moments before. "There, I fixed your legs for you," she spat, mercilessly.

Aunt Petunia screamed, as Mrs. Number Seven walked through the door, half because of Dudley's current state and half because Mrs. Number Seven might see something.

Hermione turned to see the Dursleys neighbor walk through the doorframe and into the house. "Not to worry," she said under her breath. "OBLIVIATE!" A wave of magic hit Aunt Petunia, Mrs. Number Seven, Dudley and Uncle Vernon. Their memories of this had been wiped clean of this event.

Taking advantage of the Dursleys' current mental state, Hermione opened the cupboard under the stairs, shoving Dudley and Aunt Petunia in. She walked over to Uncle Vernon, dragging him behind her, and shoved him into the closet, locking the door. "Colloportus."

Harry gave her a questioning look, as if the Dursleys didn't deserve to be locked in the cupboard that he had called home for so many years. Hermione was surprised Harry could be so forgiving towards them, despite how they treated him.

"Give them a taste of what you had to go through, being locked in that closet all day with no meals!" she screamed, hoping the neighbors had heard her. As she half ran out the door, she shoved past Mr. Number Twelve and Mrs. Number Three.

Harry got out his wand, and coldly said, "Leave them be." The neighbors backed off, scared of the boy who was sent to St. Brutus's School for Incurably Criminal Boys. "The first person I see near this door will be dead in an instant." That said, he rushed up the stairs, three at a time, and retrieved his trunk and Hedwig.

Sticking his wand back into his back pocket (and wondering if Mad-Eye Moody could see him at the moment), he grabbed his trunk, and heaved it down the stairs, and ran back up to get Hedwig. He met Hermione next to the Dursleys' car, a blue station wagon, as she finished her Memory Charm work on the rest of the neighborhood.

"Off we go, then?" she said, looking at Harry.

"Anywhere's better than there," he said, repeating exactly what he had told Uncle Vernon three years ago.

The walked down Privet Drive, Harry rolling his trunk behind him while Hermione carried Hedwig's cage. Somewhere down the road, they heard someone yell, "OWL!" and laughed together.

"So, where are we going now?" Harry inquired.

"The Burrow, I've already told you!" Hermione sighed. "I don't know how many times you've asked me things twice, and I don't know why I always tell you, but you've got to listen once in–"

"I know we're going to the Burrow, Hermione, where else would we go?" Hermione stared at him blankly. "I meant, how're we going to get there?"

She gave her friend a second blank expression.

"Oh come on, Hermione, you're possibly the cleverest witch in the history of time, surely you know some way of getting there?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, normally, I go by Floo Powder; Mrs. Weasley normally comes to my house and then we go to the Burrow. I don't actually know how to get there. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Hermione, I'm not saying it's your fault, I shouldn't have assumed that–"

"No, no, it's alright, I didn't expect you to know. Gosh, it would be such a pleasure if we could Apparate, wouldn't it?" Harry nodded in agreement as they reached the nearest bus stop. "Good thing we learn this year."

"Well, at least we know what town he lives in." They boarded the bus, and they were off to the train station.

On the bus, Hermione questioned Harry. "Since when did we know in which town he lived? Have I been missing out on something?"

Harry nodded. "Since Second Year, too. Shame, Ron never told you. Well, he never told me, either, it was Fred. Or was it George? I think it was Fr–"

"Well, get on with it!"

"Oh, sorry. Well, the Burrow is right outside the town of Ottery St. Catchpole. Either Fred or George, one of them, told me this summer going into Second Year, as I said, when they helped me escape from Privet Drive with the flying Ford Anglia."

"That was you?" Hermione gasped in disbelief. "You could've nearly exposed the Muggles to the Wizarding world! Do you realize–"

"Yes," Harry interrupted. "I realized this after both Snape and McGonagall, not to mention that Howler… weren't you there when Ron got that Howler?" He sighed, thinking Hermione might've remembered that. He could've sworn she was there to reprimand them. "But anyway, that's over and done with, no point in talking about it now."

A Muggle on the bus, the only other person on the vehicle other than the bus driver, Harry and Hermione, leaned over to Harry, grinning. "That was you who could make that car fly? I'm telling you, that was awesome, man, seeing a car flying like that. It was almost like mag–"

The Muggle was hit straight in the face with a Memory Charm, and suddenly appeared to know next to nothing about the event.

Harry turned toward his friend. "Do you realize how much magic you've done outside of school? You've probably done more in this past hour than I've done in my whole life! I'll be surprised if you don't get expelled from Hogwarts." He grinned.

Hermione grinned back, saying, "Shut up."

The bus stopped, as Harry lifted his trunk off of the bus, and Hermione carried Hedwig's cage out.

"We need to find a train to a town near Ottery St. Catchpole," Harry said.

"Yes, I know. We also need Muggle money."

Harry grinned, pulling out a wad of cash. "What, you think I left the Dursleys with just my trunk and Hedwig?" Hermione looked at him mischievously, with a face that said, 'Harry, you shouldn't have!' but Harry ignored it.

A/N: By the way, the Weasleys actually do live in an area outside of Ottery St. Catchpole. It took me forever to find it, but if you look in the American hardcover edition, on page 31, "'We're a little way outside this village,' said George. 'Ottery St. Catchpole.'" :-P (I doubt anyone doubted me anyway, but just to let you all know ).