Chapter 2

The Box

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER BOY?" Uncle Vernon began yelling through the doorway when he saw dead mice ripped into pieces all over the floor, "You keep that ruddy bird's digested rodents off that floor and out of view if you plan on keeping it!" Just then, Harry realized that his horse-like aunt was lying unconscious in the doorway. Then with a hint of disgust that he was even thinking about it, Uncle Vernon said, "And when's the last time you wrote to those…people?" With that, He picked up Aunt Petunia and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Happy birthday," Harry mumbled to himself under his breath. Sixteen, that's only one more year until he was of age and here he was, in his room, by himself, barred from the rest of his world, and still, nobody would tell him what was going on. It had been like this all summer. Just like last year. He could only look to the Daily Prophet, which Harry found to be quite an unreliable source (it really likes to stretch the truth), and the regular muggle (non-magic folk) news. But all in all from what Harry could tell, Voldemort was keeping quiet. Too, quiet for someone that had recently been announced alive by the Daily Prophet.

Harry wasn't like normal boys. Up until about five years ago, he had never actually looked forward to his birthdays; in fact, he almost dreaded them. It was just another excuse for the Dursleys to forget him. He hated the summer holidays, and couldn't wait to go back to school. But out of all the unusual things about Harry, the most unusual by far was the fact that he was a wizard.

After last year's events in the Department of Mysteries and the output of the conspiracy of Cornelius Fudge's (the minister of magic) cover up for Voldemort, he decided to step down, not that the committee had any problems with that (if he wouldn't have stepped down they would have given him the boot anyways). The Daily Prophet has been going crazy all month about it and putting out possible candidates. Kingsley Shaklebot, Albus Dumbledore, Percy Weasley, Doloris Umbridge, Minerva McGonagall, Penelope Clearwater, Fred Weasley, George Weasley (who were obviously in it for the pure fact of being in it and to see the outcome, spiting Percy all the way, basically just making sure they got more votes than him) Nephadora Tonks, and to Harry's surprise Lucius Malfoy were the candidates listed, but there were many more. Harry figured that after the fact that Lucius was in prison at the moment nobody would vote for him, but then again, there are a lot of death eaters still out there and they all know the imperious curse.

Harry felt a pecking on his hand and figuring that it had just been Hedwig, Harry's snowy white owl which had been a gift from Hagrid, the grounds keeper at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, for his eleventh birthday, with another message making sure that everything was going okay, ignored it and looked around at his room. He still had loads of homework to do- which was stashed under the floorboards because even if the Dursleys had to be nice, doesn't mean that they can't not allow him to practice or study magic inside the house- because he hadn't even touched it over the summer so far. He had spent most of his time looking at pictures of his parents and awaiting the order's visit to retrieve him from this place. His walls were fairly plain despite a few pictures Dobby the house elf had drawn for him and a Gryffindor flag from Hogwarts. He was so bored that he would have given anything from a visit from anyone from the magical world, even Professor Snape giving him more homework sounded good 'Ten points from Gryffindor because Potter just inhaled oxygen,' or how about Draco Malfoy, he'd probably faint when he saw his room. 'Your room- if that's what you want to call this… place- looks like the owlery at our house Potter. Smells like it too, or is that just the smell of muggles. That filthy mudblood friend of yours has a similar scent.'

When Harry turned his head to take the letter from Hedwig so that she would stop pecking at his hand, he found five or six owls sitting next to him and one which he knew to be Pigwedgeon, or Pig, his best friend Ron's owl which Sirius Black, the former most wanted criminal in the wizarding world and Harry's godfather who had died just before summer, had given him, flying uncontrollably in circles above his head and had begun to make an annoying twittering noise. It really is amazing how such a small animal can make such a loud, deafening noise.

Harry removed the letters from the owls and was just about to open the package from Pig when Uncle Vernon opened the door with the most startled look on his face, probably from all the owls that seemed to be everywhere at once in the room and most particularly Pig who had just landed on his head. He shooed Pig away then just stood there for awhile, but when Harry didn't notice his presence, he cleared his throat then began rather nervously, "Hem…err…um, I…err just wanted to tell you uh… happy birthday and uh… that breakfast is ready." He acted like he had a gun pointed at his back. When Harry didn't respond, Uncle Vernon began again, "I mean if you don't want to that's…"

"No, thanks, I mean," Harry wasn't sure what to say. He knew that there had to be a catch, "I'll be right down." Harry forced a smile and Uncle Vernon nodded his head and left. Harry was still in shock that the Dursleys had not only remembered his birthday for the first time in sixteen years, but couldn't believe that they had prepared a special breakfast for him. 'What's gotten into them,' he wondered, 'Maybe the talk they got at the end of the term finally got through to them.' Then he laughed to himself.

Harry reluctantly put the package that he had gotten from Ron down and figured this way he'll have something to look forward to after breakfast, then turned to go down into the kitchen.

When he arrived, he felt that he had arrived much too soon and wanted to turn around and return to the letters and packages inside his room. Aunt Petunia was finishing the bacon, and appeared to still not have gotten over the shock from earlier, when he entered the kitchen, which had a birthday banner up across the yard door. Dudley, who seemed to be sneeking into the kitchens atSmeltings again,was eying the cake greedily and it looked as though he had already gotten a swipe of it with his fat finger. The cake even had a big smudge where Uncle Vernon, who was reading the paper, probably had smacked his hand, and unless Harry's eyes were deceiving him, he was pretty sure that there was a small pile of gifts in the corner of the room.

"Right on time dear, I've just finished the bacon," Aunt Petunia said all this with some sort of scared forced smile. Something was wrong, "Oh, and happy birthday," she seemed a bit too nice.

Harry returned a forced smile to Aunt Petunia and sat down at the table across from Dudley. He also seemed quite nervous now that Harry looked at it. He wasn't even watching the television as usual. He just began looking nervously from Harry, to the door, to the fireplace, to the window, to the cake, and back to Harry again. Uncle Vernon just kept his eyes on the newspaper, in fact, Harry wasn't even sure if he was even actually reading the newspaper. His eyes looked like they were more trying to read through the newspaper and only blinked every so often.

He put the paper down when Aunt Petunia came over with the bacon and poured the orange juice into his glass. She sat down next to Harry and quietly began to eat. Everybody else followed her suite.

The entire meal, which tasted particularly good today, had gone quite uneventfully, nobody saying anything or moving oddly with the exception of the occasional glance at Harry, the fireplace, the door, the window, or the cake from Dudley. It's true what they say, silence is deafening. It continued this way up to the point where Uncle Vernon asked Harry if he was going to open his gifts.

Harry who was just finishing his orange juice spat it out across the table into Dudley's face, who reacted by throwing his own in Harry's face, out of shock. Uncle Vernon gave Dudley a mean stare and Dudley looked as though Harry was going to whip out his wand and start throwing the cruticus curse at him until he became mentally incapacitated, not like he knew what that was anyways.

"Excuse me?" Harry said turning away from Dudley's scared face.

"Your presents dear, are you going to open them?" Aunt Petunia said as sweetly as possible.

"Uh… I guess," if this was going to be some sort of cruel joke, Harry thought, he might as well just get it over with now or they would just do it later, that or have more time to come up with a better one.

Uncle Vernon came over with the four presents that were in the corner. Harry began opening a smaller one with caution looking at all of the Dursley's faces for a hint of laughter. None came. When he got all the paper off, he opened the box and took the note that was on top.

I noticed that you haven't been wearing yours and thought you might like a new one.

Love,

Aunt Petunia

What had he not been wearing long enough for Aunt Petunia to notice, Harry wondered. He turned the box upside down and slid another box into his hands. When he turned the ox around, he saw a quite expensive looking black leather watch.

"Wow, this is really nice, thank you Aunt Petunia!" She nodded her head in acknowledge meant and then returned to the nervous glances which she had joined Dudley in, this time adding Uncle Vernon into the sequence. Harry was quite surprised with the watch and was still waiting for the Dursleys to turn around and say, "Oops, that one was for little Dudders diddycan," rip the watch out of his hands and throw a toothpick at him saying, "That one's yours," then begin laughing hysterically.

He turned his attention to his new watch and began rotating it in every different direction to get a better view of it. It lit up in the dark when you pushed a button, had an alarm, a calendar, and was even waterproof. That's one thing he wouldn't have to worry about now, after all, that's how he ruined the last one two years ago during the second task of the triwizard tournament.

Harry had completely forgotten that he still had other presents to open until Uncle Vernon intruded on his excitement and handed Harry the present from himself.

Harry reached down into the bag and pulled out an envelope. He opened it up and inside was a letter and a twenty-pound note.

Didn't really know what to get for you for your birthday, so I figured you could just buy something for yourself at that one place you like to go for your school stuff.

Happy birthday.

From

Uncle Vernon

If there had been one thing that Harry didn't expect from the Dursleys, that was it. They had never, not once in his life, given him money for spending, non the less to use in Diagon Alley, "Thanks, um… yeah, thanks."

Next up was Dudley's present. Harry opened up the heavy box and dropped a small golden ball into his hands.

"A golden snitch! Wow, but how did you get a hold on one of these?" Harry was in awe.

"Your friend Hermy, or something like that, called one day when you were out for one of your walks. I asked her what I could get for you and she said that you might like one of these stichy thingys." Dudley seemed pleased that Harry liked his gift so much and tensed down a bit.

"Yeah, but how did you get a hold of one, you'd of had to go to Diagon Alley or something?

"Your friend said that she'd order it for me through the mail and I could pay for it when it arrived."

"Well thanks, its great." Harry began letting the snitch fly around and catching it just in the nick of time before it got away like his father did down by the lake in Snape's memory. Then Uncle Vernon cautiously placed the fourth package in front of him.

Harry was very curious of who this one was from because anyone else that would have given him a present would have sent it by owl.

So Harry put the golden snitch in his pocket making sure that it could not get away and slowly unwrapped the last package. He opened the box and took the note located on the top and read:

I found this in the attic. It belonged to your mother. I hope you like it.

Love,

Aunt Petunia

Harry felt tears welding up in his eyes as he pulled the item out of the box. He had never known a lot about his mother. He had known all of his father's friends, he had his father's possessions, and he looked just like him. The only thing he had ever had of his mothers was her eyes. He pulled out a small forest green box with gold jewels that made twisting flowery designs all around the edges of it. He opened it up and it began to play a song that seemed all to familiar to him. He felt a tear roll down his cheek and watched it fall into the box through the mirror on the lid. He watched a magical universe come to life and spin for what seemed like hours until he noticed that he wasn't the only on crying.

Aunt Petunia got up out of her chair with tears in her eyes. She walked over to Harry and gave him a warm soothing hug filled with love. He finally understood her. She really did miss her and acted the way she did with hope that she could forget and the pain would go away. Instead, it just built up inside of her. Now she was free.

Uncle Vernon, who the entire time had been sitting in his chair in shock, suddenly got up breaking the silence and announced that he was going to go catch the end of the morning news. At hearing this, Dudley jumped out of his chair faster that Harry had seen him move in years, beginning the race to the remote and won. Aunt Petunia jumped and immediately began picking up the dished from the table to begin washing. Harry gathered all his gifts and left to go open the packages that he had nearly forgotten about in his room, saying a whole-hearted thank you on his exit.

Harry walked up to his room refusing to believe that this just might have been the best birthday of his life and it was spent with the Dursleys. He opened his door and closed it behind him, put his things on the bed, and sat down between them and his unopened ones, which were about to be among the opened.

He grabbed the one, which had been from pig that he had already begun opening earlier and read the note. But it wasn't from Ron, it was from someone with really beautiful handwriting.

Dear Harry,

I just wanted to thank you for everything that you've done for me over the years, especially last year. I also wanted to tell you sorry about Sirius. I know he meant a lot to you and I have to admit he was kinda growing on me, too.

I can't wait to see you again, we always have so much fun together- even if it is life threatening. That's what makes it so thrilling, isn't it, funny.

See you soon and Happy Birthday!

With Love,

Ginerva Weasley

P.S. I hope you still plan on keeping the D.A. together because it was really fun and you helped a lot of people.

Ginny? She hadn't written to him since second year when she sent him that really embarrassing Valentine through Lockhart's singing house elves. He did agree with her though, they had been getting very close in the past year or so, and they had been having a lot of fun, and to be completely honest with himself, Harry had to admit that she had blossomed very beautifully.

She had beautiful locks of long red hair; he could stair into her deep brown eyes forever. Whenever she smiles, she lit up the whole room and made it smile along with her. Every single freckle that was on her beautiful, straight nose seemed to point out another beautiful thing about her. But this was Ron's little sister, it would never be allowed, and anyways, Ginny had always been infatuated with Harry, so he figured it was just her giving it one last try.

Harry set aside the letter with care and grabbed the next package and read:

Dear Harry,

I hope you like the present Dudley gave you because if you didn't it was my idea. I called up your house and he answered your phone and asked me what he could get you. At least he was thoughtful enough to get you a gift.

I hope your holidays have been going well so far. It sounds like the Dursley's have left you alone anyways. That's a plus isn't it. Mine have been going great. My parents took me on vacation to Italy and I got some really great information on Morgana and Circe. Sailors used to come to her island for potions and whenever a man came along and rejected her love, she would turn them into animals. Isn't that fascinating! I only wish that I had an essay to put it in.

Well, we'll talk when I see you, and just so you know, I don't know anything more of what's been going on than you because I'm still staying with my parents. After all, I hardly ever see them anymore and they insist I spend more time with them after my life collided with a close call last term.

Happy birthday! Hope to see you soon.

Love,

Hermoine

Harry opened up the package from Hermoine and saw the book, A Guide to Defensive Spells and Enchantments: How to Break Them, How to Use Them by Myrddin. It seemed as though Hermoine wanted Harry to continue with the D.A. as well. Maybe he would, it was fun.

Harry grabbed another package and read the note.

Dear Harry,

Sorry I'm not sending this with Pig, because someone who shall remain nameless (cough… Ginny… cough) stole him the other day and he hasn't returned yet. She at least could have asked permission, he is after all mine.

Anyways, Dad will becoming to get you sometime on the day of your birthday, but he won't allow me to say what time incase this is intercepted, but you know the protocol. Anyways, I just hope this gets to you on time because I don't know if your Aunt and Uncle will tell you or not. They're probably hoping that he'll forget, but don't worry, I'll make sure that he doesn't. But like I said, your Aunt and Uncle know already because Dad called them on the ?telyfone, so there's a good chance they probably already told you.

I'll see you later. Happy Birthday, mate!

-Ron

Harry ripped away the paper and found a box of Skiving Snackboxes, which included Puking Pastilles, Bloodboil Surprise, Fainting Fancies, and Nosebleed Nougat from the Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. Now he had a way to get out of potions every now and then. He looked at another box, which was wrapped individually and read the note.

Just in case.

-Fred and George

He unwrapped it and found a portable swamp. He just laughed and put it aside with the rest of the gifts thinking that he might set it up in front of Snape's classroom just incase he doesn't buy the Skiving Snackboxes. Then again, who knows who the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher will be. Hopefully the ministry didn't manage to get that horrid Umbridge woman back; otherwise Harry just might have to pull a Weasley.

Harry opened the rest of his gifts. He got a journal from Lupin with a page filled out telling Harry about how it had helped him through the hard times when he was young because he had shared it with his best friends so they always knew what each other were thinking and feeling. Lupin also gave Harry a book called A Creature Like Me: The Tale of a Werewolf by Remus Lupin.

"Wow, I didn't know Lupin was writing a book," Harry said to himself as he pulled up a gift that had been from Dobby. Socks, ugly vomit coloured socks, that were obviously hand knitted because they were two completely different sizes, but you could at least tell that they were socks. It's the thought that counts.

Harry set the disgusting socks aside and picked up his Hogwarts letter.

Dear Mr. Potter,

I am pleased to inform yo that you have been chosen as the new Gryffindor Quidditch Captain as you are the oldest and most experienced player of the team. Good Luck.

The Hogwarts Express will be leaving from Platform 9 ¾ in King's Cross Station London on September the first at eleven o'clock.

We await your arrival.

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Head Mistress

"Quidditch captain, WOW!" Harry was so excited as he looked at his new badge. "Hopefully Wood's curse has worn off!" Harry set his badge on his bedside table and pulled up his last package. The note was simple.

Happy Birthday! See ya at Hogwarts.

-Hagrid & Guampy

Harry opened the sloppily wrapped package and saw a beautiful hand carved wooden figurine of snuffles, Sirius in his animagus form. Harry felt tears welting up for the second time that day just as another owl flew through his window carrying a small package.

He took the package off the owl and read the quickly scribbled note on the outside.

Don't open this. Just pack your things. –A.W.

Of course, Harry was having so much fun opening his gifts that he had forgotten that Arthur Weasley would be coming at any given time and quickly grabbed his trunk and threw his things in it.

He was picking up his mother's music box to wrap it in the socks from Dobby when it opened up and began playing its song once more. Harry went to close it, but the mirror fell down and a folded piece of parchment fell out. He looked at the aged paper bewildered as he unfolded it in his lap.

It was a piece of music that seemed to go along with the music coming out of the box. There were even lyrics on the paper with the initials 'L.E.' written on the top. Harry began reading:

When I'm on my own,

Far away from home,

But there was a loud crack from downstairs and a thundering noise came up the staircase and across the hallway outside Harry's door, then the sound of a door slamming which Harry identified as Dudley's door. That's what he did whenever he was upset, except the thundering staircase was more like the footsteps from the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. There were more footsteps from the hallway and a knocking on the door.

Quickly, Harry folded the yellow paper back up and slid it into his back pocket. Uncle Vernon opened the door and spoke nervously, "Arathur Weasily is here for you," he obviously didn't care to even attempt to pronounce the name properly. Not that it was a hard name to say. Uncle Vernon just had this way of being able to be mean, no matter what. He could be extremely happy, sad, or like he was now, nervous, and still manage to throw out rude comments about people. That's just the way he was.

"I'll be right down, I'm almost finished packing," Harry replied.

"There's no need for that, I'm already here," Mr. Weasley said appearing next to Uncle Vernon followed by Aunt Petunia. "Do you have that box I sent you?"

"Yeah," and Harry grabbed it from his trunk.

"Good, then you finish up your packing and say good bye to your Aunt and Uncle, and we'll be leaving in about fifteen minutes, the present is the portkey." Harry wrapped the box in the socks and put it into the trunk then grabbed his captain's badge from the bedside table and his books from beneath the floor beards.

Mr. Weasley in the mean while was questioning Uncle Vernon on how each button on the television remote worked. Unfortunately, he was doing the questioning in Dudley's room who in the end ran across the hallway screaming and locked himself in the bathroom.

After a few minutes, Harry walked into the hallway and knocked on the bathroom door on Dudley who refused to answer.

"Bye, Dudley. Thanks again, the snitch was really great. I'll owl you sometime okay," but all he heard was Dudley's whimpering. Harry walked into Dudley's room where he could still hear the questioning about the television from Mr. Weasley and saw Uncle Vernon's fat reddened face.

"Are you ready, Harry?" Mr. Weasley turned his attention to Harry when he noticed that he had entered the extraordinary room.

"Yea. Bye, Aunt Petunia. Bye, Uncle Vernon." Uncle Vernon just nodded his head obviously still furious at Mr. Weasley, and Aunt Petunia raised her long hand to wave and moved her mouth, but no words came out. Her eyes became wet and Harry went over and gave her a hug, which she gratefully returned. She wasn't ready to lose him as she had lost her Lily, but finally, she let go when Mr. Weasley reminded them that they had to hurry. Harry rushed out of Dudley's messy crowded room.

Aunt Petunia followed Harry and Mr. Weasley into Harry's small empty room. Harry grabbed his trunk and the portkey, and Mr. Weasley grabbed Hedwig and the other end of the trunk.

Before the portkey took them to the Burrow, Aunt Petunia said, "Try to keep in touch," she now had a tear coming down her bony cheek.

"I will," were the only words that made it out of Harry's mouth before the portkey began spinning and he, Hedwig, and Mr. Weasley disappeared.