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Chapter 1- Leaving for the Burrow

Harry,

Mom reckons it'll be alright if you stay over at the Burrow for the remainder of the holidays. There's only a little more than one month left for the school to begin, but still. I wish you could've come sooner but as you know Dumbledore wouldn't permit it. "It is unsafe". That's what he said. I reckon, you would be a much safer here at the Burrow than with the muggles. I tried talking some sense onto mom and dad, but they wouldn't budge. "Dumbledore knows what is best for Harry and we're not going against his wishes". Honestly! Mom even threatened me with chores for the rest of the day if I didn't shut up. Bloody insane I tell you.

Still, it is our last year at Hogwarts after all and after this year, you don't have to go back to those muggles. Hope there're not giving you much trouble. As I have been "forbidden" to come visit you, I can't even say I'll turn them into flobberworms if they are. Talking about that, did I mention how cool it is to be able to perform magic outside school! All the work has been so much easier…Wish I could apparate too, but I, the loyal friend that I am, am going to wait for you to come of age so that we can take the test together. Four more bloody days! Why couldn't you have been born a little earlier?

Getting back to the subject, Dad will pick you up in his way from work, muggle style. He says it is because he doesn't want more hostility with the muggles, but you know Dad. He'll not pass a single chance to play with muggle things.

See you tonight

Ron

P.S. 'Mione's coming over to stay too after a couple of days.

P.S.S. I think this is my lengthiest letter ever!

After reading the letter Iris, Ron's pet owl, brought him, Harry couldn't hold back a snigger. Really, his best friend had developed a little flair for the dramatics over the years. Even then, cooped up in this place, Ron's lively letters acted as a sort of stress reliever and he was very thankful for them. Hermione had gone to Egypt for a vacation with her parents and she hadn't owled him as often as she normally did. He didn't blame her though and he was glad she'd be joining him and Ron at the Burrow.

And Harry, unlike Ron, wasn't seventeen yet which meant he still couldn't perform magic outside school. There also was the fact that Ron managed to rub it into his face every time he wrote to him. As much as he appreciated his friend, Harry felt justified to be irritated and jealous of Ron. Thankfully he only had to wait for four more days and then he'd be an adult and perform magic outside school without the fear of getting expelled. He'd also learn to apparate. He was genuinely touched that Ron had waited for him so that they could get the license together. He knew, it was mostly because of nerves on Ron's part, but he appreciated it none the less. Also, for the first time he would be spending his birthday with people he considered family.

This line of thought gave him a jolt of pleasure in his stomach. The muggles hadn't been treating him like scum since he came back after his sixth year. These days they'd been more or less acting as if he didn't exist which was fine with him. In fact, this summer was the best he'd ever had, excluding the one before his forth year when he got to see the Quidditch World Cup. But that did not mean he wanted to spend a single minute more with the Dursleys. He'd been hoping to escape for a long time now but for some weird reason, Dumbledore believed it was best for him to remain at the Dursleys' for some time. Arthur and Molly Weasley treated him like a son, and as much as they too wanted him to stay over at the Burrow, they wouldn't go against Dumbledore's wishes.

Truth be told, Harry was losing his patience with Dumbledore. There was a time, when he respected the man so much that he'd do whatever Dumbledore told him to, but the other man had let Harry down so many times that he was close to losing his trust in him. The one thing Harry absolutely disliked was the way Dumbledore treated him as if he were a fragile glass piece. Along the years there had been several small-scale attacks by the ex-deatheaters, some of which involved trying to kill him off. Harry knew he was at a greater risk than other people because of his involvement in Voldemort's destruction and he wished to know about the deatheaters' activities so that he wasn't caught unawares. He also knew that Dumbledore led a secret organization which kept track of the deatheater activities but the man was reluctant to let Harry know even the simplest stuff. Harry had not asked to know everything that was going on and all the details they had about the deatheaters. He just wanted enough information to keep himself guarded against any future attacks. But Dumbledore denied him even that. In fact, if Ron hadn't overheard his parents talking about it, he wouldn't even have known that any organization fighting the deatheaters existed.

And in top of all that he was being forced to stay at the Dursleys. What Dumbledore was trying to achieve by making him stay at an extremely unsafe place--since his parents' death no less when there were plenty of wizarding families who would take him in--where he could be attacked at any time remained a mystery to him. He supposed Dumbledore had placed some strong wards around the house but why go through all the trouble when he'd be a lot safer at the Burrow with wizarding folk all around?

None the less, he was excited to be going back to the Burrow which was more of a real home to him than Privet Drive had ever been. The thought of never returning also appealed him lots. There was little trepidation about life after Hogwarts but that did not stop him from feeling overjoyed to leave Privet Drive for ever.

A/N: The story has just started off. I promise after a couple of necessary boring chapters, the story will pick up a faster pace and become a lot more interesting…I hope. And Draco makes an appearance soon.

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