Chapter 2: MIDNIGHT WORRY
He had had this dream many times before ever since he finished his sixth year at the school named Hogwarts and returned to number four, Privet Drive with his mother's sister, Petunia Dursley. Harry was laying in his bed on the second floor of the house. Uncle Vernon's snores echoed up the hall to his room and Harry sat up. Every time he had this dream it made his heart sink below the Earth's core and his pulse raise so fast, his heart beat so hard he felt his chest pulsating. The one thing he feared above all was that the occasional scream he gave when he woke up would wake someone else up. The thought about what the Durlseys would say if they repeatedly woke up from Harry screaming...
Perhaps what worried him most was the lightning shaped scar on his forehead which burned dully. This was a sign that Lord Voldemort was out there, biding his time. He had failed to kill Harry several times since that night and grew angrier with each failure. Harry knew his hopes were growing thin but he had continually gotten better at defending himself and he had gotten lucky several times. But just thinking about it made Harry feel like an ice cube had slid down his mouth and into his stomach. He'd rather not have to worry about it. He'd rather he still had his parents and that he was living anywhere but here.
Just a few months ago, one of Lord Voldemort's supporters had attempted to kill him again -- something he was getting, quite tragically, used to -- but thanks to the Staff of Cybele, which was sitting on top of his dresser, he had been saved. This staff was very odd. It was created by a woman named Cybele, who named the staff Raides. The name had since been lost in the several thousand years in the staff's disappearance, Harry thought, and so it was simply referred to as the Staff of Cybele. Harry and two of his best friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley found out that the staff was magicaly sealed away in a book and they had found out how to get the staff out of it. Harry was allowed to keep this staff as only a descendent of an order of wizards several thousand years old, referred to as ancients, could control it. His dad, Harry supposed, was the side of the family where this came from.
Harry stood up from his bed and walked, fully awake from having had the dream once again, to his round glasses first, putting them on, then to the staff and grabbed it. At once, it sprang to life. The Staff of Cybele was a seven foot tall staff, with a lion's body and head, both of which were golden. The staff was no more than two inches thick and looked oddly out of proportion but still magnificent. The fur on the tail went from golden to scarlet from top to bottom. The lion's jaw held a scarlet crystal which glowed a soft gold when alive. The fur on the body was real, soft and warm to the touch but perhaps most interesting to Harry was that the tail wagged merrily when he held it, like it was happy to be with him. And, it could talk. Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin were most horrified when they first saw it speaking.
"Had the dream again, eh?" Raides, the staff, asked Harry. It's voice was a deep growl but kind all the same. The crystal disappeared from the mouth and it turned it's head to look at him. Harry craned his head to look at the staff and nodded weakly. Raides understood.
Harry had been talking to his staff, which had turned out to be a good friend, ever since he first had this dream, the very same week he got home -- or at least the place where he stayed during his miserable summer vacations. He never referred to it as home. There was only one time it was ever close to a home to Harry and that was when his godfather, Sirius, had to stay with him at Privet Drive due to outstanding circumstances. Aunt Petunia hated everything to do with Harry's mom and, in turn, hated everything to do with Harry. After he got home from his first year at Hogwarts, his aunt and uncle saw fit to lock his owl, Hedwig, in his old bedroom, the cupboard under the stairs. He only moved out of this claustrophobic room because when Hogwarts began to try to contact Harry to tell him that he was accepted at Hogwarts, his aunt and uncle thought they would stop getting letter after identical letter if they moved him. They never allowed Harry to open their letters. It was their belief they were being watched and if they treated Harry better, the letters would stop. Even so, they came by the hundreds one fateful afternoon. Eventually, Rubeus Hagrid, a giant, twice as tall as the average man, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had come personally... much to the dismay of the Dursleys.
"Why am I having this dream?" Harry asked, receeding back to his bed. He sat on it, staring blankly at the door to his room, wiping a tear that had streamed down his cheek.
"You have dreams that can tell you the future, you say?" Raides asked. "It's possible they're working backwards... and since you've been thinking about it..."
"Well, not the future. They show me Voldemort and what he's doing. Someone said this stupid scar" -- he pointed to it -- "connects me with him somehow. I don't know what they are," Harry said angrily.
Harry took a deep breath and sighed heavily. He wouldn't be thinking about it but he had thought that his godfather had, too, died this past year. It was only when he overheard a conversation did he learn that it was possible to revive Sirius. The way to do it was the Staff of Cybele.
Sirius was Harry's father figure. Last summer, Sirius had brought the Dursleys and Harry into the same room. The conversation that followed made for a very strange scene. Harry had never bothered to talk to the Dursleys about his problems in the wizarding world and he had proof they didn't care during that conversation.
"I heard someone say that you can reawaken the dead," Harry started slowly, his voice a lot softer. "Is there... is there any truth to that?"
"Sadly, no."
Harry put the staff on his bed and looked away from it, heart-broken. He knew the answer before he asked it, he just wanted it to come right from the source. There was one good thing about having a staff that could talk: he didn't have to resort to speaking only to his hateful cousin, Dudley. Although, it looked like Dudley would never speak to Harry ever again after Raides had told Dudley that he needed to lose about fifty pounds.
"Your scar still hurting?" asked Raides.
"No, not anymore," Harry told it.
And then Raides did something Harry never saw it do before. It rolled onto the floor, hitting with a soft thud. Before his eyes, the body of the staff thickened, the tail growing slightly longer. The head became bigger and the fur, fuller. In no time at all, the staff had changed into a real, seven foot long lion with golden fur on it's head and body, changing to scarlet as it approached the tail.
"Ah," it growled, "I haven't done that for such a long time." Harry stared. "No need to look so alarmed," it said, noting Harry's face.
There was reason enough to stare, Harry thought, because there was a seven foot long lion on the floor of his room. Some of those teeth were as long as Harry's hand.
"Come on, I'm not savage!" it told him, jumping up onto his bed, which make the entire room shake. It cuddled up next to him, it's tail sticking up in the air.
"It's just -- just that I dont think I've ever seen -- seen a staff change into a - a lion..." Harry stammered. "How is it that you can talk, anyway?"
"Magic," said Raides. "My creator put a bit of her personality into me."
"So - so I can refer to you as her instead of it?" Harry asked cautiously.
Raides laughed (though quietly, because even she didn't want Uncle Vernon to wake up) and said, "Yes, and calm yourself. I'm not going to hurt you. Now, back to your scar. I'm nothing to fret over, that thing is," she added, pointing her tail at the scar on Harry's forehead.
It looked so absurd, a seven foot lion that looked quite savage, pointing it's tail playfully up at Harry, that he simply had let go of his fear that Raides was at all going to try to hurt him. He almost felt like laughing but he quickly slipped back into deep worry when he remembered why Raides was doing that.
"Afraid Voldemort's going to succeed this time?" asked Raides thoughtfully.
"Yeah," said Harry at once.
"Don't worry about it. Keep me with you whenever you think he's around. He doesn't stand a chance against a staff, especially me. I prevented that Clades Ultimus from killing you and your friend, remember?"
"But where did all of that blood come from that Hermione said we were covered in?" Harry had to ask.
"Ah, I don't think you'd like to know the details of that. So how about the weather last night?" she asked, changing the subject purposely.
"What was it? Come on, tell me!" Harry shouted in a whisper, very interested.
"All right, fine. I couldn't stop it from doing anything at all... but when your bodies were breaking apart, I was able to stop it from going much further and heal the severe wounds. Happy?"
Harry winced at the thought. "So - so we were... and the blood was... where..." he said, taking a lot of strength.
"Yes," affirmed Raides. "Clades Ultimus attempts to obliterate the body," she said simply. "The words are Latin. They mean ultimate destruction. The blood was where your bodies were coming apart at the seams. Lovely, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes," said Harry airily, fighting down last night's dinner, looking away from the staff.
"Now what about your scar," said Raides firmly.
"What about my scar..." said Harry miserably.
Both of them went silent.
Harry's scar had hurt him once before while at Privet Drive and what he had overseen that time, three years ago, was Lord Voldemort speaking to Wormtail (Peter Pettigrew's nickname at Hogwarts). Peter's Animagus form, a rat, fit him perfectly. He was a short, balding man who liked to be with the big boys and though he was a poor wizard, Lord Voldemort found some uses for him.
Not having much to do at the moment, as he didn't feel like talking anymore, Harry opened his wardrobe and looked at the mirror inside it. On his forehead he easily spotted the lightning-shaped scar. Before he knew he was a wizard, he liked the scar. It was very unusual and it made him stand out amongst all his schoolmates (none of them were friends, Dudley made sure of it). Aunt Petunia told him he had gotten it during the car crash that killed his parents. Since he had learned of his mysterious past, he had begun to hate it.
He hastily hid it with his untidy black hair as he always did when he had this dream.
"Why do you keep hiding it?" asked Raides curiously.
Harry ignored her.
He didn't like to look at his eyes much, either. They were a bright green, a feature that Harry inherited from his mother. The black hair atop his head came from his father and the knobbly knees he had were a trait from an old man he once saw in a mirror. To Harry's displeasure, he learned that this mirror, the Mirror of Erised, showed what the viewer's heart desired most. In Harry's case, this was proper family.
Sickened and worried, Harry turned to Raides.
"Good night," he said shortly and before his eyes, Raides transformed back into a staff.
"Good night," she said back pleasantly, before becoming lifeless again, the crystal reappearing in her mouth. Harry put the Staff of Cybele on his dresser and retreated back to his bed. He was merely glad she was so nice to him even though he thought he hadn't been so kind back.
Staring out of his window, Harry looked up and down Privet Drive. It was a respectable street but none too welcoming to wizards. A few blocks away lived an old lady who disguised herself very well, even to Harry, for she was a witch and Harry never knew until two years ago. Harry stayed with Mrs. Figg whenever the Dursleys had to leave the house. He didn't like Mrs. Figg much. She had lots of cats (one hint Harry should have used to guess that she wasn't a Muggle) and continually showed him pictures of cats past. She was nice to him, though. She let him watch television, something the Dursleys never did, and he got to eat whatever he wanted.
No, what Harry wanted most, sitting up and staring out his window into the night sky, was a real home with a real family. He got up again and picked up a pen to cross off one more day on his calendar until his return to Hogwarts. His enemies, the entire house of Slytherin (Hogwarts students were sorted into one of four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin), aside, Hogwarts was better than staying with the Dursleys. He was continually hungry and he was continually very bored.
His friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had sent him birthday cakes with a Stale Prevention Charm placed on them, a useful discovery by Hermione. She was a very clever student who, each successive year, had gotten more used to being lazy with school rules. You had to be that way if you were Harry's friend. Harry continually broke school rules but it was usually with purpose for each year he had saved the day... for the most part.
With one last twinge of his scar, Harry rubbed it with a finger and was reminded that Lord Voldemort had already resumed his killings. Just last week there was a news report about a mysterious mass murderer roaming the streets of London. The anchorman was quick to point out that it was very similiar to what had once happened some seventeen years ago.
Harry simply didn't know what to do. He wasn't at all tired but when a grumble in his stomach sounded, he got on all fours and lifted the loose floorboards under his bed. He used this very convenient hiding place to store all the food he got from anyone. Currently, there was a half finished cake from Hermione. Ron's cake had, unfortunately, gone stale (Ron wasn't as good at magic as Hermione). They both sent Harry their cakes well before his birthday for they knew he would be needing it. They would have sent presents as well, but most people weren't too keen on leaving their house with Voldemort around. Was it really that bad, Harry had to think, or were they just playing it safe?
Harry was the second shortest of the three, Ron being the tallest and Hermione the shortest. Harry was by far the skinniest, as he always had been for his age but he was never bothered by it. Currently, what also bothered him next to his dream and his scar, was that, according to his handsome, golden wrist watch, it was five in the morning and he wanted to go back to sleep. He had had enough celebrating his birthday by himself for the past four hours (though he did get cards from Ron, Hermione and Hagrid). Uncle Vernon grunted in his sleep and it made Harry want to sleep even more. Light was creeping into his room, the sky turning a dull bronze.
Hesitating, Harry walked over to a necklace he had been given a little over a year ago. It was a coveted necklace, this necklace. Wizards or witches who have done great deeds, excellent and brave deeds, to the wizarding world were awarded with an Order of Merlin Third Class, Second Class or First Class. Harry, to his great surprise, had been awarded First Class and received a golden necklace with a plaque like a beautiful charm attached to it. His full name, Harry James Potter, was written on it in white gold.
Harry had taken to holding it. Last year, he learned that, since receiving this necklace had come as such a shock to him, when he held it, everything he ever did, every person he ever saved and every life he ever touched came rushing back to him, warming him, strengthening him. And for it, he felt better about himself with the plaque in his hand. By holding it, it was proof to him that he was famous, that he was loved, or at least liked, worldwide and that he had great value to countless witches and wizards. The necklace wasn't bewitched or magical at all; it was just a thing in his head and this made him feel guilty.
Some people were not surprised at all by Harry getting an Order of Merlin. When Harry was one year old, Lord Voldemort's curse, the Killing Curse, had bounced off him, leaving the scar on his forehead, and stripped Lord Voldemort of power. Harry was left on the doorstep of his hateful mother's sister and forced to live with them ever since.
But coming back to now, Albus Dumbledore had convinced Harry that he needed to stop using the necklace for comfort but Harry just couldn't help himself. He had been feeling so rotten since he first had the dream that he had been falling asleep with the necklace in his hands every time. As usual, Harry picked it up and got back into bed, pulling the covers over himself, clutching the Order of Merlin plaque tightly. He felt even more guilty whenever he did this... but it always worked.
After a few minutes of waiting to fall asleep, it hadn't happened. Harry was too worked up. He let his mind wander, thinking that perhaps it would wander onto a good thought and after a few minutes of wandering, it had.
There was one person he had met at Hogwarts whom he liked... a great deal. He first noticed her in his third year. She was a Seeker for Ravenclaw and he could still recall that the first time he ever caught sight of her he had a lurch in his stomach he now knew didn't have anything to do with worry over winning that Quidditch game.
Harry thought Cho Chang to be very pretty but to his dismay, she had been seeing one Cedric Diggory in his fourth year. Cedric had been killed by Lord Voldemort and since then, Cho had found comfort in Harry and he in her. They had become great friends the past two years, both sharing a miserable home life. He hoped to be seeing her again sometime soon. Sirius suggested he find a way to convince the Dursleys to let her come for a day. Now with a perfectly happy thought in his head, Harry could finally fall asleep. That was what he would do: find a way to let his aunt and uncle agree to let Cho stay with Harry for a day.
Him and Cho had gone on three... dates (the word didn't make him shudder anymore, thankfully), all of which, except the second (where they broke up), were very enjoyable. Cho had felt angry with herself for lying to Harry about her dad and what he had done once Cho had told him that Harry and her had become great friends. Her dad was jealous that a one year old baby had stopped Lord Voldemort and he had since lost his mind, becoming verbally abusive to his family. When Cho told him that his daughter was seeing the same boy, he had gone off the deep end. Cho had told Harry that her dad was happy for her... when in reality, he wasn't. Harry, on the other hand, had spilled his heart out to Cho and she left, feeling very guilty.
Hermione forced the two to get back together and in the end, it worked out. Harry was grateful for it and though he never voiced this to Hermione, it was evident at the time he and Cho spent together. If Harry could get his aunt and uncle to agree to have her come, even if she wouldn't do anything but sit in his room and goggle at the Staff of Cybele, he would be with someone and that was better than being alone.
He had had this dream many times before ever since he finished his sixth year at the school named Hogwarts and returned to number four, Privet Drive with his mother's sister, Petunia Dursley. Harry was laying in his bed on the second floor of the house. Uncle Vernon's snores echoed up the hall to his room and Harry sat up. Every time he had this dream it made his heart sink below the Earth's core and his pulse raise so fast, his heart beat so hard he felt his chest pulsating. The one thing he feared above all was that the occasional scream he gave when he woke up would wake someone else up. The thought about what the Durlseys would say if they repeatedly woke up from Harry screaming...
Perhaps what worried him most was the lightning shaped scar on his forehead which burned dully. This was a sign that Lord Voldemort was out there, biding his time. He had failed to kill Harry several times since that night and grew angrier with each failure. Harry knew his hopes were growing thin but he had continually gotten better at defending himself and he had gotten lucky several times. But just thinking about it made Harry feel like an ice cube had slid down his mouth and into his stomach. He'd rather not have to worry about it. He'd rather he still had his parents and that he was living anywhere but here.
Just a few months ago, one of Lord Voldemort's supporters had attempted to kill him again -- something he was getting, quite tragically, used to -- but thanks to the Staff of Cybele, which was sitting on top of his dresser, he had been saved. This staff was very odd. It was created by a woman named Cybele, who named the staff Raides. The name had since been lost in the several thousand years in the staff's disappearance, Harry thought, and so it was simply referred to as the Staff of Cybele. Harry and two of his best friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley found out that the staff was magicaly sealed away in a book and they had found out how to get the staff out of it. Harry was allowed to keep this staff as only a descendent of an order of wizards several thousand years old, referred to as ancients, could control it. His dad, Harry supposed, was the side of the family where this came from.
Harry stood up from his bed and walked, fully awake from having had the dream once again, to his round glasses first, putting them on, then to the staff and grabbed it. At once, it sprang to life. The Staff of Cybele was a seven foot tall staff, with a lion's body and head, both of which were golden. The staff was no more than two inches thick and looked oddly out of proportion but still magnificent. The fur on the tail went from golden to scarlet from top to bottom. The lion's jaw held a scarlet crystal which glowed a soft gold when alive. The fur on the body was real, soft and warm to the touch but perhaps most interesting to Harry was that the tail wagged merrily when he held it, like it was happy to be with him. And, it could talk. Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin were most horrified when they first saw it speaking.
"Had the dream again, eh?" Raides, the staff, asked Harry. It's voice was a deep growl but kind all the same. The crystal disappeared from the mouth and it turned it's head to look at him. Harry craned his head to look at the staff and nodded weakly. Raides understood.
Harry had been talking to his staff, which had turned out to be a good friend, ever since he first had this dream, the very same week he got home -- or at least the place where he stayed during his miserable summer vacations. He never referred to it as home. There was only one time it was ever close to a home to Harry and that was when his godfather, Sirius, had to stay with him at Privet Drive due to outstanding circumstances. Aunt Petunia hated everything to do with Harry's mom and, in turn, hated everything to do with Harry. After he got home from his first year at Hogwarts, his aunt and uncle saw fit to lock his owl, Hedwig, in his old bedroom, the cupboard under the stairs. He only moved out of this claustrophobic room because when Hogwarts began to try to contact Harry to tell him that he was accepted at Hogwarts, his aunt and uncle thought they would stop getting letter after identical letter if they moved him. They never allowed Harry to open their letters. It was their belief they were being watched and if they treated Harry better, the letters would stop. Even so, they came by the hundreds one fateful afternoon. Eventually, Rubeus Hagrid, a giant, twice as tall as the average man, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had come personally... much to the dismay of the Dursleys.
"Why am I having this dream?" Harry asked, receeding back to his bed. He sat on it, staring blankly at the door to his room, wiping a tear that had streamed down his cheek.
"You have dreams that can tell you the future, you say?" Raides asked. "It's possible they're working backwards... and since you've been thinking about it..."
"Well, not the future. They show me Voldemort and what he's doing. Someone said this stupid scar" -- he pointed to it -- "connects me with him somehow. I don't know what they are," Harry said angrily.
Harry took a deep breath and sighed heavily. He wouldn't be thinking about it but he had thought that his godfather had, too, died this past year. It was only when he overheard a conversation did he learn that it was possible to revive Sirius. The way to do it was the Staff of Cybele.
Sirius was Harry's father figure. Last summer, Sirius had brought the Dursleys and Harry into the same room. The conversation that followed made for a very strange scene. Harry had never bothered to talk to the Dursleys about his problems in the wizarding world and he had proof they didn't care during that conversation.
"I heard someone say that you can reawaken the dead," Harry started slowly, his voice a lot softer. "Is there... is there any truth to that?"
"Sadly, no."
Harry put the staff on his bed and looked away from it, heart-broken. He knew the answer before he asked it, he just wanted it to come right from the source. There was one good thing about having a staff that could talk: he didn't have to resort to speaking only to his hateful cousin, Dudley. Although, it looked like Dudley would never speak to Harry ever again after Raides had told Dudley that he needed to lose about fifty pounds.
"Your scar still hurting?" asked Raides.
"No, not anymore," Harry told it.
And then Raides did something Harry never saw it do before. It rolled onto the floor, hitting with a soft thud. Before his eyes, the body of the staff thickened, the tail growing slightly longer. The head became bigger and the fur, fuller. In no time at all, the staff had changed into a real, seven foot long lion with golden fur on it's head and body, changing to scarlet as it approached the tail.
"Ah," it growled, "I haven't done that for such a long time." Harry stared. "No need to look so alarmed," it said, noting Harry's face.
There was reason enough to stare, Harry thought, because there was a seven foot long lion on the floor of his room. Some of those teeth were as long as Harry's hand.
"Come on, I'm not savage!" it told him, jumping up onto his bed, which make the entire room shake. It cuddled up next to him, it's tail sticking up in the air.
"It's just -- just that I dont think I've ever seen -- seen a staff change into a - a lion..." Harry stammered. "How is it that you can talk, anyway?"
"Magic," said Raides. "My creator put a bit of her personality into me."
"So - so I can refer to you as her instead of it?" Harry asked cautiously.
Raides laughed (though quietly, because even she didn't want Uncle Vernon to wake up) and said, "Yes, and calm yourself. I'm not going to hurt you. Now, back to your scar. I'm nothing to fret over, that thing is," she added, pointing her tail at the scar on Harry's forehead.
It looked so absurd, a seven foot lion that looked quite savage, pointing it's tail playfully up at Harry, that he simply had let go of his fear that Raides was at all going to try to hurt him. He almost felt like laughing but he quickly slipped back into deep worry when he remembered why Raides was doing that.
"Afraid Voldemort's going to succeed this time?" asked Raides thoughtfully.
"Yeah," said Harry at once.
"Don't worry about it. Keep me with you whenever you think he's around. He doesn't stand a chance against a staff, especially me. I prevented that Clades Ultimus from killing you and your friend, remember?"
"But where did all of that blood come from that Hermione said we were covered in?" Harry had to ask.
"Ah, I don't think you'd like to know the details of that. So how about the weather last night?" she asked, changing the subject purposely.
"What was it? Come on, tell me!" Harry shouted in a whisper, very interested.
"All right, fine. I couldn't stop it from doing anything at all... but when your bodies were breaking apart, I was able to stop it from going much further and heal the severe wounds. Happy?"
Harry winced at the thought. "So - so we were... and the blood was... where..." he said, taking a lot of strength.
"Yes," affirmed Raides. "Clades Ultimus attempts to obliterate the body," she said simply. "The words are Latin. They mean ultimate destruction. The blood was where your bodies were coming apart at the seams. Lovely, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes," said Harry airily, fighting down last night's dinner, looking away from the staff.
"Now what about your scar," said Raides firmly.
"What about my scar..." said Harry miserably.
Both of them went silent.
Harry's scar had hurt him once before while at Privet Drive and what he had overseen that time, three years ago, was Lord Voldemort speaking to Wormtail (Peter Pettigrew's nickname at Hogwarts). Peter's Animagus form, a rat, fit him perfectly. He was a short, balding man who liked to be with the big boys and though he was a poor wizard, Lord Voldemort found some uses for him.
Not having much to do at the moment, as he didn't feel like talking anymore, Harry opened his wardrobe and looked at the mirror inside it. On his forehead he easily spotted the lightning-shaped scar. Before he knew he was a wizard, he liked the scar. It was very unusual and it made him stand out amongst all his schoolmates (none of them were friends, Dudley made sure of it). Aunt Petunia told him he had gotten it during the car crash that killed his parents. Since he had learned of his mysterious past, he had begun to hate it.
He hastily hid it with his untidy black hair as he always did when he had this dream.
"Why do you keep hiding it?" asked Raides curiously.
Harry ignored her.
He didn't like to look at his eyes much, either. They were a bright green, a feature that Harry inherited from his mother. The black hair atop his head came from his father and the knobbly knees he had were a trait from an old man he once saw in a mirror. To Harry's displeasure, he learned that this mirror, the Mirror of Erised, showed what the viewer's heart desired most. In Harry's case, this was proper family.
Sickened and worried, Harry turned to Raides.
"Good night," he said shortly and before his eyes, Raides transformed back into a staff.
"Good night," she said back pleasantly, before becoming lifeless again, the crystal reappearing in her mouth. Harry put the Staff of Cybele on his dresser and retreated back to his bed. He was merely glad she was so nice to him even though he thought he hadn't been so kind back.
Staring out of his window, Harry looked up and down Privet Drive. It was a respectable street but none too welcoming to wizards. A few blocks away lived an old lady who disguised herself very well, even to Harry, for she was a witch and Harry never knew until two years ago. Harry stayed with Mrs. Figg whenever the Dursleys had to leave the house. He didn't like Mrs. Figg much. She had lots of cats (one hint Harry should have used to guess that she wasn't a Muggle) and continually showed him pictures of cats past. She was nice to him, though. She let him watch television, something the Dursleys never did, and he got to eat whatever he wanted.
No, what Harry wanted most, sitting up and staring out his window into the night sky, was a real home with a real family. He got up again and picked up a pen to cross off one more day on his calendar until his return to Hogwarts. His enemies, the entire house of Slytherin (Hogwarts students were sorted into one of four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin), aside, Hogwarts was better than staying with the Dursleys. He was continually hungry and he was continually very bored.
His friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had sent him birthday cakes with a Stale Prevention Charm placed on them, a useful discovery by Hermione. She was a very clever student who, each successive year, had gotten more used to being lazy with school rules. You had to be that way if you were Harry's friend. Harry continually broke school rules but it was usually with purpose for each year he had saved the day... for the most part.
With one last twinge of his scar, Harry rubbed it with a finger and was reminded that Lord Voldemort had already resumed his killings. Just last week there was a news report about a mysterious mass murderer roaming the streets of London. The anchorman was quick to point out that it was very similiar to what had once happened some seventeen years ago.
Harry simply didn't know what to do. He wasn't at all tired but when a grumble in his stomach sounded, he got on all fours and lifted the loose floorboards under his bed. He used this very convenient hiding place to store all the food he got from anyone. Currently, there was a half finished cake from Hermione. Ron's cake had, unfortunately, gone stale (Ron wasn't as good at magic as Hermione). They both sent Harry their cakes well before his birthday for they knew he would be needing it. They would have sent presents as well, but most people weren't too keen on leaving their house with Voldemort around. Was it really that bad, Harry had to think, or were they just playing it safe?
Harry was the second shortest of the three, Ron being the tallest and Hermione the shortest. Harry was by far the skinniest, as he always had been for his age but he was never bothered by it. Currently, what also bothered him next to his dream and his scar, was that, according to his handsome, golden wrist watch, it was five in the morning and he wanted to go back to sleep. He had had enough celebrating his birthday by himself for the past four hours (though he did get cards from Ron, Hermione and Hagrid). Uncle Vernon grunted in his sleep and it made Harry want to sleep even more. Light was creeping into his room, the sky turning a dull bronze.
Hesitating, Harry walked over to a necklace he had been given a little over a year ago. It was a coveted necklace, this necklace. Wizards or witches who have done great deeds, excellent and brave deeds, to the wizarding world were awarded with an Order of Merlin Third Class, Second Class or First Class. Harry, to his great surprise, had been awarded First Class and received a golden necklace with a plaque like a beautiful charm attached to it. His full name, Harry James Potter, was written on it in white gold.
Harry had taken to holding it. Last year, he learned that, since receiving this necklace had come as such a shock to him, when he held it, everything he ever did, every person he ever saved and every life he ever touched came rushing back to him, warming him, strengthening him. And for it, he felt better about himself with the plaque in his hand. By holding it, it was proof to him that he was famous, that he was loved, or at least liked, worldwide and that he had great value to countless witches and wizards. The necklace wasn't bewitched or magical at all; it was just a thing in his head and this made him feel guilty.
Some people were not surprised at all by Harry getting an Order of Merlin. When Harry was one year old, Lord Voldemort's curse, the Killing Curse, had bounced off him, leaving the scar on his forehead, and stripped Lord Voldemort of power. Harry was left on the doorstep of his hateful mother's sister and forced to live with them ever since.
But coming back to now, Albus Dumbledore had convinced Harry that he needed to stop using the necklace for comfort but Harry just couldn't help himself. He had been feeling so rotten since he first had the dream that he had been falling asleep with the necklace in his hands every time. As usual, Harry picked it up and got back into bed, pulling the covers over himself, clutching the Order of Merlin plaque tightly. He felt even more guilty whenever he did this... but it always worked.
After a few minutes of waiting to fall asleep, it hadn't happened. Harry was too worked up. He let his mind wander, thinking that perhaps it would wander onto a good thought and after a few minutes of wandering, it had.
There was one person he had met at Hogwarts whom he liked... a great deal. He first noticed her in his third year. She was a Seeker for Ravenclaw and he could still recall that the first time he ever caught sight of her he had a lurch in his stomach he now knew didn't have anything to do with worry over winning that Quidditch game.
Harry thought Cho Chang to be very pretty but to his dismay, she had been seeing one Cedric Diggory in his fourth year. Cedric had been killed by Lord Voldemort and since then, Cho had found comfort in Harry and he in her. They had become great friends the past two years, both sharing a miserable home life. He hoped to be seeing her again sometime soon. Sirius suggested he find a way to convince the Dursleys to let her come for a day. Now with a perfectly happy thought in his head, Harry could finally fall asleep. That was what he would do: find a way to let his aunt and uncle agree to let Cho stay with Harry for a day.
Him and Cho had gone on three... dates (the word didn't make him shudder anymore, thankfully), all of which, except the second (where they broke up), were very enjoyable. Cho had felt angry with herself for lying to Harry about her dad and what he had done once Cho had told him that Harry and her had become great friends. Her dad was jealous that a one year old baby had stopped Lord Voldemort and he had since lost his mind, becoming verbally abusive to his family. When Cho told him that his daughter was seeing the same boy, he had gone off the deep end. Cho had told Harry that her dad was happy for her... when in reality, he wasn't. Harry, on the other hand, had spilled his heart out to Cho and she left, feeling very guilty.
Hermione forced the two to get back together and in the end, it worked out. Harry was grateful for it and though he never voiced this to Hermione, it was evident at the time he and Cho spent together. If Harry could get his aunt and uncle to agree to have her come, even if she wouldn't do anything but sit in his room and goggle at the Staff of Cybele, he would be with someone and that was better than being alone.