Chap 7 – Operation Homecoming
The morning of July fourth dawned brightly. An alarm on the bedside table went off at a quarter till six. As the loud bell faded from the room, Harry tried to stretch, but only managed to stub one of his toes on the footboard and cracked his left wrist against the bedpost.
Yet he smiled; this would be the last time he would ever have to wake up in a bed that was much too small in a room that was little bigger than the cupboard under the stairs.
Harry sat up and quietly padded down the hall to the bathroom. After locking the door behind him, he turned on the shower. He stripped out of his t-shirt and faded flannel bottoms. Glancing at the mirror, Harry noticed how much had changed about himself.
Gone was the small, scrawny kid who had been replaced by a tall, wiry-muscled man; he may have even managed to grow a few more inches since leaving Hogwarts. Satisfied with his transformations, he stepped under the spray.
The warm water pounded against his stiff muscles and sluiced over his body, relaxing. Steam began to fill the small bath and still Harry stood under the spray while his mind drifted away.
He began to mentally tick off rooms and cleaning tasks that needed to be done, clothes and supplies to be bought. As he was thinking about his plans to surprise Ginny with a special shopping venture, he froze.
Immediately his mind was wiped clear and the most spectacular sight came into sharp focus before Harry's eyes. Standing under another spray was a slim, gently curved girl. Most of her body was hidden by her long hair and her head was thrown back. She was singing.
The sound was so pure; it reminded Harry of a phoenix song, except for the lush, seductive quality it possessed. 'Who is this girl?' he wondered and the image changed to focus upon her face. Nothing looked familiar, then, a lock of red hair fell across her left eye.
"If you've used up all of our hot water, so help me boy!" Uncle Vernon's insistent knock and bellowing forced Harry back to reality, albeit reluctantly.
Turning off the water, he quickly tried to dry with the ragged towel – the only one Harry was allowed to use. The scrap of cloth was barely bigger than the tea towel that Dobby, the house elf, had worn. Harry put his pajama pants back on and walked out.
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were waiting in the hall with their usual sour looks in place. "Boy, if that water goes cold on me, I swear -"
"Swear what?" Harry interrupted, drawing himself up to his full height to tower over his uncle. "That you'll lock me in the cupboard? Been there. Shut me away in my room without food or outside contact? That's an old trick. Get over yourself."
Uncle Vernon's face shifted to an angry red and his large mustache trembled in his rage. "I will not tolerate such insolence in my home! I WANT YOU OUT! Go to those shabby freaks you're so keen about, I don't care wh-"
Within seconds of finishing his last word, Vernon Dursley felt his back being slammed into the molding around the bathroom door, followed by a loud cracking. Harry had his left had lodged in the many rolls of Vernon's neck while his right hand held his wand pointing it at his chest.
"If you ever say another derogatory word about the Weasleys, my parents, or myself, I'll make sure you live to regret it."
"That's an empty threat," Vernon tried to move but found he couldn't. "I know you're not allowed to use that . . . that thing."
"Care to check that statement?" Harry sent out a flash of red sparks. "Now, since we seem to understand who holds the upper hand now, I want you to go about your business. Don't worry, in another," he glanced at his watch. "Two and a half hours I'll be gone and we'll never have to see or think about each other again."
Harry relaxed his grip and allowed the adrenaline to leave his body. He turned away from his speechless uncle and wide-eyed aunt and proceed to his room.
With the door closed, Harry walked over and sat heavily on the bed. "That felt amazing!" he said to himself. Nothing, not even flying, had ever left him feeling so liberated. He had finally been able to tell off Uncle Vernon and he'd be leaving soon. The only thing that could make the morning any better would be to figure out who the girl from the shower was.
The shape of the face was oddly familiar but the only redhead that he knew was Ginny. 'But since when does Ginny have a body like that?' Harry wondered. Not that he didn't want Ginny to be the girl he had seen, he did, he just wanted to know how. Sure, he'd always known that Ginny was cute, but how had she gone from good friend cute to gorgeous in a little over a month?
The school robes were exceedingly bulky and they did manage to hide quite a bit, so there was the possibility that he could have missed it.
That still left the voice. 'Why keep something that incredible a secret?'
The same reason that no one knows about your ability to play the piano, his inner mind responded.
A grunt was Harry's only response.
While he proceeded to get dressed, Harry mind was occupied with picturing Ginny as the mystery girl, there was a quiet knock on the door. "What?"
The knob turned and in the opening stood his cousin, Dudley. He closed the door carefully behind him but made no attempt to move further into the room. Weighing about twenty three stone and close to six foot, he overwhelmed the small room and yet, Dudley was staring down into his clasped hands, his face pale.
"What do you want?" Harry asked, annoyed.
"Is it true that you . . . you beat up my dad?"
"Beat him up? No. I simply showed him who held the upper hand," he replied offhandedly. "Why do you ask?"
Dudley walked over to the desk chair and sat down. It creaked loudly under the weight, but remained intact. For the first time, he looked up from his hands and into Harry's eyes. "Could you teach me how you did it?"
Was this the same boy who had terrorized his childhood coming to him for advice on intimidation? Harry almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation, but somehow kept a straight face. "Why would you need to know that? Planning to show up the ten year olds down the lane or something more dastardly?"
There was a long pause; Dudley's face fell quicker than if he had found himself in an empty sweets shop. "You think you're the only one Dad goes after? Remember two summers ago, what happened in the alley?"
How could he ever forget; that incident had almost been the end of him and had nearly ruined him. He nodded, curious to see what his cousin was leading up to. "Ever since then, Dad's been a tyrant. Used to be you were the only one he'd get angry with but after that, you know, me getting sick over nothing-"
"You're lucky you couldn't see what those things really were," Harry said.
"Whatever, but from then one he was all over me. Things he had never given a damn about in the past, like grades or me mates, were now all he'd go on about. Said that I was a disappointment; a worthless whelp that'd never amount to anything."
"Payback's a bitch, isn't it?" spat Harry.
"Maybe," shrugged Dudley. "I could deal with all that stuff. It wasn't until he started going after Mum that I nearly lost it."
"Why would he go after Aunt Petunia?" Harry asked with his brow furrowed.
Dudley just shook his head causing his multiple chins to wobble around his face. "But it's gotten even worse just this past year. Every time I've come home for a weekend, he's always been yelling at her. Sometimes it's just over bills or about me and school but a couple of times – and these were the worst – he started going off on m-m-"
"Magic," supplied Harry.
"Yeah. Kept saying it was because of her dirty, abnormal blood that they've always had so many problems. Like him getting passed over at work, us having to take you in and what not." Dudley paused to stretch his hands which had become clenched into white knuckled fists and took a breath. "He said some other stuff, not sure if I remember it aright. Something about Granma and Grandad Evans being squids?"
"Squibs."
"Right. How he never should have married her, but he was under a spell or something. Usually, Dad had really worked himself up by this point, and would get rough and knock her around a bit."
"Why didn't you try and stop him?" Harry asked hotly.
"I did try. The first time I got pushed into the wall and sprained my wrist. Another time I took a punch and got two ribs cracked. Fat lot of good it did. Bastard still went after her."
Harry now sat on the edge of the bed, facing his cousin, seething in silent anger. He wasn't simply upset that his uncle was bullying his much smaller wife, but it was the fact that so much information about his family and his past had been kept from him.
He was less than a month away from his seventeenth birthday and there was so much he didn't know. A handful of factoids about his father and the Potter family, while all he knew about his mum's was that Petunia was his aunt. And just five minutes ago he'd learned that his grandparents had been squibs.
Something deep within him snapped. Harry's mind touched upon every occasion when something had been kept from him: his magical blood when he was eleven; Dumbledore's omission of the role he had to play in Voledmort's defeat and keeping him under lock and key and many other times and all for the same reason. "It's for your own good." No more, Harry wanted, no, needed, answers, now.
He would put an end to the lies and uncover the truth; and if along the way he got to lean on Uncle Vernon again, then that was a price he could live with. A slightly manic gleam shone in his eyes as he got up from the bed and headed for the door.
"Come on. I'd hate for you to miss this." Harry left the room with Dudley following in his wake with a scared, yet inquiring look on his face.
As he walked down the stairs, through the front room, Harry reigned in his anger. It would not do to explode all at once. He hesitated in the doorway, observing his adversary.
Uncle Vernon sat with his back to the door. He held the morning paper open before him and had another news programme tuned onto the wide-screen television set, which took up nearly the entire wall.
Aunt Petunia flitted about the stove arranging eggs and kippers upon a platter in an excruciatingly exact manner. Looking more closely, Harry saw that even thought it was very warm, Petunia was wearing long sleeves and seemed to be favoring her left leg.
She turned from the counter with the platter held before he; her hands began to tremble as she neared the table.
Harry walked up and attempted to wrest the plate from his aunt.
"What are you doing?" Petunia said through her clenched horsy-teeth.
"Trying to help you if you'd stop being so stubborn," Harry answered just as quietly.
"Where's that breakfast, Petunia? There'll be no hope for you this time if the bacon's burned again!"
"It's a good thing she made kips today, then, isn't it?" Vernon sputtered and tried to hide his flushed face by sipping his coffee. Harry sat the plate in the center of the table and took his normal place across from his uncle.
"Interesting reading?"
Uncle Vernon harrumphed from behind his paper. "Nothing about your kind."
"No matter," he shrugged. "I heard some much more intriguing news this morning. Something a little closer to home," Harry said and glanced over to his aunt and cousin who were standing in the middle of the room.
"I haven't a clue what you're rabbitting on about," Uncle Vernon folded up the paper and started to fill his plate, deliberately ignoring Harry's bait. This only added to the fury waiting to be released inside of his nephew.
"You're a sadistic bastard. Did you think I wouldn't realize what's been going on here this past year?"
"What happens in my home is none of your concern," Vernon said. His face was now becoming a livid purple.
"Didn't I tell you, not even an hour ago; that I would see you pay if you ever did anything that could harm my family?" Harry watched as the angry flush fled form his uncle's face and sat gulping air like a fish. "Glad to see you're not that stupid. Now, what kind of punishment would be suitable?" he stood and walked over to his silent aunt. "What do you think, Aunt Petunia?"
A pregnant pause filled the room and the desire for retribution shown through Petunia Dursley's eyes whilst dozens of images of possible punishments vied for selection. "I want him," she began quietly. "To feel - "
"Petunia, you can't be going along with this?" Uncle Vernon said as he shoved away from the table. "The boy's off his rocker! And you and I, we may have our tiffs, but we make out in the end."
"No. I won't stand for this any longer. I'm tired." Harry looked and saw a woman aged far beyond the forty-sum years he knew her to be. "I'm tired of having to tiptoe about and be the doting housewife when I'd love nothing more than to smother you while you sleep!" her voice wavered and tears of anger and frustration shimmered at the corners of her eyes. She looked over at Harry, and took a deep breath.
"Harry, I want him to feel every ounce of pain that he has ever caused. To anyone; and I want him to feel as though he were this big," she gestured. "Completely helpless."
Harry pondered his aunt's request. There were a couple of ways he could accomplish the goal. He could summon a Furie, but that would be too quick, and kind. What to choose?
As he was thinking, Uncle Vernon was in no mood to stand and wait around for his fate to come down. Vernon Dursley had begun to edge towards the door the moment Petunia had suggested his means of penance. Halfway there he found his exit blocked by his son, who until now, he hadn't noticed was even in the room.
"Stand aside, boy!"
"NO! YOU'RE FINALLY GOING TO GET YOURS!"
The two large men began to grapple in the doorway. Vernon had almost overpowered his son when he suddenly found himself in a hold. It seemed that love for his mother had won out over his father's love of himself. Still struggling to stay in control, Dudley called out again, "Hurry up, Harry!"
Removing his wand from his back pocket, Harry had it trained on his uncle's wide chest. "Hold him still," he murmured the Shrinking Charm and Uncle Vernon's movements ceased.
The spell came on in bursts. Beginning at his head, a small pop sounded and it looked as though it had disappeared. His arms and legs followed; he now looked like a large bouncing ball with a tweed pattern. Finally his middle deflated and shrunk and standing where he had been was a miniaturized Vernon, about six inches tall.
Dudley bent down and picked up his father. "Wicked! How'd'cha do that?"
"Better if you don't know," Harry said. He walked over to the cabinets and took out a pickling jar and its lid. After poking a few holes in the lid he returned to his cousin, who was now stretching and then tossing Uncle Vernon into the air. "Put him in."
"Do I have to?" Dudley whined, deftly catching his father. "I can think of – ouch!" he slammed Vernon into the jar. "Mangy bugger bit me!"
As Harry screwed on the lid he thought back to the train ride home at the end of fourth year. Hermione had been able to catch Rita Skeeter in her animagus form. When she had produced the jar, Harry had been elated. This felt even better!
'Good thing Hermione's not here Harry thought as he watched Uncle Vernon pounding against the glass. She'd be impressed with the charm, and then go into some tirade about humanitarianism or judicial procedures. Who needs that?
Half of the punishment was taken care of, but now what? How was he going to make sure the Uncle Vernon paid for a lifetime of bullying and pain?
Then an idea struck him; it was perfect and wickedly just. The spell was unbelievably old and complicated. Harry hadn't even known that such a spell was even possible until he had stumbled across it one night while in Dumbledore's office.
At the time, Harry was supposed to have been working on A Beginner's Guide to Legilimancy, but the introductory work was so pointlessly tedious when compared with the Expert levels. During one of these lessons, Dumbledore had been called away by Professor Snape about the latest Death Eater plans.
'Now's my chance,' Harry had thought to himself and set about memorizing as many of the advanced spells as he could – no easy task considering the book had been upside-down on Dumbledore's desk.
Reviewing the words a final time, Harry placed the glass on the table, took a step back, and began. "Poena reverto totus memoria," every word was crisp and punctuated with a flick of his wand and ending with a rather showy bit of interloping arcs and a final flick.
For a few seconds Harry stared at his uncle, unsure if the spell had really worked. Then Uncle Vernon fell to his knees clutching his stomach only to be thrown against the glass.
Harry smiled and slipped his wand back into his pocket before picking up the jar. He handed the jar, which now contained a convulsing Uncle Vernon, over to his Aunt Petunia.
"What did you do to him?" Petunia asked as she stared into the jar.
"It's called the Reverse Memory Charm. Basically what it does is make him relive every time that he has ever hurt anyone, but from their perspective. So, he's the one doing all the damage to himself."
"How long will it last for?" asked Dudley from behind his mother's shoulder.
"I'm not sure." Aunt Petunia gasped. "Once he's relived everything then he should return to normal, though he will remember everything that's happened," Harry ran a hand through his perpetually untidy hair. "I'd say about three or four days, but as cruel as he was it wouldn't be surprising if it took more than a week."
The minutes ticked by as Aunt Petunia watched her husband writhing in his silent torture.
"Now, I've given you something that you've always wanted. I expect the same in return."
"Like what?"
"I want to know everything you know about my mother and the Evans family."
Aunt Petunia walked over to the sink, gave the jar a violent shaking and placed it on the window sill. Her hands gripped the edge of the counter; she sighed audibly, straightened her back, and when she turned around again her normal icy glare was back in its place. "Alright. Just know that I don't ever want to talk about this again." With her head held high she left the kitchen.
Harry, followed by Dudley, entered the sitting room and sat – Harry into one of the wing chairs and Dudley onto the sofa. Aunt Petunia entered from the hall carrying an old, dusty box. Setting it down with a dull thud, she took the seat next to Dudley.
"Shortly after Vernon and I were married, he had me pack up all of my things from the past and chuck it, but I was able to keep some things hidden away." With a kind of reverence, Aunt Petunia removed the lid and set it aside.
From somewhere near the top she removed a silver antique frame and passed it to Harry. "That's Aidan and Daphne Evans, your grandparents. We were on holiday in Scotland."
Harry took the picture and was shocked at what he saw. Staring out at him were two young girls, laughing and holding each others' hand. They were wearing matching maxi coats with fur collars and patent leather shoes. The girls looked so different, and yet alike. Lily, his mother, had a flawlessly cheerful face surrounded by bouncy auburn curls which contrasted with Petunia's older, more solemn gaze and nearly stick-straight blond hair.
Behind them, standing next to a large stone disk covered in runes, was a man and a woman in their very early thirties. The man was in a greatcoat and tam while the woman looked the height of fashion in her calf-length Zhivago.
"That was when they told us that they were squibs and that there really was a magical world. I was ten, and father had told me that there was a slight chance that I could receive a Hogwart's letter," Petunia paused to riffle through the box and pulled out another hand full of letters. "At the time I didn't ask how that could be possible; I just hoped.
"The months passed and soon it was mid-July, but I never did receive a letter. Once the disappointment had gone away, Lily became the center of attention and I was pushed into the shadows. Nearly every night they would sit at the table and talk about different spells and potions or share what they knew about the Otherworld, as they would call it." She handed Harry a few more photos.
They were all of his mother, sitting at a table with huge books open before her and either parent at her side. Aunt Petunia was there too, but now at the far end of the table surrounded by her own books and either a resentful or jealous look on her face.
"Three years passed and Mum and Da finally got their wish: an owl flew into the kitchen one morning with a letter held in its beak. They were so pleased. 'We've got a witch in the family!' And all of a sudden, relatives I'd never known existed began showing up with all kinds of gifts and surprises. All of them were for Lily. What did I get from their visits? Nothing. Not so much as a glance in my direction, that's what!"
'Sounds like Christmas when Aunt Marge would visit,' Harry thought to himself. "Who were those people, though?"
"They were mostly from Dad's side – they'd been a part of that world for sometime. The first witch had been around during the late eighteenth century. Dad was the only squib; Mum never really talked about her past, so," she shrugged and began digging around in the box again.
"So I could be going to classes with relatives that I never knew about?"
A small laugh tinged with sadness escaped her lips. "No. Once Lily got involved with your father a lot of things began to happen, and all very quickly.
"I was about seventeen – Lily was in her fourth year, I think – when the Evans family began to wither away. It was like they were being checked off of a list. Some of them went inauspiciously enough; traceable, mundane illnesses or accidents, you know. It wasn't until some of the younger members began to fall that Dad got worried.
"That summer, he refused to let us come home. Lily went to the Potters and I stayed with a friend of mine, Justine Sinclair, who incidentally, lived right across the street from Vernon. Then in mid-August, I received a call asking me to come and clean out the flat that Dad had been renting. The landlady said they had just disappeared one morning."
"Did they ever show up again?" asked Dudley.
Petunia shook her head slowly. "The police never turned up any bodies that matched their descriptions. Dad had been convinced he would be the next one to go. Back then, I'd thought he was mad, until I got that call at least."
"What happened to you and my mum after that?" Harry asked as he was hanging on to his aunt's every word.
"Lily got shuffled around between her friends and a professor or two until your father's parents finally took her in, permanently. That September, I married Vernon and didn't have much contact with her except the few letters I sent at holidays and her birthday. She was always sending things to me though," Aunt Petunia passed Harry the letters she'd been holding and a shoebox from near the bottom of the bow. "I don't know why now, but I kept everything she ever sent me from school, mum and dad did as well."
"But I thought you hated my mum."
"Sometimes I did. Once I was married, I had to hate everything from my past if I wanted to have any kind of a life. I never truly hated her; just disliked a lot of the times."
"Okay," Harry sighed and shook his head, trying to get all of this new insight to fit in with the old. "What do you know about my mum and dad? Like how they were together or why they had to go into hiding."
"Lily wrote about James in almost every letter, so you can read those. The only time I saw them together was at their wedding."
"You weren't there! I have pictures of it and you're not in a single one. Plus you said that you'd rather die than have to be in a room with all of those freaks."
"Yeah, I guess I did say that, but it was only a cover. One of those pictures is of the wedding party, right?" Harry gave a small nod. "The woman, two people from your mother, in the blue robes with the flower hat that was me. Vernon had forbidden me to go, so Lily made a potion that'd make me look like someone else. That way, even if pictures somehow did get back to Vernon, he'd never know it had been me.
"But her disappearing, I didn't know a thing about that. I just thought she was busy with her own life and didn't have the time to check in."
Everyone in the room sat in silence. In a little over half an hour, everything that Harry had ever thought about his aunt was turned upside-down. She was no longer the bitter, conspiring woman, but had turned into a real person with a past.
A young hurt girl neglected because she didn't have powers; a scared, abandoned teenager reaching out and getting into even deeper trouble. Yet, there was still something nagging at Harry from deep within his stomach.
"You say that you never hated my mother. Then why did you treat me little better than an indebted servant?"
"I'm afraid that was, once again, Vernon's doing. If it had been up to me, I would have raised you and Dudley more equally," Dudley gave a small gasp; he found the idea of being raised no differently from his cousin unfathomable. "You'd have had a room to grow up in, your own clothes, and gifts on your birthday and Christmas; but I could never stand up to him. Whatever he said was law."
Nothing was making any sense. Harry rose from his chair and started to pace up and down the length of the fireplace. Nearly everything that he had ever known and experienced was now being colored by this rather strange, and revealing, conversation.
What was the truth and how much was someone else's cover-up?
While still in the midst of his brooding, the mantle clock chimed; nine o'clock. Harry had almost forgotten he was leaving – almost.
"Accio trunk," he said and soon the trunk was bumping down the stairs and came to a gentle stop at his side. "Some people will be coming for me soon, so - " Gathering up the letters and pictures, Harry walked over to Aunt Petunia and held them out to her.
She took them and placed them back into the box. "Here. Take this with you. I'm sure some of this should have been yours all along," Petunia put the lid back on and shoved the box into Harry's hands.
"Um - Okay, I guess," Harry touched his wand to the box and whispered the shrinking charm and placed it in his pocket. "Well – um - "
The prospect of having to dole out awkward good-byes was avoided by the timely rumbling of the hearth. Green flames sprang to life in the grate as three bodies stumbled into the Dursley's sitting room.
"Wotcher, Harry!" cried a very disoriented Tonks, who fell in a sooty pile at Harry's feet.
"Alright Tonks?" asked Harry. He worked, unsuccessfully, to hide his grin as he lifted the small witch to a standing position.
"I'll be okay. Never did quite get the hand of flooing here and there." Tonks looked up from dusting off the soot and took a step back. "Cor, but you must've grown since we brought you back," he gaze traveled over him. "S'not even been a month and look at you! What are you now? Six-three?"
Harry shrugged.
"Hard to believe it, but I think you're now taller than James was," Remus Lupin said quietly from Harry's right and laid a fatherly hand on his arm. "He'd have been proud of you."
"Thanks," Harry said, unsure if there were any other thing he could've said at that moment.
Mad-Eye Moody cleared his throat. He was standing next to the table in the center of the room, looking at a golden pocket watch with one eye while his magical one was whirling around in his head with more speed than it had shown for some time. "If you're all finished with the kiss and cry, we've a tight schedule to keep to. All packed, Harry?"
"Yes." Harry walked over to the wing chair and picked up the trunk.
"Well, let's go." From one of his pockets, Moody pulled out a large tuning fork and held it out to the others. Each touched the fork; Tonks held Hedwig's cage, while Harry and Lupin had Harry's school trunk between them.
"Will you be coming back?" Dudley asked from the far side of the sofa.
Harry looked over his shoulder. He had completely forgotten that his aunt and cousin were still in the room. "I don't know. But if Vernon decides to get out of hand again, you know where I'll be."
Lupin quirked his eyebrow at Harry's words, but chose to ignore them for now.
"Alright. Three…two…one," the familiar pulling took hold behind Harry's navel and he immediately tensed for the worst. The last portkey he had touched had almost been the end of him and the rebirth of Voldemort.
Soon everything was spinning out of control. Sporadic objects flashed in and out of view; the astonished gasps of Petunia and Dudley Dursley were overcome by the howl of the rushing air. Just as quickly as it had begun, it was over and the group was touching solid ground again.
Harry stumbled and leaned heavily on his trunk willing his stomach to fall back down his throat. While still trying to calm his nausea, Harry was rapt upon the head and felt the familiar, cool trickle of the Disillusionment Charm flowing over his body.
"We need to keep moving," said Moody gruffly. "Stay close and stay quiet. Harry, you'll be behind me, then Tonks and Remus. Move out."
They had landed in a dense overgrowth of grass and shrubs. Ancient trees were densely packed and didn't allow much sunlight through their branches to the ground below. They edged their way through along a stone and mortar wall covered with ivy and other vines.
Moody stopped and held up his left hand and watched the empty car park and the street beyond. The minutes ticked by until Moody was satisfied and waved his hand and they were moving again.
The sound of a knob turning and a door cricking on its hinges reverberated through the dim stillness. Harry felt himself being tugged forward, past Moody and into the building. He slammed into a table and landed in a chair; the others followed quickly and the door closed again, plunging the room into total darkness.
Lumos. The tips of four wands glowed brightly to disband the gloom. Remus moved to the wall and flipped the switch, causing the others to grimace from the abrupt change.
"Well, welcome back to Grimmauld Place, Harry," said Tonks as she sank heavily into the chair across from him.
Looking around the kitchen, Harry realized that he was, indeed, back at Grimmauld. He hadn't been in the house since Christmas of his fifth year – before the death of his godfather, Sirius Black. The summer following those attacks he had spent most of his time at the Burrow with the Weasleys.
It looked as though others had avoided the old house as well. There was a dust-free path leading from the stove to the door that connected to the hall; and Harry was almost positive that the path continued on to the meeting room, but no where else.
"Doesn't The Order still use this place as a headquarters?"
"Yes," Lupin said as he sat in the chair next to Tonks. "But no one has seen much point in keeping it up now that Sirius is gone." He paused and gave a soft laugh. "At least now you'll have something to do."
Harry snorted but was cut short as Professor Dumbledore stepped out of the fire. "Mr. Potter, it's good to see you here. I take it that everything went smoothly? No problems?"
"That's correct," answered Moody. "Not a Death Eater or even a crow to darken the skies, Albus."
"Good. I see that - " Dumbledore issued a quick succession of very loud sneezes. "I see that we'll need to make this old place livable once again."
Turning back to the fireplace, Dumbledore took a handful of floo powder and tossed it onto the grate. "Hogwarts School kitchens," he called and stuck his head into the flames. After a few moments Dumbledore stood up and out of the fire the house elves of Hogwarts came pouring into the kitchens of Grimmauld Place.
When the flames had extinguished, there were close to fifty elves all dressed in their toga-style work clothes and their enormous tennis ball-sized eyes kept darting between Harry and Dumbledore.
"Harry Potter!" Harry felt his chair push away from the table as his left leg was locked into a hug of sorts. "Dobby is so happy to be seeing Harry Potter again. We has all come to be helping you with your new home. And proud we are to be doing it, too."
Stepping away, Harry was now able to see the small elf which he had helped gain his freedom, over four years ago at the end of his second year. Along with his release from his previous family – the evil, malicious Malfoys – Dobby also gained the right to dress in whatever he wanted.
Today it was a mish-mash of colors: a pair of black and white striped Montrose Magpie shorts; three pairs of socks in orange, green, and purple; a painter's smock covered in a rainbow of blobs and smears and the outfit was capped off with a knitted bobble hat that Harry knew was Hermione's work.
Dumbledore cleared his throat and all of the elves turned to him. "If you could start with some of the basic cleaning, I'm sure that Mr. Potter will be able to give you more detailed instructions once we have concluded our meeting." The elves quickly began to move and pop out of the room, eager to complete their given tasks.
"Well, Harry, shall we begin the meeting?" Dumbledore asked as he sat at the head of the kitchen table.
"Yes. Let's begin."
The bright July sun filtered through the sheer curtains to land squarely across Hermione's abundant curls. Having only managed to fall asleep around four that morning, she tossed fitfully in her sleep. Finally, at a quarter until eight, Hermione gave up and resolved to face the day head on.
Grabbing an old pair of jeans and a white tank, Hermione headed for the bath. As she closed the door, she turned on the shower and happily stepped under the spray. After washing – not her hair - that took much too long the muggle-way – she dried off and wrapped up her hair.
In the middle of brushing her teeth, there was a knock on the door. "Hermione, may I come in?" he mother asked.
"Sure," she called, still brushing.
Mrs. Granger walked in and took a seat on the loo. Her body looked strained (like she was doing something she aught not) but her eyes, while sad, held a spark of determination. "Mione, I feel like I should apologise."
Hermione almost choked herself; she quickly rinsed and sat on the edge of the sink. She had gotten her stubborn, prideful nature from her mother, so apologies were rarely exchanged between the two.
"I know that we shouldn't have given you an ultimatum, but your father was adamant. I had a feeling that you'd choose magic over us, if forced."
"It wasn't that, Mum. It was - "
"Please, let me finish. If it were up to your father he'd give you a fifty pound note and be done. I know that these are hard, dangerous times and. . . . So, here," Mrs. Granger pulled a bank envelope out from an inner pocket of her lab jacket. "There's five thousand pounds in there. I had started saving it for university, but. . ." There was a long pause as Hermione took the envelope.
"I need to go before your father wonders what's about," Mrs. Granger stood and as she was turning the knob to leave, she turned around and pulled Hermione into a bone-crushing hug. "Be careful, love."
"No worries, Mum."
"Alright," Mrs. Granger smiled weakly and quietly left the room.
Hermione leaned against the wall and removed the towel to allow her hair to fall around her shoulders. "Why did she have to do that?" she asked running her fingers through the damp tresses. 'Now I feel like the bad guy. Why couldn't she have let me leave still feeling rejected?' Unable to come up with any answers, Hermione changed into her clothes and went back to her room.
The room felt so bare and uninviting now that nearly everything she owned was in her trunk. 'I don't think I could've managed all that without magic.' Hermione had turned seventeen (the legal age in the wizarding world) soon after sixth year began and was now allowed to do magic outside of school, but hadn't used it much because of her parents.
Unable to stand in the empty room any longer, Hermione grabbed her wand and Athene's cage. "Locomotor trunk," she said quietly. The trunk rose a few inches off the ground and followed out of the room, to the hall. Taking a final look at the past, Hermione shut the door and walked down the stairs to the foyer.
After sitting down on the little bench by the door, she took out the morning's edition of the Daily Prophet. Now, more than ever, Hermione needed to know what was happening in the world around her.
Voldemort and his Death Eaters attacks had grown – not only in numbers, but in the magnitude- and were only going to become more frequent and violent in the months to come. Due to the Ministry of Magic's earlier denial of Voldemort's return, their forces were now trying to catch-up after the enemy had a two years' head start.
"Pompous twits," she muttered as she scanned over the articles.
More pictures of demolished buildings and the Dark Mark hovering in the sky moved on the page. The officials were re-issuing their promise to bring those responsible to justice, while warning everyone to take all the necessary precautions to ensure the public's safety.
"Don't they get it!" Hermione spat with obvious disgust. "None of this would be happening if they'd listened earlier. And now they're publishing their every defense in The Prophet for every fool and dark wizard to read," she opened her trunk and shoved the paper in with more force than was necessary. When she shut the lid there came two loud explosions.
"Ah, our dear Hermione - "
"So good to see you again."
Sitting on the trunk – happy as they pleased - were the Weasley twins, Fred and George.
"What are you two doing here?"
"How soon they forget. What's happening to today's youth?"
"I don't know, Fred, but you'd think that if someone had asked for a rescue," George said giving Hermione his best annoyed stare. "They'd remember who it was they asked."
"Of course I remember who I asked. I just thought that your dad or maybe even Bill would be the one to come here; not the two of you. Anyway you're early. It's not even nine yet."
"Now that does wound us. We've become quite responsible in our old age," Fred said sagely. "Plus, how could Dad come? Didn't you hear about what happened?"
"Hear what? He's not hurt or something, is he?" Hermione panicked and grabbed George's collar.
"Easy now. You mean that Ron didn't tell you? I can't believe that."
At just the mention of Ron's name, a twitch became active just under Hermione's right eye. "No. I haven't spoken to him since school ended."
"Ah, young love. So much force and passion," George said dreamily.
"I'm not in love - "
"Save it, 'Mione. Speaking as someone a bit older, I think we can both tell when love's taken its hold. Especially if it's the fiery type," as he spoke, Fred touched his cheek, which still held the remnants of his own lover's spat.
"But, back on topic, Dad got the new spot. You know, Minister of Strategic Planning."
"How is that possible? That would've been all over the paper. I should have seen it."
"It's good to see the Ministry can keep some things under wraps," laughed George. "Only a handful of people know that Dad is the new guy calling all the shots now. He didn't want it to come out to the masses because he wanted to keep the family safe and also - "
"Dad just didn't want all the publicity. He's really very camera shy."
A small "o" formed on Hermione's lips as the larger picture unfolded in her mind. "I guess I can understand that. So, when are we going?"
Fred looked down at his watch and sprang from the trunk. "Five seconds!"
"Here. Take hold of this," George said and produced an oversized toothbrush from his left sleeve. Each one placed a hand on the brush. Hermione kept a firm grip on the owl's cage and the twins each held a handle on the trunk.
"Two…one…" Unlike other portkeys, this one seemed to reach out past the navel to the spine and all three gasped in a mixture of surprise and pain. The room began to spin and suddenly became cold and black. There was no howling wind only silence until the pulling was released and the group found themselves in a gloomy alleyway.
"Where are we? And what kind of portkey was that?" Hermione demanded as she got up from the dustbin she had landed on.
"Shh. Now we have to wait for the signal," whispered Fred as he helped his brother up, as he had managed to fall into a puddle of street filth.
A few minutes later, a crow landed on one of the above roof ledges and called out. No sooner had the shrill cawh faded than six aurors apparated into the alley.
"Good job so far. I'm really impressed with the two of you. The rest of you, let's get moving," Kingsley Shacklebolt said in a commanding tone. "Miss Granger, we're going to be moving fast and we don't want you to be seen. So, we're going to place you under the Disillusioning Charm and from this point on, you're not to speak until we arrive at the final stop. Understood?"
Still in shock at the activity surrounding her, Hermione could only nod. Her things had been shrunken down and were now being handed over to George. 'Or is that Fred?' she thought to herself. 'Why are they going through all this now? If no one knows about Mr. Weasley, then, why all the fuss?'
Hermione was pulled out of her musings as another auror came up to her, tapped her with his wand, and soon the spell was cast and Hermione was invisible.
"Move out."