Author's Notes: This fanfiction was originally intended to be a roleplayed game. Unfortunately, the game never got going properly. My plot, however, and my ideas for characterization - and my burning need to tell this story - translated themselves into the beginning of this fanfiction. I hope to finish it before the seventh book is published, but even more, I hope to finish it - for it will be the longest, greatest endeavor of fanfiction I'll ever have made.

Thank you. All reviews are, of course, welcome.

Chapter One: At the Dursleys'

8:00 a.m., June 2, 1997

With a start, Harry woke. He had been dreaming, again, of the Tower and the Cave. He had seen Dumbledore's face again: pale green in the eerie light of the potion; unnaturally peaceful at the foot of the Astronomy Tower. He could not think, for a moment, what it was that had woken him.

Then he realized. Hermione Granger was busy, bustling about tidying up the room. She was halfway through retransfiguring her makeshift bed back into the two chairs she'd borrowed from the kitchen table, and with her typical noisy efficiency had set about bringing them downstairs. With a groan, Ron Weasley – whose own transfigured bed looked distinctly more like two chairs molded together – rolled out from under his coverlet.

"Hermione," he wailed. "It's four in the morning!"

"It's eight, Ron," Hermione said with a sniff. "And I hardly think it's polite to lie about all morning. Mrs. Dursley might need help in the kitchen, and it's only fair of us to offer as she didn't know we were coming."

"Aunt Petunia probably thinks you'll turn the toast into toadstools," Harry said with a yawn, but he too got out of bed.

Hermione was already fully dressed in a neat skirt and blouse, so Harry surmised she'd been up for a while. "Give me a mo, Hermione, and Ron and I'll be down."

"I'll just go see if your Aunt would like any help, then."

Rolling his eyes as she departed, Harry rifled through his trunk for a pair of clean jeans and a tee-shirt. To his pleasant surprise, he'd grown again, and the jeans – which he hadn't worn in months – actually fit without him having to roll up the cuffs. Ron was still taller than him by head and shoulders, but it was pleasant to know he wasn't abnormally small any longer.

Yawning and groaning the whole way, the two boys descended after a few moments, Harry taking care not to step on the squeaky stair out of habit.

Hermione, it transpired, had not succeeded in persuading Petunia to let her help. The horse-faced woman was standing protectively in front of her toaster oven, a look of deep suspicion on her bony features. "I do know how to work a toaster, Mrs. Dursley," Hermione said helpfully. "I'm Muggle-born, after all, my parents are dentists."

"Blimey, is that a toaster?" Ron exclaimed, and Hermione visibly winced. "That thing Dad's always going on about?"

Dragging his feet like a drugged mountain troll – and, indeed, Harry often saw little difference early in the morning – Dudley entered the kitchen.

Then he froze. Clearly Dudley had forgotten about the "guests" at Number 4, Privet Drive, and as his face turned from pink to white to green, Harry had to stifle a laugh. If Aunt Petunia were being paranoid, if Uncle Dursley had taken to carrying about his golf club even into the shower, well, that was nothing compared to Dudley.

"Hi, Dudley," Hermione said brightly, though Harry could tell that even for Hermione, politeness to Dudley Dursley was a chore. "I'm Hermione, remember? I was just going to help your mother with breakfast."

"Oh, no you weren't!" Petunia exploded, her cheeks flushed. She had a wooden spoon in hand, and she waved it menacingly, like some odd parody of a wand. "You can get out of my kitchen! I won't have you freaks ruining my appliances with your – your – your unnaturalness!"

The kitchen went very quiet, and Hermione looked as if she might cry. Ron seemed caught between laughter and concern, but Harry just sighed. "Let's go, you two. This is useless."

There really weren't very many places to go, however, at eight in the morning in Little Whinging, Surrey. If any of them had had bikes, Harry might have suggested riding into the center of town to find a place to eat, but Dudley had ruined his only bike when he was fourteen, and Harry didn't have any Muggle money, anyway.

They sat outside together on the grass, their backs against the front of the house, and stared out onto the street. Mr. Prentice from across the street glared at the three of them, and Hermione giggled.

"God, do they really all think you're some sort of maniac, Harry?"

"Yeah, they do," Harry said uncomfortably, shoving his hands inside his pockets.

"I'm sorry, it's just so – funny," Hermione said before dissolving into laughter. "Being here. I always spend summers with you two to get away from the Muggle world, and now, here we are –" She went quiet, suddenly, looking deeply ashamed of herself, and said no more.

For a long few minutes, they just sat together. It was still early enough in June that the mornings could be chilly, and Harry wondered whether he oughtn't to have worn something more substantial than a sweater.

After a while, Hermione spoke again, quietly enough that nobody but Harry and Ron would have a hope of hearing her. "Harry," she said, "What happens when you turn seventeen? To the Dursleys, I mean."

Harry frowned. To them? "Well… I'm not protected any longer," he said. "By the blood magic, anyway."

"Yes, but…" Hermione looked troubled. "Harry, I know why you aren't 'with' Ginny any longer."

Ron gave Hermione a look. "Change the subject, much?"

Hermione gave Ron a hushing motion before turning back to Harry. "Because you're afraid she'll get hurt, that V-Voldemort will use her," and she shuddered, "to hurt you. Well, what about the Dursleys? Why hasn't he ever gone after them?"

Harry's first reaction was to say that he didn't care about the Dursleys, but then he felt sickened. They were, after all his family – sort of – and he'd never really thought that they might be in danger because of him before. "I – I dunno. Maybe Dumbledore, I guess. Maybe it's part of the blood magic. I mean, if he can't harm me while I'm here, it stands to reason he can't harm them, either. Which I guess means that when I go, when I'm seventeen, he can come here and hurt them."

Ron looked annoyed. "Like you need something more to feel guilty about," he said grumpily, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Well, I was thinking," Hermione said, with the same look she'd worn when suggesting the DA or S.P.E.W., "that while we were here, it might be nice if we, you know, did a little protective spellwork, to keep them safe while you're gone."

Ron gave her another look. "If Mrs. Dursley was angry at you for trying to make toast in her kitchen, how do you think she'll take some bloody wards?"

"Keep your voice down, Ron!" Hermione hissed.

"And anyway, I can't," Harry said. "I'm not of age yet."

"We are," Hermione said happily. "And the Ministry can't tell which one of us it is that's using magic, can they? So if they send an Owl after you, that's settled."

"Statute of Secrecy?"

"The Dursleys already know, sort of," Hermione said. "And we can make sure the others don't see."

"Hermione," Harry said, "Do you really think anything we do could keep Voldemort out if he really wanted to get into Privet Drive? I mean, if he can break into the Department of Mysteries, what chance do we stand?"

Hermione stuck her chin out in a very Hermione fashion. "It isn't right not to do something. We could give them a little time, maybe. We could give them that."

Ron sighed, but he put his arm over her shoulders. "You're a better woman than I am, Hermione."

Harry just sighed.

"You want to do what?" Petunia Dursley said, one hand on her hip, the other holding a sponge she'd been recently using to clean the frying pan she'd used to cook that morning's bacon.

"Put up some wards," Hermione said again. "Protective magic. Safeguards. A bit like a magic security system, if you know what I mean."

"We already have a security system," Aunt Petunia said, looking suspicious.

"This will work better in case of strange wizards," Hermione said. "And – well, I don't know how much Harry's told you – but things are getting worse in our world – in the Wizarding world, I mean. There's sort of a war on, and, well, we thought it might be a good idea just to put up something in case for whatever reason this war should somehow affect you and your family."

Hermione's brown eyes shone with earnestness, and she twisted the front of her sundress awkwardly as she spoke, trying very hard to meet Petunia's gimlet eyes.

Petunia looked very ill, and she suddenly turned toward Harry, her eyes hard. "Whatever happened to your Professor Dumbledore? I thought he already – " But she stopped, her speech arrested as if paralyzed by fright at her own train of thought.

"Professor Dumbledore is dead," Harry said flatly. "That's why you might be in danger. The war is going to be worse now."

Petunia groped for the kitchen counter, her feet sliding out from beneath her, and Hermione dashed to fetch her a chair. "Are you all right, Mrs. Dursley?" she asked solicitously, exchanged a puzzled glance with Ron and Harry.

"He can't be," Petunia said, shaking her head violently. "He –" The horse-faced woman made a violent movement with one hand, as if trying to dispell some terrible vision.

"Well, he is," Harry said flatly again, not particularly full of sympathy for his aunt. She'd hardly treated him with any courtesy when they'd met a year before, and he found it hard to believe that wizard-hating Aunt Petunia could feel any grief for the man.

"Go," Petunia said, her voice hoarse. "There's a box, under the third stair, the loose floorboard – bring it to me."

Ron's brow furrowed in confusion, but he dashed off, and some seconds later, panting a little returned it. "Here you go," he said to Petunia, dropping it into her lap.

Hands shaking, the woman unlocked the catch and opened the lid of the box. Inside was a small pile of letters – letters written with quill pens on wizarding parchment, Harry saw to his complete and utter surprise. They were faded and yellowed, some of them obviously very old, and as Petunia leafed through them, something dawned on Harry.

"The letter! The letter Professor Dumbledore left with me as a baby – you have it? You kept it? And you didn't show it to me?" He was indignant, and any curiosity he might have had about his aunt's distress evaporated.

"The letter was addressed to me," Petunia snapped, "And there wasn't any point after that – that giant of a man – came to fetch you, he told you everything that mattered, I'm sure. And parts of that letter were private. I never even told your uncle."

Again, Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged glances. What on earth was going on, Harry wondered – and what were the other letters in that box?

Petunia was scanning a page of yellowed parchment intensely. "That Dumbledore man thought the same thing – protection, or whatever you call it… when he left you with us, boy, he did something to keep you safe, oh yes, that was his first concern, but he promised me that while you were in the house with us, we'd all be safe from this Lord Voldemort person… Lord…"

Ron visibly flinched at the name, and Harry stared at her. "You mean that while I'm in the house, you're safe, too?" he said incredulously. "And you never bloody well bothered to mention it?"

"Oh, but it makes perfect sense, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "Of course! While you're here with your mother's blood protecting you, so to speak, V- Voldemort can't touch you – he physically can't come here, and neither can the Death Eaters – I guess because of the Mark, maybe – and so when you're here, the Death Eaters or whatever can't touch the Dursleys, either!"

Inside, Harry groaned. If he wanted to keep the Dursleys safe for as long as possible, he'd have to stay in their house until the end of July – and he couldn't do that. There was too much for him to do, and he couldn't wait. Not any longer. Not now that people were dying.

"Well, that's going to run out anyway," he said roughly. "When I turn seventeen. And I can't stay here all summer, there's stuff – I need to take care of. So we'll have to do something else."

Petunia flared up. "Sixteen years!" she hissed. "Sixteen years, we've been giving you room and board, spending money on you, hiding you from the blasted neighbors, sixteen years we've been letting you leech off of us, and now you're ready to – to put my son at danger! And you do think he's in danger, we're in danger, or else you wouldn't be bothering with any of this, would you?"

Harry wondered, momentarily, that he'd ever thought Petunia Dursley as stupid as her husband and son. "Yeah, sixteen years of you treating me like the dirt under Dudley's feet!" he shot back. "Was I so hard to ignore, even when you kept me in a bloody closet for three weeks at a time? How about when you put bars on my window and door, and fed me through a fucking cat flap? Was I so much of a trouble then?"

"I didn't want you!" Petunia bawled back, her knuckles white on the arms of her chair. "You, looking at me just like my dratted sister, you, unnatural from the day you were born, you, terrifying my real son – but I took you, oh, I took you! I fed you and I sent you to school, didn't I? I never hit you, you weren't abused!"

Harry's face was white with anger, and he turned away slightly, not looking at her. "Do you ever wonder," he said tightly, "what my mother, your dratted sister, would have done if you'd died, and she'd been left to raise Dudley?"

Petunia made no reply, and instead began crying angrily and silently.

"Um," Ron said, looking a little unnerved, "This doesn't really settle the issue of, er, wards and things."

Savagely, Harry turned back to face Petunia. "I'll do the best that I can," he grated. "I'll even set them up so that they warn me if you're in danger." He paused, and looked at Hermione. "You can do that, right?" he asked?

Hermione opened her mouth, no doubt to give an explanation of the arithmantic theory behind it, but Ron butted in, "Yeah, mate. My Dad's set it up so that if something goes wrong at the Burrow and he and Mum aren't home, it'll let them know. He's got it so that the Aurors will know right away, too. Kingsley helped set it up for him."

"There," Harry said. "And so long as it's before July 31, if I'm even in this bloody house you'll be safe. I can Apparate all right now, so that's not a problem."

Petunia looked by turns ill and furious, but finally she said, "All right. But not now. Wait until I can get Vernon and Dudley out of the house. Lord knows, it shouldn't be hard – neither of them want to endure another dinner with you."

Harry stared at her implacably. Petunia stood.

"Oh," she said, almost as an afterthought. "Some of these letters were from your mother. You can have them, if you'd like." Carelessly, she grabbed a fistful of papers, shoving them toward Harry, before stalking out of her kitchen.

Harry clutched at the yellowing bits of parchment desperately, trying not to tear the fragile bits of paper.

Ron, meanwhile, had sunken with a heavy sigh into Petunia's vacated chair. "Well," he said ominously. "What exactly are we going to do about those wards, then?"