Chapter 1:

An unhappy summer

Harry had been at the Dursley's for a little more than a month. His summer had started out terrible with the death of his godfather Sirius Black. Since his arrival at the Dursley's his summer hadn't become much better. Just then a large brown owl flew through his open window and held out its leg with the daily prophet attached to it. Harry took the letter and placed the money for the paper into the owl's money pouch on it's opposite leg. He now read the Daily Prophet every day front to back making sure he missed nothing. Harry could still remember how last year he only read the front cover for information and later found out that the prophet had bashed his name for a whole summer without his knowing it. He only found out when Hermione had told him at number 12 Grimwald place. Harry gave a shudder at the memory of his godfather's home. Harry remembered how that was the last place he had seen Sirius. Harry quickly whipped tear from his eye and looked back at the new paper. He was no longer worried about whether or not people were bad mouthing him or claiming he crazy now. No he read through the whole paper looking to see if anything affecting anyone he had known was in it. So far there had been a few deaths from the families of students that Harry barely recognized by their name. So far Harry had been lucky. He saw deaths or disappearances in the paper everyday. No, no Harry had been lucky none of his friends had been marked as either dead or missing yet. How long would his luck last he would wonder to himself. Surely somebody would die that he knew before this war would be over. At this thought Harry's heart plummeted again remembering the prophecy. This war wouldn't be over until he killed Lord Voldermort. His choice was kill Voldermort or be killed by him. Harry finished reading the paper and it down with the rest of the others satisfied that at least all his friends survived another day. After setting the paper down Harry walked over to the open window. It was still early and Hedwig hadn't returned from her nightly hunt. Harry stood at the window for awhile taking in the early morning air. Harry exhaled deeply and even smiled. It was hard to believe that there could be anything wrong in the world with such peaceful mornings like this. Harry opened his eyes and saw Hedwig coming back and smiled again. Even though Harry was pretty sure Voldermort wouldn't waste his time or energy with an owl Harry still secretly worried about her. He hadn't quite gotten over the time last year when Hedwig had showed up with a broken wing. Hedwig had returned and he would be able to relax, until tomorrow at least. Harry held out his Hand and Hedwig fluttered softly onto his arm and hooted sleepily Harry slightly petted her and carried her to her cage. Harry sat her down in the cage and just as he was about to close her cage door there was a huge explosion outside his window just down the street. It wasn't a normal explosion though first there was a flash of green before the flames had flown into the air.

"NO! Not here, not now…" Harry said to himself almost in a pleading voice to himself. He knew he was wrong though, the war had found it's way to private drive. Harry grabbed his wand and just as he reached his door there was another explosion follow by the waking screams of his now terrified Aunt Petunia.

"HARRY WHAT IN BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING!" Yelled Uncle Vernon. Whenever something happened that was unusual Harry was the first to get blamed. Harry didn't care at this point in time. He threw his door open and ran down the stairs jumping down and completely skipping the last three. Harry hit the landing and sprinted out the front door. The once lovely morning air was now full of the smell of fires and the screams as people ran out of their burning homes and were attacked by what Harry knew to be Death Eaters. There were four total from what Harry could see. Two on the right side of the street laughing and torturing someone with what Harry was sure was the crucius curse. There was another one on the left side of the street with his wand raised sifting through some bushes as if looking for something. The fourth one was walking down the middle of the street. The scene around him was one out of a particularly bloody war movie. House's now were missing entire walls with stone and rubble blown across lawn's and even out into the streets. Several buildings were on fire. Harry could see that several of the yards now had huge holes in them where the dirt and grass and been blown out of the yard. It was almost hard to believe that so much damage could be caused in such a short time. Then the Death Eater in the middle of the street saw Harry. Harry's instinct took over he knew he needed to get moving a still target would be too easy to hit. He hurtled his fence just as the Death Eater fired a red jet of magic at Harry. The spell missed Harry but blew threw his aunts fence and created a crater in the middle of his yard. Harry turned towards the Death Eater and cast his own spell.

EXPELLIARMUS!" Harry shouted. The spell hit the Death Eater square in the chest which had an added effect of not only disarming the Death Eater but also throwing him back several feet. The noise of Harry shouting a spell and of their fellow death eater howling as he was knocked back awarded Harry the full attention of the other three Death Eaters. Harry would only have time for one more shot before the Death Eaters would pull them selves together and start firing at him. Harry pointed his wand at one of the two on the right side of the street which meant they were right in front of him just a little ways up the street. Half a block most. Harry shouted "Impedimenta!" This successfully froze the Death Eater on the spot. He went completely rigged as if froze in time. The other two Death Eaters launched the Avada Kadavra or killing curse at him. Harry quickly jumped behind a car which shook as the trunk was blasted apart and all the glass in the car shattered. Harry took this time to cast a quick stunning charm at the Death Eater on his side of the street. It barley missed. Something in the Death Eaters seem to click that allowed them to realize they were completely unprotected. The Death Eaters then headed for cover. The Death Eater on the left side stepped so that most of his body was behind a rather large truck, while the closest Death Eater to Harry, the one on the right, hid behind a mailbox offering very little protection. "At least this one defiantly isn't intelligent" Harry thought to himself. CRACK, suddenly a wizard was standing next to Harry. Harry was so surprised by the sudden appearance that he used the Expelliarmus charm on the man almost instantly. The man's wand flew away from him into Harry's now ruined yard. The man jumped after it and ran to Harry's side. It was when the man turned to Harry that he finally realized this man was an Auror. Before Harry could apologize there were four more loud cracks and four more wand wielding wizards joined the fray. The two remaining Death Eaters now seeing that they were vastly outnumbered Disapperated and left their two friends to be apprehended by the four Aurors that had just appeared on private drive. After a couple minutes the ministry of magic sent several wizards who quickly took statements from the muggles that were attacked and the ones that were hanging out their windows trying to figure out what was going on. After a couple hours the whole neighborhood minus Harry, Mrs. Fig (who was a squib or a person with little or no magical ability born into a wizarding family), and the Dursley's had their memories modified., their homes fixed and nobody knew that this morning had been anything but normal for the neighborhood. Harry though was very worried and stayed in his room watching out the window with his wand in his hand just out of sight. It wasn't long after noon that Harry received an owl from Professor Dumbledore congratulating Harry on job well done in the defense of the muggles and also advising him to be to stay inside until he got there. Harry sat at his window watching for Professor Dumbledore for the rest of the day. It was almost Ten o'clock before Harry saw the elderly man coming out of a darkened alleyway. Harry jumped off his chair and ran downstairs. Dumbledore was closing the gate behind him when Harry burst through the front door.

"Professor what's going on? What took you so long?" Harry said in a rushed excited voice.

"Calm yourself Harry." Dumbledore said in his usual calm and patient voice. "I believe that such things should not be spoke of in on one's lawn, where a person can be easily overheard or interrupted. Shall I assume you are inviting me into your home Harry?" Dumbledore said smiling though it was less like a question and said as more of a statement Harry found that it would only be courteous to reply.

"Of course Professor, please come in." Harry said turning around and leading the way into the house. Dumbledore entered the house and Harry closed the door behind him. At the sound of the front door closing Uncle Vernon turned on the sofa to see who was entering seeing Harry Uncle Vernon filled with anger again as he said.

"Boy, how many times do I have to tell you that you can not just come into this house at any time of night you need to be home much sooner than now." It was quite obvious to Harry that Uncle Vernon didn't realize Harry had just spent all day in his room and only just left and re-entered the house.

"I have been in my room all day and just now left to…"

"Now Harry you should respect your uncle's wishes though it was kind of you to meet me at the gate I would have reached the door fine. Dumbledore said calmly interrupting Harry. Uncle Vernon not realizing there was someone else in his house got up and moved to where he could see down the hall and saw Dumbledore for the first time. Uncle Vernon noticing right away that Dumbledore wasn't a muggle in the slightest turned on Harry in a flash.

"HOW DARE YOU BRING YOUR SORT…"

"I would appreciate it if you didn't yell at Harry. He consequently did not originally invite me here. I have come under my own pretenses and am here for a few reasons the start of which is because of the events of this morning." Professor Dumbledore said interrupting Uncle Vernon which made him madder.

"HOW DARE YOU INTERUPT ME IN MY OWN HOUSE!" Uncle Vernon bellowed "AND WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE INVITING YOURSELF INTO MY HOME"

"Oh, my apologies I never did properly introduce myself" Dumbledore said straightening up and offering his hand "Albus Dumbledore and you of course are Vernon Dursley." Uncle Vernon looked taken aback when Dumbledore had said his name and then had told Uncle Vernon his own name. Harry could see that Uncle Vernon was trying to think of what to do.

"Dumbleydore?…"

"Dumbledore" Dumbledore corrected him

"Right, Dumbledore, you're the one that wrote that note the night he" Vernon said jabbing a thumb towards Harry "showed up on our doorstep?"

"Yes, yes I am the one that left Harry on your doorstep" Dumbledore said emphasizing Harry's name.

"Well you can just take him back he's been nothing but trouble since we took him in. May he burden your life now." Turning to Harry he added "go on get your stuff you ungrateful brat." Dumbledore held up his hand to Harry to let him know he did not want Harry to leave just yet.

"Mr. Dursley as I am sure you know there was a bit of…" Dumbledore paused as if searching for an appropriate word "commotion this morning."

"Bloody right there was." Vernon said heatedly "this brat ran outside early this morning and started blowing things up"

"Well it appears that you have your facts a little jumbled Mr. Dursley. It is quite understandable that one might not quite understand what is happening if they were busy attempting to protect their loved ones." Dumbledore said in a flattering way. Harry knew that Uncle Vernon was most likely cowering somewhere he thought to be safe other than running around trying to protect someone else.

"Err…um well yes." Uncle Dursley was once again unsure of what to say but he shook his head and blundered on "So if he didn't blow up half the street then what happened?."

" I will be happy to explain exactly what happened, but I think I should first ask you if I would be alright if Harry spent the rest of the summer at the home of a fellow students of his?"

"And why would I have a problem getting rid of him a month early?" Uncle Vernon answered quite rudely.

"Well since you are his legal guardians I thought that you might be a little more concerned about where your nephew is and if he is alright."

"Oh yeah, right. Well I don't mind" Uncle Vernon said as if he actually did care.

"Well Harry why don't you go get your books and get ready to go over to the Weasley's." Dumbledore said. With that Harry turned and ran up the stairs and started to pack. What took Dumbledore so long Harry wondered to himself. Could there be problems within the order? Harry was quickly throwing books into his trunks and clean and dirty clothes were also being tossed in. Harry suddenly wished that he hadn't been so untidy because now it was taken him twice as long to pack. Harry had hoped that Dumbledore coming would mean that he was going to leave the Dursley's but hadn't honestly expected it. Harry then turned his mind back to the question of what had taken Dumbledore such a long time, and said to himself.

"What could have possibly taken him ten hours?" Harry wondered as he thought about how long it had taken Dumbledore to get to Harry. "Maybe it had to do with the order?" Harry speculated "Well whatever it was it must not be about me or else he would tell me. Wouldn't he?" Harry wondered aloud "I mean he has kept things from me before that were really important. I know he thought it was best. But He had decided to stop trying to hide things from me at the end of last year right? What if Dumbledore was just trying to protect me again. Oh well." Harry said as he finally finished packing closing the lid to his trunk and hauled his stuff downstairs. "I'm ready Professor."

"Good then we shall be leaving then" Dumbledore said rising from his seat. Harry started for the door but was stopped by Dumbledore. "Hold on Harry I believe your Uncle would like to say something." Dumbledore said this looking at Uncle Vernon over his glasses rather than Harry. What could Uncle Vernon possibly have to say? Harry thought to himself.

Uncle Vernon looked quite annoyed but cleared his throat and said "Err…Have a nice year Harry" Harry knew this must have been Dumbledore's doing but he replied kindly.

"Um, You too Uncle Vernon" Harry then looked at Dumbledore questionably.

"Well I do believe it is time for us to be delivering you to the Weasley's. I dare say they are probably awaiting your arrival right now." With that Dumbledore turned on his heels and walked out of the sitting room and to the door "let's go Harry." With that Dumbledore opened the door and stepped out into the yard with Harry one his heels. Dumbledore stopped halfway to the gate and turned to Harry. "We will be Apperating Harry but since you neither know how to, nor are you of age to I will ask you to please grab hold of my arm. Very tightly now. Ready?" Harry nodded and turned towards his home and saw the Dursley's still sitting where they had left them. For some reason Harry had a funny feeling that there was more going on than he knew but just as he thought that Dumbledore apperated them away. Harry felt as if he were being pushed through a rubber tube a few sizes to small. Harry couldn't see or even breathe and just as he thought he might pass out they were standing on a hill. The same hill that Harry had once had to climb to get to a portkey that took him to the Quidditch tournament.

"Harry, before we continue to the Weasley's there is something I need to tell you." Dumbledore appeared to be looking upset but it could have been the dimness of the surrounding area. Dumbledore knelt in front of Harry. No, no Dumbledore was defiantly upset. "As I am sure you have already wondered what took me so long to visit you today, I will need to tell you before we continue to the Weasley's. Harry you are not the only one who was attacked today." At hearing this Harry's heart dropped had something happened to Mr. Or Mrs. Weasley. What if it was Ron or any of the other Weasley's. Harry's mind was running through a million different possibilities when he was brought back by Dumbledore's voice. "As you are probably already figuring out that it has to do with the Weasley's I must say you are correct. They were attacked just like the other students that accompanied you to the ministry of magic a couple months ago. The other attacks were more organized than the one on you because Harry you see that because of the protection of your home Voldermort was unable to pinpoint your exact location. The others weren't so difficult…"

"What happened? Has one of them died?" Harry couldn't help but interrupting. If someone else had died because of his actions. The actions that had caused Sirius's death Harry didn't think he would be able to live with himself.

"No Harry, you taught your friends well none of them died." Dumbledore said answering Harry's question "But there were injuries. Your friend Mr. Longbottom suffered a very nasty stunning charm though he is by all means well now. No, what I need to tell you is that the Weasley's were attacked here at their home and though none were seriously injured physically there was quite a bit of property damage." Dumbledore took a breath and finished. "Harry, I need you to not ask any of the Weasley's about what happened. Mrs. Weasley has been very kind and has opened her home to the students that were with you that night. It appears Voldermort has a special degree of dislike for them only seconded by his hatred of you. Allow me to get to the point. Mrs. Weasley is very shaken up over what has happened and we do not want to do anything that might upset her further. Also all of the other students have already been told to not leave the property for any reason and I will request that you do the same. The ministry and I have put a great many protection charms on the Weasley house so you will all be safe there but we can't protect you outside of their property. Do you understand Harry?" Dumbledore asked finishing his story.

"Well, yes professor, but does this mean I am to not speak to Ron about what happened either?" Harry asked.

"I believe that will be okay Harry just make sure you do not speak about it around Mrs. Weasley." Dumbledore put and emphasis on that part.

"Okay" Harry said.

"Good then let us be on our way" Dumbledore said walking towards the Weasley home. After a short distance Harry asked.

"Professor, am I allowed to tell Mrs. Weasley what happened to me?" Harry asked this for he knew that at some point she would most likely ask him.

"You may tell her Harry as long as she asks you. She is already under a great amount of stress and I am worried about her mental well being so we need to try and make the next month as stress free as possible." Dumbledore said without so much as looking at Harry.

"Okay, I will try." Harry said. The rest of their journey to Ron's house was traveled in silence. Upon the house Harry started to realize why Dumbledore would have told him everything on the hill instead of here for if Harry had not known of the property damage and the attack he most certainly would be worried seeing the yard is was now. The Yard was full of burn marks and holes where the earth was literally blasted away. The house too was covered in burn marks and many windows were shattered. Harry couldn't tell if the windows were broke because of incoming spells or outgoing. Harry and Dumbledore reached the house and Dumbledore knocked on the door. Harry heard a slight squeal from the other side and the sound of a dish being dropped.

"Wh-who is it?" Mrs. Weasley stammered

"It's me" Dumbledore replied politely.

"If it truly is you then what is your favorite treat?" Harry thought this was quite a silly thing to ask but Dumbledore acted as if he were expecting it.

"Why lemon drops of course" Dumbledore replied and with that Mrs. Weasley opened the door and let both Dumbledore and Harry in.

"AH, Harry how nice to see you again. Ron and the others are upstairs. I told them to get some rest but knowing them they are most likely awaiting your arrival so best go up and not disappoint them but do try and get some sleep tonight." This was a little odd. For Harry new that usually Mrs. Weasley would never give up a chance to fuss about him or ask how things were. Then again things were different and Dumbledore did say she was under a lot of stress so Harry said goodnight to Dumbledore and Mrs. Weasley and ran upstairs to Ron's room. Mrs. Weasley had been right about the others being awake and waiting for him, for as soon as Harry opened the door five sets of hands instantly grabbed him and pulled him in before they quickly shut the door and started talking quite horridly.

"Hold on, hold on. One at a time. What's all the fuss?" Harry said a bit taken aback seeing as how he had felt like he was just ambushed. Hermione was the first to talk.

"OH Harry I'm so happy your okay!" she whined and threw him into a big huge. Harry slightly patted her on the back as she sobbed onto his shoulder. Harry who was quite lost looked at Ron and mouthed the question what's wrong to him. As a reply Ron simply shook his head.

"Nice to see your okay Harry" Ginny said. Hermione finally pulled herself off Harry.

"I'm sorry about that. I knew you would be okay but I was so worried all the same." Hermione said wiping away a few tears.

"Yeah man. Things have been pretty" Ron paused for a split second as if looking for words then said "rough."

"Yeah Dumbledore told me you guys were attacked. How did you all hold up?" Harry asked.

"Well there were quite a few that attacked here as you can tell by our house and yard." Ron said jumping right into the story. "There had to have been around ten of them. Anyway we were all sitting at the table eating breakfast. Charlie had received some time off so he was here too. Well one minute we were all eating and the next thing I know around three Death Eaters burst through the front door. Ginny was hit with a stunning charm right off the bat but I guess they didn't know exactly where we all were because the other two's spells went way off course. Well since we had all that practice with stunning charm in our fourth year, you know when you were practicing for the third task, well I was able to revive Ginny in all the confusion. Mum, Dad and Charlie must have been quick because when I rose from helping Ginny the three that entered our house were down. Well Mum was at the sink window launching spells out it while Charlie kept turning and firing out the door. I didn't really see where Dad was…"

"He was at the dining room window. I never knew he was such a good duelist." Ginny said butting in.

"Yeah well anyway, I jumped up to help and mum told me to get Ginny up stairs and keep her safe. So we ran upstairs to Fred and George's old room since it looks out over the front lawn. Well we opened the window and started casting Jinxes and everything else we could think of down at the Death Eaters we could see. When it was all over we got maybe seven of them. Though only five were hit bad enough that they couldn't run. After they retreated Mum, Dad, and Charlie rounded up the two outside and tied them up with the three in the dining room. It didn't take long for the Order to show up. That was about the end of it." Ron finished.

"So none of you were hurt?" Harry asked.

"Well Charlie got a nasty cut on his leg, but he said the dragons had done worse. Also Dad got a black eye. How I don't know but Mum was fine." Ginny answered.

Harry then turned to Neville, "What about you?" he asked.

"Well there was only like five that hit my house. I hit one with a jelly legs jinx but Gram was amazing. She took on the other four along with a few Uncles we had over. I got hit by a stunning charm just after I hit that Death Eater with the jelly legs so I didn't get to see much. All I know for sure is that Gram was jumping over things blowing stuff up and heard several yells of pain so I guess she got a couple good. In the end we caught all of ours…but they were in our house so they couldn't move around to much" Neville added to try not insinuate that he was better than the Weasley's.

"Well that's good to hear." Harry said smiling at Neville. He then turned to Luna Lovegood. "What about you?"

"Oh, well we didn't get attacked but since all of you did Dumbledore thought it would be best if I moved somewhere a bit safer" Luna said in her usual dreamy voice.

"Oh…well that's nice to hear" Harry said. Thinking that he should say something about her experience though not knowing what to really say. "Hey, Hermione what happened to you?" Harry said finally turning to Hermione. Hermione's face which up to this point had seemed at least mildly interested in what they were all talking about became very distracted.

"I think it is time for us to all go to bed. It's already early in the morning and I'm sure your mum will want us up early." Hermione said looking at Ron and Ginny.

"Hermione…what's wrong? I would really like to know what happened." Harry said in a comforting voice.

Hermione took a deep breath then said, "I honestly don't know." She paused for a moment then continued. "Well you know how my Mum and Dad are dentists right? Well they went to work at around seven in the morning as usual though I decided to join them and do some school work. Well the day was completely normal until we got home." Here the words seemed to get stuck in Hermione's voice as her eyes filled with tears. After a couple seconds she continued with a few tears rolling down her cheeks, "There was nothing left. Our home was nothing but ashes everything we owned gone. All my school stuff that I had left at home was gone. I was lucky that I always carry my wand with me now." Everyone looked at her in surprise. Harry after taking a glance at everyone came to the conclusion that until now she hadn't mentioned at all what had happened to her.

Ginny stepped up to Hermione and hugged her patting her on the back softly. "It's okay. we're here for you Hermione" Ginny said reassuringly.

Hermione wiped the tears away separating herself from Ginny, "I…I appreciate it." Hermione said through a slight sob. "Anyway Dumbledore arrived a short time later and offered for me and my parents to come stay here. My parents said it might be better if I stayed at a wizarding family's house but they said they would move in with my aunt for the time being. We claimed that somebody torched our house and the ministry helped with that story." Hermione finished but then said to Harry. "Enough of our stories what about you? What happened at your place I thought Dumbledore said Voldermort couldn't touch you while you were at your families." Hermione said.

"Well he can't but I saw the Death Eaters attack and ran outside to stop them." Harry said and he was soon reliving his experience to the others. "And then I received an owl from Dumbledore telling me not to talk to anyone and not to go outside until he arrived. I guess he was busy retrieving all of you is why it took him so long to get to my house." Harry said finishing his story.

"Blimey Harry, you took on four by yourself?" Ron asked.

"Well I started to but like I said I only took out two and the Aurors drove the other two off." Harry answered. They all spent several more hours talking about the attacks and those they had read that turned up missing. Finally they got bored of the subject of the attacks and started talking about what they had done over the summer before the attacks. Ron told Harry about George and Fred's new business and that when they go to get their books they would stop by and show Harry how they were doing. Finally Mrs. Weasley opened the door and saw them all talking.

"Well Harry I'm glad you made sure you all got a good amount of sleep." She said sarcastically smiling at them all. "I figured you all wouldn't get any sleep but breakfast will be ready soon so when your ready come on downstairs" With that Mrs. Weasley left them smiling.

"Well she seems to be in a better mood." Ron said slightly shocked.

"Why do you say that?" Harry asked. Soon Ron was telling them all how she had been really stressed since even before the attack and how she didn't smile nearly as much as before and how it was nice to see her happy again.

"It must be because she feels Happy to have us all here and enjoying ourselves in such a dark time" Hermione said. They all fell silent for a while.

"Well what do you say we go have a bite to eat?" Harry said getting up and with that they all walked downstairs and began on their breakfast.