CHAPTER 5: Plan of Attack.
Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing JK Rowling's universe for my own amusement. Please don't sue me.
All of a sudden there was a thumping down the hallway and Uncle Vernon threw open the door, demanding to know what was going on.
"Get out! Get Out! Get Out!" He shouted at Ron & Hermione
"Uncle Vernon, they'll be staying" Said Harry, surprisingly calm.
"I will not have any of your kind under my roof!" Vernon yelled out them, Aunt Petunia and Dudley now entered the room to see what all the commotion was. "We told that crackpot teacher of yours you could come back – but we never said you could have your…. Kind.. to stay!"
"Professor Dumbledore is dead, he was killed at the end of last year…" He paused as Aunt Petunia gasped.
"Was he killed by that Voldemort fellow?" She asked, shaking slightly as she said his name.
"No he was killed by Professor Snape, who we thought was on our side."
"Does that mean your crackpot school will be closing? Because you sure as hell won't be staying here!" Uncle Vernon remarked.
"The school is reopening, but we're not going back. Turns out it's my destiny to kill Voldemort, that's why he couldn't kill me as a baby. But he's kind of immortal at the moment, so we have to go and hunt down bits of his soul and destroy them before we can kill him." Harry explained, very indifferently. Ron & Hermione looked at each other, they had never seen Harry so calm and unemotional when it came to him being the chosen one.
"So you're going after him?" Asked Aunt Petunia, "The man who killed your parents?"
"Who gives a damn, as long as you get out of my house!" Uncle Vernon exclaimed.
"Uncle Vernon, Myself, Ron & Hermione.." The Dursley's stopped to turn to Ron & Hermione, still standing against the wall, having forgotten they were there, "… will be staying here for another week, then we will be leaving, and I promise you won't ever return. My best friends are coming along with me and are going to help me to kill Voldemort. We will keep out of the way for the next week and not cause any trouble."
Vernon was about to protest but Petunia cut him off, laying a hand on his shoulder "That's fine Harry, let me know if you need anything." Dudley & Vernon looked at her, flabbergasted but she left the room, followed by Vernon. Dudley remained behind with his cousin. "You have to kill someone?" He asked.
"I have to defeat the most powerful & evil wizard that has ever lived yes" Harry replied.
"Oh" Dudley replied before leaving the room. "Thank God they're gone!" Harry said. "God I've missed you guys, I thought you were coming sooner! We really need to get to work researching the horcruxes."
"We would have come sooner but…" Ron didn't know quite how to say the Hermione's parents had been killed by death eaters. He didn't have to, Hermione beat him to it.
"My parent's were killed yesterday by death eaters." She replied, no emotion on her face.
"Shit are you alright?" Harry asked going to hug her.
"No Harry, I'm not alright, I have lost my entire family. But so have hundreds of other people because of him, and I'm going to find a way to bring him down before anyone else is lost."
"Mione…" Ron started to say "What Ron?" She snapped back at him. "I was just.. I mean.. you haven't lost your entire family. You have me, and Harry, we're your family. And Mum & Dad think of you as part of the family anyway, so don't think your alone because your not."
Ron started to enlarge his trunk. "He's right you know" Said Harry. "You guys are the only family I've ever had."
"I know" Hermione said softly, looking at her feet. "Right well we're going to need somewhere to sleep, and somewhere to work, honestly Harry you don't have much study space in here do you?" She said pulling out her wand and conjuring two spare beds, and a large table with three chairs. Ron & Harry looked at each other, puzzled by Hermione's behaviour. Neither could understand what it was like to lose your parents, Harry never had his to begin with.
After they had settled in, Harry went down stairs to get some food when he saw Aunt Petunia crying in the kitchen. Trying to ignore it he opened the fridge and started looking for something he could take upstairs. "Harry?" She asked tentatively.
"Yeah"
"I'm sorry that we've never loved you, and I'm sorry I never talked to you about your mother. I loved her you know, she was my sister after all. She was family, as are you."
"Right…" Harry replied, unsure of how to respond to this sudden change of heart from his Aunt that had tried to pretend that he hadn't existed for the past decade or so.
"I know it's probably a bit late for all this, but can you forgive me? Your Uncle will never change, but I remember the fear in your mothers eyes when she spoke about that wizard…" Petunia went very quiet as she stared at Harry, before walking towards the living room. As she reached the door she turned and said softly "Be careful Harry."
Feeling a bit shell-shocked Harry grabbed some leftovers and went upstairs, he could hear his two best friends fighting from the top of the staircase, before it went suddenly quiet. Worried he burst into his room, finding his two best friends locked in a deep embrace. They broke apart when they heard him though.
"We were just… um… well" Hermione tried to think of something and was left blank. Harry noticed that Ron had taken her hand, and was entwining his fingers with hers.
"Well it's about time" Harry said, "Maybe everyone will get some peace and quite around here now!" laughing.
"What do you mean it's about time?" Ron asked indignantly.
"I mean that most of Hogwarts has a bet on when you two were going to get together. I had my money on last Christmas, so you two lost me ten galleons. Fred & George had 3 years, Seamus gave you another 6 months." He laughed at the shocked expressions on his two best friends faces. "Food?" He asked them, trying to choke back giggles. Ron sat down and began to eat in silence, feeling slightly mortified. "Oh honestly Ron" said Harry, "It's ok mate." Ron soon snapped out of it after he had a decent feed.
"What do you say to taken today off and starting figuring out these horcruxes tomorrow?" Asked Hermione.
"Hermione Granger, putting off studying? Are you under the imperius curse?" Ron said, with a mock shock expression on his face.
"Actually I've been thinking about that." Said Harry thoughtfully "I think we should work out some sort of code so we can tell if we are under the imperius curse, or a death eater in disguise."
"That's not a bad idea you know, especially since they'll figure out that we're your best friends, they might try and use us against you" Hermione said. "So all we have to do is come up with something that only we know about us as a sort of identification thing, easy"
But it turned out that it wasn't so easy. Most of the trios adventures had become infamous by there sixth year, so it was hard to pinpoint something that nobody else knew.
"I've got it!" Exclaimed Ron, excited that he had come up with a brilliant idea. "Harry what was the first chocolate frog card you ever got?" "Dumbledore" Harry replied, looking a bit dumbfounded. "Well it was only you and me in the carriage on the train, I'm the only other person who would know that your first chocolate frog card was Dumbledore – it's perfect!"
"That's very good Ron" Hermione said, trying not to feel put out that it wasn't her that came up with brilliant idea.
