Up in smoke part 2 – a green eyed monster?

A/N So I felt this AU in pieces. This is the reactions of the great conflagration. I have one other piece written, but not the source of all the change, which is ethereal and nebulous. I think it happened while Harry was in Diagon Alley before third year. I've got an APB out on the muse that gave me the other pieces. If you see them? Yeah.

~~ begin~~

"Hello the house!" Arthur chimed, lacking a bit of his normal enthusiasm to his wife's ear.

"Dad!" "Hello, dear." "Harry's here!" "Mr. Weasley!"

Various replies echoed throughout the burrow and footsteps started down the stairs. Harry popped out from behind Mr. Weasley, getting his stomach back after side-along apparition.

Molly was wiping her hands as she came from the kitchen to the drawing room. "Where are Harry's things, then? I've put him in with Ron again."

"Well, you see…" Arthur trailed off, not wanting the children to see what would be Molly's obvious reaction to how the muggles treated Harry.

"Oh, Mrs. Weasley. There was a bit of an accident. Do you mind if I call a house elf here?"

"Not at all, dear."

"Dobby!"

"Master Harry calls Dobby?" The elf popped in.

"Hey, Dobby, could you get the trunk for me? I'm going to be staying with the Weasleys til we get to Hogwarts."

"Dobby gets, Master Harry sir." The little elf popped out and then popped back in a few moments later. "Dobby puts up in Master Harry's Weasel's room. Sir."

"Thanks, Dobby. Anything I can do for you in exchange?"

"Dobby good now, Master Harry, Sir. But Dobby let Master Harry, Sir know."

The elf popped out again before anyone could ask a question. There was a beat of silence, as the horde of Weasleys (and one Granger) tried to make sense of what they'd seen. And then, they all started asking at once.

"Stop, please!" Harry interrupted, then sighed. "That was Dobby. He was Malfoy's elf until I freed him. Now, he does stuff for me if I pay him. Hermione, thanks for taking care of Hedwig. I was right about how the Dursleys would be this summer. The first thing Vernon did was burn my trunk with all my stuff in it. I've had Dobby going through lost and found at Hogwarts to get me replacements for everything I need. I had him keep it at Hogwarts unless I was doing homework because I didn't want Vernon to burn another trunk of stuff."

"They. Burned. Your. Things." Molly was normally a shouter. That her tone was quiet and slow was a warning that she was beyond angry. If she knew where the Dursleys lived, Harry might fear for them.

Or he might cook popcorn for the show.

"It's okay, Mrs. Weasley. Really. I've had the summer to mostly come to terms with it. I've never really had stuff before, so this is nothing new to me. It's just stuff. They didn't hurt me. They could have." Unsaid, but understood, was that they had, before. "So, who can tell me what the deal is with the World Cup? I've been cut off from news, yeah?"

Understanding that Harry didn't want to dwell on his lost possessions, the twins started on a highlight tour of the playoff competitions. They kept the conversation quidditch-centered until after supper. Harry, Ron, and Hermione decided to walk to the pond after supper. Ginny wanted to tag along, but Molly held her back.

The trio was silent until they were out of range of the house.

"It's all gone? The map? The cloak? Your photo album?" Hermione knew, instinctively, what mattered the most to Harry.

"Everything that was in the trunk is ash. I was able to get replacements for most everything I need for school from lost and found, though. I even have some groovy muggle clothes from the 60s I think."

Hermione gathered that Harry didn't want to talk about the lost connections to his family. She should have offered to keep his stuff for him, too.

Water under the bridge.

"Isn't that weird? Wearing clothes someone else left behind?"

Harry shrugged. "I've always worn cast-offs. The weirdest part to me is why would whole wardrobes and trunks get left behind? I try to tell myself it was some pure-blood acting out against his family, wearing muggle clothes. They left them at Hogwarts so they wouldn't get caught. The alternative…" shaking his head, Harry trailed off.

"What's the alternative, then?" Ron asked, still thinking about that invisibility cloak going up in a muggle fire. That was a lot of money, a treasure!, just gone.

"The alternative is that they were muggle born that somehow died." Hermione was already tired of Ron's obtuseness, and she'd only been at the Burrow since lunch. "I wasn't the first to almost be killed at Hogwarts. Muggleborn disappear from there often enough, and that time period had You Know Who running around killing people. Can you imagine what Lucius Malfoy was like in school?"

A sneer formed on Ron's face. "Malfoy. At least you consistently beat him at what matters… The Firebolt!" Ron interjected as if in pain.

Harry sighed, "I reckon I'm off quidditch now."

"What? You can just buy a new broom," Ron brushed off Harry's obvious frustration with the situation.

"Brooms are expensive. McGonagall bought my Nimbus with funds from my trust vault; I can't afford to do that again."

"Oh, come off it. You've got piles of gold in that vault. And then you've got the main Potter vault."

"I have piles of gold in that vault. They will be used to pay tuition and fees for 7 years at Hogwarts and then, hopefully, an apprenticeship. That's all it will cover."

"It's more than I've got," Ron snapped back resentfully.

"Yeah, but you've got parents who will provide your tuition as well as a roof, food, and clothing for you - whatever you need whenever you need it. I don't. That gold is just enough to get me on my feet as an adult… hopefully. It's not enough to waste on another broom."

"Come off the pity party. You've got the Potter main vault to dig from, eventually."

Harry laughed without mirth. "Yeah, that's what a lot of people think. My dad actually pretty much emptied it for the war effort. There might be some there, but it's used to fund the Potter Trust, and by the time I get to majority, what my father left will be long gone."

Ron shook his head. "You're still the Boy Who Lived. You can make money off that for the rest of your life."

Harry looked at his friend as if seeing him for the first time. "You think I make money off that?"

"Well people pay gold for the books and dolls and stuff, so yeah!"

"Not one knut has been added to either my vault or the Potter main vault from that stuff. Whoever's making that money, it's not me, Ron."

"Whatever, you'll still get something off it. Stop acting like you have it so hard."

"Ronald!" Hermione was exasperated with the boy.

"You know I'm right. He gets whatever he wants because he has that scar. First year on the quidditch team. He does magic at home – twice! – and the minister himself lets him off. Now, he gets box seats to the World Cup because of his fame. We wouldn't even get to go to the game if it wasn't for that scar."

Hermione was aghast. "You think money or fame fixes everything? Look at Malfoy. He has everything. New clothes, new books, best broom. Now look at his dad and mum. Would you trade? Seriously?"

Ron swung in her direction, anger and something ugly covering his face. "Don't act like you understand. You're rich and you have great parents even if they are muggles. You've never had it hard. Either of you, really. Never mind."

Ron stalked back to his house. Hermione and Harry stared after him, silent in their reactions.

"You know he's just upset because…"

"Because what? I'm not rich after all? Don't look at me like that. You heard the same thing I did."

"But you don't seem surprised by it."

"Ron's always been obsessed with things. You should have seen how he looked at the invisibility cloak. I could practically see the pound signs in his eyes. To me, it was something of my dad's. To him…"

Harry looked off to the distance.

"Your comparison to Malfoy wasn't far off. When I get mad at Malfoy, it's because he called you a mudblood, or Ron a blood traitor, or Neville a squib. It's because he insults my friends. But Ron hates him because Ron wants to be him. Truly."

"Harry, you're making Ron sound awful."

Harry looked at Hermione. "Hermione, Ron CAN BE awful. He's usually a bully. Think of how he treats you, treats others. This one's a slimy snake, that one's a lazy puff, the other is a nerdy Claw. Your parents are just muggles…"

"Then why, for heaven's sake, are you friends with him?" Hermione asked, clearly confused and almost angry on Ron's behalf.

"At first, it was because he was my first friend. Then it was because I didn't want the twins to come after me. Now, it's because it's just easier than confronting him. When you were frozen by the basilisk, and other people started to treat me a bit normally again, I started to hear things. He'd say stuff about me when I wasn't around. That kind of thing. He got SO mad when I switched last summer to runes and arithmancy instead of divination. And surely you noticed how he kept trying to get me to stop studying last year when he was mad at you… about MY firebolt?"

"But," Hermione wanted to protest, but she didn't really have it in her. Ron could be fun, but he had a mean streak a mile wide. More and more in recent times, he'd been mean.

She didn't want to think about it anymore. Sighing, she closed her eyes and sought to change the subject.

"I am so, so sorry about your stuff. Maybe we can get Hagrid to get more pictures for you?"

"Maybe," Harry replied, but there was none of that anger or hurt that he had when the Nimbus had been destroyed. He sat stoically, looking at the pond in the dimming summer evening. Hermione's eyes narrowed.

"Did your album get destroyed?"

Harry sighed, turned, and looked at Hermione. "I will never, ever be able to hide anything from you, Hermione Granger. No. Everything that was in the trunk was burned up. But, as I told you when I asked you to keep Hedwig, I had a bad feeling. So, I had Dobby hide anything that was really important to me. I had him take my broom, cloak, map, picture album, the presents you've given me, my Weasley sweaters, and some other stuff and hide it in my trust vault."

"But…! Why would you lie?"

"I haven't lied! Look, I know you must have some inkling of what the Dursleys have done to me in the past. They really did burn my trunk. And now, no one thinks I have anything worth stealing. Well, you know, but you'd never steal from me or have my things taken from me. Except the firebolt… and you were right about that. Have I ever apologized for being a douchebag?"

Hermione smiled at first, "Language, and apology accepted." But then she thought more about what he didn't say. "You think Ron would steal your stuff?"

"He takes stuff from my trunk all the time. Or he did. He won't be able to get in anymore. But yeah, he's 'borrowed' the cloak and map and even my broom without telling me before. My old money bag that wasn't secure? It was 2 sickles lighter by the end of the year. I wasn't allowed out of the castle. He was able to buy Honeydukes on his pocket money even on the last Hogsmeade visit. Somehow, I doubt Neville was digging through my stuff and stealing my change. Ron's incredibly jealous of me – I started to see it last year when I started doing better than him in classes. If he decides to really turn? I wouldn't be surprised if he ruined something like the photo album just to hurt me."

"Oh!" Hermione's sense of loyalty was being challenged. Ron was their friend! Well, he was Harry's friend anyway. Wasn't he? She had to think.

"Have you heard from Padfoot?"

Harry snorted. "Yeah. I think he's somewhere warm. I hope he's ok, but it's hard to tell. He told me to get to Gringotts – he has something there that will let me talk to him. Do they have mobiles in the magical world? I saw that Dudley and his friends upgraded their pagers to mobiles this summer."

"Really? I suppose the shakedown business has its perks?" she snarked before becoming serious again, "I've heard of floo and paper-aeroplane-like memos. But nothing like a mobile."

"Well, I've got to find a way to get to Gringotts. I don't have much to buy but I do need ink – all the stuff in lost and found was dried out. Mr. Weasley wanted to send Mrs. Weasley while we're at the game, but I imagine I can con them into letting me go pick some of my own stuff. Lost and found pity points."

"I can't believe you've raided lost and found."

"Hey, the stuff only goes in there if it doesn't have a magical signature. I asked Dobby to give me stuff that was at least six years abandoned, meaning anyone who left it isn't even at Hogwarts anymore. You know, I don't know why it took me until third year to ask about lost and found; it's how I got a lot of stuff when I was in primary. The Dursleys certainly wouldn't buy me biros or the like. Why let that stuff go to waste? The clothes are ten times better than these rags, there's even trainers without holes!"

Hermione laughed slightly as they turned back toward the house. Perhaps Ronald had cooled off a bit. If not, this whole trip portended disaster. She barely tolerated quidditch at the best of times, and usually then only when Harry was playing. She'd thought hanging out at the world cup with friends would be a grand experience, but Ron had the ability to ruin it if he didn't come out of his funk.

Time would tell.