AN: What's this? Another update? IrishCailin16 is on a roll with 2017! As always, thanks to my lovely readers, followers and reviewers – you guys are simply the best.

VlightPhase, you are quite right in that this fic is taking a while to get started. Recruits has been floating around in my head for a long time, and I wanted to set up the universe properly so that everything makes sense going forward. These next few chapters should be more action-packed - and full of our main characters :)

Disclaimer: please note that the final third of this chapter contains paraphrased material (and sometimes almost direct quotes) from 'Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone', chapter three. And I am not the fabulous J.K. Rowling.

Enjoy!

Chapter Five

Misinformation

Saturday, 28th July, 1991

Of three things, Tonks was absolutely certain.

Certainty Number 1: Aurors were some of the weirdest people around.

Each member of the squad seemed to have their own individual quirk – and generally more than one, at that.

The most benign of Alastor Moody's was that he kept several dozen dark detectors in his office, and carried a sneakoscope everywhere with him. Dawlish had to start each morning with a salutation to the sun god (whomever that was) and drink a pint of Wellness Potion before he could sit down to work. Proudfoot, the olive-skinned witch Tonks had sort-of met on her first day, spent at least an hour each day cataloguing every item in her office and casting dark detection spells over each scroll, quill and ink bottle she owned, to ensure nothing was missing or had been tampered with.

Lupin appeared to have an endless supply of chocolate on his person at all times, which seemed rather unusual for such a slender (and fully grown) man. Even Kingsley Shacklebolt – who on her initial encounter with him had seemed almost normal – insisted on eating a full roast chicken every day to maintain his muscle mass.

It seemed to be a rite of passage, to develop some sort of personal oddity, so perhaps Tonks should choose one before one chose her. Become known as the person who only ate vegetables whose names contained three or more syllables? (That ruled out parsnips, though, and she wasn't sure she could fight the forces of darkness without her mother's honey-roasted dish on Christmas.) Or the person who kept some sort of unusual pet as a bodyguard, like a wolf or a niffler. A niffler might prove problematic if anyone wore jewellery or carried money though…

She supposed she could just be the Auror-in-training with eccentric hair, but she wasn't sure if that would pass muster as peculiar enough. After all, Rickburn had trained his family of pet lemmings to spy on his neighbours, simply to find out who had been stealing the roses from his rose bushes.

Certainty Number 2: She wouldn't get any sleep for the next three years of her life.

Classes began at 8am every morning – except Mondays, when the entire Auror squad met for a staff meeting – and even though they were only a week in, she was already exhausted. Each instructor expected them to put one hundred percent into their class and the workload was already piling up – books to read, spells to practice and potions to prepare. How anyone could retain all that knowledge seemed impossible (and slightly ludicrous), and yet nobody except the recruits seemed to see any issue with it. Hopefully her brain would expand to accommodate it all.

Tonks knew before she even began that Stealth and Tracking would be the thorn in her side – or her bottom, depending on what way she fell over. Ten minutes into the first class and she found herself flat on her back, having tripped over Walden's foot as they practiced quietly walking backwards over piles of seashells. As the others howled with laughter, she had accepted Shacklebolt's hand up and clambered to her feet, face burning and determined to do better. Of course, when she found herself piled on top of Miriam and Theodore five minutes later – having fallen over her own feet, this time – she knew this was only the beginning of a long and humiliating battle against her own clumsiness.

However, Concealment and Disguise helped to ease the blow of this knowledge, somewhat – after all, this was her subject. While the others attempted to cast illusion charms to lengthen their ear lobes, she swayed back and forth, sometimes slapping Grayson in the face with her own morphed, metre-length ones. The instructor – a hulking Auror named McAuliffe – had been almost giddy at the sight, clapping his large hands together and measuring how long she could grow her lobes with a tape. She was glad his reaction had been so encouraging; ever since news of her abilities had spread throughout the department, she could see an awareness of the possibilities light the eyes of some of the men. On her third day, she overheard a group of Junior Aurors speculating how large she could morph her breasts and how small she could make other parts of herself. Likewise, every time she walked past his office, Everett Savage winked at her - a feat which would have earned one of the boys at Hogwarts a swift strike in an unpleasant area. Unfortunately, she didn't think that kicking a Senior Auror in the gonads was the best way to progress her career, so she was forced to simply ignore him and hope that he, and the rest of them, would eventually get bored. Experience told her that it would probably take a while.

In Auror Administration, they had all tried to stay awake as they spent hours learning the correct way to sign and stamp parchments, instructed by a grey-bunned administrative witch who looked as old as the Ministry itself. There was a slight air of Professor McGonagall about her, too; when Theodore accidentally dropped an ink bottle, the woman's nostrils flared so wide Tonks feared they might engulf him.

The only upside to having A.A. first thing on a Tuesday morning was that they were well-rested for their Potions class that afternoon. The Potions instructor, Bergfalk, was a kindly non-Auror from the Forensic Potion Team, who spoke with just a hint of a Norwegian accent and wore sickly-sweet cologne. While patient and helpful, he was also not entirely dissimilar to Snape in that he glided silently about the room, scaring the life out of the recruits as he peered over their shoulders without warning.

If she had thought Snape's NEWT-level class hard, it was nothing compared to Auror-level Potions, which often used ingredients she'd never heard of to counteract spells and poisons she never knew existed. She had always excelled at Potions, even receiving an Outstanding NEWT (much to Snape's displeasure), but this was another step up entirely.

In an effort to stay on top of things, she had begun to practice some of the more common potions that Aurors used when she got home every night. The kitchen in the small apartment she shared with her roommate, Mattie, now stank from the various potions she had brewing all at once. Simmering cauldrons were perched on top of chairs and piles of books, while her latest concoction – a first attempt at Veritaserum – sat in the middle of the kitchen table, occasionally hiccuping bubbles that smelled like burnt treacle.

"Jeez, do you not think you're taking this training programme a bit seriously?" Mattie said on Friday night, as she opened the kitchen window. The incoming breeze did nothing to disperse the purple cloud billowing out of Tonks's cauldron. "It's only your first week!"

"Not really," Tonks replied. "They expect a high standard." She sniffed the Veritaserum. "Hmm, needs more eye-of-newt, I think."

Mattie handed her the jar and picked up Tonks's timetable, reading aloud:

"In Year One, Semester One, students will take the following classes:

Advanced Potion Making and Poison Detection

Auror Administration, Rules and Regulations

Basic Personal Defence

Basic Stealth and Tracking

Concealment and Disguise

Extreme Spellwork

Magical Creatures

Magical Law and Circumstance

Magi-Physical Exertion

Please note that failure to pass any of these classes will result in immediate expulsion from the programme – no exceptions will be made, though crying is always appreciated."

She put the scroll down with a whistle, brushing her blonde dreadlocks back over her shoulder. "Jeez, they don't expect a lot, do they?"

"I guess they want the dark wizard catchers to know more than the dark wizards themselves," Tonks replied, frowning at her potion. It still didn't smell right.

"Tea?"

Mattie pulled herself up onto the worktop next to the window and flicked her wand towards the kettle to boil it. Although they had been in different houses at Hogwarts, Tonks and Mattie had been casual friends for years. Both had been free spirits with wild hair and an unwillingness to choose the more 'ladylike' careers their mothers had wanted for them. Now that they were both training at the Ministry, they had decided to live together, renting a small flat on the outskirts of Peckham. Mattie had been recruited by the RCMC during their final year at Hogwarts, to join the Ghoul Task Force, after helping an elderly neighbour banish a ghoul from her oven on Christmas Eve. The woman's nephew, who was the deputy head of the GTF, had called round the following evening with a sherry trifle and a job offer.

"So, how was your first week overall?" Mattie asked, pouring water into two cups.

"Exhausting," Tonks said, measuring out a quarter cup of powdered bat tongue, "but brilliant."

It was true; she could never remember being so tired in her life, but she went to bed exhilarated every evening. She hoped the feeling would last past the training phase; this was a feeling she could definitely get used to it.

"And what about that Lupin guy? He giving you any attitude?"

Tonks shook her head. "No."

Mattie raised her eyebrows. "You sound surprised."

Tonks shrugged. Her roommate didn't push her for an answer; occasional disinterest in others was one of Mattie's best qualities. Instead, she started poking around the cupboards in search of the Ginger Newts, leaving Tonks to mull over the matter in peace.

She wasn't sure what she had expected from Lupin. After the weird moment at the end of their induction meeting, Tonks had tried to figure him out. What did he think of her? Why had he chosen her for the programme? Did he regret his decision? Did she care? (She had even taken a peek at one of Mattie's ridiculous books on interpreting eye-contact – which sounded like a book Moody might actually enjoy – before realising how ridiculous she was and tossing it aside).

Eventually, she had just decided to play it cool. Let it all take care of itself – let faith or destiny or whatever take its course and all would become clear in time. Which had actually led her to her final certainty:

Certainty Number 3: Remus Lupin did not trust her. At all.

He hid it very well, which was annoying. Tonks would have preferred if he openly and honestly disliked her – then they could be office enemies and there would be no ambiguity between them. Instead, he insisted on speaking to her the same way he spoke to the other recruits: with kindness, patience and encouragement. In their first Magical Creatures class with him, she had tripped over a chair and done an impressively dramatic tumble across the room, landing hard on her arse in front of him. It would have been a perfect moment to criticise her for her ungainliness or make some sort of joke at her expense, but he did neither. He simply helped her to her feet and asked if she was alright, with what sounded like genuine concern.

The prick.

No, it wasn't his actions that had first given him away, but rather a feeling that Tonks couldn't shake. One that she hadn't voiced to anyone else, as she was sure they'd tell her it was only her imagination or that she was unbelievably self-involved. And maybe she was, but in Moody's first lecture (rant, might have been a better term) he had told them never to ignore a gut feeling, and that was exactly what this was.

She could feel Lupin watching her.

Even when he wasn't in the room, she could feel his eyes, as though he could somehow see through walls or around corners, following her down corridors and across the Ministry itself. And anytime they were in the same room as each other, she would look up to find him concentrating on something else entirely, his eyes nowhere near her. Yet, the feeling persisted.

Maybe she was paranoid. Maybe it was all in her head, and he had decided that he didn't care that she was who she was. But some part of her knew that he was keeping an eye on her, just in case. And that bothered her, more than she wanted to admit. So, in an effort to catch him out, she began to watch him more, in return. And while she would vehemently deny it under threat of a Stinging Jinx, she found him somewhat intriguing.

Only somewhat, mind.

For one, if she hadn't known he was an Auror, she would have sworn he was a professor of some sort. While some of her other instructors were occasionally impatient, or interrupted classes for their own personal work, Lupin was focused and engaging, encouraging them to embrace the subjects he taught rather than just learn them.

In their Magical Creature classes, he demonstrated an impressively extensive knowledge of a whole host of light and dark creatures, and also owned a vast collection of books and intricate diagrams that were clearly not Ministry standard issue. Walden informed her that it might have been a family pursuit – that Lupin's father had been a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spirituous Apparitions – and that certainly seemed a plausible theory for all the random information he possessed.

For example, when Irene admitted she had a fear of trolls, Lupin had them in stitches with a hilarious anecdote of an incident, during his own training, when he and Dawlish had become trapped in a basement with a female troll for an hour and managed to flirt their way out, as trolls were often susceptible to human charm. He also knew the most obscure facts about Flobberworms, such as their dislike of cashmere jumpers, their love of hot mustard, and the chemical makeup of their saliva.

"Hang on, you're saying that Flobberworm saliva can actually knock you out?" Grayson asked in disbelief, during their Wednesday class.

Lupin nodded. "Absolutely. It has extremely potent sedative qualities and if you're hit with a high enough dosage, the effects can be quite severe. The Head Girl during my final year at Hogwarts was an unfortunate bystander during a prank involving said substance, and spent two days unconscious in the Hospital Wing. She was not amused, as you can imagine."

"Looks like Flobberworms are good for something after all," Walden whispered to Tonks, who sniggered back.

"You were Head Boy at Hogwarts, weren't you, sir?" Miriam said.

"Erm, yes," Lupin replied, with a lopsided smile. "I'm not entirely sure why Dumbledore made that particular appointment, but yes, I was."

Goody-good, Tonks thought, unkindly. The Head Boy and Girl in her year had been the biggest suck-ups imaginable, even going so far as to compliment Snape on the "swishiness" of his cloak. She could just imagine Lupin, badge pinned to his chest, winning over every Hogwarts professor with his pearly-white smile and easy manners. If he had married the Head Girl, it would have been like something from a Muggle movie. She instinctively glanced at his left hand. No ring – guess not.

As though he had somehow heard her thoughts, Lupin's eyes darted over to meet hers, and she cursed herself. What if he was a Legilimens? However, after a moment he looked away again without so much as raising an eyebrow and she let out a quiet breath of relief, internally rolling her eyes at herself. The day before, Miriam had somehow unearthed a list of all the Legilimens on the Auror force and Scrimgeour and Proudfoot were the only two registered. Still, the others might have had some training in Legilimency – she needed to be more careful with her thoughts.

However, aside from Tonks's intuition, it wasn't until their Magi-Physical Exertion class on Saturday morning that Lupin's distrust of her became apparent. And, ironically, that was exactly when she made it worse.

(-)(-)(-)

At 6:45am, the recruits met at the Ministry and used the designated Portkey to travel to a field on the outskirts of Bath for their first lesson. Fifty metres away from them sat a deserted farmhouse, its yard dusty and desolate, while on the far side of the field a dense crop of Beech trees stretched back several hundred yards, before sloping downhill and out of sight.

Tonks blew out a breath, tugging at her t-shirt as she looked up at the sky. Even at this hour of the morning, the heat of the day was already making itself known. It promised to be another scorcher.

"I should be catching up on my beauty sleep," Irene complained, looking remarkably well-rested.

"Or doing something in bed other than sleeping," Grayson said, nudging Walden with his elbow. Tonks tried not to gag.

"Lupin isn't even here yet," Theodore said. "So much for the 7am start."

"Good morning everyone."

Lupin had appeared behind Miriam, who jumped in surprise and subsequently tried to pretend she was warming up.

"I was just doing a lap of the field. It rained here yesterday evening, but the ground seems fairly solid, so we're good to go." It was very odd to see him in casual clothing, and even more disturbing that Tonks noticed his muscles through his dark blue t-shirt.

"I'd like you all to do two laps of the field," Lupin said, "in order to gauge your fitness levels. This is just to assess whether or not we can progress the class at a steady pace, or if we should do some extra fitness training beforehand. And remember, it's not a race –"

None of the recruits heard him – they had all taken off running.

While Tonks was not the most fit, she was by no means the least either, and found herself finishing third, behind Theodore – who was alarmingly quick – and Walden.

"Excellent," Lupin said, as Irene casually jogged past the finish line, apparently unconcerned by the competition between the others. "It appears that there isn't much difference in your stamina or speed at the moment, which will make training as a group a lot easier. So, follow me."

Instead of leading them back up the field, he brought them to the edge of the treeline. Pulling out his wand, he waved it in a quick series of complicated patterns before tucking it away again. Through the leaves, Tonks could see the twinkle of magic sparkling between the trees.

Lupin waited patiently for them all to gather around him before he began to speak.

"Today's class will be a fairly simple introduction to the idea behind Magi-Physical Exertion. Often an enemy attacking you will not stand still to politely engage you in a duel, nor allow you a pause to heal yourself or someone else. You will need to know how to perform advanced spells while moving or concentrating on something else entirely. Magi-Physical Exertion will teach you to divide your focus no matter what part of the brain is being used, and force you to develop your magic to an even greater extent."

Tonks felt a thrill rush through her at the thought. This was what she wanted to be doing – not stuck in a tiny room stamping parchments, but out in the world learning proper skills that would progress her magic. Her wand arm began to tremble in suspense, and she quickly forced herself to listen as Lupin began to instruct them.

"Your objective for this class is simply this: to reach the end of the wood in less than thirty minutes, hitting as many targets as you can. You'll be working in pairs – Irene and Theodore, Miriam and Walden, Grayson and Nymphadora."

"Just Tonks, sir," she prompted, politely.

He inclined his head at her. "Begging your pardon, Tonks. So, are we all ready?"

Fifteen minutes later, they were moving along at a steady pace down the wooded hill. The magically-animated targets varied, from tiny butterfly-like glimmers of light fluttering through the air, to animal-esque creatures peering out from behind the trees.

"This is too easy," Grayson scoffed in an undertone. He shot a stream of yellow sparks from his wand, blasting a target that was dangling from a tree branch like a monkey.

Tonks didn't reply, instead aiming a Stunning Spell at a target poking its head out of a bush. Five minutes ago she would have agreed, but she had also noticed that the targets were becoming more numerous and increasingly more difficult to hit. She also had no idea how far they were from the edge of the wood; a wall of green lay below them, with no end in sight. It might not be as easy as they assumed to finish on time.

To her right, Walden and Miriam were scuttling along, back to back, as they hurled a variety of spells at their own targets. Behind them, Irene and Theodore jogged alongside one another, occasionally ducking when the other decided to fire a spell without warning.

Lupin strolled along just behind them. Despite being quite tall and long-limbed, he moved with an unusual elegance and graceful economy of movement that would be more fitting to a Veela than a human male. He also moved quietly – not like Bergfalk whose feet seemed barely to make contact with the ground – but rather like someone who was more comfortable observing than being observed, and didn't particularly want their presence announced. Tonks wished he would walk in front of them; she didn't like that she couldn't see his face.

She blasted another target with a well-aimed hex and stole a glance to see him watching her, nodding his head in approval. As if the woods knew she wasn't paying attention to her feet at that particular moment, she caught her toe in a thick tree root and stumbled, causing her next Stunner to fly wildly off course, narrowly missing Theodore.

Grayson laughed loudly. "Wow, nice effort."

Tonks's fingers clenched around her wand as she straightened up, quickly morphing her scarlet cheeks back to white.

"Shut it," she muttered, glancing at Lupin, who was now speaking quietly to Miriam about a jinx she had been attempting to cast, "or you'll be growing mould out of your nostrils for a week."

"Please, like you could hit an animated object a metre in front of you without falling over your own two feet."

The grip on her wand was becoming almost painful, but she willed herself to ignore him. She needed to hit something - where was the next target? She quickly caught sight of one, but Grayson hit it before she could raise her wand.

"Uh-oh, not giving me the silent treatment, are you Tonks?"

She needed another target, but Walden and Miriam were now much closer to them and were blasting through them all.

"However will I live without your annoying girly voice twittering in my ear?"

She could practically feel the blood boiling underneath her skin. Grayson had spent the entire week criticising her, laughing whenever she made a mistake. What was wrong with him? Why wouldn't he leave her the hell alone and go back to his rich family?

Grayson hit another target and smirked. "I wonder if they only let you into the programme out of pity," he said, quietly. "Why else hire a half-breed from a psycho family?"

Before Tonks could stop herself, or realise what a bad idea this was, her wand was pointed at him and the incantation had left her lips.

But Grayson ducked.

A few metres behind him, Lupin's eyes widened briefly as the jet of yellow light headed straight for him.

And then the hex hit an old tree, covering its trunk in a thick layer of black mould that continued to sprout at an alarming rate. If the circumstances had been different, Tonks would have been quite proud of her spellwork.

"Interesting choice of hex," Lupin said evenly, pulling himself into a sitting position. He had hit the ground just in time and his entire left side was now caked with mud. "I do believe you were aiming in the wrong direction though, Ms. Tonks."

"I'm sorry sir, I was – I was –"

What could she say – that she had been aiming at another recruit, not him? That would hardly go over well. She froze; she couldn't think of anything to say. Why couldn't she think of anything to say?

Lupin watched her for a moment, and without a word turned back to the others.

"Everyone, as you were," he said, "ten minutes remaining."

"Nice save," Grayson muttered at her, but she barely heard him. She was too troubled by Lupin's expression as he had turned away from her.

He hadn't seemed the least bit surprised by what she had done. In fact, he had looked almost relieved – like he had been waiting all this time for her to show her hand.

For the rest of the morning, Lupin barely even looked in her direction again. But he never relaxed the grip he held on his wand, even as he congratulated them all on making it to the finish line with a minute to spare, and Walden and Miriam on hitting the most number of targets between them. As he wished them all a nice weekend and held out the Portkey for them to return with, his eyes caught hers and held them.

No, Remus Lupin certainly did not trust her.

Sunday, 29th July

Of three things Harry was absolutely certain.

Firstly, that Monday could not come soon enough. Remus was working through the weekend so that he could take the week of Harry's birthday off. He was going to pick him up Monday lunchtime, kicking off six gloriously Dursley-free days for Harry, with his godfather no less. He was so excited that he thought he might actually be sick.

Secondly, that Uncle Vernon had officially lost his mind.

It had all started at breakfast on Tuesday, when the post arrived. Uncle Vernon had barked at Harry to go and fetch it, as usual, and Harry, as usual, complied (albeit grudgingly). Sitting on the mat were an array of bills, a postcard from Vernon's sister, Marge, and a letter addressed to:

Mr and Mrs Vernon Dursley
Uncle and Aunt to Mr Harry Potter
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey

A letter about him?

He stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. Was it from his old school? Was he in trouble? That seemed unlikely – it was summer, after all, and he was finally finished primary school, so they shouldn't care about him anymore. Plus, there was no postmark on the yellow envelope and no stamp. He squinted at the purple wax seal, which was made up of four animals wrapped around a large 'H'. Perhaps it was junk mail, or a company trying to sell the Dursleys school uniforms for him. He almost laughed; Remus always paid for everything for him, or else he probably would have wound up with Dudley's old clothes. The company should have sent his godfather the letter instead.

The colour was rising in Uncle Vernon's cheeks when Harry finally returned to the kitchen.

"What took so long, boy?" he barked, and Harry shrugged, handing over the stack of letters.

He returned to his breakfast as his uncle opened the post, watching the man closely. First Uncle Vernon glanced at the bill, snorted and muttered something about "thieving politicians" and picked up the postcard.

"Oh dear, Marge is ill," he informed Aunt Petunia, who was peering out the kitchen window, inspecting the new pergola their neighbours had erected.

Harry thought he was going to bounce off his chair with impatience when his uncle finally picked up the yellow envelope, stared at the address and then fixed his beady eyes on Harry.

"What's this then, boy?" he barked. "Been getting into trouble at school again?"

Dudley gave Harry a sly grin and poked him with the cane provided by his new school, Smeltings.

"Why would they be writing over the summer?" Aunt Petunia said, tearing her gaze away from the pergola. "It's probably those wretched salespeople again, throw it away Vernon."

But Uncle Vernon, who had extracted the letter and begun to read it, made a horrible choking sound, his face now the colour of sour milk.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped, his eyes wide and bulging.

Dudley reached for the letter, but Uncle Vernon pushed his hand away, showing it to Aunt Petunia instead, who clutched her throat and let out a wail.

"What is it?" Harry said, flabbergasted. "What does it say?"

He, too, reached for the letter, but Uncle Vernon grabbed him and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks, hauled them out of their chairs and threw them into the hallway, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Dudley listened at the keyhole – after swiftly winning a fist-fight with Harry for it – while Harry himself lay on the floor, pressing his ear to the crack underneath the door.

"We swore that we'd stamp that nonsense out of him," Uncle Vernon said, his voice shrill. "Lupin being around must've gotten in the way. We should have kept him out of it from day one!"

"What should we do, Vernon? It says here that they're expecting a reply from us, to say we received the letter. We can't exactly ignore it; he'll know, he told us it would be coming. Remu-"

"No-one will know," Uncle Vernon interrupted, firmly, and Harry heard the sound of paper being ripped apart. "We never got it – end of story."

Dudley and Harry looked at one another in confusion. Just what was going on?

(-)(-)(-)

If Uncle Vernon thought that that was the end of it, he was sorely mistaken. Each day, more letters came with the morning post, and once Uncle Vernon had nailed the letterbox shut, they began to appear in more unusual ways – slid underneath the door front, tossed like frisbees through open windows and even rolled up in and hidden inside egg cartons. Harry had tried in vain to seize one of these letters before his uncle did, but Vernon was always there faster, even going so far as to camp out at the bottom of the stairs in a sleeping bag (where he was accidentally stood on by Harry).

"Hey kid," Remus said, when he called on Friday night, "Anything exciting going on over there?"

Harry glanced at the kitchen doorway where Uncle Vernon stood watching him, and wished (not for the first time) that the Dursleys had bought a cordless phone so he could talk to Remus privately.

"Nope, nothing exciting," he lied.

"That's alright," Remus said, cheerily. "I have lots of things planned for next week."

"Sounds great," Harry said, wishing Monday would come even sooner. Uncle Vernon crossed his arms, moustache twitching, and Harry mournfully bid Remus goodbye.

As Sunday morning dawned, Harry crossed off another day on his calendar with a thick, black marker. He thought about just hiding in his room all day, but Aunt Petunia was sure to find a list of chores for him to do before he left for the week. Plus, maybe he could finally catch hold of a letter?

"Only one day," he said to himself, as he walked slowly down the stairs. "Just one day."

Uncle Vernon sat at the kitchen table, his breakfast forgotten in front of him as he tugged at his moustache, his beady eyes flitting here and there.

"Would you like the Sunday paper, Vernon?" Aunt Petunia said. She prodded him on the shoulder with it, looking rather perturbed by his behaviour.

Uncle Vernon looked at her in surprise. "It's Sunday? SUNDAY?" He laughed loudly and gleefully, making Aunt Petunia jump, and seized the newspaper from her.

"No post on Sundays," he said, slattering the front page with marmalade, "no damn letters today –"

Suddenly, something came pelting down the kitchen chimney and shot out to whack Uncle Vernon on the back of the head. He turned round with a yell, just in time to see dozens of letters zoom out of the fireplace. Harry tried to grab one, but his uncle seized him around the waist and threw him out into the hall.

"Pack a bag," he bellowed at Harry, as Aunt Petunia and Dudley came running out after them, "we're leaving!"

Was Uncle Vernon going to drop him off early? He had plenty of gear in his room at Remus's, but Harry practically scrambled up the stairs anyway, stuffed some more clothes and shoes into his rucksack and sprinted back downstairs again, heading out the front door. A few moments later, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon emerged, the latter shoving along a wailing Dudley, who was clutching his own bag. In fact, each Dursley was carrying a bag; that didn't seem right.

"Hang on, are we all going somewhere?" Harry said. Uncle Vernon didn't reply, but merely shoved him into the backseat of the car and closed the door. Dudley climbed in beside him, sniffling and looking daggers at his father.

"Where are we going?" Harry repeated, "Remus is collecting me tomorrow; I have to tell him –"

"You'll tell him nothing, boy," Uncle Vernon snarled, pulling out of the driveway so fast that he knocked over Number 5's bins. "And he won't be taking you anywhere!"

This was insane. Harry tried to open his door to get out, but the handle wouldn't work. He gave it a few swift yanks, but it was no use, and he swiftly became certain of a third thing:

That Uncle Vernon had put the child-lock on.

As the car squealed out of Privet Drive, the last thing Harry noticed, as he miserably pressed his face against the glass pane, was the fluttering of curtains in Mrs Figg's front window.

AN: Uh-oh, how will our intrepid hero make it out of the back of his uncle's car? Guess you'll just have to tune in next time to find out!

PS: Reviewers get to roll around in the mud with Remus ;)