Chapter 4 November 8, 1994

Harry hasn't slept that well, unused to the comfort and softness of a really well made bed someplace else than Hogwarts. It's like his body forgets that soft beds exists. And it's only November, he hasn't transitioned from bad bed at Dursleys to good bed at Hogwarts yet. So the good bed at the Granger's just feels weird.
He tiptoes downstairs into the kitchen. It takes him a little over and hours to locate all the needed things and make a huge breakfast good enough for three people, and hopefully there'll be some scraps left that he can munch on.
"Harry?"
Hermione is dressed in flannels and a red robe, and her hair is even messier than usual, almost knotty with all those curls.
"Hi. I made breakfast. Is there anything I've missed?"
"Oh, Harry, guests don't make breakfast," she says, and her voice is so, so sad. Harry is confused.
"But it's polite. It's important to be polite and do one's share," he says and repeats the words he has had hammered into his very soul for as long as he has been able to understand words.
"Well, yes, but Harry… this isn't you being polite, this is you doing what you have been… brainwashed to think is the universal truth but those awful people," Hermione says gently and takes the spatula from him to turn the half made omelette.
"It is?"
"It is," the brunette says, and her voice is still so sad, and Harry doesn't want her to be sad.
"Why are you sad, Hermione?"
She makes a sound that is half a sighs half a sob.
"I'm sad because one of my best friends has been so abused that he can't see what's sound and sane. I'm sad because no adult has helped you. I'm sad because you and I don't have magic anymore. I'm sad and angry because the world is so fucked up."
"You cursed," Harry says, baffled, and Hermione shrugs, moves another omelette to a plate and turn of the heat on the stove.
"I can't exactly laugh and run in happy circles, can I?"
Harry agrees silently, and nods in reply.

#

Petunia Dursley wakes up the day after having been struck down by a magical freak, and in the hours she has been out, the world had gone utterly mad. Her husband is in jail, and she can't bail him out. Her son is in a temporary foster home, and she can't go and take him home. Petunia herself has to stay for another day and let doctors and nurses poke her with needles and draw blood to see what's wrong, as if she is the freak. She is not happy, but can't do anything.

#

Emma and Daniel Granger spend a good portion of the third day in the eleventh month in various offices to make sense out of the mess that is Harry Potter's life. He has astonishingly bad grades from the few years he has spent in a normal school, he has no medical records, no notes of optical aid, nor any notes about the mandatory vaccines. Emma Granger has, by the time she stumbles through the door to her home, talked herself hoarse to the point where it hurts to even make sounds. Daniel Granger sports a migraine that he labels as the worst one this year, and his eyes are dry and feel ready to crack from the papers he has read, signed and filed to get access to whatever information beside that which his wife has been digging out verbally.
"Do we push through, or abort mission until tomorrow?" Daniel huffs as he makes them tea with lots of milk and sugar.
"Ugh. Abort, definitely abort until tomorrow. We'll do no good like this," his wife mumbles between bites of a ham and cheese sandwich.
"Mm," Daniel agrees and pours them tea before he, too, sits down and devours a sandwich.

#

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore wonders, tiredly, if Harry Potter and Hermione Granger might have been right in going squibs and head into the muggle world. Because this mess that is magical Britain is too much, and it's only been a few days since the society got word of the two students giving up their magic, and add to that the sudden return of a slightly more human looking Voldemort and his new and very loud followers…
Not even Fawkes is happy. The phoenix who usually offers a happy little song or two has been silent except for the unhappy chirps now and then. It is truly frightening.

#

Lord Voldemort, self-proclaimed minister of magic, smiles at his reflection. He still hasn't been able to fully figure out what happened the day the horcrux in Harry Potter left the boy and returned to him, but it has been most helpful indeed, had broadened his mind and made his realize that making horcruxes had dimmed his brilliance. Splitting his soul, he knows now, has not made him stronger. Immortal, yes, but not stronger. So he has a choice to make. Immortality or strength. But first, he really must sort out the mess that is magical Britain to fully create his own kingdom.