I own nothing but the plot, and not even all of that
Two days after returning to Hogwarts, Harry and Hermione made their way to the Owlery. During that mornings breakfast mail delivery, Hedwig had brought him a note. It was written from the owl's perspective and asked him to visit her in the owlery after his meal. There was only one person in the school who would write a letter from an owl.
"Hello, Luna," Harry said as they entered the owl filled room. "Did you have a good Christmas?"
"Yes, Harry Potter," Luna answered, stroking Hedwig's snow-white feathers. "Thank you. I hope you don't mind that I borrowed Snowy."
"Not at all," Harry said, smiling at the white bird sitting on Luna's shoulder. "She really doesn't have enough to do. I'm sure she appreciates the chance to spread her wings."
Hermione noticed that Luna seemed apprehensive about something, and she didn't think it had to do with using Harry's owl.
"Is everything ok, Luna?" she asked.
Luna looked down at her feet for a moment, considering whether she should proceed. On the one hand, Ginny was her friend. She wouldn't appreciate Luna telling others about this, and if it turned out to be nothing, she could be jeopardizing their friendship. On the other hand, Ginny was refusing to talk to her, and she was worried.
"Luna?" Harry asked, concerned. "Are you ok?"
Luna looked up at him, having made her decision.
"I've been very uncertain whether I should say anything," Luna said, "because it might be nothing. On the other hand, it might by something. If it is something, then that's something, isn't it? I wouldn't want a something to become a big something just because I was afraid to talk about a little something, or maybe even a nothing."
Harry and Hermione took a moment to filter through all the somethings and nothings.
"I promise," Harry said, "that we'll not say a word if it's not a something at all."
"I knew you'd understand," Luna said with a smile. The smile only lasted a moment before she looked sad again. "I'm very worried about Ginny Weasley," Luna said. Her voice had lost the airy quality she usually spoke with. Feeling like she was betraying her friend, she told Harry and Hermione about Ginny's diary and how it appeared to be talking back to her.
Harry and Hermione were unsure what to do with Luna's concerns. They promised to keep an eye on her but didn't feel comfortable confronting the girl yet without any evidence other than being observed by Luna talking back to her diary.
Ron Weasley was examining all the important events in his life and measuring them against what he was about to do. He was pretty sure today he would do the bravest thing he had ever done. The time when he was nine and he had stood up to some muggle bullies who were teasing Ginny. The time Fred or George had scared him half to death by turning his teddy into a giant spider with accidental magic. Sitting on a chair in front of the entire school to be sorted, terrified he wouldn't be in the same house as all the rest of his family. Throwing shards of broken sinks at a troll. Finding out that he could learn spells and do magic and do well in school. Using that magic to summon a lightsaber and cutting the arm from a possessed Argus Filch.
Ok, he thought to himself as he and Lisa Turpin rode the staircase up to the headmaster's office, that last one would be hard to beat. Not by much, though. He and Lisa were going to present their idea to the Headmaster and his four Heads of House.
"So," Ron said, pointing at some graphs and charts they had pinned to a board, "if you split us all up like this, we'll be able to get to know new people from all over the school." They were just finishing up their presentation.
"With the current schedule," Lisa finished, "students will usually be matched with the same students year after year. In the interest of school unity, we feel the student body would be better served with a more dynamic class schedule."
Professor Flitwick applauded, followed by Professor sprout, then Professor McGonagall. Headmaster Dumbledore joined in. Professor Snape did not applaud but indicated his indifference by not deriding the idea.
"Very well done," Dumbledore praised. "We will certainly bring your idea to the attention of the board of governors. Take a well-earned twenty points to each of your houses for this plan to promote unity in the student body."
Ron and Lisa were then dismissed, and they rode the staircase back to the castle proper in silence. It wasn't until they were out of sight of the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office entrance that Lisa grabbed Ron's hand, pulled him to her, and kissed him as she broke into sweeps of excitement. It wasn't a long kiss, but it was Ron's first. (His Aunt Muriel didn't count.)
"I can't believe we did that!" Lisa shouted. We just gave a presentation to the headmaster!"
"I can't, either," Ron agreed, feeling a blush turning his face red. "I was so nervous. How do you think we did? I think I stammered too much."
"We did fine, Ron," Lisa said. "They wouldn't have given us those points if we didn't. Thank you so much for doing this."
"It was your idea," Ron protested, "all I did was ask a question."
"But it was a good question," Lisa said. They had reached the point where she would go one way to the Ravenclaw tower and he another to Gryffindor. They stood together for a moment in an awkward silence. Ron wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Should he kiss her again, or would that be going too far? Finally, Lisa leaned into him, gave him another quick kiss, and ran down the hall to her dorm.
Girls are mental! Ron thought to himself as he walked back to Gryffindor Tower. But maybe it's a good kind of mental.
The next month passed quickly for Boomer. The weather passed from the crisp coldness of January to the wet, penetrating chill of mid-February. In a small house in London, Sirius Black had grown restless. He felt he was as recovered from his stay in Azkaban as he could be without seeing a mind healer. The ministry's search for him, while certainly ongoing, would have likely cooled off a bit with no sightings of him at all. He needed to find Harry. He had no idea if the rat survived the explosion he caused when he framed Sirius. If the Marauder had to bet on it, though, he'd put his money on Peter to find a way to wriggle his way somewhere comfy.
Harry was at Hogwarts. Sirius knew that. He didn't know if Moony would have told Dumbledore about his Animagus form or not, but he had to plan as if that secret was out. He needed information, but he had to assume all wizarding sources would be hostile to him. Even more important than that, he needed a wand. There were family wands stashed in his parents' house at 12 Grimmauld Place, but he had no idea what the situation was there. He had to assume his mother was dead. She'd been in such poor health before he was sent to Azkaban that it would be a miracle if she were alive. If she was alive, though, she wouldn't be of any help to him. If she were dead, he couldn't be sure if the wards would let him in. He was pretty sure his father disowned him when he ran away from home. The wards at his parents' house were both very old, and very deadly. He couldn't risk it.
There was one other possibility. It was a long shot, but it was a better plan than anything else he could think of. Now he just needed to get away. Roger worked at the hospital six days a week, so evading him was going to be easy. With Jenny staying home, though, it would be far more difficult to slip away during the day without her noticing. He knew her heart would be broken by her Boomer's disappearance, and he felt bad about that. On the other paw, he wasn't living out the rest of his life as her dog, either. It was time to go.
In the middle of the night, Boomer checked to make sure Jenny and Roger were both asleep. Being very careful not to jingle the tags on his collar, he slipped out of the bedroom and crept down the stairs. Ensuring he was alone, he transformed back to a human. He wanted to remove Boomer's collar, but Azkaban attire had no pockets. Deciding he might need to play the runaway dog role, he left it on his neck for now. Sirius Black unlocked and opened the door, then slipped out into the dark of night.
February was a busy month for the students of Hogwarts. Classes were ramping up their workload to get the students ready for the end of year exams, and the magic was getting more complex. In Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall was starting to take points off of classwork if too many details of the source material were still present after the transfiguration.
Professor Snape was still surly in class but was still teaching to higher standards than he ever had before. His second-year class was working on Swelling Solutions. The need for safety equipment was demonstrated when someone set a firecracker off in Crabbe's cauldron. Fortunately, there was minimal swelling of the students due to them being splashed. The goggles everyone had to wear even prevented anyone's eyes from popping.
In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Lockhart had taken them through his entire book of household pests. The students could now demonstrate how to identify and contain not only Cornish pixies, but also imps, doxies, gnomes, and other minor annoyances. Professor Lockhart was now working on introducing the children to larger animals that you would be less likely to encounter on a day to day basis.
Professor Flitwick was working them through the Shrinking Spell. After admonishing the class that using this charm on a human was dangerous and forbidden, he had them shrinking their textbooks. This gave them an extra motivation to read the counter charm before doing so. Failure to follow the directions meant that the students wouldn't have the instructions to enlarge their textbooks.
Harry Potter was having trouble trying to get a look at Ginny Weasley's diary. He wasn't normally this nosy, but Luna's concerns had him worried. the problem was that Ginny seemed extremely paranoid of anyone seeing the diary and had become quite protective of it. Harry tried to ask her about it, bringing up that he'd noticed she wrote a lot in her diary. Ginny immediately freaked out and even went so far as to deny that she had a diary. Eventually, he managed to convince her that he wasn't trying to pry, and she'd eventually calmed down. If he tried again, it was going to be noticed.
"Maybe Ron can help?" Hermione suggested.
"He tried that last week," Harry replied. "I hadn't spoken to him about it, but he's her brother. He noticed that she's been having problems. He ended up trying to yank the book out of her hands. They had a massive row about it and they each ended up in detention."
"That's what that was about?" Hermione asked. She had not directly witnessed the confrontation the previous week, but everyone had heard about it. She continued to try to come up with ideas. "I don't suppose the twins could help?"
"After her fight with Ron," Harry said, "the twins decided to cheer Ginny up. They turned her hair green."
"So, they're out," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "I suppose there's always Percy."
"Percy decided to get involved yesterday," Harry explained. "After the incident with the twins, she's pretty much been a nervous wreck. He made her go down to the hospital wing where Madame Pomphrey force fed her Pepper-Up potion. She was blowing steam out of her ears all day yesterday."
"I think we'd best leave her alone for now," Hermione suggested. "With a week like that, I can't blame her for feeling ganged up on."
"For now," Harry agreed. "There's been no activity for a while, so maybe it's over. I just wish Toma was awake. He'd know what to do."
Nearly eleven years had passed since Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of #4 Privet Drive had any contact with witches or wizards. In their opinion, it would be perfectly alright if another eleven years passed with no magic in their lives.
While one might think things would be significantly different after eleven years, it was rather remarkable how very little things had changed at all in the Dursley house. Pictures on the mantle had once shown a very large boy playing on a beach and being pushed in an oversized pram by Petunia. Those pictures were still there, but there were more of them now. They displayed images of a very large boy of twelve riding a bike, playing a computer game with his father, and helping his mother bake in the kitchen. All in all, the pictures showed a very happy, normal, well fed life.
There were very few other signs of change on Privet Drive. Mr. Pebbles of #6 had passed on a few years back. Afterwards, Mrs. Pebbles sold the house to a nice, young couple named Jones and then left to live with her sister. The Dursleys thoroughly approved of their new neighbors. Alexander Jones ran a construction company which frequently purchased drills from Grunnings. Vernon and Alexander had a friendly competition between themselves over who had the better family barbecue recipe. Sophia Jones was nearly as nosy as Petunia, and they spent many happy hours talking over the backyard fence gossiping about everyone else on the block.
It was a cold, February afternoon, and Petunia and Sophia were sitting in the Dursley's front room. Their husbands were at work, and their children were at school. The two housewives were planning which flowers they would be planting to best complement each other's houses. They were hoping that between the two of them they could show that harridan Mrs. Ezburn in #12 a thing or two about proper gardening.
"I think," Petunia said, "that if you plant pink roses on your side that it would complement my hydrangeas."
"Oh," Sophia agreed, "that would be lovely. Then I could also plant some blue forget-me-nots in between, and you could break up your border with some peony."
"Perfect!" Petunia said. "That Ezburn tart will be green with envy." They began gathering the gardening magazines and catalogs they had been poring through.
"Petunia," Sophia said, "I don't want to worry you, but there was a big, black dog watching your house all morning."
"What?" Petunia started. She looked at Sophia suspiciously. Her friend was often going on about some supernatural thing or other. She was young and obsessed. While the younger lady was far more superstitious than Petunia, Mrs. Dursley was incredibly attuned to anything acting in any way that it shouldn't. That's what you got from being a normal person with a… witch for a sister. She didn't even like to think such words.
"Why would a dog be watching my house?" Petunia asked.
"I'm sure I don't know," Sophia replied, "but it was scary. They say black cats are bad luck. I don't know if it's the same with black dogs, but I'd be careful. You wouldn't want to chance it, you know?"
"Well," Petunia said, trying to sound brave and hoping her voice didn't tremble, "if I see it'll just have to give it a good swat with my broom." Both women understood Petunia's more likely action would be to shriek, drop the broom, and run into the house.
"Do be careful," Sophia said as she gathered her belongings. "Alex bought me a book about supernatural creatures, and I was reading just last night about the Beast of Gévaudan, and the next day a big, black dog shows up? That's not natural."
"Goodbye, Sophie," Petunia said, helping the younger woman put on her coat.
"Remember that Alex will be cooking hamburgers tomorrow night," Sophia said. "You're all welcome to join us."
Petunia stepped out on the porch with her friend to see her off. As Sophia made her way up the walk to her house, Petunia thought she saw a pair of gleaming eyes staring at her from the bushes that bordered the sidewalk to the playground. Suddenly, Sophia's warning didn't seem so fanciful. She was paralyzed for a long moment as she stared at the eyeshine of a large animal. The eyes blinked. A huge, black dog stepped out of the bushes. It looked both ways to make sure no one was coming, then stared back at Petunia. Slowly, it walked towards the frightened woman. Petunia's panic finally got her feet moving and she rushed into the house and closed the door. She made a point to check every lock several times. She looked out the windows bordering the door and saw nothing but an empty driveway. The dog was gone.
"It's just a dog," Petunia said to herself in a shaky voice. It's nothing to do with me." CRACK! Petunia screamed as a loud bang sounded behind her. She twisted around and backed into the locked door behind her at the sight of a madman with long, black hair and an unkempt beard grinning at her.
"Hello, Petunia," Sirius Black said to the terrified woman. "It's been a long time."
A/N - If you've never heard of the Beast of Gévaudan, it's worth a look up.