Chapter Three- Harry Potter

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The Dursleys were a menace. At least Vernon and Dudley were. Petunia was indifferent to his plight. Harry Potter had been cooped up in their house for two weeks with only limited contact with his friends. They could not owl him about what was going on in the rest of the world because if Voldemort discovered their correspondence, important information would be given away. Instead, Harry only received small letters asking after his heath and happiness. He always wrote back begging for them to come and take him away from his isolation. They always responded with a small, "soon", written on the bottom of their letters.

Harry could tell, from reading between the lines of their script, that Voldemort had been particularly violent in the past couple weeks. There were even a few unexplainable deaths on muggle television that the ministry could not suppress. The situation was quickly worsening.

What Harry did not understand was how the Death Eaters could kill innocent people. The Death Eaters were even worse to people than the Dursley's were towards him.

This summer the two male Dursleys were insisting that because Harry was so small, he did not need as much to eat. So, for the past couple of days, Harry had been given a single grape for breakfast and he had to find lunch for himself. Dinner was the only meal he received regularly though he was only allowed limited portions of the food. As usual, his spell books had been locked in the cupboard under the stairs but, he had been allowed to keep his wand because the Dursleys were too afraid to touch the magical piece of wood so could not take it from him. He was yelled at constantly and was always forced to do all of the many meaningless chores that his Aunt could think of. Instead of staying in the stifling house, Harry would usually wake up early and go to the park where he would stay until he saw Dudley heading home with his friends for dinner.

At the end of his third week of torture under the Dursley's tender care, Ron finally wrote to say that they would be picking him up within the hour. Harry began packing, furiously throwing his clothing and schoolbooks haphazardly into his trunk. He went down to tell the Dursleys that he was leaving before walking over to Mrs. Figgs house where he was going to wait for the Order to open the Floo.

There was a gout of green flames and out stepped a tall, gangly, red haired Ron. Mrs. Figg jumped backwards in surprise but smiled at Ron in welcome as soon as she composed herself again.

"Ready to go mate?" Ron asked with a smile.

"I've been ready to go from the moment I saw the Dursley's in the train station." Harry answered with a wide smile of his own. "Where to?" He asked.

"The Burrow!" Ron answered and held out a small bag filled with floo powder. Harry took some and stepped up to the roaring fire.

"See you next summer Mrs. Figg," Harry called before throwing the powder into the flames and yelling, "The Burrow!"

Harry tumbled out of the Weasley's fireplace a minute later, covered head to toe in soot and thoroughly dizzy. He waited for the room to stop spinning before getting up and quickly moving out of the way to let Ron through. The Weasley living room looked exactly the same as it had the last time he had been to their house. Their chairs were a little more worn and there was another odd-looking and rather frightening spot on the ceiling, but otherwise, it still felt like the ideal welcoming home.

Harry smiled and went into the kitchen to greet Mrs. Weasley and the rest of the family. The kitchen smelled delicious. There was a whole chicken roasting over their fireplace and cookies were baking, filling the room with their sweet scent. If Harry could imagine Heaven he would think of the Weasley house first.

Mrs. Weasley gasped happily when she saw him and immediately dragged him into a warm welcoming hug. Fred and George clapped him on the back with identical grins of promised pain due to their "testing" of new products, and the rest of the family gave him hugs. Little Ginny Weasley, youngest of the bunch sat at their scarred kitchen table and smiled brightly at him.

Harry could not help thinking about how small and frail she looked. She almost appeared sickly.

That night he was treated to a wonderful meal where he could finally enjoy himself. He was slowly recovering from his last torturous three weeks. A few more good meals and a full nights sleep and he would be feeling much better again.

As he slid blissfully into his small cot in Ron's violently orange room, Harry knew that he was finally happy and only the Weasley family had the ability to make him feel so at home.

A week later Harry and the rest of the younger Weasleys were outside in their backyard playing a small game of Quidditch. The elder Weasley's were at an emergency Order meeting. Apparently there had been another Death Eater attack on a muggle home with a Muggleborn child that had just received his letter. Harry shook his head and focused on the game in front of him. Ron had the quaffle and was flying towards their improvised goal posts. Harry was playing Keeper with Fred as his Chaser. Ron wanted more practice handling the ball for when he was playing as Keeper. Ginny was playing Keeper for Ron's team but she had only been allowed to play because they needed a fourth person. George was inside the house watching a delicate experiment for one of their new products. Apparently it was highly explosive when it came in contact with dust. It was supposed to be a new form of a firecracker but it was still too strong. Two days ago Fred had accidentally taken off the roof of Mr. Weasley's shed with one of their Weasley's Wild Dust Bangers and Mrs. Weasley had spent most of the afternoon yelling at them.

At the moment Ron's team was winning by two goals but Harry was going to save Ron's attempt to score and give Fred an easy opening to score on Ginny.

Ron threw the quaffle and, as predicted, Harry caught it.

"Guys! Mum wants us to stay inside until she gets back home!" Georges' voice called from his open window. "There has been another attack! Mum wants us to stay inside where it is safe!"

Harry sighed and tucked the quaffle under his arm. How could the Death Eaters hurt people? They had consciences, right? They were all human with the exception of Voldemort, and humans had morals.

Harry shook his head ruefully. How could he think such good things about the followers of Voldemort? The Death Eaters had destroyed their morals. They were a bunch of hateful killers. Why would you kill muggleborns? They were just as good at magic as everyone else; they were not inferior in any way. Look at Hermione. She had received the highest marks Hogwarts could give and she had muggle parents. What the Death Eaters were doing was wrong.

The Death Eaters killed and tortured for fun. They listened to screams from their victims while they ate their dinner and rejoiced in the thought of killing another helpless soul.

That is the reason why Harry, Dumbledore and the rest of the Order of the Phoenix fought. They wanted to keep everyone alive, no matter what background a person was from. Of course, if there were not any Death Eaters or any evil and wrong people in the world, the Order would never need to lift a finger to help others. Harry's parents would never have been killed, Sirius would still be alive, and the world would finally be a better place. Unfortunately, there were Death Eaters. He had to fight for the peace the Death Eaters denied the world. It was his duty as a Gryffindor and as a member of the Order. He had to fight against Voldemort and ultimately commit the dire sin, murder. Harry had to kill Voldemort, not because it was foretold in the prophecy, but because it was right. Voldemort had to be stopped. Harry was the one who was going to stop him.

Ginny had rushed inside the house ahead of them. She barely took time to jump off of her broom before leaping into the house. She took her mothers words to heart.

Harry stepped through the back door of the Burrow, brushing dust off of his coat and boots before walking inside. Fred rushed upstairs to check on George and their experiment and Ron clapped Harry on the back.

"I'm going upstairs to get changed into some cleaner clothes," Ron called as he walked to the staircase. "Have Ginny make some iced tea or something."

Ginny sighed and stood up from her comfortable seat at the table. "Alright, I'll make some iced tea." Harry smiled thankfully at her and took her seat at the small table.

As his clothes began to clean themselves, a handy new spell that Mrs. Weasley used, Harry looked around the interesting room. There were so many things in the Weasley kitchen that he would never see at his Uncle's house, and likewise, the Weasley's would never own a refrigerator or even a general appliance that ran on electricity. After a while he tired of examining the kitchen and watched Ginny move around the kitchen instead. She seemed somewhat depressed. There were circles under her eyes and a certain lag to her step that belayed a lack of sleep. Either she was having nightmares about Tom Riddle again or she had a lot on her mind. Harry hoped it was not the former. He opened his mouth to ask Ginny if she was feeling all right when Ron stamped down the stairs and into the kitchen. He was now wearing an orange jumper that clashed horribly with his hair.

"Thanks Ginny," Ron smiled and grabbed a glass of the chilled tea out of her hands. Harry took the cup she handed him and followed Ron into the living room where they could relax in front of the large fire.

That night the rest of the Weasley's returned home. They were tired and heart sore. Even after fighting against a number of Death Eaters, they had still been unable to save a third family from a horrible death. The young boy who had received his letter to attend Hogwarts that year had been captured and was probably going to be tortured. Bill and Charlie whispered this information to Harry and the three other Weasley's that had been left behind that afternoon. Ginny had been asked to go to the kitchen to make some tea for the adults. George had passed her and extendable ear on her way past him so Harry knew that Ginny was listening to their conversation.

He knew what it was like to want to know what was really going on and how frustrating it could be to know that the adults refused to tell you the truth. Harry did not wish that fate on any one else, not even small, defenseless Ginny. Ginny needed to know what her family and friends were going through so she could stay somewhere safe.

Ginny walked back into the room carrying a tray with enough cups of tea for everyone in the room. Talk dulled as she passed out the drink but she smiled and left the room as soon as her tray was filled.

Harry smiled after Ginny's retreating form. It was clear to Harry that Ginny knew that her place was not among the Order. It was better that she remained safe in the Burrow or at Hogwarts. Harry vowed to make sure that Ginny would always be safe and that her innocence would never be tarnished by evil again.

The rest of the summer passed quickly. There were a few more attacks but the Order was beginning to learn how to defend against the tricks and cheating the Death Eaters used to attack innocent people. Harry remained in perfect happiness, glad that for once in his life that he was allowed to know what was going on around him so he could help those in need.

Harry stepped off the train in Hogsmeade, his two best friends at his sides, and he smiled. The burrow may have been Heaven, but Hogwarts was his home.

The first years were sorted and Harry could not help but feel sorry for those small eleven year olds who were sent to the dungeons where their lives would become jaded and their paths turned towards evil. He rejoiced for every child that was smart enough to join one of the other three houses and he clapped the hardest when a lucky one arrived at the Gryffindor table.

The day had been a perfect one so far. Harry and all of his friends from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw had found a large compartment to sit in during the train ride to school. The Slytherins had not bothered them even once. Then, Harry had reached to his favorite place, Hogwarts, where he had seen Dumbledore and all of the teachers again. Now, Dumbledore was talking about a new program where all four houses got together to create house ties. They now had the chance to save some Slytherins from being lost among the evil creatures on this planet.

Then the wonderful night was crushed under the heel of the three most evil Slytherins of all. Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, and Pansy Parkinson led the entirety of Slytherin house down into the dungeons where they were going to destroy every ounce of peace Dumbledore had worked so hard for. Even the first years, who had only been sitting at their new table for five minutes, joined their housemates.

In the end, everything was as it had always been. Three houses standing together against the fourth. The three houses of peace and justice would continue to stand together against the evil brewing in the Slytherin dungeon until the ends of time, and Harry Potter would lead the righteous down the path to peace.