Hello! Welcome to the next chapter installment of "Harry Potter and the Door of Death." This one was not read over carefully by my betas cause they are busy. Instead, I read over it so feel free to point out any grammar stuff that I missed.
On that note, please review. Good reviews really help me know what you like and don't like about the story and where you are thinking it will go with the foreshadowing I have given you. If you are confused at all, I assure you that I will address almost everything in the next chapter.
Oh, also, all of the chapters reference canon chapters from the books. They chapters referenced will all have significance.
I don't own Harry Potter. JK Rowling, her publishers, and Warner Bros own the rights to Harry Potter.
Harry felt a distant sense of elation bubble slightly in his chest. He was going back to Hogwarts. He was going back to how it was before. He would have Quidditch, friends, and classes to keep him busy. Even Draco Malfoy would be a sight for his sore eyes. He would get to Hogwarts, and things would be better. Hogwarts would make everything okay, just like it had in the past.
He grabbed a crumpled sheet of parchment and a forlorn, roughed-up quill from the bottom of his trunk. He hurriedly dipped the quill in the remnants of a bottle of spilled ink staining the clutter nearest it and scribbled the words "Professor McGonagall, I accept" along with his signature. With the skill of a seeker, Harry caught Pig and stuffed the crumpled note into his beak.
"Deliver that note straight to McGonagall, you hear?" Harry told the owl sternly. Pigwidgeon fluttered excitedly as Harry unbolted the window and forced it open, allowing a fresh breeze to enter the admittedly smelly room. As the tiny owl zoomed out of sight, Harry roared, "Kreacher!"
There was a crack, and the house-elf appeared. He wore a fluffy white towel around his lower half, and had found a dark black pillowcase embroidered with green silk to wear over his chest. Holes were neatly cut into it for his head and arms, and Regulus Black's necklace was shining proudly on his chest.
"Master called?" Kreacher bowed deeply, his nose almost touching the layer of grime that sat on top of the floor.
"Yes, I would like you to take a message to the Burrow for me," Harry requested forcefully.
"Kreacher wonders what this message is. Could this possibly mean that Master Harry has realized that the company of friends is good for him?"
"Er, yes, I have. I would like you to ask Mrs. Weasley if I could visit them to get school supplies from Diagon Alley for the upcoming school year. If she says yes, send an owl back and wait there for me.
"Also, you should help her with the cooking and cleaning," Harry added as an afterthought.
"Kreacher understands, sir. But Kreacher must ask if he is allowed to clean Master Harry's room before he leaves, or if he should wait until Master Harry is back at Hogwarts, which Kreacher finds most intriguing."
"Kreacher I gave you an order! Go now!" Harry's voice strained from the effort of not yelling. Kreacher disapparated with an offended look and a loud crack as Harry took his sudden anger out on the trash can in the corner, which yelped indignantly. He had no idea what had gotten into him.
Harry started rummaging through the rubble for his supplies. Harry concluded that he would need to clean up eventually, even if the Weasleys did deny his request for a visit. Harry thought forlornly of Kreacher and his offer to pick up the room. Now, rummaging through disgusting, smelly piles of debris, dust, and old food, he regretted sending Kreacher away so soon.
About an hour after Kreacher left, Harry received a short reply attached to Errol in Mrs. Weasley's writing.
Harry,
thank goodness you are okay! You had us all so worried. You have a lot of explaining to do, young man. Of course you are welcome here, but I must warn you that Ron, Ginny, and Hermione are in a right state. They are also quite angry at you and Ronald is also wondering what you did to his owl. We haven't seen Pig in weeks.
Hoping to see you soon,
Molly Weasley
Harry was so relieved his knees felt weak. He had been sure that they would say he should not visit them, or else say that he would never be welcomed back into their home.
He immediately picked up his cleaning pace and soon enough, everything that he could salvage was packed away in his trunk. His invisibility cloak, map, and wand were stored inside his robes. As he took one last look at the room, he realized he would miss the comfort of being in Sirius's old room. In particular, Harry would miss the photo of the marauders, the last of whom had died during the Battle. Harry turned his back on the photo and with his trunk in his hand, he, with some difficulty due to to trunk's weight, disapparated.
He arrived outside the Burrow with a loud crack and an ungraceful plummet into a mud puddle as his trunk slammed into him. He was still apparating illegally and as he siphoned the mud off of his robes with his wand, he made a mental note to take the test, even though at this point it didn't matter much. As he approached the misshapen house, he spotted chickens, gnomes, and Wellington boots. It looked like the Burrow had returned to its normal order.
As he approached the door, he heard shouting come from inside. Harry knocked, trying not to eavesdrop, but the conversation, held by screaming voices, was hard not to listen to. "Ron you prat! How dare you say that!" Ginny's voice rang through the muffled cacophony of screams, shouts, and loud noises.
Harry knocked again, harder. This time it was Luna's voice that he could hear clearly. "Ron, that really was an awful thing to say." Harry was trying to comprehend what was going on as he pressed his ear to the door, still knocking.
"I didn't really mean it," Ron mumbled. "He's just acting like a pretentious prat. I mean, look the situation. We all lost people. We all have to continue with our lives, but he just gets to shut himself in Grimmauld place and ignore the rest of us?"
"You shouldn't have said it that way, though," Hermione scolded. "You made it sound like Harry doesn't even care that we survived the war."
He heard Ginny's voice again. "Ron has got a point though, hasn't he? All Harry has done all summer is pretend like we don't exist"
Harry couldn't take it any longer. Harry swung the door open. At the sound of the door slamming against the wall behind it, all four of them jumped and looked for the source of the noise. Ginny paled and looked stricken. Ron's ears turned red, and Hermione was suddenly very busy examining one of the forks on the table set for dinner.
"Hello Harry," Luna said cheerfully, striding over to him to shake his hand. "I hope your summer has been okay. We've all been very worried about you." Luna said all of this with the pleasant air of discussing a particularly nice sunny day.
"It doesn't sound like they've been worried about me," Harry said coolly, ignoring the suddenly pitying look on Luna's face. "In fact, it sounds like they want me to leave."
"No of course not!" Hermione exclaimed quickly. As she looked up at Harry he saw the exasperated expression on her face and tears brimming in her eyes. "Of course we don't want you to leave."
"What are you doing here?" Ginny asked forcefully.
"I got your letters…"
"About time," Ron grunted.
"...and I've decided that I want to return to Hogwarts, so I asked your mum if I could stay here until then."
"Ooh, that's wonderful! Now we can all go together!" Luna exclaimed happily, beaming as she looked around at their stony faces. "When should we go shopping?" They were spared from answering by Mrs. Weasley, who came in to check on the food, towing George in for dinner at the same time.
"Oh Harry, dear, you look frightful!" Mrs Weasley proclaimed, rushing over to grab his arm and force him into a chair. "We need to get some food in you. Dinner's almost ready.
"And you all," Mrs. Weasley said, addressing Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna with sharp eyes. "Harry needs to sleep, and he will explain everything tomorrow."
Harry was grateful, because he still did not have a good explanation for locking himself up. How did he explain to the people who wanted to talk to him, his best friends, that he had shut them out, literally, because he didn't want their company. Unfortunately for Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny's faces told Harry that they would be badgering him with questions as soon as they were out of earshot of Mrs. Weasley.
Once they had all sat down, Mrs. Weasley served them all great helpings of steak and kidney pie. The main course reminded Harry of something.
"Mrs. Weasley, where is Kreacher?"
"He has been such a big help already," said Mrs. Weasley, beaming. "I barely had to cook at all. Bless him, now he's cleaning up Ronald's room so that you have space to sleep." She shot a reproving look at Ron. "Ron hasn't cleaned it himself in weeks."
Ron made an indignant noise in his throat and mumbled something through a mouth of full of Kreacher's steak-and-kidney pie, spraying Ginny with crumbs, who grumbled "Ron, that's disgusting!"
Ron finally swallowed. "Well I haven't been home to clean it, have I?"
"What do you mean?" asked Harry, taken aback.
"We went to look for my parents," Hermione said, speaking for the first time since dinner started.
"Did you…" Harry's question was interrupted by a loud crack outside. Arthur Weasley soon appeared in the doorway, looking windswept and exhausted.
"Harry!" Mr. Weasley greeted him. "It's great to see you. We've missed you all summer. I hope you are prepared to explain what happened to you." Mr. Weasley looked sternly down at Harry over his crooked glasses and Harry caught a glimpse of both worry and relief in Mr. Weasley's eyes.
"Er…"
"Arthur, Harry will have plenty of time to explain tomorrow," Mrs. Weasley chided, leading her husband over to an empty chair and sitting him down in it. "For now he needs rest and food."
"That reminds me Harry, Happy Birthday!" Arthur said with a smile.
"Ooh my goodness, I almost forgot," Mrs. Weasley jumped up from the table and ran over to the oven, from which she removed a large batch of treacle tart. "I made this earlier, in case you showed up."
She waved her wand and balloons appeared, tied to the back of Harry's chair, along with an 18-shaped candle that was smushed into the piece of dessert she pushed toward him.
"Thank you Mrs. Weasley," Harry said, forcing himself to smile as he wolfed down the delicious dessert.
Harry was the first one finished. He excused himself and climbed to the very top of the stairwell, up to Ron's room. There he found his trunk sitting at the end of an extra bed, placed next to Ron's. He also found Kreacher, who was wiping some invisible smudge off of Ron's prefect badge.
"Hello Kreacher," Harry said warily, unsure if Kreacher was mad about how he had been treated earlier. Ever since Kreacher had taken a liking to Hermione, his standards of living had gotten higher. Harry wouldn't have minded, as Kreacher still loved cleaning and cooking, but it meant one more set of feelings to take into account. It did not help that Kreacher was very vindictive and had gotten good at holding grudges.
"Master," Kreacher nodded in Harry's direction before doing a final sweep of the room and disapparating, presumably to Grimmauld place to clean Sirius' old room, as there was no familiar crack echoing from the kitchen below.
As he sat down on the extra bed and began rifling through the mess inside of his trunk, he imagined Ron, Ginny, and Hermione talking and laughing down in the kitchen, still savoring Mrs. Weasley's treacle tart. Even though he was back among people, he felt more alone than he had in a very long time.
I've been trying not to A/N at the bottom, but I must ask again. Please Review, follow, and fav. Thanks for reading! I am very excited to write the next chapter, but I don't know when I will have time because I have to finish my AP World HW.
Thanks again!