A/N Second chapter on board! :) Then i say thanks and thanks to whoever liked/followed/reviewed the story, i love every one of you *-* Hope you like this one too. So, go!

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything of Harry Potter ;)

Chapter 2

Breaking Points

James Potter arrived to the Ministry of Magic, that early August morning, late; and in his situation, it didn't help.

"Hey, Potter! Who did your son see come back today, eh? Merlin?" demanded, as he crossed the Atrium, a wizard in black, who was laughing, pointing at him, near the Fountain of Magical Brethren with a group of fellow greying hostile men.

James ignored them, grinding his teeth and hurrying towards the lifts; he couldn't mind them, or he would have done their game.

Levelling up, another umpteenth number of people, getting on or off the elevator, pointed at him, whispered behind his back, laughed at him, but James Potter was better than them, and Harry the best of all.

Or at least, this was what he kept repeating to himself.

Arrived on the second floor, he hastened through the corridors to the Auror Office.

The Department was large and used as an open-space, with long rows of cubicles from the grey walls which were covered with either mugshots, family photo, or even some posters of a person's favourite Quidditch team. All day you couldn't hope to find silence in there: each for the sound of flipping papers, or for the incessant chattering or discussions between office neighbours.

When James arrived at his cubicle, however, the room could be considered silent; James found out the reason of it as he looked down on his desk and saw the copy of the Daily Prophet of the day opened on the page he was looking at no so long ago at home; a picture of Harry sitting on the porch of their house, slyly taken from the outside gate, stood out on it: a boy who's always alone is definitely out of his mind, was practically the message of the article.

James looked around, meeting only the back of the bowed heads of his colleagues, some of whom had looked away right as he looked up.

Fucking bastards.

Lily Potter was watching her children playing Quidditch from the window at ground level of her workroom in the basement.

"Kids, I'm working downstairs, if you need me for anything, call me," she had told them more than an hour before.

The Polyjuice Potion had almost completed its brewing; two more days, and it would have been ready. The Veritaserum was not even close, instead.

"We need all the provisions of useful potions possible."

The words of Alastor Moody, uttered during one of the first meetings of the Order of the Phoenix, echoed in her mind. It's almost like the old days, mused her, and not in a good way; the only differences were four more children, and the temporary absence of mysterious killings, – except that first one a month previously – though this wasn't going to last long.

Fools they were, thinking it was over, hoping he wouldn't come back, when Dumbledore had always been fairly certain that this was not the case, and, usually, Dumbledore's beliefs were correct...

Her children were laughing, out there, shouting in encouragement, as Harry and Beth were head to head upon catching the Snitch, and how Lily wished that that moment was never to fade, and that her sweet, wonderful children were to stay forever under her watchful eye, protected from everything that could have harmed them...

She turned around for a second, stirring twice the Skele-Gro potion clockwise, then came back to the window, and Beth had caught the Snitch, flying victoriously around the Quidditch pitch magically hidden from Muggles, set by James as they moved in that house, fourteen years previously. Harry was acting the devastated and indignant loser, and Lily smiled.

How really wonderful they were; she was still impressed and moved by that little stunt the younger had pulled at breakfast to convince (or rather threaten, but it was for a good cause, Lily giggled) their big brother to play with them, to cheer him up.

"That ticking noise Harry heard and that woke him up was of the clock we have in our bedroom, amplified with a well-put Sonorus," revealed Emma, with a grin and rather proud of herself, when Lily approached her alone, after the others had gone picking up their brooms from the closet, and asked for more details.

"Young lady," Lily tried to scold her, "you're not allowed to use magic outside of school."

"But mum," she replied, not worried at all and sure that her mother was not really angry, "who do you think will care, in a house where grown wizards live?!"

And Lily had let it go.

Harry would have been better, ha had to be.

Harry opened the fridge in the kitchen and grabbed the jug of pumpkin juice.

Sweaty, tired after a long day of Quidditch matches, he swallowed the icy drink and immediately found relief.

It was late afternoon, by then; his mother was still busy with her potions in the basement, and his siblings had gone upstairs to recover from various status of bulging.

He had to act now, and quickly.

Putting the jug back in place, glancing at the grand-father clock on the fireplace to make sure the time in which his father would come back was still, relatively, distant, he hastened out of the room and, crossing the wide entrance hall, started up the wooden central stairs as noiselessly as he could, till he reached his parents' room.

He rummaged through the drawers, in the closet, under the bed, in several pockets, but nothing; no copy, not necessarily of the day, of the Daily Prophet was in sight. As always. The only times in which he had managed to get at one of them was when he had been at Ron's house.

Harry believed that his parents actually had fun in treating him like a child, hiding things from him, protecting him obsessively from everything; and the fact that every night they came and woke him up to comfort him after he had a nightmare only humiliated him more, and his anger and shame and guilt and resentment grew.

But they would not have held him captive for much longer.

Giving up to his search, he headed for his room, and he heard the twins' voices from their room near his in the process; he had told them he didn't want to be disturbed anymore, so they wouldn't come and call him untill supper time, and he counted on being back by then.

He noisily closed his door behind his back, to make the hearers understand that the hour in which they had to leave him alone had started, then he turned and locked it. He headed quickly for the window, but not before he had grabbed a bundle and hid it under his shirt; he then climbed on the desk to reach and open it, and withdrew his wand murmuring an 'Accio', after which his broom that he had previously providentially put just below his room, flew right to him. He mounted it and flew down. He was then careful to levitate it back in the closet in which they kept the family brooms, and, finally, taking the Invisibility Clock out from under his shirt and wearing it, he crossed all the back garden and climbed over the fence that led into the street behind.

His parents hadn't thought of taking from him the Clock; they must have believed that he was responsible enough to use it properly: but, mused Harry, he wasn't doing anything totally bad in that moment.

He just went for a walk, he told himself as he became visible again.

Another boring day at work, filled with papers to be read and signed, written and corrected, full of eyes that followed his every movement, wherever he went, if at lunch or to stretch his legs didn't matter, was almost over. At home awaited him a nice hot meal, the warmth of the fireplace, and, hopefully, any drama.

But tomorrow would be the same as today, and the day after that as well; at least a new Order meeting was scheduled for two days later: it was something to look forward.

It was when Sirius Black, together with some other aurors, returned from a mission in Gloucestershire, noisily entering the headquarters from the direction of the lifts, that something unusual to the monotony of the last days happened. A flying notification had come with the group of wizards, and, to the non-surprise of James and of anyone in the room, it landed on Mr. Potter's desk. It was from the secretary of the Minister of Magic.

Dear Mr. Potter,

I here inform you that the Minister of Magic has called you to his office, on this day, August 2th 1995, at 5:27 p.m, with immediate effect, to discuss with you issues of the utmost importance.

Sincerely,

the personal secretary to the Minister of Magic,

Percy Ignatius Weasley

And so the boy had become Fudge's personal secretary, James thought; he wondered if the family knew. He let that thought aside, however, for now, because there was more important issues waiting for him.

This was it, finally.

Harry wandered the town streets (so small and boring, what were they thinking when they decided to move here?), aimlessly and with the sole desire to find something that could distract him from the accumulation of unpleasant thoughts he had in his mind; but it was vain to hope.

The streets were almost deserted, where he was walking, except from the occasional passage of a few cars, and probably, Harry mused, this was due to the heat that he could feel only too well; people, intelligently, awaited in their house, with air conditioners turned on, for the coolest hours.

He arrived to an abandoned playground, dismantled and dusty, and sat on the only intact swing. It was quite, there, if a bit gloomy.

The sky was clearly darker when he left.

He had to hurry up to get home, or they'd found out about his get-away. He retraced his steps.

In the shadow of the first alley he passed, however, something, or better someone, caught his attention. He was a boy; a Muggle, surely, with common features, acne, accurately ragged clothes, and an ear piercing, that, leaning loosely on the wall of a house, was smoking.

"What are you looking at?" he snapped, upon noticing Harry's glance.

Harry stared at him in silence, intently.

The other, oddly enough, grinned. "Want to try it too, eh, toff?" - he nodded toward Harry's clearly expensive clothes - "Daddy didn't want to buy you a third new TV, so now you want to be a little rebel?" His voice had changed to mimic that of a naughty child.

Harry thought about it: he had always been a perfect, responsible, and all that rubbish son...He wondered how it would felt, to try smoking...maybe, maybe this would have evaporated those thoughts. They say it tastes good, and after, you feel better...

Yes, it was really time that he did something for himself.

"Yeah, exactly," he therefore said to the stranger, calmly, his heart beating fast inside of him.

He seemed surprised for a moment, bewildered by the non-reaction to his provocation, but he recovered quickly, and then his grin widened even more. "As you wish, wanker, here you are, try this." And he handed him his lighted cigarette.

Harry took it.

"I'm tired of you Potters! You and your rubbish a-about You-Know-Who! I will not tolerate your presence in my Ministry anymore, when you're all conspiring against me behind my back, yes, you understood me, Mr. Potter, you and your wife are conspiring against me with that old fool Dumbledore! And you have misled your son too, convinced him to go against me! You – you..."

James didn't heard further, because at that moment he got to his feet, knocking over his chair, and walked out of the Minister of Magic's office, before he murdered him, here and there, and to hell with everything...

He passed through the corridors of the first level of the Ministry, closing and opening his fists as if he was tightening them around Fudge's neck, then he went down using the stairs, because he couldn't bear the slowness of the lifts, not in that moment.

It was over, he had been fired: but he had expected it, so it wasn't this great of a deal; the real problem, now, was how would he have told Harry?

You fucking piece of shit of a Fudge.

He burst into the Auror Office without caring about the heads that turned in the direction of the noise and so his; knowing that they knew exactly, or nearly so, what must have happened only made him more furious.

"Potter!" a sharp voice called. James turned and saw Sirius Black rise from his chair and approach him.

"And so Fudge gave you the sack, didn't he?" asked Sirius with a derisive grin, casually moving away a loose strand of hair from his face.

James said nothing, reaching his desk. He conjured a box and started to fill it with his things.

"It was time, in my opinion, wasn't it, Milkins?" Sirius went on, addressing a near auror; the latter stared bewildered, and said nothing.

"What do you want, Black? If you have to fuck with me this way, do it quickly," snapped James, removing Peter Pettigrew's mugshot from the wall of his cubicle, reducing it to ashes with a flick of his wand.

"Oh, what I wanted has already been achieved, so I'm good, I guess," said Sirius, still with the same grin.

Everyone, without exception, even the ones who were pretending not to, were paying attention to the scene, shocked. Weren't Black and Potter friends?

"Then piss off," replied James, no particular inflection in his voice.

"I don't think so; I have too much fun annoying a sissy like you."

James finally looked up, meeting Sirius' teasing grey eyes.

The latter didn't stop: "Tell me something, Potter, how does it feel to be the father of the laughing stock of the Wizarding World, of the boy who is so greedy for fame that he goes around saying that You-Know-Who is back?"

"You do not dare..."

Black ignored him, and grabbed that morning's edition of the Daily Prophet from the trash under James' desk.

"And here is the Boy Who Lived, sitting on the porch of his majestic country house, staring into space..." read aloud Black, in a voice that was meant to be solemn, "...like a perfect loony; I ask myself, what are we waiting to shut him in a mental hospital, for the good of us all? If his 'stories' aren't a sufficient indicati..."

James threw himself impetuously on Sirius, ripping up the paper – which fell on the floor with a thud – from his hands, and pointing his wand against his throat, an expression half stony half angry on his face.

"You do not dare talk that way about my son, Black, or I'll tear your heart apart, do you understand?" he said coolly. Black, not at all frightened, widened even more, if possible, his grin.

"You try it, Potter."

They stared at each other for a moment, the entire room frozen, waiting; at length, James let go of Sirius, who stepped back, and, quickly gathering his last things, left the Auror Office, probably for the last time.

Lily, with a last stir, bottled the contents of a couple of cauldrons, glanced at some others to check their brewing state, then she went upstairs. The light in the entrance hall wasn't so piercing; in fact, it encouraged her to stop for a moment on the threshold of her laboratory to admire the games of light and dark in the spacious atrium of her house: the effects on the crystal of the candlestick, the gloss that the handrail of the wooden stairs to her left seemed to have achieved...for those few seconds she felt almost at peace. She breathed deeply.

James would be back shortly after, but she still had time for a shower before having to start cooking dinner; she went upstairs once again.

Rhythmic, noisy music came from the twins' bedroom; Lily then saw Will making some old Quaffles roll down the stairs, but she decided not to stop him (not before recommending him to be careful not to make anyone trip over those balls, and pecking him a kiss, which he accepted reluctantly); Beth was nowhere to be seen.

Lily went into her bedroom; she took off her shoes and threw them in the bathroom, then sat on the bed and rubbed her back: a nice, relaxing shower was what she needed.

"Harry! Harry, are you awake? Can I come in?" she heard Beth's voice from outside in the corridor, and the knock on the door of her brother that followed every call. Lily listened.

When the struggles of her daughter continued without any effect, Lily got to her feet and reached her.

"Sweetheart, maybe Harry doesn't want to be disturbed..." she said to Beth. She turned toward her mother, a fist still up ready to knock once again, and Lily's heart sank upon seeing her daughter's eyes, so alike hers; they were wide and teary, crestfallen and a little scared. Lily was alarmed.

"What is it, honey? Something wrong?" she asked softly, lifting the girl's chin. She shook her head.

"I just – just wanted to give this to Harry," Beth replied, showing her mother a drawing she had in her other fist. It represented a house – theirs – and all the members of their family standing in a row next to it: it was a children's drawing, but it was evident all the care and attention the little girl had put in it. "Maybe he can keep it under his pillow, so at night he won't have nightmares anymore: I enchanted it," she added.

"You enchanted it?" Lily asked with a smile.

Beth, proud of herself, straightened her head and nodded vigorously, smiling back. "I found this book in Daddy's study where there was this spell they use on dream catchers, and I did it, and no, I don't need a wand, it said all you need to do is want it," she explained.

"This seems wonderful to me, Betty...come on, let's try and make him open the door."

They started knocking and calling again. "Harry, honey, Beth here want to give you something, open the door, please."

But nothing.

Lily frowned. "Maybe he's sleeping...but usually he wakes up at the slightest noise..." she said doubtfully.

"Or maybe he's gone downstairs," Beth suggested.

"Hmm..." Lily tried the door, but it was locked. "How many times have I told him to not lock himself in his room..."

The twins came out of their room that was immediately to the left, and approached them to see what was going on.

Lily resolved to use magic. She had a queer feeling.

"Alohomora,"she spoke clearly, pointing her wand at the lock and making a firm movement with her arm. It clicked.

The inside was empty.

Harry started to cough, and only after quite a long time he managed to stop; he even doubled over, his eyes slightly teary and his breath cut off.

The boy next to him was doubled up with laughter. "I forget to tell ya, greenhorn, that the first time you could..." A new burst of coughing – from Harry – stronger than before interrupted him. "Yeah, exactly like that."

Harry eventually calmed down. Then he too was laughing, and he gave an half shove to the other guy.

"Yeah, no problem, it's over now," he said. "Let me try again."

"As you wish." Harry decided to ignore the tease in his voice.

After a few more drags, Harry got almost used to it; the smoke was pungent, but after the first impact, it wasn't so unpleasant. He almost felt lighter, too.

"Well, then, it was a real pleasure to meet you, wanker," said the boy, ironically, after a while. "But now I have to go...girls await me, you know." But glancing him a look, he added "Or maybe you don't know," and grinned again.

Harry frowned, starting to feel annoyed. The cigarette that he held between his index and middle fingers, as the stranger taught him, was over and Harry didn't know what to do with it: he looked around looking for a trash can. The boy (should I ask his name?, Harry wondered) rolled his eyes and took the cigarette from him.

"Watch and learn, greenhorn," he said; he threw it on the floor and stepped on it. Harry nodded.

The other then looked at him, arching an eyebrow. "You're really strange, aren't you? Where do you live?"

Before Harry could answer, however, a sudden, disconcerting crack cut through the air, and Harry spun around, looking form side to side in search of its source. It had sounded familiar...terribly familiar...

"What was that?" snapped the Muggle.

"Oh, probably nothing, maybe a branch fallen from a tree or..." Harry tentatively replied.

But right in that moment, something else happened.

The atmosphere suddenly seemed to cool down, a cold wind starting to pull and hit their faces, as the pre-twilight light faded considerably, leaving the alley in which Harry and the Muggle boy stood rather darker than a moment before.

Keeping to look around, alarmed, his breath quickening, Harry started to feel the oh-so-familiar sensations of obstruction in his throat, chill in his bones, and of despair that was slowly wrapping his whole being...dark shadows were approaching the entrance of the alley, and Harry knew at once what they were.