Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own anything, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, JK Rowling is the coolest, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately.

Harry Potter and the Lightning Scar

The portkey departure terminal Philadelphia International Airport was not very busy, since it was a Saturday morning, so Harry didn't have to wait long before it was his turn.

"Would it be possible to set my portkey for Surrey?" he asked the attendant. "I'd rather not have to arrange transportation from Heathrow."

"Sure, as long as you've never been convicted of a felony in the United Kingdom and you're a British citizen, you can bypass customs there. Ah, here we go. Nothing but a warning about underage magic, so yeah, that's possible. It's an extra galleon, though."

"That's fine with me," Harry said, relieved. "It's worth the convenience." He didn't add that he was actually doing it for secrecy—if he ended up at a check-in desk staffed by a wizard, it would be a matter of hours or even minutes before Dumbledore or the Daily Prophet got a hold of the information, and then he'd inevitably be subjected to an interrogation about where he had been all summer.

His portkey took him to the Surrey bus station, and after regaining his equilibrium, he apparated to the smallest bedroom of Number 4 Privet Drive, where Remus and a large black dog were waiting to greet him.

After a brief explanation of the plan (namely, that the Weasleys would be around at 5 PM—less than two hours from when he had arrived at Number 4—to pick him up), Remus gave Harry a rundown on their last few days.

"And how is Dobby working out?" Harry asked. Almost two weeks ago, he had told Remus and Sirius about the crazed elf, and they had immediately called upon Dobby to take over as the head elf for Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

"He's...excitable," Remus said, "but he's a huge upgrade from Kreacher. We've got Kreacher contained to maintaining the cellars, while Dobby does pretty much everything else. He was even able to dispell the Permanent Sticking Charm on Walburga's portrait, and we let Kreacher take that to whatever hole he sleeps in."

"Good," Harry said. "It wouldn't do for Dobby to have ended up working for another family like the Malfoys. He was abused there, badly."

"Too right—we'll make sure to treat him better," Remus assured Harry. "Oh, I just remembered, did you ever get your school supplies?"

"Yeah, I got my letter a few weeks ago, and owl-ordered everything. I already sent McGonagall notice that I'm taking Arithmancy instead of Divination. I got the Runes book, too, so I can study that in my free time."

The trio descended to remind the Dursleys about the plan—if asked, they were to assert that Harry had been mostly confined to his room all summer, except for meals, chores, the restroom, and a few errands of his own ("freakish" and otherwise). Once the Dursleys were sorted out, Remus and Sirius left, and it became simply a matter of waiting for the Weasleys to arrive. Harry had demonstrated to the Dursleys that he could now do magic outside of school, ensuring their compliance with the story that Remus had cooked up, though he made no mention that it was only due to his new wands, of which he now had five: his phoenix feather wand, two dragon heartstring wands from the Black family armory, and the two he had purchased earlier that week in Philadelphia. While he waited, he recalled the wand shop, which had been—like many consumer services in America—arguably more professional and impressive than what could be found in Diagon Alley, undoubtedly a result of increased competition for business.

The wand shop had been located adjacent to Washington Square, and was predictably named the "Washington Square Armament and Wand Co." Here, there were racks of wands (and other assorted weapons), much like at Ollivander's store, but these "off the rack" wands were relatively inexpensive, and less powerful than a bespoke wand. Harry had had the idea that perhaps a wand using a thunderbird feather core from his animagus form might be a superior match to his phoenix feather wand, and had asked the wandmaker, George Biddle, if it would be possible. The wandmaker had been enthusiastic, saying that magical animagus forms yielded the best possible matches, and perhaps even better, would not function properly when used against the person from whom the core material had been taken. Harry commissioned two wands, and provided a wing feather and a tail feather from his animagus form. Biddle took the feathers to a line of wand-wood blanks, and simply dropped them—as each feather fell, it was drawn to a specific wood. The tail feather had gravitated to a piece of oak wood (putting Harry in mind of the mighty oak at his and Annie's spot by the forest), and the wing feather had fallen onto a piece of elder wood.

Biddle had taken some measurements and had Harry wave around a few practice wands, then disappeared into the store's small machine shop, using a regular non-magical wood lathe to shape the blanks into wands. Harry returned several hours later, having requested—at truly enormous expense, and causing a significant increase in the time necessary to manufacture the wands—that runes be carved into the inside of the wand shell to prevent physical damage or snapping. Such workmanship was only possible using non-magical computer-controlled machines, which was why this service was not to be found on Diagon Alley, and it did not run cheap. However, Harry had the cash to spare, and he didn't want the wands to be snapped and have his feathers accessible to a potential foe, who could use them for all manner of thaumaturgic spells and rituals. Poorer by over a hundred galleons (extremely expensive, considering the fact that his wand from Ollivander had cost only seven galleons), but richer by two masterfully-shaped, ideally-matched 13" wands, Harry had left the shop quite satisfied, and had been even more satisfied when he tried out his new wands. They were superior in every way to his holly wand and the wands he had picked up from the Black family armory. Even better, since Harry had told Biddle that he was going back to Britain in a few days, Biddle hadn't bothered to register the wands with the American version of the Trace, and he didn't have the authority to register them with the British Ministry of Magic Trace system either. Basically, these wands would let Harry do underaged magic wherever he wanted (not that he couldn't do so already with his ebony and cedar wands).

His ruminations were interrupted at precisely 5 PM by a knock on the door. Thankfully, Remus had pointed out in the response to Ron's letter that the fireplace at Number 4 was not connected to the Floo network, so the Weasleys should apparate or take a portkey. Upon reflection, Harry was certain that some minor disaster—probably including the destruction of much of the living room—had been averted. Harry answered the door, and invited in Arthur, Fred, George, and Ron.

"Harry, my boy, you've grown this summer!" Arthur exclaimed, looking around the exceedingly muggle home with great interest. "Ah, and you must be Harry's aunt and uncle! So very nice to meet you!"

Petunia and Vernon stood stiffly, ignoring Arthur's outstretched hand. Dudley slowly backed out of the room, and then the thunderous sound of the large boy ascending the stairs echoed through the house.

"Yes," Vernon said. "Yes, I'm sure it is very nice to meet us. I take it you'll be leaving soon?"

"Erm...yes, we'll depart presently. I thought I'd let you take a moment to say goodbye to your nephew."

Vernon and Petunia stared at Arthur as though he had just grown another head, then turned slowly toward Harry. Stonefaced, Vernon grated out an extremely reluctant "Goodbye, Potter."

"Goodbye, Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon. I'll see you next summer."

"Yes...until then," Petunia practically spat.

Somewhat put out by the coldness that the Dursleys had shown him and Harry, Arthur directed his attention to his sons, who were gathering up Harry's things. Harry had thought ahead, and in order to facilitate a quick and clean getaway, had brought all of his luggage downstairs already. Fred and George picked up the trunk (inside which Gadsden was already coiled up and sleeping off a particularly large meal of the neighbor's formerly-yappy little chihuahua), Ron got Hedwig's cage, and all five wizards stepped out onto the front patio, having nothing else to say to the Dursleys.

"Here boys," Arthur said, taking out a long rope. "This is a portkey, Harry—it's kind of like a portable Floo, without the fire. Grab on, and make sure you hold on to the luggage tightly."

Despite Arthur's rather inexpertly-made portkey, Harry had now been on enough portkey rides to keep his feet when they landed at the Burrow. After some fussing by Molly Weasley, the twins disappeared to go do whatever it was that they did in their free time, and Ron, Harry, and Hermione (who had joined the group in the kitchen) retreated upstairs, with a furiously-blushing Ginny close behind.

"So out with it, mate," Ron said once they were behind a closed door.

"Out with what?" Harry asked, feigning confusion.

"Out with how you grew almost a foot, gained at least two stone of muscle, and aren't wearing glasses anymore!" Hermione commanded insistently, practically vibrating with interest.

This was it, Harry realized. This was the moment he had known was coming, when he would either tell his friends what he had done all summer, or when he would lie to them. He thought briefly about everything he had done—cheating the Trace with Black wands, Philadelphia, nutritional potions, the Jersey Devil, Wisconsin, the animagus ritual, channeling magic, the training with Jacob Crane, and Annie... That last fleeting thought brought back the soreness in his heart, and he made his decision.

"Well, it's nothing special," Harry said. Lies it would be. This summer had been for him, and Annie was his to remember. "I let the Dursleys know that someone would be...dogging...them about my health, so they actually fed me this summer. The glasses...well, have you ever heard of laser eye surgery?"

"No, what's that?" Ginny asked, blushing. That fangirl crush of hers reminded Harry of how much he missed walking around in America and having nobody think twice about a kid with a lightning-bolt scar. Having gotten used to that, being back in magical Britain was going to be infuriating.

Hermione's long-winded explanation (somehow delivered in one breath) told everyone present everything they had never really cared to know about laser eye surgery. Harry was almost surprised that everyone had bought his lies; he had expected that someone would realize how unlikely it was that he would get in such good shape (and a tan, no less!) sitting around in the smallest bedroom of Number 4 Privet Drive all summer, but apparently they were so used to accepting what people said at face value that nobody blinked an eye. Classic magical Britain mentality, Harry mused wryly. Frankly, Harry thought it was almost embarrassing how easily he had fooled everyone—even the ever-sensible Hermione, who really should have known better, had believed his explanation without any reservations.

The discussion soon turned to what everyone else had done all summer, the upcoming Quidditch World Cup, and the inevitable challenge to a chess game (which Harry intentionally lost as quickly as possible, having no inclination to drag the game out).

Finally, it was dinnertime, and Harry got to meet Charlie and Bill, the extremely-cool oldest Weasley boys. Charlie explained that he worked at a dragon preserve in Romania, and Bill spoke about the exciting life of a Gringotts cursebreaker. Percy, not to be outdone, began preaching pompously about the Ministry, cauldron bottoms, how great his boss Mr. Crouch was, and probably something else, but not a single person was paying him any attention by then. Molly, though, had been slightly put out that Harry had already purchased his school things, as her offer to buy them for him the next day was politely refused. Harry was once again glad of his foresight—he would not have wanted to put the key to his practically-overflowing vault in Molly's impoverished hands. Not that he thought she would ever actually steal from him; he just didn't really fancy the idea of her looking at all of his wealth and then feeling bad about her own lack thereof.

Harry was glad that he had spent so much effort tiring himself out the previous night, as the adults were determined to send the children off to bed early so that everyone would be awake at dawn for the portkey to the World Cup campsite. Even so, he had some difficulty falling asleep; Ron snored something awful, and he had grown accustomed to sleeping in larger, more comfortable beds at the Great White Bear and the Alexander. He was also acutely missing the feeling of a warm body next to him, and he was already becoming a little bit frustrated at the sudden lack of sex. Though he wasn't really ready to look for an emotional connection (the "summer fling" with Annie had clearly become more that that, and he wasn't ready to move forward quite yet), he decided that by the time he got back to Hogwarts, he would at least look for a partner. Maybe, he thought as he began to drift off, he could put together one of those arrangements...

Harry was the only one able to drag himself out of bed at dawn without being hollered at by Molly Weasley. With thunder ringing in his ears (having dreamed about the "full-throttle" flight he had made during his last night in America), Harry quickly dressed and gathered all of his things. He asked Gadsden if he wanted to be let out, but Gadsden was fine with hanging out in Harry's trunk for the time being.

Once the rest of the Weasleys and Hermione were awake, the whole troop set off down the road to meet up with the Amos and Cedric Diggory (an awkward experience for all, as Amos insisted on effectively proclaiming that his son was better than everyone else, especially Harry), and then the whole group gathered around the old boot and portkeyed into the huge mess that was the Quidditch World Cup campsite.

It was a slightly subdued group that returned to the Burrow on the morning of August 26. Percy was particularly miserable, having had a public dressing-down by his boss after his wand had been found to have cast the Dark Mark. In fact, it was only an impromptu interrogation under veritaserum that kept him from being charged with any number of serious crimes. He had, however, been luckier than Winky the house-elf; while Percy kept his job, Winky had been dismissed on the spot, despite her pathetic begging and insistence that she was innocent. Afterward, Harry had suggested to Arthur that he take on the despondent elf, as it would certainly decrease Molly's workload around the Burrow, but Arthur declined, saying that they had passed up opportunities like this before because Molly preferred to do things herself. Later, Harry had summoned the elf and bonded her himself, then ordered her to go help Dobby at Number 12 Grimmauld Place. One simply did not let pass such opportunities, as elves who had been dismissed rarely stayed available for long; if they didn't find work quickly, they often committed suicide.

The rest of the week passed uneventfully; the group played several backyard Quidditch games, lots of chess, and (at least Harry and Hermione) began to read ahead in some of their texts—though Harry was already far ahead in Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, he still had some catching up to do in Arithmancy). Harry introduced the group to Gadsden, and only Ron and Molly had any real objection; however, they believed Harry's assurance that he was harmless. Ron and Hermione initially didn't like the idea of Harry embracing his nature as a Parselmouth, but Harry was adamant—it was part of who he was, and if it was something he had taken from Voldemort, then he had won it fair and square.

That small argument more or less resolved to Harry's satisfaction, the only real excitement remaining of the holiday occurred on the morning of September 1. Amos Diggory fire-called Arthur, having heard that a mutual friend had landed himself in hot water with the muggle police. Arthur went to go sort it out (probably through judicious use of memory charms), while the rest of the group made their way to Kings Cross. Harry didn't spend much more time thinking about the plight of the apparently-legendary dark wizard hunter; he figured that he'd hear all about it soon enough.

A protracted round of goodbyes later, the Hogwarts Express pulled out of the station and began to chug its way to Scotland. As Harry looked out the window, he felt a distinct pang—for the first time since he had started at Hogwarts, he wished that summer hadn't ended.

Author's Note

Back to Britain and the Burrow! Note that Fred and George never got a chance to test their Ton-Tongue Toffee on Dudley. Since Harry had already intimidated the Dursleys before the Weasleys arrived, the arrival of four more wizards made him retreat in fear, and the twins never made it upstairs, since Harry had already brought down his luggage. Thus, they never end up getting caught by Molly, which saves a great deal of their inventory.

Note that this chapter is basically just an extended timeskip to bring us up to the beginning of term, hence its relative brevity. The relevant information is that Harry is effectively in control of the Dursleys, he's got a pair of shiny new thunderbird-feather wands, and everyone at the Burrow believed his bullshit explanation for how he grew, got in shape, and ditched the glasses. The Quidditch World Cup happened as it did in canon, and the events afterward deviated only in that Harry is more security-conscious of his person, using wand holsters instead of just putting his wand in his pocket, so Percy got his wand jacked instead. The fallout is the same, though, and Harry snags Winky before she kills herself (since Dobby wasn't free at the same time, he wouldn't have been around to get her a job at Hogwarts).

As I said in the Author's Notes for chapter 20, I'll be traveling for work until Wednesday, which means the next chapter probably won't be posted until Thursday or Friday. Until then!