Disclaimer: JK Rowling has written the same number of books as Gilderoy Lockhart—probably better reading, though. As such, she owns Harry Potter.

Parts of this chapter have been quoted from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Chapter 24

Dobby did not go to see the great Harry Potter's friend, Hermione Granger. He had been away from his masters for too long already. But Dobby had memorised Hermione Granger's address. Harry Potter had said, "She knows loads more about elves than I do. Maybe she can help you." Maybe she could help him. But no, Dobby couldn't do that. Not yet. If Dobby went to see Hermione Granger, she might become suspicious and help Harry Potter go back to Hogwarts again. No, Dobby would wait until Harry Potter was safe, and then he would talk to Hermione Granger.

Dear Professor McGonagall,

I think something's wrong. Hedwig returned my birthday present to Harry unopened, and she seems really agitated. I think she can't get to him for some reason. Could you please check on him again. I'm worried he might need to get out of his relatives' house. The Weasleys said they'd like him to visit this summer, so maybe he can stay there for a while.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger

Minerva McGonagall was extremely uncomfortable having to wait two days after she received that letter to check on Harry Potter, and not just because Hedwig kept pecking at her. But Albus had insisted that by whatever bizarre means he had that he knew Harry wasn't in serious (physical) danger and had strongly advised her to line up a place for Harry to stay before taking any action. To be honest, she was surprised he even agreed with that much. So Minerva had done some corresponding and found that the Weasleys were willing and eager to take Harry in for the rest of the summer if need be. At least that was good news.

She supposed she shouldn't have been so surprised when the Dursleys opened the door to her, and Petunia said, "If you're looking for the boy, he's not here."

Minerva's eyebrows shot up. "Not here? Why ever not?"

"He ran away, the ungrateful whelp," Vernon said far too smugly. "And I say good riddance. That boy's been nothing but trouble from the start."

"Ran away? I find that hard to believe, not after he put up with you for the first half of the summer. I would suggest you tell me where he really is at once."

"We don't know," Petunia spat. "We can't help it if he's a brat who won't do as he's told. Tried to keep him in line for years and nothing worked."

And just what did you try? Minerva thought, but that was a discussion for another time. "Mr. Potter would not leave without telling his friends first," she continued. "His friends are quite worried about him. Their birthday presents were returned unopened, and his owl has been quite agitated for the past three days."

"Well, better you than us," Vernon grumbled. "That dumb bird of his kept trying to get back in. Took all day to make it go away."

"Oh, really? We have ways of locating an underage wizard, Mr. Dursley, and that 'dumb bird' is one of them, as your wife would know if she had ever paid attention to her sister. Post owls always know where their owner is, and Mr. Potter's has indicated quite clearly that he is still here."

Both of the Dursleys' faces paled upon realising they'd been found out. Minerva tried to push past them, but Vernon launched into a tirade.

"He won't be going back!" the large man bellowed. "He ruined our dinner with—with magic and lost us a top client. Got a warning letter from your lot and everything."

"And he tried to curse Vernon," Petunia added. "We're only lucky it didn't work."

"If you don't mind," Minerva said dryly, "I'd like to hear your nephew's side of the story for myself." She drew her wand. "Stand aside, please."

The Dursleys shrank back in terror. Minerva swept her eyes over the room, looking for any sign of Harry's presence. When she didn't find anything, she started up the stairs. The upstairs had four bedrooms and a bathroom and looked, just like the downstairs, like quite a nice place, except that one of the doors was double-locked from the outside and, even more oddly, had cat flap installed. On a hunch, she waved her wand, and the door sprang open.

It was a sorry sight that awaited her. A small twelve-year-old boy was lying on a threadbare bed in a daze. The rest of the room was bare save for an empty owl perch, a broken-down dresser, and a dusty bookcase. The window, unlike the rest of the house, had bars across it, and she doubted it was to keep burglars out.

Harry Potter sprang upright at once when he heard the door open. "Professor! Am I glad to see you," he said.

"And I you, Mr. Potter." She watched with concern as he stood up. The boy looked skinnier than he had been in the spring, and he was no heavyweight to start with. He also looked very tired and unsteady on his feet. However, when she told him, "Pack your things at once. The Weasleys have offered to take you in for the rest of the summer," he sprang into action with his Seeker's speed. Minerva barely had time to blink before he dove under his bed, fumbled with something that sounded like a loose floorboard, and emerged with a heavily-laden pillowcase slung across his back.

"The rest is in the cupboard under the stairs," he said breathlessly. Minerva noticed there were tears in his eyes.

The older witch nodded and led Harry back down the stairs. She continued to notice him walking unsteadily behind her, as if light-headed. "Mr. Potter, have you been eating?" she asked with concern.

"N-not as much as usual," he replied timidly.

Minerva pressed her lips together. She suspected that the usual wasn't much. "Well, not to worry. I'm sure Mrs. Weasley will give you all you want and then some," she said stiffly.

They reached the cupboard, and she unlocked it and removed Harry's trunk and his owl's cage. As it happened, Minerva did not notice any signs that that cupboard had once been occupied by Harry himself. Vernon had been smart enough not to leave a mat inside, though if she had been in a state to look closer, she might have noticed a child's scribbles on the wall. Harry loaded the pillowcase into his trunk while Minerva wheeled on the Dursleys.

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, I must say that your treatment of your nephew is atrocious, nearly as bad as what you've done to your own son." She eyed the fat boy who was cowering in the kitchen. Worse, more like, but this will offend them more.

"How dare you—!"

"I cannot fathom how Lily Evans was stuck with such a poor excuse for a sister. Mr. Potter will be leaving for the remainder of the summer, and if he is quite lucky, he will need to see very little of you for the duration of his schooling." The conflicted looks of anger and delight on the Dursleys' faces at the prospect would have been amusing if they weren't so appalling. "Come along, Mr. Potter."

Harry ducked out the front door of Four Privet Drive behind his professor, and it slammed shut behind him.

"Thank you so much, Professor," he said, his voice catching.

"No trouble at all, Mr. Potter. You aren't the first student to have family difficulties." Minerva walked out to the curb.

"Oh, Professor, I've just remembered," Harry said. "I found out what happened to my mail."

"You did?"

"Yeah, some weird house elf named Dobby was stealing it. He showed up on my birthday and tried to convince me not to go back to Hogwarts—said it was too dangerous—some kind of evil plot going on. Actually, he didn't look too good. He was wearing a pillowcase, and he kept trying to 'punish himself'. Do you know what any of that was about?"

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Potter. Unfortunately, that kind of treatment of elves is not uncommon among the darker families. As for the warning, it's entirely possible this 'Dobby' was sent by his master to try to scare you out of returning to school. You may want to be watchful, but you should not put too much stock in it. Now, as for yourself, I understand you got a warning letter from the Ministry for underage magic?"

"That was Dobby!" Harry said quickly. "He used a Hover Charm on Aunt Petunia's pudding. I used some of those runic spells we made at the beginning of summer and didn't have any trouble with them."

"What?" Minerva said in confusion. "The underage magic detectors triggered for a house elf? That would be highly irregular. How did this elf get in and out of the house?"

"Well, he just…appeared and disappeared like they do. Why didn't that set it off?"

"Because it's not supposed to. Elf magic is nearly unrestricted by law. If what you say is true, I don't see why that Hover Charm would have been noticed."

"Huh…Maybe Hermione would know."

"Perhaps." The Granger girl might know more about house elves than any other witch in Hogwarts by now simply by virtue of being the only one who paid them any attention, Minerva thought. Oh well, they had placed to go. "Now, since you're underage and carrying luggage, Mr. Potter, your best option for travel will be the Knight Bus. I should warn you, though, that it's…rather a bumpy ride."

Harry didn't have time to ask what any of that meant before his professor stuck out her hand to the street as if hailing a cab, and then—BANG! A giant, purple, triple-decker bus appeared out of nowhere and screeched to a halt on Privet Drive. He looked around nervously to see how the Dursleys or the neighbours would react to such a thing happening in broad daylight, but no else one seemed to notice anything.

A man in a purple uniform leapt out of the bus and called out, "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard—" He noticed Minerva and took a nervous step back. "W-why, hello, Professor. Di'n't 'spect t'see you on the Bus."

"I'm escorting a student, Mr. Shunpike," McGonagall replied. "Two to the Burrow in Ottery St. Catchpole."

"Tha'll be twenty-two sickles, 'less you want some snacks."

McGonagall handed over a galleon and five sickles to the young man. Shunpike looked to be fresh out of school, though Harry didn't remember seeing him around Hogwarts in the past year, and, judging by his reaction, he had been on the wrong side of the Deputy Headmistress a few times. Just then, he noticed Harry, and, predictably, his eyes flew straight to his forehead.

"Hey, Ern! Ern! Look 'oo it is!" he yelled. "'E's 'Arry Potter! I can see 'is scar!"

"That will be quite enough, Mr. Shunpike," McGonagall said in a voice that made her former student quail. "We must be going at once. Come along, Mr. Potter."

Harry sighed and dragged his trunk onto the bus. He was startled to see not the normal seats of a muggle bus, but a bunch of folding chairs set up on the floor. From the disarray they were in, he started to get an idea of what that "bumpy ride" was like, which soon turned out to be even worse than he expected as the Knight Bus BANGed all over the country, picking up and dropping off witches and wizards. Despite how hungry he was, he was glad he hadn't gone for the snacks.

A harrowing hour later, the Knight Bus screeched to a stop on a hill at the outskirts of a grassy field in Devon. In the distance, Harry could see a very tall, crooked house that must have been held up with magic. Just the look of it seemed to say "Ron", or maybe "Fred and George" would have been closer. He thought it looked perfect compared with the proper boxy accommodations on Privet Drive. Glancing around, down the other side of the hill was another tall house that looked like a chess rook, and there was a large, manor-style house closer to the village.

McGonagall led Harry down a winding path toward the Burrow, past a couple of sheds and a chicken coop and some piles of rubbish. The house itself was run down, patched up, had rooms built on at random, and looked more like a real home than anything the Dursleys could ever comprehend. Mrs. Weasley was standing at the door, smiling, and flanked by Ron and the Twins to complete the picture.

"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear," Mrs. Weasley said sweetly. "You're just in time for dinner."

Harry's heart leapt at the prospect of his first quality meal in six weeks, and he bounded up the front steps. "Thank you so much for taking me in, Mrs. Weasley—" he started.

"Oh, no trouble at all, Harry. The boys have told us so much about you. Come on in. Come on in."

"Thanks, Professor," Harry said as he stepped inside.

"Not a problem, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said. "Do keep me informed if you need anything else."

Harry nodded and vanished into the Burrow. McGonagall smiled and turned to leave. Her work here was finally done—at least for this summer.

Life at the Burrow was the happiest time of Harry's life, and considering he'd spent a year at Hogwarts, that was saying something. He had never seen before how a normal family—no, the last thing the Weasleys were was normal—but how a loving family was supposed to operate. And unlike at Hogwarts, where he was mostly just admired for his fame, everyone at the Burrow actually seemed to like him. Well, there was Ginny, who couldn't say a word to him without it coming out as a squeak, usually accompanied by knocking something over, but he hoped she'd come around eventually. He tried not to laugh at her predicament.

His first night at the Burrow, Harry had been warmly greeted by Mr. Weasley, who peppered him with questions about the muggle world, and at dinner, he had shocked everyone by eating more than Ron. When asked how awful the muggles had been, he awkwardly muttered something about them keeping him holed up in his room without going into too much detail. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were spending equal time fawning over Percy, who had just been informed that day that he had received an astonishing twelve O.W.L.s. Percy himself looked mostly relieved and seemed much calmer and less high-strung than he had for the past year. Ron told Harry that night that he had, in fact, been very worried about him and confided that he had been considering rescuing him with Mr. Weasley's flying car before Professor McGonagall had contacted them.

Over the next two weeks, Harry lived in comfort. He helped with small chores like de-gnoming the garden, but no one had to do all that much with so many people in the house to share the work. (What a novel concept!) He played Quidditch with Ron, Fred, and George, and he was regaled with tales of Mr. Weasley's raids on misused muggle artifacts in the evenings. Soon, the Hogwarts letters arrived with their new book lists, mainly books by some famous dark creature hunter named Lockhart, but Harry had another reason to be excited: Hermione wrote them and told them she'd convinced her parents to let her stay at the Burrow for a week after they met in Diagon Alley on the nineteenth. Hermione was the one who had asked Professor McGonagall to save him from the Dursleys. He had a lot to thank her for.

Of course, his good luck had to run out sometime, and when they went to Diagon Alley, Harry managed to Floo himself into Knockturn Alley instead.

Hermione eagerly pulled her parents through Diagon Alley toward Gringotts on the nineteenth of August. Her parents were understandably uneasy. After all, they had never had a close encounter with wizards that hadn't come off as strange, at best, though they were much calmer than they had been at the start of the summer. Hermione was very glad that her parents had made her see a counsellor over what had happened last spring. It had been a real job coming up with a story that got the gist of it across without mentioning magic, but talking with a professional about her trials had definitely helped her come to terms with what had happened, and the nightmares had mostly stopped by now. In any case, her parents her eager to meet her friends, who, to hear her tell it, were quite exceptional themselves: Ron Weasley, the chessmaster, and Harry Potter, the Quidditch prodigy. Granted, they were troublemakers with a knack for rushing into danger, but they were boys, so what did you expect?

However, at the moment, neither Harry nor any Weasleys were to be seen in Diagon Alley. They must be early. Mum and Dad decided to go up to Gringotts first to get some money changed before looking around for them. It was only as they were ascending the marble steps that Hermione turned around and happened to see a huge man with a wild, black beard and hair, and she stopped her parents in her tracks.

"Mum, Dad, there's Hagrid," she said. She looked closer. "And Harry! Harry! Harry! Over here!" she called, and she ran down the steps toward him. But she slowed as she approached. He was covered in dust and soot, and his glasses were snapped clean in two. "Harry, what happened to you?"

"Um…Floo Powder accident," he muttered.

Hermione chose to let this go. "Oh, hello, Hagrid," she said brightly. "It's wonderful to see you two again. These are my parents—" She was aware that her parents were standing behind her, staring up slack-jawed at Hagrid's enormous face.

"Harry—oh, thank goodness!" came a yell, and there was a commotion as a large mass of redheads came sprinting up the crowded street and immediately set upon Harry. "We thought you'd gone to the other end of the country!"

The Grangers all watched curiously as Mrs. Weasley brushed Harry off with a large clothes brush that she just happened to carry around while Mr. Weasley magically repaired Harry's glasses. Through the confusion, it eventually emerged that they had all travelled to Diagon Alley by fireplace, like Hermione had read about, but Harry had mispronounced the location and come out in the seediest part of magical London by mistake. By coincidence, he had seen Draco Malfoy's father selling what were presumably dark artifacts, something Mr. Weasley was very pleased about. Finally, they got everything sorted out so Hermione could introduce her family.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley," she said primly, shaking the elder Weasleys' hands. "I'm Hermione Granger, and these are my parents, Daniel and Emma."

"And you're muggles," Mr. Weasley said delightedly. "Such an honour, it is. We're very excited to have your daughter over for the week. The boys have told us so much about you," he added to Hermione. "It sounds as if you're even better at Arithmancy than our son, Bill, and he got an O on his N.E.W.T."

"Well…" Hermione started, turning pink.

"It's very generous of you have Hermione over," Mum replied. "We're glad she's met such good friends at Hogwarts."

"Well, anyone who can get Ron to buckle down and do his work…" Mrs. Weasley said.

"Oi, Mum!"

"In fact," she continued, "we were hoping the two of you could come for dinner tonight. Then you can see where Hermione will be staying."

"I—we—thank you," Mum said in surprise. "If it's not any trouble—"

"No trouble at all," Mr. Weasley replied. "Molly loves having house guests. You can just Floo back to the Alley afterwards." He saw all three Grangers cast a nervous eye at Harry. "Oh, don't worry about that. It's really quite safe if you pronounce your destination correctly."

"Well, we'd be happy to come, thank you," Dad said.

The large group split up after leaving the bank and wandered around the alley. Harry treated Ron and Hermione to ice cream as a thanks for getting him away from his relatives, and he explained his predicament with Dobby the house elf. Hermione agreed that it sounded very strange and suggested that they ask Tilly about it when they got to school. Hermione took care of her own shopping—she mostly just needed quills, ink and parchment, besides the books, and they met up with Fred, George, and Lee Jordan in the joke shop.

"Hello, Hermione," George said. "Good to see you."

"Uh huh. You, too," she said.

"I take it you've been a good girl and stayed out of trouble this summer?" Fred said with a grin.

"Yes, I have," Hermione said, turned up her nose a shade. "I take it you two haven't?" She eyed the fireworks they were stocking up on suspiciously.

"Naturally," Fred replied.

"As we're not girls," George added.

"Do we want to know—?" Mum started.

"No," all of the students said at once.

Finally, they reached the book shop, where a surprisingly large crowd was gathered. A banner above the entrance explained why: GILDEROY LOCKHART will be signing copies of his autobiography MAGICAL ME today 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

"Gilderoy Lockhart?" Hermione squealed. "Mum, Dad, he's the one who wrote all those defence books. He must be completely brilliant. We can actually meet him!" She eagerly pulled her parents into the line. She was so excited that she barely even noticed that most of the crowd seemed to be middle-aged witches. Mrs. Weasley seemed almost as excited as Hermione as she joined the line, but the boys all looked put off by the whole thing.

Gilderoy Lockhart slowly came into view. He was a handsome young wizard with wavy blond hair and a dazzlingly—perhaps magically—white smile. Hermione thought he looked dashing in his forget-me-not blue robes, with his pointed hat cocked at an angle, smiling and winking at the crowd, just like the pictures that graced his many book covers.

But as she drew near, it was Harry who grabbed Lockhart's attention. Lockhart pulled him out of line, posed the dazed-looking boy for the Daily Prophet, and took the opportunity to announce that he would be this year's Defence Professor at Hogwarts. Hermione squealed even more loudly at the news and cheered along with the rest of the crowd. Quirrell may have been incompetent and possessed, but surely Lockhart would be an excellent Defence teacher. After all, who could be better than a teacher who wrote the books on defence? Harry, however, looked annoyed by the encounter, and he immediately handed his stack of books off to Ginny, who, unseen by him, froze wide-eyed at the gift.

But just then, Hermione heard a voice that made her blood run cold.

"Bet you loved that, didn't you, Potter? Famous Harry Potter, can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page."

"Malfoy," Hermione whispered to her parents, not taking her eyes off the blond boy.

"Is he the one who jinxed you?" Dad whispered back.

"Uh huh."

Her father looked like he wanted to go over and give Malfoy a piece of his mind, but she put up a hand for him to stay back. It would be no good trying without magic, plus Malfoy's father was sure to be lurking around somewhere.

"Oh, it's you," said Ron, looking at Malfoy as if he were something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe. "Bet you're surprised to see Harry here, eh?"

"Not as surprised as I am to see you in a shop, Weasley," retorted Malfoy. "I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those."

Ron, Fred, and George all started toward Malfoy, but Harry, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley held them back.

"And Granger," Malfoy added. "I thought I smelled your stink around here."

Her father grumbled something equally impolite and took a step towards Malfoy (and so did Ron), but he was interrupted by the arrival of a wizard with long, blond hair and an identical sneer to Draco's.

"Well, well, well—Arthur Weasley," Malfoy Senior said smugly.

"Lucius," said Mr. Weasley, nodding coldly.

"Busy time at the Ministry, I hear," said Mr. Malfoy. "All those raids…I hope they're paying you overtime?" He reached into Ginny's cauldron and extracted, from amid the glossy Lockhart books, a very old, very battered copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration. "Obviously not. Dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"

The Grangers hadn't really expected anything different, but it was still jarring to see that Draco's father was just as bad as he was. Hermione pushed her parents back a step as they watched the exchange.

Mr. Weasley flushed darker than either Ron or Ginny. "We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy," he said.

"Clearly," said Mr. Malfoy. He turned to face Hermione's parents directly. Draco had surely told him they were muggles. "The company you keep, Weasley…and I thought your family could sink no lower—"

Hermione fumed at the insult, but she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut. She hoped that her parents would bear it, too, but the point was soon moot, since Mr. Weasley didn't take so kindly to someone insulting his guests. He lunged at Mr. Malfoy, and they both fell back into a bookshelf. The Grangers all jumped back. There was confusion as Mr. Weasley's children egged him on, while his wife tried to stop him, and more shelves toppled over. But suddenly, a deep voice boomed over the fray.

"Break it up, there, gents, break it up—" Hagrid was wading toward them through the sea of books. In an instant he had pulled Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy apart. Mr. Weasley had a cut lip and Mr. Malfoy had been hit in the eye by an Encyclopedia of Toadstools. He was still holding Ginny's old Transfiguration book.

He thrust it at her, his eyes glittering with malice. "Here, girl—take your book—it's the best your father can give you—" Pulling himself out of Hagrid's grip he beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop.

"Terribly sorry about that, you three," Mr. Weasley apologised after brushing himself off and being thoroughly chastised by his wife. "You shouldn't have had to see us fighting like that. Of course, you shouldn't have to deal with people like Lucius Malfoy, either—think they're better than everyone else, magic and non-magic alike."

"Joke's on them," Ron spoke up. "Hermione got better marks than Draco Malfoy in every class."

Hermione turned pink and said, "Yes, but that's the reason he's so mad at me."

"Well, just don't let him control your life," her mother said. "That's the best thing you can do about a bully."

"I quite agree," Mrs. Weasley said, giving sharp looks to her sons.

They reached the Leaky Cauldron, and the elder Weasleys explained how to use the Floo—more carefully than they had apparently told Harry. Mr. Weasley stepped through to set the wards for visitors, and then the rest of the party followed. Thankfully, this time, it went without a hitch.