Chapter One
Harry woke up and just for a moment, he felt like everything was OK.
This was his bed at Grimmauld Place, unchanged since he was old enough to leave his cot. The blankets smelt the way they always did; slightly of lilies as it made Kreacher laugh. The room felt the same as it always had done; slightly warm, it being summer, with a cool breeze from the open window. It was all perfect.
It meant that, just for a moment, Harry could pretend that everything really was OK, that everything else was the way it always had been.
And then the crushing silence hit him, bringing with it the never ending feelings of hopelessness and fear that had swallowed him so thoroughly lately.
Things weren't how they'd always been, the lack of noise told him that. Grimmauld Place was not a small house, but it was still a house as opposed to a mansion and there were a lot of people who lived there normally. Even when it was just Harry as a child, there were three adults and a house elf as well. Add another adult and one very loud little girl and the house was always alive with noise.
It wasn't now though. Now it was filled with a silence, a silence that felt nothing but wrong.
Sirius still lay in a hospital bed in St Mungo's.
Danica was already at Malfoy Manor, struggling to adjust after her world was torn apart, painfully literally, at the end of last school year.
Nikka was also at Malfoy Manor, she'd been fired from the Ministry… again. After making a comment about the new policy to arrest werewolves on sight, no other crime than daring to breathe needed, she was deemed to have views that contradicted the Ministry's too much. Nikka hadn't cared all that much, it paled in comparison to everything else she was going through. She did, however, throw a cactus at her boss, who had been so shocked he hadn't reacted quickly enough and ended up with a large group of nasty spikes in his cheek.
Severus… Harry didn't know where his father was right now. They'd had an all too brief goodbye just before Harry had left Hogwarts, after a fight that had killed Dumbledore and Petal, the Malfoys' long serving and much loved house elf. Harry had always known that there wouldn't be any contact, but he couldn't stop himself from hoping.
Lily, his mother, was the only other person in the house with him now.
She'd picked him up from King's Cross station the night before and they had spent the night in almost silence. They had tried putting the radio on and talking to one another, but every sound they had made cut through the house like a knife; so in the end, they left it and went to bed early.
It was only one night they would be spending here though. Lily hadn't explained all of the details, but it was magic linked to Harry and her family that meant no one would be able to touch them until he turned seventeen then Grimmauld Place, or where ever Harry counted as home, would have to rely on other methods of protection, all of which had their weaknesses or down sides that this other magic didn't have.
The magic could be broken earlier though, if Harry left a place for the last time knowing it would not be home any more.
That is why Harry was laying in his old bed, in the normal blankets, with the normal window cracked open in an almost empty house.
As far as the Ministry knew, the plan was to move him the night before he turned seventeen. The plan according to the Order of Phoenix was to move him on the thirteenth, in a hugely complicated manner, involving several doubles of Harry and safe houses.
This, however, was a plan that Dumbledore had made and currently neither Harry or Lily trusted Dumbledore as much as they trusted Voldemort himself.
So Lily had made a new plan, a plan that there was no chance that anyone had leaked as no one but Lily and Harry even knew about the plan. They would move that day, only one night after Harry had finished his sixth year at Hogwarts.
Harry had no objections. It put less people in danger, something he would take at every chance. People were going to be in a lot of danger until Harry and his friends completed their impossible task and Harry wouldn't allow it to extend any more than needed.
It also meant that he would get back to Danica sooner. She wasn't OK, Harry knew that, he also knew that no one would be OK after what she had been through.
News that there had been two werewolf attacks that night before Lucius Malfoy had killed Fenrir Greyback, a somewhat infamous werewolf, had spread through the school like wild fire and for the first time Harry realised just how much his mother and friends had protected him from the general werewolf hate that was about.
Every time someone bought the idea that Severus had killed Dumbledore out of anger of losing his very much alive daughter Harry felt another wave of nausea. He'd been close to smacking Tracey Davis as she sat on the train, saying it would have been better if the girl had died, at least she'd have died as a human rather than a half-breed.
However, it wasn't what needed worrying about right now. Lily was awake, he could hear her tiptoeing around downstairs and dropping a pan or pot in the kitchen.
His ability to lay in bed and feel sorry for himself and everything that had happened, for everything that was going to happen wasn't going to be able to last, so he pulled himself into a sitting position and shoved his glasses onto his nose.
He dressed quickly and left his trunk for his mother to shrink so it would fit in his rucksack. He knew the spell, it wasn't even particularly difficult, but it was clear to anyone looking that the Ministry was, in part at least, controlled by Voldemort and they couldn't take the risk of them finding out he'd done under age magic.
Hedwig's cage was empty already, they'd let her out as soon as they'd gotten home and told her to head for Malfoy Manor, far more comfortable for her to travel that way than being shrunk and stuffed in a rucksack.
Harry looked around his room. It had been emptied by his mother and Kreacher and already moved to his new room; part of Draco's suit was now covered in Harry's things.
He took one last, long look around the room and shut his window before heading down to the kitchen.
The Black Family tapestry stood proudly on the dinning room wall, his own face smiling out at him. Harry ignored it, it was too painful right now.
"You're up." Lily smiled, "I was just about to come grab you."
She handed him a couple of slices of toast and slid into her own seat at the large, beech kitchen table. They ate in silence, as they had the night before. He sound of their crunching filling the space.
Lily sighed and looked tearfully around, "You grew up here… I never thought we'd leave."
Harry wasn't sure what to say, he felt the same way and yet, here they were.
"Will we come back?" Harry asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Lily forced a smile and shrugged, "I don't know. I hope so. We've got a lot of memories here, but it won't be for a long time."
Harry knew they had dragged on their leaving as much as they could and it was time to get going.
Lily popped upstairs and shrunk Harry's trunk, small enough so it fit in the palm of her hand, and popped it into his rucksack, handing it to him as they stood in the hallway.
"You understand that you will be leaving this house, possibly to never return and certainly not before you are an adult? That it will no longer be… home?" Lily asked, her voice cracking at the end.
Harry took a deep breath to steady himself, why was this so hard? He didn't know but it was.
"Yes." Harry said firmly, "I understand."
He thought he could feel a rush of magic, although he knew that it was unlikely, that it was just his mind playing tricks.
He followed his mother out of the front door. They didn't bother to lock the door, it would be of no help if Death Eaters came calling and normal Muggles thinking to rob the place couldn't see it.
Harry wasn't sure exactly how they would be getting to Malfoy Manor. He knew it was a way that Lily hoped would be unexpected and for that reason they would be safe.
They jumped on the first bus that came along to the bottom of their road and Harry sat, slightly awkwardly on the seat with his rucksack squashed against the back rest.
He could of laughed when they got off at the King's Cross stop. Harry knew he wouldn't be returning here that September, Severus had warned him that he couldn't go back to school, that he couldn't finish his education.
All of a sudden it seemed like an awfully big thing to give up.
"Harry?" Lily asked softly, "Are you all right?"
Harry forced himself back to the task at hand and nodded, "Yeah sorry, I was just thinking about school."
"Understandable." Lily smiled, wishing there was something she could do to help him, "Come on, we should hurry."
They hopped onto the tube and Harry once again found himself squashed as people around him tried to get to work. It seemed unfair that the rest of the world hadn't stopped after everything that happened had happened. They all just carried on as his world crashed down around him and he tried to grab at the most important pieces as they fell.
"We should get some lunch." Lily mused, looking around Euston station.
Harry nodded, and forced himself to pick out a sandwich, drink and packet of crisps from a little shop that sold sweets and books, shoving them in his already full rucksack.
The next train was much quieter and more suited to long distance so Lily and Harry were able to get a table and sprawl out a little.
Harry sat, pretending to read his book with his head pressed against the cold glass as his scar prickled. Lily watched him closely as she sipped her over-priced coffee.
"I must admit," Harry said after half an hour, desperate to break the silence, "I was expecting something more dramatic; guards, shooting spells… maybe a chase?" he smirked.
Lily laughed, "Well as fun as that sounds, I figured that this would be best. We had a four hour long meeting over how best to move you and no one suggested just sticking you on a train or a bus. And then Dumbledore made the comment about how strange it was for Voldemort to use a muggle sweet to poison Draco." she shrugged slightly, "I figured it was worth a try. I could chase you up and down the carriage for a bit if it would make you feel better?"
Harry snorted out a large mouthful of coke, stinging his nose horribly, "I'll pass thanks. But you could of at least splurged for first class." he said, sticking his nose in the air.
Lily rolled her eyes, "You've been spending too much time around purebloods."
Harry sniggered, "Yes m…"
Lily shot him a warning look, trying to keep the smile from her face.
"Mum… I was going to say mum. Possibly mother." Harry laughed.
"Yes dear." Lily said with a smile, shaking her head.
Three hours later, they got off the train onto a very old English platform. It wasn't busy, but wasn't empty either.
Lucius was sitting on one of the many hard and cold metal chairs, reading a muggle paper. Harry suspected that his mother had helped him dress as he looked very relaxed in neat slacks and checked shirt, his long hair in a slightly messy ponytail down his back.
He spotted them and walked causally over, kissing Lily on the cheek although Harry was at the right angle to see that his lips barely touched her skin.
Harry knew why; it was just in case they were seen, or maybe they wanted to be seen, he wasn't sure but he knew that they were meant to have just run off with one another after a long affair, lasting several years in secret before they just couldn't help themselves any more.
However as both of them still were very much in love with their actual partners, a kiss on the cheek was enough of a public show with out twisting the knife in their hearts too much.
"We have about six minutes." Lucius told them, looking up at the large clock on the platform, "I've found a private room, this way."
Harry and Lily nodded and followed Lucius through the people and platforms to a small, bleach-smelling room filled with mops and stacks of blue paper towels.
Lucius pulled out a small, chipped tea cup and held it out for them all. It wasn't long before Harry felt the tug of a portkey and they flew to Malfoy Manor.
Harry was not expecting the rush of magic to cover him when he landed, leaving the hair on his arms standing on end.
"What was that?" Harry asked, looking around, half expecting lightening to hit him at any moment.
"Blood wards." Lucius said simply, "We've been feeding them again, haven't needed to since the last war and even then, not to full strength like they are now." he looked around worriedly.
"Harry!" Draco excited cry broke through their thoughts.
Draco ran down the long, cobbled path and threw his arms around his friend, "Welcome home!"
Harry snorted a laugh. He was never going to live somewhere like this permanently, that's what holidays with very rich friends were for!