The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive. Cars that were usually gleaming stood dusty in their drives and lawns that were once emerald green lay parched and yellowing; the use of hosepipes had been banned due to drought. Deprived of their usual car-washing and lawn-mowing pursuits, the inhabitants of Privet Drive had retreated into the shade of their cool houses, windows thrown wide in the hope of tempting in a nonexistent breeze. The only person left outdoors was a teenage boy who was lying flat on his back in a flower bed outside number four.

"Yeah. It was hot this past summer." Ginny noted.

He was a skinny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who had the pinched, slightly unhealthy look of someone who has grown a lot in a short space of time.

"I honestly didn't notice your height change." Ron said.

Harry Potter's appearance did not endear him to the neighbors, who were the sort of people who thought scruffiness ought to be punishable by law, but as he had hidden himself behind a large hydrangea bush this evening he was quite invisible to passersby.

"Especially considering they thought I was a criminal." Harry grumbled under his breath.

"Watching the news . . ." he said scathingly. "I'd like to know what he's really up to. As if a normal boy cares what's on the news — Dudley hasn't got a clue what's going on, doubt he knows who the Prime Minister is! Anyway, it's not as if there'd be anything about his lot on our news —"

Everybody glared at the book.

Harry listened to a jingle about Fruit 'N Bran breakfast cereal while he watched Mrs. Figg, a batty, cat-loving old lady from nearby Wisteria Walk, amble slowly past.

Dumbledore smiled slightly at the mention of his old friend.

"Dudders out for tea?"

"Unlikely." Ron grumbled.

The Dursleys really were astonishingly stupid about their son, Dudley; they had swallowed all his dim-witted lies about having tea with a different member of his gang every night of the summer holidays. Harry knew perfectly well that Dudley had not been to tea anywhere; he and his gang spent every evening vandalizing the play park, smoking on street corners, and throwing stones at passing cars and children.

"That's horrible!" All the female adults exclaimed.

He kept listening, just in case there was some small clue, not recognized for what it really was by the Muggles — an unexplained disappearance, perhaps, or some strange accident . . . but the baggage-handlers' strike was followed by news on the drought in the Southeast

"Nope." Harry dropped an emphasis on the 'e'.

A loud, echoing crack broke the sleepy silence like a gunshot; a cat streaked out from under a parked car and flew out of sight; a shriek, a bellowed oath, and the sound of breaking china came from the Dursleys' living room,

"Did somebody just Apparate into a Muggle suburb?" Amelia asked.

Harry felt as if his head had been split in two; eyes streaming, he swayed, trying to focus on the street and spot the source of the noise, but he had barely staggered upright again when two large purple hands reached through the open window and closed tightly around his throat.

"Get your hands off of him!" Sirius and Remus growled.

"Put — it — away!" Uncle Vernon snarled into Harry's ear. "Now!

Before — anyone — sees!"

"What's the matter? Afraid your perfect image will get ruined?" Harry spat as he said the last line.

Harry pulling at his uncle's sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wand. Then, as the pain in the top of Harry's head gave a particularly nasty throb, Uncle Vernon yelped and released Harry as though he had received an electric shock — some invisible force seemed to have surged through his nephew, making him impossible to hold.

Everybody chuckled.

"What the devil do you mean by it, boy?" asked Uncle Vernon in a croaky voice that trembled with fury.

Everybody rolled their eyes.

"Listening to the news," said Harry in a resigned voice.

"I had a right to! My worst enemy could have killed you." Harry said.

"The owls . . . aren't bringing me news," said Harry tonelessly.

Harry glared at Ron, Hermione, and Sirius.

Harry merely glanced at the front page before throwing it aside these days; when the idiots who ran the paper finally realized that Voldemort was back it would be headline news, and that was the only kind Harry cared about.

Everybody glared at Fudge and Umbridge, who lowered from their glances.

"We can't say much about you-know-what, obviously. . . ." "We've been told not to say anything important in case our letters go astray. . . ." "We're quite busy but I can't give you details here. . . ." "There's a fair amount going on, we'll tell you everything when we see you. . . ."

Ron and Hermione looked at each other with guilty looks.

Hermione had scribbled, "I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon" inside his birthday card, but how soon was soon?

People gave Harry looks of pity and sympathy, but he either shrugged or rolled his eyes at this. He was quite annoyed at everybody treating him like he needed sympathy.

Hermione and Ron were in the same place, presumably at Ron's parents' house.

"Wrong again." Ron said.

Harry playfully punched him at this.

In fact, he was so angry at them that he had thrown both their birthday presents of Honeydukes chocolates away unopened, though he had regretted this after eating the wilting salad Aunt Petunia had provided for dinner that night.

"I'm sorry." Harry mumbled.

Severus raised an eyebrow at this. James (in his teenage years at least), never once apologized to his friends if he hurt their feelings. Maybe Harry is more like Lily than I thought, Snape thought.

Hadn't it been he who had entered that graveyard and watched Cedric being murdered and been tied to that tombstone and nearly killed . . . ?

"He's got a point you know." Sirius said to Mrs. Weasley.

"He's just a boy." she replied.

"So are Ron, Fred and George." Sirius replied.

Mrs. Weasley rolled her eyes at this.

He turned a corner into Magnolia Crescent; halfway along he passed the narrow alleyway down the side of a garage where he had first clapped eyes on his godfather. Sirius, at least, seemed to understand how Harry was feeling; admittedly his letters were just as empty of proper news as Ron and Hermione's,

Sirius gave a guilty look and turned into a dog and licked Harry.

"Get off, Padfoot, it tickles." Harry said.

Sirius then smirked. Harry hit him.

"Keep your nose clean and everything will be okay. . . ."

"Ironic coming from the immature ex-convict." Snape said.

Sirius rolled his eyes playfully at Severus.

Nevertheless, it was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen hippogriff. . . .

"Exactly!" Snape said. He was still shocked that Harry's thought process was similar to his own.

The figure in front was unmistakably his cousin, Dudley Dursley, wending his way home, accompanied by his faithful gang.

"Shit!" Sirius said dramatically.

"Language, Sirius, there are children here." Remus said.

"Who are older than 9 years old, Remus." Sirius said.

The professors (except Snape and Umbridge, of course) and Harry and his group smiled at the banter between the two of them.

Dudley was as vast as ever, but a year's hard dieting and the discovery of a new talent had wrought quite a change in his physique. As Uncle Vernon delightedly told anyone who would listen, Dudley had recently become the Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion of the Southeast.

"Wow, such a great accomplishment." Ron said sarcastically.

Harry was not remotely afraid of his cousin anymore but he still didn't think that Dudley learning to punch harder and more accurately was cause for celebration.

"You think?" Hermione said playfully.

He'd love to vent some of his frustration on the boys who had once made his life hell —

"Do it!" chanted Fred, George, and Ginny, but at a stare from Mrs. Weasley, they stopped.

Nothing rash. Kept my nose clean. Exactly the opposite of what you'd have done . . .

"Nice right hook, Big D," said Piers.

All the females who had children or grandchildren shook their heads.

"Cool name," said Harry, grinning and falling into step beside his cousin. "But you'll always be Ickle Diddykins to me."

Everybody burst into laughter, except Fudge and Umbridge.

"You don't tell her to shut her face. What about 'popkin' and 'Dinky Diddydums,' can I use them then?"

Everybody burst into laughter again, except Fudge and Umbridge.

"Yeah? Did he say you look like a pig that's been taught to walk on its hind legs? 'Cause that's not cheek, Dud, that's true . . ."

The laughter was more. Snape thought that Dudley deserved it, after years of bullying and tormenting Harry.

"He was sixteen for your information," snarled Dudley,

Everybody was shocked at this, especially Ron and Hermione.

Dudley gave a harsh bark of laughter then adopted a high-pitched, whimpering voice. " 'Don't kill Cedric! Don't kill Cedric!' Who's Cedric — your boyfriend?"

Everybody glared at the book like it was supposed to get caught on fire.

The balmy evening was suddenly piercingly, bitingly cold. They were surrounded by total, impenetrable, silent darkness, as though some giant hand had dropped a thick, icy mantle over the entire alleyway, blinding them.

"Dementors." Remus noted.

Harry nodded his head.

"I'll t-tell Dad!" Dudley whimpered. "W-where are you? What are you d-do — ?"

"It's not him, you pig!" Ron exclaimed.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Amelia smiled at that. So, he was protecting himself. She thought.

"Bow to death, Harry. . . . It might even be painless. . . . I would not know. . . . I have never died. . . ."

Everybody flinched at Voldemort's voice.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Amelia smiled again and glared at Umbridge. She had suspected since the trial that Umbridge was the one to send the Dementors, not Voldemort like Dumbledore suggested.

Dudley lay curled up on the ground, whimpering and shaking.

"What did he see?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged.

"Maybe he saw himself as what he is, a bully." Hermione suggested.

"Don't put it away, idiot boy!" she shrieked. "What if there are more of them around? Oh, I'm going to kill Mundungus Fletcher!"

All of the Order members smiled at the mention of their old friend.