Harry lounged high above the school, trying to relax and enjoy the summer sunshine on his face. The warm July breeze ruffled his hair as he leaned back and lay flat on his Nimbus 2000, the enchantments on the racing broom ensuring his comfort as he tried to take his mind off of his current conundrum. He didn't bother with the full school uniform since he was the only student here over the summer, but he didn't have any other clothes that weren't Dudley's cast offs, so he continued to wear his button-down and slacks. He never liked the robes though, they always felt too restrictive in case he needed to run.

He had been on summer vacation for over a month now, and in some ways it was fantastic. Being free of the Dursleys was a huge weight off of his chest. He knew that at some point his monsters would return and he may regret the loss of a safe haven, but he was done cowering in the cupboard under the stairs. He felt powerful, the Cloak of Invisibility sitting comfortably in his soul and his magic expanding and slowly swirling around him. He may not have won against Voldemort, but he had fought the Dark Lord and walked away alive. He had mastered one of the aspects of Death. He should be feeling pretty good, all things considered.

Except that Hermione hadn't answered any of his letters.

He told himself that he didn't have to be worried. She was probably just having a normal summer. Maybe she was busy, or her parents grounded her or something. But he knew that he was lying to himself. He was worried. She hadn't sent a signal for help with the bracelet, and it couldn't be taken from her by force, but still…

A small voice in his head wondered if she just didn't want to talk to him. But that didn't make sense, she had asked (ordered, really) him to write to her. There was definitely something going on, some factor that was beyond his sight. He wasn't sure what to do about it.

Harry looked up at the clear blue sky and then over at the horizon. It was just after breakfast, and he had the whole day ahead of him. He could feel which direction led to her from the bracelet…

Could he just… go to her?

It couldn't be that far to London, right? He could fly pretty fast, although he never tested his top speed…

There was also the Mark of Sacrifice problem to consider. He didn't want to attract any demon monsters to her house.

He deliberated for several long minutes.

Would Hermione want me to go?

Yes. Yes, she would. He supposed it really was that simple then.

Harry smiled wider than he had in weeks and sat up. Channeling his magic into the broom underneath him, he rocketed south with a thundering boom.

"Writing another letter to Harry?"

Hermione looked up at her mum from her desk. She had been glaring at the half full piece of parchment for several minutes and didn't know how long her mother had been standing in the doorway.

"He still hasn't replied. It's been over a month!" She sighed in frustration as she leaned back and her mother walked into the room.

"Maybe the letters are getting lost in the mail?" Her mum asked.

"It's a guaranteed owl post from Diagon, Mum. They're magic, post owls don't just lose letters."

"Hmmmm. Well, I'm sure everything is ok, he's at the school after all. Maybe you could owl one of the professors? Maybe the one who came by the house and turned into a cat? Professor McGonagall, right? You said that you liked her in your letters last year."

Hermione groaned. "I can't just pester a teacher because my friend is ignoring me. Besides, he's probably off doing something important. Maybe he's helping the headmaster find another ancient artifact that can eat souls or something."

"I'm sure that they wouldn't mind. It's just to double check after all," her mother said.

Hermione hadn't really explained most of what happened last year to her parents, but she had told them a lot about Harry while trying to avoid anything too sensitive. She wasn't sure if Harry wanted her to keep his powers secret from them or not. She was pretty sure he would be alright with her telling them the truth, but she hadn't thought to ask and now he wasn't answering her letters.

She took a deep breath. "Look Mum, I can't tell you everything because it's not my secret to tell. But Harry is important. I know that I mentioned that he was famous for surviving Voldemort as a baby but it's a lot more than that. He's… powerful, Mum. He calls the headmaster Albus! His magic is special and… it's like…" she floundered for a moment, trying to find the right metaphor to describe Harry Potter to her mundane mother. "He's like… twelve-year-old wizard Jesus or something." She looked down at her desk with a blank expression while her stomach tightened and she whispered, "Oh god my best friend is wizard Jesus."

Her mother chuckled and rubbed her back. "Well, he's still your best friend, so I'm sure that he would be alright with you being worried about him. Even if he is… um… that."

"Maybe wizard Heracles is a better comparison. Did Heracles ever come back from Death in the stories?" Hermione asked absently, still feeling a bit dissociated and trying to control the irrational feelings of inadequacy that just gripped her unexpectedly.

"You may have to explain that one to me a bit more, dear." Her mother sat down on her bed.
Hermione shook her head. "I can't. It's important and I don't want to give away his secrets. It's just hard to explain. He's… he's…"

Hermione sat bolt upright. She felt a familiar spark in her magic, a warm glow of protection and love and home and…

"HE'S HERE!"

Harry descended invisibly towards the posh mundane neighborhood. He let his magic free, extending it out as far as he could in every direction to look for demons. He didn't feel any, but he refused to let his guard down at Hermione's house. He really hoped that he could get through this without any demonic interruption. He was sure that his best friend's parents wouldn't be happy with him if he destroyed their house on his first, impromptu, uninvited visit. He smiled as he felt Hermione's familiar spark below, a powerful soul of magic amid the sea of mundane.

Harry landed in the front yard and quickly sent his broom up to sit on the roof. He didn't want to carry it around the house or have it be seen by any of the neighbors. He did a quick scan with his magic to see if any of the neighbors were looking and then returned to visibility. He straightened his clothes after the long flight, took a deep breath to calm his nerves and knocked on the front door.

It flew open immediately and Hermione stared at him with a mix of apprehension, awe and happiness that seemed pretty similar to his own feelings as they stared at each other in silence for a moment.

"Hi! Umm… you weren't answering my letters, so I thought I would just come… make sure everything was ok?" Harry cursed himself for being so awkward.

Apparently, that was the right thing to say though, because she immediately ran forward and threw her arms around him. He had missed her hugs.

She squeezed him tightly while he hugged her back for several seconds before she pulled back. "Harry! You're here. At my house. Ok. Everything's ok, I thought that you weren't answering my letters! Um, it's fine, come in. How did you get here?" She walked back inside and looked over her shoulder at him as he followed her into the large house.

Harry kicked off his shoes out of habits long ingrained at the Dursleys. It felt bizarre to be back in the mundane world after so long. "I flew." Her eyes widened comically for a moment before she recovered.

"Oh right, like on a broom. You did… fly here on a broom, right?" She said, looking a bit unsure.

Harry laughed. "Yes, I haven't figured out how to fly on my own yet, but it's just a matter of time."

"Of course it is." Hermione rolled her eyes as they continued into her house. A woman with Hermione's golden-brown eyes and curly hair leaned against the counter in the kitchen as they entered, looking at them with a small, amused smile.

"Hello there, you must be Harry," the woman said warmly.

"Harry, this is my mum, Dr. Emma Granger." Hermione said, looking a bit nervous as she glanced from her mother to Harry and back again.

"Just Mrs. Granger please, or Emma is fine too. It gets too confusing with two Dr. Grangers in the house." She smiled at him, and Harry felt some of his nervousness leak away. Manners beaten into him by his relatives quickly came back to the surface.

"It's very nice to meet you, Mrs. Granger. Sorry to drop by without any notice. You have a lovely home." Harry said, and he did mean it even if he was being polite. The Granger house looked very tidy but also… lived in. #4 Privet Drive always felt fake, like the Dursleys were putting on a show for an empty theater. This house radiated the kind of status that the Dursleys could only dream of, but it felt comfortable in a way that theirs never had.

"Thank you, dear. It's very nice to meet one of Hermione's school friends. Have you eaten lunch yet?"

Harry grinned. "Not yet, I've been flying most of the morning."

"That sounds very exciting. You flew all the way from Hogwarts?" Mrs. Granger asked as she started getting food out of the refrigerator. Hermione looked like she was torn between relief and apprehension as she practically vibrated next to him.

"Yes, it was a nice day to go flying and I wanted to see Hermione. Apparently, both of our letters have been getting lost all month." Hermione's mother gestured for them to sit on the stools by the counter as she started working on sandwiches. Harry sat and felt surprisingly at ease here, while Hermione still looked like she was trying not to bounce in her seat.

"Well, that's nice to hear, she has been quite worried about it." Mrs. Granger's eyes sparkled as Hermione groaned. "It might be better if you never get the last couple letters, they were getting… extensive." Hermione's face went red, and she groaned again while her mother grinned. Harry tried not to laugh at her attitude and mostly succeeded.

Hermione glared at her mother, although the expression didn't have any real heat to it. "Harry, can we talk for a moment? In private?" She said, directing the last part to her mother.

"Sure, I can call you when lunch is ready." Mrs. Granger agreed easily, and Hermione was already grabbing Harry's hand and pulling him up the stairs. Harry followed along with a bemused smile. It was jarring but also… nice… to see Hermione around her mundane family.

They made it to Hermione's room, and she shut the door behind him. Harry took a moment to look around. The room definitely looked very Hermione. A large bed sat in one corner and bookshelves took up most of the available wall space. A sizable wooden desk with a computer monitor on it took up one wall of the room, parchment and quills and schoolbooks looking out of place next to the modern PC. A well-used bean bag chair took up one corner with a reading light above it. Overall, it looked very comfortable and warm. Harry turned around to look at his best friend again, noticing that she still looked nervous.

"I like your mum," he said. "She seems…kind. And easy to talk to."

Hermione sighed and flopped into the rolling chair at the desk. "She is wonderful, if a bit too easy to talk to sometimes. It's been hard, trying to tell them about Hogwarts and magic, knowing that they can't really understand." She spun in a circle idly while Harry sat down on the bed. It was such a casual thing to watch her spin the chair like a kid that he almost laughed out loud as a warm feeling grew in his chest.

"What have you told her?" He asked.

"Just… the little stuff, you know?" She said, "Classes, homework, walking around the lake, different spells we've learned and what they do, how Snape is awful, and McGonagall is fantastic. But nothing that feels like it matters. Not the stone or the cloak, or Voldemort, or learning true magic from you. I told them about the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing, but not the rest of it. I didn't want to give away your secrets, not when they weren't mine to tell, and I don't want to freak them out too much either" She rambled, losing steam at the end and looking unsure of herself. "I'm sure they would pull me out in a heartbeat if I told them about the Troll."

Harry winced, understanding now why she seemed so nervous before. "I get it. I have no idea how I would feel with normal parents. I've gotten pretty used to the whole 'better to ask forgiveness than permission' approach." Hermione snorted, and he knew that she was thinking about the fact that he was here, now, when he was clearly supposed to be at school five hundred miles away.

Harry continued, "Maybe we just give them the basics? We don't need to give them all of the gory details, but I'm ok with telling them about my powers and a watered-down version of my conflict with Voldemort. They deserve to know that things might get dangerous."

Hermione nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. Mum was already asking questions that I didn't feel like I could answer without talking to you first. As long as you're sure…"

"I'm sure." Harry smiled at her, "You obviously trust them, so I will too. They aren't just my secrets anymore, they're yours too now."

Hermione quirked a crooked grin back at him. "Joint custody of the secrets then. We can schedule visitation time every other weekend."

"That's not actually funny."

"Your face isn't funny."

"Thank you?"

Hermione's mother called up the stairs, "Kids, lunch is ready!"

Some of her nervousness returned as she sat across the table from Harry, unsure of how to broach the subject of his powers and the dubious events of the previous year with her mother. Harry looked like he was enjoying the sandwiches, which made her smile but also made her sad. She wasn't sure that anyone had ever made him lunch at home before. So many broken little things about her best friend's life snuck up on her at unexpected times.

Her mother leaned over and whispered into her ear. "This is wizard Heracles?" She could hear the grin in her mum's voice as Harry licked a bit of mustard off of one of his fingers.

Hermione's face went red. "Shut up," she said. "You are never ever allowed to tell him that I said that. His head is already big enough."

"What was that?" Harry said from across the table.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." Hermione said, taking a deep breath. "I guess I should explain what I said earlier, Mum. Harry said it was alright if I, I mean we, told you those secrets I mentioned."

Her mother raised her eyebrows expectantly. "I finally get the juicy details about magic school drama?" she said while Hermione groaned again.

"I guess you could call it that." Harry shrugged. "I think the easiest way to start is to talk about Voldemort."

"He's the Dark Lord that you did away with as a baby, right?"

"That's the one. Except unfortunately, baby me didn't do the job properly so he's still around and kicking. He's stuck as a spirit right now, but he's still trying to find a way to return to corporeal form, ascend to godhood, and take over the world." Harry said casually. Hermione put her forehead on the table.

"Alright, I'm following so far. That sounds pretty dangerous for everyone."

"Potentially, yes. So, as part of his long-term plan to achieve those goals, the Dark Lord possessed one of the teachers at the school before the start of last year and spent the year riding around in his soul, getting up to various shenanigans like killing unicorns and trying to murder me during sporting events."

Hermione hit her head against the table.

"Oh... that is unfortunate. I'm assuming that he didn't succeed in killing you?"

"Well. Um. That kinda leads into the second part of what we wanted to talk about. But before we get sidetracked, at the end of the year he tried to steal a magical artifact from the school that would have let him come back to life. He set it up so that the headmaster would be gone when it happened, so I had to stall him for long enough that Dumbledore could get back. It was a very eventful afternoon and he did sort of succeed with the whole 'killing me' thing."

THUNK. Hermione hit her head against the table again.

"You don't look very dead to me, if you don't mind me saying." Mrs. Granger said, looking like she was trying her best to keep the conversation lighthearted. She mostly succeeded.

"On to the second part then. I am a wee bit more powerful than most wizards. It's a very long story but suffice to say that there is a reason that I was the one fighting Voldemort and not, say, a teacher. Also, I am the master of the Shroud of Death, a fragment of divinity that allows me to turn invisible, walk through walls, and hide from Death."

Mrs. Granger's facade cracked a bit. "Sorry, you'll have to explain that last bit."

Harry grinned a bit sheepishly. Hermione knew that he was probably being overly blasé about this to try and lessen the blow, but also because he just didn't know how to talk to people about his secrets.

"With the exception of extremely powerful and esoteric magics, Death cannot find me so I cannot be killed. I am the master of my Soul, and even if my body were to be destroyed, I'm pretty sure that I would be able to either rebuild it from the fragments or use my magic to create a new body before repossessing it. I haven't exactly tested that. The last time my soul was separated from my body, I was able to just kind of pull myself back into it because my body still wasn't too damaged. It would probably be more inconvenient if I was tossed into the sun or something."

THUNK.

There was a moment of silence following his statement, aside from Hermione's self-flagellation.

"Holy cow Hermione, he is wizard Jesus!"

"MUM!"

Harry stared at the canopy of his four poster bed. All in all, it had been a pretty fantastic day. He had left pretty quickly after talking some more with Mrs. Granger and promising Hermione that he would look into the letter issue. He didn't want to risk staying any longer just in case a demon showed up. He hadn't thought that anyone had noticed that he was gone, until Albus casually asked how Miss Granger was doing on his way into the Great Hall for dinner, his eyes twinkling mischievously. Cheeky old man. At least it didn't seem like Harry was going to get in trouble or anything.

He still didn't know what was going on with his letters. It occurred to him earlier that Neville hadn't responded either, he just hadn't noticed while he was preoccupied thinking about Hermione. Maybe it was something to do with the school wards? Or maybe the letters were going to the Dursleys? He laughed to himself at the idea of owl after owl harassing the Dursleys after they thought that they were finally rid of him. Maybe he should go check just in case.

There was a loud crack and Harry jumped about a foot and a half off the bed as a small, stunted, imp-like creature with bulbous eyes and bat ears appeared in the dormitory. Harry was automatically bringing his hand forward and pulling on his magic, green light sparking and flowing down his arm as the power gathered in his palm and-

"Dobby is sorry, Master Harry Potter Sir!"

What. The. Hell.

Harry froze and pulled the blast back just before he turned the diminutive creature into bloody confetti and sat up on the edge of his bed, staring at the weird little thing as it shuffled nervously in place in front of him.

"Not to be rude, but what are you?" Harry asked.

"Dobby is a house elf, Harry Potter Sir!" The...elf…squeaked happily.

"Right. Um. That's lovely. Why are you here?"

"Harry Potter must leave Hogwarts at once! There are terrible things at work this year, and Dobby must keep the great Harry Potter safe!"

Harry's mouth opened and closed as he tried to think of anything to say to the strange elf.

"Dobby, I live here. I don't have anywhere else to go. Also, what terrible things? It may be arrogant to say so, but I'm pretty sure that I'm, like, the third most powerful wizard in Britain. If anything terrible is coming, I need to be here."

"Harry Potter must not!" Dobby said, starting to bounce apprehensively. "Even the Great Harry Potter cannot stop what is to come. You must leave!"

"I can't, Dobby. You have to know that. I have friends here, and I won't abandon them or the rest of the school to whatever terrible fate you've foreseen. If it's too strong for me, it will eat the rest of the students for breakfast."

"All the more reason to leave now while you still can, Harry Potter! Dobby thought that you would be willing to leave since your friends won't even write to you-"

Harry froze. "What did you just say?" He hissed, green magic lighting up the room as his eyes and mark glowed ominously.

Dobby shrank away from him. "Dobby just thought… if Harry Potter didn't think that he had friends, that he-"

"YOU HAD NO RIGHT!" Harry yelled, his magic infusing his voice with a terrible echo and sparks of green magic flashing through the air around him. Dobby yelped and fell backwards, pushing himself away from Harry until his back hit Ron's bed.

Harry thrust out a hand and called his magic to him, enveloping Dobby with it and squeezing, lifting the elf off of the floor and holding him, floating, in front of his face. His eyes gave off a powerful green light, no iris or pupil visible in his enraged gaze.

"You will give me the letters, now. And then you will tell me what these terrible events are, or you will leave." Harry whispered to the shaking creature. "Whether you tell me or not, you are NEVER to try to manipulate or 'help' me again, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" He finished with a magically empowered yell.

A stack of letters appeared on his bedside table.

"Dobby cannot say! Dobby must return to his master; Dobby cannot tell the Great Master Harry Potter anything more. Dobby will already have to iron his fingers! Dobby is a bad-"

Harry dropped the elf to the floor, the green glow fading as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, pulling on the Dark of the cloak to help bring him peace as he quashed the urge to disintegrate the diminutive troublemaker. When he finished, he felt more in control and opened his eyes again, staring at the quivering elf.

"You heard what I said then. Leave. And do not attempt to manipulate me again. I am more than capable of fighting my own battles, and do not need your protection or your help. If you find a way to tell me something useful, I won't turn it down, but never presume to interfere with my life without permission."

Dobby disappeared with a crack.

Harry flopped back onto his bed with a loud sigh. He probably could have handled that better, but dammit the little thing pissed him off. Taking his letters and delivering vague warnings of doom. What a waste of time and stress and worry.

Harry was also concerned because he couldn't sense the elf's magic at all.