To Ride the Carousel Again

Chapter 3

Disclaimer. The Harry Potter world and characters belong to JK Rowling.

Thank you for sharing your sand pile.

(Sand piles are cool. You can tunnel Hot Wheels roads into sand piles!)

This story will have a lot of canon 'corner cutting'. It's all occurred

in the original books already, we know what happened, why should I re-hash canon?

Time to hop on the carousel again.

"What's a carousel?" wondered Harry.

*/

Approx. 5,100 words.

/*

Harry woke up as someone banged on his door and screeched at him to get up and start breakfast.

He was half awake, pulling his clothes on when memories of his death and being prepared for his return assaulted him. He stumbled into the closed door, banging his head painfully, as his own mind assailed him. His remembrance was not like some vast wave crashing over him. It was more of an attack of big, squishy balls that burst on impact with his brain.

It took at least five minutes as Harry staggered to the loo, took care of business, and then made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

Running on auto-Point Me, he set about preparing and cooking a dozen eggs, rashers of bacon, a huge skillet of fried potatoes, and the beans with mounds of toast demanded by the grotesquely overweight Vernon and Dudley Dursley.

Doing his chore by rote nearly became dangerous as his almost twelve-year-old body was not as coordinated, or as strong, as he had been after the training he had done in his failed bid to survive the Tri-Wizard Tournament. If he had dropped the heavy fried potato skillet, he would have gotten a hiding from Uncle Vernon.

He wasn't going to wait around in an attempt to get some leftovers for his hungry stomach. But, suddenly he remembered part of what had happened before Dobby had appeared in his room. While washing the plates and wiping down the counters and stove, he managed to filch a bit of bacon and crumbs of sausage the Doubly-Rotund Duo had somehow missed on their plates.

Aunt Petunia graciously gave him two dry pieces of toast for his breakfast.

"As soon as you're done cleaning up, get upstairs and stay there. I have things to do, and I don't want to see your worthless carcass until you start dinner," the shrill, grating voice of Aunt Petunia directed him.

Before Aunt Petunia changed her mind, Harry hurried back up to his room. It was only now to his relief he noticed his door did not yet have the mass of locks on it, or a cat flap in it.

He was greeted with a ruffling of feathers and a soft prek sound from his very first magical friend. He sighed to himself as he scowled at the lock on the door of her cage. Uncle Vernon had locked her cage the afternoon they got back to Privet Drive because he did not want any of the neighbors to see the unnaturalness of an owl flying near the house.

Harry quickly gave her half a piece of toast and the few bits of meat he had pilfered. The semi-starved owl gobbled the bits down.

Harry's nearly overwhelming frustration almost had him getting his wand to Alohamora the lock open when his memory kicked in. He could not get her out until Dobby's appearance.

If he could not stop Dobby from dumping the cake on the wife of who-ever-they-were, he needed a 'clean' wand if he was going to use the letter from Mafalda Hopkirk of the Improper Use of Magic Office as a way to get free of the Dursley's forever.

If he fought the charge, he should get an investigator of some type that maybe Harry could guilt into getting him his Hogwarts stuff out of the house and a trip to Diagon Alley where he could stay.

Harry's escape plotting ran out as he sat there, staring at nothing, overwhelmed by those last frantic memories of the third task, Cedric's death, his Crutiatus torture, his escape, followed by his death. He then morphed into his memories of trying to absorb all the stuff his Reaper had wanted him to learn and remember.

Fear rocketed through him as the thought that he would forget those things on the papers that he had to remember. Forgetting any of the items could become fatal, and worse, letting Snape or Dumbledore know that he remembered them might be just as fatal.

Hurriedly, he jumped up and sprang to dig his hidden muggle-style notebooks and cheap, salvaged biro's out from the loose floorboard under his bed.

Rushing to his rickety, oft-repaired table, he almost broke his barely functional, shakily repaired chair as he hastened to start writing.

As he flipped open a tattered notebook to a blank page he was trying to remember the first sheet of the notes handed to him. Suddenly he could remember the list as though he was looking at it.

Harald James Potter

That's right! My name is Harald! Wait a moment. Why didn't Sirius or Professor Lupin say anything last year to me about being Harald with a dim . . . a dimmer . . . a nickname of Harry?"

Blocked abilities:

Friend to Animals
Partial Metamorphagus
Magical Power, 60 percent

"I've got no idea what a metamorphagus is, but I bet I know what Magical Power blocked by sixty percent means." he thought savagely.

"Parsel language must be a fancy way of saying parseltongue. And a Friend to Animals. Hmmm. Wonder if that's why I seem to understand Hedwig, and usually can get friendly with most dogs and cats. That stupid Ripper that Aunt Marge brings here being the exception of course."

Suddenly a fragment of memory swam into his consciousness. It was like looking at something he had read somewhere.

"Oh, wow!"

Harry sat there in shock as the rest of the reports from the Soul Returnee's stuff seemed to appear in his mind's eye as if he was reading them.

"Quit marveling at how well you suddenly remember things and start writing," a voice in his head that sounded remarkably like Hermione exhorted.

And so, Harry did. Hunched over the rickety table he wrote everything he remembered, and many things he thought he remembered. He wrote about every conversation he had with Erzelkendis and the few words Annika had said.

Another burst of inspiration had him writing down every name of every person he could remember that Voldemort had called to the Riddle graveyard just a few days ago. Well, it was a few days for him.

Then he took his recollections and spent the effort to list them out in some type of Order-of-Importance. "Hermione would be proud of me."

First, was getting to Gringotts. If he was interpreting all this correctly, Gringotts was the key. Becoming Lord Potter would get him emancipated, and therefore no returns to Durzkaban. Ever. "I don't care what Dumbledore says. All I have to do is delay long enough to get Sirius free and he will make sure I never have to come back here."

And if he could get some type of Potter ring he would keep Snivellus and Dumbledore from reading his mind. Which if they did, according to Upper Management, for some reason that escaped him at the moment, they would Obliviate him of anything he had learned to help him fight Voldemort.

Was it like the time turner Hermione used last year, or next year, actually. Did Dumbledore think Harry would mess up time?

But wasn't Harry's knowledge of how to fight Voldemort, especially knowing about those horcruxes thingys, good? Why would the two of them do such a thing?

Dumbledore. It all seemed to circle around and return to Dumbledore. And the Greasy Bat. And when Snivellus was being unfair to everybody, except Slytherins, Dumbledore always backed the potions professor.

As usual, when Harry had a big question or a lot of small questions, he automatically thought of Hermione. All he had to do was contact Hermione and then they both could start looking for some answers.

That was when Real Life came crashing down on Harry's head. He did not know where she was right now. His fourteen-year-old self could not remember where she might be right now. He started looking frantically around his room to see if she had sent a letter that might tell him where she was. If she was home, Harry figured he could take the Knight Bus over to her house.

The panicked search only lasted a few seconds. He suddenly remembered Dobby, that rat-bag, was intercepting all his mail as part of his campaign to keep Harry away from Hogwarts this year.

"Wait a moment, what am I panicking for? Hedwig will find her as long as she is in Europe. And even if everything goes wrong with the cake again, she won't be locked in here with me to starve."

In fact, Harry suddenly remembered that he had not checked on the date to find out how soon his birthday would be. If Dobby didn't listen to him and got him in trouble anyway, Harry was going to scarper that night. The morning would be too late. That was when Vernon had the window bars installed and put all the locks on his door.

In his mind, he was fourteen, almost fifteen now, and he was bound and determined not to be intimidated by the Dursleys into starving to death again.

He may not have seen much of it, or experienced only little of it, but there was a whole great world out there that he wanted to see and be a part of. Dying sucked.

And he was done with letting the 'normal' Dursleys keep him away from it. Yeah, and Dumbledore too.

A problem would be that everyone would see him as a scrawny twelve-year-old. Skinny, under-sized children were given few freedoms in the world.

He was sure Hermione would help him. If he told her he wanted to learn about all the stuff he had just let slide last year so he could fool around with Ron, he would have to fight to keep from being drowned in books. However, he was positive he could rein in her over-the-top-wanting-everybody-else to want-to-learn-everything tendency.

He was going to have to be careful though. She could always tell when he was lying or not telling her the whole truth. He really didn't think he had become a more accomplished liar in two years. He was mentally almost fifteen and his best friend was a twelve-year-old, second-year student who could still probably get better marks in fourth-year classes than him.

As he thought about her, he remembered her running the length of the Great Hall to give him a flying Hermione hug after her release from the infirmary at the end of this year. That damned snake would not get her this time. He was not going through having his heart torn a little more every day he sat with her when she was petrified.

Harry stared at the beginning of his list, not really seeing it as all the other thoughts spilled through his mind.

Dobby. He is the first of the problems I will have to solve. Later on, how do I get Malfoy to give him clothes?

Gringotts. Find out about Lord Potter stuff. Find out how much gold I have. Find out if I can afford to pay to have The Fragment removed. Can I afford to have the blocks removed from my magic and still have enough money to pay for a room at the Leakey for a month? Maybe they can tell me whatever a metamorphagus is.

Find some way to get Sirius out of Azkaban as soon as possible. How do I catch the rat? How do I keep the rat alive? How do I get Sirius out of Azkaban before making an alive Pettigrew, public? Sirius said he was surprised no one had assassinated him while he was stuck in there when we talked in his cave this year. Or, two years from now. Whenever.

Find out what occlumency is and how to learn it.

Make more friends. How? I have Hermione and Ron. And maybe Neville. He never joined in claiming I was crazy or going Dark. Ron though . . I remember how he attacked Hermione when Sirius sent me my Firebolt. And how he constantly harped on it for weeks. I was stupid to go along with him for so long. Then his jealousy and resentment against my being picked by that damned goblet happened in fourth year. And that was only months ago to me.

Harry shied away from those thoughts. He would think about it later.

Find out what a wit-dulling potion was. (Although he was willing to bet what it did and who had given it to him. Snivellus for the potion, and if he was not supposed to find out anything about his heritage, Fumbledork for the charm.) What was a curiosity suppression charm? Again, Harry thought he knew what it was, but maybe Professor Flitwick would give him an answer when school started again.

Further work was interrupted by Aunt Petunia again banging on his door and telling him to get to the kitchen and start on dinner.

After hiding his writings, Harry headed downstairs with a small detour to see the calendar that told him his birthday, and therefore the big client dinner was the day after tomorrow.

His birthday. Although that would never be mentioned by his relatives.

That meant he would be worked like a serf on the lawn and flower garden and cleaning the house like a slave for the next two days. And Dobby would be here then. How was he going to get Dobby free without letting Ginny run rampant again, and getting Dumbledore thrown out of the castle?

Harry could think of no other way to get Mr. Malfoy into Hogwarts with Dobby.

Right after dinner, Vernon grabbed Harry as he was heading up to his room.

"Now listen, Boy. Tomorrow I want the exterior of this house to look as though it could win first place in the Little Whinging House Beautiful Contest. The lawn will be totally smooth. The garden will not have a single weed in it. All the flowers will be trimmed. The sidewalk will be broomed clean and the front steps and porch will be scrubbed. The windows will sparkle and you will wash the front of the house. Got it?"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon."

Harry trudged upstairs, gave Hedwig some tiny meat scraps he had managed to swipe while cooking, and flopped down on his bed.

"How am I supposed to get time to think, Hedwig? They keep me so busy, I can't plan anything," he complained bitterly to his owl.

Hedwig banged her beak on one of the bars of her cage.

"I know, girl. I think I might have a plan. In two days, we will either be free of this hellhole forever, or I'll be in so much trouble that if Dumbledore has to save me, I'll have to do whatever he says, for like, . . ever."

Harry went to bed early as he knew that tomorrow he would have to work until he dropped from exhaustion.

Despite his efforts, he had trouble falling asleep and woke up several times during the night. Fortunately, the hazy nightmares about Cedric dying in the graveyard were not terribly vivid.

Unfortunately, the memories of being Crucio'd and fighting for his life were terribly vivid. Harry was just grateful that his memories of being killed did not appear as nightmares yet.

Unfortunately, he also figured the operative word was, yet.

/*

The banging on his door with his aunt's usual screech to get up and cook breakfast jolted him awake at dawn.

The day that followed went as Harry predicted. He did the front yard mowing, broomed the grass clippings, weeded the front yard flower beds, then did the house and porch washing as they faced south and later on in the bright summer sunshine, the area would become unbearably hot to work hard in.

The side flower beds were trimmed and weeded, followed by the rear yard work. Harry wondered if Dobby was watching like last time, although he was doing the work a day earlier than the first time.

Wait a minute. What had changed so that Vernon had him doing all the same work a day earlier than he had three years ago?

He worried at the thought all day but had no answer.

By dusk, Harry was totally drained.

He had missed dinner due to working, so Petunia gave him a slice of cheese between two stale

crusts of bread and ordered him out of the kitchen. Harry gave half the cheese to Hedwig and

collapsed into bed without undressing.

The next morning followed routine. Banging, screeching, and "Breakfast" jerked both Harry and Hedwig out of their sleep. Hedwig banged the bars of her cage and barked in startlement.

"Keep that ruddy bird quiet!" roared Vernon, happy to start his day by bullying his nephew. (2)

After breakfast, Petunia halted Harry from going back to his room.

"You are going to clean the stairs, the hall, and the bathroom. And you had better be done by noon if you know what's good for you. I want the Masons to be able to eat off that floor," she snarled nastily. "Oh, and use the small scrub brush on the tile of the loo. I want those tiles and the grout to gleam."

Harry knew that the only reason for the small brush order was to make Harry work harder. The brush size would make no difference in the cleaning.

Once Dudley had left the house, Harry started by getting the cleaning supplies from the kitchen. Normally they would be stored in the cupboard under the stairs, but Harry knew that since returning from Hogwarts, his trunk with his wand, all his books, school clothes, and even his faithful Nimbus 2000, had been locked away from him as though he would use its contents to murder the Dursley's in their sleep.

Two hours later, Harry was ready to start on the bathroom, but first, he sneaked in a quick shower under the guise of cleaning the tub. After that, he quickly finished off the sink, tub, and commode.

Only the tile floor was left. However, older and smarter Harry had a trick up his sleeve. Reaching into the cabinet under the sink, he pulled out a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide.

Fifteen minutes later, he was done and the floor sparkled. And with no chlorine smell for Aunt Petunia to yell at him about.

He very carefully sat and enjoyed his quiet time as his aunt did not expect him to finish so quickly. He unhurriedly rearranged the towel cabinet so as to look busy if Petunia managed to sneak up on him.

He used the time doing the mindless task thinking about what he was going to get Dobby to do for him.

And surprising himself, he actually came up with a few plans.

At noon, he gathered up the cleaning supplies and went back down to the kitchen. His Aunt merely pointed at a sandwich (with real meat!) and told him to get to his room and stay there.

Half the ham went to Hedwig. He shoved a finger between the cage bars and tried to scratch her chest a little.

"Think positive thoughts, girl. With some luck, we will both be free of this place later tonight."

Harry lay in his bed and tried to get some rest. He was hoping to have a long night ahead of him.

Just before the Masons arrived, Vernon gathered everyone and had them rehearse their parts in his bid to impress Mr. Mason into giving Uncle Vernon the large order of drills he was positive this dinner would get for him.

It was the same speech he had given before and Harry ignored most of it, although he tried to look attentive when Vernon told him to not make any noise or else. Harry remembered what the 'or else' had done. He had almost lost Hedwig, and that was something he would never forgive.

Dismissed back to his room, Harry again tried to relax and not appear to be waiting for Dobby to show.

In a burst of inspiration, Harry decided to sit at his desk and write a pair of letters. First to Ron to tell him there had been a problem with his mail, but it was sorted now. In his letter to Hermione, he explained that his mail had been intercepted, and he would tell her all about it later. He asked her to feed Hedwig all the owl treats she could eat and possibly a bunch of bacon in the morning.

He read it over and added two more things. Look after Hedwig if she stayed, and begged her not to tell anyone that he had problems at the Dursleys. He would explain that later also.

After all the anticipation and worry, the appearance of Dobby in his bedroom was anticlimactic. Harry just knew when the ragged little elf arrived.

Not wanting to set off the hair-trigger punishment reflex in the elf, Harry turned slowly in the rickety chair to where he felt Dobby was standing and said, "Hello, who are you and why are you here?"

That produced a squeak, followed by Dobby appearing gradually into sight.

"I is Dobby the House Elf, oh Great and Noble Harry Potter," squeaked the diminutive big-eyed, floppy-eared magical person? . . creature?

Harry looked at the little elf. He was wearing a filthy, threadbare pillowcase with ragged cutouts for his neck and arms. Actually looking this time, Harry could see the scars and burn marks on Dobby's hands and ears.

Harry decided to test the waters, so to speak, to find if his memory of tonight was accurate

"Very well, Dobby. You are a house elf. Why are you here?"

"I is here to warn the great Harry Potter that he must not return to Hogwarts this year. There is a plot. A plot to make the most terrible things happen at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year." (2)

Again, Harry decided to follow the semi-remembered script. "But I have to return to Hogwarts. You don't know what it's like here. They hate me here. I have to go back. I have to see my friends. My only friends."

"Friends who don't even write to Harry Potter?" said Dobby slyly. (2)

"Gotcha," thought Harry.

"Wait a minute. How do you know my friends haven't been writing to me?" said Harry, frowning.

Dobby looked down at his shuffling feet.

"Have you been stopping me from getting letters from my friends?" Harry gritted out from between his teeth.

"After all, I have to sound very angry with him. I need to 'sell' him on the idea that if he doesn't do what I want, he's potion ingredients."

"Dobby has them here, sir," said the elf, pulling a thick wad of envelopes from the inside of the pillowcase (2) as he stepped back as though he expected Harry to lunge at him.

Harry did not move. He did not reach out to grab the letters. He merely leaned back in his chair and smiled. It was not a particularly friendly smile. It was more of a devious, 'I own you now' smile.

"House Elf Dobby of the House of Malfoy, we have a lot to talk about."

Dobby's eyes bulged even further out as he turned a particular pasty grey and the bundle of envelopes fell from his suddenly nerveless hands.

"That's right, Dobby. I know you are the Malfoy's house elf. I know that your master, Lucius Malfoy, is planning on trying to kill students at Hogwarts this year. I plan on stopping him."

Harry slowly leaned forward. "Honourable Dobby, of the dishonourable House of Malfoy. Do you promise to help me, Harry Potter, to keep the students of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry safe from the monster Lucius Malfoy plans to unleash upon them?"

Dobby froze motionless.

Harry waited a few moments. "Yes or no, Dobby House Elf. Which is it to be?"

Dobby nodded his head so rapidly that his ears practically flopped over his eyes.

"And in return, I, Harry Potter pledge to do my utmost to free the house elf known as Dobby from the House of Malfoy before the end of school next year."

Harry did not notice the faint blue-ish silvery glow that surrounded him with that statement, but Dobby did. The elf's eyes grew even larger.

Harry carefully leaned back in his desk chair again. Carefully, because if the bloody chair broke now, it would ruin the aura of an all-knowing Harry Potter he had worked hard to project.

Dobby stood frozen in shock. His only movement was a slight twitching of the tip of his right ear. Harry also waited motionless. If this ploy did not work, killing the diary, without being killed by the basilisk, was going to be a lot harder. And Harry had no more deaths to use up.

It took almost two minutes for the shock of the Great and Noble Harry Potter not only knowing who his master was, and then saying he would do all he could for Dobby to become free, to wear off.

The first sign that Dobby's mind had returned to Harry's room was he rapidly blinked, then threw himself forward and clutched onto Harry's leg while loudly crying in . . happiness?

Harry suddenly remembered the oh-so-important business dinner schmooze going on below him as the little house elf's joyous wails increased in volume.

"Dobby, stop! If my uncle comes up here I will be beaten!"

Instead of stopping, Dobby raised his hand and snapped his fingers. "No ones hears us outside of the room now," he sobbed into Harry's pant leg.

It took a further five minutes before the crying, sobbing, and clutching quit.

As soon as he felt he had the house elf's attention, Harry started to lay out his plan that would hopefully end in freeing Dobby.

"First, I need to know if you can perform elf magic that the Ministry can't trace. If they detect any magic use performed in the house, they will blame me and get me in bad trouble."

"The Ministry cannot detect house elf magic unless the elf intentionally wants them to, Great and Noble Harry Potter," was the reply.

Harry smiled in true contented fashion for the first time. "First, Dobby Elf, I need you to get my trunk and all my things from the locked cupboard beneath the stairs without my relatives finding out."

Dobby nodded sharply once and disappeared. He reappeared only a few seconds later with Harry's trunk and broom and floated them to the other side of Harry's bed. Harry immediately opened it up and dug out a bag of owl treats.

"Thank you, Friend Dobby. Next, I need Hedwig's cage unlocked."

Harry stuffed the bag into the cage. Hedwig started her imitation of Ron eating. Harry shuddered.

He noticed the lock had disappeared. Harry smirked. Let them wonder what happened to it.

Pulling his invisibility cloak, and a school cloak that he donned from his trunk, Harry put the now small cage in it and told Dobby to shrink the trunk to pocket size and remove the school crest from the cloak.

Putting the shrunken trunk in a pocket, Harry said, "Let's talk, but not for long. I have to get to Gringotts soon."

Fifteen minutes later Harry was done. Dobby agreed with the plan.

Hedwig burped and then glided onto Harry's raised arm.

Harry scratched her chest as the snowy owl rubbed her head against his cheek. "Right girl. I need you to deliver this letter to Ron, then this second letter to Hermione, then hunt some food. I'm going to Gringotts and after that, I have no idea where I'll go. Stay with Hermione. She'll take care of you. Alright?

With a nibble on his ear, she was off through the now open window, and Harry turned around.

"In my world, we shake hands when an agreement is reached between two people," Harry said stretching his hand toward the house elf.

In wide-eyed wonder, the little grey elf reached out with his hand and when grasped with Harry's, he followed along with Harry's up-and-down arm movement.

As soon as Harry finished and let go of Dobby's hand, the little elf rushed him and Harry had to spend another five minutes listening to how the Greatest and Noblest Harry Potter would even treat a lowly house elf as a person.

Additionally, he had suggested leaving a bespelled pillow in Harry's bed that would groan and moan as though he was sick. Harry knew Petunia would not enter his room to nurse him, so the illusion would last as long as elf magic allowed.

"I guess we are done, Dobby House Elf. I'm going to fly to Gringotts now, and if you would lock the window after me so my loving relatives wonder how I got out, I would appreciate it."

Dobby gave what sure looked like an elf smirk. "Dobby has better idea."

He touched Harry's Nimbus 2000 and it shrank to pocket size, then it, and the cloak he gave Harry were put into a robe pocket.

With that, he touched Harry, and with none of his usual problems with magical travel, Harry was standing in front of the doors at Gringotts, bathed in the setting sun's rays.

A stunned Harry turned to thank Dobby, but he was not there.

Bemusedly, Harry shrugged his shoulders, walked up the steps, paused to read the admonition against thievery, and stepped through the doors into the still-open goblin bank.

"Hmm. Happy birthday to me, I guess."

A/N:

(1)

(2) Lines taken directly from JK Rowling's book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. After struggling for two days to write the lines differently, I gave up.

If the first three chapters seemed formulaic, it is because they are. If one accepts using the challenge as a starting point, it does bind you in certain ways. For example; it virtually forces us to go to Gringotts next.

I was informed during the writing of "Granger, we need to talk." that my descriptive and dialogue writing needs much improvement. So, I will spend this story probably overdoing both. You can complain about this, but I will merely point you to a very popular series of seven books, written by a professional, paid author, rather than forcing you to read my unpaid, written as MY hobby, story.