Chapter 6: Plan DRACULA - Summer 1992

Four Weasleys appeared at Privet Drive promptly that Sunday in a familiar Ford Anglia.

Harry said a "good to see you" to each redhead as they entered the house, and he meant each with all his heart.

With flourish and cheer, Fred and George carried Harry's trunk from the cupboard under the stairs to the car.

Ron followed Harry upstairs to help him grab things from his room. The moment they were alone, Ron gave Harry an unexpected but very welcome hug. This was the first time they had met up since time traveling.

Petunia and Vernon talked primarily in grunts and short phrases in the Weasleys' presence. They stayed as far away from the front door as they could while still keeping it in view.

Harry wished that it wasn't quite so painfully obvious how ready his aunt and uncle were to see him off for another year of school.

At five minutes past the hour, Arthur drove them away. His driving anxiety was evident given how many questions he voiced. "Where's the…?" "Hmm is that…?" "Left or right?" George reassured him, but Fred would give clearly bad advice.

"Push all three foot pedals at once."

"Shift into reverse," the other twin guided calmly.

"Turn the wheel hard now."

The car's chaotic atmosphere would have stressed out Hermione, but Harry could almost fall asleep for how relaxed he now felt. Being with the Dursleys was walking on broken glass. He didn't realize how terrible he'd been feeling until he was free. Free for almost a whole year.

Harry settled into life at the Burrow with ease. Well, except for dodging Ginny.

"You were right to warn me, Ron." Harry whispered after an excruciating conversation where she asked him endless personal questions. He answered what he wanted to and deflected the rest. (Do you think matching tattoos are romantic?)

"Last year, she might not have been able to talk in front of you. But I, er, might have told her that you're a great guy but normal. That actually strengthened her resolve to make you hers."

"How much did you talk me up? Maybe she thinks you're competition." Harry grinned.

Ron offered, "I'd hold your hand if you'd think it would help."

"You're mother has been so nice to me. I wouldn't want to get her hopes up."

Ron grimaced playfully, which made Harry laugh.

About a half hour before sunset, Harry and Ron sat on a hill a ways away from the Burrow to talk. They couldn't ensure privacy, so they only said things they didn't mind any of the Weasleys knowing.

Ron summarized his "nightmare" that resulted in Pettigrew's arrest. Ron repeated everything Harry already read in Hermione's Daily Prophet clippings from the trash, plus explaining what Ron's parents knew about Sirius.

Harry offered a "hmm" or "wow" when needed. When Ron was finished, Harry asked, "Do you think Sirius Black will go free now?"

"Dad thinks so. He would probably get off on time served for the 12 muggles and the statute of secrecy breach, if they don't clear him of those charges. They've kept it out of the papers, but he never had a trial. Acturus Black will probably make a stink about that if the courts take too long to clean this up. Black might be out of Azkaban by the time we go back to Hogwarts."

Wow, that'd be fast. Harry knew very little about Sirius' grandfather. "It's nice that he has family in his corner. I wonder if they believed in him before Pettigrew was discovered alive."

Ron nodded and shrugged at the same time. Harry knew that he understood the implied questions, Where was Acturus before? Or last time? Ron must not have those answers.

Sirius' grandfather was not a person they had thought about in their planning. Acturus Black might demand that Sirius leave Harry with the Dursleys, or he might give Sirius the support he would need to get formal rights over him.

Harry knew what he wanted: either Sirius or Lily-pretending-to-be-Snape to offer to adopt him. He wanted to be wanted. But Harry was mentally twenty-one, so he didn't need a parental figure.

The look in Harry's green eyes might have cued Ron in to his melancholy thoughts, because his friend asked, "Want to see if the twins fancy a game of exploding snap?"

Harry smiled weakly. "Sure."

A bit after ten in the morning on the following Wednesday, the Weasleys and Harry Floo'd to the Leaky Cauldron with school supply lists in hand.

Ron was nervous. Today could make or break our plans for this year, or longer. And Ron had the two hardest jobs of the day, but neither would happen for several hours yet.

When Hermione saw Ron, she smirked and said, "You look great." Ron knew this was a dig at the new versions of the hallows he was currently wearing, which included both his glasses and Harry's infinity scarf right now. All three of them were again glad that the gifts from Time were invisible to others.

"How've you been?" Harry asked her eagerly.

Hermione's eyes flicked to her parents ten feet away. "It's been great to spend time with my parents after so long apart. We've been to nearly every family attraction in London in just the last two months."

She sounded happy enough, though Ron guessed that it made her regular trips to Surrey to check on Harry a challenge. She did look a bit tired, he observed.

They bought parchment, ink, potions ingredients, and owl treats. They were all sized for replacement school robes. Harry bought a heavy winter cloak. Hermione got a small purse (no beads this time) that she would add her own expansions to. Harry treated Ron to a new wand from Ollivanders, unbeknownst to the adults. This was a part of their cover story for later in case things got complicated.

They eventually made their way to Flourish & Blotts. Once inside, they surreptitiously searched for Mr. Malfoy. Ginny was trying to stay close to Harry without appearing to do so, which helped in this instance. Mr. Weasley was still outside talking to the Grangers, though. They wouldn't be able to create the exact same conversation as last time without him.

Ron asked Harry to follow him to near the front of the store. They pretended to fawn over the third-year elective textbooks.

Harry said, "Can't wait to take Care in a year and get to see these creatures in person. Hagrid's got some very handsome hippogriffs, I hear."

"He might show you them if you asked. Hagrid seems like the type," Ron suggested.

"I'm not surprised you're friends with that oaf." A pointy blond boy cut in. Ron thought it was ironic how happy Draco's sudden appearance and rude comment made him.

Ron glared and crossed his arms. The plan was for him to avoid getting too involved with the conflict so he could watch for the diary.

"Malfoy," Harry greeted. His tone was bored as he asked, "Have a nice summer?"

"Better than yours, if you're spending it with him."

"I'd have thought you'd take this opportunity to tell me about your fabulous manor or some extravagant trip."

Harry and Draco verbally sparred for a while. Eventually the blond's father walked over.

Mr. Malfoy told his son, "Don't gloat."

Harry latched onto that. "Really? I thought it was the job of society's best members to remind us how much less we are." Harry gestured to himself, Ron, and Ginny. The rest of the Weasleys were elsewhere.

"Ah. You two must be Weasleys. Give my regards to your father, by the way," he sneered.

Mr. Malfoy continued, "If one looks, there are a lot of signs of who's on top." In an echo of the past, Mr. Malfoy grabbed a tattered book out of Ginny's cauldron and inspected it.

Ron could see a little black book tucked inside. He suppressed an internal cheer.

"And who's… not." Mr. Malfoy returned the book to Ginny's stack. "The best don't need to announce their success all of the time, a lesson young Draco still has yet to learn. Come." He led Draco back out the front door.

Harry grabbed Ginny's attention. "Have you met Mr. Malfoy before?"

Ron muttered about taking her books to their mum to pay, and Ginny easily let them go. He slipped the notice-me-not-scarf around his hand to cover it before grabbing the diary out of the stack. He tucked the fabric-wrapped book under his arm.

Next, he handed his mother the other books as she waited in the Gilderoy Lockhart signature line. He signaled that he was going to wait with his father outside.

But when he got there, he told his father that he was going to go find Hermione. That, too, was not a complete truth.

Instead, Ron apparated away with the trace-free wand that Hermione had slipped him earlier that day.

Ron was now in the Forest of Dean with a piece of Voldemort's soul.

His body looked thirteen, but his mind was around twenty-one. The redhead knew that he would need that extra life experience here.

Ron knew he was susceptible to the horcruxes after what happened when he wore the locket, so he asked his friends to help him prepare.

He didn't make skin contact with the diary at any point.

He picked a place to destroy it that made him feel strong, then added protections.

He practiced the spell until he could start and stop it within seconds.

Fiendfyre.

A flash of fire serpents, a horrible wail. Their first horcrux in their new hunt was destroyed.

Ginny is safe, Ron thought with satisfaction.

By then, he had nearly completed Plan D.R.A.C.U.L.A (Destroy Riddle Artifact Completely Upon Larceny Opportunity). The only thing he had left to do was cover his tracks. Ron removed the protections he set up, then he performed two dozen additional spells to throw off suspicion if someone checked the wand's history. Finally, he made several apparition jumps.

Hermione was already waiting for him at their meet-up point: a fairly reputable second-hand bookstore just off Diagon on Knockturn Alley. This was also part of their cover. The bookstore wasn't nefarious, but its location justified why the pre-teens would sneak off.

As they walked to meet the others, Hermione tucked away the book she purchased: Divining the Present. Ron was intrigued, but knew not to ask about it until they could use privacy spells.

Being sneaky was killing Ron with curiosity.

Once Ron left the bookstore, Harry ended his conversation with Ginny. He gathered the schoolbooks he needed slowly. He stopped to read passages on occasion. He even picked up a few extra potions guides.

Lockhart was busy signing his books and hadn't noticed the boy-who-lived yet, which Harry appreciated. He was supposed to stall if the Weasleys seemed at risk of realizing that Ron was missing. The green-eyed boy would use Lockhart as a distraction, but only with reluctance.

Harry could hear snippets Lockhart's braggadocious bravado even over the din of the store:

"Of course, I'm always in top form, even when…"

"You remind me of a beautiful young witch I saved in the jungles of…."

"… rather a dashing picture of me, if I do say so myself."

Thankfully, getting the handsome fraud's attention didn't seem necessary. Mrs. Weasley was fifth in line for Lockhart's signature, and Ron had already been gone for 10 minutes.

Mr. Weasley looked impatient outside the shop. Hermione's parents must have gone off on their own. Harry went to pay for his books. Afterwards, he slid one of them into his satchel. He could use the missing book as an excuse to double-back if he had to.

"Did you see Mr. Malfoy talking to us?" Harry engaged Mr. Weasley. "He didn't seem very nice."

Mr. Weasley expounded on the Malfoy family's many flaws. Harry was a little shocked how much the man would tell his son's preteen friend, but he was an attentive listener.

No one paid particular attention when Ron and Hermione returned together twenty minutes later.

Twenty minutes after that, they were joined by a giggling Mrs. Weasley followed closely by a handsome man in pale purple.

"This is my husband Arthur, my daughter Ginny, my son Ron, and his friends Harry and Hermione." Harry had forgotten just how much of a Lockhart fan Mrs. Weasley was.

Gilderoy Lockhart gave them each a charming smile. "I love meeting the families of my devoted fans. I needed a little fresh air and Molly generously agreed to step outside with me."

Arthur Weasley's smile took on a fixed quality that Harry hadn't often seen.

Lockhart turned to Harry. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be Harry Potter."