Disclaimer: This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy. No ships. Bashing around everyone.
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Dobby Arrives at Privet Drive 30 JuneWhen the Dursley car arrived at No. 4 Privet Drive, Vernon helped Harry get his trunk out of the boot but let his nephew drag it into the house. The moment Petunia unlocked the front door she was hit with incredible smells coming from her kitchen.
"What is that smell?" Vernon asked following his wife into the lounge.
Harry laughed and said, "That's Dobby's rack of lamb with mint sauce. You're in for a real treat tonight. Then Harry's trunk vanished though his aunt and uncle didn't notice that the house elf had moved the trunk up to the room assigned to the nephew. Harry went up to speak with Dobby in the privacy of the room. The young wizard noticed immediately that the door had been replaced with a normal door without multiple locks or a cat flap.
Inside the room, Dobby had already unpacked the trunk . The elf greeted his wizard and was pleased to see the smile on the boy's face because of the changes in the room. Harry hugged the elf and thanked him but asked the little fellow to put back the regular, old furniture.
"If anyone comes inside and looks around, I can't have elf generated furniture and lamps. You can make the old bed comfortable with the best sheets and blankets, but it still has to look like it is worn out."
The elf didn't comment but he frowned with his ears lowered, and his eyebrows drooping. Harry pleaded, "Don't be sad, Dobby. People will be nosey and look inside the house."
"No, they's not see anything!" Dobby insisted. "Wardses around this muggle house keep wizard magic eyes from seeing any magic inside. And witch who peek in windows while youse or cousin in shower will get headache that lasts for two days without reliefs. No naked-nakey while Dobby be around! Not untils you much, much older…maybe married before you…"
Desperate to change the subject, Harry asked about the peeping tom. "How is this witch peeping in the windows? But the bathroom is above stairs!
"Witch be uses Wingardium Leviosa to floats around to window every nights to peep and peek at winkies and chestnuts! She must uses spell to see through shower curtains that keeps water inside but Dobby think she does peeks all around neighbourhood too!"
"Which witch?"
"Pinkie," Dobby replied. "The witch who changes her hair to all colours but prefers to be pink hair all the time."
Harry frowned and asked, "If she's using spells around the house, why aren't the Aurors coming to investigate?"
"Dobby not knows, but will ask elves at Ministries Most Magical tomorrows."
During the meal that was delicious, Harry mentioned his magic wand to Petunia and Vernon. He admitted, "I want to be prepared for trouble."
Nodding, Vernon asked, "What kind of trouble?"
"If the Department of Magical Law Enforcement detects me – Harry Potter – casting spells during the summer, I can be expelled. They'd take my wand and snap it in half – then no more magical spells."
"Can't you buy another wand?" asked Petunia.
"Not in Britain and only if they don't bind my magic and wipe my mind about everything about magic," Harry explained as he frowned.
Petunia made a face and commented, "Everything you tell us makes them sound worse.
"Do you want us to hide the wand?"
"No, pick a place in your room to hide my wand, but I'll know the location and be able to retrieve in case of an emergency. Or when I got to Diagon Alley – I want some more books."
"We can do that as soon as we clean up after this delicious meal."
"Naw, Dobby gets unhappy if his people do things like cook or clean. He'll take care of everything in and outside the house this summer."
"Let's go find the hiding spot," said Vernon, pleased to hear he still had a cook and gardener in the house. "Then we can listen to the BBC for a while."
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Remus Visits Privet Drive 1 July"What are you doing today?" Sirius Black asked his friend, Remus Lupin. The werewolf grinned and replied, "It's my turn to guard Harry at Privet Drive."
"Great! Can you slip him this letter?" Sirius asked with a folded parchment in his hand.
"Pads! You know Dumbledore said to leave Harry alone so he can mourn Cedric's death and his responsibility for the resurrection of the Dark Lord," Remus said, shaking his head.
"His responsibility? Hippogriff dung, Moony! How the heck is Harry responsible for the return of the Dark Lord?"
"Dumbledore says that if Harry had been more careful, Cedric wouldn't have died, and probably wouldn't have been kidnapped to participate in the resurrection."
"How?" the other wizard demanded to know. "How could Harry have been more careful? It was a maze where giant spiders and a sphinx roamed around! And being Harry kidnapped is Dumbledore's fault!"
Shaking his head, Remus explained how Harry should have known the Champion's Cup was a trap and should have left Cedric behind. Sirius stared at his friend as if he'd never seen him before. From the other side of the kitchen, Molly Weasley added, "It is a terrible burden for the poor boy to carry. The headmaster is right to put Harry at Privet Drive for the summer."
The two Marauders stared at each other for another minute and when Sirius offered the letter a second time, he growled, "Take this to my godson."
"No…" Remus replied, moving both hands behind his back before Molly cast the charm Deletrius that disintegrated the parchment. The dust that had been a letter dropped toward the floor before it glowed and vanished.
"The headmaster said no one was to write to Harry this summer," Molly reminded the wizard who should have been Lord Black. "Not the children, not the mud…not that girl, and not you."
Still seated at the kitchen table after everyone else had finished breakfast, the youngest son piped up, "Oi, isn't Hermie supposed to come today? And stay for the summer? The headmaster said she needs to be protected from the Death Eaters and live with us this summer."
When he first glanced at the kitchen table that morning, Sirius thought Molly had cooked enough food for the whole of the Order of Phoenix but apparently each of her children ate enough food for two people and the youngest son ate enough for five with bits of scrambled eggs and bacon falling from his mouth.
The daughter, Ginevra frowned and complained, "But Harry can't be here with me! Dumbledore says he must be with his muggles the whole summer. If Ron gets to be with his Hermione the whole summer, why can't I be with my Harry?"
Now Sirus learned another guest was coming – he'd expected to host meetings for the Order of the Phoenix, not provide room and board for the entire Weasley tribe including the eldest son who had appeared with his father last night. Remus, Dora, Sturgis Padmore, and Mundungus Fletcher appeared for every meal and often slept over in the lounge.
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Remus beat a strategic retreat from the kitchen and exited through the front door of the house. He cast the Notice-Me-Not charm on himself in the foyer – no one could see the house since Dumbledore cast the Fidelius spell, but muggles might be surprised by his sudden appearance on the sidewalk. He hurried along the street to a nearby alleyway where he knew of a blind spot to apparate.
'First thing I have to do is renew those charms on Dursley's car,' he decided. 'Dumbledore specifically said to renew those safety charms.'
With his destination clearly imagined in his mind, Remus lifted his wand and spun in place. Unlike the previous year when Remus had apparated into Little Whinging, this morning he was bounced off the wards and slammed into the wall of a garage. Everything turned dark.
A bucket of cold water splashed on the bruised face of Remus Lupin as an angry man growled, "We don't need more vagrants around here! Sleep it off somewhere else and don't come back. I'll call a bobby next time!"
Stumbling to his feet and slowly making his way toward Privet Drive, Remus used surreptitious charms to arrange his clothes and hair. His upper lip was split, and one eye seemed to be swelling shut.
'Must have hit that wall pretty hard,' he decided. 'But why?'
The wizard walked along the sidewalks and renewed the Notice-Me-Not charm on his person. But Remus discovered that each step was harder that the last – he was caught in a thick ward that surrounded him like wet cement. He could breath, but forward progress was difficult.
'This is the ward that protects the house…protects Harry from people with bad intentions. So, why is it slowing me down?' Remus wondered. 'Is it malfunctioning?'
After five minutes, Remus caught sight of Vernon Dursley driving along the street and he attempted to raise his wand and cast the spell to recharge the runes. But the werewolf couldn't move the wand or speak the spell because the ward instantly hardened into dry cement preventing any movement. Worse, breathing became impossible! Panicking, Remus thought, 'I gotta leave! I gotta get out of here!'
Now the wards cooperated, launched the werewolf into the air and threw him to the edge of the town's limits. Remus landed in a tree with only a few more bruises and scratches. Once he made it to the ground and had time to calm his breathing, the wizard apparated back to Grimmauld Place. He quietly entered the house and hid in the room that Sirius allowed him to use. He cast the episkey charm a dozen times to hide the evidence of his misadventures in Surrey and then went to bed.
'Why did the wards stop me?' he wondered. 'We only mean the best for Harry.'
Remus appeared at the breakfast table in the kitchen the next morning and was relieved when no one asked about his time guarding No. 4 Privet Drive the previous day. He didn't know that Mundungus Fletcher was drunk when he arrived to relieve Remus and passed out in the park without seeing anyone.
Remus worried that the runes and charms that Dumbledore had cast on the Dursley vehicle were not there to protect the family from traffic accidents. Unbeknown to Remus, the house elf had removed the runes earlier and if Remus had cast the renewal spell, Vernon's car would have either been good for another twenty thousand kilometres before requiring service, or it would have exploded.
Lupin didn't know that the runes were to renew the animosity between the Dursleys and their nephew. When Harry was five years old, the old wizard discovered the wards around the house prevented any negative feelings toward the boy – but the car was driven outside the wards every day and Vernon Dursley was the head of the house to lead the charge in discipling the young Boy-Who-Lived.
Dumbledore had visited the car park at Grunnings one day to inscribe runes on the gasoline tank to make the persons riding in the horseless carriage feel animosity toward Harry Potter. Once a year the runes had to be recharged and Dobby had washed them away. Until Vernon Dursley bought a new car, Dumbledore could not inscribe new runes on the vehicle.
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Dumbledore Visits Crowley 2 JulyPleased with his manipulations in the first half of 1995, Albus Dumbledore checked his robes one last time in the full-length mirror. Tom's return had been messy and consumed an innocent – at least one. The Diggory family name might vanish from Magical Britain, but sacrifices were required. The Weasley lands touched the Diggory farms, and it might be possible to transfer them to Arthur and Molly eventually. The Diggory couple were likely to succumb to the overwhelming grief of losing their only child.
'That's a move on the chess board for a later day,' he decided. 'Today I begin putting Miss Hermoine Granger into Mr Ronald Weasley's embrace. Her magic will transfer to their children and her work ethic will provide them with a living of some sort or another. How did Arthur and Molly spark five genius level wizards and then produce a waste of magic named Ronald?'
With his minions safely tucked away in the London townhouse keeping an eye on Sirius Black, he felt confident in this next step. 'I shall ensure Miss Granger's safety by placing her in a safe house that no one could find. Her parents will reconcile to her absence – it is more important that she be safe that spend time with her muggles. And the potions can begin to bring her into compliance with my plans. By Halloween in her sixth year, she will belong to Ron Weasley…poor chit.'
Gripping the Elder Wand with his right hand, Albus clearly thought of the coordinates for the street in Crowley where the Granger family lived. He spun in place and with purposefully loud bang, apparated out of Hogwarts. The only humans in the castle where McGonagall and Snape but they chose to ignore the proclamation that the headmaster had left the building.
Ten minutes after he arrived in Crawley, Albus Dumbledore was confused. The Granger house was deserted – it wasn't that the parents and their daughter were absent from their home – everything inside the house was gone! The floors, walls, stairs, doors and strange kitchen appliances remained but every bit of evidence that a family of three lived there was gone. The mystery deepened when Dumbledore looked in the garage – the attached stable where the muggles kept their horseless carriages. Everything there was missing as well – carriage, tools and implements.
Flummoxed and bothered, Albus Dumbledore cast a simple spell to detect magic. There was a rapidly fading trace of powerful magic – from a wizard – the morning after the Express returned to London. Only two days had passed since the return, and already Miss Granger was missing.
With the powerful Notice-Me-Not spell still in place, he made his way out of the house and found a neighbour working in her yard. He gently scanned her memories and thoughts. Inserting the image of Miss Granger into the woman's mind, the muggle looked up and thought, 'Richard and Ellen just disappeared the same day Hermione was to return home from school. The entire family disappeared and there's been no word. I should call the local station and report them as missing.'
First, Albus withdrew from the muggle's mind gently to not cause more than a mild headache, and then he departed Crawley. He didn't bother to make any inquiries with the local police or send Aurors to investigate the missing muggleborn witch. He apparated to the gate at Hogwarts and waited for Hagrid to come and open the magical gate. After inquiring after the half-giant's latest illegal breeding program and dismissing the idea of Thestrals crossbreeding with Hippogriffs, Dumbledore slowly made his way back to the castle, ruminating over the information he'd discovered regarding Miss Granger.
Once he was again in his office, he began casting spells to locate tracking charms he'd placed on Miss Granger's shoes and robes that last morning. They were only short-lived charms but should be active still. A parchment appeared reporting the shoes and robes were currently in a landfill outside of London. After one unpleasant experience landing in a muggle refuse pile forty years earlier, Albus had no wish to repeat the performance. The muggles were notorious for disposing of everything and never banishing anything, so the headmaster assumed the Granger family disposed of old shoes and robes at the beginning of the summer.
A second tracking spell (one that would register with the DMLE in London) was to trace Miss Granger's magical wand. The parchment was even shorter this time – simply a scrap of paper with the words 'behind impenetrable wards.'
The headmaster's mind raced forward with conclusions – wild conclusions. He decided, 'Tom was already moving against the muggleborn. No doubt young Draco or Patsy – or is the girl's name Pansy? I can never remember…Young Draco must have complained about Miss Granger's grades being so spectacular and the Dark Lord sent Death Eaters to kill her and her parents. One of the wizards kept Miss Granger's wand as a trophy! How heartless!'
"And Tom wants to foster fear among few who will stand against him. The Death Eaters used Evanesco to remove the bodies and then Deletrius to banish the furniture and clothes throughout the house," he muttered aloud.
Sighing with disappointment to have lost a handy minion who showed so much promise, Albus headed toward the floo. He would visit Grimmauld Place and deliver the bad news to the Weasleys personally. If Shacklebolt or Vance were there he would ask them to delete his spell to trace Miss Granger's wand and to make quiet inquiries about any disappearances in the last week.
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Awkward Conversations 3 JulyWhen Dudley arrived home for the summer break, he was surprised and relieved by the cordial relations his parents exhibited toward his cousin.
Harry asked, "How come you a week late getting home, Dudley?"
The larger boy explained, "I'm on the rugby team, yeah. We had a camp where some professional rugby players ran us through drills."
Grinning, Harry asked, "Still got all your teeth?"
Flashing his smile, Dursley replied, "Yep. You lose points if you knock out a bloke's teeth."
Vernon and Petunia sat by while the teenaged boys talked. Then Dudley asked, "What changed? Harry's been your slave, and you wanted me to make him punching bag for years but now we're one big happy family."
"There was magic the big freak put here to make your parents hate me."
Dudley frowned, "And the magic is gone now?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "My friend Dobby who is doing all the chores washed the runes away and they don't make us feel bad now."
"That doesn't make everything right about what we used to do!" the young man insisted. "It bothered me at school when I realized what I had been doing – what we had been doing to Harry."
Vernon grumbled and said, "Son, you're right. But we have to be careful and not do anything to capture the attention of the freaks that are still watching Harry and our house."
"Dudley, this year I learned the freaks – the ones born in that world are the worst bigots you can imagine. And they see women as nothing but something that belongs to the husband like another pair of shoes."
Glancing at his mum, Dudley frowned and asked, "Like in the old movies and books?"
"Yeah."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I need to get some more books to see how I can escape. Next summer I take tests that will mean I can escape the prison that they call a school."
Dudley's teenage brain realised his cousin wasn't telling them everything, but he figured that was for the best at this point in the summer. He decided to distract his parents by asking, "Harry, is that witch with the pink hair going to be peeping in the bathroom windows when I take a shower this summer?"
"What?!" screamed Petunia. "Peeping at you? In our shower?"
While Petunia hyperventilated and Vernon turned four shades of red, Harry went to the kitchen to send Dobby for Muggle-Safe calming potions. Prepared for all contingencies, the elf had the potions already on hand, earning the little fellow a hug that brought a few tears of joy to the elf's face. Hurrying back to the lounge, Harry handed one to his aunt and the second one to his uncle.
"Drink these down. They might taste horrible but these drinks will calm you down so we can discuss what to do about the Peeping Tom," Harry said.
Dudley asked, "Are they safe for my mum and dad to drink?"
"Yeah, these are a mixture for people without magic."
Dudley convinced his dad to drink first, and then got Petunia to swallow hers. Harry apologised for the bad taste, but Vernon replied, "Bad taste? The drink was a little sweet but very soothing. Nothing bad about the taste at all."
'Huh?' thought Harry.
Vernon asked, "How is this freak peeping in the bathroom window? It's not on the ground!"
"There are spells that let her float in the air and be invisible," Harry explained.
Dudley shook his head and said, "She lets me see her. And she does the same with Piers and the other guys. Their showers are on the ground floor, so they don't think about any freaky stuff, but all the teenage boys get watched."
"Does she peep at the older men?" Petunia asked.
"No idea," Dudley said before glancing at his father who shook his head.
Vernon said, "I'll be showering in the morning, and I'll paint the bathroom window black before midnight tonight."
Petunia left to lie down for a few minutes and once his wife disappeared up the staircase, Vernon asked his son, "Dudley, has this woman approached you on the street or in the park? Last summer, did she say anything to you?"
Not looking his dad in the eyes, Dudley admitted she had approached to him and his friends several times, asked them personal questions, and 'complimenting' them.
"It sounds like she is grooming you for something," Vernon said. "And you say the other boys see her in the bathroom windows too?"
"We see the – the freaks – around the neighbourhood every day. There's one guy who is drunk and sleeps near the bushes in the park. The little kids all go home when he shows up. Everyone catches glimpses of a few guys in the weird dresses, but they never hang around."
Harry said, "They're use spells or cloaks that make them invisible, but they watch the house all day."
Vernon frowned and said, "Harry, isn't all this violating the laws the freaks have? How many normal people are seeing them here in Little Whinging and learning that something weird is going on?"
"They think it's okay to walk around looking weird and if someone says anything or points them out, they wave their wand, and the normal people forget about it."
"They can make us forget?"
Dudley smiled deviously. "Piers and I are planning to play field hockey this summer in the park this summer. Some of the freaks are going have close encounters with hockey sticks before getting slammed against the ground by teenage boys running around as fast as they can."
"And the Peeping Tom…Peeping Teresa?" asked Vernon.
Harry grimaced and promised, "I'll write a letter to her boss."
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NEXT CHAPTER: Harry Reads Lily's Diaries and Theories