Chapter 5

They had landed just right before the entrance door of the Burrow, which was looking just like it always had. A wild assembly of house parts put together with magic into an almost impossible structure. Several pots with flowers of all colors were assembled on each side of the entrance, chickens were running around in the front yard and from the garden his two best friends were quickly approaching.

"Oi, mate!" Ron yelled from a distance, while Harry was slowly picking himself up from the ground.

As they got closer, they suddenly seemed to get slower and their eyes suddenly wide as saucers. But while Ron's expression turned into awe, Hermione's was concerned. He also noticed that her right hand was starting to subtly reach for something on her back near her waistline - most likely her wand.

Harry grinned inwardly. The duo had obviously spotted Moody and while Ron probably knew the ex-Auror from hearsay thanks to his father, Hermione evidently had no clue and reacted just like he did when he had seen the grizzled old man for the first time.

"Hey guys!" he greeted them, trying to put his friends at ease.

Given the unhealthy level of paranoia that his trainer was known for, Harry was relatively sure that he wouldn't hesitate to curse the bushy haired girl into oblivion. Something he was not very keen on.

Therefore, he decided to meet his friends halfway before the Auror could kick off a duel in the orchard of the Burrow and surprised Hermine when he acted completely out of character and pulled her into a hug.

"H-Harry?" she asked, slightly confused.

"Hi Hermione. Could you uh… do us all a favor and put your wand away?." he said with an imploring tone.. Then he pulled away and risked a quick look over his shoulder at Moody who seemed rather amused.

"But…"

"Trust me."

Ron seemed to have finally overcome his initial stupor and gasped "Blimey! Is that Mad Eye Moody?"

Harry chuckled at hearing his mentor's nickname for the first time. Mad Eye was quite fitting he had to admit.

Finally deeming the situation safe enough for his friends, he grasped the redhead's arm and said "Better not tell that to his face, mate."

"Yeah, yeah right." Ron muttered, shooting a slightly nervous look over to Moody, who was slowly making his way to them.

Hermione narrowed her eyes "Okay, obviously you both know him. Who is that man?"

Harry pondered that question briefly, not entirely sure what he was allowed to tell her. Beforehand they had agreed that he was only allowed to tell them that he had stayed at a secret location that Dumbledore had provided for him during the summer, because the wards at his relatives' place were not working properly. He was not to mention his training to anyone, and especially not the fact that Dumbledore and the ex-Auror were working together to remove the Death Eater threat from their society and how they planned to do it.

Luckily for him Ron answered her question "Dad told me about him - that's Mad Eye Moody. Guy is an absolute legend. Used to be an Auror you know? Supposedly caught half of the inmates in Azkaban on his own."

"So he is one of the good guys?"

"Yeah, but apparently with age he got a bit crazy and ..."

"I heard that Weasley!" suddenly interrupted Moody.

Ron went beet red in embarrassment while Harry was trying to stifle his laughter.

"And you lass, better not reach for your wand again!"

Mortified, Hermione pocketed her wand and sheepishly looked at her friends.

After he had awkwardly introduced them to each other, Mrs. Weasley appeared in the front door and immediately pulled him into one of her famous tight hugs.

"So good to see you, dear!"

"Thanks for having me over Mrs. Weasley. I hope it's not too much trouble." he managed to squeeze out.

However, the woman waved off.

"It's no trouble at all. We're glad to have you over." she told him and after a brief once over added "You do look awfully pale. Are you alright Harry?"

"Yes, are you alright there?" Moody jabbed with a shit eating grin.

Harry glared quickly at the Auror before turning back to the Weasley matriarch "No, I'm fine. Just not used to apparition."

That explanation seemed to satisfy Mrs. Weasley, who nodded and then looked at Moody with a strained smile. Apparently, the man's presence even made her a bit uncomfortable.

"Alastor, so good to see you again. Are you going to stay for lunch? I have a shepherd pie in the oven."

Indeed, Harry could already smell the faint traces of the delicious dish in the air and water started to pool in his mouth.

Moody however shook his head "Sorry Molly, maybe another time. Got some things to take care of."

"Very well… Ron? Can you help Harry take his things upstairs? And Hermione, would you help me set the table?"

His friends both nodded.

Meanwhile Harry turned back to Moody and shook his outstretched hand.

"I'll be seeing you Potter."

"Likewise." he replied and added with a whisper so the others couldn't hear "Thanks for everything, sir."

The man snorted "Better thank me when you meet your first Death Eater."

Both had no idea how soon that would be the case.

"Okay, why in the world have you been brought here by freakin' Mad Eye Moody?!" asked Ron as soon as the ex-Auror had left. Hermione too shot him an incredulous look, as was Mrs. Weasley.

Harry awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.

"Not entirely sure, to be honest. I assume Dumbledore sent him. Who knows what he was thinking?"

Admittedly he felt a bit bad for lying in their faces, but even if he had been allowed, he was not really sure if they would take the truth well.

Hermione would probably be worried sick, Ron would most likely get jealous that he got to train with Moody and Mrs. Weasley would most certainly cook up a thunderstorm, because he was too young to learn how to fight.

All in all, it was better this way, but that did little to lessen his guilt.

Seemingly satisfied with that explanation, Mrs. Weasley nodded acceptingly and went back inside. However, Hermione wasn't, as she frowned at him and opened her mouth, undoubtedly to ask more questions.

Luckily Ron's mother saved him from that interrogation when she stuck her head out of the door "Hermione, are you coming?"

"Oh, er-yes of course Mrs. Weasley!" then fixed him with a suspicious look "We'll talk later."

After that promise she ran after the older woman.

"Metal that one, I tell you." Ron said when she was out of hearing distance.

Harry chuckled nervously and decided to switch the topic "Anything happened during the summer so far?"

"Well, Fred and George have probably blown up their room eight times this summer. I think they were working on a couple things at once, but they toned it down a notch after last week when they managed to turn Ginny's hair green. We heard her yelling through the entire house and they had bats coming out of their noses for the remainder of the day…" Ron shuddered at the memory.

Harry whistled appreciatively. It seemed like there was more to the youngest of the Weasley family than it seemed at first.

Speaking of which, her head just popped around the corner of the entrance. The corner of the girl's mouth twitched upward in a smile when she saw them.

"Hey Harry! Nice to see you." she casually greeted him with a wave of her hand.

A bit taken back he stared at her for a moment. The last time they had met she had barely managed out a word before hurriedly walking away in embarrassment. Now she seemed completely at ease. The letter he had gotten from her for his birthday had been rather refreshing, but for her to talk to him like a normal person was a rather pleasant surprise.

Maybe she finally got over that crush.

He sincerely hoped so, because it always made him rather uncomfortable when people fawned over him because of the whole Boy-Who-Lived nonsense.

"Hi, Ginny!"

"How's summer been?" she asked.

"It's been uh… different to say the least. Yours?"

Before she could answer Ron had already budged past them and yelled "Oi! Talk later! I'm starving and we still gotta get your stuff upstairs. Come on!"

"Eh, yea. I'm coming!" he replied and gave Ginny an apologetic look and whispered "Later." before joining his friend to carry his belongings upstairs.

Lunch at the Burrow was as always, a pleasant and talkative affair. The shepherd pie from Mrs. Weasley was simply magnificent - Moody truly missed out on this one.

Harry was seated next to Ron, with Hermione and Ginny sitting on the opposite side. Nearby the twins seemed to be deep in thought about their latest experiments, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had a discussion with their currently eldest present son, Percy, about the latest news in the Ministry. The girls were talking in hushed tones about something he probably wouldn't be interested in anyway, so he took up to question his best mate about the upcoming Quidditch finals. While he was considered by many at Hogwarts to be one of the best fliers they ever had, he admittedly knew not all too much about the professional Quidditch scene. Something he was eager to rectify, especially now that he was going to see a match live.

Luckily his best friend was a fountain of knowledge in that regard and happily introduced him to one of his favorite topics.

"...I think it all comes down to how long the game goes. The Bulgarian's chasers have nothing on the Irish, but Lynch won't stand a chance against Krum. But if they can distract the seekers long enough, the Irish could rank in enough points to win anyway. At least that's how they knocked out Peru. Not sure if they can pull it off against Krum though."

Ron had talked quite a bit about the famous seeker before. Apparently, he was the undisputed best of the best right now, having caught the snitch in every single of his professional games so far. Being a seeker himself, Harry was least to say very intrigued about watching the Bulgarian fly. Maybe he would even be able to copy some of his moves?

"Care for a little wager on the game brother dearest?" Fred suddenly said, grinning widely at Ron.

The younger brother shrugged and replied with a still full mouth "Wuatcha bettin' on?"

"Krum catches the snitch, but Ireland wins the game." answered the other twin George.

Ron snorted, spitting small chunks of his food back on his platter for which Hermione shot him a disgusted glance.

The redhead blushed and swallowed before he shot back "You guys are barmy! No way that's going to happen!"

"So? If it's so barmy then surely you can pick up the bet?"

However to Ron's credit, he was smart enough to not bet against his elder brothers and cleverly kept his mouth shut. Hermione's warning glare might also have had something to do with that.

Harry chuckled at his friend's antics and decided to quietly keep eating.

After a while, when everybody had finished Mr. Weasely stood up and cleared his throat "Alright children! Bill and Charlie will likely arrive in a couple of hours. In the meantime, I want all of you to pack for the match. We will be leaving tomorrow very early in the morning to catch our Portkey so make sure to go to bed early enough, so you are well rested."

With that everybody else got up from their chairs and quickly brought their empty plates to the sink and started to pack.

Harry would have liked to say that he acted cool and composed upon seeing the setting of the Quidditch World cup, but that would have been a lie.

They had arrived on a small hill near the campsite. When he caught the first glance of the massive field that was packed with tents of various shapes, sizes and colors in front of the gargantuan stadium his jaw simply dropped. The place was simply amazing.

Everywhere he was able to spot little magical marvels. From the expansion charms on the tiny popup tents that could house multiple families inside, to the small fireworks, various magical creatures.

He even managed to buy a pair of omnioculars from a salesman for a large discount for his friends and himself. That recording feature he could definitely put to good use later.

To Hermione's and his amusement Ron chose to buy a small figure of the Bulgarian seeker Victor Krum.

As amazing as the campsite was, the fact that it was so crowded and loud did put Harry on the edge. The somewhat healthy dose of paranoia that he had developed during his stint with Moody proved to be a bit annoying as he had multiple instances where he had flinched and almost drawn his wand when another small firework went off. And that was only on their initial walk towards their own tent.

The actual game is gonna be a nightmare! Better get my stuff together before I look like a loon.

Unfortunately, Hermione, ever observant as she was, seemed to have already noticed his strange behavior and every now and then fixed him with a calculating look. Luckily for now she hadn't said anything. But that didn't mean much. She was probably just waiting for a better opportunity to interrogate him in peace.

He was already thinking about a possible excuse when his thoughts were interrupted by a quite excited man dressed in bright yellow and black Quidditch robes that waved them over.

"Arthur! How nice to see you!" he said.

Harry had to stifle his laughter when he took a closer look at the man. The Quidditch robes stretched tightly around his protruding belly and had been clearly made for a much slimmer person. His rather youthful looking face didn't quite fit to his obviously tinted blonde hair and his nose looked like it had made repeated contact with a baseball bat.

"Nice to see you as well Ludo." Mr. Weasley said and shook his hand. Then he pointed at their group "May I introduce you to my children and their friends?"

The man grinned at them and answered "Certainly, certainly! It's always nice to see young faces who value the sport! How are you doing fellas? Names Ludo Bagman!"

The others' jaws dropped at that.

"Blimey! Ludovic Bagman? Ex-beater of the Wimbourne Wasps?" Ron asked excitedly.

"Quite right my boy!" Bagman exclaimed and clapped in his hands "Are you all excited for the game tonight? Anyone up for a little wager on the game?"

Before Mr. Weasley could stop them, the twins already bet thirty seven galleons that Ireland would win but Krum would catch the snitch. The poor man obviously didn't know the twins and accepted.

"That's the spirit boys!" Bagman said with a big greedy grin and shook their hands. "I'll see you after the game then!"

And just as fast as he had come, he parted off.

"Okay what happened to you during summer? Where did Dumbledore place you?" Hermione hissed when she pulled him away from the others when they were on the way to the stadium.

"What do you mean?" Harry answered, deciding to play dumb in hopes to get her off his tail.

His friend's eyes narrowed "You know exactly what I mean! Ever since we've got here you've been acting… weird."

"I really don't know what you mean, Mione."

Hermione snorted "You might fool Ron with that, but not me! Your hand has been twitching towards your wand all day and you are constantly looking around as if you were about to be attacked. If you haven't noticed, you even walk differently. So again: What happened to you?"

That actually surprised him..

Why the hell am I walking differently?

He gave his bushy haired friend a long look before sighing. She wouldn't let go of this, he just knew it.

"Okay, you are right. Something did happen in the summer." he started and his friend smiled in victory "BUT, I can't tell you what exactly."

At that her smile fell and was replaced with disappointment.

"But Harry I can…"

"No, listen to me. I wish I could tell you. I really do, but I'm not allowed to." he said in a hushed whisper.

Hermione's eyebrows seemed to rise above her hairline at that point "W-what? You are not allowed to? Why?"

The fact that she was kept out of the loop seemed to frustrate her to no end.

"Look, I swore to Dumbledore that I wouldn't tell a soul and I intend to keep that promise. There are things that better remain secret for the good of everybody." Harry answered ominously, thinking back on one particular discussion he had with Moody.

One week ago…

Harry had just finished his training set for the day and was sitting down on the floor. There had been one big question on his mind ever since Moody had given him more details about the Death Eaters and how they had operated in the previous war. They had quite often hunted down muggleborns to torture and kill them, as the Pureblood fanatics saw them as inferior - not worthy to wield a magic. A belief that Voldemort had shared.

"What are you thinking about lad?" Moody asked from behind him.

"Why did Voldemort ask my mother to step aside?

The older man narrowed his good eye on him "How could you possibly know that?"

"Last year when I was close to the Dementors, I could hear them." Harry startet and with a deep breath continued "I could hear how Voldemort demanded that my mother should step aside and her begging him to kill her instead. He only killed my mum when she refused to get out of the way. Why? He had killed dozens of muggleborns. So why did he tell her to step aside? Why was it more important to him, to kill me, a baby, instead of her? It feels like he was after me instead of my parents."

Harry looked at the ex-Auror expectantly, who closed his eyes in frustration and mumbled something under his breath.

Finally, he sighed "Albus is going to skin me alive for telling you this, but I have a feeling that you would figure it out soon anyway. Before your birth a prophecy was created by a seer."

Harry raised an eyebrow but decided to not interrupt the man.

"It said: The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

WHAT THE FUCK!

So that was the reason why they were training him? Because a freaking prophecy foretold that he was supposed to kill Voldemort? That's what his parents died for?

Present time…

That day Harry had spent the remainder of the day blowing things up with all sorts of spells and it took days before he had finally accepted the harsh truth that Moody had told him. Truth to be told he was still quite upset about it, he had merely gotten better to suppress his emotions on the matter.

Looking intently at the worried face of Hermione he knew that some things were better left unsaid. He wouldn't burden his friend with all he had learned, at least not now.

"Bu-..." she started again.

"No Hermione." he interrupted her harshly, but when he saw her hurt expression, he softened his tone "Maybe one day I will tell you… but not now."

"Fine." she sniffed.

"Now. How about we enjoy some Quidditch?"

AN: Not a lot of action in this chapter but I wanted to take my time to establish the characters more. The next one will be quite a bit different to say the least.