Wish You Were Here

CHAPTER THREE

Harry was asleep, again. He had received another letter from Ron today. It didn't cheer him up though. It just layed there on his stomach, where a strange barn owl had dropped it hours ago.

Harry was wondering what the point of living was anymore. He only had one reason-to protect the wizarding world. His friends had been writing to him, but he didn't open any of the letters. They were laying in a small pile next to his bed.

Harry had to go to the bathroom really, really, really badly, his stomach was growling like mad, and his mouth was so dry it was starting to get difficult to breathe. It was times like these that Harry's better side told him to get up and keep living. He'd usually just go downstairs and go to the bathroom and get a big glass of water, and he planned on doing the same this time; until he looked at himself in the mirror.

He thrusted his hands to his sides and pushed up, which used all his remaining strenth and walked into the upstairs bathroom. As usual, he did anything he could to avoid the Dursleys.

Harry didn't even look like himself anymore. His hair was unusually scrubby looking, greasier than Snape's hair and now growing past his ears, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was sickly skinny. He looked like a zombie he once saw on the cover of one of Dudley's DVD's, only more realistic.

So with that, Harry got in the shower and scrubbed his hair with his aunt's shampoo, hoping maybe that would make it cleaner than soap would. He continued to clean him self when he heard his name being called from the kitchen. He turned off the shower, put on some clean, baggy clothes and went downstairs.

Aunt Petunia immediately flinched at Harry's shabbiness.

"Ugh, come here boy, I have to cut that hair of yours," she said, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pullling him over to a stool that seemed to be waiting for him in the kitchen.

Aunt Petunia shoved Harry onto the stool and got out her scissors. She silently cut his hair for about a minutes, with Harry sitting there, confused.

"What did you want to tell me?" he asked.

Petunia siged as though she didn't want to tell him. "Some man by the name of Remus Lupin keeps phoning for you. I told him you were...." she paused.

"You told him I was..." Harry said, waiting for the second part.

"I told him I...sent you to soccer camp."

"He didn't fall for it though," said Harry, as if he already knew.

"No, he didn't. He called today, again, and said that if I continued to lie to him about your whereabouts, he'd have to come and get you. As much as I'd like that, I told him you didn't want to talk," she said.

"Did he leave a number?" Harry asked, interested.

"Yes, it's on the counter. Don't you dare talk to him in the kitchen though...take the phone upstairs so people don't hear you," she snaped. Harry didn't see this as a problem.

After Petunia was done cutting Harry's hair, he went to the counter and picked up the cordless phone, and Lupin's number. Then, he rushed upstairs, eager to talk to Lupin again.

"Hullo?" said a tierd vioce on the other line.

"Lupin? Is'at you?" Harry said into the reciever.

"Harry! Yes, it's me. What have you been doing all summer? I've been trying to tak to you for ages. Must've sent about 5 letters!" he said, ecsatic.

Harry switched the reciever to his other ear. Harry didn't want Lupin to worry about him. After all, Lupin was just like Sirius was when it came to his safety. But then again, he didn't want to completely lie about it....

"Er, well, I've been just...hanging around...reading...I haven't answered my letters yet...I just...erm..haven't gotten the..." Harry's throat was tightening up. He forced back his tears. "I've been busy keeping 'Big D' in line."

Lupin laughed into the phone. "Well, Ron and Hermione have been worried about you, not writing back," he said. He was silent for a moment, as though thinking of how to say what he was about to say. "Harry, they've been really good about...your loss. You shouldn't make them worry. Sirius wasn't the only person who cared about you."

Harry looked down at his bare feet.

Dear Ron,

Sorry I've been ignoring you and Hermione. I've been kinda...moping lately.

Everything's okay here. Nothing weird, you know. I've been having a boring summer though, nothing's happened. I think "Big D" beat up another 13-year-old yesterday, got arrested and everything. Too bad though, the police just decided to put them on house-arrest. He can't go out of his house for 2 weeks, which sucks for me. I think he's been sneaking out though.

Tell everyone I said hi.

-Harry

Dear Hermione,

I'm really sorry about not writing back to you guys. I've just been upset lately...about...you know...

But anyway, that's great that you're going to camp. Hope you have a great time. Keep writing, I'll answer you.

Do you know where Ron is? I got an important letter from him this morning, and I should write back, but I don't know where to send it. I'll enclose his letter with yours so if you know where he is you can send it for me or something.

Have a great time at camp.

-Harry

CHAPTER FOUR

Hermione had one day left to pack. So far, her pillowcase was quite empty-looking. All she thought she would need was some clothes, 3 composition notebooks, a pack of pencils, her pillow, her bedsheets, her photo album (filled with pictures of mostly her, Ron, and Harry) and some candles. She didn't know about the candles. Her mother said she might need them, which brought on a long conversation about her mother's past.

"You used to write too?"

"Mmm hmm," answered her mother as she mixed the dough for Hermione's going-away-cookies.

"Why do I need these?" asked Hermione, holding up the pack of candles, which included one big tie-dye colored one that was shaped like a daisy.

"Oh, me and my friends used to do lots of stuff with candles," she said, "we used to use them for light mostly, because our cabins didn't have electric lights. We were in the middle of the woods."

"But mum, I'm sure we'll have....dorms...or something like that. I don't think I'll need them for light."

Hermione mother looked at Hermione with a mischievious motherly grin. "We had our reasons for candles. We used to buy fireworks before we went to camp and sneak out at night with our candles and use the light from the candle to like the fireworks," her mother said, followed by a laugh. Hermione laughed with her.

"Didn't you get caught?" asked Hermione.

"Sometimes. As long as we didn't wake up othe rcampers, we weren't in serious trouble. A lot of the campers didn't care though," she said.

"So what else were they for?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you'll know how to do this already...but...you know, writing camps usually have a lot of...erm...hippie-like people...so they'd use them for seances, and other supposidly magical stuff," she said, looking at Hermione surprised face and laughing.

"You actually tried to communicate with the dead?" she said. Her mother nodded.

"Maybe you can learn some things about 'muggles's ways of doing magic," she said, followed by a long silence. "Or maybe you're not interested."

Hermione doubted that anyone nowadays wanted to do a seance, but she took the candles in her arms and thanked her mom anyway.

Hermione looked down at the suitcase and smiled. She had a feeling her mother was a strange teenager. Hermione thought it was completely bizzare that her mother was a hippie-dippie writer as a teenager and grew up to become a dentist.

Dear Harry,

It's okay that you didn't write back. I completely understand that you were upset. I hope you feel better as the summer goes on.

Yes, I do know where Ron is, but I can't say. Just hang on to this owl and send him there. He's an owl our headmaster's bought. It's the only one who knows wherer Ron's staying this summer. I think you can figure out why this is the only owl that knows. Security reasons. Just give this one lots of food, write a letter to Ron, and send him off. He may be a bit stubborn if you skip the food part. He didn't budge until I fed him a dead mouse Crookshanks brought in.

Hopefully Ron will find a way to get you to his summer home.

Love,

Hermione