Harry Potter and the Brothers of the Wolves

Chapter III: Abrupt Changes

When Harry awoke the next day, he was startled to see an owl pecking slowly on the window: it must have been waiting awhile because it looked absolutely out of it. Harry rushed to the window and relieved the owl of its burden. The letter inside the envelops said:

Dear Harry,

What's goin' on? Same old here. Hey, we were all wondering if you'd like to stay here for about a month or so before school starts back up again. Bill and Charlie are back and they'll be working in London.

Any ways, post me back with when you can be picked up and what's been happening.

Ron.

P.S. Ginny bugged me to throw her letter in so I had to. See ya.

That was a pleasant surprise. A month or so at the Burrow wouldn't be so bad. He'd ask his uncle to let him go for payment for Harry's work in the backyard. Harry then opened another parchment that he hadn't seen the first time:

Dear Harry,

I can't wait to see you. You'll be surprised at how much has changed around here. Ron might have told you that Bill and Charlie are back. What he might not have told you is that they brought a girl along with them. She's Charlies new girlfriend from Romania. Any ways, just writing to say hello and can't wait to see you!

Love, Ginny.

Harry smiled to himself. If only HE had such a nice family as the Weasleys. They always seemed to have some interesting new around the house, whereas at the Dursleys, nothing exciting ever happened.

With a new plan ahead of him, Harry went down the stairs to find the entire family sitting down to breakfast.

"Good morning!" Harry said cheerfully.

"What are you so giddy about?" Petunia spat, clearly not interested.

"Oh, I'm just going to finally ask for my pay from working!" Harry laughed inwardly at the shocked expressions on their faces.

"Al right, so I'm lying. I'm just asking permission to go to the Weasleys the last month before school." Harry noticed Dudley squirm when he had mentioned the Weasleys. Harry remembered the less than pleasant experience Dudley had had last year concerning Fred, George, and a handful of Ton-Tongue Toffees.

Uncle Vernon had a strained look on his face that always signaled a point of concentration; Harry thought he might bust a vein in his head if he kept it up for too long. "Fine," he strained, "but don't you go pulling any more of those pranks like that on us, boy." Uncle Vernon seemed as though he had been halfway tricked into the agreement.

Harry picked up some toast and went out back to sit on the lawn chairs. When he was all done, he came back inside to find a few strangers at the front door.

"Ah! An' this 'ere mus' be 'Arry! 'Ey thair, I'm Duncan MacPherson wit' me lads 'ere," one of the strangers said, waving a hand casually to the young men behind him. "I'm not yer boss, tho', that'd be Mister Aberlan. Good man, he'll be 'round often 'nough."

With this Harry bid his farewells to his relatives for the day and walked down to a beaten down van resting idle on the curb.

When they got in, Duncan spoke up in an oddly familiar voice. "Finally! Can't stand them, and I can finally ditch the accent." Harry definitely noticed this. "You wondering what's going on, Harry?" He nodded dumbly, severely confused by the reasoning for the false facade that this man was putting on.

Another familiar voice piped up in the back, "We've come to rescue you from those god damned Muggles, Harry!"

Harry wheeled around. The young men he obviously didn't know before were now replaced by Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. Harry turned on Duncan to look for an answer when he was surprised yet again: where Duncan MacPherson was moments before now was none other than Remus Lupin.

"Surprise, Harry!" Ginny exclaimed. Surprise indeed, he thought.

Everyone looked different except for Lupin, who was exactly the same as Harry remembered him. All of them were wearing an assortment of Muggle clothes, and only Remus and Lupin looked like they had any clue at all of Muggle fashions. Ron had grown much taller than Harry by now, looking like he had been stretched out like putty. He had a bright yellow poncho on, despite the sunny weather outside, fully complimented by his knee-high striped socks. Hermione had on a simple school girl uniform. She had paled since he had last seen her, possibly because of the trip to Bulgaria that Harry had been told of slightly. He supposed it wasn't as bright and sunny as it was here.

And then there was Ginny-GINNY! How she had changed! Harry had had a mental picture of her as the little girl he had saved from the Chamber of Secrets, which now seemed ages ago. Now, though, he realized just how much she had grown up. Her features had softened and her eyes, a hazel brown with green edges, had widened just enough to be noticeable. Harry was stricken with just how beautiful she had become. Her fiery red hair was twisted into some plait or bun or what not at the back of her hear, small tendrils falling down to her rosy cheeks.

Harry was speechless, first, with the shock of seeing the people he knew and cared for, and then with how Ginny had changed so much. Harry wondered if she'd been changing since the end of her first year, mainly because Harry hadn't seem to notice it.

Harry forced a smile to his lips, and Ginny radiated heat from her cheeks.

Someone shook his shoulder softly and he turned to face his old teacher. "Greetings, Harry. It's been so long since I last saw you." He turned to get a better look at Harry. "My, you really have changed. You've been taking your gardening seriously, huh?"

"Yea, I had a good time with it," he managed to drag out. The shock of the abrupt changes had made him slightly dumbfounded.

The van pulled into a driveway a few blocks away from Number 4 and everyone stepped out. The house looked vaguely familiar to Harry and he found out why when the front door opened.

Walking out to greet them was none other than Mrs. Figg, Harry's old babysitter. Harry would always be dropped off here when the Dursleys would take Dudley to do something anything more exciting than a dentist's appointment. What was she doing having connections with wizards? Was she-?

"Yes, Harry, I am a witch," she said as though she was reading his thoughts.

Harry hesitated. "Then-why did I have to be treated so miserably every time that I can over?" Harry had been forced to look at Mrs. Figg's old, no-longer-living cats. It truly was a traumatic ordeal.

"Was it really that bad? Any ways, I was on orders from Profesor Dumbledore to not let you enjoy yourself too much. If that would happen, you'd always be begging to come back and the Dursleys wouldn't usually let you do anything you wanted. It was for you own good, you know that."

Everyone went inside where they found Mad-Eye Moody, Profesor McGonogall and Sirius Black seated around an ellipse-shaped table.

Mad-Eye rose up at the head of the table and grinned maniacally, making his face clash terribly.

"Welcome."