Fear

In an upstairs bedroom of an ordinary house, in an ordinary suburb an extraordinary wizard stared out at the cloudless expanse of night sky. The leaded window was ajar, and the boy was absently enjoying the cool night breeze on his face. The room was stuffy and claustrophobic, not aided by the 90-degree heat wave that this particular part of Britain was experiencing. Only the night yielded respite from the clingy heat of the summer.

Harry Potter sighed slightly as the wind cooled the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. It burned ferociously sometimes, and burned blood red into his visage, yet most of the time it was barely noticeable. It was also generally well hidden behind his stubbornly untidy, black fringe. He leant back against the window frame and stared up at the constellation Sirius. He had taken to doing this nightly since he had emerged from the Department of Mysteries, one again feeling alone in the world. His entire life he'd had no family. No family, save the Dursleys. The feeling was mutual between Harry and the Dursley family that they would happily bid each other goodbye and good-riddance, but the legacy of Harry's being an orphan meant that he had to spend at least part of his summer in the Dursleys' house. His Aunt Petunia, one of Harry's two remaining blood relatives (the other being his cousin Dudley) was essential to an ancient magic that meant that no harm could befall Harry from the feared Lord Voldemort; his mother had given her life to save Harry's and being in his Aunt's company for as little as one week a year, sealed the spell.

However Albus Dumbledore had decided to err on the side of caution, and had prescribed Harry two weeks' stay with the Dursleys before allowing him to return to Grimmauld Place, his late godfather, Sirius', house and headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. This was to be Harry's final night in the Dursleys' house. In the morning half a dozen Order members would arrive to whisk him away for the rest of his summer holiday in much better company - that of his two best friends, Ron and Hermione.

He had heard from Hermione, by owl-post, informing him that Ron had almost recovered from his ordeal in the Brain Room of the Department of Mysteries. Each time she had written Harry had felt more than just a twinge of guilt in the pit of his stomach for having led his friends into such mortal danger. Words she had said before she had even agreed to leave the castle with him had been, "You do have a bit of a saving-people-thing, don't you?" This had aggravated him immensely at the time, but now looking back on it Harry realised that he had most definitely not been thinking entirely clearly. He should have realised that what he had dreamt might not have been real. But it had been before - the attack on Mr Weasley and, Harry assumed, the Dark Lord performing the Cruciatus curse on Wormtail in an old house somewhere. That had definitely been real - he had woken up from the pain in his scar after that.

Many nights he had run through this over and over, and did not know what to make of it. He would lie on his back, sleepless as much due to the heat as to the worry and guilt consuming him, then fling himself over onto his front, burying his face in the pillow, pummelling it with his fists and flailing his legs as if this would help make sense of it all. He always ended up at the same terrible thought though. If he had only listened to Hermione, accepted that there was nothing he could do, Sirius would not be dead. The record of the prophecy would not have been destroyed. The members of the Order would not have had to get injured to save stupid Harry and his friends. He had bitten off way more than he had a hope of chewing, and he knew it. He led his friends into harm's way, blinded by the need to rescue Sirius.

Then he though about what good had come from his actions. Well for one, Dumbledore had been able to come back out of hiding, and for another the Ministry of Magic had finally had to accept that, after he had contributed in major fashion to the destruction of the entrance hall to their building, that Voldemort had indeed returned - a fact they had singularly refused to accept for the previous year. And several Death Eaters, including Lucius Malfoy, had been arrested when the Department of Mysteries had magically sealed around them. They had been, according to the Daily Prophet, incarcerated in magical gold cages, as the Dementors of Azkaban had abandoned their servitude to the Ministry and joined the Dark Order.

This did mean that while many previously active Death Eaters were locked up, those who had bade their time in Azkaban had returned to Voldemort's side as glorified martyrs to the Dark cause, showing the kind of dedication Voldemort would accept no less than.

It all came back, though, to Harry's single most incessant thought; had all that been worth Sirius' life? His immediate reaction to this, every time, was the selfish one - No! But when he thought about it some more, he realised that it was in no small part due to the efforts of his godfather that none of his friends had been more severely injured by the Death Eaters. Sirius, after all, had chosen to come assist Harry; Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna had been practically press ganged into coming to London by Harry. He felt that while he had not expressly told them to come with him, his hot-headedness had caused him to overlook that they would have followed him to the farthest ends of the earth to help him; he had decided to storm off to London to rescue Sirius, and they had supported him one-hundred percent. As he thought about the immensity of the gesture of solidarity each of them had shown, he had been reduced to tears on more than one night since school had broken up.

He had thought about whether or not he would have done the same for any of them, and had decided immediately that of course he would. Indeed he had, during his second year when he and Ron had rescued Ginny from the clutches of death in the Chamber of Secrets.

His head lolled against the window frame as all these thoughts raced through his mind for what felt like the millionth time. They still affected him in the same way, emotionally, as they had when the feeling had been brand new. He knew that he was very unlikely to get to sleep tonight, as on the previous nights. So he made no effort to move and remained sat on the window sill until dawn.

The following morning Harry was already sat in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal when Aunt Petunia made the first showing of the Dursley family on a weekend morning. She was always up before either her husband or son, and in this time she busied silently with cleaning obsessively or preparing the others' breakfast. In terms of food, for breakfast Harry was generally left to fend for himself. This was the other half of the reason why he was up before even Aunt Petunia; if he were any later he would have to fight with Uncle Vernon or Dudley or both of them to get anything to eat. The pair of them would suddenly feel a craving for whatever it looked as though Harry wanted to eat, and Aunt Petunia naturally gave them priority over Harry. So he used the fact that he had generally been awake anyway to go help himself to breakfast before they stirred.

Aunt Petunia sniffed slightly when she walked into the kitchen to find Harry immersed in Uncle Vernon's newspaper. But she pointedly ignored him and proceeded with nose in the air to the far end of the kitchen to get bowls and plates out. After slightly less than even a minute, though, she snapped at him.

"You make sure you fold that back up and get it back in the bag before Vernon comes down, boy," she whispered icily, "and don't you dare get any milk or orange juice on it. You ruined that other one."

'That other one' had been several summers ago, and it had been entirely Dudley's fault, though Harry was not inclined in the slightest to argue about a soggy newspaper. He folded the paper back up, as it was, and stuffed it roughly back into the bag it had come in. The tossed it over the table so that it landed the right way round in front on Uncle Vernon's usual seat. Aunt Petunia scowled slightly then opened her mouth again.

"You don't you make a little more noise while people are trying to sleep," she hissed. Harry stood abruptly, pushing his chair away from the table with the back of his knees as he stood up rather sharply. Aunt Petunia fell silent and though Harry was not looking directly at her, he could tell she thought Harry might explode. He did not, instead he silently left the room, closing the door with a small snap behind him, and proceeding upstairs to his room to collect his things and pack them into his trunk, hoping with all his might that his Order escort would arrive soon.

After about half-an-hours' packing, Harry was sat on the lid of his trunk, trying to get it to close. It was several minutes before he realised that one of his thick dragon skin gloves what inhibiting his progress, though even when the obstruction was places properly into the trunk, it took all Harry's weight to get the lid down and clasped. He was contemplating using his wand to bewitch the trunk to make it feather-light when there was a muffled bang from downstairs followed closely by a small shriek of fright that had unmistakeably been the characteristic sound Aunt Petunia made when a wizard abruptly appeared in her presence.

Harry shoved his wand into the waistband of his jeans, behind his back, disguising it by pulling his untucked T-shirt over it, and ran downstairs to see who had come. When he entered the kitchen he was slightly less surprised that Aunt Petunia had screamed. Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, looking decidedly worse for wear. His heavily scarred and creased face was hidden behind a visage of blood and grime and his nose looked even more unshapely than usual. He worn travelling cloak was grimy also, and was torn in several places. Hey eyes however, his real one and his magical one, were both bright and alert, and looked worried.

"Good, they haven't found you," he growled, grasping Harry tightly by the shoulder and steering him out of the kitchen, stopping in the hallway, positioned well away from windows.

"What's going on?" asked Harry, still staring in wonderment at the state of Moody's clothes.

"Bad business," he continued shortly, "had a run-in with some Dementors. They've abandoned Azkaban you see, joined the Dark Side again. It was always going to happen. If we'd had a Minister with more than half a wit this could have been avoided, but given the circumstances last year..."

He trailed off for a moment, but then continued in an urgent voice.

"Your escort was supposed to consist of six of us. However there will be only two more members arriving to take care of your transit to Headquarters."

"What happened?" Harry cut across him.

"We'll fill you in as much as is necessary once you're safely out of here," said Moody, overriding him right back, "we have to get you out of here as soon as possible though."

At that, he reached inside his robes and withdrew a blue, crystal vial. It contained a very small amount of a potion which judging from the amount of frozen condensation on the exterior of the glass was incredibly cold.

"You're going to need to take this," he explained abruptly, flaring his remaining, complete nostril, "in order to make it to Headquarters unscathed. It's a very powerful potion which hopefully," here he scowled slightly, "won't kill you."

He handed Harry the vial, muttering something under his breath. Harry caught the words 'Snape', and 'untrustworthy' and 'scum', but didn't ask any further questions. He was surprised to find that the glass in his hand was not the slightest bit cold to the touch. He reached to the stopper with his other hand, but Moody's gnarled hand was quickly placed over his own, pale hand.

"Wait," he heaved, "once you take it we only have a very narrow window of opportunity. We have to wait for the other two. One will go ahead of you, and the other two of us will follow once we're sure that you've safely arrived.

Harry swallowed rather hard. It seemed as though however he was going to get to Grimmauld Place was no conventional means of transportation, even for wizards.

"Mr Weasley once had the fireplace in there -" he indicated the fireplace in the living room- "added to the Floo network..."

"Don't be a fool. There are spies and moles all over. We can't have anyone knowing about this place or where you are."

"What about Portkeys?" Harry pressed, deciding that he didn't like how Moody wasn't letting him know exactly how dangerous his intended mode of transportation actually was.

"Same - they can be traced." Moody replied, "anyone could easily find out where Portkeys have taken people - times and places, Potter," he said quietly. "Constant vigilance," he boomed making Harry, and Aunt Petunia who was listening behind the kitchen door, jump. Moody cast a dirty look in the direction of the kitchen, and turned away from it.

At that moment there were two more loud bangs from the kitchen, and a thud from upstairs, followed by a roar.

"Bloody racket!" Uncle Vernon had evidently been awoken by the sounds from downstairs. "What the hell are you up to this time, boy? Trying to wake up the whole neighbourhood? I'll wake you up, you inconsiderate little snot-nosed..."

Uncle Vernon reached the foot of the stairs, with one arm in his bath robe and the other flailing behind his back to find the other sleeve, in mid-tirade, and fell suddenly silent. The violent purple shade vanished from his face in an instant, and his moustache even seemed to droop as he caught sight of Mad-Eye Moody standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking menacing. Uncle Vernon's eyes shot to Moody's wand, which he was pounding against his palm as though he was going to hit him with it.

"You were saying?" growled Moody, displeasure and disgust prevalent in his gnarled expression. Uncle Vernon didn't manage a reply. His eyes shot over to the doorway, which framed Nymphodora Tonks and Severus Snape, who looked absurd and cold respectively. Tonks, a Metamorphmagus, had her customary pink hair today, and was wearing violently green robes, which clashed viciously; she looked as if she were trying her hardest not to laugh at the state of the dishevelled Muggle standing before her. Snape was wearing his usual black robes and usual sneer.

Ordinarily Uncle Vernon would have puffed himself up and demanded that these intruders leave at once, but he had evidently learned his lesson from previous experience, and remained silent. Moody turned his back on Uncle Vernon, and his attention turned back to Harry.

"Now if Snape has prepared this solution properly, which he assures me he has," here Moody shot a dirty look in Snape's direction, while Snape pursed his lips, "then you should make it to Headquarters with no injury."

This worried Harry immediately. It was common knowledge that Snape disliked him intensely, and while he knew that Snape had never tried to hurt him in the past and the Dumbledore had complete trust in Snape, Harry was always naturally suspicious around him. Now shaking a little, he took the stopper out of the bottle, and sniffed the contents gingerly. The white vapour had entirely no smell, and as they burned Harry's nose in a distantly familiar way, he realised that it was condensation furling from the neck of the vial. The cold he had inhaled made him shiver slightly. Moody nodded slowly to him, and Harry raised the vial to his mouth, feeling the cold glass on his lips. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, emptying the contents of the vial into his mouth, and quickly swallowing them.

Immediately an intense cold flooded his body, making him wheeze as his frozen breath caught in his throat. He winced as the potion became colder and colder as it got down to his stomach.

"Here," said Moody, quickly handing him a large golden feather, "hold on to this as tight as you can. Tonks - you go ahead," he added, looking away from Harry for a moment.

Harry grasped the feather tightly in his free hand. Before he'd even though to take the vial from his lips, the phoenix feather ignited and he was instantaneously engulfed in flame. He could feel the heat of it, even though the cold of the potion he had swallowed was keeping it from actually burning him. The flash of intense heat was over in an instant. Harry opened his eyes expecting to see the semi-familiar surroundings of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place surrounding him, and maybe a few friendly faces. He found himself in a place that, although unexpected, he felt as if he had been before. There was no discernable beginning or end to the place, no features or landmarks - in fact he was surrounded by fast-moving, swirling colour. The strange sensation he was feeling in his stomach was what made the place familiar, it was the same odd feeling he had had when the gas in the maze that had been the third Triwizard task had turned the world upside down.

Harry barely had the time to start wondering just what exactly had gone wrong, and why he hadn't arrived in Grimmauld Place before he cried out in fright as he was once again engulfed in fire. He could feel the heat for slightly longer this time. He ventured to open his eyes before he was conscious of the fire having subsided, and found that the blinding gold of the fire was ebbing away to black behind him. Darkness was creeping up on him; he could hear sounds other than the roaring his ears had become accustomed to. As he twisted to look behind him, to see what was following him, his scar burned hotter than the Phoenix fire against his forehead, and tears of pain obscured his vision again, before he screwed his eyes shut against it. He could hear a noise that sounded almost human; then it developed into an inhuman laugh, a shriek, and the darkness tailing Harry was suddenly illuminated by a terrifying green light rushing towards him, making more noise than ever. Harry's face contorted in fear as he realised that there was nothing he could do to avoid the spell - he was stuck to the Phoenix's feather. He could see green even through his screwed up eyelids...