Seo Gerecednis

A week had gone since Tonks' visit, and although Harry still tended to pass his days brooding, his outlook had brightened considerably. Truth be told, he was genuinely looking forward to having Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt as his Defense Against the Dark Arts professors this year. Save third year, when Remus Lupin had been his teacher, his Defense instruction had been rather spotty. The fake Moody hadn't been bad--quite the opposite--but considering he'd turned out to be Voldemort's most loyal supporter, Harry wasn't inclined to give him much credit. Quirrell hadn't been too shabby either, but then he'd actually been possessed by Voldemort. That left Lockhart and Umbridge. Harry shuddered involuntarily at the though of the latter. Last he'd heard, Dolores Jane Umbridge was in the custody of Magical Law Enforcement, awaiting trial on charges of insubordination, insurrection and attempted murder. With luck, she'd be on her way to Azkaban by Christmas.

Harry smiled to himself, imagining Umbridge spending the rest of her life surrounded by the dregs of wizarding society, including the Death Eaters who'd been captured in June, as he sifted through the pile of birthday greetings he'd received two nights before. He'd got the usual basket of food from Mrs. Weasley, including an enormous treacle tart that he'd consumed in a matter of minutes, and Hermione had sent him a pound of Floo Powder plus a carefully printed card with her address in India "for keeping in touch." Fred and George sent him a gift certificate to their shop and a T-shirt identical to the one Tonks had been wearing the other day. Bill, much to Harry's delighted surprise, gave him a book on curse-breaking, and Ginny had crocheted an afghan in Gryffindor colors for him.

Oddly enough, nothing came from Ron. Harry was both puzzled and hurt by the omission. Had something passed between them in June that Harry, in his grief, had overlooked? He could think of nothing. He hadn't heard from Ron all summer, either. He hadn't realized it before, not until he'd opened his parcels. He hadn't even got a note detailing Ron's reaction to Hermione's departure, which was completely out of character for Ron. Most distressing of all, however, was that Ron had not written to invite Harry to stay at the Burrow before he, Ron and Ginny returned to Hogwarts. Was he not welcome anymore? Had the debacle at the Ministry been the final straw?

Harry swept his gifts back into the basket and shoved it under his bed, then flopped back on to his pillow with a groan. He heard the doorbell ring downstairs, but paid no attention to it. What was he going to do if he couldn't go to the Burrow anymore? It was his home away from home, even more so now that Sirius was dead and Narcissa Malfoy had taken possession of Grimmauld Place. What if Ron didn't want to be friends with him anymore? His throat tightened at the thought. After all, Ron had been seriously injured at the Ministry, and Ginny had suffered a broken ankle, both thanks to Harry. He wouldn't want to be friends with him either, not with odds like that. But he couldn't imagine spending the rest of his life without Ron as his best mate, not after all they'd been through together. Harry groaned again and yanked his pillow out from under him to press against his face. With Hermione gone, and Ron ignoring him, sixth year was not looking good.

A scream from downstairs jolted him from his self-pity and launched him off his bed and out of his room. A thump and Dudley's frantic, "Mum!" added wings to Harry's feet. Surely Voldemort couldn't have managed to fracture the protective charms around number 4, Privet Drive?

Pulling out his wand, Harry leaped down the stairs. Aunt Petunia lay crumpled by the open front door. Dudley hovered over her, wringing his hands and whimpering. Standing in the doorway, staring down at Harry's aunt with a horrified expression...

"Ginny?" Harry said, incredulous. What was she doing here? "What are you doing here? What happened?"

Startled, she jerked her head up to look at him. "Harry!" She took a tentative step inside, but a sudden movement from Dudley drove her back. "I-I-I don't know what happened. I --"

"You did magic on her, I know you did!" Dudley bellowed.

"Shut up," Harry said. He looked at Ginny. "You didn't, did you?"

"No!" She turned around, and Harry saw Bill walking up the drive. "Bill, I --"

"Ginny, you know how Dad feels about Muggle abuse." His voice was severe.

"I didn't!" She seemed to be almost on the verge of tears. "I didn't even say anything to her!"

"What happened?" Bill asked in a gentler tone, stepping past her to kneel beside Aunt Petunia and check for a pulse.

"All I know is that she flung open the door, took one look at me, screamed, then fainted dead away." She looked imploringly at Harry. "I swear, I didn't do anything!"

"And that's all that happened?" Bill asked. "You're sure?"

"Positive." She paused. "Wait...there was something else."

Bill and Harry looked at each other. "I knew it!" Dudley said triumphantly, even though he'd backed into a corner when Bill entered the house.

"Shut up," Harry and Bill said in unison. Bill looked up at Ginny. "Go on," he said.

"Well, she-she called me something. A name. Not an insult, a person's name. She didn't say it real loud, so I couldn't hear all that well, but it sounded like Olivia or Libby or Lizzy or something like that."

Harry felt a chill pass through him. "Lily?" he asked, his voice a croak.

She nodded. "It might've been. Why? Who's Lily? Why'd she call me that?"

Harry was about to try to steer Ginny away from that painful subject when Bill answered for him, "Lily Evans was Harry's mother, and Mrs. Dursley's sister, and she looked remarkably like you." He looked down at Aunt Petunia. "Poor woman must've thought she was seeing a ghost."

Ginny clapped her hands to her mouth. She was as white as a sheet--or a ghost, Harry thought morbidly. Ginny'd never reminded him of his mother before, because he'd never looked at her closely enough, but he could see the resemblance now. The only significant difference was in the color of her eyes; where his mother's were green, Ginny's were a dark brown. "Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I'd no idea."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "How do you know what my mum looked like?" he asked Bill, both curious and suspicious.

Bill grinned somewhat sheepishly and cleared his throat. "Your parents were Head Boy and Girl during my first year at Hogwarts. I had quite the...er, crush, on Lily." As familiar as he was with the Weasley complexion, Harry would never have imagined Bill, of all of them, could turn such a violent shade of pink. "Her talent for charms partly inspired me to pursue a career in counter-curses." He chuckled and jerked his chin in Ginny's direction. "When she was born, I even suggested Mum and Dad name her Lily."

"Bill!" Ginny said, obviously shocked, if the flush in her cheeks was any indication.

He shrugged. "Probably a good thing they didn't, else Aunt Petunia here might've had a real heart attack." He scooped one arm behind her shoulders and another under her knees and stood with a grunt. "Sofa?" he barked at Dudley, still cowering in the corner.

"O-Over there." Dudley pointed a shaking finger toward the parlor.

Bill carried Aunt Petunia to the sofa and laid her down gently. "Ginny, why don't you go upstairs with Harry and help him pack his things. We're here to take you to the Burrow," he added by way of explanation. "I'll see if I can't revive Mrs. Dursley. Do you have any smelling salts or ammonia in the house?" he asked Dudley.

Harry silently led Ginny upstairs to his room. He'd unpacked very few of his belongings all summer, so it was a simple matter of tossing his few articles of clothing and his birthday presents into his trunk and laying his Firebolt on top of everything. He took one last look around to be sure he hadn't forgotten anything and spotted his photo album, a gift from Hagrid at the end of his first year at Hogwarts, on his desk. He beckoned Ginny over. "C'mere, let me show you something," he said, opening the album to the page with his parents' wedding photo. The happy couple, oblivious to what lay ahead of them, smiled and waved. "That's my mum."

Ginny hesitantly took the album from him and crossed the room to hold it next to her face as she studied her reflection in Harry's mirror. He could see her eyes widen as she compared the two images. "Oh, my," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "There really is a resemblance."

Harry crossed to stand beside her. "Yeah, I suppose I never noticed it before now, but there's no denying you look like her."

She handed the album back to him. "Does that bother you?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Never had to think about it until today."

"Too bad I'm not a Metamorphmagus like Tonks," she said with a sigh. "I hate to think I'll be reminding you of your mum every time you look at me."

The earnestness in her voice both touched and embarrassed Harry. He patted Ginny's shoulder awkwardly, unsure of what else to do to express his appreciation. "Don't worry about it," he ended up saying. "I see my dad every time I look in the mirror, and it doesn't bother me."

"Except for the eyes," she said, pointing at the album. "You have your mother's eyes."

Harry gave her a weak smile. "That's what everyone keeps telling me." The sound of raised voices coming up from below led him to believe that Bill had succeeded in reviving Aunt Petunia. "I'm all packed. Can you give me a hand with this?" He indicated his trunk.

"Oh! Of course, that's what I'm up here for."

They each took hold of a handle, and Harry grabbed Hedwig's cage with his free hand, and made their way downstairs. The raised voices quickly got louder. Harry tried not to listen to the accusations Aunt Petunia and Dudley were hurling at Bill; he knew he'd only lose his temper if he did, and probably say or do something he'd regret later. As he and Ginny reached the ground floor landing and set his trunk on the floor, however, the voices stopped abruptly. Harry hazarded a glance at Aunt Petunia. She'd gone deathly pale and was staring at Ginny as though she were seeing a ghost.

"Ready to go?" Bill asked. He looked eager to get as far away from Privet Drive as fast as possible.

"Right," Harry said. "Aunt Petunia, I'm leaving. I'll see you and Uncle Vernon at King's Cross next June." She didn't respond, so Harry looked at Dudley to see if he'd heard. His cousin gave a quick jerk of his head. Harry shrugged and, picking up Hedwig's cage once again, followed Bill and Ginny outside, closing the front door behind him.

Parked in front of the house was an ancient and battered motorcycle, with an even more ancient sidecar attached to it. "We're not going to the Burrow in that, are we?" Harry asked, appalled. The motorcycle didn't look like it could make it past Magnolia Crescent, much less all the way to Ottery St. Catchpole. "Where's my stuff supposed to go?"

"Relax, Harry, it's perfectly safe," Bill said, handing him a helmet. "It's enchanted, so once we're out of the city limits we can take to the sky." With Ginny's help he loaded Harry's trunk onto an extremely flimsy-looking luggage rack bolted to the even flimsier-looking rear fender, then they both mounted the motorcycle and donned their helmets.

Ginny twisted around in her seat behind Bill. "Get in," she said, indicating the sidecar.

"I'm not riding in that thing."

"You want to walk the whole way? Besides, you have to, it's the only way you can carry Hedwig's cage."

"I don't care, it looks too dangerous." He groaned inwardly, wondering when he'd started channeling Hermione.

Judging from the look she gave him, Ginny seemed to have had much the same thought. "If I can ride an invisible thestral from Hogwarts to London, then you can sit in the sidecar of a 1928 Indian Prince to the Burrow. Now put your helmet on, or we'll never hear the end of it from Mum."

Bill started the motor. The sputtering and coughing that erupted from the tailpipe did little to ease Harry's fears. "Last call," Bill said. "Climb in now, or else thumb your way." He peered over his shoulder. "Unless, that is, you want to stay."

Harry looked behind him to see Aunt Petunia and Dudley in the parlor window, their faces pressed against the glass. Aunt Petunia looked like she still hadn't regained her color. Harry turned back with a sigh. He definitely didn't want to stay, and hitchhiking all the way to Ottery St. Catchpole probably wasn't a good idea, not with Voldemort after him. He lifted Hedwig's cage to eye level. "Just so you know," he told her, "I'm only doing this because I have no other choice." Her hoot did little to boost his confidence as he put on his helmet and climbed gingerly into the sidecar, which shook and rattled like a cupboard with a herd of boggarts in it.

"Ready?" Bill shouted over the noise of the motor.

"Ready as I'll ever be." With a backfire that left Harry's ears ringing for hours afterward, the motorcycle took off down Privet Drive.

The road surfaces in Magnolia Crescent were generally very well maintained; the annual fees paid for the privilege of living in this suburb did not go to waste, much to the relief of those who fancied expensive German and American automobiles. However, the careful attention given to ensure that no Cadillac need ever suffer the indignity of a pothole gave Harry little comfort as each tiny crack or pebble in the pavement sent his brain rattling around inside his skull like a puffskein in a run-about ball. He clenched his teeth, for fear he might bite his tongue in half. As if that weren't enough, the thunderous roar of the motor and the intermittent spurts of blue smoke from the tailpipe gave him a headache almost as bad as any Voldemort had inflicted upon him. He was enormously relieved when the houses gradually grew farther and farther apart and well-manicured lawns gave way to small family granges.

Not long after the motorway had narrowed to a country lane, Bill pulled off the pavement into a secluded copse of trees and downshifted the motor into neutral. He then turned around and glanced down at Harry. "Still with us?" he asked with a grin. Harry just nodded, his ears still ringing too much for coherent speech.

Ginny's quiet laugh didn't help improve his mood. "I'll be fine," he coughed, glaring at her stubbornly when she laughed again.

"We'll go in just a moment or two," Bill said, twiddling a dial on the instrument panel. "I just want to give the motor a chance to cool. The trip'll go much easier once we've left the motorway."

"D'you mind if I let Hedwig out?" Harry asked. "She hasn't had much chance to spread her wings this summer."

"I don't see why not. She shouldn't have any trouble keeping up with us, and she knows how to find the Burrow."

His fingers still shaking, Harry prised open the clasp locking Hedwig's cage and opened the door. With a great whoosh of air she flapped her wings and soared beyond the trees. Harry watched her with a twinge of envy. He hadn't been on his Firebolt in months, not since Umbridge had confiscated it and banned him from Quidditch following the disastrous match against Slytherin last winter. He'd ridden the thestral, of course, but the effect hadn't been the same, and he'd been too keyed up to take any pleasure from it. He was eager to play Quidditch again, provided Dumbledore could convince Fudge to lift the ban. At least he could play a few pickup matches at the Burrow with Ron.

With a jolt Harry remembered what'd been bothering him earlier that morning. "Bill, Ginny, can I ask you something?" he asked somewhat hesitantly.

"Sure, Harry, what's on your mind?" Bill said.

Harry glanced at Ginny, and she nodded. "Is Ron mad at me?"

He saw the look they gave each other and wondered what it meant. "What makes you ask that?" Bill said.

"Well...er...." He didn't know what to say. Ron hadn't sent him a birthday present? He didn't invite Harry to the Burrow? How pathetic did that sound? "I dunno," he finally said, "I just have this feeling that something's wrong. He didn't owl me all summer." He felt foolish for having raised the subject. "Never mind, I don't know what I'm rabbiting on about."

He felt Ginny's hand on his shoulder and turned toward her. "Ron's not mad at you," she said, "but he is upset."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Hermione."

"Hermione? What d'you mean? Did she do something to set him off?" He was all too familiar with their frequent--and explosive--rows. Ron in a snit over something Hermione said or did was nothing new.

Bill snorted. "You could say that."

Still confused, Harry looked to Ginny for an explanation. "He means, she left."

He thought he was beginning to understand, but he couldn't be sure. "Well, yeah, she did tell me she thought Ron was jealous..."

"Oh, he's jealous, all right," Bill said. "Just not the way you think."

Harry looked up at Ginny. Her expression seemed almost sad. "Ron had only just worked up the courage to hold Hermione's hand when Tonks showed up," she said. "When she agreed to go to India, it broke his heart. He's been moping in his room ever since."

Harry's eyes widened. "Oh." He knew Ron had fancied Hermione for ages, but he hadn't realized the implications for his mate's tender feelings when he'd got the letter from Hermione. He'd been more concerned about missing her wise counsel and her excellent note-taking skills. He'd never reckoned with what her departure might mean for Ron. Nonetheless, he felt enormously relieved he wasn't the cause or the target of Ron's ire. "Poor bloke," he said with genuine sympathy.

"Poor prat, you mean," Bill said with just the slightest hint of a snarl.

"Bill, be nice," Ginny said.

"Right, just as soon as he apologizes to Mum and Dad for being such a ruddy git." He twiddled the same dial as before, then shifted the motor into gear.

"Maybe I can talk some sense into him," Harry shouted over the roar.

"Why do you think we came to fetch you?" Ginny shouted back with a smile, as the motorcycle left the ground with a jolt and soared into the clouds. "Just don't tell him we know about him holding Hermione's hand!"