Fly Me Back

Harry Potter : Fly Me Back

Chapter One : The Two Faces of Dudley Dursley

Given the sweltering heat of a particularly wicked late-July, it was apparent to anyone who would walk or drive by over the course of that week that there was something obviously odd about number four, Privet Drive. Unlike all of the other identical houses of the uptight, upright neighborhood that were fighting desperately to cool off until the sun went down, number four had every single window shut up so tightly that not the slightest whisper of light or air or (and most importantly) sound could escape out into the eagerly waiting eyes and ears of the passers by. And, much to the displeasure of the residents of number four, there were more than enough pairs of eyes and ears to go around.

Of course, the peak in neighborly curiosity should have been expected. Anyone who was anyone was more than aware that the Vernon Dursleys, since long before their son Dudley had been born, were known for their very public displays of attention-begging of all kinds whenever the mood suited them. Vernon Dursley had taken the greatest pride in spending hour upon hour tending his lawn to its utmost splendor for all to see, waving jubilantly whenever a car passed and the driver took any notice at all. His wide, moustached smile pushed his chubby cheeks up so far that his eyes nearly disappeared in his pleasure at having been noticed by the people of the neighborhood. His prim, bony wife Petunia could often be spied behaving in much the same manner over her prize winning roses while her ears perked over the fences like radar, listening for any snippet of gossip that she could -- gasp! -- proclaim not to have heard before anyone else while spreading the news to any and every woman on the block willing to listen. She, too, took great pride in the appearance of propriety and even the suggestion that her family lived otherwise was strictly and immediately dealt with. Petunia, after all, had groomed her family to the hilt to disguise the presence of anything else that may or may not be lurking in the background (in the cupboard under the stairs, for example) of her happy home.

The Dursleys' biggest source of pride and joy was, naturally, their Duddykins, their Doodums, their most precious baby boy who had exceed in size the title "baby" just six weeks after his birth. Every chance they were afforded to show their son off to the neighbors they snatched up quicker than you could say "Mummy's Boy". The boy, who, quite honestly had outgrown even that description, was, by their way of thinking, a model child who did nothing but prove to the world every day that he was energetic, intelligent, and in all ways fantastic. They just knew in their hearts that the rumors that circulated throughout the school year last were merely the result of the jealousies of other boys who simply couldn't match up to their Doodle's prowess in the boxing ring or the classroom or anywhere else. The mere suggestion that he would steal other children's lunches, even if he was a growing boy and needed the protein, was simply ludicrous. Dudley would never dishonor the name of Dursley or his parents in any such way. They had raised him better than that. Besides, any of the times that he was accused of having done such a thing, he had been to tea with neighbors.

No, such blatant hooliganism and misbehavior was reserved for the Dursleys' troublemaker nephew, Harry Potter.

Mrs Petunia Dursley had been more than happy to leave behind the name Evans the day she married her knight of a husband and disowned that monstrosity she had called a family until that day. The peak of the day had been the grand pronouncement she had made, sending her freak of a sister Lily and her husband Potter from the celebration, once and for all letting the Evans family know that she would have no part in that terrible lifestyle that her sister had so fully embraced. She had even laughed out loud in her Vernon's arms as Lily walked out of her life for what should have been forever and a day. Never, in her wildest dreams, did Petunia imagine that that lifestyle, that world of her sister's would be thrust upon her so violently and ungraciously as it was that Halloween fifteen years ago.

Her sister's little runt of a son, Harry, had been left sleeping on her doorstep that morning. Imagine! The absolute thoughtlessness of the act still blew Petunia's mind every day. The boy, just barely over a full year old, had been dropped off some time in the middle of the night in a blanket covered in scorched holes with only a letter of explanation. A letter. The culprit (some freaky friend of her sister's) hadn't even stayed around to tell them the story in person. It was, quite possibly, the rudest awakening the Dursleys had ever had.

Being the good people that they were, however, they brought the boy into the house and read the letter aloud in which Petunia learned that her most beloved (by everyone but her) sister had managed to get herself blown up and killed overnight, along with that freak Lily called a husband, leaving their child parentless and in need of the Dursleys' charity. And being the good people that they were, they placed him in the linen cupboard at the end of the hall and began the chore of raising him out of his sure to be freakish ways.

So it had been for ten years. The Dursleys had their right and proper existence, hindered only but tremendously by the mere presence of the Potter boy, but carried on as good people do. They gave him the food off their table and the clothing off their son's back. They even got him those glasses of his for his lack of eyesight (which he got from that no-count weirdo father of his), even though the boy appeared to have no respect for them as he kept breaking them in a temper every time he provoked their Dudley. The boy had not a sliver of respect for the things that they had suffered for him, the least of which was the embarrassment of the events that had been occurring since his eleventh birthday five years ago.

The day that the first envelope from that pitiful excuse for a school had arrived, Petunia and Vernon had looked at each other and known, without a doubt, that their peaceful existence had just ended once again. For years they had been able to tell the neighbors about their poor, pitiful nephew and how they had done everything that they could do for him, despite his ruffian tendencies. There had always been an explanation for any misbehavior he displayed. They could not explain this away, though. The damned owls that were perching on the lawn for everyone to see were just the beginning and the Dursleys knew it. So they had run to the farthest reaches of the country, away from the eyes of anyone important. Still, they had been found, and that blasted giant of a man had taken their nephew away to be taught by some old codger the same freakish ways of his mother and father before him. After all they had done, after all the work and trouble that they, the Vernon Dursleys, had gone to for a sister that Petunia didn't even acknowledge had ever existed, he was going to be a Potter after all.

They had done their damnedest, however, in the years to come, to knock that freakishness out of him when he was back in their home over the summer holidays. Instead, being the ungrateful boy he was, he had shown them nothing but disrespect at every turn. He had nearly inflated Vernon's sister Marge to the point of explosion one summer and run away. He had those freakish friends of his blast their way through his fireplace and whisk him away after tormenting their precious son with one of his kind's freakish tricks. He had the weirdos lure the family from their home so that he could escape with no more explanation than another blasted letter. Turn after turn, insult after insult, Potter had been nothing but an embarrassment to the Dursley family as nothing else on Earth could be.

There was, however, very little to be done about the circumstances. Last summer's holiday had taught them that. Just as Vernon had finally found victory and was sending the boy from their midst forever, a single red envelope had arrived, reminding Petunia of the fine print in the letter that had been left with her orphaned nephew on her doorstep all those years ago. Owls and strangeness aside, she still had an obligation to the boy. She didn't understand it and she really didn't care, but a Dursley always lives up to their obligations. And so, another school year later, the boy had been returned to their care once more.

Harry Potter had reunited with them this time with a warning, however. A rag-tag band of his fellow freaks had met them at the train station, all of them looking like something directly out of the horror cinema. One of them had pink hair, for Heaven's sake! Another had mismatched eyes, one of which roved around in a full 360 degrees, startling them all with the horrid sight of it. Then there was that horrible red-haired man who had demolished the fireplace two years before, who appeared to be taking charge of the group and had the nerve to join the others in threatening their safety should anything happen to the boy. The nerve!

Still, a threat was a threat, even from those people. The Dursleys then did the only thing that they could do -- they went along with it, no matter how much it pained them. In the month since their w-w-weirdo nephew had been quite unhappily returned to their home, the world that the Dursley family enjoyed, as proper non-weirdoing-people should, was utterly torn apart. It was no use hiding the strangeness that had followed Potter to their home this holiday, as it was coming and going at all hours of the day and night without any concern for what it would be leaving his family with when the boy left again. People raised properly would hardly act with such a disregard of consideration, but then, these were not exactly people that were raised properly, now were they? From that day on there were owls flying in and out of the house at all hours. There were loud BANG and CRACK noises coming from the streets as the freaks came and went after doing only the freaks knew what. And the boy --

The boy was the biggest problem of them all. Sullen as never before, he moped around the house all day, speaking in only one word answers and virtually ignoring anything that anyone said to him at all. Normally, that wouldn't have been such an issue, but given the threats they had received, the least the Dursleys should have been able to expect was the most common of courtesies if nothing else. After all, they were living up to their end of the deal. Potter, on the other hand, trudged around picking fights with their son, always reaching into that back pocket of his jeans where he hid that-that-that thing that those w-w-weirdoing freaks carried around with them and eyeing their son as if he were going to use it on him. But the Dursleys went right on smiling and preening for the neighbors, regardless of the boy's ill behavior, so that there wouldn't be any questions.

Soon they began to realize that, despite their best efforts, however, there were still questions floating about the yards and fences of Privet Drive. Even old Mrs Number Eight -- who proudly made it a point to tell anyone who would listen that she wasn't in for all of the gossiping nonsense that plagued the younger women in the neighborhood -- was far from above opening her sitting room window just a little further to catch a snippet of tittle-tattle from her gossip-mongering neighbors if it regarded the goings-on from two doors down. The comings and goings on Privet Drive had even escalated enough to take her attention from her daily appointment schedules of teas and napping which had not been so interrupted in nearly twenty years of retirement.

The highly unwanted attention had been the final straw that had driven Vernon Dursley to the brink of insanity. Four nights ago he had slammed every door, window, and doggie door shut, cursing all the while with words that made Petunia glad that the windows were shut. Next, the nails had come out. Vernon had turned the affair into a family exercise, chasing his wife, son, and nephew throughout the house, ordering them to pound the nails in faster and harder as they moved from room to room. When they had reached Potter's room even Petunia protested nailing the boy's window shut, reminded vividly of the threats the family had received the day they had picked the boy up from the train. This only urged Vernon on, leading him to use all of the nails remaining in the box on that one window as he gleefully hummed a random song from his youth. He was far from being intimidated by those-those people and if nailing that boy's window shut was the only way to prove it to everyone, then, by God, he'd do it without the least bit hesitation. Never again would he let anyone -- regardless of hair color -- put his wife and son in such a position. Never again.

Now, four nights later, his indignation at the presumption those crackpots had made that he would allow them to control his family and what he did with his family had blown to its highest proportions. With each snapping of the blinds from next door his face grew a darker shade of puce as his temperature rose in frustration, which he was quite happy to vent to his wife in the kitchen as she cleared the table from yet another completely silent dinner.

Loudly and pompously Vernon pronounced, "I don't care what promises were made or seals created or whatever whozits that old dolt thinks he has over you, Petunia, this nonsense has got to end -- and I mean tonight!"

The sheer tiredness of her day and of the argument itself, coupled with the thickness of the heat of the day, flooded the woman's voice as she droned, "There isn't anything to be done, Vernon, tonight or any other."

"Well, I don't see why," said Vernon, his growl deepening with increased volume. "What's the worst that can happen? Another blasted red envelope? What was it the boy called it -- a howler? The noise, if it should get out the windows at all, can easily be explained to the neighbors as a faulty volume switch on the television and we can be rid of the nonsense that boy keeps bringing back with him."

At the mention of the fiery red envelopes that were a fairly regular occurrence these days reminding Petunia of her obligation to her nephew's mortal safety, her throat emitted a pitifully tight squeak of panic. Her constantly shaking hands dropped the dinner plate she had been holding, the last remaining one in that particular pattern set (all of the others had been dropped by her nervous hands over the course of the last five disturbing, nerve-wracking weeks). Her eyes flashed worriedly to every window in the kitchen as if she expected an entire army of red envelopes to come swooping through each one. Once her eyes had at least glanced off every blocked entryway into the room, they turned shrilly on her husband in a ruffle.

"Hush, Vernon," hissed Petunia. "You know that they always have someone listening to us. Even if these windows were to be completely boarded up they would still hear. For whatever reason, that boy is important to them and if they even think we're about to do anything, there will be ten of them on the lawn doing their tricks for all the drive to see."

"Ha! I'd love to see them try." With that, he got up from his chair and walked to the kitchen door, opening it. He took in one very long breath of sweltering July air and hollered into the sky, "Do you hear that, you oddballs? Hmmm? I'd love to see you try."

"VERNON!"

The man waved his wife off cheerfully, a chuckle of amusement at his wife's panic bouncing off the still-standing walls of the kitchen. He moved his hand up and down in the empty space of the doorframe, showing her that there was no one standing there to strike him down for his insolence. "Petunia, it's going to be just fine. They aren't going to come blasting their way in through the walls or anything of the sort." He settled back down comfortably into his chair, his fat sausage fingers clasping over the pot that was his stomach in complete relaxation, a further demonstration of his lack of fear. "For all of the threats they have tossed off at us over these last few years, there really isn't anything that they can do to us. They don't want anyone to know about their existence any more than we want anyone to know about them. In the end, they really are quite helpless to stop us from doing anything. We, my dear, have the upper hand here. Now -- where is that confounded boy? Hmmm?

Quietly Petunia told him, "He's supposed to be in the backyard. I told him that he had as long as our Doodums was gone to be out there but that he had to come in straight away and that he was not to leave the yard."

"You told him WHAT?"

Several sets of blinds and draperies snapped shut along the street as Vernon's uncontrolled bellow echoed down the block, even through the closed windows, sending a flock of screeching owls from their strategic posts guarding the perimeter of the Dursleys' yard. However, just as soon as the sound died away, the owls returned to their posts and the window dressings inched open again for the listening all by themselves, as if by magic.

Of course, it was not really magic at all, but nosy curiosity that was opening shutters and blinds. If anyone would have known that, it was the boy with the wand in his back pocket that was lazily walking up and down inside the fencing of the perfectly manicured lawn, kicking a long since deflated basketball that his cousin had ruined by throwing it at the owls that had cluttered the lawn five years ago. Unlike everyone else, the young wizard (who understood a great deal about magic) hadn't even bothered to look up at the explosion of his uncle's voice, not really even caring what people were seeing or hearing or whatever fuss his uncle Vernon was carrying on about at the moment. Truth be told, there had been very little to see, in his opinion, that wasn't created by Vernon himself, not the people that his uncle was convinced were causing the stir along the street. The people that were supposedly causing all of his aunt and uncle's friends to disappear were too smart to create a disturbance that would draw the kind of attention that Uncle Vernon was accusing them of. No amount of magic could create this much commotion, unless of course the boy's friends Fred and George Weasley were involved, but then there would be so much more of it to see than just this if the twins were somehow involved.

Fred and George, however, were hardly responsible for the rattling of window dressings going on around the drive these days, or the slowing of cars in front of the house, or any of the other busybody nonsense the neighbors were caught up in to catch a glimpse of what was happening inside number four. Even using magic, the twins would still have to be there for that to happen, and as with the summer before this, Harry Potter was becoming increasingly disturbed by the lack of communication he was having with them and his other friends in the wizarding world. Sure, he heard the changing of his guard in the familiar CRACK and BANG of wizards Apparating and Disapparating from somewhere nearby, but whoever was doing it wasn't stopping by to say even "Hello". It was hardly the way he had imagined that they would all be keeping tabs on him. He didn't know what he had expected, but he didn't think the idea was going to be the protective silence from the summer before. Even a small something would have been better than this. Five weeks he had been back in the house on Privet Drive and every single piece of parchment that he had received from his friends and teachers had been so sparse with information of any kind that he was ready to hop on his Firebolt broomstick and charge his way back to them without another thought.

Still, Harry was trying to be patient. His friends and teachers were, after all, just trying to protect him. Unbeknownst to the ordinary, non-wizarding world (or the Muggles, as regular people were called) a war was beginning. The most vile, horrible wizard in centuries -- who fashioned himself the title Lord Voldemort -- the wizard responsible for the murders of Harry's parents, his schoolmate Cedric Diggory, and countless others had been returned to power a year ago and had subsequently been allowed to continue to build his forces by a Ministry of Magic that refused to believe that such a thing was possible. Many good wizards with families and loved ones -- No! Don't think about that, don't think about him, and don't think about any of that! -- had given their lives or sanity to fight both this war and the one fifteen years before it to stop Voldemort. Now with the evil wizard's return he couldn't expect his loved ones -- No! They're okay, they're fine, don't think like that! -- to do anything less just because he was lonely. The Weasleys, their children, and many others would be far too preoccupied with much more important things to get too caught up in Uncle Vernon's temper tantrums.

Harry was also losing patience, however, even with that understanding. If anyone had a right to be out there battling Voldemort or his masked henchmen, the Death Eaters, it was him. He was, after all, the reason for all of it, wasn't he? His parents had died trying to save him from Voldemort, and even though the fully-grown, fully evil wizard had come up against him as a baby, Harry had still managed to survive. He still didn't really understand the how or the why, but understanding them wasn't going to change the fact that he was still alive. The reason for his life certainly did not matter to Voldemort, as long as he found a way to end it. It was because of this vendetta the Dark Lord had against the Potters' son that everyone in his life was stuck in a never-ending rut of stalemate and indecision when it came to Harry. They all agreed with him that he had the right to face Voldemort for all of the things that he had done to Harry and taken from him (Damn it, don't think about that!). At the same time, not a one of them was willing to let him do just that, for fear that he would meet the fate that had awaited so many others before him. While anyone who knew him would agree that he had faced the tasks of a full grown wizard on too many occasions and successfully defeated them all, there wasn't a single person that didn't want him to remain a child, tucked safely away from the dangers, forever idle, if it meant saving his life.

So safe and guarded he sat on Privet Drive without the friends and teachers that he needed so that he could ease their minds. His mind, however, was far from eased. He longed for the safe and much freer halls of his real home, the hidden castle that housed Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with all his heart. Even if no one else were to believe him, Harry knew that the only place where he was going to feel safe to do anything was in the school's torch-lit halls, the greens of the school Quidditch patch, and in the comfort of his four-poster bed in Gryffindor Hall. He wasn't going to feel safe to do or feel anything until he could be in his home with his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, at his side as they always were.

Harry longed more than anything at the moment to be able to talk to the two of them, even if they weren't allowed to tell him anything. Granted, up until Uncle Vernon cloistered the family into the house Harry had talked to them both every other day. If Ron called on Tuesday, he knew that Hermione would be calling on Wednesday, all in keeping with the threats that Harry's friends and teachers had made to his aunt and uncle when they picked him up from the train. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had been told, in no uncertain terms, that someone from the wizarding world had better hear from Harry at the very least every three days or there would be a visit made. As much as Harry had been touched seeing the wizards and witches shoulder to shoulder in his defense, it was still decided early on that the best plan for keeping up with the communication was for Harry to hear from the much less threatening Ron and Hermione than the growling Mad-Eye Moody or smoothly threatening Remus Lupin.

Hearing from Hermione over anyone else was usually better received by Harry's aunt and uncle, but then, being Muggle born, she had a much finer sense of how to deal with Muggles such as the Dursleys. She, like Harry, had been raised by non-wizarding people (both dentists) with no previous knowledge of the world that awaited them when they were of age to start their training at Hogwarts. She knew perfectly well how to use a telephone properly, among many other things that seemed incredibly foreign to the Weasleys. They, being an old wizarding family, had rarely ventured out into the Muggle world and were easily befuddled by what Harry told them Muggles considered to be modern conveniences. Any of the Weasleys' attempts at using the fellytone had caused unneeded tension in the Dursley home, particularly for Harry.

"Get those freakish friends of yours under control, Potter," Uncle Vernon had warned one evening when Mr Weasley had once again called and shouted into the receiver, not knowing how to operate it properly. "I will not tell you again!"

Unwilling to fight with his uncle that night or any other about what Vernon called Mr Weasley's supposed lack of proper human breeding, Harry had simply nodded and skirted around his uncle to reach the telephone as quickly as possible to avoid any disturbance on either side of the line.

"Hello?"

"AHH, HARRY, SO SORRY IF I GOT YOU INTO TROUBLE WITH YOUR UNCLE AGAIN," Mr Weasley had shouted into his end of the conversation while Harry tried to suppress a smile of fondness. Maybe his uncle couldn't stand it, but Harry thought that Mr Weasley's attempts at proper phone etiquette were amusing. "I SWEAR, I DON'T KNOW HOW MUGGLES HAVE TALKED ON THESE FELLYTONES FOR SO LONG NOW. IT REALLY IS SO MUCH SIMPLER TO USE FLOO POWDER."

Harry had had to chuckle at the image of Muggles everywhere sticking their heads into their fireplaces to talk to one another instead of telephones. He'd remembered the odd sensation of knowing that your head was in one house while the rest of your body was in another and shook his head absently. The day that Muggles would ever learn to do anything by Floo Powder was just too far-fetched to imagine. Quietly, a smirk still on his face, Harry had said to his best friend's father, "I couldn't agree with you more, Mr Weasley."

"IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT, HARRY?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you," Harry had told him, cringing at the idea that he had just lied to the man who had been so good to him. He was far from all right and being with his relatives had not been making anything any easier. He had too much to deal with and no one to help him deal with it to be all right. However, Harry also had known that he couldn't tell Mr Weasley that anything was wrong either unless it was a life-threatening situation. As much as he hated being there in that house that he so despised, it was still the safest place for him to be during the summer holidays and that he just had to stick it out. So he had lied. Besides, eager for news of any sort, he could hardly have passed up the opportunity to ask about what was going on in his world from one of the adults, as even in the wizarding world, the children were still relegated away to the proverbial Kids' Table whenever something happened that the adults felt was too disturbing for under-aged ears. Not that he could blame them any . . . Dealing with the legacy of Lord Voldemort was hardly anything he would have asked for either, and as much as he loved them, he didn't wish it on Ron and Hermione or anyone else. But it was still there, and if he wanted answers, he had to go to one of the adults. "Is everything all right there, Mr Weasley? Has Voldemort -- "

Whether it was because Mr Weasley had wanted to avoid the conversation or that he was satisfied with the answer he had gotten from Harry, Mr Weasley cut him off in a hurry and handed the receiver off to Ron. " -- GOTTA GO, HARRY. CHIN UP! HERE'S RON."

"Hiya, Harry," Ron had greeted him, then proceeded to tell his best friend absolutely no news whatsoever of Voldemort, the war that was beginning, or anything else that had been happening in the weeks since he had been returned to Privet Drive. Ron had asked the same questions that Hermione had the day before, and he had the day before that, and she had the day before that. How were the Muggles treating him? Was he all right? Had he seen anything unusual? By the third week, Harry, who loved Ron and Hermione like no one else, had become tired of having the same round-robin conversation every day. Still, he would remind himself, hearing their voices was better than nothing at all, right?

Four nights ago, the night that Uncle Vernon went on his nailing rampage, had been the last conversation that he'd had with anyone in the wizarding world. Since then the fellytone (which Harry now was fondly calling it, thanks to the Weasleys) had not rung once. Even though he reminded himself that the chances that someone would use their fireplace to contact him were limited, he was disappointed to find that there were no heads poking through the Floo Network to greet him. His snowy owl, Hedwig, had left two days before the nailing fit, and now that she had no way of entering the house again, she hadn't been seen since. Three days ago, Uncle Vernon had sent old Mrs Figg away when she came to the door to invite Harry to tea. Granted, Vernon had no idea that Mrs Figg was more than aware of just who Harry was and, more importantly, of the stress that had been put upon his aunt and uncle to make certain that someone from the wizarding community heard from him at the least every three days, but the man had so quickly slammed the door in the Squib's (a non-wizarding person born into a wizarding family) face that Harry hadn't had any time to warn his uncle of the consequences.

But now, again, four full days since Harry's last communication with anyone and Uncle Vernon's redecorating of the windowsills, Harry himself was beginning to wonder if it would have been a threat at all. Everyone was trying so hard to keep him sequestered from the wizarding world and all of Voldemort's doings that intervening on his behalf because of a small threat made weeks ago probably seemed to be something too insignificant to do any more. Maybe he wasn't being very fair to them. After all, he wasn't the center of their universe. The people who knew him and loved him had always treated him as if he were just Harry, not Harry-Potter-The-Boy-Who-Lived and refused to let him be the novelty everyone else treated him to be. They all knew he wanted it that way so, in a way, by putting their threat aside and treating him as just any other boy on holiday they were giving him exactly what he wanted. By the same token, however, he had no real way of knowing for sure why they weren't acting on his behalf at the moment as promised. Were they all in danger? No. Had something happened that was preventing them from coming to check on him? No! Had Voldemort found them and -- NO! NoNO nonononononoNO!

Before his thoughts could run away from him any further, Harry kicked the deflated basketball just a little too hard into the fence to try to put the ideas out of his head. They were all fine, he told himself. Nothing had happened that he needed to worry about, and in a few more weeks, Mr and Mrs Weasley would find a way to take Harry safely from the Dursleys so that he could spend the remainder of his holiday at The Burrow with Ron and his sister Ginny and any of the other Weasleys that would come and go as the weeks went on before the start of term. Uncle Vernon would return to what little sense he had had and there would be no need for anyone to say anything at all. Everything would be fine and there would be nothing at all to worry about.

That is, there was nothing to worry about except the normal, daily routine of possible death and torture and the mind-numbing fear that had strangled the throat of every witch and wizard in the world for far too many years . . . Oddly, Harry wondered who their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would be . . .

Harry didn't have time to think about the answer as he was also suddenly struck with the realization that the ball that he had kicked into the fence had bounced away into the air but he had never heard it land.

Instinctively, his hand reached for the back pocket of his worn out jeans and gripped tightly onto his wand. As though brandishing a sword, the hand swooped around in one graceful, well practiced motion until it was held at a loose but firm position at approximately shoulder level. Careful not to extend his arm out too far to protect his wand from being taken from his grasp, he turned strategically this way and that, peeling his eyes into the bushes that lined the fences of the yard. He stood lightly on the balls of his feet, which he kept an even distance apart to help him keep his balance, all too prepared to dash in any direction at any time. Immediately he felt the familiar acceleration of his heart and the pounding of blood in his ears as his mind raced in a new panic.

It had been four days. Not the threatened three, not a safe two -- four.

He hadn't imagined it. He had been there. He had had to fight like mad not to be grinning like a fool when they had done it. Mr Weasley had led the charge up to the Dursleys, flanked by his former-professor-who-was-never-really-a-professor Mad-Eye Moody, his favorite professor and dear friend of his parents' Remus Lupin, Nymphadora ("Don't Call Me Nymphadora") Tonks, Hermione, Ron, and Mrs Weasley. And while Uncle Vernon had sputtered his way through the subtle but unmistakably threatening encounter, those that were standing at Harry's side had been more than sure of what they were doing. Harry would not be, in any way, mistreated over the summer or there would be consequences.

A smile swelled inside him as he remembered the cheerfully threatening look on Lupin's face as he had expanded on Tonks's statement that if the Dursleys had in any way been horrible to Harry, they should make no mistake that one of his own would hear about it. And then Moody had taken a limping step forward to punctuate his threat that, "Yeah, if we get any hint that Potter's been mistreated in any way, you'll have us to answer to."

Harry also remembered Moody's parting words to him, clear as day, "So, Potter . . . give us a shout if you need us. If we don't hear from you for three days in a row, we'll send someone along . . . 'Bye, then, Potter." He remembered. It had most definitely been three. Mad-Eye had said "three days in a row". Three days.

So where were they?

Before he could stop it, Harry's mind ran through another rage of terrifying images, each of them ending in terrible death and torture of the people he loved and cared for above all others. He suddenly imagined himself facing off with a boggart as Mrs Weasley had done before they returned to school the summer before. Each time one of the scenes struck his mind, he imagined that if he just envisioned himself shouting "Riddikulus!" at it as if it were really just a boggart and not his mind, the scene would disappear. But they didn't. Instead, it was for him as it had been with Mrs Weasley that day. Riddikulus! Dead Hermione. Dead Ron. Riddikulus! Dead Bill and Charlie. Riddikulus! Dead twins. Riddikulus! Dead Neville, Dean, Seamus, and Cho. Riddikulus! Dead Moody. Dead Tonks. Dead Lupin. Dead dead dead dead. All dead. Riddikulus, Riddikulus, RIDDIKULUS! Dead Weasleys, all of them, lying before him, and Voldemort's Death Eaters encircling them, smiling over them, laughing, and telling Harry that their deaths were entirely his fault. Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange walking in through the group of them, waving their wands and turning the entire dead Weasley family into a dead Sirius, James, and Lily.

It's all your fault, Potter. If you had just died when you were supposed to --

Riddikulus!

-- Riddikulus! -- RIDDIKULUS!

They were fine, Harry told himself. They were all fine and they would be sending someone along to see why they hadn't heard from him. They were all sitting at the kitchen table at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, telling the portrait of Mrs Black to shut up and plotting over maps of Privet Drive to figure out the best way to get Harry out of the Dursleys' without making a public commotion. They were going to be here any time now. They were just taking their time to make sure that none of Voldemort's people could know what was happening. They were trying to keep it low key. They weren't hurt or worse. They were just being careful. That was it. They were being careful.

Of course, the thing was, it didn't really matter what the reasons were for the four days' silence from the wizarding world because right now, standing in his backyard with only the light from the nearly full moon illuminating the patch, he was alone. Someone or something was watching him and he was completely alone.

His wand at the ready, Harry backed around in a circle, watching every movement of every shadow, expecting anything and everything to pop out at him from the shrubbery around the fencing. His head whipped around at the sound of a snapping twig near the gate, and (what he imagined he would later be told was foolishly) he inched his way toward the sound. Then, just as he was about to stand on his toes to see over the peaks of the boards, he heard a scratching. He recoiled back just enough to --

MMRRREEEWWWRRRR!

Harry landed on the ground in a tumble of fur and legs as something thumped into his shoulder headfirst and knocked him over-balanced. He rolled onto his side, careful to clutch his wand to his chest as he fell to keep it close, then sprang back up onto his feet, ready to face his attacker. When he looked down, however, he was only slightly amused to find old Mrs Figg's cat, Mr Tibbles, watching him with what appeared to be a rather impatient expression.

"You certainly like to make an entrance, don't you, cat?" Harry looked around hopefully, wondering if the animal's appearance was a sign that others were about to soon arrive. After all, last summer the cat had been acting as an extra guard for Harry around the Dursleys' so he could just as easily be on guard this summer as well. Surely Mrs Figg had warned someone in the wizarding world about Uncle Vernon's behavior by now. She had probably just sent Mr Tibbles ahead so that Harry would know to expect them. That was it. They were fine and any minute now, they would be here to take him away.

But soon the seconds ticked away and no one followed. Harry was still alone.

The young wizard stared down at the cat at his feet with an uneasy chuckle. The cat, however, appeared to be far from amused. Just as Harry reached down to pick him up and talk, the cat swatted a paw at the young wizard's hand. Then, when apparently Harry didn't get the hint, the cat scratched at the boy's hand again, this time actually catching skin and drawing blood.

"Hey! What was that for?" Harry examined his hand and blew on it gently, trying to calm a bit of the sting that was building up in the red lines across the top. He gave Mr Tibbles an annoyed grimace then knelt down once again to attempt to figure out what the cat was trying to tell him. "Well, do you have something you're supposed to be telling me or what?"

Once again Mr Tibbles pounced on Harry, this time landing squarely on the boy's chest and forcing him to unbalance and wobble down to the ground. He landed much harder this time, his elbows cracking and buckling under the sudden pressure. Once flat on the ground, he glared up into the cat's brilliant yellow eyes and grumped, "Look, if you're trying to tell me something, the least you could do is figure out a way to do it without getting all -- "

If Harry wasn't mistaken, he saw the cat give him an apologetic look before raising a paw and taking a swipe at the boy's cheek. As he reached a hand up to cover the sting in the lines that had been scratched over his cheek, he reached with the other hand for the cat. Mr Tibbles, however, seemed to perk up even more, looked around fearfully, and leapt off Harry's chest, catapulting itself on the hedging and over the fence once more.

Whatever it was that had sent the cat into such a fit, Harry didn't like it. Immediately he searched the grass for the safety of his wand, which had been knocked out of his hand when the cat had attacked him. The sun had gone down at some point during his free hour in the backyard, and since he had forgotten to turn on the backlights had to rely on only the moon to find it. He fought back the temptation to call his wand to him. He didn't want to have to go through the fiasco of violating the Decree of Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and have to go in front of the Ministry of Magic's Wizengamot tribunal again. The one experience was going to be more than enough.

Finally, he found his wand, which had rolled under the bush that Mr Tibbles had used to launch himself out of the fencing. He immediately leapt to his feet, once again turning this way and that, looking for any sign of what the cat had, he guessed, been trying to warn him about. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, he got his answer.

"A bit jumpy, aren't you, Potter?"

Harry whirled in the direction of the voice, his eyes narrowed in heated annoyance. Then again, there really wasn't a great deal about his cousin that didn't inspire annoyance so it shouldn't have been all too surprising that Dudley would find a way to ruin the only good thing that Harry had had in four days. Not at all pleased to see his short time in the fresh air interrupted by the likes of him, Harry made sure that his cousin saw the exposed wand and snarled, "Go. AWAY!"

"I'm telling Dad you've got that thing out again," Dudley growled right back.

"Clear off."

"Mum says it's time to come in, anyway."

"Fine." Without another word Harry marched straight passed his cousin and over to the back doorway. If the prat couldn't let him have even a few moments of peace without getting him into trouble, Harry wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of fighting with him about it. He was just about to reach for the door handle when Dudley's thick voice stopped him in his tracks, his hand frozen in mid-action.

"About last summer . . . "

Harry whipped around on his cousin, his wand still very much in his hand at the ready. The wand hand dropped slowly, though, peacefully to his side as he felt an odd cold in the pits of his stomach. He wasn't sure why, but when he saw Dudley's face, he waited before blurting out another command of "shut up" or anything else like it. There was just something about the way that his cousin was looking at him that gave him the eerie feeling that he actually wanted to hear what the bully had to say. So he stood there silently, still rightfully wary, but waiting for whatever it was that Dudley had stopped him for.

"This doesn't mean that I like you or anything. Get that straight."

"Get on with it."

"The thing is, you could have just let those things do whatever they were going to do to me and saved yourself, but you didn't." Dudley looked down at his feet and shuffled the toes around a little, rocking back onto the heels then up onto the balls several times. He twirled the deflated ball that Harry had kicked away around between his index finger tips, too, anything to avoid having to actually look at his cousin as he visibly struggled to get to the point he was trying to make. When he did look up, he actually appeared grateful for Harry's silent patience. It was a good minute before the larger of the two teenagers continued on. "I don't really know what happened and I don't think I want to, but . . . well, thanks for not leaving me in the street like that."

There was so much that Harry wanted to say that he didn't even know where to start. He wanted to shout that his cousin was right, that the big goon should have been left there, crying like the big baby that he was. He should have been left there and tortured by the soul-sucking powers of the dementors for all the years of bullying he had visited on Harry. Years of anger boiled up into one great big reply of "YES!", but Harry still couldn't make himself say it. In the end, that was what separated him from Dudley. As much as he wanted to, he still couldn't actually want to hurt anyone, even his nasty relatives. So instead he just quietly brushed the uncomfortable conversation away with "It's okay."

"No, really, Potter, I . . . " Dudley seemed to shrink just a little smaller as it looked like he was gearing up to go on even further with his story, which it appeared that neither boy was ready for. "Look, the things that -- the cold and the way everything just -- and the voices, and the . . . I just -- How did you know what those things were going to do to me? How did you know how to stop it?"

It was Harry's turn to shift uncomfortably. He looked around suspiciously at the fencing of the backyard, searching for signs of anything unusual out of what was now merely second nature. He didn't even realize that he was still gripping tightly to his wand, the tip of which was still pointed at the ground but at the ready. He then looked at his cousin sharply, suddenly wondering what sort of charm had been placed over Dudley to make him act so strangely. The cousins had never in the fifteen years that they had lived under the same roof had a conversation. They'd had plenty of fights, sure, but never conversation. Skeptically Harry blurted, "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because you're the only freak I know who can actually tell me what those other freaks were doing to me."

As soon as the words slapped Harry in the face, he turned around again and reached for the doorknob to head into the house. That brief moment of actually feeling sorry for Dudley because of the experience with the dementors sank through Harry's body like the ground had fallen out from underneath him. There was no reason to feel sorry for Dudley, not anymore. The stupid git survived the attack and just went on being his usual self anyway. The first hand knowledge of what it felt like to be in a dementor's sights wasn't enough to sympathize for Dudley anymore. Not anymore. He opened the door and took one step in when, again, his cousin interrupted him long enough to keep him from leaving the yard.

"I know something's going on!"

Harry stepped out and pulled the kitchen door shut again against Uncle Vernon's holler of "IN OR OUT, BOY! MAKE UP YOUR EFFING MIND!" He turned on his heel, this time crossing his arms across his chest, wand still clutched tightly and highly visible to Dudley's mistrusting eye. Why he should believe anything that Dudley said to him was beyond reasoning, but at the same time, the amusement at what his idiot cousin could possibly be imagining about what Harry's life was like would be worth the two minutes it would take to hear him out. "All right. What d'you think is going on?"

"I dunno. I just mean, well -- er -- they've never -- uh -- It's just that they, your friends, they've never threatened Mum and Dad before. And you keep screaming at night, even more than last summer."

"I what?"

"You scream a lot. You don't remember?"

"No," Harry lied, looking once again at the hole in his shoe like it was the most fascinating thing in all the Muggle world. Of course he knew he screamed in his sleep. How could he not? He knew perfectly well what it was that he dreamed about at night. It was evident whenever he realized that he had soaked through his pyjama top again or that he had drawn blood in his palms from clenching his fists so tightly. It didn't surprise him at all that he screamed in his sleep. What he was surprised at was that he was actually being asked about it.

Dudley peered at him, somewhat surprised that Harry didn't remember that he woke the entire household up the night before. "Well you do."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Every night, I dream about those things that came after me. I dream about the things they made me hear and see and remember. And I guess I just -- er -- is that why you scream all night? Because they did that to you, too?"

Harry didn't answer. He didn't know how to. The Dursleys had never, in five years, shown any interest in what he did when he was away at school. He wasn't even allowed to mention school. Uncle Vernon told people that he was away at some oddball school called the St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. Sure, it was natural that Dudley would be curious about what had occurred last summer with the dementors, but to actually ask about it just didn't make any sense. Instead of answering, all Harry could think to do was watch and wait for the hole in his shoe to sprout something.

When Dudley realized that he wasn't going to get an answer out of his cousin, he awkwardly changed the subject, sounding incredibly disappointed that his questions hadn't been satisfied. Gruffly he asked, "So what's with the all the owls all over the place? I thought you said they're for carrying the mail or something."

"They are."

"Then how come they're just sitting around our house? I don't see any letters. All they're doing is sitting there and watching us." Dudley threw the ball at one of them, but missed by a good foot. The owls fluttered away for a moment, only to return, glaring at him viciously. He flapped his arm at them, yelling "Shoo!"

"Leave them alone," Harry commanded. "They'll only come back anyway."

"What's with them?"

Harry shrugged. To be honest, he had wondered that himself. He had noticed that there was always a line of them around the fencing and the rest of the yard. Every time one of them left, it was replaced by another. He recognized one of them as Errol, the Weasleys' owl. He looked over at the animal again, searching his eyes for some sort of answer there, but didn't find one shouting out at him. Without meaning to say it out loud Harry muttered, "I think maybe they're my guard."

"Your what?"

"My guard," Harry continued to muse, trying to imagine what at all was going on that there would be a watch of owls going on. Was this the method that the others had come up with for keeping an eye on him at all times? It had to be. There was no other reason for them all to be around. "I don't know. It's not like anyone tells me anything either. But I think maybe they're here to watch to make sure nothing goes wrong over the summer."

Dudley let loose a hoot of a laugh. "What's so important that you would need a guard for?"

Not wanting to deal with Dudley or his questions anymore -- especially before they got too far into things -- Harry tiredly turned to head back for the door again. "We'd better get inside."

He reached for the doorknob and was about to open the door when it opened for him. For the third time that night, Harry was tackled to the ground, this time by his cousin Dudley. Without warning, Harry closed his eyes against his cousin's fist as it came pounding into his cheek, splitting the cuts from Mr Tibbles even further and leaving his cheek a bloody mess. The next punch landed directly on Harry's jaw, forcing his teeth together over his tongue, drawing blood. A third punch took the wind out of him as it collided with his gut. When it was over, Dudley ground his fists into Harry's shoulders to push himself off his cousin's aching body.

Harry, who was seeing double from the belt to the head, tried to get enough air to ask what that was all about, but before he could, Uncle Vernon came storming out behind his son screaming, "WHAT DID THOSE FREAKY FRIENDS OF YOURS DO TO MY SON?"

The young wizard peered through the pain in his face at both versions of his cousin and both of his uncle, utterly confused. If anything had happened to Dudley, he would have said something before now. He certainly wouldn't be engaging Harry in conversation as he had. It wasn't just because of Dudley's punches or anything either. He may be seeing double from the pain, but that didn't mean that he didn't know Dudley well enough to know that his cousin wasn't capable of planning something like this. But there he was, all 250 pounds of him, staring down at him with a cheerfully menacing look of satisfaction on his face at having emotionally disabled Harry long enough to knock his cousin around without the weirdo police swooping down to stop him. And there he was, silently grinning pure evil at Harry, one eyebrow raised as if to say, "Where's your guard now, Potter?"

"Heh!" Dudley barked triumphantly as his cousin looked dazedly up at him from the ground. He turned back to his father, who, instead of being proudly defiant of the weirdos, was bouncing up and down agog in the doorframe, pointing frantically between his prone nephew and his son. "Huh?"

Harry heard his cousin's question and blinked up once more at his uncle and his cousin before his eyes flew open in terrified realization.

"Thanks, Kid," Dudley heard his own voice say from behind him. The bully turned around to find himself face to face with an exact replica of himself, his own triumphant grin reflected right back to him. This other version of himself, however, also had a glint in his eyes so evil that even Dudley couldn't match it. He also had a wand, one of his cousin's weirdoing wands, and it was aimed directly at Harry's heart.

"Bloody hell," Dudley muttered.

The evil smile of Dudley's doppelganger curled even more, turning into a delighted grimace as he turned on his heel and pointed the wand tip at a confused, sputtering Vernon Dursley.

"Crucio!"

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If you've had half as much fun reading this chapter as I've had writing it, well then I've had twice as much fun writing it as you've had reading it. Thanks for reading!