Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow

Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow
Potter47 Chapter Two
The Letter from Someone

It was a dark day in London. A very dark day indeed. It was only the mid-afternoon, but it felt like the middle of the night.

Vernon Dursley shivered as he waited there, feeling more than a little foolish (not for the first time) to be staring impatiently at the wall between platforms nine and ten. He muttered under his breath about wizards and magic and if someone were to happen by (which was extremely rare--Vernon felt he was the only person there, though he couldn't tell for the fog) he would silence himself immediately without even thinking.

It seemed Vernon had stood hours in the fog, wind, and cold of that summer day before, finally, a young boy walked out of the wall with his mother's hand in his own. A tiny girl with her parents towering above her came through next. Vernon let out a breath of relief, knowing that the boy would be there soon and they could be back in the comfort of Number Four, Privet Drive, and Potter could fix the heating vent in the kitchen....

Vernon frowned as the throngs of students and families emerged from the wall. Where is he? thought Vernon. It was taking much longer than he would have liked, and his thoughts were turning in directions he would have preferred they wouldn't.

He was thinking about what that wizard had said, last July. About Potter coming-of-age. Part of Vernon was happy about this, deeply happy, because it meant that he would be rid of the boy before long. The rest of him, though... he didn't like the idea of Harry Potter being able to do whatever he liked with a wand. Thoughts of pig-tails and abnormally large tongues flashed through his mind, and he shivered once more.

And then Vernon felt a presence beside him, and looked to his left--

"Hello, Mr Dursley," said the man standing there. It was... it was that red-haired lunatic. That Weasley. "I take it you're waiting for Harry?"

Vernon muttered under his breath for a moment, and then said loudly and clearly, "Yes. But this is it, the last time. Then he's your problem."

Mr Weasley blinked. "My problem? What do you mean?"

"You and the rest of your people," said Vernon with no lack of dislike. "He's coming of age, you know, seventeen, right? So all you freaks are going to have to deal with his temper-tantrums and screaming fits--"

"Temper tantrums?" said Mr Weasley incredulously. "Screaming fits? Are you sure we're speaking of the same Harry, here? I'm talking about the one that's lived with you since he was a baby--"

"Who else would I mean?" said Vernon, and then he smiled smugly, all thoughts of a possible negative side of Potter's departure departing themselves. "Finally, my family will be left alone... no more... wizards showing up in the middle of the night attacking us with Razmerty's Mead or whatever it was... no more creatures landing on the living room carpet...."

"My goodness, you certainly are a strange person, Mr Dursley," said Mr Weasley, and Vernon nearly laughed aloud--He was the weirdo? Oh, sure...sure! "Part of me had hoped the fireplace incident had simply triggered your senses a bit strongly...."

"Oh, don't think I've forgotten about that, Weasley!"

"I hadn't particularly," said Mr Weasley, and his friendly tone was a bit less so. "Don't worry, though, Mr Dursley. I'm sure Harry will be of no trouble to any of us."

Vernon made a sound of disbelief, and Mr Weasley took a long step away from him.

"Ah, here they are," Mr Weasley said.

And so they were--two red-heads, a brown-haired girl, and an all-too-familiar black-haired boy had emerged from the barrier, with the red-haired woman that was Mr Weasley's wife.

"Potter!" Vernon called. "We're going right now, I don't want any incidents this year--"

"Hang on, Uncle Vernon," said Potter, and he had a very strange, almost grown-up sound in his voice that he had never had before, and Vernon didn't like it one bit.

"I will not hang on!"

Potter didn't budge, though, and he stood resolutely with his little friends, all of whom were at least Vernon's height, except the red-haired girl.

"Er, Mum, Dad," said the red-haired boy, what was his name? "Hermione and I are--"

His parents stood stock still, and the mother interrupted him. "Finally!" she said. "Oh, Ron, I knew it would happen sooner or later, congratulations!"

Ron furrowed his brow. "What? You knew--how would you--congratulations?"

"Oh, Mrs Weasley," said the brown-haired girl, "that's not what he was going to say. He was going to say that we're going with Harry this year, to his aunt and uncle's house--"

"WHAT!" shouted Vernon then, throwing caution and his will not to be noticed to the unrelenting wind in his rage. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE GOING WITH HIM!"

"Do be quiet, Mr Dursley," said Mr Weasley reproachfully. "You don't want to draw attention to yourself, do you?"

"Don't worry, Uncle Vernon," said Harry with that same unnatural tone. "It'll only be for a little while. Dumbledore's orders." He spoke very tightly, if that is a way to speak, which Vernon reckoned it was not.

"Dumbled--Dumbledore's--I want a word with this Dumbledore!"

"You had one," said Harry oddly. "Last summer."

Vernon bit his lip, thinking back. "Oh. That was Dumbledore, was it?"

"I thought you knew that."

"Whatever. But they are not coming into my house!"

"Well then we'll sleep out in the garden," said Ron. "But we're going with him."

"Ron, are you serious?" said Mrs Weasley. "But Bill's wedding--"

"We'll be there for that, don't worry," said the brown-haired girl, Hermione--Dreadful name, isn't it?

Mrs Weasley turned to the red-haired girl. "I suppose you'll want to go with them?"

And there was a strange, determined look on her daughter's face. "No. No, I'm coming with you." She was speaking to her mother, but she was looking at Harry.

"Well, that's good news, then," said Vernon.

And everyone kept talking and talking to everyone else and Vernon found it very difficult to follow everything. Somehow that he did not understand, he somehow managed to be following Harry and both his friends to the car. Vernon could not help thinking, the whole way home, how on earth he was going to explain them to Petunia and Dudley.

--|--

Harry Potter looked through the window of the Dursleys' car, watching the houses go by on the other side of the glass, quickly and quickly and slower and slower as they neared Number Four, Privet Drive.

None of the car's occupants felt particularly like breaking the silence. Ron was looking between Harry and Hermione, and then out the window, biting the inside of his cheek. Hermione was watching the road in front of them. And Uncle Vernon was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel while nibbling on his fat lips.

Out the window, Harry saw a woman step outside of her house in a bathing suit, towel in hand, as though about to sunbathe. She looked up at the misty sky, shivered quite visibly, and turned back inside.

The car finally pulled into the Dursleys' drive, and Harry sprang out of it in a moment--Hermione, who had been in the middle, climbed out after him, and Ron tried to get the lock open on his door without much success.

"Pull it up, Ron," said Hermione, and Ron did, and he got out. She smirked at him.

"What?" he said defensively. "It's different from our old one--"

"What on earth--!"

Harry looked round at the front porch of Number Four. Standing upon it was Aunt Petunia, her face red as a Quaffle and her eyes as large.

"They forced me, Petunia, I had no choice--" said Vernon, wringing his hat and glaring at the students.

"Hello, Mrs Dursley," said Hermione politely, extending her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger, and--"

"GET AWAY FROM MY HOU--"

"Dumbledore's orders, Aunt Petunia," said Harry, and Petunia was silenced immediately, although she clearly did not that wish to be so. Her lips wriggled round unsatisfied on her face, as though more words (perhaps less pleasant ones) were struggling to escape.

"Get in, before the neighbours see--" she finally said, and they did just that--the screen door hung open a moment after the lot had cleared inside, swung round in the wind a minute, and slammed shut with a clang.

Petunia 'ushered' them 'welcomingly' into the living room, and 'graciously offered' to make tea, before disappearing into the kitchen; her husband seemed torn between following or staying to make sure the teenagers didn't break anything.

Harry's large cousin, Dudley entered the room, then, and was about to inquire after the location of his favourite fork when he saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting awkwardly on the sofa, with Vernon in the seat opposite. No one was looking at each other.

"You got a girlfriend, Potter?" he said, looking Hermione up and down. "No surprise she's so ugly--"

"Hey!" exclaimed Ron.

"I didn't mean you," said Dudley condescendingly, but then a light lit in his fat little head: "Unless..." And then he looked between Ron and Harry. "PIERS WAS RIGHT!" Dudley exclaimed. "I'm gonna go call him--"

"Ugh," said Hermione, her arms crossed and watching distastefully as Dudley turned tail. "I know you said he was bad--" And then she glanced at Vernon. "No offence, Mr Dursley--"

He ignored her, and hadn't heard her comment in the first place, so it didn't really matter. He was trying his best to pretend none of them were there--perhaps he was imagining it was still springtime, and they were all off at school, and he and Petunia had the house to themselves and everything was normal...

Hermione muttered: "How long do we have to stay here, exactly?"

"Maybe a night or two," said Harry, looking around the room; something was strange. Perhaps it was the feeling that he would be leaving soon, never to return. "The wedding's Saturday, right?"

"Yes," said Hermione, nodding.

"Do we have to stay out here with them?" Ron said, looking at Vernon, who was holding his hands over his ears and rocking back and forth slightly. "They're barmy, aren't they?"

"No, let's, uh," Harry began, and then: "We'll go in my room, instead."

He stood first, almost falling back onto the couch for lack of balance (he didn't know why).

By the stairs, Hermione stopped short, staring in an almost... an almost 'glazed' way.

"What?" said Harry, who had a foot on the first step.

"It's, uh," Hermione said, not moving. "Um. So that's it."

She was looking at the door of the cupboard under the stairs, and it was strange--the cupboard seemed almost legendary now, perhaps more so to Hermione, who had never seen it before--Harry had largely ignored it since he'd gotten his own room.

"Yeah," said Harry, nodding. Hermione didn't move. "It's really not a big deal," he added, and Hermione seemed to jump slightly, as if out of a trance, and followed the others up the stairs.

Just as they sat down in various places in Harry's room--Harry on the bed, Ron on the floor, and Hermione in the chair by the desk--suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping at the window.

There was a large, black owl--it had a strange, malnourished look to it, as though it was neither given food nor had time to look for itself. Harry could have sworn he saw the bird look over his shoulder twice on the way to the window--when he opened it, the bird flew not to his shoulder, but to Hermione's.

"Me?" Hermione asked, taking the envelope from its leg--as she slid her finger under the seal to open it, the owl narrowed its large eyes at her, as though assuring she would read it properly. Then, apparently satisfied, it dug its claws lightly into her shoulder and took off again out the window in a graceful motion.

"Who's it from?" said Ron, moving over next to Hermione's chair to peer over the edge of the letter.

"It... doesn't say," said Hermione in an odd voice, almost distractedly--it was quite clear that she had answered the question without even really hearing it in the first place, for she was far too busy taking in the words on the page.

"What does it say?" Harry asked--he was trying to close the window again, but it was sticking terribly. Eventually he gave it up and told himself he'd do it later.

Hermione was still immersed, and didn't answer this time. Her head jumped up then, and she began to read it again from the beginning. Ron tried to pull it down so he could see too, but she pulled it away again.

"It's my letter, Ron," said Hermione. Her lips began to form the words as she read them; open, close, open. Then, finally, she lowered the letter to her lap.

"It's a warning," she said to Ron and Harry in a strange voice that was very different from her odd voice from a moment ago. "It's... someone's telling us to leave at once, to leave Privet Drive."

"What?" said Ron.

"But how do they know we're even here?" Harry said, which was a better question.

"How did they know I'm here?" said Hermione, which was the best of all. "Why didn't they send it to you?"

"Let me see it," said Harry, and she handed it over. He read it through twice--the writing was vaguely familiar. Harry read aloud:

"The Dark Lord is planning an attack on Number Four, Privet Drive, for the evening of the Third of July. If there are no deterrents in this owl's flight, you should receive this message on the Second. You and those around you must evacuate by tomorrow morning at the latest--" This word was underlined rather hastily, so that the mark nearly went through the letters, instead of beneath them. "Potter's relatives as well. Bring everything of importance, and do not attempt a Portkey."

Harry's brow furrowed. "It's not even signed," he said.

"I told you it wasn't signed," said Hermione, and she took--snatched, almost--the letter back, and reread it once again. Her eyes moved side-to-side so quickly that it was a wonder she didn't get dizzy.

"That's a trap if I ever saw one," said Ron surely. "The Death Eaters are trying to lure us out or something, don't you reckon?"

"That's probably what it is," said Harry, nodding.

Hermione seemed unsure as she surfaced once again. "But perhaps they want us to think it's a trap," she said, "so that we stay here like sitting ducks?"

"That's an idea too," said Harry, nodding.

"Or it could be real," Hermione added. "It could actually be from someone with inside information, to warn us--"

"But it'd have to be a Death Eater, then," said Ron. "And it said the Dark Lord, right? So it's got to be a Death Eater, doesn't it? I'd rather not bet on it being a friendly Death Eater, would you?"

"But Professor--" Hermione began to interject, but closed her mouth firmly, looking embarrassed. Harry knew what she was going to say: But Professor Snape called him the Dark Lord, and-- Old habits die hard, it seemed; Hermione would probably defend Snape for ever, on instinct, even though she didn't want to and knew he was an evil murdering git.

Harry had a better response: "It's not as though a defecting Death Eater's unheard of, though," he reminded them. "RAB called him the Dark Lord, so--"

But then he stopped, and his eyes widened, and Ron's eyes widened, and Hermione's as well.

"It couldn't be him," said Ron slowly, "...could it?"

"I thought he was dead," said Hermione.

Harry reached into his robe pocket, his fingers almost shaking in sudden excitement--he took out the fake Horcrux, and then RAB's note, which he'd kept on his person ever since Dumbledore's death, and unfolded it quickly, laying it next to the other note, the new one. Harry had thought before that the handwriting had been familiar on this note, and now it was clear--

--that it wasn't RAB.

The writing was nothing alike in the least. It was quite deflating, really.

"There are spells to change your handwriting," offered Hermione, also sounding quite disappointed.

"But why would RAB want to hide who he was from us?" said Harry. "We already knew about--"

"But he doesn't know we know, does he?"

That was true.

"What are the chances, though," said Ron, "that we find out about this mysterious guy from that note in the fake Horcrux, and then he just shows up for real, a couple weeks later? I mean, talk about a coincidence?"

That was also true.

Harry was very indecisive right now--he couldn't make up his mind whether he thought the warning was truthful or not, whether it was from RAB or not, whether the writing was familiar or not (had he just imagined it?), and a million other things. Usually he could at least know what he believed to be true, but... not anymore.

"I think the more important thing," Harry said, "is just to decide what to do. Stay or go, I mean?"

"How can we know?" said Hermione and there was this quite hopeless tone in her voice that Harry didn't like at all.

They were silent a very, very long time. The letter was passed around wordlessly, so that they could all read it again and again and before any of them had said another word, it was already midnight.

Harry blinked as he looked at the clock--where had the time gone?

Ron was slouched over against the side of the bed, snoring softly. Hermione seemed too tired to shut her eyes, actually, and so she just continued to stare at the words on the paper. Harry himself blinked a few times more and thought, Well, we're not going anywhere tonight, apparently. He stood--when had he sat on the ground?--and nudged Hermione. Her eyes wavered a moment before focusing on him.

"Yes?" she said.

"Are you planning on sleeping in the chair all night?" he said, and she finally managed a blink or two, and the letter fell from her hands, hitting the floor at an angle. She yawned, then, stretching her back muscles slightly, and said, "Where should I go?"

"You could have the bed," Harry offered, "I'll sleep on the floor--"

"Oh, thank--no, Harry, it's your bed, I'll take the floor," she said, coming slightly to her senses. Yawning again, she stood hesitantly as though her limbs were numb from sitting so long, and let herself collapse on the carpet beside Ron. "Why am I so tired all of a sudden?" she murmured sleepily, before finally letting her eyelids droop--just before she could fall asleep, she jumped slightly, eyes open again, and pointed vaguely towards her chair.

"Could I have the..." she began, but sort of slurred. "Could I have my letter?"

Harry picked it up off the floor and handed it to her--she took it gratefully, curling a bit as though the paper was a teddy bear, and she was asleep in an instant.

Harry turned off the lamp and laid down himself on the bed, watching the ceiling and feeling a bit better than he had just a few minutes--hours?--before. His eyes drifted closed--

And he had the strangest dream. It started out familiar, like all his dreams of late, with Dumbledore's body careening off the top of the tower, Harry unable to move, to do anything... and then Harry himself jumped off after him, landing in the Department of Mysteries, and Dumbledore was there too, falling through the veil on one side while Sirius fell through on the other--if it had been an ordinary veil, they surely would have clunked heads, but it wasn't so they didn't and then they were gone, and that was where Harry usually woke up.

But this time, unlike all times before, Harry still stood in the Department of Mysteries, and he could see the veil settle back into place on the dais, and he walked over to it, reaching an arm out, stroking the fabric--it was soft, like Ginny's hair, or like a cat's fur. And then Harry pushed the curtain aside, and he could see through it.

He stepped in.

Harry stood in the graveyard, outside the Riddle House, where he had stood at the end of his fourth year, where he had seen Cedric killed. (Harry had not dreamt of this in a very long time.)

He was not watching the murder this time, or the rebirth, but the duel between himself and Voldemort, the great cage of light, with all the Death Eaters spread in a circle round. Harry was on the outside now, and it was almost like looking into a prison, and if he could he would have grasped the golden bars and leaned through, but he couldn't.

The Death Eaters were jeering as the bead of golden light moved along, back and forth between Harry--not dream-Harry--and Lord Voldemort, back and forth again and then it touched and the figures began emerging from Voldemort's wand, just as Harry remembered.

Cedric, and then the others, and then his parents, and as soon as Harry saw his own parents they weren't in the graveyard at all, they were in a comfortable-looking living room that looked vaguely familiar to Harry, and they were dancing.

Round and round and round and round and Harry began to hear fairground music in his head, and the beautiful dance turned mocking, and they were leering at him and then there was a flash and they were gone and Harry was sitting bolt upright in his bed.

It was still dark in the room, and Ron and Hermione both still slept peacefully on the floor, by the side of the bed, and Ron had sort of fallen over onto her shoulder--presently, she was sleepily pushing him off, without much luck.

Harry closed his eyes for a minute and opened them again, and swung his legs off the empty side of the bed. He felt an odd heaviness in his bones, a sort of weight that wouldn't go away. Standing, he very nearly toppled back on the bed, but managed to steady himself.

He glanced back at the clock on his bedside table--it was three fifty-seven.

Harry walked over to the window and peered outside at the foggy street, his eyes adjusting to the glare of the streetlamps. He had a sort of crick in his neck, he now noticed, and it hurt when he attempted to turn his head so as to see the stars.

Suddenly, Harry didn't know why he had stood up. He was still tired--dreadfully so, as when one wakes up after a little bit of sleep, it tends to be even more tiring than just staying up.

He lay back down and closed his eyes, hoping for, perhaps, a good dream to overcome him... but as it were, no dreams overcame him at all, and he couldn't quite tell if he fell asleep after that or merely remained awake, staring at the ceiling.

Morning came, eventually, announced by a loud scream from Uncle Vernon:

"Potter! GET DOWN HERE NOW!"

Harry blinked a few times, stood, and looked down at Ron and Hermione--Hermione was leaning on him, now, in her sleep, and he was trying to turn to regain his arm while still likely dreaming about Quidditch or something like that.

Harry opened his door, and walked down the stairs carefully, as he wasn't fully awake yet. Uncle Vernon was at the foot of the stairs, looking dreadfully annoyed and as though he longed for nothing more than to slug Harry as he approached.

"You have a... visitor," Vernon said, and for one terrible, terrible moment Harry thought of the letter, of the warning, and thought that this was it, that the Death Eaters were attacking--but his fears were unfounded, as when he reached the front hall there stood not a Death Eater but--

"Professor McGonagall?" Harry said, furrowing his brow. She looked absolutely dreadful, more care-worn than he had ever seen her before, even just after Dumbledore had died. "What are you--"

"Hello, Harry," she said, and just as she said it Harry felt footsteps behind him--Hermione was coming down the stairs, Ron behind her.

"Has something happened, Professor?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"Oh, no," said McGonagall in what attempted to be a reassuring voice. Then she blinked. "Well, yes, actually, something has happened, but it's not something bad, per sé...."

"What is it?" said Ron, not-quite-politely in his not-quite-wakefulness, but McGonagall didn't seem to mind.

"The governors have just met," she said, attempting to sound very official and prim, and failing as her eye twitched horribly, "and they have agreed to allow Hogwarts to be reopened--"

"That's excellent!" said Hermione, then. "That's good news--"

"I hadn't finished," said McGonagall sadly. "They have agreed to allow Hogwarts to be reopened, under the condition that you, Harry, will return next year. They feel that your presence would help to ease the--"

Harry's feelings must have shown on his face, for she stopped and said:

"I know that you don't want to, Harry, we've all heard--" Harry glared at Ron and Hermione, who tried to look innocent, "but you must think of all of the other students. How would you feel if your hero suddenly disappeared, just when you felt he was most needed?"

Harry was silent, and did not really want to hear any arguments about his decision not to return, as he did not want to be convinced otherwise.

"I can't go back," he finally said, and he sounded rather listless. "I just can't."

Harry watched as a fresh wrinkle formed upon McGonagall's forehead.

"I had been... worried you'd say that..."

Harry noticed that McGonagall's hair was almost standing on end, like a cat's does when agitated.

"I urge you to reconsider," she said, finally. "The final decision must be presented to the board of governors on the first of August, so as to leave time to prepare if, in any event, the school does reopen..."

She continued talking, perhaps to him and perhaps to herself, as she turned round and opened the door, and even still until the very moment she lost the human voice box as she turned into a cat. Then she looked up at him, meowed sadly, and walked out the door.

"Harry," said Hermione from beside him. "Maybe you should reconsider--"

"Don't," warned Harry, and made to go up the stairs--he was stopped, however, by Vernon:

"So your blasted school's closing for good, is it?" he said in a horrible, superior way. "I knew it couldn't last long, what with you wreaking havoc ten months a year--"

"JUST SHUT UP!" Harry shouted then, unable to control himself. "Why do you have to say something like that every time you talk? It's bloody annoying, and I thought you realised I'm coming of age this year--shouldn't you be nice to me?"

Vernon sort of quivered a moment, before getting up his nerve: "Your aunt and I have put a roof over your head for sixteen years, boy, and this is how you--"

"Just shut the hell up," said Harry, and then he looked to Ron and Hermione. "Could you possibly just.. hex him, or something? You won't get in trouble--"

Ron looked rather excited by the prospect--Vernon terrified, of course--but Hermione was, unfortunately, the voice of reason:

"We can't hex him," she said. "We have to bring him with us."

"WHAT?"

It hadn't just been Vernon who had screamed--it was also Harry, Ron, and both of the other Dursleys, who had just walked into the room from the kitchen.

"The letter, remember?" said Hermione. "We have to take them with us, in case there's an attack--"

"I am not taking the Dursleys to find the Horcruxes--" Harry began, bewildered that she would suggest such a thing--

"Of course not," she said, "just to the Burrow, until we can determine the authenticity of the note. If the house is attacked, it's legitimate, and we have an informant in the Death Eaters--"

"I AM NOT LEAVING MY HOUSE!" said Uncle Vernon, who looked quite infuriated that he was being referred to as a mere complication.

"Well, he doesn't want to go," said Ron, feigning disappointment. "Guess we'll have to just leave 'em--"

"Wait!" said Aunt Petunia of all people, who had been shivering by the doorway, unbeknownst to anyone, even Dudley who was just beside her. All heads turned to her now--she blinked, having been put on the spot so suddenly, and then said: "We're going with them Vernon." Then, a second later: "You paid the house insurance this month, yes?"

To Be Continued... Please Review.