The Sun Sets Twice Again

Harry sat down at his desk with a sigh and blinked in frustration at the blurry shapes in front of him. He really couldn't see anything without his glasses on and when he'd asked Hermione she said that all the eyesight fixing spells had really odd side effects and the glasses were better, trust her. This had been fine--he didn't hate his glasses, at least--until his whale of a cousin had finally realized that Harry couldn't do magic against him. He'd immediately begun tormenting Harry again, though he was much too large for a game of 'Hunt the Harry'; his latest antic was snapping Harry's much-needed glasses in half.

Luckily for him, dear Aunt Petunia was predictable, not to mention neurotic and obsessive, and, therefore, the spellotape and scissors were in the exact same place as always. With all the practice he'd gotten he probably could have fixed the glasses in the dark and blindfolded, so a little blurry vision was really nothing--except, of course, it was giving him a headache. Harry was vaguely wondering if he would get expelled for 'accidentally' turning Dudley into the whale he was, but he knew he wouldn't try, no matter how much he wished he could.

Three years. Two more summers. Then I'm eighteen.

He'd been repeating this like a mantra for the last three days, though it was tempered by the fact that the chances of his still being alive by eighteen were getting smaller by the incident. The hope was further lessened by the thought that he didn't really care. Sure, Hermione would be upset, she'd cry, and Ron, Ron would get angry and yell and demand someone explain themselves, but...but maybe he could kill Voldemort first, and then he could be with his parents. He wouldn't be a failure, but he wouldn't have to be alive to prove that anymore. That would be nice. He wondered if this was what losing it felt like; if it was he didn't understand why everyone was so against it. It felt kind of nice, like...like letting go. Like breathing again after being underwater for a long time where you couldn't breath no matter how hard you tried, no matter how hard you fought, and how hard you struggled. He thought that in a way dying would be sort of like being born; it wasn't pleasant while it was happening and you could fight and fight and fight it, but it was inevitable, you were coming out, and then there was this whole new world.

Hedwig wasn't back yet, but he wasn't sure how long she'd been gone either. It felt like one of those things he was kind of supposed to know but didn't. There were a lot of those things. On occasion entire days consisted solely of those things. Even at Hogwarts. Especially at Hogwarts. He felt a sudden, sharp pang of longing for his cupboard of all things. Things had been so very simple back then, when he was just Harry: when his parents had died in a car crash, and when he'd never heard the name Voldemort. When his worst problem was Dudley picking on him.

He laughed. His worst problem was Dudley picking on him, at the moment at least. It was such a childish problem, too. Very nearly impossible for him to wrap his thoughts around that; that he'd turned fifteen less than a month ago, and that he wouldn't be an adult for three years--two summers. Well, two and a half, but the wizardry legal age wasn't eighteen at all, was it? Was it? Yet another one of those little things he wasn't quite sure about. Though he knew in both worlds he was still a child, or at least as much of a child as anyone who saw someone die because of him could be. Did Cedric die because of him? Or did Cedric die because he wasn't him? What about his mother? Why did he survive? His mother couldn't have been the first to try whatever she'd done to save his life--the oldest magic--his mother could not have been the only one to know. It just didn't make sense. Lots of things didn't make sense to Harry and that was slowly beginning to drive him mad.

If,-- and this was an if that Harry had the feeling Dumbledore could very well make a definite,-- it was him, specifically, or rather something about him, then what was it? Could he use it? Were they using him? That would make sense. After all, what was special about him apart from the fact he had faced Voldemort's wrath and lived? Nothing; absolutely nothing. He wasn't that smart, nor the most talented wizard; he was good at Quidditch yes, but lots of people were--his father included. He was, for all intents and purposes, pretty average, except when it came to encounters with Voldemort. Even then, it was luck, sheer dumb luck, and good circumstances, that saved him there: his mother; the fact something made Voldemort crumble when he touched him--though that wasn't even in effect anymore--, and his wand. All things connected to him, but not because of him.

Left to his own devices he was pretty well helpless. A worthless waste of space. Harry blinked. That last thought sounded like his Uncle Vernon. He paused, waiting, but no other words or sounds were forthcoming, just the telly blaring some programme Harry had probably never seen. I chose a right time to have a breakdown, didn't I? At least no one was here to witness this one. He was once again struck by the thought of how freeing dying must be. Not if he came back as a ghost, of course,-- though haunting the Dursleys certainly had its appeal. No, it would be better to die after Voldemort was dead, or at least in the act of trying to kill him; no unfinished business that way. Though he'd like to know why killing the darkest dark lord in quite possibly ever was his business to begin with.

There, the glasses were fixed. Harry put them on, righting them on his face and gave a small yelp when he realized Hedwig was sitting on the window ledge staring at him rather impatiently, not an arms length from his face.

"Way to be aware, Harry," he muttered sarcastically.

Then he noticed it had, at some point, become afternoon. The fact that he knew it was day at all could be considered an improvement, of course. Hedwig clicked her beak, then stretched out one of her legs, to which a letter was attached. A letter with periwinkle blue ink on the front of it: Dumbledore. Harry snatched the letter from a disgruntled Hedwig and paused momentarily to apologize to the owl before returning his attention to the message from Dumbledore.

Harry,

Shortly after I received your letter a surprising incident occurred which has led to a situation that I believe requires your attendance. Therefore I am sending a witch by the name of Nadine Moirae to pick you up at six p.m. tonight (Saturday). She will arrive by Muggle car and may or may not have one or two teenagers with her. If you need to confirm her identity merely ask for the note I supplied her with. I will explain once you arrive. Please pack for school, as you will not be returning to the Dursleys this summer. Also, if you still need to purchase your school supplies I am certain something can be arranged.

Harry was immediately hit with a number of conflicting emotions, the strongest of those being excitement and concern. Finally, concern won out and he frowned. What could have happened that would require his attendance? His dream hadn't made a lot of sense to begin with, and the more he thought on it the less sense it made, but obviously something had happened from it. It was well-known that Hogwarts was one of the--if not the--safest places in the wizardry world. Not that that had stopped Barty Crouch Jr. last year, Harry thought darkly. Still, it was certainly safer than here with the Dursleys. No matter how he looked at it, even though he was getting to leave for Hogwarts two entire weeks early, this was not a good thing. It certainly had the makings of a very bad thing.

Still, Dumbledore had his reasons and he had said he'd explain when Harry arrived. He'd even managed to convince someone into picking him up the Muggle way on what had to be short notice. The least he could do was be ready on time. He could put off telling the Dursleys until the last possible moment as well, since all his things were in this room, and there weren't going to be any floo incidents or amazing, appearing people or flying broomsticks, just a car, and therefore nothing for them to object to. Not that he really had anything to pack. Most of the books were put away, the cauldron was already stored, his Firebolt was carefully wrapped and placed inside the long trunk, and numerous other little things were settled in. On the desk there was a bottle of ink, a quill, and some parchments. On the bed there was the book he was reading, Understanding the Darkness, and Hedwig's cage was on the desk along with the writing materials, but otherwise everything in the room belonged to Dudley. He might have been tempted to break a few things over the summer, but, aside from the Muggle books Dudley had looked at once and discarded, most of it was already broken.

Harry paused by the bookshelf on his way to pack his ink and quills, glancing up at the books. In periodic fits of boredom he'd read most of them, though he found them decidedly less interesting--or maybe just less useful--than the magical books. Still, there was a book with a collection of Muggle poetry that he had rather liked. He grabbed it and tossed it in the trunk along with his other stuff. The lid closed with a bang and he locked it. There, all packed. It was only half five. He should probably get his Uncle and Aunt's attention so that they could unlock the door and he could bring the trunk down. Oh, and he still had time to take a shower, which was probably a good idea anyway.

* * *

Harry climbed out of the shower, vaguely aware he was dripping on Petunia's bathroom rugs, which she would *hate*, but not really caring. Petunia Dursley could sod off. Maybe if he was lucky she'd go to hell as a bonus. Oh, he was lucky, of course; no one lived through his last four years at Hogwarts without more luck than one person could rightfully claim. But all that luck was focused on the Keep-Harry-Alive campaign. After all, it seemed to be a full-time task. Not that he was bitter about the fact. Nope. Not bitter at all.

Grabbing another towel from under the sink he began drying his hair. It had grown out, having not been cut at all during the summer, but it wasn't so long as to be annoying just yet. Setting the towel down he put on his glasses, blinking as the world swam into focus. Brushing a few stray locks of hair out of his face out of habit, he began to dress in some of the Muggle clothes he owned that fit. They'd all been a gift from Sirius, along with a book on curses and their counters. His note had said that you never knew when you needed to blend in with the surroundings and he hoped the clothes with the right size because he wasn't sure how much Harry had grown.

He shouldn't have worried; Harry hadn't actually grown at all, as he discovered when he put the clothes on and they turned out to even be a little big. Nothing in comparison to Dudley's cast-offs, though, and he was happy enough with them. Still, he did wonder how Sirius knew what type of clothing to get and where he'd gotten them. He suspected Hermione had something to do with it. She probably also had something to do with the fact that Sirius was under the impression that Harry needed clothing that fit to begin with. She probably had nothing to do with the flimsy cover reason Sirius had come up with, though.

Harry was about to slip a dark green cotton shirt over his head when he caught a glance of himself in the mirror. He stopped, blinking at the image a couple of times, and set the shirt down. He looked...sick, or sickly, and thin enough to count four full ribs on each side. He didn't need to touch them to know he'd be able to feel them too. Still, out of shock, or surprise, or something like shock and surprise, he reached down with his hand, running it over his left ribs slowly. One, two, three, four. Oh hell. If Hermione noticed how thin he was he'd never get a moments peace.

It wasn't his fault that he couldn't stomach anything. Well, no, it was. It was his fault Cedric was dead, and that's what he was having the nightmares about, and the nightmares were the major cause of his lack of appetite. So, strictly speaking, his inability to eat anything and keep it down was his own fault. Still, Hermione wouldn't see it that way. She'd force him to eat when he didn't want to. He'd have to hide it from Ron, too, because Ron'd tell Hermione. That wasn't even mentioning the teachers, they couldn't notice anything was out of ordinary. He had to be better by then, or at least be able to act it. Otherwise they'd be concerned and pitying and they'd waste time worrying about him when they had more important things to deal with. He had to be the same Harry that they saw last year. He had to act like the same Harry as last year, before...well, everything. Before there was an after. It wasn't like he was unfamiliar with keeping things from people, though, so he'd probably be fine. He put on the shirt and just like the trousers it was a little large, but he figured under the school robes no one would notice. Plus, he wouldn't be seeing Hermione for another two weeks and she was the big one to worry about.

There was a sudden, sharp set of knocks on the door that jolted him out of his thoughts and he shoved his new trainers on, which also were just a little too large, without putting on any socks before going downstairs. Dudley had answered the door and he hung back, curious.

He heard a decidedly female voice, quite possibly young, reply to something Dudley had said. "This is the Dursleys? Number 4 Privet Drive? Harry Potter lives here?"

"What are you looking for that freak for?" From where Harry was he could hear the leer in Dudley's voice, the same sort of tone he got around pretty girls. The girl was definitely young then. Harry moved slowly towards the door, looking around for his trunk. He'd used the cakes Mrs. Weasley had sent on his birthday to bribe Dudley into bringing it down from his room. Luckily, there'd been a preservation spell on them this time.

"Freak?" The girl paused. "I'm here to take him to Hogwarts. Well, actually, my mother is but she's in the car. She figured I should come to the door since I'm wearing Muggle clothing, you know? Wouldn't want to confuse the neighbours and all."

Dudley didn't seem to have caught on to her being a 'freak' as well, because the next thing he said was, "Why would you be taking him to that school of his? It's only for freaks and the such."

Now the girl sounded annoyed. "You really should watch what you go around saying. You never know who's a witch. I mean, this cute, innocent looking girl in completely normal clothing could come knocking on your door one day with a simple request and you'd never know she could kill you with two words." Another pause. "Well, unless she tells you such. Now, can you go get Harry or is a such a task beyond your mental abilities?"

Dudley finally caught on as he gave a terrified squeak and ran for the kitchen.

The voice sighed. "Maybe I should find him myself."

Harry turned the corner, noticed his trunk, and glanced up at the front door. A girl with white blond hair done in plaits was halfway across the threshold, looking around curiously.

"Hullo." Harry's voice, rarely used over the summer, was scratchy and he noticed for the first time that it had gotten deeper again. Wonderful; now, if he'd just grow to match the voice.

The girl looked around, saw him, and smiled. "Black hair. Glasses. Harry Potter?"

"Yes." Monosyllables were good; vague but good.

"I'm Artemis. We're here to pick you up? Dumbledore should have sent an owl."

He nodded. He'd sent Hedwig back again after reading Dumbledore's letter, figuring that an owl in a car was probably not the most welcome of things.

"You have your stuff?"

He nodded at his trunk. "That's it." He started to pick it up and was startled to realize there was no way he'd be able to drag it to the door by himself. The girl, she had said her name was Artemis he thought, seemed to notice though and came over to help. He took the opportunity to look at her more closely and noticed that aside from the shocking lightness of the blonde, she had small, slightly pointed features, and grey eyes with just a bit of green. He frowned for a moment, considering, and then frowned deeper when he realized the resemblance.

"Are you related to the Malfoys?"

To his surprise she grinned. "There's definitely a Malfoy at Hogwarts, then. Funny, I thought the English Malfoys ended up at Durmstrang. No, I'm not a Malfoy. Yes, I am related to one. I'll tell you on the way to Diagon Alley. My mum can fix your glasses there as well."

He found himself nodding along, then packing his school stuff in the boot, before being scooted into the backseat of the car alongside the girl. A quick 'hello' from a woman who looked only slightly related to the girl greeted him and he answered back out of habit. The vehicle lurched into motion then and his stomach protested vaguely, making him suddenly very glad he hadn't needed to floo anywhere. It settled as they began to drive away and he didn't even bother looking back; there was nothing there for him to miss.