Monsoon

Monsoon Chapter 1

"Oh what a world my parents gave me"-Rufus Wainwright

Part I

"Stupid boy, you missed the most obvious clue. You are my final horcrux; you must die before I will ever be gone from this earth," Voldemort's high, maniacal voice cackled in the air as his eyes glinted.

Harry had never seen him this happy before. His lips were spread wide over dazzlingly white teeth, the only part of his body that recalled the attractive youth he once was.

A voice, removed from the violence at hand hissed, "Avada..." but never had the chance to finish.

Harry sat up in his bed and took in his surroundings. He was back on Privet Drive, but it was nowhere near like how it had been before. Ron and Harry were sharing a room while Hermione occupied the guest bedroom. They had come with him on his last trip to the Dursleys. Harry turned over and looked at the clock. He had been seventeen for four hours now. Funny how I don't feel any different, Harry thought to himself. He supposed that this was when he was supposed to start to feel like an adult, but he already had felt like one for ages. Although, considering who he was, putting another year under his belt was practically a miracle. Harry had managed to evade death at every turn since infancy, when the darkest wizard to walk the earth tried to kill Harry as a baby. Thinking these pleasant thoughts, Harry turned to look at his best friend lying peacefully on the bed next to him. Somehow, having his first and best friends here with him took all the dread out of visiting his muggle relatives. Now, since he was both of age and had support, Harry could talk back to Uncle Vernon. However, Harry rarely had to. Uncle Vernon had somehow come to the conclusion that Harry was, in fact, the potential savior of the wizarding world, and as much as Uncle Vernon hated all that funny business and turned a delicate shade of puce if it were discussed at length in front of him, he was against murder. Really, he was just an old softie.

Harry sighed and closed his eyes again. The image of Voldemort flashed in his brain and he remembered why he was awake in the first place. Grumbling to himself, Harry pulled back the covers and took out the dream diary that Hermione had bought him. This way, she reasoned, Harry could trace patterns in his dreams without having to dive back into them like with a Penseive. So far, Harry had been having dreams either about Voldemort or Ginny, but since he refused to share his personal dreams in front of Ron, he just kept those to himself. No need to watch Ron turn red about the ears for no reason. Harry also wrote down the random ones that seemed to be like the normal, meandering dreams that he used to sometimes have, ones that involved strange locations and unusual characters, like Winky and Mad-Eye Moody, who for some reason had taken to dancing in matching socks. Harry wrote these down too, if for nothing else than a laugh.

By the time Harry had written all the details and minutia of his dream, to suit Hermione's needs, he knew it was pointless trying to go back to sleep. So, he padded down the stairs and was just about to head to the kitchen for a bit of a kip, when he heard whimpering. Dudley, the youngest of the Dursleys, sat alone at the kitchen table, head in his hands. Harry stood frozen in the doorway. He had rarely seen anything but malevolence or pride in that face. The only other time Dudley had been that upset was before fifth year, when Dementors had shown up in Little Whinging. Harry drew in his breath at the memory of being chased down by those horrible creatures, and as he did so, Dudley's head snapped in his direction.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped.

"Um...nothing, just felt like a bit of a snack, um, I can go..." Harry trailed off, not knowing what to say.

"Yeah, well...fine. Have a snack;" Dudley had lost his touch at being vicious to Harry once he'd realized that Harry had saved his life.

"Thanks," Harry muttered as he walked over to the fridge, pulled out some cookies and milk, and sat down at the table.

"D'you want?" Harry offered.

"No thanks."

Dudley had gone through a growth spurt in the last year, and had managed to shed some of his excess pounds. The attention the girls gave him at this change made him work out more than before, and now he was not just large, but fit. It was quite weird, Dudley not rolling and jiggling about the place, but Harry supposed that everything had to change sometime.

Harry and Dudley sat in awkward silence while Harry ate his snack. They had things they needed to say, but both seemed to have come to the silent agreement that those things would never be said. After Harry finished the milk, he turned and walked into the living room.

"Anything good on, d'you think?" Harry asked, knowing Dudley had an encyclopedic knowledge of all programming at all hours.

"Erm, yeah, there's this thing on motorcycles on one of the satellite channels Dad put in. Channel 78."

"Cool," Harry said.

Dudley walked in from the kitchen and they both sat upon the sofa and began watching the program, which was about these guys who took old motorcycles and made them better. The premise was rather lame, but there were a lot of sparks and arguments, so it had that going for it.

"My godfather had a motorbike," Harry blurted.

"Huh, cool. You ever ride it?"

"Actually, yeah, but I was a baby so I don't really remember it."

"Who would take a baby on a bike?"

"Hagrid," Harry answered with a shrug. "I have it now though, maybe I could show you sometime or something."

Harry was offering this without thinking how he had sworn to himself that he would not touch Sirius's things. It felt nice to have something in common with his cousin, in spite of their tumultuous past, and especially nice to finally have something to talk about that wouldn't bring them around to magic, so long as Harry kept to himself the fact that the motorcycle could fly.

"Yeah, maybe."

After this extensive conversation, the two boys (nearly men) sat in silence while the television advertised a soda that promised to "bring joy to the saddest people with just one sip." Harry was almost tempted.

"Hello, Harry, um, Dudley," Hermione said as she walked into the living room, carrying a large book (as was her habit). "What are you doing up?"

"Just watching a bit of television," Harry replied, not ready to talk about his dream, and knowing that saying, "here for a bit of a cry and repression" would not go without questioning.

"That's nice. Happy birthday by the way, Harry. Your present's upstairs, if you want it. Are you going to try and get your apparition license today?"

"Um, I can wait, for the present and the license. Besides, I don't want the Ministry doing me any more special favors. I can get my license at the regular testing time just like anybody else."

Dudley sat staring at the screen, the familiar glazed expression on his face. Hermione turned to the TV, then turned a light on and opened her book, a form of protest against mindless television. Her book, Harry noted, was on ancient magic. Ever since she had found out about the spell with Harry and the Dursleys, she had been trying to find a way to replicate it, but with people who weren't blood-relations. The fit she had thrown upon finding out about the importance of blood in the spell had now been quieted to the occasional derisive snort. Harry knew that it was hard for her, especially since she was constantly berated at school by Slytherins (namely, Malfoy) for not being Pureblood and that the importance of something beyond her control in magic infuriated her. After the program turned into an infomercial for toothpaste (finally drawing Hermione's attention to the TV screen) Harry grew restless and got up to start breakfast. As soon as the bacon began to crisp, Ron ran down stairs.

"Honestly, Ronald, is it like a sonar to you?" Hermione teased.

"Hey, you try growing up with six siblings and then we'll talk about the importance of bacon, okay?"

"Someone's testy," Harry laughed. "Here, you can have the first slice."

"Wicked," Ron grinned appreciatively.

Harry thought of the sour look that was sure to cross Aunt Petunia's face at the thought of three teenage boys eager to eat her out of house and home. Thank goodness Dudley was dieting. The four of them sat down at the kitchen table to munch the bacon and wait for the toast to finish when Aunt Petunia walked in wearing her lavender dressing gown. She froze in place, much like Harry had just hours before, turned, and went to the refrigerator, to Harry's surprise. He had expected her to leave, but instead she was pouring them all orange juice in the fancy guest glasses. Harry decided this had more to do with the desire to maintain her reputation of normality and hospitality than any actual good will in spite of Hermione's repeated explanations to Harry about the tragedy of his Aunt's life and how he should pity, not resent her. Her lecture worked, sort of. Now Harry resented her, but felt bad for it.

"So, erm, Grimmauld Place today, mate?" Ron queried.

"Um, yeah, sure." Harry hadn't thought about his promise to search Sirius's old home for the locket that they remembered seeing there two years earlier. Previous searches had borne few results, and Harry had decided that Kreacher must have either sold it or snogged it into oblivion like Sirius's dad's trousers.

At the mention of Grimmauld Place, Hermione immediately shot a concerned look Harry's way. She knew the toll it took on him to keep visiting that place, but she also knew it was necessary to stopping Voldemort. She felt like a horse chasing a carrot at the end of the stick, her goal placed inches from her nose, yet still unattainable. She sighed.

"Will you be back for dinner?" Aunt Petunia asked stiffly, her eyes shifting from Ron's mound of bacon to Harry's still slightly pinched-looking face.

"I'm not sure, but I just got this, and the, uh, number's on the fridge," Harry replied, pulling out a new cell phone.

Ron's hand instantly reached out to play with it, but since his grasp of muggle technology was limited to flying cars and what he referred to as the "fellytone," Harry quickly tucked the phone back in his pocket. Ron rolled his eyes.

"If you're finished we should all get dressed and go. Is it alright if we use your fireplace for travel, Mrs. Dursley?" Hermione asked, turning to Petunia, who looked surprised at being addressed so formally.

"Yes, yes that's fine," Petunia anwered, looking forlornly at her spotless carpet.

"I'll have the mess cleaned up in an instant, not to worry," Hermione replied, sensing what Aunt Petunia was worried about. Petunia seemed to stand up a little straighter, as though she either now thought Hermione was worth impressing, or upset by the insinuation that she couldn't clean her floors on her own.

"That would be...acceptable. Hermione," she replied, using Hermione's name for the first time since their arrival.

"Right then. So...we'll just get dressed." Harry was stunned at this exchange, and was eager to get out of the kitchen before the two started hugging or something.

Ron and Harry quickly changed clothes and rushed downstairs. Hermione was already ready and working on the floo powder connection. It had taken some major string-pulling to get the Ministry to allow for a muggle home to be attached to the Floo Network, but considering the circumstances, they would allow for almost anything so long as it involved Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Hope of All, to continue fighting Voldemort and his cohorts.

Harry jumped into the fireplace first, since he had to make sure the house would let the others in. He felt the familiar flames lapping against him, and shouted, "Number 12 Grimmauld Place!"

Part II

***

They had been searching the house (mansion, really) for nearly four hours to the musical accompaniment of Sirius's mother's screeching when they stopped for lunch. Ron conjured up some sandwiches and the three sat and had a (somewhat dusty) picnic in the Black family library.

"You should teach me how to do this, Ron," Hermione implored.

"What, make sandwiches?"

"No, conjure them. Mrs. Weasley tried to teach me, but I couldn't quite get it, and, well, I can't ask Tonks now can I?"

It was so rare an occasion that Hermione asked for help on anything that Harry secretly thought she was just trying to make Ron feel better. They both knew how it bothered Ron, not being able to do much to help the fight besides research and enthusiasm.

"Um, sure, you know the spell, yeah? So you just, um, move your hand in this kind of swirl. Here, let me show you." At this, Ron held Hermione's wrist and gently guided it through the surprisingly intricate motion required to create roast beef sandwiches.

"Thanks. I think I get it now." Hermione performed the spell, then quickly buried her face behind a sandwich, but Harry was sure he saw her forehead turn faintly pink. Hmm, about time, he thought to himself. Their public intimacy at the funeral had dissolved once they realized what Harry planned. Harry supposed they thought they were doing him a favor, but he didn't really care. In fact, he saw the looks they shared, knew they still had feelings for one another, but were trying to squash them for Harry's sake. He wished they wouldn't, but he couldn't figure out a way to tell them this without possibly being wrong and making them not speak to each other for days for fear of it being misunderstood as flirting. Harry tried to put this out of his mind and concentrate on the hunt.

After another few hours of searching, the three decided it was time to head home, and Harry called Aunt Petunia to forewarn her that there would be three teenagers emerging from her fireplace momentarily, but he got no answer.

"That's weird," Harry said as he shut his phone.

"What?" asked Ron.

"Nothing, she didn't answer the phone."

"Should we go anyway? I mean, Ron could apparate upstairs to Harry's room to check that nothing is wrong, right?" Hermione's voice now had a trace of panic.

"Um, yeah, I'll be right back." There was a rush of wind as the place where Ron once stood filled with air.

A few moments later, Ron returned, looking ashen.

"Harry, they're..." he gulped, "they're dead. I'm sorry. Listen, um, Hermione and I will go get our things. Stay here. We'll stay here tonight."

Harry just nodded. His brain was having trouble processing what was going on, and he sat down on the floor with a thud. Ron and Hermione vanished and returned about half an hour later with their trunks, animals, supplies, and worried expressions. Harry had been glad for the time to think about how it had happened, about how someone had managed to get to the Dursleys. There was really only one explanation, since the house had been made unplottable for wizards.

"I think Mrs. Figg was Imperiused," Harry blurted upon their return.

"Yes, that makes sense. I suspected as much, but it's still just so surprising. I mean, I know it shouldn't be but...there was nothing to gain from this." Hermione's eyes welled with tears, but she spoke softly, as though Harry were a skittish baby bird. He felt like a ball of lead.

"Wait, what? I don't get it."

"Nobody in our world could know where the Dursleys lived. It was part of the protections he set up for Harry. Only Mrs. Figg, with connections to the wizarding world, but no actual abilities, could have known it and told," Hermione replied, maintaining her soft, level tone.

"They're trying to draw me out. They think I will come running after Voldemort for hurting my...my family, and they think they've destroyed the protection I get from them. But today's my birthday. The spell is complete. Idiots," Harry added this last word with bitterness, because he knew it wasn't true. The man who had been responsible for the deaths of all the people he cared about, and those he was learning to care about, was anything but stupid. That cretin had managed to gain the support of half the wizarding world, and make the other half tremble at the mere mention of his name. But Harry wouldn't rise to their bait. He knew he had to find the horcruxes first, and he would do it, if it killed him. He snorted at the thought. It will kill one of us, anyway.

"I'm so sick of this. It's just, it's twisted what he's doing, and they still follow him, they still listen, and it doesn't make sense and we've got to do more than sit around this house and be yelled at by a madwoman and I just..." Ron slammed his fist against the wall, making it tremble.

"Stop it, Ron. You'll hurt yourself." Hermione warned.

"Yeah, think I'm there, thanks." Ron replied, grasping his fist.

"Wait, what's that?" Harry asked.

"Where?"

"There, where Ron just battered the wall, there's something glinting behind that loose board."

They all scrambled to the floorboard, and Hermione gingerly removed the splintered board, uncovering a handle. She pulled back on it and a space was revealed beneath the floor. There lay old Black portraits, family heirlooms, and a box. Ron reached in and grabbed the box, opening it. There was the locket that they had been searching for, just sitting there as though it were nothing unusual, not at all housing part of the soul of what was once Tom Riddle. Hermione turned it over, and there was the final proof, the crest of Salazar Slytherin.

"Well, this is a start," she breathed.