Daphne raked her nails across his back. "Mhmm... Stop moping and come back to bed."


------

I make no apologies

 

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley had grown permissive of late; one might even say Harry and whatever guest he invited could walk all over them.

 

In some cases, quite literally. Harry didn’t quite understand why Mr. Dursley was so insistent that he and and Daphne walk on top of him with spiked boots, or why his aunt had taken to walking him around with a collar and leash-

Harry reckoned some things were better left unknown.

 

Crowd sourcing a story with DLP, and you don’t expect it to immediately get ridiculous? For shame, Zombie.

Harry would’ve taken longer to mope- he certainly had more than a few reasons to, what with him celebrating alone and still grappling with witnessing a student be murdered- but the hoot of an owl on his windowsill broke his train of thought.

 

Not that there was much to celebrate. The arrival of Mad-Eye Moody, back when the summer had started, had cowed the Dursleys into a sullen silence, which wasn't helped by Dudley finally trying to diet. Harry himself was forbidden from doing magic. He'd begged Dumbledore for an exception, but despite a promise to see if something might be done there'd been no further letters.

In short, the whole house was perfectly miserable, and Harry had taken to spending the hot summer days cooped up in his dark room, reading the books Dumbledore had lent him on advanced transfiguration theory and writing letters to his friends when he was bored.

A ticking at his window broke his concentration, and with a smile he abandoned reading Transfiguration Monthly and let the poor, nearly-overheated owl in.

 

"Why are you here, Dudley?" Harry questioned, narrowing his eyes at the larger boy now sitting nervously on his bed. Had Dudley heard something? Or was it something else?

"Uh- I thought I saw- Well, I heard some noises coming from here and I thought you might be in trouble." His beady eyes darted around the room, landing everywhere except on Harry's own.
Harry's gaze didn't waver as a silence fell on the room.

Finally, staring resolutely at the shorter boy's shoes, Dudley squeaked out, "I had a weird dream. I think it might have something to do with... your lot."

 

"Shut up," Harry muttered, closing the door. He plastered his ear against it, but nothing raised suspicion. He faced Dudley, who was trying very hard to be discreet with the glances around the room. "What do you want?"

"I just--"

"Noticed anything strange lately?" Harry interrupted, inspecting the window again. Faux-Hedwig was good and gone now, but there remained a prickling feeling that whatever was wrong--and clearly, something was--it hadn't disappeared yet.

"Strange?" Dudley asked, eyes widening. "Like... your stuff?" He spread his arms, indicating Harry's spellbooks and wizarding equipment. "Or... stranger?"

"Yes," Harry said. He grabbed his wand from the desk and tapped it against the smudged glass. He wasn't casting magic, not really--at least he didn't think this would trip an alarm in the Ministry. A trick of light from the setting sun revealed something for just a moment. A phantom image in the glass, a perfect portrait of Hedwig.

This wasn't the first time such a trick had been played. He'd written to Dumbledore about it after he seemed to have spotted Cedric walking beside him in the park. Dumbledore advised Voldemort was using subtle magic to confuse and perhaps lure Harry away from where he was protected.

"Alright," Harry said, turning his attention to Dudley. "What was it you wanted?"

 

"So, er, I was thinkin'," Dudley said, and then he frowned.

After a minute of Dudley continuing to think (it seemed), Harry cleared his throat. "While we're young and pert, Dudley."

Dudley laughed and then seemed surprised with himself. Then he grimaced. "Oh, I dunno what I'm saying. Just don't do anything stupid, like jump out a window again."

"Is that how Vernon said it happened?" Harry sighed. "Well, that's actually believable of him, isn't it?"

"Be safe, then," said Dudley, and then he ducked out of the room.

"What's he up to?" Harry wondered to himself and then shook his head. "Never mind all that."

 

There was a flash of fire and a loud trill.

Fawkes raked his talons along Harry's arms drawing forth long trickles of blood.

There was a flash of fire and the bird disappeared.

Harry was left clutching a thin paper envelope. Blood trickled down his forearm and began to stain the parchment. It began to burn and Harry threw it away with a loud cry.

The envelope halted in the middle of its trajectory and unfolded. Harry felt himself falling forward, drawn towards the now expansive and flat parchment that the envelope had become. He collided with it and passed through, beginning to fall through some sort of darkness. It was a rather similar sensation to when Tom Riddle had shown Harry his memories back in second year, so Harry was a little apprehensive.

Harry stopped falling and found himself in the Headmaster's office. Professor Dumbledore was looking at Harry and the familiar twinkle in his eye was missing, replaced instead with a sense of grave concern.

"Harry my boy," Dumbledore began, "you and your relatives are in grave danger. Voldemort has figured out a way to breach the blood wards."

Before Harry could process the gravity of the situation, Dumbledore said something that threw Harry for a loop.

"Be ready in ten minutes. Fawkes and I will escort you to Greengrass manor"

Suddenly, Harry was blasted upwards and landed in his room right on his ass.

"Greengrass..." Harry pondered to himself. Yes there was a Daphne Greengrass in his year, but she was in Slytherin. Why would Dumbledore be sending him to them?

 

It was a concern for another time.

Harry quickly made ready. In for a penny, in for a pound. He tapped his wand to the padlock on the cupboard under the stairs, and the arch turned to rust. It broke apart with a firm pull, and a loud snap. Dudley was awake, and from upstairs there came the creaking of floorboards.

Harry's trunk was large, unwieldy and cumbersome. What he wouldn't give for something more like—

But that was a bad memory.

The broom was lain to one side, while everything else was shoved roughly into the trunk. He clambered up and down the steps, grabbing whatever few things he'd squirrelled away. In went the textbooks, the broomwax, the owl-treats. In went Dumbledore's memory-letter, and then some of Dudley's hand-me-downs, pushed down into the corner where they could muffle the screaming of his sneakoscope.

"Oi! What are you doing, boy?" At the top of the stairs, Uncle Vernon was stood in his striped pyjamas. Aunt Petunia's head, hair in rollers, could be seen just over his shoulder, and Dudley's head was popped around the corner, like a floating body-less apparition. The Dursleys. What could he do about the Dursleys?

"It's him! It's Voldemort, he's coming!" he said. "I told you, he's back. He's back and he's found out where we are."

Aunt Petunia went as pale as Uncle Vernon went red.

Whatever denial he was about to roar out was interrupted as there came a knock at the door. A great, loud knocking. "See... See who that is Harry, there's a good lad," said Vernon.

Harry approached the peephole. The cold draught that came round the edges of the door made it feel awfully thin. Flimsy. It was Professor Dumbledore, through the glass. He was dressed in simple black robes, without a hat, and his long silver hair mingled with his beard and fluttered in the wind. He knocked again.

"Open up, Harry. I've got to speak to you, time to get everything sorted out, my boy." His voice was normal. His voice was fine, and yet... Something about him, it didn't seem quite right.

"Professor," called Harry, through the letterbox, "What did you once warn me, when you saw me by the mirror in the classroom?"

There was a pause. "Oh for Merlin's sake," said Dumbledore. "Open that ruddy door."

 

There was a flash of fire and another Dumbledore appeared before Harry.

And just in time as the door was blasted off its hinges only for the more recently arrived Dumbledore, who Harry was suspecting was the real deal, to transfigure it into glue which he banished at the impostor.

Sensing the charade was up the other Dumbledore snarled and dissolved into smoke. The glue passed through and splattered harmlessly on the lawn.

The smoke reformed and Harry found himself stunned once more. The man that stood before them resembled the Tom Riddle that Harry had encountered in his second year, only taller, broader of chest, and now almost inhumanly handsome. If Harry didn't know any better, he would not have guessed the man to be any older than 25.

Voldemort, for it could only be him, turned his gaze towards them, his ice blue eyes burning with malice as he smirked.

Dumbledore flicked his wand and conjured dozens of iron spikes which he banished at Voldemort. Voldemort did not even bother to dodge. The spikes pierced through Voldemort in a fountain of blood and gore. To Harry's horror, Voldemort's wounds knit themselves together and in seconds not even a blemish remained.

Lord Voldemort slowly began rising into the air. "You insult me Dumbledore", Voldemort spat, "thinking to kill me like some common Muggle"

"You forget... that I am a GOD", Voldemort roared this last phrase in parseltongue and the force shattered several windows in the nearby houses.

There were loud pops as Death Eaters begin to appear along the street.

A large object fell from the sky, flattening several of the houses across the street. The beast let out a loud roar and it's noxious breath began to seep into the air.

"Merlin", thought Harry, "it was a bloody Nundu"

 

Voldemort levelled his wand.

"AVADA--"

The nundu moved.

The wizard met the beast and time split.

Harry was hurled through a kaleidoscope of memory, losing it as he was pulled back through. it.

He stood in his messy bedroom at Privet Drive 4, and the last thing he remembered was the phantom image of Hedwig's replica in the window. Dudley was in the room too, looking rather uncomfortable among all the magical equipment.

There was not the tiniest trace of either nundus or Dark Lords anywhere. Why would there be?

"Alright," Harry said, turning his attention to Dudley. "What was it you wanted?"

 

"Greengrass, Daphne Greengrass", Dudley suddenly blurted out.

Harry was floored, had his fat oaf of a cousin lost his wits? But Harry had heard that name before. Once this very night in fact, he was sure of it.

"Greengrass", he puzzled. Yes, Daphne was a girl in his year, Slytherin in fact. Rather pretty too, he mused thoughtfully. But what was Dudley Dursley, a bloody muggle of all things doing asking about her?

The whole situation was rather strange and Harry began to have a raging headache. Harry swiftly grabbed his wand and jabbed it at Dudley's throat.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" Harry hissed

 

NO