A lack of open hostility
“Young Master will stay home!”
“I have to go back, they’ll think I’m dead!”
Harry was still shaking, blood oozing sluggishly from the ragged slice in his arm. He wouldn’t let Kreacher heal him, or even bind the wound.
“Kreacher will get Master Sirius. Young Master will stay at home where it is safe!”
“You can’t get Sirius!” Harry shouted. Walburga was screaming incomprehensibly, it was hard to hear anything. Harry felt like an ax had breen driven through his skull. His stomach churned, his nerves were alight with pain. His hands kept twitching. He was covered in sweat, dirt, blood, the sour stench of fear, reeking from the fumes of Voldemort’s resurrection. “No one knows I live here! You’ve been alive for decades, you’ll be recognized! If you get Sirius they will know!”
“Kreacher can make young Master stay,” Kreacher muttered darkly. “Kreacher lives for the Black family. Young Master is safe in his ancestral home!”
“It won’t be safe if everyone knows I live here!” He took a breath, then met Kreacher’s eyes. “I don’t want to order you. I won’t. Please, Kreacher. I need to get back to Hogwarts and explain.”
“Fidelius! I told Orion we should have placed this house under Fidelius!” Walburga screeched.
“Then I would have never been able to find it!” Harry shouted back. She ignored him and kept rambling.
“Kreacher does not like young Master’s logic,” the elf finally said.
“Kreacher—”
“But Kreacher accepts this must be done. Kreacher will take young Master to the gates.”
In an instant, Harry had fallen to his knees at the gates of Hogwarts. The winged boars stood sentinel, and the gates creaked open, recognizing a student.
Harry got to his feet, swaying slightly, then began walking. He felt Orion Black’s ring, his portkey, swinging from his neck. He tucked it back into his shirt. No one could know about it. Bad enough Harry had used it in front of Voldemort and a crowd of Death Eaters. There were so many, more than Harry had ever conceived…He had used a portkey in front of them, but it was a small object, and it was dark. They couldn’t have seen the Black crest on it. Wormtail was too cowardly to look at Harry, and Voldemort was more interested in his own words. They knew he had used a portkey, but they couldn’t know where it had taken him.
“Apparition,” Harry said to himself, the hedge maze coming into view. It was loud, and getting louder as he approached. They must have found the other champions. How long had he been gone? “I’ll say it was accidental apparition. I did it once in primary. I got on the roof. I was afraid. I was injured. I panicked. I wanted to get away. I ended up in Hogsmeade. I know you can't apparate in school grounds. I got as close as I could. Accidentally.”
The empty clarity of mind Harry had found himself relying on more and more was hard to grasp. Sirius had told him not to use it as a crutch. Kreacher had warned him that first summer. Even that Ravenclaw girl Luna had noticed something was wrong. He couldn’t send all the wrackspurts away. Harry wasn’t a good enough occlumens to create false memories and hide true ones. But, he was good enough to lie.
He saw a group standing near the entrance of the maze. Moody, McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, Snape, Dumbledore, Sirius screaming in Dumbledore’s face, Andromeda with her wand out, Ted touching her arm, Tonks’ hair a dizzying blur of colors.
“And he isn’t in the maze, Alastor?”
“I told you, Albus, it’s empty since we got the others out.”
Harry started running. “Sirius!"
He had been spotted. The confused and uneasy rumbling of the audience grew as people started shouting, questioning, pointing, laughing, cheering.
Sirius turned away from Dumbledore, rage and worry turning into relief. “Harry! What happened? What’s going on? Where have you been?”
Sirius grabbed Harry, checking him over. “What the hell happened to your arm?”
“Where’s the cup?” someone asked.
Harry tried to organize his thoughts. “It was a portkey. The cup was a portkey.”
“Where did it take you, Harry?” Dumbledore asked.
Harry looked around at the adults circling him. “To a graveyard. There was a headstone that said Tom Riddle. Wormtail…Peter Pettigrew was there. He tied me to it. There was a…thing. Voldemort.” Someone shrieked. “His body…” Harry closed his eyes. “It was all shriveled up. There was this cauldron with some kind of potion in it, it kept giving off sparks. And Wormtail put Voldemort in it, then used his father’s bones, and cut off his hand, and took my blood…” Harry swallowed. “He took my blood and put it in. And then Voldemort came out.”
Harry looked up again, at their faces cast in shadow, moving in fear, shock, confusion.
“He’s back. He has a body now. Voldemort’s back. And he called his Death Eaters—”
“What’s going on?” Fudge forced his way through. “What’s happened? Where’s the cup?”
“I left it in the graveyard,” Harry said. “I had to get away.”
“Graveyard? What’s he on about?”
“The boy’s injured,” Moody growled, suddenly grabbing Harry’s arm. Harry winced and tried to pull away. “He can answer questions later. I’ll get him up to the hospital wing.”
“Get your hands off my godson!”
Harry was knocked to the ground.
There was an angry cry from above, and a white shape crashed into Moody’s face. It was Hedwig, clawing at his eyes, beating him with her wings, her vicious beak tearing at his face. Moody had his wand out and was trying to hit her away. Crookshanks flew out of the night, launching himself at Moody’s flask, kicking it to the ground where he started batting it around. Sirius was gone, a dog in his place, lunging at Moody and biting his wand arm, bearing him down.
Harry sprawled there in stunned silence. Wands were drawn.
Hegwig pulled away, the magical eye trapped in her talons and dripping with some dark liquid.
“How did she get out of the net? Someone bring that bird down!”
“Harry!”
“Ms. Granger, get control of that cat!”
“Sirius Black, release Alastor immediately!”
“I’ll take care of him, headmaster.”
Harry threw himself in front of Sirius, wand pointed at Snape. “Voldemort said he had a loyal servant here. Someone Bertha Jorkins’ knew about—”
“Bertha? What’s she got to—”
“Harry, dear boy, lower your wand. Professor Snape—”
“What’s in the flask?” Harry asked suddenly. “Crookshanks hates Moody. He’s good at finding things out.”
“Albus, perhaps we should—”
“Remove your hand, or you’ll discover what I learned growing up a Black!”
“Dromeda, please—”
“Get him, mum!”
Sirius worried at Moody’s arm, not letting him go even as the man tried to kick free. Harry turned his wand on Moody. “Stop hurting him!”
Dumbledore reached down and picked up the flask. Unscrewing it, he gave it a sniff, then passed it to Snape.
“Polyjuice,” Snape said, handing it back.
“I told you I didn’t steal your bloody boomslang skin!”
“Potter, control yourself!”
“Silence!” Dumbledore said. It became deathly quiet. “It seems the hour is nearly up.
“Incarcerous!”
Ropes wound themselves around Moody. Sirius unlocked his jaw and backed up, growling protectively in front of Harry. Crookshanks crawled into his lap, purring. Harry put a hand on him, trying to breathe.
They watched as Moody’s features melted away. An eye grew back. The clawed, wooden leg fell off. A younger man was revealed in his place. Light hair, lightly freckled, pale. Harry had never seen him in his life.
“Is that..Barty Crouch?”’
“He’s been dead for years!”
“So was Pettigrew,” Harry said dully. Sirius had turned back to a human. He knelt next to Harry, one arm protectively around him, the other holding his wand. “Mr. Crouch’s son?”
“It wasn’t a coincidence, then,” Sirius said, glaring at Barty Crouch with hatred. “Crouch must have broken him out, stuck his wife in his place. Wasn’t Moody an old friend of yours?” Sirius said, raising his voice. “How the hell did you not notice, Dumbledore? How did you let another Death Eater close to my godson?”
“Where’s the real Moody?” Harry asked. “He’s got to have him somewhere since he needed his hair.”
“Filius, check the defense office,” Dumbledore said. “Severus, we’ll need Veritaserum. “Minerva, there’s a house-elf, Winky—”
“Now, wait just a moment,” Fudge interrupted. “This is Ministry business, Albus!”
Sirius stood, pulling Harry up with him. “I’m taking you to the hospital wing. They don’t need us here.”
“Sirius, I do need to know what happened in the maze. Harry—”
“I’ve already said—”
“You will not be interrogating him in the middle of a crowd, after he’s been kidnapped and injured! Are you out of your mind?”
To Harry’s surprise, Sirius picked him completely up, cradling Harry in his arms.
“I can walk—”
“I need to know what happened after he touched the portkey, Sirius.”
Andromeda put herself in between them and Dumbledore. “Your questions will keep until the morning, headmaster. My nephew needs medical treatment immediately!”
“Nephew?” Harry asked.
Sirius didn’t answer and began walking to the castle. Harry thought others were following but he couldn’t see, or hear much over Fudge yelling, the crowd yelling, the other headmasters yelling, asking who won.
“It’s okay,” Sirius said gently, a cold light in his eyes. “You’re safe now. You got away. You made it back alive.”
Harry closed his eyes, injured arm throbbing with the beating of his heart.
Who cared who had won? Voldemort was back.
"What happened? After I was gone."
"We couldn't see into the maze," Sirius said. "Mostly we all just sat there, doing nothing. Crookshanks was out of control, someone conjured a cage for him. Then we spotted two birds over the maze, and I think Flitwick was the one who netted them. Hedwig, it turned out. The other one got away."
They started up the steps, still trailing a small crowd of Tonkses and Weasleys, all involved in their own conversations and demands for answers.
"Delacour was the first one out, not sure what happened there, but we all heard her scream. Later, must have been an hour or two, we saw red sparks, and they carried Diggory and Krum out."
"That was me," Harry admitted. "I heard Krum attacking Cedric, so I stunned him. Then I shot up sparks and stunned Cedric too."
Sirius kicked the doors to the hospital wing open.
"I felt bad about it, but once I was in the graveyard I didn't." Harry took a breath. "It was rigged, from start to finish."
Sirius placed Harry in a bed.
"I shouldn't have touched the cup. I knew something was going to happen."
"If you didn't touch it, Barty would have made you. He was probably watching the whole time, with Moody's eye. It isn't your fault, Harry."
Madam Pomfrey hurried over. “Out, out! Everyone get out!”
Harry gripped Sirius’ sleeve. “Don’t worry," Sirius said. "I’m staying.”
Andromeda brushed his hair, looking down in concern, but Ted guided her out. Mrs. Weasley was hissing at her children and Hermione, who Crookshanks had returned to. Madam Pomfrey chased them all out. Harry wondered where Hedwig had gone off to, and hoped she was safe.
“Mr. Potter,” Madam Pomfrey said once the hospital was cleared out. “I need to know the extent of your injuries.” She already had her wand out, tracing patterns over him. “Could you please describe what happened?”
“Nothing attacked me in the maze,” Harry said. “I ran into a boggart, then a strange golden mist that turned everything upside down. There was a skrewt that I moved out of the way, then a sphinx who let me by, and a large spider I killed.”
Madam Pomfrey nodded, examining the cut on his arm.
“After I took the portkey, I was petrified and tied to a headstone.”
“Bruises, rope burns,” she muttered to herself.
“He used a knife to take my blood. I think it was silver. I don’t know, it was dark.” Harry swallowed drily, and a cup of water was conjured. He drank. “He—Pettigrew, I mean—I think he used the same knife to cut off his hand, before he took my blood.”
Madam Pomfrey blanched, but nodded.
“Then Voldemort used crucio on me”—Sirius took a sharp breath—”And then I left. I apparated.”
“Apparition? At fourteen?” Her wand movements got more aggressive. “It’s a wonder you aren’t splinched!”
“I’ve done it once before,” he explained. “I was running away from…someone when I was little, and I ended up on a roof.”
Madam Pomfrey walked away, mumbling to herself. “Silver blade, possibly ritual…Cruciatus…nerve regeneration…magical exhaustion…accidental magic…”
“He used crucio on you,” Sirius said, closing his eyes. “Harry…”
“It was…it hurt more than anything I’ve ever felt. I think he was playing with me. He wanted to duel, to prove he could beat me or something.” Harry looked off to the side, through the window. It was dark. “He told me to bow. That’s when I used the…you know.”
“Clever,” Sirius said. “You got away as soon as you could.”
“I tried as soon as I got there,” Harry said, “but Wormtail was too fast. They must have known exactly where I would land. They were waiting. I was so stupid.”
“You weren’t. It’s not your fault.”
“I want,” Harry swallowed. “He doesn’t know I’m okay.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I saw his dad there. There were so many of them, I—”
The hospital doors flew open, and Flitwick trotted in with someone floating behind him.
Madam Pomfrey came back with potions for him to take, and healed his arm. It left an ugly, ragged scar that stood out red and puffy. She tried to make him take some sleeping potion, but Harry was too afraid to close his eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sirius promised. “You can rest now. We’ll deal with it all in the morning.”
Harry woke in the middle of the night, too hot and weighed down. He could see a dark, blurry shape on the bed with him. Padfoot, ears and legs twitching in his sleep.
Someone was standing next to him. Harry took a sharp breath, heart racing, and then his glasses were slid onto his face and he relaxed.
“How did you get in here?” he whispered.
“I couldn’t break the spell on the doors,” Theo whispered back, sitting down. “So I used the window.”
Harry gave a small laugh, turning slowly so as not to disturb Padfoot. “I wanted to see you right away.”
“Me too,” Theo said. “I was so—” he closed his eyes tightly. “There were too many people. I wanted to see you before you went into the maze. I wanted to—”
Harry reached out and took his hand, too tired, too scared, in too much lingering pain to be nervous or embarrassed anymore. He laced their fingers together and they held on.
Harry told him what happened, leaving out the portkey he used to get away, but he knew Theo suspected. Harry told him about the maze, the cup, the ritual.
Theo was silent when Harry finished. “I never considered it would be that kind of ritual.”
Harry kept his mouth shut, because if he had told Theo everything, maybe he would have. But he couldn’t. Not with his father, not without putting Theo’s safety at even greater risk.
“He was there, wasn’t he?” Theo asked in an empty voice.
“I don’t think any of them knew,” Harry said, not answering Theo. He didn’t need to. They both knew. “Except Wormtail, and Barty Crouch. They were surprised. He wasn’t happy with them. He used crucio on one.”
There was only so much they could say in the hospital wing. There was a noise from Madam Pomfrey’s office. The real Moody wheezed. Padfoot shifted restlessly.
“You should go before you get caught,” Harry said, squeezing his hand.
“Harry, I…”
Theo reached over, lightly touching his cheek. Harry’s heart pounded.
“I’m…”
Harry watched Theo stand, drift silently towards an open window, lower himself over the sill, and disappear into the night. When he looked back he saw Padfoot watching him.
Harry blushed. “Shut up.”
Harry woke groggily to raised voices.
“He’s barely slept,” Sirius was saying. “He was just used in a ritual to resurrect the man who murdered his parents!”
“Surely the boy’s exaggerating,” another voice said. Fudge. “I’ve heard things, Dumbledore. Lucius Malfoy’s told me the boy’s a parselmouth? Having funny turns about the school?”
“Harry is as sane as you or I…”
Harry sat up, finding his glasses. Sirius hurried over to him. “Harry, you don’t have to—”
“It’s fine,” Harry said. “I can talk.”
Harry repeated his story about what happened the night before. He didn’t talk about his scar hurting, or his visions, or the portkey he used to get away. He felt Dumbledore staring at him and avoided his eyes, looking at his hospital bed.
“You’ll forgive me if I say, this is rather fanciful,” Fudge said. “Perhaps something happened in the maze, I’ve seen those creatures Hagrid keeps…”
“I saw him,” Harry said. “I saw Voldemort come back. I saw him summon his Death Eaters. I can give you names. Lucius Malfoy—”
“He was cleared! From an old family, makes donations…”
“Macnair—”
“Also cleared! This boy is just repeating names he’s heard!”
Harry laid down as the adults went back to bickering. Sirius sat next to him, breathing evenly.
“Voldemort has returned,” Dumbledore said. “If you accept that fact, Cornelius, and take appropriate measures…”
Fudge was shaking his head in denial. “Remove the dementors? Envoys to giants? Preposterous!”
Harry looked around the room, surprised to see so many people. Mrs. Weasley, Bill, McGonagall, Snape, Ron, Hermione.
“He can’t be back…”
Snape showed his dark mark, shoving it in Fudge’s face. Fudge shook his head, rejecting Snape’s explanation.
“I don’t know what you and your staff are playing at…need to discuss the running of this school…”
“What is going on?” he whispered to Sirius.
“Later.”
Fudge dumped a bag of galleons on Harry. “Since you were the last one out of the maze. There should be a ceremony, but with the cup missing…”
“It’s in the graveyard,” Harry said. “Unless Voldemort or one of his Death Eaters took it for a trophy.”
Fudge flinched, then shoved his bowler hat back on his head and stormed out of the hospital wing.
Dumbledore looked at them all, his face distant and determined, and Harry was reminded that he was considered one of, if not the, strongest wizard alive.
“There is work to be done. Molly…”
Harry listened to Dumbledore giving orders, like some sort of war general. He furrowed his brow, wondering why the headmaster of a school was forming…what? A guerilla army? A vigilante group?
Bill was sent to his father, Arthur Weasley, who would be their man inside the Ministry. Or one of many, if Harry understood correctly. Hagrid and Madame Maxime were to meet with him later, presumably as the envoys to giants Dumbledore had mentioned to Fudge. Madam Pomfrey was to collect Winky from somewhere, which alarmed Harry. She had been Crouch’s elf, had she known about his son? What had happened with Barty? Then Dumbledore turned to Sirius and Snape.
“I will settle, in the short term, for a lack of open hostility.”
Snape glared at Sirius, which Sirius returned coolly.
“I wanted to apologize for what happened in school,” Sirius said. “But I doubt you’d accept it.”
“Amazingly perceptive for a mutt,” Snape said. “You and Potter always—”
“That’s enough,” Dumbledore said impatiently. “You will shake hands. You’re on the same side now.”
Harry wondered how true it was, and noticed the incredulous look on Sirius’ face, but Sirius shook Snape’s hand. It looked like theatre.
Harry’s eyes widened. Was that why so many people had been present? Was this a show? There was no need for Hermione or Ron to be involved, nor Mrs. Weasley, nor Dumbledore, really. Voldemort was a cult leader, or something equivalent, and a terrorist. It was the government’s responsibility. But Harry had seen how violently Fudge rejected Voldemort existing at all. And Dumbledore was a…counterrevolutionary?
It was too much to unravel, too much to cope with, not with what he had seen, what he had been used for. Harry stared fixedly at a wall, trying to clear his mind, to push his thoughts and feelings away until he could deal with them. Sirius shot him a concerned look.
“Sirius, I need you to set off at once,” Dumbledore said. Harry twitched. What right had Dumbledore to order Sirius around? “You are to alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg”—Harry twitched again; he couldn’t mean Mrs. Figg—”and Mundungus Fletcher. The old crowd. I’ll contact you later.”
Harry hoped Sirius would object, but he said, “Understood.” Turning to Harry, he said, “I’ll see you again soon, I promise. There are some things I need to take care of first.”
Harry frowned, but nodded.
“Severus, you know what I must ask you…”
People started to leave, going on missions for Dumbledore. Hermione and Ron tried to linger, but Harry asked to be left alone. He didn’t know where the other champions were, and didn’t really care. He imagined they must be bitter, that they didn’t know the full story.
Maybe Skeeter would be interested in an exclusive.
Harry was back to being the school’s pariah. Apparently it had got around that he’d stabbed Cedric in the back. He tried to explain to the older boy what happened, but Cedric was insulated by Hufflepuffs and didn’t seem interested in an explanation. Some people started the Heir of Slytherin rumor up again. Rumors about him passing out in Arithmancy spread. It was as if no one had seen him return from outside the maze, or that Moody had actually been a Death Eater under polyjuice. As usual, none of the school staff made a move to abate the rumors, so Harry had taken to avoiding everyone and everything again. Ron did say Dumbledore had requested that everyone give him space, but it didn’t stop the staring, or the whispers. Maybe now that Karkaroff had run off and Durmstrang no longer had a Death Eater headmaster, Sirius would let him go. He could learn Norwegian or whatever.
He wasn’t sure where he was going after school ended. He hadn’t heard from Sirius yet, but he could make his own way to Grimmauld Place. He’d kick Vernon in the bollocks if he had to.
Harry had been roped into a chess game with Ron in the common room when he learned that others had been making plans for him.
“Knight to King Bishop three,” Harry told one of his knights. It charged forward and beheaded a pawn.
“Mum asked Dumbledore if you could come straight to us this summer,” Ron said as the pawn toppled over. “But he wants you to go back to the Dursleys, at least at first.”
“Why?” Harry knew Dumbledore had put him there in the first place. It was the perennial question.
“She said Dumbledore’s got his reasons. I suppose we’ve got to trust him, haven’t we?”
The answer was, emphatically, no, but Harry said nothing and waited for Ron to make his next move.
Harry learned that Fudge had sicced a dementor on Barty Crouch, which made Harry the sole witness to Voldemort’s resurrection who would be willing to tell the truth. So far his Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself, seemed disinclined. Harry imagined it made it easier to stage a coup, or torture muggles, or kill people’s parents, if you weren’t bragging about it. Since Barty Crouch was a soulless husk, and the real Moody recovering from his imprisonment in a trunk, they had no defense classes. Harry used that free period to meet with Theo, sometimes in the defense room itself since they knew no one would be coming by. They were mostly silent, reading, sitting as close as they dared.
“It's not our fault,” Harry said one afternoon.
“It was a possibility I didn’t consider,” Theo said bluntly, staring a hole into the book he held.
“No one can consider every scenario,” Harry pointed out. “Barty Crouch would have thrown the bloody cup at me if he had to. If you want to blame someone, blame him. Or Tom Riddle, or Dumbledore and all the other professors who didn’t notice Moody wasn’t Moody.” Harry was working himself up, he couldn’t help it. “None of them tried to find out how my name got in the cup. None of them offered to help me. This entire school thought it was a lark!”
Harry wanted to hit something. He never thought he was a violent person, but he was so, so angry. Scared, angry that he was scared, angry that he had been helpless, angry at Theo’s father and whatever hell he was being sent to for summer, at Dumbledore dictating who he lived with, at Sirius following Dumbledore’s orders, at his parents for dying and leaving him—
Theo wrapped his arms around him, shocking Harry out of his thoughts.
“Is this okay?” Theo asked, pulling back. “I know you don’t like being touched, but—”
“It’s okay,” Harry said, realizing at last he was being hugged. “It’s you.”
The Great Hall was draped in black instead of house colors. Harry looked around, wondering who had died. He’d taken almost all of his meals in the kitchen the past few weeks, but it was the Leaving Feast and he was swept along in the current.
Harry regretted this as soon as Dumbledore opened his mouth.
“Harry Potter was taken and injured by Lord Voldemort. The Ministry of Magic does not wish me to tell you this…”
Harry’s mind went blank.
There was no lie in what Dumbledore said, but Harry could see the effect his words had. No one wanted to believe it. No one wanted to believe Harry. He had read what happened during Voldemort’s first rise to power. The kidnappings, the tortures, the deaths, attacks on muggles the Ministry covered up, the teams of obliviators, aurors authorized to use Unforgivables. It had only ended fourteen years ago. It was in living memory. But it wasn’t, not for the students at Hogwarts. Voldemort was a nightmare, a bogeyman, a name they were too afraid to speak lest he appear, and Dumbledore was shouting it on high. Any social capital the Boy-Who-Lived had wasn’t enough to convince an entire nation of Voldemort’s return. He was just Harry.
Hedwig had gone ahead to Grimmauld Place. She had shown up in his dormitory one morning with Moody’s eye, which Harry didn’t return. He didn’t trust any version of that man with it.
As they waited for the carriages to take them to the train, Harry was approached by Fleur.
“I hope we see each other again,” she said. “Thank you for helping with my sister.” She paused, then added, “I believe you, what you say happened that night. We all knew there was something strange with the tournament. You may have saved their lives by stunning them.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling myself,” Harry said. “But thank you.”
Krum appeared next, to speak with Hermione. Harry had learned he’d been Imperiused by Barty Crouch, another victim of his.
Ron asked Krum for an autograph. Harry rolled his eyes and got on a carriage.
On the train, Harry was trapped in a compartment with Hermione, Ron, and their pets. He knew, rationally, he could get up and leave. Find Neville, listen to him talk about plants. Maybe find a secret compartment. Find wherever Theo had been forced to sit. But he stayed and listened to them talk and theorize about Dumbledore’s plans, offering some small contributions. They were both going back to their parents, to families who cared about them and liked them, who didn’t…
Harry clenched his teeth together. He knew he was small for his age, he had no way of fixing that. And fighting back made it worse, it always did. Running away from the Dursleys wouldn’t be as easy, not now that he knew Mrs. Figg was Arabella Figg, someone who was part of Dumbledore’s old crowd. Was she a witch? A squib? Someone’s muggle relative? Why had she never told him anything? Why hadn’t she told anyone about the things the Durlseys did? About the hours spent in the garden, the bruises, the poor clothing, the bars on his window, the yelling, the screaming, the beatings…
He looked out the window and watched the country fly past.
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle came by as per usual.
“You picked the losing side, Potter! Mudbloods and muggles-lovers first!”
Harry looked up at the sound of spellfire. Hermione and Ron were standing, wands pointed at where the trio of Slytherins had been.
“Why didn't you help us?” Ron asked.
“I’m not going to attack people for saying things I don’t like,” Harry said. The last time he used a spell on Malfoy it had been silencio, which had been funny at the time, but Harry…just the thought of being silenced, of being petrified, of his freedom and the control of his body being taken away was abhorrent. How could he do that to someone else, just for some stupid thing they said?
Fred and George had also attacked the Slytherins and were examining the effect the combination of spells had. His friends and the twins tried to kick the bodies of the Slytherins into the hall, but Harry had magic and he used it to levitate them out. He got his bag and went to leave the compartment.
“Where are you going?” Ron demanded.
“To find a prefect who can reverse the spell damage,” Harry said.
Fred and George exchanged looks, and Hermione seemed conflicted. Harry left Ron arguing at him, and when the door closed he heard them start a game of Exploding Snap. He looked at the pile of Slytherin boys raised by Death Eater parents, mutilated and in pain, then walked to the prefect’s compartment. On the way back, he found a compartment with Ginny, Luna, Neville, and a Hufflepuff in their year named Hannah Abbott, who frowned when he sat with them, but was generally polite. He stayed there for the rest of the ride.
Once the train arrived, he saw Fred and George and called them into a newly emptied compartment.
“Are you going to tell us off about Malfoy?” Fred asked.
“He deserved it,” George said.
“I’m not your mum,” Harry replied, pulling his tournament winnings out of his bag. “I’ve been planning on giving you money for your business since I saw your toffees last summer.”
“What?”
“You’re mental.”
“No, I’m just rich,” Harry said. “If you’re not comfortable with a donation, I can have my tax solicitor write up a contract. Actually,” he said, remembering the vow he had made to himself, “I do have one condition.”
Vernon was silent on the way to Privet Drive. Unnaturally silent. It was eerie. Harry didn’t say a word either, having no idea what was going on. Sirius, maybe, had used imperio on the man again, but having recently been kidnapped Harry was wary. He had his wand out, just in case.
When they got into the house, Petunia approached them.
"There's something we need to discuss."
Harry followed her and sat down on a couch. Vernon and Petunia sat across from him.
"I was…we were told you were abducted from school."
"Yes," Harry said, surprised they even knew.
"A man, your godfather, visited us a few weeks ago. He said it was done by the same man who killed my sister."
Harry nodded, checking their eyes for signs of being controlled. Neither were looking at him, but they seemed normal. For Dursleys.
Petunia cleared her throat. "He informed us you had been injured, used in a…a ritual?"
Vernon flinched. He hated and feared even the mention of magic.
"He took my blood so he could make a new body," Harry agreed.
"And that his followers…Death Eaters? That he had…that he is returning to power?"
Harry nodded again. Petunia had her skirts in a white-knuckled grip.
"We've boarded up the window in Dudley's second bedroom," she said. "We will pretend you are here. He said there would be…magical…protections for the house if we did so."
"Okay?" Harry said, not sure where this was going.
"You're excused," she said, abruptly standing. She walked into the kitchen. Vernon turned on the television. Harry had no idea where Dudley was. Confused, he went up to the second bedroom, opened the door with too many locks, and walked in to find Kreacher standing in the middle of the room. He looked absolutely appalled to be there.
"Kreacher is here to take young Master home."