A/N ~This is my first fan fiction, so please tell me what you think. Please note that I do not own the most brilliant characters in this story, only the ones that I made up myself. :) Hope you enjoy!!!!! Oh, by the way, you know how at the end of HBP it said that Ron and Hermione were going with Harry to the Dursleys? Well, they're not. Not in this story anyways. ENJOY!!~
Harry Potter was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, again. He was thinking about everything that had happened over the last couple of weeks, again. He’d been doing a lot of thinking lately. In a couple of days, it would be his seventeenth birthday, and he would be leaving the Dursleys forever. He had only returned to the Dursleys in the first place because it was what Dumbledore had wanted. He had been thinking a lot about Dumbledore, everything he never knew about him, everything he had never told him, and everything he would never hear from him again.
Harry had also thought a lot about Ginny. He wished more than anything that they were still together. Braking up with her had been one of the hardest things that he’d had to do that whole school year; harder than getting the horcrux (well, the would-have-been-if-it-had-not-been-for-that-mysterious-R.A.B.-person horcrux), harder than doing detentions with Snape every Saturday, even harder than watching Dumbledore die (well, equally hard anyways). It was even hard for Harry to think about Ginny. He tried not to, but his thoughts kept drifting to her, and that made him think about why he’d had to break up with her in the first place. He didn’t want to be who he was. He didn’t want to have to get the horcruxes. He didn’t want to have to kill Voldemort, because there was a very good chance that he would be the one to die instead.
Right now though, Harry happened to be thinking about something that he had not thought about much that summer. He was thinking about R.A.B., and all that this mysterious person had cost him. If R.A.B. had not gotten to the horcrux first, then Dumbledore would not have been weak for nothing. Or even if he had gotten there first, he could've left the note outside of the basin instead of inside the locket. Then Dumbledore would not have had to drink the potion, and he would not have been weak at all. If Dumbledore had not been weak, he might not have died. If Dumbledore had not died, Harry wouldn't have had any doubts about what he would have been doing the next year. He would have been going to school as usual of course, and there was hardly any risk in that with Dumbledore there.
But now there was a risk to everything. A risk to stepping outside the safety of one's own home. Now though, one's own home was not even safe. There was fear about falling asleep, because you might never wake up. There was even fear about seeing the people that you cared about, because there was always the thought that lingered in the back of your mind that it might be the last time you ever saw them.
While Harry was lying on his bed thinking, someone was outside waiting. Someone was pacing up and down next to the house of Number Four Privet Drive, hidden in the shadows. Someone was waiting till nightfall, when they could slip inside unnoticed. Someone stopped pacing just as Harry Potter sat up in his bed. Someone was waiting.
* * *
“RONALD WEASLEY, GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!”
“But mum…”
“NO BUTS JUST GET DOWN HERE!”
“Fine.” Ron groaned. He hated de-gnoming the garden. Even though he was now seventeen and could use magic outside school, this took physical effort. He wished that Fred and George were here to help him, but they were at work. Ginny wasn’t there to help because she was in Romania with Charlie. Mrs. Weasley felt that it was safer there. She didn’t send Ron with her only because of Harry and Hermione coming. He wondered what Harry and Hermione were doing right at that very moment. Was whatever it was as bad as de-gnoming the garden?
Ron trudged downstairs looking gloomy. Mrs. Weasley was in the kitchen (which was where she was most of the time). She looked up as he entered the room.
“It’s about time. We have so much to do. I have laundry to do, and food to cook. Plus we have to get the house ready for Harry and Hermione for when they get here in a couple of days.”
“Mum, they don’t care if the house is messy. Actually, Harry likes it messy come to think of it,” he added as an afterthought. “Besides, we have two days, why are you in such a rush to get everything done today?”
“Because tomorrow I’m going with Fleur to pick out a wedding dress. Now here’s some toast. Take it outside with you because I don’t want crumbs all over the kitchen.” She handed him the toast, and pushed him toward the door.
“Couldn’t you just sweep the crumbs up with your wand?”
She gave him a look that clearly said the conversation was over. He headed outside with the toast in hand. As he walked outside, he saw something in the distance. As it drew closer, he could see that it was an owl. As it drew closer still, he could see that it was Fred and George’s new owl, Wheezy (named after “Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes”). He didn’t know why Fred and George would have a reason to write, since they could just apparate. Ron had expected Wheezy to fly inside to his mother, but instead it landed on his shoulder. Wheezy obediently held out his foot for Ron to untie the letter. It read:
Dear Ron,
Since we are too busy to leave the store right now, (“Well, that’s why they wrote,” Ron thought.) I am writing you a letter instead. George can handle the customers for a few minutes. I am writing because we had some customers who were talking earlier, and we just couldn’t help but overhear. Okay, we were eavesdropping, but it’s good that we did because they were talking about Hogwarts. The governors have decided to reopen the school! They haven’t put it in the Prophet yet, so these guys must have been pretty important to know already. I just thought you should know. Got to get back to the store. By the way, we will be dropping in sometime in the next couple of days because we want to see Harry. See you then little bro.
Love,
Fred
“I’ve got to tell mum!” Ron said aloud.
“Tell me what?” Mrs. Weasley suddenly appeared next to Ron. “I looked out of the window, and I saw you with an owl. I came out to see what you were up to. Isn’t that Wheezy?” she added after seeing the owl more closely.
“Yes. Here, read this.” He thrust the letter into her hands. She read it silently for a minute, and then looked up at Ron. “I thought for sure they would close it. I wonder why they decided to reopen it. Hmm…” She walked inside, leaving Ron standing there with Wheezy. Ron gave Wheezy his un-eaten toast, and then watched the owl fly off into the distance. Ron went inside to write to Harry and Hermione.
* * *
Hermione Granger was reading another book trying to find the initials R.A.B. She hadn’t found anything at all so far this summer that could possibly indicate someone who had had contact with Voldemort, had found out about his horcruxes, stolen the locket, and possibly been killed. Not that this would be stated in a book, but she hadn’t even found many witches and wizards with those initials. The ones that she had found were not significant, so she kept searching.
Hermione suddenly heard a soft pecking sound. She looked over at her cat, Crookshanks, expecting it to be him, but then noticed a gray owl with the Daily Prophet clutched in its beak right outside her window. She opened the window, and the owl flew over and landed on her desk. Hermione took the Daily Prophet, and put a small, bronze Knut in the owl’s pouch. The owl flew off, and Hermione closed the window. After reading the whole Daily Prophet in twenty minutes time (which was something not many could achieve), she set it down on the pile of her past Daily Prophets with a sigh. “Still nothing about the school,” she said aloud.
Hermione froze. She had heard something downstairs. Then she shook her head and said aloud, “I’m just paranoid. There’s no one there. Mom and Dad are at work, and Crookshanks is right here on my bed. Cut it out, Hermione.” And she hit herself on the head. She turned back to the book that lay open on her desk, but she heard a noise again, this time a creak on the stairs. She called out, “Who’s there?” Her voice was shaky, and her mouth was going dry. “I’m hearing things,” she tried to reassure herself. “There’s no one there. C’mon Hermione, stop imagining things.”
A girl appeared in the doorway of Hermione’s room. Hermione would have screamed, but she was too frozen with fear to make even the slightest sound. The girl looked just as scared as Hermione felt. They looked at each other in fear, both too scared to speak. Hermione thought the girl would have been very beautiful had it not been for the ghostly white of her skin, which was a sign of the girl’s fear. She had long, brown hair that fell to her waist. Her nose was the perfect size for her face, not too narrow or too wide. But the most beautiful thing about her was her eyes. They were blue, but not the shade of blue that most people had. It was a dark, periwinkle shade of blue. As the two stared at each other, Hermione also noticed that she looked about the seventeen, the same age as herself.
Then the girl suddenly looked pained, and collapsed onto Hermione’s bed. Hermione gasped, and ran over to her, and found that the girl was unconscious. Hermione stood there frozen, and felt Crookshanks, who had leapt off the bed as the girl fell, brush past her leg. She had no idea what to do.
A/N ~Oh my, I left yall a cliffie. So very sorry, but it had to be done. I’m writing the next chapter right now, and it’s really good if I do say so myself! Please give me compliments or constructive criticism or whatever you’d like to tell me. Thank you so very much for taking the time to read my fan fic!!!!!!~