Chapter one- End of Protection
Harry Potter was sat on his windowsill, emerald eyes open and aware and looking down onto the road below. Privet Drive was lit only by the street lights, throwing some areas into pitch black shadows, and others into artificial, yellow light. He remembered being here in this exact spot almost a year ago, waiting for his headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, to come and take him away from his uncaring aunt, uncle and cousin. He sighed and moved from his seat at the window to his bed where he lay down and tried, yet again, to get some well needed sleep.
What seemed like hours of tossing and turning, Harry looked over at his alarm clock: 00:07. Is that it? he thought to himself with a sigh. Suddenly, with a slight jolt, Harry realised what date it was; it was his birthday; he was seventeen! He almost laughed out loud at the fact that he had been counting down to this day, ever since he had arrived at the Dursley’s in a rather foul mood a few weeks ago, and hadn’t even realised what day it was going to be today. Someone was coming for him later to take him to the Weasley’s.
So far, he had been involved in a total of two arguments with his uncle. The first was when Harry had first arrived at home, and his uncle was grumbling about “having that freak in the house even longer than he is wanted.” After hearing this, Harry pointed out that he didn’t want to be here either, but had to. Apparently, his Uncle Vernon didn’t want an answer and started shouting.
The second argument was about him stealing food out of the fridge, even when it was obviously Dudley wanting a midnight snack. When he mentioned this, his uncle, again, wasn’t too pleased, and Harry was forbidden to leave his room. Not that it made much difference to him. Harry only left his room for meals anyway, which he picked at and got called ungrateful by his Aunt Petunia.
Harry looked at his clock again: 00:12. What is wrong with this stupid thing? He sighed and took up his place at the window again. He had been sitting at the window only a few seconds when all the street lights went out, throwing the street into an unexplected an complete darkness, followed by three loud Cracks. Harry’s heart skipped a beat, it couldn’t be Death Eaters. He was protected, wasn’t he? Harry felt all the blood drain from his face at he stumbled out of bed and grabbed the clock: 00:13 it read. The protection “ I’m seventeen “ It’s gone!
He started violently when he heard the sound of splintering and cracking wood. The Order definitely wouldn’t break down the door! He thought desperately.
“BOY!” he heard his uncle bellow. Harry grabbed his wand and wrenched open his door “Colloportus!” he locked both his cousin’s, and aunt and uncle’s doors to keep them out of the way.
“Ooh! If it isn’t poor ickle Hawwy! All on his own, with no one to protect him!” Harry spun round at the sound of Bellatrix Lestrange’s mocking baby voice. In front of him were three Death Eaters, all with their wands drawn, standing on the stairs and landing. Harry’s eyes darted around desperately for an escape.
His room was to his left. If he could just get through it quick enough…
“Looks like we’ve got you cornered Potter!” At this, his godfather’s murderer started laughing rather hysterically. This was his chance; he burst through his door, slammed it shut and locked it. Great move Potter. Now you’re in even more of a corner! His thoughts where cut off buy a shout of “Alohomora!” and his door slamming open, followed by a scream of “EXPELLIARMUS!” which ripped Harry’s wand from his grasp, sent him flying across the room and his head hit the wall with a sickening thump.
As Harry felt his consciousness slipping away, several things happened at once: one of the Death Eaters started approaching him slowly; his window smashed in as someone with bright pink hair flew through it on a broomstick and stunned the closest Death Eater; simultaneously, several people came running through his doorway and stunned the two remaining Death Eaters.
At this, all Harry saw was darkness…
“Harry! Harry, wake up!”
Harry slowly came back to the world. At first he felt blissfully numb, and then a horrible throbbing pain came from the back of his head. He groaned and would have given anything to go back to sleep.
He felt someone slip a liquid down his throat. After this Harry felt fully awake, but he could also feel the full extent of his pain. He was pretty sure he’d cracked his head open. Harry found himself looking up at the worried face of Nymphadora Tonks.
“Wotcher, Harry,” she said brightly as she saw that he was awake and pulled him up into a sitting position. Suddenly the room was spinning and he had to grab Tonks’ arm for support.
“Are you okay to stand?”
“Yeah,” Harry managed to say when his head had stopped spinning.
With much help from his pink haired friend, Harry got to his feet and realised he was still in his bedroom at the Dursley’s. After a few seconds Harry asked what had happened.
“When we get to the Weasley’s, everything will be explained. We should get a move on before Molly has a nervous breakdown.”
“Okay…Tonks?”
“That’s me,” she said as she made a Portkey from one of Harry text books.
“Is there any chance you could fix my head?” He could now feel blood trickling down his neck.
She looked at him quizzically for a few seconds then must have seen Harry sway alarmingly and realised there was something wrong. She sat him down as she examined his head muttering something like “can’t believe I didn’t even notice…” A few seconds and one spell later Harry’s head was fully healed, though he still had a terrible headache.
“Thanks…can we go now?”
“I think we’ll need to go tell your aunt and uncle”
Harry’s eyes grew wide at the thought of seeing how angry his only living family would be.
“Can’t we just…go?”
Tonks laughed “No. You’ll want to say goodbye as you probably won’t be seeing them ever again.” Harry raised an eyebrow “Maybe not…but we need to go and save Remus from them anyway.” She laughed again. “They weren’t too happy with ‘more freaks blasting into their house and then being imprisoned in their own rooms.’”
“Well would they have been happier to have been blasted into the next universe by Death Eaters?” Harry retorted.
“Come on, you won’t have to talk long…just kind of say: ‘wotcher only living family! I'm just going to go now ‘cause I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here! See ya!’”
Harry laughed, but soon stopped as it hurt his aching head. “They’ll probably swing for me…I could just hex them…not illegally this time…” he joked.
“Yep! Come on, we might as well get this over with…”
So, they made their way to the door. Harry actually couldn’t wait to see how purple his uncle was this time; he’d probably broken some record.
“So, what did you think of my flying skills back their?” Tonks laughed.
“Excellent. You’ve been practicing?”
“Naturally.”
They slowly made their way down the stairs. Harry could now hear his uncle ranting on. Poor Remus Harry thought to himself as he picked his way through the splintered remains of the front door.
As Harry walked into the doorway, he saw his aunt and cousin sat on the sofa, Dudley whimpering like an idiot onto his mummy's shoulder. Harry’s uncle was standing in the middle of the room, still ranting rather loudly, and Remus was sat in a chair staring at his uncle, seemingly paying close attention but his eyes were glazed over.
At this point Vernon seemed to notice Harry and stopped mid sentence to start bellowing:
“OUT! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU OR ANY OF YOUR KIND EVER AGAIN!”
Harry saw red. “Don’t worry, I'm not going to stay! I just want to say thank you for treating me like crap for this last sixteen years, and if you think I want to see this house ever again you would have to be delusional! So goodbye, and I hope I never have to see your ugly face again! Oh, and you can call ‘my lot’ freaks all you like, but those freaks could turn you into a pin cushion faster than you can say Quidditch!” Harry stated. He turned on his heal, stormed back up the stairs, into his bedroom, grabbed the handle of his readily packed trunk and waited for Remus and Tonks. He only had to wait a few seconds and they were in his doorway, grinning like Cheshire cats.
“Nice speech,” Remus commented. Harry chuckled.
“Can we go now?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” said Tonks as she passed him his text book. Harry took it and with a tug at his navel, he was whisked away to The Burrow.