Dedicatory: There are a lot of controversial findings surrounding I Love Severus Snape's departure. Nevertheless, I'm truly in debt for all the help she lend me and my story. That's why this chapter is for you, Steph.
Harry slowly swallowed hard. If the Dursleys really hated something, besides him of course, it was magic in any form. He looked up at Uncle Vernon’s red face to find two small black eyes piercing into his. In that moment, Harry knew that he was in for a very long morning.
“It’s a picture,” he said imperturbably with an innocent look on his face as if it was not something utterly obvious. Internally, Harry wondered if there was any member of the Order ready in case his uncle decided to attack him.
“I’m not stupid, boy. I know it’s a picture!” Uncle Vernon said exasperated. “But,” he lowered his howlers until his voice was barely audible, “it’s bloody moving!” His lips moved furiously, making drops of saliva to cover the table in front of him. His face went from a crimson colour to a dark purple in a second. It looked more and more like a big juicy berry as time passed by.
Only a few times his uncle had hit that mark: that memorable visit the Weasleys paid to Privet Drive; the time when he had changed the colour of his teacher’s wig; and how could he forget that time Uncle Vernon had almost kicked him out of the house? He didn’t know how his uncle’s heart could afford such an effort.
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” Harry said as he tried to make a grab for the picture on top of the table, but pulled his hand back when his uncle slapped it.
“Who are they?” he asked with a face of intense dislike.
“My friends from Ho- my school,” Harry quickly corrected himself.
Uncle Vernon’s face then mutated into a fleer. “You don’t have friends, boy. You have never had any!” he said mercilessly.
Harry instantly felt how his anger raised dangerously to high levels. “I should thank my dear family for that,” he spat icily.
Uncle Vernon inflated his chest with indignation. His little black eyes moved to the picture, and he made a move to seize the picture it, but Harry quickly slammed his hand on the table, covering it. “Don’t even try,” Harry said calmly, although he was showing more courage than he was feeling.
Vernon Dursley was perplexed. He wasn’t used to being addressed like that. He was a man that had many people beneath him, and each one of them followed his orders with nothing more than a quick nod and a submissive response. However, this lazy loafer living in his house had been nothing but trouble since he was left at the front.
He stared intently at his nephew as though he was trying to use Legilimency.
After a couple of minutes of complete silence, in which no one said a word, Uncle Vernon’s face started to return to its normal colour. Harry knew that they were now entering the ‘safe zone’, but with Uncle Vernon you never really knew for sure.
“Fine! Don’t you ever bring another picture from… from your… world into my house,” his uncle said. Harry looked defiantly at him, but decided that arguing would do no good to him. He could have it in his room, anyway. He grabbed the picture and stormed to his room without looking back not even once.
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“Ronald Weasley!” His mother’s sweet and kind waking cry reached Ron from the floor downstairs. “If you don’t get down here in five minutes, you’ll wash dishes for the rest of the summer!” The same sweet voice that had always woken him up.
Ron lazily opened his eyes, knowing he couldn’t prolong his sleep anymore. He scratched his head as he sat up and a monstrous yawn escaped through his mouth. He knew he should have been up an hour before, but now it was late and he would face his mother’s wrath. Yet, he didn’t care; his dream had been so pleasant.
He silently cursed the sun for arriving so quickly and the night for being so short. His mind still waved between sleep and consciousness as he remembered his dream.
He reluctantly climbed down his bed and slowly strolled downstairs only to find his mother very busy in the kitchen making, as usual, some late breakfast for him and fixing some food for the meal.
As he looked around, he thought the house was pretty quiet. The twins were in their store, Bill had returned to Egypt after a short visit to the Burrow, and Charlie was still working in a big dragon project in Russia. Ron had been at first surprised to learn that there were any dragons in Russia, but it was nothing compared to when he learned that these dragons were different from all he had ever known. They were called Ice Lords. Ron had always thought they existed only in legends and fairy tales, but these mighty creatures did exist, and they had settled in the most unreachable places of Russia, under extremely cold temperatures. As their names tell, these dragons’ birth element was not fire but ice. Some wizards even considered these dragons more dangerous than that of the regular fire dragons.
Ron smiled when he imagined the cold his brother should be facing while, at the Burrow, the weather was just perfect. Not too hot, but not too cold either.
The only one of the siblings left was Ginny, who was staring at her breakfast absently on the kitchen table.
“I’m starving,” Ron said as he plopped in one of the chairs.
“Just a second, Ron,” his mother said from the kitchen, checking the eggs on the pan.
“You are always starving,” Ginny replied, perking up just a little bit. “I hope Hermione knows how to make large amounts of food, otherwise I see tough years ahead of you, Ron.”
Ron’s ears turned scarlet with an amazing speed.
“Shut up, Ginny!”
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Dear Harry:
How have you been? I hope you are fine, despite
the bad moments some down there could be
giving you.
I was going to write you a long letter with all my
doings this summer, but I might as well cut to the
chase and tell you what has really been bothering
me, don’t you think?
Harry, it doesn’t care how many times I read it on
your letters, it doesn’t matter how many times you
try to convince us of that, we know that you are
not okay. Stop blaming yourself, Harry! It is hard,
I know that, but cannot just abstract from everything
and hide into your shell!
We all loved him, Harry. You weren’t the only who
lost something that night. We all miss him, and we
will never forget Sirius, but we have to keep going,
or then, everything he had been fighting for will be
lost.
None of us blames you for what happened there,
Harry. On the contrary, we are proud of having
fought at your side… but the fight is not over yet.
Don’t give up now, Harry. We want to help you,
even if you are this thick to understand that (I mean,
if you still don’t know that after five years, you are
thicker than Ron!).
I won’t write anything else because I want you to
seriously consider all these things. I know you will
be mad, I know you will be angry, but stop feeling
sorry for yourself and open your eyes: there’s
people that care for you that are also hurting.
I finish my letter here, Harry; you just think about
it, alright? I hope to get an answer from you (and
being optimistic, maybe very soon?). Oh, and keep
in mind that I’ll be going to the Burrow soon, so
you can write us just one letter, instead of sending
Hedwig into different trips. Take care then, Harry.
The next time you receive a letter from me I’ll be
with Ron, so goodbye until then.
Love,
Hermione
PS: Be ready to leave at any moment!
Hermione signed it with her perfect handwriting and then put the quill aside to re-read the letter. Yes, it was pretty good, straightforward but without pushing him too much. She knew he would probably get mad when he read it, but he would eventually come to his senses, and with some luck, follow her advice. Yet, Hermione knew that Harry was going through an extremely painful time, so the faster they could bring him home the better.
She folded it carefully and placed it on top of her desk where she was sitting at. With that out of the way, she now only had to write to one more person. She took another piece of parchment and steeled herself.
Dear Ron,
After reflecting a bit, she tore the piece of parchment apart and crumpled into a small ball. No, he will think I’m trying to hint him into something else, and I’m not…right? It seemed she didn’t remember to have written the same heading for Harry.
My good friend, Ron
She quickly crossed it and took a deep breath. She could swear she’d never had so much trouble to write a line, but she couldn’t help it. She knew the reason, although she had always tried to deny it. She sighed and tried another line.
A very frustrated Hermione crumpled the twentieth piece of parchment after thirty minutes and threw it into the bin. She was having a really hard time to write… the heading. Finally, she decided over one.
Ron,
How are you doing, my friend? I hope that all your
summer plans have come out well for you. I also
hope everything is good for you and your beloved
family.
It was all Hermione could write before letting out an exasperated cry when she realized how odd and unnatural the letter was. This was merely ridiculous. She crumpled the piece of parchment and pushed herself to keep trying.
Yet another half an hour later, Hermione, with all her hair almost as disordered as Harry’s, finally put down her quill and folded the letter carefully. It would have to be enough with that. 'God help him if he dares to complain about it,' she thought to herself.
Writing that letter had drained her more than a Potion essay and she couldn’t even start to imagine what she would do when they were under the same roof. Hermione couldn’t ignore this time the butterflies’ flutters that reigned in her belly every time she thought of him. ‘Why he has to be so thick?’ she wondered almost bitterly.
Sometimes she wondered how things would develop if she opened up to him. But there was too much at stake, and her greatest fear was to ruin the great friendship they had all forged through all those years.
A lonely tear ran down her cheek before she wiped it away furiously. No, she had cried enough for him. Hermione tucked herself into bed and prayed that this night Ron Weasley wouldn’t appear in her dreams. She did not know that very, very far away, someone plotting their fall was curling his lips in a triumphant sneer.
A/N: Here it is! The last of the introductory chapters, yepee! Oh, but don't think this chapter didn't have important stuff. If you paid attention, you know what I mean ;) I want to announce that I'll write some comments for all the chapters as they are uploaded. You can read them in my profile after all those uninteresting facts about my life. They are mainly things that I want to say but I can't (authors can't abuse of 'A/N', heh) due to lack of space. Things like why I made a character act certain way, even if he/she may look OOC, etc.
Finally, I'll let you know that next chapter will be submitted quite soon. It was beta-ed a long time ago, so there's no problem at the moment. However, I have to find a beta soon, otherwise I'm going to fall behind :o Wish me luck!
Oh, and please leave me a review if you are feeling like :) It's great to know what you thought about the chapter, even if it is constructive criticism :) Thanks for reading!