A Past Reclaimed by nuw255
Chapter Notes: Harry finally gets to go back to the Burrow, where Hermione shows up with a special task to perform.
Early the next morning Harry was awakened by Fred jerking his blankets away and dumping him onto the ground. He cursed under his breath as he stood up, rubbing his sore backside.
“Did you really have to do that?” Harry asked, thoroughly annoyed.
Fred looked thoughtful for a moment before grinning and replying, “Yes. Yes, I believe I did.”
Harry rolled his eyes as he put on his glasses and got dressed.
“Let’s go, mate,” Fred urged. “Mum’s got a big welcome back breakfast waiting for you, and I want a chance to eat some of it before I have to go in to the shop.” Harry shoved his scattered belongings into his trunk and carried it downstairs behind Fred, who was carrying Hedwig’s cage.
“Toodles, Petunia,” Fred called in a flirtatious voice as he gave her a small wave. Aunt Petunia just scowled at him from where she stood in the kitchen doorway. Before opening the front door, he waved his wand dramatically at Harry’s trunk and Hedwig’s cage, and they both vanished. Harry had a nasty feeling of déjà vu as he remembered that Umbridge had done that exact same thing one year ago.
“This way, Harry,” Fred instructed as he pulled open the front door. They walked about half a block, until they reached a house with a large hedge. Slipping out of sight behind it, Fred offered Harry his arm. Harry held on tightly, and they disappeared with a loud crack.
A moment later, they were standing in the garden of the Burrow.
“Mum, look who I found!” Fred shouted as he led Harry into the kitchen, where Mrs. Weasley had an enormous breakfast waiting for them. “He followed me home,” he added, gesturing toward Harry. “Can we keep him?”
Mrs. Weasley rolled her eyes at her son and pulled Harry into a very tight hug. “How are you, dear?” she asked kindly.
“I’m fine,” Harry answered. “Fred and George really helped me out a lot. I don’t know how they did it, but they actually made life with the Dursleys bearable.”
“Harry!” Harry turned toward the doorway to the living room to see Ron and Tyler grinning at him.
“Morning,” Harry greeted his friends. They all sat around the large wooden table and began filling their plates with the delicious food that Mrs. Weasley had prepared.
“Sure beats the food at school, doesn’t it?” Harry asked Tyler. Tyler’s mouth was so full that all he could do was nod enthusiastically in response.
“What was wrong with the food at your school?” Ron asked curiously.
Tyler swallowed and said with a shrug, “It was usually spoiled, and most of the time you couldn’t even tell what it was.”
Ron’s eyes widened in horror. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Mum?” he called.
“Not nearly often enough,” she scolded, but everyone could hear the laughter behind her stern words.
“Why’s everybody up so early?” Ginny asked as she walked into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She stopped when she saw who was sitting at the table. “Harry!”
“Hey, Ginny,” Harry said in what he hoped was a casual-sounding voice.
“So, they finally got you away from the Muggles,” Ginny observed as she sat down next to Ron. “Did Fred and George do any lasting damage?”
“Nah, they just scared them with dancing teacups and mops and stuff.”
“I’ll have you know that we most certainly DID do lasting damage,” Fred said in an affronted tone. “Personally, I don’t think Dudley will ever be able to sleep again, what with the way random things in his bedroom kept turning into giant spiders whenever the lights were out.”
Ron shuddered. “Why does it always have to be spiders?” he asked.
“Because little Nancy-boys like you are terrified of them,” Fred answered matter-of-factly.
The playful banter went on for the rest of breakfast, and only ended when everyone had eaten their fill and Hermione Granger arrived. She hugged Harry and kissed Ron on the cheek, and then announced that she had an assignment from Professor Dumbledore and that Harry, Ron, and Ginny needed to join her in the living room.
“Tyler, you can come too if you want,” Harry said as he got to his feet.
Having nothing better to do, Tyler shrugged and followed the others into the living room, where they all made themselves comfortable.
“So what’s this all about, Hermione?” Harry asked as soon as everyone was seated.
“Professor Dumbledore asked me to come and see you,” she answered. “He said that Umbridge’s trial won’t be held until sometime after school starts, and that you need to be brought up to speed before you get thrown back into the Wizarding world.”
“Brought up to speed on what?” Harry wanted to know.
“On everything,” Hermione exclaimed. “You’ll need to know about all the things you’ve done since finding out you were a wizard - and you might be surprised at how long that list is. Plus you’ll need to re-learn enough magic to allow you to pass your sixth year at Hogwarts.”
“So I finally get to find out about my past?” Harry asked, suddenly very interested in the conversation. “What are we waiting for?”
Hermione cleared her throat and began to speak. “This all began on Halloween night almost sixteen years ago....”
Hermione told Harry about his parents and about how he had first learned he was a wizard, and then she, Ron, and Ginny took turns telling him about his first two years at Hogwarts. Harry and Tyler listened, wide-eyed, to the incredible stories that poured from the others’ lips.
As they neared the end of Harry’s second year, Ginny took over the story. “Everybody was really worried after all the attacks,” she said quietly, “but I ended up out in the corridor by myself anyway.” Her eyes were focused on the floor, and Harry could tell that she really wasn’t very comfortable telling this part of the story. “I was walking along, and then... there was nothing. It was like I blacked out, or got Stunned or something.”
“Were you Petrified?” Harry asked.
Ginny shook her head. “No. I was... I think I was just unconscious. Anyway, I ended up being taken into the Chamber of Secrets as a way of taunting the staff. The Heir of Slytherin wanted to show the teachers that no one was safe.”
Harry felt his body temperature drop at this revelation. His reaction didn’t make any sense, given the fact that Ginny was sitting right in front of him recounting the story, but he couldn’t help the feeling of dread that was building inside of him.
“Not long after that, you and me found the teachers saying that Ginny had been taken into the Chamber,” Ron cut in. “They told Lockhart to take care of it, so we followed him, since we were the only ones who knew where the entrance to the Chamber was. The git tried to run away - it turned out he hadn’t really done any of the stuff he wrote about in his books - but we disarmed him and made him go into the Chamber with us.
“Once we got inside, he pretended to faint and I was dumb enough to fall for it. To make a long story short, he got my wand and tried to Obliviate both of us, but the spell backfired on him and caused a cave-in. You were the only one on the inside, so you had to keep going by yourself while I was stuck trying to dig through the cave-in with a memory-less Lockhart. And his memory was completely gone, mate. I mean, he could talk and stuff, but he had no idea who he was or anything. Makes your memory-loss look like nothing.”
“From here on, we only know what you told us, Harry,” Hermione said. “Ginny, do you want to finish?”
Ginny still looked very uncomfortable, but she nodded and began speaking in a quiet, hesitant voice. “When you found me, I was in the middle of the Chamber, and I was still unconscious,” she explained, still not looking Harry in the eye. “Before you could get me out, though, you heard the Basilisk coming, and you had to shut your eyes. Luckily, Fawkes - he’s Dumbledore’s phoenix - he showed up and brought you a sword, and then proceeded to peck out its eyes so it couldn’t kill you by looking at you. You ended up killing the Basilisk with the sword, and then you woke me up and helped me out of there.”
“Wow,” Tyler breathed, looking at Harry in awe.
“But what about the Heir of Slytherin?” Harry asked. Surely the person responsible couldn’t have gotten away. “Who was it?”
Ginny shrugged. “All I know is that Dumbledore took care of him, whatever that means.”
As soon as Ginny finished speaking, Mrs. Weasley called them in for lunch. Harry suddenly realized that it was almost one o’clock, and he was very hungry. Nevertheless, he ate as quickly as possible because he was so eager to hear more about his life at Hogwarts.
After lunch, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny told him about his final three years at Hogwarts. They told him about Professor Lupin, whom Harry had met briefly just before returning to the Dursleys’ at the beginning of the summer holidays. They also explained that Lupin, Harry’s godfather (Sirius Black), and Peter Pettigrew had all been friends of Harry’s father when they were in school, but that Pettigrew had betrayed the Potters to Lord Voldemort. Harry felt a fresh surge of thanks for his friend, Hassseth, who had sacrificed her own life to finally remove Pettigrew from the realm of the living.
Harry and Tyler heard all about the Triwizard Tournament and the rebirth of Lord Voldemort in his fourth year, and about Umbridge’s reign of terror and how Harry had been tricked into sneaking into the Ministry of Magic late at night with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and two other friends named Neville and Luna. This story ended with the death of Sirius Black as he fell through the veil, and a duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort.
When they had finished, Hermione said, “Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Minister Fudge publicly acknowledged Lord Voldemort’s return after he saw him dueling with Dumbledore, but he retracted his statements right after you disappeared.”
“What?” Harry demanded angrily. “But you just said that he saw Voldemort personally.”
Hermione nodded gravely. “It’s all political maneuvering, really,” she said with a sigh. “The public started turning against Fudge when they found out that Voldemort had returned on his watch, so he just went back to denying it. He started claiming that he had never said he was back, and that this was only a copycat, and not nearly as dangerous as the real Voldemort would be.”
“But now there are more people on our side,” Ron cut in. “Fudge’s plan worked for a bit, but now loads of people are starting to believe you, and... well, they’re even starting to idolize you a bit. Somebody reported that that prophecy you had at the Ministry - the one that broke - said that you were destined to defeat You-Know-Who. The papers have taken to calling you The Chosen One.”
“The Chosen One?” Tyler asked with a snort. “Sounds like something out of a bad movie. How do you like that, Harry?”
“It’s perfect,” Harry said while rolling his eyes dramatically. “Well, at least we know that part’s rubbish. From what you’ve told me, I’m guessing that Umbridge decided to erase my memory to get me out of the way so that Fudge could go back to pretending Voldemort hadn’t really returned, am I right?”
“That’s what it looks like, yes,” said Hermione.
“Wait, you know how you lost your memory?” Tyler asked suddenly.
“Yeah,” Harry answered sourly. “Dumbledore got the Dursleys to fess up to working with Umbridge. She used magic to erase my memory and sent me off to... you know, and the only way to get my memory back is to use her wand to reverse the charm.”
“Don’t overwhelm each other,” Mrs. Weasley said from the kitchen doorway. “That’s an awful lot to take in in one day. Come and have some dinner.”
Harry was shocked to learn that it was already dinnertime, but it was true. They filed into the kitchen, and the serious conversation was replaced with light chatter throughout the meal. After dinner, though, Harry’s mind was forced back into serious-mode when Tyler pulled him out into the garden for a private conversation.
“What’s a Squib?” was the first thing out of Tyler’s mouth as soon as they were alone.
“It’s a Muggle with at least one magical parent,” Harry said, remembering Fred’s explanation.
“Then how come they keep referring to me as a Squib? My mum and dad couldn’t do magic.”
“Er- sorry,” said Harry. “That’s actually sort of my fault. Fred just assumed you were a Squib because Muggles aren’t allowed to know anything about magic. It sounded like a good enough story, so I went with it.”
“Oh. I was wondering why they didn’t erase my memory like the others,” Tyler mused.
“What? Who erased whose memory?” Harry demanded a little more harshly than he would have liked. Erasing people’s memories was a bit of a sore subject for him at the moment.
“It was your dad’s mate, Lupin, and some pink-haired bird - I can’t remember her name. They used magic to chase off the bloke that had been following me, and then they erased everybody’s memory so they wouldn’t remember seeing it. I thought they were going to erase my memory too, but they didn’t.” He laughed. “I did give them a bit of trouble, though. I didn’t trust them any more than that other bloke at first, so I tried to run for it. They ended up having to use that petrifying spell on me to get me to hold still.” Tyler grinned madly at the memory, and Harry shook his head in disbelief at his friend’s enthusiasm.
“So how do you like the Burrow?” Harry asked after a moment.
“It’s positively wicked,” Tyler answered with another laugh. “I mean, there are little garden gnomes, real live chess pieces, self-shuffling cards... everywhere you look there’s magic. And that’s not even mentioning the food and the people! I gotta hand it to you, mate, you really know how to pick your friends.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Harry agreed. “Listen, there’s something I need to ask you to do.”
“Name it.”
“Could you not mention that you’ve seen me do magic without a wand? It’s sort of unheard of, and Dumbledore reckons I should keep it a secret for a while.”
“Sure thing, Harry,” Tyler replied easily. “By the way, did you ever figure out who your dream girl is?”
Harry froze.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Tyler chuckled. “Were you right? Was it Hermione?”
“What?” Harry asked in surprise. Over the course of the past two weeks, he had completely forgotten how sure he had once been that Hermione was the girl he kept dreaming about. “No, of course not,” he added quickly.
“Oh. That’s good, because I’m pretty sure I noticed something going on between her and Ron. But if it isn’t her, then who?”
Harry didn’t answer.
“Come on, mate. You know I won’t say anything to her.”
“I know,” Harry said quietly. “It’s just that I feel like an idiot every time I think about her. She fancied me for years, and it took losing my memory to get me to notice her.” He looked up and met Tyler’s gaze. “It’s Ginny.”
Tyler let out a low whistle. “Does she know?”
Harry nodded and ran his fingers through his hair as he answered, “It doesn’t matter, though; she thinks I’ll forget all about her when my memory comes back, so she’s keeping her distance.”
“Shame,” Tyler said sympathetically. “You’re not giving up, though, are you?”
“What do I look like?” Harry asked. “Of course I’m not giving up. I just don’t know enough about girls to know what I should do. Let me know if you have any ideas.”
“Buy her presents,” Tyler responded automatically.
“I’ve already got an idea for her birthday present, but I really don’t think she’s the kind of girl who wants to be showered with gifts.”
“If presents doesn’t work, then I can’t help you,” said Tyler. “Anyway, it’s not as if I’ve ever actually had a girlfriend myself, so I’m probably not the best person to be asking.”
“Right,” Harry laughed. He nodded toward the Burrow. “We’d better get back inside before somebody comes looking for us.” Tyler nodded reluctantly, and they returned to the house.