The next day, just as Harry had finished packing his belongings, never again to return to number four, Privet Drive, there was a knock on the front door. Downstairs, he heard Uncle Vernon’s heavy footsteps thumping towards the head of the house. The door creaked open. Harry heard voices, but he couldn’t decide who had come to collect him.
Hedwig safely in her cage, Harry locked the little iron door. “Say goodbye to this place, Hedwig,” he told her. She rustled her wings and clicked her beak happily.
As Harry came down the stairs, carrying Hedwig in her cage and dragging his trunk behind him, he saw Aunt Petunia and his cousin, Dudley, standing closely behind Uncle Vernon. The three of them seemed to be huddled together for safety. Dudley, who was wearing a large Smeltings sweater, was ogling at someone in the doorway. Harry looked up to see who stood there. He stopped, suddenly, in his tracks, suspicion crashing through him.
It was Arthur Weasley, and beside him stood a very small girl who couldn’t have been much older than Harry. He wouldn’t have thought her older than him at all, except that she wore Ministry robes just like the ones that Mr. Weasley was donning. She was unreasonably pale, and her long white-blonde hair was settled upon her petite shoulders.
She looked up at Harry and caught his gaze. Her eyes were green, but no, too pale to be green; they were almost gray. She smiled at him and looked back towards Mr. Weasley, apparently expecting an introduction.
Instead, Mr. Weasley said, “Hello, Harry. I trust you’ve had a lovely summer?”
Harry nodded, but didn’t speak. He was still staring distrustfully at the stranger.
Taking notice, Mr. Weasley offered, “This is Luci Keegan, from the Ministry of Magic.”
“It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Harry,” the girl said in an accent.
Her tone was friendly, but Harry narrowed his eyes at her and uncouthly mumbled a greeting.
“Well, then, dear Vernon, we’ll be taking Harry off of your hands now,” Mr. Weasley said to the plump man, whose face always seemed to turn a few deeper shades of purple when he was in the presence of Wizards.
“Very well,” he growled, as Harry took the next few stairs down into the entryway.
“Well,” Harry began, turning to the Dursleys, “I guess this is goodbye.”
“Yes, yes, goodbye, then,” Uncle Vernon said hurriedly, nudging them out the front door.
Harry turned back again, just in time to see a glimpse of Aunt Petunia’s face before the door closed in his. Perhaps it was his imagination, but she had looked bereaved.
He stared unblinkingly at the large brass “4” on the door for a moment before turning to follow Mr. Weasley and the young woman in the Ministry robes.
“Lovely folks,” the blonde girl was saying.
“They aren’t the most pleasant of Muggles,” chuckled Mr. Weasley.
“That’s putting it mildly!” she agreed.
It was a beautiful summer day as the three travelers made their way past the rows of houses along Privet Drive. Birds were chirping melodically and the sun was peaking through the puffy, white clouds.
In front of Harry, Mr. Weasley chatted casually with the stranger. He was enthusiastically asking her about some Muggle artifact of which Harry had never heard. Though they seemed nonchalant, Harry could see that they were both clutching their wands tightly inside of their robes. He wrapped his fingers around his own.
“I understand you traveled here upon an… airplane?” Mr. Weasley asked her incredulously.
She nodded, smiling at his fanaticism.
“And how, pray tell, do they stay up?” His voice was quite a bit higher with excitement.
She shrugged. “Beats me. Muggles have a magic all of their own.”
Mr. Weasley agreed wholeheartedly with this statement.
They were approaching the alleyway between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk, where, two years prior, Harry and Dudley had been attacked by Dementors. Harry appreciated that his last summer at Privet Drive had been fairly uneventful.
To his surprise, the girl suddenly slowed her footsteps, so that she was walking side by side with him. Something heavy fell into the pit of Harry’s stomach, and he realized that he wanted her to go away.
“I’m sorry there was no warning that I’d be joining Arthur,” she said to him.
When he didn’t respond, she continued, “I hope you don’t mind, but I have to admit that I really just couldn’t wait any longer to meet The Boy Who Lived.”
“I’m not a boy anymore,” Harry blurted angrily. Then he didn’t know why he’d said it.
She grinned, despite his frosty tone. “I can see that.”
“Here we are,” said Mr. Weasley, stopping in the alley. “Now, Harry, you haven’t yet received your Apparition license, so I’ll have you take my arm.”
Mr. Weasley extended an elbow and Harry clutched it.
He had almost forgotten the discomfort of Apparating. He felt like his body was being squeezed through a narrow tube and his lungs were being crushed. Just when he thought he’d suffocate, he was gulping a deep breath of air. He tried to shake the sensation as the three appeared before the large wooden door that lead into Grimmauld Place, which was now Harry’s home, he supposed.
He hadn’t known that they’d be coming here. He felt an abrupt melancholy as he realized that this was his first time back at Grimmauld Place since Sirius had died. The thought seemed to displace all of the oxygen. He watched hazily as Mr. Weasley tapped his wand once against the door, right underneath the silver serpent knocker. Harry heard the locks clinking inside and then the door swung open quietly.
Harry, Mr. Weasley, and the uninvited guest tiptoed through the corridor, so as not to wake Mrs. Black’s portrait. But it was in vain, for a chorus of voices immediately greeted them, causing Sirius’s mum to erupt in accusatory bellowing.
“Silencio!” someone commanded, and her shrieks were quieted. This had never worked before, so Harry assumed that the members of the Order had finally gotten rid of some of the portrait’s enchantments.
“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed, running towards him. He hugged her eagerly.
“How was your summer?” Ron asked, approaching him and beaming in welcome.
“Welcome back, mate!” he heard the twins chime from somewhere in the vicinity.
“’Arry!” Fleur was chirping. Then she emerged from behind Mad-Eye Moody and planted a kiss on each of Harry’s cheeks. Harry noticed that Bill, who stood beside her, looked much better than he had the last time Harry had seen him. His face was scarred, but the wounds were fully healed.
Mrs. Weasley shooed Fleur out of the way, saying, “Harry, dear, how have you been?”
It was quite a welcome and everyone seemed to be happy to see him.
Just as he was looking for her, Ginny came towards him, throwing herself into his arms. He took hold of her, in an affectionate embrace. Her flowery scent filled his nostrils and it was as if he were breathing vaporous sunshine that flooded his body with warmth. This was what he’d been waiting for all summer…
As she pulled away, he smiled down at her. “Hello, Ginny.”
She grinned back at him.
“Come, come!” Mrs. Weasley was saying, cheerily, ushering everyone into the basement kitchen.
Harry followed the small crowd downstairs, where people were seating themselves along the table.
Then his eyes fell upon the unfamiliar blonde girl again, and she was sitting towards the back of the room with… Malfoy?
Harry froze. “What is he doing here?” he spat, with disgust.
Hermione turned to him. “Don’t overreact, Harry…” she started cautiously.
“Overreact?” Harry exclaimed. “He tried to kill Dumbledore!”
He pulled out his wand and started towards Malfoy, but Hermione grabbed his arm, holding him back.
“But he didn’t,” she said. “And he wouldn’t have. You know that. He needed protection and his mother brought him here. Voldemort would kill both of them if he found them.”
“I don’t give a damn!” barked Harry, who knew all of these things very well. “I want him out of here!”
Harry noticed that the girl, Luci, was looking apprehensively in his direction.
He turned to his friends. “This is my house and they’ve had him here without me knowing about it? And his mother too? And this… this girl I’ve never heard of?”
“We don’t like it anymore than you do,” Ron replied. “But we’ve had no choice.”
“Well, I do,” Harry retorted. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Ginny stopped him this time. “This is your house, Harry, and you have the right, but do the decent thing and let him stay. He hasn’t bothered anyone. We’ve hardly noticed him, actually. Luci seems to keep him calm.”
Harry was bewildered. His heart was hammering with anger. “He’s the enemy! He’s always been the enemy! Why are you all suddenly his defenders? Let him stay because it’s the decent thing to do?! You’ve gotta be bloody joking!”
“Harry.” It was Lupin. “Can I have a word?”
Harry grudgingly strode over to him. He watched as Ron, Hermione, and Ginny went to sit around the table.
“Glad to have you back,” Lupin began, clapping his hand against Harry’s shoulder blades. “Arthur wanted to tell you about Draco when he went for you, but we were afraid that you wouldn’t come back at all.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Harry snarled, glancing at Malfoy and feeling fury overtake him again.
“Just relax, Harry,” Lupin coaxed. “Dumbledore would have wanted him here, and he would have wanted you to be a gracious host, and you know that. Try to control your temper. Draco is not the enemy. He made a mistake and he regrets his actions.”
“But…” began Harry, irritably.
“Be the bigger man,” Lupin recommended, steering Harry back towards his friends.
Reluctantly, Harry took Lupin’s advice and pocketed his wand in defeat. He went over to sit beside Ginny, but not before shooting a menacing glare down the table at Malfoy and his two equally unwelcome companions.
“I’ve missed you,” Ginny cooed in his ear as he settled himself on the bench.
He tried to swallow his rage and smiled at her. “I’ve missed you too.”
“How was your summer, mate?” Ron asked him, for the second time.
Harry shrugged. “Lonely, boring. You know, the usual.”
“Well, you won’t be lonely around here, or bored, for that matter,” Hermione commented. “Though Professor McGonagall did choose to open Hogwarts for the year. I, for one, have spent the summer revising for my N.E.W.T.s.”
“Of course, you have,” Ron teased her.
Harry thought it odd that, instead of her usual defensive attitude, Hermione just smiled warmly at Ron and kept talking.
“I was really surprised that they decided to open the school, but we’re just as safe there as we are anywhere else, aren’t we? And if people want to come, I think that they should be able to.”
“Where’s Snape?” Harry asked, abruptly.
“No one knows,” replied Ginny in a hushed voice.
“Malfoy and his mum just showed up here at the beginning of the summer, asking the Order for help,” Ron explained. “They said they didn’t know where Snape had got off to.”
“You’ve all been here all summer?” asked Harry, neglecting to mention that Snape had been seen in his neighborhood not more than twenty-four hours prior.
“Well, no,” said Hermione. “We only just arrived a few days ago, but Lupin told us they’d been here with him and Tonks for the last few weeks.”
Harry scowled. “Hasn’t anyone considered that they could be feeding information about the Order to Death Eaters?”
He glanced loathingly across the room at Malfoy and noticed that Luci and Fleur were whispering and giggling about something.
“I’m sure someone has,” Hermione replied, after a thoughtful pause. “But how could they? No owls have come or gone, and they wouldn’t dare leave this place.”
“Well, there are other ways to communicate, Hermione,” Harry pointed out sarcastically.
Hermione nodded, but said, “From what I understand, they aren’t welcome with the Death Eaters. It’d be stupid to contact them. They’re safe here, and they know it, and I don’t think they’d jeopardize that.”
Harry must have looked as if he were becoming enraged again, because Hermione continued hastily, but quietly, “You know, Harry, I have some wonderful ideas about what we discussed at the end of last term.”
But Harry had stopped listening. He’d taken notice of the bizarre occurrence at the other end of the table. Luci and Malfoy were now talking casually to one another, and Malfoy was laughing, something Harry couldn’t ever remember him doing, except when it was malicious.
“Harry,” Hermione prompted, “are you listening?”
“He has no right to be so cheerful,” Harry growled, still paying no attention to Hermione.
“He’s like that a lot, lately,” Ron replied. “I think he’s gone mad.”
“It’s like I said,” Ginny added, “Luci seems to be good for him. Lupin says he was a mess when he got here. Scared of being killed by You-Know-Who and all.”
Then a thought occurred to Harry. “Are he and that girl…?”
“God, I hope not,” said Ron. “You’d think she could do a little better than Malfoy.”
“She’s an Auror,” Hermione chimed in, “and she’s three years older than him. I would doubt if she had any interest in him. I think she just realizes that he’s gotten himself into a right mess.”
Ron scoffed. “Maybe she’s mad too. Who would want to spend any time with“”
“She’s an Auror?” Harry interrupted. An Auror gone bad? he thought to himself.
“And apparently, a really good one,” Ginny answered.
Harry was impressed, but not to the point of throwing aside his misgivings about her.
“Anyway, it’s more important that Bill and Fleur’s wedding is tomorrow!” piped Hermione.
“I can’t believe he’s going to marry Phlegm,” Ginny said, sounding disgusted.
“It’s not fair,” added Ron, glancing sideways at Fleur.
“Ow!” he then exclaimed, as Hermione jabbed an elbow into his side. “Sorry! I can’t help it, you know.”
“Try,” snapped Hermione.
Ron gave Harry a guilty smile and shrugged. Harry, of course, knew exactly what Ron meant. Fleur could enchant any male within a ten-mile radius. He looked down the table at her, but instead, his attention fell on Malfoy, who was still smiling happily, as the blonde Auror seemed to be telling him a rather amusing story. Narcissa Malfoy was watching this interaction quietly, and Harry couldn’t help but notice the look of displeasure on her face.
Grimmauld Place actually looked, and felt, quite a bit different than it had upon Harry’s last visit. It appeared that various members of the Order had continued to tidy up the place and it seemed much more vivacious overall. The absence of Kreacher also did a lot to boost the house’s positive energy.
Mrs. Weasley had told Harry that he could now stay in Sirius’s room, if it pleased him, but this idea actually nauseated Harry, and he had opted to stay in the room that he’d always shared with Ron.
Hedwig’s cage and his trunk had been placed in the room at some point, unnoticed by Harry. The large cage, which sat next to Pigwidgeon’s small one, was empty and Harry assumed that Hedwig had gone out to hunt.
He was sitting on his bed, next to Crookshanks. Ron and Hermione sat together on the bed across from him.
“And we’ve just been mulling around the house, listening to Fleur plan the wedding,” Ron was saying.
“Still beats my summer,” remarked Harry.
“At least it was your last one there,” Hermione encouraged.
“I guess,” replied Harry, glumly. “But that just means that I’m no longer protected by anything or anyone.”
Neither of them said anything.
Finally, Hermione asked carefully, “Harry, you aren’t still planning to go off alone, are you?”
Harry looked at her. “You know that I have to,” he responded after a moment.
She took a deep breath.
“I’ll be OK,” he said to her.
“I still think that we should come with you,” Ron agreed.
“This is my responsibility, and enough people have been killed already. I need to do it alone.”
Hermione gave him an exasperated look. “We’ve always helped you in the past. And we’ve got the D.A. and lots of Aurors in the Order too!”
Harry hesitated.
“What?” asked Ron.
“I just thought…” he began slowly.
The two of them looked at him with interest.
“Well, Voldemort has an army, doesn’t he? What if I had an army? I mean, ultimately, I have to finish him, but there’ll be a whole load of Death Eaters with him, won’t there? I could use the back-up.”
Ron and Hermione looked at each other.
“What do you think?” Harry asked them.
“I don’t know, Harry…” Hermione began.
“I think it’s brilliant!” exclaimed Ron.
Hermione gave him a reproving look.
“What?” he asked. “He’d have a much better chance with an army of his own. It’s only fair.”
Harry and Ron both watched Hermione.
“I suppose…” She seemed to be thinking aloud.
“You’ll go back to Hogwarts and keep the D.A. meetings going?” Harry inquired.
“And you’re going to Godric’s Hollow,” Hermione said, but it wasn’t a question.
“If I can find it,” nodded Harry.
Hermione looked at him incredulously. “You don’t even know where you’re going?” she cried.
“Well, I intend to find out,” Harry replied defensively.
“Oh, all right, I’ll help you find it,” said Hermione, maddened.
“I didn’t ask.”
“No, but you may as well have,” she sighed.
Harry exchanged a grin with Ron.
“Someday, the two of you are going to have to learn to do things for yourselves,” she scolded.
“Someday,” agreed Ron teasingly.
“But Harry,” Hermione said abruptly, “you aren’t going to go looking for Horcruxes by yourself too, are you?”
Harry, caught off guard, stuttered, “Um…”
“Harry, you mustn’t!”
“I just thought I’d pop ’round to Riddle’s old orphanage and take a look,” said Harry casually.
Hermione looked incensed.
Ron asked, “How would you even know if you found one?”
Harry shrugged.
Hermione sighed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and said, “It’s such dark magic that most accomplished Wizards can sense the presence of a Horcrux, and Harry, if I were to guess, I’d say that your scar would tell you.”
“So, yeah, that’s how,” he said sarcastically to Ron, who shook his head.
“We want to go with you,” said Hermione firmly. “I understand why you need to go to Godric’s Hollow on your own, but we want to be there for the rest.”
“We can’t all go to the orphanage,” replied Harry impatiently, “and you lot will be at Hogwarts.”
Hermione appeared stumped by this. “Fine,” she said, after a moment, “but then we’re going with you for the rest, Harry, no arguments. We’ll leave school. Send an owl and we’ll meet you wherever you like.”
Harry gave her a doubtful look. “What about your N.E.W.T.s?”
Hermione bit her bottom lip, and Ron watched her expectantly.
Finally, she answered, “Some things are just more important.”
Harry smiled. “OK, we’ll do it your way. Just be sure no one catches on.”
Ron and Hermione nodded, but Hermione looked as if she were devastated that she’d be missing the joy of revising.
“So…” Harry said, struggling to downplay his curiosity, “what do we know about this Luci person?”
“Not much,” replied Ron. “She spends a lot of time with Malfoy, so she can’t be all right in the head, that’s for sure.”
Hermione interjected, “I think she’s hiding something.”
“Like what?” asked Harry.
“Haven’t the slightest,” she answered.
“So you think she’s a bit dodgy?”
Hermione hesitated. “Well, no, she seems nice enough. She just kind of appeared out of the blue, though, didn’t she?”
“Luci’s mates with Fleur, so that kind of fuels the fire,” said Ron surreptitiously.
Looking affronted, Hermione responded weakly, “That has nothing to do with it.”
“So maybe she’s a spy or something?” asked Harry, thinking of Snape slinking around neighborhood streets.
Hermione shook her head. “I have no reason to believe that. I’m just saying that you should be careful.”
Ron chortled. “Luci’s harmless. Look at her! She’s tiny.”
Harry hoped that Ron was right, but he knew that Hermione was seldom wrong.