The Deceit Of A Lifetime

Harry Potter sat on his bed at Four Privet Drive, staring out the window and looking up at the stars. At the end of his last school term, he had dreaded returning to this place, to face his aunt, uncle and cousin again. However, after the many invasions of the Dursley home by the witches and wizards that were Harry’s closest friends, he had happily discovered that the family was rather subdued, and his summer had been without much of the tortures of years past. He was very glad of this.

As his gaze swept throughout the view from his window, however, he still ached to return to what he felt was his true home, that being Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ever since discovering that he was a wizard at the age of 11, and first meeting Hagrid and traveling to the school, he had considered it home. It was the place where he was truly himself, and where he would be reunited with his best friends in only a matter of days. The anticipation was getting to him, and he wanted desperately to get back.

He had spent the summer, of course, corresponding with his friends. It wasn’t as if he had lost touch with them. But at the very same time, he couldn’t wait to embrace them both again. To be able to just sit with them idly for hours and talk about his boring summer or any of the millions of things that were going through his mind, or to experience another of their late-night adventures courtesy of his father’s Invisibility Cloak, was something that Harry longed for desperately.

Harry sighed contently and turned away from the window. “Only a few more days and we’ll be going home, Hedwig,” Harry said to his owl, who was currently condemned to its cage. The bird almost snorted at him in response, as if she would be all too happy to leave for Hogwarts now and wait for his arrival. He just glared at the bird, and then recovered an owl treat from a bag on his nightstand, which he passed through the cage bars to her. It settled her, or at least occupied her from staring Harry down.

Just as Harry was about to pull back the covers and crawl into bed, he heard something that he hadn’t heard all summer. “Harry Potter!” he could hear his uncle yelling from the living room downstairs. Harry rolled his eyes.

Harry pulled himself from his bed and walked to the door. He yanked it open, sauntered through the doorway and down the hall to the landing. “What is it?” he yelled.

He could almost see his uncle’s purple, and very angry looking, face before it actually appeared at the bottom of the stairwell. “Get down here right now! You have guests!” bellowed Uncle Vernon. Harry was sure he had seen the pictures on the wall of the staircase shake, but he was too excited at the prospect of having guests. He bounded down the stairs two at a time, ran across the entry and into the living room.

“Well it’s about bloody time,” came the voice of his best friend, Ron Weasley. Harry was so excited to see him that he ran to his friend and embraced him warmly. It was then that he realized that his other best friend, Hermione Granger, was standing right next to him. He grinned happily at her and embraced her equally.

It was then that Harry noticed Ron glaring over his shoulder. Harry turned around and noticed the entire Dursley clan was just standing in the far corner of the living room, huddled together as if protecting each other from whatever the three powerful children may do to them. Harry merely rolled his eyes and turned back to his friends. “What are you two doing here? I wasn’t expecting to see you for almost a week!” Harry exclaimed.

“Well,” began Ron, and Harry could see the hesitation in his friend’s face.

It was a few moments of silence from Ron before Harry turned to Hermione for an explanation. She happily obliged. “It appears they’re starting school a little early,” she began. She held up her hand when it appeared as though Harry was going to interrupt her. “However, we have no idea why. We were just told to report to Platform 9 ¾ tomorrow instead of next week, so we wanted to come and get you.”

“You can spend the night at The Burrow with us if you want, mate,” offered Ron.

With one quick glance back at the Dursleys, Harry nodded excitedly at his two friends. His mind wandered for a moment, wondering why the school year would start early, with what seemed like no notice at all, but he quickly dismissed any potentially negative thoughts and began walking back to the stairs. “I’ll get my stuff.”

As Harry disappeared up the stairs to recover his things, Hermione and Ron stood stiffly within a few inches of the fireplace where they had entered. Hermione wanted to laugh as she watched Ron and the youngest Dursley seemed to size each other up. She was unable to stifle a small giggle when she watched Dudley, she thought his name was, reach for his behind and cover it with his hands.

She felt Ron’s shoulder brush against hers as he leaned over to whisper in her ear. He then told her the story of how Hagrid had given Dudley a tail when he had first come to bring Harry to Hogwarts before first year. Hermione covered her mouth with her hands and visibly shook with the giggles. The Dursleys just continued glaring at the two invaders into their perfectly normal home.

It was only another moment or two before Harry appeared in the living room again, his trunk being pulled behind him. Ron walked over and grabbed the trunk, yanking on it roughly to help his friend. “Goodbye, then,” Harry said over his shoulder to the Dursleys, without even looking at them. And, before his Uncle Vernon could reply with any type of smart remark, Harry and his two best friends were quickly traveling through the floo network and found their way to Ron’s family’s home, The Burrow.

As soon as he came tumbling out of the fireplace and into the Weasley kitchen, Harry felt two pairs of strong hands on his body as he got yanked to his feet. The Weasley twins, Fred and George, smiled brightly at him. “Hello, Harry,” they said in unison.

“Hey Fred, hi George,” he replied. He felt them dusting the remnants of ash from his cloak, and smiled broadly at both of them. “I can actually do that myself, you know?”

“Just trying…,” began one of them, which Harry thought was George.

Before he could interrupt, Fred finished, “…to help.”

He thought he saw a wicked glint in the boys’ eyes, but said nothing as Molly Weasley pushed her way between her sons and embraced Harry warmly. “How are you doing, Harry?” she asked inquisitively, brushing her fingers through his hair, apparently cleaning out more ash. “Those muggles treated you alright this summer?” she asked.

Harry nodded at her, accepting the embrace but quickly wishing there was more room between the three Weasleys that had been waiting for them and the wall. He carefully slid to the side, so as to not rudely separate himself from them, but also to avoid the eerie feeling that he was trapped. “Yes, ma’am. They were fine.”

“Stop coddling him, mum,” Ron said as he brushed ash from the front of his jumper. “He was fine when we found him. At least there were no bars on the windows this time,” Ron said. He then glanced at Harry, then Hermione, and then Fred and George. Hermione looked a bit perplexed, but the three Weasley boys and Harry all broke out laughing.

“Alright, that’s enough from all of you,” said Molly. “I suggest you find your way to bed. It’s going to be an early start tomorrow.” With that comment, Molly cast a banishing spell on Harry’s trunk, presumably sending it up to Ron’s bedroom, where he would be sleeping. The Weasley boys, Harry and Hermione all followed Molly’s strict instruction, finding their way to their separate bedrooms upstairs.

When he and Ron were finally alone in the bedroom and lying in their respective beds, Harry’s thoughts finally caught up with him. From the catastrophe of last school year, and losing Sirius, Harry had learned that talking about the things running through his head was often wiser than keeping them to himself. It was at that moment he decided to talk to Ron about his concerns about this sudden change in the Hogwarts school calendar.

“Ron, do you know why they’re calling us all to school early?” he asked.

“No clue, mate,” Ron replied. “Bloody pain, really, as I was still looking forward to a few more days off.” Ron looked disappointed, but Harry could understand. Ron lived in a home where he could be himself all the time, and sometimes he forgot that Harry didn’t have that luxury. Harry shrugged it off. “Good night, mate,” said Ron as he blew out the last candle that was lighting the room.

“Good night, Ron,” said Harry, pulling the sheet and blanket of the bed over his body and closing his eyes. However, as Harry slowly began to fall asleep, he couldn’t stop himself from trying to figure out why Dumbledore would do such an odd thing. I’ll figure it out in the morning, he decided to himself as he finally fell asleep.