Chapter 3
Harry and Mr. Weasley popped back into existence, moments after seeking the better part of valor, just a few feet from the door to the Weasley household. Arthur took a moment before opening the door to take Harry aside.
"Harry, there are two things you should know about. First, please don't mention the canary incident," Harry's grin, which had reached almost its physical limits at this stage, took this moment to widen even further, "As funny as it would be, the Twins have been experimenting all summer with these candy things and it's been driving Molly spare. If she were to hear of it, none of us would hear the end of it."
Harry rapidly nodded his head. Despite his relatively limited experience with the matron of the Weasley household, he was well aware of her... exuberance... in expressing her displeasure. Truth be told he suspected most people in surrounding countryside for miles around were intimately familiar with it. He would years later find out later that the muggles of the area actually knew the region of the Weasley house as "The Screaming Hills," where one could often hear the strained voice of what they suspected was the ghostly reminder of a widow screaming at her children.
"Second, you should probably be on the lookout for Ginny. I don't know why or what's going on, but for the last few days she has been having quiet conversations with Molly, and as much as I love them all, I think they may be planning to try and get you to notice my girl."
Harry started at this. He reflected that he didn't really have much experience with this (read: no experience whatsoever) but he thought the father threatening you happened after you agreed to date the daughter.
"I don't worry about you and her, I've seen how she acts around you. I may be a quiet man, but I'm not blind. I think we did a disservice to her and you both, filling her head with the bedtime stories of the boy-who-lived. I just want you to beware. I trust you, you're more mature than some men three times your age, please be careful."
"I will, sir," came Harry's response. He could only imagine how bad the next two weeks would be. He had enough trouble at Hogwarts, with all its secret passages and hiding places, keeping away from the girl who seemed compelled to put her elbow in the butter dish whenever he was near. Harry knew he was not well adjusted. He knew his years with the Dursleys had broken whatever there was inside of him that understood his place in society and in a family or group. He hated it, but he understood it. He could accept these things, but Odin only knew how he could change it or if he even could. But despite all of it, Harry knew that a fan-girl was exactly what one did not build a relationship with. He knew a bad choice when he heard it, well, most of the time he reflected, and he knew this was one. Mr. Weasley had nothing to fear from him, Ginny was nowhere near his heart.
The two of them finally entered the Burrow (Harry often wondered at the name, for a family of Gryffindors, shouldn't it have been the den or something? A burrow was for badgers, he thought.) to the sound of the twins suppressing laughter and Molly working to needle out of them what they had done. Apparently the delayed return of Harry and their dad was enough to prove their plan successful.
"What is it! I know those expressions, I've raised you two! I know when you've done some mischief probably better than you!" The twins sniggered at this, "Tell me what you've done at poor Harry's house and I'll let you off easy, you know your father will tell me when he arrives!"
Arthur shared a small look with Harry at this, and they both entered the kitchen to find the Twins being berated in front of the collected Weasley clan and Hermione.
Upon their entry Molly's tirade let up, and the Weasleys all reacted to their entry. Fred and George tipped imaginary hats, Bill and Charlie stood up to introduce themselves, Ron got a look on his face that could be described as crafty (if you have a very low definition of crafty), Ginny's face lit up with ill-disguised worship, and Hermione formed her typical bushy haired cruise missile headed straight for him. Percy seemed to be absent, though he was in fact present, just buried face deep in, Harry squinted (and thought about the possibility of new glasses), was that a report on the thickness of cauldron bottoms?
His surprised musing was interrupted by the impact of Hermione Granger, missile extraordinaire, who crushed him into a hug. Her arms, strengthened as they were by years of carrying far more books than they had any right to both to and from the library, nearly crushed the life from Harry while she squealed, "Harry! Areyouokay?Whatsbeengoing onathomeforyou?Werethedursleystreatingyouokay?Whydon'tyouseemasthinasyouusedtobe?Didyougetyourhomeworkdone?"
Harry was both surprised and slightly annoyed that she managed to get all of that out of her in one breath. He was very protective of what happened to him at Durzkaban, and she pried with all her might every year. He'd grown a bit used to it during all his time with her, but after being left alone at the Dursleys having that back was just grating.
Harry managed to extricate himself from her arms, and with an amused expression patted her head and said, "Yes."
Harry left her to figure out what exactly he had responded to and moved on to share a handshake with Bill and Charlie who introduced themselves. Charlie had a brightly shining burn on him arm, which placed him as the brother who worked with dragons in Romania. He was stocky and seemed full of power, in a manner similar to the Twins. Bill was taller and seemed... cooler?... more exotic?... Harry couldn't place him as easily, but he had a full trench coat and boots of what was unmistakably dragon hide and what looked like the tip of a dragon's fang dangling from his ear. The air he put off was kind of what Harry had always imagined an older brother would, Harry immediately liked him.
Harry shared manly greetings with the pair of them, and his respect for them grew as they looked him up and down and didn't seem to find him wanting. Harry truly hoped they had nothing to do with whatever it was that Arthur was trying to warn him about.
Molly had gotten around the table by then, and she drew Harry into one of her own bone crushing hugs.
"Harry dear! We were just waiting for you! What happened to the fireplace on the other side?"
"The Dursleys boarded it up, ma'am. They had an electric fire in front of it that blocked you all inside the place itself."
"Electric fires! What will those muggles think up next! Well Harry we're all so glad to have you here," Harry thought her smile at this point seemed maybe a little too predatory, "You'll be sharing a room with Ron of course, right across from Ginny."
Ginny had gotten around the table, she stood a few feet from Harry, arms folded in front of her and unable to quite meet Harry's eyes. Harry rolled his eyes internally at her behavior, after that first time he had met her, he remembered seeing her at the station from the train, and she seemed constantly overwhelmed by him. From what Arthur had said, there were bedtime stories about him, fighting dragons too, he was sure, and if she grew up on those maybe her behavior was understandable. Didn't make it any less irritating. Also didn't make the fact that she seemed to love him for the part of himself he hated most, the part of him the public made the night he lost the only people to truly love him.
Harry shook himself out of his thoughts, they seemed to go back to his parents a lot during the summer. Go figure. He finally tuned back into the Weasley channel to figure out what was up.
"...Now I'll go buy your things for you while you all are off. You won't have time, I don't think, what with the game. They have taken days in the past, so you'd best be prepared-"
Harry, having heard something that actually interested him, interrupted her for a moment, "Mrs. Weasley, you don't need to buy me anything, I can buy it myself with what I have at Gringotts and I'm not sure if I could pay you back."
"Don't be silly, dear! I have your key to your vault and I can head to Diagon Alley for you."
"You have my key? Since when, ma'am?"
Molly suddenly looked a little nervous, and the family that had been previously leaning back to let her explain to Harry the plans for the next few days tuned back into the conversation themselves.
"Why... umm... Dumbledore himself gave it to me at the start of the summer. He said to keep it for you for your use during break."
This was the exact shite he was talking about, Harry thought, no one could even be bothered to give him access to his own money. This was the same as going back to the Dursleys. He had no choice in these things and just like with the Dursleys, he realized, if things were going to be not crap in the near future, he probably needed to just take care of himself.
"Excellent then," he said, "I'll just take it back. We still have a week and a half until the first, I'm sure I can just floo over at the next opportunity and take care of my school things myself."
Molly immediately didn't look so keen on this idea. The Twins, Bill, and Charlie all looked a little impressed with Harry, though he figured that may also be because they were impressed he was willing to stand up to the human volcano. Arthur seemed torn between the same kind of impressed and disapproval. Harry hoped he was leaning more towards impressed. Ron just seemed jealous that Harry had his own vault, Ginny's expression hadn't yet wavered from worship, and Hermione was just disappointed.
"Well, Harry dear, its unsafe for you to go alone," Hermione made a move in agreement, "It would really just be best if I went."
"Ma'am, no disrespect meant, but I'm incredibly uncomfortable with anyone else having my key to my vault. That vault is all I have in the world, and the only thing I have left from my family. Even the pictures I have of them didn't come from them. Please just give me my key to go alone," Harry hated playing the orphan card like that, he hated being an orphan more, but he knew the first step in him making anything better for him was having the courage and strength of will to make that step in the first place. Gryffindors charge forward...
"I suppose all that's true," Molly paused there, the whole clan honestly seemed abashed at that, Ginny had moved from worship to sorrow and even Hermione no longer looked disapproving, "Very well, here it is."
Mrs. Weasley removed a ring of keys from her pocket, and picked Harry's golden vault key off of it from next to the Weasley copper one. Harry wondered why his key was on a ring in her pocket and not somewhere being kept safe. He filed that away for later.
"Thanks, Mrs. Weasley. If you don't mind, I've already been up and about for a long time today, I made food for the Dursleys and dealt with their... unpleasantness. I'd really like to grab a nap before dinner."
Harry moved to the next room and the stairs but before he could quite make it Ron had finally moved and stopped Harry before the first step.
"Why're you taking a nap, mate, we're going to be playing a game of pick up before dinner."
"For the exact reason I just said, I'm bushed. You'd be too if you had whales yelling at you all day, use your brothers, or maybe your sister, mate. I need some sleep."
"But... but quidditch?"
Harry shook Ron's arm off of his and took the steps two at a time, Ron would never change, and he would also never understand that Harry really didn't care for quidditch. Flying was where it was at, soaring above the stadium, searching for the snitch. It wasn't about the game, the seeker was functionally not even part of the team. He just flew and grabbed a shiny golden thing entirely separate from anything involving any other people.
All summer every one of Ron's letters had been about what they would see once he knew his dad had gotten the tickets to the World Cup. Ron had kept him up to date on the standings and his guesses on who the cup would feature. It was classic Ron, nothing useful, all quidditch.
As he lay down, Harry stopped caring. Hogwarts, the closest thing he had ever had to a home, was just about a week and a half away. He may have a huge international game of quidditch and a week of Ron's devotion and Ginny's worship, but he was closer now than he had been all summer. Putting up with crap was in many ways his thing at this point.
Harry woke with a start the next morning after a thoroughly annoying and awkward dinner. Arthur turned out to be right, as soon as he woke up from his nap the night before Molly had sat him next to Ginny and spent the whole dinner trying to set up conversations between them.
It was tough for her though, because truth be told, Harry and Ginny had almost nothing in common. They were in Gryffindor, but that was about it. She had a loving family, had been raised as a witch, she was from an entirely different world than him, and she could barely be in the same room with him as it stood. She was certainly better than in previous years, Harry thought, but that didn't make her behavior good.
But it was over, and after they all had woken up and gotten to their campsite for the World Cup (who in the name of Odin invented the portkey and what were they on when they did it?) Harry, Hermione and Ron set off to grab some water for a solid cuppa while the rest of the clan that had gone with them started up breakfast.
They had woken and arrived at near the crack of dawn. Not too bad by Harry's usual standard but tough for everyone else, and now that they arrived it was a reasonable hour and most of the wizards who had been camping out for day were waking up and starting their own breakfasts.
Harry was nearly struck dumb though by the sight of wizarding children. He had never seen truly young wizarding kids, and it hit him very hard in a sensitive place seeing what all he could have had. Who he could have been if his parents hadn't been murdered.
Harry saw a young kid with shaggy brown hair that seemed to stick all over riding a child's training broom. It went slowly, to be sure, and it flew so low that the kid's toes grazed the tips of the blades of grass in the field, but the expression on the kid's face...
And then the kid's mum and dad came out of the tent. Harry saw the father's face light up like fireworks in the night sky seeing the boy's play. The mother looked angry to see her child playing on a broom alone outside unsupervised, but as she came out behind the father, she saw how happy her boy looked and wrapped her arms around the father. Her face adopted an expression of absolute contentment. She was happy.
It hit Harry harder and deeper than any basilisk or dementor could. Hearing the death of his mother at the hands of Voldemort himself, and Voldemort himself talking about his parents death back in first year, both combined couldn't hurt him like what he saw before him.
Harry had stopped the instant he saw the child. Ron and Hermione had both not noticed right away, and given the size of the field they were in and the crowds even now beginning to move around and scrounge for food, they were quickly separated from him. As Harry stood there with unshed tears in his eyes, the parents finally noticed the strange fourteen year old boy staring at their son with gleaming tear filled eyes.. They watched their son for a moment more, and then the father made a move towards Harry, his hand outstretched towards him.
He looked like he wanted to help, but Harry just saw the outstretched hand and remembered all his own time at the age of the child. He remembered the strikes and the names. And suddenly the tears weren't unshed anymore.
The father took another step towards Harry, and Harry simply ran.
Ten minutes of terrified escape passed before Harry remembered to reach down into his center. Harry used it to find a small calm place inside the raging storm of his regrets and bitterness and anger. From that tiny island of calm he recognized that he was alone now in the woods that separated the Weasley's field from the field they went to for water. Harry found a stump growing next to a tree and he sat next to it, resting his elbow on the stump and his hand over his eyes. He retreated to his center, and sunk all of the feelings that had been overwhelming him into his core.
He felt his anger at the Dursleys, and his anger at Sirius, and even the tiny anger he had felt towards his parents for not being there for him sink directly into his tie into magic at his very center. He sunk all he felt there, and when he was finished he looked back at his center, and it was much, much bigger. He was astounded. It was half again as large as it had been just twenty minutes previously. He had always felt it got bigger when he centered himself and let his emotions disappear into it, but every time before had been a confrontation with the Dursleys, just minor annoyance and resigned anger. He needed to think about this. Harry checked his watch, it had been half an hour since he had left with the others for water. The Weasleys would probably be worried. Hell, if Molly was with them there would already be search parties out. He gave a small and bitter laugh at the imagined antics of the one who fancied herself his replacement mother.
Harry stood and brushed himself off, then headed back to camp. He had a bit of a hard time figuring out where he was, but when he saw the enormous silk tent with the peacock out front (they had passed it on the way in, and seeing it again made harry feel embarrassed all over again for whoever owned it, it look hideous and completely opulent) he figured out how to make it back.
He soon arrived back at camp, and the first ones to see him were the Twins and Bill. The Twins took one look at his tear streaked face, eyes still a little red and puffy, and they each took a shoulder and brought him inside the tent. Bill put down the plate of eggs and bacon he had been working on and followed them in before blocking the flap. He had a feeling that this was an older brother moment, and he silently thanked his lucky stars that his mum had stayed at the Burrow. The others all noticed Harry as he walked in, and everyone with the exception of Ron saw something was wrong. Before he closed the entrance to the tent Arthur stood and made as if to follow, Bill met his eyes and shook his head. The same part of him that felt this was an older brother moment knew that precluded the involvement of any parent.
"Harry, are you okay, you don't seem hurt mate, but we were worried about you when you didn't show back up with Ron and Hermione. They said they lost you in the crowd, " said one twin, the other (Harry was too far gone to even try for names) followed up with, "Did anyone hurt you?"
Harry shook his head in a resigned way. He didn't want to talk or tell them. It made him feel weak to have done what he did, to have felt like that. He completely lost his center. He had been relying on the meditation techniques from the book Blott had sold him all summer to not go mad, and in a moment of utter despair he had lost it.
Bill walked over after closing the tent and giving a stern look at everyone outside, "Harry, you know I'm a curse breaker, do you mind if I cast a quick diagnostic spell on you, just to be sure you're okay?"
Harry numbly nodded at him, and Bill waved his wand slowly back and forth in front of him, softly chanting something that sounded vaguely Norse to him.
"Well you've got nothing harmful on ya, friend. You had a long distance tracking charm, it was a sophisticated one, but I've seen worse and I got it off of you, now, can you tell us what happened?"
Harry looked at all of them. He knew the Twins and trusted them. They had given him the map, and they had to a certain extent watched out for him. They had exempted him from any of their pranks and they really were like surrogate older brothers. Bill he didn't know personally, but Harry was nothing if not a good judge of character, it came from years of reading the adults around him, and he felt sure he could trust Bill.
"Can I talk to you guys," His voice broke a little, telling them a lot about what he had been doing, "Can I trust you to not talk to anyone else about what I say? Not Ron or your mum or Ginny or anyone?"
The Twins shared a serious look, and then both looked at Bill with the same stern eyes he had used not a minute earlier on their dad. They all nodded and look back at Harry, Bill spoke for the three of them, "Yes. We've got your back Harry."
Bill conjured a seat and sat in front of Harry and the Twins, who were on the bench of the dinner table. Harry looked at all of them and saw the same look, the one he equated with the older brother feeling he had gotten from Bill the previous day.
"I... I saw a boy. He couldn't have been more than four or five. I just saw him flying on a small broom, a kid's broom. He clearly was just stealing a few minutes on it while his folks were making breakfast. He just looked so happy. and then his parents walked out and they looked at him, and they were mad, but then they just let him go for a minute and they were all so happy and it just all made me think, I could have had that. I could have been happy. I could have had a home and a family and I could have had friends and a name and... and..."
Harry almost broke down again just saying it. He was so close to breaking he could feel it, he could feel hysteria creeping in at the edges of his center, but with the last of his mental strength he clung to it. Bill slowly moved his hand to Harry's shoulder.
"I'm sorry Harry. I'm so sorry," Bill moved closer at that, and he brought Harry across the gulf between them and just gave him a hug. For Harry that was all it took, it broke his hold on his calm state, he began crying into bills shoulder and the Twins behind him each put a hand on Harry's back. They didn't know what to do, but they wanted to do something to show Harry they were there.
"Harry, I don't have any words that will make it better for you. I don't have a lot of wisdom for you. You have survived something no man has ever survived, and then you kept going through some of the deepest shit I have ever heard of. Fred and George here don't send a lot of owls. they aren't serious blokes, but in the past they have talked to me about you. They've mentioned what you've done for our family, and they've mentioned some of the things you have done, and Harry," Bill leaned back at this and looked Harry in the eyes, "It is literally my job to walk into some of the most dangerous place filled with curses and wards and traps designed by dark wizards to protect their most treasured belongings, and I haven't dealt with a tenth of the things you have."
Harry couldn't even begin to know what to feel, and Fred picked up where Bill left off, "Harry you can never replace what you have lost. You just can't. George and I were the ones to pick you up summer before last, remember? We don't know all you have to deal with, but we saw the bars in the windows, and we saw the locks on the door. We know it's bad, and we can only guess how it was before Hogwarts. The only thing we can securely say, is that you have some of what you lost now, in us."
George moved closer to him, "We know our mom is too much. Bill over here left to be a curse breaker in the first place just to get away from home. We know Ron is a prat and is jealous of you most of the time. And we know Ginny, even though she tries, just sees the 'boy-who-lived' and not you. But we at least are here for you. You can trust Charlie too, to a certain extent, but we really do have your back Harry. We can't replace what you've lost but we can help."
Harry looked embarrassed now. He wiped the tears from his face and from his eyes, and for a moment just gave in to being a fourteen year old kid confused and seeking comfort, and he leaned in and hugged Bill of his own volition. Fred and George felt the moment and leaned in for a bit of a group hug. They each gave in to their feelings for a few minutes.
Harry eventually resurfaced from the hug, and he turned to look at all of them in turn, "Thanks guys. It's really, really hard sometimes. It hard sometimes with you all too. It's hard to see a family and try to figure out where I belong. I just don't know. I was five years old before I found out I had a name other than just freak, for Odin's sake. But thank you."
The four of them stood up, and after Harry took another minute to put himself to rights, they moved out of the tent. Harry grabbed an unoccupied stump near the fire, and Fred filled a plate with food for him. Ron looked askance on the four of them, Hermione actually opened her mouth before George shot her a look so severe she shut it with a snap. Arthur made to walk over near Harry and Bill stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
Everyone seemed to feel the somber mood the guys left the tent with, and for a minute there wasn't any conversation, just the dull roar of the wakening crowd all around them and the crackling of the fire they surrounded.
Then George made a face, distracting Ron for a moment with just how out of place it was, while Fred quickly showed his skill at muggle magic, and with a bit of sleight of hand slipped a 'special' sausage onto Ron's plate. Nearly everyone was distracted by George, but Harry had been expecting them to do something to break the tension (they really did have his back, didn't they?) and he noticed Fred slip it under Ron's fork with a wink.
George stopped and went back to his food, and Ron snorted before filling his face with the reckless abandon normally seen only by men running from rampaging nundu and charging erumpent. In a moment he had inhaled the special sausage and he immediately burst into bright pink feathers as he morphed into a large flamingo.
Everyone at the Weasley campsite went to pieces as all the tension broke into uproarious laughter. even the people from the surrounding sites saw the flamingo that had no idea what to do with itself and laughed. Ron in his own inimitable style gave up figuring his limbs out in a moment and just craned over and began scarfing down eggs from his plate again.
Everyone calmed down for a moment until George quipped, "Is that rather cannibalistic, or is it just me?"
The campsites around them all joined in the laughter even more this time, and while Hermione's face mirrored Percy's in its minor disapproval, everyone had a solid laugh and moved on with their day. Harry shot a very grateful look at both the twins.