FicWad

Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.


Chapter One
Blue, all he could see was blue, a rich velvety navy blue that reminded him of that colour of the night sky just as the first stars were coming out... but then it had been that way for an awful long time, or had it? He wasn’t entirely sure. He could remember not remembering and then all the details in his life coming slowly, almost painfully back to him in no particular chronological order. The memories seemed to be grouped into feelings and sensations. He had, in fact,, spent quite a long time on the contemplation of chocolate, his first memory, and every sensation it provoked, one of which was surprise as a chocolate frog was the first piece of chocolate he had tasted.
Once he had remembered far more and was therefore more coherent, if such a term could be applied to a person existing in a big navy blue but otherwise entirely un-remarkable void. Aside from the lack of existence of everything else, he had spent some time worrying over the fact that chocolate was the first thing he remembered. It was not even his favourite sweet, for crying out loud, they were Berty Botts every-flavoured beans and the grudge they seemed to have against Dumbledore. His second favourite were lemon drops... well, more the contemplation of what exactly he would like to add to them for the delectation of the headmaster.
Sitting, or existing, in the big navy blue space had given him plenty of time to think of everything he would like to do to the damn headmaster, starting with the lemon drops. Oh, those evil little bits of sugar, wasting valuable sweet making ingredients that could have been used to make sugar quills, essential for keeping any student awake in history of magic class. The first thing he would put into the lemon drops was Muggle laxatives, he bet they wouldn’t test for those, or if they did they would not for some time... He focused, irritated with himself, he had never had this much trouble focusing as a child. Events such as escaping Dudley and stealing food had required quite a lot of planning and concentration, a fact that was making him suspicious.
In fact a lot of things were making him suspicious, like the fact that the bloody boy-who-lived, who had been marked as the equal to a dark lord of the extremely evil, incredibly cunning and intelligent, and last but not least, enormously powerful persuasion. I mean, he could not even say he got the looks out of the pair, before he had gone all snake-ified Voldemort had been a good looking chap.
The decreased concentration had taken away his enjoyment of reading. He had been no Hermione, but he had been no Ron either, before Hogwarts and books on magic were certainly far more entertaining than books on geography, and he had not been too bored reading those at a young age. Being locked in the cupboard meant he often read to stave away boredom. Being locked in a bedroom was only slightly more interesting and yet, he felt no desire to read his school books.
Even more suspicious was his over-whelming desire to save people. Living at the Dursleys had thought him not to trust anyone but himself and to look out for number one first. That’s not to say he wouldn’t save someone in need, but he would not dive dramatically in front of someone to save them from a curse they were too stupid to avoid.
A plus to this void was the grief he felt at the death of Sirius was almost completely gone, dulled with all emotions. On some intellectual level he knew he missed Sirius and would for some time, but it was more what Sirius represented that he missed. Thinking about it, he realised that he had not known Sirius too well. They had written to each other yes, but they had never truly gotten to know one another. What he missed more than the man was the idea of someone putting him and all his worries first, before all others. He knew Sirius had not been an ideal guardian, discounting the on the run accused of mass murder issue, he had been far too child-like and impetuous and Harry began to wonder if he had ever recovered from his stay in Azkaban.
Sirius had seemed to throw himself almost desperately headfirst into the enjoyment of every situation, as shown by the enormous risks he insisted on taking time and time again, as if trying to make up for all the fun he had missed in Azkaban.


Truly, the death of Sirius was the death of what little remained of his childhood.
The dulling of his emotions brought to his attention how much he now depended on decisions governed by emotion and gut-feelings in his daily life. As a child he had been able to mostly suppress less desirable emotions, especially the pain he felt at the indifference and dislike of his guardians. He had always had a dreadful temper, but it had run more along the smart comments and hidden rage. Thinking now, he was surprised he had not been the only seven year old with ulcers. He had carefully avoided outbursts and shouting, the fear that he would become even a little like his uncle had seen to that.
To be fair though, last year had been more trying than he could have guessed, and he had constructed a mental list of those he was going to do unspeakable things to with a spork and potions. He quite liked the idea of potions, but he found the teaching of them aggravating and incomprehensible. While he knew potions was probably as alike to cooking, which he was very good at, as chemistry, he could find no rhyme or reason to many of the most basic concepts.
That was perhaps the reason he was stuck in this big blue void. Concocting his own batch of a difficult and complex potion and presuming it was correct as it had looked to be, seemed to have been one of his worse ideas. He felt a slight tinge of shame at his own stupidity. He should have brought it to Hermione for verification, but could not bear to hear another of her officious and irritating lectures. There is only so much a normal human being can take, and his temper had been on a hair-trigger last year as it was.
He had found a reference to the potion when he had dropped his potion books and it had fallen open on the calming potion page. The simple calming potion was apparently related to the potion of mental tranquillity, something which he thought would help him deal with the Dursleys this summer and hopefully help him clear his mind of the ever-present interfering emotions. While Occlumency seemed far out of his reach, peace and quiet did not. The potential relief from nightmares and mental intrusion just cemented the deal.
It had been simple to creep into the restricted section of the library during dinner one day to charm a quill to copy the recipe verbatim. He had taken so much care to follow each and every instruction he was mildly surprised he had failed.
To be fair though, he was feeling very tranquil so perhaps the potions had worked. He wondered if when he ever woke up he would have all his limbs or whether he was doomed to spend all existence as a piece of lint.
Cold, COLD, COLD!
Sweet puffskeins in a pile it was cold! Harry pried open his eyes to see his aunt staring at him with an empty bucket and a look of mingled disgust and slight fear. After a few moments listening to her illogical ranting Harry learned that for the past five days he had been doing everything he had been told to do which was not the problem. The non-stop singing about marmosets, unevenly dilated pupils and manic grin were what had concerned her. Apparently it was creepy.


Harry spent the rest of the day refusing to do his chores with his door firmly shut and a chair against it, which incensed his uncle whose shouts of ‘None of that delinquency will be taking place under my roof,’ were not muffled in the slightest by the cheap door.

After searching though his trunk, he found the piece of parchment detailing the recipe for the potion of mental tranquillity hidden under a pair of, dare he say it, almost grey underwear. Flashbacks to Snape’s spindly legs horrified him, but he was immediately proud of himself for suppressing the image deep into the recesses of his mind, never to be seen again.

He had charmed a quill to copy down everything on the page in the potions book, getting around the copyright curse by stopping the quill at the end of every sentence to add extra, obviously random, words. On reading the page again he discovered that he had been correct making the potion, he just had not read the line at the end instructing the brewer to dilute the potion in dragon saliva four times for safe consumption.

Harry then sat for hours trying to categorise his thoughts and experiences, feeling the urge to write down his conclusions. But he had learned after the infamous DA list last year that evidence was best not kept lying around.

He knew he had to at least try and prepare himself a little. He had survived before on luck, but now what he really needed to supplement that was a little skill. With his preparation at Hogwarts he could perhaps hold his own against an average adult wizard for around thirty seconds, against a powerful and ruthless death-eater... Well, thinking about that made him suddenly feel the urge to investigate time-share villas in Spain and all they had to offer.

What he really needed, more than training, was some relaxation. Not the usual chess or Quidditch, which though he loved it and it let him forget his worries, it only did so when he was in the air. The second his foot hit the ground again, they all came rushing back, and perhaps due to the brief respite, felt heavier than ever.

Not that he even had the opportunity for either chess matches or Quidditch. He was quite sure he could cause all of his family to develop a well deserved deeply rooted phobia of brooms were he to start attempting to play Quidditch in the house. It would almost be worth the look on his relatives faces as he swooped around the sitting room. Dudley would no doubt be crouching in a corner somewhere in the house clutching his fat arse, trying to fit into a press or, knowing his intelligence levels, holding a curtain in front of his face. That or a combination of the above; he could just see it now, Dudley frantically trying into the press under the kitchen sink, but stuck half way out due to his rather rotund body, flailing his legs wildly in an effort to further cram the rest of his body in, while simultaneously attempting to cover his giant arse with his pudgy hand to dissuade another pig-tail and attempting to shield his rather noticeable hiding place with the kitchen curtains.

Petunia, on the other hand, would be torn, she would be trying not to faint while simultaneously closing all the curtains, trying to calm her husband and soothe her unintentionally comical son. Vernon, the human kaleidoscope, had by far the easiest reaction to predict, when provoked, turn a variety of interesting colours and wildly wave your arms in the air while bellowing incoherently. He might be so angry he would pull chunks out of his moustache like he had when Harry was eleven. The lopsided look was in this season.

Chess would probably provoke a more sedate reaction as he would be playing with himself, but when one comes to the stage of playing board games with oneself, one should gracefully admit that they have progressed past pathetic and are only one step from attempting to gnaw on one's elbow.

What he needed was something to entertain himself with, and unfortunately there was nothing he could do in Little Whining and no-one to do anything with, what with his sterling reputation in the area. He did not know anywhere he could go in the Muggle world, and he had no intentions of going anywhere near wizarding London. His summer spent there after second year, along with the plethora of pictures in the newspapers last year, meant he was easily recognisable. He had no intention of being whisked away for a simply delightful spot of torture and death at Voldemort’s hands, nor did he intend to be mobbed by people who had not read the ‘Prophet recently and still believed he was a raving lunatic, or those who had read it and believed he was a god among wizards again, not unless they were young, beautiful and flexible witches.

Option three was the lecture and disappointed look he would get from Dumbledore when his friendly neighbourhood stalkers informed the intrusive and incredibly astute headmaster of his wayward and naughty behaviour. Option three was almost as bad as option one, the sheer irritation he felt even thinking about the headmaster lead him to believe that he would probably develop an ulcer trying to restrain himself from destroying his office again, or better yet, turning him into a goat and giving him to his brother.

He was sure these emotions were his own as he felt more along the lines of ‘permanently-shaving –off-his-beard and humiliating and insulting the headmaster more than is logically possible until the day the old man died’, rather than the ‘I-want-to-repeatedly-stab-him-with-something-very-sharp-and-pointy until he is more goo than person’ variety.

Another problem was that he, pathetic as it may sound, was lonely. He needed some human company, someone he could actually talk to without wanting to hex. This ruled out both Ron and Hermione. Hermione would take one look at him and berate him for leaving the Dursleys while insisting he informed the headmaster of where he was before returning to Privet Drive. Another mark against seeing Hermione was that she had the insensitivity to send him a pamphlet on the stages of grief during his rather drugged up state. A pamphlet he had found only this morning along with a note informing him of what he was sure to be feeling. While he could acknowledge that he and Sirius had not been exceptionally close he still missed him and resented her typically tactless interference.

Ron on the other hand would probably be incapable of sneaking out to meet him undetected, and if confronted on the way out would no doubt let slip Harry’s location. Or, in the unlikely case of his successfully meeting Harry, he would blurt out all the days happenings when interrogated on his return by his mother ,who would immediately inform Dumbledore, again necessitating the sermon on how everyone loved him and wanted to keep him safe with the unsaid message being ‘by any means necessary’. Ron had, typically, not written to him in the few days he had been at the Dursleys, but undoubtedly a letter informing him about the Cannons would be winging its way to him soon.

Ron’s obsession with the awful team had irritated him for a few years now, especially since he had begun to use Harry’s birthday as an excuse to buy something about the Cannons for himself. Harry had actually given him ‘Flying with the Canons’ back last year considering Ron had read it so many times it was falling apart, while Harry had only read part of it. His eyes had literally been unable to deal with the hideous orange found on almost every page and, between the watery eyes and the headache, it was now his least preferred book. At least his History of Magic text book made a good pillow with a few judiciously applied cushioning charms.

He sighed in irritation and picked up his battered copy of ‘Quidditch Through the Ages’, the only magical book he read for pleasure but a scrap of parchment dropped out.

It was a note from Dean and Seamus, with Seamus again apologising for not having believed him last year and both of them for not supporting him more. Scribbled at the bottom was Deans’ phone number with an invitation to meet up or stay over the holidays at either or both of their houses and informing him that Seamus would be staying with him in London for the first two weeks of the holidays.

It was perfect, he had regretted the fact he was only on nodding terms with the majority of the school and was not even on this level of familiarity with many more. He spent a few more minutes debating whether or not it was safe for him to leave the wards and worth the risks, but decided for the sake of his sanity that he had to do it. There was a distinct chance, with the way the summer was going so far, that come September he would be a gibbering drooling mess, although a perfectly safe and loved drooling lunatic.

He was glad he had not found the note with the number during the last few days. He wasn’t sure if he had been coherent to call it, but the fact he had managed to cook three meals a day in that state did not bode well. Suddenly, he wondered if he had written to anyone but discovered to his combined relief and disappointment that his parchment was still rolled up and untouched. The look on Hermione’s face when she read what he had written and sent her in that state would have been priceless.

Next up for consideration was how exactly he was going to leave undetected. He had no doubts he was being watched, but knew he had not the skill to detect them. Another problem was that the weak link in his protection, namely Dung Fletcher, was more than likely gone, Dumbledore was anything but a fool. He no doubt had a magical method of monitoring whether Harry remained within the wards, along with his physical methods.

After asking Dumbledore about where he was staying over the summer and learning about the blood wards, he had been angry enough to actually look up blood wards. He found little about them before his interest waned, but the general gist was that the wards worked only if his blood resided where his aunts did. It had not said how much of his blood and whether the rest of him had to be there, too. He did know that magic was very specifically worded and leaving a phial of blood on his bed as a decoy to fool the wards was a risk he was willing to take. That left only the actual guards, and he could unfortunately not think of any clever little trick to get past them.

Deep in thought, he wandered down to dinner with his relatives. With a sniff his aunt informed him that he should be earning his keep around the house rather than sitting in his room all day thinking freakish thoughts and doing freakish things. This was, of course, unlike her dear Duddykins who was out to tea with his friends as he was a popular and handsome boy who didn’t look like something had died in his hair. Harry felt the urge to point out that Duddykins did smell like some poor creature in his vicinity had ventured too close and had been sucked into his tremendous fat folds, suffocating quickly, as he often sat around for hours after practising in the home made gym before Petunia could no longer take the smell and gently encouraged him to go wash. Vernon’s response to Dudley’s distinctive aroma was that it was manly and reminded him of his days in Smeltings. Harry promptly swore never to get down-wind of that school.

For the majority of the meal he let his aunt and uncle’s conversation drift over his head as he contemplated more and more ridiculous schemes to escape. His favourite so far involved a llama costume, a giant tub of gone-off mayonnaise and a cuckoo clock. His nonsensical plotting was interrupted by his aunt beginning an unusually venomous tirade about new people moving into the area with no respect for older residents who clearly knew more about the every aspect of the locale and, therefore, what colour all the doors on Privet Drive should be painted next month. This lead him to realise a clear advantage he had over his guards; after ten years of being chased all around the neighbourhood by Dudley and his gang, and one of sulkily moping around it, he really knew more about Privet Drive and the surrounding area than most, certainly more than people who had only been here a few days.

He, rather politely in his opinion, informed his aunt that he would be spending most of his summer reading about magic in his room and might miss some meals but not to bother fetching him. His uncle began to swell up in preparation for what had all the makings of a truly impressive outburst with the promise that his face was sure to cycle through an awe-inspiring range of colours before Harry said three words stopping Vernon before he began...’Mad-eye Moody’, and left for his room. The small squeak that Vernon omitted as he left the room was most satisfying.


The next morning, when his uncle had left for work, Dudley had left to fill his busy schedule of petty vandalism and smoking stolen cigarettes, and his aunt was thoroughly engrossed in one of her day time soaps, Harry slunk downstairs to help himself to the wonder that is the phone.

Two minutes later he was calling Dean, who seemed honestly delighted to hear from him as neither he nor Seamus had expected to, and both were free the next day. Unlike Ron, Seamus, who grew up in a predominantly wizarding household, had an excellent grasp behind the concepts of the telephone and they spent a few minutes talking before Harry heard the tell-tale jangle signalling an ad break in his aunt’s show, and his cue to hang up with promises to meet in Muggle London, far away from the wizarding section.

He spent the rest of the day wandering around Little Whining like he had last year. He even put the most convincing pout he could put on his face until a little girl pointed out to her mother, in not as many words, that he looked like he had just soiled himself. This caused Harry to wonder whether this was what he actually looked like when he sulked, and whether he had looked like that all last year. If that was the case, it was no wonder that Cho cried. Despite the few hours he spent wandering around he neither heard nor saw any sign of his guards, but he had no doubts they were there.
Remember, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.