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Harry Potter and the Book of Days	By : Stoeffl Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 2171 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Harry and all the other Characters from the books are not mine, they are JK Rowling's.

Warning: Although not all the time there will definitely be slash (m/m) in this story, so if somebody doesn't like two men get up close and personal please don't read it.

Pairings: The only one that will be of any interest to you is SS/HP, which is the one rated NC-17.

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Chapter Two
Countdown

Harry spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the noises emanating from Dudley's room and starting the research for his Potions assignment. At eight o'clock in the evening, the last of Dudley's horrid friends had left, and the Dursleys returned to their everyday routine of watching TV. The new and cosy silence made it possible for Harry to finally fully concentrate on his schoolwork.

He searched Magical Drafts and Potions (by Arsenius Jigger) for every bit of information he could find about the Curatio Vulnus potion. This potion was used on battle wounds when an immediate healing was important. It was very old and not common nowadays because wizards and witches didn't tend to fight on battlefields anymore. A disadvantage of the potion was that it only worked for physical wounds, which meant that it healed cuts and other bruises but didn't help you recover after being hit by a curse. Other reasons why it wasn't used now were that it was very difficult to brew and the ingredients were very expensive. Harry was reading over a paragraph about the Mandrake and its uses when he heard Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia go to their bedroom. A few minutes later Dudley thundered down the corridor to his own. Harry continued reading, remembering his second year at Hogwarts and the Mandrake babies they had to take care of.

Harry put the book aside and lay back to try to get some rest. It was not long after that he fell asleep.

Harry filled the rest of his time waiting for his stay at the Burrow with doing his assignments, polishing his Firebolt, and rereading his letters. At first he felt relieved that he didn't have to participate in the Dursley's everyday routine, which largely consisted of tormenting their "’weird' nephew, any longer, but soon he felt bored.

The assignments were a lot of work, and the only one he had really been interested in, Magical History, had been finished already. The only ones left to do were Potions and Transfiguration. Well, there was an assignment for Divination, too, but that didn't count as work because he could easily write that one. The only thing Professor Trewlany was interested in was the worst worst-case-scenario he could come up with. Harry already had written a list of all natural and unnatural catastrophes imaginable, and he was determined to include them all in his text. He hoped that there would be enough for Professor Trewlany.

So Harry either wrote and read about the Curatio Vulnus potion or about the danger of transfiguring a vehicle or building while it was still occupied. One book mentioned the case of an old witch who transfigured her house into a handbag because she wanted to take it with her on her trip to France, completely forgetting that her husband was still asleep in his bed inside.

The poor man suffered several cracked ribs and a broken leg when his wife stuffed the handbag full with various things she needed for the journey. Harry couldn't help but laugh at the picture of the wizard explaining at the hospital that the broken leg had been caused by a package of rock cookies.

Something that caught Harry's interest was the mention of Avalon in his text about the potion. It said that every witch and wizard attending the school was only able to pass the final exam of Potions if he or she was able to brew the Curatio Vulnus potion. Harry was fascinated by the stories of the teaching at Avalon. It had been the first School of Witchcraft and Wizardry ever in Britain. The founder had been a powerful wizard with the name of Taliesin. He had wanted to teach his fellow magic users how to control their powers because the ignorance of the witches and wizards had caused many unlucky incidents concerning Muggles and spread fear among the non-magic folk. The great Merlin himself had been the last headmaster of Avalon before it was destroyed.

Besides this, nothing of interest happened during the first week of his bane, and he started to call up memories of all the friends he missed so dearly right now. He also thought about Cho and what she would be doing right now. He was afraid that she blamed him for Cedric's death. It was quite likely that she didn't want him or his friendship at all. Harry hoped that this was not the case and that Cho would give him a chance.

The Ravenclaw had been together with Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain. During the last year at Hogwarts, the Triwizard Tournament had taken place, in which the three largest European Wizard Schools, Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, had participated. Mysteriously, there had been announced two champions for Hogwarts, Cedric and Harry. It had been Voldemort's plan to make Harry enter the tournament. The dark wizard had turned the Triwizard Cup into an Portkey and sent one of his Deatheaters to Hogwarts, disguised as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, to ensure that Harry would win the tournament. The moment he touched the cup, he would be transported to Voldemort's hideout where he and the other Deatheaters awaited. It had been terrible when Cedric, who had touched the cup together with Harry, had been hit by the Avada Kedavra curse. Harry still blamed himself for what had happened to his schoolmate.

The sound of tapping against the window brought him back from the past, and he saw an owl sitting on the outer windowsill waiting to be let in.

He left the bed and moved to open the window for the visitor. The dark eagle owl flew to the now empty bed and sat down with the letter it had been carrying. The bird hooted and raised the leg with the message, offering it to Harry.

"Thank you. You can rest in Hedwig's cage if you want to," he told the bird, but it left through the window once it had made sure that the message had been delivered.

Harry looked from the retreating form of the owl to the letter in his hands and rejoiced when he read Hagrid's name on the back of the envelope. Hastily, he tore it open and pulled out the piece of paper inside.

Dear Harry,

Have many things to tell you, but first I want to make sure that these horrible Muggle relatives of yours are treating you well. Do they feed and cloth you right? Are you forced to stay in that room of yours all day long?

Harry laughed lightly about these questions, answering them to himself with a firm NO except the last one.

If those no-good Dursleys treat you too bad, just tell them I'll provide matching ears to the tail on the brat of theirs.

He remembered his first meeting with Hagrid when the half-giant had brought Harry his acceptance letter from Hogwarts. He had also been the one who had told Harry that he was a wizard, and about the true reason for his parents' death. When Uncle Vernon had protested about Harry's going to a Wizarding school and insulted the headmaster, Hagrid had grown Dudley a pig's tail.

Dumbledore is mighty busy at the moment. Sends me on lots of errands. With You-Know-Who on the loose, the headmaster wants to gather the members of the Order as fast as possible. Visited Madam Maxime at Beauxbatons. Was some mission for Dumbledore. Can't tell you more; it's all "’Top Secret'. Olympe and I had a good time.

Harry smiled remembering the growing love between the two half-giants. Hagrid had fallen for the tall headmistress of the French Wizarding school, but their budding romance was crushed by the nosy reporter Rita Skeeter. The annoying woman had pestered everybody around Harry and had spread several nasty rumours about Harry and his friends.

Last week Professor Lupin came to Hogwarts.Reported to Dumbledore. He and that big black dog of his, Snuffles I believe. Have been searching and informing some of Dumbledore's friends about HIS return. We need all the help we can get. After the Dementors abandoning Azkaban and the imprisoned Deatheaters joining Voldemort, together with these nasty creatures, the whole Magical world's in shock.

Horrified, Harry stared at the last sentence, hoping that he had imagined it, but after rereading it ten times he knew that it was true. First he felt fear and terror creeping into him, but then anger welled up inside. Cornelius Fudge, the stupid Minister of Magic, had simply refused to listen to Harry and Dumbledore when they had told him about Voldemort's rise, and he had ignored the headmaster's warnings about the Dementor's and their attraction to destruction and evil. Now the worst-case-scenario was taking shape. Trewlany's predictions would come true.

Their bond with You-Know-Who came out of a sudden to almost everybody except Dumbledor. The headmaster already knew something like that was about to happen. Great man. He and the teachers strengthened the Security and Protection Spells and Charms around the school and the grounds. This year some teachers are going to accompany the Hogwarts Express. Dumbledore wants the students to arrive savely at the school.

Well, I'll send you probably another letter with your birthday present and it will be not as dark and serious as this one.

Wish you nice holidays and a good time with the Weasleys.

Yours,Hagrid

Harry put the letter back into the envelope and put it on his bedside table. This wasn't good news at all, and he wished once more that he were not the Boy-Who-Lived, but some normal student at Hogwarts who didn't have to deal with dark wizards and their trusty minions since earliest childhood.

The part about Remus and Snuffles cheered him up a bit. Remus Lupin, who had been a very close friend of Harry's father, had been the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts two years ago. He had had to leave when the parents found out that their children were being taught by a werewolf.

Another friend of his parents, Sirius Black, who was Harry's godfather, was an escaped prisoner of the Wizard prison Azkaban. Sirius had been accused of having betrayed the Potters and of having killed Muggles and a wizard, but Harry, Hermione, Ron and Dumbledore knew that he was innocent. Peter Pettigrew, a former friend, had betrayed them when working for Voldemort and shifted the blame onto Black . Nobody knew that Pettigrew was still alive; everybody had thought that he had been killed by Black, but Pettigrew had hidden all this time.

The reason nobody discovered Pettigrew and Black had been able to escape from Azkaban was that they were unregistered Animagi, wizards who could transfigure themselves into animals. Pettigrew had been Ron's rat Scabbers, and Sirius was the big black dog now called Snuffles. When Pettigrew had been found out, he ran away and returned to Voldemort.

Now Remus and Sirius, as Snuffles, worked for Dumbledore, gathering all the members of the headmaster's Order of the Phoenix. Although Harry knew that he had a lot of friends who were more than willing to help him fight Voldemort, he couldn't help but be afraid of what might happen during the next year at Hogwarts.

Harry took the letter from the bedside table and knelt down next to the bed, removing the loose floorboard. He hid Hagrid's letter with all his others, then got up and walked over to the window and Hedwig's cage. He had let her out this morning so she could spread her wings. He wished that she would return soon because he felt very lonely and bored.

While waiting for his only friend here with the Dursleys, Harry once more thought about Cho and his love for her. He pictured her black hair and her dark eyes, but somehow he couldn't see her in his mind. He saw an blurred face, only able to make out dark, almost black eyes clearly. Strangely, Cho's hair looked shorter in this picture. Confused, Harry forced himself to stop thinking about the Ravenclaw and returned to his bedside table where he kept his self-made calendar.

At the first day of his imprisonment he had made a provisional calendar to count down his days with the Dursleys. Almost two weeks had passed, and in three days it would be his birthday. His fifteenth.

Harry still was not used to receiving presents for his birthday or Christmas because the Dursleys usually tended to forget about it, not that he cared about any presents from them. The few times they had given him anything, it had been things like a pair of old socks of Uncle Vernon. Just the perfect addition to all the old and over-sized clothes he had from Dudley. The first real birthday present he had ever gotten had been from Hagrid, who had bought Harry Hedwig. He also remembered his birthday in the summer after second year at Hogwarts when for the first time he had gotten presents from his friends. Hermione had given him the Broomstick Servicing Kit, and Ron had sent him a Sneakoscope he had purchased in Egypt when visiting Bill.

Dwelling on these happy memories, he didn't notice Hedwig's return from her excursion. She sat down on the bed next to young wizard, who was lost in thoughts, putting a dead mouse in his lap. She proudly presented her prey, hooting to get Harry's attention. He looked down at his friend and patted her head absent-mindedly, still caught up in his memories of his previous birthdays. When the owl picked the mouse up and jumped in his lap, putting the dead animal on the hand resting on his thigh, Harry realized what was going on.

"Yuck! Thank you Hedwig. I really appreciate your efforts, but next time put it on the windowsill, please," he told the bird.

Carefully picking up the mouse at the tail, he got up, rousing the owl who had made herself comfortable in his lap. Harry put it in Hedwig's cage for her to eat later, eyeing his soiled hands critically. Unfortunately, he couldn't go to the bathroom to wash them. Sighing exasperatedly, he took one of the dirty T-shirts lying crumpled in a corner of the room and wiped his hands with them. Hedwig watched him curiously and flew over to him, landing on the heap of clothes.

Harry smiled at his friend and stroked her head.

"I know you love me, and you know what? I love you too."

Ushering Hedwig back to the cage, he returned to staring out of the window.

Three long and boring days later Harry's birthday had arrived, ignored by his Muggle relatives. He had gotten presents by owl from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, Remus, and Sirius. Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid had each sent him a birthday cake along with their present.

Ron had given him a wizard chess set of his own. In the attached letter, he challenged Harry to train hard and try to defeat him during his stay at the Burrow. Harry was realistic enough not to have any delusions of beating his friend. He knew quite well that Ron was far too good with Wizard Chess to be defeated by him.

Hermione had sent him Ultra Rare Wizard Cards. These cards went with the other Wizard Cards of the Chocolate Frogs but they were so rare that the only realistic way to get them was to buy them separately. They were expensive, too, and Harry guessed that they had cost Hermione a small fortune. He was now the proud owner of Agrippa, Hildegard v. Bingen, and Nostradamus.

Hello Harry!

Hope you like my choice of cards. I had to choose between them and Cassandra, Magnus, and Houdini. I thought that you might prefer Agrippa and Nostradamus to the others. Hildegard v. Bingen I chose because of her interesting works concerning herbology and the healing power of metals and stones.

Harry decided that he liked Hermione's choice of cards.

I want to wish you a happy birthday. I hope your family treats you well, or at least acceptably, and I can't wait to see you at Ron's in August.

Many greetings and best wishes, Hermione.

He grinned at the letter in his right hand and the cards in his left. She had been able to surprise him more than once in the past with her presents. Who would have thought that a studious bookworm like her, gave other presents than books? Harry stared at the Wizard Cards, imagining Ron's face when he would show them to him.

The next one was Hagrid's present, which was rather big and heavy. He tore open the wrapping paper and revealed a huge black book, History of Havocking Hungarian Horntails (by Andressy Sárkány). Inside was a personal dedication for Harry.

For the defeater of Horntails.

Thought you might like to read about your dragon.

Happy Birthday, Hagrid

Harry smiled at Hagrid's little text. The first task at the tournament last year had been to get past a dragon and snatch a golden egg from its nest. Harry's dragon had been a ferocious-looking, black Hungarian Horntail.

He put the book aside and opened the last and the biggest present. A letter fell out of the wrapping, and he picked it up, opened the envelope, and read it.

Dear Harry,

Remus and I want to wish you a happy, happy birthday. I'm sorry that once more we can't celebrate together, but as you are living with your Muggle relatives and I'm still in hiding, we'll have to wait some more.

Remus and I decided not to send you a birthday cake since you'll get more than one from your friends. Instead, we decided to buy you more presents. I know that you have no real clothes of your own, only those huge rags of your cousin's, so Remus and I thought it might be a good idea to buy some for you. I hope you like them and they are at least a little bit stylish since neither Remus nor I know what's IN nowadays.

Hope you enjoy your birthday, and wish you a nice stay at the Burrow,

Sirius &Remus

P.S.: Tell those Muggles that if they try anything stupid, I'm more than willing to pay them a visit.

Harry took a look at the clothes and was rendered speechless. They were Muggle clothes, which meant that either Sirius or Remus, the latter was more likely, had gone to Muggle London to purchase them. They had bought him silver Vans and black Martens, Southpools and a blue Levi's, an O'Neill and a CK shirt.

He found a small package inside the big one, also wrapped in colourful paper. Harry opened it and found a box with a wrist watch inside. It was red and gold, the Gryffindor colours, and when he took a closer look he realized that it was a wizard watch. He noticed a small logo printed inside the box and on the back of the watch itself. It was initials, GL. On the back of the box he read,

Design by Gilderoy Lockhart

Harry starred at the name, open-mouthed. Who would have guessed that the former Hogwart's teacher would become a designer? The narcissistic professor had tried to put a Memory Charm on Ron and Harry after he had followed them to the Chamber of Secrets. It had been sought for because the mysterious Heir of Slytherin had opened it and attacked several students of Hogwarts. Unfortunately, Lockhart had used Ron's broken wand, and the spell had backfired, hitting the professor. Harry hadn't known that Lockhart had already recovered from the accident. He hid his presents under the bed in his hiding place, except the watch, which he put on.

The day before his departure to the Weasleys', Uncle Vernon came to Harry's room in the evening. He unlocked the door and glared at the boy sitting on the bed playing chess.

"Come downstairs and pack your trunk so that these ridiculous friends of yours don't have to stay longer than necessary. The sooner you're gone, the better." With these words, he turned his broad back to Harry and trampled downstairs back to the living room and the TV set.

Carefully and silently, Harry descended the stairs, avoiding making any noise and disturbing the Dursleys' television ritual. He opened the cupboard under the stairs, his former home, and packed his school trunk. Then he carried--or more precisely dragged--it upstairs into his room, where packed all his belongings, presents, and school stuff into the trunk. After he had finished his preparations for the next day, he locked Hedwig's cage and went to bed anxiously waiting for tomorrow to come.

At eight o'clock the next morning Harry had changed into his Southpools and the O'Neill shirt, dragging the trunk back down stairs. He had gotten up at half past six, taken a swift shower, washed his face, and brushed his teeth. The two and a half weeks spent in his room with no possibility to clean himself had left him desperate for a shower, and now he felt comfortable at last.

Last, he carried Hedwig and her cage downstairs and moved the trunk and the cage into the living room. It had been agreed on, that the Weasleys would pick him up when the Dursleys were still asleep, so they would not have to meet again. The last meeting had been a disaster when Fred and George "�accidentally' dropped a Ton-Tongue Toffee, a new invention of theirs, and Dudley had picked it up and eaten it.

At half past eight, Ron and his father appeared in the Dursleys' fireplace. Mr. Weasley had temporarily connected it to the Floo Network so they could pick Harry up. A smiling Ron hugged Harry.

"Hey, glad to see you're still alive."

Ron, noticing Harry's new clothes, clapped him on the shoulder and took a good look at the new outfit.

"Nice clothes. They fit you far better than your cousin's elephant hides."

Harry beamed at Ron happily. In the meantime, Mr. Weasley had carried the trunk and the owl over to the fireplace. He turned now to the two youngsters.

"Hurry up, the others are waiting for us."

He lit a fire with his wand and threw in some Floo powder. "I'll go first and take your trunk and the cage with me." Mr Weasley shoved Harry's things into the flames and with a loud "The Burrow" left for his home. Next went Ron. After Ron and Mr. Weasley had disappeared in the green flames, Harry stepped inside the fire and felt happiness filling him. At last he could leave the Dursleys. The holiday would be so much better from now on.
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Harry Potter and the Book of Days