The Last Time at the Dursleys

Disclaimer: I don't own any HP character.

'What happened to you?' said Kitty looking at Harry who was nursing his bleeding hand.

'I cut myself with this mirror,' replied Harry, kicking the bit of glass on the floor.

'What a pity that you can't heal it using magic,' said Kitty.

'If only I had cut myself four days later, I would have healed this in no time,' said Harry frustrated.

'Oh, here's the Daily Prophet,' said Kitty looking out of the window to see a large tawny owl flying towards their bedroom window.

Kitty opened to window, and let the owl in. After untying the scroll tied to the owl's leg, Kitty paid it three Knuts and stretched out the newspaper.

'Anything interesting?' asked Harry.

'Hmm, let me see…' said Kitty, 'Oh, it says Professor Burbage has resigned from Hogwarts. I wonder why. She used to teach me Muggle Studies.'

Kitty turned the pages and exclaimed, 'Oh and here's an article about Dumbledore. Listen:

Albus Dumbledore Remembered: By Elphias Doge.

I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders. I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while I was no longer contagious, my pock-marked visage and greenish hue did not encourage many to approach me. For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts under the burden of unwanted notoriety. Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three young Muggles.

Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had committed this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his father's action and assumed that Albus too was a Muggle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken: As anybody who knew Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency.

In a matter of months, however, Albus's own fame had begun to eclipse that of his father. He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day, including Nicolas Flamel, the celebrated alchemist; Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian; and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician.

Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, Albus's brother, Aberforth, arrived at school. They were not alike: Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike Albus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers were not friends. They rubbed along as comfortably as two such different boys could do.

When Albus and I left Hogwarts we intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers. However, tragedy intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus's mother, Kendra, died, leaving Albus the head, and sole breadwinner, of the family.

That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with horror that I heard, toward the end of my year's travels, that another tragedy had struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.

Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers. All those closest to Albus and I count myself one of that lucky number, agree that Ariana's death, and Albus's feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.

I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older person's suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less light-hearted. To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. He rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.

Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore's innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit generations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments while Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards to battle. Dumbledore's triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Kitty stopped reading and looked at Harry. Both of them were thinking the exact same thing. Kitty had thought that she knew Dumbledore, but after reading this obituary, she felt that she had barely known him at all.

Harry strode across the room, and picked p the broken shard of mirror. He saw a flash of brightest blue. Harry froze, his cut finger slipping on the jagged edge of the mirror again. He had imagined it, he must have done. He glanced over his shoulder, but the wall was a sickly peach color of Aunt Petunia's choosing: There was nothing blue there for the mirror to reflect. He peered into the mirror fragment again, and saw nothing but his own bright green eye looking back at him.

'Kat, look at this and tell me what you see,' said Harry, handing her the piece of glass.

Kitty took it and held it up.

'I see myself,' said Kitty.

'Well,' said Harry, 'I know you'll think I'm mad, but I think I just saw Dumbledore's blue eyes in it.'

'You're right,' said Kitty, 'You are mad. Harry, he's dead. No matter how hard you wish to see Dumbledore in that mirror, you can't.'

'I know he's dead,' sighed Harry, 'It must have been a trick of the light.'

'You two!' roared a voice, 'get down here!'

Harry and Kitty got up and went downstairs.

'Sit down!' barked Uncle Vernon. Harry and Kitty sat. Uncle Vernon began pacing up and down. Dudley and Aunt Petunia followed his movement with anxious expressions.

'I've changed my mind,' said Uncle Vernon, 'I've decided I don't believe a word of it. We're staying put, not going anywhere.'

Kitty looked up at her uncle and felt a mixture of exasperation and amusement. Vernon Dursley had been changing his mind every twenty four hours for the past four weeks, packing and unpacking and repacking the car with every change of heart.

'According to you,' Vernon Dursley said, now resuming his pacing up and down the living room, 'we, Petunia, Dudley, and I, are in danger. From … from…'

'Some of 'my lot' right?' said Harry.

'Well I don't believe it,' repeated Uncle Vernon, coming to a halt in front of Harry again. 'I was awake half the night thinking it all over, and I believe it's a plot to get the house.'

'The house?' repeated Harry. 'What house?'

'This house!' shrieked Uncle Vernon, the vein his forehead starting to pulse. 'Our house! House prices are skyrocketing around here! You want us out of the way and then you're going to do a bit of hocus pocus and before we know it the deeds will be in your name and…'

'Are you out of your mind?' demanded Kitty. 'A plot to get this house? Like we'd want this house, the one in which we've spent our rotten childhood.'

'Just in case you've forgotten,' said Harry, 'I've already got a house my godfather left me one. So why would we want this one?'

There was silence. Harry thought he had rather impressed his uncle with this argument.

'You claim,' said Uncle Vernon, starting to pace yet again, 'that this Lord Thing…'

'Voldemort,' said Harry impatiently, 'and we've been through this about a hundred times already. This isn't a claim, its fact. Dumbledore told you last year, and Kingsley and Mr. Weasley explained it all as well. Once I'm seventeen, the protective charm that keeps me safe will break, and that exposes you as well as me. The Order is sure Voldemort will target you, whether to torture you to try and find out where I am, or because he thinks by holding you hostage I'd come and try to rescue you.'

Uncle Vernon's and Harry's eyes met. Harry was sure that in that instant they were both wondering the same thing. Then Uncle Vernon walked on and Harry resumed, 'You've got to go into hiding and the Order wants to help. You're being offered serious protection, the best there is.'

'I thought there was a Ministry of Magic?' asked Vernon Dursley abruptly.

'There is,' said Kitty, surprised.

'Well, then, why can't they protect us? It seems to me that, as innocent victims, guilty of nothing more than harboring a marked man, we ought to qualify for government protection!'

Harry laughed; he could not help himself. It was so very typical of his uncle to put his hopes in the establishment, even within this world that he despised and mistrusted. 'You heard what Mr. Weasley and Kingsley said,' Harry replied. 'We think the Ministry has been infiltrated.'

'All right,' he said, stopping in front of Harry yet again. 'All right, let's say for the sake of argument we accept this protection. I still don't see why we can't have that Kingsley bloke.'

Kitty managed not to roll her eyes, but with difficulty. This question had also been addressed half a dozen times.

'As I've told you,' Harry said through gritted teeth, 'Kingsley is protecting the Mug-I mean, your Prime Minister.'

'Exactly, he's the best!' said Uncle Vernon.

'Well, he's taken,' said Harry. 'But Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle are more than up to the job. Once I'm seventeen, all of them, Death Eaters, Dementors, maybe even Inferi, which means dead bodies enchanted by a Dark wizard will be able to find you and will certainly attack you. And if you remember the last time you tried to outrun wizards, I think you'll agree you need help.'

Finally Uncle Vernon blurted out, 'But what about my work? What about Dudley's school?'

'Don't you understand?' shouted Kitty. 'They will torture and kill you like they did our parents!'

'Dad,' said Dudley in a loud voice, 'Dad, I'm going with these Order people.'

'Dudley,' said Harry getting up to go back to his bedroom, 'for the first time in your life, you're talking sense. They'll be here in about five minutes.'

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