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── IN WHICH HE'S BACK
. . .
Harry needed to get out of the house. He had been back at Number 4 Privet Drive for precisely sixteen hours and already couldn't stand to spend another minute in the house.
The morning before, he had left Hogwarts for yet another summer, and spent the day on the train with his friends, and had left the train having given Fred and George Weasley his Triwizard Tournament winnings.
Then, he had said goodbye to Ron and Hermione, and feeling miserable, he had followed his Uncle Vernon to his car and sat silently in the backseat until he reached the dreaded rows of perfectly presented houses.
His welcome had been less than warm, his Aunt Petunia had served him dinner silently - the barely warm beef casserole, which would have barely been suitable for Aunt Marge to feed her idiotic dogs, was barely edible, the gravy thickening and the carrots not cooked properly, giving it a rather undesirable crunch.
But he had forced it down himself, listening to Petunia and Vernon watching the news in the living room. South Africa had won the Rugby World Cup six days before, and about the muggle Prime Minister John Mayor and whether or not he would win the battle to remain as leader of the Conservative party - and a US shuttle had docked with a Russian space station.
Nothing to do with his world, of course, and after doing the washing up he had gone up to his small room, letting Hedwig out for the night. Dudley was out at a friend's house for dinner - that was what Petunia had told her husband upon arriving. However Harry knew better, and suspected that his cousin was out with his gang, smoking on street corners and harassing children.
His parents knew absolutely nothing of course.
Harry had fallen asleep late that night, having sat awake in bed until well into the morning, mind far too busy to allow him just a moment of peace. Cedric's death still pressed into his memory, fresh in his mind as if it happened the day before, and not a week or so.
He had no idea how Dumbledore thought it to be a good idea to let him go back to the Dursleys for the holidays. It was the last place he should be, with the random shooting pains in his scar and the horrifying, bubbling knowledge that Voldemort was out there.
And he just had to sit at home, trying to deal with the death of Cedric and the return of the person who had murdered so many people, including his mother and father.
Harry had finally fallen asleep with the thoughts of Voldemort's return playing in his mind, like children in a park on a rainy day. And he woke up only a few hours later, the sleeping having not been exactly that good, to the shouts of Dudley who had clearly arrived back from wherever he was the night before, which was certainly not the Polkisses' like he had his parents believe.
The boy had dressed and served them breakfast, the usual scraps of bacon offered to him - but instead of eating the disgusting fatty bits, he had opted to have the discarded bit of burnt toast instead.
He thought he had gotten away with it for one, not having his own breakfast interrupted by Dudley wanting to try and kick him when he passed by the kitchen, or Petunia whinging about the state of his hair - which was, admittedly, particularily long and unruly.
But as the news reporter, a woman wearing a red shirt that blended with her background perfectly, announced the final amount of casualities following a structural failure of a department store in South Korea, a familiar screech could be heard from above the house.
The news reporter's voice died out, and Harry froze, already half way out of the kitchen. A newspaper could be heard rustling, then something being smacked against the sofa, the cushions blocking the noise.
"Boy!" His Uncle Vernon appeared at the end of the corridor, squeezing through the doorway. "Is that your bird screeching!" He hissed, but it came out more of a croak. Harry had replied in his usual manner, and it had resulted in him ending up back in his room.
The Dursleys seemed to be on eggshells around him. They weren't holding back from treating him like they usually did, but it was as if they were just ignoring him. And it was most likely from what had happened the previous year, which had some of the Weasleys coming and picking him up for the Quidditch World Cup, and had ended up with Dudley eating one of the twins' products and his tongue had tripled in size.
Which led him to now, letting Hedwig back into his room and wondering what on earth he was going to do all summer. Harry couldn't possibly spend another minute more in that house then he had to, and so, he grabbed one of the old backpacks and shoved a couple of school books into it, quietly making his way downstairs and out of the door.
It perhaps wasn't the best idea to go exploring in the countryside surrounding the small town of Little Whinging, especially considering that Voldemort was back. But he couldn't stay in that house day after day for the entirety of the summer.
So he didn't. And that would perhaps be one of his better decisions.
