"Boy," said Aunt Petunia abruptly one day, when the sun was especially hot and Harry had been lurking inside to try to steal the newspaper. "We're going out."
"Aunt Petunia?"
"Do you have your money?"
Harry gave her a suspicious look.
"A bit," he allowed. Mostly from letting Dudley act as a sort of dealer for him this summer, his only source of muggle money.
"Come along."
Which was how Harry had the very disconcerting experience of going clothes shopping with Aunt Petunia. New trainers weren't terrible, since he could get them with red stripes on sale, but trying to work between his budget and Aunt Petunia's idea of respectable looking produced a furious Harry and a seething Aunt.
It didn't help that someone just out of sight was giggling.
Harry, who resolutely refused to wear anything he thought a Muggle Draco Malfoy would wear, ended up with a couple pairs of jeans and a few t-shirts in his size.
"Now," Aunt Petunia said, with the air of a woman about to die, "A haircut."
"No."
"Now, a haircut."
"You remember what happened last time we tried that?"
By Aunt Petunia's expression, she did indeed remember what happened last time she tried that. Her lips thinned into near nonexistence.
"One of the neighbors was commenting on me again," Harry said flatly.
Aunt Petunia didn't say anything to this.
"How about I make more of an effort to stay out of sight?" Harry offered.
In the end, Harry did not get a haircut, but he did get a lecture on gratitude. He was, he noted with some pleasure, getting better at tuning those out.
#
Harry getting Dudley attacked by Dementors did not endear him to the Dursleys, and as he listened to the Order very carefully not explain why they weren't explaining anything to him, Harry realized something with crystalline clarity: something was very wrong with Professor Snape, because Professor Snape would have known this was a really stupid plan.
It didn't help Harry's temper.
#
In exchange for their really helpful complete lack of information, Harry borrowed a trick he hadn't used in about five years. It had, once upon a time, been dangerous for him to do better than Dudley in school, so Harry was very good at playing dumb. Grimmauld Place? London? Order of the Phoenix? Arabella Figg on Dumbledore's short list of trustworthy people? Harry has never heard anything about any of this. Harry's a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed....
Well. It provided enough humor to the situation for him to get through being around actual-Moody, while he made a mental note to learn the disillusionment charm as soon as humanly possible.
"Sorry," Harry apologized to Ron and Hermione (and Greg, lurking silently in the background) after yelling at them. "This house always makes me moody, if I'm not paying attention."
"It does?" asked Ron. "I thought you loved it here. I was really surprised when everyone said you didn't know what it was, but Hermione kept me from saying anything."
"Try Occlumency shields," Harry advised.
"Oh," Hermione said in tones of surprise. "I hadn't realized. What's causing that?"
"Some dark object or other," Harry said with a shrug. "It's not so bad if you're not Sirius, it hits that same part of you that's in Azkaban, I bet Hagrid would hate it too."
"But, Harry," Hermione said worriedly, "Sirius has to stay here now. The Ministry's tearing the country apart looking for him, because Fudge is so angry with Dumbledore."
At which point Fred and George interrupted, so Harry was left with another worry to add to the back burner.
#
"I said--shut--UP!" roared the man, and with a stupendous effort he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again.
The old woman's screeches died and an echoing silence fell. Panting slightly and sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes, Harry's godfather Sirius turned to face him.
"Hello, Harry," he said grimly, "I see you've met my mother."
"She's in a very good mood," Harry said.
"She's put a permanent sticking charm on the back of her portrait."
"I bet she'd cheer up if you got a kid to stand quietly while she recited her family tree," Harry offered.
Sirius gave him a penetrating look, then ruffled his hair.
"I don't know half the things you get up to, do I."
Harry grinned at him.
"I'm glad someone's keeping his spirits up," Sirius commented, and Harry put a mental exclamation point next to his mental note about Sirius' mental wellbeing.
His kitchen had been thoroughly taken over by Mrs. Weasley. Harry, who was quite tired, thought that was alright. It all seemed very lived-in somehow. Maybe he could invite all the Weasleys to move in with him and Sirius permanently. That - that was a really nice dream. Harry was going to come back to that dream.
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His love for Potions II
Fanfiction"𝙄 𝙙𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧, 𝙋𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧" PART II [ONGOING] 68,990 words Once upon a time, Harry Potter went to Hogwarts, liked Potions, made some candy and tried talking to a dark lord who pr...