Mass Collision

5. Leaving

Harry was snoring loudly. He had been sitting in a chair beside his bedroom window for the best part of four hours, staring out at the darkening street, and had finally fallen asleep with one side of his face pressed against the cold windowpane, his glasses askew and his mouth wide open. The misty fug his breath had left on the window sparkled in the orange glare of the streetlamp outside, and the artificial light drained his face of all color, so that he looked ghostly beneath his shock of untidy black hair.

The room was strewn with various possessions and Natalia was currently cleaning up the room that had a good smattering of rubbish. Owl feathers, apple cores, and sweet wrappers littered the floor, a number of spellbooks lay higgledy-piggledy among the tangled robes on his bed, and a mess of newspapers sat in a puddle of light on his desk.

They hadn't cleaned in a while because the moment the sun came up they would be outside doing something else, completely ignoring the Dursleys and wouldn't come back until closer to the end of the night.

Natalia was putting all the newspapers into a stack, most of them were about Harry being the chosen one, stuff about the war, they even had an interview from Neville's grandmother.

Harry, right now, was waiting for Dumbledore. He had received a letter that he was coming to get him, but didn't believe it. Natalia didn't care and packed all of their stuff.

She knew this was it so she wrote a letter to Harry, explaining everything that she magically sealed shut, not to open until she wanted it to. She picked up Dumbledore's letter and read it again.

Dear Harry,

If it is convenient to you, I shall call at number four, Privet Drive this coming Friday at eleven P.M. to escort you to the Burrow, where you have been invited to spend the remainder of your school holidays.

If you are agreeable, I should also be glad of your assistance in a matter to which I hope to attend on the way to the Burrow. I shall explain this more fully when I see you.

Kindly send your answer by return of this owl. Hoping to see you this Friday,

I am, yours most sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

P.S. Tell Miss di Angleo I will be there to collect her as well

The minute hand on the alarm clock reached the number twelve and, at that precise moment, the streetlamp outside the window went out.

Natalia's head snapped over and Harry awoke at the sudden darkness. He looked at her, "Guess it's time to go."

Harry jumped up as though he had received an electric shock, knocked over his chair, and started snatching anything and everything within reach from the floor and throwing it into the trunk. Even as he lobbed a set of robes, two spellbooks, and a packet of crisps across the room, the doorbell rang.

Downstairs in the living room his Uncle Vernon shouted, "Who the blazes is calling at this time of night?"

Harry froze with a brass telescope in one hand and a pair of trainers in the other. He had completely forgotten to warn the Dursleys that Dumbledore might be coming. Natalia laughed at him as he clambered over the trunk and wrenched open his bedroom door in time to hear a deep voice say, "Good evening. You must be Mr. Dursley. I daresay Harry has told you I would be coming for him?"

Harry ran down the stairs two at a time, coming to an abrupt halt several steps from the bottom. Natalia followed him and crossed her arms as she leaned on the wall at the top of the stairs. There in the doorway stood a tall, thin man with waist-length silver hair and beard. Half-moon spectacles were perched on his crooked nose, and he was wearing a long black traveling cloak and a pointed hat. Vernon Dursley, whose mustache was quite as bushy as Dumbledore's, though black, and who was wearing a puce dressing gown, was staring at the visitor as though he could not believe his tiny eyes.