Second Chances

Chapter One - The return

The house Harry had once begrudgingly called home was gone. Its once perfect lawn was patchy and brown with dying grass. Aunt Petunia's flower beds had been ripped from the soil and the house was crumbling away.

The house bore resemblance to the one in which his parents had been killed in such that there was one room that seemed to have bared the most destruction. His room. 

Harry rested a hand on the gate and pushed it open. He was alone, although Ron and Hermione had begged to go with him. After all, he was in no grave danger anymore.

The window the left of the door was blown open and Harry recognised the once flower bed that he had once laid under trying to catch any sort of word of the wizarding world from the muggle news the summer before his fifth year.

The door was off its hinges and half blown to pieces as though the death eater that had raided it had not even bother to preform a simple unlocking charm. It seemed the death eaters did not care how much muggle attention  they drew to themselves.

Harry stepped over splintered wood of the door and into the house. The house was no longer as scrupulously clean as Harry always remembered it. There was no longer a door to the cupboard under the stairs which Harry had called his bedroom up until he went to Hogwarts, seven years ago. Shattered frames holding still photos of Dudley on a bike, Dudley on his first day at school and Dudley with his aunt Marge, lay on the ground, the glass crunching under Harry's footsteps.

He stepped into the kitchen which was the least ransacked room of the house, although smashed mugs, bowls and glasses lay on the ground. The Dursley's flat screen TV lay in pieces on the floor of the living room and drawers of paperwork had been wrenched open and papers littered the floors. Harry saw that his Hogwarts letter lay among them. He guessed Aunt Petunia had caught one when their house had been attacked by owls trying to get his Hogwarts acceptance letter to him.

The last time Harry had seen his aunt, she had shed a single tear and showed him that she actually did miss his mother, her sister, just as much as he did.

Harry cautiously made his way to his bedroom, wand at the ready to preform a hovering charm if the stairs gave way. They didn't and soon he was crossing the hall and opening his bedroom door.

He let out a deep breath and stared. A wall had been blasted completely into oblivion, his bed seemed to have been set on fire along with the rest of his possessions. His eyes lay on year old Daily Prophets and pages of burnt, old schoolbooks. The death eaters however, had not found his hiding place under his bed, under a loose floorboard. The floorboard was charred and crumbled as he pulled it to reveal his hiding spot. Here lay  stacks of old letters from his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, a happy birthday card from his teacher and friend, Rubeus Hagrid and lastly a stack of letters from his late Godfather, Sirius Black.

With careful and trembling hands, Harry picked up the letters and gripped them tightly. He had what he came for and would have left straight away if it hadn't been for the owl that swooped into the room.

Bewildered, Harry made his way over to the large Tawny owl and untied the parchment scroll from its talons. He clumsily sat on the breakaway floor of his bedroom as the owl swooped out of the room.

The scroll had the unmistakable seal of the Hogwarts logo. What was Hogwarts doing writing to him? Last time he checked, he had dropped out. He sliced open the wax seal with a broken shard of glass and unrolled it.

Dear Mr Potter,

We are writing to inform you that your attendance at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry would be advised if you still aim to be an auror.