HP8 (On Hold)

Next Stage

Harry was quite relieved when Kreacher appeared out of nowhere to inform him that his owl had arrived with a message, and was waiting for him in the kitchen.  Harry had spent several hours trying unsuccessfully to work out what the future might hold for him and what his next move should be, he just didn’t know what he was going to do, or what he would be able to achieve. 

Harry found his new owl perched on one of the cupboards, as soon as Harry entered the kitchen, it swooped down and landed on his shoulder, giving his ear a nip in greeting. 

Reaching up Harry stroked the owl, he then removed the message tied to its leg. 

Opening it, Harry glanced at the end of the scroll, noticing it had been sent from Ginny, His heart racing a little faster Harry read the message.

        Harry, arrived home, Mum wasn’t too happy with the time I returned but accepted that we had         been up late, so had a lie in. Mum wants me to ask you if you and the others are coming back to         the burrow today, and if yes will you want food.  Don’t think I will be allowed to return to you         today, Mum has already got me doing a bundle of chores, what a mess that party left.  Also there         are masses of letters here addressed to you. 

        Once again just want to thank you for last night and this morning, you have made me very         happy. 

        Ginny xXx

Harry hadn’t thought about the rest of the day yet, and he would need to check with Ron and Hermione to find out there plans before replying, but he didn’t want to disturb them, he would rather wait until they came to find him.  He also wondered what the letters could be about. 

Harry walked over to the pantry, opening it he found some nuts, he put these on a plate, and then put the plate back on top of the cupboard his owl had been perched on earlier.  With a hoot, the owl took off from his shoulder and landed by the plate, reaching down to feed on the nuts. 

Harry sat down at the kitchen table, a bit of a loss at what to do, his thinking hadn’t been very productive so far, so he switched his thoughts to other activities he could do, with Hermione away and maybe Ron as well, he would have plenty of free time, as Mrs Weasley would certainly keep Ginny busy, limiting the amount of time she might be able to spend with him. 

Now that Harry could Apparate, he could go almost anywhere he wanted, he could visit anyone or any place he chose, but the problem was deciding on somewhere or someone he wanted to visit. 

With a quill and a scroll of parchment, he started writing a list of all of those people he knew, the list grew longer, but there wasn’t anyone he particularly cared to visit. 

Suddenly he realised that the majority of the people on the list were students of Hogwarts, he hadn’t thought about anybody older, and once he thought about it there was someone he did want to see, Hagrid the gamekeeper at Hogwarts had been a good friend to Harry ever since he had known him. 

And thinking of the past, he realised there were some other people he needed to see, he wasn’t particularly sure he wanted to, but felt it was his duty to.  The Dursely’s, the family who had taken him in as a child when his parents had been murdered by Voldemort, although they had never treated him well, and he had never loved them, they had been forced to leave their home because of him, he felt he owed it to them to visit and explain what had happened, he assumed that they had now been allowed to return home. 

Cheered by the thought that he finally had some sort of plan of things to do, he started to work out the best times and days to make his visits.  He couldn’t go today, one there was too much already going on to leave at this time, and secondly, it would be best to visit the Dursely’s on a weekend, otherwise Uncle Vernon would be at work, of all the Dursely’s his Uncle was the one he least wanted to see, but as he was the head of the house Harry thought he better make sure he was home before he visited.