Emma Potter; Going to War

2: Dudley and the Dementors

We were in trouble now and we knew it. We would have to face our aunt and uncle later and pay the price for his rudeness, but we did notcare very much just at the moment; we had much more pressing matters on our minds. 

I was sure that the cracking noise had been made by someoneApparating or Disapparating. It was exactly the sound Dobby thehouse-elf made when he vanished into thin air. Was it possible thatDobby was here in Privet Drive? Could Dobby be following us rightat this very moment? As this thought occurred I wheeled around andstared back down Privet Drive, but it appeared to be completely deserted again and I was sure that Dobby did not know how tobecome invisible. . . . 

We walked on, hardly aware of the route we were taking, for we hadpounded these streets so often lately that our feet carried us to our favorite haunts automatically. Every few steps we glanced back over our shoulders. Someone magical had been near us as we lay among AuntPetunias dying begonias, we were sure of it. Why hadn't they spoken to us, why hadn't they made contact, why were they hiding now? 

And then, as my feeling of frustration peaked, my certainty leakedaway.

 Perhaps it hadn't been a magical sound after all. Perhaps we were sodesperate for the tiniest sign of contact from the world to which webelonged that we were simply overreacting to perfectly ordinary noises.Could we be sure it hadn't been the sound of something breaking inside a neighbor's house?

 I felt a dull, sinking sensation in my stomach and, before I knew it, the feeling of hopelessness that had plagued me all summerrolled over me once again. . . . 

Tomorrow morning we would be awoken by the alarm at five o'clock so that we could pay the owl that delivered the DailyProphet — but was there any point in continuing to take it? Harry and I merely glanced at the front page before throwing it aside these days;when the idiots who ran the paper finally realized that Voldemort wasback it would be headline news, and that was the only kind I cared about.If we were lucky, there would also be owls carrying letters from our best friends, Ron and Hermione, though any expectation we had hadthat their letters would bring us news had long since been dashed. 

"We can't say much about you-know-what, obviously. . . ." "We've beentold not to say anything important in case our letters go astray. . . .""We're quite busy but I can't give you details here. . . ." "There's a fairamount going on, we'll tell you everything when we see you. . . ." 

But when were they going to see us? Nobody seemed too bothered with a precise date. Hermione had scribbled, "I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon" inside my birthday card, but how soon was soon? Asfar as I could tell from the vague hints in their letters, Hermioneand Ron were in the same place, presumably at Ron's parents' house. I could hardly bear to think of the pair of them having fun at theBurrow when we were stuck in Privet Drive. In fact, we were so angry atthem that we had thrown both their birthday presents of Honeydukeschocolates away unopened, though we had regretted this after eatingthe wilting salad Aunt Petunia had provided for dinner that night. 

Luckily- Even though Harry was extremely reluctant-- I had chocolates from my friends Zoe and Nicholas, as well as cakes from my boyfriend-Draco. 

Though Harry didn't know that he was my boyfriend

Anyway, what were Ron and Hermione busy with? Why wasn't we busy? Hadn't we proved ourselves capable of handling muchmore than they? Had they all forgotten what we had done? Hadn't itbeen we who had entered that graveyard and watched Cedric beingmurdered and been tied to that tombstone and nearly killed . . . ? 

Don't think about that, I told myself sternly for the hundredthtime that summer. It was bad enough that I kept revisiting the graveyard in my nightmares, without dwelling on it in my waking momentstoo.