After spending the short Easter vacation with Sirius, Harry felt much closer to him than before. Unlike his other self, that was always looking to Hogwarts as a home, he now had a home – the house where he'd spent the vacation with Sirius. He didn't look at returning to school as a salvation from the Dursleys. He now looked at it more like normal children his age: excited to be back with his friends and colleagues, but sad about leaving home. At least Sirius was coming with him. There was another positive point, very positive, really. He was going to spend much more time with Hermione. Despite the long phone conversations, he really missed her. He hoped she missed him just as much.
Harry didn't need to worry. As soon as he arrived at the train station, Hermione tackled him with a fierce hug. "I missed you so much, despite it being only a few days," she told him.
Harry hugged her back. With her in his arms, everything seemed to settle down. Sirius, standing only a few paces away, was so moved by the sweet reunion that he didn't even think of it as teasing material. He was just glad that his godson had such a close friend. It also looked like a certain bet that she'd become much more than a friend in a few years.
\/\/\/
Ron was quite grumpy when they arrived at Hogwarts. Unlike his friends, he stayed there for the short holiday. The Weasley couldn't afford to spend the additional amount needed for four two-way tickets, and he was jealous of those who could afford that. He still tried to act nicely.
"How was your vacation?" he asked the two after they came in.
Harry knew not to sound too enthusiastic. "Alright, I suppose. Sirius needed my help at cleansing his ancestral home from dark magic. Luckily, Hermione was willing to help us. There's still a lot to be done there. We'll probably need to spend some part of the summer vacation just working on it."
Ron grimaced at the thought. "But where did you live, if that place is not fit for living in?"
"Oh, Sirius found a small house in a Muggle neighbourhood. It's not bad, really."
"You should come and stay with me for the summer vacation, then you'll see how a magical house is." On second thought he added, "You too, Hermione."
Harry didn't want to commit. "I don't know what our summer plans are. Sirius was mentioning many possibilities, for once we have that house cleansed, but I'm not sure what he would choose. Besides, my aunt may also have a say in this." In his mind, he added, 'never!'
Ron turned to Hermione. "How was it for you?"
Hermione shrugged. "I spent some time with my parents, but they're so busy with their clinic that I stayed alone quite a bit. I went to London and helped Sirius with that house one day. It was nice learning how to do such stuff."
Ron couldn't comprehend. "You were on vacation! You shouldn't waste it on some more learning!"
She shrugged it away. "For me, it was fun."
\/\/\/
Harry felt as if he was missing something. His older self had some event taking place at the beginning of May, yet he couldn't recall what it was. While this was not one of the high-priority events that he needed to do differently, it was still something he needed to prevent or intervene. He just couldn't remember.
He discussed this with Hermione when they managed to get some privacy. She didn't need long to find the right memory. "Norbert!" she said. "Hagrid won the dragon egg from a stranger in the pub, telling him how to handle Fluffy as a way to show he was good with animals."
She then frowned. "That was probably Quirrell disguised. With him in custody, I doubt Hagrid will get in that kind of trouble."
Harry sighed. "Hagrid may get in trouble on his own. You know how much he likes 'those poor and misunderstood' monsters."
Hermione chuckled. "He really has that tendency. We'll need to keep an eye on him. We may just visit him more often, though. He seems to like such visits very much and we don't really need to study that hard, now that our older selves merged with us."
Hagrid was more than happy to cooperate. Hagrid enjoyed their visits much more than they enjoyed them. They always took Ron with them. The boy didn't want to "waste his time on studies" anyway, so Hermione didn't care if these visits interfered with his potential time for studying. After all, it was Ron's responsibility to keep his grades up, not hers, although she kept reminding him to study.
May passed without anything out of order. Hagrid didn't get a dragon egg and didn't try to hatch it, making Harry glad that it also spared him the detention at the forbidden forest that his other self had to endure.
June brought the end-of-term exams. Both Harry and Hermione were confident in their ability to do well in them. After all, they had the memories of their older selves already. This didn't mean that they didn't rehearse very seriously. Harry felt like it would be a kind of sacrilege if he didn't do his best. His other self had practically sacrificed himself for this chance. He shouldn't allow himself to do less than his absolute best.
Of course, nothing could persuade Ron to do his best for his studies. Ron tried to study with them once, but the intensity of their studies made him uncomfortable. He declined further offers to study together. "I'll study with Dean and Seamus. They seem to study more in my style," he said. Harry understood it as 'They're also wasting their time pretending to study.'
It showed during their exams. While Harry and Hermione found the tests easy and were the first to hand them, although they used to read them over at least once before submitting them, Ron used all the time he could and wasn't always able to even write answers to all the questions. Harry was wondering if Ron would do well enough to even pass most of the tests. In a way, he didn't mind. If Ron was forced to repeat the first year, their friendship would probably end, and knowing how Ron acted to his older self, Harry didn't feel like he wanted Ron to stay a close friend.
\/\/\/
The summer vacation arrived almost too soon. Sirius had already made some plans for the summer, but he still needed to stay at Hogwarts for the first two weeks so he could finish grading all the exams, give final reports and draft the plans for the next year, so that the books list could be sent. He contacted the Grangers to make sure that Harry could stay with them until he was free. They welcomed the idea.
"We still need to work each day and leave Hermione alone at home for most of the day. It would do her good to have a close friend with her," they told Sirius.
Actually, they even discussed plans for later in the summer, plans that Sirius still kept secret from the children. He didn't want to spoil the surprise.
Dumbledore also had certain ideas about Harry's summer vacation. He summoned Harry to his office about a week before the vacation. Harry was actually expecting this.
"I suppose you're going to spend the summer with your relatives," he said conversationally.
Harry nodded. "Yes, I'm going to stay with my guardian. If I'm lucky, I may be allowed to visit some friends."
Dumbledore needed to insist. "Please spend most of the time in their house. It's of utmost importance that you stay there to keep the protection active."
"What kind of protection is that?"
Dumbledore sighed. He didn't really want to give too much information, but the boy needed to know enough to willingly cooperate. "When your mother gave you the protection that saved you from the killing curse, it was something that goes through her blood. Therefore, to continue that protection, you need to keep living with her blood family, and that means your aunt. When you were younger, you stayed there most of the time, so even an extended vacation didn't really change much. Now you're staying at Hogwarts for almost ten months of the year. You must stay there as much as you can to assure the continuation of the protection."
Harry kept arguing. "What kind of protection is that? It didn't protect me from abuse and it certainly didn't help me when I was at school. What do I even need it for?"
Dumbledore preferred to respond to only some of this. "Oh, I'm sure you are exaggerating. They're your family, after all."
Harry didn't relent. "They're my relatives, at most, but they hate me. They used to punish me by denying me food for days, keeping me in the cupboard under the stairs. They only let me out to pee, fearing I would make their house stink. Now, what is that protection and what do I need it for?"
Dumbledore couldn't evade any longer. "You see, when you vanquished the Dark Lord, he didn't completely die. He's still somewhere, waiting for his chance to come back and complete what he had started. That's why you need protection against Voldemort and his followers. Nobody with ill-intent can pass those wards and reach you."
Harry shrugged. "They don't need to. They can just wait for me to come out, to go to school or for shopping or just to the park or the playground. The wards don't reach that far, do they?"
Dumbledore sighed. Why did this child take so much after his mother, asking questions that he didn't want to answer, instead of taking after his father, who used to consider Dumbledore as almost a godly figure? He still needed to answer. "Living with your aunt, your blood relative, also enhances the protection inside you. Judging by your time here, you seem to still need it."
Harry snorted. "Quirrell. I suspect he's directed by Voldemort, maybe even possessed by him." Judging by Dumbledore unconscious shudder, Harry knew he was spot-on.
The old man nodded sagely. "Whatever it was, the protection embedded in you was activated. I suspect you may still need it in the future. That's why you should go and stay with your aunt."
Harry nodded. "I'll stay with my guardian."
\/\/\/
The ride back to London was event-less. Harry was glad to be spared Malfoy's taunting visit. Sirius had already told Harry, "I used my position as head of house Black and the seniority clause in Narcissa's marriage contract to force the Malfoys to discipline their child and make him behave." He then smiled. "I think that Narcissa was quite pleased by my intervention. It looks like she doesn't really appreciate her husband's attitude towards others. While she's still holding to her Black teachings, she's also smart enough to know that such behaviour is not fruitful in the long run."
Both Grangers were waiting at the train station. They hugged Hermione tightly and then turned to Harry, letting Hermione do the introduction. "Mum, Dad, this is my good friend Harry Potter. Harry, my parents – Jean and David Granger. They're both dentists and have their own clinic. Dad prefers to be called Dave."
Harry shook hands with Dave, but Jean just grabbed him in a hug, one very similar to Hermione's hugs. "It's so good to get to know you after reading so much about you in her letters."
Indeed, at Easter, they only met briefly. This time, they would have a better chance to get to know each other.
"Where is your luggage?" Dave asked, seeing Harry with only a small backpack.
"Sirius, that's professor Black – my guardian, will bring it home. He didn't want you to be burdened with another big trunk," Harry replied.
The adults led them to the car, where Harry and Hermione took the back seats. Jean seemed delighted when she saw how Harry helped her daughter in before taking his place. It was a pleasant drive, and not too long, yet by the time they reached their destinations, Hermione's head was resting on Harry's shoulder and both were sleeping. Jean smiled at the lovely scene. Dave looked pensively at them and sighed. His little girl was growing too fast for him.