Harry Potter and the Triangle Prophecy by Barb (Part 1 of 2)


Chapter One

Shelter



In all traditions, the roof represents the essential
element of shelter, and once the frame of a roof
exists the shape of a building comes clear.....for
centuries builders have fastened small trees or
evergreen boughs or flowers...to the ridges of
newly framed roofs....Having taken wood from
the tree, builders bring the tree back to the wood.
The tree becomes the house, and in ceremony,
the house becomes the tree.

Tracy Kidder, House



Time had lost all meaning for Harry Potter. He was about to live through what would undoubtedly be the longest month of his life. In one month he would be seventeen. It might as well be one century away, he thought. Normally, he spent the summer marking off days on a homemade calendar counting down to the first of September, when he would be able to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but now he had a nearer goal, which, in spite of that, seemed far more elusive than his return to school usually did.

Although non-magic teenagers might normally be counting down to their seventeenth birthdays because it would mean the opportunity to finally have a driver's license, Harry was counting down to this day because he would be of age in the wizarding world. He would no longer have to worry about avoiding doing magic outside of school. He could begin learning to Apparate. He could even vote for the Minister of Magic, if a vote was held. (There hadn't been a vote in the last sixteen years, as far as he knew. Harry almost wished there would at least be a vote of no-confidence, but he wasn't sure what the point would be, as the only person people wanted to be Minister, other than Fudge, was Albus Dumbledore, who preferred to be the headmaster of Hogwarts.) Right before his birthday he would be leaving the Dursleys forever and going to live with his godfather, Sirius Black, in Scotland. Although he was definitely looking forward to that, it was the birthday he was really anticipating.

Naturally, having all of these things to look forward to meant that each twenty-four-hour day felt more like twenty-four years. In the short time he'd been home he thought he would go mad from the waiting. Plus, in addition to the usual daily verbal abuse he had to tolerate from his aunt and uncle (and their annoying little Yorkshire terrier, Dunkirk, who hated Harry with a passion) was the fact that they had decided to use the last month of his tenure with them to squeeze as much free labor out of him as possible. It had begun on his third morning back from school.

Harry had risen early to go running as usual, having dashed out of the house just clear of the snapping jaws of the highly-annoyed terrier. While he made a circuit around the park, he noticed with interest that there was a large tent erected in the middle of the green, near the artificial lake that was created with funds raised by the Royal Gardening Society of Little Whinging, of which his aunt was recording secretary (she'd been angling for president for years, with no luck, as Agnes Bringhurst kept successfully campaigning against her). The tent was very large and white, with mesh "windows" giving one the impression that you could put your hands through the openings. When Harry peered through one of these, he saw two men in jumpsuits setting up white folding chairs in neat rows with an aisle down the centre. The chairs faced a dais with a handful of chairs looking back at the audience. The dais was skirted in white, so the supports weren't visible.

Must be a wedding, he decided. It was the end of June, after all. He looked up at the blue cloudless sky. The wedding party was overcompensating for the weather; if they had thought that they'd guarantee clear skies by ordering a tent, it seemed to have worked. (Although his aunt and uncle were adamant that the word "magic" not be uttered in their house, they were absolutely convinced that carrying an umbrella was a fool-proof charm against rain. Harry knew that they were hardly alone in this very common Muggle superstition, yet people carried umbrellas in Britain almost all the time and it rained quite a lot.)

Harry turned away from the tent and immediately collided with a very familiar person who was panting heavily. He hadn't realized this person had walked right up to the tent and was also peering in the mesh window. Harry frowned. He had last seen him on the platform at King's Cross, and had not been looking forward to seeing him again so soon.