(Day One of Hagrid)

"A wizard?"

Harry stared at the Hagrid man in confusion. It must be the fever, he decided, causing the large man to talk out of his head. Wizards weren't real. Wizards were make-believe. Wizards only existed in fairy tales-everyone knew that. Wizards were magical. And there was No Such Thing as magic-Uncle Vernon had said so a hundred times. Or maybe a thousand.

But Hagrid was nodding faintly, his head rocking against the rough wooden floorboards of the Hut.

"Yeh're a Wizard, ‘Arry," he repeated in a rough whisper. "Jes' like yer mum an' dad."

Now Harry knew the poor man was cracked. "My mum couldn't have been a wizard. Wizards are men."

Hagrid bared his teeth in what Harry took to be a pain-ridden grin. "Well, yer mum was a Witch, an' a brilliant one at that. An' very kind, she was. Very kind, indeed."

Harry mulled that over.

Aunt Petunia seldom spoke of her deceased sister, but when she did, it was with disdain and disgust. Probably because-Harry swallowed hard, embarrassed and ashamed at the thought- because his mum had been a ... a drunk. Just like his dad. They were both drunk when his father had crashed the car, leaving them dead and giving baby Harry his lightning-bolt scar.

"But ... but how did YOU know my mum and dad?" Even if Hagrid was wrong about his parents, Harry found it fascinating to finally meet someone besides Aunt Petunia who had actually KNOWN them.

Hagrid's eyebrows rose, or rather, they would have risen if he'd been in an upright position. As it was, they simply slid closer to the open doorway.

"I knew ‘em at Hogwarts, o' course! Students, they were. Both o' them were in th' same year at school together. An' they got married after their graduation, yeh know."

Harry regarded the envelope's seal again. "THIS Hogwarts?"

"Aye. Th' very same."

"And ... and people go here to become witches and wizards?" he asked doubtfully.

"Nah." A weak chuckle meandered from within Hagrid's shaggy beard. ""Nah, they're born- well, SOME people are born magical. No one knows why, exac'ly. It's a gift, magic is. They jes' go t' Hogwarts t' learn how t' USE their magic. How t' control it, see? Th' older a person gets, th' stronger their magic. An' accidental magic can cause all sorts o' problems. Unpredic'able, yeh see. Tha's why they got t' train up. An' Hogwarts is th' bes' place t' do that. It's th' bes' school o' magic in th' whole world."

Biting his lip, Harry began to think back. The weird things that he'd always been blamed for. Things that he KNEW he'd never done. Like turning his teacher's hair blue last year. Like making his own hair grow all the way back long-in just one night!-after Aunt Petunia had practically shaved his entire head. Like ending up on the school's roof a split second after he was SURE Dudley and his gang were going to beat him to a pulp. Like-like making the glass in the reptile exhibit disappear on Dudley's birthday trip to the zoo...

"Accidental magic?" COULD it have been...?

Hagrid bared his teeth again. "Yeh've made things ‘appen when yeh're angry or scared, ‘aven't yeh? Tha's accidental magic, ‘Arry. But when yeh study it at school, yeh learn t' control it an' USE it for specific purposes. Yeh're a Wizard, ‘Arry. Yer name's been on the Headmaster's roster since th' day yeh were born."

Harry's emerald eyes stared at Hagrid.

"A Wizard. I'm. A. Wizard."

"Aye." Hagrid coughed painfully. "Not t' trouble yeh, but is there any water?"

Leaving the envelope and the amazing letter lying on the floor, Harry scrambled to his feet. "There's not much, I'm afraid. We'd been here more than a week, and our supplies were running low. But there are a few water bottles that Uncle Vernon left behind, although they did take all the food with them."

Crossing the room quickly, he leaned down to select an unopened bottle from a cardboard box that had held supplies. He twisted off the cap and knelt at Hagrid's head, helping to steady the groaning man as he half-raised himself to sip at the water. Gasping, Hagrid drank half the bottle

before waving it away.

"Thanks," Hagrid whispered as he lay back down again. "If there's not much water, we'd bes' save wha' we can." His eyelids drooped, and by the time Harry had screwed the top back on the bottle, Hagrid had either lapsed back into unconsciousness or fallen asleep. Harry couldn't tell which.

Half a liter.

Hagrid had drunk half a liter of water.

Harry bit his lip worriedly. They'd run out in no time, if the large man always drank at that rate. They could survive for a while without food, but they HAD to have water, and the Rock had no source of fresh water.

He wandered to the door, staring at the moonlight on the broken surface of the restless sea. The storm clouds were long gone, but the worst was yet to come, if nobody knew to look for him or Hagrid here in the Hut. Water, water everywhere ... but it was all saltwater. They'd dehydrate for sure...

And then, suddenly, he KNEW!

In his mind's eye, Harry could see it as plainly as the day Mrs. Hedgepath had demonstrated. His teacher-the one with the blue hair-had brought a chemistry set to the classroom in his primary school. She had mixed a goodly amount of salt into tap water, stirring it thoroughly until it had dissolved. Each of the students had been instructed to dip a straw into the salty water, then create a vacuum by holding a fingertip over the upper opening of the straw, and finally to taste the bit of salty water lifted up from the plastic cup. They had grimaced at the flavor as it hit their tongues.

Then, Mrs. Hedgepath had poured the saltwater into a glass container from the chemistry set and covered it with a top containing a long glass tube, which led down to an open beaker. She had lit a flame beneath the saltwater container, and in short order they were watching the water bubble, then boil, and the steam rose up and condensed inside the lid thing, finally dripping through the clear glass tube into the glass beaker. At the end, Mrs. Hedgepath had told them once again to dip their straws into the water in the beaker, and Harry and his classmates had experienced the astonishment of tasting fresh water upon their tongues. What had Mrs. Hedgepath called the process of turning saltwater to fresh water? Dis ... dis ... dis-something-or- other. Harry couldn't remember.

But now he KNEW!

He could MAKE fresh water from seawater. He'd just have to improvise a bit.

The large kettle still held a small amount of bottled water in it, which Harry carefully poured back into one of the plastic water bottles. Thankfully, he'd thought to take the kettle off the fire after the Dursleys had left, so the kettle was cool enough to work with, and he set to work fabricating a tube from the sheets of used foil that Petunia had left behind.

It took a bit of doing and redoing, but he finally succeeded in creating a long tube from several sheets of foil. He discovered that the tube was less likely to collapse if he worked with two layers of foil, and he corrected an initial error by reorganizing each section of tubing so that the downwards end fitted INSIDE the next lower section, so that the condensation water would not leak out between the sections.

After carefully fitting the top section of foil over the end of the kettle's spout, and sealing it by pressing the pliable foil as tightly as he could around the spout, he set the kettle over the low fire. The tube's lowermost end led into the top of an empty plastic water bottle set safely away from the flames. The foil tube itself slanted down from the spout, supported on a length of scrap wood, held up by piles of flattish rocks. The setup didn't bear much resemblance to Mrs. Hedgepath's pristine glass chemistry set, but Harry hoped it would do the trick.

Taking half-a-dozen empty water bottles from the trash box, he clambered down the dark path to fill them in the night sea. After twisting the tops back on, he climbed back up to the Hut, three sloshing bottles under each arm. He poured enough saltwater into the top of the steel kettle to fill it, careful not to disarrange the foil tube. He set the remaining bottles of seawater aside to refill the kettle later on. Then he thrust a couple of pieces of dry wood into the low fire, prodding the embers into higher flame.

After adding several more pieces of wood, Harry sat down to wait.

It seemed to take forever.

The small fire crackled, the sea swelled rhythmically against the Rock, Hagrid lay silently, and Harry stared at the empty plastic receptacle at the end of the foil tube.

He stared, and he stared, and he stared.

The kettle had never taken this long to boil when Aunt Petunia was making tea!

But then-

It HAPPENED!

Plink!

A drop!

A single drop of WATER!

A hollow, plasticky "plink", as the drop fell from the end of the foil tube into the waiting bottle.

It was a START!

And that first drop was followed by a second ... and a third ... and a fourth...

Eventually, a thin stream of water was flowing into the plastic bottle. Harry stretched out on the wooden floor, staring closely at the slowly rising level of water in the bottle as if hypnotized. Millimeter by millimeter, the water level rose. Harry grinned.

It really WORKED!

He'd MADE it work!

Finally, when the bottle was nearly three-quarters full, Harry carefully slid it from beneath the foil tube and placed a second empty bottle to catch the continuing distillation.

He stared at the bottle, turning it round and round, admiring the clarity of its contents. The proof, however, remained in the tasting, and he put the mouth of the bottle to his lips.

Harry took a cautious sip.

Oh, YESSSSS!!!

He drank again, relishing the tepid liquid.

He'd DONE it!

Harry Potter had made FRESH water from saltwater!

They could survive, he and Hagrid, for a little bit longer. Long enough that someone MIGHT come looking for Hagrid. If Hagrid had found him, someone else-someone MAGICAL-might find and rescue the BOTH of them.

In the meantime, he just had to concentrate on keeping the fire going, keeping the kettle filled, and refilling water bottle after water bottle with lovely, fresh, life-giving water.

To Harry, his success FELT like MAGIC!

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August 30, 1991

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(Day Two of Hagrid)

Harry had kept the previous day's fire going, repeatedly refilling the kettle with seawater, his makeshift "still" constantly producing a precious trickle of fresh water. After experimenting, he found it was better to keep the kettle at a slow boil, barely above a simmer, since a faster boil caused excess steam to come down the aluminum tube without all of it condensing. Harry did not want to waste the fuel with a too-hot fire; it seemed as if the pile of wood scraps had already shrunk noticeably since the Dursleys had left the Rock. He also kind of wondered about the potential side effects of using the aluminum foil-he'd heard about aluminum causing health problems. But people did wrap food in it, he reasoned on the one hand, and on the other hand, if nobody showed up to rescue them, he and Hagrid would die of starvation long before they had to worry about Alzheimer's and other complications. Right now, the water was more important.

Hagrid's fever continued to burn. Between trips down the rock to refill water bottles, Harry periodically took his T-shirts to the edge of the sea to rinse them out and bring them back to drape over Hagrid. One shirt covered most of the burning skin on Hagrid's face-his forehead and cheeks above his shaggy beard. The other shirt Harry had quickly rinsed of blood, ready to leap back up the rock if a shark's fin suddenly appeared. Now that the gunshot wounds were no longer bleeding, Harry was able to drape the cold, wet shirt over the man's bare torso for a brief cooling before the shirt heated through with the force of the fever.

So had passed the previous day with Hagrid, as well as this second day. Seawater, kettle, fire, fresh water, wet down the T-shirts and repeat.

Harry remained eternally grateful to Mrs. Hedgepath for demonstrating the process to her class. Every time he looked at his own "still", he had to grin. But the effort had proved worth it, because Hagrid gulped an astonishing amount of water whenever he regained a wakeful state. He never mentioned needing to relieve himself, so Harry could only assume that the relentless fever caused Hagrid to sweat out all that water. The irony didn't escape Harry-salty seawater transformed to fresh water, only to turn back to salty sweat water. Life could prove strange at times.

The only activity to break the monotonous round of distilling water and cooling Hagrid was Harry's repeated readings of his Hogwarts letter. And the intriguing supply list. A cauldron? Really? A wand? Wow! An owl, a cat, or a toad?

Harry wasn't too keen on toads and couldn't see how he could control one. He'd seen them in Aunt Petunia's garden, of course, and they were devilishly hard to catch when they went hopping about. As for cats-well, Harry had nothing against cats per se, but Mrs. Figg had had so MANY of them, he'd tired of their constantly treading upon him, shedding upon him, kneading his skinny thighs, and the endless rumble of purring, purring, purring, purring. Not to

mention their fishy breath.

But an owl! THAT would be interesting! Especially if he could have an owl that knew how to deliver post. Not that he had anyone to write to, but just knowing that the option existed would be so exciting.

And that was the other thing-two further owls had shown up at the Hut, one yesterday morning, a few hours after the Dursleys had fled, and another one this morning. Both had carried neatly-rolled-up newspapers in their beaks, not letter envelopes.

In his desperation to send out a plea for help to whoever kept sending delivery owls his way, Harry had attempted to capture the first owl when it flew through the open doorway and landed on the table. It seemed to be looking at him expectantly after dropping the newspaper on the table. It even held out a leg that had some sort of leathery thing fastened to it. Ignorant of Wizarding owls and their ways, Harry had tried to grab the owl in both hands ... and he'd been sharply pecked in rebuke.

The spotted beige owl fluttered to the other side of the table, now appearing to glare at Harry in reproach.

Harry crept carefully around the table, trying to avoid tripping over Hagrid's feet. If Hagrid had been conscious, he might have been able to tell him the best way to catch an owl, but Harry was on his own in the silent Hut.

The owl watched him suspiciously.

Step by cautious step, Harry closed in on the owl, which clicked its beak warningly. When he came within reach, Harry lunged, his widespread hands closing in a flash-on empty air. Remembering the previous sharp pecks, Harry jerked his hands out of harm's way, and the owl uttered a hoot of obvious disapproval.

Another standoff.

And now the owl looked angry.

As Harry rounded the table once more, the owl clicked another warning and flapped its wings.

When Harry paused, the owl settled down and held out its foot with that leather attachment again. The owl blinked at him. And wiggled its foot ... invitingly?

Harry knew he had to be going about this all wrong, but he was clueless as to how to do things right. He knew NOTHING of owls. Except that this one seemed highly intelligent and far wiser than Harry himself.

Slowly, Harry approached the owl with his arms spreading wide again.

The owl put down its foot and hopped in place on both feet, clicking and hooting, almost as if throwing a tantrum of sorts. Unmistakably, this owl was becoming furious.

Sensing it was his final chance, Harry lunged from farther away this time, hoping to catch out the owl. With an angry squawk, the owl pecked his hands and wrists, then flutter-hopped across to the newspaper, which it snapped up in its beak. With a final glare of disgust, the newspaper owl heaved itself off the table and flew out the open doorway, obviously intent upon returning the paper to its source.

Harry had stood there, watching yesterday's owl disappear toward the coastline, overwhelmed with sadness and despair. That owl would surely never come back. He'd lost his last chance to send a message for help.

But today, shortly after dawn, a different owl had come, this one also bearing a newspaper. And, as luck would have it-bad luck, that is-Hagrid had drifted off again after draining two of the water bottles which Harry had stockpiled.

This second owl, quite dark all over, dropped the newspaper on the table and regarded Harry expectantly. Like the first owl, this one also held out a leg with a small leather container attached. What was with the container? Was something in it? Or was he supposed to put something in it? If so, what?

"I don't understand," Harry said to the owl, unsure if it could understand human speech. "I don't know what you want me to do. Can you show me? Can you understand me?"

In response, the owl cocked its head doubtfully, then launched itself off the table and landed upon the unconscious form of the only other Wizard in the Hut.

"Hey!" protested Harry. "He's injured! Be careful of him!"

Unheedingly, the owl began poking and prodding Hagrid's various pockets until it heard a faint, metallic jingle.

RIIIPPPPP...

"No!" Harry shouted. "BAD owl! Don't rip his pocket!"

But by that time, the owl had managed to free Hagrid's coin pouch from his pocket. Harry watched in fascination as the owl jerked the drawstring loose, then upended the pouch to send the foreign coins rolling across the floor. A larger golden coin fell through the crack between two boards, and Harry heard it clink onto the solid Rock just below the Hut.

The owl, however, selected a smaller brownish coin and hopped over to where Harry was kneeling.

"Um ... so, what do I do?"

The owl looked at Harry meaningfully, then raised its leg, cocking its head sharply downwards in a gesture that only Dudley could have failed to interpret.

"You want me to put the coin in the leather thing?"

The owl emitted a muffled vocable and bobbed its dark head.

"Okay. Here goes."

Harry carefully took the coin from the owl's beak and tucked it into the leather container attached to the owl's proffered leg.

"There you go. Now what?"

In response, the owl heaved itself into sudden flight and flapped away through the open doorway.

"NO! WAIT! COME BACK!" shouted Harry, running out onto the Rock. "You have to come BACK! I NEED YOU!"

But the dark spot grew smaller and smaller, as the owl returned to ... somewhere.

Harry stared at the dwindling owl until it could no longer been seen.

Sighing, he finally returned to the Hut.

Maybe, he thought, just MAYBE-Maybe another owl would come tomorrow. If so, he'd be ready. Ready with a note to put in that leather container. Someone would find the note. Someone would send help. Tomorrow. They just had to hang on until tomorrow.

In the meantime, there was a newspaper.

After putting another piece of wood on the fire below the simmering kettle, Harry broke the paper strip binding the newspaper into its tight roll. The strip had "Rubeus Hagrid" written in flowing script, but Harry hoped that the man wouldn't mind terribly.

Unfolding the paper, Harry Potter got his first glimpse into the world from which he had come. And his first shocking discovery lay in the fact that all of the photographs MOVED! "Quirinius Quirrell Assumes Defense Against the Dark Arts Post at Hogwarts" read the caption beneath the

photo of a nervous-looking man in a turban giving a brief, jerky wave to the camera.

A turban?

In Harry's imagination, all wizards wore tall, pointy hats, like they did in children's fairy tales. Why was this fellow wearing a turban, he wondered.

Sipping from his water bottle to help stave off his hunger pangs, Harry began to read each and every article in The Daily Prophet.

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August 31, 1991

(Day Three of Hagrid)

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By midmorning the next day, Harry was sitting morosely, contemplating his third owl disaster in a row. He'd had everything planned so perfectly...

In addition to his usual tasks the previous day, Harry had made a point of fashioning a small supply of blackish ink from charred firewood, the black dust of which he'd scraped into one of Petunia's plastic cups. He mixed it with a tiny bit of water and stirred to create his ink. After trying out several different objects to use in lieu of a pen, Harry finally decided that a used toothpick, with one end slightly flattened by lightly chewing it, worked best, and he set to work drafting his message to send out with the next owl. Provided, of course, that one actually came.

Using a strip of blank paper torn from the edge of a page of The Daily Prophet, Harry carefully inked out:

"To Whom It May Concern: Rubeus Hagrid from Hogwarts, a subscriber to The Daily Prophet, is seriously injured and in need of medical help. We are trapped in the Hut on the Rock in the Sea. The owls know how to find us. Please send help quickly. Sincerely, Harry Potter."

Harry read the message over several times and frowned. He wished he could put more information in, like where the Hut was located, but he'd actually drifted off to sleep in the car, waking only after Uncle Vernon had already made arrangements to rent the Hut. Harry didn't really know even which specific coastline they were off of, except that the sun and moon rose over it, so they had to be west of the shore.

He sighed. Not much to go on. But if mere owls could locate him and Hagrid to deliver letters and newspapers, surely real wizards could find them, too. Right? Shrugging fatalistically, he folded the strip of newspaper into a small square, hoping it would fit into the small coin pouch attached to the newspaper owl's leg. Now, he just had to wait till the morrow...

That had been Harry's perfect plan. And now, early morning on the third day following the Dursleys' precipitate departure from the Rock, Harry walked, yawning, to the Hut's doorway and peered out. The eastern sky was just barely giving off a bit of morning light. If the owls kept to a schedule, the next one should arrive shortly after sunrise.

Wishing that Petunia had at least left some tea bags behind, Harry sat down in the doorway and leaned his head against the weathered wood. As the sun rose, he shielded his eyes from its blinding light, peering past the silhouette of his hand to see if he could spot an incoming owl.

When the newspaper owl finally arrived, it came at least an hour later than the previous two, and it must have flown directly out of the sun's glare, since Harry only realized it had arrived when it swooshed in barely over his head. Scrambling to his feet, he entered the Hut to see a handsome gray owl perched on the table by the rolled paper. The owl chirruped at him, rather cheerfully, Harry thought, and it extended its leg with the coin pouch.

"Okay," said Harry, quietly and soothingly. "I have your payment, but I need you to do me a really huge favor."

The owl blinked at him.

"I need you to deliver a message for me, okay? It's terribly urgent."

Harry approached the owl, holding the tightly-folded square of newspaper in one hand, while he reached for the coin pouch with his other. "Just let me slip this in here..."

In a flash, the gray owl had jerked its leg back and squawked at Harry, ruffling its feathers.

"Hey, easy there, little fellow. Or little lady." He really had no clue how to tell genders apart in owls. "I just need to-OW!"

The owl gave him a sharp peck on the back of his hand.

Harry huffed a bit, and the owl huffed right back, throwing in a yellow glare for good measure.

"Okay," the boy said at last. "We'll try this another way." He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of the brownish coins. "You see? I do have the payment for the newspaper. Just let me put this little slip of paper in the pouch first, and then I'll put in the coin, and then you can fly on your merry way, okay?"

Unbeknownst to Harry, but well-known to the paper owl, was the simple fact that paper owls delivered ONLY newspapers. Regular post owls strictly delivered letters, packages, and other official missives. Privately-owned owls served more of a general purpose, delivering according to their individual owners' personal needs. But paper owls NEVER EVER delivered post, not

even pristine parchment envelopes. As for that ratty-looking square of paper... The paper owl hooted in affronted protest. Even the fact that it was a square of newsprint didn't count!

Harry eyed the gray owl.

The owl eyed the brownish coin.

Harry's green eyes narrowed in concentration.

The owl's yellow eyes gleamed...

Slowly, Harry approached the owl, who stood its ground this time. "See?" He held up the coin. "You'll get this, but only after I put this message into the coin pouch, okay?"

Giving a conceding chirrup, the gray owl extended its leg.

Harry smiled. "Thanks! I knew you'd understand."

As he reached out to put the folded message in the pouch, the owl's head shot forward and its beak snapped the coin from Harry's other hand.

"Wha-"

Giving a muffled hoot of triumph, the gray owl flung itself sideways out of Harry's reach, and it heaved itself into flight with a thumping wingbeat.

"WAIT! COME BACK!"

But it was too late. Bearing the coin in its beak, the newspaper owl zoomed through the doorway and flew shoreward, into the golden morning sun.

Harry sank down onto the rough wooden bench, his jaw still a bit slack with the shock of his plan's having failed. It had been such a GOOD plan, too, he thought despondently. If not for that blasted owl... He couldn't help the sniffle that escaped him then. He was only eleven years old, after all. And he'd tried so HARD. He'd even made fresh water from seawater! But to find himself defeated time and again by mere OWLS... It just wasn't FAIR!

Harry put his tousled black head down on his folded arms on the table and gave in to the urge to cry. He'd never been permitted to cry at the Dursleys', but there was no one here to hear him except Hagrid, and Hagrid was still unconscious.

He cried in despair. They would never get off this Rock. NEVER, EVER, EVER. Hut on the Rock? He snorted a bit hysterically through his tears. More like Hut of No Return, if you asked him. No one would come. No one would find them. Even the boatman hadn't come by, so Uncle Vernon

must have told a convincing tale of some sort.

After a bit, however, Harry's tears slowed, then finally stopped.

Okay, he thought. He was stranded in the Hut of No Return, but he wouldn't give up. He WOULDN'T. He still had to look after Hagrid as long as he could. He still had to make fresh water. And-his eyes fell on the rolled newspaper delivered by the most recent traitorous owl-there was a new issue of The Daily Prophet to peruse. If he was meant to die here in this forsaken Hut, at least he could learn a bit more about the Wizarding world before he gave up the ghost.

Tearing open the binding strip of paper, Harry unfolded the Prophet. Hogwarts was in the headlines again, he saw, this time with moving photos of all of the upcoming year's teaching staff. There was the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore-now THAT fit Harry's mental image of Merlin, he decided. A rather stern-looking Deputy Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, who also apparently taught Transfiguration, whatever that was ... maybe some kind of Wizarding math, like Geometry, maybe? A Charms professor named Filius Flitwick-hmm ... what kind of Charms? Like how to be Charming in social Wizarding company? Herbology-well, that was obvious. Aunt Petunia had a stunning herb garden, thanks to Harry's hard work. And HA!- the teacher's name was SPROUT! That was TOO funny, Harry chuckled. And, ooohh ... THAT professor didn't look as if he'd wanted his picture taken at all. Severus Snape was Hogwarts' Potions Master...

Potions!

Hadn't there been a cauldron on his list of school supplies? Of course! You made potions in a bubbling cauldron! Over a fire! Sort of like ... like the kettle he'd used to distill seawater into fresh water. Like Chemistry. Like Mrs. Hedgepath had demonstrated.

Potions!

Instinctively, Harry knew that would have been his favorite class, if he'd gone to Hogwarts. And this Severus Snape would have been his very favorite teacher. Never mind that the man was scowling a black hole through the front page of the Prophet-with a face like that, Harry wouldn't have wanted his own picture taken, either. And look-while the remaining members of the teaching staff were simply listed as "professors", this Severus Snape bore the title of "Potions Master". MASTER!-Why, he must be the absolute BEST of the lot!

Potions!

Harry could just imagine it! He could just see himself stirring all sorts of weird ingredients into a bubbling cauldron, with the Potions Master passing by his lab table from time to time, nodding approvingly as Harry James Potter invented The-Magic-Potion-That-Saved-The-World!

Wriggling with excitement, Harry stared hard into the obsidian eyes glaring from the newspaper photo.

"I could do it, you know," he whispered, watching the Potions Master's long black hair swinging slightly as he lifted his forbidding chin. "I KNOW I could-with YOUR help."

From behind him, Hagrid emitted a groan. "'Arry? Yeh there? Is there water?"

"Yes, I'm here." Harry laid the Prophet down and fetched several plastic bottles of fresh water. "Here's water. Let me help you sit up."

It took all of Harry's diminishing strength to help lever Hagrid into a semi-sitting position. The feverish man drained bottle after bottle before lying down again with a deep groan.

"They'll come, ‘Arry. Never yeh fear. They'll come..." he sighed as he passed out again.

Harry sighed, too, eyeing the emptied bottles. Best get these rinsed and refilled with seawater to put in the kettle, he thought. And then he'd need to do more cold cloths for Hagrid. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly.

He couldn't help noticing that he was weakening and moving more slowly. He'd gone without food before, but never did he find it pleasant. Harry kept drinking water to fill his stomach against hunger, but without food, his muscles were losing strength. He just had to conserve his energy to last as long as he could. Still, today at least, he was able to continue filling the kettle and the bottles, fueling the fire, and doing his best to cool poor Hagrid, who barely could speak when he managed to regain consciousness.

Harry could only hope that he'd still have enough strength to be able to carry on tomorrow.

As he clambered down the rocky path to refill the bottles with seawater, Harry launched into his newest daydream: One day, he would become a Potions Master himself! Just like Professor Severus Snape, his very favorite teacher at Hogwarts!

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September 1, 1991

(Day Four of Hagrid)

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Shortly before sleeping the night before, Harry had come up with a plan to thwart the next paper owl. When the owl arrived-a smaller, almost golden one this time-he was ready for action. Really, he was glad that this was a new owl instead of any of the previous three. This one wouldn't be suspecting anything untoward. Or so he hoped.

Harry had refolded the note into an even smaller square, one which he hoped would be concealed by the diameter of Hagrid's next-to-last brownish coin. He didn't know what he'd do if he ran out of those brown ones before they got rescued. Did these owls ever make change? Or, if Harry were to tuck a silver or gold coin into the leather pouch, would change arrive with the next paper delivery? How little he understood of this new world and its customs...

But now he shoved all of his questions and speculations aside. The pretty gold owl stood waiting on the table, its leg outstretched.

"Gooood owl," Harry crooned softly. "Verrry good owl."

Immediately, the owl became suspicious. This black-haired boy was almost certainly up to No Good. Most wizards treated owls of all sorts in a matter-of-fact manner, not this slowly- creeping approach as the boy rounded the corner of the table. This boy was obviously Up To Something.

As Harry extended his hand toward the coin pouch, he was holding the folded paper pressed tightly against the near side of the coin with the ball of his thumb, careful to show the owl only the plain metallic surface of the other side of the coin. "Gooood owl," he repeated softly.

The golden owl cocked its head in alarm. This was NOT the normal way in which wizards made payment. Something was Wrong! As the boy's trembling hand came within reach, the owl pecked at it-HARD!

"OW!" yelped Harry, dropping both the folded message and the brownish coin on the rough table. That peck had drawn BLOOD!

Before he could even think beyond the pain, the golden owl had snapped up the coin from the table and flown through the doorway into the foggy morning light.

Foiled again...

Harry rummaged through the trash box and found a nearly-clean paper napkin, which he pressed hard against the wound to stop the bleeding. Another perfectly good plan down the drain. What WAS it with these owls anyway?

At length, the peck wound stopped oozing blood, and Harry discarded the wadded up paper napkin. Hagrid hadn't come to yet, so Harry opened this latest edition of The Daily Prophet, wondering if he'd learn anything more about his would-be favorite teacher, Professor Snape. Sadly, as it turned out, no-not today.

But there were plenty of other stories and articles, including one about the previous day's attempted robbery of a Wizarding bank called Gringotts-something had almost been stolen

from a high-security vault located in the catacombs deep beneath the bank.

CATACOMBS! Harry's eyes popped at the very word!

The Gringotts Goblins-GOBLINS?!-refused to comment on the vault or its contents. However, a grim-looking Albus Dumbledore had been seen conferring with the Head Goblin shortly thereafter, and speculation was rife throughout Diagon Alley that the targeted vault's contents may actually belong to Hogwarts' Headmaster himself.

Harry laid down the newspaper and pulled Hagrid's coins from within his pocket, studying them again. Gringotts must be where people kept their Wizarding money, tended to by Goblins. The coins looked foreign enough, he thought, turning the heavy gold one over and over. A pity that other gold coin had fallen through the crack-it was probably the most valuable of the three types, and undoubtedly the silver coin would rank just below it. And a newspaper was worth a brownish one.

Harry bit his lip, considering.

If he had to use one of the other types of coins, he decided, he'd send a silver one with the paper owl, just in case they wouldn't return change. No sense wasting Hagrid's money unnecessarily. He wouldn't want for Hagrid to be rescued and nursed back to health, only to discover that he'd gone broke to owls while trapped in the Hut!

After checking the solutions to the previous day's puzzle page, Harry realized he'd have to learn a lot more about the Wizarding world to succeed at the crossword. The word search, on the other hand, was simple enough-just find and circle the given words, not that Harry understood "hippogriff" or "wolfsbane" or "petrificus totalus".

Deciding to save the rest of the news for later, he refolded the paper and, sighing, collected the empty bottles to refill with seawater. He felt as if he were dragging rather badly as he descended the Rock to squat down at the edge of the endlessly undulating water. If they weren't rescued soon, Harry realized with a fearful shudder, he would rapidly lose all of his remaining strength. He wouldn't be able to keep on making fresh water. Accustomed as he'd been to going hungry at the Dursleys', his punishment of "no meals" was usually accompanied by "stay in your cupboard". He had never had to expend this much energy while going without food-not this up-and-down-the-Rock, carrying full bottles, carrying cold cloths for Hagrid, trying to outwit owls...

Harry Potter, age eleven, was near to total exhaustion.

He had just one more idea to outmaneuver tomorrow's owl. If that failed, he might just have to give up entirely.

The boy seemed to crumple for a moment. Then, his chin went up. He wouldn't give up-he

WOULDN'T! Not as long as he had ANY strength. Hagrid had said "they" would come-he had to keep Hagrid alive, even if he couldn't get a message to go out with any future owls. He had to keep faith in being rescued. Hagrid hadn't given up, and neither would Harry.

Harry put one heavy foot in front of the other, step by heavy step, as he climbed back up the Rock to the Hut of No Return.

After refilling the kettle and fueling the fire, he rested a bit, then took an easier out and soaked Hagrid's cloths with seawater from one of the extra bottles. It would save him one immediate trip back down the Rock. As he laid the cold T-shirts back over Hagrid's face and torso, the large man groaned, but he did not wake. Harry had no idea of how long Hagrid could last. Certainly, he'd had a sturdy constitution before getting hit by Vernon's shotgun blast. He should actually be dead already, shouldn't he? After getting shot like that? For some reason, though, Hagrid still breathed. And Harry just had to try to keep him alive.

Deciding to conserve his strength as much as possible, Harry spent most of the day stretched out on the sofa, reading and rereading the copies of the Prophet. Inevitably, he always returned to the photo of Severus Snape, Potions Master. Harry would hold the Prophet up, envisioning that Professor Snape was standing in front of the brightly-lit Potions classroom at Hogwarts, instructing Harry and his classmates how to make-hmm...

In fairy tales, Harry had heard of "Love Potions", but he didn't know how they worked. If he spiked Dudley's ice cream with a Love Potion, would he fall in love with the next girl who walked by? Would she slap Dudley's face if he tried to kiss her? Or, would the Love Potion cause Dudley to attract girls in spite of themselves? Would Dudley run his out-of-shape self to death trying to escape a female stampede raging up and down Privet Drive?

Harry giggled at the ridiculous image he'd conjured up.

And what sorts of Potions could he invent to use on Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia? Or even Aunt Marge-now THERE was a thought! Giggling with evil glee, Harry launched himself into a new daydream involving cauldrons, bubbling potions, and a smiling Severus Snape patting him approvingly on his shoulder...

Shortly before sunset, Hagrid awoke and drained several bottles of fresh water. Harry did make two tiring trips down the Rock this time as a coppery twilight fell over the sea. He had to refill enough bottles to keep the kettle going all night, and he took Hagrid's cloths along on the second trip, slinging the cold wetness across his own shoulders as he slogged his way back up the path with bottles also tucked under his thin arms.

After tending to Hagrid, Harry settled on the floor near the fire, hoping the warmth would dry the seawater which had soaked through his own T-shirt before he took a chill. The breeze had picked up, causing the Hut to rattle and shake.

As evening deepened into full night, Hagrid himself seemed restless, though Harry couldn't tell whether it was due to fever or the noisy banging of loose boards around the Hut. At one point, Hagrid actually began to thrash about, and Harry crawled forward to place a comforting hand upon his brow.

"There, there, Mr. Hagrid," Harry crooned, in much the same tone he'd used upon the golden owl. "It's okay."

Hagrid seemed to quiet for a moment, then, without warning, one of his meaty hands blindsided Harry, knocking his glasses flying across the interior of the Hut. Harry knew it was an accident-Hagrid was barely conscious, after all. But, oh, that had HURT, he thought, pressing his fingers to his throbbing right temple. And WHERE were his glasses?

By the dim light of the fire, Harry began to search, his heart sinking when he located HALF of his glasses. The frames, previously broken by Dudley during one of his infamous "Harry Hunts" with his gang, had been taped together across the nose. Hagrid's inadvertent blow had knocked the frames apart once amore. Sighing, trying to hold back useless tears, Harry continued to crawl around the floor of the Hut, feeling every square inch of the grimy wooden boards.

Finally, he thought he spotted a blurry reflection of flickering firelight lurking under the table. He reached forward, capturing the flicker of gold, and yes! He'd found the other half of the frames, the side with the strip of adhesive tape still dangling from the nosepiece. Hopefully, he'd be able to fix them back, since both lenses were undamaged.

As he sat crosslegged under the table, Harry tried to fit one side of the nosepiece into the tiny hole in the middle of the overlapping curl of tape. If he could just squeeze everything together HARD enough, it might just stick...

A slight noise, separate from the usual noises of the shaking Hut, distracted his efforts, and Harry's unfocused gaze sought Hagrid's large form, which seemed to have calmed down. Perhaps he had lost consciousness again, Harry mused.

And then-he realized that someone was standing in the open doorway of the Hut. Uncle Vernon?

Harry held the two halves of his glasses together over his eyes, which widened enormously in wonder as he stared at the figure silhouetted against the rising moon...

A tall man, far too lean to be Uncle Vernon, stood cautiously, the illusion of bulk provided by long black robes billowing in the sea breeze. His shoulder-length ebony hair blew across his face momentarily, and while his left hand swept his hair aside, his right hand extended into the dimly-lit Hut, pointing a short stick of some sort toward the shadowed corners of the room.

"Lumos..." drifted quietly to Harry's ears as the tip of the man's stick lit up, bathing the room

with a bluish glow of light.

Harry's heart thudded hard against his ribs.

THIS, he knew-THIS ... was a WIZARD!