Everything was not all right. Harry sat on the very edge of the chair with his arms crossed defensively and his toes barely touching the floor. From the other side of the room the Dursleys stared at him.

“Look,” Harry said, trying to sound reassuring, “I know I'm a bit...”

“Freakish?” Dudley supplied from across the room.

“Shorter,” Harry finished, glaring towards his cousin before he remembered he was trying not to antagonize, “But really it's all right.” Dudley, looking anything but reassured, dove behind his father.

“How do we know it's really you?” his aunt demanded, her voice high pitched and suspicious, “And why can't you just change yourself back?” Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“I told you, I need my wand to do any magic,” he explained, yet again. He decided against mentioning that he probably couldn't change back even with his wand.

“Now hear me, you...impostor boy,” his uncle growled, “There will be no talk of...of that stick in this house!”

“Wand!” Harry exclaimed, unable to resist, “Wand,wand, wand!” Then he clamped his jaw shut before he could give in to any other infantile urges. He seemed to be getting a lot of those recently. All three Dursleys ducked backwards at his words, as though he were shouting something very vulgar while wielding a gun. His uncle's face began to turn purple and he took half a step towards him before thinking better of it.

“Tell us something only Harry would know,” his aunt demanded suddenly, her sharp eyes glaring at him. Harry thought for a moment.

“I used to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs,” he supplied at last.

“Ha!” his uncle cried, “Any of you freaks could know that. It was on those freak letters!”

“My favourite colour is green,” Harry offered, trying to think of anything he could say about himself that didn't involve magic. This statement created a hushed conference between the Dursleys. It seemed that none of them knew whether this was true or not.

“Not good enough,” his uncle proclaimed at last.

“It's not my fault you lot know nothing about me,” Harry answered. His uncle considered this. “I'll be gone soon anyway,” Harry continued, “Dumbledore said this was the last summer I have to spend here. You'll never see me again.” His uncle seemed to cheer up slightly, though he still looked suspicious.

“You'll stay in your room,” Mr. Dursley insisted, “You'll keep your freakishness away from us.”

“I won't have the neighbours seeing a strange child in this house,” his aunt added, “And you'll keep away from Dudley.”

“If he keeps away from me,” Harry agreed, sighing. He still didn't have his wand but at least they weren't throwing him out of the house. Even though Voldemort had been dead for over a year now there were still many deatheaters on the loose. This house, even without the blood protection which supposedly dissipated last night at midnight, had an elaborate system of wards that had taken years to weave together. This was, according to Dumbledore, one of the most secure locations in all of England. “No locks this time,” Harry added. Finally, not able to take their stares any longer, Harry stood up. All three Dursleys jumped backwards. Harry ignored them and walked up the stairs.

Back in his room, he listened for a moment to see if they were going to come after him before falling climbing onto his bed. Then he looked over at where his presents were dumped in a heap. They were still too small to be practical. He could always try and experiment with wandless magic, but even as the idea formed he thought better of it. The way his birthday was going so far he would either over enlarge them and crush himself beneath them or he would make them explode. Besides, he wasn't really interested in the presents. He wanted to hear back from Dumbledore.

Feeling suddenly tired, he rolled his head lethargically to the side so that he could look at his calendar. He had one more week until the agreed upon date when he would leave this house forever. Yesterday, there had been nothing more he had wanted. Now, he was suddenly nervous. How would his friends react when they saw him? What if they thought he was just as weird and freakish as the Dursleys? What if he stayed short and strange forever? Harry curled up on his bed, trying hard to stop the tears from coming. He was seventeen years old, he didn't care what age he looked like, he was the saviour of the wizarding world, and he was not going to cry.

He stayed there, curled up on himself, until a loud crack exploded from his doorway. Harry leapt up, twisting automatically for his non-existent wand as he searched frantically for the threat. Seeing no immediate threat within the room, Harry tried to figure out what woke him. The crack resounded through the room and this time Harry recognized the noise of a hammer at his door. He jerked the door open and found Dudley apparently trying to nail his door shut with a board. What Dudley didn't seem to realize was that the door opened inwards and he would need many more boards if he hoped to stop Harry from coming and going. Harry and Dudley stared at each other for a long moment.

“You really are small,” Dudley said at last before driving the nail he was working on the rest of the way into the wall. Harry watched his cousin, feeling very strange. Only yesterday he had about matched Dudley for height, if not in bulk. Today, he felt like he was facing a Hagrid sized man. Harry knew, intellectually, that he was shorter. All of his clothes and the furniture of the house attested to that. But it wasn't until this very moment that Harry really felt small. He really hated that feeling.

“What in heavens!” a shrill voice screeched and his aunt and uncle appeared in the hallway. Now that they were no longer cowering at the other end of a room Harry could truly see how large his relatives were.

“What did you make Dudley do, boy?” his uncle growled.

“I didn't make him do anything!” Harry exclaimed, annoyed, until his uncle marched up to him and towered over him. It was like being a little kid again at the mercy of everyone. Harry shrank back in spite of himself.

“Listen here, boy!” his uncle bellowed, his face large and red as he glared down at him, “I won't have this in my house! I told you to keep away from Dudders; I won't have you contaminate him!”

“He's the one nailing boards in the wall!” Harry yelled back, refusing to be intimidated, or at the very least trying very hard to not show that he was. His uncle's face turned purple in rage and he made a move as though to grab Harry. Harry jumped backwards, his heart racing. His uncle was huge. And it was at this point that everything became very strange.

Harry could taste fear. There was his own of course, the fear of being different, of being a freak, and the very real and sharp fear of being hurt by the raging giant towering over him. Then there was fear outside of himself. He could almost taste his relatives' fear of everything that Harry represented. Harry was the freak, and he was a threat to their well ordered world. This fear radiated off of them and rained down upon Harry, along with darker globs of hatred and disdain. Sharpest was his uncle's anger, a veritable onslaught of emotion that attacked just as viciously as any sword. Harry felt this, all in a matter of seconds, as he found himself suddenly hunched down close to the floor. Instinctively, Harry moved to escape, scrambling away from the threatening rage and diving underneath his bed. It wasn't until he was huddled deeply in the shadows in the farthest corner that Harry realized something was very very wrong. Even more wrong than waking up one morning a shrunken girlish imp.

Harry had run on all fours. Not crawled on his knees or hunched up like a frog but very literally he had run using four equally proportioned limbs. Not only that, but the bed he was now hiding under was small. Even at his smaller size he shouldn't have been able to fit so securely within such a small corner. He should have barely been able to squeeze under the bed at all. Harry had changed again. And this time he was most definitely not human.