Now Hermione looked at him incredulously. Harry never asked about food; he normally forgot about mealtimes unless someone reminded him. "Yeah, mate! Mum and the others are waiting in the kitchen, they just wanted to give you some space to settle in," Ron grinned and led the way out of the room.
Harry did actually quietly groan when he took in the kitchen that was completely filled with people. All the Weasleys were there except for Charlie and Percy, Remus and Sirius were there of course, there was a younger woman with spiky pink hair, the real (hopefully) Mad-Eye Moody, and Snape seemed to be trying to hide in the corner. After hugs from a sea of redheads, Harry was seated at a table that was filled with overflowing bowls of food.
Harry was never hungry anymore and nothing had any taste at all. Fortunately, eating didn't cause any nausea, so he just had to force the food down to keep his suit alive. So, since nothing tasted good anyway, he piled his plate with only the healthiest options, making sure he had some green vegetables, some protein, and very few carbohydrates. The twins immediately started ragging on him about which girl he was trying to impress by getting in better shape, to which Mrs. Weasley slapped them both on the back of the head lightly with her wooden spoon.
"You two could learn a little from Harry and eat more vegetables," she scolded the unrepentant duo.
"Why do you look blurry?" Mad-Eye Moody bluntly accused from where he was sitting diagonally across from Harry.
Harry almost panicked at the question. He'd forgotten Mad-Eye's magical eye. "Erm, what do you mean, blurry?" He stalled.
The retired auror stared at him, causing his skin to crawl most unpleasantly. "I don't know, boy. I've never seen the likes…you look out of focus," he said with an irritated huff.
"Maybe you need to get your eye checked," Snape finally spoke up from where he was still sitting in a shadow. "The boy has been stuck in the muggle world for two months. What could he have done to mess with your eye?"
Harry gaped at the man. Sure, Snape didn't know he was saving him, but Harry could have hugged the dungeon bat then and there. Of course, everyone would know something was wrong with him then. "Er, yeah, just a normal summer," Harry added on at the end trying to not show his relief at the save.
Moody continued to mutter to himself until everyone was distracted by Dumbledore's appearance at the door. After Dumbledore's quick greeting to Harry, the dementor completely zoned out on the conversation. Dumbledore was wearing the brightest robes he had ever seen in a dark purple with twinkling silver stars all over it. The stars transfixed Harry's eyes. They were so beautiful. If he could only touch a star, maybe have the robes to hang on his wall…yeah, he could look at it every day then. He could then cut out a star and put it in his pocket to pull out anytime he wanted to see it…
It took calling out his name three times and Hermione tugging on his sleeve before Harry realized people had been talking to him. "Huh?" He asked dazedly, trying to pull his eyes away from the wonderful stars. Apparently, dementors liked shiny things…a lot.
"I asked if you'd had any more visions of Voldemort, my boy?" Dumbledore said with a chuckle. "Do you like my robes? They're new?" The headmaster gave a little spin, causing the stars to blur together a bit and shine brighter.
Harry had to tear his gaze away and literally sat on his hands to keep from reaching out for the fabric. "Er, yeah. Your robes are really nice. I like the stars," he said lamely, trying not to gush as non-dementor Harry would never have loved robes such as the ones the headmaster was wearing. "And no, I haven't had any visions, sorry." Actually, since his soul was sucked out of his body, he'd had no visions, dreams, or even scar twinges. It seemed that the connection he had with Voldemort was completely gone. He vaguely wondered if he could still speak to snakes.
It didn't take long before the Order members shooed the teens off to bed to have their meeting. As Harry said he would earlier, he went without protest. He knew he would have been angry to be left out of things a month before. He was angry a month before. Now though, the farther he could be from the action, the longer he could avoid Azkaban he reasoned.
"Those robes really were something else, weren't they?" Ron laughed as they both fell into their beds. "I can't believe the most powerful wizard in our world has fashion sense like that!"
"Yeah," Harry agreed and made a mental note to watch himself around shiny things in the future. It seemed his dementor couldn't be trusted to keep his hands to himself when presented with pretty objects.
Ron was asleep within half an hour. After a couple snores sounded out into the room, Harry peeled himself away from his body and watched as it fell into sleep peacefully. He looked around the room with his dementor eyes and decided that it was definitely that part of him that liked the house. It was almost like he could see better with the aura of the house surrounding him. It soothed his emotions and calmed his anxiety somewhat. Ron didn't seem to be affected by Harry being outside of his body any, and the man from the portrait was not in residence at the time, so Harry took a minute to check over his body some and make sure everything looked all right.
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