The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Chapter Six
Harry stared at Mrs. Weasley and he felt the beginnings of hope stir.
"What are you doing here at two clock in the morning?" he asked back.
"I came to make sure you're okay," she said still in that loud whisper. "You are, aren't you?" she asked anxiously.
Harry crossed his arms and said, "I'll be fine if I get to get out of here." Unable to disguise his eagerness, he said hurriedly, "You did come to get get me didn't you? And where's Ron? Didn't anyone else come, too?" Mrs. Weasley immediately looked guilty.
"He doesn't know I've come," she answered. Then before Harry could ask any more questions she launched into her own. "What were you doing? Don't you have enough sense not to do major magic in a Muggle neighborhood the first moment you turn seventeen? What were you thinking? They were going to send you another warning at the Ministry until Arthur realized it was your birthday and stopped them. And then you stroll in here at two o'clock in the morning and I can tell you've been drinking. What on earth can have possessed you?.."
The moment she paused for breath, Harry cut in. "I haven't been "drinking," he answered. "I had one beer. And I wasn't planning on doing any magic, I had to." He was starting to feel quite irked again. "And anyway, how come I'm the only one that anyone ever notices doing magic outside school? I mean, how often did Fred and George do stuff on the holidays and no one ever warned them or anything. And for that matter..."
"What do you mean you had to?" Mrs. Weasley asked. "There weren't dementors again?"
"No," Harry answered. He felt frustration boiling up. So no one would have come if he hadn't done enough magic to get their attention. He thought with disappointment that he'd just have to take matters into his own hands and leave on his own. They couldn't stop him either now that he was of age.
As if she were following his thoughts, Mrs. Weasley said with alarm, "Tell me what happened, Harry. You worry us all."
Immediately, Harry felt guilty. Absently, he put on the desk light so he could see Mrs. Weasley's face better and told her the whole story. He spilled the crystal and the wand out onto the bed so she could see them and said, "So you see, I had to do something. I couldn't let it go or else someone might have been hurt. And I had no idea how to contact anyone at the Ministry or anyone so they could come fast enough to deal with it."
"But, how did you break the curse? You haven't had that in your classes yet, have you?" Mrs. Weasley wanted to know. "And what did you do with the knife anyway?"
"We had it a little last year," Harry reminded her. "But not enough to help. I couldn't break the curse so I had to destroy the knife altogether. That's why it's not here." Harry stared at Mrs. Weasley and added, "I don't understand why you're here, anyway. If the Ministry were on this, why didn't they come? Why didn't Mr. Weasley come?"
"They did come," she answered. "They checked here first and then tracked the magic to a Muggle house up the street. Only when they went in, you had gone and there were only a few Muggle teenagers having some sort of party and so drunk they seemed to think it was Christmastime." Harry felt guilty again.
"Erm...yeah," he admitted, "They got confused cause I had to obliviate them. I couldn't leave them remembering that they had seen anything more than a few parlor tricks by Dudley's friends."
"And since when do you know how to do a memory spell, Harry Potter? You could have..you could have..." Harry waited for Mrs. Weasley to calm down. He winced, thinking that she would surely wake Uncle Vernon and how he was going to explain this he couldn't imagine. "Well?" she said.
"I learned it by watching Professor Lockhart, didn't I? And from watching the obliviators do the spell on the Muggle attendants at the World Cup. It isn't hard really."
"It isn't..." Mrs. Weasely looked as though she would start yelling for real, so he said, "Shh! You'll wake Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and they'll have a fit."
"No, they won't," Mrs. Weasley, answered. "They already had a fit the first time around and I had to put a sleeping charm on them. They won't wake up until early in the morning and they won't remember anyone was here." Before Harry could say anything about that astonishing piece of information, Mrs. Weasley started again. "And what were you doing at a Muggle party like that?" she asked with disapproval. "I've read about those wild Muggle parties. What were you doing there in the first place?"
"Well, Dudley dragged me there, didn't he," Harry said sullenly. Not only was he not getting out of Privet Drive, he was getting lectured for being stuck there in the first place.
"I thought you don't get along with him," Mrs. Weasley said suspiciously.
"I don't," Harry answered. "But he's got this notion in his head that Voldemort is going to attack him or Aunt Petunia any second and that I have to be on hand to be his bodyguard just in case." He stared at Mrs. Weasely and saw that she was looking alarmed again at the mention of Voldemort.
"And I can't really blame him, can I?" Harry added wearily. "He did attack Aunt Petunia at the station, didn't he? I suppose it's only a matter of time before he starts going after everyone, isn't it? I suppose he'll think he can flush me out that way." He stared at Mrs. Weasley and said, "I'm dangerous to know. I guess that's why Dumbledore makes me stay here. I guess you'd better go, too, before he figures out you've been my friend and goes after you like he did Sirius." Mrs. Weasely looked like she wanted to cry.
"That's not..." she started to say, but Harry cut her off.
"It is true," he answered, "and you know it. You're in the Order. You know more than I do what's going on." He looked at her again. "I suppose that's how you knew what was going on. Mr. Weasley must have warned you about the trouble and you were the one on duty, right?" She didn't bother to deny that. Harry watched her struggle with her affection for him and her orders from Dumbledore.
Finally, she said quietly, "We won't make you stay here the whole summer. Dumbledore just wants to be sure things are safe enough for you to leave here and to make arrangements for you to have safe transport out."
Harry felt a burst of pleasure at that. "I can, really?" She nodded, looking quite relieved.
Then Harry thought again, and the happiness died. "On second thought," he said, trying not to let his unhappiness show, "Perhaps I had better just stay here all summer. Then no one will be in danger, as I'm protected here somehow."
"That won't be necessary," Mrs. Weasely said firmly. "Dumbledore has some things that he wants you to do this summer anyway. Before you go back to school."
She looked at him with anxious concern again and said, "Oh, I don't want you here with these awful people. I can tell they're not feeding you right. You're still too thin and you don't look well."
Harry summoned up a smile and said, "I'm fine, and really I am." And now that he knew his stay with the Dursleys wasn't going on forever, he did feel much better.
The next morning, it was Uncle Vernon's fist pounding on the door that woke him and the bellowing of his voice. "Up, boy," Uncle Vernon roared. "Marge is coming! I won't have lazy, good-for-nothing wastrels in my house. Get up!"
Harry groaned and stuck his head back under the covers, but once again, the tapping on his window of the post owl from the Daily Prophet made him rise, where his Uncle's bellowing voice could not. He handed a knut to the brown owl and scanned the front page with anxiety. The headline started his heart going pitter-patter and then thud-thud and his hands shook as he read.
Attack on Muggle Store the Work of You Know Who?
At just before dawn this morning, a number of hooded and masked men attacked the venerable Muggle store known as Harrods. The Department of Ministry was alerted to the attack within minutes of its commencement as Ministry aurors detected the presence of magic in this unlikely place. Several aurors arrived in time to witness the attackers blow out the store's windows with dark spells. Although no Muggles were actually killed, the attackers left behind a message indelibly inscribed on the remaining portion of plate glass windows. The message read: "Lord Voldemort has Risen."
Harry stared at the paper and forced himself to read the remainder:
Muggle authorities have assured the public that this is the work of a small group of mad terrorists who will be caught shortly. Minister Fudge has asked all wizards to stay calm as he is of the firm belief that this is the work of a few disgruntled Death Eaters who cannot admit that You Know Who died last spring.
Harry scanned the rest of the paper and sure enough, there was an editorial. Interestingly, it seemed the paper was not going to push Fudge's line forever. The editorial was short and to the point.
Minister Fudge Fudges Again!
The Daily Prophet says to the Minister:
Shame on you for trying to fool the wizarding public with the same cover up twice. The Daily Prophet supported the Minister two years ago when he denied that You Know Who had returned. Much to our dismay, we learned that He Who Must Not Be Named had returned while all of us but Albus Dumbledore slept.
This time, the Dark Lord has returned once more and the wizarding public must be on its guard as this morning's events show. And it is time for the wizarding public to wake up and look for new leadership to defend itself against the newly risen menace of He Who Must Not Be Named. Who will lead us in these dark times? Who will fight this menace?
Harry felt terror strike as he realized that Voldemort had now broken outside of all bounds of caution and secrecy. What would Voldemort do, he wondered, to achieve his goals? How far would he go now? He threw down the paper and bounded down the stairs three at a time and snagged the morning paper before anyone else could get at it.
Uncle Vernon tried to grab it from him, but Harry simply snarled, "Let go, or I'll hex you!" Uncle Vernon turned pale and then red and said,
"He's gone mad. I always knew he would. He's got to go Petunia! He's got to go!"
"What the devil does he want that paper, anyway?" Uncle Vernon roared. Harry ignored him and opened the paper with shaking hands. It was there, right on the front page. "Terrorist Attack on Harrods" was the bold headline. He scanned the article and found that it agreed with the Daily Prophet except for one essential, there was no mention of wizards or even the method of attack. But the paper did confirm that the message said simply "Lord Voldemort Has Risen." The article speculated that the attack was the work of some mad fringe group with anti-capitalist tendencies.
Being deprived of his morning paper, Uncle Vernon had now lost his temper entirely, and he seized the paper back from Harry with the result that the paper tore right in half. It did not, however, wreck the photograph of the broken window with the message marked indelibly on the remaining broken pane.
"More madmen," Uncle Vernon snarled as he read the article quickly. Then he gawped at the paper and tried to put the two pieces together. He turned to stare at Harry and asked hoarsely, "Is that him? Your Lord Voldythingy?"
Harry nodded and for the first time ever, said, "Sorry I grabbed it. I had to know, you see..." He trailed off and wondered if he looked as odd as Uncle Vernon.
"He's mad, isn't he?" Uncle Vernon asked. "Why's he...why would a...a wizard blow up Harrods?"
"I dunno," Harry said. "Same reason as any other criminal or madman does, I guess." He sank down in a chair at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. He tried to think. Why would Voldemort do it anyway? If there was one thing he thought he knew about Voldemort, it was that Voldemort always had a reason for what he did. Did he think he could re-establish his power base by threatening the most cardinal rules all wizards abided by, the Statute of Secrecy?
Uncle Vernon was carefully ripping the paper into shreds. He then took the shreds and fed them down the garbage disposal in the sink. Harry was reminded of the time Uncle Vernon had ripped his Hogwarts letters up right in front of him. But unaccountably, Harry felt that Uncle Vernon was right, for the very first time. He looked around and saw that Aunt Petunia hadn't come down yet.
Then he looked at Uncle Vernon and said, "I won't tell her, if you don't."
Uncle Vernon stared at him in astonishment. "You won't?" he asked pleadingly.
"No," Harry said. He couldn't see the point of upsetting Aunt Petunia any more than she was lately. "Nor Aunt Marge, either," he added. At the mention of his sister, Uncle Vernon’s face turned purple all over again.
His beady eyes narrowed and he said, “I won’t have one mention of your abnormality whilst Marge is here…or…” Harry could feel the heat rise in his own face. Keeping his voice almost level, he replied, “I won’t blow her up. I’m not thirteen anymore.”
The reference to Aunt Marge’s last ill-fated visit did nothing to reassure Uncle Vernon; rather, his face turned a shade of purple that was so dark Harry feared his uncle would burst a blood vessel. “I’m seventeen,” Harry said, “I’m of age. I won’t lose my temper just because a rude old cow insults me.” Oddly, the answer, though less than civil, caused Uncle Vernon to pale suddenly, so that all the color left his face in a moment. Harry thought it strange. He would have supposed Uncle Vernon would be doing a jig at the thought that Harry was old enough to go out on his own once this school year was over.
“Right, then,” Uncle Vernon said and he eyed Harry quite shrewdly as if he were making some kind of important deal for his business. “You keep a civil tongue in your head while Marge is here and make no mention of your…you know what…and you can stay here for a few more weeks.” He made it sound as if this was some major concession, and perhaps it was. Harry nodded and without further words, Uncle Vernon fairly trotted out of the house and took off in his newest car with a loud screech of rubber on pavement. Harry shook his head, thinking, Muggles consider wizards abnormal?
“What was that all about?” Aunt Petunia demanded. She was patting her already perfectly tidy hair into place and smoothing her perfectly pressed skirt free of wrinkles. Harry sighed.
“Uncle Vernon went to get Aunt Marge,” he answered.
Forgetting her already pristine appearance, Aunt Petunia said sharply, “And why was he yelling?”
“I just told him I won’t blow her up,” Harry answered. Aunt Petunia started to look both panicky and furious. Harry cut off any further lectures or shrieking and said testily, “Well, I won’t. It’s like I told him. I’m seventeen, not thirteen. I won’t blow her up, I won’t hex her, I won’t jinx her. I’m of age, and I won’t lose my temper because that ugly rude old cow with her ugly disgusting dog insults me.” For one moment, Harry thought Aunt Petunia might laugh. For the first time, it occurred to him that perhaps Aunt Petunia didn’t particularly like Aunt Marge.
After a moment, however, her lips thinned to nothing and she said severely, “Marge is a guest in our house. You will keep a civil tongue in your head if you wish to stay here.”
For one wild moment, Harry wanted to say, “but I don’t want to stay here.” It must have showed on his face, because Aunt Petunia said hastily, “From your previous conduct, I shouldn’t think that just because you’ve come of age you’ll…” Then she stopped as if some other thought had occurred to her. She seemed to collect herself and she continued grandly as if nothing had interrupted, “As you are of age, I’ll expect you to act that way.”
The she sailed into the kitchen and began laying out the makings of a grand tea, complete with their best china and tiny cut sandwiches shaped like flowers and leaves.Harry followed Aunt Petunia into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee for himself and went straight to his room without further conversation in the hopes of steadying his already shaken nerves. And, he decided, he was going to write to Dumbledore and Ron and Hermione and Ginny. Because, he thought, without his friends, he was nothing.
And because, Harry thought, Voldemort had won already if he let himself be divided from his friends. He took a sip of his coffee and set it down on the desk. Taking a blank sheet of parchment, Harry began to write everything that had happened the previous night. Most pressingly, he wanted to know if it were a coincidence that Ashley and Moira had chosen those particular items from that particular stall on Portobello Road. And he really wanted to know how any real wizard’s things could have ended up in the hands of a Muggle junk man. Were there some witches or wizards hard up enough to have sold those things off for Muggle money? And whose were they anyway? One thing he felt sure of: the wizard who had owned those things, the knife, the crystal and the wand, was probably dead. No wizard would simply sell off his wand. The wand, he mused, chooses the wizard.
The words on the page blurred into words made of letters from an alphabet he didn’t know. “What do they mean?” he asked Hermione. But she was flying on the back of a huge black dragon whose yellow eyes were seeking their prey far down below.
“I don’t think I like this,” she said nervously, and the dragon turned its great head and answered, “Ah, silly witch. I thought all you wizards and witches like to fly.”
“Of course, they do,” Harry answered, only the world began to spin as if he were flying inside of a storm. Thunder and lightning crashed and the thunder awoke him.
It was only the sound of the front door flying open and Uncle Vernon roaring, “Marge’s here! Come on down and greet your aunt, Dudley!”
Harry sat up and it struck him that Dudley hadn’t woken him up that morning. Dudley hadn’t even shown his face downstairs that morning. Yawning, Harry stretched and felt the rumblings of hunger. He debated the merits of having to listen to Aunt Marge’s insults against avoiding her but missing the tea his Aunt had made. His stomach decided matters for him. Steeling himself for comments about his freakishness and his parents’ bad blood, Harry flattened his fringe down and wandered downstairs hoping he could get away with a good meal if he kept his mouth shut and head down.
Harry's first impression on seeing Aunt Marge again was both shock and a feeling almost of guilt. While Marge retained some of her more unpleasant characteristics, her red, veiny face and nose, her unfeminine mustache, and her booming voice, she seemed to have shrunk quite badly in the four years since she had last visited. Her great girth was gone, and Harry wondered whether she had ever recovered from being deflated by the wizards of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad who had cleaned up the scene after he had inflated her in his rage.
"Just some tea, Petunia, dear," she said, and she looked mournfully at all the rich treats Aunt Petunia had provided. "I'm afraid I can't digest such rich foods anymore since they started the chemotherapy." Marge looked at Harry as if she couldn't quite recall who he was.
"Some friend of Dudley's, dear?" she asked. She frowned and said, "He's quite a messy one, isn't he? Do you think it's wise to let Dudley associate with that kind?"
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon exchanged glances and Petunia answered rather vaguely, "That's my nephew, you know." Harry was quite horrified to see that Aunt Marge did not remember him at all. Then he was delighted. And then, when he realized that her loss of memory wasn't due to the wizards having obliviated her, but to some terrible sickness, he felt the stirrings of pity.
He held out his hand quite gravely and said as politely as he was able, "I hope you had a nice trip here." Aunt Marge took his hand in her own cold, dry one. Her hand trembled slightly and so did her head, as if its weight were too much for her to hold up.
"It wasn't bad. Could have been worse," she boomed out. The size of her voice was quite at odds with her present appearance. "Where's my Dudders?" she asked plaintively. "Doesn't my nephew want to see his auntie?"
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon both looked alarmed for the first time. Uncle Vernon signaled Harry to follow him into the kitchen while Aunt Petunia poured some tea. "Where is he?" Uncle Vernon whispered forcefully.
"I dunno," Harry said quietly. "He came home the same time as I did last night. Maybe he went to the gym?"
"He knew Marge was coming. He should have been back by now. He should have..." Harry thought with alarm that Uncle Vernon once again looked like he would burst a blood vessel. His face was turning purple again, even though he hadn't yelled. Perhaps the effort of not yelling was a worse strain than yelling for him.
"Go!" Uncle Vernon said. "Find him!" Harry nodded and started to go out the kitchen door. He was more than astonished when Uncle Vernon asked, "Do you have your...your..." But he couldn't get the words out.
Harry simply pulled his shirt up to show the wand stuck in his waistband. Uncle Vernon waved him on and found his voice as Harry went out to say, "If he's harmed, I'm holding you responsible."
Once again, Harry had the feeling that his two worlds were colliding, collapsing into one. Uncle Vernon, asking Harry if he had his wand? Harry walked to the gymnasium as quickly as possible. He was starting to feel quite anxious himself. In all the years Harry had known Dudley, he had never known him to miss an opportunity to pocket the extra pounds or gifts that Aunt Marge always gave him. He took the stairs to the club two at a time and poked his head into the large central room where Dudley usually lifted weights or boxed. The room was empty. There were a few girls in the aerobics studio, but no Dudley. Harry coughed and got up the nerve to ask where Dudley was.
"You're the cousin, aren't you?" one of the girls responded.
"Yeah," Harry said. "Has he been here?" The girls looked at each other and giggled.
"He was," the same girl answered. "But he left with Ashley a couple of hours ago. Why don't you try there?"
"Right. Thanks," Harry said.
"Or maybe you should stay here," another girl suggested. "I don't think they were wanting company, if you know what I mean." Thinking that he did know what she meant, Harry flushed just a bit and had started back out of the studio, when the girl called after him, "You could stay here. Maybe you could give us all some fencing lessons."
Flushing more, Harry said, "Sorry. I can't," and went back out of the club less quickly than he had come in. Harry walked back to Ashley's house thinking gloomily that no matter what happened, someone was going to be angry with him. And probably, that someone was going to be Dudley. High summer heat had settled in, and the tidy lawns of Little Whinging were turning yellow. A faint haze lay over everything and the streets were far quieter than normal. Even the playground, which was usually full of younger children at this time of day, was quite deserted. Harry turned down the street to Ashley's house looking ahead to see if anything seemed strange or out of the ordinary. But except for the unusual quiet, everything was just the same as always.
Reluctantly, Harry knocked on Ashley's door. He hoped that Moira wasn't there. He hoped that Ashley had forgot everything to do with the previous night. He hoped that Dudley wasn't going to lay him flat with one swing of his fist for interrupting his time with his girl. No one answered his knock. He looked around the side to see if anyone was there, but the white fence surrounding the house blocked any view. He knocked again, and this time the door was opened hastily and a voice said, "Who's that? I don't want anything. You must have the wrong house."
Then the door started to slam closed again. "Wait, please!" Harry said. "I'm here to see Ashley and I need to know if Dudley's here. Dudley Dursley."
The door opened back up and the voice called out, "Ashley! There's some boy here to see you!" The woman, who looked like a slightly older version of Ashley, but who wore exactly the same kind of expresion Aunt Petunia always wore when she lookled at Harry said, "Who are you, anyway?"
"Harry Potter," he answered. "Dudley's my cousin, you know. I was told he was here. Visiting Ashley, that is." The woman's pretty face tightened up more at the mention of his name.
"Aren't you the one that goes to some school...?" Mrs. Smyth started to ask. She broke off though, clearly afraid that Harry might demonstrate his reputed delinquency if she actually mentioned it. Harry couldn't help it. The woman's assumption that he was a real bad lot irked him and he said, "Oh, yes. I go to school. Everyone goes to school, don't they? It's quite a good school, too, you know. In fact, it's very exclusive. They don't let just anybody in. Even Dudley--that's my cousin, you know--even he couldn't get in my school."
Harry waited to see the effect of this statement on the woman. She appeared impressed and then doubtful as if anyone who dressed so horribly could possibly go to an exclusive school or a school at all. Ashely and Dudley appeared just then. Dudley looked quite red in the face, as if he were on the verge of a major tantrum.
Harry cut in fast before he could start. "Uncle Vernon wants you home now. Marge is here and she's looking for her Dudders." He couldn't quite keep the sarcastic tone from his voice. Dudley flushed more, but oddly, neither Ashley nor her Mum seemed to find it funny. Dudley put on his best company manners to say good-bye to Ashley's Mum and to Ashley he merely said, "Tonight?"
His company manners disappeared, however, as soon as they were out of earshot of the Smyth house. "What did you want to interrupt us for?" Dudley snarled.
Harry stared at Dudley in annoyance and snarled back, "Aunt Marge. She's here. And she wants her Ickle Duddykins." Dudley's meaty fists clenched and Harry got ready to step aside if Dudley went for him.
"Don't call me that," Dudley said.
"No," Harry said. "How about Dudders? Or little Diddy-poo?" He knew he was being quite awful, but he didn't really care. A whole summer of serving as Dudley's bodyguard and hanger-on was getting to him. Dudley's piggy eyes turned mean and Harry could see him calculating whether he dared to lay into Harry, and the fear that kept his fists clenched, but lowered by his sides. It gave Harry a perverse kind of pleasure to see that his childood tormentor was afraid; and then, as he realized how like Voldemort that made him, it made him shamed as well.
He started to say, sorry, or something along those lines, but the absolute quiet of the tidy street felt eerie and wrong. A breeze seeemd to stir the hair on his neck and yet there was no wind at all. Dudely started to say something, but Harry gestured curtly to him and said softly, "Something's wrong."
"What do you mean?" Dudley blustered. "It's broad daylight. Nothing's wrong." Harry shook his head and debated whether to continue on to Number Four or whether to pass it by and try to fool whoever or whatever it was that lay in wait. The exterior of Number Four looked perfectly normal. The lawn was greener than anyone else's and the hydrangea bush was blooming particularly well this year. He noticed a cat slinking from under the bush and dashing for the car. Harry was on the verge of telling Dudley not to go in, but Dudley simply went ahead anyway. Perhaps he was aggravated by Harry's provocation. Perhaps he was simply in a hurry to get in and get his bribe from Aunt Marge. In any case, he strode forward to the house with such long strides that Harry was taken by surprise and he had to run several steps to catch up with his cousin's far greater step.
The feeling of alarm intensified. Not a car was to be seen. No birds flew by or sang. Not a child was outside playing. Not one person was mowing his lawn or pruning his roses or doing any of the dozens of normal activities that took people outside on a sunny weekend afternoon. Harry caught Dudley by the arm and said, "Go around back."
Dudley pulled his arm away and started toward the front walk again, but stopped when he saw Harry had drawn his wand. He paled and said, "What is it?"
Harry said softly, "I dunno. Come on. Quickly now, and be ready to hit anyone strange, okay?" There was nothing in the backyard, but still the unnatural quiet plucked at Harry’s nerves.
Dudley opened the kitchen door and the silence was broken by aunt Petunia’s voice. “Dudley! Diddy, dear. Look, Aunt Marge is here.”
Harry entered cautiously and took a last look at the yard before closing the kitchen door. Still there was nothing there. He shook his head as he entered and slid his wand under his shirt feeling like an idiot. The telly was on and the plumy voice of the announcer was speculating about the terrorists who had attacked Harrods early that morning. Uncle Vernon clicked the button on the remote and an old movie came on.
The grainy black and white picture showed the interior of an elegant café in the dark and a man in a white suit was saying, “Of all the gin joints in the world, why’d she have to walk into mine?”
Aunt Marge’s face sharpened and she said, “Now those were the days, weren’t they?” Unfortunately, her sharpened gaze fell on Harry and an expression of utter distaste crossed her face, as if she were viewing some rather large and poisonous spider. “Still here?” she barked.
“Not for very much longer,” Uncle Vernon replied.
“You should have thrown him out years ago,” Marge replied. “Turned out to be no better than his parents, didn’t he? Scrawny and useless, I’ll wager.” Despite Harry’s resolution not to lose his temper, her nastiness on top of his recent scare tested his temper. He could feel his face heat up, and he could feel Aunt Petunia’s anxious stare. He took a very deep, deep breath and counted to ten before opening his eyes again.
They were all looking at him, as if waiting to see if a bomb would go off. Except for Marge, who was simply looking at him with contempt? “Subnormal, isn’t he?” she said. “Pity they don’t have sterilization programs for his kind.”
“My kind?” Harry said coolly. “And what kind would that be?” A cold rage was settling in his veins. He considered coldly what curse would be best to use on a stupid, nasty old Muggle woman like her. A voice at the back of his mind whispered, try the Cruciatus curse, see how she likes that. Or maybe just a simple Tantellagra. Wouldn’t it be amusing to make the old bat dance?
“Bohemians!” Aunt Marge said. “Good for nothings. Leeches on society. Parading their free-thinking. Bringing death and destruction on everyone. Even their own parents.”
What are you talking about, you horrible, old woman? Harry could hardly contain himself. He had rarely felt such a combination of both fury and horror at once. He looked at Marge, and she seemed to him to be a sack of skin poorly laid over a wasting interior. And inside, he seemed to see the growing infestations that ate at her brain and stomach and would soon entirely consume her. Her beady eyes were just as ill-humored and remorseless as they’d ever been. She drew herself up like a snake about to spit venom, but he’d had enough of her poison.
“Just look at you,” he said. “You sit there wasting away, with a death sentence staring you in the face. And yet not even that, not even the knowledge that you’ve little time left in which to do anything good, has brought you any bit of understanding or pity or love or grace. You’ll sit there and nurse your selfishness and your meanness and care nothing for whether you’ve done someone harm. Who’re you, to say such things about my Mum and Dad? If my Mum were alive, you wouldn’t be fit to be in the same room with her.”
“I know what I’m saying,” Marge retorted. “And don’t shut me up Vernon. It’s time he knew just what they were.” She fixed her nasty eyes on him as if he were a small cat and she one of her nasty-tempered bull-dogs getting ready to bite. “I know what they were. Petunia will forgive me, but she knew her sister was a bad egg. Unnatural, she was. A witch and that man she married just as much of an unnatural one as her.”
“How do you…” Uncle Vernon was staring at Marge with astonishment. “I never told you. Petunia and I agreed.”
“Oh, I heard them talking about it,” Marge answered. “At that last Christmas party Petunia’s parents had. I heard them, talking about their magic and their tricks and how they’d like to play one on you, Vernon, because you were so disapproving. And you should have been. That husband of hers—he looked just like this one here—laughed about it. He thought it would be funny. She stopped him, she did. She said it would upset your Mum, Petunia. But I could tell, she thought it would be funny, too.”
“I don’t believe it,” Harry said. “I’ll never believe it.” But a funny twisting in his stomach told him it just might be true. Maybe his Dad would have thought it funny to play a trick on Uncle Vernon.
“Believe it,” Marge said. “Idolized them haven’t you, boy? After all, you never knew them. You never saw them. A reckless lot they were. I heard them. And I heard more. I heard them talking about their jobs. Chasing some killer they were. I heard them talking about it. Murder by magic. And a curse, like abracadabra, that kills without a trace. So I knew when your parents died, Petunia, that must be what happened. Two heart attacks at the same time? Not likely. It was them. They brought that unnaturalness and evil with them into your house. A sore thing it must have been to lose your mum and dad like that when you were still pregnant with Dudley. And the unnatural witch never even came to the funeral, did she?”
Harry stared at Marge. His chest hurt, and it seemed as if his heart could hardly continue to beat. Something welled up in him, in a misery so large it had no name. Was it possible? He turned to Aunt Petunia, waiting for her to deny it.
“Nonsense,” Uncle Vernon said, though his voice sounded nearly as full as doubt as Harry felt. “I would have known. Right, Petunia?”
Harry waited for Petunia to deny it, but she didn’t. After a painful moment, she said quietly, as if the words were forced from her by some power outside herself. “Well, she did come to the funeral. Both of them did. They wore an invisibility cloak, so no one could see them.”
Harry continued to stare at his aunt in shock. He had lived his whole life with the knowledge that his parents had died suddenly. He had known since he was eleven that his parents had been murdered. But his grandparents, too?
“They weren’t supposed to come. They were supposed to be in hiding. She told me then,” Petunia said, “that was the first time she told me about Voldemort. That he was after them. And she didn’t deny it, when I asked if their deaths might have something to do with him.” She turned on Harry, and her face was full of bitterness, and something very near to hatred. “Did you wonder why I tried so hard to squash it out of you, the magic? I knew, I knew she had brought them to her death. And they were always so proud of her, their witch.”
“Why even bother to take me in, then?” Harry asked bitterly. He felt his whole life had been one lie after another, and still more were being unraveled every day.
“He said I had to,” Petunia answered, “in that letter he left. Dumbledore. He said they were dead, and that I would be safe if I took you in. He said you would be safe and we would be safe if I took you in. So I did. And I tried, I tried to teach you to be normal. To squash it out of you. But I knew, I knew it was no good. I knew you would be no good. And look at you. Just like them and the killer still after you. And none of us are safe, really, are we? He lied, that Dumbledore. We’re not safe after all.” Harry wanted so badly to say, Dumbledore doesn’t lie, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
“I see,” Harry said. “I’ll get out then,” he added and turned to go up the stairs to pack.
