The One Where the Canon Abuse is Still Abuse
Harry's stomach rumbled ominously as he pulled the last weed from the back garden's flower beds. The summer had been especially hot that year, with only about three items in most people's wardrobes being bearable to wear without the desperate desire to suddenly strip due to heat and temporary insanity.
However, Harry had more troubles than just the heat. He was even more exhausted than he usually was during Summer (which was, admittedly, due to the heat) and was desperately trying to find a way of completing his summer homework while his 'freaky' stuff was all locked under the stairs.
Well, that's not quite true. He wasn't that desperate. He was still a teenager. And Hogwarts was still school. Like many students he was trying to calculate whether he could do it all on the train.
He headed inside to get a glass of water, carefully scraping his shoes before stepping into the meticulously clean kitchen.
He drank what must have been two pints of water, before cleaning the glass carefully and replacing it. He then ran a mop over the mud on the floor.
He might not have liked it, but he had known the Dursleys for fourteen years. He knew how they'd react if he wasn't this careful. What's more, due to the heat effectively beaching Vernon and Dudley (like the whales they are, Harry thought) Petunia had become even more vigilant against Harry and his "messiness", due to the fact that she knew she could rightfully blame it all on him.
Harry checked the kitchen clock. It was half past five. He had half an hour before starting to cook dinner, so he slipped quickly upstairs, glancing into the living room where Vernon and Petunia stared at the TV, under the cooling wind of the electric fan.
XXX
Harry threw himself back onto his bed. The sheets felt marginally cooler than the air, and his bed was in the shade, so he closed his eyes for a bit.
About twenty minutes later he heard a tapping on his window, and woke up to let an owl in. Well, it was probably an owl. It also looked a bit like a bat.
It was carrying a letter (surprisingly enough).
He guided the owl over to his desk, where he cautiously handed it an owl treat, hoping that, whatever it was, it would appreciate it. He opened the letter.
Dear Harry,
How is your summer going? Sorry I haven't written much, but I was a little distracted, and I couldn't tell you, and seeing as my life was a little consumed, there wasn't much else to talk about. Anyway, I can tell you now.
I've got my old house back! Which sounds alright, especially with that exclamation mark, but it isn't really. It's rather bleak. So, I went through it, took some stuff that looked dark and expensive and sold it to a friend in Knockturn Alley. Then I gave the house to Dumbledoor for his anti-Voldemort group and bought a smaller house. Well, un-mortgaged it. Sort of. The Blacks had a load of old houses that they pawned, or sold on a lease and I just bought one back.
And now I'm living here with Moony! It's nice, the people who were living here (who weren't Blacks) got rid of the ancient damp feel (nothing belonging to the family was left here) and it's just an ordinary house (with super amazing defences/wards/whatever).
So, the point is, we have a new house and it's safe, so would you like to come and stay? Just say when!
-Sirius
Harry grinned. It was true, he hadn't heard much from Sirius, and Ron and Hermione had started talking only about each other, something Harry wasn't sure he was comfortable with. So their letters were less of a comfort than they used to be. And this summer felt like it was just going on and on and on. The heat probably didn't help.
Harry rubbed the paper between his thumb and forefinger, finding another slip of parchment behind Sirius' letter.
Dear Harry,
Sirius said he was writing to you so I thought I'd add my two penny's worth. We'd love to have you stay for however long you want, whenever, as we've finally finished unpacking and realised that, both being unemployed at the moment, there is nothing else to do. We may have to re-decorate the spare (or 'your') room, just for the sake of it.
You will be quite safe here, don't worry, just tell us if you want to come, and if so when.
-Remus
P.S. Sorry about whatever strange creature Sirius ends up sending this with. He's known for thinking the weirder you look, the harder you'll work. (It's an interesting belief, with no evidence to back it up that I've seen.)
Harry allowed himself about twenty seconds of insane grinning, before forcing himself to check the clock. He should probably start dinner if he intended to have it all cooked before the start of whatever program starting at seven the Dursleys were planning to watch.
He forcibly left the letter under his pillow, squashing the ridiculous urge to put it in his pocket and carry it around. He turned to the owl and awkwardly told it, "right, you can go home if you want, or wait here for an hour before I write a reply."
The owl-bat thing looked back blackly. As usual, Harry felt self-conscious before trying to talk to the owl (sometimes things that haven't been there from birth never feel normal) and this only made him feel stupid. So he left the window open (it was a warm night) and went downstairs to cook.
Happily passive-aggressively cooking heavy, hot, winter foods, Harry tried to stop himself from composing letters to Sirius and Remus accepting their invitation without sounding desperate.
He had reached the point where he had forgotten the beginning of the only letter that was sounding decent, when he started setting the table. He was aware that the Dursleys wanted to watch TV while eating (in their new summer "keep-unfit" regime) but firstly, he wanted to annoy them, and secondly, last time he had attempted to serve food in the living room (the day before) he had been batted out of the way of the TV so many times that he fell over trying to stop the food from spilling. The food hadn't spilt, so no-one cared. Except perhaps the stuff under the sofa, which Harry hadn't bothered to clear out the next day due to the bruises on his hips (from Vernon's massive hands batting him) making it hurt to bend over that far.
Happy with his neat setting of the table - medium-nice napkins at all (Petunia would kill him if he put out the very-nice napkins) – he entered the living room to announce dinner.
XXX
After a satisfyingly unsatisfying dinner of winter stew (Vernon, Petunia and Dudley had been annoyed, but hadn't found the irrationality to blame Harry. It had been brilliant) and stacking the dishwasher, Harry took the stairs two at a time and pulled the letters out from under his pillow.
He pulled a sheet of paper from the refill pad he'd bought in the newsagents and started to reply. Trying hard not to seem desperate, he talked about everything other than going to stay with Sirius and Remus first:
Dear Sirius,
Summer's been too hot and rather monotonous so far. Glad to hear yours has been more productive!
Don't worry about any lack of letters, you have an excuse.
I'm happy for you that you got a house, it sounds like a proper home.
I'd love to come and stay! I'm just living through the days here, so I can come whenever you're ready to receive me.
-Harry
Then, attached to the back:
Dear Remus,
Thank you for your letter. Like I said to Sirius, I'd love to come stay with you two and so far I have no plans for doing anything else. Basically I'm happy to come and go whenever you want/get tired of me.
Looking forward to seeing you,
-Harry
P.S. Maybe he reasons that if you're a weird looking bird you get less work and therefore work harder on the work you do get?
The bat/owl was still there so Harry tied the scroll onto it's leg, fed it a chunk of meat from the stew (only lukewarm and slightly soggy, but the thing didn't seem to mind) and sort of threw the bird out of the window.
XXX
Morticius returned to the Grotto (which was what Sirius had renamed the house, to Remus' quiet horror) with Harry's letters about a day after leaving them. It was morning, relatively speaking, so Remus had been up a few hours and Sirius was having breakfast.
They both read the letters directed to them, then, without discussing it, swapped and read the other's.
"Well, Harry's perceptive," Sirius commented, having read Harry's explanation for his owl choice.
"He is . . . mature. Only Molly and Andromeda so far have commented on how home-y our house is."
"Is that maturity? I thought that was just . . ." Sirius trailed off.
"Just what?"
"Well, you know when we met, and he'd only just got his head around the idea I wasn't a serial murderer and was . . . y'know."
"Yes." Remus forgave Sirius for not mentioning James and Lily.
"He asked to come live with me then, didn't he? So his own home can't be that great."
"I suppose." Remus thought back to the relationship he and Harry had had during his brief stint as a Professor. He'd not thought much about Harry's need for the relationship, knowing that he himself had been rather desperate for a link back to the Marauders. But looking back now it was easy to see Harry too had a desperation for a link back to his original family, one that he clearly didn't find at home. "He's coming here though," Remus pointed out, more to comfort Sirius than anything, "he can stay with you now."
XXX
As Harry sullenly dripped down the stairs Dudley suddenly raced past him, pushing him into the banister and stomping especially loud on the stairs in the middle of the staircase. Harry winced and rolled his eyes in one. The lard still hadn't subconsciously realised that Harry was (kinda) free now, the ingrained random torture habits were still present. Harry gingerly poked his hip where his bruises had hit the banister and continued down the stairs, past a slightly panting Dudley, and into the kitchen. It was vaguely entertaining that the pig would strain himself so just to continue the Harry Hunting mentality; any other teenage boy would have gone down the stairs far slower and probably a lot later – since before Harry could remember Dudley had woken before him to ensure maximum time spent being obnoxious.
Harry pulled open the freezer and pulled out the bacon substitute Petunia had moved on to in the newest diet. There were also powdered eggs. Harry wasn't sure if they were made during the muggle second world war or not, but comforted himself that probably not if they sat 'fat free' – which they did. Harry was standing at the surface next to the fridge when Dudley waddled into the kitchen and slammed open the fridge into the side of Harry's face. He made a noise of objection and Petunia called Dudley back to the living room so he wouldn't try to snack – not that there was any food in the fridge Dudders could have snacked on, Petunia having filled it only with ingredients.
Breakfast was served with green tea; something Petunia drank buckets of but always left her with such a sour face one would think she was drinking firewhiskey. Harry scooped the leftovers into a Tupperware pot to make it seem he wasn't stealing their food, only saving it. The fact the Dursleys were never served leftovers didn't seem to cross their minds. Maybe it did Petunia's, but Harry never could tell with her since when he was a child he had elaborate fantasies about the way in which she secretly loved and looked after him and so any hint of kindness from her that could have been accidental . . . well, Harry wasn't sure if he was still delusional enough to consider such a thing or if it had become possible. He didn't have anyone else's opinion to fall back on or compare to.
After serving and saving his own food Harry slipped into the back garden: a tiny square of grass, lined with concrete tiles with a bush or two. It was only eight o'clock. The Dursleys rose with their son. The dew was still just about noticeable on the grass, and Harry spent ten minutes poking the grass with his toes trying to find any weeds.
"What are you doing, practicing ballet?" yelled Vernon through the back door, where his purple face had appeared after he leant back on his chair's back legs. Vernon chuckled to himself as Harry quickly walked over to the big green plastic box they kept gardening tools in. He found something for grass and all the things that weren't grass and squatted to spray something called "Go Grow!" onto the lawn.
About half an hour later Petunia called into the back garden, "We're going to Highgate to go swimming. We'll be back later."
Harry shuddered at the image of them all in their swimwear and put the gardening things back in the box.
Petunia looked down her nose and studied him as he entered the house, once again meticulously dusting the bottom of his shoes off on the mat they had by the backdoor. Petunia sniffed. "The things we were to have today for lunch are about to go off. Get rid of them or bacteria will spread."
When they had left Harry sat at the table and ate breakfast out of the Tupperware box. He rubbed his ankles together under the table he never usually sat at.
The Tupperware box was washed dried and put back in the cupboard, as was the cutlery.
Harry then went and stripped the sofa and soft chair of the covers, which he was certain were getting dirty through the sweat dripping from the whales that spent their days beached there, and threw then into the washing machine.
XXX
Number four Privit Drive was a terribly dull house in Sirius' opinion. "If I had to live here I'd have to paint the house pink and fill the garden with muggle gnomes," he told Remus as they walked toward the house.
"Which is so different to what you've done to our house," Remus replied dryly.
Sirius smirked. "Our house is beautiful."
Remus smiled softly at Sirius and leant forward to raise and drop the knocker on the door. There was no response. He pressed the bell and knocked again. Then they waited a minute. The Sirius rapped the knocker several times while pressing the doorbell as many times as he could in a short space of time.
Finally a curtain twitched in the window next to the door and there was a rustle of movement before the door slammed open and they were both engulfed in a hug from a messy black hair-topped thing. Sirius let out a breath of laughter that was cut off as Harry pulled them quickly inside the house.
"What? Is there someone watching?" Remus asked. Sirius' grinned dropped as he joined Remus in the concerned and alert status.
"No, no- Not like you think. Just the neighbours. They don't like me. Or men in dresses. The Dursleys can't know anyone else knows you're here." Harry stopped to grin. "I'm glad you're here."
Sirius gave him another hug then wandered into the house.
"Right, where's your stuff, Harry?" Remus asked, knowing to let Sirius assuage his curiosity before bringing him back to help with things that needed to be done.
Harry pointed at the cupboard under the stairs, with its lock and padlock over the latch that had been used to keep him in without need for the two locks that now kept him out.
"Is it possible to open it without magic? The ministry doesn't believe other wizards ever come here so they'll blame me."
"Ah," Remus nodded. "Sirius," he called, only slightly louder than his speaking voice.
Sirius entered again holding a double frame containing pictures of Dudley, looking slightly cherubic, from primary school. "Are there pictures of you like this?" he asked Harry.
"Uhh," Harry replied, "kinda."
Remus glanced between the two of them, then asked Sirius to pick the locks on the cupboard.
"Can we take them with us?" asked Sirius, no longer looking at Harry due to his focus on the locks. The picture of Dudley lay face down on the carpet.
"Um, I-" started Harry.
"It's a parent thing, isn't it?" asked Sirius, almost to himself, "keeping these young photos?"
"Yeah I guess." Harry smiled at the carpet. A tiny smile.
The second lock clicked.
"There," said Sirius.
"OK." Harry dragged his trunk awkwardly from the wardrobe, and made a gesture to stop Remus from shrinking it.
Harry steeped back into the cupboard and felt around under one of the lower shelves, pulling out a stack of papers he'd kept wedged in the metal support for the shelf. He stuffed them into the waistband of his jeans.
The he slipped upstairs to his room where he added the Summer's letters to the stack he held against his stomach. He grabbed his other shirt and trousers and rolled them up and into his pockets.
Harry then flicked through the wad of paper until he found what he was looking for, then stuffed the rest back under his shirt.
He grabbed Hedwig's cage and thundered down the stairs in a way only Dudley had ever done in Harry's memory of the Dursley house.
There was nothing but letters under his loose floorboards that year, so there was nothing else to take from the house.
Harry stuttered to a stop before Remus and Sirius then took a moment before thrusting the paper at Sirius.
"That's what I have as a photo," he said.
The paper was an individualised advert with sample shapes and measurements around a generic picture of a little girl. In the corner of the A4 sheet was a passport sized photo of Harry with the word 'preview' watermarked over it.
It was the letter home asking for purchase of his year five school photo. Year five had been the only year Dudley and Piers hadn't managed to sabotage his picture somehow. Previously they'd given him a black eye (year four), drawn on his face in permanent marker (year three) and stolen his school tie in the year teachers had decided to go super strict on school uniform and refused to photograph him. It had been meant as a threat to parents who didn't care much about primary school uniform.
Harry hadn't given the good photo to Aunt Petunia, and had wedged it, facing the pillow, under the shelf. He had gained some sort of satisfaction from the fact the Dursleys did have a photo of him up in the house, but aged nearly-fifteen he felt a little ashamed of it.
To avoid any further embarrassment or discussion Harry raised the end of the trunk and asked, "How're we going?"
"Mrs Figg's fireplace," replied Remus, taking Hedwig's cage from Harry and smirking at Sirius as Sirius realised he had to carry half a trunk.
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A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Sadly, it isn't likely that another chapter of this length will be up uber-fast, but it *is* still being written.
If you want to leave a review that would make me very happy!