Obsession with Plants or Something
By: Emma
No summary for this one. Curious? Read!
Post HP&tOotP
Mark Evans was just walking down the street when he heard a catcall from behind him.
He whirled around, and his jaw dropped.
*Not again!*
Dudley Dursley had suddenly appeared from behind him. Out of nowhere.
*Please, not again.*
"Hey, Evans." Dudley smirked, leaning on a fence post, "Where you off to?"
"Nowhere. The...my....home."
"Right. That *would* work, Evans..." Dudley paused, "But your *home*?"
Dudley turned in the opposite way that Mark had been headed, "Your home's that way."
"Right." stuttered Mark nervously, "I was heading to my...aunt's home."
"Oh yeah? Who's your aunt, does she live on Privet Drive?"
"No."
"Then why are you headed to Privet Drive, Evans?"
"Its...shorter to cut across. She lives on the other side of-"
"Right. Well, what time is she expecting you?"
"Um...actually," Mark lied, "I'm already late."
"No you're not."
*I hate summers, why does he have to be home for the summer? He already ruined my sneakers last summer when he...oh, I'm hurting just thinking about it.*
"I am."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"No, you're not."
"What's it to you?" retorted Mark, then regretted it instantly. Dudley's ears were going pink, and his fists were clenching and unclenching.
"Dudley, please-" he began.
Then, he felt a tremendous blow to the head.
Dazed, he looked up through watering eyes to see that Dudley was standing over him, laughing.
"What's the matter, Evans? Not enough of a man to stand up and fight me?"
"What's the matter, Dud?" said a new voice, from behind Dudley. Dudley whirled around to face his cousin, disdain in his face- or was that...fear? Mark couldn't be sure, his eyes were streaming. Why would Dudley be afraid of his boney cousin? The idea was rubbish.
"What's it to you, Potter?" Dudley said, his voice shaking.
*Its from the energy it took to hit me.* Mark told himself, *Why would he be afraid?*
"What's it to me?" Harry looked thoughtful as he paced slightly towards Dudley, "What's it to me? Oh, Dudley...I don't know." he looked up at his great lump of a cousin, " Maybe I just have a thing for *heroics*."
Dudley was backing up now, Mark's eyes weren't deceiving him.
"What are you going to do?" Dudley swayed in his spot when he reached the fence, unable to back up any further. Harry walked straight up to him, and looked him square in the eye.
"Depends, Dud." Harry raised an eyebrow, "Are you going to stay here to find out, or are you going to run?"
"I'll take you on any time!" retorted Dudley, but his scathing look faltered as Harry pointed a long finger at Dudley's throat, "Really? How about now?"
Dudley was gone.
Mark didn't even have enough time to register what had happened, for he found himself wondering how a boy that large could run *that* fast.
Harry looked down at him, and offered a hand. Mark hesitated.
"I'm not going to bite you." Harry's mouth twitched, and Mark took his hand. Harry hoisted him up.
"So, which torturee are you?" Harry looked at Mark with a bemused expression.
"Mark. Mark Evans."
"Oh." Harry replied, "Well, you might want to have you nose looked at."
"Oh," Mark said, his neck burning a little, "Thanks. For that."
"Not a problem," Harry waved him off, "He's got to get what's coming to him sooner or later."
"Right. Well, thanks then. Goodnight." Mark waved and started to turn away.
"Goodnight-hey, wait a second."
Mark whirled around.
*Please don't let him want to beat me up too!*
"Mark Evans, you said?" Harry asked him, a look in his eye that Mark couldn't read.
"Yeah."
"What's your parents names, Mark?"
Mark raised his eyebrows, then winced in pain. The skin on his nose pulled when he did that, causing it to bleed a little bit more.
"Um...my parents? Dorothy and Elmer. But my dad died when I was three."
Harry's eyes were wide with shock.
"Elmer...did they used to call him Elm, do you know?"
"Yeah, like Elm Tree. Supposedly my grandparents had some sort of obsession with plants or something. I've never met any of his side of the family, neither has my Mum. They eloped, and never really came back to either of their families, you see. Why do you ask?"
*How could he know about the "Elm" thing?*
"Um...nothing, never mind Mark. I was just curious."
"Right," said Mark, his eleven year old smartassness kicking in, "Because I'm just going to let that go. You may have saved my life, but I know the sounds of a secret when I hear it. Tell me how you knew about my dad."
Harry stared at him a moment, then his face broke into a little grin.
"Well, Mark...how about you go home, grab a picture of your dad, and bring it back to me?"
"Why?" asked Mark bluntly.
Harry twisted his hands and smiled evilly, "Once you bring it back, could you let me borrow it? We'll both go back to my house on Privet Drive. I want to ask my Aunt Petunia something."
*Shady...but, why not? A nearly sixteen year old boy, who is nice but supposedly rebellious, wants to hang around me! How cool does that make me? Wow!*
"Ok." Mark agreed.
Once he got back with the picture, they headed over to number four, Privet Drive.
"Come on in." Harry welcomed as he opened the door.
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were right away a welcoming party.
"Who is this?"
"What intention do you have of bringing some little boy into our-"
"Hey," said Harry brightly, shoving the picture of Elm Evans under his Aunt Petunia's nose, "Do you happen to know who this man is?"
Aunt Petunia let out a mad shudder.
Uncle Vernon grabbed the picture from Harry, then looked at Petunia questioningly.
"How did you get this?" she asked faintly.
"He's my dad." piped up Mark, and she looked down at him, her eyes filled with tears.
"You're...you're Elm's son?"
"Who in the bloody hell is Elm?" said Uncle Vernon dangerously, in that tell-me-what's-going-on-right-now tone.
"My brother!" cried out Petunia, and Harry's eyebrows shot up into his hairline.
"Your brother. Meaning, my uncle?" Harry deduced.
"Your brother?" said Mark, "He never talked about his family, it could be true..."
"Where do you live, boy?" Aunt Petunia touched his shoulder, "We thought that he'd been kidnapped! He was only sixteen when he disappeared-"
"He ran off with my mother and they eloped," supplied Mark.
"Oh, thank Goodness! I can't wait to see him,through all these years, I thought him dead-"
"But he is dead."
Aunt Petunia stared at Mark, "*What*?"
"He's dead." Mark repeated, "He died when I was one."
Aunt Petunia stared at him some more, then let out a piercing sob, "How did he die?"
"Car crash. Mum and I were in it, it was supposedly really horrible, Mum can't explain why we didn't die in it."
"Car crash?" Harry repeated to himself. Car crash? A real car crash, or the kind that somebody makes up to hide the fact that the deceased was really killed by-
"Actually, no, it wasn't a car crash." said a voice from the doorway.
There stood a pretty woman with Mark's eyes.
His mother.
"He actually died in Godric's Hollow." she said, her voice echoing through the silent house, "While visiting his sister, Lily."
"What?" said the four other voices in the now-cramped hallway.
The woman (Dorothy) sighed, "We eloped, because we loved each other, and my parents would never stand for us getting married. I was also pregnant with this little guy's sister." she put her hand on Mark's shoulder, "So, he left his family, which was a very hard decision, but he thought that if my family couldn't see us happy, his family would only make me feel bad about mine. He sacrificed his family for me. We had Lacey, and then he found out a few years later about the death of one of his sisters, Lily. We had Mark...when Mark was about one, he decided that he wanted to go and visit his sister. Where his sister still lay. So, he went to the memorial-"
"What?" Harry interrupted, "There's a memorial? Why didn't I know this?"
Dorothy ignored him, "And when he went to the memorial, he was attacked. Nobody knew from what, why, anything...but they found him dead when I reported him missing two days following. At Godric's Hollow. With his sister."
Harry and Mark couldn't believe their ears.
Aunt Petunia looked absolutely miserable, "Elm was the only one that ever covered for me when we were younger. Mum and Dad thought that Lily was the perfect child, and Elm and I were hidden away in the shadows. I was a wreck when he left. I wonder why he went to visit Lily....and not me?"
"He told me about you." Dorothy said quietly, and Mark looked up at her.
*She's been lying to me for years.*
Dorothy continued, "When he met me, he started distancing himself from you, didn't he? He'd never liked Lily, or magic much, had he?" Petunia and Vernon flinched, " Except he met me when I was on my summer vacation from Hogwarts, between my sixth and seventh year. We fell in love, and then I told him I was a witch. After I had gotten pregnant with Lacey. Instead of turning me out, like he could have, he decided that we were going to elope. So...we did."
"He learned to accept this abnormality?" Petunia shrieked, "You tainted my brother and stole him away from-"
"He came freely, " said Dorothy lightly, "And when Lily died, he decided that it was time to say goodbye and apologize for everything he'd treated her with back when he was ignorant of the magical world that she belonged in."
Mark whirled on his mother, "Are you trying to tell me that you're a- a-"
"A witch? Yes, Mark, I am. I've been hiding it from you, trying to give you normal upbringing...but I can no longer handle that responsibility. You have received a letter from Hogwarts today, Mark. You have been accepted to attend this coming September."
"WHAT?" Mark shouted, confused, "WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE ON!?"
"Its only the truth, son." she said quietly, "How about you come home, and we'll talk all about it."
Mark looked wearily and his mother, and nodded. He no longer felt like keeping the company of Harry and his surrogate family.
As he and his mother turned to the door, Harry shouted, "Goodnight, Aunt Dorothy...see you in September, Mark."
Mark sighed. He didn't understand *any* of this...but it looked like he was about to find out. And it looked like his life had from this instant, changed forever.
A/N: This is the end. I'm not writing about Mark's Hogwarts experiences...I mostly wrote this to bring some people to the attention that there WAS a boy at the beginning of book five whose name indeed *was* Mark Evans. Coincidence? Is anything in JKR's world EVER coincidental? "Hem Hem!"