Disclaimer: I'm making absolutely no money off of this, all characters except Grace/Gracie Potter are copyright J.K. Rowling, the plot is my own, etc. etc. Please do not flame me for the sake of making yourself feel bigger, better, or smarter than me. I don't think you'd like that if I did it to your story.

Grace threw her arm up to block the blow coming at her, but it didn't do much good. Dudley was just so much bigger than she was, and she was never able to hold him off for long. "Just leave me alone!" She cried, tears springing unbidden at the sharp pain in her arm where his fist impacted. He'd been after her now for fifteen minutes at least, and the bruises were starting to pile up.

"Now why would I want to do such a thing as that? You're far too much fun." Dudley grabbed her raised arm and jerked it down, pinning his cousin's slim form against the wall she'd backed up against. The clean, light floral scent of her shampoo drifted across his nose, along with the tang of her fear and the beginnings of anger. "Oh, now, we can't have that." Using her tiny wrist as an anchor point, he flung her around and slammed her into the wall again.

The breath rushed out of her, leaving her gasping and trying to pull away. "Dudley, just leave me alone, you pervert," she said, as soon as she had enough breath to do so. She wished there was something she could threaten him with; hexes were an empty threat, he knew she wasn't allowed to use magic over the summer. And Vernon and Petunia wouldn't believe her anyway, Dudley was their perfect little angel. He moved forward, looking to press the length of his corpulent body against her, and she shrieked, kicking out at his knee. Amazingly, she connected, and Dudley let go of her, roaring in pain.

Grace seized the opportunity, throwing herself away from her cousin and heading for the stairs as fast as she could. Dudley made to grab at her ankle as she reached the bottom of the staircase, but she kicked at him again. Reflexively, he pulled his hand back, and she leapt over him, landing on the second step up. She didn't stop, taking the stairs two and three at a time, managing to slam her bedroom door closed with less than a foot of space between her back and her cousin. It was all she could do to drag her heavy school trunk in front of the door before he could charge his way in. "Damn you, Uncle Vernon, for putting the locks on the outside."

Dudley was slamming his shoulder against the door, and as he landed a particularly solid blow, her trunk was shifted about an inch. She jumped, and started throwing everything she could into it and on top of it in a last ditch attempt to keep Dudley out. When she'd piled everything on top of it save her chest of drawers, the mattress, and Hedwig's cage, she pulled a scrap of paper and a pen out of the pile and scrawled a hasty message to her godfather. A moment later, the tiny note was tied to Hedwig's foot, and she was flinging open the window. "Find him, Hedwig, fly fast and true. Get me out of this hell."

There was a splintering crash from her door, and Hedwig was airborne. Grace whirled to face the door as her makeshift barricade came crashing down, her hands searching for anything that could be used as a weapon against Dudley. There was another god-awful rending noise from her door, and a second later she'd been manhandled and thrown onto her narrow bed. "That wasn't nice of you, to lock me out and keep me from my fun. I'll have to tell Mother," he sneered, glowering down at her. Grace shrieked and kicked at his stomach. Dudley grabbed her ankle and twisted, eliciting more screams from her.

She knew that at this point anything else she could do would only make it worse. But, she wasn't one to just let him have his way, and she managed a solid enough snap kick at his head. This resulted in a very large fist aimed at her face, and she tried to roll away from the blow. It didn't work, and Dudley's thick fingers collided with her temple at the top of her scar. Her vision swam, black curls starting to obscure things. "Eventually, your parents won't be able to protect you from me," she whispered, clinging to consciousness.

"You know, I'm not overly concerned about that." Dudley hit her again, and nothing mattered to her anymore.