Falling is Flying
Summary: Harry Potter, though a genius, is a juvenile delinquent. At the age of six, he is accepted into Cambridge to study law on a full scholarship. However, he quickly becomes determined to break every law on the books. Anarchist!Harry
Cherry bombs. Notes home from school. Complaints from neighbors about petty theft and general aura of delinquency. Brawling in the streets like some animal. All of these things (and a myriad of others) were things Petunia Dursley no longer had to worry about. The Potter boy would be gone at last. Even better, he would be leaving to do something normal, to study law. The fact that her nephew would be out of her hair at the young age of six was just icing on the cake. If those freaks came to collect him, it would not be the Dursleys' problem. Ha! He'd be a lawyer by then, a perfectly normal profession. Let's see them try to convince a lawyer that magic is real. Well, no she wouldn't have to. The boy would be long gone by then.
Petunia felt giddy with excitement over their farewell, which would take place that day. She hadn't been able to sleep, and so had come down to the kitchen for a quick energy-releasing scrub-down of all surfaces. It was three in the morning. In less than 24 hours, they would be free of the boy. He would be arriving in the summer to settle in before the start of the fall semester. Petunia didn't particularly care about the details. All she cared about was that the delinquent would be gone, and her precious Diddy-kins would not have to share a first-grade classroom with that.
Surprisingly, the boy seemed to like school, despite the frequent complaints from teachers about bad behavior. His teachers admitted that he was a hard worker, throwing himself into every assignment he was given, finishing early, and making perfect scores. Of course, as soon as he finished, something would explode or the brat would start tap-dancing on the desk or the teacher's hair (which Potter adamantly insisted was a wig) would turn blue.
The counselor was called in to see Potter, even though it was clear to Petunia that it was the long-suffering kindergarten teacher unfortunate enough to have the brat in her class who required counseling. Her nephew, surprisingly enough, possessed a modicum of intelligence. The counselor seemed to feel that Potter's classwork wasn't challenging enough for him. This was surprising, as Potter was confused by simple concepts like "Bedtime" and "Get off the roof," and "Now." And now they were telling her that Potter was too smart for work her own son Dudley was having trouble with?
Reluctantly, Petunia had signed the forms to put Harry in the advanced class, knowing that the beleaguered kindergarten teacher needed Potter out of her hair in order to give Diddy Duddy-Dums the attention he needed. When the coursework there didn't prove to be a challenge, they sent him to a psychiatrist to have his IQ tested. Vernon had hypothesized that Potter's IQ wouldn't make it into double digits. However, her husband was wrong. Harry, the boy who couldn't comprehend "Stay," "Sit," and "Come," simple commands a dog shouldn't have trouble with, had an IQ of 210.
Personally, Petunia didn't see it as a big deal. So, he did well on some test. It didn't make him any more tolerable. But the school administrators were all up in a tizzy. How could they challenge him? How could they make him behave? What could they do with the Potter boy? Well, Petunia and Vernon had been asking themselves those last two questions for years now. As far as she was concerned, he was the school's problem now.
Which was why, when university courses were brought up, only half-seriously, Petunia jumped on the idea. University, dorm rooms, kids moving out… it was perfect! Petunia wasn't going to let them settle for sending her nephew to classes at the local community college and coming home every night. There must be better colleges Harry could qualify for, more reputable, more… advanced (they seemed to like that word where Potter was concerned, so Petunia knew when she threw that in, she would get their attention.
They started tossing around ideas… Oxford, Cambridge, University of London, discussing the pros and cons of each. Petunia's attention wandered. She tuned back in as the counselor said, "Cambridge has an excellent scholarship program."
Petunia had been so intent upon getting rid of the boy that she hadn't even considered the cost. There was no way the Dursleys would be paying to support any aspect of the boy's special unique specialness. A scholarship sounded perfect. Let the boy use his alleged "genius" to support himself.
People from Harry's school started asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up. At first, his answer was "Away from here." But he did like to argue, as evidenced by the amount of back-chat Petunia and the long-suffering school employees put up with daily. He saw that lawyers got to argue all day long, saw how much they got paid- enough to live far, far away from their moronic relatives- and said he wanted to study law.
After filling out a lot of forms, writing essays, taking tests, and going through a bunch of long, boring interviews, he was informed that he won a full scholarship to study law at CambridgeUniversity. Everybody at that school was so proud. All Petunia could think was he'd be out of her hair soon.
Speak of the Devil. Potter had come in through the front door, bold as brass, untroubled by the sight of his aunt in the kitchen. Petunia hadn't even realized that he left his cupboard, not that it mattered all that much. She had stopped trying to keep tabs on him when he was about four, and he had exhausted every attempt of hers and Vernon's to make him stay in the cupboard. They had invested in extra locks, chains, alarm systems, taking turns standing guard outside the cupboard, even chaining the boy to his bed, all to no avail. The boy came and went as he pleased. The only thing they could do to track him down when he felt like disappearing was to call the police. But, they didn't have any better luck finding Potter than his foster family did. The boy simply came back when he felt like it, at which point, an embarrassed Vernon and Petunia would call off the search. After a year or so of this, pride in their image of normalcy prevented them from getting the police involved in another one of their nephew's disappearing acts. Punishments did nothing to stop him. Petunia suspected his freakishness was softening the blow of his well-deserved beatings or periods without food.
They could do nothing to control him, so they ignored him the best they could. As long as he could manage to not be seen by neighbors or caught by authorities, there was no curfew. Bedtime was whenever and wherever the boy passed out at the end of the day. Petunia suspected he was getting food from somewhere else- stealing most likely- as he rarely ate with the Dursleys, which was fine by them. Occasionally, he would forage through the fridge for a snack on his way to do something else, but that was the extent of it.
He made his way to the refrigerator now, pausing to glance at Petunia, who had finished cleaning even to her high standards and was now sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through a magazine. Petunia winced as the boy took a sip of milk directly from the carton and put it back in the fridge. She had given up trying to teach the boy manners, so she simply settled for replacing the carton with a new container of milk whenever she caught him at it. She always waited until he was gone to replace the carton, of course. She knew the brat would take extreme satisfaction in putting her through the inconvenience. She had a feeling that he already knew about it anyway.
He raised an eyebrow and smirked; the sarcastic, cynical expression did not belong on a six year-old's face. "Feeling sentimental?" he asked. At Petunia's puzzled look, he added, "You haven't waited up for me in years."
"Don't flatter yourself, boy," she snapped, returning her attention to the in-depth article on halter tops.
The brat chuckled. "Not very flattering, having you waiting for me, is it? I mean, if you're up for Vernon…"
Petunia couldn't make heads or tails of that comment. Like she cared. Of course, Potter seemed aware of her confusion and chuckled again.
"Well, I'm off to bed," said the infernal boy. "Early start tomorrow." Petunia wondered when the brat usually went to bed if three-thirty in the morning was considered early. Not that she gave a damn.
The boy walked past his cupboard under the stairs in favor of the overstuffed living room couch. Petunia continued trying to read her magazine, but her focus kept turning to the boy lying on the couch. He wasn't saying or doing anything, but Petunia figured it was only a matter of time.
Giving up on relaxing in the kitchen, she abandoned her magazine, turned off the light, and started to go upstairs.
"Good night, Aunt Petunia," said the boy. Petunia had assumed that he was asleep, as his eyes were closed, his body still, his breathing deep and even. Petunia paused. The boy had never used "Aunt" or "Uncle" when referring to her or Vernon. He simply used their first names, despite any attempts on the part of herself and Vernon to correct the habit.
He never bothered with pleasantries like "Good morning" or "Good night" either. Petunia felt like she was a part of another one of the brat's games. She remembered what he had said before, about her waiting up for him, which was most certainly not true. She just happened to be awake when he came in, and was coincidentally going upstairs to bed shortly after he had settled on the sofa for the night. She had not been waiting for him.
Then again, it hardly mattered, did it? He would be gone by tomorrow. Let him play all the games he wanted. She could play right back. "Good night, Harry," she said, using the same casual tone. It was the first time she had ever referred to him by his first name, rather than "boy," "brat," or "Potter." That'll show him, she thought, as she stomped up the stairs to bed, having finally gotten the last word in a conversation between herself and the demon-spawn of her freakish sister.
Just twelve more hours, and he would be somebody else's problem.