Life's Surprises
Chapter 1
"Potter! Open the bleeding door!" Uncle Vernon yelled, startling Harry out of his stupor. He dropped his fork into his plate of scrambled eggs with a clang, standing up and walking down the hall toward the doorway. Behind him, he heard Dudley dive to steal his breakfast. But oh, well. He hadn't wanted them anyway. Normally he would have retaliated to Uncle Vernon's order with a snarky comment, or would have complained about Dudley's theft, just to spite him. Even last summer, when he was coping with Sirius's death, he would have. But now… now he barely had the energy to pull himself out of bed in the morning, even with Aunt Petunia's shrieks of "Get up! Get up!" He really just wanted to vanish. He bent down to pick up the bundle of letters on the welcome mat, not bothering to flip through them. There would be nothing for him in the Muggle post. He didn't even go through the letters delivered to him by wizard post any longer. He didn't want to speak to his friends. He didn't want to go stay with the Weasleys. It was all just too exhausting. Stuffing the letters under one arm, he turned to bring them back to the Dursleys, when the doorbell rang again. Harry opened it mutely.
Lying at his feet was a sky blue shoe box. Its corners were worn, as if it had been kept in a closet for a number of years, but it didn't seem to be falling apart. There was a scrabbling sound coming from inside. Harry knew he should be careful. People were trying to kill him. But then again, people had been trying to kill him for years. And it was just hard to care anymore, especially on a sunny, pointless day, in Little Winging.
He pulled the top off the box. A white creature leapt out of it. It stood on all fours, tail sticking straight out from it; its back arched angrily, its fur sticking out in every direction. It was a ferret. A white ferret, to be exact. Harry blinked, trying to make sense of the situation. He knelt beside the ferret, reaching out a hand to pick it up, and almost immediately pulled his hand back "Ow!" The ferret turned and ran into the bushes.
"Are you having trouble, Boy?" He heard Uncle Vernon calling. "Can't even bring in the mail, can you?"
Harry stuck his injured thumb into his mouth, sucking on it gently. "Ratty beast," he cursed, staring at the stop where the ferret had vanished. He got up and, kicking the shoe box behind the bushes along with its passenger, slammed the door behind him.
He set the letters down carefully next to his uncle, not wanting to aggravate him anymore. It wasn't worth the trouble. Sure, if he got in a fight with him, it would be a momentary. As he began to make his way up the stairs, he heard a sharp voice calling to him. "Potter!"
He paused, not bothering to turn. "Yes, Aunt Petunia?"
"There's blood on these letters. Blood!" She told him. Harry could just picture her waving them around in the air, face twisted into an expression of utmost outrage. "I'm sorry, Aunt Petunia. I cut my finger," he lied. He didn't want to be dragged to the clinic for a round of rabies shots. Not that the Dursleys would care if he died, whether from rabies or the killing curse, but they certainly wouldn't want him endangering them.
Aunt Petunia gave a little "Harrumph!" which Harry took to mean that he could go. He took the stairs two at a time, not out of any excitement for what he'd find up there, (It was only his trunk in his room, which he hadn't bothered to open since he had returned home from Hogwarts. Homework seemed like quite a pointless thing, given the circumstances. So just that, along with a few piles of unopened letters,) no, he just wanted to be away from the Dursleys. He wanted to be away from everyone. He was about to slam his door, but thought better of it at the last moment, catching it in his hand, and closing it gently. It would be much harder for his relatives to forget he was here, as he wanted them to, as he wanted to himself, if he was making noise. Wishing, not for the first time, that there was a lock on the door, Harry threw himself on the bed. Hedwig looked down at him from her cage atop his dresser, giving him a disdainful hoot.
Harry had stopped letting her out, first during the day, and then at all. He had the distinct feeling that she was growing tired of him, and he was sure that if he let her out, she wouldn't be returning. He had no idea where she had been going when he let her out, only that her absences had been increasingly long, and every time she had returned, talons weighted down with more and more letters, on the last journey with more than she could carry. She had appeared with a haughty barn owl, who had turned his beak up at the owl treats Harry had offered him, stopping only to take a few half-hearted gulps of Hedwig's water, before taking wing out of his bedroom window. Harry had wanted her company, so he had decided to keep her locked up. He knew that it was a bit selfish, but he really couldn't bring himself to care. Besides, he didn't want his letters. Hedwig had taken to pecking at him, desperately trying to get him to open them, until he had locked her in her cage. Whatever. She was proving to be dreadful company, anyway. She would barely look at Harry, much less talk with him as she had used to, with her friendly hoots, and nibbles. She hooted loudly, interrupting his thoughts.
He was suddenly over come with anger, at himself, at the world, at life, and especially at Hedwig. Fine. If she wanted to abandon him now, when the world had gone even more insane than usual, when he needed her most, fine, he would let her go. He didn't need her. He yanked open her cage, standing aside and gesturing violently toward the open window. "Fine! Go, now, and don't come back. I'm tired of this, too goddamn tired." At first, she stayed plastered to the back of her cage, seeming afraid, (A fact that gave Harry far too much pleasure,) but then she inched her way along the perch, finally opening her large wings, and soaring soundlessly into the light. "And don't come back with any bloody letters!" He yelled out at her, earning himself a glare from a next door neighbor hosing off his car.
He slammed his window shut, glass rattling ominously in its frame. He threw himself back onto his bed, dislodging a number of letters which had been stuffed under his pillow. They fell to the floor. Harry ignored them, swiftly kicking them under the bed. He did not want to think about them. He did not want to look at them, not even to see whether it was addressed in Ron's untidy scrawl, or Hermione's neat, prim handwriting, or Hagrid's messy script, or Dumbledore's—He stopped himself, growling softly under his breath, his hands involuntarily balling into fists. No. He wasn't ready to think about that. He wasn't ready to think about the wizarding world at all. He just wanted to lie here, and not think, and not exist.
The door bell rang. Harry tried not to scream.
Without waiting for the inevitable call of "Boy!" or "Potter!", Harry leapt out of bed, wrenching open his door, and bolting down the stairs to the front door. "What? What is it?" He yelled angrily. At no one. There was no one there. He furrowed his brow, leaning out of the door to peer to either side of the house. Stupid Muggle children and their stupid games. Ding Dong Ditch. Dudley had tried to force him to play it when he was little; of course, it had ended up with him spending hours with Mrs. Figg, talking about her dead cats… He looked down. It was the box. He crouched beside it, examining it carefully. Yes, it was definitely the same box as before. It ever showed the abuse it had endured, an extra, toe shaped dent adorned one side, and it was considerably muddier than it had been before, but it was the same box. It even had the same curious, scrabbling sound coming from within. He stood up, looking around incredulously. Who the hell..?
Harry stepped over the box, bending over the hedges and searching them. No one. He straightened, spinning around. No one. No one anywhere. Unless they had Apparated, and Harry certainly hadn't heard the sound of an Apparation, it seemed that someone invisible had delivered the box, and its passenger. He looked up, finally noticing the neighbor across the street, still hosing down his car. "Hey! You! Hey, you there!" Harry called, a bit rudely.
The man looked at him, sneering nastily. "Aren't you that insane boy? Attends St. Brutus's?" He asked.
Harry ignored him. "Did you see anyone leave that at my door?" He asked loudly, pointing at the box.
The man shook his head, turning quickly away from Harry. Frustrated, Harry scooped up the box, and, stepping back into the house, closed the door.
"Who was it, Potter?" Came Dudley's voice. It sounded muffled, as if full of something, which it undoubtedly was.
"Er…just some silly kids playing tricks." Harry answered. He returned to his room, propping a chair up under the door knob. It wouldn't keep anyone out for long, but at least Harry would have more warning if someone were to decide to barge in. He set the box down on his bed and sat beside it, staring at it. Finally, he opened it. The ferret again dove out of the box, this time flying directly at Harry. It landed in his lap, and began leaping about, back arched and fang bared, in what seemed to Harry almost a comical way, until it found his hand, and dug its teeth deep into the back of it. Harry yelled, yanking his hand back. The ferret backed away, falling backwards off of the bed. Harry leaned to look over the side of the bed, just in time to see a furry behind scrabbling underneath. Scowling, he rolled onto the floor, standing on all fours to look. He was surprised. The ferret did not launch itself at his face. It did not back away in fear. It was not even moving. It was staring at his letters, almost as if it could read the address. And if an animal's face can show emotion, this one's was showing pure shock. Slowly, the creature raised it face from the letter on the floor, to look at Harry. And then it did launch itself at Harry's face.