Harry Potter and the shadow war
Chapter 1: Petunia's con
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing other than the clothes I'm wearing and
the computer I'm typing from
SPOILERS: All Harry Potter books including OOTP!
Daniel Baker had experienced his fair share of comedy whilst working in the DIY store in Little Whinning. He had been working there on Saturdays since the age of thirteen and since he had left collage had been working there six days a week. Now at the ripe old age of thirty two and the current assistant manager. Dan had sold more chisels and trowels than most men, and in doing so had, had opportunities to chuckle at old lady's buying power tools and young suspicious looking boys one of them extremely fat, attempting to buy spray paint for what they claimed to be a school project.
However despite all this, quite possibly the most amusing and slightly nerving moment of dan's career was at the beginning of summer when a stick like teenage boy with a mop of messy dark hair had strolled calmly into his shop and proceeded round the first isle past the goldfish display beyond the wallpaper section and into the gardening section. In the following minutes dan heard such strange grunting noises followed by moans of suppressed agony that he was tempted to leave the cash till un manned and go and discover what the problem was.
The strange fact about Whinning DIY was that it was not little and certainly not whining. Infact it was completely the opposite. The store was the size of a large supermarket it stretched row upon row containing all things from lawn mowers to toe-nail clippers to video games and all the other strange out of place items found in English DIY shops, the problem was however not the prices or the quality of goods but simply the fact that little whinning was just that. little and consequently the shop it's days of affluence long gone rarely had customers and consequently only had one person at a time working at it. This was precisely why Dan was at pain to walk the hundred and fifty meters from one end of the shop to the other leaving the old 50's till extremely venerable to criminals.
In the end Dan's dilemma was solved as soon as he saw one of the most amusing and pain enduing sights of his life. Amusing because the most frail boy he had ever seen in his life the same boy who walked in five minutes ago was dragging/carrying/pushing/whatever he could three of the big bertie's. In other words the largest, second largest and third largest sledge hammers in the shop, the sight of the poor creature struggling mixed with the thought of him attempting to use them was the source of the amusement. The source of pain was discovered when Harry Potter dumped the lightest of them on to the counter and there was a sickening crash and a shriek of pain as the sledge hammer crashed through the old desk and on to the foot of Daniel.
Harry's eyes stung as sweat rolled down his face on his first day of work, he looked up and blinked. He couldn't see very well the sun was in his eyes as was the sweat poring off his forehead. He reached for his glasses which were hanging off the V of his shirt. He put them on and released the sledge hammer from his grip. He was very tired but a look at his watch told him it was only two o'clock and he promised his Aunt Petunia that he would work until five or he would not get paid and never finish all the other concrete paths running down the back garden and side gate. Petunia wanted the garden re-done and Harry seeing an opportunity to get away from the Dursleys gets some money, builds up his strength and takes his mind off things, jumped at the opportunity. However it wasn't that easy, both getting the job and doing it were harder than Harry could ever have imagined.
Like Uncle Vernon's dilemma two years before when Harry had wanted to go to the quidditch world cup. Petunia was in a situation where what she wanted was also going to make 'the boy' happy. Never the less she may well have once again in a similar way to Vernon let Harry have what he wanted for her self provocation however when she was just about to agree to his proposal of working for her in the garden Harry had made a mistake, a big mistake.
"And what about my wages?" he had said
It wasn't that he expected wages infact he thought the chances were very slim but he felt that taking the initiative and testing the waters was the right thing to do. It wasn't
Aunt Petunia had been to mortified to speak but if she hadn't she would have said something along the lines of: "Young ungrateful child. wicked boy... we take you in.feed you... clothes on your back. ECT
However aunt Petunia just stood there looking insulted, after a few minutes she managed to mumble "Ille think about it." in a voice even higher than normal. Harry stayed in his room the rest of that evening thinking it best to avoid Vernon in case she had mentioned anything to him. He knew Vernon had returned as he heard the distinct sound of Dudley coming up the stairs from his summer work experience with his father, well it may have been an earthquake in Japan but Harry felt it was Dudley as once the house stopped reverberating the door across the hall slammed in a violent fashion.
Dudley had been in a relatively good mood lately as his father had not only been paying him well for his work experience at Grunnings but had also hired him a secretary who resembled a super model and given him a co-worker clever enough to do a weeks work for two in a day and a half.
Harry was surprised when he didn't hear a second set of thundering footsteps that night that signalled Aunt Petunia had informed Vernon of there previous conversation.
Harry was even more surprised to find Petunia waking him up at five thirty the next morning handing him the keys to the tool shed and explaining that his first task was to strip the garden by removing the several concrete paths that ran through the garden. That he would be paid five pounds per hour on weekends and four pounds an hour on weekdays. He would be assigned a different task each week and that if he didn't finish or nearly finish that week's task he would be fired.
That morning Harry had for once felt he was getting somewhere in the Dursley household and that this summer might not be as bad as he had thought once he had discovered he would not be allowed to go to the burrow this summer. He was so enthusiastic he got out of bed showered dressed and ate by six. As Harry pulled on his boots Aunt Petunia forced a fifty pound note in to his hand and told Harry that he would have to buy a couple of sledge hammers because they didn't have any. Harry was shocked that Petunia would trust him with such a large sum. However he was brought back down to earth when Petunia yelled out the window that she wanted a receipt and change. So Harry went and bought the sledge hammers and began to work.
Every muscle in his body was screaming as he raised the sledge hammer in a pathetic arc and brought it down on the cracked path. Harry had worked fine earlier as one half of the path was thinner than the other side and it had been sufficient to raise the smallest of the three sledge hammers to his shoulder height and let gravity do the work however as he had moved up the path his muscles had got tired and the path had got thicker making things even harder. He attempted to raise the hammer and felt a strong pain in his shoulder and let it sink though he made no noise he winced, paused took a deep breath moved his arm felt no pain and turned his wrist to look at his watch four thirty. Only thirty minutes more of this torture he thought. He began picking up the bits of broken concrete path and meticulously stacking them in to the wheel barrow. It was relatively sunny but quite humid making work hard and Harry was relived when he managed to finally role the wheel barrow up the muddy ramp to the skip currently sitting outside number four, he tipped it and shook it backwards and forwards until the last big slab had dropped in. He dropped the will barrow after taking it back down the ramp put the sledge hammers in the tool shed and locked it. Checking his watch he realised it was five past five and decided to sweep the muddy lump of flattened soil where the path had once been to remove all the small concrete pebbles and sand underlay. This way it would not seem to Petunia he was dropping his tools at five on the dot.
He strolled casually to the house and walked inside. The kitchen was empty and he walked into the living room to find Vernon his eyes closed snoring in his favourite arm chair and petunia who had evidently been cleaning the floor with a rolling hover shot round at him her fingers to her lips as if to say 'Be quiet don't you dare wake him' This was something slightly stupid as Harry had not only been silent but also because Dudley's loud punk rock music could clearly be heard from the living room. Aunt Petunia walked straight passed him ignoring him now. Harry followed her. "Finished have you?!" she snapped rudely. Harry nodded She glanced at her watch and gave him an accusing stare so I suppose you think you're being clever do you. Harry was confused at her death stare, he had come to her for paying the only term he had arranged that morning was to be paid each day so he could spend some money on his evening walks and so he didn't do a weeks work only to find she was trying to con him. His face looked blank. She carried on "It's thirty five past five!" she said as if that explained everything. Harry held his blank look. "Well I'm not paying over for the next hour. I don't care if you think coming in the other side of the half hour means you'll get paid for the whole hour. "Im not paying you a penny beyond five!" "No." said Harry meaning to explain that was not what he was doing and that he only wanted his standard days pay. "NO..." Petunia replied "I give you bloody no you'll lucky to be getting paid at all! I could get my darling dinky duddy dums to do it for free!" Harry bit back the words 'Yeah right! Only if the path was edible!' paused and calmly said "A standards day's pay will be fine." And ignored ignored Petunia's belittleing remark "Too bloody right it will be!" "Here you go" she said. "I've worked it out on this piece of paper" She handed him a large white sheet containing the following information a slight smile on her face:
Hours worked: 7-5. Rate of pay: £4 per hour Total amount of hours: 10 10x4 = £40 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EXCESS CHARGES
Day's room and board: £25 Breakfast: £5 Lunch: £10 Dinner: £10
Total amount £50
£40-£50 = minus £10
"I expect the money by this evening" petunia said in a winning tone But Harry furious stopped her as she turned to go. "What's this" He said "I think it's pretty obvious what it is, your receipt" said Petunia an obvious note of triumph and humour in her voice.
"Right said Harry!" Picking a pencil up from the side and altering the paper in front of him He handed it back to her. "I won't be having dinner this evening so I don't owe you any money. I didn't eat breakfast so you owe me five pounds. Further more from now on I will not be attending any meals and do not expect to be charged for them. Twenty five pound a day is a very expensive price for room and board so I expect the best from my landlord and as a current tenant my tenant's rights dictate that all items in the room should be in working order at the tenant's discretion. If you remove anything from my room I expect the rent to be lowered. Unless you wish to remove them I expect my bookcase my chair and all of Dudley's old toys to be fixed by tomorrow evening and a new bulb in my bedside lamp. On top of this my chores will be confined to my room and the communal toilet. I will no longer cook for you clean for you or sweep up for you. I also expect a second set of bed linen and the cooker washer and dryer to be functioning at all times." He turned to go and Petunia opened her mouth to speak but Harry cut straight back in. "and if you don't like it fine I have plenty of parchment and ink and before long I can have letters out to the government explaining how my legal guardians are charging me for my room and board underage. How they are working me for free which amounts to slave labour, and a few letters to my headmasters and my wizarding friends to explain how I'm being miss-treated. Also remember I am allowed to do magic outside of school and genuinely see nothing wrong with spraying the entire house with mud! I expect my money in the morning" Petunia closed her open mouth gulped and stood there looking shocked.
"Or we could just forget about all this" said Harry indicating the piece of paper in her hand which he then took and scrumpled up. She nodded now my dear Aunt Petunia I do believe you owe me money at the sum of forty pounds." She re gained her wits gave him a cold stare handed him forty pounds from her purse and turned to go.
"Oh" said Harry "and Aunt Petunia." she stopped but did not turn. "I won't be at those pathetic excuses for meals each day I'm going to eat out from now on." He turned and walked up the stairs calmly. When he shut the door he allowed himself a small smile then he flopped down on his bed and unlike the previous two weeks when he had laid awake all night thinking about Sirius and his new plans for the DA. He fell asleep almost instantly.
Chapter 1: Petunia's con
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing other than the clothes I'm wearing and
the computer I'm typing from
SPOILERS: All Harry Potter books including OOTP!
Daniel Baker had experienced his fair share of comedy whilst working in the DIY store in Little Whinning. He had been working there on Saturdays since the age of thirteen and since he had left collage had been working there six days a week. Now at the ripe old age of thirty two and the current assistant manager. Dan had sold more chisels and trowels than most men, and in doing so had, had opportunities to chuckle at old lady's buying power tools and young suspicious looking boys one of them extremely fat, attempting to buy spray paint for what they claimed to be a school project.
However despite all this, quite possibly the most amusing and slightly nerving moment of dan's career was at the beginning of summer when a stick like teenage boy with a mop of messy dark hair had strolled calmly into his shop and proceeded round the first isle past the goldfish display beyond the wallpaper section and into the gardening section. In the following minutes dan heard such strange grunting noises followed by moans of suppressed agony that he was tempted to leave the cash till un manned and go and discover what the problem was.
The strange fact about Whinning DIY was that it was not little and certainly not whining. Infact it was completely the opposite. The store was the size of a large supermarket it stretched row upon row containing all things from lawn mowers to toe-nail clippers to video games and all the other strange out of place items found in English DIY shops, the problem was however not the prices or the quality of goods but simply the fact that little whinning was just that. little and consequently the shop it's days of affluence long gone rarely had customers and consequently only had one person at a time working at it. This was precisely why Dan was at pain to walk the hundred and fifty meters from one end of the shop to the other leaving the old 50's till extremely venerable to criminals.
In the end Dan's dilemma was solved as soon as he saw one of the most amusing and pain enduing sights of his life. Amusing because the most frail boy he had ever seen in his life the same boy who walked in five minutes ago was dragging/carrying/pushing/whatever he could three of the big bertie's. In other words the largest, second largest and third largest sledge hammers in the shop, the sight of the poor creature struggling mixed with the thought of him attempting to use them was the source of the amusement. The source of pain was discovered when Harry Potter dumped the lightest of them on to the counter and there was a sickening crash and a shriek of pain as the sledge hammer crashed through the old desk and on to the foot of Daniel.
Harry's eyes stung as sweat rolled down his face on his first day of work, he looked up and blinked. He couldn't see very well the sun was in his eyes as was the sweat poring off his forehead. He reached for his glasses which were hanging off the V of his shirt. He put them on and released the sledge hammer from his grip. He was very tired but a look at his watch told him it was only two o'clock and he promised his Aunt Petunia that he would work until five or he would not get paid and never finish all the other concrete paths running down the back garden and side gate. Petunia wanted the garden re-done and Harry seeing an opportunity to get away from the Dursleys gets some money, builds up his strength and takes his mind off things, jumped at the opportunity. However it wasn't that easy, both getting the job and doing it were harder than Harry could ever have imagined.
Like Uncle Vernon's dilemma two years before when Harry had wanted to go to the quidditch world cup. Petunia was in a situation where what she wanted was also going to make 'the boy' happy. Never the less she may well have once again in a similar way to Vernon let Harry have what he wanted for her self provocation however when she was just about to agree to his proposal of working for her in the garden Harry had made a mistake, a big mistake.
"And what about my wages?" he had said
It wasn't that he expected wages infact he thought the chances were very slim but he felt that taking the initiative and testing the waters was the right thing to do. It wasn't
Aunt Petunia had been to mortified to speak but if she hadn't she would have said something along the lines of: "Young ungrateful child. wicked boy... we take you in.feed you... clothes on your back. ECT
However aunt Petunia just stood there looking insulted, after a few minutes she managed to mumble "Ille think about it." in a voice even higher than normal. Harry stayed in his room the rest of that evening thinking it best to avoid Vernon in case she had mentioned anything to him. He knew Vernon had returned as he heard the distinct sound of Dudley coming up the stairs from his summer work experience with his father, well it may have been an earthquake in Japan but Harry felt it was Dudley as once the house stopped reverberating the door across the hall slammed in a violent fashion.
Dudley had been in a relatively good mood lately as his father had not only been paying him well for his work experience at Grunnings but had also hired him a secretary who resembled a super model and given him a co-worker clever enough to do a weeks work for two in a day and a half.
Harry was surprised when he didn't hear a second set of thundering footsteps that night that signalled Aunt Petunia had informed Vernon of there previous conversation.
Harry was even more surprised to find Petunia waking him up at five thirty the next morning handing him the keys to the tool shed and explaining that his first task was to strip the garden by removing the several concrete paths that ran through the garden. That he would be paid five pounds per hour on weekends and four pounds an hour on weekdays. He would be assigned a different task each week and that if he didn't finish or nearly finish that week's task he would be fired.
That morning Harry had for once felt he was getting somewhere in the Dursley household and that this summer might not be as bad as he had thought once he had discovered he would not be allowed to go to the burrow this summer. He was so enthusiastic he got out of bed showered dressed and ate by six. As Harry pulled on his boots Aunt Petunia forced a fifty pound note in to his hand and told Harry that he would have to buy a couple of sledge hammers because they didn't have any. Harry was shocked that Petunia would trust him with such a large sum. However he was brought back down to earth when Petunia yelled out the window that she wanted a receipt and change. So Harry went and bought the sledge hammers and began to work.
Every muscle in his body was screaming as he raised the sledge hammer in a pathetic arc and brought it down on the cracked path. Harry had worked fine earlier as one half of the path was thinner than the other side and it had been sufficient to raise the smallest of the three sledge hammers to his shoulder height and let gravity do the work however as he had moved up the path his muscles had got tired and the path had got thicker making things even harder. He attempted to raise the hammer and felt a strong pain in his shoulder and let it sink though he made no noise he winced, paused took a deep breath moved his arm felt no pain and turned his wrist to look at his watch four thirty. Only thirty minutes more of this torture he thought. He began picking up the bits of broken concrete path and meticulously stacking them in to the wheel barrow. It was relatively sunny but quite humid making work hard and Harry was relived when he managed to finally role the wheel barrow up the muddy ramp to the skip currently sitting outside number four, he tipped it and shook it backwards and forwards until the last big slab had dropped in. He dropped the will barrow after taking it back down the ramp put the sledge hammers in the tool shed and locked it. Checking his watch he realised it was five past five and decided to sweep the muddy lump of flattened soil where the path had once been to remove all the small concrete pebbles and sand underlay. This way it would not seem to Petunia he was dropping his tools at five on the dot.
He strolled casually to the house and walked inside. The kitchen was empty and he walked into the living room to find Vernon his eyes closed snoring in his favourite arm chair and petunia who had evidently been cleaning the floor with a rolling hover shot round at him her fingers to her lips as if to say 'Be quiet don't you dare wake him' This was something slightly stupid as Harry had not only been silent but also because Dudley's loud punk rock music could clearly be heard from the living room. Aunt Petunia walked straight passed him ignoring him now. Harry followed her. "Finished have you?!" she snapped rudely. Harry nodded She glanced at her watch and gave him an accusing stare so I suppose you think you're being clever do you. Harry was confused at her death stare, he had come to her for paying the only term he had arranged that morning was to be paid each day so he could spend some money on his evening walks and so he didn't do a weeks work only to find she was trying to con him. His face looked blank. She carried on "It's thirty five past five!" she said as if that explained everything. Harry held his blank look. "Well I'm not paying over for the next hour. I don't care if you think coming in the other side of the half hour means you'll get paid for the whole hour. "Im not paying you a penny beyond five!" "No." said Harry meaning to explain that was not what he was doing and that he only wanted his standard days pay. "NO..." Petunia replied "I give you bloody no you'll lucky to be getting paid at all! I could get my darling dinky duddy dums to do it for free!" Harry bit back the words 'Yeah right! Only if the path was edible!' paused and calmly said "A standards day's pay will be fine." And ignored ignored Petunia's belittleing remark "Too bloody right it will be!" "Here you go" she said. "I've worked it out on this piece of paper" She handed him a large white sheet containing the following information a slight smile on her face:
Hours worked: 7-5. Rate of pay: £4 per hour Total amount of hours: 10 10x4 = £40 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EXCESS CHARGES
Day's room and board: £25 Breakfast: £5 Lunch: £10 Dinner: £10
Total amount £50
£40-£50 = minus £10
"I expect the money by this evening" petunia said in a winning tone But Harry furious stopped her as she turned to go. "What's this" He said "I think it's pretty obvious what it is, your receipt" said Petunia an obvious note of triumph and humour in her voice.
"Right said Harry!" Picking a pencil up from the side and altering the paper in front of him He handed it back to her. "I won't be having dinner this evening so I don't owe you any money. I didn't eat breakfast so you owe me five pounds. Further more from now on I will not be attending any meals and do not expect to be charged for them. Twenty five pound a day is a very expensive price for room and board so I expect the best from my landlord and as a current tenant my tenant's rights dictate that all items in the room should be in working order at the tenant's discretion. If you remove anything from my room I expect the rent to be lowered. Unless you wish to remove them I expect my bookcase my chair and all of Dudley's old toys to be fixed by tomorrow evening and a new bulb in my bedside lamp. On top of this my chores will be confined to my room and the communal toilet. I will no longer cook for you clean for you or sweep up for you. I also expect a second set of bed linen and the cooker washer and dryer to be functioning at all times." He turned to go and Petunia opened her mouth to speak but Harry cut straight back in. "and if you don't like it fine I have plenty of parchment and ink and before long I can have letters out to the government explaining how my legal guardians are charging me for my room and board underage. How they are working me for free which amounts to slave labour, and a few letters to my headmasters and my wizarding friends to explain how I'm being miss-treated. Also remember I am allowed to do magic outside of school and genuinely see nothing wrong with spraying the entire house with mud! I expect my money in the morning" Petunia closed her open mouth gulped and stood there looking shocked.
"Or we could just forget about all this" said Harry indicating the piece of paper in her hand which he then took and scrumpled up. She nodded now my dear Aunt Petunia I do believe you owe me money at the sum of forty pounds." She re gained her wits gave him a cold stare handed him forty pounds from her purse and turned to go.
"Oh" said Harry "and Aunt Petunia." she stopped but did not turn. "I won't be at those pathetic excuses for meals each day I'm going to eat out from now on." He turned and walked up the stairs calmly. When he shut the door he allowed himself a small smile then he flopped down on his bed and unlike the previous two weeks when he had laid awake all night thinking about Sirius and his new plans for the DA. He fell asleep almost instantly.