Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any original characters or settings (Hogwarts, Privet Drive etc...) but you already knew that.
Author's Note: This is my first attempt at a Harry Potter fic. It is called 'A Fix of Normality' because this year, Harry gets a break. Although Voldemort's whereabouts are unknown, this year, in my story, he does not appear for two reasons. First, I felt that although J.K. Rowling has done an amazing job with the series, not enough emphasis (I felt) has been put on the fact that he is a teenager. I want to give Harry a chance to be a regular teenager. Secondly, because I know that any attempt I make for suspenseful, adventurous, fighting plotlines will end up in disaster. So, please keep flames to yourself and enjoy the story. Also, I'm American and haven't been exposed to much English Culture, including speech, so if you know any British slang please write some and their meanings for me in your review! Much appreciated!
Harry Potter and A Fix of Normality
Chapter One – Weasley's Elpmip Juice
It was quite a sunny day in Little Whinging, one day in mid July. On the second floor of the house which stood at number four Privet Drive, slept a boy of almost sixteen. Harry Potter he was, and for the first time in many months, he slept a long, peaceful sleep. But unfortunately for him, his sleep (although a long eleven hours) was cut a bit short, on account of his porky, pink faced uncle Vernon who was banging on the door.
"Harry are you decent?" he shouted from behind the door. Usually, Vernon Dursley would just barge in there as he pleased, but a warning he received last June caused him to act more respectful than he usually was (which wasn't respectful at all) to one Harry Potter.
"Hmm?" Harry mumbled dreamily. He moved around a bit, stretching his arms, yawning, but his eyes flew open at the sound of the continuous knocking, which grew louder every three knocks, at his door. "Who is it then?" he called, feeling too lazy to get out of bed.
The door flew open and Vernon stepped no more than a few feet inside the room. His left eyebrow rose at the sight before him. He checked his watch and then put his pudgy, fat fingered hands on his hips and said,
"Still in bed at this hour? Figures. A bum would be." He muttered, but loud enough for Harry to hear. Normally, Harry would respond with an implied threaten, but he was in too good of a mood to care about his uncle today.
"What is it you wanted?" he said, now reaching for his glasses on his bedside table, and putting them on.
"Dudley, Petunia and I are going out for the day. Don't you steal any of our belongings now, you hear? I'll know!" he warned. Harry, however, just rolled his eyes.
"...and what am I supposed to eat?" Harry questioned just to get under Vernon's skin. It didn't matter what scrap for food they left for him, he had a stash of good wizard candy and cakes that his friends sent him over the weeks they were apart. Vernon's face turned a deeper shade of pink as he managed to mutter out,
"There's peanut butter in the pantry." His expression, raging, as if it were the worst thing he could ever do to give Harry Potter food. With that, he turned around and shut the door behind him. Harry could here him making loud thuds as he went down the staircase.
Again, yawning, Harry seemingly noticed that he felt quite rested, and that his scar hadn't been hurting the tiniest bit. He tried recalled his dream from which he had just previously awoken but he remembered nothing. A dreamless, painless sleep is what Harry had just experienced. Something that was quite rare for him. Harry touched his scar, with his index and middle fingers. He ran his fingers across it a few times, and felt nothing but his fingers rubbing his forehead. He did, however, feel something else. A couple of other things to be exact. They were small, round and bumpy, he concluded.
Taken over by curiosity, Harry threw his polyester green covers off of him and threw his legs over to the side of the bed. Standing up, he walked around his bed, (a floorboard squeaking as he stepped on it) and stood in front of his small, wooden, dresser. He picked up a round mirror on a handle he had, and looked at himself. He squinted a bit at first. What the? Oh no, pimples. He thought. Sighing, he put the mirror down, knowing better than to try and pop them. Dudley gets pimples. There must be some sort of cream in this house somewhere to take care of them.
But then Harry started wondering why he was making such a fuss in his head about two tiny little pimples. He didn't care much for his appearance before, but then again, who wants to walk around with tiny red dots on their face? As if he didn't get made fun of enough. Harry opened his top dresser, and pulled out muggle blue jeans and a muggle green t-shirt. He slipped both on, reminding himself to immerse in a shower later.
He waited until he heard the bustling sound of the Dursley's car leaving the driveway, before beginning his search. He started in the upstairs bathroom. There were two in the house; one upstairs shared by all three Dursleys, and one downstairs which had a shower, where the Dursleys insisted Harry bathe. He opened the door to what looked like a royal bathroom. It had plush, white rugs covering the white marble tiles, and the sink was made of marble and the lighting was so bright. He looked over at the sink counter. It had tons of Mrs. Dursley's cosmetics, Mr. Dursley's cologne and of course, tooth brushes and the sort.
He opened one of the three counter drawers and found some cotton balls, extra toilet paper and ear swabs. He opened the second drawer and found some extra razor blades for Mr. Dursley's shaver. This made Harry halt his search for a minute, and examine himself in the mirror. He rubbed his chin and cheeks and decided that he could wait to start shaving. He didn't have any stubble. He checked the third drawer and once more, found nothing helpful. Just some half-used hair products.
He looked around the bathroom and thought. Where would pimple cream be? He looked around until the medicine cabinet caught his eye. Of course! But, to his disappointment, he had found only an entirely used tube of cleansing cream, just taking up space in the cabinet. His stomach rumbled. He looked down at it and decided that maybe he could ask Hermione to send him some. She lived with muggles; they would buy it for him, no doubt. He wasn't about to ask the Dursleys to buy something for him, even if it was a hygienic thing, even if he could force them under Moody's warning.
Harry made sure everything was the way it was before he entered the bathroom and went back to his room. He retrieved a piece of a pumpkin cake Mrs. Weasley baked for him, a quill and some parchment to send Hermione a letter, who would no doubt be at Ron's like the last two summers. He took a bite of the cake and began writing:
Ron and Hermione,
Good news! My scar hasn't been hurting me for the past few weeks at all, and last night, I slept a dreamless night! I got about ten or eleven hours of sleep too. But the bad news is, I woke up with pimples. Two of them, right on my forehead beside my scar. The Dursleys have no cream for them, I searched. I was hoping you could ask your mum to send you some so you could send it to me, Hermione?
Anyway, tell your mum thanks for the cake, Ron. Can't wait to see you both.
Harry
He wasn't worried about the message falling into the wrong hands on it's journey to the burrow, now that a lot of death eaters were in Azkaban and Voldemort was in hiding again.
"Come here, Hedwig." He told his owl, as he opened the door to her cage. "You take this to Ron and Hermione at Ron's place, ok?" he rolled up the parchment and tied it around Hedwig's foot with a small piece of thin rope. Before she flew off (using the window in his bed room) Harry fed her a small piece of the cake.
Four days had past before Harry received a response from Ron and Hermione. He was sitting on his bed, reading comics from last week's muggle newspaper, which he snaked from the trash when Vernon wasn't looking, when Hedwig flew in with a loud flutter.
"Finally," Harry said, untying a small package and roll of parchment from her leg. He opened the letter first:
Harry,
That's great about your scar and your sleep! Mum was very happy when we told her you were sleeping easily. She'd been quite worried about you. Anyway, she said that we would come pick you up soon. Sometime next week I think.
About your pimple problem, Fred and George had been off work when we received your letter and they said they had came up with a special juice, called Elpmip Juice to get rid of your pimples (in the package I sent). It is generally used for erasing the effects of one of their special joke sweets that make horrible blemishes appear all over your face. They said it would get rid of pimples instantly.
Hermione was here, but went back home because her mother was a bit ill. A Fever I think it's called. She said she needed to help out around the house until she got better. She promised to be back by the time you arrived though. See you soon,
Ron
Harry, well aware of what a fever was, knew that within a week, hopefully Hermione's mom would be better. He ripped open the box and found a small plastic container with a clear liquid in it. He twisted open the cap and held his nose as he gulped it down. He looked in his little handheld mirror and sure enough, within seconds, the pimples had disappeared.