Darkened clouds littered the sky as the sun slowly set beyond the horizon. The humidity in the air had risen since Harry had gotten off of his train back to London, and the young boy could feel the rain coming. He sat outside of the train station on his trunk, with Hedwig asleep in her cage beside him. Uncle Vernon was late... Four hours late.
Surprisingly the train station was still busy. People walked by every few minutes, and some even stopped to ask Harry if he was okay, to which he would always reply, "I'm fine, I'm just waiting for my ride... He'll be here soon." Everyone who had asked seemed satisfied with this answer and would go along their way once more. This left Harry much time to think about all of the reasons Vernon could be late. The foremost thought in his mind, was that his uncle simply didn't care, as that seemed to be the case more often than not with anything that Harry did.
Finally, he saw the silver car drive up. A sigh of relief came from Harry as he picked up Hedwig's cage and made his way to the back door of the vehicle.
"Not in the back... put it in the boot of the car." Vernon told the boy as he unlocked said trunk.
"What?" Harry asked, his grip on the cage that held his familiar tightened. "She can't go in the boot! She'll suffocate."
Hedwig roused some and chirped at the two. Vernon glared at the both of them. "Either it goes in the trunk, or you release it." He said, his voice unwavering. "It left a pellet in my back floorboard on the way to this blasted place, there'll be no more of that nonsense."
Rage coursed through Harry's veins, but he stopped short when he remembered something. Hedwig was an excellent judge of distance and address- her primary function that she'd been trained for was delivering mail after all. She could easily find her way home, and get a good fly in in the meantime. "I'll release her." He said defiantly as he opened the cage and held his hand out for Hedwig to step on. "Fly home." He told her as he nuzzled her cheek a little, to which she made a trilling hoot. When he released her, the owl took off into the sky, destination in mind.
A scoff came from Vernon. "Good... don't need any bloody animals making a mess of the house anyway- you do that enough on your own." He muttered. "Get your trunk in the boot then get in the back, we're late boy."
Harry withheld the remarks in his mind as he loaded up his trunk. At least he'd gotten help from an upperclassman earlier to make the thing more lightweight and maneuverable. He put the empty cage in the trunk and as quickly as he could shuffled into the back seat. In a flash they were off.
The ride home was long and quiet. Vernon only spoke to complain about the traffic, curse at the stop lights, and scold Harry once for hiccuping. They boy kept quiet though. He knew at least when he got home, he could lay down in his bed and let the thoughts of the day melt away. The only thing he'd really been thankful to the Dursleys for was when they switched his room from the cupboard under the stairs, to the smallest bedroom upstairs. It was at least four times the size of the cupboard, and for that content.
As they rolled into the driveway, Harry noticed that Hedwig sat on their mailbox waiting for them. She fluttered her wings and hooted as the boy got out from the car and jogged over to her. "Good girl!" He said with a smile as she hopped onto his shoulder. The poor thing panted, likely in exhaustion, but still Harry knew it was better than having her cooped up in the trunk the whole ride there, especially with how many potholes Vernon had hit along the way.
The man growled as he stood up from the car. "Can't believe that thing actually made it here." He muttered as he searched through his keys to lock the vehicle.
Harry smirked to himself as he pulled the trunk from the boot of the car and led it towards the front door. This smirk was short lived though.
"No." Vernon said as he approached the door and took hold of the trunk. He ignored the boy's protests as he led them both inside. Once they were in and the door was closed and locked behind him, Vernon turned and gave a disgusting grin of his own. "Petunia and I have been talking, you're not to have access to your magic stuff while you're here." The clock in the living room began to chime. "In fact, this is going to be locked away in the cupboard, and you'll return, with that disgusting animal, to old room. This way we can keep an eye on you and keep you from doing anything 'magic'. Petty's made another list, you can start your chores tomorrow at 5 am. She thought it best to give you the night to process all of this. Oh and, we've already had supper so you don't have to cook tonight. We expect the house to be spotless by the time I return from work tomorrow." The man dragged the trunk to the closet and tossed it haphazardly into the small space as the clock gave its last chime, signifying it was 9 pm. "Go to bed before I change my mind about allowing that thing in the house at all!"
Harry clenched the cage tight and he ran upstairs, only to receive a warning about running in the house. He was so completely thrown that he didn't even notice the addition of four more locks to the outside of his door. He simply ran in and shut it behind him. The boy's hands fumbled as he went to open the cage that held his owl, but he managed to free her once more. She hooted quietly at him and flew to the top of his wardrobe where she sat and began to groom herself.
Harry opened his curtains only to find that now they were covered in black iron bars. His ears twitched and he turned his head as he heard the locks on his door began to shift into place. "No..." He whispered as the final and seventh lock was applied. "Idiot!" He chided himself as he recalled that he'd put his wand into his trunk. He was trapped in a cage of his own.
No supper, no food since breakfast that day actually, no wand, and none of his notes to study about fire over the summer. He growled and kicked the side of his wardrobe.
"Stop scuffing mY FURNITURE!" Petunia's voice shrieked from downstairs.
Harry winced and laid on his bed. "Sorry Aunt Petunia." He called. "I fell." He lied. The boy sighed as he laid down on his bed. It wouldn't be the first night he went to bed hungry, and it certainly wouldn't be the last if things kept going this way. He knew two things- he needed to steal the key to the cupboard from his aunt and uncle's room, likely while they were cleaning it, and he needed to get his wand, his books, and his notes to his room without being seen. He started forming a plan.
Harry's alarm sounded off at 5 am sharp, just a few minutes after his uncle's had gone off. The boy had spent the entire night awake, just trying to get to sleep, but it didn't work at all. He'd spent the vast majority of his time watching Hedwig alternate between cleaning herself and sleeping.
Finally the locks on the door begun to move and Vernon gave one sharp pound to it. "The list is on the table in the hallway. Do the weeding first so you don't wake Petty." He called.
With determination set on his face, Harry jumped from his bed. He'd been thinking about it all night, and he believed himself to have formed the perfect plan.
His first step, do the morning chores as he was supposed to. Make no fuss, get in as little trouble as possible, and wake Aunt Petunia with her customary breakfast-in-bed at 7:30 am.
The front door closed and Harry quickly made his way out of the mini prison that was his room. He fumbled down the stairs and into the hallway where he found his list of things to do that day on the table. "Only 32." He muttered as he scanned over it.
Vernon had said to do the weeding first, however it was still too dark out to see. He figured that he could probably fit it in between dawn and when he was supposed to wake Petunia. He decided to get on with cleaning out the fridge first. Since he was to throw away the spoiled food, and food that had reached its 'best by' date, he knew nobody would miss it if he were to make his own little feast out of it.
After a quick ransacking he had created a meal that consisted of semi-spoiled ham, a couple of pieces of squished bread which had reached its due date the day before, and orange juice from a bottle that had an odd ring of something that looked suspiciously bad along the bottom. He was happy though, as he knew this would probably be the majority of meals that he had this summer.
It was still dark out, so he couldn't weed yet, but he needed to do something else far enough away it wouldn't wake Petunia. Harry glanced to his list and scanned over it, then settled on sweeping mopping the kitchen. Finally, at the completion of that, he could begin weeding. First though, he set an alarm so he knew when to cook breakfast.
Harry knocked 3 times on Petunia's door. He opened it and called for the woman to wake up as he brought in her breakfast- three eggs fried over easy which she'd never finished all of but for some reason insisted on having, 2 slices of bacon, 1 slice of toast, a side of jam in a tiny tiny doll-sized platter to the side, a glass of fresh orange juice- hand squeezed, and a sprig of mint in said orange juice.
"Aunt Petunia?" He called as he sat the little bed table down over her lap. She gave a groggy response. "I've got something important that needs to be gotten from my trunk."
The woman sleepily glared daggers at him. "Unless it's life or death, no. You're not touching anything freaky from that school."
Harry cleared his throat some as he stepped back. "Actually it is life or death... for Hedwig." He waited for any sign of recognition from the woman but there was none. "My owl?"
"Oh... what is it?" She muttered as she spread the jam on the toast.
"I left her food in the trunk, I thought I'd be going back into it when I got home, so I didn't see any reason in keeping it out." The boy informed her as he glanced off towards his room. When he looked back he could see she wasn't really interested. "You know, if owls don't eat at least twice a day they start throwing up everywhere, then they can die." He lied. "And she only ate once yesterday I've already had to clean 2 piles of vomit today."
"Stop talking about vomit while I'm eating, you nasty little brat." Petunia scolded. "I'll get your damn owl food out of it myself."
"Wow, thanks Aunt Petunia!" Harry said with a grin. "It's in a box at the bottom of the trunk, under the stink pellets, beside the schoolbooks. Be careful about the stink pellets though, if you rustle them too hard explode and it'll smell like a sewer in here."
The woman glared at him a bit harder as she rethought her idea. "Dudley will be getting them when he wakes up then." She informed him. "Outside!"
"That's great." Harry said as he walked from the room. On to phase two: convince Dudley to also get other things.
Harry made a much grander feast for his pampered cousin, consisting of nearly 2 times what he'd given to his aunt. He also added in one of Dudley's favorites, two homemade donuts.
As he went to wake Dudley with his breakfast in bed, Harry seized his opportunity. "Oh Duddy-kins." He said with a grin as he knocked on the door. He brought in the food and sat it on the end table beside the boy. His voice lowered to a whisper to the other boy. "Aunt Petunia's gonna ask you to get my owl food from my trunk outside today. If you also get my wand and my stack of parchment that's tied off with red twine, I'll do magic to help you all summer." He lowly informed the other boy.
Dudley smacked his lip as he awoke and rubbed at his eye."What kind of magic?"
"I can do a spell, it's called an obliviate. Basically any time you do something bad or wrong, and aunt Petunia or uncle Vernon find out, I can make them forget you did anything wrong." The boy tried.
Dudley looked elated at first, then his face fell. "Wait, what's to stop you from using that on me to make me forget you promised?" He asked with a frown.
Damn... seemed like Duddy-kins has started to grow some brain cells. He needed that wand though! "Wizard's oath. Unbreakable vow. Basically it makes it so I can't break a promise I made to you, or I die." He promised. "That would be the very first spell I did, and if I even start to utter 'obliv' at you, you can punch me."
"Deal!" Dudley said with a grin. "Now go away. I wanna eat."
"Red twine wrapped parchment, my wand, and the owl food. Don't forget." Harry reminded him.
Soon the boy was off once more downstairs. He gathered some necessary supplies before Petunia woke up. A notepad and a pen being the main ones, and a small bag of snacks that he could later blame on Dudley having taken should he need to. Yes, this day was going quite well.