DIVERSE DESTINIES: Chapter 2, Mrs. Figg, in the park, with a 99
by Susan M. M.
Arabella Figg strolled the park. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and the park was full of children playing.
"Mummy, look, there's a boy going pee-pee in the bushes," a little boy called out.
"Go away," a child's voice retorted.
Mrs. Figg started. She recognized that voice. She walked to the bushes. "Harry? Harry, is that you?"
There was no response.
Mrs. Figg stepped over to the bushes and parted the branches with her hands. "Harry Potter, whatever are you doing here?"
Big green eyes looked up at her. Frightened green eyes.
"Did your aunt take you and Dudley to the park to play?" She hadn't seen any sign of Petunia and Dudley Dursley.
Harry shook his head.
"Does she know where you are?"
"I ran away," Harry confessed in a quiet, shaky voice.
Mrs. Figg thought a moment. "Harry, would you like a Ninety-Nine?"
"What's a Ninety-Nine?"
"An ice cream." She reached out her hand to him. "Come on. I'm treating."
Harry hesitated. Freedom was supposed to mean not listening to grown-ups - especially grown-ups who knew the Dursleys and would probably make him return to him. He hadn't expected freedom would mean being scared and hungry. He was very hungry; the food he had thought would last a week had lasted a day and a half. And he'd never been allowed to have ice cream before. He crawled out from the bushes and took her hand.
Mrs. Figg led him over to an ice cream cart. "Two Ninety-Nines, please."
"Monkey blood?" the ice cream man asked.
Harry's eyes went wide in shock.
"Would you like strawberry sauce, Harry?" Mrs. Figg asked.
Harry nodded.
Remembering what the little boy had said Harry had been doing, Mrs. Figg handed him a paper napkin before taking her wallet from her purse to pay for the Ninety-Nines. (Alas, with inflation, they cost more than ninety-nine pence.) A moment later the ice cream man handed Harry a vanilla ice cream cone with a chocolate flake bar stuck in the ice cream and strawberry sauce drizzled over it. He stuck his tongue out for a tentative, cautious lick. Then his face lit up into the biggest smile Arabella Figg had ever seen. "It's good!"
Mrs. Figg led Harry over to a bench. They sat and ate their ice cream. Then, through gentle questioning, she got him to tell him about his life at the Dursleys. All children, she knew, thought they had too many chores and that their punishments were too harsh. She wanted to take what Harry told her with a grain of salt. But if even half of what Harry was telling her was true, she'd need an entire salt shaker.
SCENE BREAK
Two hours later, Harry Potter was peacefully sleeping in Mrs. Figg's guest room. He'd been shocked to learn his hidey-hole was only a mile away from Privet Drive; he'd been sure he'd left the boundaries of Little Whinging and had supposed himself halfway to Guilford. A glass of milk, a raspberry jam sandwich, a warm bath, and Harry was sound asleep. Of course, the calming draught that she had added to the milk probably helped knock him out as much as the full belly and the exhaustion.
Mrs. Figg tossed a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace. "Albus Dumbledore!"
Professor Dumbledore's face appeared in the fireplace. "Arabella, how are you?"
"Albus, there's a problem."
"Life is full of problems, Arabella. It is how we face them that -"
"Harry ran away from home," she interrupted him.
"What?!"
"He's all right," she assured the headmaster of Hogwarts, "he's fine."
"Where is he?" Dumbledore demanded.
"Upstairs, in my guest room."
"Thank Merlin!" Dumbledore breathed an audible sigh of relief. "You'll be able to return him to the Dursleys."
"I will not," she declared.
"Now, Arabella, you know he must stay with Lily's sister, for his own sake."
"Albus Dumbledore, if even half - if even a quarter - of what that boy has told me is true, then he is not going to the Dursleys until you speak to someone in Wizarding Families and Social Services. Because if you don't, I shall call the Surrey Child Protective Services Office and report Harry as an abused child."
"Surely, Arabella, you overstate the case. Was he spanked for some childish misdemeanor and then exaggerated it into a beating?"
"He sleeps in the cupboard under the stairs, Albus. He does more chores at six than the average child twice his age does. He's wearing his cousin's hand-me-downs."
"Many children wear hand-me-downs. Aberforth used to wear my outgrown robes."
"His cousin is twice his size," Mrs. Figg pointed out. "I saw bruises when I gave him a bath."
"Most little boys have bruises and skinned knees," Dumbledore told her.
"Not like these. I gave him his first ice cream cone today. He'd never had ice cream before, when that spoilt brat Dudley is the size of a whale calf."
"Perhaps the boy is lactose-intolerant, Ar- " Dumbledore began.
"Albus Dumbledore, you will come down to Surrey and investigate this matter personally, or I will go to the Wizengamot," she threatened.
SCENE BREAK
Professor Dumbledore came to Surrey, planning to calm down Mrs. Figg and return Harry to his aunt's home. After a brief discussion with the boy and a bit of Legilimency , he changed his mind. Dumbledore met with Harry. Madam MacDougal of WFSS met with Harry. Discreet inquiries were made.
A week later, Harry was being introduced to Amos, Jacobina, and Cedric Diggory.
"Hello, Harry, we're very glad you've come to live with us. Would you prefer to call me Mrs. Diggory or Aunt Jacobina?" She didn't think he'd be comfortable calling her Mum, at least not yet. She was a brunette in her early thirties. "This is my son, Cedric. He's nine."
It was harder for Harry to get used to being part of a loving family than it was to get used to magic. Cedric taught him how to fly a broom and how to play exploding gobstones. He taught him that most puppies liked to play, and weren't trained to attack like Aunt Marge's dogs. Uncle Amos and Aunt Jacobina introduced him to other wizarding families in the area, the Weasleys and the Lovegoods. Mrs. Weasleys baked the best chocolate chip biscuits Harry had ever tasted, and she had seven children. Percy was older than Cedric and the twins were younger, and her youngest son was only a few months older than Harry. The Lovegoods only had a daughter, younger than Harry, but Luna and Ginny soon taught Harry that girls weren't half as yucky as he had thought, and they were all right to play with.
Six years later, Harry and Ron shared a compartment on the Hogwarts Express. They were slightly disappointed when Ron was sorted into Gryffindor and Harry into Hufflepuff, but they knew that despite being in different houses, they would always be best friends.