A.N.: Another chapter, even though there weren't any reviews (HINT!)
The Invitation
By the time Harriet reached the kitchen, Uncle Vernon's new company car was pulling out of the driveway and Aunt Petunia and Daisy sat at the kitchen table: Aunt Petunia had cut up a grapefruit. After returning from her own boarding-school at the beginning of the summer, Daisy's parents had brushed aside the accusations of bullying and gave excuses for Daisy's horrendously poor marks; not even Aunt Petunia, however, could ignore the few choice words written by the school nurse: when it came down to it, the school outfitters just didn't supply skirts and blouses large enough for Daisy, who this summer had finally achieved the goal she had been aiming for since the age of three in becoming wider than she was tall.
Even now, Daisy's bottom drooped either side of her chair at the kitchen table, taking up one side of the square table: Aunt Petunia, in striking contrast, was skinny as a rake, with a horsy face and bony limbs. She sat very primly, sipping a little white espresso cup with her little finger sticking out, the little saucer held beneath the cup. It was very quiet, and Harriet sat down soundlessly beside her cousin; a place was set for her only out of habit, and she eyed her grapefruit slice without complaint: Aunt Petunia had made the announcement at the beginning of the summer, that if Daisy had to diet, so did the rest of the family—Uncle Vernon had taken to leaving for work early to catch breakfast at the bakery opposite his drill firm, Grunnings (Harriet knew this because, forced to clean Uncle Vernon's car every Sunday evening, she had uncovered several wrappers laced with icing in the backseat of her uncle's car).
Harriet, too, was following the Regime no more than Uncle Vernon was—at the beginning of the summer, when she had discovered she would have to live off carrot sticks and cottage cheese, she had sent emergency S.O.S. letters to all of her friends, who had all risen to the occasion magnificently: Rhona's mother, Mrs Weasley, was perhaps the best cook in the entire world, and the Weasley family owl, Errol, had had to remain at the Dursleys' for five days before he was fit to make the return flight: Hermes' parents, who were both dentists, had sent her a huge care-package full of sugar-free snacks, and aside from a large sack of homemade cauldron-cakes, Hogwarts Gamekeeper Hagrid had sent her a crate of Butterbeer bottles. And, one week ago on Harriet's fourteenth birthday, she had received four enormous birthday cakes (which amounted to more than she'd ever had before in her entire life combined) from the Weasleys, Hermes, Hagrid and Sirius.
Aunt Petunia had no idea about this, of course; Harriet feared that if Daisy got one whiff of chocolate icing while passing Harriet's room, the contents of the space beneath the conveniently-loosened floorboard under Harriet's bed would be released and eaten with minutes.
The doorbell rang, and Aunt Petunia set her coffee-cup down with a soft chink and smoothed her skirt as she stood up, stalking to the front-door. Quick as a flash, ignoring Harriet's disapproving tut, Daisy had whipped the remainder of Aunt Petunia's segment of grapefruit from her bowl and devoured it with her own. Harriet finished her own grapefruit, images of the sticky caramel-pecan double-caramel cake Sirius had sent her (which, he had written in the note attached to her birthday present, had been a favourite of her father's, especially when made with her grandmother's secret special recipe) and which she had yet to sample. She was still on the raspberry-mousse, biscuit-bottomed cake Hermes had sent all the way from France (he and his parents spent two weeks in the Dordogne every summer in a renovated farmhouse) with a gorgeous selection of fresh berries on top.
She heard an amused male voice and Aunt Petunia's somewhat crisp laugh, as if not really amused at all (which was Aunt Petunia's best laugh, reserved for company) and the door closed again. There came the sound of ripping paper and Aunt Petunia came into the kitchen looking white-faced, two envelopes in her bony fingers: one, Harriet couldn't help grin at the sight, was covered all over with postage-stamps. Aunt Petunia had taken the safer-looking of the two but even as Aunt Petunia sank weakly into her chair and set the ripped envelope on the table, Harriet noticed the swirling handwriting immediately.
Why would Professor Dumbledore be writing to her? she wondered, somewhat awed. She got up and put the kettle on, having already finished her grapefruit (to Daisy's annoyance) and watched Aunt Petunia covertly as she read Professor Dumbledore's letter. She finished reading it, tucked it back into its envelope, and went on to the second letter—the one covered in stamps.
"Daisy, go upstairs," Aunt Petunia said after she had finished the second letter, and Daisy stared at her mother: tensions had already been high between the other two female residents of Number 4, all down to Daisy's diet, but before this summer Daisy had never known herself to be denied anything by her parents, ever. Harriet was on the other end of the spectrum; until Hogwarts, she had regularly been denied sunlight and fresh air for weeks on end.
"What?"
"Go upstairs. I need to talk to Harriet," Aunt Petunia said tersely, as Harriet set a great mug of tea in front of her cousin and Aunt Petunia's favourite teacup in front of her aunt, going back to the counter to take hold of her own little mug. Even Harriet was caught by surprise by this announcement. Daisy set her unpleasant, piggy face in a horrible glower (horrible because it brought out all five chins) and heaved herself out of her chair, waddling in too-tight jeans to the kitchen door. She bumped against Harriet so roughly Harriet (at not even a quarter of Daisy's weight) was almost knocked off her feet.
Harriet waited. It was never good to ask Aunt Petunia questions: that had been one of the many rules to growing up peacefully in the Dursleys' house—until she'd started Hogwarts, that was—she wasn't allowed to ask questions. Uncle Vernon was of a different tact and grabbed the bull by the horns and tended to bellow as loudly as if he'd been gored by them. He particularly loved bellowing at Harriet. Daisy reached the staircase and they all heard the creak of the stairs as she hauled herself up; the creaking stopped at the top, and Harriet knew she was hoping to eavesdrop. Aunt Petunia closed the kitchen door with a snap.
"At ten p.m. tomorrow evening, Professor Dumbledore will be arriving to take you to your friends' house—the Weasleys," Aunt Petunia said, checking the second letter with a white-lipped frown. "Apparently Mr Weasley has come across rather spectacular tickets to the Qwu-uh-id-ditch World Cup final, and you have been invited to go along, and to spend the remainder of your summer holiday with them."
"And you're letting me go?" Harriet blurted, her eyebrows raised in surprise. Since when did the Dursleys ever do anything to encourage or help Harriet being happy? It would have given Uncle Vernon great pleasure to see Harriet so disappointed about missing out on something like the Quidditch World Cup Final. But then, Harriet reasoned with herself, Uncle Vernon wasn't home.
"What is Quidditch?" Aunt Petunia demanded, frowning dangerously. Harriet chose her words carefully; any mention of her 'abnormality' under Uncle Vernon's roof was strictly punished.
"It's…a sport," Harriet said. "My kind of sport. I play it at school." Aunt Petunia's cheeks hollowed as she clenched her jaw; even that veiled hint had tested her limit. "Professor Dumbledore's coming here?"
"Yes. We're going out. Go and get dressed," Aunt Petunia snapped, reaching for her handbag on the counter. Harriet glanced down.
"I am dressed," she said tersely. Ever since she was a baby, she had been forced to wear Daisy's hand-me-downs. She wore one of Daisy's tent-like dresses this morning; it was so large that Harriet had to wrap one of Daisy's old belts three times around her slender waist to keep the voluminous folds of extra fabric in place where she'd neatly folded them at her sides. The skirt and the fabric over her chest sagged unpleasantly in the wrong places and made her seem a lot older and frumpier than she was—but if the dress hadn't been so poorly fitted, the fabric—an amber-yellow floral print that was the sunniest and most-cheerful piece of clothing Daisy had ever deigned to reject into the Harriet pile—might have been a lot prettier.
"Go and put on something nicer," Aunt Petunia said testily, and suddenly the sharp eyes that picked out every sordid detail in the lives of the boring neighbours and fingerprints on her pristine walls was calculating every square inch of Harriet's appearance.
She might have noticed the hot flush in Harriet's cheeks that came partly out of embarrassment but mostly out of shame, when Harriet glared at the floor, humiliated, and said quietly, "This is the nicest thing I have." Aunt Petunia didn't comment, but called up to Daisy that they were going out, and did she want to come along.
Daisy took so long to get ready that Harriet had time to go upstairs. Back in her bedroom, Harriet was greeted by a soft, familiar hoot, and rolled over to smile groggily at the blurry white figure of her loyal owl, Hedwig, perching on the back of her desk-chair. She clicked her beak in annoyance, and her amber eyes followed something in the centre of the ceiling. Harriet glanced up and her eyebrows flickered upwards.
A tiny, feathery grey tennis-ball was zooming around the lampshade, making high-pitched, hyperactive hoots. It wasn't a tennis-ball, Harriet realised, but a minute owl, which started whizzing excitedly around her bedroom like a loose firework the moment it saw she was awake. Harriet realised it must have dropped the tiny-furled scroll on her duvet, and scooped it up. She undid the seal and unfurled the scroll, grinning when she instantly recognised the untidy handwriting of her best-friend.
Hetty!—DAD GOT THE TICKETS!!!!!—Ireland versus Bulgaria on Monday night, the final! Mum wrote to your Muggles to ask you to stay—they might have already got the letter, but I thought I'd send Pig—(Harriet glanced up at the tiny owl, frowned, and went back to the letter, wondering if she had misread Rhona's writing; she couldn't think of anything that looked less like a pig than that owl)—just in case; we don't know how long Muggle post takes.
Dumbledore's coming for you anyway, even if the Muggles don't want you to come; you can't miss the World Cup! Only, Mum reckoned we should probably be polite and considerate about their opinions and ask them first. If they say yes, send Pig back with your answer, and Mum says Dumbledore will collect you at ten p.m. on Sunday. If they say no, Dumbledore will collect you at 10 p.m. anyway!
Hermes gets here this afternoon: Percy's started work, in the Department of International Magical Co-Operation. Don't mention anything about Abroad while you're here unless you want the bra bored off you!
Hope to see you soon—WE'RE GOING TO THE WORLD CUP!!!—Rhona.
"You need Ritalin," Harriet sighed, grabbing 'Pig' out of the air with her stunning reflexes and wondering how Uncle Vernon hadn't heard Pig's hyperactive, overexcited twitters. "Alright, I'll write a letter back to Rhona. Stay still."
Pig let out a little twitter, as if he couldn't help it, and settled, shivering, on Harriet's duvet.
Rhona,
I'M COMING WITH YOU!!!! YAAAAAAY!!!! Aunt Petunia says I can come. Must be nervous about Dumbledore coming here, or else she'd've let Uncle Vernon deal with me.
See you around midnight tomorrow! Can't wait!
Harriet
Harriet folded it into as tiny a square as she could, and had difficult attaching it to Pig's leg, who was so excited at another delivery that he kept hopping on the spot. As soon as the letter was attached, Pig zoomed out of the window and out of sight. Harriet turned to Hedwig, smiling.
"Up for a long journey?" she asked. Hedwig hooted softly and Harriet went to her desk, sitting down and tugging Sirius' letter towards her, dipping her quill into her ink pot, which was almost out, and added a post-script to the end of the letter.
—P.S.: Sirius, this morning my aunt got two letters; one of them was from Professor Dumbledore, and he's going to collect me tomorrow night to take me to my friend Rhona Weasley's house (you met her—the redhead girl. Pettigrew was her pet, 'Scabbers'). I've been invited to stay with them for the rest of the summer, and Mr Weasley has tickets to the Quidditch World Cup final. The final—can you imagine! I've never seen a professional game before. If you need to reach me, I'll be at The Burrow, near Ottery St Catchpole.
Love, again, Harriet.
She sealed the letter and tied it to Hedwig's leg, who remained perfectly still, showing Harriet just how a proper post-owl should behave, who spread her wings, hooted softly around the letter, and with a soft swoosh departed through the bedroom-window. She rejoined her aunt and cousin in the downstairs hall and they made their way outside, to the little silver Peugeot in the garage, which Aunt Petunia rarely used except for doing the grocery shopping.
Harriet knew better than to expect any kind of special treatment from Aunt Petunia. So she didn't know whether she should be pleasantly surprised or wary when her aunt parked the car in the multi-storey car-park of the shopping centre and declared she was taking Harriet shopping for new clothes. This made Daisy splutter indignantly, as she had been waiting for a week for her mother to take her shopping, but Aunt Petunia ignored her.
Harriet couldn't help wondering whether Professor Dumbledore's imminent visit hadn't scared Aunt Petunia into feeling extremely guilty for neglecting Harriet all her life. It led to Harriet sitting in a cushioned black seat in an optician's office, having her eyes tested, Aunt Petunia asking about new glasses and the possibility of Harriet wearing contact-lenses. The optician said the reason her eyesight was deteriorating so terribly was because her glasses were far too strong for her eyesight and they were trying to compensate, and she helped Harriet pick out a brand-new pair of glasses (which were wireless, rectangular, with thin lenses and felt to Harriet as if she wasn't even wearing them because they were so light) and she worked out which lenses would be most suitable for Harriet. Dailies were settled upon, and Aunt Petunia said she would collect a monthly supply for her and send it off to her at "boarding school."
New glasses weren't the only new things Harriet got that day. Aunt Petunia took her to several Muggle teen clothing shops and bought her brand-new things—a few t-shirts, a pair of fitted dark jeans, two very pretty tops, a fake leather jacket, two jumpers that were really soft inside, a nice skirt, and then Aunt Petunia took her to La Senza, a lingerie shop that dealt in things that weren't quite to Aunt Petunia's taste.
Harriet had noticed, too, when trying on clothing actually made to fit her figure, rather than a baby elephant's, that she wasn't a little girl anymore. If she had noticed she had breasts before, she hadn't paid attention: Small and quite pretty in the right top, with room for improvement, but they were still there. She was somewhat embarrassed in La Senza: the sales assistant was smiling and forgiving, and picked out several pretty bras that Harriet might like, with two or three sports bras that would come in handy for Quidditch practices.
From seeing Harriet's eyes in her brand-new glasses, something had clicked in Aunt Petunia and Harriet found herself sitting in a tall white stool in the cosmetics department of Debenhams: Harriet knew there was never a morning when Aunt Petunia, even in a dressing-gown and slippers, wasn't wearing makeup and had her hair coiffed. The cosmetologist kept trying to cover Harriet's scar with concealer, but Aunt Petunia pointed out how stunning Harriet's emerald eyes were, and the woman turned instead to bringing out their beauty even further.
It seemed to Harriet that Aunt Petunia was trying to make her into a lady—or at least ensure that she looked so when Professor Dumbledore arrived. And, oddly, Harriet caught her aunt staring at her a few times, as if just realising Harriet was, indeed, a human-being. Loaded down with little pots of eyeshadow and pigment and eyeliner and tubes of mascara and lipgloss and shades of pretty lipstick (Daisy sulking) and their other purchases, they made their way back to Aunt Petunia's car.
It was still a very surreal experience for Harriet—so surreal that, as she sat in the front-seat of Aunt Petunia's car, she subtly pinched the side of her thigh. Ow. Yes, it hurt. So this wasn't a dream.
Uncle Vernon was red as a bull-dancer's cape when they got home, absolutely furious and fuming that they had not been at home to welcome him when he returned from work, and assumed (perhaps this was a good thing for Harriet) that the bags she was toting were in fact full of things for Daisy. For the first time, Daisy kept her mouth shut, still too shocked that she had gone out with her mother and returned home with absolutely nothing to show for it. Harriet ran upstairs to deposit her things on the bed, knowing it was best to stay out of Uncle Vernon's way when he was in a rage, especially when Daisy had the potential to add fat to the fire.
Upstairs, Harriet was left alone to sit and think, as she hadn't been able to all day. She rubbed her face vigorously, testing to see if it really was real. If it wasn't a dream, she could feel her face—and she could. Professor Dumbledore was coming to collect her
She looked around her room and noticed that she needed to tidy it. So she did. What if Professor Dumbledore comes up here? she thought: She doubted he would, but nonetheless, she realised she should be a little bit more house-proud, and set to tidying her bedroom. She tidied the wardrobe and put all Daisy's old clothes on hangers, folded everything neatly in the dresser, and set about tidying her trunk. This took a lot longer than expected; she finally got down to the last few inches of stuff in the bottom, which was coated with back-issues of Witch Weekly and the Quibbler (which always made for a good laugh) and chocolate-frog cards. Wish I could use my wand, Harriet thought, not for the first time; the bottom of her trunk could use a good scrub, but since she didn't exactly want to get kicked out of Hogwarts for using a simple Scourgify charm, she settled herself to the idea of borrowing Aunt Petunia's handheld vacuum in the morning.
In a neat pile she collected her most prized possessions—her Firebolt, gift from her godfather, her Invisibility Cloak, which had belonged to her father, and his father and so on, and the Marauder's Map—and used the broom tucked in the corner (Aunt Petunia had once used this bedroom as a sort of second broom-cupboard) to sweep the floor, sweeping the debris into the wastepaper basket in the corner of the room. She straightened the books on top of the dresser, put the little pots and bottles and tubes Aunt Petunia had bought her in a pretty cosmetics bag, threw away the scrap letters she had crumpled on her desk, and had sat on her bed to clean out her bedside cabinet when she fell asleep.
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