Chapter 2: The Girl Who Lived
"They stuff people's heads down the toilet first day at Stonewall," Dudley sneered. "Want to come and practice, Harry?"
Harry raised his eyebrows, he would have thought Dudley would have learnt better than to tread on ground like this by now, "Sure I would Dudley. Just remember to take your top off first to stop it getting wet."
Dudley flushed, his fists clenching with anger.
"And another thing," Harry said sharply. "If I hear you've been giving Piers a hard time while he's on his own there'll be trouble come the Christmas holiday, got it?"
Dudley growled, "Think you're such a big man don't you Harry?"
"No bigger than you thought you were back in your day," Harry said. "And this is Vi's day now, and you'd best remember that."
Dudley spat on the living room carpet.
"Don't let your mother catch you doing that," Harry said as Dudley stomped up the stairs to his room.
Harry and Vi temporarily had the living room to themselves, and thus they had occupied the sofa by coup de main until Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia came to evict them. Vi snuggled up a little closer to her brother.
"Are you worried Harry? About Stonewall? Do you think it's true what Dudley said?"
Harry looked at his sister, with her black hair in twin ponytails, her eyes the same deep green as his, and a much longer and the scar across her forehead. People said his scar looked like a lightning bolt, but to Harry himself it was Vi's long scar that truly arced across her forehead like a thunderbolt from the blue, "I think Dudley's bitter and full of it and we shouldn't pay any attention to him. Besides, do you honestly think I'd let anybody stuff your head down the bog?"
"No, but-"
"Listen, if anyone tries anything on with you then I'll shove their heads down the loo, and I shan't necessarily flush it first either," Harry smiled encouragingly. "Trust me, have I ever let anything happen to you?"
"No," Vi smiled. "You take care of me Harry."
"You bet I do. Believe me we'll be better off at the local comprehensive with people just like us. What would you want to go to Smeltings for. Smeltings," Harry's lip curled derisively. "Posh public school for people with no chins and too much money."
"What about Piers?"
Harry hesitated, "Exception that proves the rule. Things would be easier if he was there to look after the other three but you can't have everything can you?" Gordon, Malcolm and Dennis were all fine in a scrap, but they lacked the intelligence and imagination that made Piers an excellent number two. Harry just hoped Dudley wouldn't take revenge while they were alone at Smeltings, or else take the opportunity to get his claws in Piers again.
"Look," Harry said. "Whatever happens we'll have each other won't we? And for the rest we'll just have to take what comes. We'll do all right won't we?"
Vi grinned, "We'll do all right, Harry. Just like we always do."
A few days later, and Harry was watching Dudley apprehensively as he sat down at the breakfast table. The cause of this sudden nervousness around his cousin was due entirely to the fact that Dudley had the day before acquired a big stick as part of his uniform for Smeltings. Not withstanding the fact that if requiring children to carry blunt instruments wasn't the biggest indictment of the public school system then what was; or the fact that it was the only part of Dudley's uniform that didn't make him look a right one, Harry was mainly concerned at the way he was eyeing his Smelting's stick, and fondling it like Gollum's precious. He undoubtedly meant to hit someone with it, and it didn't take the brains of Uncle Vernon to work out who.
Harry wrinkled his nose as he looked at the grey mass that was apparently his and Vi's uniforms for Stonewall High. Apparently Aunt Petunia had forgotten to mention that they were going to a school for baby elephants. It took a great deal of self restrain not to say this out loud.
Vi came in, yawning a little, and Dudley smirked as he raised his stick and prepared to swing it at her. Harry started towards his overweight cousin, but even he didn't know if he could make it in time. If only there was some way he could move faster.
Crack!
Harry found himself standing in the path of Dudley's Smelting stick, holding it an inch away from his face but more importantly keeping it well away from his sister.
His sister who was staring at him with her mouth open.
"What?" he said.
She pointed at where he had been, "One moment you where there, and the next second you were standing here. It was like you, teleported or something."
Harry admitted it was a bit weird how he'd moved so fast, let alone that cracking sound, but he didn't know how he'd done and frankly he didn't much care. He'd kept Vi out of harms way, that was the important thing.
"What have you done now?" Obviously Aunt Petunia didn't agree, as he could tell by the tone of her voice.
"Nothing," Harry said.
"Don't you take that tone with me you man," Petunia snapped. "I know that you've been at it again haven't you, now I want to know how you did it?"
"What's going on Petunia," Uncle Vernon lumbered in. "Has that boy been up to any of his usual tricks again?"
Aunt Petunia's answer was forestalled by the sound of the letterbox rattling.
"Get the post Dudley," Uncle Vernon said.
"Make Harry get it,"
"What, so you can hit my sister while my back is turned?" Harry said acidly.
"Don't talk back," Vernon snapped, slapping Harry across the head. "Just go and do as you're told."
"To hear is to obey," Harry said, heading out of the kitchen before Uncle Vernon could give him a kick to send his nephew on his way. Harry trotted out into the hallway and picked up the letters lying on the doormat. Bank statement, gas bill, phone bill, Society magazine that Aunt Petunia subscribed to, and three hand written letters with fancy crests where the stamp should have gone.
Ms Violet Potter,
The Cupboard Under the Stairs,
4 Privet Drive,
Little Whinging,
Surrey
Mr Harry Potter,
The Cupboard Under the Stairs,
4 Privet Drive,
Little Whinging,
Surrey
Mr Dudley Dursley,
The Second Largest Bedroom,
4 Privet Drive,
Little Whinging,
Surrey
There were more things strange about these letters than Harry knew where to start. Firstly, who wrote hand written letters anymore? Second, how had they gotten delivered without stamps? Third, who would want to write to Vi, him and Dudley? Fourth, how in the name of God did they know where he and Vi slept? And did somebody who obviously had some means of keeping check on them mean them good or harm?
"Hurry up boy, what are you doing out there?"
Harry jumped, he didn't have time to stand here like this, he'd attract unwanted attention. One thing was certain, he didn't want the Dursleys to find out about these letters. Not Dudley's, it didn't matter what they did with that one, but his and Vi's, they weren't the Durlseys business. This was something for family; he could feel it in his bones.
Harry slipped the two hand written letters to a different hand from the rest of the post, and offered up silent thanks to god that Vi had left the cupboard door open ajar. As Harry walked back down the hall he carefully and, he hoped, surreptitiously slipped his and Vi's letters into the cupboard before walking back into the kitchen and placing the mail on the table.
Uncle Vernon made grunting noises as he sorted the post, but when he came to Dudley's letter he paled visibly and was barely able to squeak out his wife's name to summon her to see what was going on.
"Oh good heavens," Petunia looked as though she might faint at any moment. "It can't be true, it just can't. Not our little Diddykins its not possible. How did it happen? And why is it him and not,"
"Not what?" Dudley said, looking from his mother to his father. "What's going on?"
"Quiet Dudley," Vernon said, eyeing Harry suspiciously. "You, boy, where are your letters?"
Harry affected an expression of angelic innocence, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't give me that, if Dudley's got one then you two must have too," Vernon said. "Now tell me where they are?"
"I don't know what you mean," Harry said.
"Oh really?" Uncle Vernon grimaced like a madman as he grabbed hold of Violet's hand and began to pull on her little finger. "Still don't know anything?"
"What are you doing? Let go of her?"
"I'm going to break her fingers unless you tell me where you put those letters."
"You bastard."
"Sticks and stones boy, the letters!"
"They're in the bloody cupboard," Harry yelled, as Vi began to screw her face up in pain. "I'll get them all right?"
"Yes, and then you can get out, all of you. You two Dudley."
"Now wait a minute-" Dudley was cut off as his own father bodily threw him out of the kitchen, and as soon as he had Harry and Vi's letters Vernon slammed the kitchen door in their faces. Dudley tried to listen at the keyhole before Harry forced him down, sitting on him for good measure, while Vi listened at the keyhole and Harry pressed his ear to the crack in the door and tried to hear what was being said.
"After everything we tried, everything we swore, none of its worked Vernon, and they've got Dudley too. Vernon, what do we do?"
"Nothing. We just refuse to accept the letters, and eventually they'll give up. Their feckless, these people, they'll give up after a while. You'll see."
"Have you two given me a disease?" Dudley asked, something Harry did not consider it worth his time to deign with a reply.
Uncle Vernon's resolve to withstand the siege led to a week of increasing paranoia and almost comical desperation on the part of the elder Dursleys. The first day Harry gone out to do his weekend chores- he washed half the cars on Privet Drive, and did a lot of gardening that earned a fair bit of pocket money for him and his sister, he had noticed a lot of owls lurking around the road. Henceforth he had been forbidden to leave the house. Uncle Vernon had nailed up practically every crevice in the house in his increasingly desperate bids to stop the rising tide of letters, while Harry's determination to get a letter for Violet had led him staying awake all night camped out beneath the letter box (Uncle Vernon, apparently planning exactly the same thing, had caught him at it and sent him to bed), making an enormous mess in the kitchen at the same time the letters arrived to serve as a distraction (Aunt Petunia had guessed what he was up to and waited until after the letters had all been disposed of to tell him off and make him clean it up), he had even considered hospitalising Dudley in order to get the Dursleys out of the house, but that would have been a step too far even for him.
The truth was, Harry was at its wits end. He had taken the letters as a personal challenge, and abject failure was beginning to get to him.
"Its all right Harry," Violet rubbed his arm as she attempted to make him feel better. "They probably weren't that important anyway."
"You don't believe that," Harry said. "I know you don't."
"Maybe, but you were the one who said we couldn't have everything."
"I don't want everything," Harry said. "I just, I know that this is important. I can feel it. We need to get our hands on one of those letters. We have to, somehow."
Crack!
Harry shot up to his feet, banging his head on the low hanging ceiling of the cupboard in the process, "That sound. I know that sound, that happened before when I moved really fast, but I haven't done anything so it must mean something," he rubbed at head as he took Violet's hand. "Come on, lets go and see what it is."
"Boy! What have you done this time!"
"Ah, I suppose you must be Mr Vernon Dursleys. A pleasure to meet you my dear fellow."
Harry froze, that was a voice Harry had never heard before. Smooth, well educated, clever sounding, but at the same time trustworthy as well. He couldn't think ill of the owner of this voice, it was just impossible to consider somehow.
"Who the devil are you, how did you get in here?"
"Forgive the intrustion, I would have used the door but you appear to have boarded it shut. I am sure that you had your reasons. Ah, and this must be Petunia, how delightful."
"Good lord…"
"Oh not at all, only Albus Dumbledore. We have corresponded, of course. And, may I ask, where are the children?"
"We're here," Harry said, pushing open the cupboard door and emerging into the hallway with Violet close behind. "Two of us anyway."
Albus Dumbledore, who was easily the most extravagantly dressed man that Harry had ever seen, seemed to take a sharp breath at the sight of the Potters, and his bright eyes shone like blue lights.
"Violet Lily and Harry James Potter, of course. Delighted to meet you my dear children, absolutely delighted. Now then, would somebody care to call Dudley?"
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia both seemed too stunned to move so Harry obliged, "Dudley, get down here, there's a strange bloke just turned up wants to have a word."
It was hard to tell because of his long white beard, but Harry got the distinct impression that Albus Dumbledore was smiling.
Dudley came down the stairs, looking confused and distinctly nervous.
"Ah, good," Dumbledore said. "Now that we are all here, perhaps we could go into the sitting room and discuss these matters in comfort?"
Dumbledore did not wait for a reply, but swept magisterially into the living room, leaving everyone else trailing in his wake.
Violet looked at Harry, "Who do you think he is?"
Harry shrugged, "Only one way to find out isn't there?"
They were the first to follow Dumbledore in, with the Dursleys following them with considerably more reluctance.
"Now this is better," Dumbledore said contentedly. "Now before we go any further I assume that, since you have been destroying the letters that you have ignored my earlier request to treat Violet and Harry as your own children, all the while keeping them informed of their true heritage and nature?"
"Yes, damn it all!" Uncle Vernon snapped. "When we took them in we swore we'd stamp that nonsense out of them once and for all. And we aren't having Dudley infected with it either so if that's all you have to say you might as well-"
"You know I have spent a great many years fighting for muggle rights against the opinions of some of my less progressively minded fellows, but there are times when I do wonder what it was all for," Dumbledore cut him off coldly. "And when I look at you, Mr Dursleys, I find myself having trouble answering that question."
"Erm, excuse me, Mr Dumbledore?" Violet said timidly.
"Professor Dumbledore, my dear."
"Oh, sorry."
"Quite all right," Dumbledore said. "You were saying?"
"Yes, I was just going to ask you, what are Muggles?"
"Ah," Dumbledore said. "Yes, difficulties like these were why I decided it was best if I come myself. Now what I am about to tell you may seem fantastic, even ridiculous, but I want you to listen with an open mind, do you understand?"
Violet nodded and Harry, who thought that Dumbledore was far more interested in his sister than in him and thought it was about time somebody was, followed suit. Without further ado Dumbledore took out a, well, a stick of wood and waved it in the air. Instantly the Dursley's coffee table burst into flames, and Aunt Petunia shrieked in terror.
Dumbledore waved his stick again, and the flames disappeared. There seemed to be no damage to the coffee table.
"Awesome!" Dudley said.
"Cor," Harry murmured.
"How did you do that?" Violet asked, wide eyed with fascination.
"By magic," Dumbledore said simply. "There is a world of magic, a world of witches and wizards, dragons and centaurs, prophecies and broomsticks, existing unseen and unknown across the length and breadth of this country and, indeed, the world. Every year, children of the age of eleven come into the full potential of their magic. Some come from old and established magical families, others are the first manifestations of magical power in their line."
"Like us, you mean," Harry said.
"Actually no," Dumbledore said. "This is where I am afraid your Aunt owes you a great debt. Her sister, your mother Lily, was herself an extremely talented witch, and your father James was a wizard of the most distinguished lineage. Your cousin Dudley, it is true, does come of Muggles- in long delayed answer to your question Violet a muggle is the wizarding term for a person who has no magic- but even has wizarding relatives in his immediate family."
"You knew about this," Harry said. "You knew the whole time and you never said a word to Vi, god almighty."
"Its all right Harry," Violet said quietly.
"No it is not all right, they've been keeping secrets from you and I want to know-"
"Harry," Violet said sharply, indicating Professor Dumbledore.
"Oh, right," Harry flushed slightly. "Beg pardon."
"No harm done, Harry," Dumbledore said happily.
"So, all three of us, we all have magic?" Violet said.
"Indeed you do, and come September you will all begin attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where you will learn to master your talents."
"Does Dudley have to come to?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore chuckled, "I am afraid so, Harry, untamed magic is a danger to its possessor and to others around him."
"You mean, I might hurt mum and dad?" Dudley paled.
"Unless you come to Hogwarts, then quite possibly," Dumbledore said. "I speak, sad to say, from the bitterest experience. Not to mention the fact that the Ministry of Magic would not approve of an untrained wizard running wild, completely unschooled. Now, I will shortly be taking Violet, Harry and Dudley to Diagon Alley in London where they may purchase the equipment that they need for the coming year at Hogwarts, but before I do so there is one more item that must be cleared up before they enter the wizarding world. How, Petunia, did you explain away James and Lily's deaths to them?"
"They said it was a car crash," Violet said quietly.
"Indeed," Dumbledore said disapprovingly. "The truth, I am afraid, may be harder to bear. Your parents were murdered, by an evil wizard named Lord Voldemort. Then, when he attempted to turn his deadly arts upon you, Violet, he was not only thwarted in his intent to kill you but was himself destroyed in the process. Whether he is gone forever cannot be with any certainty ascertained, but you should be aware that at Hogwarts, and in the whole of the Wizarding world, you will be feted as a hero of our world: the Girl Who Lived, the only person known to have survived Voldemort's deadly curse."
Harry grinned, and put one arm around Vi's shoulder, "I always knew that you were special, and now I've got proof."
"And now," Dumbledore said, rising to his feet. "I think it is high time that you stepped beyond the portal of the mundane and answered the clarion call of destiny."