HARRY POTTER AND THE UNFORGIVEN
A Sixth Year Harry Potter Fanfiction
BY
Jayiin Mistaya
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
...never tickle a sleeping dragon
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to Harry Potter. Those rights are held, exclusively, by JK Rowling, and any other entities, corporations, subsidiaries, or groups not named here possessing legal rights to the aforementioned books and/or trademark.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: the following work of fanfiction is a Harry/Ginny 'ship' fic with heavy angst, dark overtones, and adult themes. This is an AU sixth year story; all events up to the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are considered canonical.
Chapter One: Return to Privet Drive begins where Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix left off, with Harry leaving King's Cross Station.
Feedback of any kind is always appreciated.
More information on Harry Potter and the Unforgiven can be found at my website, which is linked in my Author Profile.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to Elusive Evan for making me continue to post this.
PART I
DOWN TO NONE
CHAPTER ONE
Return to Privet Drive
Harry Potter's life began and ended every year at King's Cross Station, between platforms nine and ten; between his world and theirs.
It was the demilitarized zone between his life with the Dursleys and his life at Hogwarts. He entered King's Cross to enter the Wizarding world; he left it to leave the Wizarding world.
This time, walking out of King's Cross station didn't change a thing. The portal closed behind him and he stepped onto the concrete sidewalk. But nothing changed.
The weight was still there; the knot between his shoulders and the aching sense of loss. There was nothing to look forward to but months of living with people who resented the very fact he had been born.
Maybe they're right to.
Green eyes blinked against the sudden glare of the sun.
For a moment, he wanted to look behind him. To see his friends watching him leave; maybe he would turn and see the huddle of redheads and a bushy-haired witch waving, or watching.
If he looked, he might also see the witches and wizards of the Order of the Phoenix, each dedicated to stopping the dark wizard Harry had to kill.
... either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives...
If he turned and looked, he might see them sad he had to go; he might see their worry, their sympathy. He didn't want to see how much they cared. He didn't want to be loved.
How many more of them will die because of me?
People died because of him. Just because he had been born.
...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...
Sibyll Trelawney's voice grated in his thoughts. It was no wonder she was always predicting he would die. Maybe she knew Voldemort would win, and he would die?
Or that we both will die. The Prophecy doesn't say one of us will live, only that one of us must die. He found it almost funny he was already thinking of it as 'the Prophecy' instead of 'a prophecy.'
"Hurry up, boy! Get in the car!" Vernon Dursley yelled at his nephew, impatience twisting the rounded lines of his heavy jowls. He stood next to his car, tapping his foot impatiently.
Strange as it was, Harry knew Vernon wouldn't leave him behind. He didn't understand why the Dursleys always waited for him; they really had no reason to, ancient magic or not. But every summer they were there, inexplicably compelled to participate in the scripted farce as much as he was.
He blinked the glare of the sun out of his eyes, suddenly realizing he had stopped walking just outside the doors of King's Cross. Pulling his trunk off the luggage trolley with one hand, he picked up a battered cage in the other. From behind its bent bars, a snowy owl squawked her displeasure at him.
Quickly dragging his trunk over to the car, he heaved it into the boot before sitting in the backseat behind Vernon and next to Dudley - who took up both the passenger and middle seats. He settled Hedwig's cage between his feet and hastily tugged on his safety belt.
Vernon squeezed himself into the driver's seat, sucking in his gut to fit behind the steering wheel. Glaring back at Harry, Vernon angrily slammed his massive foot on the accelerator. The car lurched out of the car park and onto the road.
The car jerked and turned. King's Cross was behind them now. Harry sagged against the seat, suddenly drained, as if something had been ripped out of him. He closed his eyes, feeling hollow; empty.
"How dare those...people...speak to ME like that, in public no less!" Vernon bellowed, honking at another driver. "Obviously, you haven't learned any respect or gratitude at that school of yours, boy. Mark my words, if you know what's good for you, those freaks won't bother us all summer."
He felt laughter well up at his Uncle's threat. If I know what's good for me? Obviously, I don't.
It was good for him to remain ignorant of a prophecy about him. It was good for him to be kept ignorant of events in the wizarding world, isolated from his friends. It was good for him to have his mind invaded by a man who hated him for being his father's son. It was good for him to stay with the Dursleys all summer. It was good for him to endure their abuse, to be beaten or starved while being 'protected' by ancient magic no one bothered to properly explain to him.
Why is it everyone who thinks they know what's 'good' for me never bothers to ask me?
He clenched his right fist, and the fingerless dragonhide glove creaked; the new leather was still stiff. But it breathed, and covered his latest scar; a scar he had because Dolores Umbridge considered it good for him.
The words 'I must not tell lies' were etched into his flesh, and were the last thing he wanted his muggle relatives to see.
The glove had been a last minute addition to his wardrobe. Just before leaving Hogwarts, he had found it lying on his bed, with a note scrawled on a scrap of parchment:
Hope this keeps the muggles from asking too many questions.
Forcing his fingers to uncurl, Harry smiled grimly to himself. He had no idea who had give it to him – cured dragonhide was expensive, and whoever his mysterious benefactor was, they knew his size perfectly.
And they know a lot more about my 'family' than I want them to.
"...are you even listening to me, boy?" Vernon turned to face him, his mustached face a frightening shade of purple.
Harry opened his eyes and shrugged. "I'm trying. But I'm tired."
And I don't really care. If I listen, you yell. If I ignore you, you yell.
Vernon grew quiet, a normal color returning to his face. He spoke softly, and with more emotion in his voice than Harry had suspected he had.
"This summer will be different, boy. You will do as you are told and you keep your...abnormality...to yourself. Do you understand me, boy? Or you'll start to miss lord Voldie-whatsit and his dementoids."
Something ominous in Vernon's calm voice sent a shiver down his spine. Even with the Order keeping closer watch, Vernon could still make his life at Privet Drive an interminable purgatory where he would pay for everything he had done. Or hadn't done.
Vernon turned back around to concentrate on his driving, glaring ahead of him as heavy clouds obscured the sun. The early evening sunset turned into a sea of gray ripples, dappling the diffused light until the edges of things began to blur. Which made Uncle Vernon's speeding down the curvy road all the more disconcerting.
Harry heard his aunt Petunia swallow a choking sound, and look plaintively at her husband. Harry looked toward her, absently noticing she looked miserable – and faintly green, like she was about to vomit. She looked different, too. A bit fleshier, maybe, as if she were slowly coming to resemble her husband and son.
It struck him as somehow amusing that the woman who protected him from Voldemort merely by being alive was getting carsick.
As if it weren't ironic enough that the three of them have the power to decide the outcome of the war, just because they have power over me.
The thought made him feel as sick as his aunt looked.
Outside the car, it began to rain.
- 0 -
Rain cleansed the sky.
Thunder cracked, and the air shuddered around him, drowning out Hedwig's screeching protests.
He wrestled his trunk out of the car by the light of streetlamps. What light the moon might have given was obscured by black thunderclouds, turned into roiling overhead shadows. Lightning leapt from cloud to cloud, blurred by the rain falling in sheets around him.
He barely noticed.
Dudley and Vernon ushered Petunia into the house under an umbrella, Harry dragging his trunk after them, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and to hide in his room.
But he was met by his Uncle's sneering face as he walked in the door.
"I told you this summer is different, boy. My cousin Veronica lives here now, and we've given her your bedroom."
Harry and his Uncle locked eyes, and Harry understood.
There was no use speaking. No use arguing. Sirius wasn't there to protect him from the Dursleys; and obviously Mr Weasley's and Mad-Eye Moody's threats didn't have nearly the same impact.
Just one more thing his stupidity had lost him. One more thing Sirius wouldn't be around to do, because he had a 'saving people thing.'
He said nothing as he stepped past his uncle, pulling his trunk and Hedwig's cage towards the cupboard under the stairs.
It took no small amount of effort to wrestle the trunk inside, but he eventually maneuvered it to the foot of his cot. Acutely aware his Uncle was still watching, Harry picked up Hedwig's cage, and hung it on a cross-beam.
Vernon loomed in the doorway, towering over the shivering, rain-soaked teenager. "Get yourself cleaned up, boy. We'll be having company, so you'd best be ready by the time I get Veronica out of the house."
Harry didn't understand what his uncle was getting at, but he wasn't willing to risk asking questions.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon."
Don't ask questions. It was the first rule to survival in the Dursley household.
In less than a day, he had gone from being the favored son of the Order of the Phoenix, prophesied savior of the wizarding world, to feeling like a small child caught doing something wrong.
Vernon closed the door. A second later, Harry heard the click of the lock.
Shivering, Harry stripped off his sopping wet clothes, and stuffed them into a plastic bag from his trunk. He pulled on more of Dudley's cast offs: overlarge jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He even donned the hood; it felt good to hide.
He went to close his trunk and his hand brushed something warm and soft; one of the sweaters Molly Weasley had sent him. He snatched his hand back as if burned, staring at the sweater like he didn't believe it was really there. A long-buried part of him had trouble accepting that a gift from Molly Weasley could manage to exist inside his cupboard. The part of Harry that was still a small, scared boy couldn't believe he would be given anything like that.
He shoved the bag of wet clothes into his trunk and closed it.
I can't think about being there. I have to concentrate on here. Harry knew Dumbledore wouldn't rescue him from the Dursleys just because he was living in the cupboard. He was alive, and would likely remain so until the magical protections on him had recharged.
But eleven years of memory were hard to push away, and all of them were threatening to rush back at him. More than just being in the cupboard again scared him: something was going on with the Dursleys. He didn't know what, but he knew it was probably bad for him.
Why is Veronica moving in and why does Uncle Vernon want her gone while we have company? For that matter, why would he want me there with company over?
He'd met cousin Veronica only once before, when he had been eight or nine. She had been everything Aunt Marge wanted to be – a tall, stately, regal matronly presence that could overwhelm and command just by being there. But she was eminently Dursley – a lifelong spinster and professional governess, Veronica was not the kind of woman to appreciate the eccentricities of wizarding folk.
Harry vaguely recalled something about her having helped raise Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge while their parents were doing something Veronica, Vernon and Marge had all seemed to consider rather important. And he'd often gotten the impression Veronica was someone rather important in her own right – it made no sense for Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia not to want her around when company called.
Unless...is it someone from the Order? Is that why Uncle Vernon doesn't want her around?
Harry realized he was trying to pace, and forced himself to stop, almost bumping into Hedwig's cage.
Hedwig rustled her wings and hooted mournfully.
Pushing his fingers through the bars, Harry stroked the owl, trying to reassure her.
"I'm sorry girl; I can't let you out yet. I will, tonight, after everyone's asleep. But you can't come back. It's not safe here."
She nipped his finger reproachfully.
His feeling of foreboding grew stronger. "Uncle Vernon's right, Hedwig. Something about this summer is different and I don't know what's changed. I have to send you away, to keep him from hurting you too."
I can't let who and what I am keep hurting the people close to me.
He sank back against the wall and closed his eyes, trying not to remember Hermione warning him the vision of Sirius was a trap. Reminding him he had failed to learn Occlumency, that he had lied about learning it - that he was vulnerable. She had been right. She had known, just like she always did.
Like always, I didn't listen. Like always, I did the stupid thing and ended up a bloody hero.
The headlines in the Daily Prophet proved it; when a scapegoat was needed, they could always turn to Harry Potter, the fifteen-year-old boy who barely understood why he mattered. And when they wanted a hero as much as they needed a scapegoat, well – he was just supposed to be that, too.
His uncle hammered his fist on the door, and Harry heard him opening the lock.
"Get out here, boy. She's here to see you!"
Harry started. To see me? Who's here to see me?
He felt a thrill of hope. Maybe it really was someone from the Order, come to check on him.
He quickly pulled on his shoes and socks, and was surprised to see his trainers were already dry. He hadn't already been in here that long, had he?
Harry could remember times as a child when time had seemed to speed up or slow down while he was locked in the cupboard. Was he already back to the point where he couldn't keep track of things when he was locked in there?
He hesitantly walked into the parlor, hoarding a small kernel of hope their guest was a member of the Order, or someone Dumbledore sent. Someone who could send word about how he was already being treated.
He saw Petunia and Vernon were already sitting next to each other on the couch and their visitor was settled in one of Petunia's antique dining chairs. She looked up at Harry and smiled.
"So nice to see you again, Mr Potter. Why don't you sit down, and we can begin?"
Harry would never forget that saccharine voice, or the squat, toad-like woman it belonged to.
End Chapter
Revised 8-11-9
