AN: For anyone who might be wondering, I imagine this Harry like Alexis Bledel in Tuck Everlasting, with Ryan Newman's eyes, lips, and jawline. As for her hair, well, think of Merida from Brave but shorter and a dark brown colour that looked red in the light. This, of course, is only a rough estimate of the image in my head but I figured, there'd be readers that like a picture to go with the story.
This chapter's a little awkward in places. I hope you'll forgive me but the truth of the matter is, my original plot for this story started during fourth year; I started from the middle and now I have to fill in the beginning.
Ms. Cordelia Oglethorpe, middle-class half-blood from an unimportant family, scatter-brain who had difficulty paying attention to details, relatively unknown office worker for the Department of Magical Child Welfare, had a secret. It was actually a really good secret too, especially considering that she was about the last person anyone who wanted to know that secret would expect to have that secret. It was for that very reason — besides her sense of duty and morals — that she kept this precious secret very close to her chest. She guarded the secret as fastidiously as an Unspeakable guarded their section of the Department of Mysteries.
Ms. Oglethorpe knew where Harry Potter was. More than that, she was the social-worker assigned to young Potter's case and had regularly been to the place that Harry Potter was living. Her assignment to their precious child-saviour had been very hush-hush. It had been kept so quiet, no one, not even her co-workers, knew that Harry Potter even had an assigned worker in the Child Welfare Department. The only other person besides Dumbledore that she knew for certain knew of her position was the recently retired Department Head and he had agreed to a memory charm to help conceal the secret.
It was widely assumed that little Potter had been spirited away directly from the ruins of the cottage in Godric's Hollow to mystical parts unknown, where he spent his life with an entourage of bodyguards — sort of the Knight's of the Round Table to Harry's King Arthur — following him on epic adventures that one wouldn't usually assume to happen to a child less than ten-years-old. There were series of books dedicated to Harry's speculated accomplishments, from Apparition at the age of five to soothing rampaging hippogriffs with nothing but his voice at seven. She was glad Harry hadn't actually done any of that since it would have made her job a lot more difficult.
The truth of the matter was that Harry Potter had been sent to live with muggle relatives in an upscale but completely mundane neighbourhood a week after being carefully checked over by a healer and being assigned a child-services agent. She was quite certain there had been no apparition and that the only hippogriffs the child had ever seen were in books. For goodness' sake, Harry wasn't even a boy! Ms. Oglethorpe had seen to that quite clearly when she had escorted the then two-year-old saviour to the loo because she was still too little to climb onto the toilet by herself. She had no idea why everyone thought the sweet little lass was a boy but her position left her with the inability to correct anyone when they started telling tall tales about the 'Boy Who Lived'.
Her heart had gone out to the Potter girl when she had been given the details of that October night. After James' body was moved from it's position at the bottom of the stairs, Harry had been found in the half destroyed nursery, so blank and unmoving, they had though her under a curse to turn her into a living statue. Lily Potter's body was crumpled on the floor, her torso half on the bed as if reaching out for her children still, even in death. The bed was a nightmare of splattered blood from where poor little Jacob had been cut and crushed by falling ceiling chunks; the killing blow, a hit to his temple by an especially sharp shard.
Harry had sat there for who knows how long, dazed from the Dark Magic that clung to the wound on her head, too aghast to move away from the body of her brother, letting the blood soak into her pajamas.
It was too cruel a fate.
It was perhaps an even crueller fate when it had been decided that she would be sent to her maternal aunt to live among the muggles.
Cordelia was no blood purist, what with her own father a muggleborn from a respectable background, but Petunia Todd rubbed her the wrong way. She was no child abuser, she would do her duty by her niece, she'd most likely bring up Harry to be a capable person, but Cordelia doubted Mrs. Todd would go beyond duty and love the child. The way the muggle woman had wrinkled her nose at any mention of magic had concerned her; would Mrs. Todd hold it against Harry? Cordelia had only hoped that Mrs. Todd's husband would temper any stand-offishness his wife might show to Harry.
To her relief, Harry assimilated into the Todd family rather comfortably. The resilient little girl seemed no worse for wear after an understandable amount of time to let the shock of the death of her family to ease into the back of her mind.
Such a sweet girl, Cordelia sighed. So agreeable and quiet, though she really did wish little Harry would liven up a bit. It might have been her natural disposition, but the way Harry seemed perfectly at ease with just sitting and listening quietly for extended periods of time ("Sitting there, looking pretty," as Benedict called it) was more suited to a world-weary grandmother than a child of any age. Where was drive to get into mischief? Where was the need to get up and play? The passion to explore?
Cordelia approved of how the Todds had Harry take up the piano when she showed talent at it. A valuable skill she could work at and take pride in! It wasn't running around and being childish but it could work. A creative outlet through a positive medium could only help her in the long run. That Harry was taken out to perform and already earned money of her own would only make her more independent when she grew up.
Cordelia occasionally frowned to herself when she thought of the way it had been discovered that Harry was talented at piano. At any instrument, really, Harry had told her when the topic came up.
It had been during Harry's first year at primary school and she had been in music class. She was sitting by her cousin Dudley and his friends, off to one side of the cluster of children sitting on the floor. The other girls, headed by a brunette named Alice Baumgardner, generally disliked her for whatever trivial offense and had taken to pretending she didn't exist when they couldn't get in a jab at her when the teachers weren't looking. Fortunately, they hadn't even one chance that day since Dudley had decided that Harry wasn't going to be out of his sight for even a minute any more.
"You'll sit in the middle of us and that's the end of it," Dudley had said. The large, blond boy cracked his bulky knuckles while giving the nearest girl an ominous look. "If they want at you, they'll go through my fists first; I don't care if they're girls!"
That day, the music teacher, Ms. Glass, was letting them pick out any instrument they wanted to play and gently nudged them toward a cabinet with simple, durable instruments like recorders and xylophones.
"When you're all settled, we'll learn a song to play for your parents after class," Ms. Glass told them.
The school had invited the parents in observe their children's progress get to know the teachers. It was supposed to encourage feelings of involvement and show off how well the kids were doing. Several of the know-it-alls were eager to prove how much better they were than their classmates and had eagerly asked their parents to come; Alice Baumgardner among them.
While the other children settled themselves with easy instruments — Harry herself, picking out a set of wooden xylophones — Alice tossed her light brown hair and declared," Ms. Glass, I'd like to play the piano. I've been taking lessons."
The teacher had hesitated but conceded when she saw the determined gleam in Alice's brown eyes; she was quite familiar with the girl's pig-headedness. She only put in a token warning: "Try not to slam the keys too hard, it's a rather old thing and I've had it for years."
What followed could only be called cacophony; recorders were over-blown, xylophones were chimed out of time, tone-deaf children tried to sing, and Alice was not nearly as good at piano as she thought herself to be. When the class period was nearing the end and the parents were rejoining the class, the only thing that could be said for the students was that they learned to be on beat.
The parent, of course, thought the performance utterly charming. There were coos and the flashes of cameras, followed by enthusiastic clapping.
"Feel free to pick up any of the instruments and play with your children," the music teacher encouraged the doting parents. "I'm sure they'll have more fun with you involved."
And so the families and students spread out across the room, discordant melodies inter-mingling. Harry and Dudley made their way over to Dudley's parents, who were standing near the recently vacated piano.
"Watch where you're going, Potter!" Alice hissed, as she bumped shoulders with the smaller girl, rushing over to her parents. Harry gave her a vaguely annoyed frown but ignored her.
The two of them greeted Harry's aunt and uncle smilingly, Dudley starting in on how much fun the xylophone was and how he wanted one too. Harry paid only minimal attention to the conversation, being distracted by the shiny white keys in front of her. It was as if there was a pulsing from them that she could somehow feel. She soon found herself seated at the piano and stroking the keys absently, letting her fingers glide from one end of the piano to the other.
"Give it a try, then," her Uncle Michael said, making her glance up in distraction. Her Aunt Petunia gave her a considering look before nodding in agreement.
Harry acquiesced, pressing the keys softly with three of her fingers, an arpeggio sounding. At the sound of the arpeggio Harry's mind filled with bits of half-remembered songs and her fingers flew across the keyboard. The song in the forefront of her mind was the one they had just been taught, Ode to Joy.
Melodies and harmonies churned about her head, things she was certain she had never heard before, and her fingers hastened to complete movements that the instrument in front of her seemed eager for her to perform.
The adults gawked at her when the song was complete. Harry's hands felt strained and ache-y all of a sudden, as if she had been playing for hours, non-stop. She fancied that she could see calluses growing on her fingers as she watched.
Her Aunt Petunia leaned in closer to her and whispered breathlessly," How did you do that?"
Harry shifted a bit on the seat, rubbing her hands against her legs. "I don't really know. The piano was telling me about the songs that's been played on it and Ode to Joy was it's favourite. It insisted I play it."
Petunia Todd acquired an unholy gleam in her eyes. A smile settled on her face. She looked over at her surprised husband and told him, "We're getting a piano."
Later on, while they were heading back from the music classroom, Alice pushed Harry down the stairs.
Petunia had made sure the girl was expelled and pulled Harry out of St. Grogory's to be home-schooled.
Not exactly a happy ending to the conflict but effective none-the-less.
Cordelia pulled herself from her thoughts and stood from her desk. She stretched languidly before shuffling her papers into order. When she was done, she collected her jacket from the coat-rack next to her door and made to leave her office. She'd need an early night if she was to be energetic enough to keep up with Harry tomorrow during their shopping trip.
The Todd boys (plus one chaperone) were lounging in their seats out on the patio of Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, taking a bit of a break from their exploration of Diagon Alley. In their idleness, the walls of social convention came down, and their personalities were presented for observation. Ashford Todd, the studious one of the brothers, was idly slurping on a float while absorbed in one Harry's Herbology texts; Dudley Todd, the sports enthusiast, had shoved half an ice cream sandwich into his mouth while marvelling over the Bludger he had in his arms; Benedict Todd, the artistic one, had finished his banana split and was looking over Ashford's shoulder at the moving pictures of the textbook, stroking a new paint set — one for moving portraits — possessively. It was as if they were posing in character for a movie poster.
The boys had spent the last three hours combing through the obscenely colourful shopping district of Diagon Alley, poking their heads into every shop that had come across and generally dragging out the trip as much as they could, considering that their mother would most likely never allow them to come again. It had taken Harry's ability to lead them around by the their noses and Ms. Oglethorpe's ability to keep track of several things at a time that kept them from running off and getting lost. As it was, they still ended up in stores that didn't sell anything on Harry's school list and now had several bags of toys and amusing non-essentials — like board-games with pieces that talked and moved by themselves, and oil pastels that changed colour when you shook them — that would all have to be hidden in Harry's room, since that was the only place in the house where oddness was allowed.
"Whoa," Benedict exclaimed, snatching the textbook from Ashford to get a closer look.
"Give it back!" Ashford whined, making grabby hands at the book that was held out of his reach. Benedict held him back with a hand to his forehead, fingers mussing up the younger boy's brown hair, and held him there. "I was reading that!"
Benedict ignored him for the moment. "Hey, Dud, come check this out; this plant thing has all these wicked looking spikes and eats raw meat!"
"Seriously?" Dudley lumbered over to look. Both older siblings paid no mind to Ashford's usual whinging and instead exclaimed over the coolest plant they had ever seen.
"I'm serious!" Ashford scowled. "I'll tell Harry you're picking on me again!"
Unfortunately for Ashford, instead of seated at the table where she could been of any help, Harry Potter was across the cobblestone road, just in shouting distance of where the Todd children sat poking at their ice cream, inside a little shop where she had scampered off to when she had finished her own sundae.
The bright afternoon sunlight filtered through the pink-tinted windows of Santana's Stationary, casting the notebooks and parchment scrolls sitting under the window in a warm, rosy glow. Two children stood in front of the notebook display, one, dressed in a crisp, teal sun-dress, carrying on excitedly — though she tried to play it cool — while the other, in fashionably baggy cargo pants and brightly white hoodie, listened politely, nodding in agreement and making sounds of acknowledgment when it was expected.
"So, you see," The girl continued. "I'll just breeze my way through to the top of the social ladder —"
Harry couldn't help but clench her hands in the material of her over-sized hooded jacket, the stretchy, white cloth of the pockets where she hid her hands straining to not tear under the abuse of her thick fingernails. Her face felt tight from her efforts to keep her expression from twisting into a look of bored impatience. She could only hope that the source of her displeasure — a chattering brunette that thought far too much of herself — would not follow her out of the stationary store when Harry finally found an appropriate time to cut the conversation short.
Harry had come in to grab the parchment she couldn't get at the book-store — the last thing she needed before they could finally get to the wand shop — when she had be waylaid by Miss Pansy Parkinson — "Of the Norfolk Parkinsons, none of that Lincolnshire trash." — who had been debating between purple-coloured or strawberry-scented parchment. Before Harry could nod politely and be on her way, she was trapped by an oral dissertation concerning which type of parchment would impress the most classmates, and how it would win her favour from the teachers, and how those teachers should adore her anyway since she was a Parkinson, and she was such a special snowflake since all Parkinsons were above and beyond, ya know?
Harry was imagining the satisfaction she would get from clawing the girl's eyes out.
Truthfully, Harry's patience had been thin before the day had even started. Aunt Petunia's musical charity-dinner thing had gone on late into the night, the award ceremony for the placing contestants, taking up even more time after everyone had been fed and watered. They had gotten home near two in the morning, leaving Harry with only three and a half hours of sleep. That Aunt Petunia made sure she woke up at half five, to squeeze in time to practice scales and do stretches before she left at eight irritated Harry to no end, especially considering she wouldn't being performing at any more events until at least next summer.
Harry was convinced that the early wake-up call had been done purely out of spite.
Spiteful was easily the most apt description Harry could think of when in the mind of her aunt's faults. She would insist on the most useless things — like Harry wearing her pink work-out shorts instead of her grey ones — simply because she knew Harry hated it. Petty was another good one; no one could be as frivolously mean as Petunia Todd when she was in one of her moods. She had almost forbidden Benedict, Dudley, and Ashford from coming along on the shopping trip simply because Ashford was looking a bit too excited about going! It was only her haste to get to some high-society brunch on the other side of town that kept her from rescinding her previous permission.
Harry's bout of ruffled impatience did not disappear even when Ms. Oglethorpe had arrived to pick them up, though she did try to not take it out on the older woman since she had nothing to do with it and was doing them a favour. Dudley and Ashford had grown rowdy during their wait for Ms. Oglethorpe, talking about all the vaguely dangerous things the were hoping to see and do in Diagon Alley, and it had been left up to Harry to keep them from getting destructive, since their nanny wasn't working until that evening and Benedict was too smug from riling them up in the first place to keep them pacified.
As it was, Harry was ready to choke all three boys with their own tongues by the time they reached The Leaky Cauldron.
"So help me, Benedict Todd," Harry had warned the wide-eyed thirteen years old boy she had by the collar of his t-shirt. The normally laid-back girl held him captive in the back of the car while the other three had already gotten out. "If you goad them into any nonsense — like eating something out of the barrels at the Apothecary — I'll turn you into a toad and dump you in a tank at the pet store."
While the threat had been taken seriously and Harry had left the confrontation in a better mood, and she had been immensely delighted by being allowed to explore the shops as long as she wanted, that didn't mean she wasn't still on the edge of kicking the arse of the next person that looked at her funny.
Cue pug-nosed princess that liked to hear herself talk.
" — engagement with the Malfoy heir only adding onto the list of reasons why the girls will — "
What deity had she angered in a past life to deserve such a crappy turn of events? She hated talking to conceited high-society children, the girls in particular, because they all seemed to have some deep-seeded, subconscious need to show off to her or show her up, as if she cared in any way about their qualities.
Was there a sign of her forehead that said 'Please, Brag Here!' that was only visible to people other than herself? It was only her abhorrence of incivility that beat back her uncharitable comments and kept her in place long enough for the person talking at her to feel as if Harry had really been listening.
Nod along as they make their points, Harrington, her Aunt Petunia had drilled into her, and make sure you lean in ever so slightly, as if you can't bear to be away from the conversation. Make sure you watch their face carefully as they talk, eyes appropriately wide, as if whatever they are saying is the most fascinating thing you've ever heard. Appear to be significantly impressed by whatever drivel they're going on about and they'll tell tales about how impressive you are.
Now here she was, practised mannerisms in place, and she couldn't turn them off, since she couldn't bear being rude. She tucked a loose curl back under the knit cap that she had shoved all of her hair in and combed her bangs with her fingers in agitation.
And the Parkinson girl was still chattering on!
"Lilac is my favourite colour but they only had the fabric I wanted in yellow of all colours, so I told them — " Parkinson cut herself off abruptly, almost swallowing her tongue with how quickly she pulled back in the breath she was going to use to keep talking. She looked like she wanted to frown, hiccup, and burp, all the same time; not an attractive expression.
"I thought I heard the ear-splitting yowls of a cat in heat," interrupted a derisive voice from behind Harry. "And it turns out I was right; here you are, Pansy, dear."
Harry turned to look upon the face of her salvation. Anyone that could shut up that girl by just being in sight had a leg up in Harry's good books, even if they did sound very rude.
There were two people standing there actually, a tall boy with a stony face, and a pleasantly plump girl.
It had been the girl that had spoken. She was older than Harry and Parkinson, maybe thirteen or fourteen, with sort of in-between hair — the sort that couldn't decide if it wanted to be blonde or brown — that was fixed up in Dutch braids. Her passably pretty face was set in a look of disdain mixed with pity, while she had a hand on her hip, as if she was posing for a picture. She was a model of condescending superiority.
Harry felt as if she had been dragged into a television drama, during the episode where the two main female antagonists finally let loose in a cat-fight. She only hoped they would give her a chance to make a break for it before nails went scratching.
"Brocklehurst," Parkinson finally said, as if it pained her to concede in even acknowledging she knew the older girl. "And Flint too. How nice to see you again." She couldn't have sounded any less pleased if she had been screaming in agony.
"I had wondered who you could be talking to that could prompt you into using your most dulcet tone," Brocklehurst continued, not acknowledging Parkinson's stiff greeting. She sauntered closer, arms folded in front of her. "You only ever speak like that when little Malfoy is the ear you're chattering into and I know for a fact he won't be back in England until tomorrow. So whoever could it be?"
She stopped in front of Harry and looked her up and down. "And so I thought to myself, whoever it is would have to be perfectly singular.'" Her gaze slowed, and she took Harry in more appreciatively, a smirk appearing as she assessed Harry's face. She murmured, "Perfectly singular indeed."
Harry restrained a squirm of discomfort.
Harry resolved to avoid Pansy Parkinson from now on; the girl seemed to know others just as unpleasant to be around as herself. She automatically slipped a pleasant look on her face, and inclined her head at the older girl, nodding at the boy as well. "It's very nice to meet you. I'm Harry."
The Brocklehurst girl looked a bit surprised. Probably because Harry was being polite. Harry could understand, she herself would expect anyone hanging around Parkinson to be highly unpleasant. A genuinely pleased smile light up the older girls face, and Harry could honestly say that she looked much nicer and prettier that way.
"Mindy," she said, shooting a look at the boy. "I'm Melinda Brocklehurst but I prefer Mindy. This" — here she tugged forward the stoic-faced boy that looked like he couldn't be bothered to care either way — "is Marcus, my best friend. It's very nice to meet you, too."
The Flint boy — never had there been a name more appropriate — looked unimpressed but inclined his head as well when Brocklehurst gave him a pointed look. His previously stony expression contorted into a lowered brow and a displeased twist of his lips. The expression suited him utterly and Harry couldn't help but like him the best out of the trio of people she wished would just leave her alone; she admired how little he gave a damn that he didn't bother putting up a good public face. She could only hope that she could one day be that genuine as well.
"Did you need something?" Parkinson cut into the pleasantries curtly, her tone sour.
Brocklehurst frowned disapprovingly at the reminder of Parkinson's existence. "Besides wanting to relieve my curiosity, I figured I could save whatever hapless victim you had your claws in."
"How dare you? We were having a lovely conversation before you butted in!"
"Oh, a conversation, was it? It looked to me as if you were prattling on and keeping this person here from their shopping."
Harry heard the clock in the shop chime one o' clock and couldn't help but glance out the window at where her cousins were sitting. Dudley looked extremely bored and was gazing forlornly through the window at her while Benedict had taken out his equipment and was painting on Ashford's arms. She should probably get going before they started annoying Ms. Oglethorpe. She still needed to get her wand too.
The two girls facing off in front of Harry looked like they were ready to verbally rip each other to shreds; she could almost see the acid dripping from their tongues. Harry noticed that Flint looked rather resigned and she wondering if this was a reoccurring conflict.
Harry cleared her throat and smile sheepishly at the three when she recaptured their attention. "I'm sorry to cut this short but it's one now and my family's waiting for me outside. I really do have to go."
"Oh," Parkinson said, a touch of disappointment tingeing her petulant voice. She glared at Brocklehurst as if it was all her fault. The older girl just re-crossed her arms and stared challengingly back. "Fine, then. Perhaps you'll find me later on the train."
"Maybe," Harry agreed. Privately, she was considering going to Hogwarts in disguise if it meant she could avoid Parkinson. She raised a hand in farewell as she retreated with her purchases. "Lovely to meet you all."
"Harrington Jamison Potter, what have you done to your hair!?" Petunia wailed, a hand grasping at her throat. A broken plate was at her feet, intermixed with globes of scrambled eggs and chunks of fruit.
The Todd family, minus Michael Todd who was currently flying over the Atlantic, was sitting down to breakfast at the informal table in the kitchen, two weeks before the end of summer, when Petunia's eyes had alighted on her niece ambling down the stairs toward them. She had just returned from a weekend gathering with some charity group she worked with, and had looked forward to a quiet summer Monday with her children.
All thoughts of relaxation fled and a yelp of horror had escaped her. Her hold on the plate in her hands faltered, resulting in a wasteful spill of food.
"Really, Auntie," Harry sighed as she entered the kitchen. She frown at the mess on the floor and went to grab some paper towels, the dust bin, and floor disinfectant from the cupboard under the sink. Spray bottle in hand, she waved away the still gaping older woman as she knelt down and set to cleaning. "Dudley already broke one dish from this set; we hardly needed to lose another."
"Your hair!" Harry's aunt cried again, now pointing at it as if they couldn't tell exactly where the hair was by themselves. "All your lovely hair! What possessed you to cut it? And so short!"
Harry dumped the ruined food and shards of broken crockery in the bin before fluffing the curly bob that brushed around her chin and the base of her neck. She tilted her head and gave her aunt a mildly peeved look from underneath her fringe before setting to fixing another plate of food. Spooning up some more egg, Harry said, "Honestly, it's just hair. It'll grow back."
"But why?" Petunia sat down heavily in her chair, as if the sight of the usually waist length hair now shorn and unruly made her feel faint.
"We-ell," Harry drew out, casting an imploring look at the boys who were staring at their plates in rapt fascination, studiously avoiding getting involved in the conversation. Thanks a lot, guys, Harry thought. "Yesterday, we were all playing outside with the neighbour kids and some of them brought along their friends that were visiting for the day. It turns out that Brigitte Hotchkiss from three doors down is friends with the little sister of one of the girls in my gymnastics class, one of the ones that really hate me. She knew I lived near Brigitte, so she told her younger sister to stick gum in my hair when I wasn't looking."
"That miserable little brat! You can be certain I'll be calling her mother the second I get their number from your teacher. Did she really shove it in?"
"Um, actually, she stuck it near the bottom. I thought I could just trim it a bit but somebody," Harry threw a pointed look at Benedict who was trying to look as insignificant as possible, "bumped my shoulder while I was cutting it, and it came out uneven. So, I had to cut it again. It ended up between my shoulder blades, and you know I hate it at that length since it never stays in any style when it's that length and it gets all hot and clingy, so I hacked it to around my shoulders and called it done."
"And of course, because the weight holding it down is missing, it curled up further after a washing, turning even wilder, and is now completely unmanageable," Petunia added with exasperation. "Didn't you realize that without enough weight, it would stick up and out instead of down? You look like one of those hooligan boys that waste their days away at that dumpy skate park."
"It's not that bad!" Harry protested, setting the new plate of food in front of her aunt, and digging into the parfait she made for herself out of plain yoghurt and the fruit salad the boys were avoiding eating.
"It's defying the laws of gravity," Petunia said sourly. "A squirrel could make a nest in there and you would never notice."
"It does look like a briar bush," Ashford chimed in. He was sitting next to Harry and leaned in to carefully stick a fork in her hair. Before either ladies could protest, he drew his hand back and looked in awe as Harry's hair seemed to have swallowed the fork whole, showing no sign of holding anything within it's comb-breaking tangles.
"Ash!" Harry exclaimed, digging into her hair for the fork. It took a few seconds, but she withdrew the eating utensil and gave the younger boy a frosty look. He grinned sheepishly and took back the fork.
"That better not have had food on it, or I'll put the fear of God in you," She said, waving her spoon at him.
"This is a nightmare! We can't do anything with it at that length. Imagine how ridiculous you'll look in your nice dresses with that mop. You'll have to wear extensions now!"
"Don't be silly, I'll be going off to school in a few weeks and they'll hardly care if I'm dolled up like a little princess there. You won't be able to set anything up until winter break at the soonest and that's plenty of time for it to grow back; you know how fast it grows."
As it always happened when Harry's school was brought up, Petunia clammed up and refused to continue with the conversation. With a displeased "Hmph!" she placed her plate in the sink and walked off without another word.
"Way to make mum stop mid lecture," Dudley praised around the bacon and toast in his mouth. He swallowed and said, "All you have to do is always be reading one of your school books or play with the new toys and she'll never be able to say anything to you again."
"You say that like I should want Aunt Petunia to completely avoid me."
"I would if I was you," Benedict cut in. An unhappy look crossed his usually jolly face. "It's always what you look like and how well you can do something when you talk to mum. I don't know how you do it all the time. It sounds terrible, but when she pours all her attention on you, I can't help but be relieved that she doesn't expect anything from me like she does from you."
"And you always keep up with what she wants so easily," Ashford added. "but if you do something wrong, she gets angrier than when we do something wrong."
"When the world thinks you're perfect, it waits for you to fail," Harry explained, gathering up the empty breakfast plates. "And when the thing that seems too good to be true fails in some way, it disappoints you more than one would expect." She walked over to the sink began washing the dishes.
"And I'll be the one dumped with all those expectations soon." Ashford's shoulder slumped and he looked deeply dejected. "With you three off at boarding school, mum will have no one else but me to pay attention to."
"I doubt it'll be as bad you think," Harry attempted to console him. "Auntie doesn't care much what you lot do during the day so long as you tell the nanny where you'll be, and come home at a reasonable time. If you hang out at the library or at one of your friend's houses, I'm sure she'll be too occupied by whatever she gets up to to torment you much."
"Yeah, Ash," Benedict agreed. "Just look busy when she's around and you'll be golden."
They all then agreed that a game of four-square would be an excellent way to get out of the house and forget up Petunia Todd's nightmarishly high expectations.