Divided

Chapter Two: Super-Muggles

Morning dawned, hot and bright, two weeks into the summer term. Harry's green eyes flickered open as birds twittered outside his window and Hedwig clucked a greeting from her cage.

"Morning Hedwig," Harry cheered, throwing her a grin. "How was your night?" His owl clicked her beak and tucked her head under her wing in response. "That well?"

The teenager padded over to the window and leaned against it, feeling the warmth of the sun on the sill. He took a deep breath and smiled.

He went to his closet and rifled through for some clean trousers. Slipping them on, Harry frowned when he realised that they were too short by a couple of inches. He tried on a few more pairs and found that they were all too short, even the pairs that usually had to be rolled up a few times to fit. His school trousers were entirely too short, by almost five inches, despite having fit just two weeks earlier.

"Well, look at that, Hedwig!" Harry cheered, appreciating his newfound height in the mirror. "I'm finally growing!"

She hooted lowly at him as he grabbed the longest pair of trousers he had. "'Night Hedwig," he said, as he grabbed a mostly clean shirt and threw it over his head. "I'll see you later."

When Harry entered the kitchen, he ignored his aunt in favour of grabbing something to eat. He sat down at the table and lifted a fork to start eating when he caught her sneering at him.

"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't take that tone with me, boy," she snapped. Aunt Petunia sniffed and took her plate to the sink.

Harry ate quickly, hoping to make a break for it before his aunt decided she had chores for him to do—

"I won't have you wandering off and wasting the day." Too late. "The garden needs weeding and watering," she commanded.

"Yes Aunt Petunia," he mumbled between mouthfuls of toast.

"And change your trousers before you go out," she said with a disdainful sniff. "The neighbours will think we don't give you clothes!"

Harry tactfully held back the comment that she was the one to give him those clothes in the first place. "I haven't got anything longer," he admitted, cheeks reddening. "I guess I grew a lot."

She huffed. "Well, let me just take a look. I'm sure I have something of Dudley's that should be long enough."

His aunt swept out of the kitchen, muttering about freaks and growth spurts, and up the stairs to Dudley's room.

Harry took the opportunity to fill his plate with seconds and gobbled down as much as he could. He'd been ravenous since returning home from school and Dudley's diet food just was not cutting it.

His aunt came down about three-quarters into his second plate, empty-handed and sour. "Get your shoes on," she barked.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

In response, she snatched his plate out from under his fork and set it in the sink with a heavy thunk. She eyed him with a nasty look that could have curdled milk. "Now."

Harry darted out of his seat and ran up to his room to grab his trainers. He was downstairs in a trice and met his impatient aunt at the door. She didn't say a word, still fuming, until they were in the car and driving down to the market. Unlike his uncle, Aunt Petunia didn't rant. She kept quiet, stewing and boiling her insults until they spurted out in one long, poisonous tirade.

They arrived at the store in fifteen minutes and Harry hopped out of the car, finally getting a sense of what was happening. His aunt hadn't been able to find any old clothes of Dudley's that were long enough for him to wear, so she'd had to take him out to buy new clothes. Hence why they were at the local Oxfam.

As they walked in, Harry looked around in interest at the slightly worn clothes on the racks. They weren't new — there was no universe in which his aunt would ever buy him new clothes — but they were certainly much cleaner and nicer than Dudley's hand-me-downs. He even felt a thread of excitement at the thought of finally getting some Muggle clothes that would actually fit him.

His aunt led him to a rack of men's trousers and she started rifling through them. Harry looked idly at the selection, appreciating the snappy black trousers and the artfully faded blue jeans. He didn't dare, however, select anything for himself — his aunt's sour mood was only getting worse and he was a little afraid that she would start shouting if he asked for something.

So he followed her around silently, letting her pull out trousers and hold them up to his body to measure the length. Some swam about his shins, others dragged on the floor, but one or two hit his ankles perfectly.

When she put a pair that looked nice and ended neatly at his ankles back on the rack, Harry blurted out, "Wouldn't that one work, Aunt Petunia? It looks like the right fit."

"Because, you stupid boy," she hissed back nastily, "I'm not made of money." She pulled out a pair that were four or five inches too long and added them to the pile. "You can make do until you grow into them."

Harry held back a sigh and resigned himself to rolling up his trousers for the foreseeable future. He looked at a load of shirts to waste time while his aunt plowed through the trouser rack. Some had silly sayings or references to shows on the telly that Dudley watched. Others had these odd symbols or crests on them, like one with a bat and another with a red and yellow S. Harry quite liked the red and yellow shirts, though he would have preferred to have a G-shaped symbol instead of the S.

"Superman fan, huh?" a girl asked, looking over at the shirt he was holding. She was pretty, but her ears, nose and lip were covered with several painful-looking piercings. Harry tried not to stare at how that metal bar was forced through her bottom lip in two places. It looked a tad barbaric.

"Er," he mumbled, looking confusedly between the girl and the shirt.

She didn't seem to need an answer. "He's not as popular as Batman, but he's definitely a favourite," she sighed, browsing through the shirts. "I'm a Wonder Woman kind of girl, myself," she said, pulling out a shirt with two straight lines and a circle drawn in green, "but it's so hard to find her shirts. I usually end up getting Green Lantern's, because at least a brother represents, you know?"

"Yes?" he returned blankly.

"... You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

Harry huffed a laugh. "Not in the slightest," he admitted, grinning sheepishly. "Who're these people?"

"Superman, Batman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, the greatest superheroes the world has ever known," the girl said. "You know, the Justice League!"

He slowly shook his head, eyes wide. "Is this show on the telly?" he asked hesitantly.

She threw him an odd look. "The Justice League," she said, reaching over to a small spinning rack to grab a magazine. On the cover was a group of six people dressed in lurid costumes, holding weapons, standing at a ceremony. "They're the American superheroes that saved the planet from an alien invasion last year?"

Harry took the magazine and flipped through it to see the article explaining who the heroes were and what they could do. He stared with wide eyes at the pictures of the heroes flying in the air and punching holes in giant machines. Were they Muggles or secretly wizards in disguise? How did their powers work? Did Dumbledore know about them? Did Voldemort?

The girl watched him flip through the magazine, an incredulous expression on her face. "You seriously have never heard of them before?! Do you live under a rock?"

"Boarding school, actually," Harry said, flipping back to the cover to take another look at the heroes and their costumes. "It's remote. Very remote."

"Boy, stop dawdling!" his aunt barked, moving up to the sales lady with an armful of clothes.

"I've got to go," Harry said apologetically, handing back the magazine. "Thanks!" He hurried off after his aunt, hovering beside her as she paid, and then carried the bag to the car, all the while wishing that he could've bought that magazine.


During the silent ride back to Privet Drive, Harry couldn't help but wonder about the costumed heroes. He had so many questions and for the first time this summer, his mind was spinning with curiosity related to something other than Voldemort.

The moment his aunt stopped the car in the driveway, Harry bolted out the door, taking his clothes up to his room. She shouted at his back about the yard but he smoothly ignored her. Once in his room, he dumped the bags on the floor and dived for the piles of old Daily Prophet issues in the corner.

His uncle refused to let him throw the newspapers in the bin, worried that the moving pictures and obvious signs of magic would contaminate their normal garbage, so Harry had been saving them to chuck when he returned to Hogwarts. This proved lucky as Harry diligently searched each paper for information on the costumed heroes. Certainly the Prophet would've mentioned them somewhere.

But after throwing the last issue down in disgust, Harry had to admit that the Wizarding World had completely ignored the existence of the American superheroes. There was nothing, not even commentary on the Muggle fashion of lurid tights and capes that was frankly odd, even for wizards.

Sitting at his desk, Harry pulled out a sheet of parchment, already mentally composing a letter to Hermione to see what she thought about it all. Just as he laid quill tip to paper, however, his aunt screeched from below.

"Boy, get down here and start your chores!"

Rolling his eyes, Harry dropped his quill and got up, not wanting to test his luck. He hurried down the stairs and met his aunt at the bottom.

"The flowerbeds need weeding and watering," his aunt said nastily, "and the lawn needs to be mowed. Go on, get out! I don't want to see you until supper time!"

Harry slouched out the door and winced at the heavy, blistering heat. The Dursley's front yard was fully exposed to the sunlight, meaning he would most certainly be getting sunburned and sweaty this afternoon. With a heavy sigh, he started his chores.

As he was tending to the rose bushes under the sitting room window, he heard his aunt switch on the television. When the familiar sound of the news show starting hit his ears, he deliberately slowed his pace and turned his attention to the show.

If wizards didn't know what the superheroes were doing, he'd have to hear what the Muggles had to say then.

"…Late this morning, the United Nations unanimously approved a charter for the newly-formed Justice League, comprised of the American superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl. The charter gives the group the legal authority to perform life-saving and peace-keeping operations in UN-affiliated countries around the globe," said the news anchor. "The non-affiliated Bialyan government under Queen Bee leads an outcry against the charter, protesting that it interferes with their country's sovereignty, and that any actions of the Justice League within their borders will amount to an act of war."

When the segment ended and the news switched to discussing celebrity breakups, Harry flopped onto his back on the grass and heaved a sigh. It wasn't much, but at least the Muggle news proved that the Muggle superheroes were actually real. Staring up at the sky, Harry let his mind wander as he soaked in the warm rays of the sun.

It was a bit silly, when he thought about it, that he'd been so obsessed with finding out about Muggle superheroes. Their powers were fairly fantastic, but there wasn't much that they could do that magic couldn't. Harry sighed. It would be nice to have heroes like that on their side. People who cared about saving innocents and stopping Voldemort.

He imagined fighting the dark wizard and the Death Eaters alongside the brightly costumed Muggles for a moment, but then Harry frowned. It was nice to dream, but he didn't even know how the Muggles would fare against magic. What if, for all their powers and skills, they were as defenceless as all the other Muggles?

Harry sighed and sat up, shaking the dirt out of his hair. It had been a nice holiday, to have something to think about other than Voldemort, but he couldn't let those garishly costumed Muggles distract him. Voldemort was up to something and Harry had to stay focused. He had no time for fanciful men in tights, as long as Voldemort was still out there.

The young wizard got to his feet and moved on with his chores, determined to set the superheroes from his mind for good.


A/N: Thanks to all of the people who liked, faved and reviewed Divided so far! I'm so pleased with the response it has gotten. This is a bit of a filler chapter, but things will start getting crazy in the next one. It's a bit of a massive Chapter 3 and I ended up writing about 7k words for it. Chapter 3 is done and is mostly ready to post, but as Chapter 4 is based on 3, I want to finish the former before I publish the latter. It'll help the flow if I don't have to go back and edit something that changed later!

So thanks again for reading and telling me what you think! I'm hoping to finish Chapter 4 soon and as soon as I start on the fifth chapter, I'll post chapter 3. I can't wait for you all to read it - it's truly some of my best work to date.

Happy Wednesday!