Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter!
Chapter 4
I Didn't Mean It!
Last week was the end of third grade for Harry Potter, and the end of his favorite year in school so far. He had gained access to the school's library and had spent many hours devouring the worlds contained in their pages. He replaced the friends that Dudley and his gang had chased away whenever they approached him with his books.
Dudley's gang of miscreants was the terror of the lower grades and anyone dumb enough to attempt to befriend Harry. They weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but they were mean and stubborn, and the punishments doled out by the teachers were merely slaps on their wrists and did nothing to stop them. Harry had gained a lot of practice in avoiding them and outrunning them, and had won every round in their game called "Harry Hunting", the current tally was 23-0. The vicinity of a teacher meant a safe zone for Harry, and he used it to his advantage many a time, which angered the hunters.
Harry had also managed to find a solution to his problem of 'cheating' when the report card for first grade had arrived in the mail. Vernon had not seen the card arrive, and Harry had simply snatched it up and hidden it away in his cupboard. When Vernon saw no report card for Harry alongside Dudley's, he simply assumed that Harry didn't get one because of his misbehavior and proceeded to taunt Harry with the 'knowledge'. Harry tried to act ashamed, but wasn't doing a very good job due to the straight-A report card he had received and hidden underneath his cot. Vernon didn't suspect a thing, and Harry repeated the method with a similar standard of success each following year. It was almost too easy to hoodwink the bull-necked man.
That summer was the beginning of a new period in Harry's life. Strange things began to happen, and he was always at the center of them.
The first thing he noticed was that the spiders that had been infesting his cupboard for as long as he could remember were no longer in plain sight. He had noticed one underneath his cot when he picked it up, but it quickly scurried away from him, as if afraid of the scrawny boy. None of the Dursley's noticed such a small change in their life, since they avoided the cupboard like it was a quarantine chamber for a dangerous disease, but it puzzled Harry. The spiders had always been as at home in the damp, dark space as he had been.
Another happening was more noticeable. The Dursley's were having a couple over for dinner, and had decided that his hair had to be made presentable, but it would not be tamed. Petunia had finally lost her patience after the sixth time she had smoothed down his hair with copious amounts of hair gel (only to have it stand right back up within a minute), and cut his hair so short that he was for all intents and purposes, bald. Tt morning, his hair was as long as it was before the cut, and just as messy, which merited him a red-faced scolding by Vernon for his 'disobedience'.
The incidents only got more serious from there, and each time the Dursley's found evidence of the strange happenings, it earned him a day without food. He was forced to either sneak it or starve, so he became very good at not disturbing the Dursley's during his nighttime raids of the pantry. He was even courageous enough to bring some food back into the cupboard with him and hide it under the cot. He might have been discovered by the missing food, if it weren't for Dudley's habit of taking anything he wanted, due to his spoiled and needy nature, and Petunia and Vernon couldn't (or wouldn't) discipline their son. Harry was almost glad that he lived with the spoiled pig.
A particularly dangerous incident where he vanished the cage of a snake he was talking after it told him that it would LOVE to go to its native land, Brazil. Harry hadn't consciously willed the cage to disappear, but he did recall that he wished his serpentine friend could go to his long lost homeland. He is still unsure of whether it was his fault or not. He was also confused as to how he could talk to snakes, but had gotten used to such occurrences.
After he had been locked in his cupboard with a final shout of "NO DINNER FOR A WEEK!" by Vernon, he heard the raised voices of Petunia and Vernon in what seemed to be a serious discussion about him. He wished that he could hear what they were saying with all his being, because he had a strange feeling that it was very important to him. Imagine his surprise when he could hear every word of their conversation once he had strained his ears for several seconds, when such an action had always been futile in the past. He assumed that his ears had simply gotten more sensitive, because he could not think of a better explanation and wanted to focus on the conversation. The overheard conversation was very enlightening.
"I WILL NOT TOLERATE THAT UNNATURALNESS AROUND MY FAMILY! I don't care what that barmy old man says, and I don't care if he is our nephew! Imagine what the neighbors will think! We are going to send him to an orphanage as soon as we get the address of the nearest one!" Harry had never heard Vernon so angry, but the next overheard words were even more shocking.
"Vernon! Do you want to give that 'barmy old man' an excuse to hurt our family? Do you want to put Dudley in danger? We can suppress the little freak in the cupboard, but that old man is a fully grown wizard! We can't stop him as easily as that child, and he is our family, I would rather deal with him than that old coot who gave us this burden!" That was possibly the nicest thing he had ever heard any member of the Dursley family say to him, and she had even acknowledged his relation to them, even though he know that they didn't truly consider him part of their family.
However, the thing he had heard that truly flabbergasted him, was the phrase "fully grown wizard". What was Petunia talking about? She couldn't truly believe in magic, could she? The Dursley's prided themselves on how normal their family was, and never admitted to any unnaturalness, which is the only reason he could find of their hatred and neglect of him. The weirdest thing was, Vernon didn't even contest the point about the 'old man' being a wizard, he ignored it and insisted that Harry should be thrown in an orphanage and they should move away and get away from all the freaks.
The fact that he didn't even question the existence of wizards was enough to convince Harry that they were either insane, or correct. There was also the strange happenings around his person that were becoming more noticeable and impressive. Was he a wizard? They had compared him to the old man, who is a fully grown wizard- in their own words- as if they had similarities. Was one of the similarities magic? Was he simply an undeveloped wizard? It certainly explained the strange occurrences easily, it was magic.
The thought almost made him laugh aloud, but he restrained himself for fear of his relatives hearing it and realizing he had heard them.
AN
The chapter is finished now! Next chapter should get to the Hogwarts letter and Hagrid's arrival. Thank you for your support guys! Over 600 views!
