Disclaimer: I am poor, sadly getting no income from this venue. I am also deprived of the ownership of Harry Potter and anything related to him.
AN: Inez is pronounced exactly how it looks – "in-ez"('in' as in 'into', and 'ez' as in 'Ezra' or 'Fez') But if you've been pronouncing it some other way in your head and my way just bothers you, I won't be offended if you decide to continue using your own pronunciation. I have been in your shoes before.
The Second Survivor
Chapter 4:
"Wait," Harry called, following Inez's swift departure down the path. Her steps slowed when she heard his voice. Taking a deep breath, she turned her head to look back over her shoulder.
The encounter with the Dursleys had affected her more then it should have. Her nerves were still frayed with the realization of her sudden new ability. How did she heal herself so fast? 'One thing at a time,' she thought as she turned the rest of her body around to face Harry.
When Harry had almost closed the gap between them, the front door banged open once again. Vernon Dursley, having apparently recovered his wits, stood in the frame, purple faced and boiling over.
"Get back in here, boy," he said in a menacing whisper so as not to attract the attention of the neighbors.
Harry spun around faster than a top, fixing his startlingly green eyes on his uncle. At those words, something inside Harry had snapped, and all the frustration that had been building up inside of him since Sirius's death came pouring out.
"Or what? You'll lock me in my room for the rest of the summer and feed me through a cat flap?" He said in a low voice, cold as ice. "Make me scrub every floor in the house until it's so clean, it's invisible? What will it be this time? Gonna sic Dudley's little gang on me till I cough up blood and can't hardly see anymore around the swelling! Or are you going to just call up Voldemort and say 'Hey, here's the infamous Harry Potter. Why don't you kill him? Kill him and finish the job you started fifteen years ago!' " His voice had risen gradually until he was shouting the last phrase at the top of his lungs. His anger was palpable, seething around him like some fierce intangible beast.
Breathing hard, Harry tried to calm down. Sure, it would have been entertaining to see Uncle Vernon blow up like Aunt Marge had three years ago, but Harry didn't think he could deal with the Ministry right now.
As he reigned in his anger, Inez, who had been observing the entire scene from her place behind Harry, made a decision. "Get your things," she said softly to Harry's back, "and we'll leave." From what Harry had said, it was obvious that his home life was less than happy, and there was no way she was going to make him stay in that house if she could help it, especially considering the treatment he would get after that explosion. So she gave him an out, and he could take it or not.
And take it he did. Not even turning to look at her, Harry marched quickly back to the door, pushing and squeezing his way past his sputtering uncle who turned to follow him, raging incoherently. He was back at the door, dragging a large trunk and carrying a beautiful snowy owl in a bird cage, in seven minutes flat.
Just as he was dragging the trunk over the door mat, Mr. Dursley came up behind him again, raving for all he was worth. "Where do you think you're going, boy? Don't think I'll take you back in when you crawl back crying you've got no money and nowhere to go!"
Inez hurried forward and relieved Harry of the cumbersome bird before stepping back, knife outstretched, to face Vernon. Harry beat her to the punch though, dropping the trunk and whirling around, a long wooden stick suddenly in his hand and pointing at his uncle.
"I'll go anywhere, as long as it's far away from you, and Merlin help anyone who tries to stop me!" His knuckles were white on his wand, but his hand was as steady as his glare.
All those years of negligence and abuse had been building in Harry, more so after Bellatrix had murdered his last chance of ever having a real home when she had knocked Sirius through the Veil earlier that year, and now furry at it all was radiating through him, evident in the powerful anger of his stance. It took all of the control Harry possessed to keep himself from letting loose on his uncle the myriad of cruses running through his head.
It was his uncle's reaction to Harry's anger that ultimately prevented him from doing something that would get him hauled down to the Ministry for yet another hearing. Something he definitely didn't want to deal with now.
In the face of Harry's anger Vernon had melted. His face, just a moment ago, flushed with anger, was now white as a bed sheet. His eyes were wide with fear, and his hands quivered at his sides, clenching and unclenching, as though trying to find something to hold on to in the midst of the paralyzing fear that had overcome him.
Harry, who had been avoiding his supposed family since he got back, was shocked at how far their fear of him and his magic had progressed. Sure he knew they disliked him, knew that they feared what he could do with his magic, but this was unrestrained terror.
Harry felt his anger slip away into an alarmed disgust, having seen that expression in his dreams too many times: on the faces of Death Eaters kneeling before Voldemort.
Veins rushing with disgust at himself because of this sudden new parallel between him and his parents' murderer, Harry stooped to pick up one end of the trunk at his feet and turned, dragging it down the walk.
When he had almost reached the gate, he felt the weight behind him shift in his hand, and glanced back to see that Inez had stowed her knife out of sight and was carrying the other end; Hedwig still dangling in her other hand.
They continued in that manner until they reached the corner, where Harry, after looking both ways down the intersecting street, stopped. Setting his end of the trunk down, he tried to sort out what had just happened.
His mind was still racing from the confrontation with his relatives, and he just didn't feel like he could deal with anything else right now. He knew that if he went to headquarters, or even the Weasleys, he'd have to explain everything to Dumbledore and then he'd be promptly shipped back to the Dursleys, and there was nothing and no one in either the wizarding world or the muggle one that could make him go back there.
He also knew that if he confronted Dumbledore in the state he was in, he would only end up yelling at him. The Dursleys weren't the only source of his frustration. Dumbledore and his secrets-kept-in-the-interest-of-protecting-Harry nearly made him angrier than anything the Dursleys had ever done.
At least the Dursleys' motives were clear, and all they ever did was make him miserable. Dumbledore would kill him with his secrets. He had already killed Sirius.
Harry closed his eyes and tried to reign in the anger that was bent on escaping. He needed to focus on the events happening right now if he was going to go through with his little stunt and actually leave the Dursleys forever; because if Dumbledore caught up with him now, he'd be back in that prison before sunset.
Inez, curious about this boy she had just helped to walk out on his family, set down her end of the trunk too, then set the beautiful bird atop it. Stepping around the trunk and owl, she went to stand beside him, facing the street.
"Where to now?" she asked, turning away from the neat lines of nearly identical suburban homes arrayed before her to gaze easily at him. "I have an apartment just this side of London we can go to if you have nowhere else in mind."
He turned and met her gaze without really looking at her. She could almost see the wheels of his mind turning in the depths of his emerald eyes. The wisdom she saw there, born of the pain of early responsibility, caused her to amend an earlier thought. This is no boy; he is a man: a man who is probably tired of being treated like a boy.
The practicality of her words brought Harry back to the present. He immediately began sorting through his present situation. "I'll be followed," he said, remembering the vigilance that the Order had watched him with last summer.
"I can lose them," Inez stated with confidence, taking his statement as agreement with her idea to return to her flat. "We need to get to the underground first, though. And it's not very fun to walk with luggage."
"We can take the Knight Bus," Harry suggested.
"If it'll get us there…" Inez said absently as she went to pick the snowy owl up off the trunk. "What is this Knight Bus, anyway?"
"You are a witch, aren't you?" Harry asked in surprise. She had to be, someone this unusual couldn't be a muggle, and there is no way a muggle would have survived the killing curse, which she apparently did.
"A what?" She asked in disbelief, turning back to him.
"I'll explain later." Harry didn't have time to explain the wonders of the wizarding world right now; they had to get out of there before the Order caught up with him. "It's a bit complicated," he added, pulling out his wand and signaling the bus.
The bright purple bus crashed into the street, seeming to materialize out of thin air. It screeched to a halt before them, and the door folded open to reveal the conductor standing on the steps leading up onto the bus.
Harry watched Inez intently. She had started when the bus first appeared, but seemed to quell her alarm quickly, merely raising a dark eyebrow in bemused bewilderment. The only sound she made at the unusual sight was a vague 'huh'.
Harry was surprised at her lack of reaction, for she could obviously see the giant bus - unlike regular muggles - and yet, she wasn't shrieking, or running, or any of the things he would expect a non-magical person to do at such a sight. She wasn't even frightened.
" 'ey there, 'arry. Weren't sure when we'd be seein' you again." Stan Shunpike said in his cheerfully excited way, snapping Harry out of his wondering.
"Hello Stan," Harry returned politely, "We need a lift to the nearest underground station."
"We'll take ya anywhere you'll be wantin' to go, ain't that right there Ern? Provided it's on land, o' course. That'll be eleven sickles apiece, and for thirteen you get …"
"Thank you, Stan, but we won't be needing anything else today, just the ride," Harry said, cutting in on his spiel.
"Let's get the luggage on board then, and we'll be on our way," Stan continued, still cheerful.
He made his way over to Harry's trunk, but before Stan could lift it onto the bus Harry asked him to wait while he dug out his money pouch, from which he extracted their fare, handing it to Stan.
He also let Hedwig out of the collapsible cage that he had ordered earlier that summer from an ad in the Daily Prophet. Pushing it flat, he placed the cage in the trunk before shutting it, and stepped aside so that Stan could get it on board. He told the owl to meet them at their destination, and she flew off with a parting nip.
Harry then turned back to look at Inez, who 'huh'ed again at the bus before returning his gaze. "After you," Harry said graciously, gesturing to the open door of the triple-decker bus.
He could hear her mutter under her breath as she hauled herself up the tall steps, "Why do I get myself into these things?"
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Sorry it took so long, but you all know how things go. Thanks to those who have reviewed. I always appreciate input. Any and all suggestions/questions/comments/criticism is welcome.
Tell me if you would appreciate having a summary of 'what's happened so far' at the beginning of every chapter. 'Cause I know that I often forget what is happening in the story by the time the next update comes around, especially if I'm in the middle of more than one fic. Thanks all.