AN: Back again, with this one.
Not long I know, but this story is unexpectedly hard to write.
Eh, just what I get for going down this path, oh well.
A brief thank you to all that have graced this story with a view, have this on story alert, have Favorited this fic and/or posted a review, it means more than you know to this humble writer, even if he's not that great.
Now, Onward!
Petunia Dursley had a knack for reaching decibel levels that could be heard all across the street if she was pushed hard enough. Thankfully it had only happened one time previously, when Petunia had cut all of Harry's hair off his head except for the fringe (and boy oh boy did the Freak hate that look), to cover that jagged mark on his forehead, only to have it all grow back the very next day.
The eruption of such a loud noise had caused all kinds of attention to the house of Number 4 Privet Drive, neighbours thinking someone had broken into the house and killed someone or something similar.
This event had led to Vernon taking a belt to the boys backside, an action the large man had taken great joy in..
Saturday morning Petunia opened the door the kitchen and dining room where the Dursley family ate their food, to see the kitchen and dining area filled with images of her freak nephew, some cooking in the kitchen, some cleaning the kitchen, some sitting at the table reading and others eating.
The sight before her froze her in shock, her stiffness catching the eye of one of her nephews lookalikes. Then as one, all the replicas of her freak nephew turned their heads, in perfect sync, and spoke to her.
"Good morning Aunt Petunia." The harmonisation of all their voices speaking at the same time broke Petunia of her shock, whereupon she let out a near glass shattering scream that could be heard streets away.
A new record for her.
This had the immediate effect of waking Vernon, who could be heard thundering down the stairs within seconds to see what had happened to make his wife scream so bloody loud so early on a Saturday morning.
"What has the brat… done this… time… Pet?" Vernon began to rant/ask, before catching sight of the many Harry's in the next room, his eyes drinking in the scene in front of him making his mind go completely blank, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
"Good morning Uncle Vernon." All the Harry's said, in a haunting unison that made the bulging man unconsciously shiver. Petunia on the other hand, hearing the collective greeting of her husband from her nephew, fell in a dead feint, unable to take what she's seen and heard.
"Please wake her up and sit her down at the table Uncle Vernon, I nearly have both your breakfasts ready." The Harry's all said just as they heard the thumping noise of Dudley waking up, it was a kind of sick sense, that food, not a sound like his mother's screaming had woken Dudley Dursley from the Land of Nod.
"Mummy… has the freak made my breakfast yet?" the chubby boy asked rubbing his eyes as he passed the threshold of the kitchen, and saw his mum and dad amongst a sea of copies of his freak cousin.
"Good morning Dudley." They all said, their mesmerising melodious words too much for Vernon to hear a third time in a row, making him feint next to his wife, his head banging into the table like a hammer.
Dudley just shivered at how creepy it sounded and like his father before him, making his mind go totally blank.
The Harry's, collectively, shrugged, before the many copies of Harry faded out of existence till there was only one left.
The real Harry, in the kitchen collected the prepared food from the stove and plated it all before bringing it all to the table in each of his three relatives respective seats at the table, before going back to get his own food and taking a seat before eating, for the first time, the good quality food that he'd cooked
Looking up from his food, Harry flushed in embarrassment seeing the other food on the table, the food on the table that his doppelgangers were eating. Smacking his forehead for forgetting that Harry waved his hand dismissively, watching the illusions of food vanish like his mirror images had.
'Note to self, the visions of items can't disappear themselves like the clones can.'
A few minutes later, as Harry was finishing his breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast; his relatives began to stir from the noise Harry was making with his fork and plate.
'Show time!' With a snap of his fingers Harry created a copy of himself that was still eating food at the table whilst the real him took his dishes to the sink.
As Vernon rose from the floor he caught sight of the illusion Harry at the table, his face instantly darkening with displeasure.
"Boy! What the hell do you think you're doing, eating our food!" he thundered, his loud voice hastening his wife and son from unconsciousness; the scene of his nephew eating food instantly angering him, making him forget about why he was lying on the floor seconds ago.
"Well it's morning and I need to eat, I cooked a bit too much for the three of you so I plated some for me." Harry answered.
"What have we told you about eating our food, you ungrateful whelp!" Vernon spat, storming up to the boy to snatch up the back of his head of hair and pull it.
Only for his hand to pass right through the boys head making Vernon stumble, not expecting no resistance to his forward momentum as he leaned down.
Vernon fell forward, his face impacting the high back part of the chair making it, and him, crash to the ground with a bang, breaking one of its legs in the process.
"Whasgoinon?" Dudley slurred as he got to his feet, looked around the room, to see his dad on the floor over a broken chair and his cousin standing over him.
A child that was encouraged to beat on his cousin like Dudley, didn't have to think too hard on what he was seeing in front of him and charged at his cousin.
Having not seen what happened to his dad, Dudley was, like his father, unprepared to hit nothing and promptly lost his balance and tripped over falling on top of Vernon.
As the two Dursley males righted themselves Harry had a brainwave and snapped his fingers again, an illusion shimmering into existence over Vernon, and Dudley.
A perfect imitation of Harry fading in over Dudley only seen by Vernon, and another over Vernon, only seen by Dudley. Petunia on the other hand, was free to see everything, except for Harry's standalone illusion standing off to the side while Harry hid undetected to all of the Dursley family.
"Boy when I get my hands on you…" Vernon threatened as he got to his feet.
"If I were you Uncle Vernon, I wouldn't do anything." Harry's copy off to the side of the table chided.
This was completely new territory for Harry to be in, taking a stand of Vernon's treatment of him had Harry feeling an intense rush, he was enjoying this.
"Why's that freak?"
"Because only one of us is the real Harry, the others are Aunt Petunia and Dudley; if you hit one of us, if you can, you could hit them instead." Harry told his uncle, who was getting madder and madder.
"Boy cut it out with the freakishness this instant or I'll-"
"You'll do what? You can't punish what you can't see, and you haven't found me yet."
This seemed to give Vernon pause.
"I've been practising this trick for weeks and you've not even noticed." Dare he say it, Harry was feeling quite smug at the moment, the proverbial shoe was on the other foot.
"What?!" Petunia shrieked, finally coming to, having just heard Harry's bold statement.
"It's just like I said, I've been practising this trick for weeks and I've finally gotten good enough that I could use it on you like this. What can you do when you can't trust what you see?"
There was a tense few seconds silence before Petunia broke it.
"What do you want? You obviously want something or you wouldn't be doing all of this." She practically spat.
"I know you have been lying to me about a lot of things…I want answers." Harry answered. Petunia stilled, of all the things she thought Harry would ask for, clothes, a room, a bed… answers hadn't been it, and it made her stomach drop… she knew what answers he wanted.
She must not have sold the story of her freak sister and her freak husband well enough… or maybe she had oversold it, making Harry doubt its viability which had led to this.
AN: Like it? Hate it? Let me know, us authors are such review whores.
How will the Dursley's deal with this and what will Petunia and Vernon do now that, as Harry said, they can't really trust what they see?
And before any of you that read this say it, and I know when some of you reading this you're thinking 'what the hell?' I know I've written Harry to be quite advanced for his age, however, living in that house under those conditions I reckon it'd be a case of sink or swim, so I think it's justifiable.
Given Harry's skill set in setting illusions, how do you think that Harry will go about getting the answers he's after from Petunia?
I'm curious.
Lastly, if you are going to point out errors please PM them to me rather than in a review.