AN: This isn't a chapter I'm happy with. I wanted something to happen and this chapter is the tool for it and it took a long time to figure out a great enough mischife for things to blow out of proportions enough. My first one didn't even deserve a raised eyebrow. The next chapter is almost finished but I could use a bit of pressure to finish the editing sooner (It's what generally delays things with five to eight months because I'm lazy when it comes to editing.)

As always I owe Degenerate69 for putting up with beeing my Beta.

And a special thanks to arisblaze for beeing the only one accepting my challenge last time.

Fighting for your reward

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Chapter Four: Family

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A few days after the two strange men had been at their house things changed dramatically for the boys. There had been conversations between Petunia and Vernon that they hadn't been allowed to hear. They knew this because both adults had been awake early in the morning. Long enough for Petunia to make a grandiose breakfast with everything you could want from an Englishman's breakfast menu and Uncle Vernon had finished the papers already. Dudley whined about it to Harry when they went to school that day. It wasn't fair that the adults used the time they had to get out of bed to conspire against them. His parents were becoming too tricky according to him.

Harry was torn between equal annoyance and a lingering feeling of worry from within. The chances were that they had been talking about him, about the men and the house and everything he'd told them. He was scared about what had happened, really scared. Even with his inner presence soothing him from within, he was worried and nervous and jumpy. He'd already cried and had sworn to himself that he wouldn't cry again, ever. But Dudley was right that Petunia and Vernon was upping their game and Harry and Dudley now had to respond equally. Harry thought he knew how…

Their plans hadn't worked out so well, Harry admitted to Dudley. The first morning they had just tried to wake up super early, but they'd just fallen asleep again at the table where they'd been waiting for the adults to wake up. The second day they'd tried coffee, it had tasted disgusting but they had had a lot of energy and hadn't been tired at all, forcing them to run around outdoors all night so that they didn't wake the adults. Around three o'clock they'd fallen asleep in their room, still fully dressed and tracking mud marks. Petunia hadn't been merciful and spent the next evening sitting and reading a book in their room until they'd fallen asleep. After that the boys had gone for the kill in pure exasperation. They'd sneaked up in the night, and tripwired a long candle lighter to a packet of crackers they'd saved since last New Year's in the boys' room.

They got up alright.

First to the bangs of the crackers and then to aunt Petunias screeching and uncle Vernon's bellowing as they rushed to the noise and then the entire family had to put out small fires that had started all over the room.

All the boys' toys had been removed after that and they'd been grounded for a month. Harry was ashamed, not for causing trouble, but for how crude he'd been in his planning. There were better ways, there always was. But since The House he just wasn't up for it.

"I'm sorry Dudley." He told his cousin on their way to school. They were driven by Petunia and would be picked up by Vernon.

"This is stupid." Dudley muttered. "Mom! This is totally unfair! You guys started it!" Petunia speed up.

"This is completely fair! You two have gone out of your way to prank us and act out! This isn't some spur of the moment thing and you two need to cut it out! I'm so furious at you two! You will learn that there are consequences to your actions!" She was screeching again. When Harry saw his cousins face turn more stubborn and his mouth open to try to talk back he threw himself over him and covered Dudleys mouth.

"Yes Aunt Petunia." He answered instead and tried not to wince as Dudley bit his hand and then processed to lick it, drenching it in disgusting drool. He responded by pressing his hand down harder and vowed that when he finally could remove his hand he would use the spit to smooth down Dudleys hair. Bugger feeling regretful for his stupid planning, this was now. Petunia gave them a really sour look in the back mirror, as if there no longer were any lemons in the world because she'd just ate them all.

"Get back to your seat Harry!" He reluctantly let Dudley go but he did manage one thorough swipe of his hand over the blond hair of his cousin earning him a disgusted sound and a silent promise that when they were at school and out of Petunias clutches Harry would suffer.

But Petunia didn't just drop them off. She parked the car and then marched them into the school, all the way to the teachers' lounge. They were placed there as she had a talk with their homeroom teacher behind a closed door and the other teachers were looking at them in curiosity and with some wariness. They were infamous after all.

Before Petunia left she and their teacher, Ms Dove, told them what was going to happen. Harry and Dudley was going to attend class as normal but in between they were going to follow Ms Dove to the teachers' lounge and her office instead of joining their classmates out to the playground. By now the boys were torn between disbelief and bewilderment and while Harry couldn't utter a sound Dudley was quite loud in his protests.

"That isn't all!" Petunia interrupted. "This is far from over. Ms Dove will also help you with your homework and hand you additional homework to keep you occupied when you get back home. You two are in for a month of hard work, studying and no fun! Think of that the next time your urge tries to get the better of you!" With that she thanked Ms Dove and swept out without even giving them a look despite Dudley now crying while Harry visibly was in shock.

The other teachers in the room were both nodding and shaking their heads, imagining what the boys must have done to finally receive a harsh punishment but also having a hard time believing that the harshness of the punishment really was called for.

"Well Mr Dursley, Mr Potter, time to go to class." Ms Dove just said while smiling like and angel.

Their time home was worse the boys thought bitterly after just two days. Petunia had just handed them a list of chores and if they finished all the chores and their homework with time to spare she would just find something else for them to do while she corrected their homework and sometimes made them redo some part of the homework because they'd made a mistake, and she wouldn't always tell them what mistake they'd done! They just had to re do it and redo it until she was satisfied as if they should know what they'd done wrong! If they didn't finish everything they were supposed to do in one day then they had that added to the things they had to do the day after. And while all this was going on Uncle Vernon was busy doing something and was rarely home.

It was a living hell.

It was no wonder the boys decided to run away from home in the middle of the second week. Petunia had baked a huge cake that weekend and then she and Vernon had eaten it in front of the boys while they had to do the dishes. They ate it demonstratively, moaning as they took a piece in their mouth, Vernon ushering compliments like: "This is the best cake you've ever baked my love!" and "I could live on this cake alone!" Dudley had managed to taste a swipe from one of the bowls before they washed them and Harry was distraught as his cousin wept next to him.

"I can't take it anymore, Harry!" Dudley confessed as they lay in bed in the dark that night. Dudley had sneaked into Harrys bed and they comforted each other. The only sympathy each boy found in a cruel world was each other. Harry was having trouble on his own; dreams about being looked in a cupboard, Aunt Marge sicking her dogs after him. Dudley bullying him… His inner voice had gone quiet, not even rearing its head when they were doing their homework. It was as if Petunia had managed to scare it away. They had to get away from it.

"Do… Do you think we should run away?" He whispered. Dudley turned in the dark.

"Run away from home?" Harry hummed affirmatively. Dudley was quiet for so long that Harry thought he'd fallen asleep.

"Mom and Dad are invited to a dinner with the Morgan's on Saturday." He said in the end and that was all the admission they needed. That Saturday they were going to run away from home.

It was tricky business tying to gather what they needed under the watchful eyes of Petunia, and they had to resign themselves to not only taking their piggybanks but also steal money out of their parent's piggybanks and wallets. This was a do or die situation. If they got caught they wouldn't live to see the sun again. They couldn't steal food until the last moment either. Everything had to be dealt with at the last moment. Except for one thing: They had to figure out how to get their babysitter, old Mrs Hunter, to leave them on their own so that they could execute their plan on that day. They figured out a way as they always did. Harry sneaked a note into Timothy Parkers pocket that Thursday, asking that he ask his much older brother prank call them saying that Mrs Hunters house was on fire, for a fee of five quid that Harry had removed early from his piggybank. The next day he found a note in his pocket with the word Yes written on it. Harry shoved down the fiver in Timothy's pocket as soon as he had a chance to, it was Friday after all.

That evening they were nervous and exalted. They were going to be free and out on an adventure by that time the next day. They were finishing setting the table when Uncle Vernon came home and pulled Aunt Petunia aside, showing her some papers that made her smile and kiss him before they all sat down to eat. The dinner was consumed in silence, as it had been since the boys punishment started. When they all had finished and the boys had done the dishes (for the last time!) They were told to sit in the living room with the adults. Harry and Dudley panicked. They were convinced that they'd been discovered and now they were going to be called out on it! Dudley hyperventilated while Harry felt something else take over and settle in him, a firmness that he'd been missing for almost three weeks now.

His inner presence was back and Harry would survive this.

Petunia and Vernon placed the boys on the couch as they took the armchairs.

"Now boys" Vernon smiled at them. They no longer trusted that smile. "Petunia and I have a couple announcements to make. First of all, we'll be moving from Little Hangleton in a few of months. We've found a nice house in Gillingham, near the sea, and we'll all be going there to have a look this Sunday." His smile was brilliant. Harry and Dudley didn't know what to say but one part of reality came crashing in on them.

If they ran away they might not find their family again if they moved! They hadn't thought that they'd ever see Petunia and Vernon again, mostly because they might even get a beating after having done that, but they had been safe knowing that if they ever became so overcome by homesickness that they were willing to take the punishment for it; they could. Moving form Little Hangleton hadn't been in the picture. Harry looked desperately on Dudley.

"But why!?" Dudley shouted in panic. Petunia put a hand on Vernons knee as she explained to them, she also smiling.

"We feel that it's time to move, away from that haunted house and everything that has happened here, that we all deserve a new start, free from the past and past mistakes. As a family." Harry just shook his head, this was too much. This sounded good but it couldn't have been at a worse time.

"And that brings me to the other thing." Vernon put some papers on the table, making the boys stiffen in their seats, afraid that it was a report card or something from school. Harry didn't want to look at it.

"What's this?" Dudley asked while grabbing a hold of Harrys hand and squeezing it.

"This is adoption papers." Petunia said and the boys cried out in despair. They were being put up for adoption! This was it! They were disowned and discarded; Harry hugged Dudley while whimpering 'I'm sorrys' furiously.

"Boys! Calm down!" Petunia said as both adults moved over to the couch and hugged a boy each, Vernon Harry and Petunia Dudley till they had resigned to their fate.

"Were not sending you away!" Petunia said. "We want to fully adopt Harry!" This did more to quiet the boys than an hour of soothing nonsense.

"What?" Harry managed to croak.

"We want to fully adopt you Harry," Vernon said while hugging the boy. "Not just be your custodians but your parents." Petunia reached over to hold Harry's hand.

"We'll understand if you don't want to change your name from Potter, it was your birthparents name, but we want you to call us Mother and Father instead of Aunt and Uncle. Because we see you as just as much of our child as Dudley. We want you to know that just because I wasn't the one who gave birth to you're not less family than anyone else in this room." There was a soothing comfort in her voice that the boys hadn't thought they'd ever hear again.

Harry's world shifted at that, his inner presence seemed to have lost its grip and Harry and it in union cried and laughed in a cacophony of emotions; disbelief, relief and feeling as if he'd been granted something he'd always wanted but never had been able to voice. He hugged as many as he could and cried and cried as he couldn't stop smiling. Dudley was hugging him too.

"You're gonna be my brother!" He shouted in Harry's ear making the entire group wince from the high sound that close to their eardrums.

That night Harry and Dudley lay in bed smiling, holding each other's hands.

"Are you gonna keep Potter?" Dudley asked. Harry felt conflicted with his inner presence but resolutely said no.

"I never knew my Potter-parents; I want to be a Dursley."

Dudley squeezed Harry. "I got a baby brother!"

"What!?" Harry managed to squeak as he tried to slither out of the death grip. "I'm not a baby! You're the baby!" This resulted in a wrestling match only interrupted by Vernon barging in on them. He separating them by carrying Dudley to his own bed and strictly order them to be quiet and sleep and say that the older brother was the one who was the most mature and fought the least.

The next day the chores and homework still continued, but they could handle it now. They were a bit embarrassed as old Mrs Hunter rushed out of the house after having received phone call about her house, but they pretended that they had nothing to do with that.