Disclaimer 1: This is fanfic. That means I do not own any of it. I just borrow it to play with for a little while and let people see the pathetic results if they really want to.
Disclaimer 2: I'm not making any money from it. It's just for fun.
Disclaimer 3: What isn't borrowed is all made up. None of this is real or most likely at all realistic. Please don't trust any of the information in here. Most likely you know more about whatever I'm writing about than I do.
Disclaimer 4: Attitudes, views and opinions expressed by the characters or in the story are not necessarily those of the author. Even when writing Science Fiction or Fantasy I do not tend to attempt to create perfect/better worlds in which everybody gets a happy end ... or whatever is best for them. Please accept that some characters will have a bad ending or be unhappy.
Disclaimer 5: I intend no insult to anyone. If I offend anyone I'm very sorry. Please understand that it was an accident as I tend to be very clumsy in these things.
Notes: Petunia is not pleased by Harry's latest report.
Chapter 6: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
The birthday letter arrived at the normal time again this year as Petunia Dursley Evans noticed with satisfaction She let the bird in through the window and untied the letter from his leg with shaking fingers.
The owl hooted at her encouragingly which almost led to her dropping the letter, and departed again as soon as he was free. Petunia hastily stepped back to avoid being hit by the animal's rather impressive looking wings, drew a relieved breath and closed the window again.
Then she made herself a cup of tea and settled down to read. Harry's birthday picture was quite satisfactory, she decided. His hair remained awfully untidy, of course, but he clearly had grown nicely, his robe was neat and tidy and the glasses were beginning to look smart rather than ridiculous on him.
Yes, her nephew was growing into a young man, just like her son. They'd both turn out well. She was sure of that.
Petunia looked for his grade sheet next, but couldn't find it right away. She must have accidentally turned over two sheets at once, she thought, but since she already held the medical report in her hand she read that first.
It seemed rather longer than usual which was worrying. In the picture Harry looked perfectly healthy, but what if he had developed some chronic condition that wasn't immediately apparent?
But no. He had suffered burns when facing a dragon in the 'first task'. What sort of tasks did that horrible school set its poor little students? Surely fire-breathing dragons were much too dangerous to let fourteen year olds anywhere near them! Didn't wizards care for their children's safety at all?
At least according to the report Harry had recovered very quickly so his injury couldn't have been all that serious.
But just a little lower on the page there was another entry that made Petunia gasp. Harry had been kept in the hospital wing overnight because he had been traumatised by having a vision of the evil wizard Voldemort who had murdered Harry's parents, returning back to life and then seeing the dead body of a fellow student who had been killed by none other than the revived Lord Voldemort and as if that hadn't been enough, Harry had then been abducted by an agent of said Lord Voldemort who had been masquerading as a trusted teacher.
How could the institute have let that happen? Wasn't the very reason for children being raised in institutes that the experts there should ensure their safe and healthy development?
Of course nothing like that had ever happened to Dudley and now that she thought about it hadn't there been some incident of that kind mentioned in every one of Harry's birthday letters since he had been transferred to a secondary institute Petunia and her husband hadn't even chosen for him?
Hadn't Harry been attacked by a treacherous teacher once before in his first year?
Then in his second year he had been forced to find a younger student that had been attacked by some monster called a basilisk. How could that have gotten into the institute and grabbed a first year? Where had the teachers been that a second year had felt forced to take the rescue mission into his own hands?
In Harry's third year he had been attacked by an escaped convict, a mass murderer no less!
And now dragons, visions of murderers, abductions and dead bodies in an institute for children! If that was what happened to one boy at that institute in four years, then what horrors did the entirety of the student body go through in seven? How many students died before they were old enough to leave? How many ended their education sooner than they would have liked to out of fear for their lives?
More automatically than deliberately Petunia picked up the next sheet and continued to read.
Harry’s development wasn't quite satisfactory because he had trouble focussing on the essential if faced with several tasks or objects of interest? Why, how could anyone be expected to focus if they had to fear being attacked by dragons, murderers or their own teachers at any moment?
Petunia shook her head at that nonsense and moved on to the next sheet which finally informed her why she hadn't found the grade sheet earlier. Not that she still cared about grades after what she had read about the institute's safety. Harry had been entered in a tournament intended for the very best seventeen year old students? A tournament in which students had been killed in the past? And there had been no way out of a contract Harry had neither signed nor was old enough to sign? Why hadn't she been informed of that? Wouldn't she have had to give her permission?
She certainly wouldn't have! Harry was all she had left of her parents and sister! To think that she might lose him to something as useless as a sports event!
When Vernon Dursley came home that evening he found his wife sitting at the computer surrounded by pages upon pages of old-fashioned parchment, a full cup of tea standing cold and forgotten on the kitchen table.
"Vernon, you have to help me!" Petunia said instead of greeting him as usual. "We have to get them to transfer Harry to Smeltings. Hogwarts just isn't safe. And we chose Smeltings for him! They had no right to send him elsewhere. I'm sure if Lily were alive to see how dangerous the place has become she would never want her son to stay there either."
"Dangerous?" Vernon asked confused. "What is dangerous?"
"Dragons, convicts, murderers masquerading as teachers and monsters running about inside the institute, Vernon!"
It took a while before Vernon got her to give him clearly understandable information, but once he did he was in his element. He'd always loved enforcing his will against that of others. He'd show those wizards!