A/N: Hello again! New chapter, kinda short, Harry's second year dealt with. Honestly, this year abroad is doing wonders for my fic productivity. Please read and review!

Chapter 10: Family

Dinner was going well, the Masons seemed to like Petunia's cooking, Dudley has behaved perfectly, and there hadn't been any mention of the boy. Everything was as it should be. He'd secure this deal for Grunnings, get his biggest bonus in years, and they could celebrate with a longer holiday this year, with whatever was left from the bonus going towards Dudley's university funds.

"And of course, Mr Mason, business is the traditional path for our family. After he's been to university, Dudley plans on joining Grunnings, don't you, son?" Vernon said smoothly, a smile on his lips as he enjoyed the company and the dinner.

Dudley was just explaining that he'd always wanted to be as successful as his father and people like Mr Mason when the comfortable atmosphere and flowing small talk were interrupted by a noise from upstairs. Vernon could feel his smile becoming fixed to his face, becoming more pained by the minute. What was that boy thinking? He knew the cost of making noise tonight! "Excuse me, I'll go and find out what that is, probably just something falling over upstairs," Vernon said, hoping the weak excuse would be dismissed with little scrutiny as he pushed his chair away from the table and stood up.

He thudded up the stairs, stalked to the boy's room (as much as a man his size could stalk anyway), and opened the door to the boy's room. "What's going on here? We're at a delicate stage and your making noise could have ruined it! Not one sound, not one sound, remember that, boy," Vernon snapped as quietly as he could, voice just above a whisper. He didn't even listen to the brat's excuses, eager to get back to pleasant company and away from whatever it was that was affecting the boy.

Apologies were made to Mr Mason, "sometimes the house makes strange noises, that's just how it is, but it gives the place character," and the evening continued in the same vein, with Vernon and his family doing their best to appear as normal as they truly were. And things were going as well as before, the small talk was going well, Vernon's jokes were going down a storm, if he did think so himself, but, as he was telling the punchline of his Japanese golfer joke, one that was a success every single time he told it without fail, the noise from upstairs started again. Vernon trailed off, and exchanged a look with Petunia. She gave him a very sharp nod, and he stood up, apologising yet again, making weaker excuses than he had before for the cause of the noise. Mrs Mason looked particularly suspicious.

"What are you doing, boy? You just ruined the punchline of my Japanese golfer joke," Vernon paused menacingly, "One more sound, one more mistake and you'll be sorry." He turned and left, closing the door as much as he could, as quietly as he could before going back downstairs. Petunia locked eyes with him and he tried to convey his own frustration while explaining that there was a window open, and it had been blowing the door of one of the bedrooms into the doorframe. "The window's shut now, of course, but Petunia does like to air the house, don't you, Pet?" he added, and Petunia nodded, before explaining that sometimes she left the windows open a little longer than she meant to.

The Masons were hesitating more now, sending glances towards the ceiling, even as they settled into the conversation and moved from the table to the living room, to wait for pudding. Dudley was clearly doing his best to bring the conversation back to the present, and Vernon was immensely proud of him. The Masons were clearly impressed as well, if the approving looks Mr Mason was sending Dudley were anything to go by. And that was where it all went wrong.

Vernon froze, rage taking control very briefly when he heard the boy running down the stairs, but he didn't draw attention to the sound, he didn't dare, not when Mr Mason was talking about the deal and things were finally going right, and continued talking, trying to ignore everything except Mr Mason. So he didn't feel Petunia's eyes on him, or hear Dudley's very quiet "Dad," until the moment the trifle dropped on Mrs Mason's head. Then he stared in horror at what had happened, and at the boy, clearly guilty, stood in the doorway.

"Well I never, nothing like this has ever happened before. If this is how you treat esteemed business partners, Dursley, then I will never deal with you again." Mr Mason gathered his wife, who was squawking indignantly, and stormed out of the house, barely remembering to grab their coats on his way out. The front door slammed with a finality and Vernon's dreams of securing his family's future went down the drain.

He turned to the boy. "How dare you, you ungrateful brat. You have not only ruined this evening, but the future and security of this family. All because you're a freak!" his voice was low, was quiet, was full of anger. He was no longer angry, he was furious, and he intended to make the boy pay. Then an owl was flapping in his face, in all their faces, before dropping a letter in the boy's hands and leaving.

The letter spoke. What kind of freakishness meant that a letter spoke the words written on it? Vernon listened, angered by the owl, by the freakishness, but calmed by what he was hearing. The boy wasn't allowed to perform magic out of school, he was on a warning for having performed magic this evening, and this meant Vernon could punish him.

"I know exactly what to do to you, boy." He took great pleasure in saying the words.

Petunia woke. She listened. Vernon was yelling. She sat up. "PETUNIA! HE'S GETTING AWAY! STOP HIM!" and she leaped out of bed, grabbing her dressing gown and pulling it on while moving to the door, opening it and running to the boy's room, Dudley hot on her heels.

And Vernon was trying to stop her nephew and a pair of ginger twins put his stuff in the boot of a flying car. A flying car! Of all the things the neighbours would notice! Putting aside the old resentment towards Lily, that Lily hadn't shared these things with her, that Lily had told her they could make cars fly, she ran to help Vernon, grabbing hold of the boy's arm, her grip as vicelike as possible.

It wasn't enough, it was never enough. He went, stolen away in the night by freaks in a flying car, and Vernon was left almost falling out of the window because he tried to stop them, he tried to take on people he had no hope of winning against for the boy, to keep the boy here.

"Dudley, go back to bed. I'll make sure your father's alright," she said quietly, and pushed Dudley towards the door before he could protest. "Vernon?"

"What?"

"Let's go down to the kitchen, make a cup of tea and talk," she said, moving towards the window, and shutting it. She then took Vernon's hand and led him to the door, away from whatever had happened to him here. Away from the reminders of the freaks who had invaded their home.

Vernon looked broken. Petunia hated seeing him like this, he was such a strong man, and to be broken like this by a handful of adolescent freaks was awful. She couldn't bear it, and tears came to her eyes as she filled the kettle, put it on and set two mugs out, placing a Tetley's tea bag in each.

"Petunia, I'm scared." Petunia looked up, looked at Vernon and saw the terror, the fear, in his eyes. He was telling the truth. Vernon, who has stood up to those men at Lily's wedding, despite what they'd done to him, was scared. "We'll be safer now the boy's gone, dear," she replied, pouring water into the mugs, and heading towards the fridge to get the milk. "Yes, we will. But next summer. When he's back. What's to stop any of the ones who supported the freak who killed your sister from coming here and killing us all? What protects us? These protections Dumbledore spoke about in his letter weren't very effective tonight!"

"I don't know, Vernon. But I don't believe those boys meant any harm to us tonight. And the boy can't cause any trouble now he's gone. He becomes his world's responsibility the moment he goes with them, that was what Dumbledore wrote. Tomorrow we'll clean up, pretend this never happened, and tell the neighbours that the boy's staying with friends from school, he left early this morning when they picked him up. I'll put anything freakish in the cupboard under the stairs, and we'll forget about this." Vernon looked pensive, taking a long, slow gulp from his mug, before nodding.

Petunia knew Vernon was right to worry, they weren't safe, but they couldn't do anything about that tonight. Tomorrow they would think about what to do to solve the problem, to protect Dudley and their family.

There was an owl in the kitchen. Dudley was trying to do his homework, like he'd been told, and there was an owl in the kitchen. An owl giving him a very scary look. Dudley looked closer at the owl. It was Harry's, Dudley was sure, he hadn't seen many white owls before. Certainly not ones that looked like they wanted to eat you. Could owls eat people? Dudley wasn't sure. He never paid attention in Biology, it was boring and difficult.

"Muuuuuum!" he shouted, watching the owl as much as he could while also paying attention to the television (he'd never been told to not have the television on while doing homework). The owl raised its wings, flapped a little, disturbing Dudley's papers, and flew to the television. "MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!" he shouted louder this time, "That owl is here, I can't see the telly! Make it go away!"

The hoover stopped, Dudley's mother walked into the room and gave the owl, and Dudley a suspicious look. He hadn't let the owl in! It had just appeared! Like..like… Dudley didn't even dare to think the word, scared it would summon more freaks, like the ones who had taken Harry in the summer. Like the one who had tried to turn him into a pig.

"Dudley, go to the living room, tell your father that I need to speak to him in here. And don't touch any of the presents." When his mother spoke like that, Dudley knew to take her seriously. She was scary when she was angry, scarier than his dad sometimes. He slipped off his chair as quickly, as quietly, as gracefully as a boy his size could and wandered into the living room, sitting down in front of the telly. "Mum wants to speak to you in the kitchen. The owl is back," he said, grabbing the remote and changing the channel; the news was boring.

His father grunted, muttering about "bloody birds" and "ungrateful freaks" as he left the room. Dudley could hear bits and pieces of his parent's conversation in the kitchen, the outrage in his father's voice that the owl wouldn't leave until a present was provided. Again. The fear from his mother that not sending a present would draw attention to them. Dudley had noticed that his parents really, really didn't like attention. Especially when that attention was to do with Harry.

Then Dudley's father is back, the hoover is on and he has to continue with his homework in the kitchen. The owl is gone, and life continues as if nothing happened, as if the owl had never arrived.

Vernon had driven all the way to London and paid the outrageous parking fees at King's Cross. If he had to speak to anyone, if he had to make small talk with a freak, he might punch them. Petunia was at his side, Dudley dragging his feet behind them. None of them wanted to be here, but the boy was coming back from school, and he had to spend some time at Privet Drive every summer. Apparently. None of them were happy about it.

"Dad, will we see those boys from last summer again? Or the giant man?"

"No, Dudders, we won't. We won't go anywhere near the freaks. They won't be able to hurt us."

"Okay," Vernon glanced back and saw that Dudley was going over to ask a conductor some questions. As long as he kept an eye on his son, everything would be alright.

Dudley continued to dawdle behind them, and as they settled near the barrier Petunia claimed was the gateway between the freaks' world and the normal world, Vernon grew more and more nervous.

"Here to meet your son? Our daughter's on her way back from school as well, she told us to wait here in her last letter," a man wearing a suit held out his hand for Vernon to shake.

"You're not like them then?" Vernon asked, shaking the offered hand, while a small part of him hoping that they'd share his opinions on these people.

"No, we're totally normal. Not that we're not proud of our Hermione, but we did have other hopes for her, Oxbridge, you know," the man said, before checking his watch, "Shouldn't be long now. Oh, I'm Dan Granger, by the way. My wife and I have a dental practice in Oxford."

"Vernon Dursley. We'll be going home as soon as my nephew appears." And as soon as Vernon had mentioned the boy, he materialised, like he'd walked through the wall, talking with a bushy haired girl who had to be Granger's daughter, they looked far too alike to not be related.

"Uncle Vernon, thanks for collecting me."

"Nonsense, but gather your things and let's go, boy. Don't want to be given a parking ticket for overstaying our welcome. Lovely meeting you, Mr Granger," Vernon replied, hurrying his family and the boy along, trying to get them out of there as soon as possible.

Once they were in the car, and the boy and Dudley had both quietened down, and hopefully gone to sleep, Vernon turned to Petunia and commented on the Grangers. "They seemed like good, normal people, although perhaps they're a little too accepting of freaks, and what's happened to their daughter, but they are dentists after all," and Petunia made a sound of agreement, before putting the radio on to keep up with the traffic news.