Chapter 11: Guess Who's Coming Over for Dinner
Harry was standing in the kitchen preparing dinner, when the phone rang. "Hello?"
"May I speak to Harry?"
"Speaking." Harry put the spoon of sauce in his mouth.
"This is your Aunt Petunia," said the voice.
Harry let out a cough as he nearly choked on the tomato sauce when he heard the name of the person on the other end of the line. What the hell is she doing calling me, he thought.
"Hi" he said weakly.
"Did I catch you at a bad time? You sound a little preoccupied."
"No, you didn't" said Harry trying to balance the phone on the crook of his neck while he chopped onions to put in the sauce. "I'm sorry about the delay, I just didn't expect you to be calling."
It had been several months since he last talked to her. The last day he had seen her was when he moved out of her house. She stood on the doorstep and watched as he drove away in the car with Sirius, while Dudley's face peered out from his bedroom window. He assumed that he would never again hear from her, and the idea did not upset to him.
"I didn't think you'd want to hear from me."
Well, that was true, though Harry. His life was peaceful, now that he no longer had to deal with the Dursleys.
"Since I am your blood relative, I thought I'd call to see how you're doing."
"I'm fine," he said quickly.
"That's all I wanted to know, I guess I'll go now."
Harry wanted to say more to her, but he kept quiet. All the emotional abused she bestowed on him were coming back. He pushed all the uncomfortable thoughts aside; he didn't want there to be any more uneasiness between them.
The opportunity to form an amicable relationship with her was staring him in the face and he had to decide whether or not to take it.
"Well, goodbye-"
"Wait. Do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night?" he asked swiftly. He was quite shocked to hear the question come out of his mouth. He assumed that his aunt was equally taken back by the question because she remained quiet.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. You can come and see the house."
Petunia did not accept Harry's invitation right away, she still had some apprehension about going to his house. "Is Mr. Black going to be there as well?"
"Of course he will, this is his house after all." Harry sensed that something about his Godfather was troubling the woman. "Listen, he was wrongly accused. They dropped all the charges against him."
"I know that. " She went quiet again, before saying, "Okay."
"And bring Dudley." He didn't know what made him say that, he wanted to hit himself on the head for including his cousin in his dinner plans, but it was too late.
"We would both like that very much."
"See you tomorrow then."
"Okay. And Harry."
"Yes?"
"Thanks."
***********
"I'll get it." Sirius straightened up his tie and went to answer the door. Harry watched him from the kitchen, shaking his head and smiling to himself. He wondered by Sirius would bother with the tie in the first place; it was not a formal gathering.
"I want them to see me as a good law abiding citizen, not some criminal" Sirius had said to him.
Harry recalled the scared and intimidated way Petunia had acted when Sirius came to their house to collect him. Petunia cowered against the wall and Dudley ran upstairs to his bedroom when the man walked through their door.
"Come on in". Sirius opened the door and Petunia and Dudley marched in, keeping as far away from him as possible.
Harry came out of the kitchen to greet them. His cousin began to chuckle to himself when he saw the apron tied around his waist. Harry didn't think that his appearance was nearly as comical as Dudley's; he was wearing a bright red bow tie around his neck which made his large head look as if it was about to pop.
"This is for you guys," said Petunia, handing Harry a large bowl of pudding.
"Come on, let's go to the table and eat." Sirius directed everyone to the dining room table, where the food was awaiting them.
The meal was a very tense one, no one talked and the only sound present was that of silverware banging on china and Dudley's loud chewing.
Petunia was the first person to break the silence. "What have you been doing with yourself since you graduated from your witchcraft school? Are you working?"
Harry looked at his aunt with astonishmen. That she acknowledged that he attended Hogwarts was a revelation to him. "I took some time off to relax a bit, get myself situated into a new routine and home. But next month I start my job with Firebolt."
"Firebold? What's that?" asked his aunt.
"It's Firebolt and they make brooms."
Dudley looked at Harry with an amused smile on his face. "Brooms? You mean for sweeping the floor? You're gonna be a street sweeper?" He was about to laugh when his mother hit him in the ribs.
Sirius stared down his nose at Dudley, giving the boy a stern look that caused him to scoot his chair closer to his mother. "No, he's not going to be cleaning streets. Firebolt makes flying brooms and Harry's been taken on to engineer them."
Petunia's eyes grew wide with interest. "Oh, you fly on brooms? Wow, I didn't know that."
Well, you would have known if you'd taken an interest in my life, thought Harry. "Yeah, we fly on those. But we don't fly on them all the time, they're mainly for a game called quidditch."
Dudley was lifting a spoonful of food to his mouth when he stopped. "Quid what?"
"Quidditch" said Harry. "It's a bit like football but it's played in the air."
"Dad took me to the best football match ever last year, Aston Villa versus Manchester United. That was right before he.." Dudley put down his spoon and stared at his plate.
Harry just remembered that the first anniversary of his uncle's death was just a month and a half away. Looking at his aunt and cousin's rigid faces, he began to feel sorry for them.
Sirius poured some coffee in a cup and handed it to Petunia. "How are you two coping?"
"We're fine, everything's fine." Petunia's eyes didn't meet Sirius' gaze.
"If you need to talk or anything, you know where to reach me" said Harry.
Petunia's lips, which were normally tightly pursed, curled into a slight smile. Harry thought he could detect a secret warm gleam in her eyes. "Thanks, but everything's going really well for us. We rented out your old room and Dudley got himself a job."
Harry looked at his cousin, wondering which company in its right mind would hire him. "Where are you working?"
"Spindell's" said Dudley quietly. "It's a cardboard factory."
Petunia put her arm around Dudley's shoulders. "They're the biggest manufacturer of cardboard this side of the Thames River."
Sirius and Harry exchanged glances, but Harry quickly looked away from him, too afraid he would burst into laughter.
"I thought your husband had his own company" said Sirius. "How come Dudley isn't working there?"
"I thought it would be best if I sold it, since I don't have much of a business mind and Dudders is too..well.....Dudley stop that!" She smacked Dudley's hand as he attempted to grab a pork chop with his bare fingers.
"Sweet Pea, what does Mummy tell you about doing that? It's impolite" she said in a singsong whisper. Dudley begrudgingly grabbed a fork and speared the piece of meat.
Petunia laughed nervously. "He's got quite a healthy appetite, my Dudders."
This time, Harry avoided Sirius' eyes completely and turned around in his chair, hoping that no one could hear him.
********
"They are weird" said Sirius. "I'm surprised you turned out so normal, living in that household."
"I'm surprised too" replied Harry.
"And your cousin, did you watch the way he was eating? Made me feel a little sick." He was stacking all the dirty dishes in a one pile, as he cleared the table.
Harry was about to collect the dirty cups, when his Godfather ushered him away. "No, I'll do this. You made the food, so I'll clean up."
Sirius put his arm around Harry and directed him to the living room. "You lie down and relax." He headed back to the kitchen and began to wash the dishes.
Harry's face creased into a smile. "If you insist." He sank onto the sofa and sighed with pleasure. He had finally gotten the stable family life he had always wanted. He and Sirius spent many hours on that same couch talking, sharing ideas and feelings.
He always enjoyed when Sirius talked about his parents, telling him the trouble his mother and father had gotten into when they were young.
"Hey, Harry, I found some pudding that your cousin didn't scarf down. You want some?"
"No thanks." Harry curled up on the sofa and bundled a blanket around his body.
After all the cleaning was done, Sirius walked up to the couch and looked down at Harry, he regretted having to wake the boy from his sleep. He knelt down on my leg and lightly touched Harry on the arm.
"I'm heading off. One of my contacts has some information for me."
Harry opened his eyelids half way to look at him. "When are you coming back?" he asked sleepily.
"I'll be back pretty late, so just go back to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
Harry lay back in the couch. "Be careful, that's a rough part of town."
***************
Harry was sound asleep in his bed, when he heard a loud banging noise coming from the front door. Then he heard his Godfather's voice. "Harry! Harry! Come here and help me!"
Harry sprung out of bed and ran into the living room. "Harry, come help me with him. I don't think I can carry him any more" said Sirius. He was carrying someone in his arms and the person appeared to be unconscious, as his arms were dangling limply onto the floor.
"Harry, please hurry, he's slipping out of my arms. Come here and hold his head."
As he approached Sirius, Harry noticed something on his clothing that alarmed him. "You have blood all over your shirt, are you hurt?"
"No, it's not my blood."
Harry walked over and placed his arm around the man, supporting his neck. They were able to carry the man to the sofa, where they gently lay him down.
"Who is he" asked Harry. Sirius looked at him for a moment and then turned the other way. "Sirius, who's the guy? Is he a friend of yours?"
"He's your friend."
"What?" Harry turned on the lamp and looked down at the unconscious man. He nearly dropped to his knees. He was staring down at Draco.
Harry was standing in the kitchen preparing dinner, when the phone rang. "Hello?"
"May I speak to Harry?"
"Speaking." Harry put the spoon of sauce in his mouth.
"This is your Aunt Petunia," said the voice.
Harry let out a cough as he nearly choked on the tomato sauce when he heard the name of the person on the other end of the line. What the hell is she doing calling me, he thought.
"Hi" he said weakly.
"Did I catch you at a bad time? You sound a little preoccupied."
"No, you didn't" said Harry trying to balance the phone on the crook of his neck while he chopped onions to put in the sauce. "I'm sorry about the delay, I just didn't expect you to be calling."
It had been several months since he last talked to her. The last day he had seen her was when he moved out of her house. She stood on the doorstep and watched as he drove away in the car with Sirius, while Dudley's face peered out from his bedroom window. He assumed that he would never again hear from her, and the idea did not upset to him.
"I didn't think you'd want to hear from me."
Well, that was true, though Harry. His life was peaceful, now that he no longer had to deal with the Dursleys.
"Since I am your blood relative, I thought I'd call to see how you're doing."
"I'm fine," he said quickly.
"That's all I wanted to know, I guess I'll go now."
Harry wanted to say more to her, but he kept quiet. All the emotional abused she bestowed on him were coming back. He pushed all the uncomfortable thoughts aside; he didn't want there to be any more uneasiness between them.
The opportunity to form an amicable relationship with her was staring him in the face and he had to decide whether or not to take it.
"Well, goodbye-"
"Wait. Do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night?" he asked swiftly. He was quite shocked to hear the question come out of his mouth. He assumed that his aunt was equally taken back by the question because she remained quiet.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. You can come and see the house."
Petunia did not accept Harry's invitation right away, she still had some apprehension about going to his house. "Is Mr. Black going to be there as well?"
"Of course he will, this is his house after all." Harry sensed that something about his Godfather was troubling the woman. "Listen, he was wrongly accused. They dropped all the charges against him."
"I know that. " She went quiet again, before saying, "Okay."
"And bring Dudley." He didn't know what made him say that, he wanted to hit himself on the head for including his cousin in his dinner plans, but it was too late.
"We would both like that very much."
"See you tomorrow then."
"Okay. And Harry."
"Yes?"
"Thanks."
***********
"I'll get it." Sirius straightened up his tie and went to answer the door. Harry watched him from the kitchen, shaking his head and smiling to himself. He wondered by Sirius would bother with the tie in the first place; it was not a formal gathering.
"I want them to see me as a good law abiding citizen, not some criminal" Sirius had said to him.
Harry recalled the scared and intimidated way Petunia had acted when Sirius came to their house to collect him. Petunia cowered against the wall and Dudley ran upstairs to his bedroom when the man walked through their door.
"Come on in". Sirius opened the door and Petunia and Dudley marched in, keeping as far away from him as possible.
Harry came out of the kitchen to greet them. His cousin began to chuckle to himself when he saw the apron tied around his waist. Harry didn't think that his appearance was nearly as comical as Dudley's; he was wearing a bright red bow tie around his neck which made his large head look as if it was about to pop.
"This is for you guys," said Petunia, handing Harry a large bowl of pudding.
"Come on, let's go to the table and eat." Sirius directed everyone to the dining room table, where the food was awaiting them.
The meal was a very tense one, no one talked and the only sound present was that of silverware banging on china and Dudley's loud chewing.
Petunia was the first person to break the silence. "What have you been doing with yourself since you graduated from your witchcraft school? Are you working?"
Harry looked at his aunt with astonishmen. That she acknowledged that he attended Hogwarts was a revelation to him. "I took some time off to relax a bit, get myself situated into a new routine and home. But next month I start my job with Firebolt."
"Firebold? What's that?" asked his aunt.
"It's Firebolt and they make brooms."
Dudley looked at Harry with an amused smile on his face. "Brooms? You mean for sweeping the floor? You're gonna be a street sweeper?" He was about to laugh when his mother hit him in the ribs.
Sirius stared down his nose at Dudley, giving the boy a stern look that caused him to scoot his chair closer to his mother. "No, he's not going to be cleaning streets. Firebolt makes flying brooms and Harry's been taken on to engineer them."
Petunia's eyes grew wide with interest. "Oh, you fly on brooms? Wow, I didn't know that."
Well, you would have known if you'd taken an interest in my life, thought Harry. "Yeah, we fly on those. But we don't fly on them all the time, they're mainly for a game called quidditch."
Dudley was lifting a spoonful of food to his mouth when he stopped. "Quid what?"
"Quidditch" said Harry. "It's a bit like football but it's played in the air."
"Dad took me to the best football match ever last year, Aston Villa versus Manchester United. That was right before he.." Dudley put down his spoon and stared at his plate.
Harry just remembered that the first anniversary of his uncle's death was just a month and a half away. Looking at his aunt and cousin's rigid faces, he began to feel sorry for them.
Sirius poured some coffee in a cup and handed it to Petunia. "How are you two coping?"
"We're fine, everything's fine." Petunia's eyes didn't meet Sirius' gaze.
"If you need to talk or anything, you know where to reach me" said Harry.
Petunia's lips, which were normally tightly pursed, curled into a slight smile. Harry thought he could detect a secret warm gleam in her eyes. "Thanks, but everything's going really well for us. We rented out your old room and Dudley got himself a job."
Harry looked at his cousin, wondering which company in its right mind would hire him. "Where are you working?"
"Spindell's" said Dudley quietly. "It's a cardboard factory."
Petunia put her arm around Dudley's shoulders. "They're the biggest manufacturer of cardboard this side of the Thames River."
Sirius and Harry exchanged glances, but Harry quickly looked away from him, too afraid he would burst into laughter.
"I thought your husband had his own company" said Sirius. "How come Dudley isn't working there?"
"I thought it would be best if I sold it, since I don't have much of a business mind and Dudders is too..well.....Dudley stop that!" She smacked Dudley's hand as he attempted to grab a pork chop with his bare fingers.
"Sweet Pea, what does Mummy tell you about doing that? It's impolite" she said in a singsong whisper. Dudley begrudgingly grabbed a fork and speared the piece of meat.
Petunia laughed nervously. "He's got quite a healthy appetite, my Dudders."
This time, Harry avoided Sirius' eyes completely and turned around in his chair, hoping that no one could hear him.
********
"They are weird" said Sirius. "I'm surprised you turned out so normal, living in that household."
"I'm surprised too" replied Harry.
"And your cousin, did you watch the way he was eating? Made me feel a little sick." He was stacking all the dirty dishes in a one pile, as he cleared the table.
Harry was about to collect the dirty cups, when his Godfather ushered him away. "No, I'll do this. You made the food, so I'll clean up."
Sirius put his arm around Harry and directed him to the living room. "You lie down and relax." He headed back to the kitchen and began to wash the dishes.
Harry's face creased into a smile. "If you insist." He sank onto the sofa and sighed with pleasure. He had finally gotten the stable family life he had always wanted. He and Sirius spent many hours on that same couch talking, sharing ideas and feelings.
He always enjoyed when Sirius talked about his parents, telling him the trouble his mother and father had gotten into when they were young.
"Hey, Harry, I found some pudding that your cousin didn't scarf down. You want some?"
"No thanks." Harry curled up on the sofa and bundled a blanket around his body.
After all the cleaning was done, Sirius walked up to the couch and looked down at Harry, he regretted having to wake the boy from his sleep. He knelt down on my leg and lightly touched Harry on the arm.
"I'm heading off. One of my contacts has some information for me."
Harry opened his eyelids half way to look at him. "When are you coming back?" he asked sleepily.
"I'll be back pretty late, so just go back to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
Harry lay back in the couch. "Be careful, that's a rough part of town."
***************
Harry was sound asleep in his bed, when he heard a loud banging noise coming from the front door. Then he heard his Godfather's voice. "Harry! Harry! Come here and help me!"
Harry sprung out of bed and ran into the living room. "Harry, come help me with him. I don't think I can carry him any more" said Sirius. He was carrying someone in his arms and the person appeared to be unconscious, as his arms were dangling limply onto the floor.
"Harry, please hurry, he's slipping out of my arms. Come here and hold his head."
As he approached Sirius, Harry noticed something on his clothing that alarmed him. "You have blood all over your shirt, are you hurt?"
"No, it's not my blood."
Harry walked over and placed his arm around the man, supporting his neck. They were able to carry the man to the sofa, where they gently lay him down.
"Who is he" asked Harry. Sirius looked at him for a moment and then turned the other way. "Sirius, who's the guy? Is he a friend of yours?"
"He's your friend."
"What?" Harry turned on the lamp and looked down at the unconscious man. He nearly dropped to his knees. He was staring down at Draco.
