Petunia woke up to the phone ringing and Nixie sticking her tentacles up her nose. Sunlight streamed in through the front room window. Ugh, Vernon will want his breakfast soon. Vernon! The thought was like a lightning bolt as she bolted upright, her eyes flashing around uncomprehendingly. Eventually, her heart stopped racing and the phone stopped ringing. Looking around she saw Harry still asleep on the sofa, his owl perched on his back preening his hair. Sitting back she pulled her thoughts together and forced herself to calm down. Vernon's on holiday with Dudley. He's not due back until Saturday. I'm safe until Saturday. Glancing up at the clock, it says 7 25. It's too early for Vernon to be trying to call me. I'm OK, I'm OK.
She slowly gets up and makes her way to the kitchen to put the kettle on. A few minutes later the tea finishes steeping, and she pours a cup. She turns round to take it back to the sitting room when she promptly drops it as the doorbell goes. Clutching her hand to her chest, she makes her way to the front door and opens it.
Standing there is Emma with a concerned look on her face, Hermione just in front of her, "Hi, sorry to barge in, but after you said you'd be at ours at 9 we tried ringing a couple of times. Then we got the knight bus here because someone was worried that something had happened to you." She ruffles Hermione's hair as she says the last bit.
Gathering her wits, she responds "No, thank you for caring come in. Sorry for the mess I just woke up as I think we were attacked when we got home last night. I'd just finished making a pot of tea when you arrived if you'd like one."
"That would be lovely."
"Can I have some water please?"
"Take a seat and I'll bring them through."
It was almost too easy to slip into the polite mask that she'd built over the years, and while she was sweeping up the shards of china she took a couple of deep breaths and tried to use the meditation exercises to bring herself back to the person they met yesterday. She deliberately chose a couple of mugs for the tea, and poured a glass of water for Hermione, along with a plate of biscuits and she was done. Picking up the tray she brought it through and put it down on the coffee table. She noticed that Hermione was sitting on the sofa stroking Harry's hair with a confused expression.
"Thank you for coming to check on us, it's refreshing having someone to do that. If I'm honest I feel like I've stayed up too long for a week and I'm now crashing."
"Oh, we can do this tomorrow and I'll take Hermione out of your hair today."
"No, no trouble, I'm certainly up to a trip to Diagon Alley. I just need to get changed as I've been wearing these clothes for two days. Would you mind if keeping an eye on Harry while I have a quick shower? Also do you have the time as our clocks seem to have stopped."
"Sure, we can do that, and it's now… ten fifteen."
A quick shower and change of clothes later and Petunia felt a lot better and ready to face the world. Just as they were about to go out, she noticed a Southern Electric van on the road outside and a man in a boiler suit walking down the path next door. Predictably, he came to their house next and the doorbell rang. Petunia answered the door, polite mask falling into place.
"Hello, can I help you?"
The man flashed his ID, "We got a few calls last night about an electric surge and a power cut, we resolved the problem earlier this morning, but we're going around the affected houses to make sure your fuse boxes are still ok. Would it be OK if I came in?"
"Oh, sure. Sorry about the mess, we just got back from holiday. Vernon and Dudley decided to stay for another day so I've not had time to unpack."
"Don't worry ma'am, I'm sure I've seen worse."
"The fuse box is in the kitchen, this way."
A quick check of the fuse box and a couple of new fuses and he was off to the next house. Letting her mask drop with a visible effort, she finished getting ready to go out and wrote a note for harry that she left on the coffee table. As she walked out with Emma and Hermione she stopped dead, her jaw dropping in awe as a shimmering translucent golden shield stretched over the house and the next few houses on either side.
"Are you OK?"
"You can't see it? It's beautiful."
Emma looks at Hermione with a confused expression, who shakes her head with an equally confused expression. "No, sorry we can't."
Shaking her head she brought herself back to the present and caught up with Emma and Hermione. At the end of the road Hermione put her wand up and a moment later the knight bus arrived.
A short while later Harry woke with his face pressed into the crack between the cushions on the sofa. As he pushed himself up he felt his owl jump off of him. Feeling around he couldn't find his glasses, so he got onto the floor on his hands and knees and tried to find them. After a couple of minutes he found them neatly closed on the coffee table and put them on. After he read the note he tidied up downstairs and transferred all his clothes and Fox from his old chest of drawers to his new chest of drawers.
Hermione and Petunia came back just as he finished putting everything away, and so began what would become the routine for the rest of the month, with only a couple of modifications. The first was when Nixie gave birth on Thursday, and the second was when Vernon came home with Dudley on Saturday. They even managed to find a name that his owl approved of – Hedwig.
Harry would practice meditation with Petunia in the mornings before doing the household chores, and then spend the morning going over his schoolbooks with both of them, or going over the documents that the Goblins sent Petunia. If they were in Little Whinging Harry and Hermione would then go to the library and continue reading through the books they had on Buddhist meditation. In Crawley they would practice the lessons the goblins sent them, Hermione even persuaded Harry to practice all of them not just the ones for Men. He got quite good at doing Hermione's hair and makeup, as well as doing makeup on his own. She got quite good at doing up a cravat and the gentlemanly manners. After Nixie gave birth they met up with Hagrid for lunch in Brews and Stews and gave him one of the babies, Hermione got one of the others, and the last 4 got sold to the Goblins for 100G. On the Saturday Harry was at Hermione's house, as they figured that it would be best if he wasn't around to spoil the mood when Vernon got home.
Petunia was sitting in the armchair flipping through the local paper, her thoughts elsewhere. Hedwig and Nixie were both perched on a shoulder each. Just as she was about to turn another page, Hedwig jumped down and put a claw through the paper. Startled out of her thoughts she looked down at the paper and saw that Hedwig had put her claw through the photo of a hawk coming into land on a mans outstretched arm. The photo was part of a full page advert for the annual county fair on the bank holiday weekend, and it had a premium number to phone in order to book tickets. She phoned and booked up 7 tickets and then asked if they had the number of the Falconry people, jotting that number down she quickly phoned them too and got the details of a falconry supplies shop in London. Finally, she phoned Emma and prayed they were still at home, on the 10th ring Dan picked up.
"Hello Grangers residence."
"Hi Dan, it's Petunia."
"Oh, Petunia, how can I help you?"
"Two things, would you be able to go to the Sussex county fair with us on the bank holiday weekend?"
"Let me just check… Looks like we've got that weekend clear, so I'll pencil you in."
"Thank you. Secondly, would I be able to ask you a favour, could you take Harry to Altawash falconry on Park Avenue in London and get him outfitted with everything he needs to manage an owl?"
"Sure, what happened?"
"Hedwig saw a photo of a man receiving a bird and put her claw through the photo, and just informed me of how we can make her presence acceptable for Vernon."
"Oh, that makes sense."
"I'll pay you back when I next see you, Galleons or Pounds?"
"Let's talk about it when we meet up."
"Sure. Oh, and can you pick up a book on Falconry, something that looks suitable pretentious."
With that she hung up and let out a sigh of relief. Straightening up as though she'd just shed a full load off her back she went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As she sat down she looked up at the clock which was now working again, a new battery had done the trick, then down at the TV and Video player which still didn't work. It occurred to her that they hadn't even thought of turning it on all week, they'd been too busy or having too much fun to even consider it. Getting up again she went to the kitchen and took the engineers report and the claim forms that arrived during the week and placed them on the coffee table.
Seeing that she was doing better Hedwig silently winged her way out of the back window to find Harry.
When Vernon got home he wasn't best pleased that the Freak wasn't home, or that he now had a pet owl. That was until Petunia said that the stipend had been sorted out, and it worked out at £45-£50 a week depending on if they converted it to "Real Money" or not. When harry returned home with Hedwig sitting on a leather shoulder pad, a leather glove and line lure clipped to his belt and a stand and display hoop as well as a book on Falconry you could see the calculation in his eyes as he weighed up the pros of showing off that they were wealthy enough to practice falconry and acknowledging the Freak, or forcing him into his room for the duration.
As it turns out, his greed won out and he invited a prospective client over for dinner one week and had his nephew show off his falconry skills. Apparently it worked as Hedwig wasn't just tolerated, but encouraged to perch on one of the hoops in the front garden, though it did nothing for Harry or Petunia who still got beaten.
After that, Harry was out to Crawley every day before Vernon came down, and back in time to help with Dinner unless Vernon required his skills. Dudley grew jealous of the attention that Vernon was giving him, and ambushed him on the way home a couple of times. However, along with their proficiency with Meditation, Harry's love of learning was resurrected by the combined efforts Dan, Emma and Hermione; as well as Petunia when she could get away.
Getting the tickets to the show turned out to be a stroke of Genius, as Vernon got to meet the Grangers in a neutral location and decided that they were certainly his sort of people.
As with all good things, they had to come to an end, and in this case the end was rather dangerous. Two nights before they were due to send Hermione to Hogwarts, Emma woke up to the sound of Hermione's alarm clock going off. Getting up she disturbed Dan who grumbled and started sitting up.
"I just heard Hermione's alarm clock, I'm going to see what she's doing getting up at this time of night." Dan just nodded and turned the bedside light on, sitting up groggily to wait until she got back.
Emma tiptoed down the hallway using only the light from the outside streetlights to navigate the house. Hearing nothing from Hermione's bedroom, she opened the door and saw her daughter sitting on the floor in a meditation position. Hermione jumped at Emma's entry.
"What do you think you're doing young lady?"
"I just wanted to prove that I'd mastered it."
"Mastered what?"
"Making my magic quiet."
The seconds ticked by as what she'd said filtered through Emma's sleep addled mind, and suddenly the pieces came together and she screamed out "Dan". Before sitting down behind Hermione and hugging her from behind.
Forcing her voice and body language to remain calm, she crooned into Hermione's ear, "Can you show me how well you've mastered it? You're Dad's coming too, and you can show us both just what a brilliant girl you are." Hermione nodded and closed her eyes trying to get back into a calm state.
Dan heard the terrified scream from Emma and rolled out of bed and was out of the door before his brain had caught up. As he entered Hermione's room he saw Hermione and Emma start to fade away. Desperately he dived towards them, heedless of the stuff on the floor and managed to grab hold of Hermione's night dress. Lying there as his heart started to calm down, he didn't register what was happening until the land changed to an icy tundra. Seeing what Emma was doing he carefully moved himself until he was kneeling in front of her with his hands resting on her knees.
"You're doing really well honey, you're almost there. Just a little bit more."
Except it wasn't just a little bit more, the worlds changed and became more alien, they saw a forest with invisible trunks, different animals and then the rivers in the sky. But they kept speaking encouragements even as they were frozen in fear, they take small encouragement from the fact that the worlds are taking longer to change, but it doesn't do their sanity any good when they see their skin and hair starting to evaporate. Dan almost loses his composure and jerks backwards when he sees a tall humanoid creature with glowing yellow eyes all over it's body, and writhing shadows underneath it's wooden skin. Reaching forward it tears a chunk out of Emma's shoulder, and he watches as it brings it to it's mouth, seems to sniff it before consuming it. As it's reaching back Dan feels a snap, and the world collapses back into Hermione's bedroom. The suddenly appearing bed pushes him forward onto Hermione and Emma. But fortunately Hermione has fallen into a dead sleep. Emma looks into his eyes briefly before they both pass out in a pile.