Samantha and Lauren walked into the kitchen together the next morning, and saw that the Dursleys were already awake, watching the TV that they had bought for the kitchen because Dudley wasn't a fan of having to walk back and forth from the living room television to the kitchen.
Vernon glared at Samantha when she walked in, but other than that no one made any comment or gave any signs that they noticed the girls coming into the kitchen. Harry walked in just then, and they paid even less attention to him. All three kids grabbed a piece of toast and then looked at the television.
There was some report about an escaped criminal, and Samantha thought that might be the most interesting thing the Dursleys had ever watched.
"The public is warned that Black is armed and extremely dangerous. A special hotline has been set up, and any sighting of Black should be reported immediately," the man on the television explained.
"No need to tell us he's no good," Vernon commented, looking at the TV over his coffee mug.
Samantha looked at the man on the screen, and grew confused. He looked familiar, as if he was someone she had seen before, which was absurd, because where would she have ever seen a highly dangerous prisoner before? Never, that was the answer. He must just have a familiar face.
"The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will announce today-" a reporter said, steering the conversation away from Black, whoever he was.
"Hang on!" Uncle Vernon said angry at the TV. "You didn't tell us where that maniac's escaped from! What use is that? Lunatic could be coming up the street right now!"
"No criminal would choose here to hide out. He'd stick out too much," Samantha reasoned.
"That is true. And everyone has televisions. It would be stupid of him to come here," Lauren agreed.
"Don't waste your time," Samantha advised her aunt as she went to get water. Petunia was staring greedily out of the window, eager to catch the escaped criminal and call the hotline. That kind of thing was right up her alley.
"When will they learn," Uncle Vernon complained, hitting the table with his fist, "that hanging's the only way to deal with these people?"
Samantha saw Lauren wrinkle up her face, not pleased with the idea of hanging someone.
"Very true," Aunt Petunia agreed.
Uncle Vernon drank the rest of his coffee, then set the cup down on the table and looked at his wrist watch. "I'd better be off in a minute, Petunia. Marge's train gets in at ten."
Samantha whipped around to face her uncle, her hair falling into place a second later. She looked at Lauren and Harry, and then to Uncle Vernon.
"Aunt Marge?" Harry asked, worry in his eyes. "Sh- she's not coming here, is she?"
"Please don't say yes," Lauren begged, taking a rare public stance against the Dursleys.
Aunt Marge was even worse than the Dursleys. She was Vernon's sister, and the pair were practically the same human being, except multiply the Dursley's evil by a lot and that was Marge.
Samantha had taught Marge not to mess with her early on. From the time when Samantha bit her when she was three, to the time Samantha repeated some of Uncle Vernon's favorite curse words to Marge when she said all three of the Potter children were brats, to the time Samantha discovered that repeating everything Aunt Marge said would greatly annoy the woman, Marge had learned to leave Samantha alone.
Harry and Lauren had not gotten so lucky. Harry had never been as headstrong as Samantha growing up, and Lauren was honestly terrified of Marge. It was fair, because Marge had realized that Lauren was not like Samantha in looks or personality, and had taken out all sorts of forms of anger on her.
A few times stuck out specifically in Samantha's mind. On Dudley's fifth birthday, she had made sure Lauren wasn't even allowed to play musical statues, and had whacked the other two on their calves so they couldn't beat Dudley (that was when the repeating words technique came in handy). Marge had gone on for a whole dinner about how much she disliked red hair, and sent Lauren to her room sobbing. One year at Christmas, she gave Dudley a computerized robot, and Harry, Lauren, and Samantha a singular dog treat each. She had discovered Lauren reading a book she had bought Dudley that he had later discarded and proceeded to hit Lauren over the head with it. The year before Samantha started Hogwarts, Aunt Marge's dog had chased Harry up a tree, and Marge didn't make the dog let him down until after midnight.
"Marge'll be here for a week," Uncle Vernon told them nastily. Samantha could see Lauren whither right there. "And while we're on the subject, we need to get a few things straight before I go and collect her." He pointed at the three siblings.
Samantha rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, then hoped she had enough mental preparation to deal with this mess that was certain to take place.
"Firstly," Uncle Vernon growled, "you will keep a civil tongue in your head when you're talking to Marge."
"All right," Harry said, his voice cold, "if she does when she's talking to me."
"Secondly," Vernon continued, "as Marge doesn't know about your abnormality, I don't want any- any funny stuff while she's here. You will behave yourselves, got me?"
"We will if she does," replied Harry.
"And thirdly," Uncle Vernon continued, his eyes narrowed, "we've told Marge you, Harry, attend St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys, and Lauren, you to Madam Stone's Academy for Troubled Girls."
"You what?" Harry and Lauren yelled at the same time.
"What about me? Where am I?" Samantha asked, wondering why Vernon wouldn't say her name with Lauren's.
"We've told her that you ran away," Vernon stated.
Samantha's eyes widened. "That was three years ago!" she protested.
"And you haven't' come back since," said Vernon. "Harry, Lauren, you will be sticking to those stories, and Samantha, you will be up in your bedroom for the week, pretending that you do not exist. Do you understand?"
Samantha stared, open-mouthed, between the occupants in the room, but knew there was little she could do to protest. She couldn't believe the lengths the Dursleys would go to just to cover up the magic.
"Oh, and a few more things," Vernon added. "I want both owls gone, and Samantha, keep that god awful cat up there with you for the entirety of the week."
Samantha sighed and leaned back into the wall, wondering what she was going to do alone in her bedroom for a week as Vernon left the room to go get Marge. Suddenly, Harry bounded up and followed him out. Curious, Samantha stood straight up again, watching the scene in the entryway from the kitchen.
"I'm not taking you," Vernon said to Harry as he pulled his coat on.
"Like I wanted to come," Harry replied snarkily. "I want to ask you something. Third years at Hog- at my school are allowed to visit the village sometimes."
"So?" Uncle Vernon replied, and the jingle of his car keys could be heard as he picked them up off of the table.
"I need you to sign the permission form," Harry said.
"And why would I do that?" Uncle Vernon sneered.
"Well," said Harry, "it'll be hard work, pretending to Aunt Marge I go to St. Whatsits-"
"St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys!" Uncle Vernon bellowed, and there was definitely some panic in his voice.
"Exactly," said Harry. "It's a lot to remember. I'll have to make it sound convincing, won't I? What if I accidentally let something slip?"
"You'll get the stuffing knocked out of you, won't you?" roared Uncle Vernon.
"Knocking the stuffing out of me won't make Aunt Marge forget what I could tell her," said Harry. Samantha had to admire how good he was at this. Maybe she could have gotten the Dursleys to sign her permission slip after all. "But if you sign my permission form," Harry went on, "I swear I'll remember where I'm supposed to go to school, and I'll act like a Mug- like I'm normal and everything."
There was a long pause. "Then how come I never got a form to sign from her," Uncle Vernon said, walking back into the kitchen and pointing a finger at Samantha. "What kinds of things did you lie about, girl?"
"What are you going to do about it?" Samantha asked, looking her uncle dead in the eye. "Talk to the school? Just sign Harry's permission form. I swear all three of us will be on our best behavior, we'll remember to stick to whatever story you gave us."
Vernon narrowed his eyes once more, and looked back at Harry in the entryway, and then at Lauren standing next to Samantha. "Right," he finally said. "I shall monitor the behavior of you lot carefully during Marge's visit. If, at the end of it, you've toed the line and kept to your stories, I'll sign the ruddy form."
Samantha wore a satisfied smile as Vernon then stomped out of the door. "Come on. Let's go get ready for this nightmare of a week," she said, allowing herself to grin.
She, Lauren, and Harry made their ways to their rooms. Samantha scribbled out a quick letter to Max, and then opened her owl Athena's cage. She tied the note around her leg.
"Go stay at Max's for a week," she told the owl as it stared at her. "Don't come back until then." The owl seemed to understand, and flew out of the window, where Samantha saw it meet Hedwig and Errol from Harry's bedroom, and the three owls few out in the same direction.
Then Lauren and Samantha started to clean up their room, putting away anything that had even the smallest association with magic just in case. Soon enough, Marge was there, and Samantha stayed upstairs silently reading a book from the library while Lauren trudged downstairs to unwillingly greet their aunt.
Samantha could hear Marge's greeting from downstairs, as the woman seemed to be constantly projecting her voice as if she were doing an over the top theatre production, and she was suddenly very glad that she was supposed to have run away. She listened to Marge interrogate her siblings about their schools, rant about how amazing it was of Vernon and Petunia to take the three of them in, and complain about the lack of cane usage at modern schools.
The next three days passed in complete boredom for Samantha, who finished all of the non-magical books she had in the first day and was forced to come up with creative solutions for the lack of things she had to do. She braided and unbraided her hair, drew Lauren's cat Meadow, who was also stuck up there with her, and completely cleaned every bit of the room that she could.
On the third day at lunch, she heard a crash from downstairs, and nearly sprinted down before remembering that she wasn't supposed to exist. A few seconds later, Lauren appeared in the room, her eyes wide.
"What happened?" Samantha asked her sister in a whisper, the only voice she was allowed to talk in for the week.
Lauren took a shuddering breath. "Aunt Marge… insulted Mum and then her wine glass exploded," she explained, looking shaken.
Samantha hesitated for a second. "Well… no one's yelling. That's good. As long as no one's yelling, we're good," she reasoned. "Was it… was it you or Harry?"
Lauren shrugged. "Harry, I think," she answered. "I don't think I was that…" she trailed off, still not looking at all happy about the incident.
The next few days passed without further incident. No glass was shattered, and Samantha was becoming increasingly bored of the days she spent trapped inside that bedroom. But, the final day had arrived, and soon enough Samantha would at least be able to leave the room and talk in a normal voice, and she would be able to send letters again, hopefully.
Samantha was twisting her hair around her fingers over and over, casually eavesdropping what she could hear of the extremely un-entertaining conversation happening below at dinner.
"You'll be a proper-sized man, Dudders, like your father," Marge could be heard saying. She muttered something else that Samantha couldn't hear, and then decided to go back to criticizing Harry. "Now, this one here-" Marge said.
Samantha made a rash decision. She opened the door to her bedroom and snuck into the hall, just to hear the conversation better with no walls in between her and the dinner talk.
"This one's got a mean, runty look about him," Marge was saying. "The girl, too. All those kids did. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubster drown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbread."
Samantha could feel a dull anger growing. She suspected that not being able to see the woman was helping her control emotions. If she was in the room, she would probably have gone back to her toddler biting days.
"We really shouldn't expect anything more out of these two. Good thing their sister's out of the way. Can't stand that girl. Anyways, it all comes down to blood. Bad blood will out. Now, I'm saying nothing against your family, Petunia, but your sister was a bad egg. They turn up in the best families. Then she ran off with a wastrel, and the results are in front of us. Really, the pair shouldn't have had so many kids then gone off and gotten themselves killed."
Samantha pushed her body against the wall, balling her hands into fists and shutting her eyes to keep from screaming. It wasn't their fault, she wanted to say. Petunia was the bad egg. Lily Potter had been a beautiful, kind, strong woman and a wonderful mother. Petunia was the rat.
"This Potter," said Aunt Marge, "you never told me what he did?"
There was a pause. "He- he didn't work," said Uncle Vernon after a few beats. "Unemployed."
"As I expected!" said Aunt Marge. Samantha bit on her finger, making sure to keep her emotions at a level where they wouldn't explode. She couldn't ris magic. "A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who-"
"He was not!" Harry suddenly said.
Samantha took a deep breath and carefully made her way down the stairs, taking care to avoid any creaky spots or the sound of her footsteps. She now stood on a wall next to the dining room where she couldn't see anyone, nor could they see her, but she could hear better.
"MORE BRANDY!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and the sounds of a bottle being opened and poured could be heard. "You, kids," he added on. "Go to bed, go on-"
"No, Vernon," said Marge, clearly drunk. "Go on, boy, go on. Proud of your parents, are you? They go and get themselves killed in a car crash, drunk I expect-"
"They didn't die in a car crash!" Harry yelled. Samantha held her breath.
"They died in a car crash, you nasty little liar, and left three kids to be burdens on their decent, hardworking relatives!" Aunt Marge screamed. "You and your brat of a sister are insolent, ungrateful little-"
The speaking suddenly stopped. Samantha began to wonder why, and after a few seconds had passed, and there was some strange popping sound, curiosity got the best of her and Samantha ducked around the wall to look straight into the dining room. Harry wasn't going to get his permission slip signed anyways.
The sight Samantha was met with made her speechless. Aunt Marge was swelling, actually swelling, in front of her eyes. Harry was on his feet, his hair extra messed up. Lauren's eyes were wider than they had ever been, and she was quivering in her chair, hunched into a ball with her feet on the chair.
"MARGE!" Vernon and Petunia both screamed, seemingly having processed the scene at the same time, and they jumped out of their chairs, rushing to Marge, who was beginning to float out of her seat. None of them had yet noticed Samantha.
"NOOOOOO!" Uncle Vernon bellowed, grabbing one of his sister's feet and attempting to pull her back down to the ground, but he was unsuccessful and nearly was lifted off of the ground again. Suddenly, Marge's dog began bing at Uncle Vernon's pant leg, and he was now fighting with the dog while Marge was floating at the ceiling.
Harry sprinted past Samantha and out of the dining room, barely acknowledging his sister. Samantha fought her way past her screaming uncle, and grabbed Lauren's hand and pulled her out.
"Sam, what're you-?" Lauren began, looking in shock at her sister.
"Come on," Samantha said. She rushed to Harry in the hallway, who was pulling his magical belongings out from under the stair cupboard.
"I'm getting out of here," Harry said, determined.
"Let's go, then," Samantha agreed. "Ready, Lauren?"
Lauren swallowed, and then nodded. "Ready," she said.
The three kids pulled their trunks out from the closet, and then raced upstairs to grab whatever else they could at a moment's notice. They met again in the hallway, their arms full of magical or just useful items, and ran back downstairs to their trunks.
"COME BACK IN HERE!" Vernon yelled at his nieces and nephew. "COME BACK AND PUT HER RIGHT!"
Harry kicked open his trunk and pulled out his wand, knowing very well he wasn't supposed to use it outside of school. "She deserved it," Harry said darkly. "She deserved what she got. You keep away from all of us."
Samantha opened the lock, and then flashed a smile in Vernon's direction. "We're going now. Goodbye," she said pleasantly, and then let her siblings out and slammed the front door behind her.
The three of them then took of running down the street, pulling their trunks behind them, not having any idea of where they were going, only knowing that they would not be returning to the Dursleys any time soon. Samantha couldn't be happier about that.
A bit of a shorter part today, but I wanted to finish it so this is what you get. Next chapter should be longer. Have a nice day!