Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and Co. J.K. Rowling does.
Summary: After one very eventful night ten years ago, Voldemort was destroyed and Harry disappeared. Where did he go? What happened that night? Only one man knows the answer: a teacher named James, aka Harry. This big question is, now, what are his former friends plotting?
Author's note: I am so entirely sorry! I had this chapter written and ready to update by Saturday. But was down and I could not post it. I tried for every hour on the hour the whole night, even though I had the flu, but I just couldn't post it. Really, I tried! See, I was trying so hard all Saturday night because I had to go on a flight the next morning and wouldn't be near a computer for the rest of the week. Gaa! Fate is against me… Oh well, here is an exciting chapter (that was originally two chapters, but I felt so bad about this late update that I consolidated it into one). The next one will be even more exciting.
Chapter 24: Driving and Story Time
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The next day, James, Sarah, Jacob, Emma, and all the Hardings decided to walk around London together. They left the hotel mid-morning after a good breakfast and headed towards the park. It was decided that they would take a double-decker bus to get there.
Unfortunately, the bus proved to be a bad idea for a family outing. Within minutes, the large group was divided into three. The allure of Barney's and other large clothing stores proved to be too strong for the girls (minus Mrs. Harding), who made up the largest group. Emma, Sarah, Olivia, and Lucy desperately wanted to go shopping. Gina and Nicole also wanted a chance to shop with "the big girls", and Lucy quickly agreed to take the children, mostly because she knew her husband would let her shop longer and spend more if he did not have to worry about taking care of the kids.
"You know how men are," she told Sarah later, "They're just not good when it comes to taking care of children for long periods of time. I think it's too stressful for them."
Mr. and Mrs. Harding saw from the bus other museums that they had not toured the day before. They decided to go to the museums once they realized that the young women were not staying around either.
That left Peter, Ryan, James and Jacob as a group.
At the next stop, everyone got off the bus and went their separate ways, one part walking quickly towards Barney's, and one part headed towards an armory exhibit. The guys stayed behind at the bus stop, unsure of where to go.
"So," asked Peter, "What do you all want to do?"
"I wouldn't mind going back to the hotel to sleep," said Jacob, yawning. "Emma was watching movies all night. Just my luck that there was a Kung-Fu marathon on TV..."
The guys laughed slightly at Jacob's predicament, which cause his ears to turn pink.
"It's really not that funny..." he said indignantly.
"Why don't we go for a snack?" offered Ryan. "I wouldn't mind hanging out at a pub for a while."
"Now that sounds nice," said James. "It's relaxing. Just having a few drinks, catching up on some sports, and sitting watching the crowds go by. I could do that."
"Me too," said Peter.
"As long as I don't have to move, it's fine with me as well," yawned Jacob.
"Then a pub it is." Ryan smiled. "That wasn't so hard."
"We're an easy-going bunch," said James wryly.
If figuring out what to do was easy, finding a cab was quite another thing. Multiple times the guys saw a vacant cab close by, but they were never close enough to stop another group of people from getting to it first.
"This is impossible," groaned Jacob. "We've been walking blocks and blocks to find a cab. Why don't we just walk to the pub?"
"Because I am depending on the cab driver to suggest of few good pubs to us, and then we can go to one of those," answered Ryan factually. "We can't walk somewhere if we don't know where we're going."
"Hey look!" said Peter suddenly, pointing at a cab. "How about that one?"
There was a young girl of about ten standing outside of the cab, arguing with the driver. She was thin and wiry, and had a shockingly blond hair. In her hand she held a black suitcase tightly. As the foursome came closer, they could overhear what the girl was saying.
"Look, mister," she said, her voice filled with exasperation, "All I'm saying is that I would like you to take me to my house. Is that so hard?"
The cab driver leaned out his window slightly. "Miss, I can't take you anywhere unless you have your parents with you. I'm sorry."
"But I just told you--"
"I said I was sorry, but you'll have to call your parents to pick you up."
The girl glared at the driver, turned sharply, and sat down on a nearby bench.
"Here we go," said Peter, coming up to the taxi. "Are you open?" he asked the driver.
"Yes, hop in," the driver answered, happy to have a customer other than the girl.
"We're set," said Ryan, getting into the cab. "Say, do you know of any good pubs around here?"
"Actually, there are a bunch nearby."
Peter and Jacob got into the cab and Ryan started talking to the cab driver about pubs. James took the moment to walk up to the girl. He was concerned about her and wanted to make sure she was all right.
"Are you lost?" he asked gently.
"No," the girl said darkly, "I'm just trying to get back home."
"Are your parents with you?"
"No, they are at home, that's why I want to go home." The girl spoke as if she were talking to a very young child, speaking slowly and enunciating each word. It gave James the impression that she must be a very haughty and defiant girl. Ryan was still speaking to the driver, so James decided to keep talking to the girl.
"Did you run away?" asked James.
The girl rolled her eyes. "Aren't you smart..."
"I mean, you must miss your parents a lot, and, if--"
"I don't miss them," she interrupted, "I just need more money."
James blinked in confusion. "Okay... well, I was just going to say that if you need a ride, it would be easy for us to take you back home."
The girl looked up at James, frowning. "I'm not going to drive home with you!"
"Why not?"
"You are a stranger," she said simply. "I'm not dumb, Mr. whoever-you-are. Only dumb people would get into a car with a stranger."
"Isn't a cab driver usually a stranger?"
"Yes, but it's their profession. They have contracts and everything. You don't."
James sighed and rubbed his eyes.
"Hey James!" called out Peter. "You coming or not?"
"One second," James yelled back. He sat on the bench next to the girl. "Let's start over," said James to the girl. "I'm James Potterson. What's your name?"
"Tammy Dursley, and I don't like you sitting there," answered the girl.
James' eyes widened. "Dursley?"
"Are you deaf or something?" asked Tammy.
"Yes-- I mean, no-- I mean--" James stopped. The girl really did look a lot like Dudley, albeit a much thinner one. He knew it would be a shot in the dark, but he just had to ask the question. "Your father wouldn't by any chance be named Dudley, would it?" he asked cautiously.
"Actually, yes," said Tammy, surprised.
"And you have a grandmother named Petunia?"
"Yes..." answered the girl slowly, getting suspicious.
"Well," said James, "I guess we're not strangers them. I'm your father's cousin."
Tammy's face lit up in realization. "You must be my wicked cousin Harry!"
"Er, I guess so..." James did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was "wicked".
"Of course I'll ride with you! Why didn't you say in the first place that you were my wicked cousin Harry? And you said your name was James..."
"Well, my first name is Harry, but I go by my middle name which is James," explained James.
Tammy got up from the bench and followed James to the cab, dragging her suitcase behind her.
"My father talks about you every so often," she told James, "I like to listen to all the bad things you used to do. I always thought that I would love to meet you one day, but I never told Daddy. I don't think he'd like that idea so much."
James and Tammy crammed into the cab. Five people made it rather squished, but technically there was room for six.
James briefly told Peter, Ryan, and Jacob what was happening and they all agreed to drop Tammy off at her house.
"Maybe your relatives will invite us in," said Peter. He was surprised that James had any relatives. After all, James never talked about them.
"Er, maybe..." said James, doubting it. He didn't really want Peter to know about the Dursleys; it would complicate things. "They're not really relatives, just people I used to know... acquaintances..." James told Peter quietly enough that Tammy did not overhear. She was too busy introducing herself anyway.
"As long as we end up at one of the pubs Eugene suggested to us, it's fine with me," said Ryan. James assumed that "Eugene" was the cab driver.
Jacob was staring at James. "This should be interesting..." said Jacob. "Meeting your family, James. How very interesting..."
"You know," said James, sensing danger at Jacob's interest in the Dursleys, "Why doesn't everyone just stay in the cab once we arrive at the house. It might be just a little less taxing on the parents."
The guys reluctantly agreed to this proposition, especially after Tammy said that she only wanted James to come in, not his friends, whom she deemed "strangers".
"Where are we going?" asked the driver.
James nudged Tammy to get her attention. "Tammy, where's your house?"
"I don't know," Tammy answered.
"But don't you live there?"
"I said that we had just moved there. Do you expect me you memorize my address in one week?"
"Er, no, but it would have been useful..." said James.
"How about this," said Tammy, "You just drive around until I see something familiar, okay?"
Ryan sighed. "This will take a while..."
"Is there anything you remember it being close to? A park, a plaza, a store?" asked Peter, trying to help out.
"I think it was near a post office. And the street had trees. And my house is brown." Tammy smiled. "Does that help?"
"Loads," said James, rolling his eyes.
Tammy giggled. "You're funny..."
"Glad I could be of use," he answered. Tammy giggled more. "Eugene," asked James to the driver, "Could you start at the nearest post office? Maybe drive towards a residential neighborhood?"
"That I can do," said Eugene, pulling out of his parking spot and driving along the main street.
Ryan, Peter, and Jacob started arguing about the different pubs they could go to. It seemed to be a debate between the closer one and the one with the better drinks.
"Hey James..." asked Tammy quietly while the other guys were talking, "Can I call you Uncle James? I don't have any uncles and I really detest Aunt Marge."
"Detest? That's a big word," said James. "And one, that I must say, I wholeheartedly agree with."
"So you'll let me call you Uncle James? I think 'Dad's wicked cousin Harry who goes by James' would take too long to say."
"Um, okay," answered James. He did not see any harm in it. And the kid was kind of growing on him. He gave Tammy a smile. "I would be delighted to be your Uncle James."
Tammy's eyes lit up and smiled a large smile. "Thanks."
After a long while of driving and confused directions from Tammy, they finally reached a street that she recognized. Soon they reached her house.
"Thank goodness," said Jacob, "I thought we were going to be driving around London forever."
Tammy hopped out of the cab and grabbed James' hand.
"Uncle James will only take a minute," she told Peter, Ryan, and Jacob. "He'll be right back."
The guys gave odd looks to Tammy at her new nickname for James, but then nodded and went back to discussing soccer, which was a subject that had sprung from their pub argument.
"Um, do I really need to bring you up to the door? Can't one of the other guys do it?" asked James. "I haven't seen them for so long, and we weren't really on the best of terms.
"Oh, c'mon Uncle James," said Tammy brightly. "Think of the drama of it all! It will be so full of action and emotion! Mum and Dad are going to be absolutely furious when they see you!"
Tammy rang the doorbell while James waited nervously behind her. The door opened to reveal a rather bulky woman with a messy brown bun and tear-streaked cheeks.
"Hi Mum!" said Tammy cheerfully.
"Oh my darling!" The woman embraced Tammy tightly. "Oh my precious, precious darling! I missed you so much!"
A man came into view. He was larger than the woman and had bright blond hair.
"Hi, Dudley," said James quietly.
Both the woman and the man seemed to notice James for the first time. Tammy took this chance to enact the drama she had been planning.
"Mum, Dad, this is the nice gentleman who brought me home," said Tammy happily.
"Oh really?" Dudley asked dubiously.
"Yes."
"Oh, thank you, sir," said Tammy's mother. "Thank you for bringing my baby home!"
"It was... nothing," answered James awkwardly.
"Do I know you?" asked Dudley addressing James. "You look familiar..."
This was exactly the reaction Tammy wanted. Her eyes sparkled with mischief and she smiled.
"You recognize him because he is your cousin, Dad! This is your wicked cousin Harry!" She was beyond enthusiastic and was practically jumping with excitement.
James turned pink and Dudley went from white to red quite rapidly.
"Won't you come in, Harry," said Dudley with clenched teeth. James knew he was only trying to avoid a scene outside of his house in the new neighborhood. Dudley would do anything, even invite his hated cousin in for tea, as long as it meant that the neighbors would think good of him.
"Actually," said James, warming up to the situation and now having quite a lot of fun standing on the doorstep and infuriating his cousin, "I go by James now, and I changed my last name to Potterson."
"How very creative..." said Dudley, turning more red with anger as it took longer and longer to get James off his doorstep.
"I know," answered James. Then, deciding to waste time and continue standing in full view of the neighborhood, he continued speaking. "I wanted to find the most unusual name there was. So I searched through scores and scores of baby name books trying to find the perfect name. And there were some pretty strange names in that book. Right with 'Charles' and 'John' were 'Lindsey' and 'Whitney'. I mean, if I had wanted a feminine name, I would have looked in the girls' section of the book, right? Oh, and did you know that 'Dudley' meant 'through the meadow'? Isn't that sweet of me? I took the time to look up the meaning of my very own cousin's name. And out of all the cousins, Dudley, I really must say that you are my favorite. What other cousin would endure being dropped in a snake's cage, being blasted by my letters from owls on the streets, being given a pig's tail..."
It was at that moment that Dudley grabbed James tightly and pulled him into the house, closing and locking the door behind him.
Tammy flashed a big smile at James. Apparently this was just what she had wanted. She seemed thrilled by James' cheeky actions and her parents' horrified looks.
James himself knew he was being rather rude, but he did have a lot of annoyance pent up inside of him from never speaking out at the Dursleys for the way they treated him, and being rude to Dudley on his own doorstep was... liberating, in a way.
"How dare you come to my house and be so-- so-- freakish?" asked Dudley furiously.
Tammy's mother stood in the corner holding Tammy's hand tightly. She must have heard a lot of bad things about James, because she looked rather frightened.
"Dudley," said James calmly. "What is your wife's name?"
Tammy answered for her father. "Mum's name is Doreen!"
James turned to the mother. "Hello Doreen." He stuck out his hand to shake hers. "I'm James Potterson. How are you?"
"Um, fine," answered Doreen quietly, tentatively shaking James' hand.
"You're just a freaky lit--" started Dudley.
James held up his hand for Dudley to stop speaking. "Dudley, can I tell you a story? It's a very special story. It might be nice to hear over a cup of tea..."
Doreen immediately turned for the kitchen, her manners taking precedence over her fears. She came back holding a tray with tea on it a motioned everyone to the couches in the sitting room.
"Thank you, Doreen," said James, taking a cup of tea. "Now on with the story. Once upon a time, there was a boy with no family. Sure, the boy had relatives, but he never had a true family, as in people who would love him unconditionally. The relatives constantly got angry at the boy for being the person that he was and for attending a very special school. One day--"
"Does this story have a point?" interrupted Dudley. Doreen and Tammy glared at him, the former for his rude manners, and the latter for his interruption of the story.
James went on, ignoring Dudley question. "One day, something very unfortunate happened to the boy, who was now a young man, and he decided that he would rather not be the person his was and be part of the world that the school was part of. So he moved to a different country and became a new person. But when the man came to visit his old relatives a few years later, he was shocked and appalled by the things he heard they had been saying about him and by the way they acted upon his return. Instead of accepting him and giving him a second chance, they assumed that after fifteen years the man would be exactly the same as the boy he once was." James paused a moment. "Actually," he said, "The man's expectations for his return was almost identical to the way he was received, but that's beside the point. Plus, it doesn't give the story the same meaning as crushed hopes do."
Tammy giggled. James smiled kindly at her.
"So you're not a freak anymore?" asked Dudley haltingly.
"You understood the story?" asked James, feigning shock. "You gathered the moral? I can't believe it..."
Tammy laughed some more, which elicited a smile from Doreen. Her daughter's happiness also took precedence over her fears. Doreen was actually a very strong and brave woman, she just hid it very well.
"No, Dudley, I am no longer a 'freak', as you call it," said James softly. "I'm on a special medication that suppresses my--"
"Abnormalities?" supplied Dudley.
"Sure," replied James with a smile, "My 'abnormalities'. Anyway, I just thought that I'd let you know about my new situation, and that you don't have to refer to my as your 'wicked freakish cousin who attends a juvenile delinquent school' anymore."
"And are you living in London now?" asked Doreen.
"No, I'm actually just vacationing in England with some friends. I live in Canada now, in Calgary. I work as a school teacher."
"Oh Dad! Can Uncle James come over for Christmas?" asked Tammy. "I'd really like an uncle there with me so I wouldn't be so bored."
Dudley wrinkled his nose at Tammy's new term for James. Tammy and Doreen looked at Dudley expectantly, both of whom had taken a liking to James.
"He can't be here on Christmas eve," spluttered Dudley, looking back and forth between his daughter and his wife. "My Mum will be here. Think of what a shock it will give her!"
James had to agree. "Yeah, I don't really need to come over. I'm spending Christmas with my friends anyway."
Tammy looked at James very sadly.
"But I'll write down my address and phone number for you, and the hotel we are staying at," said James quickly, not able to bear the look coming from Tammy.
"That would be wonderful!" said Tammy. "I'll call you as soon as I find out when you can come and visit!"
Dudley did not seem too fond of the idea, but let James give Tammy and Doreen the information anyway.
James declined an invitation from Doreen to stay a while longer, telling her that his friends were waiting outside for him. Tammy gave James a hug before he left and Doreen waved goodbye as he walked out the door towards the cab. Dudley, on the other hand, was still in a bad mood.
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