Harry Potter and the Legacy of Slytherin

Chapter 2

How to Use a Fellytone

Harry chewed on his bottom lip, trying desperately not to scream while the scar on his forehead felt like it was burning a hole in his face. He knew that screaming would bring the Dursleys out of their beds, which would be tantamount to asking to be imprisoned in his room for a week. The Dursleys were as unmagical as it was possible to be, and they would not understand the link Harry's scar gave him to Voldemort, even if it was possible to persuade them to listen to any discussion of magic.

Thirteen years ago, Voldemort attacked and killed Harry's parents, and then tried to kill Harry as well. But the Killing Curse that Voldemort used rebounded back on him, leaving Voldemort disembodied and weakened, and leaving Harry with a deep scar on his forehead. That scar was not only a reminder that he had survived Voldemort's attack, but also gave Harry a link to Voldemort. Whenever Voldemort was doing something particularly evil, or whenever he was close by, Harry's scar throbbed painfully.

Last year, Voldemort and his servant Wormtail had captured Harry, and used his blood to restore Voldemort to his body. Since then, it appeared that Harry's link to Voldemort had strengthened, as the pain in the scar was greater. While the scar was hurting, Harry had also been able to see what Voldemort was doing, and so had seen what Voldemort had done, and where they were. But at the moment, the pain was far too intense for Harry to think about that.

Clutching his scar with his right hand, Harry rocked back and forth on his bed, trying to absorb what he had seen. He had observed everything Voldemort had done, but had no idea what Lucius Malfoy and Wormtail did after they left Voldemort's sight. Voldemort hadn't said anything about what they were doing, so there was no way of knowing. But that wasn't the most important thing on his mind. The thing that terrified Harry the most was the way that the Dementors, the most terrifying creatures Harry had ever known, apparently joined Voldemort, in front of his very eyes.

As the pain in his scar started to lessen to a dull throbbing, Harry sat up on his bed, and started to think about what he should do about the pain. He decided to write to Professor Dumbledore, his headmaster at Hogwarts, and the one person Voldemort truly feared. Dumbledore had told him to write as soon as his scar hurt, and Harry had promised to do so. Remembering his promise, Harry got gingerly off his bed, and walked over to his trunk in the corner of the room.

Harry retrieved a quill and parchment from his trunk of school supplies, and laid it out on the desk next to his window. Using the inkpot on the desk, he inked the quill, and started to scratch the quill over the parchment. It took a while to write the letter, partly because the scar was still hurting, but mainly because Harry had no idea how to write this kind of letter. To be honest, he was hoping he might never have to. After a while, Harry finished the letter, and read it back to himself silently.

Professor Dumbledore,

You told me to write to you at once if my scar hurt. It just woke
me up in the night, so I thought I should write to you quickly. The pain
wasn't as bad as it was during the Triwizard Tournament, but it was very
painful.
I was asleep and dreaming again, and I saw Voldemort, Wormtail and
Lucius Malfoy. They used a portkey to travel to a huge castle. There were
Dementors at the door, so I think it might have been Azkaban. The Dementors
let Voldemort in, and they seemed to be working with him. Voldemort sent
Wormtail and Malfoy to different parts of the castle, and then he went up
some stairs into a tower.
He went into a cell at the top of the tower, and spoke to a man he
called Tobias. Then, Voldemort said something about the 'Legacy of
Slytherin'. Do you have any idea what that could mean? After he said
that, there was screaming from somewhere else, and the pain in my scar
woke me up.
I hope this letter reaches you quickly and safely, and I will write to
you again if my scar continues to hurt. Please tell Snuffles about what has
happened, and give him my regards.
Harry.

Harry blew gently on the parchment to dry the ink, and then rolled it up carefully, wrapping some string around it. The parchment seemed very light and delicate in Harry's hand, and he carried it gingerly over to the perch where his snowy white owl Hedwig was sleeping. The bird was so peaceful and still, Harry hesitated to wake her, but this letter could not wait. He gently nudged Hedwig, who slowly awoke, with a slightly disgruntled look on her face.

"I'm sorry, girl... I didn't want to have to wake you..." Harry whispered softly, trying to keep his voice low enough that the Dursleys wouldn't hear him. Reaching over to the drawer in his desk, Harry drew out an Owl Treat, and gave it to Hedwig as a peace offering. As Hedwig chewed the treat, she seemed to soften to Harry, who gently stroked her wing.

"I wouldn't wake you up if it wasn't important, Hedwig... I need you to take this letter to Professor Dumbledore. Will you do that for me?" Harry asked, still talking in little more than a whisper. Hedwig still looked quite unhappy at being awoken, but after Harry stoked her wing for a few moments, she stretched her leg out to take the letter.

"Thank you, Hedwig. What would I do without you?" Harry said, as he tied the letter around her leg. He stroked Hedwig's wing one more time, and then watched as she flew out of the window. Harry sat by the window for some time, watching after Hedwig long after she was just a dot on the horizon. Eventually, he got up, walked over to his bed, and lay down to try and get some sleep. It was still dark outside, and Harry was extremely tired. But it was still a very long while before he fell asleep.

* * * * *

Harry was abruptly awoken again a few hours later, not by his scar, but by a loud bellowing coming from downstairs.

"HARRY! Get down here, boy, if you expect to be given any food!" Vernon Dursley yelled, obviously not particularly interested in whether Harry got up or not. Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle, had never liked his nephew, who had been left with them when Harry's parents had been killed. Most importantly, Vernon hated the fact that Harry was learning to become a wizard, which is something that he had always tried to discourage, as forcibly as possible.

Harry ran down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where his Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley were just finishing their breakfast. Although the Dursleys gave him very little food, it was better than nothing, and after the events of last night, he was very hungry indeed. However, when he got to the kitchen table, Harry found very little food for him. There was only one piece of toast, which appeared to be burnt, and a very small piece of grapefruit.

There was a reason why there was so little food in the house. Dudley, the apple of his parents' eye, was on a diet. This wasn't because he was concerned about his weight, appearance or even his health. It was because his school, the Smeltings Academy for Young Gentlemen, had told his parents he would be expelled if he did not lose enough weight to fit into a standard-size school uniform. Last year, Dudley needed to have a uniform specially made, at great expense to his parents and no little embarrassment to the school.

This meant that Dudley had to go on a diet. Unfortunately, this made an already-violent Dudley irritable, which was a certain way to make sure that Harry had as little fun as possible. Dudley had taken to inviting friends around to have Harry-hunting sessions, a practice that his parents had chosen not to discourage. But even more annoying was the way that Aunt Petunia insisted on giving Dudley a noticeably larger share of any food, in an attempt to keep him happy.

As Harry sat down and started scraping the burnt parts away from the toast, Dudley took the opportunity to walk past and 'bump into' him, making him drop the toast on the floor. There was not even any pretence at an apology, and Harry knew better than to ask for one. Aunt Petunia noticed the incident, and took the opportunity to glare at Harry disapprovingly, before she walked out of the room, looking for some unfortunate kitchen utensils to take her frustrations out on.

Harry picked the toast up from the floor and threw it into the bin, and then turned his attention to the small grapefruit slice. It was perhaps one-sixth of the fruit, and looked suspiciously as if Dudley had sliced a little extra from the side after he had finished his piece. As he sat and ate the little fruit, Harry realised that he would have to do something about getting food from somewhere else soon. He had stocked up on Bertie Botts' Every-Flavour Beans and Chocolate Frogs before leaving Hogwarts, but his secret supply of sweets was beginning to run out.

Normally, Harry wouldn't have any sweets in the house, because Dudley would take them the instant he found them. However, last year, Dudley had tasted a Ton-Tongue Toffee, as manufactured by Fred and George Weasley, two of Harry's friends from school. The experience of having a four-foot long tongue had soured Dudley toward any kind of sweet that Harry may have... Finishing the grapefruit, Harry decided that he would have to finish off the Chocolate Frogs. His birthday was still over a week away, and with Hedwig gone, he had no way to ask his friends to help.

After finishing the little piece of fruit, Harry got up, planning to go back upstairs to his room. He had taken to spending a great deal of time in his room, as it was the only reasonably safe place in the house to go. Not that the Dursleys respected his privacy, but they would never venture inside Harry's room, which contained a number of magical items, like his broomstick, spell books and owl. The Dursleys were too afraid of these things to ever dare go into Harry's room.

Unfortunately, while Harry had been eating his meagre breakfast, Dudley had been entertaining guests. Piers Polkiss and Dennis Boyd, two of Dudley's friends, had come over to visit, and judging from the looks they were giving Harry, they intended to make life very unhappy for him. The look in their eyes uncomfortably reminded Harry of Crabbe and Goyle, the two large, unpleasant associates of his nemesis, Draco Malfoy. A cold shudder found it's way down Harry's back as he thought of how alike they were.

Dudley pushed Harry against the wall, with his two hulking allies flanking him. Wondering how painful the inevitable beating would be, Harry decided the easiest thing to do would be to resist as little as possible. Dudley delivered a quick blow to Harry's stomach, which made him double over in pain and drop to the floor, gasping for air. Dudley laughed at him, leading Piers and Dennis to do the same. As Harry fought to get his breath back, Dudley bent down on his knees to sneer at him.

"What's the matter, potty? Don't you know how to fight back? You can't fight back, can you, potty?" Dudley mocked him, and directed Dennis to kick Harry in the stomach. Harry started gasping for breath again, and Dudley looked up at his fellow bullies and resumed their laughter. So far, this was quite normal, although this was one of Dudley's more vicious beatings. It occurred to Harry that the beating seemed to coming more and more from Dudley, and less from the other two.

Suddenly, Harry decided that lying there and trying to weather the storm was not such a good idea, after all. Normally, it was possible to lie there, and take the punishment until Dudley got bored. But the presence of his friends, coupled with his diet-induced foul temper, had made Dudley more than usually vicious. Now, Dudley was the only one doing anything, as Piers and Dennis had backed off. Even they seemed surprised at how Dudley was acting, although they would never do anything to stop it.

Harry thought about what he could do to extricate himself from Dudley and his gang. For a moment, he thought of his wand, left in his room, where it was no use to him. Then he remembered that he was not allowed to use magic during the holidays, so he couldn't have used it anyway. Calling for the Dursleys would be utterly pointless, of course, and trying to threaten Dudley with magic would just lead to beatings, and probably a punishment from the Dursleys. This meant that there was only one thing he could do. Fight Dudley off.

Despite Dudley's size, this was not as impossible as it seemed. Years of Quidditch and last year's Triwizard Tournament had made Harry less thin than he used to be, and he seemed to have grown even larger over recent weeks. Dudley, on the other hand, was fat, unfit, and unused to any of his victims fighting back. Deciding on a plan to get out of this, Harry got onto one knee on the ground, as if he was about to try and get up.

"Is little potty trying to get up?" Dudley sneered, looking more like Malfoy by the second. That helped Harry to go through with what he did next. He lunged at Dudley, knocking them both across the hallway. The sheer shock on Dudley's face had almost been worth the beating, but Harry knew Dudley could fight him off in short order, simply through his sheer weight advantage. Taking the opportunity to flee, Harry darted upstairs to his room, and locked the door behind him to avoid his cousin's wrath.

As three sets of fists started to pound on the door, Harry went to the loose floorboard where he stored all his most secret possessions. His invisibility cloak was in here, covering up an almost-empty box of Chocolate Frogs and another box of Every-Flavour Beans. Harry took out one of the Chocolate Frogs, and munched on it quietly, wondering what he was going to do for food over the next week.

* * * * *

Later in the day, long after Dudley and his 'friends' had gone in search of new victims, the telephone rang. This was not particularly unusual, as Vernon Dursley was often called by his 'work associates' at Grunnings, the drill manufacturers where Vernon worked. As Uncle Vernon tried to deny Harry's existence to his work colleagues, Harry had been forbidden to answer the telephone, so he went back to the book he had been reading, Quidditch through the Ages. However, this was not one of Vernon's work colleagues, which was made clear when Harry heard the ear-trembling sound of Vernon shouting down the phone.

"I TOLD YOUR LOT NEVER TO USE THIS NUMBER AGAIN!"

Judging from Vernon's reaction, Harry realised that the phone call was not one of Vernon's work colleagues, but one of his own friends from Hogwarts. Only someone from the magical world would be able to draw such a vehement reaction from Vernon over the telephone. Vernon was terrified of his nephew's friends, and even more terrified if anyone were to find out about his connection to 'a bunch of freaks, weirdoes and idiots', as Vernon so flatteringly called them. In fact, Vernon would probably call them that and hang up the phone at any moment, if Harry didn't do something.

Suddenly, Harry knew exactly what he could do. He ran over to his trunk, and grabbed a letter he had received from his Godfather, Sirius Black. Harry's godfather had escaped from Azkaban, the wizard prison, nearly two years ago, where he was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of Harry's parents. Harry, however, had not told his Aunt and Uncle of Sirius' innocence, and the Dursleys lived in fear of being too cruel to Harry, in case Sirius were to find out about it and decide to pay a visit to Harry's guardians.

Brandishing the letter, he ran down the stairs, desperate to get to the phone before Vernon hung the phone up. Careful to leave the name 'Sirius' visible at the bottom of the letter, Harry walked into the living room, and over to where Vernon Dursley was still bellowing down the phone.

"Uncle Vernon, why are you shouting? Is something wrong?" said Harry, in a sweet, innocent voice.

"Nothing to do with YOU, boy! This is MY home, and if I want to shout down the telephone, then I..." Vernon shouted at Harry, but then trailed off as his eyes wandered down to the letter in Harry's hand. At the sight of the signature at the bottom, Vernon's eyes bulged wide, and a vein in his forehead, already visible from his shouting, began to throb. Harry noticed the look on Vernon's face, and stood there, enjoying his uncle's discomfort.

"Harry... It's some boy asking for you... Be quick..." Vernon muttered, barely audibly. He almost threw the phone at Harry, and stomped off into the kitchen, doubtless considering some unbelievably novel way of getting rid of Harry without incurring the wrath of his Godfather. Harry's attention, however, was with the telephone that he had just been given.

"Hello?" Harry said, wondering just who would be calling him.

"Harry! I thought your uncle had broken the phone! I thought you weren't meant to shout into them?" said the unmistakable voice of Harry's best friend, Ron Weasley.

Harry chuckled, remembering the last time Ron had tried to phone him, over two years ago. It had not been a pleasant experience, as Ron, coming from a wizard family, had no idea how to use a telephone. Ron had screamed down the phone at Vernon Dursley, leading him to respond in kind. His chuckles subsiding, Harry answered his friend. "No, you're not meant to. But sometimes Vernon forgets that... How is everything there?"

"Great! Listen, the aurors have been around all the wizard houses near here, putting charms and protective spells on them. Mad-eye Moody was here, and he said it was safe for us to invite you to stay now! Of course, as soon as he said that, Mum gave me a handful of Muggle money, and sent me down to the public fellytone to call you!" Ron babbled, excited at the prospect of having his friend back so soon.

"I can come over there!? When!? How!?" Harry was frantic. If he knew how to Apparate, then he would have been at the Weasleys' the minute Ron had told him, but being underage and unlicensed to Apparate meant he would have to be picked up.

"Dad says he can borrow a Ministry car and come to collect you on Saturday! Please say you can come then, Harry! Can you get the Muggles to agree?"

"The Muggles wouldn't dare disappoint the Godson of Sirius Black... How do you think I got the phone?" Harry replied, and was promptly answered by a loud cackle of laughter at the other end of the phone.

"Brilliant! That means that Fred and George won't have to break you out this time! Have you heard from Siri-Snuffles recently?"

"Not since Dumbledore sent him off after the third task. Dumbledore told me not to worry, but it's hard not to." Suddenly, Harry's voice got softer and more worried, as it often did when talking about his wanted Godfather.

"I know. Really, everything will be fine. I hate to say this, but I think I have to go now, I don't know how long that Muggle money will last..." Ron obviously hated having to leave Harry like this, but really didn't know how long he would be able to talk.

"How much did you put in?" Harry asked, wondering how much longer he would be able to talk.

"I don't know. One of those funny shaped ones, like the one you gave me back in the first year?" Ron had no experience of Muggle money, and had to ask Harry for his opinion.

"A 50p. The phone will probably disconnect soon." Harry was obviously disappointed, but consoled himself with knowing he would see Ron soon.

"Yeah, I thought so. I'll tell Dad to pick you up at 3 on Saturday afternoon. Is that alright?" Ron tried to inject cheerfulness into his voice, knowing how much Harry hated being at the Dursleys' any longer than necessary.

"That's fine. I'll see you then, Ron!"

"See you then, Harry. Try not to let the Muggles get you down before then!" Ron hung up the phone, leaving Harry grinning happily at the thought of going back to the Burrow. Wondering how long he had to wait, Harry looked at the calendar on the wall, and saw that it was a Thursday. Only two days to wait! Without a word to his uncle, Harry ran upstairs, burst into his bedroom, and started almost throwing his belongings back into his trunk.

He still had two days to wait until the Weasleys came to collect him, but he couldn't wait to get away from the Dursleys. The last three weeks had dragged by miserably, and the only thing that had helped was the hope that he might be able to visit the Burrow before going back to Hogwarts. Now that the end was in sight, Harry couldn't wait to get ready. Even the thought of last night's nightmare couldn't depress Harry as he thought of how fun the next few weeks could be...


Disclaimer: Yeah, right. If anything here belonged to me, do you think you'd be reading this for free? I think not...


Well, I did promise Harry would do something this chapter. I'd call knocking Dudley across the room something worthwhile, wouldn't you? That's it for Chapter 2, and Harry will be off to the Burrow in Chapter 3.

Now I get to say a big thank you to my reviewers! So, THANK YOU to Archaic Raven and SleepyAngel, who reviewed this within about 5 minutes of my posting it! Thanks for all your praise, and Raven, I will read 'The Heathen' as soon as I get a chance.

That's all folks! At least for now... Please hit that button down there and leave a review...