This chapter may be kind of long... when I'm writing the story I don't divide it into chapters. I do that later as I'm posting it, so the chapter divisions can sometimes be kind of arbitrary. Niarbeldoon
Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me??
Vernon suddenly regained the ability to speak. He didn't waste a second.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" he bellowed, mustache quivering. "WE COULD HAVE DIED! I HAVEN"T THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON AND I WANT TO KNOW! I WANT YOU TO SET THIS RIGHT! I WANT YOU TO GET THESE BODIES OUT OF MY HOME! AND I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE! I AM NOT GOING TO GO TO YOUR HOUSE, OR WHEREVER YOU MAY HAPPEN TO LIVE, PROBABLY A DUMP-"
"SHUT UP!" Harry yelled. "You don't want to come? FINE, DON'T! Stay here and get killed! Whatever pleases you!"
Petunia got up shakily and plucked Vernon's sleeve. "Vernon... if it's safe..."
"HOW DO I KNOW IT'S SAFE? LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENED ALREADY, AND IN OUR OWN HOME! HOW ABOUT IN SOME SORT OF MAGICAL LOONY BIN??"
Ron, Hermione and George stood awkwardly and silently in a huddle. None of them had really seen Harry with his relatives. They knew they were not on good terms, but as Harry had always managed to either joke about it or avoid the subject completely, they hadn't known how cold the relationship really was.
Harry stood quietly for a few seconds. "Darn it," he said, relatively calmly, "I gave Ethan my Floo powder."
"I have some," Hermione piped up. She dug another pouch out of her pocket and tossed it to Harry.
"George and I will get them" –Ron gestured toward the unconscious wizards and witch on the floor- "taken care of. Get them to the ministry. Harry, you get these people back..."
Harry nodded. Stepping to the couch, he heaved Mrs. Mason into his arms, staggering slightly under her weight. He managed to toss some floo powder into the fire, then said the Mason's address and disappeared into the flames. He returned to usher Mr. Mason, babbling incoherently, through the fire also; then apparated back into the Dursleys' living room, looking slightly dizzy.
The others had put the room back together in his absence. No one would have thought anything was unusual about the house now, except for the people on the floor. Harry turned to his uncle and sighed, holding out his hand.
"I am not going through that fireplace," Vernon stated flatly. He seemed to indicate that anyone who tried to force him to do so would be knocked silly.
So Harry strode past him, grabbed Petunia by the arm, tossed some powder in the fire, and dragged her through.
Vernon made a gagging sound, staring at the brick wall through which his wife had just disappeared.
"It's not all that bad, really, the floo network," Ron said kindly to Vernon, helping his brother lift Lucius Malfoy off the couch. "Especially if you have someone helping you through... And hey – nice job knocking this maniac out." he looked down at Malfoy's face. A bloody lump was rising on his forehead from where Vernon Dursley had struck him with a chair. "Ugh. Look at this ugly git!" said George. "Azkaban's too good for him, really... what are those Dementors doing, letting all these nutters break out? Holding dead people parties?"
Vernon seemed to swallow his tongue as Harry reappeared with a crack in front of him. "I hate traveling by floo powder," he said, rubbing his forehead. "Four times in a row. I'm going to be sick." This didn't seem to improve Vernon Dursley's mood.
"Come on," Harry said, exasperated.
"Go on," Ron and George said helpfully.
"I'll come with you," Hermione offered Harry. "You two can handle – them – right?"
"Yeah, no problem."
Vernon had not moved an inch.
"Look," Harry said, picking up on his friends' expressions and making a mental note not to start shouting. "You can either stay here and get killed by crazed wizards or you can come to my house for just – a few days, okay, until we get this sorted out."
Vernon had still not moved an inch. Harry, somewhat liking the feeling of power he now had over his uncle, stepped behind him, grabbed his shoulders and forcibly moved him to a few feet from the fireplace.
"Isn't there – some other – way to get there?" Mr. Dursley asked through gritted teeth.
"Not really," Harry said, "not for Muggles. I could technically fly you to London, but that would be stupid and I don't want to do it anyway."
There was a pregnant pause.
"Fine," Uncle Vernon said at last. "Fine! Never should have even thought for a moment that I could ever be free of this nonsense, no sir..."
So Harry tossed a handful of floo powder into the fire, said "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place," and pushed his uncle through.
Vernon stood rigid with fear as the world spun around him. Flames licked his body like warm breath. Bricks and chimneys and fireplaces flashed past him, sometimes allowing him glimpses of the rooms beyond them. He could feel his nephew's hands tightly gripping his shoulders, and he waited for it to be over...
His foot struck a brick on the hearth and he stumbled forward, pitching out of a gigantic fireplace onto a slightly moth-eaten sofa. Harry Potter staggered out after him, regained his footing and leaned against the wall.
The room they had entered was dimly lit by torches set in ornate brackets on the walls. The fireplace was tall and wide; the marble mantelpiece was empty and a little dusty. The floor was paved with flagstone and darkly colored tapestries covered the walls. Petunia was sitting on the very edge of the sofa before the fire. Ethan was dwarfed in a large armchair in the corner, clutching the arm of the chair and scuffing his feet on the floor. Hermione leaned on her elbows on the back of the chair.
"You live here?" Vernon asked, looking around and taking in the dusty bookshelves on the far wall and the heavy wooden doors at either end of the room.
"Yeah," Harry said, brushing the blond hair out of his face. "I inherited it when my godfather died. Sirius Black."
"He died, did he?"
"Er... yes, he did, Uncle Vernon. When I was almost sixteen."
"That's why you were acting funny."
"One of the reasons, yeah. One of many."
Harry didn't like his uncle. How could he care that little about Harry's loss when it was still so fresh in Harry's mind? He had never told his aunt and uncle anything about his life in the magical world because he knew they wouldn't care and wanted to spare himself the loneliness of their not caring.
Deep down, he had always desperately wanted his aunt and uncle's love. But it had always been denied him, and he learned to hate them, even as a child. He didn't need their love anyway; he didn't need them to care, he didn't need them to be proud of him for anything. So he had pushed them out of his life. They didn't know about his friends, his school, his teachers. They didn't know about the pain he felt when the only father he had ever known died. He hadn't told them about his fear and hopelessness when he had learned the prophecy... how he had lived in constant fear that Voldemort would find him, hurt him... the overwhelming responsibility of his friends' lives on his shoulders... the change that he felt come over him after Voldemort's defeat... the guilt he felt about Ron's near death... They wouldn't have understood. Very few people did.