(A/N: OK. I've done some homework to assuage my guilty conscience, and my inbox has finally stopped flashing at me... ah, the joy of getting reviews by e-mail. Response time...
gallandro-83: Dude. First you say I wrote more than you expect, and then you ask for still more?! You need to learn to pace yourself. ::wink:: Thanks for the enthusiasm, though.
CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur: Some whimpering in this chapter... more to come. Hope you like.
athenakitty: Yes to the first, no to the second – they're going to keep this a personal affair. More fun that way.
MaraudersIce05: Thanks, and am doing!
Lady Cinnibar: Well, if you insist on naming yourself after one of her characters, it's a little hard to miss – it could have been coincidence, but I took a guess and it paid off. I especially like her fairy-tale adaptations, Serpent's Shadow and so forth. Rubbing your hands in glee? Thanks! Heh heh heh... evilness... I'm not certain if corporal punishment is illegal in England, but even if it is, remember, Goldenrod is a private school for kids who are troublesome. The way the administration there thinks, anything that makes them easier to handle is fine, and no one's going to believe them anyway... going to have some fun with that in a few chapters.
emikae: The depths of the section? Should I be amused or worried? More is coming, hold your horses. I am amazed when people tell me how original this idea is. It seems pretty commonplace to me... people grow up, people get married and have kids... agreed, it's a little far-fetched in Dudley's case, but Vernon and Petunia met each other, didn't they?
Joshua and mose: I had just finished reading a depressing play for my theater class when I got your reviews... they cheered me up so much I had a private dance party to the music of Easily Amused, my new favorite band. Check them out, they rock. Just Google the name in quotes and hit the second link.
Hope I can get this posted today. Cheers!)
Chapter 10: Something Goes Wrong
Dudley turned into the driveway of Number 4 feeling decidedly pleasant. For the first time in eleven years, there was no one in his house he couldn't stand. Just his lovely wife and his handsome son... they'd have to go to London soon, to get Chester all kitted up for Smeltings...
The car clock flicked over to 12:42 just before he turned it off. He clambered out of the car and shut the door, looking up and down the street. The place was deserted, not even a cat in sight. With a delightful sense of calm, he went up the front steps and let himself in.
"I'm home," he called down the hallway. "Everything went perfectly fine."
"That's wonderful, darling," Marcie called back.
"Dad?" Chester appeared at the top of the stairs. "Dad, I just saw online, there's a new version of Maim'n'Kill come out, Maim'n'Kill 17, I saw it online and I want it, can we get it, please, Dad, please?"
"I think we can manage that," Dudley chuckled. "An early birthday present for the one and only birthday boy in this house."
"Yes!" Chester jumped down the stairs in triumph, making the house shake slightly every time he landed.
The doorbell rang.
"What in the..." Dudley turned to look at the door. There wasn't anyone on the street just a second ago...
He opened the door – and froze in terror.
Standing on his doorstep was the embodiment of everything he feared most, the one person he had hoped was out of his life forever.
"Hello, Dudley," said Harry Potter. "We need to talk."
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If he turns any paler he'll be a ghost, Harry thought with a combination of disgust and amusement. Either that or he'll be sick on the doormat again.
"I'm coming in, if you'll excuse me." Harry pushed gently past Dudley, who gabbled something incomprehensible at him, and shut the door behind himself. A boy was standing frozen on the stairs, a boy who could have been a copy of Dudley at age 11. "Hello, Chester."
The boy's eyes bulged out more than they had before. He made a strangled, squawking kind of sound, but seemed incapable of motion.
"Is something wrong?" called a woman's voice from the vicinity of the kitchen. "Hello?"
A small woman with short dark hair and pouting lips came into the hallway. "Dudley, what's going – " She caught sight of Harry. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"My name is Harry Potter. I'm a cousin of Dudley's. You must be Marcie." Harry didn't offer to shake hands – he was sure any woman Dudley had married wouldn't think too kindly of wizards and the like.
Sure enough, the woman recoiled as if he had said he was an assassin there to kill her. "What are you doing here?" she snapped. "Dudley's made it perfectly clear he doesn't want any of your kind in his life. Or ours either. We're a normal family and we intend to keep it that way, so you can just leave, right now. Disappear or vanish or whatever it is you do. Just go!"
Harry shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that. I need to speak with you about Helen."
The entire family jerked as if someone had given them an electrical shock. "How – " Dudley began in a hoarse voice. He coughed and tried again. "How do you know that name?"
"Perhaps we should sit down. This may take some time to tell."
"I don't want to sit down with someone like you," Marcie snarled. "Dudley's told me all about you and your kind. I don't want anything to do with you. I want you out of this house and out of our lives, now, this minute!"
"I'll go as soon as you hear me out."
"You'll go now!" shouted Dudley suddenly. He seemed to have found some courage from somewhere. Possibly he was borrowing it from his wife. "I don't care what you have to say, it's all lies anyway! My daughter is perfectly normal, she's never had anything to do with your kind, you foul, unnatural beast! We swore we'd keep her safe from that. At all costs. At all costs!"
"Keep her safe from what?" Harry asked, confused.
"From you!" Marcie screamed. "From you and your disgusting habits and that festering school you all go off to. My daughter will never be a witch!" Chester was plastered against the side wall of the stairs, eyes wide, listening to his parents in frightened fascination.
Harry looked from Dudley, at the bottom of the stairs, to Marcie, in the ground floor hallway beside them, and felt a surge of exasperation. "You can't keep someone safe from magic, Marcie."
"Don't you use my name that way!" Marcie hissed.
"All right, Mrs. Dursley then. You cannot keep someone safe from magic. If they're born with it, they're born with it. Helen was born with magic. She is a witch, whether you like it or not."
"You lie!" Marcie shrieked, at the same moment as Dudley shouted, "That's a filthy lie, Potter!"
"I'm not lying. I've been watching Helen for years and she's..."
"You've been WHAT?" Marcie screeched. "Watching my daughter? How dare you!"
"No," Harry said quietly and precisely. "How dare you. How dare you punish your child for something she couldn't help, and push her away at the very moment she needed love the most? How dare you ignore her, neglect her, disregard her at every turn, and then suddenly claim that she's yours and yours alone?"
Despite all his good intentions, Harry was beginning to lose his temper. The Dursleys were all three staring at him open-mouthed. He continued. "You had your chance to make her yours, and you threw it away. You threw her away. If you had ever loved her, ever given her a scrap of affection or even so much as noticed her, besides to make her do your work for you, she would be yours. But you never did, and so she has never been your daughter, except by blood."
"So whose is she, then?" Dudley sneered. "Yours? You don't even know the girl."
Harry sighed. How do I tell him I've known her for eight years without setting him off again? "I believe I do know her. She's curious, intelligent, strong, and brave. She works hard and hits hard, and when she cries, she cries hard. Her favorite color is red, and she sings in her sleep, and once, she made Chester's teddy bear growl at him when she was angry. Am I correct?"
Neither of the adult Dursleys said a word. Chester squealed and attacked the stairs on all fours, almost tearing up the carpet in his frenzy to get away from this scary man who knew too much about him.
Finally Marcie spoke, in a tone filled with fury though barely above a whisper. "I don't know how you know all this, Potter. I don't know how long you've been spying on us, hoping to take what is rightfully ours. But I can tell you this. Helen Dursley is not a witch. She never was one. She never will be one. No daughter of mine is going with filthy people like you for one minute!"
Molly Weasley's voice sounded in Harry's mind. "No grandchild of mine is staying with nasty people like that one minute longer than she has to!" He set his lips, trying to keep his totally inappropriate fit of laughter under control.
He would have loved to see a Molly vs. Marcie shout-off. He had no doubts who would win.
"Get out of my house," Dudley ordered. "Out. Now."
"All right," said Harry, swallowing the last of his laughter by thinking of Helen, frightened and alone. "But I warn you now, I will be back. Helen is a jewel of a child, and since you don't seem to want her, I do. If you won't give her to me, then we may have to start playing a little rougher, but no one's going to get hurt unless one of you does something stupid.
"And let me tell you something, Duddikins." He rounded on Dudley. "Helen is the only reason any of us would come near this place. Once she's ours, we leave you alone. Forever. Think about that."
His last sight of number 4, Privet Drive, was a purple-faced Dudley lunging at him and Marcie inhaling to scream again.
Then he was home, in his own safe, sane, currently rather crowded kitchen.
"How did it go?" "What happened?" "Will they give her up?" "Is she all right?" Questions battered him from all sides. Harry held up his hands.
"I didn't see her, Molly, she was already gone. No, they're not planning on giving her up. They want nothing to do with us or our 'unnaturalness', and Dudley's wife – she's a real piece of work – informed me, at the top of her lungs, that her daughter is not now, has never been, and will never be a witch."
Minerva scowled. "Fool of a woman. Do these people have no common sense at all?"
Harry shook his head. "No, not really. So, personally, I think it's time for Operation Annoyance. All in favor?"
There was a chorus of "Aye", and everyone raised a hand. Fred and George raised both of theirs.
"All right, then," said Ron, taking charge of the group. "First wave, Remus, Minerva, Mum and Dad, and Charlie. Second wave, Bill and Fleur, Percy and Penelope, me and Hermione. Third wave, Fred and Angelina, George and Alicia, and Harry and Ginny. First wave ready – "
Three wizards and two witches tensed.
"GO!"