Disclaimer: I wish I owned the characters. Harry would have relatives who cared for him and Snape would have some closure. Alas, they are not mine. They belong to JKR, Scholastic, WB, etc.

sighs

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Harry Potter and the Pillars of Truth

Chapter Four

"Hi, Harry."

If anything in the world could convince Harry that there was something seriously wrong in the Dursley household, Dudley's lackluster greeting surely would have been it.

"Hi, Dudley." Harry looked around the living room, chock full as it was of Dursley memorabilia, and was mildly surprised to see a fine layer of dust overhanging everything. Even when he wasn't here to perform as Aunt Petunia's house elf, she was a strict housekeeper and normally she would never allow the gleaming surfaces of her antique hardwood end tables to be marred by so much as a fingerprint. "What's going on?"

"Dad --" Dudley choked, and Harry abruptly realized that the young man's eyes were swollen and red with something that Dudley wouldn't thank him to recognize as tears. "There was an incident at the plant. The owner and president and V. P.'s, and some of the managers were doing the annual tour --"

Harry nodded, annual tour time had always been a tense one in the Dursley household, since it often could make or break Uncle Vernon's hopes for a raise that year.

"-- and one of the machines exploded. One of the men that Dad fired last year -- he'd got -- it was a bomb --"

"Jesus, Dudley!" Harry gaped at his cousin. "When did this happen? Annual tour time is usually in April."

Dudley nodded. "Yeah. Dad's been in hospital since then. Mum was only able to bring him home this morning."

"Why didn't someone tell me?"

"Mum wrote you, Harry. She even went to this strange place in London just to be sure that you'd get it."

"Are you sure about that?" Harry scowled. "I never got a letter about Uncle Vernon."

"I was allowed to come back from Smeltings for a couple of weeks, right after. Of course I'm sure." Dudley glared at him. "You should have come home instead of ignoring us."

"I didn't ignore you, Dudley. I don't wish any of you dead, you know."

"Why not?" Harry almost smiled to hear the unspoken I would.

"You know, there's a man in the Wizarding World who wants to kill me Dudley. He's been trying to since I was little. He killed my parents, as a matter of fact."

"Your parents died in a car crash."

"No. They didn't. But that's not the point, Dudley. This man wants me dead -- actually, he wants a whole lot of people dead, because he wants to change the world to suit his view of it -- and I would never wish that feeling on you or Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon. Were it up to me, you'd be able to live quiet lives without interference."

Dudley Dursley snorted. "Like you've got any kind of say in that."

"Actually, I do." Harry smiled slightly. "More than you think, anyway. Are they upstairs?"

"Yeah. Dad was in a lot of pain, so Mum put him to bed before that… man… showed up."

"Man? Oh, you must mean Professor Snape."

"Professor? Is he one of your teachers?"

"For whatever sins I committed in a past life, yeah."

"Ugh."

Harry laughed at that. "Oh, he's not so bad, if you don't mind being constantly ridiculed and being treated like the scum of the Earth."

"Sounds like --"

"Yeah. It does sound just like home." Harry's smile turned wry. "Do you suppose we could just… avoid all of that? I won't be here long, and after that you'll probably never see me again."

"I've got more important things to do than chase you around, Harry."

"Yeah." They both looked up the stairs. "I'm going to the kitchen, Dudley."

"Mum hasn't even started dinner yet."

"Well, I can work on that too, but I'm pretty sure I have everything I need to make a healing draught for Uncle Vernon. If he'll accept 'freak' medicine."

"With as much pain as he's in, Harry, I expect he'd drink anything we put in front of his face."

For the first time that he could remember, Harry shared a conspiratorial look with his cousin, and found himself in amiable accord.

"Why don't you go on up and tell Aunt Petunia that I'll start supper and that if she has a moment I'd like to see her."

"Sure, Harry."

With that, Dudley lumbered his way upstairs. It was, Harry supposed, a bit unfair to think of it that way -- much of Dudley's fat had, indeed, melted away to reveal muscles, but he still moved with all of the grace of an arthritic elephant. Harry hoped he was lighter on his feet in the boxing ring.

Harry stopped at the closet under the stairs and unshrunk his school trunk. It was odd, staring into that tiny space, to think that he'd spent so much time there. Setting that thought aside, he rifled through his things, pulling out his potions text and his remaining student supplies. He'd enough to manage Dreamless Sleep, but perhaps… He flipped through the text -- there it was, Beata Dormitum, which turned Dreamless Sleep into a powerful healing draught that worked as well on Muggles as it did on wizards.

He checked his supplies. Well, presuming he didn't mess it up, he'd manage a few doses.

It'd only take about four hours to brew, for which, Harry supposed, he should be grateful.

Especially since he had just volunteered to make dinner at the same time.

"Right, then. Best get started." He went into the kitchen and spelled the island counter safe from fire before setting up a small, magical blaze to put his student cauldron upon. He measured out the water he needed and set it to warm before checking on what was available to eat in the kitchen.

Deciding simple was best, he set another pot of water to boil on the stove and set out some random dairy products and a packet of noodles when his Aunt's quiet voice came from the doorway.

"What in the world do you think you're doing, Harry?"

"I thought I'd make supper, Aunt Petunia." Harry nodded at the stove. "And, with your permission, I'd like to make something for Uncle Vernon."

"I'll not have you poisoning my husband --"

"I don't want to kill Uncle Vernon," Harry interrupted. He pulled his wand from his sleeve. "If I wanted any of you dead, it'd be faster and easier with this, you know."

Aunt Petunia paled, in almost exactly the same manner Snape had when he'd been pretending to be her.

"You can't--"

"I'm sixteen. I've passed my OWLs. You're my family and you know that magic exists. I can do rather a lot with this without getting into trouble. In this instance, however, all I want to do is make a potion for Uncle Vernon, because we haven't gotten to healing spells yet in Charms." Harry turned to the stove and began heating the milk that would be the base for a simple cheese sauce. "I'm actually pretty good at Potions, Aunt Petunia."

Much to Snape's disgust, actually. Draco Malfoy had not managed an O on his Potions OWL and thus had not been admitted into the NEWT-level class. Without Malfoy and his goons sabotage and distraction, Harry's scores in that class had improved dramatically.

"You and your freaky --"

"Aunt Petunia --" Harry took a deep breath. "I know you don't love me. I know you don't even like me. I know that you only keep me here under threat from Dumbledore. Even so, you are my family. I could hate you for all of the things you have never done for me and for all of the things you have -- but I don't. Okay? I don't want you hurt. I want you to be able to live in peace and I'm trying to help you do that."

Petunia gaped at him as he turned from the milk and went to the island to begin chopping valerian for the potion.

"Let me do this, Aunt Petunia." Harry carefully stirred the leaves into the cauldron with one hand while sorting dried chamomile flowers with the other. "Magic is good for more than killing people and forcing them to do things. It doesn't just steal away your loved ones only to replace them with 'freaky' simulacra."

Petunia snorted. "As if you'd know."

"What was that?" Harry looked up for a moment as flaxseeds cascaded into the gently boiling water.

"Nothing."

Harry left the potion to stir sauce and add cheese. Pasta went into the boiling water. Both were silent for a while, as Harry divided his attention between cooking and alchemy.

"Dudley told me that you had some kind of offer. Something beyond… this." Petunia's disdainful wave took in the potion and cooking both as Harry poured the pasta out into a colander.

"I want to buy the house from you. Give you a place to live that will be safe from Voldemort and Dumbledore both."

Petunia choked. "It's true then?"

Harry looked up at her, surprised in the act of serving out the meal.

"Is what true, then?"

"The… thing that killed my parents… my sister. It's back?"

Harry, who had never heard how his Evans grandparents had died, stared at her. "Your parents?"

Petunia sat down heavily in one of the dining room chairs, covering her face with her hands as Harry brought the food to the table. He placed warming charms on the plates and serving dishes so the food would remain ready through his Aunt's distraction.

"I'd just left school. Lily was in her sixth year -- so far away and growing farther away every time I saw her. A witch, strong and beautiful, that's what Mum called her," Petunia said bitterly. "Not a squib like us, practically Muggle, what with Dad finding a job in the drill factory that paid four times any job the magic-less could get elsewhere." Her dark eyes were distant. "Lily used to laugh about it, you know, them calling her a mudblood, her with nearly a thousand years of Squibs in her background. She never corrected them, it amused her when they assumed that because she grew up normal that she was somehow inferior."

"I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't. Do you think I want Vernon to know about my own… abnormality? Or Dudley?"

"You're not abnormal."

"No. Not here." She stared at him for a moment, eyes unreadable. "Can you imagine what it is like to live in the magical world without magic? To be utterly defenseless against the whims of your wanded 'betters'? Dad had hundreds of stories, all of them horrible, about the life of a Squib freak. He called himself that, you know. And me."

"Dear God." In some strange way, the first eleven years of his life made a kind of sense. He wondered, vaguely, what life would have been like if he not shown signs of magic from the time he was so very, very small. "No wonder you hated my mum."

"I never hated Lily!" Petunia hissed. "Never! But her magic and what that magic made of her… those things I hated very much. Lily wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. She wanted to be someone who healed. But she told me that she was so good at 'Charms' and excelled in 'Defense' that her abilities in other fields --" Petunia waved at the cauldron "-- were ignored in favor of her ability to fight. 'When the War is over, I can go back and become a Mediwitch.' Much chance she had of that."

Harry groaned. "You're not serious."

"Believe me or not." Petunia shrugged. "In any case, Lily hadn't gotten home yet when He came. He was handsome… dark and cold and cruel, with eyes that gleamed red, like cabochon rubies. He spoke of our Muggleness, our freakishness, our wretched daring to send a worthless whore like Lily to Hogwarts to pollute the pureblooded lines of Wizardry. And for that, he said, we had to suffer and die."

"And so we suffered. The world was filled with light and sound and pain… it's strange, you know, that a man who hates the 'pollution' of Muggles should enjoy assaulting them so much."

The blood drained out of Harry's face. "Aunt Petunia?"

"Muggles are for sport, you know," she said mechanically. "Although there was one -- young, he seemed to me, and sickened, even behind the white mask. He mimed the act so many before him had done, and whispered something against my temple even as others cried out for more sport. I lay limp beneath him, and he said 'She is dead, fool. What sport can be had from a corpse?'

"I could not move, but there was a sound -- I can remember Lily screaming. Then nothing until I woke up in hospital."

"I…"

Petunia's gaze returned from the past. "He calls himself Voldemort."

"Yes."

"You are here to protect you from him, bound to me by the blood of our common kin." Petunia laughed, an unpretty sound. "You are going to defeat him?"

Under the weight of her gaze Harry found himself giving the only answer he could conscience. "Yes."

"Tell me, Harry, how do you kill someone who isn't alive?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. But I will figure it out. I swear it."

"Best see that you do." Petunia closed her eyes. "You want to buy the house?"

"Yes. I've funds that were left to me --"

"I will not take your mother's money --"

"-- by my godfather. He also left me some property, including a house just outside of Little Whinging. You might remember it as the Calvert place."

"That's not just a house, Harry."

"No, it's a bit big -- but didn't Uncle Vernon get a promotion last year?" Harry stared at the table. "Please, Aunt Petunia. I can put funds away to deal with taxes, if that's what worries you -- but the place is heavily warded in ways that I don't have the skill yet to manage and I… I can't let anything happen to you."

A hand touched his face, uncommonly gentle. "How did you grow up so kind, Harry?"

Harry laughed, pulling his chin away from her fingers. "It's more of an enlightened self-interest. I'll not have non-combatants killed to get at me. I've guilt enough for the things I've done without adding guilt for things I didn't do but could have."

He looked into her eyes. "I am sorry for what Voldemort did to you, Aunt Petunia."

Her gaze was dark, with things lurking in her eyes that were, perhaps, best not to name.

"Vernon will have to agree, but yes." Her eyes turned to the food. "Call Dudley down, will you? I wouldn't want supper to get cold."

"It won't get cold, Aunt Petunia." Harry waved his wand a bit. "Magic is good for things like that."

Petunia considered him for a moment.

"Yes. I suppose it is."