Harry Potter and the Malevolent Affections
Chapter Two - Five-Fifty-Five
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters used in the Harry Potter books, they are the creations of JK Rowling. Furthermore I am in no way associated with JK Rowling, Bloomsbury books or any other Potter franchising machine.
Harry stared at the small alarm clock he'd salvaged from a pile of Dudley's old things, almost without blinking. Its broad LCD face showed the time in large green numbers. It was five-fifty-five in the morning and he'd been up since one. In the corner Hedgewig paced back and forth across her perch, perhaps she was uneasy because he was, or perhaps she too had seen the pale-looking girl. Someone grumbled in their sleep making him tense up and stare around the room wildly. His gaze settled back on the clock. It was six a.m. time to start on breakfast.
He showered and changed rapidly, knowing that his aunt would have a fit if she saw him cooking in slept-in clothes. He was soon dashing around the kitchen preparing the Dursley's morning meal. His hair clung to the back of his neck, wet from the shower, as he worked.
"You'll catch your death of cold if you don't dry properly." He swung around quickly, drawing his wand and pointing it at Abigail's fair haired head. She wasn't floating this time; instead she was sitting on the edge of the large breakfast table swinging her feet alternately. "Good morning." Was all she said, ignoring the wand tip that sat poised a few inches from her head.
"What do you want?" Without taking his eyes off her Harry reached behind him to move the frying pan from the heat, the metal on the handle felt cold and clammy against his skin.
"I think I'll get you a towel." She said absently, brushing past his raised wand arm and disappearing up the stairs. Almost as soon as she'd gone the fat in the frying-pan began to hiss and bubble again. Harry poked the bacon dubiously, at least it looked cooked. While he waited for the toast he filled three tall glasses with orange juice and set them on the table. Condensation suddenly misted across the glass in spiralling patterns. He looked around, knowing what to expect this time. He spun around slowly but saw no one, then, just as he was about to turn back he felt someone blowing on the back of his neck.
"I know you're there." He checked that his wand was still holstered in his pocket whilst trying to look normal.
"I know you know." She giggled, it sounded creepy. Harry turned to face her, but there wasn't anyone to face. Behind him someone blew on his neck.
"I don't have time for this."
"Why not!?" He spun quickly to face her, but it didn't look like she was planning to disappear again. She looked rather annoyed.
"I have to make breakfast for my aunt and uncle." Abigail but her hand's on her hip's and gave him a stony glare with her round blue eyes.
"Here's your towel Harry Potter." She held it at arms length, as though it were suddenly offensive and dropped it onto the table before vanishing.
He glanced at the clock; he'd wasted far too much time. Grabbing the toast out from under the grill he began to rush. He placed the first plate on the table just as Vernon entered. To Harry's surprise his uncle wasn't dressed for work, instead he was wearing a short sleeved shirt and shorts which showed off his flabby legs.
"Don't you have work?" He asked, he would have sounded more puzzled but after Abigail's two 'visits' he was already about as confused as he could possible.
"Phoned them yesterday and took the time off, there's enough work to do at home." His uncle's eyes narrowed suddenly. "What do you care anyway? Hoping I won't have time to batten-down the house before we leave? I assure you - the only rooms you'll get your paws on will be your own and the bathroom."
"I'll need to cook food." Harry argued; he could suddenly imagine being locked inside the house for the entire summer. Vernon nodded to a plastic bag on the work-top before delving into his breakfast. Harry twitched the bag open, inside was a gas-powered camping stove, two tins of camping gas and five packets of ready-to-go pancake mix.
"See," Said his uncle from behind the morning paper, "you've got all you need." At that point Petunia entered, closely followed by a bleary eyed Dudley. Harry dished out their breakfasts and they ignored him for the rest of the meal.
It had just gone ten 'o' clock when Hermione's mother knocked on her bedroom door.
"I really think it's time you got up… now 'Mione."
"I'm already awake." Came a voice from inside, in truth she'd been awake since seven.
"Well come and have some breakfast, I'm sure you don't eat enough half the time." Hermione sighed and slipped a sheet of paper into the book she'd been reading to mark her place.
"Okay, I'll be down in a moment."
"No you wont, you'll be down now." Hermione sighed again, her mother probably wanted to make sure she ate something before leaving for work.
"O-K Mother."
Five minutes later she entered the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee from the machine. Pulling up a chair she sat at the table and added milk to her drink a bit at a time, watching the patterns it made on the coffees dark surface.
"Hermione would you please hurry up."
"There's nothing to eat." She took a long sip from the drink, already anticipating her mothers reply.
"There's fruit on the side and bread in the bread bin. Honestly! I hope you're not this awkward at school." Hermione glared at the wooden fruit bowl before getting up and taking two apples. Her father walked past and patted her head.
"Say goodbye to your mother 'Mione."
"Goodbye to your mother… and don't call me 'Mione." Giving her a smile and a wave each her parents left for work, leaving her alone with the house. What people didn't realize, she thought to herself, is that behaving in school is one thing, you had to if you wanted good grades, but behaving at home was different.
Harry stood at the sink, eating a slice of toast with one hand and washing the dishes with the other. The Dursley's had spent especially long over breakfast this mourning. Mostly due to Petunia explaining about the paper weight she'd one as third prize in the 'Bi-Monthly Cross-wording Handbook's" prize word-a-thon. Harry found it quite amusing really, the only reason she'd started buying the book was because one of their neighbors had won the Christmas prize last year and got their picture in the local paper. There was silence for a moment, it seemed that they'd run out of conversation.
"What-is-that-thing-doing-on-my-table!" His aunt shrieked in one breath. Harry turned to see her pointing to the towel Abigail had fetched him.
"My hair was wet." He muttered, trying to make it sound as innocuous as possible.
"Do you really expect us to eat of a table that has had your dirty laundry draped across it?!" He resisted the urge to point out that they'd already eaten. "Well, what are you standing there for? Get rid of it - and wash the table." He could have always hinted at his friends warning's but he thought he'd save that trump-card for when he really needed it. He'd probably have ended up washing the table anyway; towel or no towel.
"Well come on Dudders, let's leave your aunt to her house work - there's DIY to be done." Dudley looked up from the television guide.
"Can I use the drill dad?" His piggy eyes were lit up with a deviant glee reserved for power tools, fireworks and chasing down Harry.
"I don't see why not." Said Vernon, he got up and left the room followed by Dudley.
Harry looked at the gleaming, newly washed table, and it really did gleam - he'd spent two hours scrubbing its wooden surface. He was beginning to think that it didn't matter whether the Dursley's made him do his chores or not, he still ended up doing them. He'd been drudging for them for so long that it now felt strange and alien not to. The sound of drilling drifted across the house, accompanied by the occasional chinking sound of metal on metal. Harry tiptoed out into the hallway to see how Vernon and Dudley's 'DIY' was progressing. Every door leading up to where they were now working had not one, but two heavy duty locks along with a thick bolt fastening it to the floor.
"What are you looking at?" Harry, who was leaning precariously around a corner jumped at the sudden voice. He flailed his arms wildly to stop from falling over and turned to see Abigail at the far side of the kitchen.
"Hi." He said rather sourly. Rather than drawing his wand he watched her warily.
"You know, I'd of thought that the boy who lived would have had a more interesting life." She came out from behind the table and he could see that she was floating again, her shoes just skimming the floor.
"Would have had?" Harry's hand moved closer to his wand, he looked like a gunslinger sizing up his opponent. "Don't talk about me like I'm dead."
"Sorry, it's just, well; it is so very hard to tell sometimes." She put her head on one side and looked at him more closely for a moment. "You're not scared of me are you?" Her gaze fell on his wand-hand which was inching closer and closer to his wand.
"No."
"I think you are."
"I'm not."
"Well either way, you shouldn't be." She landed with a click of her heals and began to walk towards him. As she got closer she ran a finger over the table's damp surface leaving a trail of frost behind. "Because." She took another step. "I'm." And another. "Not," another, "very" another - "scary." As she said the last word she leant forwards and kissed him lightly on his cheek. It felt like he'd been plunged into an icy lake in the middle of December.
Dudley walked into the kitchen, swinging the cordless drill in one hand whilst whirring it tunelessly. He got as far as the fridge and then noticed Harry, standing and looking dumbstruck.
"What's up with you?" He asked, while pointing a podgy finger accusingly. "You on drugs or something?" Harry gave him a dirty look, and felt rewarded when his cousin looked a little nervous. There was an untrustworthy silence between them. Harry could almost see the cogs whirring between Dudley's ears, weighing up the situation.
"Dad! Harry looks weird and is on drugs!" There was a moment's pause from the hallway where Vernon was working.
"He's weird all the time Dudley… and don't use that 'd' word, the neighbours might hear you." Dudley shrugged stupidly, opened the fridge and balled a handful of miniature cheese snacks in his unoccupied hand. Despite what had just happened with the strange girl Harry smiled mockingly at Dudley, who turned and walked out. Speaking of the strange girl, where was she? "Oh, and you boy! Go to your room!" Vernon added as an after thought.
"What for?!" Pleaded Harry.
"Not being normal." Swearing under his breath Harry marched up the stairs, taking the opportunity to see how far his uncles 'reinforcements' had progressed.
Hermione sat in the middle of her living room. Around her were the contents of her school trunk, which she was sorting it into piles. Beside her was an old clipboard with a neatly drawn out list clipped to it. The list was divided into three columns: will need, might need and won't need. She picked up her knitting needles, which had a ball of wool wrapped around them. Pursing her lips slightly she added them to the 'will need' pile and made a note of it on the paper. Crookshanks, who had been loitering in the shadows behind the door promptly pounced and began to unravel to wool. Next she began to flick through a pile of loose parchment, putting most of it into 'won't need'. Something caught her eye, the piece of paper she was currently looking at had 'note to self, phone Harry' scrawled across it.She turned it over - written across the back was Harry's phone number. Smiling a little she folded it and slipped it into her pocket for safe keeping.
Harry sat in his room thumbing through a defence against the dark arts book which was left over from his first year at Hogwarts. He'd of liked something more substantial but all of his recent books were locked beneath the stairs. So far he hadn't found anything that remotely described Abigail. Rubbing his eyes he set the book down and picked up the letter he'd written to Ron the night before. He scanned it quickly, there were a few spelling mistakes but Ron would get the gist of it easily enough.
"Up to sending a letter to Ron?" He asked Hedgewig who was dozing quietly. The owl blinked at him and fluffed her feathers as he went through the rigmarole of fastening the parchment for a safe flight. Soon he was watching her speed into late afternoon sky.