Harry Potter and the Malevolent Affections
Chapter Four - Toast
Disclaimer - I'm not JK Rowling, I didn't create the characters used in the Harry Potter series and I am in no way related to the Harry Potter series.
When Harry awoke the next morning, it was with a splitting headache and dead on six a.m. Dutifully he dragged himself from bed and prepared for the day. His eyes were bloodshot and his mouth tasted of stale beer and dryness. Slowly he plodded downstairs, every step stoking his hang-over to new levels of unpleasantness. He slotted a piece of bread into the toaster and waited, with a grating clang that made him wince it delivered a slice of burnt toast. He took a bite and chewed methodically. After a few more mouthfuls he began to feel better and loaded the toaster for a second time. As the bread cooked he remembered that he'd had no real food last night, the toast popped up and he loaded two more pieces before starting on the Dursley's morning meal.
After putting the three plates of fried breakfast on the table he slumped against the worktop. He debated going back to bed but the thought of climbing the stairs made him nauseas. Groggily he checked the time on the kitchen clock. Strange, his uncle should have been down by now. Something pushed its way to the front of his clouded mind. Abigail, last night… and her offer to kill his family! In a panic he pushed himself off the worktop and looked for the knife wildly.
Vernon came lumbering into the kitchen. Harry's uncle was a mixture of unhealthy colours, his nose was dark red and the rest of his face was a pasty-pale grey. Clearly Harry wasn't the only person in the house to have drunk too much. With a deliberate almost Neanderthal slowness the man began to eat, suddenly he spat explosively, covering Harry in scrambled egg.
"It's cold! The ruddy breakfast is cold! Are you trying to poison me?" Vernon tried to stand but didn't seem able to yell and walk at the same time. He wobbled and then fell back into the chair.
"It's cold," said Harry holding his aching head, "because you're almost half-an-hour late." He didn't have the energy to yell so he spoke flatly and to the point.
"Since when is it your place to tell me; what time I eat my food, in my house at my damn table?!" Vernon brought his fist down heavily, it landed on top of the plate instead of beside it. Dudley sidled into the room trying to avoid the argument by keeping his bulky body as small as possible. He reached out and snatched a piece of Harry's ex-toast and bit into it loudly.
"Dad this toast is burnt! I hate burnt toast! Make him do it again!" Vernon's bleary eyes slipped from Harry to Dudley and then back again. He pulled his hand from the mess of bacon, egg and tomato and stood slowly, leaning on the table.
"I'll be back in ten minutes, if you don't have breakfast redone by then - with all the bloody trimmings - I'll make you wish you felt twice as bad as I do. Clear?"
Harry held his uncles gaze for what seemed like forever, but it was closer to sixty seconds. As a final act of triumph Vernon flipped the plate over, spilling its congealed contents to the floor.
"Clear?" He asked again. Harry watched the breakfast slowly ooze and settle into a greasy puddle. White-hot anger billowed into his mind, curdling with the great ache already there. He took his hands off his head and forced them down by his sides.
"Make-your-own-damn-breakfast!" He said, gritting his teeth in a rage.
"I will do no such thing." Vernon's jowls quivered. "Dudley - fetch me your Smelting's stick." Harry laughed, he was in trouble, and he knew it - but all he could do was laugh. It was absurd to the point of non-realism, they were going to beat him because they'd gone out last night, drank too much, and were now late getting up. They were going to beat him - Harry - the boy who lived. The boy who'd saved their ignorant hides from the darkest wizard of all time. And to think, he'd been worried about them moments earlier.
"I was right, wasn't I?" Said a level voice behind him. Harry stopped laughing and saw that the entire room had frozen. Nothing was moving. Vernon was poised, open mouthed and ready to yell more instructions. But he wasn't moving.
"Abigail?" He asked, although he already knew the answer. She floated to where she could face him, her hands on her hips.
"You see? I was only trying to help. These people, these Dursley's of yours, they're horrible, horrible muggles. And now they're going to beat you." She tore a strip of paper from the kitchen roll and began to wipe the pieces of egg from Harry's face. He batted her hand away - her bare skin freezing his arm. "I can still help you my little bird."
"I don't want anyone bloody well killed." He winced; all the yelling had made his head ten times worse. Abigail reached out slowly and caught his face in her slender hand.
"Look at me Harry Potter." He stared into her eyes, unable to help himself. They were cold, hard eyes - there was no joy or happiness in her gaze, just a frozen sort of emptiness; she was bleak, beguiling and suddenly seemed one of the most stunning people he'd ever seen. Slowly he felt the pain in his head ebb away. Icy electricity seemed to shoot across his face, driving away the pounding ache and replacing it with a vacant chill. "Better?" He nodded dumbly. "Now - let's sort out this mess shall we?" She flicked her fingers towards his uncle and cousin who were still frozen to the spot.
"How?" He stepped out of her reach wondering what he could do if she decided to kill them after all.
"Simple little bird, I'll knock them out like before, and then you'll carry them back to their rooms. They'll wake up a little while later and think it's all been a dream." Before Harry could say anything she pointed a finger at Vernon and he fell to the floor with a thud.
"They can't both have the same dream. It'd be suspicious." Abigail frowned at him.
"Your uncle doesn't believe in dreams and even if he did he wouldn't talk about them to anyone else." She pointed a Dudley, who immediately hit the floor, still holding the burnt toast. "Now, get to work my little bird - I have cleaning to do."
An hour later Harry was sitting in the living room drinking coffee. His arms were wrenched from carrying Vernon and then Dudley up the stairs but it was done. Abigail had shoed him out of the kitchen when he'd tried to help so he'd left her to it. From what he'd seen pots, pans and soap-suds were all flying around at high speeds.
"Finished," She stood in the door way, not a hair out of place despite all the work she'd been doing.
"Thanks - I owe you one."
"I was rather hoping you'd say that." There was a definite edge of devilry in her voice, nothing certain, just a little touch of appeal.
"Why?" He stared at her and put down the coffee - it had suddenly gone from being too hot to just above freezing.
"Take me somewhere nice Harry."
Hermione lay on her neatly kept garden lawn. It was around eleven a.m. and she was sun bathing, or, rather, trying to. The problem was the people next door were out gardening and it was making her feel self-conscious. After a few more minutes she gave up and walked back to the house. Just as she entered the phone rang - evidently someone had found it and returned it to its proper place.
"Hello." Her mother's voice came through the speaker. "No mum I don't want you to bring me a take away - I can get my own lunch… Yeah I know… Uh-huh… well the cookers on so I need to go - bye." She threw herself onto the old armchair that lived in the hall. It was getting harder and harder to think of a way to escape the impending holiday. She pressed the redial button on the phone (Harry's number was still stored as the last call). Thoughtfully she pressed the button again and waited for an answer.
Harry was still in the living room. Abigail had long since done her disappearing act so he was alone, and more than a little confused. The Dursley's, it seemed, were still deeply under their magically induced sleep. He was beginning to worry. The phone began to ring out in the hall. He ignored it, no one would be calling him - all his friends were probably out having fun. It kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing. With a sigh he ran into the hall and yanked the receiver off of its rest.
"Yes?" Hopefully it was someone selling something and then he could use it as an excuse to vent his spleen at them.
"Hello is that Harry? Harry Potter?" The voice from the other end sounded clever, authoritative and above all familiar. For a long time he didn't say anything. "Hello?"
"Hi, you are Hermione, right?" He was surprised - but it was a nice surprise.
"Well as far as I know you only gave two people your phone number, and I hardly sound like Ron Weasly." They both laughed.
"How are you?" Harry sat cross-legged on the floor, preparing for a long stay. They talked about everything. From the homework they'd been set to their plans for next year. She was bored and he was fed-up, it made for good conversation. Eventually the topic came around to the convention Hermione was trying to avoid. Harry hardly needed to think before coming up with an answer.
"Tell them you're staying here - the Dursley's are off on some holiday so it'll just be you and me." He paused for a moment before blurting out "… and Ron too." Suddenly he felt stupid, it sounded as though he'd been trying to get her alone someplace. He waited for, or perhaps dreaded, a response.
"You're sure it's okay? I don't want either of us to end up in trouble."
"It'll be fine… well apart from the ghost but she's harmless." He decided it was best to steer around the subject of Abigail. He felt he understood the slim, pale girl - but other people might not.
"You have a ghost… since when? Harry that could be really dangerous...." Hermione felt herself slipping back into the 'responsible role' she adopted during term time.
"Why? The Hogwarts ghosts are fine - trust me she's nice really." From the other end of the phone he heard a sigh.
"I've read books Harry - ghosts have been known to do terrible things to people. The ministry has to keep tabs on all of them."
"That's just what people like Umbridge think." He heard footsteps upstairs. "- Sorry but I need to go - I'll write to you with more details - bye."
"Bye Harry." He put the phone down and looked to the kitchen, wondering whether to cook breakfast or start lunch.
He'd do bacon sandwiches, he decided, it was a mixture of both and reasonably easy to prepare. As long as he remembered to put extra bacon in Dudley's and cut the fat off of his aunt's. When Vernon appeared at the bottom of the stairs he looked far readier to face the day than he had earlier, Harry breathed a silent sigh of relief when he realised that apart from a severe case of deja-vou the man was fine. Dudley was also fine but the extra sleep seemed to have doubled his appetite and he rudely demanded more food.
Abigail peered at the reasonably happy family plus Harry through the kitchen window. They couldn't see her, she was completely invisible - but some muggles seemed to have the ability to perceive despite any magic she performed. When Petunia had entered the room Abigail has been sure the woman knew she was there - but it turned out she was only looking at a thorny rose bush next to her. Her plan had worked well she thought to herself. Even now they didn't seem to realise that their drinks the night before had been spiked to five times the normal strength.
Harry walked back and forth, cleaning this and washing that - from her point of view it was almost comical. She'd set out to capture a hero and he acted more like a slave. But he was strong - there was something about him. Something that forced her to use all her wiles and cunning just to creep a few inches closer, but in time he would fall for her - in time he would fool, maim and kill for her.
Hermione sat in her room knee deep in old dusty books. After her phone call to Harry she'd rushed to change and then caught the bus to the local library. Everything they'd had on ghosts was now rented out between her, her mothers and her father's library accounts. Maybe it was because she was bored and her brain was in need of exercise - but she had a bad feeling about Harry's ghost. She knew he wasn't telling her something, she could read her friends almost as well as the books around her - especially Harry.