Chapter 2

Two weeks since Harry had found the egg, and he was still performing the same dreary occupation. Harry groaned as he bent to pull the last weed from the garden. It was uncanny how they kept on growing, no matter how many times he would pull. For every one that he pulled, three to four more weeds would pop up in its place. Harry had a suspicion that Petunia would sneak into the garden at the middle of the night and replant them, just to give him something to do the next day. He was sorely tempted to grab his wand from the safe and hex the damn weeds to hell and back, ministry or no ministry. If he never saw another weed in his life it would be too soon. The damn things were more bothersome than Voldemort. The next time he and Moldybutts dueled, all old Snake Skin had to do was throw a bag of weeds at him, or Dudley, and he would go running in the other direction. The magical world could defend itself. They never had to pull weeds by hand.

He could almost see the headlines now, HARRY POTTER DEFEATED BY WEEDS? Article by Rita Skeeter. Snickering, Harry continued to weed the garden without hexing them. Well, he knew Snapes' next birthday present. He wondered what Snape thought of weeds? Smiling, Harry thought back to a certain weed and the egg that came with it.

Flashback

Harry threw down his pen, one of the wonders of muggle inventions, and stretched. Finally, he was done with his potions essay. Getting up from the hand-me-down desk, he approached the box that held the plant and the egg. He watched as the sun made the petals of the flowers glisten and shine. He was not going to touch it again, he had learned his lesson regarding that.

It was then Harry heard it; it was like something out of a horror movie. Yes, despite the Dursleys' best attempts to keep him uncultured, he did know what a movie was. He could hear it, first a thump, then a pause¦ thump¦ thump¦ pause again¦ thump¦ pause.
Harry raised an eyebrow and glanced at his glass of water. With every thump, the water in the glass would vibrate, and each thump would shake the water more so than the last. Anyone with a sense of wit knew what was coming, and anyone with a sense of wit knew what to do next.

Without hesitation, he went around the room and hid anything that resembled magic and anything else that his relatives might consider "unnatural."

He had just finished hiding the last of his things when the door to his room burst open, and there, for all his glory, stood the great white whale. Or, if you took in his squished face and his snout like nose, the great round pig. Harry snickered at the thought and watched as Dudley caught his breath from the short walk up the stairs.

"Hey freak," Dudley grunted as he tried to squeeze his way through the door opening. All of Harry's self control went to controlling the urge to laugh out loud at Dudley's entering strategy. "Dad wants to," he paused pathetically here to catch his breath, "wants to talk to you." As he pushed through the door he squealed, actually squealed! Harry's left eye twitched as he stifled his laughter. His eyes were watering and his body was shaking from the effort it took, and after a while, it seemed that he had finally got his laughter under control. He watched as Dudley explored his little room. He was really starting to worry about the condition of his floor, for every time Dudley took a step, the wood would moan as if it were in pain; it probably was.

"What's this? Freak!" He added the last "freak" as if it was an afterthought, as if he had to think about it. Harry glanced at him and all the color was flushed from his face in a matter of milliseconds. Dudley was poking at the plant on his desk, the plant that Harry had somehow managed to forget about. He tried to think of a distraction to grab Dudley's attention, but he didn't have to bother. "It's a weed!" Dudley threw his head back and laughed, exposing his many jiggling chins. Harry felt slightly sick at the sight; "I always knew you were a freak!" He turned and walked away, squeezing his way out of the room and leaving a very white-faced and confused Harry behind.

Harry could only guess that it was the creatures in the egg that had disguised what the plant really looked like from Dudley. He was now certain that he did not want whatever was in that egg to hatch.

End flashback

Harry stood up and looked around the garden; finally he was done. He felt like dancing around the garden with joy; he almost started dancing, but then the phone rang. Groaning, he walked into the house, but not before removing his dirt-covered shoes; he didn't want to dirty Petunia's nice clean floor with his grubby shoes, now did he? Yeah…right. After making sure that he had removed all the dirt from his person as best as he could, he answered the phone.

"Dursley residents, how may I help you?" Harry thought that he sounded like an answering machine or, more precisely, a suicidal secretary, but the Dursleys thought otherwise. They thought that he sounded refined.

"BOY!" Oh, bloody hell! He knew that voice.

Harry replied in a monotone voice. "Hello Aunt Marge. How can I help you on this fine evening?" Harry wanted to wash his mouth out with raw soap after that last bit. This forced politeness was a form of torture that the Dursleys employed on him.

"Don't take that tone with me boy!" Harry pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it with raised eyebrows. "You ungrateful little hooligan, go get your uncle. You should be so lucky to have ended up with him. If it had been me, I would I have sent you to an orphanage, you little horror. You-" Harry rolled his eyes and placed the phone on the table top. If there was anyone who was worse than Vernon, it was Marge. Harry could still hear her talking about ungrateful little brats when he went to get Vernon, who he found sitting on the coach reading the business section of the newspaper. Dudley was sitting on the other end of the couch watching the telly.

Harry waited a bit before he cleared his throat to get his uncles attention; Vernon lowered the paper to glare hatefully at his abnormal nephew. The look said, in plain language, "How dare the little snot interrupt me?"

"What do you want boy!" Harry could feel his face as it first went ashen then turned green. It was gross, really gross. He had to take a few breaths to keep himself from throwing up. "Well boy, what is it?"

Harry grimaced as he watched the spit fly from Vernon's mouth and down his many chins. The only thing that came to Harry's mind was cruel and unusual punishment. Trying not to actually look at him, Harry relayed the message. "Your sister's on the phone asking for you, sir."

Grumbling, Vernon struggled to get up and answer the phone. Harry's left eye twitched as he watched Vernon thrash about to get up. It was almost as bad as watching Vernon give his chins a shower with his spit. While the spit shower was gross, beyond reason gross, the picture of Vernon's body jiggling as he stood up was an equally disturbing image.

Shuddering, Harry pushed both images out of his mind and looked at Dudley, who was still watching TV; some American show called Wheel-of-Fortune. Truthfully, Harry thought that the only shows that should be allowed on television were news.

Vernon came stomping into the room, his steps shaking the ground a little bit, and the pictures on the wall rattled. Harry could hear the dishes and silvery clink and clang in the cupboards. It was amazing really, that both Dudley and Vernon were able to shake the ground just by walking. That had to break at least one of the rules of physics. Vernon's face was purple as he stomped up to Harry; large thick veins seemed to pop out of his almost nonexistent neck.

"Boy!" and here comes the spit shower again; Harry thought that he just might prefer to see Vernon struggle to stand up again, at least then he was safe from flying missiles of spit.

"Yes uncle?"

"Marge is sick and so she can't take care of her dogs, she's going to need help. She requested that she had help sent over immediately, but she didn't want your freakish self there, not that I blame her, but that means we have to leave you here by yourself. We already asked Mrs. Figg to watch you, but she just now informed us that she would not be around to. So while you are here, you are to follow the same rules as you do now. You got that boy?"

"Yes Uncle Vernon."

"Good, now go and help your Aunt pack."

Harry kept his face normal as he walked into the kitchen and thanked whatever god that was watching him.

A/N:

You guys have better thank my betta reader, if it wasnt for her, i would have never been able to repost all this.

OH! and Foz, just want to say thanks for being the most dedicated reader/reviewer i have, this whole story is dedicated to both my beta reader and you Foz.