Unfortunately, talks with Albus didn't go as well as planned. Despite Nymmy's protests - which she did a great deal of, by the way - I'm afraid you're stuck there until August. I don't know what I can do to help you out... I do hope you can get out every so often and pay us a visit, even if it's a short one.
Don't worry too much, though. Albus said that ifanythinghappens to you again over there, he'll personally stop by and have a few choice words with the Dursleys. And the two of us are quite busy working on the plan to get you out of there once the time comes. I've got a fairly simple, yet hopefully effective plan worked out.
Nymmy would have written you herself, but I'm afraid she's been feeling pretty upset since the talk with Dumbledore. She wasn't very happy with him, as I'm sure you're not. Hold on, Harry. You'll be out and enjoying your birthday cake before you know it. Hope you don't mind a late party. Take care of yourself.
- Andromeda
Harry stared down at the letter, re-reading it numerous times before letting out a sigh and collapsing backwards onto his bed. Hedwig had delivered the letter to him early on the morning of the eleventh. Harry had written a short reply, saying that a month might take too long, because his Aunt Marge was coming by on the 20th of July to stay with them for awhile.
Harry loathed Marge with a fury he had only felt on a few occasions. It was mostly because, while his uncle would manhandle him, any injuries were kept to places not readily visible if he were to step outside. But Aunt Marge liked to get drunk... and when that happened, Harry suffered, because she didn't care where he was struck.
It was almost strange, in a way. Whenever Marge was around, Vernon had an odd tendency to stick up for him. Harry just figured he wanted to be the only one that got to throw him around. One time, Marge had outright decked Harry, giving him a beauty of a black eye. Vernon had ranted at the woman for well over an hour after that, covering a wide variety of topics. Mostly having to do with what people would think if they saw him like that. Above all, the Dursleys didn't wish for anyone to think that they were strange in the least.
It didn't really stop Marge, of course. She would still cause Harry bodily harm. She was actually larger than Vernon, so he couldn't very well just fight her off. In addition, even if he could, she usually always brought along one of the many dogs she owned. If he ever got out of striking distance, she would send the dog after Harry. He had been stuck up a tree for almost six hours one day because of one of Marge's stupid little pets.
Not for the first time, Harry cursed AlbusDumbledore's name.
Glaring up at the ceiling, Harry couldn't help but go over the reasons why Dumbledore had taken the wizarding staff he had used to kill the basilisk. The headmaster had claimed that it was far too powerful for a teenager to keep and wield regularly. He had claimed that it wouldn't be safe for Harry to take the Staff of Ravenclaw back to Number Four with him. Harry briefly smirked at the thought. No one in the house would dare even look at him cross if he had Ravenclaw's staff with him. But then, he even couldn't promise himself that he would keep them alive.
Standing, Harry walked over to the window, letting his head thump against it. He had always wished that something bad would come and happen to his relatives, as far back as he could remember, anyway. He wanted them to hurt like he had hurt. He wanted them to suffer like he had suffered. Normally, such dark thoughts would never even get close to Harry's mind. But his so-called family was a different matter entirely. If some random serial killer busted loose from prison and murdered them all in their sleep, Harry would celebrate.
But there was nothing to do about it. Such thoughts would remain as thoughts. He was powerless so long as he was in their 'care.' Harry doubted that the Ministry would let slide the use of magic, even if it was to save his own life. Harry made a mental note to ask Andromeda about that kind of thing. If the Ministry didn't allow the use of magic to save one's own life if one just happened to still be underaged... then the Ministry could go jump in a bloody lake!
Why did the blood magic even matter? Hadn't Harry proven himself on two seperate occasions that he could take care of himself? Why the hell would Dumbledore knowingly stick him back into a place where he lost that power! Why would he repeatedly force Harry back to Number Four, knowing that he had no way of defending himself?
Everyone always told him that Dumbledore was possibly the greatest living wizard of their age. Harry couldn't see why. Only on one occasion had Harry seen the man even do anything to solve a problem, and that was back in his first year at the school. Harry had been the one to save the Philosopher's Stone! Harry had been the one to kill the basilisk and remove Riddle's memory from existance! Why was he being treated like a criminal?
Then and there, Harry made a promise to himself. The Dursleys would never lay their fingers on him again. Ministry or not, blood magic or not, Albus blasted Dumbledore or not... he would fight back and leave if anyone tried to attack him! He had the power to fight back, now that he knew how to focus and channel it. He would deal with the consequences as they came. With a smirk that looked entirely out of place on his face, Harry walked back to his bed and laid back down onto it. Let Marge come. If she raised her hand, she would be given much worse than a black eye in return.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
The problem with his plan, Harry thought, a few days later after Marge had arrived, was that he had no access to his wand. The Dursleys always locked his trunk up in the cabinet where he had spent most of his life living in. Harry wasn't sure of where the key was. He wasn't going to leave his property behind - he had very important things inside of it! His dad's cloak, the shard of the Philosopher's Stone, all of the stuff he had been given for birthdays and Christmases in the past two years. All of it was inside.
Thankfully, through some kind of nod from the fates, Marge hadn't brought along one of her little hellbeasts this time. She had, however, brought enough liquor with her to sauce a small nation.
Harry had kept to his room for the most part and things had been going remarkably well. And that had Harry worried. Whenever something good happened to him, chances were that something bad was going to follow it up. And Harry's bad luck was worse than most. Not to say being trapped in a house with four people who routinely saw to it that he got brutalized was lucky, per se, but he hadn't been flung down the stairs yet. So that, at least, was something.
The most annoying part, at least in Harry's eyes, was the fact that he hadn't been able to talk to his uncle alone yet. Harry had been smart enough to at least get the Hogsmeade permission slip out of his trunk. He had shortly kicked himself for not grabbing his wand, as well. Harry had a good story in place, too. After all, he really didn't have a whole lot else to do in his room. Couldn't read any books, since they were in his trunk. Same went for homework. He came out to eat and do whatever chores the Dursleys wanted him to do, and that was about it.
Finally, on the night of the 25th, Harry managed to corner his uncle as the man came from the upstairs bathroom, grumbling about Marge always occupying the one downstairs.
"U-Uncle Vernon? I... um..." Harry began. He hated how he acted around his relatives, but he couldn't exactly help it. He always stuttered around them, no matter how 'normal' he could talk during the rest of the year. It was something that over a decade of abuse had bashed into him.
"What is it, boy?" Vernon snapped, glaring down at Harry.
"I... the school, you see, they're... they thought..." Harry started. Feeling frustrated at that point, he shoved the Hogsmeade permission form out in front of him.
"And what is that?" Vernon asked, looking from Harry to the paper.
"The... the headmaster thinks I... I need to be punished more often... I didn't want to show you this, b-but he'd be horrible if I didn't..." Harry began. One part of him, for the briefest of moments, thanked his annoying stutter. It helped make him sound even more pathetic than he was going for. "Please don't sign it, though! I-If you do, they'll... they'll beat me every day...!"
As expected, a bright glimmer flashed through his uncle's eyes. Reaching out carefully, as if the paper might come to life and eat his hand, Vernon took the form from Harry. Harry thanked the fates for the fact that the permission form kept things mercifully vague.
"Beat you, eh?" Vernon drawled, flipping the paper over to check the back. "And what type of beatings would these be?"
"Y-You don't want to know... i-it involves the... the 'M' word..." Harry muttered, staring down at the ground, shuddering. The shudder came from Harry imagining what the Dursleys could have done to him if they had been wizards. It wasn't a pretty thought.
"I see... Only fitting, I suppose." Vernon said, smiling nastily. "Well, you tell your headmaster that you will go to this... this place... any time they see fit to send you there!"
"N-No!" Harry said, trying his best to sound frightened. "P-Please, Uncle Vernon, don't... don't sign it...!"
"Quiet!" Roared Vernon, who vanished into the master bedroom for a minute. When he returned, he shoved the permission form back to Harry and, chuckling quietly, turned and headed downstairs. A moment later, Harry heard the banging on a door, followed by his uncle yelling, "MARGE! Stop running up our water bill!"
Harry glanced down at the permission form, smirking as he spun around to run back into his bedroom. Not only were his relatives complete idiots, they were gullible idiots, to boot! Lifting up a loose piece of floorboard that he had found one night, Harry put the permission form into his little hiding spot. No one would find it now!
Walking over to the desk, Harry picked up the tiny nub of a pencil that he had found under the dresser. And, on a spare piece of paper, he crossed off yet another day on the makeshift calendar he had drawn up. Less than a week... Less than a week and he would be able to escape. He would be able to be close to Tonks again. It was the only thing keeping him going through all of Marge's drunken screechfests and item throwing. Harry hadn't known that he was capable of dodging a waffle iron lobbed at high speeds. But sure enough, he had leapt to one side and dodged the heavy machine. It flew past and shattered a mirror that Petunia kept on the wall so she could primp her hair after eating. Unfortunately, Harry took the most of his aunt's anger, but she was so wiry that he only wound up with a few bruises. Thankfully, she hadn't tried attacking him with the broken shards of glass.
No, that was more along the lines of something that Marge would've probably tried.
Flopping down in bed, Harry closed his eyes. All things considered, his plan had gone rather well. When beatings were involved, his uncle was quick to decision, that was for sure. Harry just couldn't see how the man had believed his awful acting. He would never become a big movie star, that was for sure. He was simply terrible at crying on command.
But it didn't matter. All that did was that he and Tonks would be together again soon. Just thinking about her made him feel better. If he could manage to slip into a daydream or, better yet, fall asleep completely, he could sometimes almost smell her again. Last day of the previous year, she had been smelling of cinnamon, almost. It was a soothing sort of thing to think about. Harry needed all the soothing things he could get at the moment.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
"What?"
"You heard your uncle!" Petunia snapped, trying to button Dudley's shirt. "We've been invited to a special dinner with the president of Grunnings! Marge will be watching you until we get back, so you behave yourself!"
"Oh, don't worry." Marge said, taking a sip from a flask she always seemed to have handy when a bottle of alcohol wasn't present. "I can handle the filthy little freak just fine."
"Well, see to it that he doesn't break anymore of my mirrors, at the least!" Petunia said, glaring at Harry. For his part, Harry glared back and thought that statement was entirely unfair. He hoped against hope that his relatives would get into some kind of horrible car wreck... but that left him alone with Marge, and she was almost worse than both his aunt and uncle combined. It was a lose-lose situation and Harry knew it.
Scowling, he turned away and watched Vernon comb his mustache, trying to get it even on both sides. When Petunia ushered Dudley over, the three said their goodbyes to Marge and headed out the front door. Harry stared at the door for awhile, listening as the car started up, backed out of the driveway, and took off down the road. He then looked aside at Marge, who was nursing a shot glass of something amber-colored. Harry wasn't sure where she had gotten it.
"Get up to your room!" She suddenly snapped, peering over her shoulder.
"Yes, Aunt Marge." Harry said, turning and walking up the stairs. If she wanted him away, it was just fine by Harry. The less he had to be around the drunkard, the better. He wanted to be in her presense as much as she wanted to be in his.
Closing his door, Harry walked over to his calendar and, glancing outside briefly, crossed out the final day - the 31st. He hadn't received any owls with presents, but he suspected he knew the reason why. He was sure that, even though she couldn't get him out for a month, Andromeda had at least made sure that he wouldn't get in trouble for a flock of birds showing up at all hours of the day.
With nothing better to do, Harry crawled into bed, staring up at the ceiling once more. It was a thoroughly boring and oftentimes depressing pasttime, but it helped him get to sleep on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, with his escape the next day dancing in his mind, he just wasn't tired. His mind kept going over ways that the Tonks women could break him out of Number Four. He was personally hoping that they busted in through the front door, firing spells left and right... but he didn't honestly expect that little dream to come true.
So lost in thought was he that he didn't notice his bedroom door opening. Nor did he notice the footsteps of someone approaching. Only after a few moments of having the person looming over him did he open his eyes. It was just in time to get smashed dead in the nose by the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
Letting out a pained cry and clutching his face, Harry quickly rolled off his bed on the side that Marge wasn't standing - or rather, wobbling - on. He could feel the blood flowing over his skin and into his mouth. He was also pretty sure his nose was completely broken, given that he was having trouble seeing, the pain was so great. Even in their worst hours, his other relatives didn't break his bones.
"What do you want?" Harry hissed, glaring violently at the large woman.
"Tsk tsk... that's no way to talk to your superiors..." Marge spat, her voice slurring with every 'S' she came across. "You little brat... how dare you speak to me like that!"
"Get out of my room!" Harry growled. "Now!"
"Or you'll do what?" Marge asked, smiling stupidly. Holding her arms out - the bloody whiskey bottle still clutched in one - she laughed. "You have nowhere to go."
Indeed, she was right in that regard. She was so fat that he'd never be able to get around her and out of his room. On the up side, she only had the bottle as far as weaponry went, and Harry knew that he could leap the bed and escape into the hallway before she could waddle around his bed. She could throw the bottle at him, but his finely-tuned Quidditch reflexes would help him easily avoid something like that. Harry wasn't sure what Marge was planning, but it didn't seem to be very well thought-out.
"I SAID GET OUT!" Harry hissed, this time literally, at Marge.
Marge blinked, squinting to get a better look at Harry. She glanced briefly to the bottle of whiskey. After eyeballing the bottle, she shrugged and took a swig from it, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Get over here, boy."
"No." Harry said. His nose was still bleeding and there really wasn't much he could do about it. He couldn't exactly squeeze it shut - he was in enough pain as is. And besides, the blood would probably just back up and go directly down his throat instead. He was swallowing enough blood as is, having nowhere to spit it out.
Marge started her move around Harry's bed. And, once he was sure she couldn't get to him on either side of it, Harry leapt onto and over the bed. But the fates had decided that Harry had been lucky enough for one month, apparently. Marge hadn't moved the way Harry thought she was going to. Apparently, she wasn't drunk enough to keep her from noticing the obvious escape route she had given him access to.
She had ahold of his right arm in one hand and was taking wild swings with the bottle using her other. Whiskey sloshed out the open top, splashing on everything in the area. Harry tried wrenching himself free from her grasp, but her hand was like a vicegrip on him. With no other means of attack, Harry did the only thing he could think of - he kicked her.
His foot came up and connected with the bottom of the woman's large stomach, causing her to gag and stagger backwards. This also caused her to release her grip on Harry, who shot off into the hallway and quickly got downstairs. Harry prayed that his horrible aunt would just trip and fall down the steps as she gave chase. At the very least, she would hopefully break a leg or something.
As he wheeled around and headed into the living room, he had to duck to avoid the whiskey bottle. Marge had made a disturbingly accurate fling from the top of the stairs. The bottle shattered just behind the living room couch, which Harry was quick to leap over to put more distance between himself and Marge, who was steadily lumbering downstairs.
Eyes darting about the slightly darkened room, Harry saw bottles of liquor everywhere he looked. Still holding his nose with one hand, he grabbed a random bottle with the other and threw it with all of his might at his aunt. Marge got her arms up in time to stop it, and Harry's throw hadn't been enough to cause the glass to break. What it did do, however, was cause Marge to get even more enraged that she already had been.
Letting out a horrible roar of sorts, Marge charged into the living room, grabbed a few of her liquor bottles, and began lobbing them at Harry. Harry, at the other end of the room, was ducking repeatedly to avoid being struck. He never had been much good at aiming; probably was the reason he wasn't a Chaser.
Unfortunately, Marge was also deceptively fast at hurling things, as a rogue bottle of brandy crashed into his forehead, causing him to stagger back and collapse to the floor. Feeling quite dazed and still in pain from his broken nose, Harry tried getting back up, only to topple over again. While Harry was doing this, Marge took the opportunity to stalk closer, two fresh bottles in hand.
So this was it? Harry inwardly laughed through the pain. He had stopped Voldemort three times in his life - once as a baby and twice at Hogwarts in various forms. And now a drunken fat woman was going to kill him by bludgeoning him with 40-proof? Something was innately wrong about the whole situation.
Marge stormed up to him and, in a still-drunken voice, cried, "I never did like you, you horrible boy! You took after your mother, that foolish bitch!"
Harry's eyes focused at the mention of his mother.
"Showing off as if she were the queen! Thinking she was so much better than everyone else just because of her unholy powers! Running off with that boy and getting themselves killed! They both deserved it! Why did you have to survive and ruin Petunia's life?" Marge howled.
"Don't you talk about my mother and father like that..." Harry hissed, backpeddling across the floor and broken glass. Staggering to his feet, he growled, "You didn't know either of them! None of you did!"
"I will talk about them as I see fit, boy!" Marge screeched, throwing a bottle at Harry, who ducked to one side, causing it to smash into the wall behind him.
"And don't you ever call my mother that again, you fat cow." Harry spat, his eyes narrowing. His vision was still awful, and he was still in a lot of pain,
but he had enough energy for this, at least. He wasn't going to just lay there and let his parents be insulted in front of him.
"Fat cow?" Marge screamed, brandishing her remaining bottle like a samurai sword and storming forward. "How DARE you, boy!"
As she approached, Marge raised the bottle in preperation to strike. But she never got that chance. A number of things began to happen, of which Harry would remember none of afterwards. The first thing that happened was that his aunt almost seemed to freeze in place, mid-scream and all. Then the bottle fell to the floor and shattered. Her eyes grew wide... and the rest of her followed suit. She was already a large woman, but she was rapidly growing larger, almost ballooning out. Her feet left the ground and she began to float upwards, bumping her head against the ceiling.
Two things happened after that. Harry was only dimly aware that a door had opened somewhere close by. All of the anger, the frustration, and all of the pain he had been going through were all flowing out of him at that moment. And unfortunately, Marge was playing the unwilling victim.
Her face remained frozen in place as blood began dripping from her nose. Then a trickle started coming from the corners of her mouth. Her ears were next and, at least as far as it could be told, her eyes were the last area that blood began to leak from. The flow became thicker and thicker, oozing out of the openings in her head. Harry kept focused on her... that is,until something connected with the back of his head, sending him falling forward, unconscious. The last thing he saw was his aunt's bloody face staring down in horror.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
Author's Notes: 'Christmases'? 'Christmasi'? I dunno. It's a tiny, tiny point, anyway.
So...uh... I guess this is where I put in the disclaimer, huh?
My Harry is calculating to a fault sometimes. As such, he usually thinks too damn much, which ends up getting him into trouble. And, at times when he's left to his own devices - like being stuck at Number Four for a month - not all of his thoughts are good ones. He wants his relatives to suffer and he won't be changing that opinion anytime soon. Harry forgave Dobby for his actions because he saw how Dobby was treated and felt an odd sort of connection. He, too, knew what it was like to be beaten and abused.
His family has no such hope. They're greedy, awful people.
Of course, this won't matter much, as my Harry isn't to the stage of being truly dark and brooding just yet. He's just hitting puberty, after all. Wait a year or three. Things will change. Quickly, at that.
If it wasn't readily visible, yes, I hate Aunt Marge, yes that was a drastic change from the book, and yes, I enjoyed writing it. I have more destructive spells that the Invidia Eximo planned for Harry's exclusive use on down the line. Much, much more destructive. And not just in a physical sense, either.
The way I see it, my Harry will become interested in spell construction some time in the middle to late stages of fourth year.
Don't worry - the story will never get totally emo on you. But it will fall into darkness for varying lengths at times. Especially after fifth year. If you don't want to read about a dark, yet still calculating Harry, stop reading the R-Series after Order Reassembled. I guess I should announce that I can't, in good faith, keep the R-Series canon after Order, either. I can't. In fact, sixth and seventh years are in limbo. As I've stated, I have my ending written. It was done long before HBP came out. I'm not changing it. But in not doing so, I have to force myself from incorporating the very video game-like Horcruxes. I hate that concept and feel I can do better in terms of interesting ideas. I think Rowling is getting lazy, quite frankly. I've met very few people who even liked HBP as a whole, let alone liking the wholly stupid and quite silly Horcrux angle.
No...the R-Series will diverge after fifth year. I have my plans and I need them in place for book 8.
I'm done ranting now. Check back every so often for updates, folks. It'll take until chapter 5 for Prisoner to get its steam going, so try not to get bored with my slower pace, alright?
Post-Edit Addition: So why does Marge know about Lily and, indeed, wizards in general? I personally blame the liquor. Vernon's side of the family wasn't the only half that could never hold their liquor well... and I can imagine Petunia spilling most of the story to Marge one drunken evening, can't you? And in any case, it's not a big deal. So uh... yeah. Pardon my typos. I'm dead tired tonight. I cranked out the last two-thirds AND uploaded-slash-formatted the thing tonight. I go to bed now.