CHAPTER THREE ¥

Explosion

~"Don't you fucking dare talk about my mother like that you miserable, fat, stupid, AAARRHHH!!!"

As Harry screamed out in frustration, a powerful gust of hot air exploded out from him, crackling across everyone's exposed skin like static electricity. For a moment they all just stared, Dudley's fork falling stupidly from his mouth. As Aunt Marge began to swell up with indignation, preparing to unleash hell upon the small child, she continued to swell. She just… kept swelling up, and suddenly, like the balloon she was beginning to resemble, Marge floated right out of her seat.

His aunt's impromptu flying trick, apparently, was the catalyst. Suddenly everyone was jumping to their feet as chaos unfolded. Marge was shouting for help, Petunia was shrieking, Dudley screamed as he ran out of the room, and Vernon roared an unintelligible battle cry. The only thing saving the diminutive child was that Vernon was seated on the opposite side of the table, and Harry was closer to the door.

He had almost made it to the cupboard under the stair, which had sprung open at another, much smaller, burst of wild magic, when a beefy hand snatched him by the shirt collar, and threw him bodily into the wall behind him. There was a sickening sort of crunch as the smallest resident of 4 Privet drive slammed back first, leaving a sizable dent in the plasterboard. His breath exploded out of his lungs, and he slid down to the floor. Due to the agony in his back and the stars in his vision, the young mage barely registered it as several pictures fell down around him.

Suddenly his uncle was there, reaching down, filling his line of sight, and bellowing something about "MAKE HER RIGHT, BOY!!"

As a bolt of terror shot through the child, an immense pressure built up in his thin chest, and a light shone forth from within his eyes. A light that, coming from within those emerald orbs, would have terrified any magical veteran of the recent British civil war. Any veteran that had witnessed the far too often used killing curse, Avada Kedavra, for looking into those shining depths, they would have seen that same green light that could only mean death. This time Vernon was the one to be thrown bodily through the room, crashing violently into his favorite recliner. At just over three hundred pounds, the walrus was considerably heftier than the feather Harry's classmates had practiced on in first year.

Jumping up, the little noirette gasped in pain, but still ran over to his trunk and shakily fell to his knees. He threw open the lid, and his holly and phoenix wand suddenly flew up to meet his outstretched hand. The youth stared for a moment, unsure if it was him producing more wild magics, or if that was the wand responding to his desperation. Whatever, he didn't have time to think about it just now, Vernon likely wouldn't stay down long. He grabbed his broom, his invisibility cloak, and the messenger bag he used at school.

"Ahhh, what else, what else," Harry agonized, desperate to get away, but terrified to leave behind anything he couldn't replace.

"Okay, think think think! I can buy new clothes and books, oh duh, MONEY!"

The lone heir to what was left of the Potter fortune fumbled around before pulling out his Gringotts vault key and coin pouch, also spotting the picture album of his parents Hagrid had given him. Quickly double checking that his birthday cards from last week were still in the back, he hurried to stuff everything in his bag. Thinking hard for a moment, he snagged a beanie he'd found at the local Park earlier this summer. It was a bit of a girlish blue-green, but he liked it, and it matched his eyes well, but more importantly it would hide his scar. The last of the Potters wasn't sure exactly where he was going, but he knew he had more than a few enemies. Plus, he might be in trouble with the ministry! He'd just inflated his aunt, and he'd used a lot of magic outside of school to do it!

"So not the time to worry about that," he fretted.

Harry quickly went through his pile of books, pulling out two battered muggle fictions, The Hobbit, and Bridge to Terabithia. Those two books had helped him survive life at the Dursley's for years, and he couldn't stand the thought of Uncle Vernon burning them. Last he threw in a second hand fairy tale book Ron had gotten him for Christmas. Hermione, of course, had gotten him a fascinating, but huge book about various magics to improve everyday life, but there was no way it was fitting in his bag too.

Skirting a groggy Uncle Vernon, he ran up to his room and threw open the window. Donning the invisibility cloak, he climbed onto his Nimbus 2000 and shot up into the sky. After gaining a few hundred feet the thirteen year old stopped to tuck his cloak away. From this height, and at night, he'd just look like a funny bird. Plus, the cloak was still much too big for him, it would be awkward to fly in.

The emerald eyed child was pretty freaked out. He had been slowly circling the neighborhood for almost ten minutes, completely at a loss for what to do. Ron's family wasn't back to the Burrow yet, not that he had the foggiest notion of how to get there. Still, it might not be a good idea to go to them even if they had been home. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to wane, Harry's niggling worry from before was coming back ten fold. What if he was in serious trouble? This wasn't really like that mess with Dobby, not that that had really been his fault. This time it'd definitely been him, and he had done some pretty serious magic. Someone had been hurt, even if the evil trollop had deserved it. What if they tried to take Harry's wand. What if they tried to take him to Azkaban!

"Agh! Crap crap crap." The inexperienced child was really starting to panic. If he couldn't calm down, he might spiral into a full blown panic attack, far from the safest thing you could do at a few hundred feet in the air. Suddenly a loud hoot snapped his attention back to his surroundings.

"HEDWIG!?" Harry cried out. "You were supposed to be at Hagrid's! What are you… how.. how long have you been back!?"

Hedwig alighted on the end of her familiar's broom, nuzzling into his extended hand. She warbled affectionately as he gushed how happy he was to see her.

Thanks to Hedwig's intervention, he was finally able to calm down enough to come up with the start of a plan.

"Alright girl," sighed the slight youth. "I don't really know what the ministry is gonna do. I think Professor Dumbledore would try to protect us though. I'm thinking we lay low for a couple weeks, and if he hasn't found us by then we can make for Hogwarts. Umm, if we are gonna hide..." Harry trailed off, gently rocking the broom side to side nervously. "I don't have any muggle notes, and it'd be easier to hide in muggle London than somewhere with a lot of people that might recognize me."

Hedwig gave a low trill, seemingly in agreement.

"Right," chuckled the small escapee, stroking Hedwig's chest gently he replied, "So I think we need to pay the goblins of Diagon Alley a visit. Umm, me and Hagrid took the tube... All I really know is that it's in London, and London is huge, it could take us days to find it!"

Hedwig gave human a brief nip before taking flight, circling her familiar once before hooting, with a note of exasperation if his ears weren't deceiving him, and flapping northward. The mage-in-training smacked himself on the head!

"GAH, of course! You're brilliant, you know that right girl?" Harry shouted out, flying along after her.

Authors note

So yeah, fat shaming is not okay, child abuse is not okay, and neglect is not okay. Unfortunately that's kinda where the story is when utilising JK's world