Tired.
Very Tired.
Exceedingly Tired.
That is how Harry feels all the time. His relatives have really piled on the chores now that he's 7 years old. While before he was doing some of the work every day around the home, now he is doing all the work around the home. And he's so tired.
Harry had been sitting outside in the sun pulling weeds for at least a couple of hours since school got out. He talked to the snake that lives under the rose bushes for a little while, but the sun had started to set, and the snake went back to his hole where it was warmer. He talked to the last of the hydrangeas and dahlias, they probably won't last another week, he thought sadly, already missing their bright colors. And he tended to the first of the chrysanthemums, already popping out of their small buds and into bloom. They didn't talk back to him like the snakes that have come and gone from Aunt Petunia's garden, but the breeze made their bright blooms nod at him as the sun kissed their pretty faces, making him feel like they understood his troubles.
Aunt Petunia finally called him in after the sun was fully down, and Harry was shivering with cold. He looked down at his clothes to make sure he didn't have any dirt or leaves to brush off before he went inside. He didn't, which he was pleased about as he just wanted to get in where it was warm, but he didn't know how, seeing as he had been watering, weeding, and pruning for at least 4 hours. He had noticed in the spring that some of his clothes seemed to handle his outside work better than others. He could spend all day in some of his clothes and they wouldn't have a speck of dirt or a stain on them. He didn't understand how it was possible, but he was thankful all the same as it made laundry much easier for him, not needing to soak stained or muddy clothes before washing.
But tonight, even though he wanted to go back inside where it was warm, he knew it wouldn't be a good evening. He didn't anticipate getting any dinner, and was pretty sure he'd wind up locked in his cupboard before it was all over.
Harry and Dudley had been back at school for a few weeks now, and Dudley had prevented Harry from making any friends...again. His teachers still liked him, but he still didn't have anyone to hang out with. Which was why Dudley and his friends had cornered Harry at recess and tried to hit and kick him several times. Harry was scared, since he knew Dudley could hit...Hard. but when he spun around quickly to see if he could get away, he found himself not looking at the rubbish and recycling bins behind the school, but rather found himself standing on the roof. He gingerly picked his way over to the edge, and looked down, seeing Dudley and his friends talking over each other at the teacher, who had been coming to see what they were all doing behind the school. Pretty Miss Williams was very confused by the story the boys were telling her regarding something to do with Dudley's cousin, Harry, and how he had been hiding by the rubbish bins and then suddenly disappeared.
Miss Williams had been concerned and began looking around for Harry, who had wanted to stay hidden until Dudley's group left in hopes of the Dursley's not finding out about this new strange thing he had done, when Piers Polkiss noticed him looking down on them from above. Piers had pointed and shouted, "He's up there, Miss Williams!" and she had been shocked to see him on the roof. Especially because the only roof access from the outside was on the other side of the building, and there was no way he could've gotten there without someone else seeing him.
At any rate, the school had called the Dursley's, and Harry had been taken home and told to work in the garden until they called him inside. He had been somewhat concerned they would leave him outside all night, but perhaps his Aunt's fear of gossip about their family had kept him from that. Not that whatever was about to happen would likely be much better.
As he entered the house, Aunt Petunia pulled him directly into the kitchen and slammed the door behind him. She shoved him towards the stove and said, "Get going with dinner, my Dudders is hungry."
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry responded. The only safe response as far as he was concerned.
Harry had been helping Aunt Petunia in the kitchen for several years, first with washing dishes, then small parts of cooking, and now he was cooking nearly every meal. How he found the time to do all his homework was a mystery to all of them, including Harry, when he was doing all the cooking, cleaning, and outside work for the family. But he was, so at least he wasn't at trouble in school as well as with his family.
After he served dinner, which, as he had suspected, he got no part of, and cleaned up when the family was finished, Uncle Vernon pulled him into the parlour.
"BOY!" Uncle Vernon yelled, turning a rather bright shade of red. "What do you mean by this...this...this freakishness!"
…
Harry couldn't answer because Harry didn't know what had happened.
"We told you no funny business! And what have you done?!" Vernon was turning a most unbecoming shade of puce by this point. "Two years ago, you turned your teacher's hair blue, last year jumping into that tree, and now you've gone and wound up on the roof! What do you have to say for yourself?!" Spittle was flying as Vernon finished his short tirade, breath heaving, and sweat beading on his forehead.
"But I didn't do anything, Uncle Vernon! I turned around to take a piece of trash to the rubbish bins (here Harry judiciously edited his story, because any suggestion of Dudley causing a problem was met with contempt, and longer punishment), and when I turned around I wasn't by the bins, I was on the roof. I didn't mean to go up there I promise!" Harry hastily got out, trying to head off the explosion that was bound to occur anyway.
"We swore," Vernon looked at Petunia, "We swore when we took you in there'd be none of strangeness is our home. Clearly you've forgotten your place, and how grateful you should be that we didn't just send you to the orphanage like all the other mongrel brats," Vernon huffed out.
"Go to your cupboard, and no meals for a week," Petunia spat out.
"But I didn't do anything!" Harry tried one last time, knowing it was futile.
"Two weeks!" Petunia shrieked. "There will be no freakishness in my home!"
"Yes, Aunt Petunia, Harry replied dully, turning around and trudging to his cupboard. As soon as he was inside he heard the lock click from the outside. Vernon lifted the little grille flap and said, "Stay in there and think about what you've done."
After the Dursleys went to bed that night, Harry waited about an hour to be sure they were asleep, before he flicked on his light, and set to work opening his cupboard door. He had to concentrate really hard, but sometimes, when he really needed to, he could get his cupboard door to open, even if it had been locked. That was what he was trying to do tonight. He needed to finish his homework, he knew the Dursleys would work him to the bone for the next two weeks, and he needed some food to keep up his strength. After a few minutes of concentrating, he put his hand on the doorknob and twisted. He heard a small click, and the door opened.
Harry heaved a great sigh of relief. At least he managed to get out this time. Now all he had to do was figure out what things he could easily keep in his cupboard so if he couldn't steal anything while he was cooking, he'd still get something. He wasn't so worried about school days, having the lunch program helped with that, but weekends were terrible if he couldn't get something to keep him going. He always managed somehow, but he certainly didn't want to if he didn't have to. So he set about gathering things that he could keep for a couple of weeks like granola bars, nut mix, dried fruit, and a fresh apple and orange. He couldn't take too many fresh things as they would go bad, but Vernon and Dudley wouldn't touch any of that stuff, and since Aunt Petunia had started sending him for the groceries, he could replace them and she'd never know. He also found a couple of packages of crisps and biscuits. He couldn't take all of them since Dudley liked those, but he could take a few for a treat, so he did.
He snuck his haul back into his cupboard, and focused hard again as he turned the handle once more. He heard the snick of the lock engaging, and sighed. It was going to be a long two weeks. He grabbed an apple, and got to work on his schoolwork.
Early November 1987Great. Another dinner party with the Malfoys. Harry was so tired of these dinner parties. They did sometimes go out for dinner with them as well, but more often than not, they were having dinner at Privet Drive. He was so tired of all the work heaped on him for the sake of them. Snooty rich people. Bah. Probably wouldn't know the serviceable side of a frying pan if it hit them in the face, Harry thought. It just meant he would have to clean the house top to bottom, make sure the yard was presentable, cook the meal which Aunt Petunia would get credit for, serve, and clean up. And he wouldn't get to eat any of the food either. That certainly hadn't changed since the first one.
So Harry cleaned, and scrubbed, and swept, and vacuumed. He mowed the lawn, watered the flowers, weeded the flower beds, trimmed the bushes, and washed the windows. The Dursleys were going to make him paint the fence, but decided it was too cold and the neighbors would talk if they had him outside doing that. Whenever the Dursleys couldn't see him, he'd focus, and a rag would scrub without him touching it. That made the work go a bit faster. He could do one thing while the...scrubbing rag?… did another. And somehow, he managed to get everything done by the day before the dinner.
Harry had been cooking all the meals for several months now, and Aunt Petunia had decided they needed some variety. And so she bought cookbooks. Ostensibly for herself to try new recipes, but really, for Harry, because she certainly wasn't going to cook if she didn't have to. While it meant that the cooking got more complex, Harry didn't mind so much. He enjoyed cooking surprisingly, combining this with that, stir it a bit, cook it like this, and et voila, a fantastic meal. So Harry put together quite the menu for the evening.
He had decided on an Italian theme, and had made dishes to fit. Vernon and Petunia had the alcohol covered, but for the food, Harry was in his element. He went with a general antipasto platter of olives, smoked salmon, a hard salami, pate, fresh mozzarella, asiago, pepperoncini, and mushrooms with some focaccia bread. Then for the main meal, he started with an Italian soup: chicken and potato gnocchi in a creamy base with some vegetables for balance. Followed by a fresh green salad with berries, nuts, feta cheese, and a raspberry balsamic vinaigrette. For the main, he made a lasagna, chicken parmesan, and fettuccine alfredo. He was going for a real tour of Italy. This was paired with homemade garlic bread which he had made from scratch, infusing the bread dough with garlic, and brushing on a fresh garlic butter spread. For dessert he had Tiramisu and mascarpone. After dinner they could have tea, coffee, or brandy, and hot chocolate for the children. He had wanted to have espresso and biscotti, but there was no way for him to prepare the espresso.
His job was to prepare the food, allow Petunia to serve the antipasto and Campari in the parlour while he set up the dining room for dinner, and then retreat to the kitchen to clean up as Petunia removed plates and empty dishes. Unfortunately, he had not quite finished setting up the dining room when the family adjourned there to sit. He dashed back into the kitchen quickly, but Lucius caught sight of the movement, and felt a fascinating fluctuation of magic as he disappeared from the room.
"Who was that?" he questioned his hosts.
"Our nephew, rather deranged. Hates new people. We try to keep him secluded for his own safety." Vernon replied gruffly.
Given the discussion with his family after the dinner out, and after subsequent visits to the Dursley home, Lucius had been employing his aura sight with varying levels of success around the Dursleys. His eyes were therefore glued to Petunia, as he caught a glimpse of her aura turning the faintest shade of an olive-brownish green. Ah, Vernon was lying about something, and Petunia knew it.
Extensive use of his aura sight had provided answers and yet more questions. Petunia appeared to be a squib. Lucius could just barely get a read on her aura, and it was usually better if she had strong feelings about the subject. Vernon was clearly muggle, as Lucius could get no reading at all from him. Dudley looked to be on the low side of a squib, getting fewer readings from him than Petunia, though, Lucius supposed, it could also be his age.
But Petunia clearly knew that Vernon's statement about her nephew was a fallacy, and so Lucius had one more thing to think about.
"I see," he responded after an uncomfortable pause.
"I'd like to meet him," Draco chirped, noticing the tension, but not understanding the source.
"You can't." Petunia hurriedly stated. And then, as if realizing she had been too abrupt, "He's being punished for stealing from the grocers, and has been forbidden from this party. He'll be eating in the kitchen then returning to his room."
"Oh," Draco responded, with a bit of a pout. He had also felt the flare of magic and was interested to meet the boy, who looked a bit younger than him, but maybe only by a year or so, he thought, judging from the boy's size.
Lucius and Narcissa shared a glance as the color surrounding Petunia had only gotten brighter the longer she had discussed her nephew. Clearly something was not right.
They sat down to eat and Petunia began rattling off the dishes for their meal. Narcissa was somewhat impressed, the dishes looked of much higher quality than some they had partaken of here previously. And when they began eating, the wash of magic was immediate, and intense.
Lucius, who was more sensitive than Narcissa, could clearly feel the correspondence between the boy who had so unceremoniously disappeared at the start of their meal, and the magic which was clearly present in all the dishes on the table. Lucius realized the boy had prepared all the dishes and it was all he could do to not send a patronus to his dear friend Severus to perform legilimens to see what else the Dursleys were doing to that poor magical child. The poor magical child who was clearly powerful if the latent magical excess in the food was anything to go by.
Draco nearly fell off his chair with the first bite, so steeped in magic it was, and only the steadying hand of his mother on his knee kept him in his seat with the power now rushing through him. He locked wide eyes with his father, and Lucius gave a short nod to indicate he understood how Draco was feeling.
Narcissa could also feel the power in the food, but was better able to disguise her reaction, knowing from how her husband had stiffened and Draco had flinched that it would be intense. She merely continued to eat, enjoying the wash of magic, less powerful for her as she could sense it less, and the wonderful flavors of the food.
"This is marvelous," she commented to Petunia, who blushed lightly at the praise.
"Thank you, I do enjoy cooking and have been of a mind that Italian food sounded good for this evening," Petunia responded with a light laugh.
Lucius's eyes narrowed at the continued muddy green hue of Petunia's aura, wondering what else they would lie about this evening. He was beginning to regret fostering this relationship as he didn't want his son exposed to this sort of behavior until he was better prepared for it. Of course his son was attending work with him occasionally, and they always talked about duplicity in business, but this was the first time he had been exposed to such things in a friend or family setting. Lucius could only hope that his son's aura sight hadn't fully manifested, and therefore he might not be seeing all the lies occuring before they could discuss the situation at home.
Petunia rose to remove the dinner dishes and bring in the dessert. As the kitchen door closed behind her, they faintly heard her hiss at the boy, "Take that dessert out there, CAREFULLY, and say hello to the Malfoys, then get back in here. I don't want you to mess up our evening, but they've seen you now."
The reply was too quiet to hear, but moments later Petunia returned to the room, holding the door open for a young boy who was entirely focused on the perfect plates of tiramisu held in his hands.
He set a plate in front of Lucius and Narcissa, and with eyes glued to the ground, said in a very quiet voice, "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy. It is very nice to meet you."
"Good evening child, what is your name?" Responded Mrs. Malfoy.
"Harry," he whispered, eyes never leaving his hands.
Lucius reached out a hand to shake, and squeezed a bit, startling Harry into looking up. "Good evening, Harry, it is a pleasure to meet you," Lucius purred, taking in the bright, nearly glowing, green eyes hidden behind atrocious black-framed glasses, before noticing the scar on his forehead, and nearly jumping in shock. He school his expression back into polite lines as he shook Harry's hand once more, and released the child.
Narcissa and Draco had seen his reaction, but as neither could see Harry's face, were unsure what exactly had happened. They both resolved to question Lord Malfoy about it when they returned home.
After greeting the Malfoys, Harry darted back into the kitchen and began washing dishes. He knew he'd be punished for the Malfoy's seeing him, he didn't want more because the clean up wasn't complete.
"Please excuse him," Petunia attempted to smooth over the awkwardness, "as Vernon said earlier, he isn't fond of new people."
After dessert was finished, the Malfoys beat a hasty, though perfectly polite and elegant, retreat. They had much to discuss.
Malfoy Manor"Father/Lucius!" Draco and Narcissa exclaimed together upon their arrival at Malfoy Manor.
"I know exactly what you want to know," Lucius responded, somewhat more composed now that he had an hour or so to think about it. The boy, that child they had cooking that entire meal…" Lucius trailed off, unsure how to break the news to his wife and child that the boy...the boy…
"The boy is Harry Potter," Lucius finally said.
…
Silence and wide eyes were the only immediate response.
"What?" Narcissa finally spoke into the silence. "That child is...is Harry Potter? But...How?"
Her normal elegant eloquence nowhere to be found in the face of such a shock. Lucius nodded, understanding his wife completely. Even with the extra time he had to digest the situation, it was still shocking. Draco was worse, formal manners gone, mouth hanging open as he tried to understand.
"But he's magical," Draco finally got out.
"I know," Lucius stated baldly. Shock had torn away all their manners, political masks, and genteel reserve. "How is the savior of the wizarding world in a cheap muggle hovel, forced to prepare meals like that, and who knows what else," Lucius spit out, sneering at the thought of a magical child, any magical child, being treated the way he could see Harry was treated.
"Can anything be done?" Narcissa asked, concern for the child clearly showing on her face.
"I don't know," Lucius responded. "I just don't know."
Draco looked back and forth between his parents, never had they not been able to answer a question. Understanding that something was needed to break their swirling, cycling thoughts, Draco decided to interject.
"Well, at least I got my aura sight," he said as if commenting on something of no import whatsoever.
Two shocked faces turned towards him with a snap.
"WHAT?!"
Chapter 3 NotesThank you to the British Flower Collective for the handy list of what's in season and when for the UK! whats-in-season1