A/N: This one goes out to my Lovely Loony Loopy Laura (my sister) who has also decided (finally!) to sign in as a real person on this website! You can find her under the name 'Wolf Whistle' and hopefully I'll be able to convince her to also write some stories. (Hint-hint!)
Snape Disclaimer: Why in the world would any person wish to lay claim to 'Potter', of all things. He's sounding more and more like his father every day. -Of course, he'd probably want to take the credit, arrogant snot-nosed little twit that he is. It's all JK Rowlng's fault.
Chapter One –
Phoenix, Dog, Serpent and Lion
"Boy!"
Don't react.
Petunia Dursley poked her head around the corner of the doorway into her nephew's bedroom. "Boy, where are you!"
Thunder rumbled once, and the house shook beneath him. He didn't want to move. His quill was dead still just an inch off the surface of the parchment, and the ink dripped from it, leaving unsightly smudges where it fell.
Move once and you know you're in trouble.
"BOY, I KNOW YOU'RE HERE! GET DOWNSTAIRS THIS INSTANT!"
Only nine days left. You can make it. It doesn't matter that she's in your room. She can't do anything to you as long as she doesn't see you. Don't move.
Lightning flashed as she defiantly marched into the room, reached behind the door, and grabbed at something. She must have known it was there. "If you don't get downstairs in ten seconds, I'll… I'll… snap this broom in half!"
Dear Merlin!
"NO!" Harry Potter, unable to listen to his inner voice any longer, flung the invisibility cloak from his body, and exploded off the rumpled mattress that was supposed to be his bed. The letter he'd been composing to his best friend, Ron, was left half-finished and forgotten among the sheets.
"EEEEAAAAHH!" his aunt screamed and dropped Harry's most prized possession to the floor with a horrible crunch and thunk. Harry grabbed for it and clutched it tight to his heart, checking the wood over for scratches and dents. His throat rumbled angrily along with the bursts of thunderclap from outside, where it had been storming aggressively for the past three days.
Petunia didn't hear the furious growls from her nephew, nor did she seem to care about the injustice she'd just served to his faithful racing broom.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!" Aunt Petunia screeched from beyond the threshold of the door where she was now standing. It was as if she didn't dare put one foot inside the room while the 'freak' actually stood there. She'd thought she was safe as long she'd been alone.
There was one bent twig on the tail of the broom, and Harry sighed with frustration. He'd have to clip it. What a waste.
He'd always had these sort of problems with the Dursleys, but as far as he was concerned, they'd never gone quite so far below the belt as his aunt had just done. How had she known this weakness of his? This broom was the one bit of pure happiness that he currently owned.
Petunia, for her part, didn't look prepared to back down. She did at least change subjects, and the beloved broom was forgotten. "I TOLD YOU TO CLEAN OUT THE GARAGE YESTERDAY! WHY ISN'T IT DONE? AND WHAT DO YOU THINKYOU'RE DOING, USING THAT… THING IN THIS HOUSE!" Petunia pointed at the shimmering material of the invisibility cloak. "I'LL HAVE NO BLASTED YOU-KNOW-WHAT IN THIS HOUSE! GET RID OF IT, THIS INSTANT!"
Harry reeled and stared at her in surprise, ignoring her pointing finger and her comment regarding his invisibility cloak. Far from being surprised at her constantly piercing tone of voice, or of her adamant refusal to let him perform magic, it was the apparent status of the garage that now had him irked. "But I did clean out the garage! I worked on it all of yesterday afternoon!"
"IF YOU CONSIDER THAT A JOB FINISHED, THEN YOU'RE DIMMER THAN I THOUGHT! GET IT DONE, BOY…. NOW!" She screeched, making Harry feel as if he'd just ruptured his eardrums.
Harry couldn't imagine what had happened. He had certainly finished organizing the garage yesterday, and it had been spotless enough even for his neurotic aunt's standards. It wasn't as if he could leave the house or anything, so he'd done it all very meticulously, if just to escape the rest of his family and all the insults for a few hours.
Petunia Dursley took a few daring steps back inside Harry's room, threat written clearly on her pinched face.
"All right! All right! I'll go check it over!" he promised, putting his broom down behind him and holding his hands out in surrender. He was loath to leave his aunt alone anywhere near his things. Especially since she had just threatened his beloved Firebolt. The broom had been a gift from his late godfather, and it was a very expensive model. Well, not so expensive now, seeing as the bristles were awry.
Petunia's horsy lips were drawn tight into a puckered point, and her bony finger adamantly pointed down the stairs.
"I know the way." He said impetuously, knowing as soon as he'd said it, that he should have kept his mouth shut.
He slipped by her quickly, hoping to avoid any more argument, but also hoping to convince her to follow him away from his room. She cuffed him upside the head as he slid past, her hand making a loud popping noise on his ear. Harry winced, swaying a bit. He knew better than to provoke her when she was like this, but a surge of almost painful anger had risen inside him.
He was surprised at the anger. It had been awhile since he'd really felt himself quite this ready to explode. He'd really thought himself past all of that last summer. Just being back at the Dursleys was testing his emotional mettle. He'd been more angry in less than a month at the Dursleys than he'd been almost all year at school.
Thus far, he'd spent his summer in a sort of super-organizational mode. He'd gotten all of his homework done, and rearranged the three small pieces of furniture in his room four times. He'd even spent more time than necessary on his many chores, trying his best to make the finished product as perfect as possible.
He reckoned he might have just hit a stage in his life where he simply needed to feel busy and useful. It wasn't to please his aunt or uncle. That was for sure. He guessed that he'd just been trying so hard inside that he'd reorganized the garage contrary to the apparent wishes of his aunt.
He ran down the stairs, through the pantry toward the garage, and flicked the light switch. The bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling spluttered, flickered blindingly once and popped, sending back a faint tinkling of broken glass to his ears, and a faint burning smell to his nose.
Not another one. Harry rubbed his aching forehead, sighing, and wondered if he was ever going to be allowed near a light fixture again. The Dursleys had already replaced far too many bulbs this summer. Every time he got angry, which was becoming more and more frequent the longer he stayed at the Dursleys, something would explode. Most often, it was lightbulbs.
He pressed the heavily fingerprinted electric garage door opener that his uncle Vernon had installed just inside the door. He was hoping to let in the dim light of the stormy sky outside, negating the needforlightbulbs at all. It didn't do anything on the first press, but then, it hardly ever did these days.
Like the lightbulbs, quite a few of the Dursley's electrical things had been going funny on him recently. Wall sockets sparked and sizzled as he came near and the fridge system flickered on and off every time he went to retrieve food from it. Dudley's expensive gaming systems shut down when he walked past, and the television usually flickered and went all snowy until someone (most often his uncle or cousin) yelled at him to leave the room.
He hadn't had the chance to watch the news all summer, and he wasn't really willing to totally trust the wizarding daily newspaper, so the only time he got any real information about what had been happening outside the house was from his tutor, Remus.
He still hadn't mentioned these funny surges yet to Remus. He had meant to do so last week, but it had slipped his mind. Remus was due to pick him up for another session at about noon, so he made a mental note to say something about it immediately.
He'd already broken the Dursleys' micro when he'd tried to cook up a dish of broccoli for his aunt earlier that summer. As soon as he'd pressed 'start', the door had blown clean across the room, and it had taken him days to remove themushed up broccoliwhich had been plastered to the walls. Needless to say, the Dursleys wouldn't even let him near the new one.
This was almost nothing compared to what happened when he slept.
So long as he didn't really dream, it was all right. If he did… there was no telling what sort of destruction and chaos he might wake up to. During one particularly violent nightmare, the window of his bedroom had smashed, and Uncle Vernon's car alarm had been set off, waking everyone in the house. Uncle Vernon couldn't figure out how to turn it off for half an hour, by which time most of the neighbours had been awakened, and were peering out their windows or standing on their front porches. His Uncle had been furious enough to try and hit him, but Harry was quick enough on his feet to dodge the swinging fist until Vernon had cooled down somewhat. He was lucky his uncle had been too tired to think properly, or he could have gotten a proper hiding.
Uncle Vernon had said it was all because the appliances knew that he was a 'freak', and to be completely honest, Harry had to agree.
Not that he was really a freak of course, but the idea of his magic being to blame for this chaos was certainly something to consider. Perhaps the electricity wasn't working because it didn't want to work around his magic? It was commonly known that at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he had been going to school for the last six years, electrical currents were impossible to sustain with all of the magic in the air. Muggle systems just went haywire when magic was involved. He'd never really had any problems at the Dursleys before, but his magic was still growing wasn't it? Did this happen to everyone? He had to ask Hermione if she was finding it difficult to be living a muggle life with her parents in his next letter to her. Even if she didn't know from personal experience, she'd probably read up on it or something. Hermione was like that.
He clicked the garage button a few extra times, then when the door still wouldn't move, he stood back a bit from the appliance, and used Aunt Petunia's paisley umbrella to poke at it. The garage door finally sprang to life.
His electrical problems were forgotten entirely as the garage gradually lightened. He stared in abject horror at the mess. Boxing gloves, a towel, and three punching bags were left hanging near the front. They'd been left against the mechanical door, and now that the door wasn't shut, they had fallen backward and were being hammered mercilessly by rain.
The garbage waiting to be put by the kerb had been ripped open, and nasty bits and pieces were spread liberally across the middle of the floor, leading to a motorbike in the corner. Evidently Dudley had caught it with the wheel on his way past. Perhaps he'd been trying to avoid catching his punching bags and gloves, and the garbage had seemed like the better alternative?
The paint cans Harry had put up in the top storage yesterday were back down on the floor, and one had been left open on its side, oozing yellow paint across the concrete. What looked like some sort of failed school report lay crumpled and stomped on amidst the congealing paint. Yellow footprints led from the destroyed papers to the hosepipe, which was unraveled on the floor and leaking a trickle of water out the door and onto the driveway, adding to the already immense puddle that was the Dursleys' front lawn.
Dudley's flashy new motorbike that he'd been given for his seventeenth birthday was covered with dripping muck, and various tools and oily rags were strewn across the floor by its side. A massive helmet for Dudley's equally massive head was sitting innocently amidst a pile of muddy leather gear near the steps to the pantry. A pair of muddied leather boots were laying haphazardly at Harry's feet. The puddle that he hadn't known he was standing in until now, was seeping murky brown liquid into his single good pair of socks.
Harry felt his blood boil.
Dudley.
He'd done this on purpose. He must have. There's no way he could have made this much of a mess in only a few hours unless he'd been trying to get Harry in trouble. He knew Harry had spent all of yesterday evening clearing it out. He'd even stood and taunted his cousin while he worked.
He whipped around with the intent of going and knocking some sense into his hulking lump of a cousin. He felt his wand nearly searing through the pocket of his jeans, eager to hex the oaf. The anger he felt at his cousin accumulating upon the anger he'd felt previously toward his aunt.
That was when he felt it.
He heard a faint buzzing sound in his head, and a wave of dizziness passed over him. His fingers prickled eerily, as if the blood flow was suddenly cut off, or as if they were filled with static electricity.
The dizziness was nothing new. He'd been having light dizzy spells all summer, but never before had he felt his fingers prickle like this. He held his hands up to his eyes to see what it was, Dudley and his misdeed in the garbage-strewn garage immediately cast aside.
He was holding lightning in his hands.
Blue and green jolts of static fire were leaping between the tips of his fingers, and he felt the lightning jump from his left thumb straight toward his left eye. He reeled away from the spark, but it was too late. He could feel the prickling heat sink right into the back of his skull. His eyes burned, turning the world around him brilliantly green and he blinked them a few times, desperately trying to put out the flames.
He wasn't really supposed to be doing magic away from school until he turned seventeen. He'd been given permission to practice defensive magic only when he was supervised by a trained witch or wizard. So far that practice had been relegated to only once a week over at Mrs. Figg's house with Remus.
So what was this? It felt untamed and uncontrollable. It was slowly taking him over, prickling like tiny needles under his skin and sending chills down the back of his neck. The anger had triggered it, but once Harry's anger was forgotten, the magic didn't want to diminish. In fact, Harry could feel it growing stronger; more out of his control. It was bubbling up from the deepest part of his stomach like a bad case of heartburn. Harry felt himself let out the tiniest burp of magic to release the pressure.
He heard a pop, and he creaked open his eyes to the greenish-blue tinted world, to see that the lightbulb in the front hall had exploded.
"Oh." He heard himself say, but he felt oddly detached from his own voice.
He knew what the problem was now. He'd suddenly remembered how Hermione had blown up entire chandeliers last year for a few days just because her magic was going through an overhaul.
Just his luck that it would happen here, while he was stuck with these people. He could only hope that it wouldn't get too out of control, and that if it did, someone from the Order of the Phoenix could come and help him out. He had no one to speak with about it, and the Dursleys were bound to be furious. He would undoubtedly be kicked out or locked in his room or something. He just hoped that in the meantime, he could keep himself from blowing up the house.
It was the agoramorphosis. The time in all young wizards or witches lives when they came into their powers. He'd seen Hermione go through the same thing last year, and to be honest, he'd thought at the time, that it was a little funny. Every time his friend Ron had come anywhere near her, she would blow something up or set it ablaze. She'd even had to be sedated. Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse had been quite impressed.
It had been great fun to talk about it with her afterward, and to watch Ron squirm. The agoramorphosis was not something that polite, well-bred witches and wizards were supposed to talk about, and since Ron was part of an old pureblooded family, they followed traditions like that without sometimes stopping to think about why they were following them.
Most witches and wizards refused to talk about the wizarding version of puberty any more than to scoff and possibly wince at the word. As a result, muggleborns and muggle-raised people like he and Hermione were often left in the dark about what the uncontrollable accidental magic signified until after the agoramorphosis had already begun. Lucky for him and for other students like Hermione, professor McGonagall, their head of house, had been able to stutter through a brief and awkward explanation once in class.
In a way, he'd been looking forward to his own agoramorphosis. More because he wanted to grow fully into his powers as soon as possible than anything.
The agoramorphosis hadn't looked very comfortable for Hermione, but then immediately afterward, she'd been able to pull off some very complex transfiguration and had even been able to combine wandless and soundless magic. She said she felt more comfortable in her body afterward, and it made her very happy with herself and her magic.
Harry longed to have that same feeling. It had been so long since he'd been happy with himself, much less comfortable. So in a very strange and backward way, he was happy that his eyes were now burning, as uncomfortable as it may currently be to him.
It was sort of a wizarding rite of passage, and he was proud of it.
Now if he only knew what to do about this green lightning he was holding. He pondered it for a few minutes, watching the lightning leap sporadically from finger to finger. He wasn't sure he really wanted to decide what to do now. He had the dreadful impression that his common sense had departed him, so perhaps his first instinct to send a message to Remus wasn't all that intelligent. Maybe he should just think on it for awhile...
He heard the door slam suddenly behind him, and Dudley's hulking figure sauntered into the house, with his best friend Piers Polkiss right behind. Harry hurriedly stuffed his sparking hands into his pockets, and turned to greet them casually as they passed. He felt the lightning move through his pockets into his hips and down his legs. His toes started to tingle, and he wriggled them around to keep the crackling magic from bursting out all over the floor through his wet socks. It didn't really help, since the lightning and water definitely didn't mix well. Luckily enough, neither Dudley nor Piers looked down.
Dudley eyed his cousin suspiciously, since Harry had never really felt the need to greet him before. Then, in finding only fear and nerves in Harry's posture, he rammed his way past, colliding painfully with Harry's shoulder. "Watch it, freak!" Dudley grumbled at his cousin. The massive boy rubbed at his shoulder, since he had been shocked when he'd slammed into him, as if Harry had spent the last hour rubbing socked feet on plush carpets.
Piers sauntered past, paying Harry a disgusted sneer. The sneer fell a little when he caught sight of the growing flames in Harry's eyes, and his gaze dropped to the sparking floor. He then shuffled wide-eyed away from Harry, giving him a large berth, and began to follow Dudley quickly up the stairs, his eyes carefully avoiding any place near Harry.
Harry felt the lightning change form in his pockets. At once he pulled his hands out to look.
It had turned to fire.
The fire didn't really feel like it was burning him at all. It was actually nicer than the lightning that had been there a few seconds before, so Harry was pleased. The fire was soothing and warm where the lightning had actually been quite itchy.
He was surprised to see the greenish fire in his right hand mould and twist itself into the shape of a small budding flower. He carried it over to meld with the normal flame in his left hand, making one larger flower. The flower began to sprout, growing out of the palms of his clasped hands. The roots dug down under his skin, and he could feel them curling themselves into his very bones. It didn't hurt, it felt like the magic flower was simply looking for some source of water. Harry encouraged it.
The fire flower bent at the stem, curving itself toward his face as if it were searching for the sun. He closed his eyes, and felt the fire grow and surround his head.
It's sort of like travelling by floo. He thought. Like I've just stepped into Ron's fireplace, and I've called a destination. Hermione's agoramorphosis wasn't like this at all.
Suddenly the fire seemed to engulf him as if he had just stepped into a fireplace. The flower disappeared, but he could still feel the roots of it buried deep in the palms of his hands. Since he knew the fire was emanating from inside him, it was feeling less and less like floo travel. He just stood, glowing green and fiery in the front entrance of number four Privet Drive, intermittent lightning still sparking across the floor.
Upon hearing the sound of crackling flames, Piers Polkiss had turned on the stairs and gasped loudly at the sight of the boy he'd often helped Dudley torture as a child. The tall skinny ferocious-looking teen tripped over a step, and flew headlong into Dudley's porky backside, reeling away again in what looked like disgust, only to smash the back of his head painfully on the banister.
"Hey, watch it Polkiss!" Dudley yelped, clutching his backside and turning around to find that Piers was sliding ungainly down the steps and had somehow actually knocked himself out. Dudley looked up at Harry, as if he was about to blame his cousin for his unconscious friend.
"EEEEAAAAAHHHHH!" he shrieked, sounding impeccably like his mother, staring at the flaming Harry. "You're… YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO… THAT!" It was obvious that Dudley was disinclined to use the 'M-word.'
Harry just smiled up at him from his green pyre, watching the flames slowly spreading across the floor away from him. Nothing was really burning, but it was fun to imagine that it could be. He imagined the house he'd hated for his entire life going up in smoke. Such fun! The cupboard under the stairs beckoned his attention, and Harry stared at it, not listening to Dudley's frantic attempts to wake his friend.
The cupboard door looked smaller than it ever had before. It had been Harry's bedroom in this place up until the time he was eleven, and Harry wondered how he had ever fit himself in there. A wistful sigh escaped his lips, and it was filled with countless memories of lonely sleepless nights. He'd actually liked his cupboard, since it was a place all his own. None of the Dursleys had ever gone in there, but he couldn't help thinking about a defenseless child being locked up in such a place.
He stared at the small brass lock whose ominous thunk he had known well as long as he could remember, since it had made that sound every night of his childhood.
The offending lock suddenly exploded, ripping itself off the door, splintering bits of wood across the hall and slamming into the wall opposite, creating a large hole in the drywall. Harry felt an obscene pleasure at the sight of such destruction.
The Dursleys would never be able to put a lock on that door again, he swore.
"MUM!" Dudley finally yelled, giving up on reviving Piers. "MUM, HARRY'S DOING YOU-KNOW-WHAT!"
Petunia, who had come running from the laundry room upon the sound of her son's initial scream, burst up from downstairs, and skidded to a halt in the hallway as she caught sight of Harry.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NOW?" She screeched.
"NOW WHAT'S ALL THISCRASHING ABOUTTHEN?" Harry heard his uncle proclaim from the back door. He'd obviously been outside working in his back yard shed, had heard the crash from the lock of the cupboard door and had come to investigate.
Harry's personal fire only grew larger at the appearance of the only family he had left in the world. His anger was feeding it.
"Urp!" Petunia squeaked, and shuffled her way back from Harry's expanding flames.
"PETUNIA! THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!" Vernon screamed, his face going brilliantly red. "WE NEED TO GET OUT! SOMEONE CALL THE FIRE BRIGADE!"
"THAT'S NOT THE HOUSE!" She yelled back. "THAT'S THE BOY!"
Harry's uncle seemed to pale at this, and he looked closer at the snapping green flames. Then his ruddy cheeks went back to red, and his neck began to pulse in anger.
Harry heard the lightbulbs in the bathroom and kitchen explode in a shower of sparks and glass. The glass in the front door blew outwards, and the fire pushed Petunia even further out of the hall.
"DIDDY, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?" She yelled, her hands shaking and her eyes straining to find her son.
"MUMMY! THE FIRE IS BURNING PIERS! HE'S ON FIRE MUMMY!" Dudley was on the upper steps, backing slowly away in terror from the unconscious, and apparently burning Piers.
Harry looked over to see if he really was burning Dudley's friend, but he knew that it wasn't true. If Dudley were to look closer, he would see that not a stitch of clothing on Piers' body had actually caught fire, even though half his body was now licked with green flames. He wasn't hurt, unless you counted the dirty great lump on the back of his head, which was quite obviously his own stupid fault.
"HARRY!… Harry?" He heard the front door slam again, and Harry turned in relief at the sound of his tutor, and soon-to-be guardian's voice.
"Thank Merlin!" Remus' voice had dropped low in relief at the sight of his charge. Apparently Remus could see that it was only a magical fire that consumed the front hall. "I saw the fire outside… The glass… I heard… What's happening here?"
"Remus! I'm so glad you're here!" Harry tried to call, but what came out of Harry's mouth instead was a cry of the most beautiful phoenix song he'd ever heard. Harry gasped, and clutched at his throat.
Remus smiled at the sound as it escaped Harry's lips. Phoenix song was said to bring courage and love to those of honest heart who heard it, and even watching his best friend's son seeming to be made of green flames, the phoenix cry brought the lonely man an immense sense of happiness.
"Harry, What's happened?" Remus shook his head, as if to clear it of the wooly comfort.
"It's the Agoramorphosis." He answered, or at least he tried to answer. What actually came out of his mouth sounded incredibly like a deep woof and two sharp barks. Harry reeled back from Remus in alarm.
Remus paled, and an expression of grief now washed through his eyes. He knew that sound. It was the sound his best friend had often made. Sirius' animagus form had been that of a large black dog.
Padfoot. The Grim. Snuffles. Harry missed his late Godfather terribly, but over the past year since his godfather's death, he'd slowly been learning to cope with the loss. Every once in awhile the memories would slam into him, and he'd feel terrible all over again, as he was now.
Harry began to shake slightly, narrowing his eyebrows in confusion. Why would he bark like Sirius at a time like this? He certainly hadn't meant to, and it had sounded remarkably realistic.
Remus had noticed Piers' unconscious body now engulfed in the flames, and he saw that it wasn't burning. Neither were any of the draperies or the carpeting.
After swishing a hand cautiously through the flames, he stepped forward into the fire to comfort Harry as much as possible. He put his hand on Harry's shoulder, and grinned comfortingly.
"It'll be all right, Harry. I'll take you to St. Mungo's, and they'll give you some potions or something."
"You'll need to take me unconscious. I won't be able to go anywhere like this." Harry said, even though he knew it sounded much more like, "Hassssaaaaall llltthhhtaaassssssss sssssiiiiatthhhhaaassssss sssithhhissss ttthhhhiiiissssoooooaa aallassssssssstthh!" Speaking snake language was at least something that Harry already knew he could do. Parseltongue was an ability that he'd unintentionally inherited from the Dark-Lord Voldemort when Harry had only been one year old. It was from the same moment that Voldemort's killing curse had backfired, leaving nothing but that horribly obvious, and often painful lightning-bolt scar on Harry's forehead.
Harry had only had the chance to speak to a few snakes in his life, but they had all been quite memorable events. Dudley had been terrified of snakes ever since.
Remus had pulled away from him when Harry spoke in parseltongue, and he was now looking very nervous. Parseltongue was often seen as a dark magic, and most light wizards feared this ability. Harry figured that since he wasn't born with the ability, it didn't really apply to him.
"All right, Harry," Remus said, "I'm probably going to have to stun you. We can't have you doing this when that boy wakes up."
"That's what I already said!" Harry heard the frustrated words clearly, but they came out of his mouth in the threatening roars of a lion.
Again, this was a skill of which he already knew he possessed. The only surprise here was that it had never happened in quite this way. The lion was his own animagus form and so far, he'd only ever been able to 'speak' lion when he looked like one too. Remus chuckled at Harry's stunned confusion.
He heard his aunt Petunia screech in the kitchen, and a slight thump gave Harry the impression that she'd just fainted.
Dudley was staring at his cousin with a horrified expression on his face, but Harry could see that he was also slightly curious. Harry had never been able to perform any proper magic around him after all, and other than an incident in the summer before Harry's fifth year, this was the first time he'd had actual proof of his cousin's strange abilities.
Harry turned his head a little, to see his uncle Vernon staring at him, cracking his knuckles menacingly in the hall to the kitchen. He was obviously not happy with his nephew.
Harry felt his eyes flash with anger and fire and Vernon abruptly let his hands drop. He emitted a frightened grunt and spun away, scurrying out into the back garden to stare at the pyrotechnic spectacle from behind the safety of sliding glass doors.
Harry narrowed his eyes, feeling impulsive.
The glass of the doors shattered, and Vernon let out a horrified screech, retreating even further out into his work shed.
"All right, that's enough of that." Remus remonstrated warningly. He raised his wand, pointing it at Harry and muttered, "Stupefy."
A/N: I'm sorry if there are any connected words in this chapter, I've been having difficulties with the edit feature of F a n f i c t i o n . n e t and for some reason in the places where I've edited, some of the words showuplikethis. Urgh! If anyone out there knows how to fix it, let me know in a review.
