The Straw

That summer, Dudley was determined to make Harry's life miserable. One day, Dudley knocked his plate over accidentally and Petunia took Harry's plate to give to Dudley. When Dudley started doing this nearly every meal, Harry was forced to smuggle even more extra food under the floorboards of his room for the times he wasn't allowed to eat anything.

Dudley would stomp on the stairs above Harry's room whenever he could to disturb him. Harry also suspected that he was also cutting the flowers off of the rose bushes and blaming it on Harry, but couldn't prove anything.

Harry remembered the incident with Nigel and the street sign. When he got angry things - bad things - would happen to those who drew his ire. So instead of pushing everything down inside and just curling up when a rock hit him in the throat, he would let himself get angry. Sometimes he had to really push his anger to the point he felt like it was splitting along his scar, but bad things started happening to Dudley.

The first time was after the fourth meal in a row that Harry had to give up his food to his cousin. He felt his stomach growl and Dudley laughed at him, as he stuffed an extra large spoonful of potatoes into his mouth. Harry felt his anger boil over easily and suddenly Dudley was spitting out his food which was now covered with mold. Petunia cursed him and told him he was a freak while dragging him to his room.

A few nights later, Dudley decided that the middle of the night would be a good time to run up and down the stairs above Harry's room and then pound on the door. Angry at being woken up, he focused all of his anger on his cousin and he heard his cousin fall over and hit the ground. He got back up and took a few steps only to trip again and curse. On the way up the stairs, he tripped two more times. In the morning Harry could see bruises on his face and arms.

Occasionally Dudley and his gang would chase him around the neighborhood. For some reason, he couldn't get anything to happen to them until after they had hit him with the slingshot or punched him a few times. However, after a punch or a rock from the slingshot hitting him, they would have their feet sink into dry ground, their bike gears would jam, or a car door would open up in front of them and Harry could get away.

Then there was the washing machine incident.

Harry's new job for this summer was doing the laundry. He couldn't imagine his aunt enjoying washing the huge and disgusting clothes that her husband and son gave her each week. Aunt Petunia had started him folding clothes with her after it was washed. Folding his uncle's clothes was just as difficult as folding the sheets for the beds. For the briefest of moments, Harry enjoyed working with his aunt, like when she taught him how to make breakfast. That moment passed very quickly as he knew his aunt didn't feel the same way.

After a few weeks of folding laundry, Harry was taught how to wash the clothes and use the machine. It was a lot easier than what he had been led to believe by his aunt complaining about the chore. Separate the colors, add a cup of powder, push the buttons, and go do something else for an hour. Easy.

One day, towards the end of July, he was loading the washing machine when he felt hands push him hard from behind, he stumbled forward and hit his head inside the machine. Then more hands fell on him, and he screamed and kicked until he was completely inside. Harry was able to look out the glass door to see Dudley and Nigel standing there laughing. Nigel then looked Harry in the eyes and pushed a thumb against his crooked nose before pushing buttons on the machine. Dudley laughed as the wheel started to turn and the bottom filled with water. Harry was panicking but had no room to kick or move his arms to get out. When his head went underwater for the first rotation, he started to get desperate. The lights in the house began to flicker. The two boys ran off leaving Harry helplessly churning within the machine. When his lungs started to fill with water, something inside him snapped. All the lights went off and the door to the machine blew off as the water inside vaporized. Harry twisted and turned until he managed to crawl out of the wreckage of the washing machine.

Now was the time that Aunt Petunia decided to grace him with her arrival. She looked at the room and saw the broken machine, wet floor, blown light bulbs, and burnt clothing. She screamed and grabbed Harry by his ear and dragged him downstairs to his room and locked him inside. Harry was out of breath and on the edge of consciousness but heard his aunt yelling at the telephone to work. Then he lost consciousness.

He woke up sometime later because his door was being unlocked. All the lights in the house were still out. Vernon was standing there, furious. He yanked Harry out of his room and dumped him on the floor. His whole body was sore like he had been running for hours and his head was still a bit damp from the washing machine.

"What are we going to do with you?" his uncle yelled. "We take you in from your no-good, freak parents and this is the thanks we get? More freakishness! Every chance you get, something else happens! Now your freakishness knocked out the power on the whole street and destroyed the new washing machine! I'm telling you, this ends tonight." He said with a note of finality. "You will be in your cupboard until further notice." He pulled a completely drained Harry to his feet and shoved him back into his room, then closed and locked the door.

Harry was in his room for at least a week, getting only bread and water twice a day. He was given a small bucket to use for a bathroom and called a disgusting freak every time he needed it changed. His entire body was pained with aches and sores and the only solace he got was during the daytime when he could hold The Hobbit up to the vent in the door and read a little more. He ended up reading the chapter with the eagles many times and had dreams of flying away. Sometimes he had a dream of being on a flying motorcycle as well, traveling in the clouds.

Harry had lost count of the days. Maybe a week later, after the power came back on, his uncle came home with a few men who carried something upstairs. The men worked loudly for several minutes before carrying something back down. Harry assumed they were installing the new washing machine. Uncle Vernon had brought a bag with takeout for dinner like he did most days while the power was out. This one smelled like hamburgers.

Harry started to sit up, in preparation for his aunt to bring his bread and water to his room. However, this time, she opened the door all the way and stepped back. "Boy, you're having dinner with the rest of us tonight." She then turned around and walked back to the kitchen.

Harry blinked at the light from the living room stretched and slowly climbed out of his room. His muscles were aching from being stuck in his room for so long. He wondered briefly if just returning to his room would be better than dealing with the constant abuse and yelling from his relatives.

His uncle leaned out of his chair to look down the hallway and yell, "Hurry up, everything is getting cold." The smell of the hamburgers made up his mind for him.

Harry knew he smelled bad after sitting in his own sweat with a bucket of his own waste next to him for so long. He took a change of clothes from his room and said, "I'm going to wash up, I'll be there in a minute." He walked slowly for the first time in over a week. Every movement felt difficult and his whole body was sore. When he got to the bathroom, he took an extra minute to use the toilet, and then washed his face and arms before changing his clothes. His uncle yelled again for him to hurry up, so he put on socks and his trainers before heading to the kitchen.

His place at the table had a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, and a lot of onions. He sat down slowly. His uncle pushed the burger to him and encouraged him to start eating. Harry took his time both to savor the flavor and because he knew from experience that eating fast would lead to a stomach ache. Harry hadn't had more than two or three burgers before to compare it to, but it was decent. He tasted something that felt rough on his tongue like a time Nigel had forced him to eat chalk. However, he loved onions, so the flavor was good and he savored every bite. Meanwhile, Dudley had finished devouring his double bacon cheeseburger and reached over towards Harry's burger to take it when Harry set it down for a moment. Harry's aunt saw this and reached over to slap Dudley's hand away, surprising both of the boys.

When Harry had finished and had drunk some soda that had been offered to him, his vision started to blur slightly and he felt like he was being pushed into the back of his own head. He reached out for the table to grab onto but somehow missed the edge. The room moved around him as the ceiling rose up in front of his eyes and he felt like he was falling upward toward the ground. Harry saw his uncle leaning over him as everything went black.

As Harry fell out of his chair and Vernon leaned over to check on him, Petunia immediately told Dudley, "Go up to your room now, and don't come out. We are taking Harry to the hospital."

Dudley hesitated before his father yelled, "NOW!" and the fat boy ran upstairs and closed the door to his room.

Petunia turned to her husband, "That happened a lot quicker than they said it would, he should have been able to go back to his cupboard before falling asleep." She picked Harry up off the floor and carried him like a rag doll towards the washing machine box that was still by the front door. Vernon opened the cupboard and took out Harry's cot, clothes and anything else that was in there and dumped them into the bottom of the box.

Petunia raised an eyebrow towards her husband, but he just shrugged and said, "Less stuff we need to get rid of later."

They closed the box up and Petunia grabbed Vernon by the chin. "Remember what I told you. Try not to think about what you are doing. If anyone… ANYONE asks where has gone, he ran away. Do not look anyone in the eyes when they ask you or they will know. That greasy boy my sister always hung out with always knew what I was thinking when I looked him in the eyes, they might all be able to do it too." Vernon nodded.

With that, Petunia kissed her husband and he carried the box out to the car. Vernon drove for two and a half hours to reach the Port of London. He took the long route, without toll roads, making sure to check often that he wasn't being followed.

When he arrived at a security gate, he handed the security attendant a card and some money and was waved in. He drove down an aisle of large shipping containers until he saw one container by itself with a car in front of it. The car flashed its lights at him and he drove up slowly. As he got closer, two men got out of the car. He parked and got out himself.

One of the men walked up to Vernon, a pistol easily visible on his hip. The one behind him said in accented English, "Search him."

The man with the pistol said to Vernon, "Hands out," and extended his arms out until his pose resembled that of the letter "T" as an example. Typically, Vernon would spit on some immigrant who tried to tell him what to do, but today he had a mission and the man had a gun. He had brought an old shotgun his father had given him for pheasant hunting with him, but it was stashed under the passenger seat.

He raised his arms and the man with the pistol patted him down all over. At one point, the man doing the searching called back to the other one by the car saying something in a language Vernon couldn't place to which they both laughed. The man with the pistol finished the pat-down and declared, "He's clean," and then to Vernon, "Show us what you brought."

Vernon lifted the box out of the back of the car and opened it up. The man with the pistol looked inside and back at Vernon. "What can he do?"

Vernon replied stiffly, "He cooks, cleans, and does laundry," Vernon paused to grimace slightly after mentioning the latter, "He also likes to play in the garden and plant things."

The man asked, "Does he cause any problems?"

Vernon responded, "If he didn't, we wouldn't be here, now would we?"

The man with the pistol went back to the other by the car and spoke with him in their language before coming back with an envelope. He handed it to Vernon who opened it up and quickly skimmed through the money inside. "What now?" Vernon asked.

"Now, you leave," said the man with the pistol, tapping it for emphasis. Vernon backed up to his car but watched as the two men hoisted the box and carried it to a shipping container. When they opened it up, about a dozen children could be seen, each child had a chain to one of their ankles which bound them to the side of the container. The two men placed the box next to a young blonde girl on the floor by the door and closed it up tight.

Vernon got in his car and drove off.

After watching Vernon drive off, the man without the pistol looked up, waved, put his fingers to his lips, and whistled. The crane above them came to life and the lights turned on. After a minute, the metal arm on the crane attached to the container with the children and hoisted it into the air. There were probably screams coming from inside the box, but no sound could be heard outside in the London night. The container was loaded onto a ship and it left port that night.

Vernon Dursley had a peaceful drive back home as the ship floated out to sea. Both Vernon and Harry's new keepers slept soundly that night.

Author's Note: I couldn't figure out what nationality to make the people taking Harry. However, what I wanted to make them say if I could have decided on a language for them to speak was, "I'm sorry it's taking so long to search him, he's just so big!"

Trespasser for sensitive content review

MadDoe 1138 for continuing awesome beta work through the first publishing blitz.