You're a protagonist Harry
Chapter 03 – You've got mail
…
Owls. Owls were a thing.
What they were not was a thing you saw in broad daylight, or sitting on lampposts, or just anywhere near Privet Drive.
"What're you looking at?"
Harry considered his cousin's question, trying to think of the best way to respond, "An owl."
Nailed it.
"What owl?" said Dudley.
"On the lamp post over there," said Harry, pointing through the window in the door to the nocturnal raptor on the metal light fixture.
Squeezing in next to Harry, Dudley peered through the window, "Cor, look at that. Never seen one before."
"Me neither," said Harry, equally awed.
"Whatcha think he's doing up there?"
A fine question, since he'd never seen an owl on Privet Drive before. "Looking for mice."
"There aren't any mice on Private Drive," said Dudley certainly.
"Then he probably won't be around very long," said Harry, turning from the door and heading for the kitchen.
Dudley quickly lost interest and followed, "You think it could eat a cat?" he asked.
Harry considered, "I think it could 'kill' a cat if it really tried," said Harry, "but I don't know if it would eat it."
"What could kill a cat?" said Petunia as Harry slid in at the stove and Dudley went to the table.
"An owl," said Dudley.
"Why would an owl kill a cat?" Petunia wondered aloud.
"Didn't like the way the cat was looking at it," Harry offered, hiding a sarcastic smirk in his work. "Their good at that. Looking at you like their judging you."
"Stupid little blighters," Dudley opined. "Is that crazy old cat lady still up on Magnolia Crescent?"
"Mrs. Figg?" said Petunia. "I think so."
"Yeah," said Harry, flipping the bacon, "I saw her the other day taking Mittens in to see the doctor."
"Which one is mittens?" said Petunia.
"The black one with the white paws, at least that's what was in the carrier," he said. "Haven't been up there since the last time you had her babysit me. What's that been now… two years?"
"Two years," said Vernon from behind his newspaper. "Better things you be doing with your time than lounging about in some old woman's sitting room."
Harry made a general noise of ascent but refused to acknowledge the statement with words. He was right, technically, but he hated to agree with anything Vernon said, just on principle. His animosity toward Dudley had cooled a lot over the years, but he still hated Vernon.
"What brought this all up then?" said Petunia when the conversation appeared ready to peter out. "Cats I understand but owls?"
"There's one sitting out on the light post," said Dudley.
"What's sitting on the light post?" said Petunia with a look of confusion.
"An owl," said Harry, dishing up the bacon and grabbing Vernon's coffee.
"That's silly," said Petunia with a hint of scorn, directed at Harry of course. "There aren't any owl's on Privet Drive."
"There is this morning," said Harry, setting the plate on the table just out of Dudley's reach before putting Vernon's mug in its traditional spot.
Petunia gave him a dirty look as he went back to start working on the eggs, leaving the kitchen to see for herself. She returned still scowling.
"There's an owl on the light post."
"Huh, fancy that," said Vernon, flipping pages and sipping his coffee, clearly unperturbed by the event.
"A bit 'odd' don't you think," the woman of the house said, unwilling to let it go. "What's an owl doing sitting on light post in Privet Drive."
"Looking for mice," her husband answered automatically.
"There are no mice on Privet Drive," she retorted, perhaps a bit too quickly.
"Hmm, spose he won't be around long then."
That fact that it was around at all seemed to bother her, though for reasons Harry could not begin to fathom. It was just an owl.
While he pondered on it, and the various ways he planned to avoid his aunt the rest of the day, because she was just not worth dealing with when she was like this, the post arrived.
"Boy, go get the post," Vernon ordered.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," he replied automatically, leaving the eggs briefly to go and pick up the days mail.
His aunt was at the stove again when he came back, sifting through the morning's missives.
"Anything important?" his Uncle asked.
"Bill… bill… bill… you may have just won ten million dollars… bill… eh, hello. What's this?"
"What?" said Vernon, only listening with half an ear… the top half probably.
"It's a letter… for me."
And suddenly both ears were fully alert, "Who'd be sending you a letter?" the large man said dismissively.
Harry shrugged, "Says, To Mr. Harry Potter, sma… smallest bedroom, number four Privet Drive? What?"
"What are you talking about boy?" his uncle growled. "What sort of nonsense is this?"
"That's what it says on the envelope," he retorted, "and what is this anyway. Looks like parchment," he went on, too engrossed in the thing in his hand to notice his aunt glaring at him across the room or the storm clouds rolling across his uncle's face.
He was still looking for a return address when his cousin snatched the letter from his hand and held it over his head like an eleven-year-old. It didn't stay there long, and Harry knew there'd be no getting it back from Vernon.
He also knew he'd have one hell of a day, judging by the look on his Uncles face. It was the same look he got whenever something unexplainable happened around Harry, that worrisome mixture of fear and anger… but mostly anger.
The next day Vernon got the post. Both Harry and Dudley stared after him, shocked. Vernon never got the post.
He returned with a handful of the same letters he'd received the previous day. Thick parchment paper, all addressed to Harry, or so he assumed. He never got near them, Vernon made sure of that as he ripped them to shreds and threw them in the fireplace after starting the fire. Petunia watched, her expression tight and worried, like she'd just sucked the worlds sourest lemon.
Something was going on, that much was clear. In all the time he'd been at Privet Drive he'd never received mail. Even the missives from his school were addressed to Vernon or Petunia. Someone was trying to contact him. Moreover, Vernon and Petunia knew who was trying to contact him, and they didn't want them to contact him.
Curious… and dangerous, for him.
Both of them looked anxious. That was never good. They were unpredictable when they were anxious, liable to jump at anything. They'd been like that when he was twelve and Vernon had an important meeting with a client.
For days before hand as everything was prepared they'd been edgy, irritable, only calming down once the dinner was over and the guests were safely away and none the wiser there'd been another person in the house they'd never seen.
This was what their current behavior reminded him of, and what a rough time he'd had.
The next day he woke to the sound of a hammer on nails. He walked into the hall and looked down the stairs to see Vernon nailing a crude sort of barricade over the mail slot. Slowly he backed away and waited for a time after the noise ceased to go downstairs.
He found Vernon at the table, red-faced and surly looking, his paper sitting ignored. Petunia was at the oven, her movements wooden, mechanical. Even without seeing her face Harry knew she'd have that sour lemon scowl on again.
It was a sign, like STOP, or YIELD, or SLIPPER WHEN WET. He could see it plain as day, but what could he do? Perhaps the better question was, what were they going to do?
It made Vernon's joviality the next day all the more spooky.
"Fine day Sunday," he said as everyone sat around the family room having tea and biscuits. Everyone but Harry of course. "Best day of the week in my opinion. Why is that Dudley?"
Dudley just shrugged; obviously glad his father wasn't stalking around growling but also a bit unnerved by the sudden shift to near manic good cheer.
"What about you Harry? Why is Sunday such a fine day?" he said as Harry collected the empty dishes.
"No post on Sundays," Harry said, having figured out the cause of his good mood earlier.
"Right you are boy. Right you are," he said, unnervingly chipper, "No post on Sunday."
But Monday comes after Sunday and it'll be Monday soon enough, Harry thought, but wisely kept to himself. If his uncle wanted to be in a good mood, who was he to stop him.
It would have been nice if he didn't keep going on and on about it. He'd later wonder if all that bragging hadn't been what did it. Harry knew fate, and fate hated to be tempted. No self-control you see.
The letter that flew out of the fireplace smacked Vernon in the face mid-sentence. The entire family flinched. Then its friends arrived, and the family cowered.
They swirled in a vortex out of the fireplace and around the room. Letter after letter after letter, they just kept coming. It was only the unique power granted to all teenagers, the ability to look completely unimpressed by anything, that kept Harry from giggling like a maniac and trying to snatch one of the flying missives out of the air.
Vernon was in such a state he wouldn't have put anything past him as he blustered and raged amid the tornado of mail.
"We're going away! Far away!" he screamed. "Where they can't find us!"
In short order the entire family was packed into the car which backed down the driveway, startling the horde of owls and adding a whole other level of surrealness to the situation.
"You think he's gone round the twist?" Dudley whispered as they hit the main road out of London headed North.
"And still going," said Harry who was watching his uncle very closely.
He felt it was only a matter of time before the big man turned his ire toward the source of his woe. The letters were all addressed to Harry.
Vernon however didn't so much as glance at the back as he drove with a single-minded purpose. They didn't stop till early evening when they pulled into a Motel to spend the night. Plans changed when they walked in to rent a room and discovered a pile of the letters waiting for them.
With a horrified shriek everyone was ushered back out into the car and away they went again.
This time they didn't stop till it was nearly dark. They pulled up to a small place by the ocean. Vernon disappeared inside and came back out smiling, holding a rusty old key.
With minimal explanation he ushered them all to a small dinghy and began paddling them across the water to an island where sat a small decrepit looking shack.
"This should do. Let's see them find us out here," he boasted as the four disembarked and got their first look at the inside of their accommodations.
"We can't stay here!" Dudley exclaimed.
"Sure we can," Vernon said, ignoring his son's dissent.
*Krackaboom*
"OH! Heavens!" Petunia exclaimed when the sky roared and danced with flashing light.
"There see," said Vernon, infinitely pleased with himself. "Not going anywhere now. That sounds mighty fierce. Haha, let's see them get through that."
"Dudley," said Harry, as Vernon began to dance around the room.
"Huh?"
"Now, he's round the twist."