First thing in the morning, Harry was out the door with his owl cage, loosing the damned thing and watching it take flight into the burgeoning false dawn. His feet were damp from the dew, but he didn't really care. The bloody thing was beautiful, on the wing, he'd give it that. But it could stay in the Wizarding World, where it belonged. Even if it wanted to... whatever a familiar did, it could do it without being a bloody spectacle. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were mad at him enough for making spectacles, he didn't need a pet adding to his oddity.

Harry Potter had spent the weekend reading, devouring history books as quickly as anything he'd ever read, and at least skimming his textbooks. All in all, the Wizarding World was starting to take shape in front of him. It was a staid world, still full of vice as any, but one in which the vice was scowled upon. It was a world of prejudice, and of bigotry. And a world where people waved wands, and had unicorns, and could fix a broken bone with a potion.

Harry wasn't sure what to think, by the end, but he found himself quite glad that Uncle Vernon had a coincidental business trip that had absorbed his weekend. "Aunt Petunia?" Harry asked, coming up behind her while she was watching the tellie.

"Time to talk, is it?" She said bruskly, "Up to your room then, and be quick about it. You'll have questions, I suspect."

Harry got to the room after her, and he carefully closed the door, sensing without words that she didn't want Dudley to hear what she had to say. "Why'd you say that my parents were killed in a drunken car accident? You knew it wasn't the truth, I saw." Harry's eyes glittered greenly, like a grass snake hissing at her.

"What, I was going to tell you something daft like the truth? Be reasonable. I needed to tell you something that you could tell the teachers at school, without getting you locked away." Aunt Petunia scoffed, "Besides, what better way to get a six year old hurt than to tell him his parents died heroes in a war? You think I've never seen boys playing at war?! Every one of them thinks they're invincible." Harry had to silently agree with that, he'd seen Dudley at play.

"You don't think I should accept, do you?" Harry said directly.

"Frankly, I think it's your choice. A dangerous choice if you choose it, but yours to make." Aunt Petunia paused, for a moment, and then ventured, "But that big bloke didn't look like the type to take no for an answer. You certainly didn't get what your Mum got, which was someone politely telling us about the wonderful world you could train in."

Harry Potter thought about that, his green eyes growing cloudy, "You think something's up. Something's not right about this."

"Too true, lad, too true." Aunt Petunia said with a grin, "I tell you what - take advantage of being a child."

"I'm not a child." Harry Potter said firmly.

"Well, we raised you right, that's for sure. Ready to do what needs doing, at any rate." Aunt Petunia said.

"Is that what you call raising someone right?" Harry Potter sputtered.

"I do. Dudley will have ten years to grow up. Take the dangerous choice now, child, and you may need to be ready now."

"What would you do?" Harry asked curiously.

"I'm always one to look before I leap. Send back the letter, declining. Sure as rain, they'll come here and explain why they need you so badly. Why you're special." Aunt Petunia said with a grim smile.

"And if they don't come?" Harry asked quietly, not quite able to hide his longing, his fear.

"Well, then I'll write to them myself. Tell them that I got you to change your mind, and that, at any rate, if they don't take you in - you'll be out on the street those ten months!" Aunt Petunia's madcap grin stretched her face ghoulishly. "Don't think I won't make good on that threat, neither."

"Oh, that reminds me. I've got back-rent to pay." Harry Potter said, opening his chest and pulling out a small bag of gold. "Here."

The look on Aunt Petunia's face was priceless. Harry felt compelled to add, "Apparently I'm quite rich. Who knew?"

"Harry, you've paid your rent the hard way, there was no such need for this."

"Really? Good. Because I'm done doing it the hard way. If this works out, I'll have lessons to do instead." Harry Potter opened the door to his room, gently ushering his aunt out, who was openly shaking her head.

[a/n: Aunt Petunia rather likes her nephew. Not to say that made her any less hard on him, but still.

My thanks to the anonymous reader who remembered that I'd not actually written the owl out of the trunk.

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