Chapter 2. The first alarms

The week was officially miserable. The reason? Two innocent words, that hid one of the vilest things on the planet: Marge Dursley. She arrived only five days ago and was leaving soon.

"Not soon enough." Harry grumbled, placing another bottle of wine on the table.

That woman always knew how to get on Harry's nerve, in the past she would set her useless piece of meat by the name Ripper on him. And it was always such a nuisance. He could deal with the four-legged creature since he was seven (about that time Tenebrae learned how to use the Force to choke others), and yet he couldn't do anything, because he was afraid of using this power of hatred, even more afraid ever since he entered the wizarding world. Using whatever means necessary to achieve greater power was Tenebrae's or Lord Voldemort's philosophy, not Harry's. Every time he thought of Voldemort a sneer wanted to make its way on Harry's face. Comparing himself to Voldemort always felt so insulting for some reason. Harry sighed, he really could do without the annoying woman grating on his nerves.

"Ah, such fine whiskey." Marge smiled, sipping from her large glass. Apparently, the whiskey was so good, that the woman decided to give it to her dog. Harry watched the scene with bewilderment clear on his face. Unfortunately for him, Marge noticed it. She looked at Harry with distaste.

"What are you looking at?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at him. Harry just shrugged and started doing the dishes. He really didn't want to interact with Marge right now. After she tried to set her blasted dog at him, Harry had to actually use some of Tenebrae's abilities to throw the vile creature away... and against a wall… hard. Since then Ripper didn't dare to even come close to Harry and Marge started glaring at him, then again, she always glared at him… Just like now.

"Where did you send the boy, Vernon?" she asked her brother. And no one could deny that the two were siblings, after all, both would soon be unable to fit into their rather large chairs.

"St. Brutus." Vernon replied with a small smile. "Perfect institution for lost cases."

"Oh, and do they beat the rubbish out of you, hopeless case?" she asked Harry, sneering at him.

"Oh, yeah, yeah." Harry nodded, keeping his face carefully blank. How he wanted to give them a zap of lighting, so the fools learned how to respect their betters. Wait, since when did he care about the respect of the Dursleys and their ilk? Since he got his pride. When did his pride get so vocal? When he was born far more powerful than those fools could ever hope to be. Damn, it was certainly from Tenebrae's vocabulary. In the back of his mind a very quiet question was asked: "So what?"

"Good." Marge turned away, apparently satisfied. "Oh, Vernon, I don't understand why you would take in such a ruffian. Such a big heart you have." she smiled. Harry enjoyed the sight Petunia's lips pursing, she looked like a baby, deprived of candy. Marge wasn't a nice person at all, and when she got drunk (like now), well, you'd better leave if you are not Vernon of Dudley Dursley. "It's all in the blood." Marge continued her drunken rant. "Bad blood, ba-ad." she took another sip of her whiskey… not bothering to clean the glass after the dog had drunk from it. Ew. "It's just like with dogs. What did the boy's father do to earn their living?"

"Nothing." Petunia said stiffly. "He was unemployed." Harry dreaded Marge's comments. She didn't disappoint.

"Oh, and was a drunk to boot, no doubt." Marge said almost triumphantly. Harry had to restrain his magic from doing something stupid as he felt it stir inside of him, he was very angry at the moment.

"Actually though," she continued, "forget what I said. It's nothing to do with the father. It's always about the mother, just like with dogs." Marge continued. Harry's fists were shaking, if that woman was going to say what he thought she was going to say… "If there's something wrong with the bitch, then there is something wrong with the pup, so not surprising I suppose."

Harry was very angry before this. Now he was infuriated. The nerve of that worthless worm to insult his mother who gave up her life for him! None of the Dursleys had the time to even gasp when Harry's green irises ignited with violent orange fire, and lighting, that appeared around Harry, blasted Marge through the wall with roaring thunder.

"What have you done, boy!" Vernon shouted, he was looking between his infuriated nephew and his sister. He eventually decided that Marge was fine and stomped to Harry, who glared at the man defiantly. "How dare you-"

"She deserved it." Harry said coldly and clearly. When Marge's dog tried to assault him, he blasted it through the wall as well and turned his blazing orange eyes to his uncle, whose face was plum-purple. When the man tried to hit him, Harry unleashed a barrage of lightning on him and threw him across the room, upturning the table in the process and sending the rest of the Dursleys in the state of panic.

Harry stomped angrily to his room and swiftly gathered his things. With each minute his sense was returning to him as rage receded. He had lost control there. He was afraid that with Dursleys around this was bound to happen again. With a packed trunk and a wand in hand Harry ran away from Number 4. He hoped that the Ministry was not going to expel him, even though he technically didn't use magic. Though that wasn't the only thing of his mind. Harry tried not to think of the pleasure he felt in the Dursleys' dining room from the power he wielded.

xxx

Fortunately for Harry, minister Fudge promised him that people aren't expelled or sentenced to Azkaban because of accidental magic. He did ask, though, why his magic reacted so violently.

"You see, sir," Harry started with a pensive look on his face, "they insulted both of my parents. They insulted people who sacrificed themselves for me." he said quietly.

"Understandable." Fudge replied, patting Harry on the shoulders. His hands felt silk-pillow-soft. Harry felt repulsed, this man had never done anything with those hands of his in his life, and he was less powerful than Harry. Yet here the fool stood, showing off his power over Harry. Oh well, he could tolerate this… for now.

"Very well, Harry." the minister said. "You are free to go. I imagine you would like to do some shopping in the Alley while you have the chance. You don't have to come back to your aunt and uncle."

"Thank you, sir." Harry tried hard not to think about how fake his gratitude was.

xxx

Three hours later Harry sat in his room in the Leakey Cauldron. He had done his school shopping after visiting the minister. All basic subject textbooks were in one pile, while the electives textbooks were in another, noticeably smaller pile.

Ron tried to persuade Harry to choose divination and care for magical creatures, but ultimately failed. No matter how dumb he wanted to look, Harry refused to waste his time on some random nonsense like divination, so he took ancient runes and care for magical creatures. He briefly contemplated taking arithmancy, but really, studying future using numbers? That was as dumb as divination.

So here Harry sat, reading through his ancient runes textbook. He put all of the textbooks for core classes away, since he had already read them from cover to cover the previous year. He got some very good practice with glamour charms during his reading time. It was quite funny really, how people only saw what they wanted to see and the fact that Harry had been reading the same book ("Quiddich through the ages") the entire year didn't seem to bother anyone at all.

Taking out a quill, Harry started taking down notes. So engrossed in his reading he was, that he didn't even notice his hand moving all on its own. When Harry finally closed his textbook, having read first seven chapters, he looked at the list with his notes in shock. One small part was occupied by his notes and the other was full of different runes and a language Harry faintly knew... It was like a whisper to him. Harry suddenly remembered that Tenebrae knew this language. What was happening? First he lost control at the Dursleys' – something that had never happened before. Now he was remembering Tenebrae's knowledge. Was the border between them getting even thinner? Was Harry slowly becoming Tenebrae? He didn't want it. He didn't want to have such dark power. He wasn't like Tenebrae.

Harry decided to go to bed, since it was pretty dark outside. As he fell asleep Harry thought that his words still did not sound convincing at all.