Chapter 5- The friends and the cousin
In a point of a school playground a green-eyed skinny boy, a plump girl sporting a ponytail and a boy with glaring native-American traits were sitting on the ground in a small circle while playing some sort of Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Harry Potter said he was going to be a wizard and Jessica Sherman chose to be a Paladin; they were both holding their character's sheets while Eduardo Sosa was holding a large rulebook: he was the Dungeon Master; he was supposed to narrate a story where Harry and Jessica were going to role-play into.
"It's the beginning of the evening. At your west is the Forest of the screams, its trees are too close to one another; maybe it's the dim illumination playing tricks with your eyes, but their trunks look like they have wicked faces carved on them. At your east is the cave of despair, it's pitch black and it exhales humid fumes; from where you are you can smell a faint odor of rotten flesh." said Eduardo.
"I think we should explore the cave first, it must be smaller than the forest" spoke Jessica.
"I'm fine with it though I think it also means less space to run if we ever need to… I conjure an orb of light and I command it to follow me". replied Harry.
"This orb provides bright illumination within 20 feet and shadowy illumination within 40 feet, it lasts for one hour." enunciated Eduardo.
"I'm staying as close as possible to Harry, my eyes are good, but they can't see in the dark, you know." voiced Jessica.
"The cave is warm and humid. You can see a stinky pile of bones in a corner of it, bones of men and beasts are mixed up in this gruesome mess. In the distance, you see the silhouettes of some creatures."
"I want to make a perception test, to see if I can identify the creatures from where we are." said Jessica.
"That's a long distance, you have to make a dice roll and get number five or higher." said Eduardo.
Jessica rolled the dice. The face with six little points stayed upwards.
"Yeah" beamed, her.
"You got it. From where you are you can see they're three angry looking Trolls holding clubs. You should be careful." voiced Eduardo.
Shortly after he said that, he and his friends spotted three boys with mean faces staring at them.
"Sometimes those games get just too real." said Harry.
"What's up, fellas? This game already started, but you can join our party in the next one". stated Jessica, sardonically.
"Those games are for weirdos". said Dudley Dursley, the largest among them. Then he stepped on Harry's character sheet.
Eduardo closed his book and stood up, Harry did the same, while clenching his fists; Jessica stood up too, she put her hands on her waist and stomped the ground with her left foot.
"Make this girl leave, so we can fight." uttered Dudley to Harry and Eduardo.
"I won't leave". replied her. "I dare you to try making me leave."
"Leave, girl, we don't beat girls!" said Peter Polkiss.
"Congratulations, you're halfway through getting some sense. Now you just need to shove into your fat heads that you shouldn't beat boys too." retorted her.
"You're cowards! You're hiding behind a girl!" vocalized Malcolm.
"Jess is our friend, we're playing and we're not interested in fighting. If somebody needs to leave, it's you guys". answered Eduardo.
After a few tense moments of arguing, the bullies left them alone and went searching for other victims, preferably lonely and easier to target ones.
"Sheesh, what's the problem with those dudes?' mumbled Eduardo.
"They're morons, especially the biggest one!" exclaimed Jessica.
"You're lucky because you only have to deal with him and his gang at school." whispered Harry, unhappily.
"Does he live near to you?" queried Jessica.
"He's actually my cousin, we live in the same house with my aunt and uncle, his parents." answered Harry.
"Strange, someone would expect him to be friendlier towards you since you're raised together." said Eduardo.
"'Friendly' is an inexistent word in his vocabulary, even his supposed friends are just people that gather together to hit other people." responded Harry.
"But, does he hit you at home, too? Before the eyes of your aunt and uncle?" asked Jessica.
"He hits me when they're not looking. But, lately, he only has tried it when he got, at least, one of his friends to hold me, since last time he tried to take on me alone I got to hit him, too."
"Your aunt and uncle should do something." voiced Eduardo.
"Yes, but most times they didn't see what happened, and they tend to believe him rather than me; they like him more than they like me. I can't blame them: he's their son, and I'm just a nephew."
"I'm sorry to ask, but… This scar on your forehead, it has something to do with your cousin hurting you?" questioned Jessica, shyly.
"No. I got it in a car crash when my parents died." answered Harry, gloomily.
Both his friends seemed embarrassed and said, "I'm sorry".
"It's fine". replied Harry. "They were both drunk, driving recklessly when it happened. They were very irresponsible, my aunt told me. Sometimes I think it was for the best."
"Oh, don't say such a thing, they were your parents!" shrieked Jessica, shocked.
"How possibly it could be for the best?" inquired Eduardo.
"Imagine how I would be if they raised me? " he shuddered. "My aunt told me I still have health problems because mum couldn't stop doing drugs when she was pregnant. But living with my aunt and uncle I have a normal life, I live in a nice house in a safe neighborhood. They're making me a favor, since they aren't even legally obligated to foster me, but they chose to. Of course they love their son more than they love me, it's just natural; and, yes, Dudley is a pain in the neck sometimes, but nothing's perfect." declared Harry, and then two teardrops fell from his eyes.
Upon hearing such a statement, his friends couldn't think of anything suitable to say.
Although they were all by themselves in Privet Drive number 4, Snape's overcautious nature made him cast a spell around him and Petunia to make their conversation inaudible to anybody else just before their dialogue about Hogwarts started. What was just an excessive precaution at first turned out to be something that spared them from a lot of trouble: Petunia's unexpected histrionic eruption would be perfectly audible in half of the neighborhood in normal conditions, and probably they would have by now, at least, two Muggle police cars in the front of the Dursley's home and an official of the Ministry of Magic inside of it charging them for violating the Statute of Secrecy. Thankfully, instead, now Snape was cleaning the blood on his face just after he closed his wound with a simple healing spell while Petunia was chilling out in an armchair after taking a tranquilizing potion he offered her.
"Reparo". he said while pointing his wand to the shattered teacup that was once used against him. Now it was in one piece again like it was brand new.
"Mrs. Dursley, I presume you're perfectly aware why it's important that you and Mr. Potter share the same home, right? And, if you're supposedly so concerned about the lives of people that you are related to, you shouldn't complain about the encumbrance of fostering him, since it's essential for his safety; unless you don't mind to bury another Potter, of course, this time with the bonus of being partially guilty of it". he said while placing the teacup on its saucer again.
"Yes, I'm aware of it. I think of it every single day, I still keep Dumbledore's letter". she mumbled, sounding tired.
"Nice. Well, going back to where we stopped: when is the boy coming home?"
"He and my son are going to be here anytime from now".
"Excellent, I can't wait to be done with this. Also, Tuney, I would like to ask you one little favor. "
"And, what is it?" she queried, apprehensively.
"I would appreciate if you didn't tell the boy anything about the friendship I had with his late mother."
Petunia could feel by the deathly way he voiced that last phrase that "I would appreciate if you didn't" actually meant "you're going to regret being born if you do".
N/A: I want to thank you all for your favs, follows and reviews! Keep 'em coming, they're the fuel that keeps me writing!
I never played a tabletop RPG with friends, I just have an idea of how it works. If this portrayal of kids playing D&D seems inaccurate to you, I beg you to help me and send me suggestions to make it better, please. Actually, the whole reason why I chose to make the characters play this kind of game was because I thought it was a good way to present them and make that joke about Harry being a Wizard and that one about trolls when the bullies approached.
The Dursleys are just as bad there as they are in the canon (though I'm trying to give Petunia's character some more depth), but I've thought that writing Harry as convinced that he should be grateful to his aunt and uncle instead of being contemptuous from the beginning towards them would be interesting and credible, since he was raised hearing it from them constantly and he's just a child, so it would be easy to his relatives to influence his young mind to make him believe it.
See you soon! I hope you're enjoying the fic!