Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story: by rabbit
Disclaimer: It's all JKR's, kids. Still. (Of course, I suppose it's also her fault for making us wait so long for book five, too. *grin*)
Chapter 6: The Uncle
Summary: Vernon returns to find that things have gotten even stranger in his absence.
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By the time the car hydroplaned for the sixth time, Vernon Dursley had run out of bad language. He just waited for the world to stop sliding by sideways and hoped that traction would return before he slid into a ditch. Fortunately, almost no one else was foolish enough to be driving in these wretched conditions, and no one had seen him clip off the side mirrors of a row of parked cars the last time he'd fishtailed, and this time there was no one to watch as the back wheels went onto the verge by the church and slowed the car to a muddy, grass-destroying stop just short of the stone wall. Cautiously, he stepped on the gas, and to his relief the car crept forward, back onto the road. He drove on, tapping the brakes now and them to dry them. He'd just have to take the chance of going more slowly. Even one of those people had to comprehend how difficult it was to travel in this kind of storm. Surely, Dudley would be safe with Petunia in the house; at least safe for long enough to Vernon to get there.
He groaned and pounded one hand on the steering wheel. Three bloody pet shops he'd gone to! The first one turned out to only sell fish, and while the second one had had the bird bedding, they'd only had two tiny piebald mice. The proprietor had offered gerbils, but Vernon wasn't going to take any chances with confusing this order. There were customers who'd take permanent offense if you offered them a drill bit of the wrong pitch, even if the diameter was correct, and Vernon had a feeling that the freak who held his son hostage was one of them. He'd wasted five minutes in the last shop, dithering, because the mice there were all white instead of spotted like the first two, and he wasn't sure if mismatched mice would be acceptable. In the end he'd bought two extra white mice, just in case, and be damned to the expense.
Stopping at his office for the trunk had been more complicated than it needed to be as well. He'd needed a hand truck from the warehouse to bring the trunk down from the management floors, and the security guard had been bored and wanting to chat at first, and then suspicious and wanting to look into the trunk when Vernon tried to brush him off. Vernon had been too flustered to remember the combinations of the bicycle locks he'd strapped around the trunk to prevent Harry from being able to get into it even if he'd found it, and the security guard had taken that to mean that the trunk wasn't really his. He'd threatened to fire the fellow, who'd threatened right back to call the police, and in the end he'd had to bribe him with the promise of a pay raise and all the cash he'd had left in his pockets to hold him. Not that he wouldn't fire the man for being bribable anyway, once the freak was gone and Dudley was safe, but it galled him to have had to concede even temporarily.
He turned another corner carefully, thinking about the day in spring when he'd received the package of new extra-strong window bars for Harry's room. It had been warm enough, so he'd gone up and started installing them – meaning to prevent Harry from letting anyone, like that Weasley boy, in to the house without Vernon knowing. It would keep him from running off, too, the way he had two summers back, leaving Vernon to concoct explanations for the nosiest neighbors. Fancy old Figg noticing that the light was never on in Harry's room night after night! He'd gotten the bars nearly installed when he was called to the telephone, and as a result, the window had stood open all night. In the morning, when he'd gotten back to it, a line of ants had gotten in, and were trailing down through a gap between two of the floorboards where the bed normally stood. Naturally, Vernon had investigated, and when he'd pried up the board he had found the stash of rock cakes Harry had left behind. He couldn't blame Potter for hoarding food – he'd already told Petunia that there would not be a repeat of last summer's "everyone's on Dudley's diet" experiment – but he'd promised himself to give the boy grief for leaving any of it behind to attract insects. Then, while he was clearing out the cakes, and a petrified corn beef sandwich, he'd noticed something glinting in the plasterdust by one of the joists. And when he'd pried it out it had turned out to be a golden coin.
He hadn't known what to do about it then, except keep it in his pocket and try to monitor all of Harry's contacts with his strange friends, hoping for a clue to where Harry had gotten the gold. That's why he'd taken the writing things from Harry's room – so Harry would have to come down and ask for paper and pen if he wanted to write someone. And that's why he'd insisted on locking Harry's school trunk closed with the bicycle locks – in case Harry had pen or paper in there. He'd deliberately left the mail slot open this summer, so that even the mails delivered by owls would come to the front door, just so that he could steam the envelopes open and read the contents before he passed the letters to Harry. And then, on the second morning, just after he'd sent Harry off to the barber for a haircut, the letter from Sirius Black had come, and Vernon had begun to see the outline of a possible plan.
Vernon's conscience didn't often bother him, but it was having a noisy day today, and now it reminded him that opening other people's mail was probably a legal offense. "Nonsense," he blustered back at himself. "That only applies to Her Majesties mails. Not to things delivered by birds." Especially not to things delivered by birds. The letter had been brief and to the point. Sirius was going to be out of the country, probably until the next school term, but he'd see Harry then.
Without the threat of a murderous godfather hanging over him all summer, Vernon thought that he could push Harry hard enough to find out where the gold was. Or at least enough to insist that Harry bring him along to his school in the fall. There had to be magical lawyers – it was human nature to need lawyers after all – and surely he could find one who would support his right to compensation. It was just a matter of retraining Harry into the proper obedient mindset that they'd worked on until his eleventh birthday.
Vernon had waited for an opportunity. Sooner or later, he knew, Harry was bound to be openly defiant and deserve being punished. A week or two of isolation had always worked wonders before, and he had no doubt it would again. Unfortunately, Harry had spent the first three weeks of summer moping but obedient. It had gotten the lawn mowed, but it hadn't furthered Vernon's plan. And then he'd come down to the sitting room and punched Dudley. Vernon had almost cheered. It was the perfect opportunity.
Petunia had been a little puzzled as to why he wanted her to take all of Harry's clothes, but she'd done it, and that – and the removal of the trunk – had been the last two pieces he'd needed to make sure that Harry'd be where he wanted him. The window could be opened an inch for fresh air – he had to go in that room after all, to escort Harry to the necessary – but he'd put in locks to keep it from opening more, and the glass was still intact. Surely no owl could squeeze through the bars and the narrow gap as well, and with the mail slot open, none of them would bother.
He turned on to Privet Drive and chewed on the mystery.
What could that horrid man in black want? It couldn't be coincidence that he was there, but Vernon was sure that he'd cleared every possible writing tool out of Harry's room before he'd locked the boy in. And, to tell the truth, those deep black eyes hadn't looked much like the eyes of a hero rescuing a prisoner in a tale. They were more the eyes of a madman, or a man pushed beyond endurance. Maybe he was Black, come back to England from wherever he'd gone. But in the letter, Sirius had called the boy "Harry" not "Potter." Perhaps there was some way for the mumbo jumbo merchants to tell that Harry was sick. Though heavens only knew how that had happened.
Maybe he was so hungry he ate one of the mice himself, offered his conscience, and Vernon sat on it quickly. Hadn't he insisted that Harry get the same diet as Dudley, just in case Black did turn up and ask? And if the boy had lost a pound or two, well… No time to think about that sort of thing, he was at the house now. Best to get everything inside and hope for the best. The trunk first, and then the wretched mice. He thought better of dragging the heavy, awkward thing to the door, but he had to put it down to get out his house key. Once he got the door open, he grunted as he picked up the trunk again and moved it into the hall. He was trying to decide whether or not to just carry it upstairs now and then fetch the mice, or go back out into the rain to fetch the mice and then bring up the trunk, when Petunia came out of the kitchen, looking worried, and glad to see him. Vernon put the trunk down in the hallway and went to give his wife a kiss. She smelled lovely and reassuring, of flour dust and cooking chicken. "Everything all right, dear?" he asked.
"How could it be?" she said, miserably, leaning against him for a hug. The poor dear was trembling, and Vernon held her closer, hoping that she would know that he meant to be her bulwark against the evils of the day, if only he could figure out how to do it.
"Dudley's all right, though, isn't he?" Vernon checked with her.
"He's frightened," Petunia said. "But he hadn't been hurt, last I saw him." She didn't sound as if she were certain that would continue. But at least it was something.
"There, there," he murmured against her hair, surprising himself with a sudden memory of doing much the same many years ago, when she'd first confessed the shame of having a freakish sister to him. She'd dreaded his reaction, feared that he'd turn away from her, but Vernon had promised her then that he'd love her no matter the consequences, and even now, with the consequences in one of his upstairs bedrooms, he knew the he always meant to keep that promise. "We'll get through this, love. We've always found a way before."
She turned her face to look up at him and started to say something, but just then came the scream.
"Dudley!" they both cried, and disentangled themselves to run up the stairs.
They reached the door to the smallest bedroom together and stopped, stunned for a moment by the strange tableux. Dudley was sitting in a chair, looking frightened. The man in black was sitting on a high, unfamiliar stool next the bed, holding out his left arm at shoulder height, waving a wand with his right, and chanting something in Latin. And Harry…
Harry was screaming. He'd pause now and then to gasp for air, but then he'd scream again. And his body was floating, arched backwards like a bow, so that the highest point was the hollow just below his ribs that came up and met something glowing like a firebrand in the stranger's left hand.
Not in my home, Goddammit! Vernon reached for the nearest heavy thing he could find and headed into the room to smash the back of the stranger's head in. He'd said he would cure the boy, not torture him!
"No!" Dudley shouted. "No, Daddy! Don't interrupt him!" Vernon hesitated, and looked at his son. "I'll never be able to move again if you interrupt him. It's some kind of spell. Professor Snape's taking the poison out of Harry. He said it would hurt and Harry said yes, but if you interrupt them, he won't be able to take the spell off of me and I can't move, Daddy, I can't."
Vernon dropped the computer keyboard he'd picked up and stumbled over it as he went to Dudley. Petunia beat him there, of course, and they discovered quickly that they couldn't move Dudley either. Or rather, they could, but all of a piece. He wasn't limp, he was frozen. Vernon let the boy's mother reassure him endlessly while he turned to look at their tormentor.
Snape (so that was his name) was still chanting, his face whiter than before and his expression blank with the kind of concentration Vernon associated with doing something as difficult as surgery. Harry'd stopped screaming at least, though the tears were falling to the pillow. It took a lot to make Harry cry. Vernon had seen signs of the aftermath of tears now and then, but he hadn't seen actual tears since Harry was very small. What was Snape doing, draining the life out of the boy? Whatever it was, it was hard work to do it. Vernon had thought that all this magic business was some kind of an illicit shortcut. That wizards waved their wands and abracadabrad themselves to rewards that an honest man worked hard to achieve. He'd never thought of it as an effort.
Then the spell ended and Harry drifted back down to the bed as Snape suddenly relaxed and closed his eyes for a moment. Vernon felt Petunia going quiet and still beside him as they all three waited to see what the result of the spell would be. And then Harry moved and reached out a hand to touch Snape's. "Professor?" he said, "Are you all right?"