A/N: Good news! I have finished all my summer courses so more writing time for me! This means faster releases for you! More at bottom.
Disclaimer: I disclaim…any right to owner of the Harry Potter franchise (including books, movies, merchandise, etc.) I make no money from writing this and it's only for my personal enjoyment. Please don't sue me. Nor do own this plot idea, it was adopted from PlotBunny2010.
Speech= "blah"
Thoughts= blah
A/N= blah
Chapter 3: The Shack
What do you mean? Hey are you listening to me? Harry demanded when Tom refused to elaborate. He glanced down again.
The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. Turning the envelope over, hand trembling slightly, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.
"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.
Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.
Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.
"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk…"
"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"
Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hands by Uncle Vernon.
Harry made a desperate grab for it but missed. Give it back, that's mine!
"Now this has got to be a mistake, who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.
"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.
Dudley tried to snatch the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.
"Vernon! Oh my goodness – Vernon!"
They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.
"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.
Harry opted for a slightly more successful tactic; slipping from his place he climbed on the chair his uncle had vacated and made a flying leap for the letter. He almost succeed but Uncle Vernon's meaty hand whipped out faster than Harry had ever seen him move and seized hold of his collar. So close.
Coughing, Harry winced when Vernon shook him slightly and croaked out, "Get out, both of you," while handing the envelope back to Aunt Petunia so she could stuff the letter back inside.
"I WANT TO READ THE LETTER!" Dudley shouted.
"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon and he grabbed Dudley by the scruff of his neck and threw them both into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind him. Naturally Dudley landed on top of Harry. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but completely silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.
"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address – how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"
"Watching – spying – might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.
"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back telling them we don't want –"
Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.
"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer…Yes, that's best… we won't do anything…"
"But –"
"I'm not having one of them in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"
XXXXXXXXXXX
That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.
Harry stared the man as he squeezed his bulk through the door. Several questions were circling his mind, the most prominent being, Where's my letter? and Who's writing to me?
The moment Uncle Vernon had successfully inserted himself into the cramped space, making it that much smaller, he began talking.
No one was writing to you, the address was a mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."
Harry stared at him angrily. It was not a mistake, it had my cupboard on it. He made to get some paper so he could inform Uncle Vernon of this; he had none as his relatives had thought that him being able to ask questions would lead to nothing but trouble.
"SIT!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. Harry dropped back to the ground quickly. Vernon took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a semblance of a smile. It looked quite painful.
"Err – yes, Harry – about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking…you're really getting a bit big for it…we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."
Harry was quite sure his expression clearly translated his thoughts, Why?
Uncle Vernon skillfully ignored him. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."
The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken.
The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first ever television set, which he's put a foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it.
Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched. They probably hadn't save for being shoved up there.
He got up and carefully avoiding anything laying about on the floor, walked over to look at them. Contrary to popular belief of his relatives, he was not stupid. He liked books, liked to read and write too, though he wouldn't be caught dead after the last time Dudley had found him reading. It was safe to say after paying the full cost for a new book for the library he was much more careful.
He ran a light fingertip over the spine of a row of books, feeling a little empathy for them having been stuffed out of sight and forgotten. Glancing at the titles, 'The Count of Monte Crisco', '500 Tales by Edgar Allen Poe', 'The Grapes of Wrath'… he didn't need to wonder further why Dudley hadn't bothered with them. They looked interesting to him though and he pulled down '500 Tales by Edgar Allen Poe' to read for a little while.
Tom? he queried.
What? Tom sounded irritated but at least he managed to reply.
What was in the letter that made my uncle and aunt so scared?
Your family, the words were said with much sarcasm, would fear their own shadow if it were possible. They so not understand it so they are afraid of it.
Okay, what exactly, in the letter did they not understand but got me out of my cupboard?
You should be grateful. They are attempting to delay the inevitable. They think that by improving your living conditions they will be left alone. I highly doubt this as they were always very persistent despite what the families were like.
They?
Go to sleep brat. There will be another one in the morning, wait and see.
Tom..? There was no reply. Dammit Tom! I want to know what's going on!
You will.
After that no amount of pleading, threatening, or harassment would provoke an answer. Sighing in disgust, Harry fell face first onto the bed and closed his eyes.
From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't want him in there…I need that room…make him get out…"
Harry sighed again and stretched. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up in here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with the letter than up here without it. He rolled over and propped up against a soft pillow began to read the first short story in the book 'The Cask of Amontillado'
XXXXXXXXXX
That night around eleven Harry threw off his covers and crept to the door. He had a vague plan in mind but it was far from infallible. With a scout alarm in hand (Dudley had been given one but broke the alarm, however the light still worked only a bit dimmer than it once was) he made his way down the stairs, mindful of where they creaked. He arrived in the living room with no incident and knelt in front of the fire place.
Flicking on the light he gently shifted his hand through the ashes under the gate feeling for something, anything…there! Harry pulled a smeared scrap of parchment from the grate and examined it closely. 'Supreme Mugwump' it read in curling script.
Harry shook his head in confusion. What in the world is a Mugwump?
Tossing the paper back where he found it Harry snuck back into his new room and resolved to ask Tom about it when he was in a more giving mood.
XXXXXXXXXX
Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smeltings stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.
When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one here! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive –"
With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his fist.
"Go to your cupboard – I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley – go – just go."
Harry walked round and round his new room trying to initiate conversation with Tom who'd been unusually moody lately, gave up and focused on the thoughts going in circles in his head. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surly that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a , slightly more thought out, plan.
XXXXXXXXXX
The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.
This is entirely unnecessary.
Tom, so nice of you to join me.
This is a complete waste of both your and, more importantly, my time.
Well I'm sorry for wasting your oh-so-important time. Harry was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first.
His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door. Your plan has a severe flaw.
Harry came to an abrupt halt. And what, pray, might that be?
He got the impression of a weary sigh. I thought disabled people were supposed to have enhanced senses. You are, clearly, the useless exception. Wait and listen, you might learn something.
Harry inwardly snarled at the self important voice but did as he was told. A few seconds later he heard the slow in and out movement of air that was not coming from him. A few seconds more and he saw a large lump laying in front of the front door. The breaths were coming from this and creeping closer, Harry saw his that his uncle was lying in front of the door in order to make sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do.
Harry shuddered. A few more steps and he'd have walked right onto his uncle's face. He shuddered again.
Err, Tom?
What? the smarmy voice sounded smug.
Thanks for, um, saving me there.
Whatever are you talking about. Only you would take an attempt to insult your competence as aid. this was clearly meant as a dismissal and an end to the topic.
Yeah, sure. Harry very carefully approached his uncle again.
What exactly do you think you are doing?
Fixing the flaw in my plan. he replied, taking extreme care and holding his breath as he eased around the slumbering form.
I will not be held responsible for such idiocy.
No one's keeping you here. Harry made a face as he inched closer to the door. Almost there…
Harry palmed the doorknob. Behind you.
What?
Harry spotted motion in his peripheral as a hand seized his ankle with an iron grip. Uh-oh. He hit the floor as his feet were yanked out from under him and flinched at a familiar roar of, "BOY!"
Ow. Harry winced as lights clicked on upstairs and he stared back into his uncle's beet red face. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off to the kitchen.
Well, that could have gone worse.
How so? Harry was getting the sarcasm and disgust loud and clear.
I could have stepped on his face. Think how much more angry he would have been then. from the irritation radiating into his head Harry got the feeling that Tom was distinctly unamused.
Harry shuffled back into the hallway with tea only to see the mail arrive, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink. Before he could make a move, Uncle Vernon was rearing the letters into pieces before his eyes. Harry grimaced and handed his uncle the tea.
Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nail up the mail slot.
"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."
"I'm not sure that'll work Vernon."
"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.
That is not going to work. Tom informed Harry with great disdain.
XXXXXXXXXX
On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few were forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.
Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked and jumped at small noises.
The man is cracking, Tom sounded fairly pleased with the statement. Harry privately agreed.
XXXXXXXXXX
On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.
"Who on earth would want to talk to you so badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement.
Harry shrugged, paying more attention to Tom's voice in his head.
I told you they were persistent.
You didn't tell me they would be so persistent as to drive my family insane.
Yes, that's just too bad isn't it. Tom didn't sound very sorry and Harry had a feeling that whoever they were, they were building into some horrible grand finale. Harry was also sure that he didn't want to be anywhere near his uncle when that happened.
Yeah, too bad.
XXXXXXXXXX
On Sunday morning Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.
"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today –"
Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. The next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry jumped up to grab one when –
"Out! OUT!"
Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, he slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.
"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling out great tufts of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes. We're going away. Just pack some cloths. No arguments!"
He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.
Harry sighed. This was getting ridiculous. Tom had been hanging around much more than usual taking, what Harry suspected, to be a sadistic glee with the whole affair.
Tom, how did they get up on the roof?
Magic. came the reply, as if it should have been obvious.
Of course. Harry had always shrugged Tom off when he went loony like now but maybe, just maybe, he had been telling the truth.
Sneaky thing aren't you?
I don't know what you're talking about.
You grabbed a letter back there, it's in your bag. You took it from under the door while you uncle was attempting to cease hyperventilating.
Maybe I did.
Maybe you should listen to me this time and not do something so stupid as open in front of your relatives?
Do I really seem that dim witted to you?
Tom's silence spoke volumes. Fine be that way…bugger.
They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.
"Shake 'em off….shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.
They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.
Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets.
Harry glanced down at his cheap watch. The glowing numerals read 10:58. He rolled of his bed, fully clothed and crept over to the corner where he'd dropped his bag earlier. Slipping between the fold of clothing, he grasped the parchment and pulled it out. He slit open the envelope and pulled out the letter.
Damn, it's too dark to see. He perched on the windowsill, and glanced down at the writing. By the lights of passing cars he made out the first words, Dear Mr. Potter...
The papers were ripped out of his hands by a smirking Dudley. "Dad, Harry snitched a letter!"
Uncle Vernon propelled himself into the room, seized the letter from Dudley who was attempting to read it, and tore it to pieces.
"You," he said pointing at Harry, "back in the bed!" Harry went. "And you," he said pointing at Dudley, "back –"
"I want to read the letter!"
"NO!"
Uncle Vernon stalked back into his room and slammed the door behind him. Harry was grumbling internally. Why? Why would he have to wake up then? I was so close…so close…
XXXXXXXXXX
They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.
"'scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."
She held up the letter so they could read the green ink address:
Mr. H. Potter
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth
Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.
"I'll take them," Uncle Vernon said, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.
"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.
It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled.
"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."
Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday – and you could always count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television – then tomorrow, Tuesday, was his eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never actually fun – last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day.
Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.
"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"
It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable shack you could imagine. One thing was certain; there was no television in there.
Tom was as close to hysterics as he ever got, he was quietly chuckling in the back of Harry's head at the misery of others.
Shut up, would you?
"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"
A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.
"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"
It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.
The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.
Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.
"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.
He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.
As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.
This has got to be the worst place I've ever been. I don't think Uncle thought this out carefully. Do you think we'll go back home tomorrow?
Unlikely.
Why?
I believe they have had quite enough and are sending someone to collect you. I haven't seen someone so desperate to avoid the place for a long time.
How are they going to get to this place?
Tom ignored him. Hey, Tom! Still nothing. Arghh!
The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls off thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all.
Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wouldn't fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters he'd be able to steal one.
Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?
One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds….twenty…ten…nine – maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him – three…two…one…
BOOM.
The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.
Ah, so they're finally here.
Who's here!
A/N: This was originally longer but, I didn't know where to cut it off so…yeah. -_- I have the next chapter almost done though, and you should have it around next weekend. :D
Those more observant of you will notice that this chapter contains large portions of original text. I do not own this either. And I don't like using it for this because I don't have the patience to copy word for word. There will be no more of this in later chapters, it was only for this one and maybe the next one to advance the story as it should. It diverges almost completely from the original storyline when Harry gets to Hogwarts. Thank you all for reading, and special thanks to MasterYodaOfYaoi who was my 50th reviewer! Yay! ^.^
Also thanks to the one person who voted on my poll. You made my day. Can my wonderful readers please leave a review for a starving author and visit my profile to vote? Please? I'm really not sure about it and would love your opinion. Till next week.