Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. AN/ This is part four of my four-chaptered story, so thanks for sticking around, especially my reviewers Cattyline, Woef, and SillyPeaches, and my beta Fortissimo X.
"I don't know, Petunia. Did you see the way she fought them?"
"She might have been just a little overwhelmed. We did spring them on her just a bit. Probably she's right at home again, don't you think?"
"Maybe. All the same, I've got a hunch that we should follow up on this. And when a man has a hunch, a good, old-fashioned hunch, why, he follows it! That's simply the way of things, Petunia."
"Whatever you say, dear."
Harry and Dudley were chowing down on roasted pork and mashed potatoes, sneaking tidbits to Ruby from time to time. Ruby had been a little dejected the past few weeks, what with Ella not coming around anymore, and the boys thought maybe some roasted pork would cheer her up.
Soon Harry and Dudley would enter the fourth grade, and Ruby would be at home with only Petunia until three. The boys didn't like the sound of that, so they made a point to try and spend as much time with her as possible until then.
Right after dinner, Vernon made a call to the local police station. "Yes... Yes, Ninth and Walnut Grove. I'm calling on behalf of Ella Shusterman? The little girl who ran away for most of the summer, and was returned a few weeks ago? She seemed a little frightened when her parents picked her up, and she was always a little reluctant to talk about them. No... I didn't ask. Yes, I understand. Thank you so much."
Harry stood at the sink, once again stuck doing dishes while Dudley went off to play in his room. Petunia, wiping down the table, said, "What did they say, Vernon?"
"They said they'd look into it," Vernon said brusquely. "And that there've been complaints of yelling and screaming there before." he added as a reluctant afterthought.
"Oh dear... Maybe it's just nothing. Plenty of people run households that permit yelling and fussing." Petunia murmured.
"Yes. Maybe so."
In the last days of August, Harry and the Dursleys were having a late breakfast together, taking advantage of one of the last summer weekdays before school started for the boys. It was almost noon, but the family noshed on breakfast foods like sausage and omelets. The heat had finally begun to decrease, promising a beautiful autumn.
Ruby lay by the back door, still waiting patiently for her friend.
Vernon had the paper propped up, hiding his face from the rest of the table. Harry was happy about that: if the paper had not been up, Vernon would have noticed Harry glaring at his son. Harry had made the sausages, but Dudley had eaten so many that Harry didn't get any. It wasn't fair.
"Hey!" Dudley suddenly cried out happily. "Look, Dad! Ella's in the paper!"
Vernon was reading page three. Dudley, unlike the rest of the family, didn't seem to realize the gravity of that. On the back of page three was always...
The obituaries.
"She's in the paper Dad, just like you always said she would be! That's her right there!" Dudley chirped, uncomprehending.
Harry sidled over to Dudley's end of the table to read the column.
Ella Shusterman, age nine, was found dead in her home on 23 August... An anonymous tip concerning domestic violence... Curled in a laundry basket in a closet... Maxwell Shusterman currently on hold without bail for suspected murder in the first degree... Autopsy showed possible sexual abuse... Claire Shusterman claims to know nothing... Severe bruising about the head and torso... Baseball bat discovered with DNA... Trial scheduled... Terrible tragedy...
Harry could only read snippets before the paper was yanked away and flipped over, but it was enough. Vernon's eyes were wide as they flickered left and right, reading the article in its entirety.
"What is is?" Dudley asked. Nobody answered.
"Dudley, you and Harry go upstairs," Petunia whispered. "Go ahead."
"I'm not done with breakfast, Mum."
"Go upstairs, you two, right this minute." Vernon said softly.
"But Dad...!"
"I said GO!" Vernon roared, slamming his fist onto the table. The dishes jumped with Harry and Dudley, as they hopped out of their seats and dashed up the stairs. Dudley didn't even stomp on the stairs, understanding that something awful had happened. Harry, however, took his usual eavesdropping position on the stairs and watched around the corner.
For the first and last time in Harry's life, he saw his uncle cry.
Vernon set down the paper and ran his hands through his hair, his face scrunched and red. He put his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face, dripping from his mustache, and leaving damp speckles on the newspaper. Behind him, Petunia began to cry too, tears leaving trails down her pale cheeks as she rested her hands on her husband's shoulders.
They did not speak. They simply stayed by their table, crying and crying as summer died outside their kitchen window.
Ruby whined on the floor, waiting for a little girl who would never let herself in through the back door again.
A little girl who would never become a teacher.
Harry sat on the steps and rested his chin in his hands, propping his elbows up on his knobby knees. His unruly hair covered his troubled expression. He looked much the same as he did on the day Ruby had gone missing, when he had sat on the front steps and counted the ways his life was unfair.
Today, however, Harry thought of the sausages. He thought about dishes nearly every night, and about the snack rule that applied to him but not his cousin. He thought about his birthday, and how it went uncelebrated every year. He thought about hand-me-down clothes, and hand-me-down toys, and hand-me-down puppies. He thought about the cupboard, with spiders adorning the ceiling. He thought about Vernon and Petunia, who loved Dudley, and his own parents Lily and James, who had once loved him. He thought about unfairness...
He also thought about Ella.
And suddenly, for the first time, Harry felt very, very lucky.