DISCLAIMER: HARRY POTTER, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros Entertainment Inc, and Property solely of J.K Rowling.
A/N: I'm a better reader than I am a writer, so please bare with me as I attempt, yet again, to write my own story:)
I'm also sorry for the multiple uploads, but I was having a hard time figuring out the document manager.
Chapter Two: Chores and Conversations
Harry was in an deep but peaceful sleep for the first time since the fiasco at the department of mysteries. He usually woke before his alarm went off at six from nightmares involving the events of the last year. Some time he woke from nightmares that were so weird and bizarre that he couldn't make heads nor tails out of why it woke him. However, his peaceful sleep wasn't going to last much longer.
'Up! Get up! Now!'
Harry woke with a start, which turned into a coughing fit and a fight for oxygen as his body tried to react to the surprise of being woken so abruptly. His aunt rapped at the door again.
'Up! Up!' she screeched. Harry heard her walk down the hall and descend down the stairs.
'Most likely headed to the kitchen to write my list of chores for the day' thought Harry.
He rolled on to his back which was aching terribly and tried to inhale deeply but couldn't as it felt like there was a ton of bricks sitting on his chest. He glanced over at the clock on his night stand. It read six in the morning.
'I wonder why it didn't go off,' thought Harry.
He coughed some more as he slowly rose from bed and went through his wardrobe to find something to wear. He pulled out an old black pair of Dudley's sweat pants and a worn plain white t-shirt. He decided that he was too tired to bother showering and there wasn't much point before doing his chores, so he headed downstairs and into the kitchen.
His aunt was waiting beside the refrigerator with a piece of paper in her hand. Her bony facials features showing how she felt about having to converse with her nephew that she rather pretend didn't exist.
'These are your chore for today, you will start as soon as breakfast is over and you will have all of them done before dinner, or you won't get any!' his aunt said and with that she handed the list to Harry.
She started to walk away but turned back and screeched, ' You better not burn any of Vernon's breakfast boy, or Vernon will deal with you,' before heading back upstairs.
Harry uncle had not taken well to the order's intimidations tactics on the platform at the end of last year and had become a bit more violent in his punishment methods because of it.
Harry glanced down at the list in his hand. It was a long list, once again consisting mostly of outdoor work, which Harry preferred as his aunt never came out to hover over him as she did inside the house.
The first thing Harry did was divided up the list, and make a mental note of the chores he wanted to get done first. He decided that he would start with the outdoor chores as soon as he finished making breakfast, as it was early and therefore the sun wouldn't feel so hot and he wouldn't become as badly sunburned as he had a couple of weeks ago.
Once he had the list figured out for the day he taped the list to the fridge and started on breakfast. He put the frying pan on the cooker and then rummaged in the refrigerator for everything he would need to make eggs and bacon, with toast. He set the table before beginning on the toast.
He threw a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster, and then started frying up the bacon. Each time the toast popped he would pull them out, butter them, place them on a covered plate and then put more bread in the toaster. He did this until the bacon was mostly done, and then started making a skillet full of scrambled eggs.
He had just set everything on the table after a coughing fit, when the whole of the Dursley family came marching into the kitchen.
'Breakfast better be ready boy!" His uncle grumbled while walking into the kitchen. He looked at the food on the table before seating himself and scoping large amounts of food on to his plate.
Dudley and his aunt followed his uncle example and without a word sat down to eat.
Harry walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed the paper with the list of chores on it. As he was walking from the kitchen he had to stop as he was overcome with a coughing fit, he was gasping for air when his uncle screeched,
'You won't be getting out of your chores just because your sick boy!'
Harry hadn't even considered it a possibility, so without comment he slowly walked from the kitchen and went up to his room to grab his shoes.
Harry never saw the look of concern that had flashed across his cousins face before being replaced my a mask of indifference.
Harry entered his room, and looking around spotted his trainers by the end board of his bed.
'I need to clean up my room,' he thought briefly as he looked at the crumpled bits of parchment on and around his desk from his attempts to write something down to send off to his friends. He looked at his opened trunk with it's overflowing mass of chaos and at his unmade bed.
Shaking his head at the mess, he threw on his trainers and walked backed down to the main floor, out the front door and around the back to the shed to grab what he'd need to begin on his long list of chores.
Harry spent most of the early morning hours of the day working outside on his aunts garden. His first chore was to pull all the weeds in and around his aunts garden. His already sore back protested this chore more and more with each pulled weed, and the ache was fast becoming a sharp pain. He followed this chore with replanting of his uants favourite flowers, hedging the bushes and trimming and edging around the property. As the sun beams grew hotter with the passing hours, Harry began sweating heavily and his limbs were trembling with exhaustion. It was slow going work as he had to kept pausing for coughing fits that left him feeling mildly dizzy and disoriented.
His uncle had left for work soon after he had finished his breakfast, so Harry had been able to slow down his pace with out fear of repercussions, which Harry had been thankful for. The dizziness hadn't subsided any, and the lack of food was helping exhaustion to settle in quickly.
After finishing the outside chores Harry started on the chore's inside. The cooler atmosphere from the air conditioning lifted some of the exhaustion that had built up through the morning and he was able to finish the inside chores slightly quicker and with more efficiancy. He had, had to sweep, vaccuum and dust every room in the house. Polish not only the good silverware, but all the silverware, wash the dishes, prepare dinner and have it in the oven and finished an hour before his uncle was to return home.
Harry decided to use the hour between then and having to serve dinner to rest. He slowly and unsteadily climbed the stairs and once in his room, crumbled on his bed where he passed out until his aunt came to get him to serve dinner. After serving dinner, he left the Dursley's to themselves and returned, exhausted, to bed.
The next few days continued in this vain. With each passing day Harry became more easily exhausted, weaker and unsteady. The coughing fits became longer and harsher, each one leaving Harry gasping for air and wheezing heavily. His chest felt constricted and he constantly felt dizzy and disoriented.
One day around lunch time, Harry felt so exhausted he decided to take a quick break and sat down upon the front stoop. His Aunt Petunia had gone out earlier that day which gave Harry the ability to take said break. He used the front of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face and after a couple of minutes was debating getting back to work when his cousin Dudley came out and sat upon the front stoop beside him with a glass of cold orange juice which he handed to Harry.
Harry stared at his cousin for a second in surprise before mumbling a 'thanks' and proceeded to gulp it down in one go. As he handed the empty glass back to his cousin he noticed that his hand was trembling worse than usual and his cousin upon seeing that, looked as if he wanted to say something. Harry sat there and waited.
His cousin looked to be having a internal debate with himself before he asked,
'How sick are you?' Harry, not in a rush to get back to work and curious as to why his cousin was all of a sudden speaking to him, decided to answer.
'Don't know,' Harry replied without emotion, but out of curiosity asked, 'why do you care?'
'Not sure,' Dudley said honestly, 'but it can't be good, what with that Moldyvort, or whatever his name was, being after you.'
His cousin looked un-easy. Harry assumed he was remembering the Dementor attack from last summer.
'It's Voldemort,' Harry said, laughing at Dudley's version of the name,'but I like your version better'.
Laughing apparently triggered something because it was a few minutes before he could breathe, as he was overcome with a coughing fit which caused his lungs to feel as if they were on fire.
'What do your kind usually do when you get sick? Wave it away?' His cousin asked, as he observed Harry attempts to inhale.
'No, we have our own version of medicines.' Harry replied, 'Potions instead of pills, healing salves, things like that.' Harry was surprised that they were even having this conversation.
'Dud, why do you want to know about all this?' Harry couldn't help but ask. 'Just last year you were afraid of everything magical, the word magic or wand would send you running in terror, and now, now you sit here calmly beside me, your hated cousin, asking about magical remedies and the like. Why?'
Dudley looked down at his hands before replying, and when he did, it was in one big gush of breathe.
'I was in the kitchen when the letter from your headmaster arrived before we picked you up from the train station. Dad was laughing about how your headmaster had warded your owl and the house so you couldn't send mail, or receive mail, and about how your godfather had died while trying to rescue you, how they removed something called order guard's from here, and your sick and well you look sicker each day, and I don't hate you, so I was wondering what should be done if you get really sick, and if you can't send for help, what do we do if you're attacked or get hurt real bad?'
Harry had to ask Dudley to repeat what he said, but slower, because he hadn't been able to understand a single thing.
Dudley took a few minutes to steel himself and then repeated everything slower.
'DUMBLEDORE DID WHAT!' Harry roared, before he was overcome with a coughing fit. He was pissed, he was livid!
Dudley jumped. He hadn't known that this information would cause this reaction from his usually passive cousin. He wasn't even sure what part of what he had said had caused Harry to all of a sudden look as if you was ready to kill.
'I'm sorry Harry! What did I say? I wasn't trying to upset you, really!' Dudley pleaded.
Harry looked at his cousin's paniced expression and had to roll in his temper with a will power he hadn't had to use in a long time.
'Dud, I'm not mad at you.' Harry gasped as he was once again caught by a tremendous coughing fit. 'I'm pissed at my headmaster'.
They both jumped to their feet quickly when they heard a crack from down the street. Harry turned fast and pulled out his wand, but before he could even look around for the cause of the noise the world all of a sudden tilted on it's axis and before he could say a thing, the world narrowed and went dark.
Dudley turned back just in time to see Harry's face lose all colour and watch as his cousin suddenly collapse upon the front stoop. His head bounced against the concrete step and blood started gushing from a head wound close to his temple.
A/N: I have revised this chapter as I have come to realize that I cannot write Petunia Dursley in character, and therefore had to remove her so as to continue the story.