Dudley Soulless
Harry grinned wider. He stopped grinning abruptly.
"Harry what are you—" Mrs. Figg wasn't used to being shushed this much, and it was getting annoying.
"We should check on Dudley," Harry said, and turned towards his piglike cousin who was lying spreadeagled on the floor. "C'mon get up Dudley," Harry said irritably. His cousin didn't move an inch. A man had apparated nearby and was talking with Mrs. Figg animatedly, but Harry wasn't focusing on that. If something has happened to Dudley, I'm screwed, he thought. Harry lifted Dudley to his feet. his piggy cousins eyes had a glassy look to them, mouth hanging open slightly…
….
"Dudley? DUDYKINS?!" Petunia was sobbing over her son's prostate figure, while Vernon stared with wide eyed shock,, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as Harry attempted to explain as well as he could. The Dursleys had always been horrible to him, but no-one deserved to have their son's literal soul sucked out of his mouth by the personification of fear, leaving him an empty shell. That was too far, even for the two abusive foster-parents that had so quickly deigned to make Harry's life a living hell. "… you see, Dudley's gone, he's, well his body is still here, but his mind, his mind is—"
"WHAAAAUUUGHHH AAHG WHYY -hic- WHY, my d-dudders…"
"I'll leave you to it, then," Harry said weakly, making to brush past Vernon and Petunia(who's knees had buckled) and go to his broom cupboard. But before he could make it past, a purple hand shot out and grabbed him.
Uncle Vernon seemed to have found his words. "AND JUST WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING? YOU DID THIS TO HIM! YOU-YOU FREAK! We should never have taken you in! GET OUT!" He thundered, pointing angrily to the door with the hand that wasn't shoving his nephew violently backwards.
An owl swooped through the window and dropped a letter into the palm of Harry's hand, before swiftly turning and departing in a flurry of feathers. "OOOOOWWWLLLSS!" Vernon screeched.
Harry was ripping open the note already, only vaguely aware of Petunia sobbing in the background.
Dear Mr. Potter,
We have received intelligence that you performed the Patronus Charm at twenty-three minutes past nine this evening in a Muggle-inhabited area and in the presence of a Muggle. The severity of this breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery has resulted in your expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ministry representatives will be calling at your place of residence shortly to destroy your wand.
As you have already received an official warning for a previous offence under section 13 of the International Con- federation of Wizards' Statute of Secrecy, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic at 9 a.m. on August 12th.
Hoping you are well, Yours sincerely,
Mafalda Hopkirk
IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC OFFICE
Ministry of Magic
Harry felt numb, his hands shaking as he reread the letter. He'd been expelled from Hogwarts. There was nothing left but to run. He'd have to leave, start a new life, change his name to John Smith and leave the country. Then The-Boy-Who-Lived remembered something; that he was The-Boy-Who-Lived. Dumbledore was probably doing something right now. Although he couldn't stay here; not when his uncle would likely strangle him once he fully got over the shock of his only son being killed.
After hurriedly packing his things, Harry walked awkwardly from the house, his legs feeling as though he had rickets. Once he'd walked down the street, the indigo sky strewn with stars, he stuck out his wand hand. With a flash and a bang, a violet monster burst forth from the abyss, engine roaring. The Knight Bus was written in bright lettering on the side of the bus, although someone (somehow) had scratched the B partially off. Harry stepped onto the bus, the doors opening automatically. "Hello yet again, 'Neville Longbottom'. The Elusive 'Neville' it a pleasure, sir," said Stanley, bowing so low his knees bent crookedly, and offering a conspiratorial wink. Harry smiled back weakly, before paying for his ticket and taking a seat in one of the beds, a cup of hot chocolate ("I'll throw in a hot chocolate because i like you so much Neville") in hand. Once he arrived at The Leaky Cauldron, he'd think about his plan for the time left till school started again; for now though, he'd sleep.
Harry missed the stream of owls that came flying into the living room of 4 Privet Drive.
….
It had been several days since Harry had had the fateful encounter with a dementor that would change his world forever. Because, you see, Harry had realised something.
Harry had realised he was in a book.
He wasn't quite sure how he knew, he just did; and the funny thing was that all he needed was to 'just know', because 'just know[ing]' was the sort of gimmicky, contrived, 'I feel it in my heart' sort of thing that happened in books. Not only that, but more time he spent thinking about his newly realised situation (which tended to be every hour he'd spent awake due to the fact that realising you're in a book is a pretty profound thing), the more he began to realise some of the power that he wielded. Because, from what he could tell from thinking about the past 15 years of his life, He was in the sort of book in which the good guys always won, they bad guys came close, there were a few deaths, but mainly you could act nobly if you were the main character and you wouldn't die, just because it would dissatisfy the reader. And no author wants to dissatisfy the reader. And it just so happened that the majority of the readers were the sort of people who didn't want the hero to just die at the end, or for characters to just randomly die halfway through.
This meant that Harry could pretty much, at least theoretically, as long as he dictated conversations and acted noble and such, influence the future heavily. Which is, as he was to discover just a few days after his arrival at The Leaky Cauldron, was a pretty big deal.
He'd been having a conversation with a man at the bar who'd been changing the colours of his hair at will at the bar, a shot of firewhisky in his hand. Harry had asked how he'd been doing that.
"I'm jus', I'm a musphus, a metus…" the drunkard cleared his throat loudly. "I'ma Metamorphmagus!" he stated proudly before slumping over on the bar. It was now that Harry had had the idea of testing his theory. "mm, oh, oh yeah yeah, I think I read about that once, and how you can train to be one, or be born one."
"Yep!"
"But there's also a," I dunno, "an old woman in Diagon Alley that has a potion which turns you into one. But, but like, she only gives one away every hundred years."
"Yeesssss….." he slurred.
"And she picks at random."
"Urgh."
"Aaaaand you have to be born in July."
"Hmmm, I don't think thats a rule," the bartender chipped in frowning. Harry sighed. So there was some limit to that idea then. Either that or he needed to practise. Either way, Harry was much closer to being able to get yet another skill ('metamorphmagus'ing). And considering that fact he'd been a tiny bit insanely lucky in the past four years, and he seemed to be the main protagonist, he could safely assume that he was gonna get that potion.
….
While strolling through Diagon Alley, people bustling back and forth with large floating bags of goods trailing behind them, a woman had pointed Harry out in the bustle and tussle of pre-Hogwarts shopping for books and robes (something Harry would soon be needing to do).
The woman had long scraggly grey hair, her skin pale and almost cloudy, purple veins crisscrossing her flesh. Her scruffy blue robes reminded him of Lupin. "You!"
"Yes?" Said Harry, looking nonplussed, though not doubting the fact that he was about to receive the potion. He walked toward her, a bounce in his heels as he waited to claim his prize.
However, she didn't seem to be looking at him, rather gazing off past his shoulder, and as a child came forth, looking almost comically innocent like some sort of caricature of the idea, his hair tousled and brown, his eyes sparkling horribly, Harry feeling nothing but wanting to kick the little perfect shit as he stole the potion—
Apparently arrogance and lack of foresight didn't get you very far for some reason, even when you were Harry Potter.