Chapter 2: A series of Surprises at Number 4
Ten years is certainly a long time, if you ask anyone, and yet, to the Dursleys, it seemed as if no time at all had passed from that fateful Halloween night in 1981. The first few years passed relatively normally, with the prescribed monthly visits from Holly's godfather, Sirius, being the only event that would be anything abnormal. It was a rough go of it at first, with both parties learning how to tolerate each other for Holly's sake. Of course, Sirius struggled mightily with arriving, appearing, even acting normal. After four years, however, he attained a level of normalcy that the Dursleys found acceptable, even though it was still quite a far cry from what they would call normal.
In order to explain away Sirius' unruly appearance, tattoos and all, the Dursleys told the neighbors, when they asked, that he was a part of a special undercover law enforcement task force, specifically for infiltrating terrorist organizations. It was surprisingly close to the truth, as Sirius explained during one of his visits that he was actually a part of the magical police; at least, that's what Vernon had taken to calling it as saying Aurors just felt too weird. Even the part of being in a special undercover law enforcement task force was surprisingly truthful because, as he had explained on another occasion, Sirius was loaned out from time to time to MI6 for missions deemed literally impossible. All of this was done, as explained again, in an attempt to ferret out the traitor who had given away the secret of the Potter's location, as well as foster goodwill with the non-magical government once they had learned of the secret war that had been going on for years with only top level members of MI6 being any sort of wise to it, which really meant that they had suspected something was going on but they couldn't confirm it; they just didn't take what the magical liaison to MI6 was telling them at face value. All of this made Sirius' monthly presence acceptable to the neighborhood to include his Harley Davidson, another thing which sold the undercover terrorist organization infiltrator story. Some of the neighborhood wives even confided in Petunia that he was roguishly handsome and that knowing he was out there risking his life in such a way made them feel much safer at night.
Sirius and Vernon had talked over Holly's financial situation as well. Because Sirius was Holly's magical guardian, he had access to the Potter vaults to ensure Holly's well being. The Potter account manager, a cutthroat goblin by the name of Ragnok (yes, that Ragnok, King of the Goblin Nation), demanded that Sirius get receipts of everything, with the very real threat of losing his magic all but ensuring that he was a literal receipt nazi. Due to the Potter account manager's ruthless bookkeeping, and needing to uphold his reputation as Goblin King, it was needless to say that the Potter vaults would never be empty. Ragnok's shrewd investing acumen would all but ensure that, so long as there was living Potter, there would be untold amounts of Potter wealth. Sirius had managed to negotiate a 200 galleon a month stipend for the Dursley family for doing the wizarding world a favor by housing the girl-who-lived, which translated to a thousand pounds a month just for housing their niece. This money was for the Dursleys specifically and was in addition to a bank account linked to a trust vault opened in Holly's name to cover any expenses related to any costs associated with taking care of their niece, again with meticulous receipt keeping of any such expenses on pain of losing their stipend as well as their home. Vernon prided himself on his own bookkeeping and therefore had no need for the threat as he was well aware of where and when his own money moved through his own receipt keeping and accounting. This was another function of Sirius' monthly visits to the Dursley residence, collecting receipts for the Goblin King. When 1987 rolled around and debit cards were introduced in the United Kingdom, Sirius and Vernon were relieved of their receipt keeping duties as the debit card the Dursleys received were linked directly to a trust vault at Gringotts established in Holly's name and a monthly statement was promptly delivered to Ragnok on the 21st of every month, at which time the Goblin King went through meticulously. As long as the expense could be reasoned that it was for Holly, neither Sirius nor the Dursleys would have a thing to worry about.
With everything financially taken care of for Holly to ensure that she wouldn't be an added burden to the Dursleys, the family was able to more readily accept their niece's presence in their lives. The added finances were most helpful in putting Vernon's mind at ease that their retirement plans as well, as plans for Dudley attending Smeltings when he turned eleven, would not be affected whatsoever. The monthly stipend wasn't totally necessary, but no one would ever accuse Vernon Dursley of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Even after budgeting the extra money for family use, Petunia and Vernon still managed to use a little of it on Holly for things that were deemed "extra and therefore unnecessary" by Ragnok.
Therefore, when Holly started displaying magical tendencies at the age of 7 by changing her hair color and length from jet black and short to long, blonde and curly with a little hanging over her right side of her forehead to hide the scar, it was easy for the Dursleys to meet this abnormality by reminding themselves of the "compensation" they were receiving. Of course, they were perplexed by the new development and mentioned it immediately at Sirius' next visit to the Dursley residence.
Sirius was skeptical at first and asked Holly about what happened to her hair, to which she replied, "I saw this lady's hair on the telly and thought about how I really liked it. So, I closed my eyes and wished that my hair would be like hers. When I opened them, it was!"
"Do you remember what your hair looked like before?" Sirius asked her?
"Yeah, Uncle Siri, it looked like this!" Holly exclaimed as her hair changed back to the jet black, short and unruly mess it had been before the change.
Sirius picked Holly up, elated, and proceeded to jaunt about the house, decrying how wonderful his goddaughter was. Vernon and Petunia watched from the kitchen, very perplexed. Once Sirius had returned to the kitchen, with a very blonde and curly Holly once again, Vernon gave Sirius the "explain this for the normal folk" look that he would give him every time there was something abnormal that needed explaining. Sirius quickly obliged, informing Holly's aunt and uncle that she was a metamorphagus.
"Meta what's this nonsense?" Vernon harrumphed, bristling his mustache.
"A metamorphagus," Sirius said again, sitting at the opposite end of the table from the Dursleys, "basically, Holly can change her appearance at will. Any part of herself she concentrates on she can change to her liking. Of course, it is harder for her to change herself into someone that is of a much different size than she is but she could still do it if she tried hard enough and with enough training. Luckily for you all, she happens to have a distant cousin who also possesses this ability. My cousin, Nymphadora could help Holly learn to use her abilities so she can control when they happen and especially to prevent herself from morphing in view of normal folk."
And that was how Nymphadora Tonks was introduced into the Dursley's lives. It's amazing how easily they agreed to allow Holly to be trained to use her ability when Sirius had pitched it in a way that sold it as "training to appear normal". Vernon was perfectly fine referring to Tonks by her surname, because who in blazes names their own child Nymphadora? Apparently, as Sirius explained, her mother Andromeda. Tonks' backstory to the neighbors was once again based in truth. She was Holly's distant cousin who her godfather thought she should get to know. This led to the Dursley's also meeting Andromeda as Tonks was only 14 and therefore unable to transport herself to places, magical or otherwise. Luckily for the Dursleys, Andromeda was well versed in appearing normal as she had to on many occasions for her husband's family. Petunia even came to find that she approved of Andromeda as she was also very much a woman who loved a neat and orderly home. When Tonks wasn't at the "special boarding school", as Vernon liked to put it, she would visit once a week during her summer holiday with her mother accompanying.
In order to keep the neighbors pacified, the Dursley's put a restriction on Holly's changes in appearances. She could appear any way she wanted to at home and could use her ability as much as she wanted to. Her public appearance, however, was restricted to only hairstyle changes and she had to keep the same hairstyle for a whole month.
Luckily for the Dursleys, Holly's other accidental expressions of magic mostly involved breaking things like dishes at mealtimes or changing colors of the walls around her. At first they just replaced the dishes and lived with the changes in colors. When it kept on happening, the cost of replacing dishes adding up and the colors on the walls getting more ridiculous, the Dursleys decided it was once again time to mention something to the only magicals they could "tolerate". At Sirius' next scheduled visit, which was starting to become a bi-weekly affair, the Petunia presented Sirius with two boxes of destroyed dishes and a tour of the whole house, as there hadn't been one vertical surface unaffected by the color changes.
At first, Sirius couldn't stop laughing. Vernon couldn't see what was so funny. After a good half an hour of laughter at their expense, with Vernon reaching the limit of how much of this he would tolerate, Sirius brought out that blasted piece of wood and started with the "funny business". With a wave of his stick, the dishes were repaired. Several other waves later, all of the walls were returned to normal. Vernon stood there gaping at the pile of dishes, which looked as though they were fresh out of the box from the store, and the walls, which looked as though they did on the day that Petunia had them freshly painted. It was then that Vernon realized they had been wasting a lot of money for a lot of years. Maybe this magic nonsense wasn't so nonsensical after all. Just as quickly as the thought arrived, Vernon shook his head and dismissed it all the same. They were normal folk, after all, and should do things the normal way. But it was comforting to know that anything Holly accidentally did could be undone and that they only needed to live with it for two weeks at the most.
Probably the hardest expression of Holly's magic to deal with came when she was 9 years old. Holly was doing her weekly chore of weeding the flower beds when she heard it.
S iiii love this garden, sssso many mice. S
Holly looked around and spotted the garden snake next to the rosebush, which was next to the lilies she was tending to, "I'm glad you keep our yard clean of them. My aunt would freak if she saw a mouse, much less inside the house."
It was then that Petunia made her presence known with a shriek. She was bringing a glass of lemonade out to Holly for a little break from the weeding when she heard the hissing from the snake. It was the hissing in return from Holly that put her over the edge and had her running inside.
S tooo much noises, no like S
"That's my aunt, I don't think she likes snakes either," Holly replied, quickly getting up and following her aunt inside, "What's wrong, Aunt Petunia?"
"You…. You…," Petunia struggled to speak for a moment before she found her steam, "You can speak to snakes?"
"You can't?" Holly asked, a little surprised, "I was just thanking it for taking care of the mice, as I know that you hate mice. Apparently you don't like snakes either?"
"That's what you were saying to it?"
"Didn't you hear me say so?"
"No!" Petunia exclaimed as she paced the kitchen, "all i heard was the snake hissing and then you hissing back at it!"
"Oh," Holly stated simply, realizing that her magic powers had once again manifested, "Maybe we need to ask my godfather about this."
"You think?" Petunia shrieked, "I'm sorry, Holly, but this is a lot. I'm going to need a little while to come to terms with the fact you can talk to snakes. Can you please go back outside and finish weeding?"
"Of course, Aunt Petunia," Holly quickly agreed, exiting the patio door quickly and going back to the flower bed. The snake was no longer there, which slightly saddened Holly as it seemed friendly.
The following visits from Sirius had involved educating the Dursleys on the rarity of being a "parselthingy". Apparently not many people could talk to snakes and, of course, Holly was one of those who could because why wouldn't she be? After Petunia recovered from the shock, she and Holly had a long conversation about her talking to snakes when she was around. The short story of it was that she should try and not do so when Petunia was around and, apart from that, she could do it as much as she wanted as long as no one could see her doing it. Sirius was apprehensive about this new talent because of the implications of it. After thinking it over, however, his Auror mind and Moody's reminders of "constant vigilance" had brought this talent into a new light. A snake familiar could be of a great benefit to Holly in helping herself to defend from dark wizards. Not to mention being able to cast spells in a language no one could understand would be a great boon to fighting said evil wizards as well. Plus, as a reminder from Dumbledore, the ability to speak to snakes doesn't make one evil. It is how one wields the talent which determines if they were good or evil.
After a few more visits and explanations to the Dursleys on training Holly in her ability to speak to snakes so that she could recognize when she was going to and therefore not do it when in front of the normal folks, it was agreed that when Holly turned eleven that she would be allowed to get a snake familiar when she went to their "magical shopping district" and that there would be a bloody snake in the house. Sirius had explained that snake familiars were smarter than the average, non-magical snake, and that Holly could instruct it to stay only in its cage when it was at Number 4. As long as the snake stayed in Holly's room, it would be "out of sight, out of mind" as Vernon would come to say anytime he would think about there being a "bloody snake in the house". At least it would only be there during her summer holidays once she started going to that boarding school of hers, which there was no doubt anymore that she would be attending.
Before long, it was 31 July 1991. Holly's eleventh birthday. And there it was: A parchment envelope with green loopy writing. The long awaited day that the Dursleys knew would come. Holly's acceptance to the boarding school.
Author's note: And that concludes the second chapter. Hopefully y'all love it. Thank you to all of you who have already read the story thus far. This is obviously sooner than 2 weeks but I had a moment of inspiration and I figured getting a lot of the big changes set up would be nice to get started. Until next time, Silent out.
Disclaimer: Obviously don't own Harry Potter whatsoever.