iv. but blood is thicker
Harriet's every thought, either waking or dreaming, was consumed by that letter.
Who had sent it? Were all the odd things that happened around her really magic? The Dursleys had always hated that word, maybe even more than they hated Harriet herself. They didn't talk about magic and most certainly didn't allow anything fantastical into the house; even Dudley was denied new fantasy computer games, much to his consternation, and Uncle Vernon had burned Harriet's Tolkien books when Aunt Petunia discovered them hidden in the garden shed.
Had the letter met a similar fate? Harriet hoped not.
Shut in her cupboard, she whispered all her questions to Set, and he either didn't answer because he didn't want to, or because she couldn't read shadows in the miserable darkness. Harriet would shut her eyes and listen to the house: the groaning pipes, Dudley playing the telly both upstairs and downstairs, Aunt Petunia nattering on the phone about Mr Lobelia's ugly new hedges. She thought about the dreaded "m" word and her stomach fluttered when she dared to hope she wasn't really a freak at all; rather, she was magical. A witch.
The Dursleys, for their part, refused to acknowledge that the letter had ever existed in the first place. Harriet was relegated to the cupboard full time, let out only in the morning and the evening for a spot of food and quick dash to the loo. Perhaps her punishment wouldn't be so severe if she stopped bombarding her aunt and uncle with demands for answers every time they dared cross the hall—but she felt as if she stood upon the cusp of some great change, and hovering there without really knowing anything for certain was like hanging from a noose. The bottom of her toes could scrape the ground, but Harriet was still suffocating all the same. She needed to know there was more to life than this.
Some mornings Harriet woke and it all seemed like another product of her nightmares; a mysterious missive boasting of her acceptance into an academy of magic arrives only to be taken away minutes later. Ridiculous. I didn't hallucinate, she told herself fiercely. She could remember the touch of purple wax giving under her fingertips, the way the green ink shone in the sunshine. She could recite many of the strange names she'd seen listed beneath their strange books, orders to get black uniforms and a pewter cauldron, the ban on first year broomsticks. Though Harriet considered herself quite imaginative, she couldn't have imagined that.
One line caused Harriet to worry: "we await your owl by no later than 31 July." She hadn't a clue how one went about catching an owl to send a missive—but the rapidly approaching deadline had Harriet anxious. July thirty-first, her birthday. If she failed to send a reply by then, would this Hogwarts place revoke admission? Would they send another letter? Or would Harriet be stuck with the bloody Dursleys until she was eighteen? She was content with her prospects of going to Stonewall High right up until she discovered there could possibly be a school out there that taught magic of all things and it wanted oddball little Harriet to attend. How could she let such a thing go?
Harriet squashed her nose against the cupboard's vent and drew in a long, muffled breath. The air whistled through her nostrils as she breathed, shaking the door, not that she cared about that. A week had passed since the letter's delivery. Harriet had seen very little outside her cupboard since then.
Someone entered the hall—Uncle Vernon, judging by the heavy, plodding tread. The latch on the cupboard rattled as he stooped before it and Harriet leaned back, expectant, preparing for the sudden burst of light that came whenever the door opened. The hinges creaked, and Uncle Vernon—still dressed for work, though his tie had been loosened—glowered at Harriet. She frowned. Harriet had been sure it was still early in the afternoon; she lost time sitting in the cupboard for so long.
"Come eat the dinner your aunt made for you, girl."
Harriet stepped out of the cupboard and stood. She didn't feel very brave with her uncle looming overhead like a great, bulbous blimp of pent-up anger, but she held her ground and squared her bony shoulders. "I want my letter back."
Uncle Vernon didn't reply as he rounded on his heels and stormed into the kitchen. Harriet followed. A plate of cooling scraps from the roast Aunt Petunia had cooked earlier lay at the end of the counter, and the three Dursleys sat around the table picking over their dessert, ignoring her presence entirely. Harriet wanted to set in on them about the letter right away, but her stomach rumbled in protest, and so she slumped over to the spotless counter where her dinner waited and shoved forkfuls of gristle in her mouth. Chewing, she glared out the window facing the garden and studied the burnished color of the sky, the fluffy clouds scudding along the horizon behind the neighbors' houses.
What does it even matter? They'll never agree to let me go, came Harriet's sullen thought, but she tamped down that pessimistic voice with a determined shake of the head. No. They have to. I can't stay here and go to Stonewall. I just can't.
Harriet swallowed and went to rinse her plate in the sink. With that finished, she forced herself to stand as tall as she could—which, really, wasn't that tall at all—and turned to face her relatives.
Uncle Vernon saw her coming and stiffened. Aunt Petunia, seeing Uncle Vernon's foul expression, craned her long neck about to level a sour grimace at Harriet. Dudley just kept eating.
"I want my letter," she said, speaking as calmly as she could. "It's my letter, and I think I have a right to know about magic and—."
"The right?" Uncle Vernon thundered, jumping to his feet. Harriet took a step back before realizing it. He came nearer, throwing his napkin on the floor as he went. "You don't have the right to anything, you utterly ungrateful freak! We take you in out of the goodness of our hearts, take the clothes off our son's back for you, keep you fed, give you a place to sleep, and this is how you repay us?!"
Aunt Petunia swiftly ushered Dudley out of the room, though the fat boy didn't seem inclined to go, shoving at his mother as he complained. She finally snapped the door shut in his pudgy face and locked it. Fear frazzled the edges of Harriet's temper, and her voice grew louder in response to her uncle's darkening face. "It's not on, keeping this stuff from me! It's my bloody life! It's not fair!"
"It wasn't fair when my stupid sister went and got herself blown up and we go landed with you!" Aunt Petunia burst out, surprising both Harriet and Uncle Vernon. Color burned in her cheeks and her eyes were half wild, glittering like coins at the bottom of a fountain, grubby and dark but catching the light when you least expect them to. "Don't you understand anything? That's what magic does to people! It ruins their lives!"
"B—." Harriet sputtered. "Blown up? W-what do you mean 'blow up'? You told me my parents died in a car crash!" Bile crawled into her throat and it was all she could do to stop herself from being sick on their shoes. "How could you lie to me about that?! They're my parents! I've never even seen a picture of them!"
"I've heard enough of this—," Uncle Vernon warned, but Harriet kept going.
"What in the hell is wrong with you people?!" she demanded. The windows shook in their casements and though Harriet knew shouting never got her anywhere, she couldn't seem to calm down. She couldn't stop. A headache pulsed behind her temples. "I'm your niece and you treat me worse than Aunt Marge treats her dogs!"
"How dare—!"
"I want my letter! It's mine, and you have no right keeping it from me! I want to go to Hogwarts! I want to learn magic!"
A sudden pain flared through Harriet's face and, before she knew it, she was on the floor, slumped against the kitchen cabinets with one of the knobs digging painfully in her shoulder. With a dazed blink, she looked up at Uncle Vernon—just as the man lunged, wrapping his meaty fingers around Harriet's skinny neck to haul her upright. He squeezed until Harriet couldn't breathe, terror ripping through her like water through a broken dam and Uncle Vernon shook his arms. Yells punctuated each shake.
"You—don't—talk—to—me—like—that!"
"Vernon—Vernon! You can't do that!" Aunt Petunia shrieked. He dropped Harriet as swiftly as he had grabbed her, both breathing hard, Harriet swaying on her feet. With a trembling hand, she touched her throbbing lip and held bloody fingers out toward the light. The red looked ghastly on her skin. Harriet was stunned. Getting punched by Dudley or receiving a few slaps about the head for her cheek wasn't a rare occurrence at Privet Drive—but the Dursleys had never struck her before. Not like this.
Uncle Vernon quivered with rage, and Harriet knew in that instant he wished he'd killed her, that if Aunt Petunia hadn't of been here, he would have kept squeezing and squeezing until every last breath left Harriet's scrawny little body. She had never been so afraid of the man before.
He grabbed her by the front of her overlarge shirt like he was afraid to touch her skin now and dragged Harriet toward the hall. "I will hear no more of this!" he roared, throwing open the door, Dudley almost falling in face first from having his ear pressed to the keyhole. A moment later and Uncle Vernon had the cupboard door open, too, the dark inside waiting as it always was to swallow Harriet whole. Her head struck one of the shelves with enough force to bruise when he threw her in. Uncle Vernon slammed the door closed again. "Get in there, and see if we let you out before Christmas!"
xXxXx
Harriet sobbed. She sobbed long after Uncle Vernon had stormed away, long after Dudley's laughter had subsided, and long after the Dursleys had tromped up the stairs to their beds. Aunt Petunia hesitated once outside Harriet's cupboard and had enough compassion in her to open the vent, but she moved on quick enough at Uncle Vernon's insistence. Weak afternoon sunlight gave way to the gloaming hour. Harriet watched the light die through watery eyes. She had never been so miserable before in all her life.
Some time after night fell, Harriet dropped into a fitful doze, curled up tight in ball upon her cot, dreaming of green light and cold laughter and shifting shadows. She didn't think about Hogwarts, about magic, her letter, or her parents. It hurt too much, worse than the pain in her lip or in her bruised neck or her bumped head. What else had the Dursleys lied to her about all these years?
A hard poke pulled Harriet from her lousy dreams. She lay on her cot and tried to breathe through her stuffy nose, wondering if she had imagined the feeling—until it came again. For one horrible second Harriet thought someone else was in the bloody cupboard with her, but no, she was quite alone. Set was the one trying to rouse her.
Harriet sat up—avoided bashing her skull on the riser—and stuffed her glasses onto her blotchy face. She couldn't see very well, but she could hear, and what she heard was the distinct sound of the cupboard's latch sliding along its groove. Harriet watched, frozen, as the door popped itself open and slowly swung aside. In the soft moonlight suffusing the hall, the shadows wheeled and pulsed until Harriet saw Set's hand take form, beckoning her forward from the cupboard's belly. She went.
No one was in the silent hallway. Set moved, illuminated by the light coming through the windows that flanked the front door, his black form stretching and distorting as he edged his way up the stairs. What is he on about? Harried marveled, still crouched down. A door creaked open. Set returned before she could consider following, not that Harriet was keen on following him upstairs to where her relatives slept. His shadow rippled on each step as it came down, Aunt Petunia's handbag floating silently along with him.
"What are you…?"
Set brought the bag to Harriet, then flipped it over. Aunt Petunia's things clattered on the floor, a tube of lipstick rolling away, loose change bouncing and spinning as Set tossed crumpled tissues and sweet wrappers aside. There, among the detritus, was Harriet's letter. She took hold of it, gaping, and saw that someone had obviously tried to set the pages alight, but had ultimately failed. The edges were crispy and left ash on her questing fingertips.
Set broke open Aunt Petunia's purse and extricated the folded notes, flinging them in Harriet's face. She caught the money on instinct more than anything else and gawked, having never held more than a few quid in her hands before. Set moved again, and the front door slammed open. The evening breeze whispered through the space, cool with the first distant murmurs of autumn held in its grasp, inviting Harriet to take one breath, and then another. Her cheeks felt chilled where the tears dried themselves.
Harriet glanced at the money in one hand, at the letter in the other, and then the open door.
Set pointed toward the exit.
Her heart was beating very quickly at this point, because Harriet understood perfectly what Set meant for her to do, but she wasn't sure she could. Harriet wasn't even yet eleven years old, and though she despised this place, Privet Drive was the only refuge she had ever known. Bitter and hateful, but a refuge all the same. The unknown was a terrifying thing, and it waited for young Harriet now, yawning like a great maw beyond the threshold of the open door where the night lay thick like dew on the lawn. The world was very quiet then. Harriet could hear her heartbeat.
Her legs wobbled when she stood. Set twisted about her feet as Harriet walked toward the open door, her hands coming to rest on the frame, shoes scuffing the threshold though they did not cross it.
In her head, she could hear the Dursleys shouting again. "You don't have the right to anything."
"That's what magic does to people!"
"Ungrateful freak."
"It ruins their lives!"
Harriet stepped forward. They won't hold me down anymore, she told herself. Not again. I'm not afraid.
Hissing voices rose from the grass. "Misstresss," the snakes called as she walked them by. "Misstresss."
The yard teemed with dozens of slender, glistening bodies writhing in a chaotic mass of scales and sharp teeth and wavering tongues. As she leapt over the low garden wall, the snakes began to pour into the open door of Number Four, Privet Drive. Harriet Potter followed the pointing arm of her shadow gesturing into the night and she smiled as she walked away.
