Author's Note: Hi there! Just an FYI to first-time readers, my general fanfic style is to rewrite an entire story almost scene-by-scene in a parody style, like a really, really long comedy skit. I have two other somewhat popular published WIPs ("Fullmetal Lol" and "Shingeki No Puru"), and several other unfinished, unpublished works. I also have *zero* free time right now because I'm earning my second Master's degree.
So, naturally, I started this, yet another fic. Enjoy!
Chapter One
The Boy Who Did Not Have A Birthday
"Up! Get up! Now!" Aunt Petunia rapped the wall with her knuckles to rouse her nephew, as he was only permitted to reside within the thin but sturdy walls of the house at Number 4, Privet Drive. It was here that he shifted in his sleep, vertical like some kind of dried out dead lizard that had managed to squeeze itself between two books. Turning over was a chore, but as Harry Potter was quite skinny, it allowed him to become cozier and drift off again.
His aunt gave the wall another hard knock.
"Get up for Dudley's birthday!"
Harry roused and let out a groan; how could he have forgotten Dudley's birthday, the worst day of the week?
"Are you up yet?"
"Nearly…" He stifled a yawn and inhaled some insulation dust. The insides of his lungs were like a cotton candy machine.
It was not as though the Dursleys had no room for their nephew; they had one master bedroom, two bedrooms, three guest rooms, a canopy, a gazebo, a farmhouse, a pool, and but one child, Dudley. Dudley, of course, had his own bedroom. The second bedroom was for Dudley's broken/melted toys and pristine books, and the cupboard beneath the stairs was extra storage for the vacuum cleaner and dusty, unused sex toys. "Someday," the Dursley couple would always tell themselves as they continued to sleep in separate twin beds.
Harry sidled his way to exit his "bedroom" (a vent), and then nearly tripped when he stepped out because the foundation of the house sank deeper with every one of Dudley's birthdays from the sheer number of presents. Dudley's ever-growing weight did not help, either. Harry did not adjust his step for today's stack of presents and stuck his foot right through a beautifully wrapped gift containing Legos.
"Hurry up," snapped his aunt from the kitchen. "I want you to look after the bacon on the stove. And don't you dare let it burn; I want everything perfect for Duddy's birthday."
The stove was not on. Dudley liked his bacon raw.
Dudley was already there ripping open his numerous gifts, the torn colorful papers contrasting with Petunia's sparkling white kitchen. Excluding the red velvet cake splatter on the far wall that almost suggested a violent murder had taken place.
The Dursleys forgot Dudley's birthday once, in 1986. It was due to their simultaneous car accident and heart attacks. Young Dudley had thrown a tantrum so severe that he had given himself a cerebral arterial dissection and had to be rushed to the hospital, where the doctors would declare him dead after mistaking a pile of lunch ham for him. He was fine though.
"YAAAAAYY! Another fish tank!" Dudley unwrapped his 1,022nd gift.
"Duddykins loves his animals," cooed Aunt Petunia. "Maybe one day he'll grow up to be a vet!"
Uncle Vernon chortled. "Not our Dudders, he's a man! He'll be a butcher someday, or a world-famous hunter, won't you Duds?"
Dudley gave a large burp. "I want to be a knight!" He thought they still existed. A ridiculous and naive thought, seeing as how wild dragons wiped out all knights by the 16th century.
Harry sighed grimly as he pointlessly flipped the bacon. Dudley got at least one aquarium filled with fish every year, and every year he poured cereal into it and they died.
Dudley was still staring at the lovely but doomed glittery fish when Harry took the plate of bacon to the table and sat down.
"Can I stick my magnets on it?" asked Dudley about his new tank.
His parents chuckled at what they thought was a cute question, like a pair of doting parents watching their toddler spill peanut butter all over itself. Which had happened with Dudley, except it was lead paint.
It was a nice lilac color, in case you were wondering.
Dudley started shaking the tank to see if it would make the fish talk.
"Why are they ignoring me?"
"Er," Aunt Petunia did everything in her power to uphold Dudley's fanciful life views, even if it meant lying in the face of reality and the physiological limits of marine wildlife. "Because their mouths are full of water, dear."
"Oh."
("Why can't I move past the fish tank gag?" the author asked herself.)
"I can't wait for them to evolved into frogs," continued Dudley.
Harry couldn't suppress a snort, which proved to be a deadly mistake; Dudley's appetite and stupidity combined had him thinking Harry was the bacon-pig and he attempted to stab him with a fork.
"Diddies we've been over this!" chimed aunt Petunia over Harry's sobbing screams. "We don't have fresh pigs! The bacon comes from the store!" Dudley had never been to the market because Aunt Petunia wanted to spare him the jealous fury of seeing other people there buying food.
Not that Harry could easily be mistaken for a pig; he was quite small and scrawny, even for an 11-year-old boy. In fact, he lacked several vital nutrients and supplements needed for a growing boy.
It did not help that he refused to flush out the tape worm residing inside his sigmoid colon (it was lonely in the walls and he liked the company).
Harry also had a shock of messy black hair that looked like the garbage heap at a hair salon, and bright green eyes that started out hazel but then Dudley stuck his head in a microwave when he was five. His dark hair and bright eyes contrasted with the pale skin of a boy who did not get to have much sunlight. The lack of sunlight made his bones weak but pliable enough to live within the house walls.
The most unusual trait about him though, was the lightening-bolt scar in the middle or side of his forehead. Sometimes he doodled another spiky line next to the scar and connected them to make it look like a crinkled French fry.
According to his aunt and uncle, the scar was a relic from when his parents died during his infancy. Though, their explanation of their deaths by food poisoning didn't always sit right with him.
While Dudley opened more presents, Aunt Petunia came back from taking a phone call in the living room.
"Bad news Vernon, Mrs. Figg's leg was eaten by her cats and now she can't look after him." She jerked her head towards Harry.
"Preposterous. Can't we just dump him at the fire station?"
"They said we can't do that anymore."
"You could leave me here," said Harry. "I'll behave, I promise." Harry was hopeful; this could be his chance to play some of Dudley's cool videogames, or consume some dairy.
Aunt Petunia scrunched her face at the idea he dare uttered, but defeatedly looked at her husband.
"Should we… should we take him with us?" They looked at Harry, sitting there like he was about to explode in a rain of fire and guts, just to spite them.
Harry didn't say anything. He had never been to the zoo before, and maybe if he behaved on the way there he'd be allowed to see the zoo's welcome sign from the hot car they'd inevitably leave him in.
"He's going to ruin my birthday!" shouted Dudley. "I don't want him to come!"
"Oh no don't cry Diddlebuns!" cooed Aunt Petunia. "We'll buy you one of those funny little grabbers shaped like a flamingo head, how does that sound?" She knew he was fond of animal heads.
Dudley gave a few great fake sniffs and said, "Okay. And?"
"And… and we'll get you some new fish!"
Yes, the fish were already dead.
"Oh mum, you're the best!"
And so, they walked out towards the car in the driveway, Harry to travel in the trunk. He liked that he got to lie down for rides. Much roomier than the walls.
"I'm warning you, boy," snarled his purple uncle, purple from preemptive anger. Harry was fond of the color; purple was a color of royalty during the Victorian era. "Any funny business – anything at all – you'll be locked inside the walls until Christmas!"
It was not without reason that he did not trust Harry. No one did, for many reasons…
It started the day after his arrival to the Dursley's. Horrified at the prospect of raising "a Satan-worshipping witch-baby" in their household along their own baby, they took him to the local church to be baptized. Unfortunately, baby Harry's natural magic proved too much for the church. The priest kicked the whole family out when, during the baptism, the giant cross behind the pulpit flipped upside-down, the priest vomited black sludge, and the holy water boiled and turned into Diet Coke. (** A commercial for Diet Coke was the first advertisement he ever saw when they propped him in front of the TV to ignore him.)
From there it escalated.
When Harry was two, Aunt Petunia yelled at him for coloring on the walls, and then all the lightbulbs in the house went out at once, and all the wine in the cabinets mysteriously turned sour.
When he was four, he cut his finger on a rose in Petunia's garden; later that day, the garden was swallowed by a freak swarm of feral locusts.
When he was six, he had a bag of marbles and jacks that inadvertently served as a hex bag; Uncle Vernon fell off his ladder, and Aunt Petunia burnt her roast.
Age eight; Dudley played a joke in class and set Harry's hoodie on fire. Harry laughed while it burned because it felt like a big tickle. His teacher retired early after the incident.
And when he turned ten and Dudley and his mates dared him to play "Bloody Mary" in the boy's bathroom at school, Dudley badly bumped his shin on the coffee table later that day.
Everything seemed to be Harry's fault, but he could not explain how it was not his fault.
Today would be better though. Today he would try his best not to do the thing he was not trying to do intentionally.
They arrived at the zoo. Harry was delighted when the security car drove by and they had no choice but to buy him a ticket too instead of leaving him there.
"What are those?" Dudley would ask stupidly about every animal, despite the clear placard cards displayed before each exhibit.
"Those are pigeons, Dudders, we haven't left the parking lot."
"Heheh little tyke." Vernon ruffled his son's hair.
"So charmingly curious!" touted Petunia. "Our smart Diddykins!"
"Columba livia domestica," muttered Harry.
"What was that, boy?"
"I said I would like a harmonica."
"Oh you would like such a noisy, useless toy," sneered Petunia. Regardless, it was probably in her best interest not to get him one - seeing as how Harry's unexplored powers included the ability to summon demons with a harmonica, it would have taken forever to get a giant pentagram-shaped stain out of her carpet.
(Please for a moment imagine a demon unfurling itself in a cloud of deep red fire and smoke to the sounds of harmonica badly played by a child. Or a kazoo. Heheh.)
Harry rather enjoyed himself at the zoo, despite Dudley's behavior. Dudley complained loudly about not seeing camouflaged animals and accused the zoo of hiding them. He brought his slingshot to the aviary, and used it. He stripped endangered flowers of their petals. He dumped his soda in the penguin enclosure. He brought a flyswatter to the butterfly house, and used it. He shined his keychain flashlight at the nocturnal animals.
He called leopards ugly.
Lastly, when he got to the petting zoo, Dudley ate half the pellets meant for the farm animals.
By the time they arrived at the reptile house, Harry learned a lot about animals, and Dudley, somehow, learned less.
Near the end of the winding zoo path was the dimly lit reptile house with a peeling painting of a happy gecko wrapped around the entrance. The walls were lined with small tanks of reptiles camouflaged so well it were as though the glass featured naught but leafy little gardens.
Harry and Dudley were drawn to a large tank that made up a wall, full of foliage and branches around which a huge, fat snake looped itself.
Dudley, predictably, banged on the glass to get it to move, then quickly lost interest to go ask his mum for more petting zoo pellets.
Harry took his time, observing the lovely repeating pattern on the glistening scales. He wondered if his tapeworm would get as long as this snake someday.
"Poor fellow," Harry muttered to himself, "he's so big and he's stuck in that tank. At least no one can gawk at me inside the house walls."
"Yesssss you feel me, bruh."
Harry blinked and looked around him. Who had said that?
He shrugged it off and turned his attention back to the snake. The placard read, "Boa Constrictor, Brazil. Scientific Name: Boa Constrictor (seriously, I Googled it)."
Harry looked back up and was startled when he saw the snake staring at him.
"Must've been nice in Brazil," he thought aloud.
The snake jabbed its tail towards the placard.
Harry continued to read:
"Confiscated from an edgy teen's dresser as an egg."
"Oh I see," he said. "So you've never even been to your home."
The snake hung its head in unblinking sadness.
"Hold on a second…" His electrolyte-deprived brain was making connections as something remarkable dawned on him. "Can you actually understand what I'm saying to you?"
The snake nodded.
I can't believe it," thought Harry, his heart beating rapidly and his face breaking into a rare smile. I'm talking to a snake and it understands me! This is incredible!"
Breathless, he whispered the next question.
"Can you speak?"
"Kill your family."
"I… what?"
"Kill your family."
"Er."
"THE SNAKE IS DOING SOMETHING!" Dudley appeared out of nowhere and shoved Harry aside with his massive body. "MUM! DAD! LOOK!" But something happened when he applied his usual glass-banging technique to the tank… Namely, there was no glass anymore.
"DO SOMETH- wha-!? AAAAH!" The snake reared its head and snapped at him before he fell forward into its stagnant, poop-filled water. The snake then casually slid over the ledge of his aquarium with its huge muscular body while the zoo patrons screamed and cried because they could not bear to live one second in a natural world that wasn't safely tucked behind bars or glass.
"Do it," said the snake, winking to Harry before slithering out of the exit at the back.
What on Earth is wrong with that snake, thought Harry. Then, another thought hit him like a back-of-the-head punch from Dudley. Bloody hell… I just… I can talk to animals!
The car ride back was unusually silent. Something about the threat to his personal safety had left Dudley in a distressed state, laying in a fetal position and whimpering. A shaken Petunia gently shushed him as she breastfed him. Seated next to them was Harry with fresh scratches across his entire torso. Apparently, he could not talk to pigeons. The trunk was now occupied by a new fish tank.
The family and Harry walked in silence across the driveway to the house. Upon entering, Dudley and Petunia went upstairs, but Uncle Vernon grasped Harry's shoulder and led him to the living room.
"You, boy. I don't know what you did, but you did… something."
"How could I have done anything? The pigeons approached me-" (he lied.)
"Go to your wall, no more food scraps for you tonight."
Harry's mouth dropped open in incredulity. How he later had the strength to go to bed that night without his nourishing chicken skins and green bean tips and bottom-of-the-pot burnt rice was beyond him.
Uncle Vernon was still in a towering mood the next morning, because Dudley had used the flamingo grabber on one of his father's balls. Harry saw it broken in twain and shoved in the plastic garbage bin (the grabber, not the ball) when he shuffled around in there for breakfast. Starving, he was grateful for the distraction that allowed him to pilfer the trash and savor the egg shells and grapefruit seeds he had found in there. He expected that to be the most interesting part of his day (and on any other day that would be the case), but he was quite mistaken.
That afternoon, he walked into the kitchen to find Dudley sitting there in a ridiculous outfit.
"What," he said, "are you wearing."
"That's Dudley's new school uniform," snapped Uncle Vernon before turning to his son to beam at him. "He's following his old man's footsteps!"
"He looks like he's wearing a chicken costume," blurted out Harry.
"Enough out of you!" Aunt Petunia rubbed Dudley's feathery shoulders. "His new school's mascot is the noble White Eagle. It is not some cheap costume! It cost us £1,000!"
Dudley, whose circular face looked like it was cut out of a photo and pasted over a chicken's face (fake beak included), smiled smugly at Harry. Harry noticed the scratches on Petunia's arms and face.
"It's a marvelous uniform," said Vernon, also proudly sporting face scratches. "It has talons for children to use on each other and their teachers, to learn about life."
Great, thought Harry, Dudley in a hilarious costume that I have to make fun of – I just have to, okay – and it comes with a pair of knife gloves.
Dudley sunk his face into his porridge and made grotesque screeching animal noises. Holding back laughter, he said "I'll go check the mail," his voice cracking from the effort of restraining himself.
"Hurry up then boy," Uncle Vernon shook his newspaper open.
"Wait," said Harry suddenly, "what's my new school's mascot then?"
"A plain beige T-shirt."
"Oh."
They originally intended to send him to West Dowding Public Junior High School, but their mascot was a Griffin and the Dursleys would not enable such fantastical nonsense, of course.
Somewhat disappointed, he slipped out the kitchen and walked towards the front door. He dully wondered if he should ask Mrs. Figg if she had any numbing cream or Neosporin, to prepare for his future cuts. He needed a good laugh.
Let's see here… a tuition bill for Dudley's new school, Aunt Petunia's celebrity gossip magazine, a credit card offer, coupons, a sexual harassment lawsuit against, Grunnings – boy those are piling up – and… huh?
Harry stared at an unfamiliar, thick envelope.
To Mr. Harry Potter,
Wall Insulation
Number 4, Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
"That's weird." He frowned down at the envelope and let his legs take him back to the kitchen, where Dudley stared hungrily at the envelopes in his hands. His Aunt Marge sometimes sent Dudley an envelope containing a bologna slice, as a surprise.
"Whoa, is that a letter for Harry?" exclaimed Dudley. "Who would write to you?"
Petunia snapped her head to look at him from her roast.
"Oh Dudley-poo," she breathed, "you can finally read!" She tearfully hugged her dumb son.
Harry was aware that his cousin had always known how to read and spell "Harry." Dudley made it a priority to know that name and a few vulgar words to mar school bathroom walls and dumpsters with phrases such as, "Harry smells bad," and "Harry eats vegetables," and "Harry can read." It was getting harder and harder to pretend to be offended, because deep down Harry wanted Dudley to keep learning new words, as to better himself a little.
"Give me that," Vernon snatched the envelope from Harry and scanned it. He turned purple. Then, he tore it open, read the letter, and turned even more purple.
"Petunia." His voice and hands were shaking. "Come look at this."
"What is it? Who is it from?" asked Harry.
Petunia took it from his hands to look, and then clapped her hands over her mouth.
"Give it to me!" demanded Harry.
Vernon pulled the letter further from his reach.
"What is it!?"
"It's nothing. It's… er, spam."
"Spam?"
"We sold your identity three years ago for some side money for Dudley's school uniform and tuition."
"…"
"And they must have sold your information to other companies."
"Is that why my credit score is in the toilet?"
"Listen you," Uncle Vernon tore the envelope into halves, and then quarters, then eights, "just- er- ignore this, ok? We'll call the bank and settle things, no need to worry."
But it seemed the "spammers" were persistent.
The next day, Harry received another three identical letters, and again Uncle Vernon tore them up and tossed them out. Then came five letters. Then twelve.
Time and time again Harry tried to grab one, but Uncle Vernon was always there to snatch it out of his hands and put them in the fireplace.
Over the next few weeks, the mysterious sender sent more letters on a daily, then hourly basis. Uncle Vernon hammered shut the mail slot, but they started appearing under the door. When he blocked that too, the letters found other ways into their home; folded inside eggshells and within whole fish's guts from groceries purchased at the local market. They were under the ruffles of Petunia's old wedding dress that she tried on and cried in every Wednesday night, and inside Vernon's mustache. They choked the filter of Dudley's replacement fish tank (the fish were dead long before that, though surely you knew that).
At one point, Dudley ran out of the bathroom in hysterics, screaming into his mother's bosom that his number twos turned into more Number 4 letters for Harry; the healthiest they had ever looked.
Vernon scooped them out with an old aquarium fish net and threw them into the fireplace… only to see more fresh letters sitting atop the log pile in there (in the fireplace, not the toilet).
Harry was taken from his beloved wall to one of Dudley's spare bedrooms when Uncle Vernon started finding letters in there too. Harry had left it kicking and screaming. The bedroom felt far to open, too cold and exposed and un-cozy… All the same, he was relieved not to hear every single thing in the walls anymore. He never knew before the peace and quiet of not hearing Dudley's digestive system work through its burdens every night (it sounded like construction work, or like a woodchipper). Though, nothing could block out his intimate knowledge of his uncle's chronic failure to launch. It was too late for him in that regards.
When the dump truck of letters came one otherwise sleepy Sunday morning, Vernon nearly lost his shit. He took the garden wheelbarrow and took several trips wheeling hundreds of pounds of letters to the fireplace.
Soon, the house caught fire. Aunt Petunia nearly ruptured a disc dragging her son out while Uncle Vernon frantically hauled his prized golf clubs out of the garage. Harry simply ambled out, having known he was immune to fire since the hoodie incident. A couple of flaming beams fell behind him and made him look like a badass, and then he collapsed coughing on the lawn. He still had asthma.
Watching the flames from the outside of their house, the Dursley couple wondered if it was worth it.
"Vernon," Petunia breathed, "what ever will the neighbors think?"
"We'll tell them the boy did it." He jerked his head towards Harry, who was on his knees deeply breathing in his inhaler like he was trying to suck a dead roach out of a pipe.
Dudley, sooty, laid on the ground convulsing at the thought of losing his stuff after his mother had to drag him out of the burning house three times. His already fragile cerebral artery threatened to dissect again.
While the Dursley couple stood around wondering if the fire department would take Harry this time, another sound of a clunky, out-of-place vehicle rolled down Privet Drive. The dusty white van rolled on eight uneven, mud-splattered wheels and featured a scratched paint job with several mismatched metal panels drilled over obviously dented parts. There appeared to be a smoking chimney jutting from its roof, hardly noticeable when one's eyes automatically drew towards the life-sized decal of a nude fairy on the side. The license plate read, Haggy Ruby.
The neighbors found it more offensive than the still-burning house fire. The Dursleys and Harry watched this beat-up van park by their house and Aunt Petunia nearly burst into flames herself from the embarrassment.
The small door opened, but out stepped a huge man in a cloud of smoke; he was at least as tall as two regular-sized men, and thrice as wide. He wore a bright Hawaiian shirt with khaki shorts and sandals, and he had a mess of long, wavy hair. In his hands he held a box and, to Harry's confused delight, a letter that looked identical to one of the many letters which had failed to reach him.
"Righ'," said the man. He looked towards the Dursley adults, and for the first time in her life Aunt Petunia would have given anything for someone to cast a spell on her to vanish on the spot. "Which one o' these kids is Harry Potter?"
Greedy for the letter and whatever was in the box, Dudley stepped forward… But the stranger's enchanted box bit Dudley's fingers as though it were some vicious animal.
Hagrid chuckled. "Yer not Harry, yer a chicken obviously." He approached Harry.
"Happy Birthday, Harry."
"W…What?"
The mysterious man handed him his letter and the box, which it turned out contained a lovely homemade birthday cake. Harry angrily turned towards the Dursleys. "You told me I was made from a stolen placenta put inside a goat and I didn't get to have birthdays!"
"Wha'!? How could they tell you such ruddy lies?"
Uncle Vernon flushed. "We swore we would stamp that nonsense out of him when we took him in!"
"Firs' of all, yah great ruddy muggle, our people use rams, not goats," said the man indignantly. "Second, you're denying him who he is!"
"Who am I?" questioned Harry, unknowingly the only thought he had in common with the middle-aged neighbors of Privet Drive who all drove the same kind of neutral-colored economic car to their safe office jobs.
"Yer a lizard, Harry."
"I fucking knew it."
The man cursed out loud. "Ten years o' planning and I go an' screw it up. Well, my name is Hagrid. Here's your letter anyhow."
At long last, Harry received his letter.
Dear Mr. Potter,
Congratulations! You have been pre-approved to attend Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment, an envelope for return check of £50,000 tuition payment, and a 10% voucher off your first school meal, on us!
Term starts on September 1st. We await your pigeon no later than July 31st.
Yours Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Scotland, or Ireland or whatever
"An' this is for you." Hagrid handed the perplexed Dursleys their own letter addressed to them. "It's from your HOA."
Their letter was a standard notice from the HOA of complaints regarding their house "not following our strict community guidelines" because it was still on fire.
"Come on then, kid, get in my van." Hagrid graciously opened the rusty metal door for Harry.
Harry's whole life of public school education taught him that entering a strange vehicle – especially a shoddy-looking windowless van - with an unknown male adult was unwise, possibly dangerous. And boy howdy would the next seven years of his life prove that right.
"We gotta go get you them school supplies. Unless, you'd prefer to stay h-"
"Hell no, take me to your sex dungeon."
"Wha'?"
"I mean, take me magic shopping."
"No!" Uncle Vernon seemed to find his voice again after the shock of his negative HOA review. And the whole nephew invited to wizard school thing. "My wife and I do not give permission! We will not stand for your school of Satanism!"
"Yeh have nothing to worry about, Mr. Dursley, Hogwarts is a secular school."
"That is not what I-"
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
They were distracted by Dudley screaming for no reason. Apparently, not unlike the North Korean government, he felt it had been too long since anyone paid attention to him.
"Muuuuummm, why does he get to go!?" he whined.
Of course, he didn't really want to go to Hogwarts. If Harry jumped off a cliff, you bet Dudley would get jealous and do the same. That's how he ended up stuck in a dryer for a week last year. Harry purposefully baited Dudley by going for a ride inside a clothes dryer when their school had taken a fieldtrip to the laundromat.
Harry's metal jeans button burned a scar below his bellybutton afterwards, but it was worth totally it.
Uncle Vernon turned the same color of radish as the time he stormed into the neighbor's yard during their kid's birthday party and punched the hired magician in the face.
"No son of mine is going to even think about MAGIC," he spat. "Get in the house!"
"But Dad, it's still on fire-"
"NO EXCUSES!"
"Wait," Harry hesitated. "How do I even know magic is real? What if the snake talking and the hoodie fire and the hex bag and the church incident and the local locust plague I triggered and Dudley's bruised shin were all just a string of specific coincidences which I interpreted into a biased pattern, a false sense of wonder?"
Hagrid frowned, thinking for a moment. Then he stepped into his van, and emerged with a hot pink umbrella which he pointed it at Dudley.
"Gallus gallus chickus wingus."
There was a flash of light and Dudley screamed.
His costumed wings became real. They took on a life of their own, flopping around, tossing a sobbing-screaming Dudley hither and tither, loose feathers billowing about like gentle snowfall.
"DUDDLEPUDDLE!" Aunt Petunia looked on helplessly while eggs started rolling out of Dudley's pant legs and cracking open on the pavement.
"PfffFFFT GHUAHAHAHAHA!"
Hagrid smiled warmly at Harry doubling over with hysterical laughter so severe he would need his inhaler again. He loved making children laugh. Harry gasped and farted before his laughter finally subsided. This was the best day of summer ever.
"Come on then, Harry, those unicorn testicles ain' gonna buy themselves."
Harry stepped into the van doorway, glancing back one more time at the pristine cul-de-sac (minus the burning house) that had boringly served as his home his entire young life, and then towards his only family in the world, the Dursleys.
"You'll be sorry," he whispered loud enough for them to hear. "You'll all be sorry when I come back here, to Privet Drive, an educated man of the HOA, and reinstate Halloween!" Harry turned his back on his aunt as she fell to her knees and wept with her entire body.
CHAPTER EPILOGUE:
Later that fall, to Harry's chagrin when he would eventually find out, Dudley's live-wings-curse backfired; the nuns at his Catholic school saw him as an angel, and simply fawned over him and gave him straight A's.
As for the side effect of him laying an egg every couple hours, Petunia came to appreciate the extra source of eggs while saving £1.5 per grocery trip. The other church goers delighted over her weekly treat of lemon angel food cake which she claimed, with prideful tears, was baked with "a real piece of angel."
Author's Note: Please please tell me that reading my fic made you google Columba livia domestica please I need the validation.
((PS – Please be patient with updates; I'm in PA school (yay!) which means I have extraordinarily limited free time (boo).))
