A massive Thank You to all of my brilliant supporters, with a shout-out to Silver1119, Joel miller, sam, Jimmy Adams, Jo Daviz, LegendaryWasabi, Optimum Prime and Jack Schriner. I would really struggle to keep this up without the support you guys give me.
If would like to join my pat re on and get updates at least a month early and be recognised as an all-around great person go to that site and add a /Lowten to the end. of the URL.
you can also, join my discord server where you will get almost daily updates on how the next chapters are coming along. links are on both the pat re on page (for free) and on my store over on AO3
Chapter 12
The day of Christmas Eve was subdued for a lot of the people at Harry's house, but Sirius was a frantic source of endless Christmas spirit. His attitude was almost, ALMOST infectious. He started the day by waking everyone up early for a family breakfast. As they ate, he told them about what he planned for them to do that day, which was a full list. There was a walk around the village for last minute shopping, getting a Christmas tree, decorating said Christmas tree, and all manner of other little things. Harry realised that Sirius wanted to keep everyone busy so that certain people didn't reminisce on recent unpleasant events. Harry accepted that and did his best to help, he didn't really care about his cousin but it would help Tracey and that he did care about.
So after breakfast they all put on heavy winter cloaks (Harry lent some to Dudley and the Grangers from a pile of wizarding robes that were in the house already) and went for a walk around Hogsmeade. They walked around all the shops, taking in the last minute atmosphere and deals. They stopped at Gladrags where Sirius insisted on buying Harry, Hermione, Fleur, and Tracey a couple of wizarding outfits each, as apparently Harry and Hermione at least didn't have enough wizarding outfits when discounting their school robes and formal wear. He also bought a few things for everyone else as Christmas presents.
They went into honeydukes and Harry started buying gifts for everyone. Despite how much Harry didn't want to notice, he saw Dudley's face light up as he took in the sight of the brightly wrapped confections. Harry wanted to say he didn't care, that Dudley didn't deserve any attention (good or bad) from Harry. Yet, he couldn't shake the fact that Dudley was just like him: an orphan whose parents were murdered by a psychopath. Just like him, and just like Tracey.
"Duds, stay away from the special effects sweets. Most of them need you to have magic of your own to power the effects. You'll love the chocolate, though. It's made with magic but it's just really good normal chocolate," Harry told him.
Dudley shrugged. "Don't matter. I don't have any of that toy money you use here."
And there was the casual reminder of who his cousin was. It was one thing to say he didn't have any Galleons or wizarding money, Harry would have even accepted 'your money'. But Dudley had to be insulting and call it toy money, like Harry's life was just some game, worthless compared to him. And Harry had seen how much Dudley respected toys, he had spent weeks sleeping surrounded by the remains of Dudley's toys his first summer back from Hogwarts. Of course, Sirius didn't see what Dudley was really saying like Harry did and gave the pudgy food disposal unit a few galleons to spend.
As they exited, Harry was laden with boxes of chocolates he had gotten for everyone, plus an extra nice box of Honeydukes' Finest that he had gotten for Fleur and a deluxe box of sugar quills he had picked up for Hermione. Dobby popped in and collected the boxes from Harry and the others before popping it all back to the house, except Dudley's as he had bought only for himself and was eating his immediately. One big advantage to having a house elf while shopping was not needing to try and carry your shopping all day. After that, they went from shop to shop, mostly just browsing but with everyone occasionally buying something that they made sure at least one person couldn't see. It was too early for lunch when they stopped, but they were cold so they popped into the Three Broomsticks for butterbeers. Even just holding the warm drinks was a welcome relief in defrosting their fingers. Fleur made sure to sit herself between Harry and Hermione, obviously deciding that she wanted both of their attention on her since they had had each other the whole time she was in France, and it was obvious that they also needed some Fleur time.
After that it was time to go find a tree. However, Hermione reminded them that the tree they got last year was still in the garden of Harry's house. Last year he had gotten a living tree from Hogwarts rather than one that had been cut down like people normally did, and so that one tree would last them a good few years until it grew too big for the house, when they would have to find a permanent location for it. Until then, it would be plenty happy in its large pot with a healthy amount of dragon dung fertilizer-infused compost. The Christmas tree wasn't the only tree in the garden, there was also a truly massive apple tree at the end furthest from the house. Sassy had explained to him that the Potter family had a tradition of burning their dead elves under fruit bearing trees (or vines at the French vineyard) so that the body and the magic would nourish the plant, and in that way the elves could continue to give to the family. It had all sounded very morbid to Harry, but at least it was better than the Black family tradition of beheading them and mounting their heads on the wall.
Once they got home, it was time to decorate the tree. Sassy brought them the box of gold and red ornaments that they had bought in Harrods last year and they all got to work while sipping on glasses of mulled wine. Everyone was so busy that it was only Tracey who saw Dudley slip off and make his way up the stairs. Following him, she saw Dudley make his way up to the top floor and into the room with all the expanded wardrobes. Dudley stepped into the one he was now sharing with the Granger family. A part of Tracey wanted to share that one with them as well, but another part was glad she had her own space with her family's things in another of the wardrobes.
Dudley was obviously in a lot of pain, the same pain she saw in the mirror every time she looked since she had heard what happened to her parents. Only she had the support of Daphne, of Harry and Hermione, and she was learning that the support of the Warlock Black and the wider Granger family was there for her whenever she felt like asking for it. However, those same people who bent over backwards to help her weren't helping this boy. The only family Dudley had left looked on him with scorn and hate even if they tried to hide it. Tracey knew why, of course. Even if Harry hadn't given her the gory details,, he had told her enough and she was a Slytherin, well practiced in seeing through double speak, half-truths, and lies of omission. Combined with what was published in the Prophet, it was more than enough to tell her that Dudley had treated Harry like shit as they grew up together. Yet all she could see right now was someone like her, someone in pain, someone who could use a shoulder to cry on but there were no shoulders in the offering.
As she stepped into the wardrobe, Dudley heard the sound of her boots on the hard wooden floor and turned to see who was following him. "What do you want!" He snapped at her. "You want to rub my nose in it too? Show me one more way that my freak of a cousin's life is perfect, with a big house, family, a girl on each fucking arm."
"I just wanted to make sure you are okay," Tracey said, wondering if it had been a mistake to follow him. "I know what you are going through."
"Oh you do, do you? You know what it's like to have absolutely nothing left. No parents, no family, no friends, no home, no hope. Just a cousin who has every reason on the planet to hate your guts because you were stupid enough to do what your parents wanted and make his life absolutely miserable and full of fear and pain. All in the hope that it would somehow make him normal." Dudley had started out mocking Tracey but as he continued the more he broke down until he was crying as he yelled. "I just want my mum back, for her to wrap me in a hug and call me her little Diddy-kins like she used to. I don't even know why I'm here. Harry obviously hates me and doesn't want me here, I should have known not to come."
By this point Dudley was openly crying as he stood there in the middle of the room, and to Tracey he just looked lost. So she did the only thing she could think of and pulled him into a hug, and the larger boy practically collapsed against her. She had the impression that she was the first person to offer him this simple act of human kindness since he heard about his parents.
-ϟϟϟ-
Back in the main family room that night, as they put up their decorations and sipped at warm mulled wine, Hermione was trying to make a decision. The barrier to her and Fleur doing more than a little kissing had finally gone, so the question was how to go about seeing if Fleur was up for some fun this evening. It was Christmas Eve after all, and that felt like a suitably special occasion to her, and she already had an understanding with Harry that Fleur would come first over Christmas because she and Harry were together the rest of the time, and their French blossom had more than a few lonely nights to work out of her system.
However, she and Harry had been making love together for long enough that they could just look at each other in a way that the other knew that they were interested. It was well practiced and easy. Yet Fleur had none of that ease, she was a virgin who had saved herself for the soul mate she always knew she had, so that made Hermione the one with the experience. That wasn't to say Fleur was playing hard to get, she was definitely flirting with both her and Harry like she always did. Maybe Hermione was over thinking everything again.
"Hey Hermione, what are you thinking so hard about?" Harry asked as he handed her a small plate of cheese, crackers, and thinly sliced deli meats that Dobby had delivered to the room a few minutes ago.
"How to ask Fleur if she is up for something a bit more fun tonight,'' Hermione answered without thinking. She was used to having such conversations with Harry that she didn't even think to be embarrassed about it. Unfortunately, what Hermione hadn't known was that Fleur was sneaking up behind her, intent on sandwiching Hermione between herself and Harry in a hug, and so heard every word.
Fleur's response was to tackle Hermione from behind while saying "Oui i would love to!" She actually tackled Hermione so hard that it was only Harry's seeker reflex that saved the plate of food from becoming a snack for Crookshanks, who had already managed to scam a few pieces of salami from harry.
Hermione, who hadn't thought that Fleur would overhear her, was a little surprised at first from the sudden hug but soon that resolved into embarrassment. Blushing, she leaned back into Fleur's arms and gave their girlfriend a quick kiss. "Are you sure, love? No pressure." The question was as gentle as she could make it.
"Oui. Just like you I have been looking forward to this." Fleur then looked over at Harry, almost looking like she was going to ask his permission.
Harry answered before Fleur could ask anything. "You two go and have fun. No need to worry about me." Harry didn't admit that he was a little jealous that he wasn't old enough to do more with their beautiful French flower yet, but that was because the two girls may have decided to wait until the summer if he said anything, and that would honestly hurt him more than the small bit of jealousy he was feeling ever could.
Still, it did mean Harry had to find a way to distract himself. It would be better to focus on anything other than the images his mind was conjuring of his two girlfriends, together, in bed, naked, and without him. The tree was done, Sirius had recreated the special effects decorations he had made last year and the same family of fairies had come back to decorate the tree in exchange for a little food and shelter from the cold. In the end, Harry had decided to go practice his Animagus transformation. Normally, Harry and Hermione would only practice in Professor McGonagall's office under her supervision, but despite the fact that Harry couldn't complete the full transformation yet it had been weeks since he needed help returning completely to his human form, and if there was any trouble Sirius was in the house.
Harry went up the back stairs that led up a small tower from the family room to the owlery. Hedwig was out either hunting or just for a fly. His snowy owl loved December around Hogwarts, where she could use her natural camouflage. Harry didn't know why exactly, but he just felt that if any room in his house suited his peregrine falcon form, it was the high tower built for raptors. Luckily, the charms on the room kept it comfortably warm even though there were no windows to keep out the winter chill. He called Dobby and asked him to bring him a mirror, and the little elf was more than happy to help.
Harry closed his eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to be a peregrine falcon: the hard beak instead of soft lips, feet with only three toes that ended in talons, wings instead of arms, feathers instead of hair. He tried to hold the feeling in his head and fed it to his magic and let the magic flow through his body, reshaping it as it went. He could tell he had gotten it wrong again before he looked into the mirror; for one he was too tall, as his view of the room hadn't changed. Though he was sure he had the eyes right, because he could see details out the window much better than he normally could.
He turned to look at himself in the mirror. There was some improvement to his previous attempts, but not much. His head was that of his falcon form and his arms were now wings, and the transformation continued down to his naval area, whereas it had finished just below his ribs the last time he tried. So Harry pictured himself back as his normal self and reversed the transformation, examining himself in the mirror again to make sure he was back to normal. He tried again, with almost identical results. Harry tried to sigh in frustration but instead it came out as a squawk instead.
Not for the first time, Harry wished he could fly in this form, but humans had their legs in the wrong place. Birds had their legs positioned so that, when they were in the air, the weight was tucked up towards the middle of their body. Humans in a flying position however, had their legs sticking out the back, shifting the center of gravity. Simple physical laws that had nothing to do with magic said if you had lift on one end of the body and not on the other, the body would turn until the dead weight was directly underneath the source of the lift. Harry was sure he could glide a bit like that, but he wasn't too keen on the lectures he was sure to get from Professor McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey, Hermione, and Fleur if something went wrong and he broke his leg.
So Harry kept trying, again and again. If he was making any more progress today, though, he couldn't see it. After his eighth transition he hit a snag returning to his human form. It was nothing major, but he still had feathers where he should have had hair in his head. He couldn't even say it looked bad, just different, the feathers actually far neater than his unruly hair ever was. Harry didn't panic, he just concentrated like he normally did when returning to his human form, and with a rush of Magic his hair was once again the wild mop it always was. However, that gave Harry an idea. If he could break up the process of transforming back into his human form into multiple steps, then why couldn't he do the same thing in the opposite direction? What was to stop him training to transform more into his falcon form when he was already halfway there?
He partially transformed, so that from his naval up he was a giant bird, just like he had done a few times today, and then he tried to push the transformation further. While he made some progress, it wasn't as much as he hoped. Apparently avian hips were just too different to mammalian hips to easily switch over. Of course, it was when Harry's torso was that of an absolutely huge peregrine falcon that someone had to come walking up the stairs. Harry had hoped it would be one of the magicals who would instantly know what they were seeing and Harry wouldn't need to explain. Only it wasn't, and worst of all it wasn't one of Hermione's relatives but his.
-ϟϟϟ-
Dudley made his way up the stairs with Tracey just behind him. Apparently the tower at the back of the house had a great view according to Tracey, and anything to get his mind off of everything would be welcome at this point. He got to the top and saw what to him looked like a monster, like something from a final fantasy game or something. He was sure a few of the Japanese games like that had bird people that tried to kill everyone, Ken-something or other. So Dudley did the only thing that made sense to him; he attacked.
Dudley charged forward and brought his fists up as he went just like had been drilled into him hundreds of times by his boxing coach. The monster spread its wings and screeched at him preparing to attack, but Dudley lashed out with his best jab, cross, hook combo, catching the monster in the face with all three hits. Dudley expected the monster to fight back, and while he was right about that he expected to be attacked by the vicious looking beak. He wasn't expecting, either from his impression of the monster or from his boxing training, the kick to his gut.
Harry wasn't going to take this kind of shit from his cousin anymore. He didn't have hands right now, so both magic and punching was out, but he did the best he could with what he had and his foot connected hard with Dudley's gut. Harry did well given the handicap of having no hands, but he was fighting someone who was a trained boxer and was quickly learning that this wasn't going to be his fight. Luckily for Harry, the fight didn't last long, as Tracey came up the stairs behind Dudley and did have her hands and her wand. A few quick spells had Harry and Dudley on opposite sides of the round room.
"What do you think you're doing? Why would you attack Harry like that?" Tracey shouted at Dudley, enraged that the person she had just been talking to could suddenly act like that.
"What do you mean, Harry?" Dudley looked over at Harry just in time to see him turning himself back to normal. "But, but…it was a bird monster!"
"You always did react the same way to something different, just like your parents. Hit first and don't even think about questions. Get the fuck out of my house." Harry practically spat the words at Dudley while he wiped at the blood that was now pouring from his once again human nose.
Dudley and Tracey looked at him surprised and Dudley didn't move, so Harry shouted at him, "What are you waiting for? Get your stuff and get the fuck out of my house!"
Dudley just nodded and walked back down the stairs he had just come. Tracey, however, stayed with Harry and pulled him closer to her so she could examine his face. "Your nose is broken." She told him and Harry only grunted in affirmation, having expected as much. "We should take you to Sirius and see if he can do anything about it." At that, she started to lead Harry downstairs to the living room.
Sirius (after a little bit of freaking out) didn't remember the spell to fix a nose, so he and Harry had to brave the cold air of Hogsmeade to visit the local healer. As they left, Sirius called Sassy and told her to let the Grangers know what was going on. They were surprised and saddened at what had happened, but Dan thought it would be good to let Hermione and Fleur know as well. However, Emma stopped him and said, "I think, if it truly isn't that serious of an injury, it's best if we wait for Harry to do that when he gets back…" Reading between the lines, Dan reluctantly agreed.
As Hogsmeade was the largest settlement of magicals in the country, there was a magical healing clinic just off from the village square. The purpose was to keep the number of low, easily-dealt-with problems from closing up the hospital, letting them focus more on the true emergency cases. The Hogsmeade clinic was more like the Hogwarts hospital wing, only it had two mediwitches, one mediwizard, and two fully qualified healers. Harry, who only had a broken nose that had stopped bleeding, was given a pain relief potion by the receptionist and was put right at the bottom of the priority list compared to the other people waiting. Most of the stuff Harry could see as he looked around the waiting room was relatively minor like him. A witch who looked like she had burned herself either cooking or brewing, plus a wizard who was breathing out balls of fire about the size of a golf ball that didn't seem to burn him but had already done a number on his mustache and eyebrows. Harry ended up seeing the mediwizard who performed a quick charm to check for a concussion as a precaution, as Harry told him he was hit in the head. The charm came back clean, so all that was needed was the charm to fix Harry's nose. A quick Episkey and Harry found out that fixing a broken nose hurt almost as much as breaking it in the first place. He was sent on his way with a warning to try not to get hurt again.
Sirius led Harry back to the house, and almost as soon as he walked in Harry found Dan waiting for him. "Harry, we need to talk." He sighed, knowing he wasn't going to like this, but followed Dan into the main dining room where the three of them (Sirius had followed despite not being asked and Dan hadn't objected) could sit and have a conversation without disturbing anyone else. "Harry, I know it's hard for you to have your cousin here. And before I say anything else, I want you to know I'm incredibly proud of you for trying given the history the two of you have. This really shows your strength of character, trying to do right by your cousin even when you know he hasn't and never would do so for you." Harry felt prouder in himself when Dan told him he was proud of him, he respected Dan enough that his praise really meant something to Harry. However, he was sure there was a 'but' coming, and he was right. "While you were at the doctor, Tracey told me the full story about what happened. I understand why you no longer want your cousin here, but as a responsible adult I can't let you throw a minor out onto the streets. Especially a mundane like Dudley or I here in Hogsmeade, where he can't even use a phone box and call for help. So I spent the time you were out thinking and I have an alternative. If you are still determined that your cousin can't stay in your house, then I'll take him back to London and the two of us can stay there until it's time for him to return to school."
Harry sat there for a full five minutes talking to and considering Dan's point and his offer. Dan was very apologetic to Harry while he was considering it, stating multiple times he wished he could think of another option but with it being Christmas Eve any authorities they could contact would be grossly understaffed. Now that he had said it, it was easy to see what he was saying. It was probably illegal to throw Dudley out on the streets like that, and as adults it would be Dan, Emma, and Mrs. Richards who were legally at fault, even if it was Harry's house they were in. He also considered Dan's offer to take Dudley to London where he would be away from Harry, but he felt his heart tighten at the thought of Dan not being there for Christmas. That was a time to spend with family, and while Harry may not consider Dudley family, even if he had tried, he definitely considered the man offering to leave them as family, and the thought of him being gone hurt more than the thought of Dudley staying. And that was before he factored in Hermione and Emma's feelings, so there really was only one decision Harry could come to. "Fine, he can stay until he goes back to school, then I'm done with him. Not doing this for him, mind you, but because I'd much rather have all my family here for Christmas." And he gave Dan a quick hug.
"I will go speak to Dudley and tell him what's happening. I'll also tell him that he is to stay out of your way, Harry. And again, I'm sorry I don't have a better solution. Sometimes it really sucks to be the responsible adult," Dan said. As he left to go deal with Dudley, Sirius (who had shockingly remained silent the whole time) pulled Harry into a hug.
A/N
Sorry, the chapter is so late. I don't have an excuse other than just life.
there is a bit more to this chapter but it's going to be in its own separate fic called Drawing the lines after dark. that way if FFdosent like it I don't lose this entire fic.