Chapter Text
“SHUT UP!”
The room went quiet, and all eyes turned to a fuming Harry Potter, who stood front-and-center in the tackily-decorated kitchen of Number 4 Privet Drive.
His uncle’s face turned purple, and a vein seemed fit to burst. “Boy—”
Harry withheld a flinch as he took note of the dark look in the man’s beady eyes. Just this summer he had become well acquainted with what dangers it foretold. He breathed deeply and worked hard to ignore the man, staring instead at his enraged sister, Marge.
“You don’t beat the boy enough, Vernon.” the miserable woman snarled. “He thinks he can speak to a woman like that? Just because he doesn’t like what she has to say?”
“Trust me,” Uncle Vernon said, “He’ll get much worse than a beating.”
Aunt Petunia, as opposed to her sister-in-law’s approving look, turned faintly green, but ultimately stayed quiet.
Marge went on. “Your mother was a whore, boy. Your dad was a good-for-nothing drunk. These are simply facts of life. These fine people clothe you, feed you, put a roof over your head, and you repay them by growing angry at the slightest inconvenience? A shame, truly, that those parents of yours had to go and get their worthless arses killed in a crash. I’m sure Vernon and Petunia would be much happier without you.”
And something just…snapped.
Both inside his head, as his hands formed fists and his eyes widened with a rage he’d never felt, and outside. At first he thought his ears had popped, but then he realized that the sound had been the crunch of bones breaking.
Marge was holding her hand in horror, one of the fingers bent in an unnatural direction. She began screaming as the same happened to the rest of them, until her fat hands were nothing more than deformed, rapidly bleeding lumps. By then, the shrieking had reached a crescendo.
Across the room, Harry was panting like he’d just won a game of Quidditch. Wind swept in through the open window, billowing through his messy hair and sending it cascading down his face, bangs barely shielding his glowing eyes from the horrific scene in front of him. When he pushed his hair back and met eyes with his pale-faced aunt, he froze. He took in a huge lungful of air, releasing it sharply when he realized it would be of no help. Then, he was off like a shot, racing away while his furious uncle lumbered after him.
The next minutes were a blur, culminating in a mad dash to escape the Dursleys’ residence with all his items before his uncle could get to him. He knew what would happen if he got caught. He’d finally seen and felt the worst of it, this summer. He wouldn’t, couldn’t go through that again.
Time moved as though he were underwater, slow yet steady, his limbs moving seemingly of their own accord. It wasn’t until he was safely ensconced in The Leaky Cauldron, buried under some blankets in his Ministry-provided room, that he realized what he’d just done, and who he’d just done it to.
Cornelius Fudge’s warning replayed in his mind.
“It was…quite disturbing to get such a call from Harry Potter’s residence, especially with things being as they are right now…”
“Sir?”
Fudge ignored him. “The wards the Ministry placed over your home were triggered in quite the unusual manner. Dark magic was said to be at work…but it was simply a bout of accidental magic, was it not? Yes…yes… Nothing more.”
“Will I be allowed to continue at Hogwarts, Minister?” Harry had asked in a small voice.
It was then that the pudgy man had seemed to recall he was not alone, and was, in fact, speaking to somebody. “Ah, of course you will! No harm, no foul. After all, it was simply a muggle. There’s nothing a good Memory Charm can’t fix!”
The rest of the conversation was over quite quickly, though before they went their separate ways, Fudge had cautioned, “Do keep this to yourself, young man.”
“Pardon?”
The boisterous demeanor slipped away for a second, giving way for a more nervous, frenetic exterior. “There will never be a good time for the Wizarding World to find out that the Boy-Who-Lived performed such a disturbing feat of accidental magic. Any wizard worth his wand would sniff out a story and go running to the Daily Prophet, seeking money or glory. And at the expense of all the work my administration has been doing! No…no… we shall keep this between us, and I shall make sure the Obliviation Team never learns who, exactly, caused that muggle woman’s fingers to break apart from within her body.” The man shuddered as he voiced it out loud.
Before Harry could reply, the door latched shut with a quiet SNICK and silence rang throughout the room.
The young teen rolled onto his side and grimaced at the memory. He could understand being faintly disturbed by how grotesque the scene had been, but it's hardly like he’d done it on purpose! Besides, Marge had it coming.
Nodding to himself in satisfaction, having convinced himself of his innocence, Harry nodded off. He dreamt of bloodied fingers, his pale-faced aunt, and the sound of a belt buckle loosening as he struggled and cried for help.