All It Takes

For a few moments, Harry felt a keen sense of déjà vu. He closed his eyes, trying to grasp exactly what seemed so familiar about the situation but to no avail. The sensation slowly faded to nothing. He opened his eyes, looking again at Number Four, Privet Drive in the distance. Home. No, that word would never fit that place. Not for him.

Harry felt the deep, familiar longing for his parents... no, not quite. Just a place to call home, to really belong. The creepy feeling of having been there before washed over him again. It was almost like he knew of a place and had just forgotten. Harry blinked a few times, deciding he should have passed on the chocolate cake.

"Are they back, dear?"

A bit startled, Harry quickly glanced to where he could just make outhe car, now parked in the drive. "Yes, just."

"You'd best run along them."

Fighting the impulse to ask her to give him some excuse to stay longer, the boy merely smiled and politely stated, "Thank you for the cake, Mrs. Figg."

"Anytime, dear. Now don't keep your aunt and uncle waiting."

Harry was positive that the Dursley's weren't counting the seconds until he came in the door; they'd be perfectly happy if he never showed up again. Slowly the boy made his way back to Privet Drive, thankful he could stretch the two-street distance for all it was worth. In the waning midsummer light, he could almost pretend that he was somewhere else, actually enjoying his holiday rather than praying for it to end.

Harry stopped, as he was facing the front door. The brass four reflected the setting rays of the sun, making the number appear to be alive with flame. Harry slowly moved his hand to the doorknob, relishing his last few moments of peace. Before he'd mustered up the willingness to actually turn, however, the door opened. He stumbled forward, as his hand had been tight around the knob, and he still wore an expression of surprise that irritated Petunia Dursley immensely.

"There you are," she snapped. "Took your sweet time getting home, you did. I've half a mind to send you to your cupboard without any dinner. Hurry and wash up."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," the boy replied meekly, pulse still racing at the unexpected flinging open of the door with his arm attached to it. He made his way quickly to the bathroom, washed his hands and face quickly, and attempted to make his hair lie flat albeit unsuccessfully. After a short examination in the mirror, Harry decided it'd have to do if he wanted something to eat before the morning next.

Returning to the table where the Dursleys had just begun to pass around the food, the boy didn't even flinch at a dark look from his uncle.

"Took you long enough to find your way back," he barked as means of greeting. "You need a hair cut."

"J'get lost?" asked Dudley through a mouthful of roast. "Quite stupid of you."

Harry didn't answer. In fact, he did not speak all through dinner. All he wanted was the solace of his cupboard, to forget, to escape.

After dinner, Harry rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, setting world records for speed. He cautiously approached the door to the living room from where the dull sounds of his aunt and uncle's voices originated. He jumped slightly as he heard Dudley come thumping down the stairs like an excited rhinoceros.

Vernon and Petunia's voices became more muffled. Harry guessed that they had turned toward the other side of the room. If he were very quiet about it, he could creep through the door and to his cupboard without any notice.

With extreme caution, Harry turned the knob and pulled the door silently open. Creeping into the hall and shutting it without a sound, the boy began taking careful, measured steps keeping total focus on the cupboard door. Now the difficult part: the last leg of his journey would lead him straight out into the open. He heard the definitive sound of a camera, but he did not see the flash. Harry thought this was a good sign. The Dursleys' attention was still elsewhere.

The boy breathed deeply and then took his first step out into the living room. With a soft creeeeak the floorboards greeted his foot. Harry froze, closing his eyes and praying no one was listening.

"You, boy. In here."

Prying his eyes open again, he caught a vision of his uncle beckoning with a tensely crooked finger. Harry sighed, dropping his shoulders in defeat. He turned and nearly fell over in hysterical laughter right then and there. A sharp pain in his chest was the result of his last-moment attempt to halt his near outburst of giggles.

Dudley was strutting proudly in front of the fireplace in the most ridiculous outfit Harry had seen in his life. He wore a pair of orange knickerbockers complemented by a maroon tailcoat and topped off with a flat straw hat. In his right arm he held a long knotted stick. Harry forced himself to look away as he was nearly overcome with the desperate need to laugh. He covered up poorly by coughing a few times, but his aunt and uncle were in no state to notice.

Petunia was openly sobbing, gripping her husband's arm and looking like she was about to fall over.

"My Ickle Dudleykins," she repeated several times when she was capable of words.

Uncle Vernon said only, "This is the proudest moment of my life," in a rather thick voice then suddenly felt the need to continue comforting his wife.

"Vernon, look at him. He's so handsome - and grown up-"

Whether Dudley was anything else, Harry would never know as he nearly crawled back to his cupboard where he allowed himself to laugh into his pillow for a full ten minutes. For a long time afterwards, the boy lie in his bed glad that he was not going to Smeltings and feeling at last the hope that this fall would open a new and better chapter in his life. Though it felt but minutes, he lay away for a long time before at last falling asleep with a smile and dreaming dreams he would not remember in the morning.

Harry wrinkled his nose in disgust. He'd been awake for about a whole five seconds, but it had not taken him that long to realize that it smelled absolutely terrible. Dragging himself up out of bed with a groan and a grimace, he stumbled into the kitchen. The smell seemed to be wafting out of a pan in the sink.

Repulsed by the stench but undeniably curious, the boy wandered over and looked into the pan. With watering eyes he saw what looked like dirty rags swimming in old bath water.

His aunt bustled into the kitchen. "Good, you're up."

"What's this?" he wondered, missing Petunia's sour reaction.

"Your new school uniform," she replied without looking at him.

Harry studied his "uniform" for a few more moments with an expression of skepticism.

"Oh..." He hesitated. "I-I didn't realize-"

His aunt's head snapped up so fast that he abruptly decided to go somewhere else with that thought.

"It had to be so... wet," Harry concluded.

"Don't be stupid. I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."

"Sure it will," the boy muttered under his breath. He wished his nose hadn't led him here as he took a seat at the table. While he waited, he tried to block all the mental images of how he was going to look on his first day of school. Suddenly the thought of going to Stonewall High seemed terribly depressing, and he'd been looking forward to it all summer.

Harry was so lost in thought that he did not notice his uncle and cousin enter, echoing his sentiments at the reeking odor, until Dudley smacked his stick onto the table, causing him to start.

"My, you're jumpy," Dudley commented, flopping into his chair.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows in response. This day was getting off to a terrible beginning.

His cousin was just about to retaliate as a result of the dark look, but his action was halted as the mail slot clanged shut.

Immediately following, Uncle Vernon said, "Get the mail, Dudley," through the paper he was reading.

Dudley frowned. "Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry," ordered Vernon as if he had never made the request of his son.

Dudley poked his tongue out tauntingly at his cousin. Harry made a disgusted face at the paper his uncle was reading. "Make Dudley get it."

"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley," Uncle Vernon simply replied.

Harry ducked; his cousin's swing swept harmlessly over his head. Continuing his motion, the boy left his chair and strode from the kitchen in order to retrieve the mail. He picked up the mail from where it landed on the doormat. First, a postcard from his "Aunt" Marge, Uncle Vernon's sister, currently vacationing. Next, a plain envelope, likely containing a bill. As he moved it to the bottom of the stack, he caught sight of the address on the final piece of mail. It was for him.

On the thick, yellow parchment was enscribed in emerald lettering:

Mr. H Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drives

Little Whinging

Surrey

Harry could hardly catch his breath. Why would someone be writing him? Who would know that he slept in a cupboard? For a moment the whole thing seemed so wildly unreal that the boy rubbed his eyes again and again expecting to see a different name each time he looked back down at the envelope. Time seemed frozen as all at once it hit him that the letter was really for him.

Trembling uncontrollably, Harry flipped the envelope over. It was sealed in purple wax stamped with a coat of arms. The letter H surrounded by a lion, eagle, badger, and snake.

A thought occurred to him and he turned again to the front. His letter did not have a stamp.

"Hurry up, boy! What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" yelled Uncle Vernon from the kitchen.

Harry realized that it must have been an obscenely long time he'd been absent from breakfast. He began to make his way back, working at the seal on his envelope.

Before he could open the door, however, something stopped him in his tracks. His thoughts were racing through his mind, but his feet felt cemented. Almost automatically, the hand holding his letter slid it into his pocket. He didn't really feel like sharing his first ever letter, especially if it happened to be exceptionally good or important.

Smiling to himself about the sudden upswing in the quality of his morning, the boy returned to the kitchen and handed the postcard and bill to his uncle. While his uncle read the message from his sister aloud to the family, Harry itched for the evening to come, when he might have a little privacy to open and read his mail. As always seems to happen when there is something to look forward to, the hours in the day seemed to drag past, and the envelope in Harry's pocket was a great weight to him all day.