Fly Me Back

Harry Potter : Fly Me Back

Chapter Eight : Thing To Fear

He was scared. Harry was honest-to-God scared. It had been almost a full minute since he'd spoken to Aunt Petunia and yet she still hadn't said a thing. His arm was still around her shoulders, so he could feel that she hadn't moved a muscle. She didn't twitch. She didn't shudder. She hadn't even blinked. All she had done was stare at her feet stretched out in front of her. And she stared, and stared, and she stared some more. The longer that the seconds ticked by, the more his mind raced.

She's broken. We broke her. No, they broke her. Then again, it doesn't matter who broke her. She's broken.

This was the farthest thing in the world from what Harry had expected her reaction to be. At this point, he almost would have welcomed the reaction he thought he was going to get. At least if she were actually acting like the Aunt Petunia he had known his entire life, he would know what to do next, but she wasn't being herself. She was just there. Here he was, actually touching his aunt. It wasn't her touching him. He was touching her and she wasn't doing anything about it at all. That alone on any other occasion would inspire an emotional reaction of some sort from her. This just was not like her. He could take the punishment. After fifteen years of living with the Dursleys, he knew exactly how to take his punishments. He could take the yelling and the shrill screaming and the insults and all matter of things that he knew should have been coming. He almost felt like telling her that it was okay for her to yell at him. Maybe if he just said something, she would be normal again. He didn't like this quiet Aunt Petunia. He didn't know what she was going to do and that meant that he didn't know what to do either. He'd take the old Aunt Petunia back if she wanted. This quiet Aunt Petunia was scary.

The only thing that bothered Harry about knowing that he actually was welcoming the idea of being punished for trying to be nice was that the Weasleys and Hermione were in the room. He knew that they were not going to just stand by and watch Aunt Petunia take her best shot without a word. He had imagined this day many, many times, the day when his aunt and uncle would go too far in front of other people -- other people who cared -- and would have to deal with the consequences of their behavior. He had daydreamed about the day that Mrs Weasley would allow herself to forget all sense of propriety and really let his relatives know just exactly what it was that she thought of them. Yet somehow, at this particular time, now that it was probably going to happen, he wanted more than anything to get the Weasleys out of the room before his aunt could explode (should she come out of the stupor she was in). Harry didn't want Ron to see him actually standing there and just taking whatever his aunt had to say to him. He didn't want Hermione to see the boy who she had recently accused of having a hero complex -- a 'saving people thing' as she had so eloquently put it -- sit there and take an uncounted number of verbal lashings. They were never going to understand that he had been taking them for so long that he knew better than them how to survive his relatives' tirades. He knew how to take his punishments and move on without causing any unnecessary traumas. That was how it worked. But this time, they were going to see it all and that, more than anything else, was going to make it the single most painful attack he had ever faced.

That is, if Aunt Petunia ever moved again, anyway . . .

During the full two minutes that she just sat there, the rest of the attic had seen a fair amount of activity. As soon as Harry had said he was sorry, he had seen Ron out of the corner of his eye. His best friend was visibly unhappy with Harry's apology and because of it seemed to tense for some kind of fight. His shoulders pulled back just a little and his hands balled into fists. Ron knew. He had seen the bars on Harry's window. Harry was grateful for the protective, brotherly gesture but was much more grateful, though, when he saw his other best friend instantly reach her own hand over and cover his with hers. She gave Ron a look that in no uncertain terms told him to stand down. When the knuckles on his fist turned white, she reached up and grabbed his elbow to keep him in check. She smiled over at Harry with what he thought was some sort of encouragement. Mrs Weasley also gave him some encouragement, squeezing his hand so hard that the knuckles of his fingers felt like they were going to crush one another. She then carefully hoisted herself up from the floor to walk over and whisper something at Mr Weasley, who then inched his way closer to the stairs again. With a worried glance down at Aunt Petunia, he nodded at his wife and proceeded to take the stairs down two at a time. Dudley crouched low to the wall in a far corner, staring with complete disbelief at the ghoul throwing a minor temper tantrum at all of the people invading his private death space. Everyone in the room stopped as soon as Aunt Petunia managed to form a sentence, though. As she took in the breath to speak, all eyes turned on her and waited . . .

And waited . . .

Whatever it was that the woman had thought about saying, she must have put it back in her mind again because she let the air out without speaking. Then, just when everyone thought she was going to stay this way forever, she tried again to speak.

"There's something on my shoe . . . "

Yeah, she's broken

, Harry thought unhappily. His gut was screaming at him. This was not going to make the afternoon any easier. They had had a hard enough time getting out of the house last night. They didn't need to go through that all over again, but it looked like Aunt Petunia wasn't going to be giving them any choices there. Harry pulled away from his aunt just enough so that he could see more of her face than her profile and asked her with quiet urging, "What?"

Again, with a small, barely audible voice she told them, "There is something on my shoe."

A relieved grin spread all over Mrs Weasley's face at the actual forming of words by Aunt Petunia. She clapped her hands together and nodded happily. "You know, I think there is something down in the cupboard that will take that right off. I'm just going to run downstairs and look. You'll be all right until I get back?"

"I think we can manage," Harry said kindly. He quickly flashed a smile at the woman before she disappeared down the stairs where her husband had vanished just a moment earlier. He hoped she heard his whole-hearted, "Thanks, Mrs Weasley."

He turned back to his aunt, unsure of what to do or say next. He hoped she would give him some sort of sign, a lead of any kind. They couldn't stay up there in the attic forever. He knew that and he was fairly certain that his aunt knew that. They had already been at The Burrow for far too long. Getting back to the plan, getting to Diagon Alley and then back to Order headquarters, that was the important thing now. Aunt Petunia just needed to show him the way to get her to do it.

Ron and Hermione were apparently thinking the same thing from where they stood huddled together in conference because they softly called their friend to them. "Harry?"

Harry glanced quickly at his aunt once again just to make sure she was okay before he rocked himself back enough to push himself up off the floor. He watched her intently as he made his way over to his friends, and after looking away for a grateful nod of acknowledgement to his best friends, he locked his eyes back in on his once-again-unblinking aunt. He pulled a long breath in through his nose and held it with tired frustration before letting it back out, huffing his hair up out of his eyes. With a sarcastically grumpy shake of his head he whispered, "Yeah, this is fun."

Ron and Hermione, too, were staring at the two Muggles in the attic, but for different reasons. Ron was the first to put a voice to his thoughts as he crossed his arms over his chest and declared, "I don't care how well he can toss a gnome. I don't trust them."

"I don't either," said Hermione.

"Since when," Ron whispered angrily. His eyes bulged at her in disbelief. "You're the one who was lecturing me this morning on 'exercising proper etiquette' while we were with the Muggles. You're the one who said we have to give them 'the benefit of the doubt' that they will behave themselves under the circumstances. What happened to 'they must be so scared'?"

Unhappy with Ron's accusatory tone, Hermione glared at him with that patented I've clearly thought this through a lot more than you have look that she had used on her best friends on more than just a few occasions. "Yes, Ron, there is an etiquette and I would hope that even you could manage to behave yourself, no matter how much you hate them. They are Harry's relatives and one of them is dead. That is difficult for anyone. But just because I feel sorry for their loss does not mean that I have to trust them. Dudley knocked both Tonks and Kingsley out without hardly breaking a sweat and he did it over a clock. He's edgy and punchy and that is not a good combination for any of us to have to deal with. I don't trust him not to do it again. And I don't trust her. Look at her. Her husband is dead and her biggest concern is that there is something on her shoe? She's cracking and people like that are dangerous. We just can't trust them."

"So we're agreed," asked Ron, still apparently confused at the girl's position.

"Yes, Ron, we're agreed," she said tiredly. "And for the record, I don't like them either. I think they're horrible to you, Harry, and just because we have to keep them alive doesn't mean that I am in any way going to be making nice with them."

"Hear, hear," Ron practically hooted.

Harry grinned gratefully at them, knowing that he couldn't say exactly what he wanted to say to them since his relatives were still in the room. He would have to save it for later. Until then, however, he gave them the most genuine 'Thank You' that he could give them. "I'm glad you're here."

"We know," said Hermione. Then, as if her internal warning clock were somehow ticking off, she looked back over at the Muggle woman with concern. "Harry, are you sure they said we have to take them with us to Diagon Alley? Look at her. She's just staring into space. She isn't even blinking. How are we supposed to get everything done that we have to do when she's like that?"

"I say we just leave them and come back when we're done," grumped Ron. "How bad could it be to leave them here for a few more hours?"

Harry didn't even try to fight the urge to chuckle before he said without the confidence in his tone to back up his words, "I'm certain there is a plan of some kind. They wouldn't be doing it this way if they didn't -- "

Before Harry could finish his thought, there was a very small mumble from near the floor where Aunt Petunia was sitting. Every head in the room turned toward the woman with a snap at the sound, all looking for clarification of what exactly that mumble could mean. Both Harry and Dudley started for her, but Harry managed to reach her side first. While Ron and Hermione went to meet Dudley to hold him back and allow Harry to try to fix the situation, the young wizard knelt down beside his aunt once again, attempting to put a reassuring smile on his face.

"What? Aunt Petunia?"

As Harry was dropping to his knees, he heard footsteps on the stairs. When Aunt Petunia didn't say anything further, he cranked his torso around so that he could see who was coming up the stairs. Expecting it to be Mrs Weasley, he opened his mouth to greet her with another 'Thank You' for whatever she had found to take care of his aunt's shoe, but he caught himself when he saw Lupin's prematurely greying head rise over the top of the stair.

"How's it coming up here," the wizard asked. The question was a general one, meant for everyone in the room, but the man's eyes immediately moved to Harry's when he was far enough up the stairs to see them all. "We don't mean to rush you, but Dumbledore is expecting us and -- Is she going to be okay?"

Harry shrugged a not-so-reassuring shrug at the wizard. "I think it's going to be a while yet."

"We can give you ten more minutes, Harry, but then we really need to get going. We do not want to be traveling after dark. The sooner we get to Diagon Alley and then back to headquarters, the better for your relatives and for us."

"I know," Harry nodded. "Thanks."

"If you need us, call." Lupin grinned at his former students all and then turned to head back down the stairs. As he took the first steps down, he reminded them, "Ten minutes."

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught some movement that actually made him think that maybe he had spoken prematurely. Aunt Petunia was moving again. He wrenched himself back so that he was facing her, waiting patiently for whatever she was going to do or say. As he watched her, he felt a strange flutter in his stomach. He never knew he could be so grateful just to see her blink. She blinked hard several times, clearing her eyes like he had wished so badly for his uncle to do the night before. He offered her a reassuring half-grin as he tried to catch her eye. "Aunt Petunia?"

Aunt Petunia's head rose ever so slightly from her chest. She took an excruciatingly long time to turn her head from straight on ahead to forcing her icy eyes on her nephew at her side. She regarded him quietly, even though her mouth opened and closed as if she were trying to say something. Her eyebrows disappeared high up into her hair. Her lips then disappeared in a way that Harry had only seen with Professor McGonagall. They were pursed so tightly that he was actually afraid that her teeth might bite right through her lips to meet bone to bone. Her head did a crazy little dance of incomprehension before the lips parted again and she finally let them know that her shoe was not the only thing she was thinking about.

SLAP!

Before anyone but Harry knew it was coming, Aunt Petunia's hand flashed up to connect with his already bruised cheek. The sting left behind was nothing compared to the sarcastically angry sting of her words that followed.

"Y-you're -- you're 'sorry'? You're SORRY?!"

Harry's eyes flickered to Hermione's and watched them fly wide in realization of what had just happened and what was about to happen. He narrowed his eyes at her, hoping that she would see them and know that he wanted her to stay away. He never knew he could be so grateful for five years of learning how to read each other's expressions. Her eyes were sad as her mouth opened but no sounds of protest came out. She understood exactly what he wanted her to do. Her hand reached down once again for Ron's elbow, prepared to hold their friend back if necessary. She was powerless to do anything else.

"Don't look at them. You don't need to be worried about them right now," Aunt Petunia seethed.

The Muggle woman catapulted herself violently away from between him and the wall. She pushed herself up into a standing position, hands on hips, lips quivering, shoulders bunched together. While Ron and Hermione looked on in shock, Harry and Aunt Petunia both assumed their usual battle positions. He tried as hard as humanly possible to melt into the wall while she towered over him, not giving him the slightest room to do so. This time, Harry didn't even bother to try to answer her. He watched her jaw drop to begin her assault and tried his hardest not to squint his eyes shut against the oncoming explosion.

"YOU'RE SORRY?!" Before anyone could stop her, Aunt Petunia reached down and grabbed Harry tightly around the bicep, hauling him roughly to his feet and forcing him to meet her eye to eye. "Look at me! My husband has been mur-murdered-d and all you have to say to me is that you're sorry?"

Harry wanted to at least say something, anything, but decided against it, not really having any idea at all what he could say. He figured something would just come out that was just going to get him into more trouble anyway. Then again, just taking the time to figure out an answer wasn't helping him out any either. Before he could even finish opening his mouth, it was forced open by a yelp of pain. Instinctively he reached up with both hands to try and relieve the pressure his aunt's severely tightening grip on his hair.

"You answer me," Aunt Petunia half-snarled, half-sobbed. Her lower lip trembled fiercely, fighting back something that only Harry could see from where he was. It was quite obvious to Harry that his aunt had no intention of allowing him to actually give her any kind of answer. She just wanted to yell. When she eventually calmed down, she would want to hear what he and his cohorts had to say, but until then, all he was going to be able to do is stand there and let her yell. And somehow, he didn't care. Let her scream. Her husband was dead because of his world. Maybe she had earned it. And if she hadn't, she was going to do it anyway. As long as it didn't make them any later in getting to Ollivanders and Dumbledore, it didn't really matter. And yell, she did with a particularly accusatory tone, "You answer me right now. You owe me that much."

"You leave him alone!" Ron hollered, growing rather red in the face. Harry and Aunt Petunia broke their stances long enough to turn to the source of the yelling to watch as Ron broke free of Hermione's hold on his arm and began to charge forward to Harry's aid. Hermione tried to grab back onto him, but he easily escaped her reach as his long legs carried him swiftly over the distance between himself and his best friend.

Before Harry had a chance to warn him off, Dudley charged at Ron at as dead a sprint as he was capable of in his large state. "Don't you threaten my mum, you freak!"

Ron quickly whipped around on his heel to glare at the Muggle. "Back off, Fat Boy!"

As Ron turned back to make his way over to Harry's side, Dudley caught him in the side with a full-weighted tackle. The two boys crashed heavily to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. As the thud resounded through the floorboards to vibrate in Harry's feet, he felt his aunt's grip on his hair tighten enough to make him see colored spots in his field of vision. Just as she started to warn him to warn Ron off of Dudley, his cousin threw a solid roundhouse into the side of Ron's face that would leave a bruise that would match Harry's in a few hours. Hermione ran to the monkey pile in the center of the room and tried to pry Dudley off her friend, only to be pushed back stumbling into the floor. She landed hard enough to send tears into her eyes, prompting both Ron and Harry to holler her name. The distraction was enough for Dudley to land another punch right in the middle of Ron's gut, knocking the wind out of him.

Even though he knew it wasn't going to get a very good reaction out of his aunt, Harry hissed over to them, "Dudley, you dolt, get off him! Hermione, help Ron!"

Aunt Petunia used her grip on the back of Harry's head to turn him back to face her. "Help him what? Hmm? Haven't you and these freaks done enough to my family for one day?"

Even as she was speaking, a train wreck of sounds filled the attic that Harry didn't quite register at first. He knew he heard Ron yelp as another blow came crashing that should have connected with his cheek but instead landed squarely in the floorboard next to his ear. Harry heard his cousin scream in furious pain from the connection with the floor. He heard Hermione yelling, "Ron! No!" as the fist came down again. The ghoul must have been feeling a little left out because it started banging on the pipes and throwing dishes all over the place, smashing them into walls and the floor. Under all of the yelling, a thundering rhythm added to the noise as a series of poundings sounded from the stairway.

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" a voice roared over all of it, and with that, a bright circle of power erupted in the middle of the pile, forcing all of the bodies in the room apart into separate corners. Harry felt himself being flung away from his aunt into a corner of the attic. Ron and Hermione landed right next to him, looking just as confused as he was. His hand automatically reached for the back of his head to try to comfort the spot where several hairs had been that he knew were now in Aunt Petunia's hand. He looked at his best friends, both of whom appeared to be just as annoyed as he was at the intrusion. Together the three of them stood and started to move toward the center of the room.

"I said enough," said Lupin sternly as he reached the top of the stairs. The three young wizards stopped where they were just from the sound of Lupin's voice. It was very rare that the man raised his voice, but when he did, his former students knew that he meant business. The man must have seen understanding in at least Harry's face because he drew his focus in on the boy, looking for answers. "Harry? What is going on up here?"

"That, Sir, is none of your business," replied Aunt Petunia haughtily. She glared at her nephew, very clearly letting him know that their discussion was far from over. "Get over here, Potter."

Ron moved in front of Harry before anyone else could move. "Not if you're going to hit him again, he's not."

"Ron," Harry said softly, begging his best friend not to interfere. He reached forward and tried to pull Ron back but caught only air.

Lupin stormed into the middle of the room, his wand drawn and quite visibly at the ready. He glared first at Ron, Hermione, and Harry with utmost impatience and annoyance. When Ron opened his mouth to protest the look, Lupin silenced him with just a raising of his eyebrows that quite clearly said, You three know better. Next he glared dangerously at Dudley as the boy started forward to charge his cousin's friend once again. He wagged the tip of his wand back and forth like an extension of his index finger and warned the boy, "Don't test me, Mr Dursley."

"Don't you threaten him," Aunt Petunia seethed as she straightened herself up.

"That wasn't a threat," Lupin countered evenly, lowering his wand from chest level to waist level. "If it were a threat, you would both know it."

"I think I know a threat when I hear one," Aunt Petunia growled. "And I will not stand for it."

With deliberate calm, Lupin strode to stand directly in front of the woman. His voice was dangerously cool as he told her with no uncertainty, "I don't care what you will and what you will not stand for. I don't care who you think you are, Mrs Dursley. I do not care that you are Lily's sister or anyone else. I have had two hours of sleep and quite frankly don't have the time or the energy to coddle you any more than I already have today. That said, hit Harry again and I promise you that you will not raise your hand to another human being ever again because you won't have a hand to raise." Lupin's expression softened to something just a little bit more equitable as he shrugged. He leaned his face in just a little closer to hers with a crooked smile. "If you want to hit someone, hit me. It always worked for Lily."

Lupin's generous offer was obviously rejected, though, when Aunt Petunia backed away from him with a fearful start. She started shaking violently as she backed herself into the wall. Tears started streaming down her face uncontrollably. Her face contorted into a squished ball of frustration to match the fists she made with her hands until she stomped her foot hard into the floorboards. Her eyes tightened angrily as she screamed, "WILL EVERYONE KINDLY QUIT THREATENING ME!"

Harry stepped forward, quietly trying to calm his aunt back down. "Aunt Petunia . . . "

"NO!" She whipped around to face her nephew with the most feral expression he had ever seen her make. She advanced on him without noticing that Lupin was countering her every step, getting closer to her as she got closer to Harry. Her fist raised up to Harry's eye level as she shook it angrily in front of him. She didn't even notice that Lupin had grabbed on to her other elbow to hold her back as she charged ahead. Even as the wizard held the Muggle woman back, she continued stepping forward without realizing that she wasn't getting any closer to the boy. All the while she screamed at him, "DON'T YOU EVEN THINK OF PATRONIZING ME, YOUNG MAN! I HAVE HAD IT, POTTER! DO YOU HEAR ME? I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH THIS NONSENSE!"

Lupin growled with the threat of keeping his promise to her, "Mrs Dursley, I will not tell you again."

Eager to have someone else to focus her anger on (since focusing it on Harry for fifteen years apparently wasn't doing the job anymore), Aunt Petunia turned herself frantically around, looking for her next target. She started on Lupin, marching them both away from Harry and toward the center of the attic. "And who are you? Hmm? Who are you to threaten me? Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot say to my nephew? Unless you were somehow invisible and lurking in my house for all these years, I missed the part where you had anything to do with raising that boy. You are nothing to me. So you knew my sister and that husband of hers? That's just damned terrific! But that doesn't make you his family."

"And just because you share Lily's blood doesn't make you his family, either," Lupin retorted angrily.

"Maybe not, but just because you knew them better than I did for a few years doesn't make you family. If it does, I'd certainly like to know where you have been all this time. If you cared so much about him and how he was brought up, where were you? Until you can give me a good enough reason as to why you think you have any rights to him whatsoever, I suggest you leave my family to me and LEAVE US ALONE!"

"We're not here to play a game of 'Who Didn't Do What For Harry', Mrs Dursley," said Lupin, apparently trying to maintain some semblance of control over the situation and his temper. "We're here to keep you safe from -- "

"And you're doing a smashing job of it," the woman dripped back.

"What's going on up here," Mr Weasley asked, poking his head up into the attic from the top stair. He looked around, confused. "We can hear you all the way out in the gardens."

Apparently seeing an opportunity to let anyone and everyone in Harry's life know exactly what it was that she thought of them, Aunt Petunia turned toward the stairs with a fiery flip of her head. "And you! You people, you-you uncivilized, disrespectful freaks! You come into my home year after year, tearing my husband's fireplace apart, ripping the wall out of my son's second bedroom, and-and-and-and . . . Everything, everything you people do! I HAVE HAD IT!"

Mr Weasley looked at everyone in the room with well-warranted confusion. "I assure you, Mrs Dursley, that you won't be getting anywhere with any of us if you continue yelling. Now if you could simply tell us what the problem is, I'm sure that we can find a way to help."

"We don't want or need your help," Aunt Petunia replied indignantly, yelling just for extra measure. With a menacing glare, she turned to Harry, who flinched when he saw the look. Her voice was low and laced with sarcasm as she said, "I think you have all done more than enough to my family for one lifetime."

Trying to not appear too offended, Mr Weasley spoke very calmly to the woman with every sense of a man attempting to appeal to her better angels, if she had any. "Like it or not, you're going to have to put up with us for a little bit longer. Perhaps if you were to just come along with us without shouting or putting up such a fuss, you would understand that we're just trying to help you. Now, we are already running terribly late, late enough to make Dumbledore worry if we don't show up soon. So let's find your son's shoes and we'll get going before we get into any further trouble."

"If you think I am going to go anywhere with you, you have completely lost your mind. I'm not kidding. I have had enough."

"You don't have a choice," argued Lupin softly.

"No . . . wait . . . " Harry interrupted. Struck by an idea -- thanks to what Ron had said earlier -- he suddenly realized exactly what it was going to take to get his aunt to give up the attitude that she was using to make this so incredibly difficult for them all. To the evident surprise of everyone in the attic, he said, "It's okay."

Lupin walked over to his charge, talking in whispers at Harry's ear with urgency. "Harry, we don't have any more time to make her feel better. We really need to get going."

"Exactly," he whispered. Harry offered Lupin a slight nod to show that he understood and hoped that the wizard would also understand that he knew exactly what he was doing. Then Lupin's expression changed, like the same thought that Harry had was suddenly occurring to him as well. They quickly exchanged twitching grins out the corner of their mouths before Harry proceeded with what he was sure was going to get them all moving a lot faster. Loudly but pleasantly so that everyone could hear, he asked the room, "You know what? That's just fine, Aunt Petunia. If you don't want our help, then we won't give it to you. You and Dudley can take care of yourselves without us."

Lupin clapped Harry on the small of his back out of the sights of everyone else, letting the younger wizard know that indeed the man had picked up on the plan and was more than willing to play along. With feigned concern, Lupin pleaded, "But, Harry, we can't just leave them."

Evenly the boy replied, "Sure we can. It's what she wants. You heard her. She doesn't want or need our help. So everybody out. Let's go."

Mr Weasley looked at the Muggles in the room with gravity. His brow creased as he addressed his surrogate son in dramatically hushed tones as Lupin had done, obviously having caught on to Harry's idea. "Harry, I'm sorry, but we just don't have the resources to protect you and your relatives if you are separated. It was fine for one night so that we could split up anyone following our escape, but we can't keep it up every day. It's just not possible."

Harry crossed his arms over his chest, his mind made up. He shrugged at his guardians and with a little sigh of dramatic self-pity told them, "That's fine. She doesn't want our help anyway. And if that means that there are a few more of you able to protect me, I won't complain about the extra help. I know I'm not itching to be under protected if Voldemort decides he wants a lot more from me than just my wand."

This time it was Hermione's turn to act surprised at her friend's apparent heartlessness. She made an obvious gesture toward Aunt Petunia and started to protest his behavior. "Harry . . . "

"This is what she wants, Hermione." To show his aunt that he was completely serious, Harry turned to Mr Weasley and said, "Would you do me the favor of sending either Tonks or Kingsley to my aunt and uncle's house and tell the others that they can stop doing the repairs on the house? My aunt wants to do this by herself."

"I think that can be arranged." The man nodded happily at Harry then started down the stairs to relay the orders to one of the Aurors waiting down in the kitchen. For effect, the man even hollered their names as he went down the stairs. "TONKS! KINGSLEY! THERE'S BEEN A CHANGE IN PLANS . . . "

That said, Harry turned to Ron and Hermione, who both looked at him with absolute delight in their eyes. It took everything Harry had in him not to wink back at them. Instead he simply asked, "Ron, Hermione? Would you two mind going down to the car and taking my relatives' things from the trunk? I don't want their things getting stuck at the Tonkses' for no apparent reason. I'm sure they have enough clutter around the house and I know we don't need it around Grimmauld Place, either."

"Gladly," Ron said rather loudly and together -- after a gleefully dirty look at Dudley -- he and Hermione started to make their own way down the stairs.

"Wait," Aunt Petunia called weakly after Ron before she turned to her nephew. "You can't just leave us here."

"It's what you said you wanted," said Harry. "You said you didn't want or need our help. And you heard them -- we don't have the time to stand around and wait for you to change your mind about that." With that, he turned on his heel and started to make his way down the stairs as well, followed closely by Lupin. Over his shoulder, he had to try to hide the chuckle in his voice as he asked, "I assume you two can find your own way home?"

Aunt Petunia's voice was starting to shake with fearful, angry tears as she told her nephew, "This is not funny."

After quickly collecting himself enough so that he wouldn't start laughing as he wanted to -- It's working! -- Harry turned back around, knowing then that he had her convinced fairly that he and his friends were entirely serious about leaving his relatives behind. Very stern and business-like he told her, "It isn't meant to be."

"You would just leave us here," she asked in disbelief.

"You aren't exactly leaving us with a whole lot of other options," said Harry.

Lupin must have sensed that an actual conversation was about to begin between Harry and his aunt. He rested his hand on Harry's shoulder and leaned in to whisper to him, "We'll give you five more minutes, but then we have to go. Dumbledore is probably already worried." As Harry nodded his grateful understanding, Lupin waved over to Dudley with a cheerful grin. "Come, Mr Dursley. Let's find your shoes. We can't have you walking around The Leaky Cauldron without them."

"The w-w-what?" Dudley trembled.

The wizard at his side chuckled and directed the Muggle boy by his shoulders. "Nevermind, Mr Dursley. Let's go."

"Thanks, Profes- Remus," Harry said after them as Dudley reluctantly followed the wizard down the stairs with a nervous gulp in his cousin's direction. Harry waited until he didn't hear footsteps on the stairs any longer then informed his aunt, "They are giving us five minutes, but that's it. The car is leaving with or without you in six minutes."

Aunt Petunia glared at Harry like she could hardly wait to wash the insolence out of his mouth with an entire bar of soap. She started pacing back and forth with ferocity to match the ugly tone of her voice. "Just who do you think you are to give me orders like that?"

Harry fought the urge to actually turn around and walk down the stairs. Suddenly the threat of leaving his relatives behind wasn't sounding like such a bad idea. Instead he tried not to overstate the obvious. "We are simply trying to save your life and Dudley's."

"It doesn't seem to be going too well, now, does it?"

To his surprise, Harry was actually glad to hear the biting, angry tone in his aunt's voice. He was happy to see her pacing around and glaring at him like she could just imagine what the pike would look like under his head. If she was doing those things, maybe she had finally returned to her senses. Maybe she wasn't going to break down again. It was probably a little too early to tell, but maybe she was actually going to start talking and acting like Aunt Petunia again instead of this person he had encountered coming up into the attic. He didn't even care that she had hit him again. He was used to that. He didn't care at all, as long as she stayed this way. This Aunt Petunia he could deal with. The other one was too unpredictable, too edgy, and, as he had thought for the thousandth time in the last hour, far too scary.

That's when it struck him. Scary. She was scary to him because she was scared. The only Aunt Petunia he was used to was the one who was fully in control, angry, and fighting back, like she had been for the last few minutes. What she needed was to fight. She needed someone to yell at until she was too tired to put up a fight any more. She had had no idea what to do or say before because she had been too scared to move. But as soon as he had given her a reason to loose herself on anyone and everyone around her, she was fine again. He just had to keep her angry, keep her wanting to fight. He wouldn't even mind it if she yelled, as long as she was keeping it together again. Besides, it wasn't like he didn't have plenty of reasons to want to fight with her anyway. If it was a fight she wanted, it was a fight he would give her.

Inspired to keep her feisty, Harry responded with a purposely testy, "If you really think we're doing that badly, I suppose we can just leave right now. That ghoul over there in the corner will be the least of your worries."

Instead of the slap that Harry expected to get from his aunt for the comment, he got a shocked, barely uttered, "God. You must really hate us."

Harry could hardly believe it as he was saying it, but before he could stop himself, he said evenly, "The thought has occurred to me once or twice. You haven't exactly given me a reason not to."

Aunt Petunia looked like he had just socked her good and hard in the stomach, like maybe she was ready to throw up. She stopped pacing so that she could gape at him. "Y-you . . . "

As good as it felt to actually say it to her face that he had thought about how much he hated her and his uncle -- and maybe even make her feel as bad as it made him feel every time she looked at him the way she did -- he knew that this newfound ability to be honest had be completely honest. If he was going to tell her that he hated her, he was also going to have to tell her that it was only a thought and not how he really felt. With a little less intensity he told her, "But no, I don't hate you. As much as I don't like you and would rather I never had to come back to your house every summer, I can't hate you. I have enough things in my life to hate. I have enough people in my life to hate without adding you to the mix . . . Or maybe you missed it when the house was falling down around our ears last night?"

That last remark was enough to make her start pacing again in her anger. "Don't you dare make light of what happened last night! Your uncle is dead because of last night!"

"You think I don't know that? Why else do you think we're trying so hard to just get you out of here? This isn't the first time they've come for me and it won't be the last. Do you really think last night was the first time someone was hurt because of it? It wasn't. My mum and dad were just the start. Cedric -- the boy you all made fun of me for screaming about in the middle of the night last summer? He was murdered right in front of me because we agreed to touch a stupid trophy at the same time. Mr Weasley -- he almost died last Christmas because he was trying to protect something from being captured by the wizard who keeps coming after me. And two months ago, Ron and Hermione, Tonks and Moody, they all ended up in hospital beds because they wanted to help me because of Voldemort and his Death Eaters trying to get to me. And Sirius was lost that night, too. And yet you think that I don't take it seriously that Uncle Vernon died because of all of this? I don't know how much more seriously I can take it!"

"This is the first I've heard of any of this," Aunt Petunia said skeptically. "You've never said anything about any of this."

Harry didn't hear her denial. In his angered honesty, he just kept on explaining, "That's why I don't understand how it is that you are so afraid of me. Look at everything that has been happening to me since I found out who I am. I am sixteen years old and yet Voldemort has already tried to kill me five times! But no -- he's not the one you're afraid of. You're more afraid of me. I don't get it. I really don't. Believe me when I tell you from experience that there are much scarier things out there in the world besides me."

The gravity of his last words settled on the attic, causing both aunt and nephew to just stare at one another without saying anything else. Perhaps she just didn't have anything to say or any way to explain what was, to Harry, a legitimate accusation. He just couldn't believe that he had actually put any of that into actual words. A small voice in the back of his mind started taunting him -- Now you've done it. You're going to wish it was Dudley hitting you in just a minute! -- but Aunt Petunia didn't advance on him at all. They just stared at one another for quite a while, the honesty just a little too much for either of them to handle. Then, when it looked like the conversation was over without conclusion, she broke the silence with an angry but controlled question and attempt to change the subject.

"So who is he," Aunt Petunia asked without indicating just who 'he' was. Harry shook his head and popped his eyes open in questioning to get her to clarify what she was talking about. She gestured down the stairs with irritation but still explained, "You started to call him one thing then called him Remus."

The question seemed to come out of Nowhere until he realized that it meant that he was actually starting to get through to her. Thinking it was probably a fair question since the two had never been formally introduced or anything, Harry told her, "His name is Remus Lupin. I was starting to call him 'Professor' because he was one of my teachers at Hogwarts during my third year. I just haven't gotten used to calling him anything else."

"Please don't say that name of that p-place. It's 'school'. You know that." She ran a hand through her hair, smashing the stray strands flat hard against her head to attempt to exert some control over something. "Say 'school' . . . Anyway, he was your teacher?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Aunt Petunia looked at him suspiciously, as if she thought he was probably lying to her about who Lupin was. She probably thought he was some sort of unsavory character, like she had made plain about every other wizarding person she had ever come into contact with. She probably thought he was involved in something shady if he was so involved with her nephew. Harry was somewhat surprised when she didn't accuse Lupin of anything, but did recall something she had heard. "He said something last night about being friends with your parents."

"He was my dad's best friend, him and my godfather," Harry told her proudly. "They were like brothers. They were his brothers."

Harry quickly discovered that that probably wasn't the right way to introduce his not-quite-surrogate-uncle to his aunt because her eyes narrowed darkly on him once again. "Your godfather who escaped from prison, the one who was partially responsible for the murders of your parents?"

Completely floored at the question, Harry gaped at his pacing aunt. She knew about Sirius? How could she know about Sirius? The Dursleys had always played along with him whenever he threatened that he would sic his psychotic murdering escaped convict of a godfather on them if he was in the least bit unhappy with his existence at Privet Drive. They had always given him the impression that they had no previous knowledge of who Sirius was or what he was doing. Uncle Vernon had even said, You don't have a godfather. Confused and hurt at such a brutal description of his godfather, he wished he could have put a little more force between his small, "What?"

Aunt Petunia seemed just a bit too happy to have the upper hand as she very bluntly informed him, "You think I didn't hear about that? Of course I heard about that! Just because I didn't tell anyone that I knew doesn't mean that I didn't know. I couldn't tell Vernon or you would have been on the street in two seconds flat. That old codger who left the note when he left you on the doorstep explained it all in that blasted letter, that you were protected as long as you were under my roof. He said that your own godfather had betrayed your family and made it very clear that we were under no circumstances to allow him anywhere near you if he should show up at our house. Do you really think that I didn't know any of this? Your father's supposed best friend hands you and your parents over to some maniac and gets you landed on my doorstep and you think there isn't going to be any explanation with that?"

"It wasn't like that."

"I was there, Potter. I think I remember how it went."

Feeling the heat rising in him -- he always knew he was going to have to defend his godfather against the wizarding world when the truth came out, but the Dursleys? -- Harry glowered at his aunt and angrily enlightened her, "Sirius didn't do it. It was another friend of theirs, Peter Pettigrew."

Aunt Petunia huffed, "Well your parents really showed some spectacular judgment when they chose this group of friends of theirs, didn't they? It's no wonder they died. And these are the people you trust with your life? These are the people to whom I'm supposed to entrust myself and my son? That's brilliant."

"I'm not -- " Harry stopped himself, unable to even think of a way to dignify that comment with a response. Instead he stammered with obvious hurt, "Y-you have no idea what you're talking about. You can't even begin to imagine the things in my life that . . . You have no idea."

"I am not stupid, Potter. Explain it to me." Aunt Petunia's eyebrow cocked sarcastically to match the sneer on her horsy features as she added, "Oh wait, let me guess. You don't have time?"

Angry with the snideness of her remark and yet still driven by a need to have an honesty between them, Harry barked, "No, I really don't."

"Well, that's just too damned bad because you're going to explain it to me and you're going to do it right now. You keep promising me answers. Now's your chance."

"Have you missed everything we've been saying for the last twenty minutes? We don't have the time."

Aunt Petunia made it very clear that she wasn't going to hear any more excuses and would force his hand, no matter what he said. She stopped pacing with a dramatic flair and stomped her foot in frustration. "Speak."

"I can't. I won't."

"Why not? This is all about you, isn't it? Let them make time for you. They make allowances for you all the time. Tell them you want more time."

"I can't," said Harry, his resolve starting to fade more and more with every push from his angered, grieving aunt.

"Why not?"

Unable to deal with her badgering any longer, Harry finally was ready to give up and let her know exactly why it was that he didn't have any more time to deal with her and her questions. His arms flew away from his chest in grandeur that made him grateful that he didn't have a wand in his hand because sparks would have been flying in every which direction. Instead, he would just have to settle for raising his voice and hoping that the volume would actually get through to her. "BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW! Okay? I can't tell you anything about what's going on because I don't know. This just happened to me a few hours ago, too. I haven't had any more opportunity to try to figure things out than you have. Besides, I don't know any more than you do. And instead of already being at Diagon Alley and finding out the things that we both want to know, I'm stuck up here with you going 'round and 'round over things that I can't do anything about! So will you please just get in the car so that we can go? You can have your answers then, but until I get to see the people that I need to see, I DO NOT KNOW!"

Aunt Petunia stopped for a moment, surprised by her nephew's outburst. She quickly recovered, however, and sniped, "Well, isn't that just convenient . . . "

Nearly two excruciating minutes of blistering silence passed. Harry paced back and forth near the stairway while his aunt paced back and forth along the length of the wall, each of them side-stepping broken dishes and heirlooms that the ghoul had long since destroyed. He watched them intently as he passed them by, wondering how long it had been since the Weasleys had stopped caring about the noise and destruction anymore. He couldn't make himself look back at his aunt, even though he could feel her staring at him as he walked. The heat of her expectant glare diminished the longer he paced as she exhausted of waiting for things to move along, leading Harry to believe that if he waited just a little longer, he could pick up the conversation in a normal tone of voice and actually have a discussion about what to do instead of having either one of them explode again. He really hated the yelling.

When Aunt Petunia spoke, her voice actually was a bit less edgy, although the tension in it told her nephew that she hand no patience left in her and he had better come up with something soon. She snapped with a gentler snap than usual, "You obviously have something to say, so say it."

Harry spoke slowly, unsure exactly what to say. Of course he had a lot to say. He had fifteen years' worth of things to say, none of which could or should be said in the Weasley family attic with a ghoul on the other side of the room and eight sets of ears just down the stairs listening. Hoping that he didn't sound sarcastic enough to raise the noise level again, he asked quietly, "What do you want me to say?"

"Don't you mess with me right now, Potter. You think you have it rough? You have no idea what 'rough' is! I have been forced to leave my home and my husband on a broomstick in the middle of the night. I have stayed in this filthy death-trap of a house with complete strangers only because I was told that I would get some answers and that nothing would happen to us here. I did everything that I was told to do and now I want what was promised to me if I did so. I have had enough and I want answers. Give me something. Now."

Without thinking about it, Harry muttered the kind of thing that always got him into trouble with his aunt and uncle. "Yeah, well, we all want things we can't have, don't we?"

"You watch that tone with me, young man. I'm not kidding. I have had about all I can take from you right now and you will regret making me tell you again," Aunt Petunia threatened and sat down on the lid of the trunk that was behind her, crossing her legs and putting her arms over her chest. Her stare turned to stone, making it very clear that she would be unmovable until she heard exactly what it was that she wanted to hear. "You aren't leaving this attic until I am good and ready. I can go 'round and 'round like this all afternoon if I have to."

"I don't know what it is you think you want to hear," Harry said testily. He crossed his own arms over his chest, equally as impatient with his aunt as she was with him. "I'm not joking. And you will leave this attic or I will have no problem leaving you and Dudley here to figure things out for yourself. I already told you, I don't know what you want me to say you. Go ahead and tell me what I'm supposed to tell you. I don't have time for anything else right now."

"You make time!"

Harry stared at his aunt, eyes working furiously over her for some sign of what to do next. It wasn't like they had time for him to stand there and tell her the entire history of his life as he knew it. It wasn't like he had the time to explain why they were thrust into this place together where they never in their wildest dreams thought they would meet. And while he searched for some sort of explanation for her, she glared right through him, burning away any inkling of hope that it would matter what he said in the first place. Slowly, with a resigned darkness that he didn't really recognize in his voice, he told her, "You don't care what I have to say. What you want to hear is that this is all my fault. You want me to tell you that my parents got themselves killed and that I'm doing the exact same thing to get myself killed and everyone around me. You want to hear that I did this on purpose, that Uncle Vernon is dead because I wanted him dead and that you and Dudley are next. You want me to say that I am enjoying even suggesting leaving the two of you here alone without any way home. You want me to tell you that every single thing you have imagined in your worst nightmares since the day that Professor Dumbledore dropped me off on your doorstep is true. So go ahead. Tell me every single thing you've imagined I would do to you and I'll tell you that they're true because that's the only thing you want to hear anyway. Go ahead. Tell me. What else could I possibly say that you would believe?"

Aunt Petunia's eyes narrowed in a way that Harry had never seen before from her. She was studying him with an interest, like she was seeing something in him for the first time. She looked more than just a little unsettled with what he had just said. "You think that I think you wanted us dead and that you planned all of this?"

"Well, don't you?"

To Harry's surprise, his aunt didn't yell at him at all. She spoke to him with the most adult, conversational, honest voice he had ever heard her use. She looked at him with an expression which told him that she was just as tired of their discussion as he was and that she was giving up on being anything other than honest as well. "This may come as a surprise to you, Potter, but I have never thought that. You don't like us and that's perfectly fine. I honestly don't care if you like us or not. We don't like you. Your mother and I didn't like each other either, and I fully admit that I would have been perfectly happy to never see her again. Tossing her away from my life was one the best things that I have ever done for myself, but that doesn't mean that I wished her dead, either. She was my sister. I could never wish what happened to her and your father. And yes, I think that they went asking for trouble. There were a lot of secret meetings and things that they were always having to leave our parents' house for in the middle of the night. There was no way that all of that was going to turn out well. You were bound to end up an orphan. I just never imagined you would end up on my doorstep. And as unhappy as you may be with the way that Vernon and I have raised you, we certainly did not raise you to be a boy who would plot murder. And as much as I'm certain you and your friends are enjoying the idea of leaving Dudley and I wandering around here for weeks trying to figure out the way home, I know you would never actually do it."

Even though he knew fully well that he was caught, that his plan hadn't come off the way that he wanted it to, he still tried one last time to challenge her theory and hopefully get them on the road just a few minutes sooner. He raised his eyebrows up under his hair in challenge and asked with all seriousness, "Wouldn't I?"

"No, you wouldn't." Aunt Petunia actually looked like she was just as surprised to hear herself say it as Harry was to be hearing it. They stood there and watched each other take the surprise and chew on it, slowly coming to the realization that they both had a lot more to say and that this was not the time to be saying it. Neither one of them was comfortable with the notion that they were agreeing on anything and needed to get away from it as fast as they could. She nodded to herself, making some sort of decision. To Harry she said, "Now, I am tired, I am hungry, and from what you've been trying to tell me, we have a lot yet to do today before I am going to get any resolution to any of my problems . . . I believe that the time limit your friend gave you is quite up. So what do we do from here?"

Confused that, after all of the yelling and the sniping that they had both done, she was making it sound like she was going to actually just going to walk out the door with him, he asked, "What about your questions?"

"They can wait until we are all safe." Aunt Petunia apparently couldn't resist a little dig because she added, "If this place you're taking me to is actually what any normal person would call safe."

Unwilling to start right back up again, Harry said confidently, "It is. No one is going to let anything happen to you or Dudley. I promise."

"Then we will continue this when we are . . . safe."Aunt Petunia stood up and came to attention from her seat on the trunk. She took a deep breath and, now ready to do whatever it was that she had to do, asked, "So what now?"

"Now we go downstairs. We get in the car. We go to Diagon Alley and then to headquarters."

"And then?"

Harry shrugged. "And then we'll figure it out from there."

"That was not the encouragement that I needed to hear from you right now," Aunt Petunia gulped.

Before he could answer her, an impatient Mrs Weasley called up to them from the bottom of the stairs. From the tone, Harry was quite certain that Mrs Weasley had been more than informed about the happenings in her attic during her absence. "HARRY! LET'S GET GOING!"

"COMING!" Harry shouted down to her with a grin. He made his way over to the stairs and took the first step down before telling the woman, "The only encouragement that I can give you is that these people have never let me down before. I don't think they have it in them."

Harry smiled to himself as he reached the bottom of the stair and heard his aunt's footsteps on the ones he'd left behind him. As he greeted by an entire commotion of questions and directions from the people he thought of as his family, he was the only one to hear his blood relative muttering as she, too, reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Well, I guess that's going to have to be enough . . . "

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you've had half as much fun reading this chapter as I've had writing it, well then I've had twice as much fun writing it as you've had reading it. Thanks for reading!