Stronger Than They Look

Chapter 6

"If I could convince your uncle to let us stop telling everyone you go to St. Brutus's, what should we tell them instead?" asked Aunt Petunia. It was the next day, and Harry was helping her fold laundry. His temperature was down to a steady thirty-seven degrees, he had eaten breakfast with the rest of the family that morning, and he felt 100% better.

"You could tell them I reformed enough to complete the program, I guess." It was not a question he had ever expected to hear. He had become so accustomed to the whole neighborhood treating him like a dangerous hooligan that he'd given up on expecting them to ever see him differently in Little Whinging.

"But after that," she said impatiently. "Where should we tell them you're going to school, instead of St. Brutus's? We're not allowed to tell the truth, you know. Your Ministry won't allow it."

"Oh. That," he said. While a surprising statement, it was a truthful one, and it raised uncomfortable variables in Harry's mind. He knew how much effort was required from wizards to adhere to the Statute of Secrecy, but what about Muggles? To what lengths were wizards' Muggle families required to go to conceal the Wizarding world from their own communities? Would the Ministry of Magic take any offense to hear that the Dursleys had been telling all their neighbors that Harry was "incurably criminal"? How much was the cover story created out of the Dursleys' shame at Harry's abilities, and how much to comply with the Statute of Secrecy? How did other, more accepting Muggle families feel about being required to lie?

"I could ask Hermione what her parents tell people about her."

"Please do that. I can't promise that your uncle will agree to change our story about you, but if he does, I'd like to have a new one ready."

"Yeah, Uncle Vernon's a different case, isn't he?" Harry muttered.

"It's my fault he treats you the way he does, so don't get angry at him."

"Your fault?! You didn't make him into such a git!"

"Don't talk about your uncle that way," Aunt Petunia snapped.

"He's only my uncle because he's married to you," Harry said dismissively.

"Then don't talk about my husband that way!"

"Fine. But I don't see how anything he's done is your fault."

"If he's horrible to you, it's only because he thinks he needs to protect Dudley and me," insisted Aunt Petunia.

"And I'm what you need to be protected from, is that what he thinks?"

"Harry, where do you think he learned about your world? He certainly didn't know it existed before he met me!"

"So it's your fault he's such a git because you told him about the magical world?"

"First of all, stop calling him a git. Second, do you think I had anything fair or decent to say about your world when I met him? Do you honestly think he ever had a chance to get an honest view of it? He hates magic because I've told him to!"

Harry scowled while helping his aunt fold a flat sheet; he didn't say anything for a moment. He had never really thought of Uncle Vernon as ever having not known about magic; his uncle seemed to have always known about the Wizarding World, and always hated and feared it well beyond what was reasonable, even moreso than Aunt Petunia and always assuming to know more about it than she. He should have given the matter a bit of thought, of course; his aunt was the one who'd been acquainted with the magical world since childhood, and she knew things about it that Uncle Vernon didn't. Last summer had made that much clear. Still, he wasn't quite satisfied with her excuses for him. "Even if he'd gotten to see the Wizarding world for himself, without you telling him it was horrible, I'll bet he'd still hate it."

"Be that as it may, I will not have you speak that way about my husband in my house, or anywhere near me or my son. Understand?"

"Yeah," he muttered. When he got down to it, Harry thought his aunt's true mistake had been in choosing Uncle Vernon for a spouse, rather than anything she'd told him about magic and the Wizarding world. That man's hostility went well beyond protectiveness of his wife and son. "But if he locks me in my bedroom again, I'm not about to put it on you."

"He is not about to lock you in anywhere again, as you know perfectly well."

"Oh yeah? How do I know that?"

"Because the last thing he wants is for Mr. Moody and Miss Tonks to show up and give Dudley a set of hooves!"

Though the thought of abusing Dudley had failed to amuse Harry since last summer, the mention of Moody and Tonks took him back to the train station, where he saw all his friends, surrogate family and other supporters lined up behind him. They really swung it for him, didn't they? He would always remember that. He couldn't help but smile at the thought of it, but quickly bit down on his lip, lest Aunt Petunia think he was laughing at the thought of Dudley with hooves.

"That Mrs. Weasley is very taken with you, isn't she?" Aunt Petunia suddenly asked.

He remembered Mrs. Weasley at the platform, hugging him a second time before she let him lead the Dursleys out of the station. Was Aunt Petunia thinking of exactly the same thing at that moment? "Yeah, I guess she is."

"She told me a bit about the end of your school year, in that letter she wrote to me."

Unless Mrs. Weasley already knew Harry's OWL results, and maybe because of that, this couldn't possibly be good. "Really? What did she tell you?"

"She told me your godfather died."

Harry slumped, looking at the ceiling. He felt stiff and heavy, and there was a sensation of a hard lump in his stomach, as though a stone had just formed in there. He let his hands, holding his half of the sheet, drop to his knees. Just why had Mrs. Weasley seen fit to tell Aunt Petunia about Sirius? When were people going to stop talking about him behind his back? He'd been doing just fine until he was reminded of that again.

Was that how Mrs. Weasley had convinced Aunt Petunia to keep him company and generally be so nice to him while he was sick?

"He did."

"Do you want to tell me about him?"

"No."

"Have you talked to anyone about it since it happened?"

He thought of Hermione, trying to offer him counsel after Sirius's death, while Ron mercifully redirected her. He thought of Luna; he hadn't really talked to her about what had happened, just answered her questions. What was more, that was as much as he wanted to do for now.

"A little bit."

They finished folding that sheet, shelved it in the linen cupboard, and picked up another one.

"Well that's better than none at all, I suppose," said Aunt Petunia.

"If you want me to bare my soul and cry like a little boy over him in front of you, I'm not going to," said Harry in a rush. Why everyone seemed to think such a thing would do him good was beyond Harry. He was feeling quite hurt enough already without embarrassing himself, too.

Aunt Petunia looked at a spot near an electrical outlet on the wall next to them, with a faint flush appearing in her usually pale cheeks. "You mean like I did yesterday?"

The stony feeling evaporated out of Harry in an instant, giving way to a restless, vaguely sick churning, but it was not the stomach flu coming back.

"No, that was different," he said quickly. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Was it all that different? I nearly forgot where I was in your bedroom the other day."

Yes, she did. But that was another case. Harry's parents had been dead for almost 15 years, and Aunt Petunia had waited all that time to even begin to grieve for her sister. She'd waited that long just to admit that she missed her. That cry was long overdue.

"I know," Harry sighed. "I know." As much as he would rather not have admitted it, he felt that he had to explain himself to her. "Look, I did practically nothing but grieve for Sirius ever since he died, up until I got sick. Why do you think I spent so much time shut up in my room?"

"That was why?" said Aunt Petunia, and Harry was slightly annoyed to see that he'd surprised her. "Well, then. I didn't realize that. Just know that," she said slowly, "if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here, and I’ll listen."

"Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind," he muttered.

Neither one said anything for a few minutes after that; they merely folded the sheets together, before Aunt Petunia spoke up again.

"Remember how I told you about how your father told your grandfather about when another boy tried to steal your mother's underthings?"

"Yeah, what about that?"

"That was your godfather, Sirius."

Sirius had tried to steal Harry's mother's underwear? Why in the name of Merlin would he ever want to do that? Then again, as he'd once invited Snape into the Whomping Willow, a bit of panty raiding couldn't possibly have been beneath him...to which Lily had responded by physically attacking him, and it had taken the combined efforts of James and two other boys...they must have been Lupin and Wormtail, to free him from her headlock.

"My mum got Sirius in a headlock for twenty minutes?" he finally said. "She must have been really tough!"

"Yes, she was," Aunt Petunia replied. "And I had to live with her growing up."

Harry, although he had managed to keep it at bay the entire morning, suddenly found that his mind was flooded with images and memories of Sirius. There he was at Christmas, bellowing "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs," there he was with his head showing up in the Gryffindor common room fire, sending Mrs. Weasley's message to Ron, there he was threatening Snape in the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place, there he was in the Shrieking Shack, bellowing at Wormtail that he should have died. There he was, flying away on Buckbeak.

"He was a good person," said Harry. "He shouldn't have ever been in Azkaban."

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley told me he was innocent."

"He was innocent, but he was never cleared. He had to keep on hiding from the Ministry all that time. But he was always looking out for me. And he shouldn't have. I mean, he would have been better off if he'd just left me on my own."

"Would you have been better off if he had?"

Harry shook his head, now focused on the carpeting. "I don’t know." Much to his surprise, the other half of the sheet fell to the floor, and it was not followed by Aunt Petunia rushing in to pick it up again. He looked up and found his aunt holding out her arms toward him.

"Come here," she said.

Harry dropped his half of the sheet and walked into her arms. She truly needed to eat more, but his grandfather had been right about one thing: she was very strong. He felt himself being pulled forward so that he was leaning over her more than holding her to him.

"You know," she said. "Yesterday was not the first time I cried on your shoulder over your mother."

"It wasn't?" he asked, pulling slightly away. "When was the first time, then?"

Her eyes widened into a pained shape, much like Ron telling Harry he'd made a brilliant save by accident. At first Harry was afraid she'd change her mind and decide to change the subject, until she spoke up again. "The day I found you on my doorstep."

As if the shock of this bit of information were not enough, Harry suddenly felt that ominous stinging sensation behind his nose, and steeled himself to hold it back. He was not going to cry in front of his aunt. It was out of the question. While he did his best to think of anything else, anything to distract him, he felt a sense of déjà vu at that moment. Aunt Petunia was not big and soft like Mrs. Weasley, but she was just as warm, and she gave Harry the same sense that even if he fell over, she would hold him up.

They were in the living room. Harry, Aunt Petunia and Dudley around the coffee table, with Harry's photo album open in front of them.

"Do all magic pictures move like that?" asked Dudley.

"Yes, Diddy, I think they do," said Aunt Petunia. She was sitting ramrod straight on the sofa, her hands folded into her lap, and was looking rather apprehensively at the pages in front of her. She hadn't touched the album yet.

"Yeah, they move, but it's okay," said Harry. He lifted up the clear protective sheet on a page and took a snapshot out. From his spot on the floor on the opposite side of the table, he held the picture out towards Aunt Petunia. "They move, but they don't know we're out here. They can"t get out of their frames."

Aunt Petunia gripped the photo between her thumb and forefinger by its very edge, and looked askance at it for a moment before she brought it in front of Dudley. "Darling, that's Harry's mother there."

"Which one?"

"The girl with the red hair. The other one must be a friend of hers from the school. She wrote about them often, but I never met any of them."

"She's pretty. Potter, your mum was really good-looking."

"Yeah, I guess she was," Harry replied.

"Wait a minute," said Dudley. He was looking at another shot, this one still on the page. Handing the one of Lily and her friend back to his mother, he peeled back the clear sheet and took out the one that had caught his eye. "When did you have this one taken?" he asked Harry, holding up a picture of James Potter with baby Harry.

"When I was a baby, looks like."

"No way, Potter, that bloke there's got to be you. Don't lie to me. Mum, isn't that Harry there?"

"He's telling the truth, darling. That man there is Harry's father, James. The baby he's holding is Harry."

Dudley looked at Harry, then he looked back at the picture, then he looked back at Harry with a distinctly worried and frightened expression. Harry grinned maniacally back at him.

"That’s enough," Aunt Petunia warned.

Harry struggled to remember where all of this had begun. How had he ended up in the Dursleys' living room, showing his magical family photographs to Aunt Petunia and Dudley, while they were perfectly willing to look? The last few days had been among the most surreal of his life, including his first trip to Diagon Alley. He'd been terribly sick, but surely there was more at work than that? He'd been sick before, and it had never moved any of his relatives to show him any kindness.

Aunt Petunia had first begun to show him kindness on the morning that he got sick. The way she helped him back into bed, and took his temperature...but she'd only done what was necessary. The beginning of the truly bizarre behavior had been when she'd sat down next to Harry's bed and asked him to tell her about the Weasleys. That was the start of his "hallucination." It wasn't until Mrs. Weasley had sent her reply that Aunt Petunia had started acting very odd.

There he had it. That was the turning point of the last three days; the letter. Harry didn't know what Mrs. Weasley had written back to Aunt Petunia, but he knew one thing for certain: he would have to get Ron's mother something very nice next Christmas.