Chapter 8
Christmas day was rapidly approaching, and Harry could see his mother's worry increasing with every day. Also, once James had told Lily that Sirius and his family would be joining them for Christmas dinner, Harry's parents were fighting a lot more too. They thought that by doing a silencing charm, no one would notice, but Harry always did.
The Dursleys, of course, were blissfully ignorant of this. Petunia spent her days walking around the house, looking at everything suspiciously, as if she expected things to start exploding at any moment.
Vernon kept giving Harry strange advice, like, "You should really start eating more, like Dudley does. You're all skin and bones. It's not attractive at all."
Dudley was a bit annoying, too. He was a bit obnoxious, like his father was. But his brother was worse. Davy kept trying to kick Harry from behind without him noticing. Then he would walk away, laughing loudly. The worse of it was that Vernon and Dudley were actually quite pleased with him whenever he would do this, making it almost unbearable.
Debbie was annoying in a different way. She seemed to love spying on people, and she always needed to know everything that was going on, all the time. She would follow people around the house, always a few steps behind them, in case anything interesting happened. She seemed to get this from her mother, who kept looking out the windows, spying on the neighbors.
Overall, Harry couldn't wait for the Dursleys to leave. But if he couldn't make them leave, the least he could do was to put a little hell into their stay, and that came on Christmas day, with the arrival of his father's friends.
Remus was the first to arrive, and he greeted the Dursleys politely, as he did with everyone. Remus Lupin was probably the nicest man Harry had ever met, and he had known his father practically forever. The only problem was that he was a werewolf, so it was difficult for him to keep any jobs or relationships. Even though he was a nice man, he had never been married, and he had to spend his life alone.
Sirius arrived next, with his wife, Estelle, and their twin sons, Alex and Andrew. Almost immediately, the chaos began. The boys rushed into the house, followed quickly by their mother, shouting, "What did I say about being calm?" and trying desperately to slow them down. Sirius didn't look too bothered by the whole thing, and it was clear that this happened all the time.
After a few minutes, the twins were dragged back to the living room by their frazzled mother, who practically tossed them at her husband. "I'm so sorry about this, Lily," she sighed, before collapsing on the couch.
Petunia and Vernon were absolutely shocked at this behavior, and it showed.
"So… how is everyone?" Lily said quickly, fighting to distract everyone.
It didn't work. The twins were glaring at Vernon, who was giving them the kind of superior look he usually gave to Harry. They didn't seem to like that.
James walked in with tea, and handed it quietly to Lily and Petunia. Vernon rose from his chair to take his cup, saying in his booming voice, "Why thank you, James."
While all this was happening, Harry saw the twins give eachother a quick, mischievous look, but it was gone in a second, and they were back to staring at Vernon.
It all happened in a split second. Vernon, sipping his tea, went to sit back down, but in the fraction of a second before he touched the chair, it had vanished. Vernon fell to the ground, his tea tipping all over him, and covering him in the scalding liquid.
If the house had been loud before, it was nothing to what it was now. Vernon bellowed, Petunia shrieked, the twins were on the floor laughing, Estelle looked as if she might cry, and Harry thought his mother would faint.
Vernon rose, shaking, and still covered in hot tea, and said, "Well, that was odd," and then slowly left the room, followed quickly by his wife.
Lily turned to the twins, nearly trembling with rage, her face turning quite red. The twins looked deeply afraid.
"We're sorry, Aunt Lily," they both said in unison.
She took a deep breath to calm herself down, and said softly, "If you ever try anything like that again, I will personally make sure this is the worst Christmas you have ever had." Leaving the twins looking shocked behind her, Lily left the room slowly, returning to the kitchen.
The day continued, awkward and silent, until dinner, when things would only get worse.
"It's amazing that you can fit everyone around this table," Petunia said to Lily as they all sat down. "There's so many of us."
"Well, yes," Lily said uneasily, "but the table is bigger than it looks."
Harry turned away from their conversation, knowing full well that his mother had enlarged the table magically. He looked at Vernon, who seemed to be having a bit of trouble with his mashed potatoes.
He would lift his fork to his mouth, but just before the potatoes reached his lips, they would vanish. Vernon was looking genuinely confused, and didn't notice the twins giggling next to him.
James winked at Harry after seeing what was going on. He really seemed to be enjoying this, as he definitely didn't like his brother-in-law very much. "So, Vernon, how's the food?" he asked, grinning.
"It's delicious, thank you," he replied, turning instead to the meat.
Estelle gave the twins a warning look, and they quickly returned to their food, not wanting to get on anyone's bad side so close to present-time.
Lily tried in vain to start another conversation, but it wasn't working out very well, as no one at the table really had much in common with each other.
Harry glanced back at Vernon just as he was attempting another mouthful of mashed potatoes. This time he was watching them closely all the way up to his mouth, but just as he looked away to put them in his mouth, they were gone.
Unfortunately, Dudley had seen them that time, and he pointed at his father's fork, saying, "They're gone! They just… vanished!"
Roaring with frustration, Vernon rose from his chair, and yelled, "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE POTATOES?"
Petunia face had lost all it's color. "That's it. We're leaving. NOW," she said firmly.
Vernon backed away slowly. "There's something strange about this place."
Lily got up to stop them, but James held her back. "Lils, there's nothing you can do. Just let them go."
Lily turned on him quickly. "This is all your fault! If you hadn't been so desperate to show them what we are, none of this would have happened!"
Vernon edged closer to his wife. "Petunia, what's going on?" he whispered.
But she, too, turned on her husband. "Just stay out of this! This doesn't concern you!"
Sirius and his wife were yelling at their sons, who looked terrified, and everyone seemed to be having an enormous fight.
Suddenly, a loud pop, the unmistakable sound of someone apparating, came as a little man appeared in the center of the room.
There was complete silence, and the Dursleys looked as if they all might faint. After all, it wasn't every day that a little man appeared in the center of your living room.
The man looked pale, and out of breath, and he said quickly, "He's back! The Dark Lord has returned!" and promptly fainted.
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