Harry Potter and the Triptych
By Vickles
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Rating: PG13 (Yes, I upped it, just to be safe. It wasn't necessarily for this chapter, but I figured I might as well do it now.)
Author's Note: Okay, sorry it took a bit longer. I was arranging a new beta (who rocks, as does my other beta) as well as preparing for the start of marching season (proud band member!) and classes again. That said, I wrote almost 2500 words of Chapter 4 (I do believe that's a personal record) the other day while waiting to get Chapter 3 back from Dedi, and am hoping to get it to you guys very soon. Enjoy the chapter and (*nudge nudge wink wink*) be sure to vote in the Felix Felices Competition!
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Chapter 3: Petunia Gone Bonkers
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Harry woke up the next morning unexpectedly well rested. After a moment, he realized he had woken up by a knock on the door. Before Harry could even get out of bed, however, Hermione was already up and across the room, opening the door.
"Yes, Mrs. Dursley? Did you want to speak to Harry?" Harry couldn't hear his Aunt's response, but simply watched as Hermione listened and nodded. "Okay, just hold on for a moment, please." Harry's aunt uttered a reply and Hermione gently closed the door.
Harry stared at Hermione as she rummaged through her trunk and pulled out a neatly folded bathrobe, pulling it on over her pajamas. "What are you doing?" Harry asked.
Hermione looked up, startled, apparently not having realized that Harry was awake. "Your aunt wanted to speak to me about something, and the house is a bit cold right now."
Harry shook his head. Did she honestly think this was about the bathrobe? "Why does she want to talk to you? And what about?"
"I don't know, Harry. She didn't tell me." Hermione replied as she closed her trunk again.
"But…" Harry tried to think of something else to say as Hermione made her way to the door, "But why does she want to talk to you and not me?" Harry questioned.
Hermione shrugged. "Again, I don't know, Harry. Of course, if I had to guess," Harry could tell that she had already thought this through, "I think she's rather afraid of us, and maybe my `fake politeness'" Hermione sent an angry glance in Ron's direction even though he was sound asleep, "yesterday made her feel a bit more comfortable. Anyway, wake Ron up and get dressed while I'm gone, okay?" Harry barely managed to nod before Hermione was out the door, closing it behind her.
Harry turned to Ron, who was still snoring roughly. Getting out of his cot, Harry stood and leaned over Ron's. "Ron…" Harry began shaking his friend's shoulder, realizing with a bit of disgust the line of drool that was leaking out of his mouth. "Ron…" Harry said again, this time a bit louder. Of course, Ron remained blissfully asleep. Losing his patience, Harry smacked Ron across the head just like Ron had done to him the previous summer, "Ron!"
"I'm up!" Ron suddenly exclaimed, his eyes snapping open as he sat up abruptly. He turned and looked at Harry, who was already on the other side of his own cot, pulling some clothes out of his trunk. "Bloody hell, Harry, what did you have to hit me for?"
"You wouldn't wake up," replied Harry simply as he began pulling on a fresh pair of pants. "Apparently hitting you works, so I think I'll consider using it from now on." Harry pulled his shirt off and sat on his cot to put on his socks and shoes.
Ron rubbed his head, mumbling under his breath, "Yeah, well maybe I'll consider…" He walked over to his trunk and began dressing as well. He put on a pair of pants and some shoes and socks, changing his shirt as Harry spoke.
"What was that, Ron?" Harry asked with a smile just as Hermione walked in.
"Oh, sorry!" She exclaimed, blushing at the sight of her two topless friends.
Ron apparently didn't realize the cause of her embarrassment (Harry guessed that he was still half asleep). "Nah, you don't have to be sorry, Hermione. It's him who should be sorry." Ron pulled a shirt over his head.
Her embarrassment quickly forgotten, Hermione glanced at Harry suspiciously, speaking to Ron. "And why should Harry be sorry?"
Ron grabbed a comb and ran it through his hair quickly, "He hit me, that's why."
"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed.
Harry shrugged, putting on his belt and then pulling his own shirt over his head. "It's not my fault that hitting him is what it takes to get him up."
Hermione sighed, "Perhaps you could come up with better ways to wake him up from now on?" Harry nodded, combing his own hair quickly before packing up his trunk. Hermione took her clothes out and went into the closet as she had the night before, exiting a minute later with her night clothes in hand, putting them in her trunk and closing it, pulling a brush out first.
"So where were you, Hermione?" Ron asked, sitting on his cot as she put her hair into a ponytail.
Hermione winced as her brush reached a tangle. "I was talking to Harry's aunt." She turned to Harry. "She says we can eat breakfast here before we leave."
"That's all she wanted to talk about?" Ron asked. "Breakfast?"
Hermione nodded, but Harry could easily spot that she was lying. Ron seemed to accept it, however. "So do you think we should eat here, then, Harry?" Hermione asked.
Harry shrugged, "I suppose it makes sense. I don't see why she's offering, though. Are we talking about the same person here?" Harry tried to wrap his mind around the idea that his aunt was being somewhat decent to them.
"Maybe the reality that she'll never see you again makes her realize that she'll miss you. I mean, if you haven't noticed, her own son isn't around, either." Hermione said.
"Yeah. I've been wondering about that. Perhaps he finally got himself into some real trouble and they had to ship him off. Still, I doubt that she'll miss me. Hey, maybe Aunt Marge is serving Dudley to her dog." Harry added with a tiny smile before he could stop himself.
"Harry! That's horrible!" Hermione scolded. Harry shrugged.
"Hey, so are we eating or what?" Ron asked. Harry and Hermione smiled at him and the three or them headed into the kitchen.
Breakfast was relatively quiet for the most part. Harry was having some trouble eating, having been a bit thrown off by Aunt Petunia's lack of verbal abuse. After awhile, Harry even started trying to give her reasons to scold him. He made soft slurping sounds when he drank his orange juice, and he kept his elbows firmly on the table during the entire meal. However, none of this seemed to bother his aunt, who was quietly eating, occasionally glancing at the teenagers. All that this seemed to accomplish was some annoyed glances from Hermione. The only thing that kept Harry from thinking that he had gone totally around the bend was that his uncle seemed to despise him just as much as he always had. This comforted Harry in an odd way.
Towards the end of the meal Aunt Petunia addressed Harry at last, "Will your headmaster be picking you three up?"
Hermione and Ron stopped eating and looked at Harry, who slowly finished chewing his piece of bacon before answering, "Um, no, Aunt Petunia." He didn't feel the need to explain to her why.
Of course, this did not stop her. Being the gossip she was, Petunia was curious by nature, "Why?"
Harry glanced at his friends and then replied, "Well, he, erm, died last month."
Harry wasn't sure what he expected to see in his aunt's reaction, but it was certainly not the distress that immediately overcame her face. "He…died?"
Uncle Vernon, however, was completely clueless about his wife's reaction, and simply snorted, "Good riddance."
Harry was standing with his wand out over his uncle so fast that he couldn't even remember precisely how he did it. All he remembered was pointing his wand at his uncle threateningly, "You will never say something like that again."
Uncle Vernon became angry as well, "I will say what I please in my house, boy."
Harry was just about to curse him when he felt a comforting hand on his elbow. Keeping his wand in place, Harry turned to see Hermione staring back at him. "No, don't," was all she said.
Harry didn't know exactly what it was, but as he looked at Hermione he felt his temper begin to fade away. He slowly lowered his wand and sat back down. "Just don't talk about things you don't understand." He told his uncle.
Aunt Petunia looked puzzled and sad, "But how did he die?"
Harry didn't have to answer because Ron did for him, with clear anger in his voice, "Someone killed him, that's how."
Petunia's eyes widened for a moment before she turned back to her breakfast, quietly eating once again, clearly not having anything else to say.
The rest of the meal went by in silence. When everyone was finished, the three teenagers went back to Dudley's old room, gathering their trunks together.
"Well," Harry said, "I suppose we should be going."
Hermione looked at him in shock, "You mean, just Apparate from in here?"
Ron and Harry shrugged, "Why not?" Ron asked.
Hermione looked at Harry, "You aren't even going to say goodbye to them? I mean they raised you!"
"They did not!" Ron said. "They locked him in a cupboard for almost ten years." Harry nodded in agreement.
"Still," Hermione said, "This may be the last time you'll ever see them. Do it for yourself, to let them go."
Harry sighed and set down his trunk, "Fine, wait here." But at precisely that moment Aunt Petunia came into the room, looking very shaken up.
She looked at him meekly, "You're going then?"
"I was going to," Harry said. What was she playing at? She had been acting very funny since they'd arrived.
Petunia turned to Ron and Hermione, "May I speak to him for a moment?"
Ron was about to object but Hermione simply grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room. "Come get us when you're done," Hermione said before they were gone.
Harry went and sat on a cot, Petunia on one across from him. "What's going on?" Harry asked suspiciously.
Petunia seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, "Your mother, whenever she needed to tell me something she wanted to no one to hear, would do something to the door with one of those things so people outside couldn't listen in. Could you do that?"
Harry stared at her for a moment, and when she didn't saying anything else, couldn't stop himself from blurting out, "You're serious." He couldn't hide the shock in his voice.
Aunt Petunia nodded briskly, "I don't want Vernon to hear any of this."
"You…don't?"
She nodded, though it seemed physically painful for her to perform the action, "No. Could you just do it?"
Harry nodded and shrugged. "Alright then." He cast a silencing charm on the door. He looked at her for a few minutes expectantly, waiting for her to speak, since he didn't know what this was about.
"We're not safe are we?" Aunt Petunia asked.
Harry cocked his head. Did she mean what he thought she did? "What are you asking?"
"Muggles," Harry hid the surprise at her lack of hesitancy, "We aren't safe. There's going to be a war, and it's going to affect Muggles, too. And with Dumbledore gone, no one is safe. Am I right?" Harry noticed a slight quiver in her lip and he could see evident fear in her eyes.
Harry thought for a moment, "There's been a war for a long time now. You're right, though. No one's safe. Everyone always thought that Dumbledore could defeat Voldemort, but now that he's dead, they can't rely on him."
Petunia seemed to be choosing her words carefully, "Voldmart…is that evil w-wizard. He, killed my sister, and your father."
"Voldemort," Harry enunciated the name, "Killed my parents and many other magical people, as well as muggles. Yes, he's very evil."
"And your people…" Petunia had the look on her face as if trying to put a complicated puzzle together, "They depended on Dumbledore to kill…Voldemort?"
Harry sighed and nodded, "Yes."
"So then whom do they look to now?"
Harry felt very odd all of the sudden. All of this time, talking to his aunt, he had known that this was very rare and strange indeed, but it wasn't up until this moment that he appreciated how much his aunt knew about the Wizarding World, yet, how little she knew about him. She knew how dangerous magic could be in the wrong hands, and, somehow, Harry wasn't sure, she knew how great and good Dumbledore had been.
All of these summers Harry had mostly kept to himself and the Dursleys acted like he was scum, and that they were better than him. How could he possibly begin to explain that the magical world had begun calling him the Chosen One? How could he possibly explain that the fate of the magical, and maybe even muggle, world could very well rest upon his shoulders?
Harry took a breath and sighed, "I suppose they look to me."
Aunt Petunia stared at him for a moment, shocked, and then seemed to wait for him to go on, as if he were to say it was only him and some other wizard, or that it was him as a last resort. Harry held his reserve and looked back at her blank-faced. What could he do other than that?
After a moment Petunia seemed to accept this, and began speaking, very softly and hesitantly, and Harry had to strain to hear her, "It's been…you've…how difficult it must…"
Suddenly she seemed to snap out of it and stood up, surprising Harry, who rose with her. "You should be going, then."
Harry nodded blindly, briefly wondering if he had just imagined it all. "Yeah, say goodbye to Uncle Vernon and Dudley for me, I guess." He felt odd. Before he had been ready to leave, but after this conversation he had so many questions he wanted to ask. He almost felt sad to leave now. Harry raised his wand and undid the silencing charm he had placed on it.
"Okay. Goodbye, then." Aunt Petunia tilted her head for a moment as she stared at Harry and then left through the door.
"…Bye," Harry watched her walk back to the kitchen, and then went to get Ron and Hermione.
They followed him back into the room and the three of them picked up their luggage, "You know what?" Harry asked, getting an idea.
"What?" Ron replied.
"I don't really feel like Apparating. C'mon, follow me." Without a word, his two friends flowed him out the door and down the hall, and then past that out onto the sidewalk until Harry stopped and pulled out his wand, sticking it out into the street subtly.
"What are you doing, Harry?" Hermione asked.
Harry smiled at her, "Just wait a moment."
And, without further ado, the big purple Knight Bus came hurtling down the street, coming to a screeching halt in front the Dursley's home. A moment later Stan Shunpike got out of the bus.
"Harry Potter!" He exclaimed happily, immediately lifting Harry's mood as he had hoped Stan would. Stan took Hermione and Harry's trunks and motioned to the man at his side wearing the same uniform to take Ron's. "Come to claim your free rides, I see?"
"Oh, no, I'll…" Harry started to say, but Stan cut him off.
"None o' dat, none o' dat. I wouldn't fink of lettin' ye pay for a ride. Ernie, dese tree are on me!" He told the driver as they all loaded on to the bus, sitting on the seats that lined the wall, facing the inside of the bus. Hermione sat in the front on the right, with Harry to her left. Ron was across the way facing them.
"Don't forget to hold on," Harry quietly said to Hermione. She nodded and grabbed onto the handlebar with one hand rather tightly, and across from them, Ron did the same. After a moment the bus took off and Hermione's other hand immediately latched onto Harry's arm.
"Would Apparating have been that bad?" Ron asked just before being swung backwards as the bus took a sharp turn. This made Hermione laugh and take her hand off Harry's arm for a short moment before taking it back and gripping even harder. Using something to ignore the pain (when had she gotten so strong?) Harry answered Stan and told him where to take them.
Despite the pain in his arm, where Hermione was gripping tighter by the second, Harry enjoyed the ride, as he had expected he would. With he toss and turn he felt every troubling thought leave him.
"Hermione?" Harry asked after a minute.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Could you loosen up a little? My hand's starting to feel numb," Harry said, pointing to where his fingertips were beginning to lose color.
Hermione looked down and gasped, immediately giving him a little more slack, "I'm sorry!" She blushed a little.
"It's o-" Harry was cut off as the driver slammed on the breaks, pushing Harry forward and right into Hermione so hard that he was afraid for a minute that he might have broken something. Hermione let out a little squeal of pain. When the bus settled Harry immediately pulled himself over and began checking her arms and shoulders for damage. "I'm so sorry, Hermione! Does this hurt?" Not knowing what else to do, Harry began poking her in random places.
"It's okay, Harry, I'm alright. No, that doesn't hurt. Not there either. Wait, don't, Ah!" Hermione suddenly jumped up, Harry doing the same.
"Did that hurt?" Harry poked her in the same spot, just between her neck and shoulder, again.
Hermione jerked away and grabbed her trunk, thanking Stan. "No, it didn't hurt. It just… never mind." Hermione got off the bus, stepping onto the sidewalk. Harry picked up his trunk as well and said goodbye to Stan; Ron, doing the same and laughing.
"What?" Harry turned around and asked Ron as they got off the bus.
Ron smiled mischievously, "I think, my good mate, you have just found out the secret to where our dear Hermione is ticklish." And with that, he followed Hermione into the already visible Number 12 Grimmauld Place.
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A/N: First, I wanted to say hi to all of my fellow Delusionalfans over at livejournal! You guys rock! I also want to give a huge thanks to my newest beta, LadyStarlight! You are so awesome!!! Dedi, never fret, you still rock to.
Okay, I know some of you may comment on this, so I just want to say now that Petunia's story isn't over (hopefully that got the point across without revealing too much), so don't worry. Hopefully those of you who have been starving for some H/Hr lovin' were temporarily appeased with this chapter. Trust me, it's killing me just as much not to have them suddenly start snogging the heck out of each other, but I am trying REALLY hard to get this right. In the mean time, I promise that there shall be more moments to come, for this is Portkey after all!
Please review, and if you don't have time to review, vote for this (awesome, but I may be biased) story in the Felix Felices Competition!
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