Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J. K. Rowling, not me.
Dumbledore Answers Harry - Chapter 13 - Staying With the Dursleys
As Harry lay on his bed at the Dursley's house, holding a book above him reading, he grinned. He'd been back for one day, and things were going great. He thought back to his entrance.
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Uncle Vernon insisted on going into the house first, and Harry listened in.
"Petunia, Dudley, you've got to leave the freak alone."
"But he's…" shouted Dudley.
"If we don't his freaky godfather will come and kill us all, and then probably eat us!" Both Petunia and Dudley paled as Harry held back his laughter as he listened at the door.
"What about his chores?" asked Petunia.
"No chores," grumbled Vernon.
"What!?!" screamed Petunia. "That freeloader…"
"His godfather will be paying us for his food, not nearly enough, and he might do his own cooking, but it's the best I could do with that freak. Harry's been told to hex us if we bother him, and you know what a delinquent he is! He'll do it! And knowing how stupid he is, he'll probably mess up and hurt us worse than he wants!"
Dudley chuckled, "What if he can't really hex us at all? If he hasn't learned enough yet?"
At that point Harry walked in and pulled out his wand, pointing it straight at Dudley. "Do you want to test that, Dudders?"
"You will not hurt Dudley!" shouted Petunia as she moved in between Dudley and Harry.
Harry grinned at her. "But it seems I need to do a demonstration to prove what I can do to Dudley." He looked around and saw a big picture of Dudley hanging on the wall and pointed his wand at it. "Accio picture!" he said, causing the photo to float toward him. "Reducto!" he shouted when it was three feet from him.
Everybody flinched as the photo and frame were broken. Dudley's eyes were wide with fear as his face paled. Vernon's face was purple, but he managed to say, "Your godfather will pay for that."
Harry pointed his wand at the picture and said "Repairo," causing the frame and photo to be fixed except that one of Dudley's teeth in the picture seemed to be missing. Harry chuckled. "I guess I'm not so good at fixing things as breaking them. In fact, I don't know a thing about healing spells, except that a lot of the kids I fought last year had to go to the hospital wing and get them. That particular curse is worse than a gunshot wound. If I shot that at your head or heart, you would die. If I shot it at one of your limbs, you'd lose that limb. I do know lesser hexes, and would probably use one of them as your first warning, but I don't want you under the impression that I can't kill you easily if you get me mad enough."
"Y-y-you will not threaten us," said Vernon shakily.
Harry grinned confidently. He was enjoying this. "Of course not. I have no intention of threatening any of you. If you bother me, I'll simply hex you without warning. All I want is to be left alone for the six weeks I have to stay here."
"Fine," shouted Petunia, "but you will cook your own meals and only when we're not in the kitchen! And you'll eat in your room!"
"Actually, I think that it would be better if we work out a schedule of when I can use the kitchen. Otherwise one of you might get the idea to stay in the kitchen all the time so that I can never eat." He then grinned. "Of course, I wouldn't put up with that anyway, but I think it would be simpler just to avoid that unpleasantness."
-
Harry chuckled to himself at how easily they capitulated and allowed him three hours per day to rule the kitchen (one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner). The times were after the Dursleys normally ate, but he didn't mind that. He now had two goals, and he was studying his books to accomplish them. First he would do something about his room, and then he would learn to disguise himself. Even if he was only spending six weeks here, he still wanted to be comfortable. He knew there were ways to magically make rooms larger, and he felt he was good enough to transfigure some of the furniture if he had more room to fit what he wanted. He also needed to insure privacy in his room. Then he wanted to be able to change his appearance so he could leave the house without being recognized.
He got up with a start as he heard a loud crash coming from outside. He ran to his window, grabbing his wand off his desk. He looked outside and saw a woman who was partially covered by an invisibility cloak that had slipped. She was sprawled along the ground next to a garbage can that she had apparently knocked down. Because of the cloak, Harry knew immediately that this must be a witch, probably a Death Eater after him. He pointed his wand toward the figure and muttered, "Stupefy!" stunning the woman. He ran outside his room ignoring the Dursleys complaints about his interrupting their television program and ran out the door to his stalker.
Upon approaching her, he made sure no one was watching and magically bound her with ropes. He then took the invisibility cloak away from her and received a shock as the face of Tonks was revealed. He chuckled to himself, supposing that Sirius had sent the auror-in-training to guard him He pulled her into his privacy-fenced in back yard and finally stepped about three feet from her, pointed his wand and said, "Enervate."
"What? Damn!" she said, looking around as her face turned red. "I am never going to live this down," she said, starting to laugh. "Wotcher, Harry."
"Hello Tonks," he said, joining her laughter as he helped her up. "What are you doing here? Did Sirius send you to guard me?"
"Actually, Professor Dumbledore did," she said hanging her head down. "How can I be an auror if a twelve year old boy can take me out?"
"I'm nearly thirteen!" he said defensively.
"Fine, if a thirteen year old boy can stun me!"
"You'd fallen down. I'm sorry about that. You were partially covered by the cloak so I couldn't see who you were."
"I'm too clumsy! I'm tripping all the time. But Harry, don't apologize. An unknown witch was spying on you. You did the right thing by stunning me. If a Death Eater had caught me, they'd have done much worse than that."
"We can keep this our little secret," said Harry with a smirk. "Has there always been someone watching me?"
"Since you got back, yes. The headmaster wants to make sure nothing happens to you, aside from being entertained by clumsy auror trainees, that is." She then closed her eyes in concentration and enlarged her ears, turned her nose and hair red, and a few other things to make her look like a clown.
Harry laughed. "That sure is an amazing ability you were born with, Tonks! How did you find out you had it? Is there some sort of a test magical kids get?"
"Nothing special like that, Harry. It's just plain and simple accidental magic."
"Accidental magic?"
"Yep. When I was seven years old, my mum decided to cut my hair herself, and messed up badly, and I was supposed to go to school the next day. My dad - a muggle - insisted that I get an education at muggle school instead of being home-schooled like most witches. He felt it would help me to understand muggles, and he was right. Anyway, I was terrified of the kids teasing me about my hair when I went to bed that night. The next morning, my hair looked as though my mum never cut it. When she saw it, she was so excited and explained what a metamorphmagus was. They then got me a book to read and a tutor so I had Saturday school as well."
That story sounded very familiar to Harry as he listened. When she was finished, he told her why. "When I was very young, Aunt Petunia pretty much cut all my hair off except for my bangs to cover my scar. I knew I'd get teased about it, and the next morning it was back to normal. As a matter of fact, I haven't had a haircut since then."
Tonks was shocked and excited. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"I didn't know it might mean something, and I haven't thought about it in years. I got in trouble for it."
She sighed. "With these people, I'm not surprised. Why don't we see what you can do? Close your eyes and concentrate on growing your hair."
Harry closed his eyes and did as he was told. Thirty seconds later, Harry could feel his hair growing down past his neck. His eyes were still closed when he heard Tonks say, "Now put it back how it was."
When he did that, Tonks happily congratulated him and gave him some exercises to do to learn better control. She also promised to bring him a book to read the next time she guarded him.
"I appreciate that, Tonks. Oh and, er, could you keep this a secret for now? I'll tell a few people like Sirius, but I don't want Moldishorts to find out about it. I want to be very careful about who knows about it. This ability might prove very useful. You can tell the other guards that I've learned a few cosmetic charms and I'm going to go outside in disguise from now on."
-
Over the next few days, Harry learned how to change his hair color, eye color, and even skin color as he also learned how to charm his room to be bigger. He was amazed at how much he could learn at home when he didn't have chores to do all day. He settled into a routine.
He'd wake up early, change his appearance (to a new one every day) and sneak outside wearing his cloak (so the neighbors wouldn't see a new boy leave the Dursleys every morning). He'd pocket his cloak a few blocks away (a location he'd told Tonks about so they could follow him). Then he'd go jogging around the neighborhood for about a half hour. When he was done jogging, he'd exercise in the nearby park (sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, and several others that he'd learned in muggle school gym). After he was done, he'd sneak home, make himself breakfast, and take it up to his room.
When he was done eating, he'd shower and then spend a few hours each day working on homework. Then he'd make himself lunch and work on defense spells. In his newly enlarged room, he made himself moving targets that he'd practice shooting spells at for speed and accuracy. He'd also work on learning new spells. It was hard to practice dodging without an opponent, but just getting the target to move was hard enough for Harry. He couldn't make it fight back. He was afraid he'd get rusty before the six weeks were over. He decided to ask Sirius to duel him every visit.
After that he'd make himself dinner and then practice his morphing and any other spell that wasn't directly related to fighting. When he was done with that, he'd beat up a broken toy he'd transfigured into a punching bag until he was tired enough to go to sleep.
-
The next day, Tonks showed up with the book she promised, and Harry decided to ask her (in addition to Sirius) to duel him for an hour on the days she watched him.
"I don't think the Dursleys would fancy me waltzing into their house every few days."
"You could use your cloak. You could tell me when you're here while I'm jogging, and then I could let you in the house."
"Well, I guess so."
After he snuck her into his now gym-sized room, they dueled for an hour. At first she was going easy on him until he hit her with a stinger. "Tonks, I'm trying to be ready for Death Eaters, not first years, to attack me."
"Sorry, Harry. It won't happen again."
After that, she started showing him what auror training is all about. She was surprised at how well he did, but in the end, she managed to beat him.
"You see," said Harry after Tonks helped him up, "My catching you off guard the other day was a fluke."
"No, you got me fair and square then, and you did a great job now. There's just a few things you need to improve." At that point she gave him a list of things to work on, which included hiding your intentions from your opponent while reading theirs.
-
Two days later, a Sunday, Harry had just gotten back after jogging. When he reached the door to his room, he saw that Dudley was inside looking around, with a picture of Harry standing between Ginny and Hermione in his hand. He hadn't noticed his cousin was back yet. Harry decided to have some fun. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at Dudley's rear end and muttered a spell. A pig's tail once again grew out of his trousers.
"Ahhhh!" screamed Dudley, dropping the picture as his hands went to his tail.
"Accio, picture," shouted Harry before the picture hit the ground.
Dudley turned with a terrified look on his face. "You…you…I'll tell mum and dad!"
"They told you to stay out of my room! Wingardium Leviosa!" Dudley began to float around the room. "Tell me why I shouldn't send you out the window, Dudders."
Dudley was actually shaking and crying. Harry could swear he smelled something awful. "I,I,I'm sorry, Harry. I shouldn't have…"
"No you shouldn't have gone in my room, you shouldn't have picked on me or stopped people at school from being my friend! As far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't live." Dudley gulped. "But killing you would be a lot of paperwork, so I'll let you off with a warning." Dudley fell to the ground, hard. "Oh yes," said Harry, as he removed the tail. "Since the muggles doctors can remove it anyway, I might as well take it away. I'll have to consider what to do to you that they can't cure. Until then, this will do." He then gave Dudley a bat-bogey hex.
Dudley ran out of there as fast as his body could go, which wasn't very fast, trying to escape the bat bogies. Harry then got a stroke of brilliance. He waited about fifteen minutes, and then he transfigured his clothes and changed himself into Vernon. He then took off his belt. He silenced the hallway so no one would hear what was going on. He walked up to Dudley's door and kicked it in.
"DUDLEY!!! YOU WENT INTO THE FREAK'S ROOM WHEN I TOLD YOU NOT TO!!!!"
Dudley was now shaking worse than ever. The bat bogies were gone, but there was a mess on the floor that appeared to be their remains. The only times Dudley had seen his father like this, Harry had been the object of Vernon's anger. "D,Daddy?"
"DON'T YOU DADDY ME!!! THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU DISOBEY ME!!! I'VE LET YOU GET AWAY WITH FAR TOO MUCH ALREADY!!! THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!!! DO YOU WANT THE FREAK TO KILL US ALL?"
"N,no Daddy!"
"I'm gonna make sure it never happens again!" he said, holding the belt in his hands like a treasure.
"No! No! No Daddy! You can't! You only do that to Harry!"
"Now I'm doing it to you!"
"P-please, I'll do anything….er…..even chores."
Harry/Vernon took about a minute to contemplate it. "Fine! You are to get up at five a.m. and trim the hedges, mow the lawn, with our old manual lawnmower. I don't want the motor of the new one to wake me or the neighbors up. I want the garage cleaned out and the car washed and waxed! And vacuumed out, too! Then I want you to clean the bathroom, then the kitchen, and then the living room! All without waking anybody up! If you wake me up, you'll get a worse beating than I would have given you before!"
"Y-y-yes ddddaddy."
"Oh, and don't you DARE tell your mother about this! You're going to do it every day, and we're going to pretend that you're doing it voluntarily and I'm surprised by it. I might even offer you a reward to keep your mother happy! If I do, refuse it no matter how much I insist! I may even say that you don't have to do chores anymore. If I do, you are to insist that you want to, and that you enjoy it! You won't talk to me about it! I'll talk to you a few times to remind you! But if you ever forget to do it, I will beat you until you wish you'd never been born!"
"YYYesss daddy."
Harry/Vernon turned around and walked out the door, slamming it behind him. He removed the silencing charm from the hall and walked into his room, silencing the door. He changed back and laughed his head off.
-
All that day Dudley was nervously acting casual around his parents, and early the next morning Harry heard his cousin sneak down the stairs and start working. After Dudley finished exhausted, he got praise as Harry expected. Vernon even tried to give him money, but Dudley insisted that he enjoyed doing the chores. That night, Vernon/Harry said Dudley did a great acting job, but didn't do the chores nearly good enough. Dudley, trembling, insisted he'd do better if he wasn't beaten. Harry/Vernon told him he'd have to do this every summer until he moves out, and that he'll only visit if there's a problem with the chores.
-
Finally, six days after Harry arrived, Sirius Black showed up and knocked at the door. Harry listened from the hall while Dudley rested from his chores in his room. He could hear how shaky his uncle's voice was as he said, "C-Come in Mr. Black."
"So," said Sirius, "How's Harry."
"H-he's fine. No problems at all."
"We'll see."
"D-do you have the m-money with you?"
"Here, Dursley," Sirius growled. "Now I'm going to spend some time with Harry."
Harry went back in his room as Sirius made his way up the stairs and knocked on Harry's door. "Who is it?" asked Harry, pretending he wasn't spying.
"It's Voldemort. Can I come in?"
"Sure, as long as you promise not to avada kadavra me before saying hello properly."
"Alright, I'll just crucio you first."
"That's fine. Come in Padfoot."
The door opened and Sirius gave Harry a hug. After he closed the door and silenced it, he looked around. "Impressive work. Did you do that yourself?"
"Yes. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia can't stand it, but I think Dudley wants me to do it to his room," Harry laughed.
"So, how are they treating you?"
"They're dead scared to do anything to me since I demonstrated a reducto curse on one of Dudley's pictures, so they pretty much let me do what I please."
Sirius grinned. "Tonks says she's helping your dueling abilities."
"Yes, she's great. I don't want to get rusty without a dueling partner. I also wanted to ask you to help me with that before you leave."
"Sure cub. Anything else going on? Have your girlfriends sent you any letters?"
Harry made a face. "Since they're not my girlfriends, then no. My nonexistent girlfriends haven't written me."
"Fine. Have any of your friends written you?"
"Yes. Both Ginny and Hermione have sent me two letters so far. Ron said hi in one of Ginny's letters. I wrote them both back. That's why Hedwig's not here." He then took a deep breath and smiled. "Tonks and I found out something interesting." He then closed his eyes and his hair turned black. He started getting taller as his face and the rest of his body changed shape. Sirius watched silently in wonder as his godson, over the course of about two minutes, changed into him.
"I'm a metamorphmagus. I was talking to Tonks about how she discovered it, and her story reminded me of something that happened long ago. Once I started trying, I found I was pretty good at it. It still takes me longer than Tonks, but I have been able to make every change I've attempted. I was at first only changing my hair length and color, as well as my eye and skin color, until she gave me the book. It told me about all the other possibilities like changing size and shape. I can literally become anyone I want. I told Ginny and Hermione about it, and Hermione said that she thinks that stigmatism, which is what's wrong with my eyes, is caused because my eyes aren't shaped exactly right. She's going to study that and see if it's true. If it is, I'm gonna try to correct my vision."
Sirius' eyes went wide. "Wow! That's incredible!"
Harry/Sirius grinned ear to ear. "This is a secret from everyone besides the ones who already know. I have to limit my jogging disguise to only what can be done with simple cosmetic charms. Basically color changes."
"Good idea. Oh, and be careful when you mess with your eyes. Make sure you can undo whatever you try."
"Of course. If Hermione's right about this, I'm gonna read all I can about eyes before I try it. In the mean time, I'm practicing changing in general so that my speed can improve." He then chuckled and closed his eyes, changing into Voldemort. Sirius was surprised by that one.
"Aside from your glasses and clothes, you look exactly like him. It's scary."
"Maybe I should go find Lucius Malfoy and order him to kill himself." Harry smiled. "Better yet, to crucio himself."
Sirius laughed. "We know that they'll chop off their own hands for him. They'll probably do that, too."
"Yes, I got Dudley to start doing chores with this ability. I pretended to be Uncle Vernon."
Sirius chuckled. "You did? Tell me about it."
By the time Harry had finished explaining it Sirius was rolling over the floor with laughter. "Can I please tell Tonks about this? You are truly the son of James Potter!"
-
The weeks went by quickly, and Dudley was still faithfully doing his chores. He was actually losing some weight, and was too exhausted to hang out with his gang much. Every few weeks, Harry/Vernon would yell at Dudley to keep him motivated.
Harry had found out Hermione was right about stigmatisms, and she'd sent him a huge book on eyes (shrunken so an owl could carry it). Fortunately, he found there were only two chapters he had to read. One was on the way the eye basically works and the other was on stigmatisms. It took him four weeks before he felt he understood the material. He could only read it for about a half hour before his mind was spinning. Then he'd take a ten minute break from it. Now it was a week before he could leave the Dursleys, and he was about to try his eye experiment.
He got a picture in his mind of a perfect eye, and felt (using a technique he'd read in his morph book) internally how his left eye was shaped. He then concentrated on changing his eye to match the perfectly shaped eye. When he opened his left eye and closed his right, he smiled as he realized that he was seeing perfectly out of that eye. He then cleared his thoughts and did the same thing with his right eye.
He was thrilled to death that he could finally see! He couldn't stand wearing glasses, especially when he was exercising, and now he was free from them. As he'd told the few people who knew about this, he was planning to tell everyone he was wearing contact lenses that Sirius bought him. For the first time in his life, he excitedly wrote a letter without wearing glasses. Then he wrote a few more and sent them all out with Hedwig.
-
He soon received a congratulatory letter from both Hermione and Ginny. Both Sirius and Tonks saw him the day after he corrected his vision and they had a small celebration with a cake and ice cream. Sirius teased, "Now your girlfriends will like you even more without glasses."
Harry turned his reddening face into Voldemort's and said in his best imitation of his voice, "They are not my girlfriends!"
"Now Sirius, you shouldn't tease him. He could become a troll and bash your head in," said Tonks.
"Fine, I'm sorry, cub."
"Good. How are things going between you and your girlfriend? Have you proposed yet?" Now Sirius' face turned red as Tonks laughed.
"No. I, er…"
Harry (who'd changed himself back to normal) said, "Do you love her?"
"Well, yeah, but…"
"Does she love you?"
"Er, yeah, but that doesn't…"
"Are you old enough to marry?"
"Well…"
"Have you known each other long enough?"
"I…"
"Do you want to break up with her?"
"No. It's just I'm…"
"Scared?" supplied Tonks, who'd been staying silent as Harry questioned Sirius.
"I'm not scared!"
"Good," said Tonks with a smile, "Let me help you pick out the ring."
-
After a little more teasing, Tonks finally had to leave. Afterwards, Sirius chastised Harry for initiating that round of teasing. Harry said, "Turnabout is fair play. Whenever you tease me about my friends, I'll tease you about marriage."
"Fine. I was gonna tell you about a little hunting expedition me and Dumbledore went on, but now I'm gonna make you wait until you leave here."
Harry brightened up. "You went with Dumbledore? What happened? You've got to tell me!"
Sirius sighed. "I really think you'll be better off waiting until you can see it in my pensieve next week. If I tell you about it, that'll spoil it."
"Fine," he said, agreeing that he'd rather watch it than just hear about it, even if he had to wait a week. "Are you and Dumbledore alright?"
Sirius sighed. "We're fine."
-
A few days later, while Harry was bringing his food from the kitchen, Petunia finally noticed that Harry wasn't wearing glasses. "Boy, er, Harry," said Petunia, "Why aren't you wearing glasses?"
Harry kept with his story. "Sirius bought me contact lenses. He brought them with on my last visit. I'd ordered them before."
"Fine."
"Oh, by the way, Sirius is coming over Tuesday to pick me up until next summer."
"Good," she said, "Aunt Marge will be coming over in a few weeks. She'll be glad not to see you."
"I'll be even gladder not to see her!" Harry continued carrying his breakfast up the stairs.
-
Harry/Vernon paid Dudley one last visit the night before Harry left, insulting his work and reminding him to keep up the chores for the rest of his childhood, and to refuse the gifts from Aunt Marge, claiming he doesn't deserve them. Harry wondered how long Dudley would keep working.
The next morning, Sirius showed up while Dudley was still working in the yard and stopped himself from laughing out loud. He went up to Harry's room, and together they removed all the charms in the room. Harry had already packed and shrunk his trunk. He'd finished his homework the night before, so he could spend the rest of the summer without that to worry about. Sirius grabbed Harry by the hand, and they apparated away.
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