Chapter 5: Unhappy Birthday
The next morning Harry asked Mrs. Figg if she would mind if he used her home to practice displacement. She seemed to like the idea very much and showed Harry one of the upstairs guestrooms where he would be able to appear and disappear without causing any fuss should she have company. She promised she would keep the door closed at all times. Harry smiled weakly when she mentioned this. Considering his earlier lack of success, he could not imagine that he would be putting the room to much good… it felt like taking advantage to have a perfectly nice room closed off for his use when it seemed increasingly likely that he would not be displacing himself anywhere besides a dirty school roof.
Despite his poor mood, Harry spent a few minutes sitting on the bed and looking closely around the room, taking in all the details he could. He knew he would have to form a clear memory to travel here and he did the best he could in the short amount of time before his meeting with Professor Dumbledore. When the hour arrived, Harry went downstairs and grabbed a handful of floo powder. He thanked Mrs. Figg again and then disappeared in a rush of green flames.
Dumbledore was waiting for him in his usual chair. "Hello, Harry. It is a pleasure to see you again. I trust you are well?"
"Yes, sir," Harry answered while seating himself. "How are you, Professor? Still having trouble finding a decent Defense teacher?"
The headmaster smiled and replied, "Ah, that is an endeavour that appears determined not to bear fruit. We will find someone, however, when the time is right. And how are your practices coming? Have you had any success?"
Harry sighed and glanced around the room. "I did manage to displace myself one more time."
"Wonderful, Harry! I was certain you would but nevertheless, I am pleased to hear it," Dumbledore praised, taking a lemon drop from a small tin box on his desk. He offered one to Harry, who declined with a shake of his head. "I can't help noticing that you don't seem to be very enthusiastic about your success."
"Well, it wasn't really a success," Harry hedged. "I did displace myself, like I said, but I didn't end up where I wanted to go."
Dumbledore smiled at this. "I see. Can I wager a guess as to where you arrived?"
Harry shrugged. "It's not like it's a mystery."
"If you did indeed end up once more on the roof of your school, then I cannot see how this would not be categorized as a success," the headmaster stated. He gave Harry a pointed look. "Your magic has a way of… rising to the occasion, shall we say? When it is of complete necessity for you to produce extreme or powerful magic, you seem to do so without fail. Your Patronus is a good example of this. While your training with the charm allowed you to achieve moderate success, it is only when faced with a terrible threat to your life - and the lives of your friends - that you were able to produce a corporeal Patronus. To say it is unusual that your first Patronus would be one powerful enough to repel a hundred Dementors would be a severe understatement. It is reasonable to deduce that your compulsion to escape the severing curse inspired your displacement in much the same way. However, unlike with the Patronus Charm, you did not receive any training that would help you master this skill. Recreating its effects without any knowledge on how to do so cannot be easy."
Harry chewed his lip as he contemplated this. "So, how should I learn, then?"
"You should continue to practice at your leisure. With experience comes proficiency," Dumbledore instructed sagely. "I would also suggest a study of apparition. Since the disciplines are so similar, I would predict that mastering one would benefit the other. I will send along some books to help you with this, and I shall alter the anti-apparition wards on Privet Drive to allow you - and only you - to pass through them."
Harry could not help but feel excited at the prospect of learning apparition. He remembered feeling envious last summer watching Fred and George crack around Grimmauld Place and he was anxious to try it himself.
"Are you ready to begin our lesson?" Dumbledore asked. At Harry's nod, the headmaster folded his hands in his lap serenely. "Very well. Today we will be discussing magical history."
Harry could not keep his face from falling.
"I see this does not interest you as much as - perhaps - another subject might?" Dumbledore asked mildly. "History is one of the most important subjects you will ever study, Harry. Do not make the mistake that so many before you have made by presuming to ignore the past. Magic is an old discipline… far older than the records we keep on it. It is quite foolhardy to believe that the lessons of our predecessors have no application to our modern lives."
Harry felt somewhat chastised, but he kept it from showing on his face. "I suppose I don't really like to think about the past."
Dumbledore peered at him closely behind his half-moon glasses. "And what of the future, Harry?"
A familiar stir of rebellion began to uncoil in Harry's stomach and his voice roughened involuntarily. "I can't say I particularly like to think of that, either."
"Hm. So the sum of your existence relates only to the present?" questioned Dumbledore in a serious tone. Harry did not respond. "Everything that is happening in the world around us today is a direct result of our actions in the past. And, as it goes, all that will happen in our futures will be determined by our actions today."
"When I think about the past, I only see things I wish I had changed," Harry admitted. "And when I think about the future, I only see things I can't change."
"Then you see nothing," Dumbledore responded gently. "Your position is understandable, Harry. But, in time, you must come to terms with your role as a steward of history. There is a muggle saying you may be familiar with: 'those whom forget to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it'. I know you wish it were not so, but this applies to you far more than most."
Harry considered this silently and when it became clear he had no response, Dumbledore nodded absently and continued. "I will be choosing subjects for your history research that I believe you will find interesting. I will ask you not to dismiss what you are learning. Although their application may not be obvious, your discovery of the past will perhaps provide some light for your future."
"I - yes, all right," Harry reluctantly agreed. He shifted awkwardly in his chair. "Professor, I was hoping that we might-"
"You were hoping," Dumbledore interrupted gently, "that we might enjoy a more practical study? Again, I ask that you do not dismiss the past. You will find that learning through the trials and errors of others will also improve your magical repertoire. Magic is very old, Harry, and much of it has been lost to crumbling books. I'm sure you can understand what a benefit it might be to remember what others have forgotten."
Harry's thoughts drifted to his mother and her study of the Fidelius Charm. Had she learned that from crumbling books? Had she even known what she was looking for when she found it? His heart ached to think of his mother searching desperately for a way to protect her newborn son. Perhaps the past was more relevant than he first thought.
Harry offered no further protest and the lesson began soon after.
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The weeks following Harry's first history lesson passed uneventfully. The books that he had been given to study had been a mixture of fascinating accounts of battles and rebellions which he absorbed with relish, and painfully boring expositions on changes in magical society. He imagined that Hermione would be terribly jealous of his reading material, even if he could not always appreciate it.
His Occlumency tutelage was a similar bag of mixed results. His ability to present chosen memories had improved by leaps and bounds and Professor Dumbledore had seemed delighted in both his progress and the occasional bizarre side-effects of his magical focus. However, Harry seemed no more capable of simply blocking his mind to an attack than he ever had. The harder he tried and the more intense his concentration, the worse he seemed to do. For whatever reason, Dumbledore did not seem to find this nearly as frustrating as he did.
Displacement, on the other hand, continued to be a dismal failure. Harry had managed to appear on the roof of his old school four more times before he began to get sick of his seemingly useless skill. His practices waned and he soon turned his attention towards apparition.
True to his word, Dumbledore had provided a short Ministry handbook on the theory and practice of apparition. Harry had studied this with unusual enthusiasm and had quickly memorized the many rules and regulations that would appear on his written test when he was old enough to apply for his apparition license. Privately, Harry thought most of these were rubbish and planned on ignoring them. The 'recommended safe apparating distance' in particular seemed unforgivably short. He knew he would go as far as his power would take him, even if he had to splinch himself once or twice to determine how far that might be.
The time to put that to the test was well into the future, however. Harry was still underage and would be until the following summer. Splinching himself would only alert the Ministry to his illegal practicing, so he decided to err on the side of caution for once in his life. Harry studied the theory and the mechanics of apparition with diligence, but he patiently held off on his first attempt until he felt confident would not be leaving any fingers behind - he only had ten and was rather attached to each of them.
After days of study, Harry finally decided that the morning of his birthday would serve for his first attempt at apparition. His birthdays were typically unheralded affairs that were neither mentioned nor enjoyed, and Harry thought it would be a nice change of pace to have something exciting planned for it.
He told Dumbledore of his decision the day before his first attempt just to see what his reaction might be, but the headmaster offered no resistance to the idea. If he had any private thoughts on Harry's plans, he kept them to himself, sharing only an unreadable smile.
So it was that on the morning of July 31st, Harry was in the Dursleys' attic, mentally recalling everything he knew about apparition. As he recited the mechanics of the act in his mind, Harry concentrated fervently and allowed his magic to spill over him.
There was a strange, sickening feeling of being sucked through a tube and Harry grimaced before a loud shriek broke him from his concentration. Harry stared uncomprehendingly at his cousin, who was looking back at him in shock and jumping from one foot to the other as if he might soon need to use the loo. The wretched screeching was issuing from him.
"Y-you aren't allowed!" he cried, his beady eyes wide and afraid. "You can't use m-m-ma- you aren't allowed!"
Harry ignored him entirely and looked around the lounge in wonder. A rising sense of accomplishment nearly overwhelmed him. He had done it! He had arrived exactly where he meant to. The corners of his lips turned up in a surprised smile.
Dudley was in a terrible state, and he had moved one of his hands to cover his mouth and the other to hold fretfully onto his buttocks. "How did you-?" he sputtered, but his words were muffled by his palm. "B-but you're not allowed!"
Harry realised that he must have appeared out of thin air in front of his enormous cousin. In Harry's opinion, this happy accident made his first success with apparition all the sweeter. He fashioned Dudley with a thoughtful look. "Well, they decided I should be able to practice some things over the summer after what happened with that wizard who broke in. Right now I'm supposed to be learning how to turn people into sausages, but I haven't found anyone to test it on yet," Harry stated as blandly as he could manage. He paused afterward and peered at Dudley with sudden interest. "Say…"
His cousin didn't wait for him to finish his question before he ran from the room screaming, still holding onto his buttocks as if her were desperately afraid a pig's tail would spring from them at any moment.
Harry felt a brief moment of vindication before he heard his aunt's shrill voice from the room above him. Obviously, Dudley hadn't been amused. Aunt Petunia stormed downstairs a moment later and pointed her finger accusingly at Harry.
"What is the meaning of this?" she shrieked, waving her finger. "How dare you use your… unnaturalness… against my son!"
Harry rolled his eyes. "I haven't used any unnaturalness against Dudley. I used magic to travel into the room and he went barmy. I didn't even know he was there."
"Apparition?" she asked him stiffly.
Harry stared at her incredulously. "How do you know about apparition? You know an awful lot about magic for someone who hates it so much."
She straightened and looked at him in disdain. "You'll not do it in my house."
"Yes, actually I will," Harry countered. "I need to practice. If you don't like it, you'll have to take it up with Dumbledore."
Aunt Petunia's nostrils flared before she turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen. Harry stared after her for a moment, surprised she hadn't put up more of a fight. He decided not to wait and see if his luck would hold and went quickly upstairs to his room.
Harry practiced apparating himself for the rest of the afternoon with a fair amount of success. He had managed to move from his room to the kitchen and from the kitchen to behind the rose bushes in the garden. After gathering a bit of courage, he even apparated into the closed-off room at Mrs. Figg's house, nearly knocking over a brass lamp when he arrived. He caught it as it was falling and righted it with a swift motion, feeling thrilled with his success. If only displacement was so easy!
In the wake of his accomplishment, Harry glanced around at the empty room and his spirits seemed to wilt. He was suddenly overcome with a feeling of wanting to share his success with someone else, but of course, he was alone. He briefly thought of the short, strange weeks at Hogwarts after Sirius died, and how he had felt both unspeakably lonely and simultaneously suffocated by all the people around him. Why was it that he always felt like he wanted to be alone except when he actually was?
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Feeling lonely and melancholy, Harry decided to chance a conversation with Mrs. Figg and spent the remainder of the afternoon serving as a pillow for several oversized cats while Arabella regaled him with tales of her youth. She seemed to take sincere delight in his presence. Harry had again been struck by how different she seemed now that she was no longer acting the part of a reclusive and bitter old woman. It was as if she had taken a great, heavy weight and laid it down after years of dragging it behind her. She seemed younger, more vibrant, and full of a lively bustle that reminded Harry keenly of Mrs. Weasley.
As he listened to her describe her formerly adventurous life in the Order, Harry wondered whether she didn't secretly resent him, even a little.
When the sun set and Harry could find no excuses to linger, he slowly made his way home, choosing to walk instead of apparate. A look from his aunt set him to work peeling potatoes and soon he and the Dursleys were sitting down to another stony, silent meal. No mention was made of his birthday, but Harry had not expected one. He ate quickly and left as soon as he could, taking the stairs three at a time to get back to his room before any nasty comments could be sent his way. No words followed him, though, and he shut the door behind him without incident.
Inside, Pig was fluttering about drunkenly with a small tin dangling from his leg and Hedwig was waiting for him on his windowsill. Harry pushed his hair out of his eyes and walked across the room to lean against the window frame. He stroked Hedwig's feathers gently before taking the letter from her beak. He had forgotten that his friends would have likely sent him something for his birthday.
He had expected Hermione's familiar handwriting, but to his surprise, he instead found a neatly scrawled letter from Remus Lupin. He ignored this when he noticed there was a second piece of parchment affixed to the back, and Harry could see even from this cursory glance that it was a map. His heart raced and he wondered whether Remus had sent him a newer version of the Marauder's Map, but a thorough look at the hand-drawn document proved this to be false. Instead of the halls of Hogwarts, the map listed towns with strange, Welsh names with too few vowels. And near the middle - printed in bright, scarlet ink - were the words 'Godric's Hallow'.
Harry slumped onto his bed and felt something lodge in his throat. He set the map down and turned to the letter. Remus explained that the map was, indeed, to the town in which Harry had been born and provided instructions on how to find the house his parents had lived in. Remus went on to say that he understood completely if Harry never decided to return to Godric's Hallow, but he felt that he had the right to know where it was in case he ever wished to. The letter ended with brief but sincere congratulations on Harry's sixteenth birthday and Remus's now-familiar signature.
Harry picked up the map again and traced the roads and rivers with his fingers before refolding it along with the letter and placing them both in his trunk.
Plucking Pig out of the air with a seeker-trained hand, Harry relieved him of his tin and let the little owl free. Pig seemed to fly a lot straighter without the added weight and zoomed out the window without delay. Harry snapped off the string holding the tin together and inside he found a short note from Ron, ("Happy birthday, Harry! Hope you can come to the Burrow soon!"), a rambling letter from Ginny, and three bags of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.
Inspecting the bags, Harry tore open the corner of one and plucked out an innocuous-looking green jelly bean. He popped it in his mouth and choked it down awkwardly when he realised it tasted like wet grass.
He set the jelly beans on his desk and felt a surge of pleasure that he had been remembered. He wrote three quick thank you notes (he struggled with the one for Remus before settling on something that sounded as mature and stoic as he could fake) and sent them off with Hedwig. When he was alone in the room again, he fidgeted for a moment and wondered whether Hermione was angry at him for his useless letters. She had stopped writing him a week ago and it seemed she was now going to ignore his birthday.
That proved untrue when he was called down by his aunt some time later to find her glaring at him and holding the lounge phone as if it were a writhing snake.
"It's for you," she sneered.
Harry was so shocked that he stood there mutely for a moment. This obviously tried his aunt's patience and he could see storm clouds building in her eyes. He reached for the phone before she decided to be vindictive and hang up, but she pulled it away before he could take it.
"I'll not have your little friends ringing you here at all hours, tying up our phone," she stated darkly in a near-whisper. "Vernon gets important calls from work and Dudley is very popular around the neighbourhood."
Harry worked to keep his face straight at this laughable pronouncement. The only person in their neighbourhood less popular than Dudley was Harry, himself, and that was only because all of his neighbours believed he was a street thug who attended St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys.
He nodded to appease her and she handed him the phone with a look of pure disdain before disappearing into the kitchen.
"Hullo?"
"Harry! I'm so pleased I got through! I wasn't sure your aunt was going to let you talk to me - she really was quite rude - but here you are! Oh, it's so good to hear your voice!"
Harry recognised Hermione's happy voice at once. He felt something like relief swell inside his chest. She certainly didn't sound like she was angry at him.
"Hermione!" he cut her off, amused at her enthusiasm. "Hullo, then."
"Hello!" she repeated with a laugh. "I'm sorry. It's so strange speaking to you over the phone."
"It is," he agreed. "How did you get this number?"
"I asked Ron for it. I remembered you saying he tried to ring you once and it ended up a disaster, but I thought I might have better luck."
"Well, you're not screaming into the mouthpiece, so that's already a huge improvement."
Hermione laughed and he heard rustling on her end. "Yes, of course. Oh, Harry, how have you been? Your letters have been so… well-"
Harry felt a familiar squirm of guilt. "I've been… all right."
"That was a silly question," she sighed. "I can't imagine how you must be feeling. And now you're stuck in that awful house…"
She trailed off and Harry leaned back against the wall, uncomfortable. "It's not- well, I mean, yeah, it is a bit rubbish here. But how have you been? How's your summer?"
There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the phone and Harry wasn't sure whether she hadn't hung up. "Are you still there?" he asked hesitantly.
"Oh, Harry, I wish you didn't live with those dreadful people," she finally responded. Her voice was very soft and he had to work to hear her. "And I'm sure my summer has been much better than yours."
Harry couldn't help but feel awkward with this line of conversation. He grasped for a new topic. "So… are you going on vacation with your family this year?"
He heard a chair leg scrape and he imagined her sitting down in her parents' kitchen. "Yes. My parents are taking me to Greece."
"Greece! I reckon that will be excellent. All those museums - I'm sure you'll have a great time."
"Let's not talk about that. Oh! I can't believe I haven't said happy birthday yet. That's why I called you today. I- I thought it might be nice."
"It was nice," Harry agreed. "Thank you."
"And I wasn't sure whether I would be able to get an owl to you in time. I thought I might have to rent one from Diagon Alley," she continued to explain. "Oh, have you heard? About Errol?"
"Errol? No. Did something happen?"
"Oh, Harry, I'm afraid he passed away. Mrs. Weasley sent Pig over with a note about it the day before yesterday. The poor thing…"
Harry didn't know what to say to this. "Oh."
"Yes. He was just so old. He must have been very tired… he was still delivering letters up until last week. And now Pig has been working doubly hard to try to deliver all of the Weasley's post without Errol to help him and I didn't feel right asking to borrow him to send you your present, so I thought I might try ringing you this year."
"You didn't have to," Harry said.
"Oh, of course I did! It's your sixteenth birthday," Hermione retorted as if it were the most obvious thing. "And I have my present for you up in my room. I'll send it before we leave."
"When are you going?"
"Well, our plane leaves the same day you're going to Grimmauld Place..."
Harry froze and his heart felt as if it had dropped down into the vicinity of his trainers. "Grimmauld Place?"
"Harry," she began, clearly hesitant, "hadn't you heard?"
"Heard what? That I'm going to Grimmauld Place? No, actually, I hadn't," Harry responded stonily. Why was it that everyone else always knew his schedule before he did? And why did he have to go there? He would have hardly believed it, but the idea of going to Sirius's old home was even less appealing to him than staying with the Dursleys.
"Harry, I'm so sorry," Hermione said breathily. "I only heard - well, Mrs. Weasley said that's where you're going. She could be wrong-"
"No. Right. It makes sense," Harry stated, cutting off whatever she was saying. He rubbed his chin with his free hand and breathed hard through his nose. His eyes felt itchy. "Very safe there, and all that. Listen - I just remembered - I was supposed to finish up something for Aunt Petunia. I really need to be going, but it was very nice to speak with you."
"Harry-"
"Got to be off, then. Have a good time in Greece, Hermione. I'll see you on the train."
Harry hung up the phone.
Feeling sick with himself, he stalked up to his room before his aunt could question him about who had bothered to ring him.
Upon entering, he noticed a long, thin package wrapped in green paper sitting innocently in the middle of his bed. He glanced around the room but saw no hint of where the package might have come from. There were no owls except Hedwig and she was sitting in the exact spot he had left her, seemingly dozing.
Hermione couldn't have sent her present here this fast - not unless she was messing about with time-turners again - and Harry couldn't imagine that she would be in much of a hurry to send him anything now. Not after how he treated her on the phone. And yet, he could not think of anyone else who might have reason to send him something.
Wondering what it could be, Harry picked up the oddly shaped package. He was startled by how heavy it was. Careful not to drop it, Harry turned it over and began to tear away the paper it was wrapped in. Inside was a long, wooden box with a cream-coloured card. Harry removed it and read:
Dear Harry,
I purchased this as a very young man and have enjoyed its simple entertainment for many years.
I have long wished to pass it on to someone I cared for and I'm very pleased that it will now find itself in your possession.
Happy birthday.
Yours sincerely,
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
Curious, Harry set the letter down and opened the brass catch on the wooden box. Inside, there was a long, silver cylinder and an empty, old fashioned bottle. For a strange moment, Harry thought his headmaster might have given him a cocktail mixer.
Unsure, Harry removed the clear bottle and turned it over in his hands. It was, as far as he could tell, completely unremarkable. He set the bottle down and lifted the cylinder to examine it. Clearly, this was where the weight of the box came from - it was heavy and solid in his hands.
It looked a bit like an unusual telescope, only there was no glass and no obvious eye-piece. It was solid metal on one end and the other had a hole about the size of a ten pence. Harry pressed his eye to the hole, but it was perfectly black inside and he could see nothing.
Stumped, Harry stared at the odd contraption before picking up the bottle again. He noticed that the neck of the bottle was about the same size as the hole in the cylinder and he began to wonder if perhaps his original assumption about a drink mixer wasn't too far off.
Feeling a bit silly, Harry pressed the bottle to the opening. Sure enough, the neck of the bottle fitted quite exactly into the hole and a simple twist held it in place. The moment this was done, there was a strange suctioning noise and Harry nearly dropped the thing as a thick, purple mist poured into the bottle from the opening in the cylinder.
Harry watched in surprise and interest as the bottle was filled with the colourful mist. When it seemed the bottle could hold no more, he waited for something else to happen, but nothing seemed forthcoming. Carefully, Harry unlatched the bottle and as soon as it was no longer attached to the cylinder, the mist inside it began to swirl and dissipate into a thin cloud, and then that, too, disappeared. When it did, Harry was shocked to see that the bottle was no longer empty.
A tiny ship - some sort of old-time, wooden sailing corsair - floated and bobbed on an invisible sea in the middle of the bottle. Its miniature sails fluttered and billowed in an imaginary wind and the red and white of the English flag rippled atop its highest mast. Harry could even see the tiny ship wheel adjusting with the movement of the rudder.
It was so intricate, so perfect in every way, that Harry could hardly believe what he was looking at wasn't a real ship, shrunken and stored in the bottle for safe keeping.
"Brilliant," he murmured, turning the bottle this way and that to view all the different sides.
He had never seen anything like it. He was reminded of the Quidditch World Cup and his first exposure to the animated models and toys of the magical world. They had amazed him when he first saw them, but they were nothing compared to this.
Harry watched the little ship for a long while, feeling strangely happy that - after all this time - magic could still surprise and delight him. When he began to grow tired, he reluctantly returned the bottle and cylinder to its box and hid it in his trunk before making his way across the hall to the bathroom to ready himself for bed.
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Just as Hermione had said, the next day Harry received a short note from Mr. Weasley explaining that he would be picked up the following morning and brought to Grimmauld Place. Harry felt a flare of anger that Dumbledore had not delivered this news himself, but it cooled as the day wore on. Instead, he spent most of his final afternoon at Number 4 Privet Drive feeling anxious and resigned.
He could not imagine Grimmauld Place without Sirius and he was certain that the memory of his deceased godfather would haunt every room of that cold, dreary house.
Harry already felt ill thinking about it.
He occupied himself with small tasks for the remainder of the day and tried to put Grimmauld Place out of his mind. He had one final visit with Mrs. Figg in which she hugged him about the shoulders, shocking him rigid before he mumbled a goodbye and made his exit. After that, he finished off the few chores that he had been assigned but not yet completed (Aunt Petunia watched him through the window as he mowed the lawn as if to verify that he was doing it correctly). And last, he began three separate letters to Hermione, all of which he threw away in disgust.
When night fell and he sat down for dinner with the Dursleys, Harry announced that he would be leaving the next day. As he expected, this was met with little resistance except a few cutting remarks from Vernon, who had never been able to let an opportunity to sneer at his nephew pass without taking full advantage of it. Harry felt quite pleased with himself for not rising to these insults. He kept his temper in check and instead sat quietly chewing his meal as if he could not hear his uncle at all. The last thing he needed was to blow up his relatives' kitchen the night before he was leaving.
After dinner was over and the washing up completed, Harry set off upstairs without a word. When he was alone in his room, he pulled out Dumbledore's gift and again found himself studying the little ship. He wasn't sure whether or not it was his imagination, but it seemed to him that it was moving slightly slower today. Perhaps it needed to be recharged with that mist every once in a while?
Harry had been so intent that he did not notice that his door was now open and his aunt was standing in the entryway until she startled him by speaking.
"When you leave, is the house still protected?"
Harry looked at her in some surprise. "What do you mean?"
"You come here every summer and then you leave. Dumbledore said it's for protection," she said stiffly. "When you leave, are we still protected?"
Harry set down his ship. He had not failed to notice that her concern for the protection did not extend to him. "Yes. Well… I believe so, yes."
"How can I be sure that this protection works?" she asked coldly.
"Do you think it's a trick?" Harry responded just as coolly. "It's a poor one, if that. Why would I come back to this place every year if I didn't have to?"
She raised a thinly-plucked eyebrow. "We could have left you in an orphanage. We could have left you in the street!"
"I wish you would have done!" Harry growled.
"How does the protection work?" she asked swiftly, completely ignoring his outburst. "If they come in the house like before and you're not here to-" at this she stopped and waved her hand vaguely. "What does the protection do?"
"They can't come in the house. That's part of the protection."
"Do you think I'm simple?" Aunt Petunia shrieked, stepping fully into the room and shutting the door behind her. "There was one in our house not a month ago! Did you think I would forget? That because I don't have magic, I would be too stupid to recall?"
"Are you mad? I never said anything like that!" Harry defended fiercely. "And last month was a one off thing... it won't happen again."
"Oh?" she sneered, her voice dropping into a deathly whisper. "If one can get in, so can others. He was in our house. He was among my family."
Harry struggled for a response to this. He felt a headache forming behind his eyes. "Look. I can't really explain what happened then, but the people who killed my mother - they can't get in. The protection stops them."
"Don't mention her name to me!"
"I didn't mention her name!" Harry snarled. "But she's still my mother! She was your sister! She did exist!"
"She's dead! She is dead and rotting in a grave somewhere because of you and your kind!" Petunia shrilled. She was nearly shaking with some buried emotion. "You people with your magic - you walk into peoples' homes and you kill them. You kill them because we are nothing to you. Because you think you're better than us."
"I'm not one of them," Harry spat. His voice was a cold rumble. "We're not all the same. Do you think I don't hate them? Do you think I don't want them dead for what they did to me - to my parents?"
The air seemed to crackle with energy and Harry's things began to shake and rattle. He breathed deeply through his nose to calm himself while his aunt watched him wordlessly.
"Someday, I'll find them," he continued after a long moment. "Or maybe they'll find me. And when it happens, you'll see exactly how different we are. But it won't be here. The protection stops them from finding this house. So if that's what you're so concerned about… you can get over it."
Petunia said nothing and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.