Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.
The Time Meddlers
Chapter Two - Summer with the Dursleys
With Hedwig on his shoulder and watch on his wrist, Harry opened to door to Number 4 Privet Drive, where the Dursleys were all sitting around the television. Harry had to hold back his laughter at how uncomfortable Dudley looked sitting with a tail. When he closed the door, all attention was turned toward him. Dudley ran upstairs with his hand on his bottom while the adults glared at Harry - half-angry and half-terrified. Harry spoke.
"Uncle, I would like to make you a deal."
Vernon's face began turning red as he stood up and approached. "Deal, boy? What makes you think you can just waltz in here and make a deal after…after that?!"
When he was younger, Harry would've run to his cupboard when his uncle was this mad, but not today. "Because I can remove Dudley's tail."
"If you can remove that blasted thing, then do it NOW!" He towered threateningly over his hated nephew, causing Hedwig to fly out of Vernon's reach as she squawked. "And what's that bloody bird doing here?"
"Hedwig was a gift from Hagrid, and he'd be very upset if you hurt her," said Harry, causing his uncle to pale. "No, I'm not removing Dudley's tail right now," Harry replied calmly to his uncle's request. "I have conditions that you must meet."
At this point, Vernon's face was turning puce. "Conditions? You'll do it now if you want any food!"
"That's part of the deal," said Harry calmly, which he could tell only served to infuriate his uncle more. He noticed that Petunia was watching the exchange silently from the sofa, and was certain that Dudley was listening, though he was nowhere in sight. "I won't need your food or even your bathroom. I can take care of that magically." His uncle's face was dark purple now, but he didn't speak. "All I need is my room. I'll spend most of my time there. If I leave the room, it'll be to leave the house. If you simply leave me alone for the rest of the summer - that means no chores, not being bothered by any of you - then on the 31st of August, I will remove Dudley's tail. On the 1st of September, I'll leave for school. You won't need to give me a ride anywhere. I'll try to make other arrangements, but if I do return next summer, you won't have to pick me up, even if you get a letter that says you should."
Vernon was breathing heavily, but trying not to lose his temper. Harry knew that his uncle didn't want to endure the humiliation of having a doctor remove the tail. "How do we know that you can remove that tail or that you will, boy?"
"I promise that I will, but even if I didn't, then you wouldn't have actually lost anything. Besides, I'm your only chance without involving…outsiders."
"Fine," snarled Vernon, "but if I find that you've stolen one crumb of moldy cheese…"
Ignoring the rest of his uncle's rant, Harry said, "Come on, Hedwig," and walked up to his room with her flying behind him.
As he passed Dudley's room, he heard his cousin's scared voice come out of it, but couldn't see `Big D.' anywhere. "Y-you can remove it?"
"Yes," Harry answered, "but I won't if you or your parents bug me this summer."
"B-but."
"None of you has ever given me a reason to be nice to you, so that's why I'm waiting until the end of the summer. Anyway, now I need to read up on more interesting hexes than that one. Bye."
-
Harry walked into his room and closed the door. He wanted to charm the door not to open, but knew that magic would be detected in the house. He took off his watch and resized it.
The first thing he did is remove a lock he'd bought for his bedroom door, and some tools to install it. It was not an easy job for an eleven-year-old, but he was used to working hard all the time, and had no problems with it. Now, he could lock his room from the inside. When his aunt noticed what he was doing, he told her that, "None of you is to mess with this lock."
Once that was done, Harry decided that he was ready for lunch, so he climbed the ladder down into his trunk-apartment, where he heated a frozen pepperoni pizza. While it was in the oven, he made out a daily schedule. He decided that he didn't like being a scrawny, little kid, so he decided to start exercising. He would do some exercises like sit-ups and push-ups, along with some stretches and running. He set aside an hour for that after deciding to take a trip to a store that sold exercise equipment, in hopes of getting a treadmill and perhaps an exercise mat. He also thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a book on exercising, to make sure he wouldn't overdue it.
He'd then spend a few hours studying his schoolbooks, to make sure he didn't forget what he'd learned his first year. He planned on using his Pensieve to find all the assignments that he'd had to do for the year so he could prepare them in advance, and do better on them. He'd then practice Occlumency, which he'd bought a book on the previous day. He'd then practice DADA, although for the moment it would mainly be target practice. He was hoping that the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts would help him with that once school started. Not to mention that he'd get a sparring partner once the 18-year-old Hermione returned.
-
Over the next few weeks, he quickly got into a routine. He did manage to purchase the exercise equipment he wished, and so he was soon working out. He managed to get through an average of three assignments per day, and had practiced his magic, which he thought was a bit more powerful than before, but wasn't actually sure because he'd never pushed himself this hard back then. He'd re-learned how to apparate, as well as become his Animagus form, all within his trunk. He'd even learned from a book how to store a memory into a memory-sphere, like had been in the Department of Mysteries. He thought about attending concerts and selling memory-spheres of them at Hogwarts. Maybe he'd do it once he finished his primary objective - Destroy Voldemort and his followers before they start killing again.
During the last week of August, he felt he was ready for his first mission. He'd considered breaking into the Burrow and capturing Pettigrew, but felt that it was too risky. In a month, it would be much easier to catch him at Hogwarts. As much as he wanted Sirius out of Azkaban, he could not risk being caught, because he knew he couldn't get himself to fight the Weasleys if they caught him. He also didn't know whether Scabbers would be in Ron's or Percy's room at this time. Besides, he'd decided that he was only going to do this one mission without Hermione because it was absolutely necessary to achieve before school started, and would wait for her before he did anything else.
While inside his trunk, he got into his disguise, performed a disillusion spell on himself, and apparated at midnight.
-
He popped into existence in the lobby of the Ministry of Magic, Harry was glad he'd thought to put a silencing charm on his boots as he began walking. He'd considered apparating directly to the Department of Mysteries, but thought that would be pushing his luck. As it was, he was worried that his apparition had been detected, but he felt that was unavoidable. He got up and, with his special wand, quickly put a cunfundus charm on the guard that was on duty so he wouldn't notice the lift opening when he got to it. Once he was on the lift, Harry told it to take him to level nine, wishing there had been stairs that he could've used instead as he listened to the loud noise it made.
When the lift opened, he noticed a guard watching to see who was in the lift. He had his wand pointed in Harry's direction. The guard was obviously looking to see who had come to this floor, so Harry performed a cunfundus charm on him and moved on.
He soon found himself in the spinning room, and used the same method as before to find the appropriate, shiny room that contained the Time-Turners - marking each door as he tried it before the room spun around. He stepped into the room and walked through it, making his way quickly into the Hall of Prophecy. No one was inside, so he quickly found row ninety-seven and the memory-sphere with his name on it. He removed it, putting it into a large pocket, and replaced it with a duplicate, where he'd recorded a different message, just in case someone wanted to listen to it. Satisfied with himself, he walked back into the Time Room, opening the door to find the last person he would expect.
"Who's in there? Show yourself!" said a squat, toad-like woman that elicited more anger from Harry than he'd expected. In another life, she was actually the first person he'd ever killed. He'd killed her right after she'd murdered Arthur Weasley. Bringing himself back to the present, Harry saw that she was pointing her wand. Remembering that she wasn't a Death Eater, even if he did hate her, he decided to try not to kill her. He tried to hit her with a cunfundus charm, but she dodged it. He ran from his position, but she laughed, "I can see your outline!" She then shot a curse at him but missed, instead hitting the cabinet full of Time-Turners, smashing a few in the process.
"Stupefy!" shouted Harry, hitting her square in the face, and she fell down. Grinning, Harry got an idea. He quickly grabbed a handful of Time-Turners, both broken and not. He didn't know if the Ministry checked for fingerprints, but he'd worn gloves anyway so he wouldn't have to worry about it. He put one of the good ones around his neck, and placed the others around Umbridge's neck. He performed a charm he'd read about that imitated intoxication, and then performed another that shot liquor from his wand and sprayed her mouth, face, and clothes.
He then heard a guard coming, so he grabbed his new necklace and turned the hourglass twice, going back two hours just as an Unspeakable burst into the room and found Umbridge, passed out on the floor of the Time Room. Harry quickly made his way out, and arrived back in his trunk the moment he left. That was the reason he wanted a Time-Turner, so that he'd have a perfect alibi for any mission that he performed.
-
After what had happened, Harry couldn't resist getting the Daily Prophet for the next day, and laughed his head off when he saw the front page article. It had a picture of Umbridge right where he'd left her, still unconscious. The headline read:
Senior Undersecretary to Minister Fudge Revealed to be a Drunk
By Rita Skeeter
Early this morning, after a disturbance was detected at the Ministry of Magic, Senior Undersecretary Delores Umbridge was found drunk, passed out and reeking of liquor with rare, priceless artifacts from the fabled Department of Mysteries hanging from her neck - several of them broken. She claimed that she'd been responding to a disturbance, but fooled no one as she was summarily fired and sentenced to Azkaban for six months at an emergency meeting of the Wizengamot. Minister Fudge said, "I have no tolerance for such preposterous behavior from members of my staff!" However, he had no further comment when asked how such a person had managed to join his staff in the first place.
The article went on to tell about the toad woman's record, and detailed the exact crimes she was punished for - destruction of Ministry property and attempted theft of Ministry property. Harry did notice that the paper never actually mentioned Time-Turners by name, though, and figured that they weren't supposed to be common knowledge, which left him to wonder why a third-year student would be given one just to make it to extra classes. He gave up understanding that when he found he was developing a headache.
-
A few days later was August 31st, and Harry decided to honor his agreement, just in case he had to come back the next year. For the first time in a month, Harry unlocked and opened the door to his room at breakfast time. When he arrived in the dining room, all three Dursleys stopped eating and looked at him.
"Good morning," he said cheerily. "If Dudley would come with me into my room, I'll remove his tail."
Vernon, with a venomous look that was actually quite frightening to most people, said, "He'd better be alright when you're done. If I find out you've done something else to him…"
"He'll be perfectly fine, but we'll have to be alone in my room."
"We'll give you five minutes!" bellowed Vernon.
"Ten minutes," countered Harry. "If you come banging on the door while I'm working it could ruin my concentration. Who knows what'll happen then?"
Dudley at this point was shaking. "M-Maybe I should just…"
"You'll be fine, Dudley." He then looked at his aunt and uncle, and managed to stop himself from smiling at the new shade of purple that Vernon's face turned when he added, "as long as no one interrupts."
"Fine, but so help me, if you've…"
"Don't worry," said Harry calmly. "Dudley will be fine." He turned to his cousin. "Let's go." Reluctantly, looking very frightened, the oversized eleven-year-old walked up the stairs as though he were on his way to the execution chamber. "Go on in," encouraged Harry when they arrived at his door.
Dudley pulled the door open and stepped inside, noticing the open trunk in the middle. Harry had just locked the door behind them when the frightened boy asked, "H-how, when did you get a trunk? You didn't bring anything with you."
With a grin, Harry said, "Magic. Look in the trunk. You'll find a ladder. You'll need to climb down it and I'll follow you."
"W-what? How will we fit?"
"Magic," Harry repeated, shrugging his shoulders. "Contrary to what your family might believe, magic is actually quite useful."
"Fine, but if you're tricking me…"
Harry then said, "Release wand," and his special wand seemed to appear in his left hand, causing Dudley's eyes to widen. He then hurried down the ladder. Harry laughed and then followed.
When Harry got down to his apartment, he found Dudley staring around the living room in amazement. "Yeah, this is a nice apartment, isn't it?"
Dudley merely nodded.
"Alright, I'll perform the spell on you to remove the tail. Just stand still."
Dudley gulped before saying, "O-okay."
Harry pointed his wand at Dudley and said a Latin incantation, "Eximo Cauda! There. That should do it."
Dudley then put his hands on his bottom and felt it. A smile started forming on his face as he reached his hands beneath his pants. "It's gone!"
"Then we're done here," said Harry. "Let's go before your parents break down the door."
-
After Vernon had taken Dudley to the bathroom and confirmed that the tail was indeed gone, he told Harry, "You're just lucky it's gone. Otherwise, you'd be out on your ear right now, Boy!"
"I'll be leaving tomorrow, anyway," said Harry. He then added, "I'll be trying to make other arrangements for next summer, but if I do have to return, it'll be the same arrangement as this time."
"You just make sure you make those arrangements. Surely you'll be able to trick one of those freaks into being friends with you!"
Petunia added, "but if you have to have house space, we'll let you in the room again, but we're not giving you any food."
"Fine," said Vernon, before walking off. Harry returned to his room, a bit disappointed that they didn't even thank him, but not surprised.
-
The next day, Harry put his wonderful watch on and unlocked his door. He'd already eaten breakfast, showered and released Hedwig to fly to Hogwarts, knowing how much she hated being in a cage. He opened his door and quietly walked down the stairs and out of the house before anyone saw him. He hoped this would really be his last time at that house. When he was about a block away and out of sight, he stuck his wand hand out and signaled the Knight Bus, asking for a ride to Kings Cross Station.
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