Chapter 3 - Owls and Threats
It came as no surprise really. Harry was reading the first of Sirius' diary, the one which explained the animagus transformation. So far, it had explained how the magic worked, and what to expect from the transformation. Sirius being the writer, it was filled with comments and funny parts, even reminiscing of the time together with Harry's father and the rest of the Marauders.
That's when he heard the heavy footsteps on the stairs. He calmly laid the book down on the floor, on the side of the bed away from the door, and waited patiently. Not five seconds later, the brutish form of his uncle entered the room, not even having discarded the hat and coat he always used when going to work. He grabbed Harry by the lapels of his overtly big shirt and slammed him to the nearest wall.
"What did that woman…" he started, Harry noticing that he was an amazing shade of purple.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, uncle Vernon," he said in a surprisingly calm voice. "I've learned of a thing called Child Protection Services."
That acted almost like a repellent. Vernon let Harry go, but kept clenching and un-clenching his fists, ready to hit anything.
"They won't protect a freak like you," Vernon said, growing even more purple.
"To them I'm not a freak, uncle. I'm just a child who has been abused by his relatives. And that makes you the freak," Harry replied, still in a calm voice.
Vernon lifted his fist, and readied it to knock Harry's smirk off his face once and for all.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Vernon Dursley," another voice said, this time from the door. Vernon turned quickly, hand dropping in the process. "Unlike my client here, I have no restrictions on using this," Imogen said, reddening with anger, wand pointed at Harry's uncle.
"You're one of them…" Vernon sputtered.
"Human beings? Oh yes, I am, and proudly so. Quite different from a bigot like you," the lawyer said. "Now, if you can control your temper for the time being, I would like to go downstairs and talk with you and your wife, plus my client here. If you can't, I'll do one thing that I've never done before, and disrespect one of my client's wishes, and call both the police and the Social Services. Believe me, I'll make it as noisy and spectacular as I possibly can, perhaps even invite a few friends of mine from the press."
Harry had never seen a person change colors so fast. Vernon went from heart attack purple to a pasty white in less than a second. Nothing troubled the man more than disturbing their false pretense of perfection.
"Y-you wouldn't…" he stammered.
"Try me, Mr. Dursley. Now, if we could please adjourn to the living room?" she said, and the man passed her, grinding his teeth and sputtering the entire way.
"Do you perchance have on hand the telephone number of an ambulance service?" Harry muttered, when he passed by her.
"Why?" she asked, in a low tone as well.
"I reckon that the stroke I mentioned before is closer than I at first believed," he smirked, and continued downstairs.
"Good," Imogen said, with a similar smirk.
After Vernon sat down in his favorite chair, with Petunia at his side, Imogen started to speak, still standing.
"My name is Imogen Cheatam, and I'm a lawyer, and I'm here defending the interests of my client, Harry James Potter. Mr. Potter here asked me, as his legal representative, to inform you, sir and madam, that some …changes will happen in this household. These changes are non-negotiable, and if any of them are broken, it will trigger an instant call to Child Protection Services, the police, and the prosecution of you to the fullest extent of the law, both in the muggle, or if you prefer, the non-magical and the magical world."
"After all we…" Vernon started screaming, lifting himself from the chair.
"Silencio," Imogen intoned, wand aimed perfectly. When Vernon realized that he had been muted, he sat down, turning purple once again. Petunia jumped in front of him, screaming like a banshee. Another silencing charm, and the couple was looking like mimes, trying to convey their hatred through their motions.
A second later, the front door exploded, and Harry had his wand in hand. A dual scream of "Stupefy" was heard, one coming in the direction of Imogen, the other coming from Harry. The one from the door missed by a hair, Harry's didn't. The stupefied form of Nymphadora Tonks fell on the front door carpet.
"Ah, bugger," Harry said, shaking his head.
-oOo-
Harry sat Tonks on another chair, taking the wand of her hand, while the muted residents were part scared, part furious by the lack of a front door, and the visible display of magic. Imogen ennervate'd Tonks back to consciousness.
"Wotcher, Tonks," Harry said, with a grin.
The young auror jumped as soon as her brain was cognitive enough, but when she noticed a smiling Harry, she backed down on the chair and groaned.
"Wotcher, Harry," she murmured, her hair changing from a bright purple to a fiery red.
"A metamorphmagus, how curious," Imogen said. Tonks looked at her and scowled, Harry noticed and tried to disarm the possible situation.
"Sorry. Tonks, meet Imogen Cheatam, my lawyer. Immie, meet Nymphadora Tonks. An auror and a good friend of mine."
"You're Sirius cousin, aren't you? I remember him talking about you once. Nice to meet you," Imogen said, extending a hand.
Tonks shook the hand slightly, and then something clicked in her brain. "I remember you. I met you a long time ago in Sirius' Pad. It was only once, but we traded a few words."
"How did you look then?" Imogen asked.
"Like this," Tonks said, changing to her base, unmorphed form. Harry's jaw dropped. She was gorgeous.
"Oh, yeah. I remember now. Why did you explode the door and try to knock me out?"
Tonks reddened, but to hide the blush she changed back to her usual appearance. "I saw the light from the curses and I thought Harry was being attacked. Sorry about that," she said and turned to the Dursleys, "and sorry about the door. I'll fix it in no time," she said, looking for her wand. Harry gave it back to her, smiling sheepishly.
"I guess your training is paying off. How are you?" the now blue-haired woman asked.
"I'll be okay now. Can we talk later? I have some things to say to you," Harry said.
"Sure, I'll be outside, it's my night. See you in a bit," she said. With a few incantations, she restored the door and put it back in place.
"Now…" Imogen said, after the door was locked behind Tonks, "as I was trying to say, I'm representing Mr. Potter here, and he asked for a few changes. They are not overtly big, nor will they disturb the peace of the household. I'm willing to remove the silencing charms, as long as we all remain calm and controlled as human beings we all are."
With hasty nods of compliance from the couple, Imogen canceled the spell. Vernon tried to start again, but a quick flick of Imogen's wand cut him before he even started. He sat back down, fuming.
"Now, the changes: all the locks outside of Harry's door will be removed except the one originally from the door, which he will have the key of, he'll have full liberty of the house, he'll eat properly, and he'll have his own clothes. He'll have a cell phone, which is private and he'll pay the bill of such phone. He'll be allowed to study, to receive visitors respecting house hours and to send and receive owls. He'll clean and tidy his room, and he'll perform a few of the house chores, if they are not abusive. He already made a deal with you, Mr. Dursley, regarding a few of those issues, and he'll continue to respect this deal. One last thing, and this is paramount to the rest: he will be treated with respect and decency, he's a human being as you are, and he had no choice in the matter to be left here all these years. So, if you abuse him in any way, shape or form, I will go ahead and use all the tools at my disposal to make your life miserable. Are we clear, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley?"
Vernon fumed, but he had no choice. "Who will pay for all this extra expenses?" he asked. When he looked to Imogen, he noticed it was the wrong thing to ask.
"Don't worry, Mr. Potter here is perfectly willing to pay for all the extras I've named, but I don't guess it will be much of a strain, considering you've been receiving a monthly stipend to take good care of him?"
Harry's mouth fell down and Vernon and Petunia blanched. "What?" the young wizard asked.
"It is incredible what a few good questions in the right places can uncover in just a few hours, don't you think?" Imogen's feral smile was scary. "Apparently, your money paid for this house, your uncle's car and quite a few of Dudley's presents during those last fifteen years."
"What?" Harry seethed, and turned to his relatives, wand at ready. He started cataloging curses to use, even a few Unforgivables, while they blanched more and more, but a calming hand on his arm made him stop for a moment.
"They are not worth it, Harry. It will only cause trouble for you. I can deal with this, legally. Don't worry," Imogen said, her face reflecting both calmness and a steel resolution to solve the problem.
"Do you mean I was treated like garbage while they feasted on my parents' money?" Harry asked, tears of anger on his eyes.
`
"Yes," she said simply.
Harry turned to his relatives, and suddenly, all of his outside reactions ended. He stopped trembling, and his eyes hardened. The room suddenly chilled, windows frosted, the breaths started giving away puffs of vapor, as if they were being attacked by a hundred dementors.
"You better start looking for another house, another car, another place to live far away from me, because next year, as soon as I'm of age, I'm going to blow this house, destroy the car and burn what's left. You may take your clothes and nothing else from here. If I see one speck of dust out of place next year, the consequences will be severe," Harry intoned, in a tone even more chilling than the temperature of the room.
As soon as he said that, the room regained the normal temperature, but Harry's demeanor didn't.
"I won't be threatened in my house…" Vernon started, and as soon as he said that, he was being lifted from his chair and slammed against the wall by a young man less than half his weight.
"It is *my* house, you sorry excuse for a human being, paid with *my* money, left to me by *my* parents. I just won't kill you right now because I would lose everything I've gained these last few years," Harry screamed, his magic allowing him to lift the huge man.
Vernon did the only thing he could, he pissed his pants.
Petunia in turn, fainted.
"I'll be back," Harry said to Imogen, and stormed out of the room, going out.
-oOo-
Tonks noticed the commotion, but kept her distance. Better keep things private like that - private. The yelling, however, was pretty clear, even at this distance. She saw Harry storming out of the house and going down the street almost running. She followed at a distance, worried about his reactions. When she saw him sitting in the only functional swing at the park, she relaxed slightly, until she heard a soft `pop', signaling someone apparating nearby. Wand at ready, she waited hidden behind a tree, until the regal figure of Albus Dumbledore appeared.
"Ah, Nymphadora. May I inquire what happened?" he asked, checking Harry from a distance.
"Wotcher, Albus. And I've told you, it's Tonks. Harry and his relatives had a big fight, and he ran off to cool down a little. How did you know something happened?"
"The wards around the house warned me of the pulse of magic. I decided to come and check by myself. Is he all right?" the headmaster asked, worry clearly displayed in his face.
"Why don't you go ahead and ask him? I guess he would like to see you," she continued, turning to check on the boy she was in charge of. She might be clumsy, but no one could say that she was a slacker at her service.
"Then you guessed wrong, my dear Nymphadora. I'm probably the last person young Harry wants to see at this moment," he said, a hint of sadness displayed clearly.
Tonks decided on not asking the reason for their breach, but Harry needed someone. "What about Remus? I guess he would like to see him," she said. Albus simply pointed up, to the clear full moon above their heads. "Ah," she exclaimed. "Then who?"
He looked to her over his half-moon glasses, eyes twinkling. "I'm not exactly a good friend of his, Albus. What should I do?" she asked, nervously.
"I believe you will learn, Nymphadora, that Harry has you in some higher regard than you think. I believe you will fare pretty well with him. Just don't pressure him. Meanwhile, I should see what happened at his home."
"His house," Tonks corrected him.
"I beg your pardon?" Albus asked, curiously.
"His house. That place isn't his home, from what I could gather. But go ahead, I'll try to talk with him."
Albus nodded and left. Tonks took a deep breath and started walking in the direction of the Boy-Who-Lived.
-oOo-
Harry's mind was in such a great turmoil of emotions that he wasn't able to think on a single thing. Things changing from horrible to surprising, to less than horrible, to actually nice, and now they were back to horrible again. Right now, if a Death Eater appeared, Harry would ask for a moment of reprieve and point to number four, Privet Drive.
Damn, he wanted to do a Crucio spell, sans wand, on both Vernon and Petunia Dursley.
"Harry?" called a calm voice a few feet in front of him. He lifted his wand to strike but promptly let it fall.
"I almost knocked you out again, Tonks," he said, in an empty voice. She shrugged, and came closer, tripping once. Harry didn't even blink with her clumsiness.
"You did right in there. I'm proud. Not really happy, but proud," she said, smiling weakly. "Can I sit down?"
Harry shrugged again, and she interpreted it as a yes. She conjured a chair and sat on it.
"Want to talk about it?" she asked.
"You heard?"
"I guess that Santa Claus heard it," she attempted some slight humor. When he didn't show any hint of it, she apologized.
"No problem," he said, not really caring. He remained silent for a few moments, and decided to open up a little. She wasn't any of his close friends, and she was probably unaware of a lot of the things that transpired between him and Dumbledore.
"Have you ever woke up feeling like a different person?" he asked, almost murmuring.
"You're asking me this?" she asked back, changing her hair color for effect.
"No, I mean inside. Have you ever woke up feeling . . . I don't know . . . not Tonks?"
She mused for a moment. "I don't think so. I mean, there are mornings I'm more in a Nymphadora mood, and there are the undercover jobs, of course, but no. I guess not. Why?"
"Because just some days, I would love to wake up not feeling like Harry Bloody Potter."
"Okay, Rick," she answered in a weird airhead voice.
"Rick?"
"Yeah, since you aren't Harry Potter, you can be Rick Kaplotnick, from London. Boring teenager full of zits and dreams of beautiful models and sports cars."
That managed to get a curt laugh out of Harry. "You're nuts."
"No, I'm not. My name is Tonks," she replied in the same voice. "Nuts is my older sister."
That got another laugh from him. But he soon got back the somber and pissed off look from before. "Can you believe the gall of those arseholes?" he screamed.
"Harry, I didn't get the entire story, but I guess that things were pretty bad in that house," she replied, and in a bold move, grabbed both of his hands in hers. Harry made an initial move to remove them, but let them where they were. He sighed.
"I had a horrible childhood, Tonks, if you can call that childhood. I was treated worse than a house elf, and I lived in the cupboard under the stairs until the day I got my Hogwarts letter. Can you imagine that? It was my dream. I was going to learn magic," he said, with some wonder on his voice. "Then I discovered that I was the bloody `Boy-Who-Lived', and that I was famous. And then, all the crap started, people had all sorts of preconceptions about me, ranging from a big pureblood git to a fame seeking celebrity. Then I find out that the monster who killed my parents isn't dead. Then I do the `good guy' crap and try to save a piece of rock, and in the process I almost end up bringing him back to life for the first time and killing my only friends. Then, I end up back in hell, living with them. I'm set up by a crazed house elf who wants to protect me by repeatedly putting me in trouble. I am thankfully kidnapped by my friends and end up knowing a right bastard by the name of Malfoy, which sets up another trap to bring his master back to life, almost killing the sister of my best friend. I had to face a huge basilisk, ended up being saved by Fawkes, made a full of hot air moron into an empty-headed moron and almost killed my friends in the process. And I end up back in hell. Hey, are you noticing a trend here somewhere?" he asked, humorlessly. Tonks remained silent, her own feelings held in check for the time being.
"Then," he continued, "I go back to Hogwarts, and I discover that a crazy murderer is behind me, and he's the same guy who betrayed my parents to Voldemort.. I end up almost condemning an innocent man to a Kiss, transforming my friends into werewolves or worse, killing them. Bugger, it IS a trend. It was actually my best year at Hogwarts. And then I get back to hell. This time, my relatives were scared of your cousin, and I actually had a better than average summer, not counting a useless enforced diet." Harry removed his hands delicately from Tonks, only to stand up and start pacing. "Then I go back to Hogwarts, almost die in a setup tournament, and end up seeing one of my friends dying and my enemy coming back to life. And I go back to hell. Then once again, I almost end up in Azkaban for defending myself, go back to Hogwarts, have to withstand a madwoman put there by the fucking Ministry with the objectives of discrediting me and putting all the troubles under the carpet, as if nothing had happened. Mind raping, blood quills and I finish my year in a trap, where my godfather is killed by a madwoman, and all of my friends are almost killed, again. And I discover that one of the people I trusted the most lied to me for almost fifteen years. And I end up back in hell."
He stopped, and grimaced. "And suddenly, yesterday, I woke up from a nightmare and spent the night thinking. In the morning, for the first time in my life, I asked something from my uncle. Simple things, only to be more aware of the things that were happening in our world. He didn't say no, and I thought `huh?'. Then, I'm in my room, and my cousin, one of my main tormentors since I was old enough to walk, enters and starts talking to me, civilly. I end up finding some surprising things from him, and we try to bury the hatchet by trying to be friends. Then I meet Imogen, and I discover a lot of things that she can do for me, and how my life can be easier from now on. And later tonight, I end up discovering that I was indirectly financing the hell I live in. Can you imagine that?"
Tonks thought it over for a few seconds. "You want to know what I think?"
"Yes," Harry said, actually curious with the answer.
"I think you need to shag someone for a full week."
The answer was so absurd that Harry did the only thing possible.
He laughed.
And he kept on laughing for a good five minutes, until he managed to put himself back in control.
"I mean it," Tonks continued, with a smile on her face. "After all, life has screwed you over so many times that it must be time for some payback. Better it be on the same coin."
Harry laughed again, with the same enthusiasm of the first time, but for less time. His sides hurt too much to continue. "A-are you offering?" he asked, jokingly.
"Play your cards right and I might think about it," she answered, with a straight face. Harry sobered instantly and looked open-mouthed to her.
"I must be dreaming," he said, not believing her words.
"Come on, Harry, haven't you noticed?" the auror asked, standing up as well.
"Noticed what?" he asked dumbly.
"Harry, you're a gorgeous fellow, with a nice enough body, enough brains in said body to be worth talking to, with a great personality and a cool sense of humor. The girls and women fanning after you aren't exactly wrong, you know? And I'm not talking about the Boy-Who-Lived crap. Only problem I see right now is your age."
"I'll be an emancipated adult in about a week," his hormones answered for him. After he spoke that, he reddened worse than any Weasley ever had. "Sorry," he mumbled.
This time, Tonks was the one who laughed. "No problem, lover boy. Come on, let's get back, you need to deal with those idiots."
Harry held her shoulder. "Wait a moment, I have some things to ask you," he said, seriously this time.
"Sure, go ahead."
"Why didn't I receive a letter from the Ministry? Fudge hates my guts so much nowadays that that simple stupefy would have sent me for a fifteen year stint in Azkaban, not to mention my little burst of magic of a few minutes ago."
"Things are so crazy at the Ministry nowadays that your use of magic probably went unnoticed. They look like a bunch of headless chickens. Only the aurors have some semblance of focus and organization, otherwise all You-Know-Who would have to do was to get in and sit in Fudge's chair. And probably the reinforcements that the headmaster did on the wards blocked the sensing of the spell. As for the burst, they don't have the ability to sense wandless magic, so you're safe."
"Good to know. Now, `Sirius' Pad'?" Harry asked, curiously.
Tonks grinned. "Sirius had an apartment in Diagon Alley after he left school and had to fend for himself. I guess he still owned it when he…. Anyway, I think it still is the same way as he left it, it was a `bachelor's wet dream', as he put it."
"I'd like to go there sometime," he said.
"I might escort you there. It is a nice place to deal with this lust of yours," she said, eyeing him with a hungry look.
"T-Tonks, I . . . I… well, I…" he tried.
Tonks laughed. "Don't worry Harry, I'm mostly pulling your shorts. Mostly," she said with a smile still planted on her face. "Come on, time for us to get back," she said, pushing his arm slightly.
They started walking slowly back. "Tonks, thank you," he said, in a clear voice. Before Tonks could answer, he stopped, watching a growing white speck in the sky. In a few moments, Hedwig was dropping his mail on his hands, while flying around him. "Thanks, Hedwig. Go catch some mice, I'll leave the window open," he said, and the owl flew away.
"She's a nice bird. But no thanks are needed. Just a bout of wild monkey sex is enough"
Harry smiled more openly now, but still blushed. "I have two more questions. One, would you train me?"
"For sex? No training needed, just intuition. You're either good at it, or you're not," she said. He blushed again, but shook his head.
"No, to fight. I'll need it, you know?"
"Sure, if I can find a good spot nearby," she said.
"Perhaps Ms. Figg's living room, we could clean it up and expand it a little. It would be perfect," Harry mused.
"That's okay, I'll talk with her. I'll even ask Moody to help as well, I guess he would be delighted in that gruff way of his."
Harry gulped. If half the stories about Moody were true, he was in for a world of pain.
"And one last thing. That form you showed to Immie?" he asked, curious.
"That? That's me, Nymphadora Tonks. No morphing."
"Tonks, you're gorgeous," he said, and this time, she blushed.
"Thank you. I don't use it that much, almost no one knows me like that, so it is a mask for when I want to walk around unnoticed, and it is pretty comfortable to be, after all, it's me," she said, smiling.
"I can understand. Too bad I can't be a metamorphmagus," he said, sullen.
"I think I can help you a bit. We had a class in auror training about muggle disguise, in situations where we couldn't use glamour spells to disguise ourselves. I attended it so I could make more convincing morphings. Hide your scar, change your eye color using contact tenses . . ."
"Lenses. Contact lenses," he corrected her.
"That one, change the way you dress and you could stand in front of Hermione for half an hour and she wouldn't think it is you."
"That might be useful," Harry said, mind alight with possibilities.
"It is," the auror and member of the Order of the Phoenix stopped. "We're here. You want me to come in with you?"
"No, I have to deal with them myself," he sighed, eyeing the house and finally noticing the car parked in front. "Could you do me a favor before I go in?" he asked, with an evil smile on his face.
She nodded, and he told her his idea.
-oOo-
Once he entered the house smiling, he noticed a sour-looking Imogen, and the equally sour-looking Dursley couple.
"They give you much trouble?" Harry asked, looking at the crystal blue eyes, which at the moment looked stormy gray.
"No, they were silent, but Vernon went up to clean his soiled pants. I just had a small meeting with an interfering old headmaster of ours," she said, between gritted teeth.
Harry's smile disappeared as if it never were. "What did he want?"
"He was fishing for information. I told him it was none of his business, and he came with that `a student's welfare is my business' speech, and I cut him down a peg or two. He asked for a meeting later this week, and I agreed."
"Why the meeting?" Harry asked, now suddenly guarded against her.
"To try and fish for more information, I believe, this time on his ground. But don't worry, I know how to deal with Mr. Order of Merlin First Class Albus Dumbledore. Been a while since I had a client as interesting as you, Harry," she said with a smile.
He replied the smile, and then looked to his relatives. "You talked to them?" he asked Immie, but kept looking to them.
"No, I was waiting for your return," she said.
"Okay, can I change the value of the stipend for them?"
"No, but what you can do is change the value distributed between the beneficiaries. Part of the money has always been yours, and it is automatically deposited in your vault at Gringotts, the rest goes to them. There is a clause in the contract which allows you to modify this value at will, but not over a certain stipulated value."
"Okay, how much is it?"
"About two hundred galleons a month for them and eighty for you, you can change this to a hundred forty galleons to you and another hundred forty to them," Imogen said.
"Can I cancel the contract?" Harry asked.
"If the person who set it up agrees to it, yes, you can," Immie said, and grimaced.
"Who set it?" he asked her and looked to her face. "Let me guess, Dumbledore."
"Yes," she answered back, still grimacing.
"Do the change, then, I'll deal with the cancellation later," Harry said. He turned to the Dursleys and said, in a calm voice. "I'm throwing the rules out the window you pair of bastards. Next week, I'll be a full wizard in the eyes of the law, and I'll do whatever I want inside this house. Don't worry, I won't blow it up, I still need a safe haven away from school during the summer. But if I hear a peep from either of you, I will start getting payment from fifteen years of abuse from your skins. You got me?"
"You can't threaten us," Petunia said, eyes roving between Imogen and him.
"Ooh but I can, aunt. You made your own bed, and so did this aberration you call a husband. Now, have the decency of lying in it."
"You won't kill them, will you?" Imogen asked slightly worried, which made Petunia and Vernon relax somewhat.
"No, I won't. But I can come close," he said, to which the couple blanched.
"Good. I hate having to hide bodies," Immie said, face hard.
To this, both Vernon and Petunia fainted.
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