Chapter 6: Departures and Conundrums. Part 3

The group approached Vernon Dursley together. Harry could see Vernon trying to school his feature to veil his temper.

'That is a lost cause dear uncle. We saw your hideous face change quite a few times in anger from a mile away.'

In a calm and formal tone, John introduced themselves to Vernon.

"You must be Harry's uncle. My name is Dr. John Granger, and my wife here is Dr. Claire Granger. We are dentists with the Royal London Dental Hospital."

Vernon stiffened slightly, and his eyes went back and forth across the Granger family. Claire tightened her hold of Hermione. Vernon gritted out, "Vernon Dursley, Grunnings Drilling Company. Your girl also a part of his ilk?"

John stood up straighter and raised an eyebrow. "His ilk? Mr. Dursley are you to imply that our daughter and your nephew are some sort of undesirable characters?"

Vernon opened and closed his mouth twice. Upon failing to come up with a suitable answer, he grabbed Harry's arm forcefully and pulled exit towards the exit. Just as John was about to say something, Harry shook his head and John reluctantly stopped. Hermione nibbled her lip in worry and Claire wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulder, her eyes clearly showing how disturbed she was with what she saw.

Vernon forced Harry into his car. They drove in silence. Probably worried something freakish would happen on the road. Couple of hours later, they arrived at Privet Drive. Vernon stormed inside without sparing Harry a glance. Harry took his school trunk out and Hedwig's cage out.

He let Hedwig fly the distance and by how she was perched in a nearby tree, Harry knew she had arrived her quite a while ago.

As soon as he got inside, Harry was pushed and held against the door by the meaty hands of Vernon Dursley. Harry could not see anything past the big, bulging form of Vernon Dursley, but he could hear the snickering of his cousin and the condescending sniff of Petunia Dursley.

He roared, "You freak! You dare keep me waiting, while you kept talking to all those freaks. Just because you now go to some freakish school, does not mean you can get away with wasting MY valuable time."

Harry sneaked his right hand to his wand and pointed it at his uncle. He whispered, "Depulso."

An invisible force slammed against Vernon and threw him against the wall behind them. Petunia let out a shrill and Dudley stood there, his eye wide with fear and stunned.

'I swear he sneaked a hand to his buttocks to feel for a tail.'

A groan echoed through the house. Vernon tried to get up again but once again, Harry was a step ahead. Harry frostily hissed out, "Petrificus Totalus."

Vernon's limbs snapped together, he tried to struggle yet to no avail. As Vernon was about to yell, he summoned Dobby. He ignored the squeals of terror by his relatives.

"Place silence wards and notice-me-not wards around the house. I do not want anyone to interrupt my little chat with my dear relatives."

Dobby nodded and snapped his fingers. A light flow of magic enveloped the house. Harry, for the first time felt the magic surrounding the house. It felt intimately familiar with him, as if a part of his very blood. Yet, there was a sense of distance that Harry could not wrap his fingers around. So, these are the infamous blood wards. He ignored the wards for now, they were unimportant to him right now.

"Thank you, Dobby. I will take it from here. Just take my stuff to my room and let Hedwig in. Make sure you give her extra treats and some water."

Dobby bowed, "As you wish Master Harry."

He blinked away with a pop and Harry directed his attention to his relatives who were wailing and shrieking away at the top of their lungs. A trace of amusement worked into his face.

"You can scream as much as you want, my dear relatives; no one will be paying attention to this house unless I say so."

Petunia snapped shut and silence settled inside the house. Harry spotted Vernon still glaring with absolute fury, his cousin looked furious and Petunia looked lost. And then, as if a lightbulb lit up in her head, his aunt laughed in a manner befitting a deranged criminal.

'I must have really broken her today. To think the prim and proper aunt of mine laughing like a maniac. Rather, the true maniac she really is.' Even her family looked at her quizzically.

"You are done, you freak! Your ministry is going to deal with you now. You just dug your own grave," she shrieked so much so that Harry for a second thought that Petunia was some squib relative of Bellatrix.

Harry lightly chuckled, "I am sorry to say, my dear aunt, that the ministry will not be doing anything to me. If they did notice, we would have been flooded by owls right now. Judging by the lack of any correspondence and the magical police knocking at the door, seem like I am right. Do you really take me as some fool who has not taken any precautions?"

Petunia's expression morphed into one that clearly displayed her fear, Vernon's eyes near bulged out of their sockets and Dudley stumbled backwards, tripped on his own feet, and fell. Harry sighed. They make seem like I am some monster.

'Maybe what I can do with magic is something what the non-magical come across in fairy tales. But to me, this bunch is far worse than monsters.'

Dudley yelled, "W-hat d-do you w-want you freak? Haven't you made our life miserable enough by living here? Aren't you grateful that we took you in when your good-for-nothing parents died and even your own kind abandoned you here? You are nothing and nobody, and you have to get on our knees and thank us for putting up with a useless freak like you."

Petunia turned white when she heard her son spewed his vitriol. She had a better understanding of what a magical being could do. Yet for all her fear for her son's life, she could not even bring about the courage to stop his vitriol.

The air around the house rippled. Waves of magic ebbed and flowed around the space. Harry barely prevented a flare of magic from wrecking the house. Harry drew in a deep breath and the magic around him rose with his breath. As he let out his breath, the saturated magic in the air eased back to normal.

Harry slowly walked over to Vernon and he knelt next to his petrified body. He softly spoke, "Nothing you say justifies your brutal treatment."

He slowly got up and walked over to the infamous cupboard under the stairs. He taped the doorknob thrice with his fingers. He continued, "For years, you had me holed up in this dark cupboard. If I ever cried, as a typical toddler would, you would beat me half to death my dear uncle. My wastrel of an aunt would spout her vitriolic nonsense as she encouraged you to beat me. I remember how many times I have been left broken inside this dark cupboard, and my only ever savior was my magic. Tell me now, who really is the monster?"

No one responded, even Dudley had stopped his pathetic whimpering. Harry slowly turned his gaze back to his pathetic family. Harry sighed, "The time I appeared on the roof, the time I changed that teacher's hair blue, every time I had a bout of accidental magic, you monsters beat me. Not only that, but you also encouraged your worthless son to repeat the same loving treatment. Does 'Harry Hunting' ring a bell?"

Petunia shrieked, "You and my sister were forced into my life. Ever since that boy, Snape, came into my life, my own family drifted apart from me. My sister got all the affection from my parents and look where that got them. THEY ARE DEAD!"

Harry narrowed his eyes and replied, "She was not the reason why they were dead, or your distance from rest of your family. YOU were the cause of your own misery. You called your own sister, my mother, a drunk whore, when you know it is not true. You called my father a useless drunk loser, he was anything but that! They died protecting me and saving thousands of lives, including non-magical people. Then you had the gall to spread your lies with other people about my family. Fuck you!"

Harry took in another deep breath to calm himself. Yelling at garbage humans will get me nowhere. "Listen well, from now on I will be doing what I want. I will come and go when I wish. You are not going to do shit to stop me. You will not bother me, and I will not bother you. Figure out yourselves how you are going to do your chores."

He paused a bit to gather his thoughts. "You don't have to bother to feed me, I will feed myself. Hell, I will do you a favor. I won't even take a single ounce of your food. You will not talk to anyone both magical and non-magical about me. You will not force me to do jack shit around the house. If you break any of these tenants, I will be the very monster you want me to be."

Harry took a couple of steps towards his relatives. Petunia staggered back a couple of steps and Dudley covered his face with his hands. Vernon struggled a little harder. "Am I clear?"

He received hesitant nods from his three relatives. Harry gave a satisfied nod. "Good, let's hope you take my words to heart. If you do as I say, you would not even notice my presence."

He pointed his wand at his uncle, who flinched when the wand rose. Harry scoffed, "Don't worry Dursley, I won't be wasting my time torturing you. I will let you go, and you are going behave."

Harry lazily flicked his wand. "Finite."

The full-body bind lost its hold. However, Vernon Dursley remained on the floor. The rest of the family gathered around him at the floor and started to sob around him. Harry sighed as he climbed up the stairs to his room. He went inside the room and locked the door.

"Dobby."

Dobby appeared with a pop. His big, soft tennis ball eyes are gleaming with tears. Harry smiled and rubbed Dobby's head.

"Thank you, buddy, but I will be fine. Let's get some work done once I wake up tomorrow morning. First thing is first, remove the notice-me-not and silencing ward on the house and just place them in my room. Afterwards can you get me some dinner for the two of us from the Hogwarts kitchen? "

"As you wish Master Harry."

Dobby snapped his fingers and the magic of the house shifted once again. Dobby popped and reappeared again with a platter of food from the Hogwarts kitchen. The two friends ate in silence. Harry was both physically and emotionally exhausted from the day's incidents. He finished his nightly ablutions and went to sleep.

The following morning, Dobby once again got breakfast from the Hogwarts kitchens. After breakfast, Harry went through the list of things he must do today. He had Dobby alter his appearance slightly, his eyes were a dark shade of brown and his hair now a vibrant red. His scar now hidden under the magical disguise.

Dobby popped Harry over to an empty alley near the Leaky Cauldron. Harry weaved himself to the London crowd and entered the Leaky Cauldron. The Leaky Cauldron was as he remembered before the war. There was no tension in the air, laughter and the patron's voices filled the dingy pub. He ignored any further musings and inconspicuously made his way to Diagon Alley.

He quickly made his into Gringotts. One thing about Gringotts that you can appreciate, there are no lines and wait times. He walked up to the counter and said, "May your enemies shiver with fear and vault grower larger. I am here to talk to my account manager, Eversharpe."

The goblin teller at the counter held out a hand and replied, "May your enemies be torn, and your gold be greater. Your key?"