14.

The following day, Harry woke up and rubbed his eyes, blinking them as he stirred awake. He instinctively reached for his glasses before recalling that he no longer required them. Leaving them on the shelf, he came out from the cupboard beneath the stairs his den, stretched, and headed to the kitchen. While preparing breakfast, he thought he heard a grunt from behind him.

"Sorry, Uncle Vernon. My hair's always a bit unruly," Harry said without a thought. Recalling his trip to the barber yesterday, he retraced his steps to the cupboard and fished into his pants pocket to find something. "Aha!" he said retrieving the comb. He smoothly ran it through his now thinner and neatly styled hair, no longer tangled. Thanks to the haircut, his hair barely grazed the pillow overnight, even as he tossed and turned all night.

Harry combed his hair and returned to the kitchen, slipping the comb into his pocket. After preparing breakfast and serving everyone, a routine that was beaten into him to be followed daily, he settled down with his half-portion of food and began eating.

Harry regretted not buying food the day before as he finished his meal. Standing up, he carried his plate to the sink before retreating to his usual corner, where he waited in anticipation. However, to his surprise, no one else made a move to touch their food, and the expected reprimand never came.

It didn't happen for the first time in his pitiful life.

Harry opened his eyes and the three people at the table were staring at him. "Hedwig!" He exclaimed when his eye saw a bit of snowy white through the living room window. He left the kitchen and went to the living room window and opened it. He looked out and saw the snowy white owl perched on the hedge right by the window. "I'm sorry, Hedwig. I meant to open the window a bit ago."

Hedwig gave a soft hoot and hopped into the window.

"Did you eat breakfast?" Harry asked as he closed the window and carefully stroked her back feathers. She gave another hoot and he smiled. "Do you want to stay in for a little while? I might have a letter or two to send soon."

Hedwig gave another soft hoot and he held his arm out for her as a perch, which she hopped on, and he took her to the cupboard under the stairs.

"There's not a lot of room to move around in here, so be careful." Harry cautioned her and set her down on the top of the trunk. "I'll be back in a bit." He said and closed the door, then went back into the kitchen and stood in the corner and waited.

*Aunt Petunia was completely perplexed about her nephew. He was wearing pyjamas that looked to be more expensive than her husband's finest suit and he had made breakfast and was standing in the corner like he always did. After last night and the boy's declaration that things were going to change, she had expected lots of demands, anger at Vernon accusing him of theft (that she still assumed was true), and maybe even some laughter over what had happened to his uncle hurting himself with that trunk.

Instead, Harry had stunned her by acting exactly as she had always seen him act. He had made breakfast and sorted the food properly and then waited in the corner after he ate. She didn't realize that years and years of ingrained behavior, reinforced by threats and verbal assaults by her and her husband on a young and impressionable mind, wouldn't just disappear overnight. It took time for those things to wear away.

Petunia started to eat when the boy went to get the owl... and don't get her started on that thing being in her house... and her husband and son joined her. They kept eating when he came back and finished a short time later. She sat there in silence as Harry quickly cleared the dishes and brought them to the sink and washed them.

Her eyes had watched him carefully to see if he was going to do something, like throw a plate or break a glass, and she noticed again that his skin was absolutely flawless. Not a blemish, freckle, or imperfection marred his skin and her heart was filled with envy for it. She would never ask him how he did it, though. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing something that she wanted to know, mainly because she was sure he wouldn't tell her.*

Harry finished the dishes and cleaned up the counter, waited for a moment to see if Petunia was going to complain, then he left the kitchen and went to his cupboard. He climbed in and shut the door, then sat down in his nest of blankets. He sat there and waited for ten minutes, like always, and no one passed by. He thought about going back out to ask what was going on, then shrugged.

Harry didn't want to give them the satisfaction of them knowing something that he didn't. He also suspected that they wouldn't tell him, even if he did ask.

"I need to open my trunk." Harry whispered, in case someone was listening close by.

Hedwig hopped off and landed on his head for a moment to make him laugh, then she hopped onto the shelf behind him and settled down.

"Why didn't I think of putting you there?" Harry asked and lightly touched her belly feathers. "You can see much better from there."

He opened his trunk and almost laughed at the top of the ladder. His aunt and uncle would be shocked, totally shocked, if they knew there was a ten foot by ten foot by eight foot high space inside his trunk.

In fact, he was still a little shocked by it himself, especially when he had to climb down into the trunk to get the writing things he had bought in Diagon Alley. He also grabbed the first year basic spell book, since he knew he needed to learn something basic before he looked at the very, very tempting curses book he had bought to use on Dudley.

Of course, that made him realize something. Something that Hagrid had said didn't make sense to him. He wasn't allowed to do magic at home, and yet, he was standing at the bottom of a charmed trunk. He had also used the trunk a bunch of times and also his money bag. Even though he knew they were magic, he guessed that they didn't count as doing magic, because if Hagrid was right, then there was no way that Harry wouldn't have already been in trouble for it.

That made him think of something else. Hagrid had said that kids could do magic at home, because there was only magic folk around to see it. Which meant, their homes must be like the trunk. Charmed to let people do magic inside and not be in trouble.

Harry smiled and climbed the ladder and closed the trunk, which became a perfect writing desk. The first thing he did was write a letter to whomever it concerned at the Ministry of Magic, and asked how a home can be added to the 'kids can do magic' list. He folded it up and realized he didn't have any envelopes.

Harry quickly wrote a letter to Scribbulus Writing Implements and asked for a hundred envelopes, stamps if they had them, and more paper. He suspected that he would need a lot more than what he had bought already.

"Hedwig, can you deliver this for me? I don't know how much envelopes are, though. Do I just give you a couple of galleons and hope

 they don't steal it?"

Hedwig shook her head, then she used a wing tip and touched her beak. She turned her head to the side and touched it again, then pointed at the note Harry wrote.

"Beak... beak..." Harry mumbled and looked at the list and didn't know the price. "Bill!" He said, excitedly. "They'll send me the bill!"

Hedwig gave a soft hoot and Harry leaned forward to hug her, then stopped.

"I guess I can't hug you. I don't want to hurt you or mess up your feathers." Harry said, sadly.

Hedwig pulled her wings in tight against her body and gave a soft hoot and turned her head slightly.

"Can I really?" Harry asked and she softly hooted again. He very carefully leaned in close and gave her as gentle of a hug as he could. She was soft and very warm. He let her go and his face was a little red. "I... I did it." Harry said. "That was my first time giving anyone a hug."

Hedwig let out a soft hoot and used a wingtip to lightly touch Harry's face.

"R-right. Let's get you to the window and you can set off." Harry said. He gave her his arm as a perch and carried her out of the cupboard and over to the living room window. He opened it and Hedwig hopped off his arm onto the window sill, then she spread her wings and took off.

Harry knew it would take an hour for Hedwig to come back, since the only stores he knew of were in Diagon Alley, and he went back to his cupboard and closed the door. Once inside, he wrote a letter to Madam Primpernelle and asked her how often he would need to drink her potions to keep his eyesight.

That reminded him to dig out the concealing cream she had made him and he applied a bit of it to cover his forehead scar. It wasn't visible, which meant the previous application hadn't worn off yet. He applied it anyway and kept it covered, just in case.

After that, Harry wrote a letter to Madam Malkin and told her that he had his hair cut and his skin fixed by Madam Primpernelle. He also told her that he had no way to get back to London or to her shop. He had a ticket for the train to get there on September first and that was it. He asked if she knew how to get there, preferably quicker than a car, and that he looked forward to hearing back.

He ducked his head out of the cupboard and peeked at the clock on the wall and he had forty-five minutes for Hedwig to return. He smiled and closed the cupboard and wrote a letter to the lady that sold him the telescope and asked for a watch.

If anyone has a watch for sale, she would. Harry thought. He had to go into his trunk to look at the telescope to remember the place he was writing to, though. They all have such weird names.

He climbed back out and wrote the place names down where the letters needed to go, then folded them up. He couldn't really think of anywhere else to write to, since he didn't know if there was any place that he could get food delivered. In fact, he hadn't eaten all day yesterday and today had started the same way... then he gasped when he remembered something important.

My cake! Harry thought and scrambled down into the trunk. He grabbed the box and came back out, then closed the trunk again and opened the box. He didn't have a knife or anything, and since he didn't want to dig his hands into it and get them covered in icing, he leaned in and took a bite directly from the cake. It's delicious! He thought and kept eating.