Chapter 7: It's all in the prep-work 1/2

DISCLAIMER: Is Vernon Dursley portrayed in the books as such a buffoon that he'd not last six months in any sane workplace, let alone in a management position? If so, I don't own Harry Potter.

Chapter 7

"Well, there we have it. There are spells on Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging. They 'radiate' outward from the property boundaries - fits with the protective function - and extend upward at least to the cloud cover and down as far into the earth as I dare go. (Which is not very. There are shedloads of legends about devouring horrors in the deep earth and I know for a fact that spiritual entities can be eaten.)

I say 'spells' because there are two definite sounds. A deep, ponderous, flowing sort of thing and a high, chiming, arrhythmic one that sounds like what you'd get if you got a load of wind-up music boxes with different tunes and played them all together slightly out of time with each other. Two magics doesn't imply two magicians, but it does permit it. This bears investigating, and I will be mining Tom's memories for any and all appropriate techniques."

-oOo-

I wake Vernon up and get him out of bed at seven sharp and immediately start swearing. Petunia, who is still abed, gives me a sharp look that cuts me off after ringing a few changes on the standard fuck-shit-bugger litany, before I can get into the really rude words.

"Was that strictly necessary?" she demands.

"There's actually a scientific study that proves swearing helps with pain management," I tell her, "I made Vernon exert himself yesterday and am now suffering for it. Seriously, I've seen actual corpses with better fitness levels."

She sighs. "He wouldn't be told, you know."

"Yep," I say, "I've seen his memories. Told you not to nag, knew deep down you were right, got angry about it. Understandable, I suppose, he's not a happy man and I suspect he'd run screaming if anyone suggested any kind of therapy."

"Well, he wasn't, you know, mental." Petunia gets into the start of a proper huff.

I hold up a hand. "Look, I know there's a stigma about mental health. One of the effects of that stigma is that chaps like Vernon, who can manage but would be a whole lot happier and less of a trial to live with if they got just a small amount of help, don't actually go and get that help. Mental health problems are almost never running around with your underpants on your head and waving an axe about, they're things like hating yourself and taking it out on your family and eating and boozing yourself into an early grave. Which Vernon was very much doing. And while I'm not a psychiatrist, I can see inside Vernon's mind so I know what I'm talking about here."

Petunia's face gets even more pinched. She knows I've been inside her mind, too, and probably wonders how I'd diagnose her. Harshly, Petunia. Harshly.

I decide to throw her a bone. "Look, a big piece of what was ailing Vernon was that he was feeling trapped. Sent to the right school, expected to get the right degree, more or less conscripted to work at Grunnings by the Smeltings Old Boys Association, then just as he's discovering he's got a pretty good knack for salesmanship and that it's work he enjoys he gets promoted away from that and Dudley comes along and he's got responsibilities to bear up under. Then Dumbledore, the ass, gives you care of Harry without so much as a by-your-leave, along with a vaguely-worded warning of danger. On top of that there's the takeover at Grunnings and everything that shook out of that. He's going to wake up with some of the immediate problems solved for him and his health improved out of all recognition, and I dare say he'll be able to take it from there. If you like, I can spend a few nights pretending to be a therapist, austrian accent and all, and letting him unburden himself in his dreams. Maybe even teach him some of the cognitive behavioural tricks that helped me."

Her huff deflates. "I think deep down I knew he needed help. I was … I was …"

I step over and lay a hand on her shoulder. She needs a hug, but Vernon didn't do hugs and I don't feel it'd be right for me to get that familiar. She's Vernon's wife, not mine. "I understand, really I do. I don't for one minute excuse what the two of you were doing, but I do understand how you got trapped in a life that made those actions seem, well, not completely unthinkable. We both know you could have stopped at any time, so could Vernon. I'm just making it easier for you. Easier still for Vernon. And if you want to find a therapist to talk to, well, I know that it helped me back when I was alive." I'm not feeling nearly so much sympathy as I'm expressing, to be frank about it. No matter how like a rat in a trap you may feel, cruelty to children - and animals, but Petunia won't have pets in the house - is inexcusable. Trouble is, I need her and Vernon for any actions I may want to take in the material world and I'm way too nervous of Tom's memories of advanced magic to go rummaging for a method to make a body of my own, so my actions aren't entirely altruistic, here.

She nods. "I suppose I'm seeing the GP as well, then."

"That might work, but NHS mental health services are geared more to people with conditions that mean they can't live normal lives at all. For people with the kind of problems you and Vernon have, the waiting lists can be tiresome because you come in behind everyone who's a danger to themselves and others. Counsellors and therapists usually have a private practise as well, though, and for a sympathetic ear every few weeks for a couple of hours? You probably spend as much in that salon you go to." With less value for money delivered, I add silently to myself. Although it is the eighties, everyone looks and dresses completely goppin'. Petunia doesn't stand out.

A few more consoling words - and a gentle touch of legilimency to reassure myself that Petunia really does see me as a helpful deus ex machina for the complete shitfight that she knew, deep down, her life had become - and we get the boys up and start in on breakfast.

I feed Vernon some of the slimming-product cereal Petunia keeps but doesn't like along with half a grapefruit, no sugar and a dash of cinnamon. He needs enough blood sugar to stay on his feet while I work the lard off him. I tell the boys we're going on an adventure today so we're out of the house while mummy gets on with her jobs. They are excited to learn that for today's adventure they are to be the bold knights Sir Harry and Sir Dudley, and solemnly agree that they will to be well-behaved like good knights always are.

Finding a place for an adventure on the map I bought yesterday fascinates both boys: I doubt they'll retain anything I explain to them because neither of them can read yet - far more concerning that Dudley can't, Harry has an excuse - and I suspect it's all a blur to Harry anyway. I find Box Hill Country Park reasonably close and there are some interesting historical sites marked. I pack up some sandwiches and drinks in a knapsack Vernon still has from his school's Cadet Force days and we're off!

It turns out that a bit of fresh air and the opportunity to do some completely-sanctioned running around and yelling does Dudley the world of good, behaviour-wise. There's an old fort at Box Hill, sited to rain shellfire down on any invading Frenchmen attempting the heights of the North Downs. I naturally make up a nonsense story about the place - when your audience is small children you can't not - which gets a few snorts of laughter from the National Trust staffers. I'm quite proud of the bit about the French Legion of Attack Monkeys, but I suspect that's where I lose Harry to suspicions of me being Silly.

The road through the park zigzags up the hill. It's actually called Zig Zag Road, and I tell the boys it's a Roman Road, which would normally be straight but on the day they built this bit they were all drunk from celebrating Caesar's birthday. It's quite the feat of exercise to get to the top, even Harry's flagging a bit, Dudley needs to stop and rest and Vernon would, left to himself, have keeled over and prayed for the sweet release of death. (In my own body I'd've ignored the zig zags and struck straight up the hill, which is barely a pimple next to the Bowland Fells I grew up among. Hashtag just-hiker-things.)

The whole top of the hill is forested, venue for plenty of running around and yelling by the boys and exchanging pleasantries with labrador-walking locals for me. The boys, like all children, are immune to the scenery and views I'm enjoying. Sir Harry and Sir Dudley find excellent knightly swords in the woods, which are clearly magical because they appear to the unwise and the dullard alike as mere sticks. Much brandishing ensues and after I've taught them medieval war cries the the forest rings to high-pitched cries of "HAVE AT YOU, VARLET!" and "NONE SHALL PASS!"

There's a 19th century folly - a round tower with battlements at the top that looks like a child's drawing of a castle - at the far end of the ridge and we stop there for sandwiches, drinks, and a game of pretend in which the tower is the lair of a great big 'orrible dragon that the two bold knights challenge and defeat. On the march back to the car I teach the boys some of the songs I remember from boy scout hikes, although I leave out even the sanitized version of Cock o' the North: if Harry goes to Hogwarts knowing the verse about Auntie Minnie he's at risk of detention until he dies of old age.

They've both behaved themselves so it's ice-cream and coke from the cafe for them and a cup of tea for me before we head home. It's only a half-hour drive but both boys have to be woken from napping so as to get them out of the car and into the house.

Petunia has had a productive day - Harry's room is nearly cleared out into the cupboard under the stairs and the loft (which last should've been Vernon's job, but even if he could climb a ladder without dying of exhaustion he'd never fit through the hatch) and she's got a decent meat-and-two-veg meal all but ready to go and even had time to catch the Eastenders Omnibus while she got some ironing done.

She's briefly baffled with the excitedly-told story of the boys' day - she looks at me a couple of times to be reassured that there wasn't an actual dragon on the North Downs today, or ravening monkeys - until she cottons on that unlike Vernon I actually encourage games of pretend. It's only her reaction that reminds me that I need to be a bit more careful with those, since dragons are, in this world, objectively real. I supposed I should count myself fortunate I didn't end up having to do some fast talking at a Ministry Obliviator.

We get an entire evening of good behaviour and a peaceable bedtime out of both boys, largely I suspect because they're both completely knackered. I get slightly surprised that there is actually some good telly on Sunday evenings. I used to get packed off to grandparents for a lot of weekends during the late seventies and early eighties - which I was usually quite glad of, taken all in all - and it was generally Songs of Praise or nothing on Sundays. Because, bluntly, old people.

"You'll be leaving Vernon to sleep again?" Petunia asks come bedtime.

"I will," I say. "I don't actually sleep, as it happens, so there's not a lot of point hanging around while Vernon gets the shuteye he needs."

"Thank you. Obviously I understand that what you're doing is for the best, but sharing a bed, well …."

"Is a step too far? I quite understand. As ethical lines go it's a fairly minor one, but I don't want to cross it all the same."

"Last night, did you find the magic you went looking for?"

"I did. Or, rather, I found something where I'd expect to find it, but I'm not sure yet how to interpret what it is. I need to think about how to measure and analyse it to know more. It's reassuring to know that there might actually be some kind of protection around Harry," not least because it's a point against the Dumbledore-as-complete-arsehole theory, which would be all kinds of concerning if true, "but I wouldn't care to speculate about what exactly that magic is in advance of actual evidence."

"You can't tell just by looking?"

"At this point, no. While I was alive, as I told you, I wasn't a wizard. I knew about magic, but not any of the actual details. I only really acquired actual magic when I ate the spirit that was attacking Harry, and I haven't yet absorbed all of the education I need to use it effectively."

Petunia looks puzzled.

"I got his magic and all his memories. But I've got to go through and pick out the ones where he was going to Hogwarts and, well, digest them. Obviously not literal digestion, but it's the nearest word I can think of for what I'm doing."

"And you can't do them all at once, get it over with, sort of thing?"

"Probably, but I'm wary of doing that. We're talking about a dyed-in-the-wool dark wizard, which is to say a violent criminal with magical powers, and he was active for over forty years starting when he was a little boy. If I absorb forty years of memories of cruelty and murder, how will that affect me? Truth is, I don't know, but since I'm supposed to be here for Harry I don't want to chance turning myself into a monster."

"Monster?"

"We're talking about the individual - I won't call him a man, he abandoned his humanity early in his career, what little he had to begin with - who murdered your sister and tried to murder your nephew. Who was fifteen months old at the time. That alone is enough to call him a monster, but it's of a piece with how he'd been behaving since he was fucking eight. I've seen his childhood memories, he enjoyed it. And spent the next forty-odd years getting worse. I'm not going to give you details, the only reason I'm not having nightmares is that I don't need to sleep. Now, the memories of being that monster are attached to me, I can even talk to them just as we talked while I was with you the other day, but if I bring all of that vileness inside myself, do I remain who I am or become something else, some mix of him and me that's perilously close to being fifty-fifty?"

"Oh."

"Yeah. I'm going to have to absorb some of him, of course, because I can't trust him to teach me what I need to know. It's easy to overlook amid all his other crimes, but he's a liar into the bargain. Tried framing a classmate for one of his murders when was fifteen or sixteen, to pick just an early example."

Petunia snorts a laugh. "And to think I was unhappy to share a bed with you just because you're not my husband. You're carrying that around with you and it doesn't bother you?"

"It bothers me quite a lot, but the alternative was leaving him at liberty to hurt Harry. His next targets would have been you and Vernon and Dudley, of course." Which is a lie, of course, I didn't get an alternative. I Beat Tom, and the next thing I know is I've swallowed him, with no idea how it happened. Plus, I've no idea whether Lily's protection would have fried the bugger if he'd got past me. Or, it occurs to me, drawing me in at that time so's I could destroy the horcrux in the one place and manner it was possible for me to do so might have been the protection at work: I'm a long way from thinking I know how magic works, after all.

"And Dumbledore brought that to our house?"

"He did. Oh, I doubt he knew he was doing it, and as I said Lily's magic kept it contained, it was purest accident that the thing was able to get at Harry at all." Yes, we're going over ground I've covered with Petunia already, but her coming on-side completely surprised me. I had no idea that that one line about Lily would have the effect it did. So naturally I'm reinforcing it as much as I can.

While this makes me sound like a master schemer, I've studied far too much history to believe that there's any such thing. The figures with a reputation for it turn out, on closer examination, to be master bullshitters who spotted and rode the waves of events. More of history depends on sheer, dumb luck than all the theorists and politicians would have you believe. The rest of it, and pardon my cynicism, is like the book says, extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds.

-oOo-

I spend much of the night integrating Tom's memories of his Hogwarts years. He didn't like that and complained as much as I'd let him, but seriously. Fuck him. I'm getting to know him better now and really, he's entirely horrible and if I was sure I'd suffer no ill effects I'd've taken everything just to ensure at least this part of him didn't exist any more.

It's going to take me a while to sort everything into proper places, of course, and most of it's going to require a wand - does Vernon count as a wizard while being possessed by a magical spirit? Memo: do some experimenting - but Tom did expand his repertoire of wandless tricks while he was at school. Nothing spectacular: there was a memoir of visiting Ouagadou in the library that had an appendix on the basic spells taught to the younger children there. The reputation for wandless magic being hard is apparently based entirely on it not being formally taught at Hogwarts. It's gesture-based, so again experiments are going to have to wait until I'm back driving Vernon. If I can do spells as Vernon, I should be able to use a wand as him too. I'll have to be careful to build up slowly, because I don't have a school full of teachers to correct any mistakes I make.

The downside of this is that he learned about Horcruxes at Hogwarts. Slughorn wasn't the only one a little too free-and-easy with the Restricted Section passes. On top of that, the idea that one restricted section is enough is just absurd. I mean, the section that contains the advanced-brewers-only recipe books also contains the magics that require the caster to commit murder? I'm firmly against book-burning, but some knowledge should be restricted to people of proven good character just as a matter of general public safety.

Which, I appreciate, wouldn't have stopped Tom at the time: even Dumbledore didn't catch on to just how bad he really was until Slughorn started raising non-specific 'concerns' about him in his final year. Or so Tom believes: Dumbledore may have seen trying to fit Hagrid up for the Chamber business as amounting to a confession. I certainly would have, even with as short a time as I spent in criminal practise. Fit-ups by members of the public are vanishingly unlikely to be done by anyone other than the actual offender. (Fit-ups by the police, of course, which here in the 80s are not quite as common as they used to be but still happen, are a different matter.)

My disgruntlement with the level of supervision Hogwarts exercises over its students aside, I don't just have the knowledge of how to make the things (stomach churning: the concluding murder is but the capstone on a pyramid of awful) but the memory of actually making one. Tom laid in wait, possessing the basilisk - possible for a parselmouth but not otherwise, it's as much a magic of mind-to-mind contact with snakes as it is speaking their language - so that Myrtle's death would be entirely on him.

He didn't notice at the time, but he was definitely different afterward: unlike him I've got a much more external and non-subjective point of view of the process. For fairly obvious reasons hardly anyone has done any actual experiments with the process, but I find it telling that in literally every other magical process involving killing - and Tom learned a few while at Hogwarts, the revolting little shit - the death is called a 'sacrifice'. Which implies an entity the sacrifice is offered to, of course.

No such thing is mentioned in the horcrux texts, which is unusual for recipients of sacrifices, who often demand acknowledgment, respect or outright worship. Whatever it is that's taking those sacrifices is keeping quiet about its involvement, which I find sinister. What if the horcrux-maker, in opening up his essential self - soul, ba, ka, what-have-you - to that entity is opening himself up to a little … editing?

It would certainly explain the before-and-after difference in Tom, wouldn't it? And what I ate wasn't just 'part' of Tom, it was complete. I have the magic of a fully-realised wizard at this point, and all his memories from soup to nuts. That suggests that the horcrux isn't a piece, it's a copy. And I therefore have reason to suspect that everyone who's made one is touched by something distinctly uncanny.

I've got time to think on the implications. For now, I'm going to have to plan how to get in to Diagon Alley to get books - I 'remember' the lessons but I haven't really internalised anything, and I suspect doing the reading is going to help a lot with that - and equipment for analysing the protections around Number Four.

-oOo-

At breakfast the following morning, something occurs to me that should have right from the off: "Petunia?"

"Yes?"

"You've been handling the paperwork for young Harry, right? GP registration, name down for school, things of that nature?"

"Yes, why?"

"Has anyone asked you for any paperwork about how Harry came to live here? Court order, social worker correspondence, so much as a birth certificate?"

"They haven't, actually. Should they have?"

"Not really, checking every single child would be a massive burden and it's not like sending a child to school or getting him medical treatment is any kind of crime." The paranoia about illegal immigrants coming here and stealing our NHS, the so called 'health tourists', is years in the future. "But we should have it in place, completeness' sake if nothing else. I mean, what if we wanted to holiday abroad? We'd need that stuff to get a passport for him. We've still got the letter that came with Harry, right?"

"We have. I'm not sure we're allowed to show anyone, though."

"That would be if we were subject to their laws, which we're not. And if it causes the people responsible for all this some embarrassment, I shan't lose any sleep over it. They should have done the paperwork if they were going to involve our side." Harry's looking worried at this. "Nothing for you to worry about, Harry, it's grown-up stuff and rather boring, we just need to make sure that all the paperwork is right. You'll learn about this stuff as you get older, and let me tell you, it's just as boring when you're grown up but you can't get away from it. Petunia, when you've a spare moment, gather together everything you can find, paperwork-wise, relating to Harry. I should be able to put something together that a solicitor can turn into a proper court order that makes this Harry's home in law as well as in fact."

Harry looks confused.

"You don't need to understand this stuff, Harry," I tell him, "not until you're a lot older. For now, just know that this is your home, and leave all the paperwork to the grownups. If you want to understand it, step one is learning to read, which we'll make a start on when I come home from work, savvy?"

"Savvy!"

"And Dudley? I want to hear that you've been a proper little gentleman at Mrs. Whinney's. You were very well behaved for me on our adventure yesterday, can you do it again today, Sir Dudley?"

Dudley nods. I'm pretty sure he's behaving himself out of sheer confusion at this point. Whatever works, and all that. With any luck I've caught him early enough that he's not going to be a bad influence on anyone. The other kids - the books say he was part of a gang of louts - are a problem for the future.

"A solicitor?" Petunia asks as she's seeing me out the door, "isn't that expensive?"

"Well, not if Harry's the client, which he rightly should be. He gets legal aid, since he doesn't have a job or any savings, so the taxpayer picks up the tab. Vernon's been on Higher Rate for long enough, time we got some of the services we're paying for, eh?"

"Is that how it works?" Petunia looks surprised, but then she gets her political and legal knowledge from reading the Daily Mail, so ignorance is to be expected.

I shrug. "I'm not exactly an expert on Legal Aid, since I was rather at the other end of the profession, but I had to learn the basics to qualify. We might have to cover some disbursements, like a private inquiry agent to satisfy the investigation requirement to get a death certificate for poor Lily. She'll only count as missing on our side of things until we can get that."

Petunia's lips purse up at that, and I don't comment: while I want her to unclench on the subject of magic, wizards are a subject on which I am quite sanguine about her having strong negative opinions. The contempt with which they treat the non-magical population is shocking, to say the least, and they think throwing people in torture-prisons without so much as a kangaroo-court trial is a fit way for civilised people to behave. It's entirely possible to believe that Dumbledore is a complete bastard and still one of the good guys when measured against the rest of his kind.

-oOo-

Grunnings is actually quite the operation. Their head office is the top four floors of an office building in Woking, but they have an office in Scotland and factory and workshop and R&D premises scattered across the country. As a firm, they've a good name for geological and mining drills and associated kit. They got taken over in late '82 - which they actually sought through an acquisitions broker - because they overtraded while the North Sea Oil boom was at its peak and needed a hefty recapitalisation to put them on a firmer footing.

Vernon works here because he took advantage of the fact that the Smeltings Old Boys Association was capable, like most such organisations dedicated to the Old School Tie, of some breathtaking feats of nepotism. As luck would have it, being parachuted into an upper-echelon sales position let him discover a talent for salesmanship: when he's not being a ranting gammon-faced fuckwit he has an agreeable line in affable fat-bloke bonhomie. As a result he used to enjoy the respect of his peers and sales trips out to far-flung places, and realised only too late that a fast-tracked seat on the board would put a stop to that. The board got slimmed down after the takeover and Vernon's position in charge of the sales force is now just a manager rather than a director. He reports to the sales director of the parent company they've had for nearly three years now.