The Dum-sleys

--- June 22, 1991 ---

In a dark, dusty room, in the middle of the night, lying in a worn bed with old covers and a ratty and thin blanket, is a ten-year-old boy. Beside the bed, standing on the nightstand, is a beautiful red phoenix, covered in feathers reminiscent of a sun at the peak of its life. Beside it is a tiny mote of light which has a weak light to it and is completely overshadowed by the celestial glow of the bird.

Bringing the small light towards the boy's chest, it seeps inside as the phoenix watches the child intently.

Looking over the souls that are now both held within the body, the bird's eyes suddenly burn an intense red, and it sends out extremely strong waves of white energy from its body, towards the light. The lights slowly merge together into one slightly larger ball.

It pauses for a moment, thinking. Suddenly, it sends another wave of energy toward the soul, causing it to grow to around a hundred times its previous size and strength.

Once done, it nods in satisfaction seeing the near blinding white light that now exudes from the ethereal ball.

Within a moment, it disappears in a brilliant flash of reddish-orange flame.

---

I open my eyes groggily, but I feel... strange. I can feel things in my head. Feelings that don't seem like mine. I try to ignore it, and the feelings fade. Huh... weird.

I turn over on the bed, and the realization hits me. I'm Harry Potter.

'Well, I guess I'm a wizard...'

I pull myself towards the edge of the bed and just take a moment.

'I don't remember everything about the Harry Potter movies, and I haven't ever read the books, but I do know a bit about canon.'

From what I remember of Harry Potter, my life was going similarly to what I remember from the movies I watched. But this... merging?... changes a whole lot. Especially my personality. I'm not the same Harry Potter who decided to go fight a basilisk in his second year. I am... well... I don't know what exactly. I guess we'll see.

I do know one thing though. First order of business is that first chance I get, I'm either going to the police about how the Dursley's treat me, or-

* Bang! Bang! Bang! *

"Up! Get up!" The loud knock and the voice of my Aunt Petunia cuts my thoughts off.

"Wake up, Cousin! We're going to the zoo!"

The voice of my new/old cousin, Dudley, resounds from above the stairs as more dust makes an appearance from between the cracks of the wooden underside of the stairs.

Sounds of the door unlocking from the outside comes, and so I get up. Walking to the door, I push it open to see an over-excited fat boy running off the stairs. Running in the direction of the kitchen, he shoves the door closed while I'm trying to walk out.

"Oof!" I say intelligently as the door rams into me, causing me to stumble backwards and onto my bed, which was already almost right behind me, as the closet is insanely small.

"Hah..." I sigh.

I pull myself off the bed, go out the door, and into the kitchen.

"Oh, here he comes, the Birthday Boy!" Petunia says happily.

"Happy birthday, son." Vernon says somewhat blankly while distractedly reading the newspaper.

'Wow. Just ignore us all completely, why don't you.'

As if he might've heard my thoughts, he glances toward me while still holding onto the newspaper, and glares.

After Aunt Petunia finishes speaking with Dudley, she lets him go and turns to face me.

"Why don't you just cook the breakfast and try not to burn anything." Her personality does a complete 180 when speaking to me.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." I nod and head to the fridge. I grab bacon and eggs from it, and two pans from the cupboard. Opening a drawer, I find a spatula that'll work for cooking them.

I turn the stove on medium and crack the eggs into one pan. The bacon goes into another.

I stand still for a moment, thinking.

'Actually... I never liked them. Why should I be doing this.'

My random bout of anger overrides my self-preservation instincts, and I turn the dial to the max.

Ensuring the vent is operating properly to make sure the smoke doesn't reach the Dursley's noses, I overcook the eggs and burn the bacon to the point they're both unpalatable.

'Perfect.' I think as I smile like a villain.

"Hurry up! Bring my coffee, boy." Vernon says.

Taking the eggs and bacon off the burners, I grab a mug and the container of coffee from the counter.

I walk over to the table and place the mug in front of Uncle Vernon. Pouring some coffee in, I go back to grab the food.

"And where's the breakfast, boy?" He doesn't turn to look at me, nor do I look at him, but I can feel the annoyance in him.

'How is it that I can though?'

"Coming, Uncle." I try to explain calmly even as his words and emotions make me want to throw something at him instead.

I once more focus on blocking any external emotions from affecting my own mind, and place the food on the table, where Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley are all sitting now. I struggle to hide the smile on my lips as I rush back towards my room.

They start conversing among themselves, as I sit on my bed, trying to ignore my growling gut.

'When was the last time I ate? Oh... right. It was yesterday at breakfast. I had some bread with less than a teaspoon of jelly on it.'

Peeking out my door at the Dursleys in the dining area, I can just barely see Dudley excitedly looking over at the ginormous stack of gifts wrapped just for him.

"Aren't they wonderful, Darling?" Petunia asks caringly.

"How many are there?" The spoiled brat asks.

"Thirty-six, I counted 'em myself." Vernon interjects.

"Thirty-six? Last year, last year, I had thirty-seven!"

"Er, yes, well, some of them are quite a bit bigger than last year."

It's quite a sight to see a flustered whale.

"I don't care how big they are!"

"Oh, now, now, now. This is what we're going to do, is that when we go out, we're going to buy you two new presents. How's that, Pumpkin?"

"Fine." Dudley grumbles.

This is when Vernon reaches down for a bite of bacon, only to find... a butchered pig's impersonation of a burnt tinder.

"What the bloody h*** is this?!" Vernon roars. "That's it! I told you, one more bloody screwup and you wouldn't go to the bloody zoo! Come here, Freak!" He runs toward me, violently grabs me by the shoulder, and moves me at a speed that shouldn't be possible for a such a large aquatic creature through the door to my closet.

When we get there, he throws me inside with such force that I collide against the far wall with my side and feel a sharp pain from my shoulder.

"Agh!" I cry out in pain.

"Ha! Let that be a lesson to you." He slams the door, locks it, and slides open the small slot. "And don't even think about getting out of there for the next couple days!" Vernon yells.

'Well... it was worth it.'

I look down towards my now injured arm with tears threatening to fall and take a deep breath.

'Maybe not.'

---

After hearing the Dursleys bumbling around for everything they're going to take with them to zoo, I hear them as they walk out the front door and lock it up.

Another pang of pain goes through me.

'Oh my gosh! My shoulder hurts! I think it dislocated.'

I gently hold my arm still. What am I even going to do to fix it?

"Hah..." I sigh loudly.

'Well, maybe I can try out some magic? Now that I'm a reality bending, magic wielding wizard, of course I would be able to do it. Just got to have faith, right?'

I look around my 'room' for something that I could use to try to practice wandless magic on. Finding a few toy soldiers, I decide to start trying to levitate one of them.

I focus on the soldier. Bringing my arm up and pointing my finger at it, I call out in my head for my magic to respond with the intent to bring it up into the air.

And.... as I expected.

Nothing.

*Sigh*

'What was I expecting? Being able to do wandless magic as soon as I tried it? Of course, it wouldn't work the first try.'

Well. I was hoping to be able to get to the police station, but of course, Vernon locked me in. Maybe I'll be able to unlock the door with magic.

I stand up, with my right arm hanging limply at my side as not to exacerbate my injured shoulder any further and walk to the door.

The latch on the other side is just a simple, but durable, slide latch. If I can just get it to move a little, I'd be able to open the door.

'So close, yet so far...'

I close my eyes, trying to remember the times I accidentally used my magic. Trying to remember if there was a warm feeling inside my body, or anything like that.

However, standing there, in the cold closet, I realize something.

I feel like an idiot.

Why would I try to use my magic that I have no idea if it's even possible for me to use if I can just bend a coat hanger?

And so, I grab an old hanger I have in the corner of my closet and bend it into a shape I think I can use to reach the latch's handle.

---

'Oh geez. Why'd that take so long?'

It took me a few minutes to find the right shape the get through the grate and grab the latch with the wire.

Anyway, now that I got the door open, I step out into the hallway.

'Ok. First, I think I should figure out where to go to get to the police station. Or could I maybe find one that's out on patrol?'

Wait.

I am still dumb.

Why am I like this?

I could just call them and tell them about what happened to me. They should be able to get me to a hospital or something to fix my arm.

And so, I go to the phone and punch in the emergency number '999'.

*Dial tone*

*Click Click Click*

*Dialing*

"This is the emergency services hotline. What is the nature of your emergency?"

"Um. Hi."

'Oh my gosh! Why am I so nervous!'

"Hello. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

"Yeah. Well, uh, my uncle hurt me, and I think my shoulder dislocated."

"Your uncle hurt you?"

"Yes."

"I'll get an officer down right away. What's your address? Is your uncle home right now?"

"I'm at Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging. No, he locked me in my room and left to go to the zoo with my Aunt Petunia and my cousin."

---

As I'm waiting for the officer to arrive, I pass the time by once again thinking about my newfound situation.

One thing I've noticed is that I can feel emotions. That isn't a magic that I have heard of in the Harry Potter story. Only legilimency is somewhat similar. But what I have is different. It's more like empathy. I know that power is sometimes related to people with strong minds or souls.

If I do have a stronger soul, that could mean that I have a chance of having other abilities, like aura sensing, telekinesis, telepathy, and more that I don't know about.

I'm broken out of my thoughts by the knocks on the door.

*Knock Knock Knock*

'I guess that's the police... why am I sweating?'