Family Values
The Boy Who Arrived
By Ishtar
FAMILY VALUES
Disclaimer: Oh, so not mine. If you see anything you recognize, it belongs to J.K. Rowling, the Estate of Charles Addams, or the media companies interpreting the work of the two creative types. Or the people who write snappy sayings for T-shirts.
Chapter 1 — The Boy Who Arrived
October 31 — Midnight
A pale woman clad in a black gown, carrying an old-fashioned oil lamp, ascended a winding staircase. Her shadow flowed and leaped along the walls and danced among the cobwebs. The sound of laughter and merriment in the house below faded as she climbed. This was her place. This was her time.
At the top of the stairs was an octagonal room, which had been prepared for her use tonight. Taking a single black taper from a wall sconce, she lit it from her lamp and then used it, in turn to light the many other candles, from tapers to squat pillars, to votives in stained glass holders, which surrounded the room. The light gleamed on the dark brocaded fabric that covered the walls instead of paper.
The woman replaced the taper in its sconce and seated herself at a small table in the centre of the room, placing the lamp upon it. She ran her slim white fingers over the cold, smooth surface of a crystal globe, then gently touched a worn leather pouch that rested beside it. Not the crystal, not tonight, nor the carved wooden runes, smoothed by the touch of generations of hands. She picked up a silk-wrapped bundle and undid the black cord wrapped around it. The fabric fell away to reveal her treasured cards, their hand-painted images almost seeming to move in the candlelight.
Carefully, without rushing, she shuffled and cut the cards, spreading them out in a pattern known to no gypsy or boardwalk reader, before turning them over, one by one.
She caught her breath with the first cards revealed. The cards reflecting the present were dark. The Lightning Struck Tower. The Magus, reversed. The Five of Swords. The Ten of Swords.
In the future, The Hierophant crossed The Emperor, covered by the Seven of Cups. The Two of Swords. Death. But the future was not entirely bleak. The Page of Cups was supported by the Ace of Wands, flanked by the Two of Cups and the Ten of Cups.
She turned the last two cards, the ones to which all others led. The Wheel of Fortune and The Chariot.
She sat for a long time, staring at the cards, memorizing their pattern.
Finally, as the moon set, she gathered the card up and rewrapped them carefully. She extinguished the candles and took up the lamp, descending the stairs to rejoin her loved ones. At the bottom of the curving main staircase, her husband waited for her. As long as they were together, the future held no terrors, regardless of what the cards said. They were Family. And the Family would prevail.
1 November — Midnight
"I’ve come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle," said Dumbledore. "They’re the only family he has left now."
"You don’t mean - you can’t mean the people who live here?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at Number Four. "Dumbledore - you can’t. I’ve been watching them all day. You couldn’t find two people who are less like us. And they’ve got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"
"It’s the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he’s older. I’ve written them a letter."
"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous - a legend - I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name!"
"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy’s head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won’t even remember! Can you see how much better off he’ll be, growing up away from all that until he’s ready to take it?"
Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes - yes, you’re right, of course."
But she would wonder, in the years that followed, whether he really was right.
2 November - Morning
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of Number Four, Privet Drive, prided themselves on being quite normal, thank you very much, and the only attention they wanted was the kind you got from being even more aggressively, suburbanly normal than their typically suburban neighbours. Mr Vernon Dursley was climbing the executive ladder at a drill manufacturing company called Grunnings, and Mrs Petunia Dursley kept house and had produced the required child to complete the family, a boy named Dudley, a name the neighbours thought was perfectly appropriate for a boy who closely resembled a pudding, even as an infant. Petunia Dursley kept the house spotless, the garden neatly manicured, and paraded Dudley about the neighbourhood in his pram on nice days. In short, they were a completely boring family, and their neighbours didn’t pay much attention to them at all, being much more interested in the sort of disasters that hit Mr and Mrs Number Eight, whose daughter had managed to become pregnant while she was away at University, and Mr and Mrs Number Fifteen, who were, it was rumoured, on the verge of getting a divorce.
All of this changed on 2 November, when Petunia Dursley stepped out of her front door to look for the morning newspaper so that her husband could read it over his breakfast. The newspaper had unaccountably not been delivered through the letterbox as usual, and Petunia hoped it would be outside. On her front step, however, she found a large wicker basket containing a small boy with fluffy black hair, who had at one point apparently been sleeping peacefully beneath a plaid blanket, but was now happily dismembering the paper and sending its individual sheets blowing across the garden and down the street. When Petunia stepped out, the child looked up at her with clear green eyes, and held his hands up trustingly, obviously hoping to be picked up.
Petunia did the first thing that came to mind under the circumstances. She screamed. Then she went back in the house, slamming the door behind her.
The little boy decided that if the lady was screaming, he should be, too, and let out a howl that showed he had very healthy lungs.
Petunia hastily jerked the door open again, and whisked the basket, boy and all, into the house, slamming the door behind her. She took the basket into the kitchen and dropped it on the kitchen table, then pulled down all the shades over the kitchen windows, and in the dining room and lounge for good measure.
Vernon Dursley, still in the process of tying his tie, came down the stairs to find his house in chaos: the rooms were dark, since Petunia had not turned on the lights when she pulled down the shades; Dudley was in his play pen in the lounge demanding to be let out; a horrid smell emanating from the kitchen meant that breakfast was burnt beyond salvaging; Petunia was sitting on a kitchen chair rocking back and forth and crying; and there was a basket on the table, with a black-haired toddler on the verge of tipping it over.
Vernon did something that was as obvious for him as screaming was for Petunia. He shouted. "WHAT THE BLOODY BLUE BLAZES IS GOING ON HERE?!" Because, of course, shouting always solves all problems.
Unaccountably, it didn’t work this time. The boy in the basket looked up at Vernon, took a deep breath, and howled. Dudley, in the living room, joined the chorus. The bangers in the pan on the stove caught fire. And Petunia flung herself into Vernon’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Vernon glared at the strange boy. This was obviously all his fault.
It took a while, but eventually matters were sorted out. Dudley was given some toast with jam and juice in his favourite blue sippy cup. This quieted him temporarily. The strange boy was also given toast (but without jam) and juice in a purple sippy cup which Vernon had decided was a totally unsuitable colour for his only son. The boy looked at it warily, but apparently had no prejudices against the colour purple and accepted the offered food and drink. The bangers were extinguished, removed from the burner and disposed of. Lights were turned on. Petunia was comforted, and once she had calmed a bit, she thrust a bundle of what appeared to be parchments at him to read.
Vernon, of course, knew all about Petunia’s sister, Lily, and her freakish magic. He’d never seen her use it, of course, but Petunia believed in it wholeheartedly, so he did as well. After the unsettling events of the day before, he was even more willing to accept it. He had no choice. Between owls and map-reading cats and shooting stars, it was fairly obvious that magical things were happening. He’d always hoped it would leave him alone, that Lily and her husband and child would remain safely in their own world and never bother the safe, sane, normal people. But now the magical world had spilled into his own life with not so much as a by your leave. Did they expect him to accept the baby left on his doorstep without question or complaint?
"No, Petunia! I’ll not have it! This … this freak of a nephew of yours is not going to be staying in our house, eating our food, and contaminating our son with this magic of his! No! The boy goes!"
"But they’ll be watching! They’ll know if we don’t keep him. You have no idea what these people can do, Vernon! They could turn us into frogs or newts, and do who knows what to our Dudley!"
Vernon paled. "Newts?"
"Newts."
"Then we’ll keep him for a while. Just long enough for them to get bored and go away. And then we’ll … we’ll put him up for adoption, how about that?"
"He has to stay with blood relations; it says that in the note. We’ll just have to make do. Hopefully we can keep it quiet, at any rate. Heaven knows what the neighbours will think."
Unfortunately for Petunia, keeping it quiet was next to impossible. Her shrill screams that morning had been quite piercing and attracted quite a bit of unwanted attention from the neighbours. That Vernon Dursley’s car didn’t leave the drive that morning attracted even more notice. It was quite unusual, even unheard of, that Mr Dursley did not go to work. And with all the window shades pulled down, no one could even guess at what was going on by peeking in through the windows.
It was apparent to the neighbours that in order to find out what was going on, someone was going to have to do a reconnaissance in person. Therefore, Mrs Number Six, being the closest to them, promptly made a casserole and took it over to the obviously troubled couple in hopes of getting some information in return.
When the doorbell rang, Petunia peeked out the window, only to see Mrs Number Six standing there with a covered dish in her hands. "Vernon, give me a moment to take the boy upstairs, then answer the door. It’s Mrs Number Six, and it looks like she’s going to settle in to stay."
"What shall I tell her?"
"Tell her the truth … some of it, anyway. Tell her my sister died suddenly and I’m terribly distraught and — and we have to go pick up her son from the hospital since we’re going to be stuck with him! There will be too many questions if they know he’s here already!" She grabbed the basket containing her nephew from the table and struggled up the stairs with him as quickly as possible.
As soon as she was in the bedroom, with the door open only a crack, Vernon answered the second, more insistent ringing of the bell. "Yes, what can I do for — oh hello, Mrs. Reese. How nice to see you. No, no, nothing’s — well actually something is wrong, yes — you see, my wife’s sister, we only just heard …"
Mrs. Reese was a good listener, and terribly sympathetic, and by dint of patient questioning gleaned every detail of the tragic car accident that had taken Lily and James Potter’s lives that Vernon (and Petunia, when she descended the stairs to rescue her husband from his interrogator) could make up. They thanked her profusely for the casserole, and put it in the refrigerator "for later" while trying to get her out of the house as fast as possible, under the pretext that they had to go collect their poor orphaned nephew.
Vernon managed to smuggle the boy, still in his basket, into the back seat of the car while Petunia fussed with getting Dudley into his safety seat, and they drove away, aware that behind them all the phones on Privet Drive were ringing as Mrs. Reese spread the news of the Dursleys’ unexpected misfortune.
They spent several hours driving around, and stopped at two or three second-hand shops to acquire things that presumably would have belonged to the boy, and which they would need. When they arrived home, with a second baby seat in the back now containing the boy, several boxes of clothing and a few toys in the boot, and a disassembled crib tied to the top of the car, all the neighbours rallied round to help them. They streamed in and out of the house, bringing food, offers to mind the child, spare clothing from their attics, and extra baby furniture. They chucked the green-eyed child under the chin and said what a good boy he was, and wasn’t it nice that little Dudley would have someone to play with growing up, and wasn’t it kind of Petunia and Vernon to open their home to poor little Harry, and then they went away and left the Dursleys to their own devices.
14 November
Petunia tried, she honestly did. She fully intended to treat her orphaned nephew well. But Dudley was a demanding child, and when the other boy suddenly appeared in his life, he didn’t take it well, to say the least. He was clingy when he saw his mother paying any attention to Harry, and he screamed and threw a tantrum when she let Harry play with any of Dudley’s toys. He claimed all Harry’s toys as his own, and kept Petunia running all through the day.
Harry, for his part, was abnormally quiet during the day, content to sit and play quietly with whatever small toys Dudley overlooked. But at night he had nightmares and woke up screaming, keeping everyone in the house awake.
Vernon took to sleeping on the sofa downstairs, saying it was the only way he could get any peace. When they received another thick parchment envelope, this one thankfully delivered through the letter box like normal post, containing copies of papers granting Petunia legal guardianship of her nephew, he threatened that if Petunia didn’t do something about the boy, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions.
Exhausted and in despair, one night Petunia stuffed the mattress from Harry’s crib into the cupboard under the stairs and locked him in. That night, for the first time since the boy arrived, she got a full night’s sleep, with her husband by her side, and decided she didn’t care if the boy cried or not, as long as she couldn’t hear him.
Far away, another woman made a phone call. It was the same call she’d placed every day for the past week, with the same result. The number she had dialled was not in service. Please hang up and dial again. She hung up, but she did not dial again. Instead, she sat at her writing desk and began a letter. My dear cousin, she wrote. It has been several years since last I wrote…
18 November - Morning
Petunia was feeding Dudley his breakfast, while Harry was fending for himself with a bowl of unsweetened porridge and some toast, when Vernon came into the kitchen with the morning post. "Here, who’s this writing to you from the States?" he said, dropping an envelope on the table. "Someone named Addams? On monogrammed stationery, no less!"
Petunia took the envelope, frowning. "Oh, that’s just Morticia. Her mother and my mother were cousins of some sort; I don’t know the exact connection. She writes every so often, but I really wish she wouldn’t. Her letters always have long stories about people I don’t know and all the disastrous things that have happened to them." She opened the envelope and pulled out several sheets of stationery filled with elegantly sloping handwriting. "Yes, it’s more of the same. Downright depressing."
Vernon snorted. "Morticia, eh? Name like that, I’m not surprised her letters are depressing. Well, now you can write her back and tell her all about the disaster that’s happened to us. I’m sure she’ll want to know all about it. Who knows, if she’s a blood relation, you might even be able to foist the freak off on her. They wouldn’t be able to complain then, now would they?"
"No. No, they wouldn’t," said Petunia. "I doubt she’d be willing, really — I mean, how would I even bring it up? But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to write back."
"Good. I’ll leave you to it, then. Have a good day, dear." And he bustled off, off to his job at the drill company, where he could forget about magic and green-eyed boys for a little while, at least.
Petunia, who had no such refuge, thought for a long time before she began to write a long letter to her cousin.
A/N1: For those who read Tarot, the cards that Morticia turns up provide hints to what will be happening as the story unfolds. I originally put in the meanings, but decided that it would give away too much in the very beginning.
A/N2: The italicized text is, of course, from "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (with a tiny modification or two). In general, I'm not going to include much detail from the stories, as everybody knows what happened, but I may show character reactions which were not included in the original novels since I'm not working from an exclusively Harry-centric POV.