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Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad
Telling The Truth
By Ishtar
Chapter Five Telling the Truth
The combination of bright sunshine in his eyes and a full bladder brought Harry out of a deep sleep. He tried to reach for his glasses on the nightstand to his left, but his left arm was sore and immobilized. Something was clinging to his right hand, and his pyjama bottoms seemed to have disappeared during the night. He opened his eyes — or rather eye, because one eye was swollen and wouldn't open more than a slit — and saw a totally alien white room. Curtains had been drawn around his bed, which had raised railings. There was one window, from which he could see the tops of trees outside. He was obviously in hospital somewhere, not the familiar Hogwarts infirmary, but a Muggle hospital. He took inventory. He was sore, he was confused, he couldn't see straight and his glasses were nowhere to be seen, his left arm was bandaged to his torso, his right knee was also bandaged to immobility, there was a clear hose of some kind connecting his right hand to a bag of liquid hanging from a pole alongside the bed, he was naked and he had to go to the bathroom. But nobody was trying to kill him at the moment. So far, so good. He was trying to work out how to make a toga out of the bed sheet so he could find the bathroom when a middle-aged nurse came in. She tsked at him, ignored his blushes, and provided the necessary items so he didn't have to get up, including a hospital robe which opened down the back. With his left arm strapped down, he could only put the right one through a sleeve, with a little help to get the intravenous bag through as well, but it was better than nothing. She took his temperature and his pulse briskly and asked if he was hungry. He said he was, and she said she'd have breakfast sent in directly. In the meantime, he was not to get out of that bed for any reason, was that clear? She showed him how the call button worked in case he needed anything.
After about fifteen minutes, a brunette aide in a blue uniform brought him something that was probably supposed to be breakfast, but if he'd ever served anything that badly prepared, Aunt Petunia would have clocked him one. The aide put the tray on a bed table and cranked his bed up. Then she winked at him. "Wotcher, Harry!"
"Tonks!" he cried in gladness. "Am I glad to see you!"
"Keep it down." She laid a finger across her lips. "Don't need the Muggles overhearing." She looked at him critically. "My, we are a mess, aren't we? Amazing what one bloody great Muggle can do."
"Dudley! What happened to him? I Stupefied him, they couldn't wake him up, somebody will have to do the countercharm …"
"Already taken care of. Moody got up to the Neuro floor an hour or so ago, dropped an Ennervate on him. The great oaf came awake still raving, they had to put him out again with drugs, but at least next time he wakes up, he shouldn't be violent."
"I think he'll always be violent. It's his gift, you see."
Tonks quirked an eyebrow. "I'd return that particular gift to the store, y'know?"
"Well, so would I … so when are we leaving? You are here to get me out, aren't you?" he asked, his heart sinking as she shook her head.
"Sorry, luv, but you've got the Muggle bureaucracy interested in you now, and it'll be harder to get you out of here than the Dark Lord's dungeon. We're working on it, but for now you're stuck, so just relax and heal up. I think I heard the charge nurse say something about notifying the police that you were up, but with all the craziness that went on in this town last night, it may be a while before they get here."
"What sort of craziness? Why would the police want to talk to me?"
"Well for starters, try a whole rash of assaults and attempted suicides that kept the emergency squads busy all night. Then top that off with … what did they call it? Oh yes, an 'electrical fault in the casualty ward wiring causing an overloaded circuit to short out the bulbs in half the examination rooms.' They still don't have an explanation for how all the waiting rooms became filled with frogs. I think those last two were you."
"I don't remember doing that. Wouldn't I remember something like that?"
"It happened when they were trying to put your arm back together. Strange things happen when you're under stress. You know."
"Things like blowing up aunts. I know. But in that case, I'm surprised we're not buried under owls from the Ministry demanding the surrender of my wand."
"Too public a place. Doing that would violate the Secrecy statutes worse than anything you've ever done. Don't worry, we're on that, too. Push comes to shove, we'll just give him the wand you used on Dursley."
"Give it to him?!" Harry almost squeaked.
"Harry, all you had in your hand was a twig from somebody's privet hedge. He can break that all he wants." Harry's mouth dropped open in shock. "Now, you just try to get some of this breakfast bilge down, and we'll see about getting you some real food for lunch. Then we'll try working the bureaucracy and see about getting you out of here. Just don't go causing any more frog invasions, hm?"
Harry's next visitors were the police, this time plainclothes instead of uniformed officers. By this time he'd found his glasses in the drawer of the table next to his bed, so he could see them clearly. They went over the statement he'd given the previous night, and then asked questions in greater detail, taking him through every step of the fight. Harry was very careful to keep everything in Muggle terms, and maintained his ignorance of the cause of Dudley's rage. Finally one of the officers brought it up. "Did you ever hear your cousin refer to someone named O'Dwyer?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact he took me to a lecture by the guy a couple of days ago. Pretty boring."
That started them on a whole new line of questioning. They took him through a detailed description of the O'Dwyer lecture, as edited for Muggles. He did mention the strange tastes to the punch and biscuits, and the incense, but didn't let on he knew what they were. The two investigators looked at each other significantly when he mentioned the herbal capsules. "Would the bottles have looked something like this?" they asked, showing him a photograph of a bottle of the Cheer-Up capsules.
"That's one of them. He had something else, too, for sleeping. Dudley bought some of both."
"We know, we've searched the Dursley home. Including your room, since it was the scene of the attack." Harry blinked. "Does that bother you?"
"Not particularly. I don't have anything to hide." And fortunately he'd put away all his schoolbooks and the essays he'd written over the summer when he locked up his birthday presents. The only thing that might be in the room that looked odd would be his trunk, which was locked, and… his wand. That was somewhere in the room, too. Maybe they hadn't found it, or recognized it for what it was. But it would be a serious pain getting his wand out of the evidence room at the police station if they'd taken it.
"We couldn't open that trunk by the foot of the bed."
"That's my school trunk — my books and stuff. The lock is tricky. Sometimes it sticks."
"When you're released from hospital, perhaps you wouldn't mind showing us what's in it? Just so we can make the report complete, you know. We don't want to go poking into your private things."
The hell you don't, thought Harry. That's your job. And if I did have anything illegal in there, you'd want to know about it. I don't know how I'm going to explain the magic textbooks. I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. "Sure. Do you know when I'm going to be released?"
"That's up to the doctors, I'm afraid. Probably a while." The inspector shot him a glance over the top of his notebook. "I'd think you wouldn't want to go back there, given what happened and all."
"I don't, particularly. It's just that … I've nowhere else to go."
"No other relatives?"
"Not that I know of. Possibly a sixteenth cousin somewhere in Outer Mongolia, but my Aunt Petunia and Dudley are the only relatives I have that I know of."
"Mm. You don't live there all year, though." It was not a question.
"No, most of the year I'm at school."
"And where do you go to school?"
The lie, so ingrained in him, popped out. "St. Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys," he said in a flat, uninflected voice.
"You know, I don't think that's quite right," said the Inspector, jovially. "We asked some of your neighbours in Little Whinging, and they all said that's where your Aunt and Uncle sent you. Some of them were quite concerned about a boy with criminal tendencies roaming the neighbourhood. So we checked. Not only …" he said, flipping back to a previous page of notes, "not only do you not go to St. Brutus' Centre, there isn't even a St. Brutus' Centre for you not to have gone to. Not to mention the fact that we, the police, have never heard of you before. Plus there's that crest you painted on your trunk. School crest?"
Harry nodded, afraid to say anything else.
"I don't recognize it. What school?"
"Hogwarts. It's in Scotland."
"Hog … could you spell that for me?" Harry did. "Can't say I've ever heard of it, but there's lots of small schools. We'll check, just to confirm, of course." Harry wished him luck.
"Do you have cats?"
"No." The abrupt change of subject took Harry by surprise.
"Why is there a cat flap in your bedroom door then?" The Inspector was no longer smiling jovially. Harry gave him a long, considering look, and decided. To hell with Dumbledore. To hell with blood protection. "They feed me through it sometimes. After they lock me in." The Inspector had obviously expected something like that, but he still recoiled.
"And how often is that, Harry?"
"Any time they have to go somewhere and don't want me left home alone where I might touch some of their precious things or steal food out of the fridge. Any time they're angry at me. Any time they feel like it, really. I'm sure you noticed the lock on the outside of the door." He kept his voice carefully neutral.
"Yes, we had noticed."
"It's better than when I was little, though. Then I didn't have a bedroom at all. They made me sleep in the cupboard under the stairs until I got too big for it."
"The cupboard under the stairs?"
"Where else do you put things you don't want around and don't want to be reminded of?" There was more note-taking.
"Your neighbours say you do a lot of work around the house when you're home from school."
"I have chores."
"Including …" he consulted the notebook again. "Mowing the lawn, taking care of the garden, washing the sidewalks, the driveway, and the car. Painting the garden shed … twice so far this summer?"
"Aunt Petunia couldn't decide which shade of white she wanted it."
"And indoor chores?"
Harry closed his eyes and recited. "Cook breakfast, clean the dishes, clean the kitchen, clean upstairs and downstairs bathrooms, vacuum the downstairs, wash the windows, do the laundry and fold it but not put it away because that would mean I'd have to go in their bedrooms. Clean up from lunch and dinner." He opened his eyes again. "That's for starters. Somewhere in there I also keep up with my schoolwork — summer assignments, you know. And sometimes I go over to help Mrs. Figg with her housework, too."
"Do they make you go help Mrs. Figg?"
"No. She's a nice old lady. I was terrified of her when I was a kid, of course, and they made me stay with her whenever they took Dudley somewhere, but it's different now. She sometimes needs a little help around the house, to get things done, you know. And I'm good at it, so …" he shrugged. "And she gives me lunch."
"You know we'll check with Mrs. Figg."
"You do that. She lives on Wisteria Walk. Her cats' names are Mr. Tibbles, Tufty, Snowy, and Mr. Paws. Send somebody who's not allergic."
"When they lock you in, what do they feed you?"
"Last time, it was tinned soup for three days. Cold."
"And when you're not locked up?"
"Well, since I cook breakfast, I eat that. Usually I work through lunch. Unless I'm at Mrs. Figg's. Dinner is what's left after they eat."
Harry fought to keep his voice low and even. Bad though his life was, somehow it sounded even worse in his answers to this man's questions. His head ached, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
"Do they make you stay at home all the time?"
"No. No, they don't. I go out in the evenings sometimes. Just to walk around. I sit in the play park. I just have to be in by the time Dudley's in. Whenever he decides that is."
"And we're back to Dudley. This wasn't the first time he's hit you, I gather?"
Harry laughed humourlessly. "Ha! No, I've been his favourite punching bag since I can remember. He and his gang used to think it great fun to chase me up trees when I was little. It has let up some in the last few years, though. Ever since he got the idea I might hit back."
"Have you ever hit back?"
"No. Well, not except this last time. I just got good at running away. But I made him think I might hit back."
"How about your aunt and uncle? Do they ever hit you?"
"I used to get hit with the frying pan or the poker when I was little. Not for the last couple years. Not since I got big enough to take things away from Aunt Petunia. I get slapped sometimes, though. If I'm too slow, or I talk back, or say something they don't like."
"And do they yell?"
"That, they do. For all they're concerned with what the neighbours may think, they certainly yell loud enough for people to hear their business all the way in London. Uncle Vernon turns the most amazing shade of puce. It's not a good colour for him."
"What do they yell about?"
"Oh, let's see, what a complete loser I am, what a waste of space I am, how they wish they'd never taken me in after my parents died, how my mother was a whore and my father was a bum and I'm no better than I should be with parentage like that … 'freak' is one of the nicer things they've called me."
"Why a freak?"
"How should I know? They don't like my hair, I guess."
"The things they said about your parents …"
"Aren't true."
"Who were they?"
"Lily Potter, formerly Evans, and James Potter. If he had a middle name, I don't know it."
"What did they do?"
"I think … mind you, I don't know a lot, but I think my mum was a housewife, and my dad had some money from his family. I don't know what he did for a career. I don't even know for sure where they lived. They met in school, married just after they left school, and had me a few years later. Then they were killed in a car accident when I was about a year old, and I went to live at the Dursleys'."
"If your father had money, what happened to it?"
"Well, some of it was apparently in a trust with the school, because somebody's been paying for my education, and it sure isn't my Aunt and Uncle. I don't know about the rest of it. I figured I'd have to wait until I was grown up and had a job and could hire somebody to find out if there was more. I only just started realizing about it a year or so ago, you understand. Before that, money was kind of mythical to me. Something other people had."
He could see the story coming together for the police. Well-off couple killed in car crash, relatives set up as trustees for infant heir, they treat the child as a slave while siphoning off the trust fund. It was as good a story as any, he supposed, and would keep them busy for a while investigating it until he was safe back at school. Who knew, it might actually be true, if his dad had any accounts in Muggle financial institutions. He wished them luck trying to get Gringott's to cough up the records on his parents' accounts there.
"Look, can you come back and ask me questions some other time? I'm getting pretty tired and my head is killing me."
"Okay, Harry. We're going to clear it with the doctors to come up with a police photographer to take some pictures of those bruises before they fade. Maybe this afternoon, maybe tomorrow. Do you have a problem with that?"
"No."
"And we're going to talk to Child Protective Services about getting a foster family to take you in for a while so you won't have to go back to the Dursleys. It's clear enough to us that it's a bad environment for you, and CPS will agree with us, I'm sure. Even with both your cousin and your uncle in hospital, you shouldn't go back there."
"Wait a minute! My uncle? Why's he in?"
"Nobody told you?" Harry shook his head. "It seems that in his hurry to get down the stairs and go after you, your cousin took grave exception to the fact that his father was in his way. Broke his jaw."
Harry gaped at them, then he laughed, with a slightly hysterical edge to it. "Oh, that's rich! He's going to hate that! Yelling is practically his favourite sport! Now how's he going to do it with his jaw wired shut? He'll probably explode within a week!"
"Yes, well, he's going to do any exploding as far away from you as possible. You're safe now, Harry. You'll never have to go back there again." Patting Harry on the good shoulder in an avuncular way that was meant to reassure him, the inspectors took their leave. Harry lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, to get some relief from his headache. Child Protective Services was going to set him up with a foster family? How the hell was he going to get out of that? Tonks, if you know any magic to untangle me from the coils of Muggle government, you'd better do it fast!