GoF AU

Authoress' Notes: I have no idea why, but my story wouldn't show up on my page, nor in the story listings. I didn't know what to do, so I deleted the story and am now reposting it, under a different category in case you didn't notice.

Here's the first chappy. The second one'll be up in just a tick, because it's the time for me to update.

If you'd like to be on my update list, and know when I've got new chappies coming and get nice little previews, then leave your e-mail in your review, and I'll add you to the list.

Well, don't wanna keep you waiting any longer, so, without further ado.... It's chappy time!

Allons-y!

~*~*~
Harry knew that something was going to happen; he did not know what, and he did not know whether it would be good or bad for him, but he knew something was going to happen. He always had a kind of feeling about these sorts of things, but, considering he had had people that were out to do him in for virtually all of his natural borne life, it was more like a sixth sense than a feeling.

He was currently hanging up-side-down from one of the sets of bars of the park’s playground, trying to figure out what would happen, and when. He had been doing so, both hanging up-side-down and thinking, for roughly eight minutes, and everything was beginning to go a little fuzzy around the edges, but he kept at it; standing on his head helped him to think; he supposed it was all the blood rushing to his brain, leaving his body numb and cold and putting his brain into action, but maybe it was from going slightly delirious from all the blood flow to the one organ and not enough circulation; one might never completely know.

It was as he was nearing his tenth minute of becoming more than slightly delirious -- I mean, *thinking*, when, from the window of the house closest to the park, out floated the sound of the evening’s news coming back from commercial; now, usually, any part of the news, no matter the time of day, wouldn’t interest him, but this was something different, something that made him feel extremely thick for not having realised it.

“Good evening, Surrey. This is Johnithen Smiithe, with Channel 10’s weather. It’s the thirtieth of July, at half past six in the evening, and it’s a pleasant 65° Fahrenheit, with a rather small chance of rain at around midnight tonight….”

He tuned out the rest of whatever the weatherman said, not caring in the least about the weather, as whenever he went outside, the weather didn‘t matter. He almost fell from the bar when he realised what was going to happen. He had utterly forgotten that it was his birthday tomorrow, or later tonight rather. He actually had reason to forget, though; during a previous summer, he had been working on an essay, for what class he couldn’t remember, accidentally spilled ink on his calendar which he’d left on his desk, and, not being able to do magic over the summer, could do nothing to stop the ink from ruining the calendar beyond salvaging; he hadn’t gotten another one since, simply not having gotten around to it.

Of course something would be happening tomorrow night. He only had a birthday once a year, and this year he had completely forgotten how close it was. Now, if only he could figure out *what* would be happening that would have some unknown part of his brain feeling so unnerved….

It was at that moment that he heard a group of people, of teenage boys, walking toward the park, laughing, most of the group appearing to be praising the one in the centre for something.

Harry sighed, readying himself for the arrival of Dudley and his gang. He didn’t want to interact with them right now, or ever again for that matter, if he could help it; particularly because he was essentially about to pass out, and would probably have the worst case ever of vertigo when he righted himself; and generally because he simply didn’t like, and could only just barely stand, any of them at all.

“Hiya, ‘Big D’,” Harry greeted the one who was obviously the leader, but only by praise, as he was neither tallest, nor broadest, in an unusually chipper voice, still not righting himself. “How old was the one you beat up today? Eight, nine, ten even?”

“He was eleven, actually, and this one deserved it,” Dudley replied, as all raucousness from his group ceased.

“What did he do? Did he tell all your little gang-mates that your mum still calls you her ‘little dinky Diddy-kins’?” Harry questioned cheekily, grinning.

“You’ll pay for that, Potter!” Dudley threatened, taking a menacing step towards him as he raised his fist.

“You see, the thing about that….” Harry began sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and not being fazed in the least by his cousin‘s half-empty threat. He suddenly righted himself, grabbing the bar, swinging himself around and up, and turning around to face the gang, standing on the bar in a crouch, hands holding it in front of him, in one fluid motion. Somehow not passing out, falling off the bar, or both, from the extreme vertigo that smashed into his brain, he managed to shake it off and reply. “The thing about that is that I’m really fast. Oh, did I forget to mention that?” he asked, noticing the surprised looks on their faces and grinning even wider. “Hm, guess I did.”

He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the jungle gym next to him, judged how far the gap was, and continued. “And not only am I fast….” he sprang, jumping the gap of about two and a quarter metres in one majestic leap; he landed gracefully on one of the stout posts by the slide, the only sound being the grunt of landing, and the soft ‘thump‘ of his trainers. “But I can jump. Oh, don’t tell me I didn’t tell you *that* either?” he looked at the faces that had gone from surprised to virtually scared in about a minute. He thumped himself in the forehead, shaking his head and smiling. “Where *has* my mind gone?” He clicked his tongue a few times at himself reproachfully, still shaking his head.

He went quiet for a moment, eyes glassing over, causing the sudden silence to be a little deafening. Just as suddenly, he looked up, tilting his head as he put two fingers to it, tilting an imaginary hat to the leader of the gang. “Well, I guess that I’ll see you at home in a bit then, ‘Big D’.”

And with that, he jumped from the post to the upper branches of the nearest tree, which was about half the distance he had jumped a few moments ago, shimmied down it, and began running back to the house he lived in, getting about a block and a half away, if not more, before the gang managed to shake themselves out of their stupors.

He ran up the front steps and quietly shut the door behind himself, instantly greeting his aunt and uncle with a bored sounding, “Dudley is right behind me, or at least he should be. I’m going to get started on supper right now.” And with that he walked through the house and into the kitchen.

He wracked his mind for something to cook for supper, thinking up something sporadically moments later. Pulling out the ingredients he would need to make the main dish of chicken and turkey lasagna, as well as the caramel mousse intended for desert, he was just grabbing various cooking implements when he heard Dudley walk in the front door, slamming it loudly and fiercely behind himself.

“Mum! Dad! Potter did something freakish again!” Dudley called out, even though his parents were a mere metre or so from their son, starting up what Harry knew would be the oh-so-very-perfect beginning to an oh-so-very-pleasant conversation.

Harry sighed and gently set the pan he had just removed from the cabinet onto the counter, not wanting to put it down because of the insurance and threat it provided him, but knowing he had to for his own safety, and was out in the den before his uncle had finished shouting, “Potter! Get your arse in here now!”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon? What is it?” Harry questioned, attempting to look just the right amount of innocent for the situation, and apparently pulling it off, if the usual expressions on his relatives faces were anything to go by.

“Dudley has told Petunia and I that you did something freakish again, and since you were outside, it was probably in public. What in the seven hells did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything freakish, Uncle Vernon,” Harry began, attempting to keep just the right amount of innocence in his voice as well, and not sound like it was fake, which it most assuredly was, yet sounded like it was true. “I was hanging up-side-down from a bar in the park, thinking. Then Dudley and his mates walked up. I, not wanting to be caught by them in a confrontation, told them that there was a problem with them catching me, that I’m really fast, as I flipped myself upright on the bar and turned to face them, crouching on it. Then I told them, not only am I really fast, but I can jump, and I jumped from the bar, maybe a metre, maybe a metre and a quarter to one of the posts next to the slide, then to one of the tall trees about a metre and a quarter away, shimmied down it, and then I ran back here. And you know the rest,” he finished, somehow managing to say all that he had to say in one breath, without pausing, without taking a large breath beforehand, and without causing all of his words to rush together into one long, unintelligible stream of somehow consciousness.

“But Dad,” Dudley whined, stamping his foot. “Those jumps were at least two metres, and probably more! We watched the games, and those people that were in the Long Jump said that when they first started training, after about two months, they could jump about two metres. Harry hasn’t had any kind of training anything like that, and he can already jump like they could! That is too freakish!”

Harry, Vernon, and Petunia all stared at Dudley, unable to comprehend that he actually had used a reason that made sense to say that Harry had done something freakish, instead of just whining and using just what he said as the reason, or saying that it was freakish because of some reason he made up that had no actual validity to it what-so-ever.

“Well, right,” Vernon began, probably still in shock from the showing of Dudley’s smarts, for the first time in a long time, if not forever, “Right, you heard what your cousin said. So -- in your room, bed, now -- no supper.”

At that moment, something in Harry snapped. He had no idea what, he had no idea how, and he had no idea why. But he just felt something snap.

“Uncle Vernon, I don’t think you’d want me to do that, considering that I’ve cooked for you and your wife and son for about half my life, not counting while I‘m at school. And because of me cooking for you and your wife and son for so long, I know the ingredients to dozens of dishes back to front, and considering the fact that I saw all those take-out boxes in the garbage outside waiting to be picked up, at the beginning of the summer, I don’t think any of you three cook very much, even though Aunt Petunia was the one that taught me to cook for the three of you and whatever company you may have that night or whatever. And what I want to do is to say, ‘Fuck you, I’m gone; let’s see how dead you all are from all the take-out in a year or two, if I decide to come back, which I won’t, if *you’re* all just that lucky, which you probably won’t be,’ to grab all my things, and to leave and not come back. But what I’m supposed to do, like the good little boy, and what I sadly will do, is to be the good little boy and say, ‘Yes, Uncle Vernon,’ and then go and make supper and desert, and then go to my room without eating any of what I made for you all, which none of you deserve. But what I won’t say is, ‘I know all the ingredients in your kitchen back to front, along with many that aren’t in your kitchen, and most likely you will never even know about them. I know what will happen if I combine one ingredient with another, and combine those with another, and a fourth, and a fifth, and so on and so forth; I know how to combine the ingredients to fuck up your food, and in doing so, fuck you up. So beware, all of you, because you might do, and might probably have already done, something that might cause my hand to slip something sinister into a meal, or something to make the rest of it sinister.’ But since I didn’t really say any of that last part, you’re not going to pay any attention to any of it; but you’re always going to have this little niggling feeling at the back of your mind. You won’t know what it’s for, but it will always be there, until you know that I’m leaving, and will not be coming back.”

And with that, he turned sharply on his heel and left, going back into the kitchen long before any of the Dursleys could completely process all of what he had just said.

He made the Dursleys their supper of turkey and chicken lasagna and desert of caramel mousse without any outward verbal complaint, although one looking on would notice that he flattened the turkey and chicken, and cracked eggs, and other things, with quite a little bit more force than was needed.

“Supper’s ready!” he called dully out to his family still in the den, setting everything onto the table when he was finished. Then, as he heard them leaving the den, he slipped into the hall and quietly tip-toed upstairs and down the hall to his room, shutting the door just as softly behind him.

He sighed and fell heavily onto his bed, face first, rolling over as Hedwig gave a concerned-sounding hoot and ruffled her wings, shaking her cage behind and next to her, behind her perch added onto Harry‘s desk.

“It’s okay, girl, I‘m alright,” he said, walking over to his desk chair and sitting heavily. Holding his arm out for her to perch on, he stroked her feathers when she did. “I’m just bored and tired is all.”

Harry was silent for a moment as he kept stroking Hedwig’s feathers slowly. “Well, I might as well get some sleep before the ‘family’ ‘needs’ me again,” he sighed after some minutes, letting Hedwig hop off his arm and onto the foot of his bed, tiredly undressing down to his boxers then slowly climbing into his bed himself, and falling asleep soon after with a soft sigh.

It seemed to the Boy-Who-Lived that he was only asleep for a few minutes before he suddenly snapped his eyes open for no apparent reason. He had only a few moments to glance blearily at the clock, even though he hadn’t taken his glasses off, to notice that it was a minute before midnight, and to begin saying, “What in the -- “ before he was cut off by a sudden, surprise pain coursing all throughout his body.

This was unlike any other pain that he had ever felt. It felt like his skin was melting off and replacing itself differently; like his bones were snapping and putting themselves back together in different places. And yet, it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would; he sort of felt disconnected from it all.

And that was when the needles started.

At least, that’s what it felt like: Tiny pins, little, itty-bitty needles, hundreds upon hundreds of them, pricking his back, two spots on his head, and the spot just above his tailbone, over and over and over and over again with intense speed.

He didn’t know what he did just then, but all of a sudden, he had the biggest urge to swipe at where it felt like there were needles. He did, and the pain suddenly just stopped. Looking at his hands in amazement, he gasped when he saw that they were engulfed in flames; flames that were green, silver and black, all swirling, and clashing, and melding together; yet the flames didn’t burn him. Not a blister marked his skin; in fact, it was a comforting warmth, that at the same time felt full of power.

He gave one last gasp as he felt his skin break and somethings come out of those spots that felt like they had needles pricking them, before he fell back asleep suddenly, as suddenly as he had woken up in the first place.

He awoke, yet again, what felt like hours later. Without even opening his eyes, he felt for the warmth around his hands; it wasn’t there, and even though he had enjoyed it very much, he assumed it was just a dream.

A very, very, very, very, extremely strange dream, even by what he somehow considered to be his ‘standard’ of strange, but still very strange none the less.

At least until he opened his eyes.

~*~END~*~CHAPTER~*~