Stay - Mattheo Riddle

The Retrieval Mission

IMPORTANT: Hi all, hope your day has been okay :) just letting everyone know that Wattpad will no longer let me add chapters to this book as I've reached 199 chapters (the max) so I have had to make another book to continue this (which is kind of annoying and I understand is very inconvenient for you guys, so I apologise for that) I have called it 'Reflections' and I'm gonna start writing a chapter now. HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL THERE <3 I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FARRR

Harry was lying in one of his apathetic phases, staring at the ceiling, his exhausted mind quite blank, when his uncle entered his bedroom. Harry looked slowly around at him. Uncle Vernon was wearing his best suit and an expression of enormous smugness.

"We're going out," he said.

"Sorry?"

"We — that is to say, your aunt, Dudley, and I — are going out." 

"Fine," said Harry dully, looking back at the ceiling. He wondered what his sister was doing right now, was she just as bored as he was? What if she was here? What would the two of them be doing to pass the time? Maybe she would be reading to him just like she had done when they were little kids... maybe they would have been talking about Hogwarts...

"You are not to leave your bedroom while we are away."

"Okay."

"You are not to touch the television, the stereo, or any of our possessions." 

"Right."

"You are not to steal food from the fridge." 

"Okay."

"I am going to lock your door."

"You do that."

Uncle Vernon glared at Harry, clearly suspicious of this lack of argument, then stomped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Harry heard the key turn in the lock and Uncle Vernon's footsteps walking heavily down the stairs. A few minutes later he heard the slamming of car doors, the rumble of an engine, and the unmistakable sound of the car sweeping out of the drive.

Harry had no particular feeling about the Dursleys leaving. It made no difference to him whether they were in the house or not. He could not even summon the energy to get up and turn on his bedroom light. The room grew steadily darker around him as he lay listening to the night sounds through the window he kept open all the time, waiting for the blessed moment when Hedwig returned.

The empty house creaked around him. The pipes gurgled. Harry lay there in a kind of stupor, thinking of nothing, suspended in misery.

And then, quite distinctly, he heard a crash in the kitchen below.

He sat bolt upright, listening intently. The Dursleys couldn't be back, it was much too soon, and in any case he hadn't heard their car.

There was silence for a few seconds, and then he heard voices.

Burglars, he thought, sliding off the bed onto his feet — but a split second later it occurred to him that burglars would keep their voices down, and whoever was moving around in the kitchen was certainly not troubling to do so.

He snatched up his wand from his bedside table and stood facing his bedroom door, listening with all his might. Next moment he jumped as the lock gave a loud click and his door swung open.

Harry stood motionless, staring through the open door at the dark upstairs landing, straining his ears for further sounds, but none came. He hesitated for a moment and then moved swiftly and silently out of his room to the head of the stairs.