The Anti-Heroine || A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter IX

Chapter IX:

Harry's POV:

Little Whinging was an ordinary town. It wasn't large but it wasn't too small either. It had been deemed perfect by Mr. and Mrs. Dursley when they had first decided to move there several years ago. Normal and tidy with lots of neighbors to spy on and plenty of garden space for their future children to play in. The house of Number 4 Privet Drive couldn't have been more ordinary if it had tried.

The only thing less ordinary about the house was that one of its inhabitants was a Wizard named Harry Potter; Petunia Dursley's nephew. The Dursleys had been forced to care for Harry after his parents had died eleven years ago and despite the fact that Harry spent most of the year at a boarding school in Scotland they thought of him as a burden.

Vernon Dursley could never be mistaken for a nice man. People might think he was benevolent and polite but those who knew him knew better. Harry knew his uncle very well and the longer Harry spent in the man's company the more he hated him.

Usually, Harry liked to pass the time by imagining how fun it would be for him to invite his Wizarding friends over to visit him in his nice, ordinary, normal Muggle household (he'd never dare, of course. Vernon's wrath wouldn't be worth the small moment of amusement but it was nice to dream regardless) but some nights when he was laying awake he found himself daydreaming about what it would be like if the Dursleys somehow ended up in prison, or were killed in a car crash like they had claimed Harry's parents had– and on the really, truly bad days he wondered about what it would be like if he killed them himself.

Harry didn't think he had honestly ever really wished them dead, though. No, he might have imagined them dying and might have even imagined murdering them himself but when push came to shove the closest Harry had always ever seriously wished death on anyone was after the Mirror of Erised incident the previous school year.

That is, it was the closest Harry had ever seriously wished death on anyone until now.

Harry found himself actually thankful he didn't have his wand handy because he thought he might actually kill his Uncle– there was only so much of Vernon's bigoted bullshit and spiteful hate that he could take. Harry just wanted, just needed, one more shove in the right direction and he would be happy to curse the muggle to within an inch of his life. His feet tapped restlessly against the floor as if urging him to go fetch his wand while his right hand twitched, fingers curling uselessly around air. Harry stayed where he was though, silently listening as Uncle Vernon verbally ground him under his shoe.

The beginning of the holidays had been bearable despite the fact he couldn't see Hermione or use magic but they had progressively grown worse when he didn't receive any letters from Hermione. Harry knew that Hermione was fierce, tough as nails and, above all else, a survivor but he also knew that living on the streets was dangerous and he was scared for her.

Another factor that had added to his increasing misery was the fact that Aunt Petunia, unfortunately, remembered only too well that underage witches and wizards weren't allowed to use magic out of school and Hermione's threat at King's Cross had only held the Dursleys back for so long. Which led to where he was now, with his stupid uncle yelling at him.

"–you no good freak! And don't get me started on your mother!" Pausing for breath, Uncle Vernon opened his mouth to continue but Harry's hand was suddenly pointed at his face. It clenched at the air and he imagined the feel of his wand between his fingers and his palm, the stick of holly heavy and familiar in his hand.

"Don't talk about my mother." He said, his voice quiet but dangerous. Lily Potter would always be a sore point for Harry. His mother and father had both died to protect him but it always hurt more to hear his mother insulted, knowing she was the one who had stood between him and Voldemort, shielding him with her own body.