you raise me up || harry potter

chapter 23

»»————-　song:　————-««

broadripple is burning

★ by margot and the nuclear so and so's★

❝  the trashed filled streets
made me wish
we were heading 

home. ❞

♢ ♢ ♢

Uncle Vernon never struck Harry. He left the dirty work up Dudley, who of course wasted no opportunity to make Harry's life miserable—police was called once when a teacher spotted the bruises, but the Dursleys managed to convince them that Harry had been hanging about with the neighborhood boys.

"Odd little duck she is," Uncle Vernon had said genially, "She wants so bad to fit in with the neighborhood boys. We try to discourage it, but the boys get a bit too rowdy, you know. At the end of the day, it's just a little roughhousing."

They'd bought it.

No, Uncle Vernon never struck Harry. He preferred to spit his insults and poke all the places that hurt. 

But this time, he looked mad enough to murder.

"You come back here, girl!" he shouted. "You come back here and put her right!"

Harry was done. Done with the "Comb your hair. You're a girl," and the "Act more ladylike," and the "You're the girl, you clean." Marge had talked plenty about how Harry was a dyke and a good-for-nothing bitch who should have been helping Petunia in the kitchen like a proper young woman... but the words Marge had said about his parents struck something deep within his chest and lodged between his ribs until it was hard to breathe. 

If only they knew, Harry thought, breathing hard as he ran down the street, if only they knew that Lily and James Potter were braver than any of the Dursleys could ever comprehend in their neat, secure little lives.

He had no intention of coming back, at least for the summer. 

Harry did regret blowing up Marge, but only because the Ministry was probably on his tail now. His life really was just one thing after the other, wasn't it? Strange thing was, he would prefer Snape's vitriol over Vernon and Marge. Family somehow hurt more.

And that was how he found himself at the Leaky Cauldron, speaking to the Minister, rather confused about how genial and lenient Fudge was being about the whole thing (although he accidentally kept calling him 'Helena'), when Snape of all people walked in through the door.

Harry's immediately reaction was to slouch low in his hair while also nodding at what Fudge was saying, trying to make the movement casual. He was talking about arranging a room for him, seeing as the Dursleys certainly didn't want him at the moment and, in Fudge's words, "we don't want to lose you again." 

But Snape seemed to be looking for someone; he strode in with purpose and his eyes roved around the place before finally settling on the table where Fudge and Harry sat. His eyes narrowed.

Harry gulped. What was he doing here?

"Minister Fudge," Snape said, appearing over Harry's shoulder. 

Fudge jerked back in alarm, spilling his drink all over himself in the process. Harry fought the urge to laugh despite his anxiety—Snape's silent stalk-attack did tend to have that attack. His black robes and pale skin gave him the vague appearance of a vampire, which definitely helped.