you raise me up || harry potter

chapter 31

»»————-　song:　————-««

disenchanted

★ by my chemical romance ★

❝ you're just a sad song
with nothing to say
about a life long wait
for a hospital stay

and if you think that i'm wrong,
this never meant nothing to you. ❞

♢ ♢ ♢

Vernon Dursley never told Harry to sit down when he misbehaved. Vernon Dursley never set down ground rules, most likely because he enjoyed seeing Harry flounder and then punish him for not knowing better. Vernon Dursley truthfully, in every aspect of the word, did not give a flying hippogriff whether Harry got killed by a mass murderer or not.

That was probably the most singular difference between Vernon Dursley and Severus Snape. Already the differences were getting clearer and clearer. The well-hidden look of disgust on Snape's face at not even being offered a drink was amusing if you looked at it from an angle. Vernon had no desire to impress Snape, and thus did not even attempt to spare a modicum of decency. 

"So... what's wrong with Dudley?" Harry asked tentatively. 

Vernon paused in the middle of looking for his keys. He opened his mouth, and then closed them. "A gang," he said at last. "You don't... you don't hear about gangs around these parts. It's supposed to be safe. It's..." Vernon seemed to have ran out of words, and instead snapped at Harry, "You know you're not supposed to ask questions, girl! I wouldn't even have you here if it weren't for—" Again fell silent, for he had remembered Dudley again. 

"Well, I won't have you getting in my car," he said, eyeing Harry and Snape. "Take a flying carpet or whatever it is you do to the hospital."

"We'll take a bus," Snape said. If he had less self-control, his eye would probably have been twitching. 

When they stepped outside, Harry stared at the car for the first time they had arrived. The front was all dented and smashed. The Dursleys, who prided themselves on their nice, normal car, the car that Harry was forced to wash and wax every Sunday so that it may gleam and serve as a viewing pleasure for the neighbors, had not gotten it fixed, so preoccupied were they about Dudley. 

Harry suddenly felt a bit ill. "Car accident?" he asked faintly. 

"When we were trying to follow the ambulance," Vernon grunted. "Petunia got banged up, she did. And don't ask questions," he said as an afterthought, remembering his rule.

As the car pulled away, Vernon still staring at them with beady, suspicious eyes, Harry and Snape watched it go. 

"They used to say my mum and dad died in a car crash," Harry said quietly, still feeling nauseous for reasons he wasn't quite sure. 

"I remember," Snape said.

Neither of them moved from the driveway. 

"Do you believe in karma?" Harry asked.

"I believe in irony," Snape replied.

And off they went down Privet Drive to the nearest bus stop.

♢

The second Harry saw Dudley, his legs felt like someone had hit them with the Jelly-Legs jinx. 

Both of his eyes were black and swollen. His nose was purple and crooked, gauze wrapped around the nostrils. There were cuts and bruises and wires everywhere, and it was Harry could do to not let his knees buckle. Nobody had ever beat Harry up this bad—his accidental magic never let them—but he cringed at the memory of feeling cornered and helpless, unable to anything. Harry could jump onto the roof, but Dudley... Dudley had to take every punch and kick he had coming.