LIKE LIGHTNING | Harry Potter x Reader Fanfiction

⁕ a lie in the petunias ⁕

It was the hottest day of the summer so far. Hot enough that the sun against your skin felt as if you were sitting too close to a roaring fireplace. The silence in the air was thickening and as Harry lay in the petunias underneath a front window on the Dursley's house, he thought of the hot days he had spent at a certain school of magic. There were no cars that stood dusty there, as he looked at the ones on the street he lay before. And the grass was always emerald green, even on the hottest June days before they sent him back to this house he had never once thought of as home. 

Harry was about to turn 15, and his black hair had yet to be tamed. His jeans were torn and dirty and lying in the dirt did nothing to help that. Although it didn't matter as he was covered by the petunias and blue hydrangeas that hid him from the passerbys. The silence wouldn't have been so deafening if it wasn't for the eyes that he felt watching him from above. Although, with these eyes, he had nothing to worry about and he simply sighed before looking up at Uncle Vernon's face. 

"Yes?" he asked in an innocent voice.

"What are you doing? In the bushes?" Asked his uncle. Whose face was beginning to turn the most beautiful shade of violent violet. 

"What does it look like I'm doing?" said Harry, already fed up with this conversation.

"Don't sass talk me boy!" His uncle whisper yelled. His eyes moving around in their sockets, looking for neighbors that might see this peculiar scene. 

"I'm just-" Harry began, but before he could finish his sentence, there was a a loud echoing crack that broke the silence like a gunshot. Uncle Vernon's hands came down around his neck with an iron grip for a few seconds before he realized what this might look like to others. A man gripping the space in between his bushes and the exterior wall of his house. 

"What- didyou- do!" He snarled into Harry's ear. 

"Get- off- me!" Harry gasped, as he pulled his uncles sausage like fingers from his neck. He grabbed his wand from his back right pocket and raised it. From this angle, a boy holding a wooden stick wouldn't look so out of the ordinary. Considering he had just been in a flower bush. 

"What the devil do you mean by it boy?" asked Uncle ernon in a croakey voice.

 "What do I mean by what?" asked Harry coldly. 

"Making a racket like a starting pistol right outside our-"

"I didn't make that noise." Harry said firmly. 

Then Aunt Petunia's face appeared next to Uncle Vernon's wide one. They nearly looked mad enough to want to pull him back into the house from the window.

"Why were you lurking under our window?" she asked suspiciously. 

"Yes! Yes good point- what were you doing under our window?" 

"Listening to the news." 

Harry in fact had not been listening to the news, but had been daydreaming about those warm days he had spent outside with Y/N before school had been let out. There were few memories he had now that were happy after the Triwizard Tournament. This one had been a handful of days before fourth year had ended. He had been imaging the Dursleys soil was the grass at Hogwarts, and the shade - the willow trees branches. Y/N's hair glowed with the sunlight that burst against it in Harry's imagation and her eyes were bright. Though there was a sligh darkness behind them. Nonetheless, this days daydream had been keeping his mood positively upright until Harry's aunt and uncle had ruined it. 

"Don't you be clever with me boy! You know perfectly well that your lot-" Uncle Vernon's words snapped Harry back into reality once more. 

"Careful Vernon." Aunt Petunia butted in. 

"... that your lot don't get on the news." he finished.

"That's all you know." Harry said. The Dursleys were quiet for a moment and then they once more continued their chatter over him. Harry tonelessly answered their questions with meaningless answers for a few more minutes before finally wheeling around and stepping onto the front lawn. Anxious to get away from them before his temper rose too high. Harry was in trouble now, and he knew it all too well. But for now he could take a walk and cool off before he'd face his aunt and uncle when he came back. He'd pay for his rudeness later, but he did not care much in the moment. And that seemed to be a reoccuring trend with Harry lately. There were many pressing matters on his mind, and the Dursleys were not one of them. 

Soon, he'd find a very pressing matter right in front of him...

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Word Count: 810

Author's Note: Weekly chapters are back! Every Sunday starting October 24th! I'm so glad to be back guys. I was craving writing again and it was just a year ago to this month that I started getting into this story.