Trick or Treat
Trick Or Treat
Harry
Petunia
G
Uncle Vernon has to work so cannot take Dudley Trick or Treating. At such short notice, Petunia is forced to take Harry with them. One shot. Set in 1987 when Harry is 7.
Halloween - the one contradiction. The day when all the rules your parents set for you over the years can be broken. Children across the globe are given permission to dress up in wild and wondrous costumes; they can accept sweets from strangers and stay out past their bedtimes.
However, for seven-year-old Harry Potter, Halloween means something completely different. It was this day six years ago that his parents died. Harry missed them terribly, or at least, what he could remember about them. His memories of his parents were blurry. His aunt told him that they had died in a car crash; however, Harry could not remember that part … all he remembered was a flash of green light.
Every Halloween, when Dudley was allowed out with his father around the local streets to 'Trick or Treat', Harry was forced to stay at home with his aunt. She would have him wash up or vacuum the carpet, as if he wasn't kept busy, he was simply sit in the kitchen, looking sad, thinking hard about the flash of green light and his parents.
Petunia would never mention her sister to Harry, but he sometimes wondered if she thought of her. Harry knew that if he had a sister, or even a brother, who died, he would think of them, even if he did not get on with them.
"Hello?" Petunia asked, when she answered the ringing telephone. Her lips pursed together to form a thin line as he nodded and murmured 'hm' and 'mm' down the receiver. "And you can't find anyone else to do it? … Uh huh … Thomas? Francis? Right, okay then." Petunia replaced the receiver, and shook her head.
Harry was sitting in his cupboard, playing with an old one-legged teddy bear his aunt had bought him from a boot-sale, when suddenly; he heard his aunt's voice, calling for both Dudley and himself to come downstairs.
Pulling himself up, Harry opened his door, hitching up Dudley's old trousers he was wearing as he walked into the hallway where his aunt was waiting, looking both annoyed and worried.
Dudley soon crashed downstairs, and Harry tried not to laugh at his costume. He was wearing a large orange broadcloth as a jumper, with matching orange trousers. Aunt Petunia had painted his face orange to match, with black around his eyes, nose and mouth. She had also dyed his blond hair green (wash out dye) and styled it to it looked like the top of a pumpkin.
Petunia cleared her throat and said, "Daddy has to work tonight, so I will be taking you Trick or Treating."
Dudley blinked several times stupidly, looking from his mum to Harry. The little cogs in his mind went round and then he had a thought. "Is he coming?" Dudley asked bitterly.
"I'm afraid so, Duddy. I'm so sorry, but it's too short notice to call anyone," Petunia said, in what she hoped was a soft voice.
"NO!" Dudley said, his face screwing up tight. "I don't want him to come! Leave him here!" He added, loudly.
"I can't! He'll mess the house up! We'll have to take him," Petunia said with an unpleasant tone.
When Dudley realised that he wasn't going to have his way, he stopped pretending to cry and stood by the door, huffily.
"Come on then," Petunia snapped at Harry, who had been in a daze since she had said that he was going too. Harry had never been Trick or Treating, he had only heard about it from classmates. Tales of how many sweets they received and which houses give out the most and best kind.
"I … I need a costume," Harry said in a small voice.
"What?" Petunia barked.
"A costume …" Harry repeated.
Petunia sighed, and hurried up the stairs. After a few minutes, she returned carrying one of Dudley's horrible yellow and black stripped jumpers. She threw it at Harry, who caught it, looking confused.
"A bee," she said as Harry turned over the jumper, hoping for something else. When Harry looked up at her, perplexed, she said, "Buzz Buzz, a bee! Hurry up and get it on."
Harry pulled the jumper over his head, making sure his glasses didn't fall off as he did so. The jumper was three times too big and he looked less like a bee than a small little boy being attacked by something woolly and smelly.
Harry didn't have time to complain as the next thing he knew, Petunia had pulled him out of the door, Dudley in tow. To keep safe around the darkened streets, Vernon would take Dudley along their road, down a small alleyway to the road by the playground and circle around back home, which didn't take long.
Many houses, which prided themselves on style and good manners shot Harry glares as they handed him a few penny-sweets, as though they doubted his sorry excuse for a costume was worth even one sweet, while Dudley was given many and quite a few 'oooh's at his costume.
Harry didn't care though, it was the first time he was given sweets that Dudley had either not wanted or couldn't finish due to eating too many. Harry spread out his sweets in his pockets, in case Dudley attacked him for them at home. Dudley thought it was wrong that Harry should have anything, when he wasn't even supposed to have gone.
After the trio passed the playground, Dudley bumped into two of his school friends and their mothers. While they all chatted (the children about sweets so far, the mothers about other mothers and their daytime habits), Harry carefully unwrapped one of his sweets - a Milky Way Bar - given by Mrs Figg, one of the only people who didn't snarl at him. Harry turned away and quickly ate the white chocolate. It was the best piece in his pockets and he didn't want Dudley getting at it.
Harry dropped the wrapper in the bin next him before anyone saw and walked over near his aunt ready to go.
"… I personally feel sorry for you," said one of the mothers, a woman with short brown hair, who was wearing a large red jacket.
"He never looks grateful, you know? I don't know how you do it, Petunia," said the other woman, who was larger than Dudley was and twice as ugly.
"Thank you, Edna," Petunia said, throwing Harry a glare. "We better get going home now, Vernon will be back soon and I want to put the stew on before he does."
Petunia waved at her friends as she escorted Dudley and Harry back towards the house, sighing exasperatedly as she did so. Once they got home, it didn't take long for Dudley to get at Harry on his way back from the bathroom, grabbing at any sweets he found, leaving Harry sitting at the top of the stairs.
Harry sighed, he was glad he ate that Milky Way now. He was about to return to his cupboard when he heard a noise in his aunt and uncle's room. Harry tiptoed to the door curiously and peered in, astonished by what he was looking at.
His aunt was sitting on her bed, looking at a photograph. It was of two girls of around eight, beaming up at the camera. They were sitting in a garden, wearing matching long dresses. Harry gathered the one on the left was his aunt, by her long neck and curled hair, but the other girl … she had shoulder length dark red hair.
Harry had only seen one photograph of his mother and that was when he was forced to clean out the attic, and had found a box of old photographs dating back to the 1950s. Harry had taken the picture he found and kept it in his cupboard. The picture was of his mother; she looked around sixteen and was wearing a school uniform - grey skirt, white blouse and a red and gold tie.
When Petunia noticed Harry, she neither yelled nor snarled, but had a strange new expression on her horse-like features. She hastily hid the photograph and asked Harry in a croaked voice, "Did you want something?"
Harry shook his head, wondering if he should ask about his mother.
"Are you … okay?" Harry asked, taking a step forwards.
"Don't you remember what I said? Don't ask questions!" Petunia snapped, causing Harry to step backwards in retreat.
"Okay, sorry," Harry said, making a run for his cupboard, before he was punished.
The next morning went as usual in the Dursley household. Except for one thing. Harry was sure that aunt Petunia had given him an extra egg for his breakfast.