HP Widdershins: Part 2. (What I did on my Summer Holiday.)

Aug 04, 2006 14:42

Maybe you remember my previous alternate universe OOC ficlet in which Harry Potter grew a brain? I thought it was a one shot. I was wrong. This is now even more AU. The usual codicil: This is SO not gonna happen. Never in a million years. For just today though, we're eating the red pill and running a different set of variables.

What I did on my Summer Holiday
By Dudley Dursley.

26th June
A week ago Harry hired me to buy him phones for his posse. I've tried to talk to him, but he doesn't seem to care about the different specifications, so I'm picking out what I reckon will work best. More and more awful people are popping by. Sometimes they ring the doorbell. Sometimes they pop into existence in the upstairs hall outside Harry's room. My parents have threatened to leave me here alone with the freaks while they run away to Italy for their 20th anniversary. Fabulous. Can't wait.

9th July
The phones worked out well for Harry's posse, he let me help out with training people to use them and they all liked them, and Harry and I had a civil conversation for, I think, the first time ever. He's too tired to sneer at me these days; he just sat there while I outlined the possibilities of a good database of DeathEater events, times and locations, meeting some pattern recognition programs. "Why are you helping?" he asked when I was done talking.



"I reckon if you die, then my parents get killed too," I said and he accepted that without blinking. It was certainly one flavour of the truth anyway.

I'll write up a brief and an invoice tonight. I'll make it good; he won't be able to say no.

12th July
Record-keeping is not a wizarding habit, I suppose. Instead of sending me their government's DeathEater event database, they sent me a pretty girl with pink hair and a tatty scrapbook.

She clutched her scrapbook and peered inside our house. "Where's Harry?" she said. "I want to speak to Harry."

"Harry is having his lesson with Professor Snape and can not be disturbed. I can accept any packages for him in his stead. And if that's the newspaper clippings, then it's for me anyway."

She scowled at me and hugged her scrapbook. It was orange and said 'Tonks' on the front of it in pink glitter. She said, "Look, this was my own personal scrapbook project. It's private. I never thought I'd be donating it to science."

"Do you eat kittens? Or muggles?" I asked her.

"No?"



"Great. Then I'm in no position to judge you. I eat kittens myself. Hand it over."

The pink-haired girl handed it over, reluctantly, and I shut the door. Mum was hovering behind me when I turned around. "Who was that girl?" she asked. "Invite her in next time." My Mum has not yet noticed that not all the witches wear pointy hats and robes, and why make her even more tense by telling her that?

"Sure," I said. Yeah, that'll happen. Not.

Back upstairs I flipped through the scrapbook. The newspaper clippings were surrounded by stickers and glitter and really gross little drawings of death and destruction (Are all pretty witches so batshit freaking insane?), but the printed news articles shimmered and wiggled. No matter how hard I tried, I could not read them. I put the scrapbook down feeling seasick.

I knocked on Harry's door. "Harry, I got the articles, but I can't read them, they're locked. Do you have a crack for muggles? Or a secret decoder ring? Or something?"



Harry opened the door on his knees, sweat pouring down him. Professor Snape sat in a chair, eyes shut, smiling. Harry hauled himself up with the doorknob. "I'll send you Hermione. Give me five minutes and I'll call her." He turned, snarled, and slammed the door in my face.

Right. That'll be half an hour. At least.

An hour later Hermione knocked on my bedroom door, which I'd left open. "Hi. Come on in," I said. "What did you find?"

"I got nothing," she said, throwing her coat on my bed. "Non-magic folk do not get to read anything off the wizarding press, ever. The charm is built into the ink and no one has ever broken it. I'm here to do the data entry. Set me up."

I showed her the computer and the program, set the chair to her height, and watched her start pecking on the keyboard. She pecked slowly. Really slowly. Painfully slowly. It was torture to watch her. This was going to take three thousand years. "Um. I thought you were -uh- had non-magic parents. With tellies and computers and suchlike," I said. Which was why I'd found her the least strange of all of Harry's horde.

She looked up at me. "I do. I am. Why?"

"Don't get much typing practice at school? Read nothing but magic books all summer? All quills, all the time?"

She blushed. And then she showed me her big, sharp teeth and she started to snarl. What is with these wizards, they are all so aggressive. I interrupted her before she could start. "-Hey, not a problem. How about you read the information out loud, and I'll type."

She looked down at the keyboard with loathing. "Fine," she said, pushing away from my computer. I took her place and she sat down on my bed with the scrapbook. "Wow, the doodles in this thing are nuts," she said flipping through the scrapbook while I readjusted the chair.

"I noticed that. I'm ready. Start reading."

19th July
It took Hermione and me a few days to go through all the the dates, event details, and wizarding addresses. And then we discovered that the wizarding addresses could not be easily turned into muggle latitudes and longitudes. Hermione broke out her arithmancy books and we plugged equations into my machine for a week. Nothing worked.

"I suppose now we know." I said. "At least we tried."

"No!" She paged through her books again. "This should work! I know it should. This ought to translate right across. This should be easy."

"Easy. Right. Has anyone ever done anything remotely like this before? If not, maybe there's a reason for that," I said.

Professor Snape was standing out in the hall, looking in my open door, holding a bucket of water. "What's your power source?" he asked. Behind him I could hear Harry screaming quietly in his room as he usually did during Professor Snape's visits.

Hermione turned around to look at him. "Sir? What?"

"Power source. Mixing arithmancy and a muggle electrical device. What's your power source? Not muggle house current, is it?

"...Yeeees?" said Hermione.

"No," said Professor Snape. "I'll be right back." He put the bucket down and disappeared right there in the hall. I didn't flinch at the popping. Or the screaming. I think I'm getting used to it. Five minutes later the professor returned. He looked back towards Harry's room; the screaming had changed pitch.



He handed Hermione a big black crock pot. "There you go. Don't open it. Here's the instructions," he said and he stuffed a wad of papers under Hermione's elbow and then ran across the hall into Harry's room with the water.

I took the black pot away from Hermione and hoisted it up onto the desk. "What's in there? Lead?" asked Hermione. And then she stripped off the metal clips that had been holding the top on and she lifted the lid.



"Probably. It smells like a battery. A battery belched up from the depths of hell. Put the lid back on," I said. Instead Hermione poked her index finger towards it. I grabbed her wrist and didn't swear at her. "Okay. In that case, use a pencil," I said, putting one in her hand.

She poked the pencil in. It melted. "Wow!" she said. "Stupendous!"

I looked at the the conventional looking plastic socket built into the lid. "I am not plugging my beautiful new system directly into that. It's going through a UPS first."

"Hmmm," said Hermione, looking at the blob of poison in the pot. She licked her lips. It smelled like a battery to me, but I got the impression it smelled like chocolate cake to wizards.

"I don't have a UPS. We'll have to go buy one. And I'm not leaving you here alone with that. You look like you'd eat it. Let's go. And I'm driving," I said as she pulled her wand out of her sleeve. "I'm not traveling that way again. That trip to the library was the worst experience of my life."

She looked insulted but she stuffed her wand back in her sleeve. "Fine, whatever."

I put her in the car and pulled out of the drive. "Why are you doing this, Dudley?" she asked once we were on the main road.

I considered making her ask something more specific, but I knew what she meant -Harry'd asked the same question only last month- and I didn't want to go there. "For the money," I said, hoping that would shut her up. It didn't.

She stared out the window. "Maybe I can't type," she said, "but I know the approximate worth of all those phones and equipment you've bought, and I know how much Harry paid you. I don't think he's even paying you your base costs. You are not doing this for the money. Harry's forced money down my throat for some stupid research papers and projects -and I'm his best friend- but you, you get to give him the gift of your time. You. Not me. Why?"

"Well. Harry and I are family-"

"-Can I be honest? Bollocks."

I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel. "Don't tell him, please. Let him go on thinking he's pulling one over on me."

"Oh." She turned and stared at me. "Maybe not bollocks? You'd be a Hufflepuff, then."

"Hufflepuff? Another wizarding fat joke? I've not heard this one yet. Do tell." Goddammit, I'd thought after a week of working together-

"-No! Hufflepuff is is one of the four houses at our school."

I looked at her sidelong. "I thought you had two, Gryffindorm and Slithering."

"Four. Hufflepuffs are the sensible ones. The type who'd make you put on your seat belt if you forgot."

Which I had done to her when she'd got in the car. I looked back at the road. "Uh-huh. Sounds boring."

"No," she said doggedly, "They're all about family. And duty. And practicality. And you, with your family, with Harry-"

"-I wish," I said. "But, no. Look, we're here. Come on." I parked and got out.

She followed me and, perhaps only because the parking lot was filled with people, had the grace to stop verbally poking me. I could tell she wasn't done with what she had to say though. She's like a pitbull, rather pleasant unless you happen to be the focus of her attention.

I went out of my way to change the focus of her attention. By the time we left the shop I had her riffing on her theories of how that potted power source worked and she didn't shut up about it for several days.

15th August
Typing in Hermione's handwritten arithmancy equations was sort of like doing trigonometry while tripping out on acid. Not that I've ever dropped acid, but if I did and if I then did trigonometry, this is what it would feel like.



Harry's door slammed open and I turned around to see Professor Snape dragging Harry by the hands down the hall towards the bathroom.

Harry was soaking wet and foaming green at the mouth. "I'm winning! I'm winning right now!" he said to us as he went by.

"You're delusional," said Professor Snape.



"Is he okay?" said Hermione to Professor Lupin, who was bringing up the rear of the bizarre parade in the hallway.

"Oh, we're coming along marvelously," said Professor Lupin. "Could you just keep your door shut for a while? We may be going back and forth in a bit of a state." And he pushed Hermione back into my room and shut the door.

Hermione went back to her book, some godawful thing about mind-reading or somesuch that she'd stolen from Harry's room. "A bit of a state? I don't like the sound of that at all," she told me.

I looked back at the equations I'd been tying into my coding, then peeked back at the door. Tendrils of green smoke curled under it.

"My concentration is shot. That's it for today," I said. I dropped the pages of equations onto the desk and saved and backed up my files.

Professor Lupin stuck his head back in my room. "Actually, could you evacuate the house? Just for an hour or two? I think we're going to need the air. Thanks." He slammed the door shut again.

I grabbed my wallet and keys, and then picked up the newspaper. I took a step towards the door, but before I could touch the knob, Hermione grabbed me by the belt and dropped me against the side of my car. She'd teleported me out to the drive. "Auugh," I said. I slumped against the car door, but I didn't throw up this time.



"You all right?" she asked, tucking her wand back in her hair. She was still holding her book.

"I suppose. Either I'm getting used to this, or you're getting better at it," I said. "Give me some warning next time, eh?"

We got in the car and flipped through our assorted sizes of processed wood pulp.

"How about a matinee?" I said, "Would you rather your explosions flavoured with Tom Cruise or Jackie Chan?"

She looked down at her book, then up at me, at her book again, and then back up at me. "Jackie Chan?" she said.

"Good choice." I nodded at the book. "Is that working? Are you reading my mind?"

"I think so. Do you think Tom Cruise is a scifi-addled git who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag?"

"Everyone thinks that, so you could still be faking it. On the chance that you're not, I hope that reading my mind is really difficult and causes you a massive headache because I don't like the idea at all."

"Uh. No. ...No, you think it's kind of hot. And this seems to be one of those things I get to be naturally good at, like Harry is with flying. Which is nice because I got the good marks by studying my arse off, not by natural ability. I wonder if I can use this to cheat at exams. And now because I said the word 'arse', you are now thinking about my arse. And now you are indeed getting a little freaked- which feels painful, so I shall turn it off and not do it anymore and actually I do have a bit of a headache now. Is this film going to have a lot of loud explosions? Because now you're going to have to buy me something with some nice caffeine in it or else I can't go. Ow. Oh, ow." She clutched her head.



"You're a bit of a show off, aren't you."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I want a coke."

I laughed and started the car.

~

Harry and the professors were still making horrible monster noises when we returned from the cinema. The green smoke was gone, but it seemed to have soaked into the carpet on the stairs, which looked terrible. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and called up to them, "I hope you lot will be done soon. My parents will be back soon."

Professor Lupin appeared, looking cheerful. "Almost done, but don't come up yet."

I took Hermione into the lounge. We sat down on the only piece of furniture not covered with plastic, a vinyl sofa. Hermione seems to be a nice girl; she looked but she didn't say anything about the plastic. My mother does not trust Harry and me to not destroy the house while she's gone, and considering the destroyed carpet on the stairs, I reckon Mum's got a point. The professors will certainly fix it before they leave though. They always do.



Except that right then there was a loud boom that shook the foundations of the house and it seems loud noises are scarier in a brightly lit room than they are in a dark theatre. Hermione squeaked and jumped half into my lap. "I thought they said they were almost done," she said, still staring up at the ceiling.

"You know, I'm not going to be able to save you from whatever's happening up there."

"I know that. I was just-" She let go of her clutch on my shirt.

I put my hand on her knee and stopped her from moving her leg as well. "Yes? You were-?"

"I- I was- just in case I needed to apparate us out of the house in a hurry again?"

"Uh-huh." If one has a teleporting girl on one's knee, does that mean she wants to be there? Or that she forgot that she can teleport? How do you test that? "Are you reading my mind?" I asked her.

She looked at my hand still holding her leg, and grinned. Is that my answer? "No. Do you want me to?" she said.

Last thing I want to hear right now is 'I have a headache.' "Definitely not," I said and kissed her. She put her arms around my neck and kissed me back.

If there was more destruction upstairs after that, I didn't notice it; all I noticed was Hermione's mouth on mine and her hands and her skin until, faintly, I heard someone calling my name and I looked up.

"Dudley!" My parents stood in the doorway, goggling at me and Hermione.

"What?" I said. Oh, right. My hand had wandered from Hermione's knee to her breast. I let go. Hermione looked mortified. To be caught, or to be caught with me?

She took her leg back and stood up. "MustbegoingthankshadalovelytimebyeDudley," she said. And she zipped past my parents and was out the door.

"Who was she? Where did she come from?" asked my Mum, looking out into the street after her.

She's a witch, a dangerous scary witch, just like Aunt Lily. Tempting, but why make Mum throw a fit when it's not necessary. "Her parents are dentists," I told her.

"Dentists!" said Mum, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. My father rolled his eyes.

I went out to collect their luggage. I looked up and down; my parents' cab was still pulling away, but Hermione was gone. "Don't get your hopes up, Mum. She did just run away after all." A teleporter is always exactly where she means to be. And it's not here.

"Oh," said my Mum sadly, looking at me. "Well." Then she looked up at the stairs. "What's that green stuff on my carpet?" she said.

4th September
Harry left at the end of the summer. He told me Hermione was busy before he left, that I shouldn't bother her unless it was important because she was out in the field. I didn't hear from Hermione all the while my computer finished processing all our data. It finally spit out an assortment of potential locations. I looked up the satellite maps for all the locations, labeled them with the muggle latitudes and longitudes and the arithmancy disapparating codes. I sent them out to be laminated and then they came back and then I couldn't put it off any longer.

I called Hermione on her cell phone and went to wait for her outside in the back garden.



She appeared and took the stack of highlighted printouts and maps out of my hands. "Good luck," I said as she riffled through them. She was wearing a tie and long robes and mud-covered wellies and a lot of potions ammo. The dim old electric lantern on the side of the house picked out copper lights in her hair and drew a line of gold down her cheek. I didn't move. And if my heart beat a little faster and if sweat broke out on my palms, it at least wasn't obvious in the dark.

She looked up from the printouts. "I'll call you," she said.

"Right." Uh-huh. Never in a million years.

"I will!" she said.

"Okay." Whenever you need tech support, honey, I'll be here.

She glared. "Oh, you're really annoying me now."

"This mind-reading trick you do is quite cool, if not entirely fair," I said, "How exactly-"

She grabbed me by the collar. "I. Will. Call. You."

"Yes. Don't get killed then," I said. She kissed me -for the second time, and hard- and disappeared.



Oh, crap. I suppose that was the right answer.

~

Next: Part 3.

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