Petunia returned downstairs after telling Vernon and Dudley that dinner was ready. Harry Potter would be in big trouble if the table… wasn’t… set. Oh no. She rushed forward and saw the pool of blood beneath the freak’s head. She looked at his chest and saw that it wasn’t moving. The boy was dead. She had killed him.
She started biting her nails and tried to think about what to do. Oh, what would the neighbors think? What would happen to Dudley? She couldn’t go to prison!
She heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. The quick patters of Dudley rushing to dinner in his eager way.
“DUDLEY! To your room! Now!” She screamed and rushed over to the stairs. He stopped and stared confused at her.
“What? But mum, isn’t dinner now? Is it not ready?”
“No, Dudley. Go stay in your room. I’ve just got to discuss something with your father. Call him down, will you?” She said, trying to stay calm and resist biting her nails.
“Oh. Uh, sure mum,” Dudley said, “Is Harry in trouble? Dad will beat him if he managed to burn our food again despite you helping!”
“No, Dudley,” Petunia said, “Just get your father. Then in your room.”
“Ok.”
Dudley went back up the stairs and she heard him talking to Vernon. Her husband came forward, rather large but with a rather commanding mustache that Petunia thought was rather dashing.
“Petunia, what’s this all about?” He said, squinting at her suspiciously as he came down the stairs.
“It’s the boy,” She said, “It’s… It’s…”
Vernon’s eyes narrowed, “What he do this time? No more freakish nonsense, is it?”
“No…” Petunia whispered as Vernon reached the bottom of the stairs, “He’s… He’s dead.”
Vernon’s eyes widened so wide they nearly popped out of his head, “DE-!”
“Shush!” She scolded, “Dudley! He’s upstairs in his room. I don’t know what to do, I can’t go to prison for this! For that freak. It was just an accident, but if they come in here and see how he was living under the stairs. And how you beat him when he was being disobedient…”
Vernon’s face twitched, “Hmmm. Right. Wouldn’t look good at all. No one would believe that we’re innocent. Let’s get a look at him then. Maybe those crime drama’s we’ve been watching can finally see some use.”
They walked into the kitchen, only for Petunia to gasp as she saw that the boy was gone. Only the small pool of blood where he had laid remained, staining the kitchen tile floor red.
“I thought you said he was dead?” Vernon said, before eyeing the pool of blood, “Where’d he go?”
“I… I thought he was?” Petunia said, “He wasn’t breathing! Oh, what will happen now? What if he’s alive and runs to the police to report us?”
“He won’t do that,” Vernon assured her, “We’ve taught him better than trying something like that.”
“But then what should we do?” Petunia said, “I didn’t hear him go. Where could he be?”
“He might have crawled somewhere,” Vernon said, “Why, if I find that boy I may beat him for scaring you like this. He must be fine if he’s able to move around fast enough to get out of here in only a few minutes. Let’s look around the house for him.”
The two of them went into the living room and looked around for the boy. Petunia thought that Vernon was right. The boy must have woken up and crawled away somewhere. She must have been wrong, he was breathing and she had been too panicked to properly check him.
The two of them searched the whole house and the boy was nowhere to be seen. All the doors were locked, no windows were opened. Where had he gone?
“Looking for me?”
The two of them whirled to the entrance of the room. There standing there grinning, like he’d just won the lottery, was Harry Potter. Petunia flinched as she saw the expression on the boy’s face. The freak never smiled. She and Vernon made sure of it. And never a wide smile like that, his face contorted and twisted so it looked like he was showing all his teeth at once as he grinned.
“What’s the big idea, boy?” Vernon demanded, “Scaring your Aunt like that? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
The boy’s head snapped to Vernon and his grin dropped fractionally before returning to being unnaturally wide.
“Shame… Yes, shame. But not for the reason you’re thinking of. What exactly did I do wrong again?”
“Why-why you scared your aunt Petunia, got in her way, then hid while we searched the house for you! If you don’t show some proper respect then you’ll be getting a beating on top of what Aunt Petunia gave you!” Vernon thundered. Petunia was disturbed. Why was the boy still smiling? Why did everything about him just scream wrong as he stared at them like he was looking down on them.
The boy turned to her, that large grin still on his face, although it met his eyes. “What about you, Aunt Petunia? Dear Aunt Petunia. Do you have anything to say to me?”
“N-n-no! You should watch where you are going, freak. It’s your fault, you practically shouted in my ear and startled me while I was near the oven! Even Dudley knows enough to stay back while I’m cooking.”
The boy’s smile became a touch more genuine and his eyes lit up with amusement.
“I see. I’m so glad.”
“Glad?” Vernon thundered, “Boy, if–”
“Hush, Uncle,” the boy said and Vernon stopped just at the boy’s sheer audacity and confidence in the boy’s tone.
The boy lifted his arms over his head and stretched a bit as Petunia and Vernon watched on confused, “Ah, I would have felt so bad doing this if you were innocent. Probably,” the boy said conversationally, “But you Uncle. You remind me so much of him. You’re just like my FaThEr.” His voice became gravely and he grimaced as his expression flashed into pure hate that made Vernon take a step back.
The boy then turned to Petunia, smiling wide again, “And you Aunt. My mother was kind, caring. She loved me so much. You’re nothing like her.”
“What nonsense are you talking about, boy?” Vernon said with a slightly fearful tone, “Stop it this instant or I’ll…”
The boy waved his arms like he was parting the sea, and all the furniture in the room moved on its own to shift to the side of the room, leaving an bare, scratched, wood floor in the center.
Petunia screamed and grabbed onto Vernon as the boy laughed.
“We can’t dance without having some space, can we? Now, let’s give Harry Potter some well deserved revenge. You killed him by accident and were about to hide the body. Real upstanding behavior, that. Why do bad things always happen to good people such as yourselves? Are you ready?”
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“What—”
Then suddenly Petunia’s body went slack. She could only watch as her body released Vernon and took a step away to give her some space.
“Ah, this intrinsic magic!” The boy said, “Heady stuff, so versatile. I feel so amazing. Like I can do anything. Now, let’s see what your old bodies can pull off as you dance. I’d join you, but well… Harry’s vision is terrible and he’s rather malnourished. I’m afraid I wouldn’t last very long.”
Petunia and Vernon’s bodies started moving on their own, spinning and leaping around the room in a more energetic dance than Petunia had ever done in her life. She hadn’t even danced that much at her and Vernon’s wedding.
They kept going and Petunia began to sweat, but wasn’t able to stop, every movement she made controlled by the grinning boy by the doorway. His hands were raised and he was waving his hands as if conducting an orchestra, his eyes lit up in excitement as they flickering between the two of them.
“Yes! Dance DANCE DANCE PUPPETS!” The boy laughed, “DANCE UNTIL YOUR SKIN PEELS AND YOUR BONES BREAK! HAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, nice spin Aunt. Couldn’t have done it better myself. Ah, Uncle I didn’t know you could do a split that far. Hehehehehe. Let’s see just how far you two can go…”
— — —
Eric Smith stared at the two collapsed bodies of Harry’s killers. They were exhausted and probably very injured. He had pushed them to strain their ligaments so far that they were groaning in pain and barely able to move by the time he was done with them. Even after using his new little bit of intrinsic magic to try to force them to continue even then. That had been fun. Intrinsic magic was so much more intuitive to learn than domain magic was.
But now he had to seriously decide what to do with these two. He had tricked Harry into becoming king of that hell. The least Eric owed him was to get his vengeance for him. He tried to think of what he should do. He thought of what he knew of the confused boy that he had tricked. He didn’t think he would have accepted Eric killing the two as vengeance. He was too trusting to go for that.
Or at least that was Eric’s impression of him. Eric didn’t really want to do it either. Despite everything, enjoying making the two killers dance to their limits, he had never killed anybody before. But he would, for Harry if he thought it’s what Harry would have wanted. He had received some barebones memories from Harry that had been left in his brain when Eric had taken control, but they were scattered and disjointed. Only little segments were useful, and others were no use at all.
Eric owed Harry that much, to give some proper revenge on his killers.
But he didn’t think Harry would want him to kill his aunt and uncle. Luckily.
So, what to do… what to do…
He tried to remember back to all of Balthazar’s lessons on using domain magic. After he had failed that stupidly unfair supposed test to allow him to escape over and over, Balthazar had actually taught him how to do things with the domain magic within his mud body and the king’s crown. What was that one thing, it had been really hard to do…
Well, if he messed up it was probably fine. He didn’t have too much sympathy for these two either way. He walked up to the two sweating and twitching figures and put both his hands around Petunia’s head. He channeled the bit of intrinsic magic he had and it flowed to his commands smooth as butter. It was just so much easier to use than domain magic had been.
To his surprise, Eric managed to pull off the spell correctly. Hey, with this kind of magic at his fingertips it was way easier. Thanks, Balthazar! Eric quickly moved to Vernon and did the same and then stepped back and stared down at the two of them admiring his handiwork.
The spell Eric had just put on them was supposed to be helpful. Normally. It increases one’s alertness to their surroundings to protect oneself from danger. But he’d cranked it up to eleven on them and so even the smallest noise, the smallest little movement at the corner of their vision… and the spell would force them to look, to pay attention. It should last a couple months at least if Eric was measuring the decay right through his magic sense.
His magic sense went nearly a foot away from his skin. He had put in some effort in solving the puzzle for the way out for a bit, so he had learned a bit. Balthazar hadn’t been overly impressed with his final result, but Eric had still thought it was pretty cool to learn what he had. The later barriers were just too ridiculous. The tenth barrier had taken Eric over three hours of continuous concentration and work to solve by his estimate. The eleventh had been impossible for him, representing another massive spike in difficulty.
Ah, but he was free now. He was out of that place, with an… admittedly less than ideal body. But still a real body on a real planet. He looked down at the two adults and wondered if he was forgetting anything…
Of course! The son! He had heard Petunia talk to him as he crept away after waking up in this body and the magic from the ritual healed his new body back to life. He wasn’t sure how the boy was involved in all of this, but he should probably get punished too.
He probably didn't deserve to be forced to dance. Eric decided he’d put the same attention spell on him but make it last less time than the adults. Hopefully a few weeks versus months for the adults. He wasn’t that precise in making the spells, so he couldn’t make it exact.
Eric hummed a tune to himself and walked up the stairs. He knocked on the door where he could hear the boy shuffling around inside. Probably nervous from hearing Harry’s laughter and taunting downstairs.
“Duuuuudley?” Eric said in a sing-song voice, “Harry wants to give you a giiift.”
“What did you do?” Dudley said fearfully through the door, “What was all that shouting?”
Eric waved his hand and the door unlocked and swung open. He panted slightly. Oof, this intrinsic magic really puts a strain on the body while using it. He had overlooked it since he was having so much fun before, but he really was tired.
Dudley was inside the room, looking quite scared. Eric froze him in place with his magic and grunted as his body began to strain as he overdid it. He’d have to do this quickly…
He rushed forward and grabbed both sides of Dudley’s head as he was frozen and weaved the awareness spell onto his mind, making sure to put less of his magic into it this time. Whoof! He was really feeling exhausted now. He probably couldn’t cast another spell that big without collapsing on the spot. Harry had really been malnourished, Eric would have to work on that.
Eric unfroze Dudley and the boy immediately whirled around in fear as the wind rattled his window slightly. Eric turned around and walked out of the room, Dudley whirling around and his eyes skittering all over the room as his attention was drawn by all the little motions and noises that he was forced to pay attention to one after the other.
Eric walked out of the front door of the Dursley’s home and looked around. Uh. What was this place? Things had changed a lot since the 1870s. He was pretty tired, but probably best to not sleep in the same home as the people he had just cast hostile spells on.
He looked around, and after taking a deep breath chose a random direction and started walking along the strangely smooth black stone road. Odd metal carriages without horses attached to them moved around with dull roars. How strange. Eric kept wandering around aimlessly. He knew magic now! He was amazing, he was alive! But he was also lost and confused. He had no idea what he was supposed to do next or where he was.
A white vehicle with a rather interesting lantern on top rolled up next to him and he stopped walking by the side of the road. Eric stared at the light in fascination. He hadn’t noticed back at the Dursleys, but what he had assumed were magic lanterns had no magic at all! How did they work? How did the flames inside not snuff themselves out without any magic to keep them going?
A pane of glass window on the door to the metal carriage moved downwards on its own and Eric furiously inspected it again. No magic again! Was he just not skilled enough? That must be it, it was just so efficient he couldn’t detect the magic it was using. Still amazing, but at least it made more sense to Eric now that he had finally figured out how it worked.
“Hey, kid. What are you doing out here on the side of the road?” One of the men in constable uniforms asked. Eric squinted and saw a word on their chest. Police. He had heard that word before, they must be the law enforcement of the area.
“Kid, are you alright there?” The man asked, “Where are your parents?”
“My parents are dead,” Eric said reflexively before internally cursing. Wait, that was actually still true for Harry too. What a lucky break.
“Er, well. Uhm. Your guardians then. Who are you staying with?”
“Nobody. I was looking for work actually. Do you know where I could find an apprenticeship? Smithing preferably, but I’m not picky. I may not look like much, but my father was a smith so I know some bits and pieces.”
The two policemen glanced at each other.
“How about you come with us? We’ll take you to the station and sort this out,” One of them said.
“Can I have some food and a bed if I go?” Eric asked suspiciously. He didn’t really want to go with them, but he was running out of options really. He was hungry, tired, and his new intrinsic magic was sputtering and felt drained.
“Sure, kid. We’ll get you food and a bed. Just hop in the back of the car,” one officer said loudly before shooting the other one a look. The other man shut his mouth and nodded.
“Well, okay then,” Eric said as he hopped inside. Car. So that’s what they called the metal carriages.
He was brought to the ‘police station’ and given food and a rather luxurious bed. Even his parents had anything nearly this kingly before he died.
They asked him all sorts of questions, and were rather upset when they saw all his bruises and the injury to the back of his head. The ritual had fixed the body so it wasn't dead anymore, but not much more than that. Eric guessed that the brain had healed, but the back of his head was still matted with blood from what had already leaked out in the meantime.
After some prodding, he finally admitted to them that his name was ‘Harry Potter’ and that the Dursleys were who he was supposed to be staying with. Eric was given new much nicer clothes than he was wearing before and good food and told to relax as they took care of things.
Eric laid out on the bed and closed his eyes. The police were much nicer in this time than they had been back in his day. Even the richest man in town hadn’t had a house nearly as nice as the little room the police had put him in to sleep.
In seconds, Eric fell asleep. With such luxury, how could he not? Little did he know how much of a stir his actions would truly cause…