Harry Potter - Hellion!

 

November first, 1981.

Petunia Dursley woke up early that morning, way earlier than usual, in fact. She had spent a horrible night, full of nightmares, all concerning her sister, Lily. Oh, it was not the fate of Lily that bothered her in those nightmares, after all, Lily deserved what was happening to her in those dreams! In fact, it was the only reason she had not woken up her husband, Vernon! She had spent the night turning in their bed, and she was surprised her movements had not woken up the man, but then, it usually took some serious action for him to even stir, and they had enjoyed a bit of horizontal sport, which insured he would be even harder to wake up! As she made her way downstairs, trying to be as silent as a ghost, (BRR, what an image! It brought back the dream in vivid 3-D technicolor!) , she noticed it was four AM, well before the milkman would deliver the four quarts her Dudley would guzzle down in the day. A year and a half old boy needed to drink a lot of milk, according to the doctors, so he had strong bones!

After making her way to the kitchen and looking around, trying to figure out what bothered her and taking a glass of cold water, she walked to the living room, eyeing warily through her transparent draperies the very dark street. She was so proud of these draperies: They showed to all those that walked on Privet Drive that this house was decorated with taste, had the latest in furniture, the biggest Television set, the biggest fireplace, the thickest carpet, wood panel finish, success in every possible way! She even had French doors that allowed people to see in the dining room from the street, allowing them to jealously contemplate her dining set, the big buffet with all the crystals and plates. Too bad Vernon had not yet managed to buy the gold plates she had seen on display at Harrod’s. That would nail the coffin of those upstart neighbors that had the guts to tell he she was acting like a poor discovering horse-riding. The gall of these people!

The street lamps had all died? At the same time? That made her shiver. She remembered when that happened at her parents’ home: The bitch, Lily, had been pissed at her and had shown her what magic (Petunia almost puked her water on the carpet at the word) could do, and told her to never, ever, threaten her again. She shivered again, and made her way to the front door. She shivered even more, feeling an intense cold she could not justify. After all , the furnace was on, and the windows were closed. Again, she remembered Lily mentioning something called Dementia, that made people feel cold. But magic could not affect normal people, could it? She had worked hard to distance herself from that bitch, Lily. The bitch had taken her place in her parents’ heart the day the old geezer, Double-door (ego inflated bastard, she had decided when she had met him on Lily’s eleventh birthday, his name was probably an indication of what he needed to enter a room with that ego of his!) Magic could not be real! If she did not have it, no one had it! She had made a scene, and Dad had given her a slap on the ass for her tantrum! She had made her way to Lily’s bedroom and thrown everything out the second floor window. It had been glorious, that is until Dad had taken to his belt and given her a whooping spanking on her bare ass in front of her detested sister and that over-sized ego, a spanking her bum remembered even today. To add insult to injury, the old geezer had brought back everything from the back yard right into the room with a wave of that wooden stick, repaired the window and Lily’s stuff, including the broken crystal vase she had won at a science competition! Just remembering that made her want to explode.

As she looked outside the front door at the burned-out street lights, she travelled memory lane and remembered more injustices: Lily had married and invited her parents to the wedding, but not her (she conveniently forgot she had torn the invitation to shreds before setting it on fire in the house’s carpet, almost burning the house dow!).

The day of the wedding between Lily Evans and James Potter, she had taken off and met Vernon. She had gotten drunk, and both had commiserated about the injustices of life. She had told Vernon of magic, and he had wanted to go witch-hunting, but she could not remember where the ceremony was held or, for that matter, which religion gave service to devil spawns. They had decided to get Petunia out of under the influence of people capable of producing such an aberration and the next day, while her parents had left with Lily to bring her stuff to Potter’s residence, she and Vernon had entered, taken everything that belonged to her, and set the house on fire with the use of several gallons of petrol. She almost danced as she thought of the superb fire that had engulfed her parents’ residence, and the loss of everything Lily cherished. She had never returned, and mentally disowned her sister and her parents.

Then a nail machine gun in the dust coffin of her relation with her sister: Lily’s picture had appeared in the London Times with her husband, lord Potter, with pictures of their wedding! She had married a lord, James Williams Potter, Duke of Summerset, Count Davenshire, and according to the newspaper, one of the oldest families on record of the Realm, pre-dating the Norman conquest! Each title, and she could not remember them all, was a nine-inch nail in her ego and an added steel rod on the coffin’s cover. Potter could, according to the newspaper, claim lordship from the time of King Arthur, one of the twelve that sat at the Round Table in Camelot! That was impossible! That was fiction! That was... Ahhhh! Sickening! As she thought about it, she remembered another thing she had pushed away. Potter, the bastard, also held titles in Magic, and was linked to just about every member of that supposed Round Table, and, according to the newspaper, held the titles to Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and another... What was it? Oh yes, Ravenclaw. What stupid names! And they were duchies! At that rate the bastard held half of Scotland! And where did that newspaper find its information? She tried to remember, but she had problems with the name. It was a royal list of some sort, that had passed from Edward the Confessor to William the Conqueror, and had survived the rearrangements of titles the conquest had produced. For some reason, these people had made it through the upheaval unscathed, and probably richer! The injustice of it all! Then she remembered something about her history: Scotland had stayed separate! That meant the assimilation of these devils had begun upon its conquest! When was that? Mary Stuart! When was that? Sixteen something..., no 1567... when that Catholic bitch had been beheaded. It just proved Catholics were devil spawns! They had harbored witches and wizards until the sixteenth century! Petunia was in a rage by now, shaking violently! She had lived with Devils! She needed to talk to the Priest!

As she touched the door handle, it felt like it burned! It never occurred to her that the night had been frigid and that metal was a well-known dissipator of heat. The Devil had visited her house! Then she remembered her dream! Her sister had died and that oversized walking ego had dumped her devil spawn at her door at midnight! Oh, that was another volley of nails in her relation with her sister. She had her son before Petunia had hers! And they had the gall to have that Devil Spawn baptized! In her church, at that! The naming ceremony had been publicized in the column dedicated to trash, the same she had her son’s baptism published, in an attempt to wipe the grin out of Lily’s face. Unknown to her, Lily was already out of their world, out of reach of these news. The thing is, Petunia was such a jealous bitch she completely reversed the order of birth just so she could fire more hatred at her sister.

Looking at the thermometer on the window pane, she noticed it was well below freezing, and decided to go to the Church with the car. She took the keys, put on a costly fur coat, and walked to the front door to make her way to the garage. She was feeling sad the neighbors would not be watching her take the fancy car to the Church, and she almost felt like honking the horn all the way to the stop. Let them ignore her again and tell her she was a bitch of a snob!

She opened the door and almost fell down the steps as her foot caught in a basket. She barely managed to grab the iron rail, feeling the burn of the cold on her bare hands. The Devil had been at work again! Shivers! Then she looked at what had caught her foot, and froze! A basket! And there was a note on it. Shivering more in fear than from the stinging cold, she took the basket and literally pitched it across the hall with all her might! As she violently closed the door, she noticed she still held the note in her hand, and she began shaking violently as she heard a baby cry in the basket.

She began reading but stopped at the first line!

"Vernon! Vernon! Come quick! Vernon!" she yelled from the entrance hall, waking up Dudley, who added his voice to the cries coming from the basket. "Vernon! Get down here quick! We have a devil in the house!"

Vernon woke up groggily from the yelling, fell off the bed, swore like a sailor, made his way down the stairs and slipped on the fourth step in his rush to get to his wife. The whale of a man managed to get to the ground floor without breaking his neck (barely), covered with scrapes, carpet burns, darkening abrasions on his nude body, and a feeling his nuts had been crushed by the banister at some point. Blood sprayed from his nose and a cut lip.

"What is it, Petunia? Is the house on fire?"

"No, but it might as well. We have been contaminated by the Devil!"

"What do you mean? And what is all that crying?"

"That is the Devil Spawn!"

"Dudley? A Devil’s Spawn? Have you lost it, Petunia?"

"No! It is in that basket that capsized when I threw it across the hall! And it woke my poor Dudley!" replied Petunia, ignoring the fact that it was her own actions that had woken up the boy.

"Basket?" said Vernon, still severely traumatized by his carpet gliding down the stairs.

"Yes! Basket!" yelled Petunia, "Right behind you, at the end of the hallway!"

"But that is right across the house!"

"So? If I had known what that basket contained, I would have thrown it on the street, in the hope a lorry would have rolled on it!"

Vernon walked to the basket, rolled it over and saw a year-old child in it, which was crying its heart out, with a huge bump on the forehead.

"Who is that?" asked Vernon, as he tried to untangle the child from the thin blanket.

"Do not touch it if you want any more sex with me, Vernon! That is a devil spawn, and I will not have anything to do with it! Get rid of it! Throw that basket and its contents in the fireplace, for all I care!"

"Why do you say that little green-eyed kid is the Devil’s Spawn, Petunia?"

"Read that letter, and you will understand!"

Vernon took the letter and began to read, turning white, then progressively redder, then an ugly violet:

Dear Petunia,

I must inform you of a sad event. Late last night, your sister, Lily, and her husband, James Potter, were killed by a terrorist by the name of Voldemort. I am sure your sister has kept you informed of the war that has ravaged our world, as you had been allowed to be informed as a muggle member of a magical family, and she was dispensed of the Wizardry Secrecy Act of 1603 for your family’s benefit. Magical Britain is still at war, and Harry, your sister’s son, in great danger, especially from our world, as Voldemort has numerous known and unknown followers. I must therefore impose on you to guard and protect this child with all the love and care you can until such time as he is ready to take his place in our world, on his eleventh birthday.

In order to protect Harry and you, I have installed blood wards around your property, as you are his only relative and these wards must be anchored with an adult relative. You will receive a monthly stipend until he reaches his majority that should cover his care, of one hundred Galleons, paid on the first of each month.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Order of Merlin, First Class
Supreme Mugwump of the International Conference of Wizards
Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot
Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

"What are galleons?" asked Vernon.

"The Devil’s money. I do not want it! Throw that basket and what it contains in the fire! Sorcerers must be burned!"

"It would smell bad, Petunia. The neighbors would complain!"

"Get rid of it! By any means necessary! The more it stays here, the more contaminated the house becomes! Look at the blood on the wall! We will need to ask a contractor to tear it down and rebuild it!"

"Petunia! Get a hold of yourself! If I call a contractor, they will ask questions! You want Scotland Yard to come investigate?"

"No! No! Not Scotland! It is where the devil lives!" she hollered, almost shattering the windows with her scream, and definitely deafening Vernon.

"I shall take it away and dump it in an orphanage, Petunia!"

"No! Kill it! We must do what the Church prescribes with devil spawns! Kill it! Kill it!"

"Okay, Petunia, but I cannot burn it. It leaves traces, and smells bad from quite far!"

"I do not care! Dispose of the garbage! And of everything that came with it."

"Okay. I will. But I shall start the fireplace, and you throw everything, every piece of cloth, the basket, the letter in it, and make sure it burns completely by adding logs over the residue! Do not forget to shred the basket to small pieces or it will not burn completely! I shall be off immediately!"

"But there is Devil Blood on that basket!"

"Petunia, treat the basket as a hot log! Use the pincers! Damn it, woman! I know you fear the Devil, but is it necessary to dump your brain with the bairn? And go calm Dudley!"

"As soon as the Devil leaves, I will go upstairs."

"Okay."

Vernon quickly stripped the boy, no, it, not a boy, it can not be human, threw it under the water tap in the kitchen to remove the blood, ignoring the cries, then quickly put a piece of paper in its mouth to muffle the noise, vaguely hoping it would strangle on the packed paper. Then Vernon moved upstairs, put on clothes quickly, ran downstairs, again missing the fourth step and falling face-first on the floor, breaking his nose in the process. It must be the work of the Devil, that did not want to die!

Grabbing his coat, the second set of keys from the key locket, and Harry by the neck, he ran to the garage, furious at how slow and noisy the garage door was when it opened. He could see lights coming on in bedrooms across the street. Shortly, people would begin sniffing around, and find the Devil Spawn.

He threw it on the front seat, passenger side, sat on the driver’s side, tried to start his car and failed three times due to his nervousness, finally succeeding at the fourth attempt. He backed out of the driveway, almost hitting a lamp post in his haste to get out of there. He then drove off, burning tire threads at every turn. By then the neighbors were quite busy watching him go off like a rocket for the moon, and his driving caught the attention of quite a few early risers.

---

Vernon moved around, not really knowing where he wanted to go, until he saw a river name as he crossed a bridge: the Whey River! That would help, he thought, but he could not turn back and stop on the bridge to dump the body in the river. He needed to make sure it stayed in it! He slowed down, spotting a marina sign, and turned into the drive leading to the river’s edge. A quick look showed the shore deserted, and a wooded area beyond the drive, leading to a park and a dock. Perfect! The little Devil had managed to tear almost all the paper out of his mouth by now, but what did it matter, shortly, it would feed fish! Bottom fish, which Vernon did not like anyway.

He made his way to the dock, looking for something to weight down the spawn, anything. He regretted not having taken a cotton bag and an old hammer to sink the body. After all, it worked for kittens, why would it not for that trash? He had done it often when he was young, mostly to take revenge on school peers. It was his favorite pleasure to take their pets, be it cat or dog, and drown them in a bag by throwing them in the river with a rock tied to said container. He adored their faces at school as they cried on their lost pet.

Vernon found a used plastic bag with a tie rope at the opening. That would do. He inserted its head in the bag, walked to the dock and began pushing the body underwater. At first, things seemed to go as planned. The spawn turned blue, but then something horrible happened. The body became slippery, scaly, and began changing form! The body grew bigger, much bigger, and then turned gray with... fins! Vernon tried to hold it down, but it slipped and turned quickly, the bag floating away with the air left in it. As he watched in horror, the spawn jumped out of the water and took a bite at his hands, tearing the skin open as it clamped on them. Vernon barely escaped falling in the river as the mouth held to his hands. He slammed the head on the dock, which released the fish to the river. In shock, he made his way to his car, collapsing on the hood due to the pain and blood loss.

A police patrol car had noticed the headlights from the road and made its way to park behind Vernon’s car, watching him when he was trying to dunk something in the river. The officers quickly saw the blood and the mess Vernon’s hands were in and radioed for emergency transport.

While waiting for the arrival of the ambulance, the officers began applying first aid, and one of the officers noticed a tooth sticking out of Vernon’s left hand. He pulled it out and put it in a bag for expertise.

"Hey, what did you put in that bag?" the patrol commander asked his colleague.

"A tooth. It was sticking out of his hand. It is a very strange tooth."

"Oh? Show me?"

The officer pulled the bag and brought it under the headlights of their car. The lead officer looked at it, and whistled. The tooth had a triangular form, with serrated edges. A shark tooth of pretty good size, if he knew his fishes! The police officer was a sport fisherman and had fished repeatedly in the deltas of the rivers around England, in the Channel, and the Irish Sea separating the main British island and Ireland. He had seen many sharks, and knew what their teeth looked like intimately. But then, that tooth sounded alarms he did not like one bit!

"Johnny, that is a shark tooth. We have a shark in the river! We need to get the authorities notified. There are fishermen in that river that walk in the water to fish and they could be bitten! Try to interrogate that guy about what he was doing while I get the Commissioner on the radio."

"Do you think that is such a good idea? Radio is being monitored by the news media for this kind of story. We could produce a panic!"

"What would you prefer, a panic, or a guy being bitten? If a panic keeps fishermen out of the water, I will go for a panic!"

"Oh. Okay. That guy is shivering badly."

"He is in shock! I would be at less. Where is that ambulance?!"

"The car is registered to the name of Vernon Dursley, four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. That is not close!"

"No, it is not. I will notify the Commissioner as soon as he is on the radio and have the constables in the village begin investigations."

Just then the day shift Commissioner came on the radio, rather ill-tempered with having an issue before he had his gallon of morning coffee.

"What has you in a twist this early in the morning, Roberts?"

"You would not believe me, Sir."

"Test me!"

"I am at the marina on the Whey River, at the extreme range of my patrol route. We have a guy in shock, and are waiting for the medics."

"That is nothing new. Another drunk that drove on to the dock?"

"No Sir. The guy got bitten by a fish. We watched him doing something on the dock, then suddenly heard a yell, and then there was something silvery. Another holler, and we saw the guy hit the object on the dock before it fell in the water with a splash."

"What a baby. I got bitten by a trout once, not fun but nothing die die for!"

"Sir, the fish is question is a shark of a rather good size, from the teeth we recovered from his hand. In fact, both hands are shredded, and we had to do a tourniquet to stop him from dying of blood loss! Where is that damn ambulance when you need it! The guy is whiter than a ghost! We are going to lose him if they do not move their asses!"

"A... A shark? In a river? That far up? Are you nuts, Roberts?"

"No, sir. I know sharks. I am a deep-sea fisherman for vacation. I have seen that kind of tooth on many sharks, but that tooth breaks all records."

"Keep it quiet, Roberts!"

"Sir, we are on an open radio channel. That report is probably spreading faster than the bubonic plague."

"Shit! Holy Shit! Damn Shit! We do not need a panic!"

"Better a panic than a dead fisherman, sir."

At that moment, the ambulance turned into the drive leading into the marina, and then backed up to the police car.

One paramedic opened the rear door, the other quickly made his way to the police officers.

"What is the issue?"

"Severe blood loss due to a bite, he is in shock." replied Johnny Carlson as Roberts kept the Commissioner informed of the situation on the radio.

"Hey Danny, we need to move him to the nearest hospital if we do not want cold cuts!" yelled the paramedic that checked Vernon. "Let us get him on the stretcher and rush to Holy Mercy. It is the nearest!"

The two men, with the help of the officers, put Vernon on the stretcher, intubated the walrus, and took off, sirens blaring and lights flashing. Just as they turned off to the country road, a black sedan car moved in, with lights flashing.

"Sir, the guys from crimes just turned in. Do you need to talk to them?"

"No, Roberts. Help them the best you can. I await your report on my desk, no later than noon, do you hear?"

"Yes sir. By the way, sir, I have contacts in the fisheries, want me to contact them?"

"Yes. In fact I want that included in your report!"

"Okay, sir."

Roberts disconnected. By then, a dozen more police cars were at the marina, one blocking the drive to prevent entrance to the site, another group stretching a ribbon to encircle the investigation area. The marina was now a crime scene.