章 10: Decisions
Harry had spent a couple of weeks at the home of the redheads during his first summer home but not even he had wanted to repeat that stay in the subsequent years. He said he'd been placed into a room with Ron, the boy he was supposedly friends with, and spent the entire time being bombarded with how hard pressed the family was and fawned over by both the Mother and daughter in a way that had made him more than a touch uncomfortable.
Ron had spent the entire visit complaining about how Harry had more money and could afford nicer things than he could. All the while never seeming to notice Harry had none of these nice things he was whining about not having. He'd even refused to go there again when he was invited for some big sporting event they wanted him to go with them to. Harry had told his Aunt they only wanted him to go because of who he was over there.
Not because they actually liked him or wanted him around. So she told Vernon to refuse him permission and not to let the wizards force the issue. Vernon took them all away the night before the proposed retrieval date so no one was there when the redheads showed up to get Harry. They'd stayed away all weekend just so Harry couldn't be forced to stay with them again. The fact that someone had shown up to get Harry that time, as was obvious by the missing note Vernon had left for them, proved the wizards weren't actually monitoring the family all that closely.
And that meant if he made it through the summer without anyone noticing the Dursley's weren't around, there was just as good a chance their absence wouldn't be noticed until the upcoming end of the school year when they didn't arrive at King's Cross to greet the train. Even that wasn't likely to say anything though since he'd been returned to them via a special form of transportation straight from the school each year he'd been attending that damn school.
Petunia had even put in a long term request with a local cabbie for Harry to be picked up at the house and delivered to King's Cross Station in London on September the 1st. She'd had to pay a rather hefty deposit for the order since that was a good two months down the line from when she'd made the request, but she didn't care because she knew he couldn't get there any other way. And he had to return to school on time one way or the other.
Dudley had been pulled out of Smeltings with no forwarding address or school listed in his records to trace him through. All it took was a discreet call from Vernon's boss to the administrator of the school once Vernon had explained to his long time boss why he needed to remove his family from England as fast as possible and on the qt. Harry had confirmed that Dumbledore and several other high level people over there knew what school Dudley attended as well as what company Vernon worked for.
Just as they knew Petunia was a stay-at-home parent and something of a social gadfly. So, with them trying to distance themselves from Harry, it was no longer safe for them to be so easy to find. All of them had to change such easy to identify markers about themselves.
Nor was Dudley allowed to give his buddies a heads up to the family's move. Both Vernon and Petunia knew the wizards would run interrogations in the neighborhood in an attempt to reacquire them and if they found one of Dudley's friends whom he had blabbed to, it'd be all over except for the crying as the saying went. For that reason, neither adult even told Dudley they weren't returning to the house.
They told him only that they were going on a summer long vacation and he'd know where to when they arrived at their location. He was allowed to tell his friends that much so they wouldn't come to the house looking for him. Dudley's friends had never been all that nice to Harry and wouldn't hesitate to make problems for him if they realized he was there alone. Needless to say Dudley had decided they were going to Disneyland since he really wanted to go there and that was what he told his buddies.
They chose not to say anything to Vernon's sister Marge knowing she most likely wouldn't wish to relocate. She had a comfortable life on the cliffs of Dover and enjoyed her afternoon teas with the Colonel too much to want to move somewhere she knew no one but them. Though she loved her brother and nephew, a couple of visits each year was enough for her to remember why she'd never married or wanted to have children of her own. And then there were her championship dogs to think about. Marge was a breeder of championship bulldogs.
She'd won many awards for her dogs and sold the pups to police academies around Britain. She'd even sold some to handicapped training facilities to be used as guide dogs and help mates for those that needed them. Even if she moved somewhere new, there was no way she could or even would, give up on the dogs. And if she tried to re-establish herself elsewhere, she could still be traced through the dogs. Because to be successful in that business you had to rely on past examples of what the dogs you bred could become.
Even if she did wish to go with them, they really didn't want to share a dwelling with her while she looked for new accommodations. Marge was too uncouth for them. Too rough around the edges. While there was a chance she'd be grabbed by the wizards trying to control Harry, there was absolutely no chance Harry would raise so much as an eyebrow over her fate. Marge had been too mean and too nasty to him over the years for little to no reason but that she wished to be. Nor could she be used to pull the rest of them out of hiding since they had to be found to be told the wizards had her. And if they could be found to be told, then there was no reason to grab her in the first place.
Thinking about her however had caused Vernon to realize for the first time how very unfairly his sister had treated Harry. Solemnly he had turned to Harry and apologized to him for the way he'd allowed Marge to treat him over the years. He didn't try to explain his behavior to his nephew. Or hers. Just explained that he could see things differently now and realized how everything must have felt to Harry all these years. Harry had accepted the apology as it was meant and let the matter drop.
Harry didn't care for Marge Dursley at all. He never had or would. No matter what excuse his Aunt and Uncle had for their treatment of him, they'd at least provided him with food, shelter, clothing, medical care when it was absolutely needed and an early education. They'd taught him what he needed to know to take care of his body's needs and some general rules of staying safe in society.
They'd even taught him job related skills he could use to provide a living for himself. But she'd never had any of that to balance her cruelty. She was cruel just for the sake of being cruel and she hated Harry for no good reason as he'd certainly never cost her a thing. Harry only thanked God she didn't have a key to this house or any right to be here any longer since Vernon had signed it over to him. But she was the reason Harry had unplugged the phone when his relatives abandoned him here.
.....
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