It wasn't unusual for Harry to take his time getting home from school.  It wasn't exactly as if he had anything to hurry home to, and as long as he got his chores done and dinner on the table before Uncle Vernon's internal clock told him it was time to eat, Harry's relatives didn't seem to notice that he didn't get home at the same time as Dudley.  Quite likely, they thought that it was good that Harry didn't walk home with his cousin.  They wouldn't want the neighbors to think that the two boys got along.

Today, Harry detoured at the park and sat listlessly on a swing, rocking himself absently back and forth using the toe of his sneaker for leverage. He was concerned about his spelling grade.  He'd gotten a B- on today's spelling test.  He tried to get exactly a C- in everything: it was low enough that it wouldn't outshine Dudley's C's, but high enough that he wasn't in danger of being kept back.   A B- on this spelling test meant that he'd have to get a D or something to counter balance it, and if he got a D so soon after a B- then his teacher was going to call his aunt and uncle in for a parent-teacher conference.  They'd say that Harry had probably cheated to get the higher grade, and then he'd get a zero on that test and would end up with a failing grade in spelling. There was no winning.

After a bit, Harry stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder again.  He loped down the hill and crossed the street, and then crossed through someone's garden to get to the back of his house. Before he even made it to the back door, though, Harry knew that something was wrong. He could hear Uncle Vernon shouting inside, and what sounded oddly enough like Dudley whimpering.  Dudley.  The very prospect of it was so unbelievable that Harry found himself hesitating on the back porch, his fingertips barely touching the door handle.  Surely it wasn't a good idea to burst in there when his uncle was already in a rage?  But then Harry heard Dudley snivel again—definitely Dudley—and he couldn't help himself.  He pushed the door open.

The scene that met his eyes as he stepped into the kitchen was unbelievable and horrifyingly familiar at the same time.  Aunt Petunia was standing against the wall of the kitchen, her arms crossed in front of her chest, a sour expression on her face, while Uncle Vernon was yelling and spitting like a mad thing, towering over a small child.  That part, at least, was familiar to Harry.  What was unbelievable was that this time, the small child wasn't Harry.  It was Dudley. 

There was a moment when Harry couldn't help but feel that Dudley was finally getting his just desserts.  He didn't know what his cousin had done, but surely he deserved to be yelled at like this after all the times he'd purposefully incriminated Harry.  A moment later, Uncle Vernon backhanded Dudley across the face, his wedding ring cutting open Dudley's cheek, and Harry suddenly felt ashamed to think that anyone deserved to be treated like that. Harry was in a position to know that no one deserved to be treated like that. Not even Dudley.

"Stop!" Harry yelled, surging forward.  He wrapped both of his arms around his uncle's one arm in an attempt to keep him from hurting Dudley again. 

"You!" Uncle Vernon roared.  He shook Harry viciously off of his arm, sending him sprawling across the kitchen floor.  Harry's head collided with the corner of one of the kitchen chairs and for a moment a white light shot across Harry's vision.  When his vision cleared, he saw that Uncle Vernon had left Dudley on the floor and had rounded on Harry instead.  "You corrupted him! He caught your freakishness!"

"I—what?"

"Dudley was perfectly normal until you came into this house!" Uncle Vernon said.  "Now your kind is sending him freaky little letters. I won't have it!"

"Vernon!" Aunt Petunia, now.  For a second Harry thought that she was finally coming to their defense, but when he turned he expression was anything but pitying.  "There's no need to tell them anything about—"

"You think that, do you?" Uncle Vernon asked.  "I tried to ignore the situation, Petunia.  I tried to squash the freakishness out of him.  Now he's corrupted Dudley!  I won't stand for it.  He needs to be gotten rid of once and for all. They both do."

Harry felt sick.  His stomach twisted in on itself.  Surely Aunt Petunia couldn't agree to this?  She just couldn't!

Sure enough, Aunt Petunia said, "Dudley is our only son."

"That thing is no son of mine!" Uncle Vernon shouted.  Then, in a quieter voice, he added, "We could always have another, Pet. One that hasn't been tainted."

And to Harry's complete surprise, he saw his aunt nod at that. Just once, but it was enough to send chills raking through Harry's body.  They were going to kill him! He scuttled backwards across the floor of the kitchen, somehow finding a way to stand even as he continued to move backwards away from them.  He could run.  He knew he could. He was smaller than Uncle Vernon, and skinnier, and had plenty of practice in running away.  Uncle Vernon would never be able to catch him.  He would never be able to... do that.  But then Harry's anxious eyes cast about the kitchen, and he saw Dudley, who was still pressed up against the door of the cupboard, who still didn't know what was going on, who was still too thick or shocked or whatever to know that he needed to run, and Harry knew that he couldn't leave. 

But what else could he do?  In the moments of Harry's hesitation, his uncle surged forward and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.  Harry felt his body being dragged across the linoleum, and his instinct now, as it had always been in the past, was to detach his mind from his body.  In the past the skill had served him well, for it kept him from truly feeling the worst of his uncle's brutalities, but now he fought against it as if it were an ocean current dragging him down.  He couldn't detach now: this time, he had to act.  He struggled against his uncle's grip on him, squirming like a fish, flailing his arms, and telling himself that no matter what he couldn't give up.  He had to get out of this alive, and he had to help Dudley do the same.  While he struggled, Harry kept his eye on his cousin.  Dudley still hadn't moved a muscle to defend himself, and Harry watched while Aunt Petunia dragged Dudley's hefty form across the kitchen floor.  At first Harry didn't know what his aunt was planning, and then she stopped at the stove and turned the burners on.  And though Dudley still didn't make a move to defend himself, he let out the most ungodly sound that Harry had ever heard.  It wasn't exactly a scream and a moan, the sound was of a small animal in absolute anguish, and the sound dragged on and on.  The fire on the stove shot up and caught Aunt Petunia in the face, and her high pitched screams joined together with that piteous sound.  She fell forward, and then her whole body was on fire, and Uncle Vernon saw and shouted and shook Harry as if he were a dirty rug. 

Harry, horrified by everything that was happening around him, couldn't even bring himself to scream.  But as his body was shaken back and forth, and his glasses went flying across the kitchen floor, he found himself getting angry. His rage balled up inside his body and came flying out, and Uncle Vernon's eyes widened in surprise and fear.  All of a sudden, Uncle Vernon dropped Harry.  Harry's ribs slammed against the tile floor while Uncle Vernon let out a slew of curses.  Through blurry eyes, Harry could just barely make out Uncle Vernon's hands, which were smoking as if they, too, were on fire. Harry scuttled backwards until his back slammed into the door of one of the kitchen cabinets.  Uncle Vernon lunged towards Harry again, and Harry's fear and anger spiked.  Aunt Petunia's knife display shot forward off the counter, and the knifes came out of it and one by one impaled themselves in Uncle Vernon's chest and throat. One even caught the man in the eye.  Harry watched in sickened surprise as his uncle was felled like a mighty tree.  The man moaned weakly on the floor for several minutes while the blood pooled out of his body, and Harry found himself powerless to look away.  And all the while, Dudley continued to let out that mournful cry. 

The fire surrounding Aunt Petunia died out, and the stove went dead of its own accord.  The smell of burning flesh clung to the inside of Harry's nostrils. Dudley's cry subsided, and Harry listened for several moments to nothing but his uncle's gurgling last breaths. Just as those, too, died out, a form materialized in the middle of the kitchen floor: a grown man with a mop of messy black hair and a pair of wire rimmed glasses, looking so very sad that Harry wanted to cry. And without a moment's hesitation, Harry found that he knew who the man was.

"Dad?" Harry whispered.