It was not the first morning that summer that an odd, almost solid bank of fog rolled over the perfectly maintained gardens of Number 4, Privet Drive. From where he was sitting, pressed up against the window in the smallest bedroom, Harry Potter could see it creeping like vines over the streets, coming up from Magnolia Crescent and silently infiltrating Privet Drive. The fog could last for hours and perhaps it was just the bad weather, but Harry felt even more miserable than normal when it was around.

It had only been about two weeks ago that he’d returned from his second year of boarding school and he already missed it so fiercely it filled him with an odd ache, as though he were extremely hungry. He missed his friends, and his classes, and the huge grounds. He even missed some of his professors (but not all of them, he decided, grimacing as he remembered Snape, his unpleasant Potions professor). The thing that he missed most of all, however, was feeling like he was accepted, because he certainly wasn’t with his relatives. For as long as he’d been living with them, his aunt and uncle had made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t quite normal, that he didn’t belong. It hadn’t been until his eleventh birthday that he understood what they meant.

Harry Potter was a wizard, just like his mother and father had been. For years he’d thought they’d died in a car crash, only to discover on his eleventh birthday that they had actually died protecting him from the darkest wizard of the modern age, Lord Voldemort. Harry didn’t quite understand why Voldemort had been after him, or how he had survived the encounter, but he had, and Voldemort’s power had broken. Since then he’d had two encounters with whatever was left of Lord Voldemort – once at the end of his first year, and then once again not three weeks ago. He couldn’t help but hope fervently that this would not turn into a habit.

Harry winced as he shifted in his seat, pressing himself so that as much of his bruised, aching side could come in contact with the window pane, made chilly by the fog. Uncle Vernon had left sometime around 6 to go pick up his sister Aunt Marge from the trainstation, and Dudley was still asleep. Generally Aunt Petunia didn’t bother him while Uncle Vernon was away, for which Harry was very grateful – Uncle Vernon (who, he had recently discovered, could hold grudges for a very long time) had given him a few extra knocks for ‘damaged property and emotional stress’ almost as soon as he’d stepped foot inside the house. Harry very much doubted that Uncle Vernon actually knew what emotional stress meant, seeing as he didn’t feel very much at all besides anger and mean-spirited pleasure.

Half of the damage had been for when he’d been broken out of his room by his best friend Ron in a flying car, and the other half probably because Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had sent an owl home to the Durleys, and the Dursleys hated owls. Dudley had taken the opportunity to sneak in a couple of licks himself, and Harry, even a few days later, still felt as if he’d been run over by a very large creature, possibly Hagrid’s three-headed dog Fluffy.

The positive side was that, now that he had vented his frustration, Uncle Vernon was unlikely to touch him again until next summer, at least. Dudley was still Dudley, which meant both that he’d try to get Harry at a later date, and that he was also still incredibly fat. Plus, they hadn’t touched his face – hadn’t for a long time, not since elementary school when he’d arrived with a black eye and the teacher had almost reported it – and the bruises themselves would fade in time for Hogwarts. The downside was that Aunt Marge was due to arrive in the next hour or so, and there was nothing that she liked more than seeing Harry be put in his place, both verbally and physically. He sighed, turned, and tried to get as comfortable as could be, pressed as he was against a cold window, determined to have as much rest as possible before the inevitable began.

It seemed like only a minute later he was jerked awake by Aunt Petunia’s harsh rapping on his door.

“Get up, get UP!” she said. “Vernon’s just called – they’ll be here in ten minutes!”

Supressing a groan, Harry stood and made for the door; his body was extremely stiff and achy. Aunt Petunia was waiting for him just outside, her arms folded and a strange, fierce look on her face. “Well?” she snapped. “Downstairs now!”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” Harry said through gritted teeth and barely managing to keep his temper in check – getting on her bad side so early in the morning wouldn’t do. He gingerly made his way downstairs, careful not to jar his frozen shoulder. Dudley was already in the kitchen, eyes fixed on the television and his hand rising from the plate to his mouth mindlessly. Harry noted with disgust that he was wearing more than he was eating.

“Over here, boy,” Aunt Petunia said sharply, as though she could sense that he was thinking less than generous thoughts about her son. Harry followed her to the kitchen counter silently, still griping internally about Dudley, but was more than surprised when she pushed a plate of food towards him. Granted, it was only some bread, butter and cheese, but Harry had hardly eaten anything since alighting from the Hogwarts express. He stared at the food, and then met her eyes.

“Eat quickly,” she said, glancing quickly at Dudley, but she needn’t have worried – Dudley’s entire being revovled around the gaudy soap opera now playing on the telly. “Vernon will be home any minute.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open, and he found himself staring at her. “Er, wha – ”

“Oh, good Lord! Eat it now, before I decide to take it away!” she snapped, a little louder. She glanced again at Dudley (who had not noticed a thing), pushed the plate towards Harry again, and spun on her heel to return to her son’s side. He stared after her a moment longer, and then snatched up all the food and practically stuffed it in his mouth. He knew he was being disgusting, but years with the Dursleys had taught him never to take food for granted, something he could not quite let go of, even at Hogwarts, and in that moment the little makeshift sandwhich tasted like the most wonderful thing in the world. It was gone in nearly three bites, and he quickly licked his finger to pick up any stray crumbs from the plate. Then, with a quick glance at his aunt (who was still watching him like a hawk), he quickly washed up, deciding not to risk a drink of water.

It was not two seconds later when the front door bell rang.

“Well, look who’s here,” Uncle Vernon cackled, hands full with a huge suitcase. Harry hoped that Aunt Marge had not brought her foul old dog Ripper with her – he could still remember that one time he had spent the entire night in a tree because of the malicious creature. Aunt Marge followed shortly after him, as vast and mustached as her brother and, sure enough, clutched under her arm and smelling to high hell was Ripper, his ugly old face curled into a perpectual snarl. She made for Dudley first, gathering him to her bosom and wrapping her arms around him.

“Diddykins!” she simpered. “What a great big boy you’ve become – so handsome!” She smothered kisses over his face, and smoothed down his thick blonde hair fondly. Then, not unlike a very fat machine gun, her head swivelled and turned to Harry. “I see you’re still here,” she said, squinting at him.

Harry, who couldn’t have helped himself if he tried, said, “Unfortunately.”

Aunt Marge drew herself up. “Not getting enough discipline, is he, eh, Vernon?” she rumbled and twisted to look back at Harry. “Where does he go to school again?”

“St. Brutus’ Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys,” Uncle Vernon said, smiling nastily over Aunt Marge’s shoulder at him. Harry’s mouth dropped open, and he would have started contradicting him if Aunt Petunia hadn’t stepped on his foot rather painfully. Aunt Marge and Uncle Vernon, who were standing on the other side of the table, did not see, though Aunt Marge did chortle at the stunned look on Harry’s face.

“Ashamed, are we, eh?” she said. “Thought I didn’t know about your little extra-curricular activities, boy?”

Harry clamped his mouth shut, and refused to say anything.

This would be the longest week of his life, he knew it.

Harry slipped outside through the back door. It was coming to the close of Aunt Marge’s second week at Privet Drive, and Harry found that the both of them had one thing in common: the more time they spent around each other, the less control they had over their mouths. Already she had aimed a heavy blow for his head after one of their verbal matches, and it was only because Uncle Vernon had reared up and grabbed her that he didn’t now have any facial bruising. Uncle Vernon had tried to explain his reaction off as habit – years of aiming below the neck and all – but Harry knew, really, that he was terrified of what could happen if Harry turned up to school with bruising on his face. Harry had stayed silent, throughout the entire thing, and didn’t even complain when Uncle Vernon set him off outside to do some gardening. Anything to get away from Aunt Marge, Harry thought.

He set off around to corner of the house to find his uncle standing by the back row of hedges. He was standing next to a holly scrub that was easily at least twice as tall as Harry was and as wide as Uncle Vernon. Haryy stared at it open-mouthed.

“Not pruned this one in a while, have, you, boy?” Uncle Vernon said nastily, patting the shrub with large hands that Harry eyed warily. One could never be too careful with Uncle Vernon. “I expect this to be completely pruned - an obelisk, if you don’t mind,” he added, as though asking a favour, but Harry knew that if this holly tree weren’t a perfect rectangle by the afternoon, there’d be hell to pay.

“Well, boy?” he growled, and Harry realised with a start that he’d been staring right at the angry red boil that sat neatly between Uncle Vernon’s squinty, watery eyes.

“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” he said quickly. “Er, obelisk. Right.”

Uncle Vernon sidled past him, and Harry turned to eye the holly bush suspiciously. He could still remember the time that Uncle Vernon had presented him with the berries to eat one winter. He’d been violently sick for days afterwards, and Uncle Vernon had roared with laughter every time he’d come across him.

With a sigh, he hefted the shearers. With any luck, the whole lot of them would forget that his birthday was tomorrow, and with just a bit more they’d lock him in his room for the evening. At least that way he’d be out from underfoot and could just sit in his room (and maybe get some of his summer homework done). From where he was standing, right near the open kitchen window, he could vaguely hear what Aunt Marge and Aunt Petunia were gossiping about.

“Terrible, isn’t it,” Aunt Petunia was saying, “that they could just let a criminal like that run amok without telling us where he’s escaped from!”

“I’ve always been a fan of hanging,” Aunt Marge replied. “I don’t agree with why they outlawed it in the sixties – all those criminal types, taking up space and wasting the money of hard-working people such as us. A bloody shame.” It was not surprising that she changed the topic to Harry – she loved criticising him. “What did you say the boy’s parents did again?”

Harry could hear the hesitance in his aunt’s voice. “Ah – neither of them worked.”

“Yes, I thought as much,” Aunt Marge boomed. “And dead in a car crash. Drunk, I suppose.”

Abruptly Harry felt a tremor pass down his spine, as if the Bloody Baron had just walked through him. At almost the exact same moment, he heard the shattering of glass somewhere inside.

“Hot!” roared Aunt Marge, followed by a shriek from Aunt Petunia. Harry stood frozen, staring at the window, and then automatically threw himself around the other side of the holly bush and began to madly prune. By the time Uncle Vernon had lumbered back around the edge of the garden, he had a neat pile of trimmings at his feet and the beginnings of a straight edge forming.

“BOY!” Uncle Vernon thundered, right before raised one meaty fist and hauled Harry up into the air by the front of his tattered t-shirt.

“Let go of me!” Harry shouted, his own skinny hands coming up to claw at his uncle’s. Uncle Vernon was so angry he didn’t even notice, and continued to shake Harry like a ragdoll.

“TURN HER BACK!” he screamed into his face, spit flying everywhere and his huge purple face millimetres from Harry’s own.

“NO! LET GO OF ME!” he roared back. Miraculously Uncle Vernon did, and Harry dropped heavily to the ground, his head throbbing. His uncle, still purple, was looking around warily, as if suddenly realising that they’d been causing a commotion right in the back yard.

“Get up, boy,” he hissed, reaching down and jerking him up by his sore shoulder; Harry gave an involuntary grunt and scrambled to his feet, batting his uncle’s hands away.

“I didn’t do anything to your stupid sister,” snarled Harry, rubbing his arm and wondering how bad the bruises around his neck were going to be. “And if I did, she deserved it, the stupid bint!”

Uncle Vernon looked very much like he wanted to kill Harry as soon as the words left his mouth and registered in his ears, and he knew that as soon as they were inside there would be hell to pay, but he didn’t care … he hated the whole lot of them …

Pushed inside the kitchen, Harry finally came face-to-face with Aunt Marge, and nothing could have stopped him from laughing out loud. Apparently her teacup had exploded in her face, and while she was busy waving it off as a strong grip to Aunt Petunia, Harry and everyone else could see it for what it really was – all over Aunt Marge’s face, where the hot tea had hit, disgustingly large boils filled with a green sort of fluid were popping up. While she was talking, one popped, spraying Dudley, who was sitting in front of her. He yelled and leapt up, but Harry, who had also jumped away, was laughing madly – already boils of the same kind were popping up across Dudley’s face. “Diddy-kins!” Aunt Petunia cried, clearly torn between disgust and a need to protect her offspring; Uncle Vernon was backing away, clearly not faced with the same dilemma. Aunt Marge seemed to have suddenly noticed that her face, and that of her nephew’s, was covered in huge boils because apparently they were extremely painful. “WHAT THE – ” she roared and jumped up – the sudden movement cracked the legs of the chair she had been sitting on, which crashed down on top of Ripper, who yowled in pain and sank his teeth into Uncle Vernon’s ankle.

“STUPID FUCKING ANIMAL!” Uncle Vernon screamed at the top of his lungs, wheeling backwards and crashing into the doorframe. It splintered magnificently, and he crashed backwards on top of it, a huge cloud of dust rising about his monolith-like body.

Harry, who had backed into a corner, still grinning madly, felt another rush fill him, and all of a sudden every single door and window that had been locked in the house burst open – there was a tang in the air, almost as if a huge electrical storm were going to pass right over them – his feet were moving him rapidly towards where everything he owned was being kept in the cupboard under the stairs – his heavy suitcase was as light as a feather as he hauled it into the corridor – he was almost at the door – he was outside …

And then he froze, breathing as heavily as if he’d run a 30-kilometre marathon, the blood pounding in his ears, his eyes locked with another pair blacker than his hair.

Severus Snape was standing right outside his aunt and uncle’s house, his familiar face sneering down his long, hooked nose at Harry. Harry felt everything drain out of him – the suitcase suddenly weighted a thousand tonnes – and Harry realised he was in Very Big Trouble.

Snape took a miniature step forward, his face twisting into its usual contemptuous smile. “Good evening, Potter.”