Privet Drive
It was late, the fire in front of them crackled as the warm orange light softened the harsh darkness of the parlour in Grimmauld Place. The Christmas tree Mrs.Weasley had forced them to put up looked out of place next to the ornate silver candelabras, their opulence rusted as they hinted of an era long dead. Hari leaned her head on Sirius’ shoulder as Remus’ scent, chocolate and smoke, soothed her nerves. She let herself believe that this semblance of a family could last.
“I’m scared.” She confessed into the silence.
Remus glanced at Sirius, they had no empty platitudes to give her.
“It’s alright to be, Hari.” Remus said gently, “Many are. Fear isn’t something to be ashamed of.”
“Well it is when people expect me to be able to do something about Volde—“ Hari retorted, sitting upright.
“—Nobody expects you to do anything—“ Sirius tried to placate her in vain. He knew Hari was speaking the truth. This was him trying to be comforting, like some sort of parental figure. A part of the role that he didn’t always pull of quite right. After all he was meant to have been the troublesome godfather that encouraged mischief, not one to provide emotional support to a teenager with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Sirius, people expect me to be some super powerful witch and defeat a dark lord.” Hari said matter of factly.
Remus sighed.
Hari continued, “And I just, I don’t know— they think I’m some great, powerful—“
Remus tried his hand at comforting Hari. Calling upon his long forgotten Prefect skills of talking down teenagers. Of course they were just eleven year olds that were home-sick, not fifteen year olds dealing with the responsibility of an impeding war.
“Haritha you don’t have to aim for greatness,“ his tone patient as he began.
Sirius interrupted firmly, “Yeah, because you’re already worth more than all those arseholes combined. You’ve achieved more and are more powerful. You are the heiress to not one but two Noble and Most Ancient houses. Heiress Black and Heiress Potter. There is greatness in that.“
The candelabras glinted slightly, now this is more like the tone the old ornaments were used to. Words that reinforced the might of the Noble Houses. The rhetoric seemed utterly out of place coming from Sirius ‘Disowned Heir and Forever Rebel’ Black.
Remus raised a brow and smiled wryly, “Now that sounds very Lord Black of you Padfoot. Not a sentiment I thought you’d have.”
Sirius scoffed, bitterness and amusement rippling along his weathered, aristocratic features.
“Just because I hated being Heir Black doesn’t mean I don’t know the weight titles hold in our world Mooney.”
A beat of contemplative silence passed between them. Hari stuffed away her internal dilemmas and let a mischievous light wash over her.
“….So are you two sleeping together already or are you gonna do that soon?” Hari quipped with a smirk as she tried to lighten the mood she had dampened to begin with.
The warmth of the scene grew fuzzier and Sirius’ wolfish grin, the one that made him look younger, along with Remus’ half-hearted protests, belied by the smirk tugging at his lips, washed away. Her eyes flickered open to the white ceiling of the second bedroom at 4 Privet Drive.
Aunt Petunia banged at the door to get her up.
Being back at Privet Drive felt odd. It was like the world here was a fossil, forever frozen in amber. If Hari didn’t despise it with all her might then she might have been grateful for the constant it provided.
She made breakfast, scrubbed floors, toiled over the garden, and did loads of laundry. A real modern-day Cinderella; she briefly considered singing to Hedwig to complete the cliche. Hari didn’t hate it as much as usual, keeping her hands busy meant she didn’t think much, of course not even being dead tired and starving would stop the nightmares.
For brief reprieves she’d spend her evenings in the park, the sticky summer air keeping her company as she watched mums playing with their toddlers, teenagers making out on benches and wannabe delinquents smoking weed by the climbing wall.
Hari sat on those swings and thought. She started making lists; things I do know, things I don’t. Everyday she walked back to the house kicking the mulch as she grew upset of how little she knew about the war she was a centrepiece in.
Slowly she began to notice a boy, lingering by the park. Occasionally he would shoot her a smile as crooked as his glasses which were precariously perched on his nose. The setting sun gleamed against his sandy blond hair. He’s cute, she vaguely admitted to herself. Nothing like Cedric’s confidence and good demeanour that caused her to have a little crush on him; a crush she quickly forced away when she saw how perfect Cho and him were together. Nothing like Diary Tom’s perfection with his facial symmetry and methodical manner of speaking. But cute in an easy-smiles and scuffed up trainers way. At his attention she vaguely thought Hermione’s time spent transfiguring her hand-me-downs from Dudley into muggle clothes that were semi flattering were spent well.
One day he seemed to pluck up the courage to sit by her on the swings and introduce himself. The wind blew her hair into her face. Not the most attractive but it didn’t seem to deter him.
“Hi, I’m Jack.”
She returned his smile with a smaller one of her own, “Hari, well Haritha but you can call me Hari.”
Jack kept her company for the next month, they wandered from the park to different areas of the suburbs. Haritha made easy excuses for her lack of normal muggle teen stuff, claiming she was grounded. Jack made her feel normal, so when he leaned in for a kiss she didn’t stop him. Her first kiss, behind an elementary school with the scent of fresh cut grass lingering in the air. It was awkward. Their glasses bumped together and their teeth scrapped the other’s; how do people make this sensual she wondered. Hari was eternally grateful for her sepia complexion as it hid her blush.
Horrible first kiss aside they kept at it. Under trees, by the seesaw, outside the corner store; practice does make perfect. She learnt what it looked like when a guy wanted to kiss you, how to flirt well, and, perhaps most importantly, how to snog well. Suddenly Hari saw the merit of messing around with boys, maybe three years too late but better late than never.
If half the things she had told him hadn’t been lies she’d almost feel sad when they parted ways.
Dumbledore was meant to pick Hari up in the evening, so she walked back to 4 Privet Drive after an escapade with Jack for the last time that summer. As she passed by the first-kiss-spot she made a silent promise to herself: she would go through Sixth year like Sirius would’ve wanted her to: by having the time of her life. War or no war, she wouldn’t always be a teenage girl.
That night she waited patiently by the window, the one that afforded her a view of both ends of Privet Drive, Dumbledore’s letter said he’d be arriving by eleven. An inkling of disappointment began percolating through her by five past eleven. At ten past eleven Hari felt vindicated at the fact that she had not bothered to completely finish packing. At fifteen past eleven she shot up as she spotted a tall figure with a billowing cloak trailing behind them. Hari began chucking the last of her things into her trunk haphazardly.
The door bell rang and she could hear the floor cards creaking as Uncle Vernon jumped out of bed.
“Who the blazes is calling at this time in the night?’ His thunderous voice boomed through the house.
Hari rushed down the stairs holding Hedwig’s cage, her trunk clanging behind her, as she remembered that she had not deigned to give the Dursleys a heads-up on Dumbledore’s visit.
Dumbledore’s gravelly voice welcoming her to a scene that had laughter bubbling up her throat, “Good evening. You must Mr. Dursley. I daresay Hari has told you I would be coming for her?’
There in the the Dursleys perfectly pristine sitting room, the one that looked like it had been ripped off the front cover of those bland interior architecture magazines Aunt Petunia devoured, was Albus Dumbledore in all his glory. He seemed to have toned down his personal style for instead of his eclectic robes his wiry frame was adorned with a plain black set. But, his waist length silver hair and winding beard, not to mention his half-moon glasses, insured Dumbledore still stuck out like a sore thumb.
Vernon Dursley opened his mouth and closed it several times, his face changing shades to match his puce dressing-gown quite well. Petunia Dursley joined her husband with rollers in her hair and her apron still on, for the umpteenth time Hari wondered what decade she thought it was. Her trembling hands were clad in bright yellow rubber gloves which gave away that she had been scrubbing over the countertops; a part of her nightly cleaning routine. Dudley, who had been very not-awful this summer as he had taken to ignoring her presence or sometimes even being borderline polite, hovered behind his parents. His pale eyes stared at Dumbledore in astonishment.
“Judging by your look of stunned disbelief, Hari did not warn you that I was coming,” Dumbledore turned to her, peering down though his glasses, “Ah, Hari, all packed I see. Excellent.”
Hari flashed him a smile but to her dismay instead of him turning around and walking through the door in which he just entered, the older wizard sat down on the couch. With a quick flick of his wand the Dursleys too were seated.
“I regret to disappoint your eagerness, my dear, but there are a few things we must discuss.”
At those words Hari reluctantly took a seat.
Dumbledore continued, “Sirius’ will was found last week, he has left everything to you. Including Grimmaulds Place.”
She nodded, ignoring her chest tightening at his name.
Uncle Vernon’s eye seemed to have doubled in size, and a glimmer of greed flickered within them. Surely it was that same spark that insured he had climbed to the position of Director in his drilling company within just a few years at the beginning of his career.
“He’s dead? Her godfather? And he left her a house?” The words spilled out of his mouth in rapid succession.
Dumbledore’s curt “Yes” was the only reply he got.
“The problem is,” the headmaster kept talking as if there had never been an interruption, “Black family tradition decreed that the house was handed down the direct line, to the next male with the name of Black. Sirius was the very last of the line as his younger brother, Regulus, predeceased him and both were childless. While his will makes it perfectly plain that he wants you to have the house, it is nevertheless possible that some spell or enchantment has been set upon the place to ensure it cannot be owned by anyone other than a pureblood.”
Hari said nothing. She knew there probably was such an enchantment, after-all the family motto was ‘toujours pur’.
“It is entirely possible that the ownership of the house will be passed onto his eldest living relative, Bellatrix Lestrange.”
Her neck snapped up when Dumbledore uttered those words. Her fists clenched and flashes of blood on marble floors ran though her mind.
“No.” She uttered, her words cold and biting.
“I thought you’d be opposed,” Dumbledore said, “there is simple test to determine if you have indeed inherited the house, as if that is the case then you have also inherited —” He flicked his wand.
There was a loud crack, and a house-elf appeared, with a snout for a nose, giant bat’s ears, and enormous bloodshot eyes, crouching on the Dursleys’ shag carpet and covered in grimy rags. Aunt Petunia let out a hair-raising shriek; nothing this filthy had entered her house in living memory. Dudley drew his feet off the floor and and stared, half in horror and half in fascination.
Uncle Vernon bellowed, “What the hell is that?”
“Kreacher,” finished Dumbledore.
“Kreacher won’t, Kreacher won’t, Kreacher won’t!” croaked the house-elf stamping his long, gnarled feet and pulling his ears. “Kreacher belongs to Miss Bellatrix, oh yes, Kreacher belongs to the Blacks, Kreacher wants his new mistress, Kreacher won’t go to the Potter brat, Kreacher won’t, won’t, won’t —”
Hari stared at Kreacher. He was in on Voldemort’s ploy to get Hari to the Department of Mysteries. He had lied to Hari and made her believe Sirius was in actual danger. He was responsible for Sirius’ death.
Yet she could not banish him away to live with his preferred Mistress. Not when he had been in close quarters with all the members of the Order of the Phoenix.
A small part of her, a part that sounded like Sirius’ cold detachment when he acknowledged the weight of Noble Houses, whispered that she was Heiress Black. That to deny Kreacher was to deny the title. Hari couldn’t dismiss the thrill that it evoked within her, especially when she spent years of her life not even knowing her own name, only responding to the title ‘freak’. Unbidden, she was reminded of the words the sorting hat had hissed to her years ago, ‘A thirst to prove yourself, quite the ambition… you could be great’.
Hari put an end to that train of thought, it felt like confronting a part of her she wasn’t comfortable with yet, a part she didn’t know if she would ever like.
Dumbledore spoke over Kreacher’s wailing, “Give him an order. If he has passed into your ownership, he will have to obey. If not, then we shall have to think of some other means of keeping him from his rightful mistress."
She could think of nothing else to say, “Kreacher, shut up.”
It looked for a moment as though Kreacher was going to choke. He grabbed his throat, his mouth still working furiously, his eyes bulging. After a few seconds of frantic gulping, he threw himself face forward onto the carpet, Aunt Petunia whimpered, and he beat the floor with his hands and feet, giving himself over to a violent, but entirely silent, tantrum.
“Well, that simplifies matters,” said Dumbledore cheerfully. “It seems that Sirius knew what he was doing. You are the rightful owner of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and of Kreacher.”
“What do I — what do I do with him?” Hari asked, aghast, as Kreacher thrashed around at her feet.
“If I might make a suggestion, you could send him to Hogwarts to work in the kitchen there. In that way, the other house-elves could keep an eye on him.” Said Dumbledore peering down at Kreacher.
“Yeah,” Hari was relieved for the alternative, “yeah, I’ll do that. Er — Kreacher I want you to go to Hogwarts and work in the kitchens there with the other house-elves.”
Giving an order was a weird feeling. She didn’t quite like it and she knew had Hermione been present, she would have be appalled and immediately give her lecture on Elfish Welfare.
Kreacher, who had stopped his tantrum and started lying flat on his back with his arms and legs in the air, gave Hari one upside-down look of deepest loathing and, with another loud crack, vanished.
“Just one last thing, then.” Dumbledore turned to speak to the Dursleys once more. “As you will no doubt be aware, Hari comes of age in a year’s time—”
“No,” said Aunt Petunia, speaking for the first time since Dumbledore’s arrival.
“I’m sorry?” said Dumbledore politely.
“No, she doesn’t. She’s a month younger than Dudley, and Dudders doesn’t turn eighteen until the year after next.”
“Ah,” said Dumbledore pleasantly, “but in the Wizarding world, we come of age at seventeen.”
Uncle Vernon muttered, “Preposterous,” and harrumphed, his mustache moving in an odious manner. Dumbledore ignored him.
“Now, as you already know, the wizard called Lord Voldemort has returned to this country. The Wizarding community is currently in a state of open warfare. Hari, whom Lord Voldemort has already attempted to kill on a number of occasions, is in even greater danger now than the day when I left her upon your doorstep fifteen years ago, with a letter explaining about her parents’ murder and expressing the hope that you would care for her as though she were your own.”
Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Hari felt a kind of chill emanating from him and noticed that the Dursleys drew very slightly closer together.
“You did not do as I asked. You have never treated Hari as a daughter. She has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands.”
At Dumbledore’s words Hari felt a mixture of resentment and surprise well up within her. Resentment towards the Dursleys, for their cruelty, and towards Dumbledore, for asking her to come back to this godforsaken hell-hole every summer. Surprise as she had never expected Dumbledore to acknowledge the extent of the damage she had endured in this house. Of course as she had gotten older and proved to them that she was willing to risk expulsion from Hogwarts to protect herself her ‘family’ has backed off. No doubt the Marge incident, as they had taken to delicately referring to it, still played in the back of their mind every time they raised their voice at her.
Despite herself Hari was still grateful for the frigidness Dumbledore condemned the Dursleys with. It proved that she was not crazy for thinking Dumbledore truly cared for her. It was just a shame that he was willing to put aside that care for the ‘greater good’, a bitter conclusion that she had come to terms with sometime in between being forced to compete in the Triwizard Tournament and the cold shoulder Dumbledore had subjected her to last year. Hari liked to think she has made peace with it, after all it was understandable. What’s one girl’s life to a whole society’s safety? She had long outgrown her belief that Dumbledore was infallible and could protect them all.
Dumbledore continued, “The magic I evoked fifteen years ago means that Hari has powerful protection while she can still call this house ‘home.’ However miserable she has been here, however unwelcome, however badly treated, you have at least, grudgingly, allowed her houseroom. This magic will cease to operate the moment that Hari turns seventeen; in other words, at the moment she becomes a woman. I ask only this: that you allow Hari to return, once more, to this house, before her seventeenth birthday, which will ensure that the protection continues until that time.”
None of the Dursleys said anything. Dudley was frowning slightly, he head cocked to the side as he was obviously trying to work through something. Uncle Vernon looked as though he had something stuck in his throat; Aunt Petunia, however, was oddly flushed.
“Well, Hari... time for us to be off,” said Dumbledore at last, standing up and straightening his long black cloak.
“Until we meet again,” he said to the Dursleys, who looked as though that moment could wait forever as far as they were concerned, and after doffing his hat, he swept from the room.
“Bye,” said Hari carelessly to the Dursleys, and followed Dumbledore, who paused at the sight of Hari’s trunk, upon which Hedwig’s cage was perched.
“We do not want to be encumbered by these just now,” he said, pulling out his wand again. “I shall send them to the Burrow to await us there. However, I would like you to bring your Invisibility Cloak... just in case.”
Hari extracted her cloak from the trunk with some difficult maneuvering, trying not to reveal the mess within. Dumbledore then waved his wand and the trunk, cage, and Hedwig vanished. With another flick of Dumbledore’s wand the front door opened onto cool, misty darkness.
“And now, Hari, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”