Petunia Dursley can’t decide how to describe her day.
Unfortunately, she’s been able to say that quite a lot lately.
She can’t remember the last time she’s had a good day. Perhaps… Perhaps it was way back in the day, whenever she and Vernon only had one bouncing baby boy to worry about. One baby Dudley.
When had that been taken away from her?
She remembers hating her sister for abandoning her and the rest of the family.
She remembers hating her sister for hogging her ability. For only using it for her own convenience, not even trying to help the rest of the family.
She remembers that being the reason she and Vernon always pretended she never had a sister.
She leans back against the kitchen cabinets, letting out a breath and closing her eyes.
She remembers being startled by finding Harry on the doorstep. Frightened, perhaps.
She remembers being excited after she read the letter.
She remembers making plans. To treat the boy as her own, to nurture him, help him grow strong. Help him become part of her family, help him want to help her family, when he eventually graduates.
She remembers becoming angry. She doesn’t know why.
She remembers every single day since being a bad day, filled with anger and tension directed towards Harry.
She remembers being terrified when she read his first Hogwarts letter. She doesn’t know why.
Then, September first, nineteen ninety one, had arrived.
She remembers leaving him on the station.
She remembers glaring at him from a distance, daring him to find the platform on his own. She remembers how to get onto it; as a matter of fact, she’s the only one of her family that can actually enter it.
She remembers watching him enter the station, after talking to that clearly wizarding family.
She remembers driving home.
She remembers the anger fading.
Dudley wanders into the room. “Hi Mom,” he greets simply, before pulling out a pan and lighting the stove. “Eggs?”
She shrugs. He’s right; she really should eat. She’s already skinnier than is healthy.
But she can’t eat.
She… She remembers terrorizing her sister’s son.
Even Dudley was affected.
He’s flipped almost entirely around over that first month of school this year.
Vernon no longer has to bribe the teachers to give him good grades.
Most of the time, any more, he even makes breakfast. He’s becoming a halfway-decent cook, though he’s nowhere near as good as Harry was.
He doesn’t eat nearly as much as he used to. He’s losing weight as well- though, unlike her, he’s doing it at a safe rate.
Vernon has taken to binge eating, though.
Her home has been shrouded with sadness ever since Harry left for school.
Dudley’s gang has dissolved. The other members shifted first to being just friends, then faded from there. She’s pretty sure Dudley doesn’t even talk to them anymore.
What happened?
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know what forced her hand.
She doesn’t know what had taken her unawares, forced her to alienate her nephew.
“Mom? Breakfast?”
She lets out a breath, opening her eyes. Dudley is offering her a plate; the sausages are slightly burnt, the eggs are a bit runny, and the bacon is rather severely charred.
She sighs one more time, and puts on a smile. “Alright,” she answers, accepting the plate and sitting at the table.
She picks at her food.
She can’t eat.
Dudley has no such inability. He eats his food at a normal pace, pausing to enjoy each bite- or the opposite, occasionally, to analyze exactly what he got wrong.
She can see him becoming a professional chef someday.
He finishes long before she does.
“Mom?” he asks.
She doesn’t respond.
“Please don’t starve,” he continues. “It’s… It’s not like we can do anything about it right now. Maybe… Maybe when he gets back, before it… comes back, we can…” He sighs.
The doorbell rings.
He looks up, then back at her. “I got it,” he volunteers, before climbing out of his seat to go find the front door.
She sighs, staring at the sausage at the end of the fork. “What has my life come to?” she asks blankly.
Dudley’s voice comes wafting down the hall, from the front door. “What the-? Who are you?”
The response sounds like a girl, about his age, and waay too cheerful. “Hi! Is this the Dursley home?”
She closes her eyes, and stuffs the sausage into her mouth, chewing slowly.
Dudley’s voice is suddenly wary. “Yeah,” he mutters. “What do you need?”
“Huh… Interesting. Do you mind if I come in, and chat for a little bit?”
She groans, placing her fork down and rising from her seat. She’ll have to sort this one out herself.
“Um, just a minute,” Dudley’s voice comes. “Let me get my mom.” The door closes.
Her mouth twitches in a smile, briefly. Dudley has become extremely helpful lately- and also gained the wisdom to know when to get one of his parents, and when that’s not necessary.
Dudley meets her just outside the kitchen. “Strange girl at the door,” he informs her. “Weird hair. Never seen her before.”
Petunia walks up to the door, before pulling it open and looking down at the girl- correction, two girls and a boy- on her front step, all about Dudley’s age. All three are smiling up at her; the boy looks a little unsure of himself.
All three of them have strange hair.
The girl at the front of their triangle formation has wavy hair, split between white and light blue.
The girl behind and to her left has curly two-tone pink and dark blue hair.
And the boy, at the third corner of the triangle, has wavy hair like the first girl, though his shiny silver hair is split into thirds by navy blue stripes.
The hair of the girl in front seems to be crackling with energy.
“Wh-Who are you?” she stutters.
“My name’s Lyra Heartstrings,” the lead girl pipes cheerfully. “These are my good friends Bonbon and Draco Malfoy. Um…” She glances at the boy she’d introduced as Malfoy, then back up at her. “I’m guessing you’ve had, ah, anger issues around Harry?”
Her eyes harden. “That’s none of your business,” she declares.
“Actually, it might be,” Lyra answers. “I’m pretty sure I know what caused them, and how to keep them from returning.” She glances out towards the street, and back towards her again. “I… can’t discuss it out here, though. Statute of Secrecy and everything.”
Her eyes go wide.
They’re from the wizarding world.
She knows Harry’s famous in that world.
They’re probably here to hurt her. Or imprison her, or her son.
“Y-You’re not here to-!?” she demands.
Lyra shakes her head. “No, no. We’re here to help you. If the vibe I’m getting from out here is accurate, he would have enjoyed his last ten years here, if not for something that victimized you as well.”
She pulls the door open, stepping back.
Emma Granger knocks on her daughter’s bedroom door, before pushing it open to stick her head in. “Hermione?” she calls softly. It’s time for her to get up, on the day she returns to the school; they’ll have to leave for the station in a couple hours.
The lump in the blankets, despite not being nearly large enough to be her daughter, grumbles a little.
“Hermione?” she calls again.
The lump shifts again. “Huh? … Oh, is it time to get up?”
She nods. “Yes, yes it is.”
“Alright, coming.” Hermione’s strange, icy blue telekinetic aura surrounds the blankets, pulling them back- and her daughter fairly explodes from underneath them, yawning and stretching her wings as she goes.
“How…?” Emma mumbles, staring.
Hermione blinks. “What? How… Oh. Um, ever since I got wings, it’s been incredibly difficult to get comfortable as a human… so I transform and sleep as a pegasus. For some reason, not only am I much smaller that way, but it’s exponentially easier to get comfortable.” She grins. “And it’s kinda fun to hide under the sheets.”
Emma blinks. “So, you’re terminally afraid of being a pegasus, yet you regularly turn yourself into one every night?”
Hermione nods. “Yeah.” She shudders. “I do worry I won’t be able to change back in the morning, though.”
“Okay.”
“Though, if something does try to force me to stay a pegasus, it means I’ll be more experienced- and, in theory, more able to ignore it and transform anyways. Um, today is the day I go back to school, right?”
Nod. “Yeah.”
Her trunk floats over, surrounded by that same icy blue aura, and pops itself open, laying itself on the bed. “At least packing is easy.” Some of the various objects around her room- schoolbooks, robes, her wizard’s hat, and a couple other knicknacks- pack themselves under the influence of that aura.
Emma nods again, wishing she could do that. “... Yeah. Breakfast will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”
Do you already have a code for alicorn ascension? My guess would be Papa Tango Alpha.
9686663
Actually, I do.
It's "Alpha Oscar" followed by a number to indicate who ascended. And no, they can't force someone to ascend, and I'm never giving them that ability. Too powerful. They might ascend themselves, though...
... Hermione never used it, because she doesn't know either that "Ascension" is a thing, or that it's important.
Looks like we have a princess of Hogwarts.
Huh, going the "Dursleys were made mean by an outside influence" route this loop. But, as I recall, Dumbledore is a good guy in this one (shocker). Looking forward to finding out who or what is to blame. My bits are on either Vernon or Yaxley.
9686754
Yep, Dumbledore is a good guy in this one. And if you read between the lines, there's even a few clues on exactly what (or where) the influence is.
I'll wager 'twas the horcrux radiating ambient magic. Those without any magic of their own might be susceptible to it's emanations and reflect it's essential nature.
9686769
And that's the head of the nail, dead on. (Yes, you're right.)
9686779
Well that'll be an easy fix at least. The technical issue that is, over a decade of emotional abuse on all sides will be rather more, problematic.
9686786
Yeah...
9686769
I figured that's what it was but hoped for something else since the soul shard has no power over others since Harry was never a proper Horcrux.
9686794
Well we know that the other horcruxes were able to manipulate emotions, the ring and necklace in particular. We also know that wizardly magic first manifests itself as random effects on the environment. This likely means that harry has been radiating his Voldemort-tainted magic throughout that house since the first day.
'twas never enough to be consciously noticed by anyone, just enough to heighten the Dursely's aggression and make them subconsciously aware that there was something wrong with the child. Remember, everything that they did to him was predicated on the assumption that he was some form of aberration, which he was.
9686803
The soul shard has no power it's not even alive. The power a Horcrux has over others comes from the various spells placed on it during its creation. Harry was turned into a Horcrux by accident so he never had the spells placed on him that the other Horcrux's did, he was never a true Horcrux.
9686814
It might be worth note, this is an AU.
The differences in this particular spot are fairly small- and mostly amount to exactly what Venerable Ro is talking about. In my headcanon, the soul shard does have power of its own, and an aura of its own- it just can't consciously use it without the spellwork you mentioned. But even when unused, magic can be radiated to the environment...
9686829
Yeah I know it's AU I'm just personally not a fan of this explanation especially since it relies on Dumbledore not noticing the fact that it was radiating such magic when he examined the scar back when Harry was a baby.
I mean a huge chunk of the story in canon relies on Dumbledore not realizing the link shared between Harry and Voldemort until he was older if the shard was literally radiating dark magic I'd have to think that would set off some alarm bells in his head.
9686852
I am aware of that; I'm also not disrupting that, either. I've already established early in the story that the aura (aka those emissions) is invisible to all but a very select few. What I've also decided for future chapters (and not mentioned yet in published material) is that even Lyra, the Aura-View Expert, can't tell if an aura carries evil magic or not. She was able to identify the soul fragment not by the evil magic, but by association & prior knowledge.
9686856
ugg... I've really grown to hate Lyra. I imagine for her next trick she will come up with a way to destroy a Horcrux without having to destroy the container. Then she will solve world hunger, the energy crisis and bring about world peace.
I know I'm being an ass but I have no problem saying that Lyra might as well be a bad OC at this point. I honestly rolled my eyes when she showed up at the Dursley's because of course, she'd already be there to solve the problem.
9686867
Well, I can say for certain that she will not:
1. Find a way to destroy a Horcrux without destroying the container; that'd be too powerful (even worse than her Papa Tango).
2. Solve world hunger
3. Solve any worldwide energy crisis, or
4. Bring about world peace.
She's also getting pretty close to the end of her part as a major player in the story, magically speaking at least.
9686852
Yeah. I could buy that explanation for Dumbledore if he hadn’t specifically said he wouldn’t heal the scar if it were possible!
Note what he says: Even if I could, I wouldn’t.
Now, I get what he says about not being able to fix it, it is a curse from dark magic, which can’t be healed (like Moody’s various scars). It’s the rest that is the problem: Even if I could, I wouldn’t.
Who wouldn’t heal a scar, if they could?
9686875
Some people find scars useful often as a reminder of something they shouldn't forget. Like if you get a scar on your head because you didn't wear your helmet when riding your bike and you then use that scar as a reminder to not be lazy when it comes to safety. This is just an example but not everyone views scars as something that need to be removed.
Even if it could have been healed he probably would have just let Harry decide on his own if he wanted it healed when he was older.
9686873
Yeah sorry, I'm just sick of these stories using characters as plot devices instead of letting the story develop naturally. Like all these stories have a checklist of things they want to get done before delving into the meat of the story but there are so many things that need to happen they decide to just speed things up by picking a character and using them as an easy way to get all these things to happen as quickly as possible.
Magic School Days has Discord, If Wishes is Ponies has Twilight and Phoenix Beyond the Veil uses Sunset. It's just a really annoying trend in these stories. Now far be it from me to say that you aren't allowed to write a story like this I'm just personally not a fan of it.
9686887
Yeah, I'm kinda using the entire RESS as that...
At this point, that kind of fast-modification is just about done. Lyra might come up with another few spells throughout the rest of the story, and they may be (incredibly) useful, but I don't expect her to play a big part; my checklist is prettymuch over.
9686875
I agree, actually. The evil-Dumbledore approach of Magic School Days appears to be the canon approach of the HP series; I don't particularly like that approach, though, so I'm using a good-but-ignorant-Dumbledore approach like your If Wishes Were Ponies, though with additional factors to excuse that approach no matter how smart (or lack thereof) I make him. Yeah, I'm a programmer... so I wouldn't be satisfied with myself if I did a good-but-ignorant and left blatant (to me, at least) clues like monitoring charms that never seem to do anything. No, that's not an attack against your story; that's something I can actually see Dumbledore doing in his old age (not worrying about the static monitoring charms and the like), even if I'd never be satisfied with it in my story.
9686911
I disagree nothing in canon makes Dumbledore come across as evil except in the final book where you're supposed to doubt Dumbledore because Harry is doubting him. The scar thing is such a minor detail, I don't think Dumbledore had any plan for the scar he just honestly didn't view it as harmful so he wouldn't just get rid of it because he honestly thinks scars can be useful. I don't understand how anyone can view Dumbledore as evil at worst he's grey as most Harry Potter characters are, he makes questionable decisions but in the moment it's hard to really think of a better choice he could have made.
I mean how can anyone read this and conclude that he's evil:
9686911
Yeah, except sometimes the real-life programmers don’t catch on that there’s a real problem, such as the altitude fix for the Boeing 737 Max. They never really considered that it would actually CAUSE a plane to crash or they wouldn’t have left the code intact and offered an optional fix. If they KNEW the software could cause a crash and kill everyone on the plane and they didn’t do anything about it except offer that optional fix? I believe that’s called negligent homicide. And the guys who made the decision to leave the fix out would have been charged by now.
9686928
The problem though was in the span of a decade he never noticed that his monitoring charms never changed at all, even the worst programmer would notice if the results they were being given always came back the same with no deviations. It's one thing to not notice a flaw it's another to not notice the program never worked to begin with.
9686926
Yeah, Rowling does send a lot of mixed messages, when you read through the entire series. Personally, even when reading the HP series, I imagine Dumbledore as a good man- and little factors like my Horcrux-emissions and so on working behind the scenes to create situations he would have foreseen and averted otherwise. Like I said, I don't like the evil-Dumbledore approach.
9686928
Yeah, that does sound like negligence on the part of either the programmers or their managers. The programmers probably wanted to push it to everything, but their managers may have decided not to because it'd cost a lot- it'd be a "safety recall"-size event (possibly as expensive despite the lower volume of planes than cars, given how tight aircraft computer security is) if they made it a required update. I know there was at least one car manufacturer that identified and ignored a dangerous feature of their cars because they calculated it would be cheaper to pay damages than to order a safety recall...
It's also possible the programmers were idiots that should all be fired, yes.
9686934
It's more like Rowling preferred her characters to be more complex than simple good and evil so you'd occasionally see the good guys do questionable things. The fact is in real life you can't always pick the right choice sometimes you can only pick the choice that will cause the least amount of harm. Dumbledore was always the one who had to make the tough calls and sometimes he had to manipulate people because you can't always trust people do what you need them to do just by asking nicely.
9686942
Yeah, I know. God knows I've had to do that once or twice in real life. Not anything on Dumbledore's scale, though, thank the heavens.
9686933
Yeah, but when the results reported are exactly what you expect them to be, and there is NO reason to suspect they might be misreporting, how do you know to check your instruments? For example, physicians used to use leeches to cure fatal diseases for centuries. And it worked! When it didn’t, that meant it was because the gods had willed otherwise.
Now we know, based on scientific blind and double-blind studies, that no matter what you do to patients, 1/3 of them WILL recover on their own, and 1/3 will recover because they THINK what you did will cure them! And 1/3 will probably die.
Besides, he did have feedback: Miss Figg would have told him if there were any problems. Right?
9686754
Canonically, it's the Voldemort Horcrux inside Harry.
9686977
Sure but you barely acknowledge her as a factor in your story where it's completely Dumbledore's fault while in reality, it was the result of her dropping the ball and failing to do her job. The fact is you just write Dumbledore to be an idiot because that's the only way to justify him making such a massive and obvious error.
I mean for god's sake no one is happy all the time I'm sure even Dumbledore had moments of unhappiness as a child yet he never thought it was odd that Harry never had a bad day? Give me a break.
9686979
Actually, canonically, they were just that cruel.
9686977
That is true... but the issue is that they were reporting on fickle things like the happiness state of a human being. If that holds constant for very long, that's a red flag. Either the instrument isn't working, or something is seriously wrong with the boy. I can see Dumbledore not thinking of it that way (and thence never investigating), but that's the fact of the matter.
And yes, Miss Figg was there to report. I'm not sure just yet exactly what I want her logic to have been in my story (per why Dumbledore never found out), but she was there as a backup... even if said backup was rendered useless by the same protections that rendered the instruments useless, in your story- a simple oversight that could happen to anyone. Only a programmer would have thought to make sure the various instruments (and backups) would not be interfered with by the barriers... or to use computer terms, only a programmer would have thought to build a whitelist into the firewall. And Dumbledore is very definitely not a programmer, I daresay.
9686984
Actually... it's a little more than that. In If Wishes Were Ponies, Miss Figg didn't drop the ball- rather, the same protection that messed with Dumbledore's instruments rendered her incapable of reporting the problem, because she'd do it with the intent of having him remove Harry from the Dursleys. In other words, she's outside the firewall too!
9686979
Did you just completely miss a good 20-comment conversation on that very fact?
... and I think you mean "Headcanonically", because the canon HP is different.
9686988
Yes.
I rather suspect Red Shield- who is an editor, and has thence seen my plans for all the details- meant "Headcanonically" rather than "canonically"... because, in this story, his statement is completely correct.
you got 34 likes before a dislike and now is chapter 34, yet you did not celebrate it?
9687064
... That's something to celebrate?
I mean, the like/dislike ratio is a clean 15.5 right now, with an average of about 20.17 comments per chapter...
And this is also the first of my stories to top 400 comments, the only other three beyond 100 being Last One (135), Alloyed Hope (144), and Iron Mountain (333)...
I mean, this story breaks so many of my personal records it's not even funny, but is that a reason to celebrate?
9687092
It's mainly a excuse... Is something to celebrate to get to 34 likes before the first hater?
9686984
Absolutely true. However, neither does Dumbledore spend his days doing nothing but staring at his instruments. He does have three full-time jobs, after all.
9686942
Which manipulations were acceptable and actually had good outcomes? Almost all the big ones he is criticized for were magnitudes more significant than just simple manipulations, and none of them had good outcomes that were planned. I'd argue the ones he was criticized for were him reaching far beyond his means.
9687152
I mean things only worked out in Book 7 because of his manipulations it was risky but ultimately his faith in Harry and all the other players paid off enough for everything to line up so that Voldemort could be defeated. Was it the best way he could have handled things, debatable, but ultimately Dumbledore was able to set things up to bring about victory in an otherwise hopeless situation.
9687170
Ah, yes. Book 7. Where the protagonists accidentally got snatchers on themselves by saying Voldemort's name in an area not protected against the Taboo despite trying to convince people to say the name previously and not correcting that even after Voldemort's return. Among the many, many other instances of them barely not losing due to luck and circumstance. I'm sorry, I'm not going to credit Dumbledore for the events of book 7. I think Harry and the others pulled of a Pyrrhic victory in spite of the information he received and plots by the others.
Now, it's possible Dumbledore intended for other things to happen or for it to be much cleaner, but that's ultimately not what occurred, so I can't credit him for the victory, anymore than I can credit Myrtle for saving Ginny by cluing in Harry on how she died or where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was.
9687202
The fact is they only had the tools to win because he set things up. They wouldn't have the sword if Dumbledore hadn't told Snape to replace it with a fake and place the real one for Harry to find for example.
9687009
This is "rowling canon" - the kind of useless information she tends to give out informally e.g. the pre-toilet era.
And yes, I missed the conversation before commenting.
9687246
pre-toilet?
9687246
So, "canon" information that wasn't necessarily reflected in the books?
Any other problems nonwithstanding, this is a rather novel approach to the Dursleys. Not willing tormentors or a parody of the average, but victims too. Kudos for that.
9687407
Thank you.
I've seen it before, though- as I recall, in Magic School Days, Dumbledore used compulsion spells on them to make them hate him... hence the story's rather extensive Dumbledore bashing.
9687333
According to a twitter post by Rowling, before the invention of toilets, wizards just did their business there and then and vanished it away.
9687378
Yes. It was a fan theory confirmed by Rowling.