Agents of Discord

by KittyrinnAiko

Chapter 5: Back to the Dursleys

“What?! What do you mean she has to go back?!” Flora shouted. In fact, she’d shouted loud enough that the girls up on the terrace above had no trouble hearing. It was a warm afternoon and they’d decided to study out there.

“Aerie?”

“Someone wants me to stay with the Dursleys. Those people are awful. They are the worst of muggles,” Aerie lamented.

“Muggle?” Hermione asked.

“Generally used to mean anyone without magic.” Parvati offered.

“Derisively used to describe people who are narrow-minded and judgmental,” Lavender supplied.

“It’s not like I hadn’t expected this, but I think it’s more about control of me than my parent’s money,” Aerie offered.

“Money?” Hermione asked.

“My parents were fairly well off. And the Dursleys had access to at least one of their accounts. If they were getting an allowance for my keep as well, they’d want to keep me there. And it kind of makes sense, considering the kind of money they spend on Dudley who is one enchanted dinner away from becoming an actual pig.”

“And the control aspect?” Lavender asked.

“Someone wants to keep me in an abusive neglectful environment presumably to make me more malleable to their plans for me,” Aerie explained. And if events in this world played out like the books there was a good possibility it was Dumbledore himself.

Dumbledore’s original reason for putting Harry with the Dursleys was to protect Harry from the very fame Dumbledore had manufactured. This then morphed into, it’s for the boy's protection. And yet we know that there were people who knew full well where Harry lived, many of whom would walk right up to him when he was out and about. Make that her; the lings had never once presented themselves as boys.

The lings had no such protection from a mother who’d sacrificed herself for the sake of another. And Nova, her mother was in Equestria. Her Equestria. There was no such protection for her either. Granted she did have her own inborn Equestrian magic, Kitsune magic, and Moonie. Woe be the person who upsets Moonie.

“Lavender, any chance your father could make some quiet inquiries?” Aerie asked. “I can’t really explain it, but right off hand, I’d say the most likely suspect would be Professor Dumbledore. After all, it was his decision to make Harry Potter famous, and his decision to place me with a family who was so amoral that it’s a miracle I survived my first year there.”

“Create a legend, and then dispose of anything inconvenient,” Hermione said softly.

“That’s… Alright, I’ll see what I can do,” Lavender offered even as Flora had arrived at the door to the patio.

“Aerie…” Flora said from the doorway. She had her hands clasped and looked distressed.

“We heard,” Aerie offered as she got up. She went over to Flora, and asked if it’d be alright for her to keep her things there?

“You are going to leave everything?” Flora asked.

“I’ll be lucky if I get to keep the clothes on my back,” Aerie lamented.

“I will do whatever it takes to get you out of that house. I promise.”

Aerie went up to her room, deposited her books, and changed into a pair of blue jeans she had along with a simple off-white blouse. No point in taking the pretty blouse she’d been wearing, configured the inside of her shoulder bag to look like there was nothing in it, grabbed her sweatshirt, and went down to the ground floor where a very apologetic social worker was waiting.

The ride back to Privet drive was quiet and took remarkably less time than it had to get to Sussex Street.

Aerie let out a sigh as they pulled up to Number Four. The car stopped, and both the passenger and driver just sat there for a bit. Up the street a bit one of the neighbors had taken to watering their driveway. Off in the other direction, Mrs Figg could be seen looking out her front window.

“Might just as well get this over with,” Aerie offered and attempted to open the door.

Nothing.

“Child safety locks,” the social worker offered, opened up their door, got out, went around to the passenger side, and opened the door.

“If I was going to run, I’d have done it back at home.” Aerie offered as she got out. “Out the back way, over the wall…”

“But doing so would make your foster parents look bad. Some prefer to take off at stop lights if the child lock isn’t employed. Come on then.”

Together, as though making that last walk on executioner row, the two made their way to the front door. They knocked and waited.

It took so long Nova began to hope that there was no one there.

“Hear now, what do you want?” Petunia all but spat out on opening the door. “Out with it, I haven't got all day.”

“I’m Mrs Robbins, Aeries Social worker. I am returning her to your care in accordance with a court order to do so.”

“Aerie?” Petunia stated and had a look about. Her eyes locked in on Nova. “Wut, that?”

“Don’t you recognize your own Niece?”

“Of course I do. Aerie, get in here and we’ll talk later.”

“Yes Mam,” Nova replied, waiting for Petunia to step out of the way. She went straight for the cupboard.

“I will be back to check on her welfare, and she had better have a proper bed Mrs Robbins stated only to have the door slammed in her face.

“Do you have any idea the amount of trouble you have caused?!” Petunia growled at Aerie even as Aerie opened the door to the cupboard. Everything was gone.

Nova looked back at Petunia only to get slapped and shoved into the cupboard.

“And you will stay in there. And so help me if you go talking to people… if you thought things were bad before, I will make your life a living hell.”

Nova sat down in the dark as Petunia walked away, and a moment later there was a little kitty Moonie at her side. And there she sat for the remainder of the afternoon with her back to the wall in a dark cupboard as she’d not bothered to turn the light on.

That evening when Vernon Dursley returned just about all hell broke loose in a rather loud argument. With Dudley being the loudest.

Moonie vanished at the sound of someone approaching. A moment later Mr Dursley had pulled the door open. He just stood there at first.

“Go on, get up.”

“Sir?”

“Upstairs, you are going upstairs. You’ll be using the smallest bedroom.”

The smallest bedroom was effectively Dudley’s personal playroom, and Dudley was throwing an all-out temper tantrum. The room was filled with Dudley’s things, most of which were broken. Granted there were always the books. Dudley never touched books if he didn’t have to. Vernon Dursley opened the door and ushered Nova inside. He then closed the door and walked away.

The bed was just a small day bed with a cushion and no bedding. Better than a cot in a closet Nova thought to herself. On spotting a video camera on the floor she got an idea even as she cleared junk from the bed.

“Moonie, could you possibly use that camera to record incidents?”

A shadow passed over the camera and it vanished. Moonie the wonder cat materialized on the bed a moment later. Broken, but I can make it work. I can feed to it anything I see.”

“All the nice juicy stuff. In fact, Dudley’s tantrum would be a nice starter.”

“Moonie smiled, and vanished with the camera.”

The morning started much as it had when Nova had slept in the cupboard. Oh, she’d slept well enough despite Dudley’s best efforts to keep her awake all night by pounding on the wall. Nova, being an accomplished user of magic, simply put up a shield. As to whether or not the snoops at the Ministry Magic could detect it, she rather hoped that they’d dismiss it as accidental magic. Whether or not they’d be able to tell what sort of magic was doubtful. After all, hadn’t Harry been blamed for Dobby?

Nova’s first chore of the day was to go downstairs and make breakfast for the Dursleys. She was not allowed to eat, and when she tried to go to school she was redirected to the cupboard. This time there was a padlock on the door. In she went, the door closed behind her, and the lock set. After all, she’d been suspended from school for fighting.

Sure, she could just open the hatch, but decided she’d best wait. She did decide to get her phone out of her bag which she’d taken to carrying at all times and call Hermione. Hermione was understandably appalled at hearing that Nova was locked in a cupboard.

“No, don’t, it’s going to take more than getting locked in a cupboard,” Nova warned. “Anyway, I’m sitting on the basement hatch. I just have to wait till they’ve all but forgotten about me and sneak out. Just let everyone know I’ll be late.”

Shortly after Vernon and Dudley had gone Petunia decided to bang on the door just to make sure Aerie was still there.

“Not like I’m going anywhere,” Nova shouted back.

“A simple yes or no will suffice.”

Yes, or no… was Petunia even thinking about what she was saying? Being able to say no… And then Nova got a devilishly clever idea. She opened the hatch in the floor, climbed through, and waited to see if Aunt Petunia would do it again.

Sure enough, a little while later Aunt Petunia came by and banged on the door again. “Still there?” Petunia called derisively.

“No, I left an hour ago,” Nova called back and then shut the hatch. Overhead she could hear Petunia yelling, but much to her disappointment, Petunia never bothered to open the door.

Down below the lings were well gone. They had told her which tunnels went where, so she decided to head down the one that gave her the fastest and safest way out. Now that’s not necessarily the shortest. The shortest opened up into a hedge not far from the house, and she was bound to be spotted if she tried going that way.

The way she’d gone just happened to end at an old WW2 pill box on a corner overlooking a hill. It was full of telephone junction boxes which were probably why the place wasn’t full of graffiti. Now the question was how to get in and out?

Of course, that wouldn't have been a huge problem for lings capable of transforming into smaller forms. Simply slip through one of the old gun slits. No, the gun slits would be too small even for her fox form, or was it?

Could she transform, and if so would it be detectable? And if so, would the Ministry snoops even be able to tell?

Nova decided she’d go for it. She sat down, let herself relax, concentrating on the form she wanted, and a moment later she was a little black and white fox with feathery wings.

The slits proved to be more than large enough for a fox to slip through. Once outside she darted to some shrubbery and rested for a bit. Peeking out from her hiding place, she transformed back to human form, and simply stood up as she stepped forward. From there she made her way to a tube line station.

Her next stop would be the Victoria station. Sure the Pimlico station would be closer but it would be far to close to the school. From there she took a bus to get within striking distance to the Sussex street home where she gained entry via a key under a mat on the back porch that opened up the basement door. Granted that she had to find someone who was home first in one of the other flats, and get them to let her through their house to the gardens out behind the buildings where it was necessary to go over several walls Nova was then obliged to go through the basement flat which looked strangely unoccupied and gained entry via the door at the top of the stairs. There was an odd disk near the door divided into two different colors, blue and gold, with a pointer, but Nova chose to dismiss it. Once upstairs, she cleaned up, put on fresh clothing, gathered up her school bags, left a note, and was off to school a short time later. Only this time she went out the front door.

“I’m so terribly sorry for being so late,” Nova said on entering the office. It was nearly ten o'clock.

Someone let out a sigh.

“We were informed that you’d not be coming in,” Offered one of the office workers.

“I was sent back to my Aunt and Uncle.”

“And you were suspended from your other school following an altercation. Yes, we’ve got your transcripts.

Nova let her body sag on hearing that as she’d a good idea what sort of things were in her transcripts. Granted it wasn’t actually her, but try explaining that one.

“Dear, we’ve all had a look, and quite frankly, short of, we are talking about two different people, there is something horribly wrong over there. Go ahead and go to your class.”

“Thank you, thank you, mam,” Nova replied cheerfully as she straitened out. She hesitated but a moment longer and rushed to her ten o'clock class which was already in session.

“Halfway across London to go to school,” someone said as Nova was headed out the door.

The next day Mrs Robbins came to pick Aerie up. She also brought a big burly man with her who stepped into the doorway to keep Aunt Petunia from closing the door. He was a giant of a man with a bowler hat on and a folded-up black umbrella in one hand. The sort that could be used as a walking stick, and it looked heavy enough that the elder gentleman could use it for just that. But despite his age, he was fit and not to be trifled with.

Petunia was oblivious to her danger.

“She’s not here,” Petunia announced only to have the big man walk in past her, and rip the lock off with his bare hand. Aunt Petunia let out an eep.

“Not here?” Mrs Robbins asked as Nova stepped out of the cupboard. Nova chose to walk past Aunt Petunia without saying a word.

“Someone will be by every morning to pick her up,” Mrs Robbins announced and followed Nova. The big man she’d brought with her followed. Only after they had left did Petunia realize that Aerie had been wearing a school uniform she hadn’t had before. A fairly prestigious school by the looks of the uniform. The idea that this school might somehow be connected to them, wizards… caused Petunia to go ghostly white and found herself in need of a chair.

The next morning Mrs Robbins and retired Platoon Sargent Major Dugan arrived at breakfast and Vernon had a mind to have his say. After all, Aerie was his responsibility. Didn't he have some say in the matter?

“Not if you are going to violate the law,” stated the big man, who then puffed up his chest until a button popped and hit Vernon right between the eyes.

“I’m to understand he’s a recipient of the Victoria Cross,” Nova offered as she walked past Vernon who’d shrunk back away from the big man.

The next morning saw no objection to Aerie leaving. Nor did any of the following that week as it had become quite clear to Vernon that he truly had no say in the matter.

Comments

[Flashgo]

Why is it, all good stories seem to take forever to come out even tho it's a chapter a week. Another great chapter to what seems another great story. Found your stories a few chapters into your hogwarts storyline.

[harts fire]

i so love to see Dumbledore’s plans get craped all over...
a awesome chapter.