"Harry JAMES Potter you cannot just drop these absolute wackos on me and expect me to somehow keep them out of trouble— Are you leaving again?"
Su entered the Room of Requirement hot, ranting the moment she got through the door, only to draw up short. Harry was bustling around busily. A black-eyed copy of him was holding open a satchel that ge was stuffing things into. Harry glanced over at Su, smirked, failed to hold in a snort, and returned to his work.
"Duty calls," he said.
"This is the third time this week." Su crossed her arms. "Don't you think that's a little… much?"
Harry lifted (of all things) a bright pink lawn flamingo, considering it from multiple angles before stashing it in the satchel. "I can take care of myself."
"I'm not worried about you," Su said. "I'm worried for the rest of us."
"Oh. That's fair. But c'mon, my antics are pretty harmless… Unless the person deserves it. Besides—" Harry looked at Su again and immediately snorted.
"Why do you keep doing that?" Su demanded. She tilted her head, frowning, and Harry chortled.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. "It's just… your ears."
Her ears? Su couldn't think of anything funny about them. They were rather small, and weren't often noticed by others, like most auditory organs. She reached up, touching them, and found they were the same as ever. But her fingers touched something else, too. She was wearing some kind of a… headband? She traced her fingers up it on either side, discovering two fluffy appendages extending from it. With dawning horror, Su grabbed one of the appendages, bending it down so she could see it. She did the same with the second one a moment later, and sure enough, it was exactly the same thing.
Big, floppy bunny ears, the kind you'd find on a Playboy model. And she'd walked across the whole castle with them on.
No, was it longer than that? She had no idea when she put them on, so it was possible that she'd been wearing these all day—
Giggling caught her attention. Su marched up to Harry and grabbed his nipples through his t-shirt, twisting them. "What did you do?!"
"Ow! I yield, I yield!" Harry said.
Su held on for a few seconds longer, wielding torsion as her weapon of choice, before she let go and allowed Harry to stumble back. He rubbed his chest, wincing.
"I've been playing around with Compulsion Charms," Harry admitted.
"On me?" Su demanded.
"On lots of people. They're interesting, you know? People confuse them with the Imperius, but they're actually very different. The Imperius is an Unforgivable because you can use it to make someone do anything. But a compulsion charm only works if the person you cast it on wants to do that thing. Stronger Compulsion Charms can get to deeper desires. Honestly, they could just as easily be called Self-Control Suppression Charms, but that doesn't roll off the tongue, does it?"
Su was aghast. "Are you telling me that I actually wanted to wear those ears?"
"And you wanted to be seen doing it," Harry said. "Fascinating, right?"
Su opened her mouth, only to close it. She then opened it again, and closed it again. Seeing his trusty assistant/friend was malfunctioning under an overload of new information, Harry decided to help her out.
"You were here to complain, right?" he prompted, returning to packing.
Su jumped. She visibly repressed the revelations she was going through about her nature and picked up where she left off when storming in.
"Your sycophants are too annoying!" she said. "They're bothering me every day at this point, begging to find out when the 'Holy War' is going to begin."
Harry had placed Su in charge of the half-blood supremacist group they co-opted (which had been renamed to Tom Riddle's Totally Radical Minions). He didn't trust Professor Vector not to do anything crazy, so really, putting Su as their temporary boss was the only choice. "Holy war?" he asked.
"I don't even know," Su said. "Their name, not mine. I think they want to start a purge or something. Either that, or they picked a super grand name for more things like the prank they pulled in the Great Hall."
"Tell them not to pester you," Harry said. "Tom Riddle will be getting much more active very soon."
Despite herself, Su looked curious. "Why? What's happening?"
Harry looked over at her as he lifted an enormous gallon-tank of light-gold liquid. "A martyr is coming."
Su didn't hear him. She was too busy staring at what he was holding, her jaw hanging open.
"That's Felix Felicis!" she said. "That has to be at least thirty potions worth! That would cost a fortune!"
Harry laughed. "Oh, it did!"
He pushed it into the satchel Death was holding for him, having to shove to squeeze the whole thing inside. After giving it a hard push, he shut the satchel over it and strapped said satchel over his shoulder.
Su was looking suspiciously at him. "You didn't kill anyone for that, did you?"
"Of course not," Harry said. "Murder's not that profitable."
"Then how'd you get it?"
She was right to wonder. Harry wouldn't be allowed to spend what was in the Potter vault until he graduated, as per the rules of Gringotts. Luckily, he had other ways of making money.
"You'll see tomorrow," he promised. "If the minions are giving you too much trouble, don't be afraid to use a little bit of flogging. I'll probably be absent a lot for the next few days— but it's all for a worthy cause. See you!"
A tunnel opened at the back of the Room of Requirement, and Harry hopped inside, waving as it shut behind him.
Su remained standing where she had been. She looked at Death.
"He's a lot, isn't he?" she said.
Death melted into shadows and disappeared. Su believed it understood her sentiment, though. She'd seen that in its eyes.
Suddenly, she was alone holding bunny ears alone in the Room of Requirement, her whole reason for coming having ducked out via a secret passage.
"Flogging?" she mumbled. "What century does he think it is?"
With no one around to answer, she glanced down at the ears in her hands. Slowly, she put them on before she walked out of the door.
Harry hadn't been lying about how compulsion charms worked.
O-O-O
By late morning, Vernon Dursley felt like a million Great British Pounds! But to explain why, one must return to the beginning of his day.
He woke up at seven-thirty right on the dot. A perfectly average time, if he didn't say so himself. He'd drunk a big glass of water when he went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and he had another straight after brushing his teeth. It had a vaguely funny taste and a very slight golden tint, but he was far too sleepy to care or notice. After that, things kept getting better and better.
When Vernon went to mow the lawn, he trimmed every last blade of grass to exactly the same height. Not one was a centimeter taller than any of the others. He rushed inside and returned with a trusty wooden ruler. With trembling fingers, he held it next to the grass he'd cut. Ten centimeters on the dot, not a hair over or under.
It was the best cut of a lawn humanly possible and — Vernon quickly realized — the peak achievement in his thirty-eight years on planet earth.
"Vernon, what are you doing?" shouted his wife, leaning out of the front door. "Get up off your knees. And for god's sake, get that ruler away! It's abnormal, holding it up next to a lawn like that. What if the neighbors see?"
"But Petunia!" Vernon said. "I've cut a perfect lawn!"
There was a time when he never would have used her full name in a situation like this. Pet, he'd come to call her, because nicknames were a traditional sign of affection in a relationship.
Recently, however, things had begun to change slowly but surely. Against his will because of his nephew's machinations, Vernon had experienced what it was like to live upon four legs instead of two. At first, he hated it… but he couldn't deny that it affected him. When he sat down at breakfast now, at least once every other morning, he yearned for a food trough filled with corn and fruit. Sometimes he could feel a corkscrew tail twitching behind his lower back, even though no such tail existed. And lastly, whenever he looked at his wife, he was reminded what a scarecrow she was. No meat on her bones! If she had to be some kind of barnyard animal, she'd almost definitely be a horse, and everyone knew those were pricks. In Vernon's humble opinion.
His irritation only worsened when Petunia snorted (a lot like the horse he'd just been comparing her to) and jerked her head toward the indoors. "Inside, Vernon. Before they see you!"
He listened reluctantly, glancing back at the grass as he went. He'd really married a woman who couldn't appreciate a perfect lawn. Was that where his life went wrong?
Once inside, Vernon began testing his limits on this strange day. He trimmed his moustache, and much like the yard, cut it completely perfectly on the first attempt. He sought out his son Dudley, and made the boy hold a marble in one of his hands without telling Vernon which. When Vernon guessed which hand held the marble, he got it right exactly half of the time. Perfectly average, in other words!
It slowly settled in that Vernon had achieved his lifelong dream: perfect, unerring normalcy.
Enthused by this (and trying not to let the nagging presence of his wife bring him down) Vernon excused himself to attend to a made-up errand.
"I'll be back later, Dudders!" Vernon announced, fixing his black hat upon his head as he stood by the door in his coat.
"Bring me back a cake!" Dudley said, sitting on the couch refusing to take his eyes off the television.
"The biggest one they have!" Vernon promised.
He ventured out full of optimism.
Less than a half hour later, Vernon's mood had become one of dread.
Their quiet, utterly ordinary neighborhood had been unrecognizably altered. Everywhere Vernon turned, inexplicable things were occurring at an impossible rate.
Already he had observed three neighbors waving winning lottery tickets. One of the men never even bought the ticket, a passing bird dropped it into his back yard. A few youths on a front lawn were embroiled in a crossbar challenge on a portable goal. The challenge had been ongoing for two hours straight, because neither of them could miss a single shot. A woman bolted across Vernon's path, sprinting up to a house and pounding on its door. When a man opened it, it became clear that she was an ex-girlfriend, arriving to beg for a second chance. The man let her in, and even before Vernon walked away he could hear the beginnings of a fervent lovemaking session.
In less than an hour, Vernon's dream-come-true had turned into a nightmare.
It was becoming apparent that while he had become supremely normal, everyone else in this clown show had turned as abnormal as a wand waving, robe wearing, spell spitting wizard freak!
Vernon stopped dead on the sidewalk. He froze, his pudgy fingers hanging at his sides. Magic. How hadn't he seen it early? In a situation as extreme as this one, there was only one possible cause. Somewhere, somehow, magic was behind this. And it was up to Vernon Dursley to discover where and put it to a permanent end!
"Radical!"
The youthful voice pulled Vernon out of his righteous thoughts. A few errant youths were putting their newfound luck to use on skateboards, nailing tricks they'd never even tried before. The fat in his cheeks quivering, Vernon marched forward.
Hunting magical freaks wouldn't stop him from putting the fear of god into any other deviants that crossed his path. Rolling up his sleeves (they only made it halfway up the forearms before the fat made it impossible to go further) he accosted the troublemakers.
"Hey, you punks—!"
O-O-O
A trait of Dolores Umbridge's of which those around her were intimately aware was that the more disturbed she was, the more perfume she applied. It wasn't even a conscious habit. When she had more things on her mind, she simply added extra and kept adding, until anyone fifty paces away could smell artificial flowers long before she arrived at their side.
Today, Umbridge was wearing triple her usual amount.
As the head of the Improper Use of Magic office within the Ministry, she couldn't afford any mistakes. A position as Senior Undersecretary to Cornelius Fudge had been rumored to be on the cards. Fudge was fond of her, a fondness that came in equal parts from Umbridge occupying his old position and from the flattery she bathed him with at every opportunity. Without any catastrophes, Umbridge was due to be promoted before the year was up.
Then she woke up one morning to hear that an entire London suburb had had its water supply mixed with Felix Felicis, the luck potion.
As you can imagine, it was chaos. Every agent sent into the field reported that there was good fortune everywhere, to a frightening degree. But none of them could find the damn cause!
Where on earth had someone gotten enough of the luck potion to pull something like this, and why would they bother? With access to a single bottle, Umbridge would've already had the promotion she was chasing! But no, someone had to go and waste a lifetime's worth on a bunch of lowly Muggles.
Eventually, Umbridge grew so fed up that she took to the field herself. Wearing her pinkest coat and wielding her wand, she set out to put an end to this evil waste of good magical product on an undeserving Muggle neighborhood.
What she found when she reached the affected area was worse than anything she could've expected. She hadn't arrived with much of a plan, and so she wandered aimlessly, expecting that a witch of the caliber of herself would easily discover the perpetrator soon enough.
It was awful, frankly. She witnessed multiple Muggles double their wealth with those silly scratchy cards they called the lottery. Umbridge wasn't up to date on pound-to-galleon conversion rates, but she had a horrible suspicion that some of the numbers she heard were higher than her own savings. She attempted to shred one ticket out of a Muggle's hands — because these were clearly ill-gotten with the help of improper magic — however he stooped to pick up a coin at exactly the right time, and Umbridge's spell merely chewed up the bark on a tree. She stormed away before anyone could see her wand.
When all hope seemed lost, Umbridge saw him. And just like that, her displeasure was undone in an instant.
He was screaming at a bunch of preteens, and he was perfect. She was mesmerized by his bouncing cheeks, even fatter than her own. He was well-dressed in a sleek Muggle coat that his girth strained and stretched. His face was going bright red as his tirade heated up, and it had clearly been ongoing for quite some time. His voice was hoarse as he ran out of breath from all his avid screaming. Muggle or not Umbridge thought, 'What a man!'
He was going after those kids with everything he had, putting them in their place with verve. It was like staring into a mirror to watch herself chastise subordinates. Umbridge shook her head, smiling despite herself. Perhaps, if there were more Muggles like this out there, they wouldn't be such a lost cause.
Alas, she was here for a reason. With a heavy heart, she prepared to resume her search, leaving behind this kindred spirit.
She never saw (for one obvious reason) the invisible wizard behind her. Nor did she catch the Compulsion Charm that hit her in the back. Suddenly, instead of going about her day, Umbridge approached this dapper walrus.
From there, the events that followed were set in stone.
O-O-O
Vernon wheezed, shaking his fist at the backs of the teens running away from him. He would've continued shouting at them, but he'd utterly run out of breath, and it was taking its time coming back. Still, he'd like to see those brats try to skateboard in his neighborhood again!
"Hello there."
Vernon turned and discovered an angel had approached him.
She was wearing a pink cardigan and a woolen hat that was somehow an even brighter shade of pink. Her nostrils were slightly upturned, while her hair was curated into perfectly respectable curls. She batted her eyes at Vernon, smiling in a way that puffed out her fat cheeks.
Vernon had found the one. He'd found his pig.
"How do you do?" Vernon asked, straightening his hat atop his head.
The woman released a shrill laugh. "Quite well, thank you. Might I enquire after your name?"
She spoke with a tone more fitting for a girl a quarter of her age, but Vernon didn't mind. She embodied everything he felt Petunia was missing, wrapped up into a single pink bundle.
"V-Vernon Dursely," he said, stuttering like a lovestruck youth.
She giggled again. "I'm Dolores Umbridge. You know, I couldn't help but notice the way you handled those rascals. It was admirable. Manly, even."
Vernon's chest swelled as far as it could— which was very far. "I just do what I think is best."
"You strike me as a sensible sort," Umbridge said. "Surely, you can tell that something is wrong in this place."
Vernon's heart skipped a beat. "I was just searching for the cause myself! Before those punks sidetracked me, of course."
"What do you say we do it together?" Umbridge suggested, blinking more than necessary. "Two heads are better than one."
"Certainly!" Vernon said.
The first place they searched was the nicest restaurant in the area. A table for two, specifically.
O-O-O
Little Whinging's lucky streak lasted for the next week, and over that time Vernon Dursley worked tirelessly with Dolores Umbridge. They left no stone unturned! The closest amusement park was checked thoroughly. The culprit certainly wasn't hiding in the zoo, or any of the nearby restaurants, and he wasn't in the local hotel, either.
At least not the room they rented out for the night.
They bonded quickly. Vernon told stories about his favorite way to fire employees, while Umbridge shared the most menial tasks she'd used to kill the spark in intern's eyes. It was no wonder that their affection quickly grew physical. After the week was up, the Felix Felicis left Little Whinging for good: it had all been used up. Vernon wouldn't admit this out loud, but he'd come to appreciate this bit of wizard freakishness. It led his pookie wookie into his life, after all.
He was distant at home, often forgetting to bring treats for Dudley. He and Petunia fought more often. How he wished she would just disappear. Or maybe he could, slipping away with Umbridge and traveling to the opposite side of the country. Grunnings had plenty of offices, and if Dolores gave it a try, he was sure she could even rule one of them at his side!
Then, it all came crashing down.
O-O-O
"Vernon! VERNON!"
Spindly fingers tipped by sharp nails stabbed him repeatedly in the side, digging into the fat beneath his pajamas. He jolted awake, grumbling like an engine just starting.
"What is it?" he growled.
Petunia glowered at him in the morning light, a fierce scowl on her thin lips. "You prat! Look what you've done!"
She thrusted something into his face. It was a bundle of photographs. They were all crystal clear, and they were all of him. Vernon stared at himself locked in a variety of romantic and even coital positions with Dolores.
He didn't know how anyone could have got those, but they were quite damning evidence. He considered yelling. He could insist that it was a trick played by magical freaks, and if he was loud enough, Petunia might even believe him. But he didn't have the energy.
Petunia began yelling at him as he remained silent, her lips popping out like they were at the end of a snout. He couldn't handle it. Pressing his hands to his ears, Vernon ran from his house in just an undershirt and boxers.
When he reached the front lawn, Dolores was just getting there from the other side.
"We're caught!" she cried. "Look!"
She held up a newspaper called Witch Weekly. The front page article was full of pictures just as explicit as the ones Petunia showed him, except that these were moving. The headline read: Boy Who Lived's Uncle and Ministry Official Embroiled in a Steamy affair!
Vernon stumbled back. "You mean you're… You're a…witch?"
"It's true," Dolores said. "Oh, yes, it's all true! Look, I've even got a wand of my own!"
She drew it and Vernon nearly fainted.
"But I meant everything I said!" she insisted in her shrill, toad-like way. "I truly loved you, every step of the way, my great big bullfrog!"
Slowly, the spinning of Vernon's head cleared. He looked at Dolores, her eyes staring at him so passionately. He reached out and wrapped his arms around her, feeling how they sunk into her fatty back. What had he been thinking? Who cared if she was a witch? The only thing truly magical about her was how much meat she had on her bones!
"We need to start over," Vernon said.
Umbridge's eyes turned wet. "You mean it?"
"Tomorrow," Vernon said. "Tomorrow, we'll strike out together. We'll start our own company! The two of us will order underlings around together and get richer than anyone else. It'll be everything we ever dreamed of."
They split from there with the promise of meeting the following day at the spot where they first met. From there, Vernon Dursley and Dolores Umbridge would slip away from their lives, on to greater things.
They would give up everything else, if it meant they could have each other.
O-O-O
At five A.M. Vernon set out with his thickest suitcase and the intention of never returning. Privet Drive and indeed the rest of Little Whinging had quieted significantly in the last few days. He'd miss it somewhat. But there were other ordinary neighborhoods in the world, including ones that wouldn't chain him down with a nagging equine wife.
The further he got, the lighter his steps became. Figuratively, of course, because his steps were always heavy on the literal level. He allowed himself to feel excited. This was his first step into a better future.
Their meeting place came into sight ahead of him. Dolores was already there. But she was laying face down.
Vernon dropped his suitcase as soon as he saw, waddling forward as fast as his legs could carry him. When he rolled his lover over, she was cold to the touch through her trademark cardigan. A pain began in his chest that hurt as badly as the heart attack his doctor insisted he'd have before fifty.
"Why, Dolores?" Vernon blubbered. "What happened?"
Through the haze over his mind, he noticed a bottle next to herwith a note pinned beneath it. He laid Umbridge down to snatch up both.
The Note said this:
My dear, sweet Vernon. I thought I was strong enough, but alas, I was not. I cannot handle the looks I would get from my kind. The scorn they have shown me, since our love became public, was too much. I can only apologize for leaving you behind. But at least, with this virulent poison, I can pass peacefully. Farewell, my great croaking bullfrog. I will see you in the next life, because I could not be yours in this one.
The note slipped from Vernon's fingers. The freaks had been that nasty to her? But if that were the case, then what might they do to him when this was discovered? That awful Black man had already been used to threaten him once. Would Vernon be killed, or captured, or worse? A million magical crimes shot through his head, all of them with himself as the helpless victim. His eyes landed on the bottle in his hand.
The note said painless, right?
Vernon thought, and thought, and the longer he thought the more sure he became. It wasn't even the threat of violence that pushed him over the edge. It was the knowledge that if he went back now, all that would be waiting for him was Petunia.
"I'm coming, my Sweet," Vernon said. Because everyone knew that nicknames were a traditional sign of affection in a relationship.
He knocked the bottle back and drained it. His eye twitched, his throat closed, and Vernon Dursley fell forward. He never made it to fifty for that heart attack he'd been promised.
A few seconds after Vernon stopped moving, Umbridge sat up. She opened eyes that were pitch black in color. Glancing dispassionately at the fat man on the sidewalk beside her, she swapped the note he'd read with a new one, setting it down and placing a new vial of poison above it. Then she turned into a shadow and disappeared.
About ten minutes later, Umbridge arrived. Like Vernon, she dropped her luggage, rushing to read the message he'd left.
The new note said this:
My sweetest piggy, I've realized that I can't do this. To leave my family behind and run away with you would be the coward's way out. What were we thinking? You hate Muggles, and I hate freaks (This word was scribbled out until it was nearly illegible) wizards with all my heart. We would never have lasted. I have taken the only option available to me, and moved on to the next life, hoping we will be reunited there. Don't fret! I've taken the liberty of informing your direct superior, remaining family, and the Minister himself of the details of our affair by letter, so they won't blame you for anything. Toodles, my Thickest Flower! You changed my life forever.
"Why would he inform them—" Umbridge snarled. She quickly looked around, and even though she couldn't see anyone, corrected herself just in case. "I mean, why would he take his own life? How terrible!"
She glanced at the poison. The ramifications of this passed through her head. Vernon was gone. His big fat body was quickly growing cold. She would have to live without him, and if it came out that she was a temptress luring Muggles away from their spouses, she'd be phased out of the Ministry in a flash! What if Witch Weekly got ahold of the fact that the Muggle had been under the effects of a potion when she got to him? It wasn't a love potion, but she could still be tried for Muggle Baiting.
"Blast it all, I won't live in disgrace!" Umbridge roared.
With all her courage, she chose to run from her problems, downing the contents of the bottle. She landed on the sidewalk and didn't move.
Just feet away, underneath his invisibility cloak, Harry sat on a camping chair, watching the scene with a bucket of popcorn on his knee. Tears streamed down his face. He sniffled, tossing an extra helping of popcorn into his mouth.
"Why are you crying?" asked his shadow.
Harry looked at the silhouette, rubbing butter and snot off his face with a napkin.
"Because, Death," he said, "we just witnessed a martyr that's going to change the wizarding world forever. Who could stay calm after that?"
His shadow went silent, saying no more. Humans, it thought, were truly strange.