A/N: The second chapter has arrived, much longer than the first - almost double the word count! A bit of Irene's family, because I always wondered what her parents were like. There's a bit of OOC Irene, but most of it's Harry's influence. Hopefully it's an...enjoyable...read!

The Dursleys' car rolled into the driveway, and she peered through her bedroom window. The fattest, Vernon Dursley, exited the driver's seat. Petunia Dursley, a woman as tall and thin as her husband was fat, climbed from the passenger's side, and behind her, Dudley Dursley – who took after his father in all but his whitish-blonde hair – also made his exit.

She waited with bated breath, as the fourth door opened, and Harry Potter stepped from the car. He was thicker than when she had last seen him, though this was by no means a bad thing. Irene wondered whether or not she would still be able to see his ribs now.

He walked behind the Dursleys, a meekness that had been beaten into him since birth, and followed them inside the house. A smile slowly filled Irene's face. Finally, her accomplice – friend, she thought, even as the term was nowhere near broad enough to fully describe their relationship – had returned from the boarding school in Scotland where she could not follow.

"Irene!" her mother called. "Come down here, please!"

She moved away from the window, casting a single glance back at Number Four, Privet Drive, and went downstairs to where her mother was sitting in the living room. Mary Adler was a woman who knew what she wanted and how to get it. Steve Adler was her fifth husband, and though he was not as well-off as the previous four, he had an ailing uncle, without children of his own, that was quite rich.

Irene had been a mistake made with Number Two, one that Mary had made sure not to repeat with any subsequent endeavors of love – or rather the fiscal aspects of marriage.

"Yes, mother?" Irene asked.

"Potter has returned from Saint Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys," Mary said. "You will maintain your distance, am I understood? I cannot afford to have any scandal, not right now."

"Yes, mother," she said.

Her mother had been shocked when, at age five, Irene had discovered her light fingers. She had since forbidden Irene from doing anything unlawful. Irene had simply made sure never to get caught, and it was working out quite well for her. Over the past two years, she had begun building up her own gang without her mother's knowledge. There was only one last obstacle in her path, one person that might pose a threat to her takeover of Little Whinging, and now that Harry Potter had returned, she fully intended to take care of him.

She waited until nightfall, as usual, and then exited her house through the window. She crept over to Number Four and picked the lock, then climbed the stairs, jumping over the one that creaked. She opened the door to Harry's bedroom, and found him sitting on his bed, as she expected.

"Hello," she said, looking around. A worn trunk had been haphazardly shoved to the foot of the bed, and his owl – Hedwig, she thought its name was – was inside a cage on the nightstand.

"Hello, miss," Harry replied.

She'd managed to keep him from applying the title to everyone he met, but he insisted on using it to refer to her. It was, as he'd explained so many times, only proper.

"Tell me about Hogwarts," she told him, and he ducked his head.

"I convinced everyone that I was weak and harmless," he told her in the softly respectful tone he now reserved exclusively for her. "The majority of the Wizarding World lacks common sense, so it was fairly easy. All I had to do was convince a mind-reading hat to call me a foolishly noble and brave person."

"Who did you befriend?"

"A young girl named Hermione Granger, who is very intelligent but lacks social skills, and a boy named Ronald Weasley, who is moronic but provides further evidence that I am weak, harmless, and above all, a good person."

"Very good. Beware of the Granger girl; if she is as intelligent as you say, she may discover your mask."

"She owes me a life-debt; should I require it, her magic will enforce her silence."

"So there were incidents?"

"Two, miss. A mountain troll was released in the school, and I saved Granger's life after it was endangered by Weasley."

"That disqualifies him from collecting on the debt?"

"Yes, miss. At the end of the year, I discovered that one of the professors was being possessed by the shade of Lord Voldemort and was attempting to steal a Sorcerer's Stone in order to return to corporeal form. I prevented him from accomplishing the task."

He reached into his pocket and retrieved a blood-red stone.

"Albus Dumbledore believed it best to destroy the stone he found on my person."

She smiled; Harry had done well.

"Very good. What properties does this stone possess?"

"Thank you, miss. It can turn any metal into gold, as well as create a liquid called the Elixir of Life, which makes the drinker immortal as long as he or she drinks the elixir."

"I see. Other than the gold transmutation, I do not see the purpose of the stone at this point in time."

Harry ducked his head again and wrapped the stone in an old pair of socks before stuffing the socks in the bottom of his trunk.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, miss."

"You have done well, Harry. I am very pleased."

The boy in front of her blushed. The Dursleys had never given him praise; now that he received it, it gave him an unfamiliar rush of pleasure he could not control. Irene knew this, and while she was displeased that others had done this to her Harry, she was not above using it to her advantage. After all, having him link his own feelings to her pride in him was an excellent way to guarantee continued loyalty.

"The…organization has continued to expand in your absence," she continued. "There is, however, one small obstacle. Another gang has sprung up in our territory, and is not backing down."

"You wish for me to crush them, miss?"

"Their leader," Irene corrected. "Without him, they will fall easily. I would've done this sooner, but I did wish for you to return before I destroyed him."

"Who, miss?"

"Dudley Dursley," Irene said, and was monumentally glad that she was in control of the monster grinning at her from Harry Potter's bed.

She opened the door and let followed Harry Potter into his cousin's room, letting him lead. She would occasionally have him take control – after all, she didn't want a…friend…completely unable to perform independent action.

Harry moved around his cousin, gleefully using a roll of duct tape to tightly secure the other boy's limbs, and then placing a strip of it over the boy's lips. It was strong, and it would hurt like hell when it came off, both reasons appealing greatly to Harry. He picked up his cousin's arms, and waited for Irene to take his feet, before they both took the heavy boy outside and into the empty house where Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks had once resided.

Harry tore the duct tape from Dudley's mouth and watched the blood flow from where the tape had torn skin.

"What the hell is going on?" Dudley screamed.

Harry slapped Dudley twice. "Be quiet, Dudley," he said, "and don't speak unless spoken to."

"Dad's gonna beat you raw for this," the blonde said, ignoring what his cousin had said. Then a wave of pain erupted across his face. He blinked and saw a belt in Harry's hand.

"I said don't speak unless spoken to," he said. His voice was still soft, and for some reason that seemed even scarier to Dudley than when his father got drunk and started yelling.

"Now then," came a new voice – a girl, Dudley realized – "we're going to have a chat about this…gang of yours."

"What?" Dudley asked stupidly. He'd imagined something about the freak getting even with him, but this didn't make sense. Why was his cousin doing anything, least of all beating him, with a girl?

"You see, I'm the leader of another group of people," the girl continued, "and we're rather displeased about this whole thing."

Dudley laughed. "Yeah, like they'd let a girl be in charge of a gang," he chuckled. "What'd you have to do, go down on them all?"

The girl's voice went hard. "Not quite," she said. "In fact, that very thing came up when I first took over. That, along with my age, were both questioned – quite rudely, I might add – by an older boy, Mark Thomas."

Dudley didn't say anything. This girl was now giving him the creeps. What was going on?

"I let Harry loose," she said. "He cut a hole in Mark Thomas's jeans, and put one of his favorite knives straight through Mark Thomas's genitals. My Harry is quite an artist with the knife, you see, and he made Mr. Thomas scream so very, very much."

Dudley whimpered a little in sympathetic pain.

"Surprisingly, nobody has made any complaints about either my age or gender since them," she continued. "But I suppose that's neither here nor there. What really matters, Dudley, is your little gang. Now, I've thought about actually going and beating you all into submission. I thought it would be rather fun. But then I realized that Harry here deserves a bit of revenge, don't you agree?"

Dudley's eyes flickered to his cousin's face – and focused on the demented grin adorning the child's mouth. He gulped when he saw teeth glint.

"So here's what we're going to do, Dudley," the girl said. "Tonight, Harry is going to be taking what you've taken from him, with interest. And he's not going to leave any visible marks. And tomorrow, you're going to disband your little gang, and you're not going to try and get retaliation of any kind. Because if I find out you do so – if I catch a single whisper of your disobedience, then the pain you feel tonight will be nothing to what you will feel then. Am I understood?"

Dudley's eyes widened as another strip of duct tape was applied to his mouth, and then the belt came down again, and his muffled screams filled the house.

When Harry finally let Dudley pass out, she left the room quickly. She'd seen Harry do quite a bit with his victims since he'd become her enforcer and bodyguard. But the hours of torture she had just witnessed were unlike anything she'd ever seen before.

Harry followed not long after. He was always clean with his work, not wanting to waste any extra time wiping up after himself. "Are you alright, miss?"

She nodded. "That was…worse than the others."

Harry ducked his head. "I'm sorry, miss."

Irene shook her head. "I instructed you to destroy him," she said, "and you followed instructions. I simply was not prepared for such…brutality." She straightened. "I will not make such a mistake again."

"Yes, miss," Harry said, though his eyes still contained hints of worry. She forced a smile, and he seemed to relax a little.

"I think I will stick to theft and nonviolent crime," she said, tilting her head to one side. "I do not find such violence as appealing as you do."

"I am whatever you need, miss," Harry said. "When we met, you needed an accomplice. When you took over Little Whinging, you needed an enforcer. Now, you need something else, and I shall fill that role, too."

Irene smiled at Harry and kissed him on the cheek. The boy blushed furiously.

"Thank you, Harry," she said.

"Anything, miss," Harry said.

The next day, Dudley seemed very skittish, and while his friends Piers Polkiss and Malcolm Gordon were both disappointed that their dreams of becoming a widely-feared gang under their leader "Big D" were over, they knew better than to ask Dudley's reasons.

Nor did they understand why little Irene Adler kept smirking at them all day from her front lawn.

She made sure that she stayed far away from Harry Potter while her mother could see her, and acted the perfect lady she was supposed to be.

But she always longed for night, and her Harry.