In Minor Key

By: TwinEnigma

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters therein. I do this for fun and skills building and not teh profits.

"It's not safe here," Petunia says.

She is shaken and pale, her back pressed against the wall. She holds on with one hand, her fingers splayed and nails clawing into the wall, while her other hand hovers near her head. That hand is trembling.

The shopping is forgotten on the floor next to her.

In the background, both Dudley and Harry cry.

There's a chance for promotion at Grunnings. It's a good one. Vernon could do very well in that title and he knows it.

There's another opportunity in the company. It's just as good – maybe even better-, but much, much farther away. Commuting would be impossible. They'd have to move.

Before, Vernon would have not considered it.

"It's not safe here," Petunia says.

He did not know her sister or his brother-in-law very well at all and what he does know now he wishes that he did not. It's hard to fathom and harder still to believe in.

But he, too, has seen the strange delight on the faces of men and women in those strange clothes when they see Harry and that scar on his head and has felt a sudden animal sense of panic as they come closer, awe and joy and sometimes, sometimes, something else in their eyes. And he knows that Petunia is right.

It is not safe.

They move without fanfare, silent as you please, and tell no one where they are going. Nothing is left behind, not even a speck of dust.

"Better that way," Petunia says in the car, looking out the window. "The less we give them, the harder it will be for them to find us."

They move again before the year is out, just in case.

They have a fairly tacit agreement that magic is never discussed in their household and not at all to be entertained seriously around Harry.

"It's not safe," Petunia tells Vernon.

They are in the yard and the boys are in the house, slumbering. The monitor in his hand is silent.

He agrees. He may not believe in magic and may not understand it, but he respects her knowledge of it and her experience living with it.

Petunia eyes the small shrub she has just finished planting. It is Highclere holly, quite popular, and it is but one of several she has purchased. It will make a fine hedge when it is fully grown.

"It looks good," he tells her.

Petunia frowns a little at the plant and shoots a furtive glance at the small book next to her before smiling a little and standing. "It'd look best with some lavender, I think."

She starts a window garden, too. It's a tidy, tiny little thing, and perfectly ordinary.

"Basil and oregano taste best fresh," she tells him.

He agrees.

When she adds rosemary and sage to the little window garden, he doesn't question it. It's all very normal.

Besides, it really does taste better fresh anyway.

It is Harry's third birthday when there's a knock at the door.

There's a man there, sallow and lanky with greasy black hair. His clothes are threadbare and worn, almost a decade out of date. The shirt he's wearing is faded to the point where Star Wars is almost no longer visible.

"Is Petunia in? I'm an old friend," he says, "From Cokeworth."

Petunia never speaks of Cokeworth or of any old friends there and, when Petunia comes down the stairs and sees the man on the stoop, the blood drains from her face.

It is then that Vernon knows that they have found them.

"Hello Petunia," the man says. He gestures to the hedges and shrubs. "I see you've been reading. Clever work there with the holly and lavender. Very subtle. And the window garden is nice touch."

Vernon bristles internally at the implication, but it is Petunia who responds.

"Out," she whispers, taking a step, and then another, her face going red as she finds her voice once more, "Out! Out, damn you!"

Her anger is like thunder and this man, this stranger, takes a step back.

"How dare you show your face to me," Petunia hisses lowly, her teeth bared. "Did he send you? Is that it? Did he?"

"No, he didn't," the man admits, near sneering. "But he is looking for you and Harry. Maybe I should tell him. He'd like that. Can't imagine Harry's very happy here with a jealous cow like you, muggle."

"You little freak! You're not going to tell him anything," Petunia says, and there is something hard and vicious in her voice as she grabs the man's arm. "Swear on your magic you won't."

What little color is in the man's face flees entirely, a flash of real naked fear on his face, and he tries to tug his arm away. "You don't know what you're asking!"

"You took my sister from me," Petunia hisses. "You took her to that place and you got her killed. You owe me this much. Now, swear it. Swear on your magic that you will not tell anyone where we are."

Vernon feels something in the atmosphere shift and watches silently as pain flickers across the man's face. The man sags in her grip, the fight draining from him. He looks suddenly both too young and too old, a paradox in human shape, and then he shifts his hand down to clasp Petunia's arm, his voice soft as he says: "I swear on my magic that I will not tell anyone where you and your family are."

"Now leave," Petunia orders, letting go of his hand and drawing back. "Leave and never come back."

The man clutches his arm, cradling it as if burned, and turns away. He looks back once and then he's gone with a crack of displaced air.

"It's not safe here anymore," Vernon says, "is it?"

They move again.

This house is smaller and well in the suburbs, but there are holly hedges and oak trees lining the property and a fine overgrown lavender shrub that needs tending. There isn't much room to spare and hardly any extra money. Dudley and Harry share a room and neither quite enjoys it, but there is little choice.

It's perfectly ordinary to share, after all.

Weird things happen around Harry.

They all know this.

It isn't talked about.

For a few years, it's fine.

The boys and their peers are at the age where games of make-believe are acceptable and any nonsense is easily dismissed. But, before they know it, that time has gone and passed them by.

"It's just your imagination," Petunia tells Dudley.

His gaze grows more and more skeptical each time.

"Stop playing games," Petunia tells Harry. "No more of these wild stories of yours."

His tales of accidental magic happening around him grow fewer and fewer.

"Pure coincidence," Vernon scoffs, when a concerned teacher points out the correlation between Harry's presence and odd things happening. "Don't be preposterous. There's obviously a perfectly ordinary explanation."

The teacher doesn't bring it up again, but most of them never do anyway. It's always forgotten very quickly.

"Don't tell lies, Harry," Vernon says. "I know you have a very active imagination, but we all know that's not the truth."

It's a lie and they all know it.

Weird things happen.

They don't talk about it.

There's a perfectly ordinary explanation, after all.

In the paper, there's an article about an odd incident with owls roosting on a house in Surrey.

Vernon ignores it, skipping straight to the sports section.

Harry's eleventh birthday comes and goes without incident.

Petunia is quietly relieved.

Time passes.

The weird incidents haven't stopped.

They've merely changed.

A bully at their new school ends up falling down the stairs and breaking his collarbone after talking to Harry.

"It's just a coincidence," Harry says, shrugging it off.

His friends look skeptical.

"Right, mate."

"Did you shove him or something?"

"Didn't touch him," Harry says. "That arse probably tripped over his own bloody ego or something."

Everyone laughs.

Dudley frowns.

He knows when Harry is lying.

It's almost always now.

It is just the first incident of many.

Harry is always near when these things happen, but never too near. How could he have done these things when he was across the room or on the other side of the field? No, no, there is no way he could have done any of those things. It is a coincidence every time.

Eventually, they don't hear about any more bullies. They all give Harry a wide berth. But there's a price.

With magic, as Petunia well knows, there is always a price.

Slowly, little by little, Harry's friends drift away. There's only so much coincidence they can handle, she supposes.

"They just forgot," Dudley says.

Harry shoots him a scathing, bitter look.

Petunia can't help but feel like she is missing something.

"You can't keep doing this," Dudley says quietly.

"The fuck not?" Harry asks, his voice challenging.

Petunia presses herself back against the wall, listening to them. They are just around the corner.

"God, Harry," Dudley hisses. "Everyone knows it's you doing it. They just don't want to say nothing."

"Fuck off," Harry scoffs. "It's not like they can prove it. It's coincidence, yeah?"

"Yeah, coincidence, sure, if you're a goddamn X-Man," Dudley mutters. "Someone's going to notice, Jean Grey. Then, what?"

"What do you care, anyway?" Harry asks, bitterly. "I'm not hurting anybody that didn't deserve it first."

"And Jon-boy deserved it, eh? What for, skipping out on us? Going on that date with Kay?" Dudley fires back. "Cause you're sweet on her? Is that it?"

The air crackles and snaps with the smell of burnt ozone as the lights flicker and spark, before going out. Ice floods her veins and Petunia races around the corner.

Dudley's shirt is clenched tight in Harry's fist and both boys look at her in surprise.

Harry's eyes are blazing, alight with something that is barely leashed, and there are scorch marks on the floor and ceiling. He lets go of his cousin's shirt and turns away.

The car ride home is silent. As soon as they're in the door, Harry disappears into his room without so much as a word.

"You know what's wrong with him, don't you, mum? You've always known," Dudley accuses.

Petunia doesn't answer.

The air in the house is strained.

Harry comes and goes like a wrathful ghost.

Things break without meaning or reason.

"They don't make these like they used to," Vernon laments as he changes the lightbulb again. "They burn out so quickly and half of them don't work at all."

It's easier to blame the breaks on the quality of the broken things.

It's safer, too.

One day, Harry doesn't come back.

He's seventeen.

He has a job, an ordinary one, and has been saving up, she knows that. He doesn't leave a note about where he's gone or how to reach him. One day, he is there, the next he is not.

"You should look for him," Dudley says.

"It's ordinary for him to want some space," Vernon says.

"He'll be fine," Petunia agrees.

Dudley doesn't look like he believes that at all.