Goddess bless Geena Davis, for being a tall redhead. Goddess bless all these people http/ for their wonderful movie, which inspired this fic, and after which I named it. And finally, Goddess bless Madam Rowling, for the world she created.
Only the twisted, deviant plot and a few other odds and ends are mine. The rest belongs to someone else. If you recognise it, it isn't mine.
Harry Potter and the Long Kiss Goodnight
Chapter One.
Harry was languishing, wallowing even, in his own private hell.
Number 4 Privet Drive.
His Dogfather…Godfather (bloody Malfoy) had died only a couple of weeks ago. He had had the fate of the world, not just the wizarding world, but the entire world, dumped on his skinny shoulders by the oh-so-great-and-wonderful Albus Dumbledore. Who had then promptly sent him off to hide once again.
Here.
In hell.
Durzkaban.
Harry was currently preparing to serve dinner.
You'd think with so much riding on me, that he'd at least have someone training me through Summer, wouldn't you. Next Summer, I'm bringing Dobby home with me, and stuff what Dumbledore thinks. I'm fed up with being a slave. Merlin, I hate these people.
A flash of light caught his eye as he stood at the kitchen sink. A Reducto curse…"BLOODY HELL!" Harry leapt for cover as the explosive spell slammed through the kitchen wall, sending wood and brick shrapnel in all directions.
His family, who had just sat down for dinner, were knocked to the floor by the force of the explosion.
Harry pulled out his wand and slipped into the laundry, hoping to buy a little time for the Order or the Ministry to get there. Not that he had much faith in either at this point. He watched through the crack in the door as a half dozen Death Eaters entered the kitchen through the hole in the wall.
"We've got you now Potter!" he looked around "Potter? Damn, I could have sworn he was here a second ago." The lead Death Eater sounded disappointed.
"Oh, look. Muggles." A second one piped up with.
"I guess with no Potter here, we'll have to torture them. I mean, if we returned to the Dark Lord and said 'Sorry we couldn't find Potter so we just left', you saw what he did to Lestrange for failing him in the Ministry." Death Eater number three pointed his wand towards Vernon, " You filthy muggles aren't fit to breathe the same air as us, so I'm quite afraid you're going to have to suffer, Crucio."
Vernon, who had been changing colours, as first horror, then anger, then full blown rage, then fear had wandered through his consciousness, suddenly found himself having a joyful cruciatus experience, which is kind of like a joyful cappuccino experience except for it being painful and not having any caffeinated goodness…well…I guess it really is nothing like it after all.
Death Eater number four was a little bored. As he had graduated just last month, he had yet to learn how to cast the Cruciatus curse, and had been told to just stand back and watch, to keep a lookout for the inevitable arrival of Aurors. He stepped outside again, figuring he could Incendio some of the prize winning Roses in the backyard before setting the house on fire.
Death Eater number one, had meanwhile cornered Petunia Dursley, behind whom was a sadly stranded whale…oh, wait…it was a human? "What in Merlin's name are you hiding behind your back, woman? A baby elephant? Aren't they supposed to be kept in the zoo? Anyway, Crucio."
Petunia fell down, writhing in agony…
…briefly.
Harry watched in horror as his family was tortured, it was kinda one of those train wreck moments, don't want to look, but can't look away. Gathering up his courage, and paying only vague attention to the little voice that sounded like Hermione telling him to hide, Harry waited until one of the Death Eaters (number six, in fact) was nearby but facing away, poked his wand out the door a little and fired a whispered Petrificus Totalus into the middle of his back.
As Death Eater number two was stepping past the fallen Petunia, she stopped writhing, and leapt suddenly to her feet. She reached out, grabbing his head and twisting it with a sickening Crack. Catching his body, she grabbed his wand and used his corpse as a body shield. Noticing the wand poking out of the Laundry door, she opened up on the Death Eaters with a series of stunners and powerful immobilising hexes, joined moments later by Harry who opened the door a little, but didn't abandon his cover, preferring to at least partially listen to his inner Hermione.
Within about a minute, all the Death Eaters were disarmed, bound, and secured to conjured chairs in what was left of the kitchen. As were Vernon and Dudley.
Harry was very confused. "Aunt Petunia, what…?"
Petunia didn't turn away from the death eaters. "Not now Harry" Her voice was deeper than it had been an hour ago but also much colder as she turned from looking over her prisoners to regard Harry. A sudden warmth entered her gaze as she regarded him, as if for the first time. "Go and get your things, shrink your trunk and wait by the front door. Hurry" Her gaze turned frosty as she turned back to her victims.
Harry scampered off, leaving her alone with the prisoners.
As soon as the kitchen door swung shut behind him, she cast Silencio, and began Enervating all seven surviving men.
"Well, isn't this nice." She looked each of them in the eye for a moment. "This is for threatening my nephew's life, Crucio, Crucio, Crucio, Crucio, Crucio, Crucio, Crucio. Oops." She smirked. "Got carried away a bit there, sorry Duddykins."
Death Eater number five, who had done very little so far, managed to find his voice first. "B-Buh-but you're a muggle!"
Petunia looked at him, "Crucio. Did anyone ask you? No. Anyway, I think I've had enough fun here tonight, so I'll be saying bye, and blasting your entrails across the kitchen. It's nothing personal, just aversion therapy for your friends when they hear about it."
The Death Eaters looked at her in horror, they hadn't ever actually expected to risk death themselves.
She muttered something foul, and a sickly yellow light enveloped each of the Death Eaters in turn, causing them to start writhing in growing abdominal discomfort. She turned away from them to consider Vernon and Dudley.
"Petunia, what is the meaning of this? How can you be one of them?" Vernon's confusion had temporarily overwhelmed his anger.
Petunia reached out and patted his cheek tenderly for a moment. "Crucio. You great, fat, disgusting Muggle. How could you treat a child like that? How dare you? And to force your wife to do the same? Bastard! Crucio! This is for Tobias Fairchild, you soulless monster. Avada Kedavra."
Vernon looked at the woman he had spent the last eighteen years with in shock. He had thought he had gotten away with it. He had beaten, broken, raped, and then run the boy over with a car…repeatedly…before dumping him in an alley in London. But that had been twenty years ago. The last thought to travel the pitifully short neural pathways of his brain was; But what have they done with my Petunia?
She turned finally to the great blubbering heap that she had given birth to, and shuddered in revulsion. Clenching her jaw, she looked Dudley in the eye. "I'm sorry Dudley, but I'm not your mother. She was make-believe, a fantasy, a sick nightmare. I guess you're as much the victim here as Harry." She shook her head. "I'm sorry." She whispered, waving the wand. "Castratus. Obliviate."
She looked around at the swiftly bloating bodies of the still living, but not for long, Death Eaters, and hurried through the door to find Harry. Moments after the door swung shut, the Death Eaters abdomens exploded, spraying intestines, blood, and chunks of internal organs all over the walls and out across the back yard.
"Silencio."
Harry heard his Aunt cast the silencing spell behind him in the kitchen, and decided he didn't really want to think about it. He hurried up to Dudley's second bedroom, his room, and pulled out his trunk.
Deciding speed was more important than finesse, he attempted the packing spell Ginny had shown him earlier in the year. His clothes and books hurtled across the room and lodged themselves in the trunk. He carefully opened his secret space under the floorboard, gathering his Invisibility Cloak, the photo album, and the Marauder's Map. His broom was still back at Hogwarts thanks to the toad-lady. He opened Hedwig's cage, letting her out the window. "You need to get out of here. Go to Hermione, she will be able to look after you. Find me in a week, I should be safe by then." Hedwig nipped his finger and flew out into the night.
He quickly cast a shrinking charm on the chest, tucking the matchbox-sized trunk into his pocket, and hurrying downstairs.
Petunia was just stepping out of the kitchen, smiling up at him as he quickly ran down the stairs. She strode purposefully up the hall towards him. "Have you got everything?" She collected her own handbag from the hall table. "Merlin's Codpiece, that's an awful colour" she stuck her tongue out in disgust.
Harry watched her carefully, he had realised what was 'off' about his Aunt…she was smiling at him, in a friendly way, not mean like she usually did. He nodded at her question and patted the pocket of his jeans. "Shrunken."
She nodded, and took his hand, leading him towards the front door. As she opened it, an owl hooted from the top of the car where it was standing. A letter bearing the seal of the ministry tied to it's leg.
"Shit, underage bloody bollocking magic." She snarled.
Harry slapped himself on the forehead. How could I have forgotten? All this excitement with the Death Eaters, I suppose. He looked at his Aunt, "What do I do? Fudge will be sure to snap my wand this time."
Petunia looked at the disheartened face of her nephew. "That good-for-nothing Nargle-herder had better keep his bloody distance. Don't you worry." She turned to the rather impatient looking owl, and with a wave of the Death Eater's wand, banished it.
Harry gasped in shock.
"Give me your wand." She took it out of his hand, plucked a hair from his head, and waved the stolen wand over both. Moments later, she handed Harry his wand back, and picked up an exact duplicate transfigured from his hair. She grinned at him, and snapped it in half, dropping it at her feet. "Now make sure you don't go using your wand until I can arrange to get those bloody tracking spells removed from it, okay?"
Harry grinned back, liking his Aunt's new attitude.
"Now, get in." She paused, a thought coming to her. "Do you have James' cloak? Your father?"
"Yes," He muttered.
"Belt up and then throw it over yourself, the less people that see you leaving, the better."
He did as he was told, and Petunia reversed out of the driveway, almost running over one of Mrs Fig's cats, and drove quickly out of Little Whinging, not saying a word while having to concentrate on her driving.
A silent hour's drive away, Petunia pulled up outside a post office, and went to the post-boxes. Taking a key out of her garish purple purse, she unlocked a box.
The odd thing from Harry's point of view, was that she appeared to be reaching into a space between two concurrent mail boxes. Which, to quote Hermione, is impossible. He watched as she tossed a handful of brochures and advertisements onto the ground, and retrieved an object about the size of a packet of cigarettes, before returning to the car.
"What was that?"
She nodded towards the Post Office, "Fidelius charm on a post office box. I have a few around with stashes of money and equipment. For times like now." She grinned at the empty space where Harry's voice had come from.
"Wha…?"
"What now? Easy. We find somewhere to dump the car, and we disappear. A hotel, a shower, a change of clothes, and a decent meal that someone else has to cook for us. Sounds good?" Petunia sounded hopeful, while she got the car underway again.
Harry nodded, realised she couldn't see him, and said. "Sounds great."
They had dumped the car beside the highway leading into London, and after setting it on fire, Petunia took a portkey from her stash, and they travelled into the centre of London, where they caught a taxi to the hotel.
The hotel turned out to be one of the most expensive and upmarket palaces Harry had ever seen. His Aunt had him stay under the cloak, while she cast some kind of glamour over herself.
They checked in under the name Evans. Harry was surprised, but not much when he thought about it. A couple of minutes later they were in a room twice the size of the Gryffindor common room. He took the cloak off as soon as they were alone.
"Wow."
"It's not bad." She sounded blasé. "You get the first bath, while I remove my makeup." When he didn't move, she made shooing gestures. "Go on."
Harry walked into a room reminiscent of the bathing houses of ancient Rome. It was huge. He ran a bath, and quickly stripped off, sinking slowly into the first real bath he'd had since Hogwarts.
He was just starting to doze a little when, much to his discomfort, his Aunt entered the room.
"Hey. I'm…" Harry didn't quite know what to say at this point. The last time his Aunt had been in the bathroom at the same time as him, he'd been four years old.
"Don't worry, Harry, I'm not going to peek. I just need the mirror to remove my makeup." She paused to look at herself in the mirror. "Merlin, what was I thinking." She looked past herself to the reflection of Harry in the mirror. "So, tell me about your time at Hogwarts, and don't leave anything out. I want to hear everything." She smiled at him in the mirror.
Harry was in shock. Despite everything he had experienced today, he had never, not even in his wildest fantasies, ever imagined that one day his Aunt would, voluntarily, show an interest in his time at Hogwarts. He stammered for a moment, unsure of where to start.
She smiled kindly, "Start from when Hagrid swooped in and rescued you."
Harry swallowed, and began relating the tale of his adventures at Hogwarts.
All the while his Aunt made comments, laughed at the right times, cried at his misfortunes, cheered him when he started getting depressed, and generally helped him through.
She was also changing before his eyes. The transformation was slow, but very obvious.
By the time he had finished relating the events of his first year, her neck was shorter, her face a little rounder, and her hair was beginning to change to a more reddish hue.
At about the time he was describing the fight with the Basilisk, she was watching him with tear-filled green eyes…bright, shining green eyes…just like his own.
While trying to find the right words to properly tell her how they freed Sirius Black, he noticed that her body had begun to fill out, and her nose had become more…petite.
As he related his triumph and his horror at the conclusion of the Tri-Wizard tournament, the face smiling supportively, and sharing his horror, was eerily familiar.
And finally, the events of the year just completed.
He had watched as his Aunt Petunia, cast a series of counter-charms, hexes, and transfigurations. Had watched as the woman who bore no resemblance to his mother disappeared, and was replaced by another woman. A woman with a smiling face, long crimson hair, and the same glowing green eyes that looked back at him from the mirror each morning. This woman was his mother's sister.
She smiled at him. "I think it's time for introductions, Harry. I'm sorry I was never there for you, I'm your mother's sister, Holly Evans."
Harry blinked in surprise, before responding. "Um…nice to meet you?"
She laughed, a beautiful crystal clear laugh. "Don't worry, you'll get used to me. Petunia was a disguise. Unfortunately, a very good disguise that I had no choice in. Time for my story, I guess." She sighed, then looked at him. "After dinner. You've soaked long enough to look like a prune. There's a bathrobe on the hook there, don't worry about clothes yet. I'll order dinner, while you dress, then I'll have a quick wash, and then I'll tell you my story." She got up and left Harry.
Harry shook his head to collect himself, got out of the bath, dried and dressed in the very large (on him) white bathrobe.
His Aunt Holly booted him out of the bathroom a few moments later. Rejoining him after ten minutes when a knock at the door announced the arrival of food.
Albus Dumbledore stood in the kitchen doorway at number 4 Privet Drive stunned. The rank stench of dark magic thick to the point of causing him nausea, senses honed over a hundred and fifty years telling him more in that instant than the ministry's Aurors had found in the last half hour.
"Headmaster, thanks for the tip-off. Death Eaters definitely attacked here, but other than that…we have no idea what happened." Kingsley Shacklebolt was shaking his head, gesturing expansively at the gore-splattered kitchen. "Nor have we found Mundungus yet, either."
A thin, ascetic man approached the kitchen door from behind the aged headmaster. "There is no sign of the Potter Boy, though we did find this." The man wearing the robes of an Unspeakable held out the broken remains of a wand. "It bears the remnant traces of a number of immobility and stunning hexes, as was reported by the Ministry's monitors."
Albus took the broken pieces of Harry's wand from the Unspeakable. The tingle of magic, Harry's aura, was unmistakable. "Yes, it is Mr. Potter's wand." He handed it back to the Unspeakable, turning worried eyes towards Kingsley. "I'll leave this in your capable hands, gentlemen. If I can help in any way, don't hesitate to call."
"Thank you, Chief Warlock, we will call if any anomalies surface." The cool smooth voice of the Unspeakable was reassuring. "Perhaps you could ask Alastor Moody if he could spare us some of his time. This, I think, is something that has not been seen since his time."
"Of course," Dumbledore nodded, and vanished with a pop.
The Unspeakable stepped into the doorway previously occupied by the headmaster, and slowly surveyed the carnage. "What are the preliminary findings, Shacklebolt?"
Kingsley looked grim. "Looks like we had Potter and his muggle family sitting down to dinner, when these six," He indicated the six rather exploded corpses, "Death Eaters attacked. Looks like an explosion curse to the kitchen window and wall. After that we're speculating wildly." He shrugged.
The Unspeakable raised a single eyebrow. "Speculating?"
"Well, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts," He waved in the general direction of a very worried Arthur Weasley, "thinks that Potter fought the Death Eaters into submission, but was surprised by a third party who killed them and kidnapped Potter." He pointed across at the two forensic Aurors. "Investigations thinks Potter ambushed the Death Eaters from the laundry over there, but had assistance from someone. Probably an Auror or Hit Wizard from the skill level. We," He indicated a handful of Aurors, including himself and Tonks, who was currently searching the room for magical items, "Think Potter escaped and fled elsewhere with his Aunt, one Petunia Dursley."
The Unspeakable had not paused during this report, but had continued scanning the room. His gaze was currently fixed on the remains of the table, upon which were a collection of wands, portkeys and miscellaneous minor enchanted items. "Only five wands? Are there not six Death Eaters?"
Kingsley glanced at the bench, then looked over at the pink-haired Auror. "Tonks. Found the sixth wand yet?"
Nymphadora Tonks glared at her boss. "Nope." She sighed in frustration. "It's not here. Nothing. Nada. We can't find broken neck-guy's wand, the others are accounted for. It wont even respond to an Accio and we have no point of reference for a point me spell."
The Unspeakable spoke quietly, "It would appear that Mr. Potter has replaced his broken wand. We shall have to meet with Mr. Olivander to determine what sort it was."
Shacklebolt nodded grimly. "Then there's the two muggles. The father is dead, the killing curse. The other, the son, was castrated and obliviated. Both had been on the receiving end of the Cruciatus."
The Unspeakable frowned. "There is a picture here, but we are missing several pieces of the puzzle. The muggle transport device is missing. There are no signs that the fight left this area, which would imply that the entire family was present, but no sign of any blood trail out of the house, however Mr. Potter's wand was found outside, away from the fight. Then we have the disturbing problem that there are a total of seven wand signatures registered as used here. If Mr Potter was rescued, where is the Eighth? Not to mention, where would a thaumophobic relative take him? No, there is something very odd here."
Authors Note:
This one should update relatively quickly. I actually bothered to plan out where this story is going. Big change for me. But don't hold me to that. If the new job comes up in the next few days, it could be a while for the next update.