The fight at the ministry to retrieve Luna had gone to shit. The bastard Draco had kidnapped her and taken her to his father, then sent Harry a message: if he didn't show up in the next hour at the Department of Mysteries, they would kill her and feed her corpse to Fenrir Grayback. Not hesitating, he called an emergency meeting of the Defense League, where he explained what he knew. They made a tentative plan and then left.
Unfortunately, there were nearly four times the number of Death Eaters they had expected to be waiting in ambush. The only mitigating factor in their favor was that everyone besides the inner circle was cannon fodder, which allowed Harry to kill the two holding Luna, and for the students to blast their way out of the encirclement quickly. They then made a defensive retreat while employing guerrilla tactics to thin the number of pursuers.
This ended when one of the doors they went through led to a large circular room with a large, ancient-looking Arch standing upon a raised dais in the middle of the room. The power of its magic lit up his senses like nothing before and threatened to blind him, but that wasn't the major issue at the moment. The issue was that the room was wide open, providing no substantial cover for spellfire, and the only way out was now filled with Death Eaters.
Seeing this, they all engaged. The still-large disparity in numbers meant they were being pushed back and had to focus on defense. This continued for nearly ten minutes before the Order finally decided to show up, easing the pressure and allowing them to start retaliating. A couple of minutes later, Sirius got cocky while fighting Bellatrix and almost caught a stunner in the chest that would have knocked him through the veil had Harry not hit him in the side with a banisher before spinning and firing off an overcharged cutting curse. The curse blasted through Bellatrix's shield and quite literally disarmed her.
That led to the revelation that Voldemort had been present and waiting to make a grand, dramatic entrance, defending his favorite minion. Dumbledore chose that same moment to arrive with his Phoenix before engaging in banter with Tom, and then the battle began again.
In the chaos of the fight, two things happened that no one noticed. First, from her position on the ground, Bellatrix managed to recover her wand with her remaining arm. Second, Peter Pettigrew slipped into the room. Seeing an opportunity to distract the Order and gain favor with the Dark Lord, Pettigrew seized it, banishing a spike into Luna's back as she was fighting off three other Death Eaters. He took a moment to feel pride in his accomplishment, thinking about how pleased his master would be. Unfortunately, that would be his last thought before meeting oblivion.
A couple of seconds earlier, Harry had heard Hannah scream. Turning to defend her, thinking she had been hit by a spell, he was met by the sight of Luna lying motionless on the floor, a spike sticking out of her chest. His world stopped. His ears rang like a bomb had just gone off, and he tried to process what had happened. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pettigrew with his wand still raised in her direction and a pleased, excited look on his face. The moment he connected the dots, his magic lashed out without conscious thought and pulped him. No fanfare, no warning, no dramatic flash of light; one moment he was standing there, and the next his blood was everywhere. His body looked like an empty plastic bottle that had all the air sucked out of it.
Stunned, everyone froze momentarily. Everyone, that is, except Bellatrix. Using the chance, she stunned Dumbledore before he could regain his bearings. Tom took this as a chance to speak. "There it is! That ruthlessness I knew you possessed! It's a shame it took your little girlfriend getting killed for it to come out, but that's what happens when you oppose me. Others die, and you're left with the shame of knowing it's your fault. If you had just submitted to me, they would still be alive. You've lost, Potter; Dumbledore is finished, and no one is left to save you. But let it never be said that I am not a benevolent leader. I give you one last chance here and now. Submit to me and I will let your friends live. In a few years, I might even be able to bring your lover back."
Harry just stood there for a moment, head down and eyes shadowed, before slowly stepping forward under the stupefied gazes of all present. As he climbed the dais to stand in front of Voldemort, the Dark Lord smiled cruelly, an excited gleam in his eyes. "A wise choice, Potter, now kneel." As he started to crouch down, Harry looked up to meet the tyrant's eyes, a smirk on his lips before speaking. "See you in hell." He then lunged forward, tackling Voldemort through the veil.
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When the Dursleys found him on their doorstep and realized from reading the note that this wasn't some random child but the child of Petunia's now deceased sister, a magical, Vernon had the idea of giving him to an orphanage. Voicing this to Petunia, she gave him a scandalized look before replying, "Absolutely not. Are you out of your mind? Ignoring the fact that there is probably something in place to notify them if we do, this is my sister's child. We might not have gotten along in a long time, but I still loved her. I won't just abandon him."
"Then what would you have us do? Raise him with our boy and let him infect our son with his freakishness?"
"Oh, grow up, Vernon. It's not a contagious disease or something that can spread; it's a genetic trait." Vernon huffed but, seeing the unusual firmness in her gaze, decided to drop the matter and settled down for breakfast. After Petunia put Harry to sleep in Dudley's crib, things went back to normal.
Two weeks later, things got heated again, and Petunia lost her cool with Vernon. While breakfast was cooking, Harry had gotten frustrated at not being able to reach his bottle and summoned it with accidental magic. Seeing this, Vernon had stormed up the stairs and grabbed the new crib bought for Harry, putting it in the empty cupboard under the stairs before grabbing Harry and putting him in it.
Petunia, just now snapping out of her daze, realized what he was doing and screamed at him. "What in the bloody hell are you doing!?"
"He can sleep here from now on. I'll not be having him in the same room as Dudley where he can hurt him with his magic!!" Hearing this, Petunia was stunned for a moment before screeching, "I ought to beat you upside the head with this frying pan!" She raised the appliance threateningly before she took a deep breath to calm down and not do anything rash. After calming herself for a minute—time Vernon wisely took to leave the house lest she carry through on her threat—she took the now crying baby to another room and started rocking him.
A few hours later, Vernon returned and went up the stairs to their room. She decided to follow and talk to her husband after realizing, during his time away, that this was just a fear reaction: fear of something he didn't understand and its potential to harm his family.
Sitting down next to him, she explained softly, "Vernon, you can't treat him like an outcast, regardless of the morality of such acts. I've read quite a few books on it in the off-chance Dudley was born magical. Children have something called accidental magic. If he's unhappy, his magic will act up in a way that helps restore his emotions to a baseline state. Whether that be something as inane as summoning a bottle when he wants it bad enough, or as extreme as disabling an attacker if he feels threatened. Hell, Lily once healed my broken leg in her distress after I fell out of a tree."
"But what if he gets mad one day and his magic tears someone's arm off or sets them on fire? We can't expect to keep him happy all the time."
"Children are incapable of feeling strongly enough to do something like that outside of special circumstances. Those are all if he was in true danger of dying, so it's not a concern. If you're that worried about his magic, give him the second bedroom once he's a little older, treat him right, instill a sense of responsibility in him, and when he's old enough, if you still don't want him in the house, get him emancipated if he's capable enough."
They went on to talk for another hour, and Vernon developed a game plan to make the boy as capable as possible in as little time as possible. The sooner he was gone, the better. He didn't know it yet, but that decision saved his life, as had he mistreated Harry, he would have been found out and killed by one Sirius Black. Instead, when almost a year and a half later Sirius Black tracked Harry down, he found him sitting at the table with his uncle learning numbers.
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Knock! Knock! Knock!
After knocking on the door of number 4 Privet Drive, it was opened by whom Sirius recognized as Lily's sister, Petunia. Recognizing the man at the door, Petunia's face twisted into a sneer. "Sirius. What do you want?"
"Lovely to see you, as always, Petunia. I'm here for Harry."
"Well, that's unfortunate. You can't have him."
"What do you mean I can't have him? He's my godson and I'm his legal guardian!"
"Legal guardian, my foot! It's been a year and a half, and this is the first time I'm seeing you!"
"What's it matter to you? You hate magic. Why would you want to keep a wizard in your home?"
"He's my nephew before he's a wizard, and I don't hate magic, I hate that my little sister abandoned me for it! Now, where have you been all this time?!"
Sirius was stunned at the reply, but getting over it quickly, he responded. "I was in a coma; I just woke up a couple of days ago!"