Dudley Dursley rolled out of bed one day at the crack of noon. Still sleepy from staying up late with his mates, he blearily got out of his room thinking about the promise this night had to offer. Malcolm's parents would be gone out for the evening meaning that they would all be able to get together for a "sleepover". Piers had managed to nick a case of Guinness and Gordon had managed to nick his brother's stash of adult videos while he and Dennis had managed to procure a few cartons of cigarettes. Oh yes, Dudley was looking forward to tonight!
Suddenly, something caught him around the ankles, and for the first time in his life Dudley felt the sensation of weightlessness before he was rudely brought down to earth ... and down the stairs he was about to descend.
Dazed, Dudley lay at the bottom of the staircase looking up at the ceiling and wondering where his mother was. Surely all that racket would have garnered her attention, and she would come to help him.
The ensuing silence that came immediately after his fall was finally shattered by a low mocking chuckle. Dudley painfully rolled around to see Harry leisurely descending the stairs twirling that damnable wand of his.
It had been more than a week after his cousin had arrived and the only interaction Dudley had with him so far was when his cousin had somehow managed to drive him, Piers and Gordon off Mark Evans two days back. So he was surprised to note that not only did Harry look healthy, but was dressed in expensive looking clothes that Dudley coveted but couldn't buy, mainly due to his size.
'Trip Jinx, cousin,' Harry said, 'as the name says, it causes a person to trip ... like it?' he smiled.
'You could have killed me, you pillock! What if I had twisted my neck falling down?' yelled Dudley, finally gathering his wits.
At this Harry crouched down in front of Dudley, his smile slipping from his face and his eyes cold. 'I could have said the same thing seven years ago Dudders! Remember? When you pushed me down the stairs ... turnabout is fair play after all ... count your lucky stars that I didn't immediately shove you in a tiny cupboard like your dear deadbeat daddy did to me for "carrying on" as he put it,' Harry growled in suppressed rage, roughly putting air quotes when imitating his uncle.
Dudley gulped at the suppressed anger coming out of his cousin's voice. He remembered that day also. Looking back on it, it could have ended badly for his cousin. The same cousin who had saved him from those monsters in hooded cloaks (not that Dudley would ever admit to seeing them) who had apparently tried to suck his soul last summer. 'I was seven then Potter! How was I supposed to know then that it could have been fatal? I thought it was good fun at that time.' He tried to justify himself. Apparently that was the wrong choice of words, as Harry's face darkened as his eyes now no longer hindered by his bulky glasses seemed to glow an eerie green that was seen even through it was the middle of the afternoon.
'Yeah? Well, guess what Dursley, I was seven then too! In case that escaped your thick head' Harry spat. Getting up he regarded his cousin, 'Doesn't feel so good when you're at the other end of the stick now does it? Somehow, I can understand now why you are such a bully. It certainly is fun having that much power over someone weaker than you ... oh I have waited a long time for this.' His voice trailed off into a hiss.
'You think you're such a big man carrying that thing around, don't you? I'd like to see you try and take me on without it!'
'What, oh you mean this! It's called a wand Diddikins, can you pronounce it? Wa-and,' said Harry, dragging out the last word in a mock-baby voice waving the aforementioned wand in his cousin's fat face, emitting gold sparks as he did so. 'Surely that thick lump of lard that you call a brain can pronounce it. Personally if you ask me I think that all that money is being wasted on you in Smellings. You obviously don't learn much there do you?'
'It's Smeltings and g-get that thing away from me!' said Dudley, warily eyeing the wand, his face going white as it emitted the sparks.
'Smeltings, Smellings,' Harry waved his left hand in a see-saw motion, 'makes no difference; it's a filthy Muggle school anyway. And as for fighting you fairly without a wand, why should I? You've always had to have your little friends backing you up when picking on me didn't you? Hell, you still need them to hold your hand when picking on nine year olds!' Harry shook his head mockingly, 'I bet without them all the kids would laugh at how pathetic you are. As for me; well, it's just me, my wand and my magic.' Looking at Dudley flinch at the word magic, Harry smiled and said maliciously, 'Yes, Magic. Still afraid of that word are we Diddikins? Well you should be.' He sidled up towards his cousin's ear, 'Using magic, I can make you feel pain beyond imagining with just a thought ... I can kill you just by desiring your death, or make your life a living hell ... all by just using my imagination and saying a few words ... So you would be right to fear me Dudley Dursley.' He paused to look at his cousin's horrified face. 'And the best bit is no one would ever know, or be able to find out or even care; because to us wizards, you Muggles are nothing but filthy beasts. So be afraid, be very afraid ...'
Harry straightened up and stretched, 'Well, I'm heading out, got better things to do than sit here with you, as much as I enjoyed our bonding session.' He headed to the door.
Opening it, he paused at the threshold, 'Oh, and by the way, your mum's gone out somewhere, so it looks like you'll have to fend for yourself as far as food is concerned. I kind of ate the stuff she had prepared for you.' Giving an exaggerated belch, Harry waltzed out into the sunshine snickering, leaving Dudley to painfully pick himself up.
Closing the door behind him, Harry walked down the street towards the space he had found for himself a few days back. Today was an especially warm and sunny Saturday; not a cloud in the sky. That meant that there were a lot of people outside basking in the sun and enjoying the rare weather.
Harry had built up quite a sweat walking and so had stopped to remove his t-shirt in an effort to alleviate the heat he was feeling. Stuffing it in the back pocket of his shorts, he continued on towards the park feeling the slightly cooler air on his chest, the silver necklace glinting brightly in the sunlight. He had started to feel more self-confident and comfortable in his body.
Reaching the fence, he surreptitiously slipped into his spot hoping he wasn't seen. There he set down the books he had carried with him and started to practice some of the spells listed there. He couldn't do anything too serious as he could not risk being seen. The clearing may be secluded, but it wasn't big. While he couldn't use fire based or explosive spells, he could still transfigure and use other offensive and defensive spells.
Harry decided to practice some of his Transfiguration today. While he found himself taking to Curses Hexes and Charms with an unusual and near frightening speed, the same could not be said about Transfiguration. It seemed that Voldemort really did not spend that much time transfiguring things when duelling. Preferring to Curse, Hex, Jinx and Charm the life out of his opponents.
Thus seeing a weakness in Voldemort's duelling technique, Harry concentrated on Transfiguration. He himself never was that good at the subject, but then again, he hadn't really applied himself before. However that was about to change, so Harry started out from the beginning working his way up from first year spells. The additional books he had bought on Transfiguration had all stressed that he needed a solid foundation from which to build on. This is why students started out small, transfiguring small things like matches into needles. The skill may be useless, but it was a building exercise to bigger and better things.
Harry spent about two hours transfiguring various objects and creatures. His goal was to minimise his wand movements and be able to do it silently. He had more success with the latter than with the former.
Finishing for the day, and sweaty from the spell work, Harry got up to have the lunch that had just appeared courtesy of his elves. Contrary to what he had claimed, he hadn't eaten the food his aunt had made Dudley. While his aunt was a decent cook, Harry's house-elves were even better, having gained experience at Hogwarts. Thus Harry preferred their food.
Not that it stopped him from nicking Dudley's food and throwing it in the bin. After all, his cousin could gain to lose some weight. A small part of him did think it would have been better if he had sent it to an orphanage or something, but Harry didn't want to expose those people to his aunt's cooking. They were tortured enough.
Harry had his lunch in the play park with the throng of Muggles out enjoying the sun. The reason for this mainly was to refine his Legilimency skills. Ever since being possessed by Tom, Harry had found himself reading people's thoughts whenever he had made eye contact with them. This grew to the point that from yesterday, he no longer needed to look them in the eye to be able to hear their surface thoughts.
This was getting a bit distracting. Harry really had no desire to hear the private thoughts of all the people around him all the time! It had resulted in one hell of a headache yesterday being privy to all those thoughts. He was lucky that there weren't that many people around. Even worse were some of the thoughts that Harry had accidentally lifted from some older women concerning him and his posterior (among other parts of his body) when they had noticed him. Those were rather disturbing.
So Harry had spent the day frantically trying to stem the influx of thoughts he was getting. An hour of practicing had finally managed to yield results rewarding him with blessed silence. However, he knew that the skill needed to be refined and improved so he started practicing by picking thoughts of targeted individuals in a crowd.
After learning a few interesting facts about the people around him, Harry relaxed and started to meditate. He spent some time bolstering his mental defences and organising his thoughts before sinking deep within his mind looking for his magical core. He had stumbled across his magical core a few days back when on a whim, he had decided to see how far and deep he could go while meditating.
His meditation done, Harry opened his eyes and relaxed for a while pondering what to do for the rest of the day. Looking at his wrist finally gave him an idea; he got up and putting on his t-shirt on, went back into his practice arena. There he Apparated to his room to put his books away, before Apparating back. He stepped out of the clearing and headed for the town centre.
Locating a watch store, he entered the store to browse for a bit. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to wear digital watches, he opted for the traditional analogue ones. The fact that they looked good was an added bonus. Harry finally found seven automatic watches from various brands that he really liked. Finding the decision a bit too hard, he tallied the amount, and finding that it was well within his limit, settled for buying all seven of them.
Harry watched the surprised salesman pack six of his selections and played with the seventh, sliding it up and down his arm. He wondered if he had suddenly got a fixation with the number seven. So far he had bought seven pairs of boxers, bonded to seven house-elves and now was buying seven watches. As Harry handed his card to pay the bill (barely flinching at the six thousand five hundred Pound total he had racked up) he decided that it was all in his imagination.
It was about seven by Harry's new Saturday Watch when he had finally returned to his room. Taking out his wand, he placed a bevy of useful charms on his watches before stashing them away, now unbreakable, scratch proof and capable of coming out of a volcano or the deepest ocean completely intact and functioning with an anti-theft charm that nobody would want to get on the wrong side of.
He changed his clothes and headed out for the night. After a satisfying dinner and wandering the streets for a bit, he headed back to his room, where after performing his nightly routine, he settled down to clear his mind before going to sleep. While he no longer had visions from dear old Tom, he still was susceptible to weird dreams and nightmares as his first night in Privet Drive had proven.
Harry had noticed that organising his mind had also lowered the amount of sleep he needed to get in a night. So far he was down to five hours, and hoped to reduce it even more when he had fully organised his mind.
As he lay in bed waiting for sleep to claim him, Harry mulled over the past few days. He had sort of built up a routine. Every morning he would get up early to jog around the block, increasing his distance and stamina. He would then head to the clearing where after a few stretches, he would do a few push ups, pull ups, and crunches. Then he would jog back to an unnoticed spot near Number Four and Apparate back to his room, have a bath and after a large breakfast, spend some time organising his past memories.
He would then head back to the clearing and practise some of his magic till lunch. After that, he would practise more magic till dinnertime. Then, practically exhausted, he would slip into bed; clearing his mind and going to sleep. He decided to lighten up on the weekends, electing to spend the afternoons and nights just loitering around and enjoying the summer.
Harry woke up on Sunday with a letter from Gringotts. After apologising about the delay in replying to the letter Harry had sent before school had closed, Gornuk had rescheduled the meeting they were supposed to have to the 20th of July at ten. Making a note of the change, Harry headed back out for the day.
Coming back in the afternoon and finding the house empty, Harry decided to start on some of his payback.
He started at Dudley's room. He had picked some vague thoughts from the fat boy's mind about schoolwork the last time he had seen him and wanted to see what it was all about. Entering the room, he headed to the desk drawer associated with those thoughts. After some rifling, he found it; lying there was a large package with the crest of Dudley's school. In it was some makeup work that Dudley had been given in order to be able to write his GCSEs in the coming year along with his report card and a note his school had sent to his parents that he had done appallingly in his coursework. The headmaster had also written about his behaviour too, threatening his immediate expulsion should his grades and attitude fail to improve. Somehow, Dudley had managed to intercept all of that.
Harry had no idea how Dudley had managed that, or what he planned on doing with it, as the school required his parents' signature. Perhaps he was planning on forging it ... that would be amusing once the school found out. But Harry decided that he was looking for more instant and visual gratification. A plan forming in his mind, Harry Apparated out to his old Muggle primary school where he made several copies using the photocopier he remembered being in the staff room. Quickly returning back to Dudley's room, he placed the originals back to where they belonged before slinking off to exact some revenge on his aunt.
Monday morning was heralded by Aunt Petunia's shrieking. Smirking, Harry sauntered down. His aunt was standing just outside the back door looking at her precious garden in horror.
Her once pristine garden that was considered to be the best in the neighbourhood, and the source of her pride and standing, was no longer recognisable. Gone was the green and freshly mowed grass. It was replaced almost overnight by withered yellowed grass which looked more at home in an abandoned lot. The rose bushes which once were the envy of every housewife of the neighbourhood and pruned to near perfection by a professional landscaper yesterday (not that Petunia would admit to it) had somehow grown out of control. And finally the pride of her garden, her begonias, petunias and agapanthuses were now nearly dying and choked with all the weeds that had sprouted up.
'Like what I've done to your garden?' came the jeering voice of her nephew. Petunia turned around to see him standing inside the house and looking at her with a triumphant expression on his face.
Predictably, Petunia started screeching indignantly at Harry, 'What have you done to my garden you stupid boy! You fix this right now!'
'Or you'll do what? Screech at me even more?' said Harry sardonically. 'You got that garden through the fruits of my labour. You were so happy in showing it off to your neighbours, taking all the credit for my work! So I thought that it would only be fair that I put it back to what it should have been under you care. A pathetic Muggle garden!' he spat the last bit out.
Either his aunt was unperturbed by his voice or she was unused to having her nephew defy her so openly, because she did not lose the glare that used to intimidate Harry when he was younger. Marching up to him, she poked her finger in his chest and said menacingly, 'You better fix that garden right now boy, and after that, you can start repainting the fence. I've had it with your insolence. We've been nothing but kind and generous towards you, undeserving as you are. We have clothed and fed you have put a roof over your head! It's time you start earning your keep around the house. Now change back into the clothes we have provided for you and get to work, you ungrateful brat! I don't know what you have done to get those clothes and I will not stand for it.'
Harry noticed that she now reached up to his chest, and had to look up at him to meet his eyes. Not subdued in the least by her tirade he very calmly and with deliberate coldness said, 'No.'
Completely thrown over this unexpected reply, Petunia took a moment to screech out a, 'what did you say?'
'I said, no you stupid horse! You call yourselves kind and generous? Ha, what a load of shite! While that fat blubbering brat you call a son had two rooms for himself and his broken toys, I had to make do with the fucking cupboard underneath the stairs! The only reason I got that room was because that son of a whore husband of yours thought that he was being watched! And to top it all, you tried to make it into my jail cell as well! As for the food; you make me cook your food, and then you have the gall to deny that to me as well! What little I get happens to be either stale, left over, or burnt! All the clothes I got were that fat pig's cast offs which were four times bigger than me at the very least! So don't give me that tripe about your generosity. As for "earning my keep", you bastards have made me your virtual slave all the years I have been here, while that idiot son of yours has been lollygagging around. I bet the only reason you let me in the house is because of the protection you have been offered. I even bet there is also some money involved in it!' Seeing her flinch, Harry knew that he had hit the proverbial nail in the head.
Recovering quickly, his aunt snarled raising her hand, 'How dare you!'
However, before she could follow through, Harry easily caught her arm. Squeezing it hard enough to make her wince, he pushed her away from him a little before viciously backhanding her, sending her to the floor.
'Hurts, doesn't it?' he said softly, rubbing his knuckles as he looked down on her clutching her face. 'Then again, I doubt it's that bad, considering the number of times you have taken a frying pan to my head.' He loomed over her, enjoying the emerging fear in her eyes as he whispered, 'The next time you try to touch me, you'll be able to see firsthand if the frying pan hurts more. I'll see to it!'
Looking at the bruise forming on her face, he said mockingly, 'Oh we can't have that! What will the neighbours say?' With that he removed his wand and nonchalantly cast a Glamour charm on her arm and face, ignoring her violent flinch. Seeing that he had done a good job covering the bruises, he nodded to himself satisfactorily. 'Now you won't be able to say anything to anybody because you have no proof! Not that I would try it, since otherwise, you'd really be able to see what pain truly feels like! But just to make sure,' he cast a mild sealing charm on her. It wasn't considered dark since it could easily be broken in time by a person's core magic. Something he was confident Petunia didn't have being a Muggle.
Chuckling darkly, he left her on the floor and headed towards the clearing for his daily routine. He felt satisfied that he had got some revenge against his aunt. After finishing a large lunch, he activated his necklace and Apparated directly outside his uncle's office in Grunnings; casting a one way transparency charm on the door, he noted that his uncle had gone out for lunch, and if his calculations were right, would be gone for quite a while. Instead of opening the door, Harry directly Apparated into his uncle's office, cancelling the charm on the door. He didn't want anybody to notice the door opening or closing or noticing an oddly transparent door.
Once inside, he unlocked the drawers in his uncle's desk. While rifling through Vernon's mind, he had figured out that he was going to give an important presentation to some wealthy foreign clients. It would be a shame if Vernon didn't have the right documents...
Finally finding the files he had been looking for, Harry replaced the packets of notes that were intended for the clients with copies of the stuff he had copied from Dudley's room. Resealing the envelopes with magic, Harry disappeared from the office. He was really looking forward to the show tonight.
Harry wasn't disappointed. Vernon had come home in a towering rage. Only this time that rage wasn't directed on his nephew. No, for the first time, he actually was angry with his own son.
The minute Harry heard his uncle's car approaching he put on his cloak and sat down at the top of the stairs with his wand ready.
He expected his uncle to stomp through the front door completely livid holding the offending notes. He anticipated the bellow of 'Where's that boy!' to echo around the house shaking it to its foundation.
What he didn't expect was Vernon to be referring to Dudley instead of him. Harry watched the unfolding drama with fascination as his aunt replied with the predictable, 'Out having tea with his friends.'
As the elder Dursleys moved to the kitchen, he silently and invisibly snuck in behind them. He watched as Vernon showed Petunia the documents he had seen that were replaced with his notes. Harry almost felt sorry for his relatives for the ugly truth they had been confronted with regards to their son as he looked at Petunia's face cycle through annoyance, confusion, anger and finally disappointment.
Just as things couldn't get worse for Dudley, the phone rang. Vernon went to the living room to answer it. After a bit of heated discussion, he came back even mad than before.
Aunt Petunia looked at him in concern for a few minutes, 'What is wrong dear? Who was that on the phone?' she inquired hesitatingly
After a few minutes spent fuming, Vernon answered, 'It was the police. It seems that your son has been arrested for vandalising public property. He and his mates were also sloshed and if that weren't enough, they tried to assault a police officer! Our own son!'
'They must have made a mistake! He wouldn't have done anything like that! Dudley is a good boy!' wailed Aunt Petunia disbelievingly. Harry snorted softly to himself; they really were blind to that fat pig's faults.
'Oh it gets better,' said Vernon, 'Turns out that when they reached the station, there was a gentleman already there complaining about some yobs throwing stones at passing cars, and had heavily dented his. He was registering a complaint when he saw Dudley and his friends come in. Apparently, he recognised and identified them as the ones behind it!'
Horrified, Petunia said, 'He must have been mistaken! Oh Vernon, let's go there right now and get Dudders out from that horrible place! God only knows what our poor baby might be exposed to in there.'
'We can't Pet,' said Vernon defeated, 'The magistrate's not going to be in the office till tomorrow morning at ten. It looks like Dudley will have to rough it out for the night.'
Petunia immediately started lamenting about the different horrors her precious Dinky Diddidums would be exposed to over the night getting more and more hysterical. Harry then decided he needed to leave. It had definitely become boring now that Petunia was losing her senses.
The real fun began the next day. After Harry had finished his lunch, he saw his uncle's car go by. Not wasting any time, he immediately Apparated to his room and settled down on the top of the staircase where he had a good view of the front door.
Harry watched with interest as his Aunt opened the door to admit one pissed off Vernon Dursley followed by a meek Dudley. Ushering them into the kitchen, his aunt closed the door where the shouting match of a lifetime had begun making it completely unnecessary for Harry to cast any of the eavesdropping charms he had learnt.
It turned out that the car Dudley had damaged happened to be worth over half a million quid. To add to it, it was also brand new and had just been released in the market. So to say that the owner was angry over the windshield being smashed in was a gross understatement. And to top it all off, that man happened to be a friend of a friend of Albert Grunning, Uncle Vernon's boss.
All in all, things were definitely not looking up for Vernon, because the one thing you never do is antagonise a person who could probably knock you flat with only his wallet. Not only did Vernon have to pay the man for his damaged Lamborghini (a hefty sum in itself) but he also had to pay the hefty fine for the damage Dudley and his friends had caused to the play park. In addition to that, the four of them would have to serve time fixing the damage they had wreaked. The magistrate was rather pissed off at the numerous complaints that had come in over the past year about the destruction of that park and now that the perpetrators had been caught, he had really thrown the book at them.
The only consolation that could be found here was that Piers', Malcolm's and Gordon's parents also had to share the cost of the fine as well as the lawsuit. Otherwise, as Vernon had exclaimed rather loudly to his son, they would all be broke and 'Forced into the streets you stupid boy!'
True, they could all appeal against it, but the parents wanted to keep it all quiet, and a public trial would ensure the opposite happened. Besides, according to Vernon as he explained it to his wife, their lawyers had strongly suggested against it as the case was airtight. Better to cough up now rather than risk paying an even larger amount and possible public humiliation.
Then after that came the inquisition about Dudley's marks and performance in school. There was even more yelling (from Vernon), screeching and subsequent crying (from Petunia) from the mumbled excuses that Harry could hear coming from his cousin which he had no doubt were utterly lame.
Eventually came the verdict; Dudley found himself (to his mute horror) actually grounded to his room for the first time in his short life for the rest of the summer with his television and computer games being removed and his internet privileges strictly monitored. The only time he would be allowed outside would be to go to the loo. And the only time he was allowed outside the house was when the constables had come to pick him up to supervise his sentence.
Of course this led to even more shouting (this time from Dudley as well as Vernon), screeching, and crying. Dudley even tried to throw a tantrum, but it seemed that Vernon had more than enough as Harry suddenly saw the door being flung open. Quickly darting to his room, he activated his necklace before watching in fascination as a red faced and furious Vernon struggled up the stairs, dragging Dudley by the ear and into his room much to Dudley's vocal protestation.
Chuckling to himself, Harry secured his door from entry by any mad Muggles and Apparated out back to his clearing to continue his routine very much pleased about things.
Over the next few days news had spread like wildfire thanks to the gossipy housewives about Dudley's arrest along with three of his friends and their subsequent punishment. The children that once were terrorised by the gang were now gleefully swapping stories about what their parents had done to the miscreants. The four were now rather subdued whenever seen in public. Though Dudley had been harshly punished (in his opinion) he had been let off rather lightly relatively speaking. Piers and Malcolm found it rather hard to sit for a week and were routinely tormented by some of the braver kids who had taken great glee in flicking their tenderised bottoms and watching them wince when the constable on duty was not looking (which was, conveniently, quite often).
Harry used this opportunity to practise his stealth and accuracy. He would skulk around at a distance watching Dudley and his friends work and send out stinging hexes surreptitiously ensuring that Piers and Malcolm were uncomfortable for a much longer time than normal. He also worked on timing them just right so that it seemed that it was the children who were behind the entire thing. Though there were some moments where his targets and their tormentors had become slightly suspicious, nobody had ever suspected Harry.
Harry also found his standing with the residents changing as well. After one neighbour had inquired about "the Potter boy" to the policeman who was supervising Dudley and his gang, news had also spread that there was no record of any Harry Potter from Little Whinging ever attending St. Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys.
Almost overnight, and eerily reminiscent of the end of his fifth year, Harry found his status changing from a hardened hooligan to a hero. Especially when ten year old Mark Evans (who was about to turn eleven in a few days, by the way) made it known that it was Harry who had saved him from being beaten to a pulp by Dudley and his gang. His reputation was further enhanced when he was seen hanging around and watching the miscreants with an eagle eye. The neighbours got the impression that Harry was ensuring that the hooligans weren't about to do something unsavoury. This however, only served to irritate Harry a lot. The Muggles weren't any better than the wizarding world after all. Not. One. Bit! Just like Fudge and his ministry, it took having the facts being shoved right in front of their noses for the Muggles to realise the truth.
Things in Number Four, however, were tense. Dudley had already been caught once trying to sneak out of the window, though a more accurate term would be "stuck" as Dudley had not been able to fully fit through the window in his bid for freedom. The entire neighbourhood was treated to the sight of his fat bottom sticking out of the window the next morning as he had inexplicably fallen asleep in that position after futile attempts at getting unstuck.
A furious Vernon had to call in the fire department to get his son unstuck causing quite a spectacle in the neighbourhood much to Petunia's embarrassment and Harry's unbridled joy. The upshot of the whole incident was that Dudley had been relegated to the guest room while his window had to be fixed back. He was then put on a strict diet by his uncompromising and unsympathetic mother. It seems that Dudley had finally managed to cross a line with Petunia Dursley as she did not force anybody else to follow the same diet (much to her husband's relief).
The Dursleys had all decided to avoid Harry at all costs. Vernon now went to work even earlier and returned even later than normal for his position as he had to do a lot of scrambling and arse-licking to keep his job.
Petunia was now terrified of her nephew ever since Harry had shown his mean streak. She would scramble out of any room that Harry would enter, not meeting his eyes and would jump at any noise or sudden movement made by him. Something that Harry took great pleasure in.
Dudley was now relegated to his room without any distractions leaving him no choice but to study, though Harry suspected that he may have been staring into space the entire time.
All in all, Harry really was enjoying the summer at Privet Drive. Though he was slightly disappointed that he never did get to fully use the book he had bought. Perhaps he could get some more vengeance on Dudley's gang? Piers, Gordon and Malcolm would have finished serving time in their respective rooms (though they still had to repair the play park). Harry might have some more fun with the boys who had tormented him for ten years of his life.