"Take Marge's luggage upstairs," Vernon ordered the boy.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon." Harry obediently nodded before picking up Marge's stuff with barely a sigh. He turned and began carrying them up the stairs, 'does it have to be so bloody heavy?' he thought to himself. Harry knew that he was never going to be the strongest kid on the block, his lack of food and living conditions at the Dursley's had seen to that, but he couldn't help but wish he was at least a little bit stronger while he carried Marge's suitcase up the stairs. 'Either I'm weaker than I thought or this suitcase is ridiculously heavy, what weighs so much in here, anyway? Her underwear?'
Soon enough Harry had gotten her suitcase into the room that the Dursley's had set up for her, or rather the room that they had forced Harry to set up for her. Harry was honestly quite tempted to just stay upstairs for the night and avoid Aunt Marge, the woman who had always hated him. Harry wasn't really sure if that was only because of what Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had told the woman, or because of other reasons as well, but it didn't matter in the end since the hatred wasn't a one-way road because Harry was about as fond of her as he was of the rest of the Dursley's. Sadly, however, Harry knew that if he wanted to get the school permission slip to go to Hogsmead village signed then he needed to behave.
He turned around, only to freeze when he saw Ripper standing in the doorway, the dog that usually chased him or ate everything in sight was dead still, staring at him with unblinking eyes. Harry couldn't help but frown as he took a step back before realising he had, he stared at Ripper who stared back.
"What do you want?" Harry asked before his frown deepened slightly. He didn't know why he had asked that question to Ripper, perhaps his experience with Hedwig and Fawkes had changed the way he treated animals but he had to remember that Ripper wasn't as smart or kind as them. Ripper's head tilted to the side but he didn't say anything.
"Boy!" Their little staring contest was broken when Harry heard Uncle Vernon bellow. "The food isn't going to cook itself!" Harry stared at Ripper for several more seconds before he cautiously moved forward and gingerly slipped past Ripper before heading down the stairs, with Ripper's eyes focused on his retreating back.
Ripper had paid close attention to Harry Potter as dinner went on, he noticed that his constant staring had made the boy uncomfortable so he shifted to discreet glances instead. He saw the way the boy's relatives made him work as if he was a private waiter and chef, he was pretty sure that it was not normal to treat someone Harry's age like that, at least not in this part of the world. The Dursley couple and their son seemed content with ignoring his presence, but Marge was an entirely different game and had insisted that he be in her sights at all times.
He wasn't quite sure why Marge insisted on antagonising the boy, but she did. If she didn't criticise the way that the boy worked then it was the way that the boy behaved or the way that he looked or any other number of minor and major complaints that she could come up with. The creature inside Ripper was honestly staggered that the boy hadn't reacted by now and done something, it could tell that the boy's limited patience was waning and all that would be needed was a big push.
Something that Marge was more than happy to provide.
"You see it's nothing to do with the father, it's all to do with the mother," Marge said after several minutes of complaining about Harry's father being a drunk, she eyed Harry who was carrying a plate away from the table and smirked at his back before turning back to Vernon and Petunia after taking a long sip of wine from her glass. "you see it all the time with dogs, really, I've seen it plenty of times. I've had to put a few down because of it, it's just the way it is. If there is something wrong with the bitch then there is something wrong with the pup."
"Shut up!" Everyone in the room turned to face Harry who had apparently reached the end of his patience, having thrown a plate hard on the floor, causing it to shatter into pieces. Harry was glaring intensely at Marge, his fists shaking as if he wanted nothing more than to go over to her and punch her in the face, his breath heavy and hatred on his face. "Shut up!"
"Right," Marge grinned as she turned to face Harry. "let me tell you something, boy, your mother was just a simple..." Marge trailed off as she suddenly felt quite weird, she looked down and her eyes widened as she saw her hand had begun bloating along with the rest of the body.
Ripper watched with fascination as Marge Dursley blew up until she looked like a balloon, the other Dursley's stared at her with horror as she began floating up into the air. Ripper looked towards Harry and watched the various emotions that cycled through his face, including anger, confusion and realisation, but the first seemed to be the most consistent one. Harry rushed out of the room while the Dursley's tried and failed miserably to stop Marge from floating away into the sky, meanwhile, the goo inside Ripper had made a choice. It wasn't sure how, but it knew that Potter was responsible for what had just happened, he had done something to Marge. Its limited knowledge of humans let it know that that was not possible, yet Potter had somehow done it.
The goo was a member of an alien species known as the Klyntar, or 'symbiotes' as they were more commonly called, a species that feed on a couple of different things, one of which was emotions. The more powerful the emotion, the better, and Potter looked like an all you could eat buffet. The symbiote was leaning towards attempting to bond with Potter before, but seeing that display had made it even more sure that that was what it wanted. It made Ripper's body move and follow Potter up the stairs, it peaked into the open door of Potter's room and saw Potter packing after releasing a snowy-white bird out from his window with instructions to find him later. It decided that now would be the perfect time to change hosts since Potter was distracted and the rest of the Dursley's were busy with Marge, Ripper moved into the bathroom and the symbiote left the dog's body, not caring that Ripper died a second later.
The black goo made itself as short as it possibly could just as Potter had come out of his room whilst holding a trunk, the symbiote rushed out once Potter had walked past the bathroom and quickly jumped onto Potter's suitcase. They had started going down the stairs when Vernon and Petunia Dursley returned, the symbiote cursed them for their bad timing before it quickly went inside Potter's trunk through a small hole near the top.
"You bring her back! Bring her back now!" Vernon Dursley ordered Harry as soon as Harry had gotten down the bottom of the stairs.
"No, she deserves what she got and as far as I'm concerned she can float off into space!" Harry snapped, "the only problem I could see would be if she ends up blocking the planet's view of the sun." Vernon let out a bellow and was about to charge at Harry but stopped when Harry pulled out his wand and aimed it right at Vernon's neck. "No, go on, I've got over years worth of reasons to do it." Harry glared at him.
"You...you can't do magic outside the school," Vernon reminded him as he took a step back. "you've nowhere to go," Vernon added, looking somewhat confident despite the way that his face had paled.
"I don't care, wherever I go will probably be better than here." Harry turned and quickly rushed out of the house before his relatives could stop him.
...
Harry shook his head, cursing the name 'Dursley' as he stopped by the local playground. He hadn't really thought of where he was going to go, he just wanted to get out of the house. He stopped, deciding he needed a moment to calm his head.
"What am I supposed to do now?" He wondered to himself, he supposed that the best option would be to stay at the Leaky Cauldron for the rest of the summer. He needed to buy his school supplies anyway, plus he didn't really mind staying in Diagon Alley. Now, there was just the question of how he was going to get there. He had some muggle money with him but he wasn't sure if it was enough for a taxi.
"Woof." Harry's head snapped towards the bushes on the other side of the road, he saw something creeping out of the bushes and instinctively raised his wand. He watched as a big dog with midnight black fur stepped out and stared at him, meanwhile the symbiote snuck out of his trunk. Harry wasn't really that fond of dogs, the only good dog that he had ever met was Hagrid's dog, Fang. Hagrid's other dog, Fluffy the giant, three-headed dog, had tried to eat him while Ripper would nearly always attack him. The dog opposite him looked a bit skinny, but that didn't mean it didn't look intimidating, especially this late at night.
The dog barked loudly just before a large bang sound was heard coming from Harry's right, Harry looked in the direction of the sound and saw a purple, massive triple-decker bus charging towards him. Harry took a step back to avoid getting run over, he felt the back of his feet connect with the curb and he tripped backwards, hissing in pain as he landed on his back and on top of a rock that dug into the spot in-between his shoulder blades. Between the pain, the bus, the massive dog and the leftover emotions from his confrontation with the Dursley's, Harry didn't quite notice the symbiote sneak into his body.