Harry's aunt

~17~

~Time skip~ (That Summer)

Harry sat on a swing, trying to clear his head. He hadn’t been sleeping too well since last year’s trauma at Hogwarts.

“Is this swing taken?” Harry heard someone ask, pulling him out of his thoughts. He looked up and smiled a little.

“Jasmine,” he said. He stood up and hugged her tightly. He hadn’t heard from her that whole summer, even when he wrote to her everyday.

“Hey,” Jasmine said, hugging him. “I’m sorry for not returning your letters. I was, well, I’m still not over...you know,” Harry nodded.

“It’s okay. I understand completely,” Harry said. They sat down at the swings and watched a mother playing with her child.

“It’s been pretty hard. I was spending time with Amos. He needed someone now more than ever,” Jasmine said.

“How is he?” Harry asked.

“He’s doing better than he was at the tournament. After the funeral he found ways to cope and is now going back to work,” Jasmine said.

“That’s good,” Harry said, before looking away from the mother and making eye contact with his bully of a cousin Dudley. ‘Oh no,’ he thought. “Hey, Big D. Beat up another 10-year-old?”

“This one deserved it,” Dudley said, before looking at Jasmine. “Oh, Potter’s got a girlfriend,” he said, earning a few chuckles from his friends. “She a freak too?”

“Leave her alone, Dudley,” Harry said.

“I wonder if she knows about your boyfriend Cedric. That you cry about him every night. ’No, don’t kill Cedric! Don’t kill Cedric!’” Dudley teased, mocking Harry’s night terrors. Harry looked over at Jasmine and saw that she was shaking a little and her breathing was getting heavier. Though she tried to distract herself from fully coming to terms with Cedric’s death, hearing Dudley made that familiar aching feeling come back to her, the feeling she felt when she saw his dead body, and the feeling she got when she cried in front of everyone over Cedric’s body.

“Stop it, Dudley,” Harry warned.

“Or what? You’ll cry to your mum? Where is your mum, Potter?” Dudley asked, earning scattered laughs from his friends. “She dead?” he asked, before the group behind him erupted with laughter. Jasmine jumped up from the swing and punched Dudley in the face, making the boy stumble back and hold his bruised nose.

“Don’t talk about my boyfriend, and you keep any word of Lily out of your fat mouth!” Jasmine said angrily. She glared daggers at Dudley, her eyes burning with rage. Dudley looked at Jasmine angrily and walked up to her, trying to intimidate her with his large size.

“Or what?” Dudley asked, before pushing Jasmine to the ground. It was Harry’s turn to get up this time. He pointed his wand at his cousin’s throat and glared at him angrily.

“Leave my aunt alone,” he demanded. “And you leave my mother and Cedric out of this. You don’t understand what it’s like losing someone you care about. Watching them die right in front of you.” Dudley stared at Harry in slight fear, though his friends continued to laugh, not hearing what Harry said.

“Harry...” Jasmine said, looking up at the sky. Harry looked at Jasmine, before looking up at the sky that began to darken into a storm.

“What are you doing?!” Dudley asked Harry in a hushed tone.

“I’m not doing anything!” Harry said in a hushed tone. The three teens looked up at the sky again, Dudley’s friends having ran off as soon as the winds picked up. Harry helped Jasmine up, before quickly leaving the park with her and Dudley. They all ran into a tunnel, stopping to catch their breath, not noticing that the temperature had dropped all of a sudden.