Reaper's Heir (Book 1)

Chapter 2

A few meal-free days later, Harry went to collect the mail, closing the door behind him, he sorted through the letters and froze. A quiet gasp came out of his mouth. I poked my head out of the cupboard curiously. "What is it?"

He wordlessly handed me an old-looking envelope, with emerald green ink on the outside. The green pen strokes addressed themselves and their contents to me. He goes into the kitchen, hands Vernon the rest of the mail, and walks around the other side of the table to see his letter.

"Ah, Marge is ill," Vernon said. "Ate a funny whelk."

Dudley suddenly spied the letter in my hands, his gaze rapidly flitting back and forth between Harry's letter and mine. He shot up, ran to Harry, and grabbed his letter. "Dad, look! Harry's got a letter!!"

Harry began following Dudley, as I slipped my letter behind my back. "Hey, give it back! It's mine!"

Vernon laughed in Harry's face, his eyes briefly skittering to me nervously. "Yours? Who'd be writing to you?" The family gathered to look at the address. There is a broken seal on the letter. The family looks up and Harry gulps. We were swiftly sent to the cupboard after I was forced to hand my letter over, though Petunia's hand trembled as she took it from me.

Over the course of the next few days, more owls flew by with letters and dropped them off. Vernon grabbed handfuls of the letters and ripped them up. In the closet, I perked up at a whirring noise. Quietly, I peeked out at Vernon drilling wood over the letterbox opening.

"No more mail through this letterbox," Vernon muttered to himself gleefully.

After owls covered Vernon's car and the fence outside, he became even more determined to dispose of the letters littering the house. At one point, Harry came around the corner to Vernon tossing letters into the fireplace. Noticing him after a moment, Vernon grins evilly and tosses more in.

After days of being made to watch letters burn or be ripped up, Sunday seemed to promise reprieve for all of us. The family was sitting around, Harry serving cookies.

"Fine day Sunday. In my opinion, the best day of the week." Vernon started casually, though I didn't miss the malicious glint in his eye. "Why is that, Dudley?"

Dudley shrugged, shoving another cookie into his mouth.

Harry handed a cookie to Vernon and opened his mouth to answer, but I jumped in. "Because there's no post on Sunday?"

"Ah, right you are, Maeve. No post on Sunday. Hah! No blasted letters today. No, sir." Shadows flew past the window, birdlike silhouettes perching outside. "No sir, not one blasted, miserable---" A letter shot out of the fireplace and zipped across Vernon's face. We all stared at the letter and the fireplace in shock. There was a rumbling and then zillions of letters came shooting out of the fireplace.

"AHH! Make it stop! Please make it stop!" Dudley screamed, jumping into his mother's lap, but Petunia and Vernon were too busy screaming to help their son. "Go away, ahh!" Vernon swatted at the letters as if hitting a few of them out of their air would help. Dudley's hysteria rose at his parents' apparent lack of empathy for him and I took advantage of the chaos to grab one of the letters that had fallen to the floor. "What is it? Please tell me what's happening!"

Harry jumped onto the coffee table to grab a letter. After a moment of struggling, he managed to get one and we both started to run away. Vernon jumped up after us. "Give me those! Give me those letters!" He chased us into the front hall and grabbed Harry before he could get into the closet. "Get off! Ahh!"

I dodged around them and latched onto Vernon's arm, trying to wrestle him off of Harry. "Let go!" Vernon made a surprised noise, before trying to shove me away with one arm while holding Harry with the other. "They're our letters! Let go of him!"