Riding a Nightmare

Printed Peril

Last Time:

The tough old woman was worried. Why was the real Issac bruised?

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Cherry heard the fax machine start, but he was worried about Harry/Issac, "I need to check to see what arrived, ok? Just give me a second." He said softly.

Harry, at least, had the presence of mind to mumble an answer into the pillow and move slightly so Cherry could get by. Considering everything it was good to see that Harry wasn't too stressed to lose his politeness. Of course, Cherry still didn't feel right about leaving him for too long. He quickly got up and grabbed the first set of papers and came back to the couch. The last few pages were still being spat out, but he used the ones he had to snap Harry out of his daze.

"It's information on Petunia Evans ... Did the people who pretended to be her look like her and her partner? Knowing that might help grandma." Cherry said, not really sure about that, but he wanted Harry to focus on anything that wasn't the pillow.

Suddenly Harry heard a bunch of chattering and Professor Snape's voice. The sound was coming from the snow globe. When he peeked out from behind the pillow he heard the potion master, Lucius Malfoy and saw the Voldemort guy ...

Harry and Cherry shifted their attention to the snow globe. Going by the angle they figured that Loretta was peeking in from outside a window. The faxed information was momentarily forgotten to watch the panicked Death Eaters.

"I almost had that bastard. Just when I was about to take their invisible garment they cut themselves free and fled down here." The potion professor snapped, but he seemed more worried than anything else.

Harry glared as the man named Tom came into the chaos. It was only when Tom took the potion master's hand that he realized the potion professor was bleeding.

Lucius could be seen rushing over into view of the snow globe, "Everyone is guarding the exits, one downstairs floo, stairs and we removed the floo powder for the downstairs floo. They won't be able to get anywhere without us knowing so ... Could you let someone heal your hand?" The Malfoy pleaded softly, not liking the look of the painful cut on Severus' hand and neither did the kids secretly watching them.

The simple act of Tom healing the cut made Harry think twice. Maybe it was the softness in the dark lord's eyes or the gentle kiss on the hand after the healing was done. Whatever it was, Harry started wondering about the pair.

Were they really his parents?

That's when he realized that if he wanted to know what's going on he should help in any way he could. With that in mind Harry looked at the papers in Cherry's hands.

"Do you mind if I ..." Harry trailed because his throat was sore from the screaming he did into the poor pillow earlier. Cherry immediately understood despite that and cheerfully handed the papers over. "This picture ... It doesn't look anything ... like the woman I grew up with." He croaked, trying to ignore the pain in his throat.

Yes, Harry understood his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon weren't even his relatives, but that's not all. Now he knows that they didn't bother fully taking the original Petunia's family appearance. According to this information Petunia was blonde and brown eyed unlike Lily Evans, who was red haired and green eyed. As an added odd detail, Petunia had a girlfriend named Veronica, not a husband named Vernon.

Why bother getting close to completing the illusion, but not all the way? It didn't help that he knew so little about the people involved. Harry knew nothing useful about the Potter or Evans, except what other people said and they only made those points because of his appearance at the time. Sadly, the green eyed face he knew for so long wasn't even real.