Julie Anne Dursley

Philosopher's Stone Part 4

BOOM! A deafening noise caused the whole cabin to shake. Harry jumped to his feet and Julie woke up with a start. They watched how the door cracked open, and a giant man appeared. Harry backed away to a corner, while Julie started screaming, too scared to get off the couch. Vernon, holding a gun, and Petunia entered the room, as the giant man casually put the door back in its place. "Sorry 'bout that," he said.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir! You're breaking and entering!" Vernon said, trying to sound brave, but his voice was trembling. To say the giant man was unimpressed would be an understatement; he walked over to Vernon, grabbed the gun and bended it upwards.

"Dry up, Dursley, yeh great prune," he said. The gun fired, and Julie started screaming again. The giant man now walked towards the couch where she sat frozen with fear. "Budge up, will ya," he said.

"Y-y-yes, sir," she stammered and she immediately jumped off.

"Y-y-yes, sir," the giant man imitated her as she quickly ran to hide behind her parents. He then sat down and spotted Harry. "Ah, there yeh are Harry! Last time I saw yeh, yeh was just a baby! Got something for ya. I sat on it but it should taste all right." He handed Harry a present, which turned out to be a cake. Happee Birthdae Harry was written on it.

"Thank you!" Harry said.

"It's not every day that yer young man turns eleven, now is it?" the giant man said with a smile. He then took out an umbrella and pointed it at the fireplace. Out came two sparks and the fire started. Vernon and Petunia gasped and Julie clearly said 'wow!'.

"Excuse me, who are you?" Harry asked. The warmth of the fire felt nice.

"Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. O' course, yeh know all about Hogwarts!"

"Er, no," Harry said.

"Blimey, Harry, yeh never wondered where yer mum and dad learned it all?"

"Learned what?"

Hagrid shot a furious look at the Dursleys. "Yeh never told him? Yeh never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore wrote yeh?" The Dursleys were too scared to answer, so Hagrid turned back to Harry. "Yer a wizard."

"I'm a what?" Harry asked incredulously.

"A wizard, and a pretty good one after yeh've been trained up a bit." Suddenly Julie snorted; not very loud, but Hagrid heard it as she had moved closer to Harry and Hagrid to hear every word of their conversation. "Got something to say?" Hagrid asked her, somewhat angered by her interruption.

"Well... him? A wizard? Just look at him, you gotta be kidding!" she said with a smile that was probably the result of both nervousness and amusement.

"Look, yer not pretty enough ter be that stupid so dry up before I step on ya," Hagrid growled at her. Within a second she turned redder than a tomato, while Harry could not help but grin. Suddenly Vernon regained a bit of courage.

"I forbid you to talk to my daughter like that!" he said. Julie smiled at him, probably reassured of the fact that her father still loved her despite his odd behaviour the last two days. Hagrid ignored him and looked at Harry.

"It can't be, you've made a mistake... I'm just Harry," Harry stuttered.

"Well, just Harry, have yeh never made things happen yeh couldn't explain when yeh were angry or scared?"

Harry vividly remembered how he set the snake free about a month ago; it began to make sense now. Upon seeing Harry's face Hagrid chuckled a bit, and then he handed Harry one of the letters he had been wanting to read so badly. As he was reading about how he got accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and which books and equipment he was supposed to bring, Vernon suddenly started speaking.

"He'll not be going! When we took him in we swore we'd have nothing of this nonsense!" he said.

Harry looked up. "You knew?! You knew and you never told me?!"

Then suddenly Petunia stepped in. "Of course we knew! With my perfect sister. Oh, how my parents were proud when she got a letter just like yours! A witch in the family, how wonderful! It was always Lily this and Lily that but only I saw her for what she was – a freak! Then she met that Potter, got married and had you and of course I knew you'd be just as weird and freaky and if all that wasn't enough she got herself blown up and I ended up stuck with you!" She was panting after letting that all out, and Julie gently touched her mother's arm, whispering something to her.

"Blown up? You said my parents died in a car crash!" Harry said angrily.

"A car crash?!" Hagrid screamed.

"He'll not be going and that's that!" Vernon said firmly.

"Oh, and I s'pose a Muggle like yeh will stop him?" Hagrid asked mockingly.

"Muggle?" Harry asked.

"People who can't do magic, like these three losers here," Hagrid said.

"I won't pay for some crackpot old fool to teach him magic tricks!" Vernon said and then suddenly Hagrid lost his temper.

"Never insult Dumbledore in front of me!" He whipped out his umbrella and pointed it at Julie. Before any of them could realise how weird it was to be threatened by a pink umbrella, there was a flash of red light, a loud bang, and a squeak of pain. Harry watched with both shock and amusement how Julie rolled up her sleeves to find that both her arms were now covered with feathers! All of the Dursleys were now screaming and Vernon pulled both Petunia and Julie, who shot one last terrified look at Hagrid, into the other room.

"Ha!" Harry could not help himself.

"I shouldn'ta done that," Hagrid said and he shook his head. "Wanted ter turn her into a chicken, but apparently with a voice like that she was already close enough. Please don't tell anyone about this Harry, I'm not s'posed ter do magic ya see."

Harry nodded. "All right."

Suddenly Vernon came bursting back into the room, dragging Julie along with her arm. It was no surprise that she was wincing while he did that. "I demand that you fix this at once!" Vernon screamed, pulling Julie's arm and showing it to Hagrid. Julie squealed and looked at Hagrid with sheer terror.

"Sorry, Dursley, no can do. I know how ter give 'em, but not how ter remove 'em," Hagrid said.

"So, now what? How are we supposed to explain this to a doctor?"

"Dunno, be creative like yeh were with that car crash story. Anyway, Harry, we better be off, we've fallen behind schedule. Unless yeh'd rather stay of course."

Harry followed Hagrid outside without any hesitation.

The month of August was not a good time for Harry. The Dursleys were all so mad at him that they ignored him completely, which at first was a good thing, but after a while it became somewhat suffocating and depressing. Julie was supposed to be at gymnastics camp, but because of what happened to her arms she could no longer go. She was too scared to go outside and now spent her days lying on the couch, watching television and wearing long sleeves to cover her feathers. Vernon worked during the week, while Petunia spent most of her time pampering Julie after her traumatic event, bringing her ice cream and cold drinks whenever she called. Whenever Julie saw Harry she glared at him; it was very clear to him that she held him responsible for what happened to her arms.

Harry mostly kept to his room, reading his new school books; he found them all fascinating and he could not wait to go to Hogwarts. One afternoon he went to the kitchen to get a drink, when Julie, hearing the sounds in the kitchen, mistook him for her mother. "Mummy, can you bring me a glass of water?" she whined.

"Of course, Juliebee!" Harry imitated his aunt.

"Oh," Julie said, feeling slightly embarrassed. Harry looked at her and she quickly turned her focus on the television again. She had started to feel really uncomfortable around Harry, who picked up on that quickly. Much to her displeasure, Harry sat down in the chair next to the couch she was lying on. Suddenly she started to sneeze, loud as always, and her sleeves dropped so Harry could see the feathers on her arms. Feeling extremely awkward, she immediately covered them up again, and Harry grinned.

"Does it hurt when you dry off your arms after taking a shower?" he asked casually.

"Mum's right, you're a freak and I can't wait for you to leave. If I never see you again, it'll be too soon!" she snapped at him, sounding furious.

"Then I guess we've got one thing in common after all, I can't wait to leave either," he said coolly. He stood up. "But..." he said.

Julie looked at him. "What?"

"At least your arms will be warm during the winter."

Julie made a very satisfying angry noise, but at that point Petunia entered the kitchen and to avoid any problems Harry just went back to his room.

Finally, it was the last day of August and Harry decided that he should talk to his uncle about getting to the station the next day. "Er, uncle Vernon?"

"Yes?" Vernon said without looking up from his newspaper.

"I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow, could you please give me a ride?"

"All right," Vernon said, much to Harry's relief.

"Thank you."

"But only because we're going up to London anyway, we're taking Julie to a private hospital to have those bloody feathers removed."

The next day Harry woke up very early, extremely excited about going to Hogwarts. He packed all of his stuff, making sure three times that he had not forgotten anything, and then waited for the Dursleys to wake up. It was painfully quiet in the car. Julie was terrified of the surgery she was about to undergo and did not say anything, and her eyes did not seem to register anything. All in all, Harry was very happy to arrive at the station. The Dursleys drove off as soon as he had unloaded his trunk, and then he started to look for platform nine and three-quarters.