Mind Your Own Business, Boy

Title: Mind Your Own Business, Boy
Author: apostrophe_ess
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JKR, I merely gain from playing these games in her playground.
Pairing/Character: Harry Potter (aged eight), the Dursleys with mentions of Arrabella Figg and her friend Audrey Bessemer
Word Count: 1,424
Rating: G
Beta: manynames
Summary: Harry has displayed some worrying behaviour at school. His teacher wishes to raise it with Petunia Dursley
Author's Notes: A third young Harry story to go with It Really Wasn't my Fault and Under the Stairs. This one should really be the first in the trilogy with the other two following on in the order they appeared.



Mind Your Own Business, Boy

“What’s this?”

Harry pushed his ear to the door of the cupboard under the stairs, where he’d been sent straight after coming in from school. He’d heard the wheels of Uncle Vernon’s company car pull onto the drive a few moments beforehand, his footsteps to the door, the key turn and then the front door slam.

“It’s a letter from the school, Vernon dear,” Aunt Petunia said, somewhat needlessly in Harry’s opinion.

“Dudders okay, is he?”

“It’s not about Dudley.”

“Not about Dudley?”

Frustratingly, having barked those words, Uncle Vernon shut the kitchen door, which meant that Harry would be none the wiser now. He could hear the murmurings from the kitchen and a few footsteps that he recognised as Uncle Vernon’s pacing. It seemed like it was quite an intense conversation, but he couldn’t hear anything in particular, no details. It would be quite nice to know what the letter was about, or at least to know if it had been about him.

Mrs Bessemer, Harry and Dudley’s new teacher now they were eight and had gone into the next class, had given Harry the letter sealed in an envelope and asked him to pass it to his aunt as soon as she fetched him that afternoon. The kindly grey-haired teacher had gone on to say that Mrs Dursley could pop in straight away if she wanted to; there was no need to make an appointment.

Harry had wondered briefly why his aunt had lost the entire colour from her cheeks when he’d passed the message, but he didn’t ask. He was used to being told it was none of his business, even when it clearly was. Either that or he knew that he’d pay for his nosiness later, by being sent to the cupboard, which was what had happened anyway.

The letter wasn’t mentioned over dinner. Harry loved Monday’s meal. It was always the same. Aunt Petunia would take the remains from Sunday’s roast dinner and mince the left-over meat with the left-over vegetables, and then mix them with the left-over gravy, before putting mashed potatoes on the top and baking it in the oven. Uncle Vernon and Dudley turned their noses up at this meal – about the only one they ever did that to though!

As well as being Harry’s favourite, it was one of Aunt Petunia’s too. Uncle Vernon said he wasn’t a shepherd, he was an honest-to-goodness manager and deserved something heartier, and Dudley, of course, agreed. Aunt Petunia always replied that it was ‘traditional’ and reminded her of happier times, of family. Usually Uncle Vernon grunted resignedly when she said that, and sometimes muttered something unintelligible which brought him a nasty look from his wife.

“Aunt Petunia,” Harry chanced as he started to clear the table of its dishes so he could wash them up.

Uncle Vernon had been about to go through to the lounge, where a cup of tea would be brought to him as soon as the kettle boiled, but stopped short at the door when he heard Harry speak.

“Yes?” Petunia answered as she pulled on a rubber glove, her features pinched as if she knew what was coming and wanted to avoid it if possible.

“The letter from Mrs Bessemer – is it about me?”

Harry didn’t look up from his chores to notice Aunt Petunia stiffen further, or to see Uncle Vernon turn a shade of puce.

“Hurry with the washing up, boy. I’m waiting for my cup of tea,” Uncle Vernon barked at him as he walked away, “And mind your own business.”

Harry wasn’t sure why he brought up the subject of the letter again the next morning. Maybe it was because he never got anything to take home from school. Dudley was always the one given the notes to pass to his Mummy and Daddy, Harry never got them. But then Harry didn’t have a Mummy or Daddy anyway, so he could understand why that was. Still it was nice to have something for once.

“Did you want me to take a note back to Mrs Bessemer?” he asked after Aunt Petunia had kissed Uncle Vernon’s cheek at the door. Dudley was upstairs cleaning his teeth.

“Your Uncle told you -”

“If you didn’t think I could, then you could always ask Mrs Figg to do it,” Harry cut her off in the hope of being helpful.

“Mrs Figg?” There was the smallest trace of alarm in Petunia’s voice. “Don’t be ridiculous. Mrs Figg!”

Harry nodded and then turned away to find his shoes, and didn’t say anything else. No-one ever explained anything to him; he didn’t think to explain further to his aunt.

All the way on the walk from Privet Drive to school, Aunt Petunia was very quiet, almost pre-occupied. They hurried quickly past Mrs Figg’s house on the opposite side of the road, though for once Harry was quite pleased not to have time to stroke the cat that made its way towards them. Even when Dudley asked for sweets at the little shop just before the school, Aunt Petunia snapped at him, and for once it shut him up and he didn’t nag at all.

About to go into the playground and start his day in school, Harry was stopped by a bony hand on his shoulder, the fingers pinching him. “Harry.”

“Yes?” he asked politely, looking up into his Aunt’s face.

“What made you say Mrs Figg could pass Mrs Bessemer a note?”

“Oh, they’re friends. Mrs Figg told me that on Dudley’s birthday,” Harry’s face screwed up at the memory of the day. While Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had taken Dudley off to a theme park, he’d had to go and stroke the smelly old cats and eat stale cake.

“Did she?”

“Yes. She said that I’d be okay in school this year, her friend Mrs Bessemer would make sure of it.”

Much to Harry’s pleasure, Mrs Bessemer insisted that he should be present while she talked to Aunt Petunia right then, before school started. He heard his Aunt gasp at Mrs Bessemer’s announcement that she’d noticed something quite odd about him, and how he wasn’t always doing as well in class as she thought that he should.

He heard Aunt Petunia explain that Mrs Bessemer shouldn’t compare Harry to Dudley, who was, of course, bound to be much better at his lessons, being so much cleverer than her nephew. Then he heard Mrs Bessemer cast aside any thought of Dudley’s academic achievement and tell his Aunt that Dudley wasn’t who they were here to discuss, that it was far more important to discuss Harry right now.

Harry smiled at Mrs Bessemer later when Aunt Petunia hurriedly left the classroom in a huff, letting the door slam behind her. He felt he needed to apologise, it felt awkward when the people he lived with behaved like that. It was like Mrs Bessemer knew though, because she patted him on the head and told him not to worry, she’d take care of things. She explained in her kind way that he wouldn’t miss out and that she’d sort him out an appointment herself for one day after school, and if Aunt Petunia was otherwise engaged, then her friend Mrs Figg would take him.

Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the esteemed headmaster Professor Albus Dumbledore was pushing his spectacles down towards the end of his nose in readiness for reading the daily postal delivery. He picked up the morning’s letters and shuffled through them, putting some to the side to deal with later before sighing with pleasure at one particular piece of parchment and its familiar handwriting.

Apart form the scrawling script, this particular correspondent was always easy to spot. The use of what the Muggles called a Bic biro onto parchment was quite easy to identify. How he wished that the sender would attempt to use a quill and ink – it would be so much easier to write with, yet alone read.

Scanning past the initial pleasantries, Dumbledore came to the purpose of the letter.

Audrey, bless her, has taken the problem in hand, he read. … Mrs Potter’s sister took him herself, shamed into it she was. That, Albus Dumbledore thought, was encouraging and perhaps the start of an upturn in attitude. They’re black wire circles, but they do the job okay. He should be able to read and write properly now. Audrey is coming for tea on Saturday. I’ll ask her more then. Yours sincerely, Arabella Figg, Mrs (OotP)