Inside the pub,
the conversation naturally turned to Harry's guardians—the Dursleys.
"They locked Harry up. He said the place is basically a prison cell. And then they only gave him miserable canned soup—barely any vegetables in it at all…"
Ron complained angrily, practically trembling with fury. Right now he wanted nothing more than to storm the Dursleys' house and stuff their nasty mouths full of slugs.
Sean, however, remained silent.
The Dursleys really were cast as villains: narrow-minded and spiteful, coddling Dudley and abusing Harry. Even without Harry, they'd hardly count as "good people"—Dudley would still be a bully who picked on the weak.
But their picture was more complicated than just "bad guys."
Wizards had never had a good reputation in the non-magical world. Most of the time, they were synonyms for trouble, evil, or terror.
People without magic have always hated wizards.
And Petunia, shut out from the magical world, made it worse. She'd once written to Dumbledore asking to attend Hogwarts, only to be refused. Her longing for magic twisted into loathing.
Vernon, on the other hand, rejected the magical world outright. Arrogant and self-important, he despised—and feared—anything "abnormal."
Strictly speaking, they never should have taken Harry in.
Even in an orphanage, Harry wouldn't have—
…Well, no, being taken in was better. At least he survived.
And fate, sometimes, is just a cruel joke: after Dumbledore's visit, they had to take Harry in, and Harry had to live with his blood relatives.
So even though they didn't want to, they did carry out Dumbledore's request and provided Harry with a "blood protection" shelter that let him live. Dumbledore had written in his letter: "As long as he can still call this place home, he will be protected." They did that much, albeit in the worst possible way.
The issue is that they—especially Petunia—were not completely devoid of feeling for Harry.
There's evidence. When Harry's Hogwarts letter arrived, they could have just let him go, possibly even felt relieved to be rid of a burden for a while.
But their reaction—especially Petunia's—was strange. She clung to an absurd belief that they could somehow "squeeze the magic out of him."
On Harry's eleventh birthday, when they tried to throw away Hogwarts' letters and failed, Petunia and Vernon latched onto another old superstition: that "witches can't cross water." Yet Petunia had seen Lily as a child, hopping from stone to stone in the stream again and again. When Hagrid strode through storm and waves to reach the hut on the rock, she had no reason to be surprised.
When love and hate are twisted together, simple right and wrong become impossible to untangle.
The Dursleys are petty, but Harry's life didn't have to be that awful…
All it would have taken was a bit of child support.
Which leads to the second problem: wizards value magic over money so strongly that no one thought of it.
So Harry became a responsibility they couldn't shake off, probably dangerous to boot…
Not a good foundation for adoption, and not good adoptive parents either. It's fair to say Harry's dark childhood was doomed from the start…
There was more noise outside the Leaky Cauldron. As the door opened, music from the record shop next door drifted in.
"Merlin, Harry, why didn't you ever tell us—"
Hermione's voice rang from the doorway, every syllable trembling.
Her gaze swept the pub, and in an instant she spotted Sean and the others gathered at the bar. She hurried over.
"We have to call the police! Those bastards! What they're doing is—"
"Easy, Hermione."
Justin soothed.
"Anger's not worth it, Hermione."
the brooch said.
Hermione turned, startled, to look at Sean. You couldn't read any of those words on his calm face.
"All right… since everyone's here, then we should…?"
Justin waited quietly for something—then caught Sean's questioning look.
"Let's go."
Justin couldn't help a helpless little laugh.
Out on London's streets, people bustled by. The group of young wizards was picked up by a stretch car.
Ron stared around at the interior—polished cherrywood trim, wool carpet—and whispered:
"Cars can be this long?"
Sean was reading Soul Transfiguration. Neville kept his head down. Harry and Hermione, meanwhile, both looked a little stiff.
Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again.
He was starting to realize what Justin had meant when he said they would "help."
…
The Dursleys were the type to fawn up and kick down; at the moment, the whole family was in a flurry over a big client who was about to visit.
This client was supposedly connected to them somehow and had the power—and likelihood—to place a massive order (his company made drills).
In the living room, Vernon cleared his throat importantly:
"We all know what an important day this is. Today I might make the biggest deal of my life.
I think we should go over this afternoon's plan one more time—by two o'clock everyone must be in position.
Petunia, you'll be—?"
"In the sitting room,"
Aunt Petunia replied,
"Ready to welcome them warmly at the door."
"Good, good. Dudley?"
"I'll answer the door."
Dudley arranged his face into a sickly sweet fake smile.
"I'll take your coats, shall I, Mr Green, Mr Finsley, and Mr Potter?"
The moment he said "Potter," his smile vanished, and he curled his lip. Same surname—yet what a difference.
One was a client his father bowed and scraped to. The other was a freak.
In the car,
the young wizards were going over the plan.
"All right, here's what we need to do—give Harry a new identity…"
Justin outlined, slowly and clearly, while Sean wasn't exactly invested in this "playing pretend."
But he had to admit: in some ways, Justin's idea made a lot of sense.
At its core, the plan was simple: let Harry decide.
No one had the right to decide for him. Their job was just to give Harry an identity that let him decide his own fate.
Being the lucky heir to a "missing Muggle-side distant relative from the Potter family" — who just happened to own two modestly successful construction companies — would be enough.
Justin was busy arranging everything, everyone else was swept up in the hopeful mood, and only Harry turned his head away to secretly wipe his eyes.
Dudley was wrong. At Hogwarts, there were a lot of people who cared about him.