I am Happy to Publish the First Chapter of The Apprentance of The Red Witch
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Harry woke to the sound of Aunt Petunia's knuckles rapping against the cupboard door—three sharp knocks that meant get up, get out, get to work.
He didn't groan. Didn't sigh. His eyes simply opened in the darkness, staring at the underside of the stairs barely six inches from his face, and his body began moving like a doll who was being moved from invisible strings.
Shoes on. Door open.
"About time," Petunia said, already turned away and heading toward the kitchen. She didn't look at him, she rarely did, when Harry had been young he was convinced that his eyes hurt her. His emerald eyes.
"The garden is a disgrace. I want every weed pulled before lunch. Then the gutters need cleaning—they're full of leaves and heaven knows what else. After that, Vernon's car needs washing, and don't use too much soap this time, you wasted half a bottle last week. When you've finished that, the kitchen floor needs scrubbing. On your hands and knees, mind you, not with that mop. It doesn't get into the corners properly."
Harry stood in the hallway, waiting to see if there was more.
There was always more.
"And stay out of Dudley's way. He's not feeling well this morning." Petunia's voice sharpened. "If I hear you've bothered him..."
She didn't finish the threat.
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry said trying to keep the monotone voice from his tongue. He would say anything just so she would stop talking to him, sometimes her voice was more annoying than the work itself.
She disappeared into the kitchen, where Vernon's newspaper was already rustling and Dudley's whining about wanting chocolate cereal instead of the perfectly good chocolate cereal he'd been given filled the air. Harry wasn't part of it.
He went outside.
The morning was already warm, promising a hot day. Number Four Privet Drive looked exactly like every other house on the street—aggressively normal, neurotically tidy, desperate to prove nothing interesting ever happened here. The Dursleys would die before they let anything upset that impression.
Harry knelt in the flower bed and started pulling weeds.
His mind went somewhere else while his hands worked. It was a trick he'd learned young—how to be present enough that nobody yelled at you for daydreaming, but absent enough that the hours didn't actually hurt. He pulled dandelions and crabgrass, dropped them in the bucket, moved six inches to the left, and repeated. The sun climbed higher. His knees began to ache from the hard ground. In his mind, he was thinking about wild stuff; in one thought, he was thinking of running from his house, in that dream, he would find another house with a loving family.
But sometimes, he would dream of the flying motorcycle, he had dreamed of it often, he didn't know how it was possible, but sometimes he thought what it would be like if the motorcycle returned and took him away somewhere, perhaps to a castle with dragons and a ring that was all-powerful. Harry chuckled; he was thinking about Lord of the Rings again.
Inside, he could hear Vernon's booming laugh at something on the morning news, then Petunia's voice cooing over Dudley, asking if he wanted another helping.
Harry pulled another weed.
Somewhere around mid-morning, he moved to the side of the house where the ladder was kept. The gutters were clogged with decomposing leaves that had been there since autumn, now looking black and without life. Harry climbed up carefully, the ladder was old, and Vernon would be furious if he broke it, and began scooping the muck out with his bare hands.
It was disgusting work, but it was better than having to deal with Dudley and Aunt Petunia.
He was halfway done when he noticed the car.
Dark blue, it looked like any other car, but Harry knew this one was not from around here. It rolled past Number Four slowly, too slowly, as if whoever was driving it was looking at them and wanted to look for as long as possible. Harry watched it from his perch on the ladder, black sludge dripping from his fingers.
The car's windows were tinted. He couldn't see the driver.
It reached the end of the street, paused at the corner for a bit longer, then turned and disappeared.
Probably nothing. Lost tourists. Someone looking for an address.
But something about it made the hair on the back of Harry's neck prickle.
He shook his head and went back to the gutters. Paranoia was a waste of energy. Nothing ever happened on Privet Drive. That was the entire point of Privet Drive.
By the time he'd finished the gutters and started on Vernon's car, the strange car had been forgotten. Harry ran the hose over the bonnet, watching soap suds slide down the windscreen in white rivers. Inside the house, the television was on. Dudley's high-pitched laugh carried through the open window.
Harry scrubbed in silence, alone in the July heat, and felt nothing at all.
It was easier that way.
Harry was rinsing the soap off the rear bumper when Dudley's shadow fell across the wet pavement.
He didn't look up. He knew from experience that sometimes it was better to act like he wasn't there. If he stayed focused on his work, sometimes Dudley got bored and left. Sometimes.
"Still at it?" Dudley sounded bored. "Mum's had you out here for hours. Like a slave or something."
Harry kept spraying. Water beaded on the clean metal, reflecting the bright sun.
"I'm talking to you, freak."
The bucket of dirty, soapy water sat three feet to Harry's left. He saw Dudley notice it, and despite how stupid he was, even Dudley knew what he could do with it. Saw the smirk begin.
"Oops."
Dudley's foot shot out, connecting with the bucket. Dirty water exploded across the driveway, across the side of the car Harry had just finished washing, across Harry's legs and shoes.
"Oh no," Dudley said, his voice dripping with mock concern. "Look what happened. You'll have to do that side all over again. How clumsy of me."
Harry stared at the spreading puddle of grey water. Watched it seep into the cracks in the pavement. Counted to five in his head. Then ten.
"Not going to say anything?" Dudley stepped closer, emboldened by the silence. "Not going to cry about it? Oh, wait, you can't, can you? Because if you tell Mum and Dad I did it, they won't believe you. They never believe you."
He was right. Harry knew he was right. Vernon and Petunia's golden rule: Dudley could do no wrong, and Harry could do no right. The mathematics of the household were that simple.
"Look at you," Dudley continued, trying to push up his chest, but the only thing that pushed out was his whale stomach. "Wearing those rubbish clothes. Are those my old things? They are, aren't they? God, they look even worse on you than they did on me, and I was nine when I wore those." He laughed, and then took a deep breath as if he just ran. "You're so scrawny they don't even fit. You look like a scarecrow."
Harry squeezed the hose tighter. Water pressure increased slightly against his palm.
"Bet you wish you had nice clothes, don't you? Bet you wish you had a proper room instead of sleeping in a cupboard like some kind of—what do they call it?—like Cinderella." Dudley snorted at his own joke. "Except there's no fairy godmother coming for you, is there? Just you and your cupboard and all your freaky weirdness."
"Funny, you know the Cinderella story so well, Dudley. Didn't think you'd made it past the pictures." Harry couldn't help himself, and Dudley's face turned red.
Harry felt a familiar pressure growing in his belly.
Don't, he told himself. Don't react. Don't give him anything.
But Dudley was still talking; he knew he was getting under Harry's skin.
"Mum says your parents were freaks too. Says your mum was a freak and your dad was a freak and they died in a car crash because your dad was probably drunk or something. Says you're lucky we even keep you, because nobody else would want a—"
The hose jerked in Harry's hand.
The spray of water, which had been aimed at the ground, suddenly arced upward and sideways, catching Dudley full in the face.
Dudley sputtered, stumbling backward. "What the—! You did that on purpose! You sprayed me!"
"I'll tell Dad!" Dudley was wiping water from his eyes, his face turning an ugly shade of red. "You're in so much trouble! I'll tell him you attacked me!"
"I didn't move," Harry said quietly. "The hose slipped." He paused, tilting his head as if considering something. "Though I suppose it's hard to miss a target that wide."
Dudley looked like a big red tomato.
"Dudley!" Petunia's shrill voice cut through the tirade. She was standing in the doorway, a tea towel in her hands. "What's all this noise?"
"Harry sprayed me with the hose!" Dudley jabbed a finger in Harry's direction, water still dripping from his chin. "He did it on purpose!"
Petunia's eyes narrowed, landing on Harry with all the warmth of winter. "Is this true?"
"The hose slipped," Harry repeated. "I was rinsing the car, and it slipped."
"He's lying!"
Petunia looked between them, her son, soaking wet and furious, and her nephew, bone-dry except for the dirty water on his shoes, holding a hose that was now pointed harmlessly at the ground.
"Dudley, come inside and get changed," she said finally. "Harry, be more careful. And clean up this mess before your uncle gets home."
"But Mum—!"
"Inside, Dudley."
Dudley shot Harry a look of pure venom, a promise that this wasn't over, before slouping toward the house. At the door, he turned back.
"Freak," he hissed.
Then he was gone.
Harry stood alone in the driveway and got back to work.
Harry was working on the third step when the car pulled up.
It was the same dark blue sedan from that morning, he was certain of it. The engine cut off with a quiet purr that sounded expensive. Wrong for Privet Drive, where people bought sensible Fords and practical Vauxhalls, nothing flashy, nothing that drew attention.
The driver's door opened.
A woman stepped out.
The woman who emerged didn't belong on Privet Drive. That was Harry's first thought. She wore black jeans and a leather jacket despite the summer heat; her hair was the same color as Aunt Petunia's, but while Petunia's hair looked like a dying cat, her hair was bright, and red like blood.
Her eyes found Harry immediately.
He froze.
Those eyes were green, except darker. She was looking at him strangely, almost like the teacher from school when she asked why he had a bruise on his chest.
Harry was on the third step when the car came back.
He didn't notice it at first. He was scrubbing the front steps the way Aunt Petunia liked. The bucket of soapy water next to him had turned grey from all the dirt, and his knees hurt, and his back hurt, and the sun was starting to dip, which meant he'd been out here for most of the day.
That was when he heard the engine.
It was the same dark blue sedan from that morning. He was sure of it. The same tinted windows, the same too-slow crawl down the street, the same expensive purr that didn't sound like anything on Privet Drive. Harry sat back on his heels and watched it approach, the scrub brush dripping in his hand.
This time, the car didn't keep going.
It pulled over to the kerb directly in front of Number Four and stopped. The engine died. For a long moment, nothing happened. Harry could see his own reflection in the tinted passenger window, a skinny boy in oversized clothes with soap suds on his arms and dirt smeared across his forehead.
Then the driver's door opened.
And for a moment, Harry forgot how to breathe.
The woman who stepped out was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was tall, with sharp green eyes and red hair that caught the last of the afternoon sun like something out of a film. Her hair was the same colour as Aunt Petunia's, in the sense that both of them had red in it, but where Petunia's hair looked like a dying cat, thin and washed-out and always pinned back like she was embarrassed by it, this woman's hair was bright and dark at the same time, red like blood, falling past her shoulders in a way that made Harry think of those shampoo adverts on the telly.
She wore black jeans and a leather jacket even though it was still warm outside, and she moved like an important person, Harry didn't know how else to describe it.
Her eyes found Harry immediately.
He didn't move. He was still kneeling on the steps, brush in hand, looking up at her. She stood on the pavement and looked at him, and there was something strange on her face. It wasn't pity, exactly. It wasn't the way Mrs. Figg looked at him either, all sad and wobbly. It was sharper than that.
"Is this Privet Drive?" she asked, her voice calm.
Harry nodded.
She studied him for another second, then walked up the front path. She stopped a few feet away, close enough that Harry could see her eyes were green, really green, except darker than his own. She looked at the scrub brush in his hand, then at his red knees, then at the bucket of grey water, and something in her expression changed.
"My name is Natasha Evans," she said.
Harry blinked. Evans. That was Aunt Petunia's name, before she'd married Uncle Vernon. And it was his mum's name too, before she'd married his dad. He knew that because he'd overheard Petunia say it once, years ago, spitting the name out like it tasted bad.
"What's your name?" Natasha asked. She said it softly, the way you'd talk to a cat you were trying not to scare off.
"Harry," he said. "Harry Potter."
She nodded. If the name meant anything to her, she didn't show it. Her face stayed perfectly still, like a mask that fit too well.
"Harry," she repeated: "Do you like living here?"
Harry stared at her. That was a weird question. People didn't just walk up to you and ask things like that. Teachers did, sometimes, but only the nosy ones, and they always had that look on their face like they already knew the answer but wanted you to say it anyway.
"It's all right," he said.
"All right," Natasha repeated, and the way she said it made it sound like she didn't believe him at all. "How are they treating you? Your aunt and uncle."
"Fine."
"Fine," she echoed again. She tilted her head. "You've been outside cleaning for several hours. In the sun. How old are you?"
"Nine. Almost ten."
Her jaw tightened. It was small, barely a movement, but Harry noticed it.
"And do they have you doing this often? Cleaning. Chores."
Harry shrugged. "Everyone has chores."
"That's true," Natasha said. "But not everyone has chores that take all day. Not everyone scrubs steps on their hands and knees while they're nine years old." She paused. "Do they feed you properly?"
Harry felt a strange heat in his face. He didn't like these questions. They were the kind of questions that felt like traps, like if he answered wrong, something would happen. He didn't know what, but something.
"Yeah," he said. "I eat."
"Where's your room?"
The question came fast, and Harry answered without thinking. "Upstairs. Second room."
Natasha's eyes moved up the front of the house, counting windows. Her gaze settled on the one Harry had pointed to, the one with the curtains Petunia never opened.
"The one filled with toys," she said.
It wasn't a question.
Harry's ears went pink. She knew. He didn't know how she knew, but she knew. That room wasn't his room. That room was Dudley's second bedroom, the one where he kept all the things he'd broken or got bored of: the telly with the smashed screen, the racing bike he'd sat on once, the computer Dudley had put his fist through when it wouldn't load his game fast enough. Harry didn't live in that room. Harry lived in the cupboard under the stairs.
"I—" he started.
"You don't have to lie to me, Harry." Natasha crouched down so she was at his eye level. Up close, her eyes were even greener, and there were faint lines around them, like she'd spent a lot of time squinting or frowning or both. "I'm not here to get you in trouble. You have no reason to not be honest with me."
Harry looked down at his hands. They were red from the brush and the soap and the sun, and his nails were black with dirt from the gutters.
"You and I are family," Natasha said.
Harry's head snapped up. "What?"
"Family," she said again.
Harry reminded himself that her last name was Evans, but he could not remember ever seeing her before.
"Who are you?" Harry asked, and his voice came out smaller than he meant it to.
"I'm your aunt," Natasha said. "Your mother was my sister. Petunia is also my sister. I am the middle one, Lily was the eldest, then me, then Petunia."
Harry's mouth opened, then closed. He had another aunt. A whole other aunt that nobody had ever mentioned, not once, not even Aunt Petunia when she was complaining about how Harry's mum had been a freak and how his dad had been a freak and how they'd got themselves killed being freaks. Not a word.
"Nobody told me about you," Harry said.
"No," Natasha said, and now there was anger in her eyes. "I expect they wouldn't have."
She straightened up and looked at the house for a long moment.
"Harry, I want you to listen to me carefully. I would like you to come live with me. From now on. If you want."
The words didn't make sense. They were in the right order and everything, he understood all of them individually, but strung together like that they didn't seem real.
"Live with you?" he repeated.
"Yes."
"But—I live here."
"You clean all day. You wear clothes that don't fit you. And I'm guessing you don't get to eat as much as your cousin does."
Harry didn't say anything.
"You don't have to answer now," she said. "But first, I'd like to have a conversation with my sister."
And before Harry could say another word, she walked past him and opened the front door and went inside as if she owned the place.
Harry stood there, holding his scrub brush, his mouth still half open. Then he dropped the brush in the bucket and followed her.
The kitchen smelled like Petunia's roast, the one she made every Sunday when she was trying to impress the neighbours, even though it wasn't Sunday. Vernon was at the table with his newspaper, and Dudley was in front of the telly in the next room, and Petunia was at the counter doing something with a pot.
Then Natasha walked in, and it was like someone had sucked all the air out of the room.
Petunia saw her first. She turned from the counter, and the colour drained from her face so fast that Harry thought she might faint. She went from her normal pinkish colour to white, to something almost grey, like old paper.
"Hello, Petunia," Natasha said.
"You." The word came out of Petunia's mouth like she'd been punched. Her hand gripped the edge of the counter. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see how my nephew is doing." Natasha looked around the kitchen, at the spotless counters, the gleaming floor, the expensive new microwave. Then she looked at Harry, who was standing in the doorway, still in his too-big clothes with soap suds drying on his arms. "And I have to say, Petunia, I don't like what I've found."
"You have nothing to say to me," Petunia said, and her voice was shaking. "Get out of my house. You have nothing—I have nothing to say to you. Leave."
"He's been cleaning outside for hours. In the heat. He's nine years old, and I can count his ribs through that shirt." Natasha's voice hadn't changed, but Harry felt a shiver of fear in his chest even if she wasn't talking to him.
Petunia flinched.
"Now see here!" Vernon had finally processed what was happening. He folded his newspaper, slapped it on the table, and stood up. Vernon Dursley was a big man, wide in the shoulders and wider in the middle, and he was used to people being intimidated by his size and his moustache and his very loud voice. He drew himself up to his full height and pointed a thick finger at Natasha. "I don't know who you think you are, but this is my house, and I will not have some strange woman waltzing in and—"
Natasha's hand moved.
It was fast, so fast that Harry almost missed it. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a stick, a thin, dark stick, about ten inches long, and she pointed it at Vernon's chest.
Vernon's mouth stopped moving mid-word. His face, which had been turning its usual angry purple, went white. Not just white. White like snow. White like he'd seen a ghost. He took a step back, knocking his chair, and his eyes were fixed on the stick as if it were a loaded gun.
Harry stared. It was just a stick. A thin piece of wood. Why was Uncle Vernon looking at it like that? Why was he so scared of a stick?
"Sit down, Vernon," Natasha said pleasantly.
Vernon sat down.
Harry had never seen Uncle Vernon do anything anyone told him to do. Not like that. Not immediately, not without arguing, not without going purple and sputtering first. Vernon sat down in his chair like his legs had been cut, and he didn't say another word.
Natasha lowered the stick but kept it in her hand. She turned back to Harry.
"Harry," she said. "I told you that I'm your aunt. Your mother, Lily, was my older sister. And I'm asking you again: would you like to come live with me?"
Harry looked at Vernon, who was staring at the table. He looked at Petunia, who was gripping the counter so hard her knuckles were white. He looked at Natasha, who was looking at him with those dark green eyes and waiting.
"Where?" Harry asked. "Where do you live?"
"A place called Willowmere Hollow," Natasha said. "It's in the countryside, hidden away. It's part of the magical world."
Harry blinked. "The... magical world?"
"Yes. Your mother was a witch, Harry. Your father was a wizard. I am a witch." She held up the stick. "This is a wand. And you are a wizard."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"I have a large house," Natasha continued. "With plenty of rooms. Your own room, with a proper bed. And I have books, more books than you could read in a lifetime, books about magic, about spells and potions and the history of our world. Books that will teach you what you are and what you can do. Books that will help you become a good wizard."
Harry stared at her. His brain was doing that thing where it tried to process too many things at once and ended up processing nothing.
"Like Gandalf?" he said, because it was the only reference point he had. He'd read The Hobbit twice, sneaking it from the school library and reading it under his blanket with a light. "You mean magic like Gandalf?"
Natasha's mouth twitched. "Something like that, yes."
"But—" Harry shook his head. "Magic isn't real."
Natasha's expression changed.
She didn't look angry at Harry. Her eyes moved past him and landed on Petunia, and then she looked furious. Harry had seen Aunt Petunia furious before, and she was scary, but this new aunt was terrifying; it felt like looking at the eyes of a beast.
She raised the wand again, and this time she pointed it at Petunia.
"Still the same jealous little girl," Natasha said, her voice was almost soft, but it didn't feel soft. "After everything, you're still the same. You couldn't stand that Lily had magic and you didn't, and now you've made sure her son thinks it doesn't exist."
Petunia's chin came up. Her eyes were wet, but her face was hard. "Magic got our sister killed," she spat. "Magic. That world. Those people. She went off to that school and she came back different, and then she married that Potter, and then she died. She exploded, Natasha. So don't you stand in my kitchen and tell me that I should have been filling the boy's head with—"
"You said it was a car crash."
Harry's voice cut through the kitchen. Both women turned to look at him.
He was shaking, he realized. His hands were shaking, and his voice was shaking, and he didn't know when that had started.
"You told me," he said, looking at Petunia, "that my mum and dad died in a car crash. That my dad was drunk. You said—" His voice cracked. "You told me they died in a car crash."
Petunia looked away.
"It wasn't a car crash," Natasha said quietly.
"Then what was it?"
"I will tell you everything, Harry. I will tell you the whole truth about what happened to your parents. I promise you that. But not here."
Natasha then approached Aunt Petunia, her wand raised right at her face. "If you were anyone else...I would have...you are my sister, so for the sake of our blood, consider yourself lucky."
Harry stared at the floor. The kitchen floor he'd scrubbed that morning, on his hands and knees, the way Petunia wanted. He could see the spot under the table where he'd missed a bit and gone back over it twice so she wouldn't make him do the whole thing again.
He thought about the cupboard. The little mattress that smelled like dust. The spiders in the corners that he'd started naming because there was nobody else to talk to. The light that leaked in through the crack under the door.
He thought about Dudley's two bedrooms, one for sleeping and one for all the things he'd broken.
He thought about never being believed, never being enough, never being anything except a problem that had been dropped on the Dursleys' doorstep.
And here was this woman, this aunt he'd never known existed, standing in the kitchen with a wand in her hand, telling him that magic was real and his parents hadn't died in a car crash and there was a room for him somewhere with a proper bed and books he could read.
It might have been a trick. It might have been a lie. People lied to Harry all the time.
But Aunt Petunia was scared of her. Uncle Vernon was terrified of her. And nobody had ever, not once, offered to take him away from here.
"Okay," Harry said.
Natasha looked at him.
"I'll come with you," he said. His voice was steadier now. "I want to come with you."
Natasha's face brightened up, and even her hair wasn't as dark red anymore.
"Go pack your things," she said.
Harry almost laughed. His things. Everything he owned in the world fit inside a plastic bag.
He went to the cupboard, opened the tiny door, and pulled out his blanket, his one spare set of clothes, the broken toy soldier he'd found in the park, and the bent paperback copy of The Hobbit he'd never returned to the school library. He put them in a carrier bag from under the sink.
When he came back to the kitchen, Natasha was saying something to Petunia in a low voice. Petunia was crying. Vernon hadn't moved from his chair.
Natasha saw Harry and the carrier bag, and something in her expression tightened again.
"Is that everything?" she asked.
"Yes."
She didn't say anything about how little it was. She just nodded and said, "Let's go."
Harry followed her through the hallway, past the cupboard with its little door still open, past the row of Dudley's shoes by the door, past the photographs on the wall in which he did not appear.
At the front door, he stopped and looked back.
Petunia was standing at the end of the hall. She wasn't crying anymore. She was just standing there, looking at him, and for one strange second, Harry thought he saw something in her face that might have been sadness.
Then it was gone, and she turned away, and Harry stepped outside into the evening air.
The blue sedan was waiting at the kerb. Natasha grabbed the bag from his hands and put inside the car trunk. Natasha opened the passenger door for him, and Harry climbed in. The seats were leather and cool against his bare arms. It smelled like something nice, like flowers.
Natasha got in the driver's side and started the engine.
"Seatbelt," she said.
Harry buckled it. He held the carrier bag on his lap.
The car pulled away from Number Four Privet Drive. Harry watched the house shrink in the wing mirror, getting smaller and smaller until it looked just like every other house on the street, just another box in a row of boxes, and then they turned the corner, and it was gone.
Harry didn't look back again.
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