43 Chapter 1 - 4 Pivot Drive

A loud crash came from inside a certain house located on Privet Drive. It sounded as if someone had fallen tripped over something in shock. Footsteps sounded as someone approached the door and opened it, revealing a thin, blond haired woman with a rather long neck. Her dim eyes narrowed at her visitors before widening in shock.

"Hello, Tuney," Annie Pettigrew greeted, dressed in a simple brown dress with a red cloak over it.

"Y—you!" Petunia Dursley pointed shakily with boney finger at the woman before her snapping her hand down. She then took on a stern, almost hateful expression as she glared at her. "What do you want."

"Just guiding Vincent and Arnya here," Sister An explained, moving aside to show two youths.

One was a rather beautiful black haired girl with blood red eyes who sat in an equally red wheelchair, preoccupied with a book in her hands. The other, was a young boy, with slightly long messy dark hair, and bright golden eyes. Her eyes caught onto several odd things about the boy.

His belt had an odd number of small box like pockets with each one being large enough for a hand to fit through, metal wristbands that had strange symbols on it. However, weird enough, what disturbed her the most was the black shirt he had on. A rather chilly and fearful feeling emanated from it, it felt like it was cursed.

Vincent immediately widened his eyes, realising what she was looking at, he quickly put on a grey jacket that he had on hand. Almost immediately, that feeling was gone. Petunia took in a deep breath, realising that she had been holding it.

"Sorry, got into a little scuffle along the way so I forgot to cover it," Vincent apologised.

Petunia didn't get any time to speak as a tall, messy, black haired man came out from one of the rooms, smiling wide as he spotted them.

"Hey, Vince, Arnya, Annie," Sirius Black greeted.

"Got a small haircut have you Sirius?" Vincent smiled at the man as he pushed Arnya inside.

"Got a bit out of hand even for me!" Sirius laughed before turning to Sister An who raised an eyebrow.

"Hello, Sirius," Sister An greeted. She narrowed her eyes at him. "I trust that you've kept yourself out of trouble while you were here."

Before Sirius could answer that question, she sighed. "If it's alright with you, I want to talk to Pertunia here for a bit longer."

Sirius frowned before nodding as he re-entered the living room.

The first thing Vincent thought off when he entered the room, was that it was oddly clean. The room consisted of a very peachy pink with several pictures for decoration and a singular shelf in the corner. There was also a boarded up fireplace that had an electric fireplace in front of it.

"Vincent!" Vincent found a boy with round glasses, standing up from a couch. Right beside him was a single case off luggage and an empty birdcage.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Harry sighed as he set down the tray. "No one's been bothering me for ever since Sirius has come. Mostly ignore us half the time when they could."

"You didn't scare them in any way did you Sirius?" Vincent asked as Sirius walked into the room.

"Why does everyone think that?" Sirius grumbled. "They did say five right? Anyone know why they haven't come yet?"

A couple of weeks ago, Vincent received a letter from one of his friends, Ron Weasley, informing him that his family was heading to the Quidditch cup, an iconic sport of Wizards, and asked if he wanted to come. While Vincent's feelings towards Quidditch was close to none, Sister An insisted that he go anyway. So he sent a mail saying that he'll meet them at Harry's to get picked up.

A loud thump came from the kitchen, making Vincent look towards it. In it he saw and extremely...large boy to put it kindly.

"Well, hello there, you must be Dudley right?" Vincent walked over to the boy. "My names Vinc—

Dudley's face paled and, before Vincent's eyes, he shot off in at a speed that was not befitting of his size.

Vincent blinked in surprise and turned to Harry. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Well, he's rather scared of...magic," Harry sighed. "Well, not just him, my Aunt and Uncle, they absolutely loathe it."

Vincent frowned slightly as he looked in the direction Dudley ran. They were both muggles, but both react differently to magic. One fears it, the other finds as something wondrous and amazing.

"No ones the same, huh?" Vincent muttered to himself shaking his head.

...

"It's been what, fifthteen, twenty years since we last talk?" Annie questioned as Petunia scoffed.

"Who cares how long its been, don't act like we were ever friends."

"Now that stings," Annie simply smiled warmly as she leaned against the staircase. "I thought we were rather close."

"You and my sister were close, me?" Petunia scowled. "She bonded more with you than with me, her own sister."

Annie's smile faded slightly as she let out a deep breath. She glanced to the side of the stairway and frowned. She then looked back up to Petunia. "I suppose this is the cupboard I've heard so much about? The one that Harry had to live under for eleven years."

Petunia's eyes turned stern. "You have no right to inquire about what goes on in this house—"

Annie's eyes blazed for a good second, making Petunia flinch. "Whether I have the right or not, that boy is my best friends son, Lily's own flesh and blood, and your nephew. If I had known how Harry was treated, I would have stormed in here long ago and taken him away."

Petunia looked fearful for a good moment before her face settled back into that stern look. "Hmph, the boy should be grateful, having a home and shelter that we provide..."

Sister An just had her arms folded as she watched Petunia rambled on and on about how much she hated Harry and his mother. Throughout her outburst, Sister An didn't look anger, nor sad. Instead she just stood there, hearing the older woman out.

"She'll run out of steam soon," Annie thought.

Sure enough, without anyone arguing back, Petunia soon ran out of insults and was barely grasping at straws.

"You finished?" Annie asked with a raised brow.

"..." Petunia kept her silence, giving her answer.

"Good." Annie sighed.

SLAP!

Petunia, stunned, raised her hand to the red hand mark on her face.

"You know full well, you deserved that and more," Petunia, about to yell, cast her eyes down as Annie took her hand back. "I know, I know all too well what it feels like to have someone close to you die. Don't take your frustration out on your nephew."

"We were never close," Petunia growled softly as she rubbed her cheek.

"No? Only someone that has truly loved or cared for her would feel that way about her," Sister Annie muttered. "No matter how much you hated her, you really did love your sister didn't you, Tuney?"

Petunia chose not to answer as she continued to glare at Annie who silently stared back. After a while, Petunia averted her gaze.

"What do you want?" Petunia said through her gritted teeth.

"Nothing, even if Harry is taken away from here, in the case that he continues to stay here, I want to make sure that he's at least treated well," Annie gave a small smile. She then made her way to the door. "Well, that's all I came here for, tell them all that I'm off."

Petunia's frown deepened. "Your not going with them?"

Annie raised an eyebrow. "No, of course not. I was only here to drop Vincent and Arnya off. Besides, I was never really a fan of Quidditch."

Annie opened the door and turned back one last time. Her eyes softened. "It really is good to see you again Tuney."

...

After several minutes of waiting, with the group passing time by chatting, a large thud was heard from the other side of the room, startling everyone.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" Mr. Dursley, being the closest to the sound shouted in shock as he fell backwards.

"What was that?" Vincent asked, to which another thud was heard, accompanied by voices. Vincent turned to look at the electric fireplace and noted that it was where there voices originated.

"Ouch! Fred, no - go back, go back, there's been some kind of mistake - tell George not to - OUCH! George, no, there's no room, go back quickly and tell Ron -"

"Maybe Harry can hear us, Dad - maybe he'll be able to let us out -"

There was a loud hammering of fists on the boards behind the electric fire.

"Harry? Harry, can you hear us?"

Vincent, seeing something new to him, glanced at Harry who was trying very hard not to laugh while Sirius snorted in amusement.

"Wh—what's going on?!" Mr. Dursley demanded in an aggressive voice at Harry, only to cower under Sirius' gaze.

""They—they've tried to get here by Floo Powder," said Harry, fighting a mad desire to laugh. "They can travel by fire—only you've blocked the fireplace—hang on—"

As another thud sounded out, with Ron's voice accompanying it, Harry went to speak with them.

Vincent glanced at Sirius curiously. "What's Floo Powder?"

Sirius looked at Vincent in surprise before remembering the fact that he was a muggle.

He cleared his throat. "Well, to put it simply, it's a type of powder that allows us magical folk to travel from one place to another via fireplaces. It can also be used as a form off communication between others as well. Oh, and don't worry, muggles can do it too if they have it."

"Huh, that's pretty neat, but why on earth is it fireplaces?" Vincent questioned. "What if a house doesn't have one?"

Sirius shrugged. "Honestly, never thought about it, but it really doesn't matter to me."

BANG!

The electric fire shot across the room, expelling a large cloud of ash and barely missing a very scared Dudley who happened to be peeking around the corner. When the ash cleared, Vincent saw Fred, George, Ron and Mr. Weasley dusting themselves off. "Ah, you must be Mr. Dursley. How wonderful to meet you. And by golly, Sirius Black! You've been on the front page for the past few weeks, everyone now knows of your...well, I'm sorry if I'm touching upon a sensitive subject."

"Not at all Mr. Weasley," Sirius shook hands with Mr. Weasley as a very stupefied Vernon Dursley stood to the side.

"Haah, my apologies," Mr. Weasley addressed Mr. Dursley with a bit of embarrassment as he looked at the blasted fireplace. "Had the Floo Network connect to your house, just for an afternoon of course. I'll make sure to fix it on the way back."

Mr. Dursley just stood there stunned as Mr. Weasley started rambling on about what seemed like nonsense.

"Vince! Your here too!" Ron's grin widened as he spotted both Vincent and Harry.

"'ello Harry, how ya doin'?" Fred spoke as he patted Harry's shoulder with one hand.

"'ello Vince, how are you doing?" George mimicked as he patted Vincent's shoulder with his own hand. "And good evening to you Miss Arnya, how wonderful it is to see you again."

Arnya looked up from her book and tilted her head. After several seconds of silence she finally spoke. "...Who are you?"

Fred and George froze as Vincent hurriedly explained. "Fred and George, their Ron's brothers."

Arnya took a thinking pose before and "ah" came from her mouth. She turned back to Fred and George and bowed in her chair. "Good evening to you...which one's who?"

Fred gave an extremely strained smiled as he pointed at himself. "I'm Fred."

George mirrored his actions. "I'm George."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Arnya," Arnya introduced as the twins eyes both twitched.

"Nice...to meet you too," they both said at the same time.

Vincent felt as if the twins had both taken a blow to their ego. "Guess they considered themselves somewhat infamous in Hogwarts."

George quickly recovered from the shock and looked towards Harry. He indicated with his head towards Sirius and whispered. "Is that really 'Sirius Black'?"

"Yep," Harry responded.

"Wicked," Fred and George smiled as their eyes sparkled towards Sirius looked back confused about the looks.

"Well then, good to see you ready Harry," Mr. Weasley nodded at Harry's luggage and raised a brow at Vincent. "Now, where the rest of your belongings Vincent?"

"I'm going to be heading back shortly after the World Cup," Vincent replied. "I have enough for the time being in here."

Vincent patted his small bags to which Mr. Weasley nodded in recognition. "Let's head off then, no use sticking around, Fred, George, help Harry with his luggage."

Fred and George picked up Harry's bags before he could say anything. At this point however, Vincent noticed that as soon as Fred spotted Dudley hiding around the corner, holding his large buttocks, he grinned as he 'accidently' brushed his hand across his pocket, making a small white plastic wrapper fall out.

He was about to say something about it when Ron clapped his shoulder. He turned to see Mr. Weasley throw some sort of powder ("Guess that's the Flu Powder," Vincent thought) into the fireplace. Soon, the empty fireplace erupted with green fire.

"You know how to use it right?" Ron asked to which Vincent shook his head. "No? Blimey, finally found one of the things I know more than you. Well, it's not too hard really, you just jump in and say where you want to go. Make sure you say it clearly though, heard of more than one bloke that has travelled to the opposite side of the world."

That didn't exactly fill Vincent with confidence as he stared uneasily at the fire. As if sensing his discomfort, Arnya wheeled into the fireplace, barely fitting her wheelchair in it. Vincent noted that the fire didn't seem to be anywhere near harmful as she looked at Mr. Weasley.

"Ah, it's called the Burrow," Mr. Weasley quickly caught on as he informed Arnya of the place they needed to go.

Arnya nodded. "The Burrow."

In a flash of green fire, she was gone, leaving absolutely nothing behind.

"Now, your turn Vincent," Mr. Weasley threw in some more powder.

Vincent nodded and walked into the fire, ducking his head to make it through. He winced as the smell of smoke and ash filled his nose. He coughed out and held his shirt over his mouth. "The Burrow!"

In the same flash, he disappeared, leaving Mr. Weasley to frown. "I did tell him to tuck his arms in right?"

...