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Harry stretched his lithe, aching body and slid out of bed, careful
not to make it squeak to loud as he did so. His feet barely touched
the floor as he padded across it, avoiding the boards he knew would
give away his movements. Uncle Vernon had been especially irritable
the last week or so; Harry had the bruises to prove it. He prevented
it when possible, but the occassional punch or backhand was
unavoidable. Not like he hadn't put up with worse.
With a sigh, Harry sat down on the window ledge and slowly opened the
window, peering out hopefully. It was his 16th birthday and he was
expecting Hedwig, and perhaps Pig, Ron's small and somewhat insane
owl, to arrive sometime during the day. Yawning again, he decided to
grab something quick to eat before Dudley, his obese cousin, ate the
entire food stock again. His stomach rumbled and reminded him of just
how hungy he was, after being sent to bed the previous night with no
supper, and took one last longing look out the window before padding
almost silently back across the room, pulling open the door and
peaking his messy, raven-black head out.
The coast seemed clear and
he continued downstairs. His foot just on the top stair, he jumped in
surprise as he heard a loud snort. To someone unrelated, it might
have sounded like a pig in labor. But Harry knew it was just Dudley,
probably dreaming of gruesome and disgusting ways to humiliate and
hurt the wizarding legend. Harry rolled his eyes at the thought and
continued on his way. 'Like he could ever catch me.'
He arrived safely downstairs and made a beeline for the kitchen,
toasting a couple pieces of bread and topping them with a little
butter and jam. Bread and the like was really the only food item that
would go unnoticed, at least most of the time, by his stingy Aunt
Petuna. She seemed to catalog and keep track of everything in the
house. It wasn't rare for her to accuse Harry of stealing things;
everything from her gold leaf brooch, to a package of Q tips.
He ate his toast in silence, wondering what 'fun' things would happen
this year. His birthdays were usually at least somewhat dismal; he
didn't expect this one to be any different. It wasn't long before
Uncle Vernon, overbearing and red faced as always, trudged into the
kitchen. Harry hastily shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth,
and in a panic stuck the plate on the chair, sitting on it. He
repressed a grimace as he could just imagine the remaining jam and
butter causing none too pleasant stains on the bottoms of his pajama
pants. He painfully swallowed the mouthful and fixed uncle Vernon,
who was glaring accusingly, with his best doe-eyed innocent look. It
didn't work.
"You stealing, bloody little mongrel of a boy!!" The man boomed, the
back of his hand connecting with Harry's cheek before the boy could
blink. As he tried to regain his sense of awareness, Harry sighed in
defeat. 'Another exciting day in the life of Harry Potter. What a
birthday....'