Harry was pulled out of his musings as he approached the front door of 4 Privet Drive. He had finished cooling down and it was time to get back to work. As he reached for the door handle, the sound of raised voices within the house gave him pause. He had been keeping a very low profile within the Dursley household, and he had no desire to walk in on whatever quarrel was happening behind that door.
He had told his aunt not to bother feeding him anymore, as he had made "other arrangements." Harry was certain that his aunt was puzzled by this, but evidently she was too frightened of magic to inquire what those arrangements involved. Shrugging to himself, he decided to let himself in quietly and try to evade detection long enough to slink to his room.
Harry quietly opened the door and eased himself through it. The raised voices belonged to Dudley and Aunt Petunia, and they were coming from the hallway that led to the kitchen. No one had noticed his entrance, and Harry knew it was probably best for him to just move quickly up the stairs to his room.
But Harry was wondering just what could cause a row between Petunia and her precious Dudders. Curiosity defeated his desire to be invisible, so Harry poked his head around the corner to see what the commotion was all about. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.
There in the middle of the hallway was the most ridiculous sight Harry had ever seen.
Dudley Dursley was standing in front of the long hallway mirror while his mother tried to wrap a tape measure around his massive midsection. This was amusing enough in itself, but it was what Dudley was wearing that nearly stopped Harry's heart.
Dudley's 300+ pounds of blubber was outfitted tightly in a pair of bright orange knickerbockers that reached just past his knees. A white frilly dress shirt was accented by an enormous maroon tailcoat. The whole ensemble was capped off by a flat, straw boater's hat that sat on top of Dudley's sweaty head like an oversized bottle cap.
Harry couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing.
Though Harry didn't know it, this was Dudley's regular school uniform at Smeltings; he had just never seen Dudley in it. Big D had actually lost a little weight this summer, and his mother was taking measurements so that his uniform could be altered.
Dudley's face flushed violently and his piggy eyes narrowed at his laughing cousin. His parents had told him to ignore Harry this summer, but this was a humiliation that Dudley refused to endure. He picked up his patented Smeltings Stick from the floor and lumbered heavily toward Harry, intent on bashing the freak's skull in. Petunia simply watched.
Harry saw the look in his cousin's eyes and fled up the stairs to his room, laughing like a hyena the entire way. He had just made it into his room and shut the door when it was flung open by a lividly purple Dudley Dursley. He truly looked capable of murder. He raised his stick above his head and stalked toward the now retreating Harry, who was contemplating whether or not to curse his cousin between giggles.
"Shut your bloody face you worthless freak! I'm going to…"
But that was as far as Dudley got.
Dobby popped into existence between Harry and the fat human threatening him, throwing up both hands toward Dudley.
"You shall not harm Harry Potter Sir!"
Harry was never sure whether Dobby had banished Dudley or the elf's sudden appearance had simply surprised him, but in either case Dudley lost his balance and fell heavily on his arse, ripping out the seat of his bright orange knickerbockers. He stared open-mouthed at Dobby for a few seconds, his brain trying to process what his eyes were seeing, and then backed as quickly as he could out of Harry's room, all thoughts of violence forgotten.
Harry heard him thundering down the stairs screaming to his mum that Harry had a "green monster" in his room.
Dobby turned and grinned sheepishly at Harry and he lost it all over again. Great guffaws of laughter escaped Harry until tears were literally running down his face. This was evidently a release that Harry had needed, because he simply could not stop laughing.
Indeed, he had the giggles for the rest of the evening, even though he was busy taking notes on a very nasty book of curses from Hogwarts' restricted section. Anyone witnessing Harry's mirth while reading such a dark book would have been horrified. But whenever Harry read about a new curse, he visualized students in orange knickerbockers and maroon tailcoats, casting spells nonchalantly at each other with one hand while they leaned on a walking stick with the other. Harry would gladly pay a fortune for just one picture of Draco Malfoy in a Smeltings uniform. That was a mental image powerful enough to defeat any boggart in existence.
Sometimes life at Privet Drive was entertaining after all.
.....
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