Title: Struck.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Series: Striking
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Rupert Alice Dursley-Spencer vs. The World.



It's a rite of passage for all of Uncle Harry's kids that he takes them out to a Real Adult Restaurant on their first Hogsmeade weekend in third year. You'd picked out the restaurant when, at age six, you'd gone on a trip to Hogsmeade with Uncle Neville and Uncle Harry back when they had been what Uncle Harry had still called "figuring ourselves out". You'd been given a menu like you were old enough to have a real opinion, which never happened when you went to restaurants with your parents. And your uncles had let you pick what you got, and had even let you order the most expensive dessert on the menu, which your parents never ever did.

It had been amazing. You've been planning your return visit ever since, even though you've been to plenty other restaurants since then, even in Hogsmeade. The first one is the best. The first one is the most sentimental. The first one is named Josephine's and you've been looking forward to this for years.

Josephine's isn't a prime student hangout, so it's pretty empty for lunch. Uncle Harry got you a table where you could see the street if you wanted, because he knows you and loves you, and you plan to people-watch later, definitely you do, but you're first too excited to tell Uncle Harry about your new research and your brand new life plan for the summer. It's been a hard-won new life plan. It's taken you three years to research, browsing the library, talking to the staff in the Hospital Wing, even paying more attention in Potions than you ever liked doing before. But you've done it because it's necessary, and you'd do worse for your parents than think too hard about Potions ingredients and where they come from and what you're drinking when you drink it.

Except when you blurt it all out, Uncle Harry kind of goes... weird. And rueful. And like he's about to break your heart.

He can't break your heart. Lionel in Hufflepuff already did that last year.

"Radders," Uncle Harry says. "Your parents don't want it."

Huh?

What does he mean, they don't want it? You haven't even offered it to them yet. You've never said a word about it to them, because you never knew for certain if it even existed in the first place. There are a lot of gaps in magic that you figure you're going to spend your life working to fill; it's great to have a career plan this early, your Head of House says to you, and she even sounds like she means it when she says it. She's pretty great.

"What do you mean?" you ask, because if you don't ask, you don't know. Maybe Uncle Harry knows more about magical medicine than he's ever shown before? Maybe Uncle Harry got ahead of you by virtue of being older and already asked your parents? But Uncle Harry, well, not to be rude, but he's not that good at research.

Sometimes you wonder what Uncle Harry spent his time at Hogwarts even doing and then you remember that he's Harry Potter. You already know what he spent his time at Hogwarts doing. It just wasn't schoolwork.

They really should have made Uncle Harry repeat a year or two. Or seven.

And even if Uncle Harry knows something you don't know, and even if it's something really bad and means you're going to have to rework all of your careful plans that you've spent the last fortnight making, ever since you found the perfect book about muggle body transformation in the medical section of the library, you just need to ask and find out and then you can revise.

You've always been great at revision. And unlike Uncle Harry, you've always been great at research.

You've spent years looking for a solution to your parents's problem, of course. Of course you've been looking. You've been looking since first year, since you got on the train to Hogwarts, since you first visited a magical library when you were seven.

And what you'd found over and over again was that magic and muggles don't always mix well. When you'd found the definitive medical textbook of transformations that worked on muggles and what they're all for and how to do them, it had been perfect. It had been just like magic.

There's no way Uncle Harry found that already and asked your parents. Uncle Harry doesn't even know where the Hogwarts library is, you're pretty sure.

(They really should have made him retake his entire school career.)

"I've offered," Uncle Harry says simply. "Your parents said no. I asked them a couple times, even, in case they needed time to think about it. They don't want it."

But--

"They don't, Radders," Uncle Harry says. "I'm not saying you can't ask them. You can always ask them anything, you know that. But I don't think the answer is going to change."

"But why not?" you whine. There are multiple options! There are potions and there are spells and there are even some really cool rituals. You like cool rituals. You have a sense of drama you did not inherit naturally, your father's friends always say, and your father laughs and tells them: Rupert can become anyone he wants.

And that's what magic can do. It can make you anyone you want. You've believed that your entire life.

But your parents don't want it?

How can they not want it?

"I don't know about your father," Uncle Harry says. "But your mother doesn't want it because her body was changed around a few times already by magic, against her will. She doesn't want to do it again, even by choice."

Huh? When could that have possibly happened? You don't remember anything about that, and your mother never entered the magical world until you were around, she'd told you.

And Uncle Harry explains, still using that careful tone, like he's picking every word, like he knows he is destroying his own heroic image in your mind and is sorry to do it.

And he is. He absolutely is destroying his heroic image in your mind. You'd thought Uncle Harry was a good person. You'd thought Uncle Harry was better than that.

He's Harry Potter!

"And what happened next?" you demand. "That's all illegal! Isn't that illegal? It should be illegal!"

It is absolutely illegal. It has to be illegal. You know it's illegal; you fell down into a research rabbit hole all about that last year.

"It is illegal," Uncle Harry says. "There weren't any consequences on the wizards because we all thought it was funny, and your mother and her parents didn't have any way to complain to the authorities."

"Because they're muggles," you say, and also notice, the way you always do, that no one ever refers to your mother's parents as your grandparents. One day you're going to find them and find out why. You have magical powers and, more importantly, also know how to use the phone book. You're uniquely qualified for this task, and you shall succeed. "And so no one cared."

"The muggles cared," Uncle Harry says.

"And you thought it was funny," you accuse. You can't believe this. It's a good thing you got a grip on your accidental magic long ago, or you'd be doing so much of it right now. Heightened emotional state, check. Deep disappointment and disenchantment, check. Incoming tantrum... well, you're thinking about it. It's a shame you're a third year and practically an adult. You think you could throw a pretty good tantrum right now.

Uncle Harry looks abashed. "Your mother and I both did things that we regret, when we were growing up. That's one I regret the most. We've apologized to each other for it and put it behind us, but I'm sorry it took me so long to realize--"

"You hurt her!" you shout. But then you remember that accuracy is important, there is no learning without accuracy, if you aren't accurate, you're just guessing and you'll fail and you'll deserve it. "You let other people hurt her!" And since Uncle Harry isn't objecting, you give in to the feeling of betrayal welling up in you. "Voldemort tortures muggles! I thought you were better than Voldemort!"

It's not really done to go shouting Voldemort's name in respectable restaurants, but you don't care. You want to storm out of there. You want to go find your mother and apologize for being a wizard, which you have never wanted to do in your life and don't think your mother would appreciate. Your mother likes that you're a wizard! Your mother always talks about how many choices you'll have, choices that she didn't have!

Your mother always says you can become who you want to be, as a wizard. That's the great thing about being a wizard, that you have so many choices. You have to leave home to go to school, if you want to go to the best one, which you do, and your parents agree. You can't tell the neighbors anything. Sometimes your friends are weird about your parents being muggles. But it's been worth it, because you can pick whatever you like. You have two worlds in front of you and you can take whatever you like from each.

You can become anyone you want to be, as a wizard.

And you'd thought-- you'd thought you could use your magical powers to help your mother be even more the way she is.

You'd thought.

You'd thought you could help.

And you can't help, all because Mr. Hagrid and some Weasleys tortured your mother and laughed about it and never experienced a single consequence in their life for torturing muggles and hurting your mother and making her have to have surgery and choking her and--

And of course your father won't do it, either, if that's why. Your father always follows your mother's lead when it comes to magic, because your mother knows more about magic, because she grew up around it--

Because she grew up being hurt by it.

You aren't going to cry in public. You're a third year, you're not three.

You're not going to cry.

"I know you prize accuracy," Uncle Harry says, "so I'm going to say something you're going to find useless. Okay?"

You nod.

"Voldemort killed muggles."

You nod again. "You're right. That is useless." It's a distinction, but not one that helps. Wizards are sturdier than muggles. Your mother could have been hurt very badly or permanently, all from a joke.

"Radders, there's nothing I can say that will make it okay that it happened, because it wasn't," Uncle Harry says. "It happened and it hurt your mother and there's no way to undo that."

"What's the statute of limitations on torturing muggles?" you ask.

Uncle Harry sighs again. "I don't know. Ask your Head of House." He sounds tired. He does not sound like he's interested in helping you help your mother press charges.

"I thought you were better than this, Uncle Harry," you say. You're not sure if you're whining. You're not sure if you sound like you're heartbroken or if you're angry or if you're about to run back home and never come back to Hogwarts ever again, even though you've been looking forward to going to Hogwarts ever since you knew what it was.

Or maybe you just finally sound like an adult, because Uncle Harry looks at you like he expects you to be an adult and understand what he's saying. "I wasn't better than this. I had to learn that hurting people wasn't funny, even when I didn't like them. I had to learn that using magic to harm people is always bad. I had to learn that it's not okay to use my position to hurt people. And when I joined the wizarding world, on my first day in it, I saw an adult hurt people he didn't like and get away with it. At the end of my first year, I saw the Headmaster humiliate an entire House in front of the whole school just because he wanted to. When I was your age, I had already learned that I could be framed for crimes I hadn't committed and no one would care or try to find out what actually happened. I had learned that the wizarding world wasn't magically better than the muggle world just because it was magic. I was bullied a lot in the muggle world. I hadn't learned yet that, even though my magic put me on top, that didn't mean it was okay to be a bully when I finally had a chance to be one. It took me a while, Rupert, and I'll never be proud of that."

"Does Uncle Neville know about this?" you ask, because you suppose it's all well and good if Uncle Harry tells you about this, but you're not the one married to him.

Uncle Harry looks somehow even worse. "Rupert," he says again, and he never calls you that, never, "when we were in our first year, I let your Uncle Neville be hit with a full body-bind and be left in a public area by himself for hours, and didn't do anything to stop him or help him."

Oh. Oh.

Uncle Harry was-- he was like Archimedes Brown and Lauren Trausch and even Quentin Malfoy in Hufflepuff, who likes to find Ravenclaws in the halls, and who you had learned about a secret passage to avoid.

Who Uncle Harry had taught you about a secret passage to avoid.

"Did you think it was all okay because it wasn't you doing it, because it was someone else?" you ask.

"You're acting like I was thinking," Uncle Harry says. "I wasn't moralizing, Rupert. I wasn't arguing with my conscience about it. People had told me it was wrong to hurt other people, but what people had shown me all my life was, no, actually, it was perfectly acceptable. You could hurt anyone you wanted if you had power and they didn't. That's something your mother regrets, by the way. She bullied me a lot when we were kids. I got bullied at my muggle school, and my aunt and uncle abused me. When I got magical powers, I didn't grow a new set of morals, and I didn't suddenly learn new ones at Hogwarts. No one sat me down and told me I had responsibility now, that since I could hurt people, I had to make sure I didn't do that. No one told me that it wasn't a well-deserved revenge if I let my friends hurt your mother, that it was instead a crime."

"So when did you learn?" you want to know. "Because you know now. Right?" Uncle Harry has to know. Uncle Harry is Uncle Harry! He's better than that.

You've always thought he's better than that.

Or, at least, that's what you assumed.

"I grew up," Uncle Harry says, like it was that simple. "I looked back at the first years and realized they were just eleven, that I had been just eleven, and so had your mother. Hagrid was an adult and he'd hurt an eleven-year-old and not cared to try to fix her or find anyone to help. That your mother had eaten some candy that shouldn't have hurt her, and then it did, and we thought it was funny, but if someone gave any of my kids that kind of candy, I'd never think that was a joke, and I'd destroy anyone who laughed. And I realized that your mother had been an easy target. That Hagrid and my friends hadn't hurt my aunt and uncle, because they were adults. When I'd accidentally hurt a muggle adult, there had been legal consequences. But no one cared about your mother, and they should have."

"And that headmaster." That was Dumbledore, it had to have been. Dumbledore had been around for ages and ages. "Which House did he hurt?" But you don't even need to ask, once you actually think about the question. You've heard things about Dumbledore. "It was Slytherin, wasn't it? He didn't like Slytherin."

Uncle Harry nods. "They were eleven, too. The younger students are the ones who care the most about the Cup. They're new to Hogwarts and they're invested in the House Cup race. It helps them feel a part of the school. I didn't realize that when I was that age, because I was too busy caring about it to realize that I was being manipulated into caring about it. The older students are too busy with OWLs and NEWTs, but the firsties try so hard to get the Cup. Dumbledore could have awarded the points to give the Cup to Gryffindor at any time, but he didn't. He let them think they were going to win it, and took it away from them at the last minute, in public. And that also wasn't okay, and I didn't realize that for a long time."

"Because you thought he was great, so he couldn't be wrong?" you ask. Maybe it would make sense if it was because of that. It wouldn't be right, but it would make sense.

Uncle Harry laughs shortly. "Oh no, I didn't trust a single adult in my life to be competent. I just didn't realize he had choices. I thought, oh, of course this is how it happens. But it didn't have to be that way. He wasn't being careful with the power that he had, and that was wrong."

The food takes that inopportune moment to arrive. You poke at it. You're hungry, of course you're hungry, you've been waiting for this day for your entire life, and you've been planning on what you've been going to eat for years. You're hungry, but you don't want to eat. You want to be three years old and cry at the table and throw a tantrum because your uncle disappointed you.

"I never trusted or relied on any adults in my life," Uncle Harry says. "So none of them could really disappoint me by being fallible." It's not an apology, but you don't want an apology. You want your mother to get an apology and also her day in court. And it sounds like Uncle Harry has given her apologies -- but probably not the Weasleys, you think, and definitely not Mr. Hagrid -- and no one's going to let her press charges, and knowing your mother, she doesn't even want to, she wants to ignore it and pretend it never happened, the way she pretends everything is fine even when you can see that it's not.

She never wants you to see how hard things can be for her sometimes.

And you wanted to help.

"It's okay for you to be disappointed in me," Uncle Harry says. "It's okay for you to be angry at me. It's okay for you to never forgive me for what I did and what I let happen. I've made it up to your mother and we're mates now, but we weren't then. We both hurt each other a lot. And some of it is my fault and some of it is her fault and most of it is my aunt and uncle's fault."

"What are they like?" you ask.

Uncle Harry shrugs. "Abusive bastards," he says. "You can quote me on it, too. I could do nothing right, your mother could do nothing wrong, but your mother saw right through that early on. She knew those positions could be switched. She knew that meant her parents didn't really love her, they loved the space she took up. So she took up the space they expected her to take, and then she walked right out of their lives and they don't know you exist."

Oh.

"I'm no expert," Uncle Harry says, "but it seems to me that if you really love your son, you'll love your daughter, too. And they didn't. But you know your parents love you, right?"

Yes, of course. That's the most basic part of your life. You're magic. Your parents love you. Your parents want what's best for you, enough to send you to a completely different world, so you can learn to be a completely different type of person than they are, so you can learn to be a wizard and have magic and not use it to torture muggles.

And you're not some kid. You know that nuance exists and that the world isn't a picture book. You know that-- you know that things aren't always the way you want them to be, and all the magic in the world can't always fix it. You know that. You do.

You've just always thought that Uncle Harry was a little bit magic. That Uncle Harry was--

That Uncle Harry was--

It's not fair that Uncle Harry is just a person, in the end, not some wonderful magic wizard who makes everything wonderful and makes you happy and makes the world safe.

You want to stab at your lunch. But instead you gingerly pick up your fork, because you're practically an adult now, and you need to act like it if you want anyone to ever take you seriously, if you want Uncle Harry to know that he can talk to you like an adult, like someone he can say 'abusive bastards' to without blinking, when your parents have always tip-toed around just what your grandparents did that made them unmentionable.

You're a wizard. You're a third year.

And if it means being disappointed in Uncle Harry, and if it means you have to learn how to live with the knowledge that you could make things so much better for your parents but they'll probably never let you... then you will.

But you're still going to look up the statute of limitations on assaulting muggles.