Roast

The remainder of the school year passed without incident. Well, there was the time one of the girls Sam ate lunch with spotted them walking together and thought it would be funny to start making jokes about it— It must be hard, dating a boy so much shorter than you; you know, there's a reason it's normally the other way around— and soon found herself unable to produce sound beyond an awful croak like a toad… but they didn't talk about that. Sam had been perplexed, but she'd also stopped eating lunch with the girls. Harry couldn't deny the little surge of satisfaction he got when he spotted them looking around for her the next day, but if they found her sitting across from him it would be even more attention, so he concentrated on pretending it was nothing out of the ordinary. Act like nothing is noticeable, and no one will notice, after all.

But he and Sam only sat together for a week. Then summer was upon them, and he had bigger things to worry about. Dudley, namely, and the chance that he'd hear about Sam and it would get back to the elder Dursleys.

Despite that, in his eagerness to get as much time away from Privet Drive as possible, he ended up spending more and more time with Sam, either reading at the library, wandering around Little Whinging, or curled up on the couch watching movies for hours on end. Will seemed more than happy to stop by the rental shop on his way home from work, especially when he realized Harry had seen next to none of his favorite movies. Harry's favorites were, unsurprisingly, things like Batman and Superman, comics in another form, but he wasn't about to complain about any of them.

They'd watched Return of the Jedi, too, the last of the Star Wars trilogy, but after one incident where Harry was daydreaming about flying an x-wing and he thought he made his bed float, he tried to push them out of his mind. It was just his imagination getting away from him... Of course it was. But it had felt so real he'd almost believed it, and that made it worse. He was tempting fate even thinking about anything unnatural in the Dursley's house; better not to risk pretending his freakishness was something wonderful, like the Force. It wasn't, simple as that, and while Will might have been obsessed with the galaxy long-ago, far-far-away, Harry feigned disinterest until the topic dropped.

It was easier than he'd expected, as outside the handoff of movies and occasional shared meal, they didn't see much of Will. When they did, he was increasingly exhausted. More than one Saturday morning Harry let himself in to hear Will yelling at someone over the phone, Sam in a tight ball on the living room with headphones plugged into Will's old Walkman, blasting The Clash or The Cure and humming along. Will must have been able to hear the door, because he would end the conversation fairly quickly, then come to make his apologies before disappearing back to London.

"They've got a block they're trying to work on near Tottenham Court Road, but weird complications keep popping up," she told him. Will and Niall worked for a real estate development firm. "Dad says it doesn't make any sense—the architects will come in and measurements that were accurate the day before have been changed. Once they ended up with a shipment of fifty thousand bricks, except none of what they're building uses bricks... All I know is it keeps him late at work."

Regardless, Will always greeted Harry with a smile, and always made time to find them new movies. And when he came home late and exhausted and fell asleep practically as soon as he settled into the armchair in the living room, Harry showed Sam how to cook things more filling than canned soup or instant noodles. They always made enough for Will, too, and if he woke up and wandered into the kitchen to find them working through a recipe from the cookbook Sam had taken out from the library, he'd ruffle Harry's hair and roll up his sleeves. He always called Harry 'chef' in those instances, and asked how he could help—it was odd, in the face of the Dursleys.

But everything about Will was odd, for an adult. He celebrated his thirtieth birthday in early June—Niall came over again, and Harry and Sam baked him a cake—so he was definitely the age that he ought to start judging Harry for breathing the wrong way like the other neighborhood parents did. Instead, he seemed to approve of Harry's goal of staying away from Privet Drive as often as possible. Whenever Harry dodged a question about whether his aunt and uncle knew where he was, Will would smile. He didn't comment, usually, but Harry felt like if he did it would be to say, attaboy. And if he came home and found them camped out on the couch with a bag of microwave popcorn and a cheesy horror movie on, he'd join them. And he very rarely asked them to turn down the music, even if they were blasting his copy of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols when he came home half asleep.

But he was an adult. An overworked overtime employee, who barely saw his daughter unless she woke up early or stayed up late. And the rest of the time, when Harry was stuck doing chores or had been ordered to his room, Sam was home alone.

And for the first time, Harry found himself wondering what their lives were like when he wasn't there, that made Sam brighten so much when he came in.

—

Harry and Sam were watching Hitchcock's The Birds one afternoon when there was a knock on the door. The two children started, glancing at each other, neither one wanting to admit that they'd actually been engrossed in the film and the sudden noise had their hearts pounding.

"Are you expecting someone?" Harry whispered. Sam shook her head. "Maybe we can just ignore it and they'll go away?"

The knocker didn't go away: they knocked again. The curtains were drawn, so they couldn't see who was standing on the step. No doubt they could hear the movie, though; Harry could see the shadow moving back and forth —

And then, in a voice muffled by the door, they heard: Sam, I can hear the telly. Would you please let me in?

Niall. The pair jumped to their feet and hurried to let him in.

They were greeted by a tired smile. "Sam. Harry. Sorry to drop in on you like this."

"Are you with dad?"

"No, I… no." Niall sighed, glancing down at his watch. "I've only got a few minutes myself, Sam. I'm just… I left some things upstairs that… I'd better take home."

"Oh," said Sam, her shoulders falling, taking a step back. Harry glanced between them in confusion, but she didn't say anything else, just turned and went back into the front room. She grabbed one of the pillows off the couch and wrapped her arms around it as she sat down, folding her knees in front of her chest, staring intently at the screen as birds attacked a birthday party.

Harry sat at the other end of the couch, but he couldn't get back into the movie. He could hear Niall moving around upstairs, and wondered, vaguely, what it was he could have left up there. When Niall returned a few scenes of the movie later, he had two bags full of things, but Harry couldn't see into them to see what they were. Harry supposed it was none of his business, except that Sam had gone quiet in a way she didn't unless she was upset.

"Well," said Niall, after he'd stood in the doorway watching the movie with them for a minute. "That should be everything."

"CDs," Sam said.

"Those were gifts. I'm—I'm not going to take back a gift, Sam. I know you probably don't think much of me right now, but really, I'm not that bad."

Sam tore her eyes from the screen at last, slowly turning to look up at him. "Are you really… you know he's just…"

Niall sighed. He dropped the bag in the hall and came around to sit on the coffee table in front of Sam. "Sometimes things just don't work out, kiddo."

"I know that," she said, fists tightening on the pillow. "I know that better than…"

"Yes, I suppose you do, don't you. Look, Sam, your dad and I… we're very different people. We come from extremely different backgrounds, and have much different expectations, and…" He sighed again. "It's not easy, you know? But sometimes it is better to… find someone you've got more in common with, rather than sticking around when things aren't working out."

"But it's not fair," she said, burying her face into the pillow so she didn't have to look at him. "Everything was fine until the project."

"No, Sammy, it wasn't," Niall said softly.

"But it could have been."

"Maybe." He sighed again, and his eyes settled on Harry, who was watching the whole exchange with confusion. He was missing something—a good number of somethings, really—but Sam was upset. "There are differences that can't be overcome. Some things that can't be spoken. You'll understand, someday."

"You're just saying that to make yourself feel better," Sam snapped. "I bet Dad doesn't agree."

"Maybe not." Niall sighed, and, after a moment's hesitation, ruffled Sam's hair as he stood up. "Look after him for me, would you, kiddo?"

Sam didn't respond. Niall looked to Harry again, and his voice was a bit softer when he spoke: "And you, Harry. You look after yourself, alright? Maybe we'll all meet again someday, and it'll be on better terms."

And then he left, picking up the bags in the hall as he went. The door clicked shut behind him, and over the sounds of the forgotten movie—birds pouring down the chimney of the house and attacking the family trying to eat dinner—Harry could hear his car turn on and back onto the street. At the other end of the couch, Sam still has her face pressed into the pillow.

"Sam?"

"He's an idiot."

"Niall?"

"Dad." She lifted her head slightly so she could peer over at him with one eye. "He's always spending so much time worrying about himself… Niall's the one steady boyfriend he's had in years, you know?"

Boyfriend. The word rolled over Harry, making him blink in surprise. He hadn't made the connection, but now that she said it, it was obvious.

"And now he's gone and screwed that up too, spending so much time at that stupid job he doesn't even like…"

"I thought they worked together?" Harry asked, grasping for solid ground. Cursing his own… naivete. Recalibrating.

"Sort of. Different parts of the same company. They're on the same project, but Niall never lets it get to him, does he? Not the way dad does. Dad's gotten himself all worked up over it and can barely give Niall the time of day."

"Maybe we just don't see it," Harry said. "I mean, they're hardly ever here."

She squinted at him, not answering, and lifted her head to rest her chin on the pillow, wiping the snot dribbling out of her nose on the sleeve of her jumper before realizing what she'd done, scowling down at it, and peeling off the garment, tossing it across the room. Not that she really needed a jumper in the middle of summer, but she, like Harry, was accustomed to wearing long sleeves. The bruises she'd showed him that first day were long gone, of course, but some habits live on even after logic deems them unnecessary.

"Gran will be happy, the old bitch," she mumbled, sinking her fingers like claws back into the pillow. "You can't imagine how glad I was to hear she couldn't have kids in her building. Otherwise, she'd have never let me come live here. She thinks Dad's sick, but she's just as bad as mum is, I swear."

-

When Will came home, he didn't say anything, But for two weeks when he arrived he'd switch out whatever they were listening to for Depeche Mode. Harry wasn't entirely sure it was related, but it gave the evenings a strangely haunted mood.

Sam, for her part, eventually got sick of it and filled the Depeche Mode cases with Queen, and, just like that, the house was ringing with joy. Will came home and barely looked at what cassette he was loading up, and when he jumped at the sudden shouts of BICYCLE! BICYCLE! BICYCLE! even he couldn't help but laugh. He tugged one of Sam's braids as he went by, but he smiled, and he didn't change the music.

-

Queen followed them through the rest of the summer, and while Harry sometimes had trouble raising his voice when he wasn't angry soon enough Will and Sam had him belting along to Bohemian Rhapsody with them. His Aunt caught him humming once while he was vacuuming the sitting room, and had set him mulching the garden instead, complaining that he was 'making a racket' and giving her a migraine, but Harry didn't mind. The back of his neck and tips of his ears were sunburnt, a rare experience in Surrey, and it meant he was stuck on Privet Drive longer than he'd have liked, but Petunia and Dudley weren't about to go outside in the heat, so Harry could hum as much as he liked.

After, he ran off to Magnolia Crescent before Petunia could saddle him with any other chores that didn't need to be done. Sam took one look at him and pointed him towards the shower. His clothes, a pair of Dudley's old shorts that reached halfway past his knees and one of the hole-filled polo shirts he'd worn for primary school, were dusted with mulch and reeked something terrible, so she found him some of hers that weren't too strange and left them outside the door. The jeans needed to be belted and the shirt was oddly cut, but even in girls' sizes they fit better than any of Dudley's old things, and Sam leant him the claret West Ham hoodie Will had gotten her in an unsuccessful conversion attempt, which covered up the shirt, anyways.

A quick snack of crackers and they made their way to the library, only to find an unwelcome sight—Dudley's friend Piers Polkiss's mother was just getting out of her car to go inside. Harry managed to dodge behind a tree before she looked their way, earning a strange look from Sam, but she didn't question it until Mrs Polkiss had gone inside.

"You know her?"

"She has tea with my aunt," Harry explained. "And I don't want Piers to hear—er, that's her son; he's friends with Dudley. He'd make the rest of my summer hell if he found out."

"What," Sam demanded, putting her hands on her hips. "That you're friends with a girl?"

"That I'm friends with anyone," Harry clarified. "He used to beat up anyone he saw being nice to me."

Her irritation vanished as she stared at Harry. It took him a moment to realize what he'd said. He didn't talk about the Dursleys, when he didn't have to, least of all as directly as that.

For a moment Harry thought she was going to raise a fuss, but then she seemed to recover herself, licking her lips and glancing around. "Well, I guess… we could watch Back to the Future again, if you'd like? And come back later, I mean. When she's gone. Or… we could wait for her to leave."

"Later," Harry decided. If at all. He didn't care for the feeling of Mrs Polkiss being there. It was an invasion, a contamination, the corrupting influence of the Dursleys seeping beyond Privet Drive. It was because of her he'd slipped up, after all. Given Sam an unwanted glimpse. That was warning enough for Harry.

They walked back slowly, the way they came. The same route they usually came, on the side lined with rowan and ash trees, though Harry was eyeing the street, watching for Mrs Polkiss's car, in case he needed to duck his head.

"Did Will finish his project?" he asked Sam eventually, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them.

"He says the worst of it is done. He didn't get home until eleven last night, though."

"Well, he said he was going to take some time off once it's over, right?" Harry asked. "Maybe he'll have time to take you to a game, or something?"

"Maybe." He could see Sam chewing on her lip. "Do you want to go with us, if we do? I'm sure dad wouldn't mind."

"Oh, um, thanks, but no. I—it'd be too loud."

"But that's half the fun. And you like football. I know you do. If you weren't so caught up in trying to hide from everyone, I bet you'd get on the school team."

"I'm too short," he said. Not out of embarrassment—they'd played together at the park and in sports a few times—but out of the strangeness of someone noticing how far he went to hide. It wasn't an entirely bad feeling, but he didn't know how to place it. Normally, being noticed was a bad thing...

"But you're fast. Not as fast as me, of course, but you're faster than any of the boys, and you think before you kick the ball. And besides, there's plenty of players who are…"

Her voice trailed away, and Harry realized she'd fallen out of step. "Sam?" he asked, looking back.

Sam was frozen in place, staring into the street. He followed her gaze—a Vauxhall with chipped red paint was at the light, and there was a woman in the driver's seat, staring back at them, or, Sam, really. She started to roll down the window, and Sam took a step back—but then the car behind her blared its horn: the light had changed. The woman scowled, and jabbed her finger towards them, but slammed on the gas, the car lurching forward with audible protest.

Harry looked back to his friend quickly. "Sam?" he repeated.

"That's—that's my—"

Harry took in the wideness of her eyes, the way the blood had drained from her face and left her pale, how she was looking down the street towards where the car was waiting at the next light for a right turn. He grabbed her arm, looked both ways, and pulled her out into the street, dodging across towards the Tesco. When he looked back, he saw the car swerving into a U-turn, the other cars honking—she must have seen them. He hurried inside, looking around for somewhere to hide.

Vanessa Lindsay was behind the counter, reading a magazine, as they hurried in. "Alright, Sam?" she asked as she caught sight of the pair, setting it down. "Potter, what did you—"

Sam broke free of his grip and staggered forward, grabbing the edge of the counter as though she wouldn't be able to stay upright without it. She finally spoke, but it was like she was choking on the words, trying to get them out. "My—my mum, she's…"

She trailed away, spotting the red car pulling into the carpark visible through the windows over Vanessa's shoulder. Harry grabbed her and pulled her down out of sight as the older girl looked, and when she turned back around her face had hardened.

"Come over here, Sam," she said. "Don't get up. We'll hide you. I've got a panic button if we need it, but it'd be better… come on."

Sam crawled forward, hurrying towards the gap between the counter and the wall at the far end. Harry followed her, looking around for something to grab. There was a row of magazines and newspapers on a slanted shelf in front of the checkout, and he grabbed one at random, though his eyes were on the woman slamming the door of her car shut and stomping towards the store.

She was skinny, and tall in her high heels, wearing a long, light blue sweater that stopped mid-thigh over a pair of ripped jeans and an oversized bomber jacket on top. When she came into the store, her hair, thick and the same chestnut brown as Sam's, fanned out around her as she jerked her head this way and that. Harry saw her look towards him, and quickly looked down at the paper he'd grabbed. Don't see her, he thought desperately, remembering the look of terror in Sam's face. She's not here, you don't know where she is…

"You—boy! Where did Samantha go?"

He made a show of looking up and blinking, as though confused at being addressed. "Samantha?" asked Harry slowly. He glanced around. The store was nearly empty, except for him and Vanessa and Sam's mother coming back up the aisle. "Who's that?"

"My daughter!" the woman snapped. "I saw you drag her in here, boy! Where is she?"

"Look, ma'am, he came in here alone, I saw it," Vanessa said. "If you're going to make a fuss, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Harass—" The woman cut herself off, and her aggression shifted into a tight smile. "Never mind that. Where's the aspirin?"

"Third aisle over, near the back," Vanessa directed.

The woman shot Harry a haughty look, and then stalked off, peering obviously down each aisle she passed. Harry kept his head turned towards the magazine and followed the sound of her footsteps through the floor, watching as she wove around. The magazines were kept on a display half the height of the other aisles, so he had as good a view as he could. When he glanced towards the counter again, Sam was peering up at him with wide eyes. He barely had time to motion for her to move behind the counter before the woman came around the far end of the aisle.

"Are you actually reading that garbage?" she demanded as she came close to Harry again.

He glanced down. He was holding a copy of The Mirror. The headline seemed to scream up at him—DEVON MAN TELLS ALL: 'THERE ARE ALIENS EATING MY CARROTS! '—accompanied by a badly doctored image of what looked like a lawn gnome crossed with E.T.

"What's it to you?" he asked, holding it closer to his chest. She had hazel eyes, but her pupils were unnaturally dilated and they were rimmed with red, like she'd been crying, though she didn't look particularly sad.

She snorted, and stalked past him, trailing the stench of cigarette smoke. She'd made a complete cycle around the store, and apparently collected some items on her way. She slammed them down on the counter: a container of aspirin and a bottle of some sort of alcohol.

Harry swallowed. He could see Sam's shadow alongside Vanessa's, as she pressed herself into and under the counter, but it was only luck that kept her out of sight—luck, and the fact that the woman was still looking around the store, not at Vanessa, as though expecting Sam to pop out from around some corner.

She's not here, she's not here, she's not here...

"I'll need to see your ID, ma'am," said Vanessa.

"What?"

"It's store policy to ask for ID for any alcohol."

"Do I look like a child?"

"Store policy, ma'am," she repeated. "ID, or I can't sell it to you."

The woman sniffed loudly, but dug in her coat for a battered wallet, from which she extracted her driver's license and a credit card. She threw both down on the counter and tossed her hair with practiced disgust, catching sight of Harry staring at her.

"What are you looking at?" she snapped at him.

He shrugged, rolling his eyes, and looked back down at the paper, though he didn't read a word of it. She's not here, he thought firmly, and he closed his eyes and believed it. You can't see her, she's not here, you can't—

"Is he messed up, or something?" he heard the woman ask Vanessa. "You know, sick in the head?"

"Your total is £22.89," Vanessa replied. A moment later he heard her slide the card, and the bag rustle, and then—"Would you like your receipt with you or in the bag?"

If the woman replied, she didn't do it audibly, and a moment later he heard the bag rustle, and then—footsteps away. Harry opened his eyes again, just in time to see the woman look back over her shoulder at them. Sam had slid around to the gap between the counter and the wall, out of sight— she's not here— so the woman sniffed again, and shook her hair out, and stormed out the door.

One of the other employees on duty, a man in his twenties, maybe, wearing a knit cap pulled low on his head, came forward as the doors slid shut behind her. He glanced at Harry, but seemed unconcerned by him. "Um, Nessa? You know that lady? The fuck's her problem?"

"Shh," said Vanessa, watching the woman cross the carpark.

He snorted, coming closer. "She can't hear me through glass and across—" He nearly stepped on Sam, but glanced down at the last moment, eyes widening. "Okay, hello. Who're the kids?"

"Shut up a minute, won't you?"

They all waiting what felt like an hour, watching out the window, until the taillights of the beat-up car turned on, and at last she pulled out onto the street. It couldn't have been more than a minute, but they all let out a long breath.

Vanessa grabbed for the phone on the counter and punched in a number. "Hey," said the other guy. "What're you—"

She slapped a hand over his mouth. "Yes, hello, I'd like to report—there's someone who looks to be driving while drinking, or something like that. It's a beat-up red Astra, and there's a tail-light out, and she was swerving all over the place, going down Magnolia Street—yes." She paused, glancing outside. Harry could hear the voice coming through the line, though he couldn't make out any of the words. "South. It started with B31, I think? She had a bottle of Archers and—what's that? No, sorry, I can't—"

She pressed hard on the button to hang up the phone, then set the receiver down with a shrug, looking down towards where Sam was still hidden behind the counter. "Well, maybe they'll chase her down, Sam. I dunno."

"She was high as a kite," the guy said. "Eyes all wooahhh and everything. You know her?"

Vanessa offered Sam a hand and pulled her up. "Sam's mum. They've got a non-molestation order on her," she said. "You see her car around, punch in the window or something."

"D—don't do that," said Sam. She glanced up at Vanessa, only to flinch and look down at her feet again. "I… can I call my dad?"

"Sure," said Vanessa, and she pushed the phone towards her.

"Mum's not gonna like that," the guy warned.

"Yeah, well, she's my mum, not yours, and she wouldn't like hearing you've got that bloody hat on again, would she, so I'd keep it to myself if I were you."

He held up his hands, surrender, and went off back towards the aisle he'd been in before, sparing Harry a bemused glance as he went by.

Sam dialed the home phone, but it was still too early for Will to be home. She tried his company, too, but there was a long wait before the call went through to someone in his office, who explained that Will was out with his team at an on-site visit, would she like to leave a message? Sam declined, and hung up the phone, still looking shaken.

"Wait ten minutes, and I'll be off shift, and I'll walk you home," said Vanessa. "Just… if you want to choose a sweet, or something, I'll let you use my discount."

-

They didn't see Sam's mum on the way home, though Vanessa peered around each corner they turned the whole way along and Sam jumped at every sound. Sam didn't want to go to the Lindsays', so she and Harry went inside the house and locked the door again. They didn't turn on any of the lights, and pulled down the blinds in the front room, but neither of them could get comfortable there. After a few minutes, Sam led Harry upstairs.

The house had a similar design to the Dursleys, only the rooms that would have been the pairs of his and Dudley's didn't exist, so she was in what was the guest room at number four. Some of her things were still in boxes, but she had a few Chelsea F.C. posters on the walls, and a stack of books on the desk. He took the desk chair and she sat on the bed, and they both tried to read, but every time a car went by outside Sam would jump and look at Harry, and he'd peer through the blinds down at the street and shake his head when it inevitably went by.

It was a few hours before that pattern broke. The car didn't go by, it pulled into the driveway, and shut down. Sam looked at Harry in alarm, but he peered out and found a familiar sight—"It's Will. I mean, your dad."

She was up before he finished, and running down the stairs before he could follow her out the door.

"Hey, kiddo. Harry here? I got take-out," Harry heard Will call, and he arrived at the door just in time to see Sam crash into her father, throwing her arms around his waist in a tight hug. Will was startled, barely managing to keep his balance and the bags in his hands from getting crushed. "Sammy?" he asked, but she didn't seem like she was going to reply.

Harry picked his way more carefully down the step, mindful of his bare feet, glancing up and down the street for the red car as he went.

"We were walking back from the library," he told Will quietly. "Her—her mum spotted us. Vanessa let us hide in Tesco until she was gone, but…"

Will's face tightened, and after a moment, he passed Harry the bag of take-out, and shifted under Sam's tight grip until he managed to pick her up. Her arms came up and wrapped tightly around his neck.

"I'm not going back," Sam mumbled into his shoulder, as Harry turned away. "I'm not. She can't have me."

"You won't, Sam," Will replied, but he sounded tired. "You won't."

Harry hurried inside. He'd stayed with her, but this was… too personal. A moment he wasn't supposed to be witnessing. Maybe he should just—

"Harry," Will called after him. "Could you grab the plates? We'll eat in the living room."

-

An hour later, Sam was curled up on the couch, asleep over a movie, take-out containers and abandoned plates spread out over the coffee table, when Petunia appeared at the door of the Ellis's place.

When Harry saw her, he felt lightheaded. It must have shown in his face, because Will, who had answered her knock, looked even more concerned, and lodged himself firmly in the door between them, so Petunia had to look at Harry over his shoulder.

That only made it worse, seeing them within inches of each other. If all was right in the world, the Dursleys and the Ellises would be on opposite ends of the universe, never to meet.

"You're going home, now," Petunia said.

"Why?" said Harry.

She glared cooly towards Will, her nostrils flaring, but he didn't move from the doorway, or uncross his arms from in front of his chest. "I need to take Vernon to the hospital," she said shortly. "And there's a roast in the oven, and I need you to take it out."

That was—reasonable. Harry stood in place for a moment, and then turned and found his shoes. It was the quickest way to get her off of the step and away from here. "Could you tell Sam?" he muttered.

"Sure," said Will. "Harry—if you need anything, just call."

Harry nodded, and stepped out, following his aunt. Vernon was in the passenger seat of the car, for once, and his face was both flushed and pale. Petunia stopped Harry before he could get in the back seat, thrusting a copy of the key to the house into his hands. "There's no time to waste waiting for you," she said. "Walk. And get the roast out ten minutes before the timer says. If we're not back by eight, wrap it and put it in the refrigerator."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia."

-