Chapter 15

With sudden energy derived from his new found decisiveness, he dived headlong into his chosen path. He collected old newspapers and spent hour after hour for days focusing on ripping them into shreds, purely with chakra. Harry was on the road to wind mastery. The future was bright. Of course, he still needed to figure out how to use handseals...

XXX

Then, on a day that seemed quite ordinary, he was awakened by rude and incessant pounding on his door. And when he opened it, he found himself staring at the big, purpling and ugly mug of one Vernon Dursley. His uncle had finally blown a gasket. It was not unexpected, yet given that Harry had spent the last few days happily cutting paper in ever thinner and quicker slices, he had forgotten about the fact that there was a Moby Dick waiting to wreck his ship. The realization that this was a preordained event however did not mean that Harry intended to lay meekly, like a lamb to the slaughter. He was quite prepared to retaliate, physically or mentally. So, Harry asked questioningly, "Yes, uncle?"

Unaware of the grim determination that had settled into the mind of his young quarry, Vernon unleashed his primary weapon, the verbal salvo.

"None of that tone with me boy! You've been slacking off! Think we wouldn't notice?"

Harry noticed that his uncle failed to mention that it was the Dursleys themselves who reduced his chores till they were barely noticeable. Vernon meanwhile continued without pause or breath.

"No more I say! We've been far too kind to you boy! We took you in! Fed you! Housed you! And even sent you to a school! You think all that's free? You'd better go back to those chores or there will be consequences, you hear!"

Harry was surprised to find he had not retaliated with excessive force. His wonderment at his own self control was neatly shattered when Vernon, the ignorant whale muttered "useless freak" in a low voice that Harry only barely heard. But for some reason, it was enough. Rage exploded from within. Chakra flared and refused to settle down. The wind began to swirl around him, leaving nicks and lines in wide spirals.

Vernon watched these happenings with an attitude that was surprisingly logical. He saw the manifestation of otherworldly power, watched as the very air cut into his clothes, the wall and all things not his nephew. He analyzed this in a split second and decided on his course of action, executing it instantaneously.

Harry, in the detached state of mind that unholy rage left him in, watched as Vernon pissed in his pants(the liquid was clearly leaving its mark) while attempting to run away, all the while screaming like a little girl. Now that was multi-tasking!

Then as suddenly as it started, the uncontrolled chakra emission ended, and Harry was left with mere rage in his mind. To siphon it off, before he really did kill somebody, he used quite a few handseals to ensnare his uncle in a genjutsu, one that was quite useful, considering that it was a fear genjutsu that used the victims own fears to use. It was just really really hard, being complex and highly energy intensive. Perfect.

Vernon suddenly found himself very very small. All around him shadowy figures darted about in the shadows, in this house that suddenly looked nothing like the one he lived in. Occasionally macabre figures dressed in the freaky clothes came towards him, leering at him, flashing their hideous rotten teeth. They pointed twigs at him, vanishing and appearing in distinct pops. It was a scene right out of hell. And then, there was him. A single black clothed figure came out of the swarm of shadows, its face hooded and unseen. The figure with its distinctively Grim Reaper appearance lifted a single arm, whose sleeve lid down a bit, revealing a skeletal hand, devoid of all living tissue.

"Vernon....Vernon...have you come to play?", a creepy childish voice arose from the hood.

Vernon shivered. There was a disturbingly familiar ring to that voice, but he was far too busy staring at the bony index finger pointed at his face to think about such things.

"What shall I do...What shall I do...Oh what shall I do... With you I wonder!" the specter wailed, in an even more crazy and creepy sounding voice, plunging Vernon's jelly like spine into an icy abyss. Vernon however had surprisingly retained enough sanity to reply, or rather ask a question of his own.

"Wh-wh-who are you?" he spoke in a voice that sounded more brave than he felt.

The figure laughed, a horrible laugh that conveyed a maelstrom of negative emotions far more effectively than any words devised by the tongues of man.

"Why dear Vernon! Don't you know who I am? Or better still, what I am?", it asked, bringing down its hood, revealing a bleached skull, that was quite scary, especially considering the hint of fire in its eye sockets. And then, to complete the picture, a scythe materialized on the back of the entity, as if waiting to be used. Vernon was horrified. The reaper looked straight at him.

"Now now Vernon...Don't look at me like that! Surely you knew that if you kept up your unholy behavior, you would be punished..." then he continued in a more sing song voice, "You're going to hell Vernon! And I'm taking you there!"

Mad cackling followed.

Vernon paled. He wasn't as religious as he thought (or told everyone) he was, but the idea of going to hell was not one he really wanted to see happen. As if reading his thoughts, Vernon saw that both he and the reaper were in front of a set of huge fiery ornate gates. They opened with a creak and he could just about make out the sight, sound, smell and the plain pure aura of suffering that lay beyond it. A red glow promised the fires that were surely waiting to start roasting him...slowly.

The reaper then lay his cold clammy 'hand' on Vernon's shoulder. "You still have a chance Vernon...will you take it?" his creepy tone of voice seemed to make it very clear that there was nothing it wanted more than to see Vernon refuse. Vernon immediately refused to refuse. "Wh-what must I do?"

The reaper sounded extremely disappointed."Will you live your life as you should have? Will you give your nephew the care and support you should have given him? Will you treat him like he is human? WILL YOU STOP ADDING TO YOUR SINS?"

Vernon furiously nodded. The reaper chuckled, creepily of course.

"Are you sure you can do it Vernon my dear? I'm not...but then again, just remember...if you slip juuust once..." he waved a bony hand to the gates, which flared brighter, as if anticipating Vernons entry into their fiery domain.

And then he found himself cowering on the ground near an amused looking Harry, a confused Petunia and a blank looking Dudley. "Vernon darling? Are you all right?" Petunia asked, quite concerned. "You were shaking and shivering a lot, uncle Vernon." No prizes for guessing who.

Vernon shook himself. Was it all a dream? He looked at Harry's door. It was untouched. Not a sign of the freakish display he was sure he had just seen. When he was just about to write the whole thing off as one big hallucination, he felt a bony hand on his shoulder and a familiar creepy childish voice whisper into his ear...

"Remember what happens if you forget...i would just...hate it... If you decided that hell is where you want to spend eternity...Then I won't have aaaanyone to...entertain me...wouldn't want that now, would we Vernon?" Vernon had in the middle of it glanced behind him,just to make sure, only to see nobody there. He promptly renounced any intention of sinning. He also resolved to be more religious in the future.

Harry spent the month of December in considerably more comfort and ease than all the previous years of his life. No chores, no glares, no nothing. It was as if the Dursleys had suddenly turned a new leaf, which was creepy in its own way, mind altering genjustsu not withstanding. Consequently when Petunia asked, oh so nicely if Harry would spend Christmas with them, Harry politely refused and asked if it would be okay to spend his holidays with his school librarian to work on a project. And in a testament to the Dursleys sea change in attitude they agreed, without batting an eyelid at the wording he had used. They even wished him a safe trip and luck on his project. Harry wondered if his genjutsu had done its work too well.

XXX

Of course, when he got to Richards, he had to deal with a different, if more 'normal' problem.

Richards rubbed his chin lazily and looked at him gravely.

"So let me get this straight, your uncle-"

He stressed his voice with a particularly strong hint of disbelief.

"-had some type of quasi-religious experience."

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