"Wait!" Harry quickly grabbed Petunia's hand, and she looked down at him.
Harry applied some pressure, and Petunia shot the boy a skeptical look, but still patiently bent down and leaned her ear closer.
Harry lowered his voice and said, "Aunt, the problem with my body is due to other reasons; the hospital can't fix it."
Petunia was silent.
Her mind stirred slightly: other reasons?
Her first thought was magic.
Harry's body had weakened without warning, just as her sister had died without warning and Harry, still a baby, had appeared on her doorstep without warning.
Those damned wizards again? That damned magic again?
It killed my sister, and now it's going to kill my sister's child!
Petunia's expression turned terrifying for a moment.
"Aunt?"
Harry looked at Petunia's expression, a bit confused, and his voice snapped her out of it.
Petunia collected herself, looked at Harry with complex eyes, and asked, "Are you sure?"
"Of course."
Harry nodded.
"Fine," Petunia sighed. "Then we won't treat it."
The doctor remained quiet, watching them discuss, inwardly musing that it seemed their relationship was actually quite good.
Vernon had no objections.
They returned home.
Dudley was still curled up obediently on the sofa, wanting to be as far away from the bloodstains on the floor as possible, and when he saw his parents return with Harry, he immediately cast them a hopeful look.
Petunia carried Harry, carefully placing him on the sofa, then silently walked into the kitchen to cook. Vernon picked up the mop without a word, ready to clean the floor.
Dudley craned his neck to look at Harry, his expression hesitant, and finally inched cautiously toward Harry, moving with extreme care to tap Harry's shoulder.
"You…"
He seemed to want to say something but stopped.
Harry smiled, turned his head, and looked at him. "What?"
Dudley shrank back, his face turning red as he pointed to his own mouth, then looked at Harry's mouth. "It's just you…"
His language skills didn't seem very smooth, so he pointed at Vernon, who was busy nearby, and stammered out his meaning. "Blood…?"
"Oh, that. Minor issue." Harry was extremely calm, even spreading his arms to show Dudley.
"Not dead, not hurt, still alive, still breathing."
Dudley was silent.
The chubby boy's eyes were visibly terrified, and he scooted away.
He didn't even dare touch Harry now.
During dinner, Petunia hesitated for a moment before speaking up to ask, "Harry, what do you plan to do? Your body—"
Harry paused, put down his knife and fork to think for a moment, then said, "Aunt, I want to go out and find a solution."
Getting out was the only way to find a suitable person to take as a dependent.
Petunia understood, and she couldn't help but frown. Her disbelief even made her voice a bit shrill. "By yourself?"
"Yes." Harry nodded.
"No way. How old are you?" Petunia flatly refused. "Absolutely not, going alone!"
"Aunt, I'll be fine on my own." Harry tried to persuade her, exasperated. "Don't forget, I still have plenty of those strange tricks I can use."
Petunia and Vernon's expressions darkened, but then Petunia sneered. "Besides making people think you're a freak, what good are your tricks?"
Can they protect you?
Can they deal with bad people?
Harry looked helplessly at Aunt Petunia's firm expression and raised his hand.
Under Petunia and Vernon's wary and slightly puzzled gazes, thin strands of magic flowed out, and the table knife in his hand slowly twisted and changed, turning into a M&P22 Magnum.
Harry smiled, waving the black object in his hand. "See? Very useful."
Petunia and Vernon's expressions went blank.
Dudley stared in terror at the gun in Harry's hand and silently scooted his bottom over.
Harry: Hehe.
"…Still no," Petunia snapped back to reality, saying stiffly. "Even if you have a gun, walking around alone is dangerous."
Harry sighed.
He frowned, thinking for a moment, then raised the gun to point at his own palm.
Dudley began to tremble. With a loud "clatter," he fell off his chair entirely.
Petunia and Vernon's expressions changed.
"Wait. Calm down," Petunia said, raising her voice. "We can discuss this further. There's no need for this!"
They thought Harry was going to hurt himself.
Harry looked baffled. "What are you talking about?"
He quickly understood and gave a wry smile. "I'm just giving you a demonstration."
With that, he smoothly chambered a round and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
A loud "bang" echoed. Dudley went rigid, scrambling on all fours to hide behind his parents.
Petunia and Vernon gasped, their eyes widening bigger than an ox's, fixed intently on Harry.
Harry's hand, which had been shot, curled into a fist. He coughed once under the Dursleys' stunned gaze, then opened his palm.
A deformed bullet fell from his hand.
Harry waved his hand casually. "I can protect myself, Aunt. Let me go out for a while. Maybe I really can find a way, right?"
"See? They can't kill me. Even with a gun, they can't kill me."
Petunia was silent.
"…Let me think. I need to think."
After dinner, Harry slowly made his way back to his small cupboard.
He closed the door, then finally couldn't hold it in anymore. Clutching his chest, he leaned against the wall and coughed in a low voice.
Threads of blood trickled from his mouth, dripping onto the floor and spreading into vivid red plum blossoms.
Harry's face fell. This is unbearable. This body is just too fragile. Just one Transfiguration did this. I have to solve this problem soon.
Dragging his feet, Harry collapsed onto the bed. He weakly pulled the covers around himself, bundled up, and wriggled under them a few times.
It hurts so much…
After a night had passed, Harry felt much better. He dragged his feet as he slowly made his way downstairs.
He had slept in today; Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon hadn't woken him up early in the morning to make breakfast.
Aunt Petunia had already prepared the meal.
After thinking it over all night, she still couldn't figure things out.
They had always been secretive about magic in this house. Setting aside how Harry had found out, she had no idea how he had learned such terrifying skills. It made her head ache.
Petunia was full of doubts: maybe Harry was a genius, just like her sister Lily?
Since she couldn't figure it out, she stopped thinking about it.
After discussing it with Vernon, Petunia felt they probably wouldn't be able to stop Harry. Besides, if, as Harry claimed, his condition was a side effect of magic, going to the hospital probably wouldn't do any good.
She also had no way to contact the wizards who had left Harry with them. If she kept Harry here, he might die at any moment, and then she'd be dragged into the mess herself.
The skill Harry had shown was indeed enough for self-defense. Even though his suggestion was audacious, he didn't seem to have lost his mind.
Maybe it was better to let him go out.
Perhaps he really could find a way to solve his problem.
For some reason, looking into Harry's eyes, even though he was just a child, Petunia inexplicably felt that way.
When she saw Harry come down, she spoke. "If you're going out, what about school?"
Seeing that Petunia seemed to be relenting, Harry breathed a sigh of relief, slightly curbing the magic's influence on her, and shrugged indifferently. "I'm afraid you'll need to go to the school and withdraw me, Aunt, or have me take an indefinite leave of absence."