Toward dawn, after performing an exhausting ritual in the basement to create a new protective dome over the Dursley house—one tied to the blood shared between Harry Potter and his relatives—the happy house-elf Dinky, having cleaned all the rooms and removed every remnant of dark magic lingering in the corners, set off on his master's errand to the wizarding bank Gringotts.
Two weeks had already passed since Harry Potter returned to 4 Privet Drive, and during that time much had changed within the Dursley family.
After raising a multilayered protective dome over the home of the Hero of the Wizarding World, into which charms of a rather dark shade based on blood ritualism had been woven, the result was an impressive defense—the kind Lily Potter herself would have wanted to cast before leaving her one-and-a-half-year-old son in the hands of her non-magical sister.
First of all, from the outside, for a wizard capable of seeing it, the shield looked the same as before—a ragged, Muggle-repelling semi-dome with woven charms of reduced attention, proper reasoning, behavior control... and owl mail control. For the one who had raised this shield, it remained untouched and caused no concern.
In reality, on the inside, with the help of the house-elf, Potter had included light wizard-repelling charms so that wizards too would lose interest in peeking at what was happening beyond the fence.
From the inside, the shield resembled a fortress and a health resort combined. Harry had gone all out—charms for healing the mind and the entire body mixed with a complete prohibition on the entry of uninvited guests and ill-wishers, accompanied by a delayed misfortune spell. The delay of the curse, however, depended inversely on the degree of ill intent possessed by the visitor.
Over time, if an observer had the ability to remember how everything looked before, the first thing that would catch their eye would be the noticeable improvement in Petunia's appearance. Looking at her, hardly anyone would call this slim, blonde, attractive young woman a "horse." The male members of the Dursley family—Vernon and Dudley—had toned up, slimmed down, and any resemblance to killer whales had vanished, while no one could have recognized last year's scrawny Potter, whom his cousin's gang used to bully, in that slim, cheerful, sociable boy.
The green-eyed boy's relationship with his relatives had become quite acceptable, even friendly. He continued helping his aunt with household matters, but only concerning the arrangement of his own living space. House-elf Dinky, despite the initial resistance of the lady of the house, had taken over all domestic duties and, with passionate zeal, did everything—cleaning, washing, cooking, repairing, reconstructing. With the help of magic—the ability to cast spells at home was provided by the impenetrable protective dome—Harry assisted him, while Petunia followed after them, giving orders and nearly squealing with delight.
Ordinary people walked past house number four without peeking, without taking interest in what happened beyond the fence, and as soon as they passed by, they immediately forgot anything they might have seen there.
Sometimes, a wanderer dressed in a comical floor-length robe and a pointed hat would head toward the mysterious house with a task and a gleam in his eyes, but upon drawing closer, he would forget where he was going and pass by unnoticed, continuing toward the town center or its outskirts, wondering how he had ended up here in the Muggle part of the world, what he had been looking for, what he had forgotten...
The protection over Harry Potter's Muggle relatives' home worked flawlessly, preventing anyone from either the Wizarding or Muggle world from sticking their long nose into the affairs of this now friendly family.
All this time, the inhabitants of 4 Privet Drive had been inventing and discussing ideas on how to disable the device in the garage without attracting the attention of certain notorious individuals from the Wizarding World. The discussions sometimes reached grotesque proportions, up to Harry's fantastical idea of involving Muggle military aviation. Until Dudley, who remained the only child in the house (though Harry kept quiet about that aspect and played the partisan), proposed a seemingly trivial idea: simply swap the containers, thereby proving the biblical saying that truth is spoken through the mouths of babes.
It happened after the alarm the young wizard had placed on the niche door in the wall containing the device went off, and he, hiding beneath his father's invisibility cloak, ran behind the garage to see who was helping the creator of the device. It was Mrs. Figg! She was taking away the old containers and replacing them with new ones. At the same time, it became clear that the fourth umbilical cord connected the device and the old woman who had always helped the Dursleys with Harry.
"Figg? That cat lady we used to leave you with?" Uncle Vernon shouted that evening after learning the details. "What did she do?"
"She changed the containers," replied Dudley, now thoroughly intrigued by his family's mystery. "While Harry was going around the garage, I watched from inside. It seemed to me that something dark was stirring in one of them..."
"Really, you saw that?" Harry jumped up. "Interesting, we need to think about that, but first we have to destroy the device, otherwise we're all doomed with these endless potions we have to brew and drink just to get along."
"Brother, why don't we just swap the jars?" suggested the still slightly chubby and rosy-cheeked Dudley innocently.
His casually thrown-out suggestion left the others breathless.
"Just swap them? Why?" Vernon asked, failing to understand yet another, perhaps thousandth, idea his nephew had proposed over these weeks, while continuing to eat dinner.
The dark-haired boy froze in surprise, but quickly running through the idea in his head, he realized its brilliance and jumped up to clap Dudley on the shoulder in a sign of deepest approval.
"Dudley, you're amazing! No, you're a genius!" Harry shouted, forgetting all rules of good behavior at the dinner table. "Uncle, if we swap the vessels, the device will work for nothing—it won't pull anything in because the corresponding jar is empty, and it won't draw anything out because the jar occupying the place of the light half is filled with negativity and has no room for new emotions. Maybe Mrs. Figg will leave us alone after becoming kinder. Merlin, we came up with everything imaginable, even exploding gas cylinders in the basement! Hahaha! Dinky!"
The house-elf immediately appeared with a quiet pop and, looking into his master's eyes with unwavering devotion, squeaked:
"Dinky listens to Mister Potter's orders!"
"Remember Schwartz's device?" Harry said in the proper tone for speaking to a family house-elf. "Can you switch the glass containers without causing any disturbances in the outward direction?"
"Dinky can do the work so that the evil wizard who punished Master's family will never learn about it."
"Then, Dinky, do it!"
"Do you think it will work?" Vernon asked after the house-elf departed.
"I think so."
"And how will we make sure?"
"We'll gradually reduce the amount of potions we're drinking."
"Hm."
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