Chapter Text
Bloom feels the exact moment her patience runs out, snaps like a twig more like, when Marge says "It's really all the fault of the mother. If there's something wrong with the bitch, then there'll be something wrong with the pup."
Bloom whirls around, feeling fire dancing across her skin and uncaring if she's melting the counter or if her eyes are turning orange or not - they aren't, they're turning straight to fire. She's literally never felt angrier in her entire life, and knows she can't take one more moment of the Dursleys without going insane. "SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP, THE LOT OF YOU! NONE OF YOU KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT!"
Vernon's face turns a deep shade of purple, and Marge says "You ungrateful little brat. Your shameful, alcohol-addicted, good-for-nothing parents die in a car crash, and my brother and his wife graciously take you into their home, yet you-"
She slams a fist down on the counter, shouting "MY PARENTS WEREN'T DRUNKS, THEY WERE DAMN WELL RICH! I'VE GOT A PILE OF MONEY SITTING IN GRINGOTTS TALLER THAN THIS BLOODY HOUSE! THEY GOT MURDERED AT THE HANDS OF A BLOODY HOMICIDAL PSYCHO THAT WOULD LOVE TO POINT HIS WAND AT YOU FOUR AND DO THE SAME! I HATE YOU, I BLOODY WELL HATE YOU ALL!"
All the drinks boil away, glasses start melting, the food catches fire - she can sense the stove all but exploding behind her, a number of fire-geysers lighting her up from behind - and Dudley whimpers "Mummy, make her stop…"
Bloom snarls "YOUR BLOODY MOTHER CAN'T DO ANYTHING TO STOP ME! SHE'S JUST A BITTER TWIG WHO WAS JEALOUS THAT HER SISTER WAS BORN WITH SOMETHING SHE WASN'T, SO SHE TOOK IT OUT ON HER UNTIL THE DAY SHE DIED AND IS STILL TAKING IT OUT ON ME! YOUR NOTHING BUT THE SPOILED-ROTTEN PIG OF A BYPRODUCT OF HER ATTEMPT TO SPITE HER SISTER'S MEMORY AS LONG AS POSSIBLE!"
Vernon gets up from his chair, pushing aside his fear - a sizable amount, in all honesty - to hit her. He gets exactly two steps before he's slammed backwards by a fireball to his stomach, feeling much like he's cooked through.
Marge gets the scare of her life when she gets up and marches over, and Bloom lets out a roar - the most terrifying sound anyone but Bloom has ever heard before - and a gush of fire from her hands.
Petunia and Dudley scream in utter terror - there's something forming in the fire, something big with claws and a long snake-like body. And it roared along with her. Hells, maybe it's why she roared - maybe she roared along with it. Either way, it's terrifying.
Bloom kicks Ripper as he's scrabbling to get away, delivers a good kick to the side that sends the mutt she hates flying - she likes most animals, but she can't force herself to like a dog that treed her for eight hours and would've torn her apart after no provocation whatsoever from her.
Dudley's looking at her with a mixture of awe and fear - more fear than awe, but she really can't bring herself to feel bad about that at the moment as she storms up the stairs and magically packs every single thing she owns in the room. Her most prized non-living possession, the photo album of her parents Hagrid gave her - and a picture at the end of herself, Ron, and Hermione in their first year - she wraps in three of her robes and places squarely in the middle of the trunk before she all but throws every single thing in with it and lets Hedwig out of the horrible little cage. And then melts the cage, for good measure.
She already knows Vernon will be waiting downstairs - she also knows she'll either go completely mental or he'll actually kill her if she stays one more day in this hellhole of a house. She transforms, deciding that if she's going to go to Azkaban or something she'll go big before going to her new home, and floats the trunk down the stairs after her. And blasts Vernon in the chest, sending him into the wall before he can scream at her about anything.
It didn't escape anyone other than Bloom that the entire house was vibrating like there was an earthquake going on when she so spectacularly lost her cool like she did - Dudley gasps and clutches at Petunia when he sees the transformation his cousin has undergone. She's also got a layer of fire around her body, and her eyes are the orange of her hair instead of their usual blue now that she's not quite at her exploding point. Oh, yes, and she's got wings coming from her back.
Vernon groans, then looks up and says "I knew it, you're just a freak, Girl. Even more of a freak than the freaks you go to that freak-school with."
Bloom's booted foot connects with his face at that, as she flew down to him in a blur of colors and kicked him in the face hard enough to do a backflip, and she shouts "Shut it, you fat whale! You just like to grind anyone who's different into the dust to make yourself feel better! And I'm through with it. I'm never coming back!"
She lands as Petunia says "You've nowhere else to go. So, go ahead and leave. Die, see if we care."
Dudley gulps at the scathing look Bloom sends her way, and she says "Want to bet? I survived over a decade of you people. Anywhere's better than here. Anything's a damn cakewalk after you." She stalks out, head held high, and magically slams the door shut hard enough to rattle the walls.
Bloom walks to a nearby park, literally steaming in the cool night air, and sets her trunk to the ground gently before screaming about how she hates the Dursleys for the world to hear - long enough for her throat to get raw. She also kicks a large slide, which blows it apart and really hurts her foot for a minute.
Then, all her anger suddenly drains away, the fire around her going out suddenly - no, she was far too angry to care if she exposed the entire wizarding world by very obviously being on fire and lighting up the whole street like a bonfire - and sits down on a nearby bench and starts sobbing. Turns out, releasing almost eleven years of pent-up emotions acquired through child abuse is incredibly draining. She's got a good headache by the time she's finished and her own magic is slow to kick in at the moment - she knew about her magic long before that letter to Hogwarts, since she was six, actually.
The Dursleys locked her in that broom closet for 'misbehaving' in some way, then they all went to do something - she forgets what, a business deal she thinks, but it isn't important anyway - across town…and then got stuck in a snowstorm. A bad one, the roads were blocked for days apparently. Bloom knows damn well a person can only survive three days without water, yet she never died. She got hungry, so hungry and so incredibly thirsty, yet this warmth started flowing through her veins that blocked any further discomfort.
Ever since, she's been able to go without food as long as she sleeps regularly, sleep if she eats plenty of food - it's usually the other way around, as there's nothing much for her to do but sleep when she's being punished and the Dursleys try to starve her - or if she needs to defend herself she'd better come crashing down somewhere there's food and a place to sleep she won't be attacked. It's her magic - it's also the reason she's survived her 'childhood' long enough to get her letter from Hogwarts.
Bloom gets pulled from her thoughts at a soft whine, and sees another dog standing there looking at her. Very different from Ripper, Marge's favorite bulldog. This one is a big black dog, with large expressive eyes - it looks just about as bad as Bloom feels, from its unkempt fur to the way it looks warily at everything.
She's just found her twin in the animal world, in experiences if nothing else.
"Hey there, big guy. Life beat you down to?" She starts scratching it behind the ears, getting it to come closer to her, and then throws both arms around it suddenly and bursts into a fresh round of tears.
She'd be amazed, if she noticed, that the dog stayed perfectly still after resting its head over her neck as a kind of hug. She pulls back after a solid five minutes of crying, wiping at her face - a warm tongue sliding across one cheek has her wiping her eyes to see the dog staring at her with a sad expression. It licks her a few more times, then a giant purple bus arrives suddenly with the words Knight Bus written on the side.
The Conductor asks if she summoned it, she didn't, but she gets on anyway and asks to be taken to the Leaky Cauldron. She gets on after giving the dog one last scratch behind the ears - it more than likely has fleas, but she really doesn't care about that either. She's just glad she had a shoulder to cry on - and given the fact that it was humans who put her in that state, it seems right that an animal was the one to bring her out of it.
As a kind of thank-you for the dog, she pushes some of her magic into it and heals some of the wounds covering his body - and burns away all the fleas that are undoubtedly all over him. Maybe she cares about the fleas just a little bit.
Sirius watches as Bloom gets on the Knight Bus, having summoned it in his animagus form while she was crying into his fur, and feels a low growl building in his dog throat.
He remembers the last time he saw Bloom, she was the sweetest kid in the world back then - since his escape from Azkaban, his happy memories have slowly been coming back and the ones he shared with Bloom after Lily and James found her in that burning building came back like they happened yesterday. He recognized her scent instantly, he'd know it anywhere, and he might just hex the people she was yelling about into the next world - seeing her in the state she was in nearly broke his heart all over again.
He recognized her description of Petunia as Lily's sister - he had the misfortune to meet the woman at Lily and James' wedding, and can't believe Dumbledore would actually leave Bloom in the magic-hating woman's care.
He believes it now, though.
Oh, if he weren't on the run…