The Crux of the Memory
Chapter 1
Harry Potter had been living with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Cousin Dudley for as long as he could remember. Sometimes he would dream of being elsewhere though. The most common dream was a flash of green light and laughter. Nothing unusual like that was ever tolerated at the Dursley residence though. He was 4 the first time his uncle threw him into his cupboard so hard that he blacked out.
Aunt Petunia had ordered him to stay in the back yard, out of the neighbor's sight, and certainly out of sight of the dinner guests. She had recently started teaching him how to pull weeds. "And don't you dare pull out any of my good flowers. If anything happens to my prized roses there will be no getting out of your cupboard for two days. And no funny business!"
As he labored on outside there was a wonderful smell wafting outside from the kitchen. It smelled like chocolate cake, but Harry had learned the hard way that he wouldn't be getting a slice. Maybe if he was made to help clean up later he would be able to sneak some crumbs off of the fancy cake stand Aunt Petunia liked to use when company was over.
Harry closed his eyes, inhaling the delicious smell of the baking cake. He could imagine how fancy it would look when his aunt was finished decorating it. She and Uncle Vernon always made sure that things were perfect. The sound of a snap brought him out of his musing and his eyes snapped open. He looked frightfully at the broken stem of the rose bush he had been weeding around. 'Oh no. Aunt Petunia is going to kill me.' He thought. He hadn't been given much to eat today and the thought of two more days with no food brought tears to his eyes.
He panicked and started pushing dirt around the stem hoping his Aunt wouldn't notice. 'No no no' His stomach felt a little funny and he backed up in shock when the stem miraculously knitted back together. If that had been all that happened he would have been okay, but whatever was happening to the bush didn't stop there. The buds that had just started to form swelled up and began opening one by one. The beautiful red petals were breathtaking. "Magic," he whispered in awe.
His Aunt froze in shock at the kitchen window, where she was washing her hands in the sink. Harry cowered as she stormed out. "What did you just say?" She whispered through pursed lips.
Harry tried to stutter out the word magic but it caught in his throat. His eyes glanced over to the rose bush though, which was now in full bloom and about a head taller than it had been five minutes ago.
Aunt Petunia followed his gaze and let out a shriek in horror. "Vernon! Vernon, out back! The freak has done something."
'Oh no, oh no, oh no' Harry squeezed his eyes shut and curled in on himself. Uncle Vernon was scary, much more so than his Aunt. She would yell at him, but she had yet to raise a hand at him. His Uncle was more physical with his dislike of Harry.
"What is it Pet?" His uncle asked as he waddled out the back door.
She pointed at the bush, stammering, her face paler than usual.
It seemed as though all of the color that had drained from her face had gone to Uncle Vernon's as his went a darker shade of red than Harry had ever seen before. "I said there'd be NONE of this freakishness in my house!" He bellowed. Harry felt a shoe kick his arm, which was wrapped protectively around his middle.
Harry's eyes were still closed tight as he felt himself roughly picked up and carried into the house. But he couldn't feel anything after he was tossed into the cupboard, his head bouncing off of one of the beams supporting the stairs.
He wasn't sure how long he was out for. His four year old mind wasn't even sure what had happened, but when he finally started becoming aware of the world he knew it was dark out. There was no light coming from the cracks around the door. And his stomach growled angrily. He tried to remember what he had done wrong but there seemed to be extra thoughts. Thoughts that had a man in them that he didn't recognize.
He could tell that his arm was injured, so the memory he was piecing together about his uncle kicking him was probably what happened. But at the same time, he could remember a tall, slender man with piercing blue eyes pointing a stick at him and calling him a disappointment. Something was muttered and a red flash of light slammed him into the wall.
Harry didn't know what to make of it. He had never seen the man before so where had the memory come from?
From that night on Harry hadn't had anymore flashes of strange memories, but sometimes he would just get a feeling that something was familiar that shouldn't be. Like a year later when his Aunt and Uncle had gone out and an older girl from the neighborhood was babysitting him and his cousin Dudley. She was older and pretty and kind and she was kind to Harry and had actually let him sit in the living room so that he could watch a movie with Dudley. She had a VCR tape of The Last Unicorn that she put in the television.
Somehow Harry knew that Unicorns were real. He didn't know how he knew, but it just felt right. There was just such a sense of familiarity and he could almost remember what the mane would feel like if he ran his hands through it. And the magician, with his pointed hat and funny words, had seemed strangely familiar. As if he had seen other people create illusions like that and wear pointed hats.
Dudley had enjoyed the movie so much that he immediately started telling his parents all about it the minute they walked in the door from their evening out. Uncle Vernon turned to glare at Harry as if it was his fault and Aunt Petunia ushered the teenage girl quickly out the front door before Vernon could make a scene and frighten her. Harry had spent the next day in the cupboard and the girl never was asked to watch them again.
The next time that Harry had found an extra memory was two years later. Now that he was 7 and tall enough to see over the counter his aunt had started having him help to prepare meals. Right now she had him dicing up some onions while she washed her favorite fry pan for making omelets. His mind drifted a bit to other things he could be dicing, like frog eyes and where had THAT thought come from? His distraction caused the knife to slip and he sliced the tip of the finger that was holding the onion. Blood began dripping onto the counter before he could pull back his hand. He hissed in pain, drawing his aunt's attention.
"You've ruined your uncle's dinner you freak!"
She swung around and the fry pan connected with the back of his head and he slumped to the floor.
He didn't know how long he was out for. When he started seeing someone else's memory for the second time in his life he was 3 years older now and less confused about the whole thing. This time he was able to pay more attention to what was happening around him.
The first thing he noticed was all of the stone. Stone walls, stone floor, and he was in a room with a bunch of kids wearing black robes and they all looked to be about 14 or 15 years old. He was facing a boy with red hair and a red and gold badge on his robe. An adult in the room counted down and then light started going back and forth between the two boys. Yes, this time he had his own wand in his hand. The words they were yelling made no sense to him at all, but the lights coming out of the wands seemed to be connected to the words. He was having fun. He felt happy, but determined. He grinned as he had an idea of what would finally take out his opponent. A blue light shot out of his wand hitting the ground in front of the other boy, knocking him off of his feet. But Harry was too late in noticing the stone that had ricocheted back towards him, knocking him out.
When Harry woke up next he was locked in his cupboard again. He spent the longest time going over every detail of the memory. The whole thing was fascinating, like something out of a movie. Now if he could only figure out a way to access these memories without being knocked out by his relatives he would have an unending source of entertainment when he was locked up. But whose memories were they and why was he seeing them?
He started having some ideas when he went back to primary school that fall. His teacher announced that they were beginning a unit on different cultures around the world. Harry was partnered with a red haired girl in his class that was rather rambunctious and didn't like to read, so when they were assigned to write about India he knew he would be doing most of the work.
He had borrowed two books about India from the school library and brought them home.
That night after he cleaned up from dinner he went to the bathroom and then was locked in his cupboard for the night. The flashlight he had borrowed from the garage was pulled from beneath his pillow so that he could start reading for his school project. He was almost finished reading through the first book when he got to a chapter about religion. Harry didn't have much experience with religion. The Dursley's were Christian. They exchanged gifts at Christmas and went to church on Sundays, not that they ever took him. But he knew that there were classmates of his that celebrated different holidays than them.
The book about India listed all of the most common religions in the country like Hinduism and Buddhism. One common theme in many of them was a belief in reincarnation, the ability of a soul to be reborn in another person. Maybe that's what the memories are from. Maybe his soul was once from some boy that lived during medieval period. Now he was even more excited to see if he could somehow access more of these memories.
It took over two years, a few months after he turned 9, for the next strange memory to appear. It was also the first time that he gained a memory without being knocked unconscious.
He was just so fed up with the way his teacher had been singling him out lately. Once again he hadn't been able to complete an assignment. The Durselys had recently recovered the flashlight he had hidden from them and wasn't able to compete his homework after he was locked in for the night. She was once again berating him and he was doing his best to keep his temper in check. He had thought he was succeeding until the class erupted in laughter and he looked up to see that her hair had turned blue. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but he knew that it was something he had done as he felt strange inside right before it happened.
The teacher had run from the room as everyone in class carried on. Harry didn't see the dark look his cousin threw him as he drowned in a sudden memory. He was sitting in front of a fire place facing a girl that was around 16 years old. He was much shorter than her so he was likely much younger in this memory. He was shouting out colors and she was quickly changing her hair color to match. When he shouted out plaid and her hair quickly resembled a tartan he busted out in laughter. The girl pointed a wand at him and muttered some funny words and then started smirking at him. He stood to look at himself in the mirror above the fireplace to see that his hair now matches hers. "Bella! Put it back now!" He yelled.
He was pulled from the memory when his cousin Dudley pushed past him while leaving the classroom. "I know it was you freak. Wait until my dad hears about this."
That evening Harry did everything in his power to avoid his uncle but it was a wasted effort. As soon as he had finished making dinner his uncle grabbed him by the collar. "We have done our best to keep your freakishness from effecting our otherwise normal family boy!" His uncle slammed him against the wall and he saw stars at the edge of his vision. "We will have no more of this funny business. We have let you out of our house to go to school and get an education, but no more. We'll need to keep you under our roof now won't we? I guess you'll be an idiot and a freak now."
And with a mighty grunt he was tossed into the cupboard. He quickly slid into unconsciousness.
"Come on, stay with me. Don't drift off now." A voice whispered urgently.
He blinked his eyes open and a blurry image began to come into focus. A pale faced boy of about 18 or 19 was hovering over him, greasy black hair framing his face and worry shone in his eyes. The long stone hallway with an arched ceiling made it evident that this had to be someone else's, the other boy's, memory again.
A long-fingered hand held the back of his head and tilted it back as a flask was pushed to his lips. "Drink. We haven't much time before they notice our absence and the Dark Lord will want a report. And after such a failure I would like to get you healed up before we're called."
Harry reached his hand up and brushed a strand of greasy hair behind the boy's ear. "Sev. Please…"
"Shh"
He quickly swallowed the thick liquid and whatever it was it seemed to work instantly as he felt a burst of energy.
The memory faded to black and the inside of his cupboard came back into focus. The intense emotions of the memory left him gasping for breath, and he could almost taste the strange liquid at the back of his throat. And what was this about a dark lord. And what had he and this other boy been up to that they were running like that. And in all of his nine years he had never had someone look at him the way the other teen had just now, as if he really cared.
Were these real memories from a reincarnated soul or his imagination running away from him? Was there really someone else who had experienced these things? It all seemed so much like a fantasy novel. But He hadn't imagined his teacher's hair turning blue today though. It was like magic, real magic, not that he would ever say that word out loud again, not after the rose bush incident. He wondered if this was an ability that he could actually control. The people in his memories seemed to have some type of magic that they could do.
In the morning Harry found out, to his dismay, the pattern his future with the Dursleys would take. He was let out in the morning, allowed to use the bathroom, make breakfast, and work on chores until it was time to make dinner. And if he managed to finish his chores with time to spare then he could relax a bit in the back yard or his cupboard.
About a month into his new schedule his aunt, out of some sort of sense of duty, brought home some books from a second hand store. At least now, once his chores were done he could try to continue his education.
Three weeks before his tenth birthday, as he was laying in the grass working on multiplying numbers, he had a flash of familiarity. The numbers started swimming around in his head, mixing by with letters, and the word arithmancy made itself prominent in his thoughts.
That was the start of a new evolution in the discovery of new memories. It became common for very small things to trigger a memory. Well not a full memory, like when he was knocked out, but quick flashes.
Like the one winter night when his aunt uncle were having another dinner party and he had been locked out back in the cold. As he sat shivering with a worn blanket over his shoulders an owl flew past in the night sky. As he watched it fly by his mind pictured a scroll tied to its leg as it flew towards him. He was sitting at a long wooden table in a big open room full of other children.
And then, a week later when the power went out, his aunt yelled at him to get the matches to light candles around the house. When he pulled out a match to strike his mind pictured it turning into a needle while a boy with short brown hair next to him stared with wonder.
That May, when he had to spend the night at Mrs. Figg's house, he helped out around her cat hair covered house by seeking out a broom to use. When he grasped the worn broom with twigs sticking out in different directions he pictured flying through the air on it and wrapping his hand around a little golden ball.
It was an incident in June, a month before his eleventh birthday, where things took an unexpected turn. Harry was excited to visit a zoo for the first time in his life. He was watching a snake when his cousin ran over and started banging on the glass to get it to move. After Dudley and his friend had moved on Harry apologized to the snake for his cousin's obnoxious behavior. The snake lifted its head and seemed to be interested in what he was saying. Just then his cousin pushed him to the ground to get a better look at the snake that was now slithering to the front of the tank. Right when his cousin leaned on the glass it disappeared, letting the snake out and causing his cousin to fall in.
Harry stood there in shock for a moment, but the wails of his cousin and his Aunt's shriek sent him running, the snake trailing after him. He knew he would be punished severely for what had happened, but he was even more afraid for the snake. If it were smaller he would try and conceal it, but this was a massive python.
"Speaker, take me with you." It seemed to hiss at him.
He was shocked, and blinked a couple of times to clear his head. He had a memory flash of a teacher pointing her wand at an animal and making it shrink down. He had no time to process the idea of a speaking snake, but put his arms around its coiled up length and wished for the snake to be small enough to conceal.
Nothing happened at first, but the thundering sound of his uncle getting close sent him in to a panic, and suddenly the python was no bigger than his arm.
"Hide. Now. Quickly." He whispered hurriedly and the snake slithered up the sleeve of his oversized shirt.
Harry had nowhere else to go, and came to the realization that he would have to face his relatives. At least they were in a public place. He came out of his hiding spot and kept his head down and walked to wear his Aunt was coddling his crying cousin.
She hissed at him, not unlike the snake, "You freak."
Harry just stood there silently, knowing that nothing he could say would make the situation better. His uncle came over, looking murderous, but the numerous onlookers kept his temper in check for now. The car ride home was silent, the python seemed to be intelligent enough to know when to stay silent and hidden. When they pulled in to his driveway, Harry did his best not to be noticed as he hung back from his relatives and hoped to sneak into his cupboard. His hopping was for naught as his uncle's meaty fist pulled him by the collar, causing him to choke briefly until he was pushed up against the wall.
"Maybe this will teach you to control your freakishness. Hold your hands out boy."
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Harry held out is hands. Uncle Vernon reached to the dining room table behind him and picked up the closest thing, Aunt Petunia's silver plated soup ladle. Each whack on his knuckles was punctuated with a stern word from his uncle, accompanied by a bit of spittle. Harry bit the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out. After the third hit, one of his knuckles started to bleed; and after the seventh hit something in his mind snapped. A pulse of light knocked his uncle back against the table, and Harry ran for his cupboard, slamming it shut behind him and willing it not to open for anything.
He could feel his heart hammering in his chest as his uncle pulled and pulled on the cupboard door, but it luckily wouldn't budge. The pain in his hands was some of the worst he'd ever felt and it was causing him to hyperventilate. He needed to find a way to keep quiet so that his relatives would just forget he existed. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to will the pain away, or at least retreat into his thoughts to try to ignore the pain.
He knew that he had succeeded when the noise around him and the pain in his hands faded. The last thing he felt was a gentle flick of a forked tongue on his nose.
Little didn't he know, everything was about to change.