Greatness for some is not a goal, but a consequence of their actions.
It was raining outside, a cold drizzle that plittered and plattered against the ground in soft waves. Harry idly brushed his index finger gently across the varnished wooden frame of his cupboard's small window and gazed quietly at the tiny film of dust that had accumulated on his skin. Another day soon to be gone, the last vestiges of the setting sun disappearing beneath the dark line of the horizon, and here he was sitting in his cramped cupboard while his cousin was outside playing with his friends. For a boy of the tender age of eight, the freedom of the outside was a siren lure to his wild imagination. While he could be physically trapped within his bedroom, his mind was free to roam within the limitless imaginary world where he was not just ordinary Harry, a child living with his Aunt and Uncle in a boring suburban area, no, for in this world he was Prince Harry, slayer of dragons and monsters - he was shaken from his reverie as a harsh voice shattered the shining world he had spun into splinters that faded away, leaving behind the darkened sky that glittered with countless stars.
His Uncle was calling Harry to dinner, and Harry knew from experience that there was no avoiding coming out. Silently, he trudged out of his room and entered the kitchen that was immediately right of the hallway that his cupboard opened into. He saw the Dursley family seated in their habitual places in front of the television and grimaced. His relatives had forbidden him from using the television and the only time he had been able to watch was at school when the teacher decided to bring a movie or film to share with the class. It was something that Dudley, his cousin, loved to rub in his face. Harry quickly grabbed his plate from the table, happy for once that the plate was rather scarce. The Dursleys abhorred leftovers from his plate, and the last time he had left some food on the plate. Harry shivered and cut the train of thought. Some things were better forgotten. He brought it back into his room and quickly polished off the small serving of mashed potatoes and two strips of fried chicken. Feeling thirsty, he opened downed the glass of water beside the plate and drank it down in small sips. His Aunt was extremely strict on his manners and yet Dudley was never disciplined for any of his misbehaviors.
He placed his dishes in the sink and quickly washed and rinsed his plate. He then tip-toed to his Aunt who was sitting on a couch with Dudley leaning into her side. His Aunt turned as she caught sight of his approaching form in her peripheral vision.
"Thank you for the food Aunt Petunia." Harry said in an expressionless voice. A wave of her hand told him that she had acknowledged his words and he scampered off. The evening ritual completed, he was at last free to go back on his quest to save the princess from the mean giant. First though, he had his homework, and his cousin's too, to finish. He opened the textbook and quickly did the arithmetic questions that had been assigned by the teacher. Sadly for Harry, Dudley was in a different class and so he had two sets of math problems to solve. Fortunately, he was very good at math and the questions were done in a neat and proper fashion within a few minutes. He wrote his name on his work and left Dudley's blank. He was careful to write in Dudley's messy scrawl and made sure that Dudley's homework was not too tidy. His cousin would beat him up if the teacher found out that he was not actually doing his homework and Harry had no desire to puke his stomach out again.
The next day at school, Harry smiled politely to Ms. Primrose, his homeroom teacher. She gazed back with a bright smile, telling him how well he had done on the math test from last week and he kept his smile until she had moved on the next student. Aunt Petunia had initially been very annoyed that he was getting good grades, but when he had purposefully flunked the following test, she had had a discussion with Vernon and they had ... reprimanded him for the abysmal grade. From then on, they had expected nothing less than perfection from him, taking delight at his failures and punishing him severely for them. Harry had quickly found out that the best way to not get hurt was to be the best. There was no other way and despite the harsh treatment and pressure, he had persevered and thrived. He was worried about next year though, he was going to skip a grade and he did not want to get punished for not being able to do as well as he used to once the work got harder. So he had been regularly frequenting the library and reading up on the textbook for next year.
Ms. Primrose was his favorite teacher and the only one who he liked because she was always cheerful and genuinely seemed to love teaching the students. The other teachers always wore a fake smile and treated the students like idiots, not that Harry could really fault them since the students were mostly idiots, but Ms. Primrose was always patient and had never yelled at any of them. Even Dudley liked her and that was rare as Dudley hated school and the teachers. Harry hated school as well, because he was always scared that he would get a bad grade and his Uncle would get mad. But he also liked learning although most of the classes were boring and slow. Ms. Primrose had told him that he could always come to her if he had any questions, even on the things that he was to learn next year! He had received many tips and explanations, to which he was immensely grateful because he was sure that without which he could not have understood the material. The textbooks were really dry and hard to understand sometimes, but he was slowly getting there.
By the time his twelfth birthday rolled in, he was getting ready to enter his last year of high school. The Dursleys were more than happy to accredit his marks at school to their handiwork, and Harry did not bother to lash out. The best revenge, he felt, was to get away from the Dursleys as quickly as possible.
Harry gazed around his room. Gone was the stuffy cupboard with its dark and dusty walls, instead in its place was the spare bedroom that Dudley used as storage for his toys. The room was spacious enough to fit three pieces of furniture and held in the corner beside the window a closet as well. One large bookshelf, a work desk and a bed was pretty much all the room could hold, but compared to his previous living abode, this was more than enough. His bookshelf was filled with books, neatly divided into sections so he could navigate easily among the long rows. Not that he really needed to, seeing as most of the books on the shelf he had already read more than a dozen times.
Harry still remembered vividly how he had come to acquire this room. It still puzzled him why his Uncle had done what he did, but there was little he could have done to change what had occurred. Dudley's attempt to foster his homework onto Harry had finally backfired that day, his Uncle had found out and he had been very upset. Expecting some sort of punishment, Harry waited with a sense of dread in his cupboard, shuddering every time he heard his uncle's yell. Dudley was being severely chastised by both his parents, and this was the first time Harry had ever seen Dudley get yelled at. As the voice of his Uncle finally settled, Harry idly wondered if he was going to live through the night. Morbid thoughts filled the over-imaginative mind of the ten year old and he gave a start as his cupboard door opened abruptly. His Aunt's sour face ducked in and ordered him to the living room. Harry trudged out, looking like a man about to face a firing squad, or at least he imagined that was what his face looked like, he could not be sure. Uncle Vernon was sitting on the couch, looking very upset. Upon seeing Harry, his face twisted in a very bizarre sort of way before settling into a frown.
"Boy, we've decided that from now on you are not to do Dudley's homework. I've already spoken with Dudley about this." At this point, he took a deep breath and looked at Aunt Petunia sternly. She sniffed and looked away. Rather confused at what was going on, Harry remained expressionless, even as his heart hammered in his chest. When was he going to be punished?
"I've talked it over with Petunia, and we have decided that from now on," again Vernon paused and seemed to look everywhere but at Harry. "From now on," his Uncle continued, "you will move into the spare bedroom." Harry tried very hard to not gape and managed to temper his surprise into a widening of his eyes. His Uncle's face twisted back into that strange expression, the same one he had when he had first seen Harry earlier. "That will be all, you can take your stuff and move them up into the spare room."
Elated at the lack of punishment, Harry quickly nodded and stated his customary "Thank you Uncle/Aunt Vernon/Petunia", a slight hint of emotion bleeding into his normally bland tone before walking quickly back to his room. It would be years before Harry understood what happened that day.
School was challenging enough, Harry mused to himself as he lay on his soft bed. If there was one trait that he would associate himself to in terms of schoolwork, it would be inquisitiveness. He did not excel in his studies because of diligence, as many of his older peers thought, though certainly he was organized, but it was because he sought comprehension rather than memorization. That was the key to attaining expertise in the subject matter. By understanding, he was able to adapt and learn not just the effects and consequences, but also the cause and nature of things. Though math was a little trickier, since the school seemed adamant that the students learn by memorizing formulas and solving problems over and over. Tedious, but since Harry loved a good puzzle, he did not shirk at the repetitive nature of the problems. It helped that the teachers liked him and despite proclaiming themselves to be neutral and fair to all students, showed hints of favoritism to his situation every now and then. Harry smirked as he remembered that one teacher who had immediately taken a dislike to him, a Mr. Gerald who taught world history. The man had been annoyed by Harry's frequent questions and refused to elaborate on some of the key events in his lectures. Harry had at first believed in the words on his teacher, but quickly was disabused of the notion that history was one of the few subjects that had a fixed answer after reading some of the books pertaining to the subject. Wars defined the human race in much of history and only the victors words were heard making it such that more often than not events were not completely comprehensive and truthful.
Skepticism fit himself well, Harry mused to himself. After all, trust was for the blind.
Harry faced an interesting dilemma. Up till now, his education had been a broad stroke upon the canvas of knowledge, but now he had to thin his brushstroke and choose with which paintbrush he would set out into the world with. His excellence in academics provided him with a multitude of choices and more likely than not he could choose any of the doors he wanted. His focus in high school did tend a little toward the sciences, but that was unsurprising since arts and literature were always a little difficult to properly teach. Had Harry been born to a caring family who brought him up with the care he desired, he would most likely have chosen to be a doctor or lawyer, an academic route that would guarantee a stable life and moderate to high income, which coupled with his drive for excellence, would have surprised no one when he eventually became one of the world's finest in whatever field he chose. At least, he flattered himself into thinking that. Giving himself a proverbial mental slap, Harry set a mental warning that he was getting a little arrogant. It was difficult to identify where the line between self-confidence and arrogance crossed, but Harry thought that self-confidence came from knowing and taking pride in one's excellence whereas arrogance derived itself from taking pride in being better than everyone else. Getting back to the matter at hand, Harry thought a little in what he wanted from life. Young as he was, there was no rush for him to decide now which career path he should take, after all it would be a lot harder to come back after spending a few years in a law school, or a medical school for that matter. He would rather spend some time drifting about and learning more of the world and how humans operated, and once he had sated his curiosity, he could then choose which career path he desired. Time and money were the usual concerns for a student who does not immediately take a career orientated path, but luckily for him, neither applied. Yet. He was thirteen, so that left him with about five years or so before he was 'supposed' to choose a line of work, and his finance was covered by his scholarship, which would no doubt be dependent on his academic score, but that did not worry Harry in the slightest. It was after pondering all this that he decided to choose his major and minor in philosophy and psychology respectively.
Dudley was now a mere nuisance and the Dursleys as a whole were no longer as menacing as they used to be. The demons that haunted his childhood were banished as he realized that taking philosophy had been one of the worst and best choices he had ever made. Only time would tell which it truly was, for never before had Harry's conception of reality been shattered more times than in his courses. He remembered vividly the first time he had come to the realization that the world was not how he thought it was.
He knew from a very early age that parents loved their children and that family was special. But he never realized that it was not always true. Not until that day when he saw Dudley break his toy by throwing it at the wall, no doubt in a childish fit of rage for some inane reason, before gaping in shock as the toy broke, it was no doubt one of those silly toys made in China or Thailand, horrible quality made up for it by its bright color and sheer quantity. Realizing that his thoughts were drifting, Harry thought back to that memorable day, pulling his thoughts away from his imaginary factory where hundreds upon hundreds of small children slaved away to make the plastic figurines that made up most of the toy markets these days. Dudley had naturally proceeded to cry, and when Aunt Petunia had come running in looking flustered and worried, as any parent would when their precious child cries, Harry had thought all was well with the world. Then Dudley had pulled an incredibly devious plan, in his mind, and pinned the blame on Harry. Now usually, this would have fallen apart the moment Dudley tried, since Harry had been confined to his corner and could not have possibly been able to throw the toy and break it, not without crossing the living room and going past his Aunt. However, upon asked the question, Dudley fibbed as all children are prone to do when their initial fib fails. Tell a lie to protect a lie. But Dudley was a kid so he blurted the first thing that came to mind. He said that the toy had decided all on its own to smash against the wall and it was all Harry's fault because he had wanted the toy for himself and he was jealous and also because he had been staring at Dudley the whole time. Harry, who secretly was indeed jealous, could only look on in complete befuddlement as his Aunt, who instead of realizing that such a thing was not possible, turned pale and quickly reassured Dudley that they would get him another of the toys and told him to go up to his room. After that, Harry found himself getting yelled at, though he could not for the life of him understand why. Something about being an ungrateful and jealous prat. That would mark the beginning of his miserable childhood. He had been punished by being sent into the cupboard without supper, and he could still remember that moment as he sat on his hard and cold mattress, when the realization struck him as hard as the hunger pangs that had only mildly abated moments before, his Aunt loathed him. Or as he had put it back then, hated him.
Dudley was quick to pin accidents on Harry's mysterious telekinetic abilities and his mother was more than willing to indulge and seemed to actually believe it. So much so that Harry was completely convinced that he was able to do some sort of mysterious ability and spent and entire evening doing everything he could think of to pull out a non-accidental magical event. He was quickly disabused of his delusion when nothing happened.
His Uncle was apathetic towards him, since they were not related, Harry did not really find that surprising. But his Aunt, who knew his mother and father, detested him even though he was certain she should have at least liked him. For such a young and precocious child as Harry was, the blow seemed to be more painful than any of his previous experiences combined. The later years would only be further proof of his Aunt's intense dislike toward him.
But that was a long time ago and Harry had long outgrown that part of his life. He had been angry the last two years though he was careful to mask his anger by tempering it into a sort of passive apathy. He never showed any emotion to his relatives and tried to avoid all contact with them. Hilariously, though that might not be the proper word to use, Harry diverted all his time to studying and learning as those were the only two options he had. It was that or spend time at home, where he would be in the same breathing space as his relatives. He had had to refuse attending any of his peer's parties, initially thwarted by Dudley who loved to prey on his cousin's passiveness, but as he outdistanced Dudley in his academic and social sphere, he realized he could not because there was a gap between himself and his peers, which only grew as time passed. It did not help that they would often try to ask his relatives, who were more than happy to say "No, Harry can't attend because he's studying." As if Harry needed to study that much. Harry realized quickly that he was becoming a sort of social reject outside of school. Though he was well treated and it was evident that his peers respected him, to say the least, and the girls would fawn over his 'cuteness', Harry was unable to find anyone to call a friend. The most he had were acquaintances, fellow kids who worked with him on a project every now and then, but given that he could never spend time nor contact them outside of school time, he was never able to really get to know them. And then there was that girl he had had a crush on... No. Better not to think of that disaster, he was liable to get depressed just by thinking about it. Harry resolutely decided to think of cheerful thoughts. What had spawned this whole self-examination? Ah yes, he had been thinking about how reality-shattering philosophy was. Given that Harry no longer knew what was right and what was wrong, since there were so many moral templates to choose from and so far he tended toward the utilitarian one. The ends justify the means! Just kidding, but seriously, Harry was quite disillusioned about the whole concept of absoluteness. Everything was relative to something else and depending on where you looked at it, the world was a different place. Harry was pretty sure he had just misquoted Einstein there, and that had he done that on his essay he would have been promptly accused of plagiarism and his academic life would have been over. He was also apparently a tad melodramatic in his thoughts now. Cursing having gone into philosophy for the millionth time, Harry found himself a hypocrite once more as he proclaimed aloud, in his mind only of course as there was no need to let others know he was a tad insane, because talking to himself was only the initial step and he did not really have to worry about actually being insane, at least not until he started replying to back - monologuing fell in the safe zone - the self-test manual "How to know if you are insane in five easy steps" had clearly stated that, going back to his proclamation, Harry pretended he regretted going into philosophy when really there was nothing he truly could regret. After all, the last years had been incredibly enlightening.
Harry found that he now did not immediately feel a surge of anger at his relatives when they pressed him into doing some inane chore, rather a deep sense of pity as he realized that very soon he would be able to completely leave them and live by himself. He was only fifteen, but pretty soon he would able to claim independence for himself. Freedom beckoned and Harry only saw a flawed human being who was quite obviously angry at Harry's mother. Or at least he assumed so, his psychology classes were quite helpful in allowing him to profile other people, although he was careful not to let it prejudice him, and he made sure that his observations and conclusions were done based on an understanding: the human being is capable of far more than he could imagine. He was quite ready to close the chapter on his Aunt, but since he did not know exactly why she detested him so much, or rather what he represented, Harry decided that his Aunt must have been slighted by his mother or at least felt such so that she could only hate him for what he represented. The last vestiges that connected his deceased mother to his petty Aunt. Harry had no idea how right he was for all the wrong assumptions.
His Uncle had mellowed out even as his Aunt's treatment of him had gotten worse, though now that he had outgrown physical abuse, she was reduced to lectures which were far and wide between the massive amount of chores she tried to pawn off to him. So really, it was a good trade-off. His Uncle had tried to please his Aunt by following along in her rather unreasonable treatment of Harry, but eventually his innate moral compass forced him to act out and give Harry what was much needed. Harry was under no illusion that had Vernon Dursley been a lesser person, his childhood would have qualified for extreme abuse. As it was, it only mildly qualified. Not that this was good in any way, but it was better to have suffered less than more. Harry was thankful for his Uncle's many interventions, especially that time when he had been moved from his cupboard to the spare room. He now knew that his Uncle had been feeling remorseful for his actions against his nephew, and that his expression had been one of regret, but Harry had been too young to know what regret meant, never mind what it looked like. Over the years, his Uncle had tried to give Harry some space, but Aunt Petunia was adamant in her treatment and his Uncle was not a man who would go against her for a nephew that was not related to him. Plus, Harry had a niggling feeling that his Uncle knew exactly why Aunt Petunia acted the way she did, but Harry did not fault his Uncle for being weak. Not much at least. His resentment of his Uncle had nothing on his resentment toward his Aunt. It was a mix of equal loathing and pity.
Still, Harry was willing to be the bigger man and let it pass, since the revenge stories he read tended to have a rather negative consequence on the protagonist. Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" was one of his favorite works and it showcased precisely how dangerous revenge was. The protagonist might have had his revenge, but it had not brought him an iota of happiness. Satisfaction perhaps, but an empty one. Harry shuddered and hoped that he would never fall into that destructive loop.
Now then, all he needed was to return the silly letter he had received. He had only opened it because the parchment it was written in looked of high quality, but then he could not really tell since he had never had the chance to explore the different mediums of paper. He stuck with the all useful lined paper that pretty much every person used. He had not really read past the first few sentences, but that was more than sufficient for him to draw a conclusion. He was not interested in joining a school that taught people how to do magic tricks, that was not a field he was interested in. To watch perhaps, he had nothing but respect for some of the incredible feats of magic that he saw on the television, but to learn? No thanks. Quickly scribbling back a polite, thanks but no thanks, Harry dumped the letter back into the mailbox. Taking a deep breath, he turned his face upward and gazed at the starry night sky. Soon. Soon he would be free of living in a home that he did not want to call home. Soon he would be free to live how he wanted. Soon he would be able to go out to parties and hang out with friends. He had endured and overcome six years of a miserable life, he could hold on just a little bit more. Smiling, Harry turned back to his current abode and walked slowly back, savoring the fresh night scent and whistled a soft tune as he trod back into the house, his mind filled with aspirations and dreams of freedom.