Just a random idea that had been floating around in my head last night. Enjoy!
There had only ever been one person who had been kind to Harry during his growing years in Little Whinging. One well-learned in the history of the Boy Who Lived might point to Arabella Figg, the batty old squib who lived down the street from the Dursley house on Privet Drive. Others might theorize that a baby Dudley couldn't possibly have been evil towards his similarly-aged cousin, or maybe Petunia had experienced lapses in her steel-hard determination to squash the magic out of Harry.
In fact, it was none of these people, although Arabella Figg's ridiculous behavior was a cover designed to protect herself from the Dursleys, and Dudley did apologize to Harry later in life and soon became a regular at family gatherings.
No, this person is not mentioned once in any of the pages filling the halls of the National Wizarding Library, and any who knew of her connection with Harry Potter during their brief year together would have been uninterested in Harry altogether, and likely have forgotten of him by now.
But Harry still remembers her. It was an well-known fact that Harry's early life was filled with cruel punishments and hard labor, a fact which directly resulted in the Dursley's terrible reputation amongst wizarding families in the initial years after the war (something which Vernon Dursely was perfectly proud of).
But none of the many journalists and biographers who inquired into Harry's early life ever discovered her existence, because they weren't looking for her. No one thought that any of the crazy muggles Harry lived with would have ever let any decent person close to him.
But to Harry, she wasn't a 'decent' person. She was a bright light in his life when all hope had been lost. And the Dursleys had let her near him. After all, what could they do? She was his primary school fifth grade teacher.
Little Whinging Primary School was not a pleasant place to grow up. And with Dudley making it impossible for any of his classmates to befriend him, Harry's situation there was even worse. He attended class in Dudley's disgusting second-hand clothing, garnering a bad reputation amongst the teaching staff which held appearances in high regard. And his occasional mishaps with magic earned himself a distance from most teachers and students.
The only game Harry ever played during recess was tag. It wasn't that he found it fun, but that playing was a necessity. He was forever being chased by Dudley and his gang (or whatever other bully took over in Dudley's absence). He had no friends to back him up and support him, teachers looked the other direction and refused to help the shabbily dressed skinny little boy any more than to prevent him from getting any fatal injuries.
Years of this repeated abuse and torment, years of loneliness and the stark absence of anyone who cared, had taken its toll on the young boy. Harry was wallowing in a depression that was not normal in a boy so young.
Fifth grade, Harry's last year in primary school, was when everything changed. It was the one year in his early life where, during the brief seven hours of school, his life was switched around and he could enjoy recess without playing tag, raise his hand in class without fearing Dudley's jealous glances in his direction, and his classmates felt safe getting to know Harry a little better.
It wasn't that Dudley had been sick at home all that year. It wasn't that the teachers suddenly had a change of heart and converged to protect Harry. It was 1990, a year before Harry received his Hogwarts letter, when Ms. Cuarón joined the teaching staff.
She was Harry's teacher, but soon became his mentor and protector during this crucial period in his life when Harry seriously began considering what the point of life was.
Ms. Cuarón had immigrated from Spain a few years prior and accepted the teaching job simply because she had always adored children but could never have one of her own due to her infertility. She was tall and bony, with piercing blue eyes and tight lips, similar in appearance to that of Petunia Dursley. But her lips were normally a friendly smile and her eyes danced in happiness at the sight of kids playing in happiness.
Disgusted with the ambivalent attitude her colleagues had of Harry's situation, she had immediately taken matters into her own hands. Scary and menacing when she wanted to be, she had chucked Dudley and his gang into after school detentions for picking on Harry, for shoving Harry's head down the toilet, for chucking tetherballs and breaking Harry's glasses, and a list of other punishable activities.
The going ons during these detentions never made it to Harry's ears, for Dudley had returned home pale and sullen on more than one occasion, simply not in the mood to torture Harry, leaving Harry with several peaceful evenings.
This sudden change in personality had not gone unnoticed by Vernon and Petunia, and they had marched straight over to Ms. Cuarón's classroom and demanded to know what was wrong with their Diddykins.
She replied to their request curtly and simply, "Dudley has been bullying Harry, and other children, mind you, in violation of school rules, so I put him in detention."
Petunia had cried profusely and refused to believe that her innocent child had been involved in the bullying of "other children", although she insisted that whatever Dudley did to Harry was for his own good.
Vernon turned a deep shade of crimson and seemed to be on the verge of yelling something inappropriate for a primary school classroom.
Ms. Cuarón refused to elaborate on Dudley's punishment other than that he and his friends were being shown a series of videos designed to inform people of the consequences of their harassment, leaving Petunia in tears and Vernon yelling about "damn liberal psychiatrists and their political connectedness" and how he would not have his son wrapped up in that nonsense.
She was a stubborn teacher and had alone stood up to the ridiculousness of the Dursley parents and single-handedly tempered Dudley's harassment of Harry whilst they were under her watchful eye. While she had not interacted with Harry more than she had with other students, and considerably less than she had with Dudley (what with all those detentions), Harry was old enough to understand why Dudley's bullying had nearly ceased and why his classmates were working up enough nerve to talk to him and even help him on the occasional arithmetic problem that he didn't understand.
He understood why at home Vernon and Petunia forced him to work harder and longer but why at school he could feel safe. He knew it was Ms. Cuarón's work, he wasn't old enough to understand how. He just knew that it happened, and Harry was grateful for that one year of peace, a break from the years of torment and embarrassment that he had endured.
A year later, Harry received his Hogwarts letter and was thrust into a world of flying broomsticks, of three-headed dogs, and of enchantments and charms he could only dream of. Over the years, as he began facing increasing dangers while fighting adolescent hormones, Ms. Cuarón had all but evaporated from his memory.
It had been over a decade later, on an ordinary not-so-remarkable Monday when Harry found himself sitting in a muggle pub, reminiscing about the past with his cousin Dudley over a pint of beer, when the discussion strayed over their fifth grade teacher.
What had happened to her after all those years? Was she still teaching? Did she retire? Find a different job? Was she still alive?
Harry was curious of the fate that befell his favorite muggle teacher. She no longer worked at Little Whinging Primary. It's possible that she returned to Spain, Harry had mused aloud.
Wherever she was, though, Ms. Cuarón would always be an unsung hero of the wizarding world, a muggle teacher who carried Harry through a pivotal moment in his life, to keep him psychologically alive and healthy enough to go on and kill Voldemort.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it, please review!
Never explained how Harry and Dudley made up. Guess you can call it an extension to my other fic, A Surprise Dursley, or you can borrow the plotline of any similar NextGen fic.