A/N: This is a little depressing but it just sort of wrote itself. Harry has to draw a picture of his family for Charms; the only problem is he doesn't really have one. So please read and tell me what you think.Its a one-shot.
It Sucks To Be Alone
"Everyone please take out a peace of parchment. For this spell we are going to animate a drawing," tiny Professor Filtwick shouted over the nose of his sixth year Gryffindor and Slytherin Charms class. "To make the effect more realistic I have brought in some muggle crayons. Everyone please talk a couple and draw a picture of your family in front of your house. It has to be a picture your close family in a familiar setting so that the animated characters can draw on your memory to see how to act. It will help make it as realistic as possible and they will act like the real people do. You have fifteen minutes, begin."
With that he summoned a box of crayons and pasted it to the student in the front row. Harry, who happened to be sitting next to that person, well more accurately his best friend Hermione Granger, who had insisted on taking the seat closes to the Professor, 'to hear better.' He grabbed a few crayons and passed the box to the boy next to him, his other best friend Ron Weasley.
"So what are you two drawing?" Harry asked. Looking down at his paper and drawing a blank, who could he draw?
"My parents I guess, in front of my house. It should easy to animate them as we are on great terms right now. I'm not a very good drawer though, so I don't know if it will be very realistic."
"I guess Mom, Dad, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ginny, and me in front of the Barrow. Hey, maybe I can draw us all playing Quiddich in that field we have behind the house. Well maybe not Mom and Dad, oh and I can draw Percy falling on his face in the mud, would serve him right."
Harry wasn't listening to him; he was still staring down at his blank peace of parchment. He didn't have anyone to draw.
All around the room students were comparing their drawings. Hermione and Ron were drawing comparing notes on their families. Even Neville, who had never truly lived with his parents, was telling Dean about his life with his Grandma.
"Mr. Potter, why aren't you drawing?" Professor Flitwick said, noticing his blank peace of parchment.
"I, I don't have anyone to draw," Harry admitting. Feeling like he'd rater be anywhere but there right now. He felt so out of place amongst the happy students talking about their parents, brothers, sisters, even grandparents and their happy lives. He was all alone.
"I though you lived with you Aunt and Uncle," Flitwick said, not understanding.
"Yes sir," Harry said, wanting to scream or cry.
"Well, their close enough family, why don't you draw them."
"Yes sir," Harry said, and the professor moved on.
No one had noticed the conversation.
Hermione was telling Ron about the time her Mom had insisted on walking her to school all year when she was eight. "I was so embarrassed, everyone else got to walk alone and she had to walk me all the way. In the end she let me go alone after I showed her the low number on kidnappings in our area." Harry remembered how as a kid he had watched other mothers and their children walk to school together. He would have given everything he owned to be one of them.
He looked down at his parchment again and started drawing.
First the house on Privet Drive. It was a neat and ordinary as possible. The lawn looking like no one had ever dared stand on it and the flower bed he had spent so much time tending looking as perfect as ever.
"Of course mom made us wear sweaters as early as September, we would always complain but she never would let us go out without one of them," Ron was saying. Harry remembered his old sweaters, leftovers from Dudley that he had gotten only late into December and even then they were never enough to keep him warm during the long winter months.
"And its terrible having to slept at the very top of the house. It gets so cold in winter. Then when we were little I shared a room with Ginny, but that wasn't too bad." Harry was remembering his cupboard under the stairs, with the spiders. Ron would love it down there, Harry though sourly.
He added Aunt Petunia, her neck he drew extract long. She was wearing the salmon pink dress she had worn during that dinner party in his second year.
"So Harry who are you drawing?" Hermione said finally. She had finished her drawing. He could see a stick figure that looked slightly like Hermione standing next to two figures that sort of looked like the Grangers. They were all smiling and standing in front of a large house. She didn't know how lucky she was.
"My Aunt, Uncle, and cousin," Harry muttered, going back to his drawing. It was OK, at least his figures looked more realistic then Hermione's.
He added his Uncle, making him as fat and mustached as in real life. His arm around his wife.
"It's a very interesting spell don't you think. I'm sure Mom and Dad will love to see this when I'm done, I'll have to send it to them."
"That's a good idea," Ron piped up, he was also done with his picture. His whole family stood around him, all with flaming red hair, freckles, and huge smiles. Ron stood in the middle between his parents and next to his sister, Ginny. In the background towered the Barrow, looking as wonderful as always. Ron didn't know a good thing when he saw one.
"Mom would love this. When we were kids she would put all our pictures and stuff on the walls, at one point there wasn't any wall space left. Mom always use to like us to color, would get us out of her hair she said."
Harry had never had his drawings displayed anywhere. When he was five he had given a drawing of his family to Aunt Petunia, in it all four of them, his Aunt, Uncle, Dudley, and him were smiling and holding hands. She had thrown it in the trash and told him not to give her rubbish again. He had cried all night, no one had noticed, they only cared that dinner was a little soggy that night.
Next was his cousin, as big and fat as his father. That summer he had started wearing a black leather jacket which made him look extremely stupid. Aunt Petunia had said it made him look very mature and bought him mating black paints. He put Dudley in front of both his parents, their arms on his shoulders. It looked like any normal family picture. So normal, a mother, father, and child, all happy in their little world, with each other to love them.
Other kids had heard Hermione's suggestion to send the picture to their parents. They were all chatting happily about what their parents would say. Harry just slumped farther down in his seat, trying not to look at anyone. He wondered what the Dursleys would say if they saw his drawing, probably throw it in the trash again.
Finally he added himself. It took him a while to decide were to put himself. Then he decided to have himself staring out the window of his bedroom. His brilliant green eyes peered thought the window, in a different world then the happy family on the lawn.
"Time's up, now everyone please repeat the spell after me, Animato. Got it? Good, I'll be around to check your progress."
"Animato," Harry said, almost lazily, not expecting it to work. But it did, the figures in his picture started to move. His Aunt's long neck looked up into the window were a sullen Harry was now moving around his room. Uncle Vernon was yelling something up at him; the Harry in the window looked annoyed and went out of sight.
"Harry you did it!" Hermione said from next to him, she was also looking at his picture. Her's was also moving but only making her mother wink occasionally and sometimes run her fingers thought Hermione's mess of hair, and her father wave happily.
"But Harry," Hermione said suddenly, "you're not in it."
"I'm in there," Harry said, looking down at his picture again. "Look there I am now/"
A skinny, blacked haired, Harry walked out of the front door of 4 Privet Drive, scowling. As he approached the family, Uncle Vernon seemed to be screaming at him more, Dudley was smirking at him, and his Aunt was frowning. After a moment Uncle Vernon pointed towards the flowerbed Harry had drawn and a angry Harry walked towards it and started pulling weeds.
"Harry," Ron said, looking over at Harry's picture, "what's wrong with your picture, it's suppose to show how your family acts around you."
Harry scowled; all around the room kids were showing each other their pictures. They all seemed to include happy smiling parents and carefree children, getting along. Harry felt out of place. It was true, he didn't have a family, not one that wanted him around anyway. For the first time since he had come to Hogwarts he felt like that lonely little kid he had been five years ago.
"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know," Hermione said in a whisper.
Harry didn't answer her, he just sat there looking down at the figure of him weeding the garden well his aunt, uncle, and cousin watched.
Soon the bell rang, he heard Ron and Hermione talking, probably about him, he didn't notice. For Harry had finally realized something, no matter what he did, or who he became, he would never truly be like everyone else. They had happy families; somewhere to go went everything fell apart, when no one else would believe them. Were they could go to be little kids, or tell stories of when there was nothing else to talk about.
Harry was different. He didn't have that, he had never truly had that. And somewhere inside of him would still live Harry Potter, no matter what he did. Harry Potter was not the boy-who-lived, or the school hero, or even the best friend, he was the little boy who lived under the stairs and was all alone.
And if there was one thing Harry Potter knew better then anyone one else was how much it sucks to be alone.
