The Preschool Punishment
Fading To Black
Mrs. Emerson had seen many children walk into and out of her little classroom. Bright, smiling, four year olds with brown and blue and green and black eyes that shone with excitement. She had seen many of those children mature and grow. Some of them even deigned to visit her when they grew. A troupe of six children she'd had in her classroom had come just a while before, now as a close-knit group of friends who had just graduated Stonewall Middle School, and were headed to Stonewell High this coming autumn.
Frankly, it made her feel a bit old.
They'd be in the high school now, probably learning about biology and algebra, and start turning into adults. There was a certain look to kids once they matured into adults. It wasn't one she expected to see in her childish, naive four year olds. The fact that she did made her want to hit the strong stuff. Hard.
A young boy with especially vibrant green eyes and a particularly distinguishable scar smiled back at her when she turned in his direction. Good. She was proud of him. He was a bright little one. A little shadow in his eyes that shouldn't be there, but she'd heard that his parents had been killed with him nearby. Understandable. She knew, from long years of working with the little apples of their parents' eyes, that children were often more intelligent and had better memories than adults suspected. The poor boy, she had long thought. He probably remembers.
He was also head-and-shoulders better than the vast majority in class in academics. A quiet kid, and one who followed directions well. One didn't have to be a preschool teacher to know how rare that was at that age. At the very least, his cousin seemed to be the most immature of the lot this year. It made her wonder why the two were so different, but she put it up to differing personalities.
Therefore, she hadn't really thought about it when she gave one cousin praise in front of the rest of the class. She didn't think anything of giving high marks to Harry-the green eyed one-at the same time as giving low marks to Dudley. It was just an assignment, and it was well-earned in both cases.
She hadn't seen Harry for a week after that day.
When Mrs. Dursley-Petunia, was it?- had come for Dudley a week later, she said that Harry had taken ill, and you know how children are at that age, recovering from illnesses. When Harry returned, nearly a month after he had disappeared, he didn't look her in the eye again. He started doing poorly on assignments, even worse than his cousin. When confronted about it, he made noncommittal remarks and shrugged his shoulders.
When she had finally managed to look into his eyes, she had seen that glint, a glint of maturity meant for someone older. Much older. A decade, at least.
The next day, before she could do anything about it, Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley had graduated out of her class, and she knew she it was too late to do anything.
Harry, now twenty-four, stood under a black umbrella as his old preschool teacher was lowered into her grave. It was well known that she was loved dearly by the kids, and anyone she had taught who could be tracked down had been invited to the funeral, in lieu of any family of her own. Many of them went up to tell them about their memories of her.
She had really been an openhearted person, he reflected somberly. Harry was not among the people who said anything, however. He was too lost in his own memories for anything like that.
In truth, Harry had forgotten her name long ago. It just wasn't very relevant. He had never forgotten her face, however. Or her kindness. Or her obliviousness.
He remembered, all too vividly, how the first time he had been locked in his cupboard for an extended amount of time during which he couldn't even properly run around was when he was four years old. He had been in there for nearly a month, and had been fed one meal every day, which looked like whatever the family had served themselves but not finished. A few times, all he had had to gnaw on were bones, and he had never been properly warm, only having that small, raggedy blanket. He'd had the frightening dream about his parents, with the green light he now knew for the Avada Kedavra curses Voldemort had used to kill his parents, for the first time. He'd been lonely, scared, hungry, and extremely and inexplicably sad. He remembered not wanting to disappoint his teacher, who had praised him, but he didn't want more cupboard time.
He wondered how she hadn't noticed, and what she would do or think if she knew it was indirectly her fault. She hadn't meant anything by it, true, but it had happened. She had praised his work in school. Not only that, but she did it at the same time that she complained about Dudley's. She had painted the picture that he had been better at something than Dudley was.
From that day on, Harry had been forbidden to do better than Dudley in school. The extended time in the cupboard was probably a mix of punishment, enforcement and an insurance policy that he wouldn't even dare to think of doing it again. And he didn't. He dumbed down his work so that even Dudley's was better than his. She had confronted him about it.
Despite that, he had come. She had been his teacher twenty years ago. It had been a long twenty year, true. But no time was long enough to forget one of the only kind eyes he had ever seen when he was a child. No amount of punishment for disobeying a Dursley's formerly nonexistent 'Freak Rule' was enough. No amount of hate, or love, or any emotion in between was enough.
And so, as Harry went up for his turn throwing a bit of dirt on her grave, he felt the tears finally spring out of his eyes. And, with a shaking voice that was stolen by the wind, he finally said something he should have long ago to old Mrs. Emerson. "Thank you."
This is an entry for the Magical Objects Competiton : Blood Quill.