Hy people!
First: sorry for the delay. I've been working quite hard on my new short serie Regulus ( go check it out), and my beta had a bit of trouble with internet. I will try to be quicker next time, but I can't promise anything as my concours is coming up. Anyway, here's the chapter!

I want to thanks all of you for the wonderful comments!

You can follow me on tumblr at ladybraken, where I post a lot of fanart and can answer to questions is there is some ^^

For this chapter: Warning: graphic description of the violent death of a child. There is a small warning in the chapter in itself before the scene.

Chapter 6: The Accident

Hello hello! It's been a long time I know. You must forgive the lack of energy of an old man… It's not that I have better things to do, but we have all our time to talk about Mr Potter, don't we? As palpitating as this story is, it's already over…

As I said last time, when the young Mr. Potter came back to Private Drive, the head full of the idea that maybe he could be forgiven for what he had done - for what he was- he saw aurors knocking at the door.

Of course, Harry didn't know what an auror was, but the long cloaks, serious faces, and poised manners led him to think that they must be inspectors - cops of some sort. He heart skipped a bit, and fear ran down his throat.

The seven year old was - due to malnourishment - quite small for his age. As regrettable as it was for his health, it gave him the advantage of being able to sneak everywhere as efficiently as he had that one time in his neighbour's house.

Oblivious to her nephew's attempt to pass through the fence and hide under the kitchen window to spy on these men, Petunia Dursley, like the good housewife she dreamed herself to be, opened the door to the two men.

Now I need your full attention because a lot of things are going to happen at the same time.

At the front door, Petunia opened the door to two uninvited - but not apparently strange - individuals. She looked at them up and down before inquiring "Can I help you?" This was asked politely, if a bit warrily.

"Yes, we are here to ask questions about the incident of Miss Tacklebot."

She looked at them up and down, lips pinched. "Do you have a warrant?" she said with disapproval. What if her neighbours saw them on the front door?

Luckily, Moody was under glamours. I dare not to imagine Mrs. Dursley's reaction to his electric blue eye and missing leg. Not to mention… the rest of his face. It is already quite impressive to anyone in the wizarding world, Muggles would have been terrified.

"It's just the procedure, Ma'am, nothing to worry about. No investigation on your family. Can we come in?"

"Oh yes, yes of course," she said briskly.

During those few minutes, Harry had managed to pass through the little hole he had made in the fence ( the perks of being the one repairing it, one might say). When Moody passed the door, Harry ran to the wall, where he wouldn't be in the field of view of Ms. Fig whom he knew was probably watching from behind her once-white curtains.

She wasn't mean to him, but she could go and tell Aunt Petunia like Miss Tacklebot had. He couldn't take that risk. He didn't trust her.

He stuck to the wall and crouched. He walked slowly until he was under the window, within perfect hearing range of what was happening in the kitchen and the living room. Aunt Petunia always let the window open during the day 'to clean the air of freakness, dust, and impurities,' she had spat when he had asked.

That thought made him blink to fight back the tears. But his curiosity, his fear, was too great.

He had to know what these men wanted. He had to know if he was in danger.

If he had to run.

As the little Harry settled in the snow under the window, Moody and his colleague sat on the sofa, trying hard not to stare at the strange black box in front of them. Moody had seen one or two before, and it was always intriguing. He still hadn't managed to understand how the Muggles made this thing work.

Petunia came back with coffee, a sat across from her guests. Petunia was many things, but a bad hostess she was not.

"So, gentlemen, what can I do for you?" she asked.

"Your children were in Mis Tacklebot's class, weren't they?"

"Yes, yes of course, my son was in it. A very good student, that he is! It's such a shame what happened to Miss Tacklebot, he liked her very much."

The two Aurors looked at each other for a second. "Good, good. Did one of your children tell you something during the week that preceded her death? Anything might help us: if she looked depressed or worried, if she left class earlier…"

"Oh no, my dear Dudley didn't told me anything like that… He is a good kid, but he doesn't tend to notice that type of things, you see. But if she had changed her timetable during the week, that we would have known.," she said, and then, more conspiratorially, " We don't let Dudley go home alone, you know. It's not responsible, with all the… strange people one may find in the streets. Just yesterday, a Punk was walking on the pavement!"

Of course, none of the two men knew what a "punk" was, but they nodded gravely, immediately earning Petunia's respect. Proper people hated punk it was well-known. Natural, even. Adding to that that, it reinforced her attitude that two officers - representation of the country's order - agreed with her.

Under the window, Harry was almost shaking with relief (and bitterness) that his very existence hadn't been mentioned at all. It was like he had been forgotten already.

He was invisible. He liked and hated the idea at the same time. He tilted his head in order to have a better sight of the room.

He didn't notice that his breath was forming a little cloud in the cold winter air above him.

Alastor, however, did notice. Just like he notice the small frame behind the wall when they had entered the place. Just like he noticed Petunia was using a singular instead of a plural to talk about the two boys, effectively keeping Harry shut out, even in her speech.

And Alastor didn't like that. No, he didn't like that at all.

The records say that he thought at that very moment: "I smelled bullshit two miles around this house, and even with that the Dursleys kept surprising me."

"Did you see Miss Tacklebot yourself during that week?" he asked, fixing his eyes onto Petunia's.

The woman immediately tensed, but smiled politely, her hands folded around her wrists in a nervous gesture. She fidgeted a bit under Moody's stare, but kept a calm countenance.

"Well, yes, but it wasn't for anything important…"

But, Harry thought, if Petunia told them why they had talked to Miss Tacklebot, they would know he existed. They would know he was there. They would see he was a freak.

What else could they know?

Panic wasn't forgotten for so long and rose again to crush his chest. He was threatened. He felt threatened. And thus, his magic did too.

As the magical bomb that was inside Harry's head started to grow again, Vernon was parking his car in front of his impeccable house. His mood was grim - his most hated colleague had just gotten a promotion (" He probably let the boss fuck his wife, that fucker!", silently raged Vernon), and of course, Mr. Dursley, despite the fact the he was a better salesman, didn't get one.

It was thus, a very unhappy and vindicative Vernon that opened door that day.

Harry heard the noise of the car stopping against the gravel in front of the house, and he knew Vernon was coming - too soon to be normal, certainly far too soon to avoid a disaster. He stilled, holding his breath, and waited with horror for what was to come.

Moody saw the car parking behind him through the wall, and the man (that strangely reminded him of oversized beef) got out of the car, his face already red from badly hidden anger. Not that Vernon was known to hide very well - or even try to hide- his anger.

Petunia was too occupied telling the Aurors the latest gossip of the neighbourhood to hear her husband coming home - it had to be said that it was quite rare for her to be able to share all the gossip, as her only accointances were the very people she was gossiping about. Apparently, Mrs. Mackinnon had a lover - and not any lover, her husband's best friend, could you imagine?

It is of no use to say that the Aurors in question were bored to death and seriously starting to questioning they're life choices.

Vernon's steps sounded heavily in the corridor.

"What th- What is happening here?" asked Vernon loudly, barely stopping himself from swearing in front of the officials.

"Mister Dursley," Moody said. Of course he spoke politely, but something in his tone was implying that he really didn't want to be polite. Luckily, Vernon wasn't that subtle. Moody held his hand out for the large man to shake it with his sweaty palm; Moody had to resist the urge to wipe it on his pants.

"Yes, that's me," grunted Vernon.

"Vernon, these men are here to talk about what happened to the teacher, Miss Tacklebot.," she said, and as her husband was becoming red again, she added quickly, "They are just asking a few questions, nothing to worry about."

He nodded and followed his wife to sit next to her. His mood was far to improve. At least from where he was he could see the door, and if his nephew came home, send him back somewhere else before these men start to ask questions.

You may ask yourself: if he thought that what he was doing was normal, why was he hiding it? Well, that is what a lot of abusers do. They pretend that their behaviour is natural, that their victims deserved it, sometimes until the victim starts to believe them. But deep down, when they face the mirror, they know that it's wrong. Cases of abuse without real recognition of it by the abuser are rare, and fall under different pathologies.

All of that isn't to say that Vernon wasn't insane, or idiot. Not a clever man, granted, and maybe not the most stable one, but he had no excuses. Chains of event, of bad choices, of bad temper, maybe, but no excuses.

Most of them don't.

Petunia had followed her husband's train of thought, but unlike him, she wasn't happy at the idea of what might happen to little Harry later that day. She knew her husband's mood was dark, and she feared that he would go too far this time. He didn't really control himself in these moments, she told herself, it was her duty to protect her husband from prison, and to avoid something too... permanent... from happening to the child.

Harry, on the other hand, was still frozen outside, body and mind. His hands were numb and he was starting to regret not having thought about taking something warmer to wear outside - he still had two shirts and a blanket inside his cupboard. But if he had taken them, they would have been soaked in cold water, and he would have had nothing to sleep in…

He shook his head to send away his thought. He had to be really, really attentive to what was happening. Like in class, because otherwise he would forget things and have bad grades. Bad grades were good, because he wasn't beaten for them, but also bad, because he teachers looked at him with disappointment, frustration, and then acceptance.

The last one was the worst, it meant that they truly thought he was stupid. Incapable of the easiest thing.

On the bad days, Harry believed it too.

Moody continued to ask random questions to the Dursleys (when did they leave the house, did they noticed someone strange? - question to which Petunia had made a very unforgiving portrait of the real Moody, indicating that she had seen "this frighteningly ugly man roaming around the other day." The other Auror had to cough to hide his laughter.), but his attention was focused on the small child outside who was moving less and less with each minute that passed.

The less the child was moving the more his magic was spreading, becoming thick and aggressive. It was curling, crushing, like smoke in an enclosed space. Something was ringing every bell in Moody's mind and his well-developed paranoia was screaming bloody murder.

However, he had factually so little proof or physical elements that he couldn't act, especially in front of muggles.

What he didn't know was that each question was stressing the young Harry to no end, and the child was wishing for it to end already ! He was cold, hungry, and tired. His hand were shaking from the aftermath of the fright he kept having, and he was quite sure that at this rate his hair would be whiter than snow before he reached puberty.

Luckily, Vernon too was starting to be inpatient. His son would be home from school soon enough and he didn't want the kid to worry about policemen in the house, no matter how decent they were. Surely, it would remind him what had happened and Vernon was adamant on the fact the Dudley shouldn't had been even aware that such thing as death existed, not so soon that is.

Too much time had already been spent on that little teacher - nobody was crying for her after all! Why were they bother good and quiet families about it?

The tension and awkwardness was spreading through the room, and Moody took his cue to leave - he didn't want the muggles to suspect something after all, and he wasn't that good at obliviating. Better to avoid trouble, especially with all the public's eyes on him and his men.

So, despite the fact that every muscle in his body told him to take the child and run away to the Ministry with him, Moody rose from his seat, shook hands with the Dursleys, and continued his patrol in the neighbourhood.

Harry let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding.

Vernon was following them to the front door, half to be a polite host, half to be sure they would leave his property as soon as they were out of the house.

Harry quickly walked to the back wall of the house, hoping to pass by the garden door and not to be noticed, but his relatives nor by the cops.

But fate don't favour the miserable, and the door was locked.

Harry panicked and his breath started accelerating dangerously. What if he had to pass by the front door and Dursley wasn't already home? It was one of the rare days he went home alone, because Pier's mom accepted to accompany them. What if one of the cops saw him and sent him to jail? Worse, what if Vernon saw him?

His uncle hadn't screamed yet, but Harry knew him well enough. Enough to know the way his lower lips went forward, showing teeth as if his jaw was too heavy to be held normally, making him take deep, hot angry breaths. The way his vein pulsed under the red skin of his temple. The way he was constantly cracking his thumb in his palm. The way his movements were a bit too quick, a bit too much strength in them.

His uncle was internally boiling and just waiting to find someone to release his anger on. Said someone being Harry, of course.

The child was terrified and his rational mind had stopped working a long time ago. He couldn't go in by the front door, but the more he waited outside the more time he gave Vernon to find him and to brew his anger. Plus, it was far too cold outside to stay in the snow: his fingers were already starting to turn blue. He simply had to go in before his legs buckled under him and let him fall asleep against the snowy door.

Petunia watched her husband escort the cops out of their home. She too knew what was happening in Vernon's head. She looked around her kitchen, checking that the child had had the time to do all his chores in the morning.

It wouldn't do to give Vernon an excuse.

Not that Petunia particularly liked her nephew more now, or cared about him even. But a scandal can happen quickly, and these cops might interrogate the kids afterwards.

As she turned around, she saw it. The little cloud of white smoke under the door's window. She pinched her lips even more when she noticed the the doorknob was turning without success, again and again.

She sight. If she wasn't sure before, now she knew there was nothing to do with that child.

She pushed the key in the keyhole and opened the door, making Harry stumble inside and crash on the floor with a small thump . She didn't take the time to check on him, of course, and grabbed him by the collar before dragging him into his cupboard and throwing him inside.

Harry heard the door lock behind him, leaving him in the semi-darknesses of his small room. He let himself fall against the door, breathing hard. His chest still hurt slightly from when he had fallen and his mind didn't have the time to process everything that had happened. At least he was warm now. He stripped off his shoes, coat, and scarf and put them in the farthest corner of the cupboard where the heating was on the other side of the wall.

He put his trembling hands against the warm wall and flexed his fingers.

"I hope uncle Vernon will not try to look for me…" he whispered to the spider running on one of the shelves full of bottles, tools and cleaning products.

Ths spider stopped for a second, as if understanding what the child was saying, as if understanding what the child wasn't saying, before continuing its way.

Any other child would have been scared by this behaviour, but Harry had accepted these little miracles a long time ago. As long as he didn't consciously notice he was actually using magic, he was fine.

Well, not fine . Harry was very, very far from fine as it was.

Shivers were running down his spine as his body slowly got used to the warm temperature of the inside. Of course, his cupboard wasn't heated, and his relatives took care to cut the heating at night, turning the room into a little fridge, but during the day, it was nice enough.

Harry closed his eyes, trying to sort out his thoughts.

Cops were searching for him, but they didn't know it was him. They would know he was a freak, they may not know that he was a monster. So what?

What was going to happen to him now? What more than what had already be done to him could happen in prison? Would he be less free than here? Eat less? His young imagination summoned images of terrible places, dark, cold and damp, full of people in black, screamings and green lights. If normal life was the Dursleys, then surely, prison must look like something like that. They would make him do pointless work all day long, without food or water, but worse, he would never see the sunlight again. Never feel its warm rays against his skin like a hug from the sky. Maybe, even, they would kill him. He had learnt at school that there wasn't any death penalty in England, but surely for someone as abnormal as he was, they would make an exception…

They wouldn't believe that he didn't do it on purpose, that he didn't want it, that he was just a little boy...

No, they would only see the freak, and they would be right to.

He was a freak after all. Undeserving of love, friendship. Surely they would know he didn't deserve forgiveness or kindness either - just like his uncle had said.

"Do you think I'm a freak too?" he softly asked the spider that had appeared again at the other side of the shelf.

Once again, the arachnid turned around and stared at the boy for a moment, before returning to its activities.

They never talked back.

Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, Harry took his knees in his arms and concentrated on observing the spiders to forget the heavy footsteps of his uncle in the corridor - far too close to his cupboard for his tastes. He couldn't even really see them.

His glasses had never been for his sight - they were some old thing Aunt Petunia had found, but as the years passed, they hurt his eyes more than anything else. Harry, of course, hadn't noticed it, as his sight had lessened slowly. Without his glasses, he was almost blind, with them he could still see a few meters ahead.

As Harry was trying his hardest to pretend that he didn't exist, Alastor apparated to the ministry. Quickly, he went into his office, locked the door, raised the wards, closed the floo, and shut the windows. Then, he sat behind his desk and put a small file in front of him. Frowning, he opened it.

It wasn't in his habits to check the files - it wasn't his job. And Alastor tended to stayed within the limits of his job - except when he didn't.

And something was telling him that Alastor was putting his feet in a very, very deep pool of mud right now.

It took him about two hours to give up. To be frank, even with the information that had been given to him by the order, he had nothing. There was no information to find. The night of the Potter's murder was a mystery, where different sources contradicted themselves, and after that… Pages and pages of casual reports from Miss Figg about the boy drinking tea at her home, going and coming from school… Nothing that could explain 1) why the boy had been waiting outside in the snow, 2) why his magic was lashing out this way (there was only one report of accidental magic, a child set on a roof by accident, a powerful feat, yes, but nothing out of the ordinary), 3) why Petunia Dursley had refuse to even acknowledge his very existence, and 4) why the entire neighborhood seemed convinced that a seven year old was the worse delinquent that they had ever seen.

His instincts were telling him that something was wrong, but he technically had no proof. He grunted, scratching one of the scars on his chin in a pensive gesture.

If something happened to that kid, he wouldn't forgive himself. Along with the other members of the Order, he had promised to protect James and Lily, and failed.

He would not make such mistake again.

Grunting, he hid the file in his desk, cast a few (very powerful) wards around it, lowered the ones that were around the office, opened the curtains, unlocked the door, and sat back in his place, head leaning on his fist.

He didn't have much time until his retirement. He wasn't in favour in the public's mind. Not that he really cared on a personal level, but he knew that the person that would replace him might do the exact opposite of his own action - if only to show off. Moody had been a Head Auror during Voldemort's (please, don't flinch at his name, it's unbecoming) rise, and he knew how politics work, and where actions can lead.

Alastor leaned back in his chair and sighed.

Back in Little Whining, Vernon passed the entire evening pacing, frustrated, lashing his anger out on everything that fell under his meaty hands.

Luckily, little Harry stayed in his cupboard and didn't move until the next morning. He entangled himself in the cover that he had since he was a baby as in a protective cocoon, and pretended that the small noises he emitted were not gulped, anguised sobs.

It was a Saturday, quite sunny for the season. That was the reason which pushed Petunia to take the kids to the playground. Yes, the two of them - no matter how much she hated her nephew, she couldn't leave him alone at home for too long - he might burn the house to the ground with his "freakishness".

She didn't know, of course, that it would be the worst decision of her life - despite, maybe, being a poor excuse of an human being.

Harry had the most horrendous nightmare that night. His mind had mixed his fear of prison, remembrance of green light, cold, screaming (his mother's, Vernon's, Voldemort's), and didn't remember it later, when his uncle jolted him awake by screaming "BOY!" and drumming on his door. He had cried out during his nightmare.

The image of a pale, monstrous face towering towards him was still engraved in his retina.

At the second drumming, he knew he had to get ou of his bedt, unless he wanted a beating for breakfast. He wiped his tears from his cheeks, put on some old clothes, took his glasses and opened the door of his cupboard…

… only to be thrown back by his cousin, running in the hallway for some more bacon - not that he wouldn't have had all of it anyway.

Harry didn't understand what had happened for long, long seconds - only that somehow he was back on his dirty mattress, facing the little Harry he had carved in the wall.

For a moment, he thought he would burst out of laughing, maybe of tears, maybe just explode, but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

A few seconds later, he was serving breakfast to his uncle - knowing that he couldn't have any. The smell made his mouth water and his stomach growl.

"Don't look at my food like that, Boy. You freaks don't deserve it, so stop dreaming and go fetch the orange juice! You should be grateful to have a roof above your head already!" taunted Vernon with a mean smile. Harry obeyed, conveniently forgetting to tell his uncle that half of his breakfast had ended on his moustache.

"Tell me Duddikin, would you like to go play at the park with Piers today? You could use your new ball and maybe the ice-cream man will be there!" cooed Petunia.

Harry ignored the painful pit in his stomach.

Dudley's face illuminated immediately- that type of amusement had been rare since the demise of his teacher. He nodded with enthusiasm and jumped out of his chair to run into his second bedroom and gather his toys. Harry had to throw away the food the other boy had recklessly left behind and that he couldn't eat.

For all his self-hating mindset, when the slices of tasty beacon fell in the trash along with all the other wasted things, it was anger that boiled inside Harry. Somehow, a deep sense of injustice clutched his empty belly, drowned in the mantra that he didn't deserve it anyway.

Sighing softly, he close the trash can.

"I'll take… him with us so you can rest, Vernon," continued his aunt, putting a bony hand on her husband's shoulder.

"Are you sure? I want you to have a good day with Dudley… after what happened… I don't want him ruining everything.," said Vernon.

"I'll send him to the swings, and Dudley will play with little Piers. He won't even be near the other children."

"Alright."

Harry stayed in his corner, waiting to get the dishes, listening to it all, eyes downcast. He blinked to chase the tears away, but never moved.

He knew he was unwanted, but it hurt each time.

An hour later, they were all ready to go. Dudley had his red ball under his arm, bouncing around with excitement. Even Harry's mood lightened a bit: he was allowed to play! no chores for an entire afternoon! That was a little miracle in itself. Maybe at the park he would meet new children and they would accept to play with him for a bit- if Dudley was distracted.

Harry walked a few meters behind Petunia and Dudley, his aunt insisting on holding her son's hand. He was kicking the little stones on the road.

He had a very bad feeling about his all, but he tried to forget it. Usually he was left in his cupboard while his aunt went to the park with Dudley. He wasn't sure why she had taken him with her today - surely to avoid bothering Vernon with his presence- but he knew he should make the best of it.

It was a good day, he thought. Sunny, with just a bit of wind, so that he could let the rays warm the skin of his face.

A few kids were already playing in the park. Dudley ran to them - Piers not far behind him. As tacitly promised, Harry went towards the lonely swing. He kicked his legs back and forth, not tall enough to touch the ground from the swing.

He watched his cousin playing football with the other children. Dudley kicked the ball into one of the children's legs and they laugh at his clumsiness. The game started again and the tiny children were running back and forth, laughing to their heart's content.

Harry sighed. He didn't know if he felt good or if this jealousy was uncomfortable. He was used to it after all.

He raised his head to face the sky and took in a deep breath, his hair floating slowly around his ears, tickling his neck under the heavy scarf Miss Figg had knit for him a long time ago. He liked the scarf, even if it had holes in it and it was threadbare at the ends- it was warm and red - his favourite color. It hadn't been a gift, really, one winter he was just sittin on the front porch, waiting for his punishment to be over, and she had simply put it on him as she had passed.

Somehow, it had warmed his heart - and his neck, even if he knew she didn't care - as he wasn't worth caring for.

"What are you doing here alone?"

Harry startled and turned around. A little girl that he didn't know was standing behind him, a big stuffed doll in here hands. She was about Harry's eyes, maybe a bit older. Her hair was separated into two braids which would have looked ridiculous on somebody older, but which surrounded her face and the fair plaits and gave her an adorable air.

Harry only shrugged, not quite knowing what to answer. Then: "Because I'm not worthy of anything that's Dudley's." He said with bitter conviction.

"Who's Dudley?" asked the little girl.

Harry pointed at his cousin who was running after the red ball.

"I don't know who that is. Do you want to play?" she asked on the same dismissive tone.

Harry nodded with enthusiasm. She couldn't see his smile, hidden under the large scarf that only let the end of his little reddened nose out, but she could tell he was happy. She held out her hand, and, after a moment of hesitation, he clasped his little hand in hers and she lead him a bit closer in the park to the other children.

"This is Miss Dolly," she said, sitting the doll next to them so they would form a circle. "Do serve tea to Miss Dolly, she likes it a lot!"

Harry didn't asked how a doll could like tea, or show that she liked it and observed the little girl mimic something. It was the first time someone accepted to play with him, so he was a bit lost. It took a moment for him to understand that she was pretending to set the table. It wasn't too far from what he was used to do, so he faked serving tea and giving it to the doll. The whole ordeal seemed quite pointless to him, but the little girl seemed so sure of herself, he didn't dare to ask.

"My name is Mary," she said after being sure that her doll was indeed enjoying her air-tea.

"I'm Frea- Harry," stumbled the little boy shyly.

"Now, Harry, you're my friend!" decided Mary, with a pointed look. The idea of having a friend was so magnificent for him that he beamed and radiated with happiness.

He had a friend! He wished he could just jump and dance around to show his joy to everyone, but he didn't dare to move.

"What do you think, Miss Dolly, can you be friends with Harry?" continued the little girl, turning towards her doll.

The doll was made of purple rags which made him a pretty dress, belted in the middle of her body by a little piece of cloth. Her eyes were made from black buttons that fixed his gaze with an empty air, a too big smilesewn on her woolen face.

Harry was suddenly taken in an irrational grasp, that if the doll refused to be his friend, Mary would throw him away too; it was obvious that his friendship was worth less than that of a rag doll. This apprehension increased every second that the little girl went to fix the doll, waiting patiently for an answer. He felt threatened, in danger of losing the only thing he held, even if it was only a few minutes.

For a child as deprived of affection as Harry, the attachment to the few who could be good with him was very, very fast forming.

And, as we have explained, the magic of small children reacts mainly to danger. Not an objective danger, but what the child feels like a danger.

As a result, the little rag doll got up and raised her arms to the sky as if to ask Harry to hug her.

The little girl screamed.

Not that the fact the the doll hand stood was frightening in itself; maybe she could have found it fascinating, or amusing, or she would have been comforted in the idea that her dear doll was alive. But, even if muggle cannot see or perform magic, they can feel it, especially children.

And the magic from a Obscurial reeks of threat.

By chance, the adults in attendance were too busy gossiping to take in a single cry in a park full of children who were causing chaos in every directions, but Dudley and Piers, they heard perfectly.

Harry started to panic after Mary screamed and did everything to make himself as small as possible. When his cousin joined them, accompanied by his little band, the young boy was already in a ball, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him.

"What is it, Mary?" asked Piers, who, as her cousin, felt a little responsible - as much as a child can be at this age.

"He did something weird, I'm scared!" cried the little girl, running behind her cousin.

"Yeah, that's because he's a freak. You shouldn't have gone close to him. Dad said it might be contagious!"

Of course, Dudley had to jump to the occasion to lower and humiliate his cousin; he had been raised to believe it was a normal and good thing to do after all.

"I don't like him!" cried Mary.

Dread filled Harry at her words. He was confused, scared, and angry. His heart couldn't choose between hating her or hating himself, and his eyes started to wet.

"But you said you were my friend!"

She hid even more behind the other boy at his outburst. The fact that she was scared of him was probably the worst for Harry, even more than the betrayal because it was the proof that he was a monster. Why couldn't he stop these things from happening?

"I'm not your friend anymore! You're mean and weird!"

And that was how a little girl managed to break something every adult in Harry's life hadn't succeed to…

"Bu-"

Harry was cut off by the slap his cousin gave him, making him fall back on the ground.

"Shut up, Freak! Now leave the park or I'll hurt you!" screamed his cousin, looking disturbingly like his father. The plump boy got closer to him with a smug smirk and gave him a kick in the ribs for good measure.

"Nobody will ever love you ." he spat.

With tears in his eyes, Harry ran to the edge of the park, just behind the white fences that led down the sidewalk, then down the road. The place was actually not very big, and he could still see and hear his cousin, who had resumed his football game, a little further away. Now, Mary was sitting on her side, looking at her doll with suspicion.

Harry took his knees in his arms and sat on the ground, nursing his new bruise. He had a sore throat from holding back his tears but he refused to cry and be humiliated when someone found out.

He watched the cars pass, glareing at the little girl and the other children from time to time, sometimes observing from afar his aunt who was still talking to Piers' mother with great gestures of her bony hands.

Frustrated that his angry look had no effect on the other children, Harry ended up stubbornly staring at the ground, murmuring insults that were supposed to relieve his frustration. It did not work. With every bad word, Harry felt more angry, more distraught, simply because he did not understand. Everything was going so well, and all of a sudden he did not even have the right to go on the broken swings that nobody was using.

The fact that he could hear the other children having fun while he was cast out made his blood boil. He scratched his forearms, leaving red trails behind his fingers, trying to get what was ascending inside him in control to avoid any other freakiness, but it hurt and the cold made it worse .

Now I must warn you that what happen after isn't for sensitive souls; it is a tragic story, and for you to understand what will happen next, I am going to have to tell everything in great detail . Be sure that I do not enjoy it in any way, but I must warn you. Molly, please, do go fetch some tea, for your own good; and I feel like we are going to need it afterwards.

Now...

… Harry heard the cries of the children come closer and saw from the corner of the eye a figure passing near him to run after a red spot. He recognized Mary, and, seized with a sudden surge of resentment, cast a glance at her that conveyed all the storms of broken feelings, tears, and hopes that swirled in his head.

The little girl did not see him and continued to run after the ball, which rolled on the road, one step, then another.

Harry was so angry that his breath had caught in his throat and his pupils had dilated, darkening the bright green of his eyes. For a second only, Harry thought that it all was her fault .

All the pain, the anger, all the things that were crushing him. The electric feeling of magic on his fingers, the poison in his veins, everything that made him a freak and that made the others monsters…

For a simple second, it was all her fault.

Mary stumbled over nothing .

Harry watched in slow motion as the little girl lost her balance while she was still on the sidewalk, the ball still rolling on the asphalt. She fell, still between the earth and the sky, and the child's eyes widened when he saw the lights illuminate Mary's blond curls as a car approached. He heard the distant echo of the screaming adults, perceiving the danger, Piers' mother starting to run, though she simply could not get there in time.

The roaring of the car became enhanced as Mary's right knee slammed onto the asphalt and her eyes closed with pain, soon joined by the strident sound of the horn that lingered for hours. Harry opened his mouth, and a piece of parchment hit the little girl in the hip, making her fly against the hood, then the windshield.

A horrible crack rang out when the little girl's skull hit the windshield that split into a million shards. A splash of blood spurted and splattered Harry's face, whose squared eyes could not yet understand what was happening.

Red, so, so red...

The screech of the brakes rose in crescendo as the rubber wheels smoked against the asphalt in a desperate attempt to stop what had already happened, and the car continued in spite of everything, while the body of the little girl rolled on the roof, each of her limbs bumping on the metal, before falling heavily on the ground.

The car stopped a little further away, and the weather resumed its normal course.

Harry stood there, staring unblinkingly at the little girl's body, whose still limbs were in impossible angles, open skull letting him see the grey matter behind it, a pool of blood slowly spreading around her. He felt something sticky on his cheek. As the screams and voices drew closer to him, he raised a trembling hand and put his fingers in the trail of blood that stained his face.

His mind still hadn't processed what had happened, but his heart, his soul , already knew.

Oh, I feel that my story shocked you. But it is important for you that I do not hide anything from you, including the most atrocious details, simply because to understand Harry, you have to understand what he has seen and what he has experienced. .

However, I don't want to overwhelm you, so I shall stop here for today. I'm sure Molly's tea will be of great help. Take care, my friends.