Life plodded on day after day and before long it was spring. Dew dotted the grass in the mornings and a light breeze skirted across the ground in the afternoons and the Dursleys kept on being perfectly, impeccably, normal. It was just after school, and Harry's eyes flitted to the front window of Number 4 Privet Drive from where he was currently vacuuming the living room. He wondered for a second what it would be like to run away, far away, with Bolt and never return. He shook his head and returned to work. He knew he needed the roof that his relatives provided, for all the pain it and its residents brought to the fourth occupant of Number 4 Privet Drive.
He turned the other direction and glanced through the kitchen and out that window. From where he stood he could just make out the blurry outline of Dudley. He'd gotten a new toy, a bow and arrow set, the day before, and so he was taking a break from his various video games to try to shoot trees. It would be a mess to clean up before Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia came home.
Just as he was about to turn back to work, Dudley yelled and Harry's heart stopped as he saw a foreboding blue blur disappear behind a bush.
Without a second thought Harry let go of the vacuum cleaner and sprinted into the yard, dimly hearing the machine bump into a chair and fall over behind him. In the yard Dudley had already made it all the way to the other side of the yard and was peering inquisitively behind the (thankfully regrown) bush that blocked the hole in the fence.
"Dudley!"
"What do you want, freak?" Dudley said, and just as Harry was about to answer—with what, he didn't know— Dudley continued. "You'll never guess what I just saw! I wonder what mom would think of it."
Now frantic, Harry shouted, his voice just low enough to slip by the neighbors' attentions. "You can't tell her!"
Dudley half-turned to him, an annoyed and belligerent frown on his face. "And why not?"
"Because… because only freaks see them!" Harry said desperately.
At this Dudley paused in his search and turned fully around. "What?"
"Didn't you know?" Harry laughed, an anxiety filled giggle that forced its way out of his throat. "Only freaks see them. They don't have a name," (better not to give Dudley one that would slip out while he wasn't paying attention), "but they're a sign of madness. I can see them, which is why I'm a freak."
Now Dudley looked worried. "I'm a freak?!" Harry struggled to hold back a relieved grin. He had him now.
"Well, have you seen them before?" Harry asked.
"No!" Dudley cried. He was becoming hysterical, jerking back and forth as if to watch out for another to come and prove he was a freak like his cousin.
"Then it's okay." Harry said soothingly. Dudley glanced at him, unsure but ready to believe. "It is! As long as it doesn't happen again, we can just keep it between us. No one has to know you're a freak, okay?"
Dudley nodded, before frantically backing up towards the house, refusing to turn away from the hole in the fence which had to him nearly brought his doom. As he approached the door the bow that he seemed to have forgotten he was holding banged against the siding and Dudley yelped, dropping the offending weapon and running inside faster than he'd moved in his life.
Harry sighed and moved to start clearing up the yard. He didn't like what he had just done—he felt sick to his stomach for spreading lies after trying for so long to glean even the slightest bit of truth from the doublespeak of the people of Little Whinging, and now he was two-faced himself. He tried to reason with himself, reciting the reasons why it was necessary, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with.
As he eased himself into bed that night he stared at his filched, pilfered, and permanently borrowed possessions. He closed his eyes to escape the nagging feeling of wrongdoing, but that only brought a vision Dudley's terrified face. He shook his head and tossed, then turned, trying in vain to fall asleep before finally abandoning the effort and staring at the ceiling.
In the dark in the little cupboard under the stairs of Number four, Privet Drive, Surrey a little boy's whisper could be heard making a promise that he would do anything to keep.
"I might have to do bad things sometimes, but I swear I'll never become like my Aunt or Uncle or Dudley, and do bad things just because I want to. I can be better than that, I am better than that, and I know it."
It wasn't a perfect promise, and it didn't turn him into a knight of the light, but the resolve in his voice also ensured he'd never slip into the shadows of ignorance and sadism. It wasn't the promise of a hero, but it did create a line so imperviable to the little boy who made it that it may as well have been chipped into marble. He wasn't light, but he'd never be dark.
