Chapter 9
Erased

"Mr. Bernards!" he called again as he ran across the street to catch up to his old employer.

A car had to slam on the brakes and Remus shouted "Harry!" from somewhere behind him, but he paid them no mind.

"Mr. B!" he said, breathlessly as he skidded to a halt in front of the man. He smiled. There was nothing he needed more at that moment than to see a familiar, friendly face, and Mr. Bernards had been almost like family to him for the past year.

But Jack Bernards did not smile back. Instead, he gave Harry a very odd, rather alarmed look. He had not the faintest look of recognition on his face as he said, "'Scuse," softly, making as if to sidestep around the boy who had just cut him off. Harry, however, was having none of it. He stepped in front of him again.

"Mr. B, it's me, Har—Liam."

"Oh, er...'course. I 'member ye now," said Mr. Bernards, in a way that said very clearly that he didn't. "Bin a while, 'asn't it?" Harry was quite speechless at this; he hardly considered two days to be 'a while.' "Now, if'n you'll 'scuse me," Mr. Bernards said without waiting for a response, "in a bit o' an 'urry." He walked around Harry again, who this time, merely stood motionless, utterly confounded. "Nice ter see ye again, Harlam," Mr. Bernards called over his shoulder, giving the peculiar boy one more baffled look.

"It's Liam," Harry managed, though Mr. Bernards was striding away too fast to have heard it.

Harry stood there, stock still, staring after the only man he had ever been even remotely close to over the course of his entire existence.

"For Merlin's sake, Harry, can't you at least look both ways before racing across a street? You nearly gave both me and that driver a heart attack apiece."

"He didn't recognise me," Harry said, numbly staring after Mr. Bernards, not sure whether he was talking to Remus or to himself. Remus turned his head to look after the man striding away from them too.

"Who was that?" he asked, puzzled.

Harry blinked, coming out of his reverie. He looked at Remus, then back at Mr. B. "Mr. Bernards," he said finally. He's been my employer for the past year. And he didn't even recognise me."

"Oh." Remus let out a sigh and closed his eyes. 'Oh.' It was all he had said. But it spoke volumes.

"'Oh'? What do you mean, 'oh'?" Harry asked, turning angrily back to Remus. "That man was the closest thing I had to family and suddenly he doesn't even know who I am, and all you have to say is 'oh'? What the hell is going? There's something you're not telling me! Don't try to deny it; I'm not an idiot!" By this time Harry was shouting, and passersby were starting to look their way.

"Alright. Calm down. You're right." Remus spoke in a whisper as though by lowering his voice it would cancel out the volume of Harry's. "There are a lot of things I have to tell you. Things I should have talked to you about before ever coming to London. But we'll talk about them at home, okay?"

"NO! Not. Okay. You're going to tell me what's going on, and you're going to tell me right now!"

"Okay. Okay," Remus said soothingly, holding his hands up in surrender. "Just lower your voice. Please."

Harry drew in a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He glared at Remus expectantly. Remus was silent for a moment as though collecting his thoughts. Harry was getting annoyed.

"He's been obliviated." When Harry's glare remained unchanged, Remus clarified. "It's common Ministry procedure. They modified his memory—removed all traces of you from his brain. He didn't recognise you because, as far as he's concerned, you never existed." He said this haltingly, warily.

Throughout this explanation, Harry felt his face changing. By the end of it, the fury had been replaced by austerity.

"'Common Ministry procedure'?" he repeated dazedly.

Remus shifted into what Harry had recently dubbed, his 'lecture-mode'. "The Ministry of Magic's main function is to keep the existence of the wizarding world from the Muggles. Witches and wizards have a long history of persecution and manipulation at the hands of non-magical people. The wizarding government exists to protect its subjects from the Muggles, whether they be trying to burn us at the stake or just annoying us by begging us to solve all of their problems with magic."

"What does this have to do with Mr. Bernards?" Harry asked, grinding his teeth

"Harry. No Muggles are supposed to know anything about the wizarding world, except in very special circumstances. Any Muggles that have contact with wizards have their memories modified so that they remember nothing about it. In your case, a wizard living among Muggles, it would be customary to erase any sign that you existed."

Harry stood there for a moment, staring down the street down which Mr. B had disappeared with eyes focused on nothing. Remus's words were ringing in his ears. Erase any sign.

Harry wasn't aware of deciding to do it. He wasn't even aware of having considered it. But next he knew he was flying down the street heading east. He was running as fast as was humanly possible, scarcely aware of the stitch forming in his side or the aching of his legs or the burning in his lungs as they struggled to bring in enough oxygen. He kept running. A train was passing overhead as he crossed beneath the railroad on Valance Street, and the sound was deafening. He kept running. He stumbled as his feet sank into the snow as he cut across the football pitch of Weavers Fields. He kept running. When he met up with Bethnal Green Road, people stared at him as he zipped by. He kept running.

It was not until he turned left onto Jersey Street that he stopped. His momentum carried him on until he crashed into the front door of his flat. The palm of one hand went to brace himself on the door while the other went straight for the door knob. The door didn't budge. He cursed, remembering that, in his hasty flight the previous day, he had left his key sitting on the table inside. Then he reminded himself it didn't matter.

He raised his right hand, laying his palm on the deadbolt. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he felt a warmth travelling from his hand into the metal. A heartbeat later, the lock clicked. He opened his eyes, pushed the door open...and the world stopped.

He stumbled into the room, his chest heaving, whether from the run or from emotion he did not know. He looked around feeling complete and utter despair. He made his way drunkenly to the bathroom and poked his head inside. Not so much as a toothbrush. Everything had been cleared out. He staggered to the kitchenette and pulled out drawer after drawer, opened cupboard after cupboard, desperately hoping that one small scrap would have been left. An old piece of clothing, a book, a stale box of biscuits. Anything. There were not even marks in the carpet where his mouldy old couch had once sat.

This reminded Harry of something. He whipped around and dropped to his hands and knees next to the counter where the kitchenette met the living room. Face inches from the carpet he searched, running his hands through the shag. And there it was. It was faint. Just a slight pinkish tinge to the carpet in one spot. Harry remembered how angry he had been with himself when he had spilt that glass of juice just days after having first moved into this apartment—the apartment he had been so proud of himself for being able to afford. He had hated that stain. And now he clung to it like a drowning man to a life-preserver.

He fingered that spot lovingly; ran his hands across the carpet, praying that discolouration lasted forever. That there would be one miniscule thing to show that he had lived. That he had made a mark, however small, on the world.

He did not know how long he sat there on the floor, reverently fingering the carpet, but that was how Remus found him.

Remus dropped the shopping bags and gripped the doorframe with one hand, the other going to brace himself on his knee. He gasped for breath. His chest burned with each inhalation. He couldn't remember the last time he had run like that. He was getting way too old for this.

Remus lifted his head to look at Harry who was seated on the floor, looking at nothing as far as Remus could tell. Remus lifted his head and looked around. The room was empty. There was no furniture, no personal effects. Was there anything so depressing as an empty room?

Though, in all fairness, Remus figured that this flat would have been depressing at the best of times. It comprised of one small room with a miniscule adjoining kitchen, separated only by a counter. Off of the kitchen was a door that Remus assumed led to the loo. The only light in the room was coming dully from the two small windows. The security bars left striped patterns where the squares of light hit the floor.

This is what Harry was so keen to get back to?

That wasn't fair, and Remus knew it. For Harry, this wasn't a matter of which life offered him better opportunities, better living conditions. It was a matter of which life would offer him independence—which would leave him to be his own man. And as Remus looked around, he realised they had effectively erased the one that would. He wandered if Fudge had taken special interest to be sure that, in the end, Harry would only have one life left to choose from: the life Fudge had planned for him.

"Harry," he said very quietly. There was silence. Harry did not look up at him; he just sat with his back to him, running his fingers over the carpet again and again. "Harry," Remus tried again. "I am so sorry." Silence. "I never meant for this to happen. I swear it. If it had even occurred to me that they might...I would have done everything in my power to stop this from taking place."

After a pause, a soft voice, completely devoid of emotion arose. "Erased. Like a writer erases a misspelling in his book. Or an architect erases a structure on a blueprint that could be unsafe. Or an artist erases a line that didn't go just the way he wanted it to. Once it's erased, no one ever knows or cares that it was ever there in the first place. No one who looks at it can see that there was ever a mistake—that there was once something else there. Something that wasn't meant to be."

There was a long silence. Remus felt his heart breaking as he listened to this. He felt his face crumpling and moisture prickling at his eyes, but he could not tear his horrified gaze from the boy sitting dejectedly before him.

"But the writer and the artist. They get to decide what is wrong. They get to decide what to delete and what to keep. Who is it who gets to decide whether or not a life is worth continuing? Not the person living it, apparently. So who?"

Finally Harry turned to look at Remus. His face was a frighteningly blank mask, but there seemed to be a question deep in his eyes. "I just don't understand." His voice was a whisper so low, Remus could barely hear it, but it made his heart shatter.

Remus couldn't restrain himself at that point. He crossed the room in two steps, knelt beside the boy, and pulled him into his arms. Harry did not return the embrace, but he did not try to pull away either; Remus took this as a mark of just how distressed the child was.

Remus was not sure how long they sat there, his arms around the boy's shoulders, chin resting on his head, Harry's cheek on his clavicle. Harry's body felt stiff and unresponsive in his arms. Remus ran a hand soothingly through the hair at the nape of the boy's neck.

"I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry, Harry." He repeated the words over and over hoping the boy would believe them. He knew the words were inadequate, but he could not think what else to say. What other explanations to offer.

"I just don't understand," Harry repeated. Then he shifted so that his face was buried in Remus's chest and said in a muffled voice, "Why did all this have to happen?"

Remus knew it was a rhetorical question—knew Harry did not just mean the removal of his existence from the places and minds who once knew him—but he tried to answer what he could. His voice betrayed his bitterness as, thinking about his own life as well as Harry's, he said, "The Ministry—or any government for that matter—they just don't think about the individual. They focus on what they think is best for the majority, and the result is that sometimes people get hurt along the way. What's one life to them, in the grand scheme of things?"

"But it was my life."

Harry's voice was an octave too high, choked, and so miserable that a tear won its battle and began to slide slowly down Remus's cheek. "I think, perhaps, the fact that it was your life made it all the more pressing as far as the Ministry was concerned."

There was a pause before Harry drew back and looked Remus in the eye, searchingly.

"What do you mean?"

Remus drew in a breath to speak, but in the end, just let it out in a sigh. So they had come to it, at last.

Harry didn't like the way Remus had said that. His tone seemed to be saying something more than his words.

"What do you mean?" he repeated, more importunately this time.

"Simply that yours is...a special situation. They will be particularly careful with your case given that it is so..." Remus seemed to search for the right word, "...high profile," he finally decided.

Harry pulled back further, frowning. "What do you mean?" he asked for the third time. "What's so 'special' about me? Why is this 'high profile'?"

It was Remus's turn to frown. He let his hands drop from where they rested on the boys shoulders and looked at Harry contemplatively. "Harry. Tell me what you know about your parents."

Harry's eyes widened at the abrupt change in topic and then narrowed suspiciously. He shrugged and shook his head slightly. "Only that they were killed in a car accident—driving drunk—when I was a year old."

Remus's jaw dropped. And then he looked angry. Very angry. His chest heaved and his nostrils flared as his breathing quickened. His eyebrows drew down in a sharp line and his teeth clenched together. Harry decided to draw back further.

"What?" Remus asked, his voice low and dangerous. Harry swallowed and tried to understand what had made Remus so angry, but he said nothing. "A car accident?" Remus repeated a little louder this time. "Who told you that?" he demanded.

Harry's heart rate had sped up, his breathing was deep and fast as long-suppressed memories clawed their way to the forefront of his brain. He stared at the irate man with wide eyes before answering, very quietly, "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon."

Remus looked back into Harry's alarmed eyes, and a frown creased his brow. He let out a sigh, head falling into his hands. One hand pinched the bridge of his nose while the other brushed back to comb the greying hair back from his face. After a moment, he dropped his hands, head rolling back to stare at the ceiling as he let out a loud breath. Visibly calmed, he looked back at Harry, eyes very serious.

"That was a lie Harry." There was silence in the room. Harry's brain was not working well enough to think up a response to that. He felt numb. "Your parents didn't die in a car accident and they certainly weren't drunk. Your parents were...they were..." Remus seemed to struggle to say the word, so Harry helped him out.

"Murdered," Harry said quietly, somehow he could not explain, knowing it was true. Remus, looking taken aback and disturbed, nodded slowly, his eyes wide and brimming with tears. But Harry's was not looking at him. He stared at the far wall, his eyes slipping out of focus. Memories were floating back to him from many different occasions across his life.

He remembered Remus speaking in the interrogation room: "His parents were murdered when he was barely a year old. He was sent to live with his aunt and uncle..."

He remembered listening to his aunt and uncle talking from the other side of the locked cupboard door after his hair had magically re-grown itself when he was seven: "You see, Vernon? He's just like his freak parents. And he's going the same way as them, just you wait and see. He'll be getting himself blown up in no time, and taking our house down with him, I don't doubt."

He remembered the odd looks he had gotten from people that morning in Diagon Alley. The cryptic words of Mr. Ollivander as he explained that his wand's brother had been responsible for the scar on his forehead. Harry's hand went up to finger the lightning-shaped scar as the old man's words echoed in his head: "I think we can expect great things from you, Mr. Potter...After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things—terrible, yes, but great."

He remembered something he had not thought of for some time. He had always supposed it had been a memory of the car crash, but now, looking at it with fresh eyes, he realised how wrong he had been. He remembered a blindingly bright, green light. A light followed by pain.

"Green light," he muttered more to himself, continuing to finger the scar on his forehead. He heard Remus's breath catch. He turned to the older man, who was looking more disturbed than ever, and asked in a voice made calm by numbness, "They were frea—wizards? My mum and dad?" At Remus's nod, he continued, "And the man who killed them?" Harry knew it was a man. He could not say how, but he knew it beyond any shadow of doubt.

"Him too," said Remus softly. "A very evil wizard, deeply ensconced in the Dark Arts. His name was Voldemort."

And then Harry remembered something else—something he had never remembered before, but something so clear, he knew he could not have invented it. He remembered a high-pitched, cruel laugh.

After some silence, in which Harry had gone back to staring into space, Remus cleared his throat, eyes haunted, and asked quietly, "You remember it?"

Harry shook his head. "No," he said but then shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know."

There was silence again as Remus continued to stare at Harry and Harry continued to stare at nothing. Finally Harry seemed to come out of a reverie. "There's still so much I don't understand. And how my parents' death relates to...all this," he finished, gesturing to the emptied room. He looked at Remus and said, very seriously, "I need to know. I need to know everything."

Remus looked at him sadly, heaved a sigh, looked down at his own hands which were entwined in his lap, and then, slowly, nodded his head.

Remus sat there for a moment, collecting his thoughts. He had not expected this. He had assumed that Harry knew something of his history, if not all. When Dumbledore had first left Harry at the Dursleys, he had told Remus that he had left instructions that Petunia tell the boy everything once he was old enough. Why she would take it upon herself to invent such a story, Remus could not understand—and one so openly offensive to her sister's memory, at that. Remus was still fuming. Drunk driving, indeed.

Remus looked up at Harry who was staring at him expectantly, his jaw set in a determined line that reminded Remus forcibly of Lily. Remus drew a deep breath to prepare himself and, electing to fix his eyes back on his hands, began the narrative.

"The 70s were a very dark time. Voldemort, who was later considered one of the darkest wizards of all time, emerged and began to seek out followers—witches and wizards who were eager to share in the power he was steadily gaining. He called them Death Eaters. They believed in the purification of the Wizarding World. In other words, they felt that magic should be kept within entirely wizarding families, or Pure Bloods. They did terrible things: torturing and murdering Muggles and anyone they considered a Muggle-sympathiser. For the next eleven years, Voldemort's power and influence stretched wider and wider.

"But there were those who resisted him. Soon, it had developed into a full-fledged war. When we had finished school, your parents and I and a few of our other...friends...joined The Order of the Phoenix. It was a secret organization formed by Dumbledore to combat Voldemort's uprising.

"About a year later, you were born." He Remus paused and looked up into Harry's eyes. The boy was staring at him, straight-backed, soaking in the information with an unreadable face. "It was the happiest day of your parents' lives. I had never seen them so perfectly blissful as they were that day."

He looked back at his hands and tried to remember where he had been. "Not long after that, Dumbledore got wind that Voldemort was targeting your family. Your parents elected to go into hiding to keep you safe." He stumbled here, unsure of what all he should tell Harry. Finally, he decided the details of Sirius Black were not important; the man was in Azkaban and would die there. Harry need never know anything about him. "Unfortunately there was a double agent in the Order, and he betrayed your parents whereabouts to Voldemort. Not long after, Voldemort went to your house and murdered your mother and father.

Here Remus paused again, thinking. "Up to this point, everything I have told you is verifiable fact. But as to what happened after that, the only account I can give you is built upon supposition and inference. No one truly understands what happened. Shortly after your parents' death, I spoke to Dumbledore on the subject, and I will tell you what he told me, because his suppositions are worth ten of my convictions.

"After Voldemort killed your mother and father, he tried to kill you, but he...couldn't," Remus said lamely.

"'Couldn't'?" Harry repeated. "What? You mean his conscience wouldn't let him or something?"

Remus was not at all sure how to explain this. He looked away uncomfortably for a moment. "No. I mean, he couldn't...physically. He tried. He fired a Killing Curse—a curse no one has ever lived through, no one has ever blocked—but it didn't work. No one really knows why, but you—an innocent, defenceless baby—survived something said to be impossible. Not only that, but when Voldemort's curse failed, it rebounded upon himself. He all but died that night."

"'All but died'? So he's still alive?"

"Yes, I believe so. Dumbledore certainly expects him to return someday. According to him, the curse stripped him of all his powers, even his corporeal body, but his spirit endures. Dumbledore thinks that he is simply waiting until an opportunity presents itself for him to regain his strength. When it does, I expect we'll be right back where we started. Perhaps a little more prepared, I hope."

"I don't get it. How did I survive? If it's supposed to be impossible...?" Harry shook his head, frowning in incomprehension.

"Again, I can only give you Dumbledore's theories. According to him, your mother died to save you and in that act, activated a very old magic that Voldemort does not understand and consequently was unprepared for. Your mother's love saved your life. And garnished you with no little fame and the rather ostentatious nick name of, The Boy Who Lived," Remus added, wryly, as an afterthought.

Silence reigned for the next few minutes. Remus watched Harry quietly as he took it all in. "So I'm like...some kind of wizarding celebrity? All because of something my mother did. Something I don't even remember." Remus couldn't think of a response to this, but luckily, Harry didn't seem to require one, because he barely paused before continuing. "And you didn't think I might need to know all this sooner?" Most unfortunately, Harry did seem willing to wait for an answer to this one.

Remus cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I was...stupid," he admitted finally. "I didn't think things through before bringing you here. I should have talked about all this with you before coming. But I had expected you to already know more than you did. The Dursleys were supposed to explain it to you." For some reason, Harry looked away sharply and shifted when Remus mentioned the Dursleys. Remus frowned but continued. "And the topic just never really presented itself. I just didn't know how to bring it up, or even whether I should. I had hoped to consult with Dumbledore about some—"

"Bloody hell!" Remus jumped at the unexpected outburst. After the emotionless expression of the past half an hour, it left Remus rather shell-shocked. "What is it about you and this Dumbledore bloke? What makes him the reigning expert in all things? He's a school teacher for the love of God! Not the Dali Lama!" Remus bristled with affront at the insult to both his profession and his mentor. In the end, he decided to let it slide and calmly tried to explain.

"Dumbledore is a great deal more than the headmaster of Hogwarts, Harry. He's generally considered to be one of the wisest and most powerful wizards of all time. He could have been the Minister of Magic, long since, if he had wanted it. He has been an invaluable friend to me over the years. And he was very close to your family." When Harry continued to look sceptical, he added, "He's a good man, Harry. He really does want to help you. I wish you could believe that."

"I can't believe anything anymore." The voice was so flat and he had gone back to fingering the carpet. Remus found himself wishing he would go back to yelling. Remus looked at him sorrowfully, racking his brain for something comforting to say, but nothing presented itself.

Presently, Harry looked up from the floor and gazed around the room with a wretchedness in his eyes that Remus could hardly bear. Harry's eyes fell in certain areas around the bare room before they came to rest on Remus. Looking the older man straight in the eyes, Harry said, very seriously, "Can we leave now?"

Remus opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. Instead, he merely nodded his head. He got to his feet and extended his hand to help Harry up. Harry elected to ignore it and rose of his own accord. Remus began to explain Apparition to the boy, but Harry interrupted him, saying he'd done it before. In the end, Remus merely collected the shopping bags, instructed Harry to take hold of his arm, and disapparated with a pop.

Once Remus had opened the front door, Harry brushed past him and made his way up the steps. "Harry," Remus called after him, not sure what he wanted to say. Harry paused halfway up the staircase and turned. Remus made to follow him, but Harry stopped him with a look.

"I really need to be alone right now," he said, with quiet frigidity. And leaving a hurt and useless-feeling Remus at the bottom of the stairs, he turned and jogged up to his room. Remus closed his eyes as tears threatened to fall and listened to the boy's retreating footsteps. Even expecting it as he was, he could not stop the flinch that escaped at the sound of the bedroom door slamming.

Harry rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window next to his bed. He didn't know what to feel. He didn't know how to feel. There were so many thoughts and emotions warring for dominance within his brain, he thought it could only lead to insanity. He pulled back and banged his head against the glass with a dull thud. It felt unprecedentedly satisfying.

He stood there for a time, mentally trying to organise all the things that he had learned that day, both from what Remus had told him about his past and what he had observed in Diagon Alley. Famous? And for something that killed my mum and dad? He felt dirty.

Pulling back abruptly, he made his way to the bathroom. He stripped off his clothes and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. His breathing quickened and he gritted his teeth as he inched into the scalding water. After a minute, his body adjusted and his muscles began to relax. Bracing his palms on the wall, he stood directly under the shower head, eyes shut tight and breathing heavily through his mouth as water cascaded down his face. There was so much moisture in the air, his chest was heaving with the effort of extracting the necessary oxygen, and his skin was turning red from the heat. All thought slipped from his mind. Most unfortunately, emotion didn't follow suit.

Tears were mingling with the water on his face. They were the first self-pitying tears he could ever remember shedding, and, at that moment, he resolved that they would be his last. No one would ever see them. No one would ever know. The shower would wash away all evidence. They would be added to his ever-growing list of secrets.

A/N: Grrr. Another chapter I'm unsatisfied with. But ah, well. I'm losing patience with it, so I'll just go ahead and post it. Maybe you'll take more pleasure in reading it than I did in writing it. New poll up on my profile; check it out. I'm very curious to see how people will vote.

Next chapter: Harry makes an unexpected friend and an important decision.

PS. Can someone explain to me why sometimes my page break will show up fine and other times they all disappear? It's really starting to piss me off. Is it something I'm doing or is the site just stupid?