Ch 2. - When Harry met Matilda

For the next week, Harry read. And read, and then read some more. At any moment that wasn't filled with chores, Harry would go into his cupboard, and continue reading the story of Matilda, the precocious young girl with a great gift, and an awful family.

Harry found it very annoying that he shared a name with Matilda's awful father… However, he kept reading.

He marveled at Matilda's abilities, and was impressed by her tenacity, courage and ability to love her friends, and defend them when necessary. When he opened the pages of the little yellow book, he felt himself absorbed in Matilda's world. Her trials and tribulations, setbacks and triumphs, he was right there beside her, experiencing another person's life as if it was his own. And when he was done with Matilda's story, he realized two things. One, he desperately wanted to know what happened to Matilda beyond the end of the book. And two, he had been blind his whole life. As far back as he could remember, he would dream and pray for someone to come and take him away from the Dursleys. For some long-lost family member to come and give him a home. For some miracle to happen that would allow him to break free of the prison that was his life.

And the entire time, the answer was there at the library. Books offered an escape from the dreary prison of his daily life. They gave him an impression of what is right, and what is wrong. They contained knowledge, both real and imaginary. Books could open his world up, in the same way they did for Matilda. And maybe like Matilda, he'll find his way to a family that would care enough to celebrate his birthday.

Resolving to return to the library on his birthday tomorrow, to both see if Matilda's story continued in another book, and also to ask for help in finding some of the books Matilda mentioned reading, Harry started to make a plan.

He would wake up extra early, and make sure that breakfast for the Dursleys was ready before they even came down the stairs. With all luck, he'd be able to have a bit more of a breakfast for himself if he cooked quickly enough. He would then check around the house to make sure that any chores Petunia could possibly ask him to do were done by the time they finished their breakfast. If he succeeded, Petunia might very well allow him to leave quickly while Dudley was still busy stuffing his gob.

Though Harry did not have an alarm clock of any kind (the heavy footfalls of the resident walruses coming down the stairs usually serving that purpose), he hoped that going to sleep early would help him achieve his goals the next day.

It worked.

Harry woke up when a sudden pop sounded in his ear the next morning. Excited about his plan, Harry didn't realize that the noise apparently came from nowhere. Getting his clothes on, and carefully going to the kitchen, Harry started his morning work, preparing the truly prodigious amounts of food Vernon and Dudley could eat in one sitting. Eating some hastily prepared eggs and bacon himself, he had to chew and swallow rather quickly as he suddenly heard light footsteps coming down the stairs. 'It's Petunia!' he thought. 'She can't catch me eating too much, or there'll be hell to pay'. Quickly grabbing a glass of milk, he used the drinking motion to cover his chewing of the last bit of food in his mouth as Petunia entered the kitchen.

Her beady eyes looked around the kitchen, seeking to find some fault with his work, but failing to do so. Harry cleaned the kitchen as he was cooking, so as to lessen his load after the meal was done. "It's about time you started to get up without me serving as your alarm clock" she said as a greeting. "Don't burn anything, or you'll not be given anything to eat till dinner" she continued unnecessarily. Harry and Petunia both knew that Harry had not burned anything since he was 5 years old.

After setting all the food on the table, Harry rushed to get everything he could cleaned up and was in the process of taking out the bag out of the rubbish bin when Vernon and Dudley came into the kitchen. Harry was daydreaming about reading in the local playground, in the bright afternoon, and was happy that everything seemed to be going according to plan.

And it was all going so well…

As Harry was pulling the bag out of the can, Dudley gave him a hard poke in his side, causing Harry to lose his grip on the bag, with the disgusting contents spilling out on the pristine kitchen floor.

A shriek sounded from Petunia, causing a sharp pain to bloom in Harry's head. "Idiot! Why are you so useless?! Why weren't you careful?!" she shouted at Harry. She then turned to her son, cooing "did the Freak get any of the filth on you Duddy?"

Vernon rushed over to Harry and pulled him up by the scruff of Harry's over-large shirt. "All you do is cause us trouble! Everything you do and everything you are is rubbish!" throwing Harry on top of the mess of the floor, Vernon continued venomously "clean this up! Right now!"

Frightened and bruised from his collision with the floor, Harry got up on his knees and hurriedly cleaned up the mess. As soon as he was done, Vernon grabbed him painfully by the back of his neck and dragged him to the cupboard.

"We are leaving right now to celebrate the beginning of the summer holiday, and you will stay in here until we are back this evening, so I do not have to come back to see the house become as rubbished as the rubbish that you are" Vernon bellowed, before shoving Harry inside and locking the outside deadbolt lock.

Harry fumed, both at the situation, and at himself. Sitting there, covered in filth, the unfairness of it all was galling. He had done everything right. He had done his best to get on the Dursleys' best side today, and one moment of inattention allowed Dudley to ruin it all. Harry had had enough experience with Dudley to know that he should always be careful when Dudley is around not to get caught unawares. From previous occurrences, Harry knew that when Vernon said all day, he meant all day. Harry would not be allowed to even use the loo. Frustrated and upset, Harry sat down heavily on his little rickety bed in the cupboard, trying to stem the painful stinging in his eyes that signaled oncoming tears. But the more he tried to suppress them, the more his ire rose. Why did he have to be the one to control himself? Why did he have to be the one to never complain and never speak his mind about the injustice he suffered? Turning his head, he stared at the door. Dudley had tantrums all day long, and was indulged as a result. Harry knew that this would never work for him. But he was so tired of having to swallow it all. Stuck in a locked cupboard, with no food, no water and no way to get outside. It felt like his life as a whole in a microcosm. He was stuck with the Dursleys, with no friends, no real family, very little food, no emotional support and no way to escape it all. And now that he had discovered the doorway to new experiences that were available through books, even that was taken from him by one lock on his cupboard's door. His thoughts a maelstrom of frustration, anger and desire to be free, Harry did not notice that the house had gotten quiet as the Dursleys had left for the day. All he knew was that he needed that lock to open. He needed to be free.

'JUST OPEN!' he yelled at the door.

.

.

.

Click.

Harry blinked owlishly at the door. Did he really hear that? Tentatively, Harry's hand reached out to the door knob and grasped it. He was afraid. Afraid to be disappointed. But then, he twisted the knob and gently pushed.

And the door opened.

"It opened" he whispered to himself in disbelief. "Vernon locked it, I know he did!" he said to himself a bit louder. "But then I told it to open, and the lock opened…" he marveled.

Harry had long had unusual occurrences happen around him, and usually, he was punished for any such occurrence severely by the Dursleys despite his protests that he hadn't done anything. From ending up on the school roof when running away from Dudley's "Harry Hunting" gang, to his hair regrowing overnight after an abysmal haircut by Petunia, unexplainable things happened to Harry too frequently to be discounted.

But this was different.

He did this. He may not have known that the lock would open when he yelled at it, but it obeyed nonetheless.

In a moment of realization, Harry connected the dots.

'Am I like Matilda?' he wondered in awe. 'I may not be as smart as her, but can I make weird things happen?'

Stepping out of the cupboard, Harry turned to look at the lock. He reached out and pulled the bolt closed, and open again. It seemed to be working normally.

Closing the cupboard door, and locking it again from the outside, Harry stared at the lock.

'Open' he said.

.

.

.

The lock stayed exactly where it was.

Harry sighed in frustration. "Come on, I know I did this!" he said to the lock. Thinking about Matilda, he realized what the key was. Emotion, and a deep need. He wasn't asking the lock to open. He was telling the lock that the only thing that it could do is be open, so that he could be free.

Focusing on that feeling, Harry looked at the lock again. Imagining that this lock was the lock that kept him trapped in this life, he said again 'Open!'

Click.

And so it did.

"YES!" Harry shouted, as he jumped up and punched the air.

The jarring motion made him remember that he had to pee… And so he bolted to the bathroom.

Standing at the sink, washing his hands, Harry looked at his reflection in the mirror. Messy dark hair, skinny pale face, and his clothes hanging on him like old bags. This is who he was to the world. His bright green eyes and his little scar were the only aspects of his appearance that hinted at something deeper inside him than his shabby appearance would suggest.

And now that he knew that his "freakishness" could be directed, he intended to set things straight. But he had to be careful… He had to think like Matilda when she dealt with the Trunchbull. He had to be subtle. As much as he wanted to shout out and leave the Dursley house immediately, he had to be clever. Plan, prepare and accomplish. That would be how he acted. If Vernon or Petunia got the idea that he could control his abilities, they may decide to hurt him more severely, or send him to a mental institution. And he didn't know precisely what he could or couldn't do.

He needed to experiment, and to do that, he needed the library.

"Happy Birthday Harry" he said as he smiled to himself "This is going to be the best birthday ever!"