"Spoken dialogue or signs"

'Thought'

flashback/''dialogue"/'thought'


The Third

2 years later, 13th of May, 1988

"Vernon, the Fosters are moving to America next week, they told me after you'd left for work this morning," Petunia said, cutting the silence at the table as they ate. Though, in Harry's mind, it has been tense ever since his power almost literally exploded out of him two years ago. He'd studied a lot of magic in that time and he was sure he was doing quite well.

"Oh? And why is that?" Vernon replied through his teeth. The fact that Harry was eating with them as though they were one big happy family caused the vein in his forehead to throb.

"Word around the neighbourhood is that the "head" of the house, you know Mark." Harry tuned out the sound of their gossip as he focused on eating his larger than normal dinner that Petunia had begrudgingly cooked for him so he could return to the room he'd taken over, two years prior to the current day. Otherwise, Harry was ignored completely and he didn't like it. Harry saw how happy his relatives were, and he felt empty, wishing to feel the same happiness that they did without him being around.

After dinner, Harry silently thanked his aunt and went to his room.

Settling down upon his back, focusing the energy, magic, around a group of dice he'd bought and forced them to spin around in the air like the planets.

After a year of constant practice, Harry's magic no longer cast a slight, glowing green light as he had enough control over his magical output, in the case of Lord Ragnok's office, it had been invisible only because he, Harry, was trying to restrict as much of his magical output as he could, though it was like trying to hold a flood back.

He had wondered about the massive amount of magic he'd been forcing out of himself. Though none could see it after that first week, all the technology around the house began to malfunction and Harry figured out that it must have been his magic messing with all of it. He knew it as clear as day as his excess had built up in the house. So Harry began taking control of all the individual bolts and forced it out of the chimney, as he wished to avoid a total meltdown, where it floated, covering the neighbourhood like a cloud.

Harry felt alone. Very alone. His "family" was, as usual, terrified of him and his power and he wasn't allowed to do it outside where he could simply share the experience. He wondered who would someday be moving into the soon-to-be empty Number 7 house. It was a little surprising. In the 5 years since he could remember of his 8, no one had ever moved away from the clone houses of Little Whinging, Privet Drive.

Whoever it was going to be, Harry was sure that the Dursleys still downstairs would poison their minds with harsh falsehoods about himself and then life would carry on as it always was before the Foster family moved out. Harry sighed resignedly and decided to go to sleep for the day, thinking to later bury himself in some new books he'd bought just a short while ago.


One month later, 7th of June, 1988

"Vernon, the new residents of Number 7, their last name is Taylor, there's not much known about them, what do you think we should do?" Petunia asked excitedly, a cynical gleam in her eyes.

Vernon gave Harry a once-over and snorted mockingly. "What we always do, tell them the "truth" about the boy after we've built ourselves into their good graces," the whale of a man said, a quick glance later and he burst out laughing at Harry's strange and broken down expression. Petunia giggled into her hands while smirking at Harry for his misfortune.

Harry sighed to himself mentally and continued eating, albeit at a faster pace. He wanted to fall into the deepest sleep to avoid what he was just reminded of what would happen and so he'd take a long jog to exhaust himself. He had completely forgotten about the new family moving in and also had been studying on what he supposed was fourth year theory in ancient runes as well as some charms and transfiguration. Maybe there was a chance that he'd run into them or at least see what these Taylors were like before he turned in for the evening.

Harry transfigured his clothes into a suitable jogging outfit, placed a glamour charm upon his face, and headed out. He went and he went, at first just avoiding the house, his breath coming out in quick gasps as he was not yet used to exercise for extended periods of time, though Harry did try. And so he tried, for by the time he returned back to Little Whinging an hour later, he was so exhausted that he wasn't thinking straight. Not only was he now on the other side of the street, but he was also heading towards the same house he'd been thinking about. Awareness did dawn upon Harry though and he nearly shouted in surprise when he felt it.

He had felt the energy of magic within one of the residents of the houses to his side. His head snapped up to look. 'Number 7! But there's only one? This girl's parents are home so that means she's a-,' Harry paused to drag the word back to the surface of his memory. 'Muggle-born? But what is this feeling I have?' Harry was startled back into reality, the exhaustion weighing heavily upon his body flared up.

'No no, never mind, it's nothing. So she's a witch, so what? That feeling must just be me hoping that she wouldn't hate me. It won't matter once the Dursleys talk to her and her parents.' Harry sighed quietly and disappeared back into his room with a quiet pop. The Dursleys had not noticed his disappearance for the hour that he'd been gone. 'It's not like I matter... right?' Harry thought with a sigh, his eyes began to tear up but he quickly dried them on his towel.

After a quick shower, Harry lied upon his bed and fell asleep with a heavy heart.

No later than a day had passed and just as Harry expected, the new family of Number 7 Privet Drive, the Taylors, stared at him suspiciously as though he were about to do something awful as he ran by. It hurt to know that the Dursleys had managed to convince them of 'delinquency.' He supposed that, with the Dursleys, if one were to live there in Number 4 as a permanent guest, then they did not deserve happiness in any capacity. Harry finally accepted this truth wholeheartedly and slowed down, preparing to turn around to return to what he referred to as his "place of residence."

As he did, a small girl with strawberry blonde hair and round blue eyes ran past, knocking Harry to the ground, hard. She continued running but shouted, "Sorry!" apologetically back at him. It was the Muggle-born girl.

Harry began to cry quietly while muttering in frustration. He felt the contemptuous gaze of the many house-wives from the other 'Numbers' through the windows and ran back to Number 4, the glares following him until he disappeared from sight.

Even after an hour, the tears did not stop coming, but Harry didn't feel like he should. He never was supposed to show any sort of emotion lest he be beaten, or at least, that's how it was two years ago. Harry thought maybe he had a subconscious hope that somehow he'd be able to befriend the magical girl and her family but he now knew it was going to be a fruitless endeavor.

"Show nothing huh? Show nothing, I can do that!" The hint of a 'shadow' began to grow upon young Harry's face as he forced himself to try and learn the Dursleys' "lessons." Remembering all he faced at the hands of his "caring" family and Dudley's friends, the 'shadow' began to take form. Remembering all the pain he felt from these experiences and the 'shadow' that formed caused Harry's tears to stop falling. Remembering all his hopes from the breaks in between each "lesson" allowed the 'shadow' to grow completely and take hold of the muscles that controlled Harry's facial expressions. Harry's face now resembled the seemingly neutral faces of some famous paintings he had once seen, without a hint of anything behind his dull, blank green eyes.


Two weeks later, June 23, 1988

Harry was steadily making his way through the last of his fourth year material. After just a minute within completing his read, he started writing out a string of runes and a list of spells he'd place around his room on a scrap piece of paper. These were just the beginning wards and spells he'd place once he found a new home some day.

"As of now, I need a thousand times more than what I have here." Harry paused in thought. He had asked the workers at Flourish and Blotts how often the curriculum at Hogwarts changed and they'd told him that of every other course, only Defence Against the Dark Arts' books had something different every year due to some unknown curse.

The other classes changed only once every three years due to some new discovery in its field. The one exception was History of Magic as its professor was a ghost who only ever taught about the goblin rebellions in the last 200 to 300 years. "Is it possible for you to owl me whenever a change is made?" Harry asked in a blank tone which made the young girl working the counter shiver at the dull voice and dead eyed look that Harry gave.

'No child should be like this!' she thought, frightened. Forcing her best smile upon her face, the girl said, "Y-yes, we just need an address."

She provided the notice form upon which he wrote his address and the specific room as well. Returning it to the shop girl, Harry thanked her, paid for his books, and left. At this, the girl let out a quiet sigh of relief, the boy terrified her, no one so young should ever look or sound like he did.

And so Harry continued to review his old books, study the ones he was still in the progress of reading, and practice casting that magic with his wandless magic for the next two years. He had requested that the Dursleys take him out of the public school so he could study in private. His relatives, true to form, told the neighbours that they would attempt homeschooling him in an attempt to "put him onto the right path" to make themselves look better. 'Oh I'm being home-schooled alright, just not by them,' Harry thought.

The sound of fluttering wings nearby drew Harry's attention to the window but there were no birds in sight, the sound had come closer and closer but no owl ever showed itself, instead, the sound of the owl's wings steadily began fading away. Harry being confused by this, put more power into his dark-sight and the colour of blood erupted into view. A blood-red ward was covering the property of Number 4. Within the blood-red bubble, Harry saw several other layers but the ones he could read was an owl-redirection ward and a ward that was tied to him that seemed to be powered by his own core.

Realization came to Harry in the form of shock. "So that's what that was, I knew I wasn't able to use it all, it was being taken by these wards!" He looked at the wards and followed the light of it down towards himself. He placed his hand onto the magic threads of the wards and sent a shock wave rippling through it, causing the rest of the wards to ripple in turn, destabilize, and shatter into a million pieces before disappearing with a quiet flash of blood-red light. As the energy of the area began to calm, Harry kept watching for anything suspicious, putting more power into his sight to see magic that would come and go in an instant. He wasn't disappointed when a small flash of black magic covered the front yard of the house which disappeared to reveal a tall man in very colourful and decorative purple and blue robes. The man had a long white beard and half-moon glasses.

Wary of this man who apparated not too soon after his magical dismantling of the ward around the house, Harry slowly made his way down to the front door in preparation for this visitor's intrusion. The old man with the long white beard just continued to stare at the window where Harry's room was as he muttered indiscernible words with his white-brown wand. The blood-red ward that was connected to Harry began to form from the end of the old man's ward and began searching for something. As the energy from the wand made its way towards Harry, he decided it was not worth it to find out what would happen if the ward reconnected to him. Harry grabbed the energy with his magic and forced it back into the intruder's wand, causing it to burn up and begin to smoke, flashing with a bright light from the backlash of energy. The old man had been sent flying from the small blast that erupted from his wand into the middle of the road of the Privet Drive area while his wand lay smoking on Number 4's lawn. The old man summoned the wand back to his hand silently, nearly dropping it as he felt the heat from the still smoking piece of wood. The old man figured it was not a good time to try again and disappeared with another flash of black light.

"Who was that?" Harry whispered to himself, he went back to his room and was glad that the Dursleys somehow heard none of the racket that had been made. The old wizard who had attempted to recreate the ward that had been tied to his core looked familiar somehow, yet he could not figure out when and where he had seen him.

He noticed movement from across the street and fine-tuned his dark-sight to see closer, He saw the outline of a small girl with a bright ball of blue flame that was her core within her, running to Number 4. "Interesting..."

He apparated to the closest streetlamp and watched her flattening herself against the outer front wall as she continued to look up at his room. Apparating once more, he decided to be less than perfect with his teleportation and announced his arrival to just behind the girl who spun around so fast it was almost as though she hadn't spun at all and that she had always been facing the way she was now.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, loud enough in his deadened voice so the girl could hear.

"I-I'm Allison," the girl replied. She felt fear as his blank eyes bore into her blue ones and she couldn't help answering him.

"Why are you here?" he asked again.

"I saw some f-flashes of light but my mum and dad didn't notice at all so I j-just had to come and look to see what was happening," Allison answered again, beginning to quiver in fear as it seemed like Harry's lifeless eyes grew wider to engulf her in that empty darkness that emanated from them. "They said it was all my imagination but that can't be true can it? I-I-I, no, we m-moved to Privet Drive because I did something weird back in my old neighbourhood and we were chased out by people who saw me do it! I'm not crazy, I swear!"

Harry could now see that the emotions he could see from Allison was both fear and wonder at what she was experiencing. He still remembered how Allison had knocked him down a couple weeks back, though he did remember the sincerity in her voice when she apologized. "I suppose it's alright to be curious, but you should not be here, go back to your house before I take you back," Harry ordered in the same monotone that he'd been speaking with for the last couple of weeks.

"No! I need to know what that was, what all of this is! And what I did!" Allison whined quietly, stamping her feet.

Harry sighed just as quietly. "I guess I'll have to take you back then," he said. Harry made to reach for her hand and, just as he grasped her right hand in his right hand, a bright warmth began emanate from their clasped hands. Allison tried to pull away and began to whine louder.

"Let go of me!" she said loudly.

"I'm trying!" Harry said loudly in response, though it was just loud enough to be heard over the din that was being created from whatever magic was surrounding them. A bright light flashed from within their clasped hands and a silver chain began to intertwine itself beginning from their hands. It wound itself from their hands before linking itself all the way to their heads. After this, twin rings of silver light grew around the child witch and wizard's heads before sinking down to the ground. The two had attempted to break free of whatever magic was taking place here but were absolutely frozen and therefore, they could not move. As the twin rings of silver light hit the ground, they expanded to touch each other, combining into one bigger circle and grew to encompass both of them. The din of the acting magic disappeared all of a sudden and the silver rings disappeared as well with one final flash of silver light.

With the sudden unexpected return of control to their bodies, both Harry and Allison ended up falling onto their backs with an "Oomph!" from the both of them.

"Uh-oh..." Harry muttered, the voices of the Dursleys as well as the rest of the neighbours could be heard.

"What? What was that? What's wrong?" Allison whispered to Harry, panicked.

"You- I know you..." Harry got up and apparated Allison back into her house before apparating back into his own. Harry heard two groups of witches and wizards appear as they made their way throughout the neighbourhood. Based on the colour of the magic that Harry saw these witches and wizards cast, he figured they were casting the memory-altering charm "Obliviate" which would erase and/or alter the memories of those whom the spell was cast upon. The Dursleys barged their way into "his" room and were screaming at him.

"BOY! EXPLAIN YOURSELF NOW!" Vernon shouted almost beast-like, though Harry saw no difference. No good human abused a child, especially not one who was his wife's nephew. Harry turned around and, with a small amount of focus, Harry cast three obliviates at his relatives. The spell took immediate effect and Harry noticed that the Dursleys looked confused for a moment before they all quietly left his room, much to his amusement.

Turning his attention back towards the witches and wizards who appeared, he noticed they had already managed to complete their jobs and were making their way to his house and immediately began forcing out waves of a compulsion charm to engulf them. Seeing the two small groups disappear back to wherever they came from, Harry then turned his attention to Allison.

"I know her, I know this girl named Allison," Harry wondered aloud. "Allison Taylor of Hampshire moved here due to Muggles witnessing her doing accidental magic and driving them out after vandalizing their home and attempting to assault her. She has a talent for charms and has a rubber duck toy she has dubbed, "Sir Duck," and she misses her former friend Amber Godfrey. How do I know all this? How?" Harry stared at her window and noticed her staring back.

He closed the window curtains and prepared to sleep, trying to push all thoughts of this mystery witch out of his head, maybe it was all a dream. Maybe he would wake up and there were no Taylors living at Number 7 Privet Drive. But Harry sighed, knowing that this was nothing more than a wish.


Edit: Originally I'd put New Hampshire in when writing out Harry's new memories of Allison but New Hampshire is a place in the USA and I meant Hampshire.