"I'm just tired of everything...even of the echoes. There is nothing in my life but echoes...echoes of lost hopes and dreams and joys. They're beautiful and mocking."
― L.M. Montgomery,
The dull emerald eyes watched the numerous trees, mountains, and sand-dunes pass as the train conquered its speed. Though partially fogged windows, the excited chatter of the children echoed in the compartment, who were nagging their friends to live with them for the summer or excitedly chatting about the places they would visit.
Harry Potter sat with his head resting against the window, uncaring of how the bumps and jerks made his head rattle against the glass, and his knees curled up towards his chin. Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley joined him in the silent cabin. Neither paid attention to the pale boy gazing out of the window.
Harry sighed and continued to watch outside the window, petting his beloved snowy owl sitting on his lap while recalling all the incidents that had happened that year.
Sirius flew with the Hippogryph and was hopefully safe out there. Hopefully, he was getting enough food and had a shelter over his head or better yet, somewhere safe which he could call 'home'.
He snorted at his luck as he remembered that he had dared to hope that he wouldn't be returning to his 'beloved relatives', the Potters' luck, which everyone referred to, had never helped him when he was inside those bloody- blood- wards.
Sometimes he questioned, 'Why is it always bloody me? Why can't I for once have a normal life like everyone else? '
Tears started to develop in his eyes so he turned his head, diverting his attention to his friends. Ron was munching on a chocolate frog who was trying its best to wiggle out of his grasp and Hermione was reading a book about 'Werewolves'. Another pang of hurt rose in his chest as he recalled that his favourite, Defence against the Dark Arts teacher wouldn't be continuing next year and he would have to look out for a whole new person in his life. He wheezed, though Professor Lupin, in the end, also threatened his life, intentional or not, he at least taught something.
Hedwig nipped his finger, forcing him to continue tracing patterns through the soft feathers when Hermione looked up from her book and gave him an exhausted smile, which he returned and again turned his head towards the window.
There was a voice, swirling in his thoughts, giving him a headache that had been present since the day he got out of the hospital wing after saving Sirius from getting kissed.
The voice was somehow soothing if you ignore the constant knocking sounds as if something had been caged. He shivered at the thought and watched Ron licking the empty box lid which Harry bought for the red-head, feeling sad at the financial condition of his favourite wizarding family.
"Harry, are you alright?" asked Hemione, closing the book and resting it on her lap.
"Yeah, 'Mione," Harry replied, with a sense of happiness swelling in his chest as a reminder that he was not alone, he had his friends to watch his back. Though a screaming voice filled his brain, making him mentally groan as he recalled that he begged Dumbledore not to send him back to his 'home' after Aunt Marge's incident...
'NO- NO- NO- DUMBLEDORE'S GOOD- YOU ARE A FREAK- YOU DESERVE IT- DUMBLEDORE'S GOOD' thoughts polar opposite, which he had heard since years grew, making the new thoughts disappear though a nagging in his brain remained.
But maybe he could slip away in Diagon Alley as he did-
'NO- NO- NO- DUMBLEDORE SAID YOU HAVE TO- YOU ARE A FREAK- YOU DESERVE IT- DUMBLEDORE'S GOOD'
But Vernon will kill him-
'NO- NO- NO- DUMBLEDORE WOULD NOT LET HIM- YOU ARE FREAK- YOU DESERVE IT ANYWAYS- DUMBLEDORE'S GOOD'
He recalled one time when he was nine, he decided to flee from the hell hole, but he couldn't-
"BOY! Get up and make breakfast," Petunia shrieked.
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry politely responded as he emerged from the cupboard that has been his bedroom for as long as he could remember, only to be shoved back in it by his whale-sized cousin. Harry glared at Dudley, thinking how brilliant it would be if he could beat him up for once, but that would get him in really serious trouble, so he kept his dark thoughts to himself.
Just as he was entering the kitchen, he was caught off guard by his uncle.
"You are a WORTHLESS FREAK," Vernon yelled as he punched Harry straight in the gut.
Harry clutched his stomach as he flew backwards ten feet, due to the strength with which Vernon hit him, landing hard on his back with his breath knocked out of him. Vernon advanced on the poor boy, removing his belt. When he reached Harry, he whipped the terrified boy with the buckle side of the belt, but just before he got the tenth strike in, Harry's magic decided to kick in and blast Vernon away.
At that moment, Harry decided that it was time to get out of dodge, as the Muggle saying goes. Looking at his uncle and then at the door, he got up gingerly and was out the door and down the street. He didn't look back even once until he was at his hiding spot when he started to get tired and went and sat down on a swing. He looked down and noticed that he was covered in blood. He started to think about the whole situation.
He sat there for some time, but when he was about to stand up and run away, the next moment he was surrounded by black smoke, and everything went blank.
When he woke up, he was back in his cupboard and again the voices yelled at him in his head-
'YOU ARE A FREAK- FREAK DON'T DESERVE HAPPINESS- THEY DON'T DESERVE TO BE FREE-'
He told Dumbledore that his relatives would kill him faster than Voldemort, on which he saddened his expression, but his eyes remained twinkling and did nothing but order him to live there for the safety of his own and others.
Fingers snapped in front of his face, making him jump in his seat and Hedwig glared at Hermione, who gulped in fear of getting bit by the short-tempered owl.
"Earth to Harry"
"Hmmm?"
"Honestly, Harry, where is your mind at?" She huffed, making him fidget unconsciously, and he opened his mouth to spill his thoughts when again the screaming filled his mind, almost like a hiss, making him shut his mouth.
"Uh Huh," he said, and the hissing became slightly lower but remained.
Hermione's stare was calculating, the same stare she had when she solved the potion mystery in the first year and the basilisk problem in the second, followed by the lycanthropy problem of the DADA professor in the last year, making him frown.
Hermione snapped out of her reverie, turned to Ron, who was still digging through the pastry and candies Harry had purchased, and cleared her throat. Ron looked up towards her and then snapped out of the pure sugary bliss into reality and turned towards Harry. He threw sugar quills in his direction, which he caught just in time, earning a glare from Hemione at their etiquettes.
"Here, mate, never wrong time to enjoy some sugar yeah" he grinned at which Harry smiled and bought the quill up to his lips when the hissing sound grew up at such density making him nauseated as he dropped the quill and stood up in halt making Hedwig screech and flew to out of the compartment.
"I-I- need to use the loo." With that, he followed Hedwig and ran out of the compartment, out of the corner of his eye. Harry saw Hermione scolding Ron and eyeing the sugar quills scattered on the floor. The hissing noise became somewhat calmer but did not disappear.
Harry sighed and made his way towards the bathroom, feeling nauseated and overwhelmed by the excited squeals of first and second years.
"Harry!" A feminine voice exclaimed, making him halt and turn towards the source.
With a mental groan, he forced his face into a small smile, the hisses that were calming now starting to increase again, making him rub his forehead in irritation.
"Yes, Ginny?" He asked in a blank tone, not yet ready to deal with a girl who he considered his little sister, crushing on him.
Ginny always confused him. When he was alone, his brain worked and the brotherly protectiveness grew as a result, but whenever he reached somewhat close to her, his brain seemed to be frozen, and the brotherly love seemed to morph into something which made him feel his skin crawl.
The hissing voice screeched when she touched his cheek, making him jump and snarl at the red-haired witch.
The moment emerald eyes met brown, the world seemed too dark, almost suffocating. Ginny batted her eyelashes and smiled.
'How beautiful just like your mother, isn't she? She is just perfect. Your father will be proud of you to make her-'
The thoughts were starting to overwhelm his senses; a blush started to form over his neck; he wanted to keep staring; he wanted to drown-
"Potter!" The voice cut his thoughts, or rather lack of thoughts, as he shook his head and turned around to look at his saviour. The moment his eyes met the grey, no blue, no silver ones, the world stopped. So did the hissing voice screams, which were now transformed into a rhythm that silently resembled the sound of small bells. Harry's mouth parted to say something, through which came out a starling hiss, making him freeze.
Draco Malfoy, who was previously bearing his trademark snarl, was now gaping a little and his face started to turn an admirable shade of pink. Harry, who was quite fascinated by the change of colour of the pale skin, skin so perfect, which may bring the porcelain dolls to shame, his hair was so white, making him look like a ghost if there were not the silver eyes shining like a pool of mercury, pupils dilating, making them appear more fascinating. That was when Harry noticed a few flecks of sky blue in them, making them appear like the clouding sky.
The silent interaction was not noticed by the red-haired witch, who clung to Harry's arm and narrowed her eyes at the intruder.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" She annoyingly screamed, startling both Harry and Draco snapping out of their daze.
Harry hastily pulled himself free of the red-haired witch and ran towards the bathroom, ignoring his surroundings and the screeches of pet cats and squeaks of rats.
He ran and ran, ignoring everyone calling after him, or in the case of Ginny, yelling like a banshee, running after him.
'NO-GINNY IS BEAUTIFUL- LIKE YOUR MOM- SHE IS PERFE-'
Before the thought could complete itself, it was cut off, or rather muffled, by the hissing screams, which now were back at the full volume.
He reached the door and hastily opened the door and locked it with brutal force, which made the hinges of the door squeak.
He threw his glasses into his pocket not caring about the irritating fingerprint marks he may have made on the lenses and splashed the cold water on his face.
"What is bloody wrong with me?" He groaned, and then he froze when he realised the hissing noises were stopped. He sighed and sat down on the bathroom floor, ignoring the thought of how many bacterial forms may have been living on the dirty floor, which once was his nightmare, when his science teacher introduced them to the world of microorganisms.
He smiled at the memory. In the past, he loved science and maths, and he remembered the day when he got his grade 3 results. He was on top after devoting all his spare time after the chores and beatings from Vernon or 'Harry- Hunting', to his books, which were old, and torn, yet his, and Dudley failed the very same grade, not much surprise as it was a usual occurrence of every year. Regardless, to say his 'family' blamed his 'freakiness' as the cause of their lovely poor Duddykins' failure, and the consequences were not fair for just some fame in class.
There was one teacher he knew that tried his best to help, but of course, the Dursleys had an excuse for everything and the school "knew his record", so there was no true way he could have helped him besides sneaking him extra food here and there. At one point, he did call the Department for the Welfare of Children; they came out to do a house check and to ensure that no child was harmed and all that. Of course, this caused a pure rage in his aunt and uncle, swearing that the teacher was wrong and that Harry was well taken care of, that he just tended to make up stories about them, and how ungrateful he was for everything they did for him. They even went as far as to show them "his room", which was really Dudley's room, until the Hogwarts letter, filled with toys, both broken and new, and how untidy and dirty it was. Then they went to Dudley's second bedroom, which was filled with discarded and broken toys, a mediocre bed, and was clean compared to the other room.
The social workers left without evidence of his abuse, and with them went his last hope of being able to escape. The teacher that reported the 'supposed abuse' was fired, and from then on, all the teachers knew him as a liar and a cheat. One teacher even went so far as to call him out in the middle of class for "cheating" on an exam, for getting everything right when no one else in the class did; it was then that his accidental magic flared and turned her hair blue. Vernon was very 'unhappy' with that and so was the whole school. Harry was suspended for two weeks for whatever prank he pulled on the teacher, and even if he wanted to go back to school during those two weeks, he couldn't-not with the thrashing his uncle gave him once he got home after they had to pick him up.
If he ever did better than Dudley at school, he was called a freak and cheat, as there was no way that he could get better marks than their beloved "Dudders". That nickname, along with the others they called him, made Harry sick each time he heard it but at the same time left a weird sense of longing in his mind. So, the thought that his great grades would finally gain his love and affection from his aunt and uncle, he was wrong; as always...the result was just another beating. It got to the point that he gave up even trying in school.
He decided to keep his mouth shut and his head down. He started to leave his answer sheet blank. Despite the scolding from his teachers for his deteriorating grades, he kept his head down, not ready to face the belt and leash once more. He knew everything the teachers were teaching. He also had to go into remedial classes, for the "retards," as Dudley liked to call them. It was pathetic, and he hated every second of it.
It was still a mystery to him how he got away from the hell hole last year after blowing up Aunt Marge...
He remembered every single time he tried, he got caught as if there was a bloody tracker on him-
Tears started to ooze out of the emerald eyes as he recalled that when he bought his first-year books, he was thrilled, thrilled to finally read again without restraints, without having to face the consequences for his thirst for knowledge... finally free to learn... but then something happened.
It's like his brain just became shut whenever he tried to read anything more than his core subjects...no..no... shoot it... when he tried to learn anything other than DADA-it often became completely off when he approached the potion books. He tried to tell someone but he couldn't.
Ron's marks were always poorer than his, and he was always average, in the mass in which he felt safe, safe because he was neither special nor poor. And the thought of telling Hermione didn't felt right because he had seen the look on her face when he had got an 'O' on his DADA essay when she had gotten a mere 'E'.
'Wait!' He froze on his spot when the voices were missing. His mind was awfully quiet, soothingly blank. Whenever he tried to think anything negative about his friends, the voices just kept replaying, screaming...
'THEY ARE GREAT, YOU ARE A FREAK, YOU DON'T DESERVE THEM-'
But now the voices were missing, making his head feel quite light.
He just wanted to check, so he thought, 'Dumbledore is a bloody bastard to make me go there again'
Silence...
No voices...
No yelling...
But a single delightful hissing song, sounding rather muffled in the background which made him smile unconsciously.
He was musing about the lack of yelling when he heard a rattle and hiss, this time not in his head, making him jump. He felt eyes on him. He was now quite expert at realising the gazes because of the masses, so he hastily fiddled his pockets, taking out his glasses.
He placed the glasses hastily on his nose and turned around to meet his gaze with the glowing emerald slits.
"Finally, we have connected, hatchling"
~Love-K.D