Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
A very loud screaming could
be heard for miles from its originator. No it wasn't the pudgy boy, or the
black boy, or the blond girl. It was a boy in his bed, in his pajamas in a
house in England, more specifically on number four Privet drive. And that boy
is none other than Harry Potter.
Harry was yelling at the top
of his lungs. At that moment he felt as much pain as he did in the previous
year when Lord Voldemort tortured him. He fell off his bed and rolled around on
the floor for at least half a minute clutching his lightning bolt scar on his
forehead. At that moment the only thing Harry wanted to do was to die; to die,
and not suffer from this horrible torture anymore. The pain didn't seem to let
up at all after thirty seconds. It kept going; in fact it only kept getting
worse. Harry kept rolling around and yelling for around another thirty seconds
until the pain was finally starting to die down a bit. Harry continued to lie
on the floor sweating and panting, not thinking about anything at all. He just
lay there and stared at the ceiling for a couple a minutes until something
snapped him out of his trance.
BANG, BANG, BANG. "WHAT
DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING BOY!" It was his uncle version shouting and
banging on his door really hard. "WE'RE TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP, I'VE GOT
A REALLY BUSY DAY TOMORROW. YOU'D BETTER SHUT UP OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO
YELL ABOUT!"
Harry didn't answer to this as he heard the sound of his uncle
Vernon's footsteps getting softer. He was obviously going back to bed. He
didn't ask what was wrong, why he was yelling, if he was hurt, or if he needed
any help. The only reason that he came by was to yell at Harry and to threaten
him. But Harry was used to this by now. He's been getting this kind of
treatment for the past fourteen years of his life-even before he could
remember. The reason he was treated like this is because he was very different
from all other people in the world. He was a wizard. And the Dursleys, his
aunt, uncle, and cousin hated him for it. They were what the wizards called
muggles (no magic whatsoever). His aunt and uncle believed that everything
should just be normal; in other words plain and boring. His cousin was just
scared. He had always been the bully in his schools, so he definitely wasn't
used to being scared. The reason he lived with the Dursleys and not with his
own family is because Lord Voldemort, the most powerful wizard in a century,
murdered his mother and father. Voldemort killed his father, and then moved to
kill him, he failed however because his mother got in the way. After he killed
Harry's parents, he moved to kill Harry with the same curse as he used on his
parents, the avada kedavra, aka the killing curse. A curse he used to kill many
before. However, because Harry's mother died to save his life, it left a
special charm around him, which protected Harry form Voldemort's curse. The
curse backfired, and broke Voldemort's power, and Harry instantly became
famous. The only thing that the curse did to Harry was leave him with a scar in
the shape of a lightning bolt; that was why Harry was so different, even in the
wizarding world. After this, Harry was immediately taken and placed in the care
of his aunt and uncle.
Harry continued to lie on
the floor for a while, after his uncle left. He turned his head to his left and
realized that he knocked over his glasses while he was going through his little
tantrum. He put them on and looked upwards at his clock and saw what time it
was. It was one ten in the morning. He got up and sat on his bed with his hand
still clutched to his scar. He knew what this meant of course. His scar would
only start to hurt when Voldemort was near him, or was in a very murderous
rage. He got up and went to his window. He opened it up and looked outside. He
shielded his eyes a bit as the lights from the street lamps darted directly
into his tired eyes. He took a breath of fresh air and went back to his bed
still leaving the window open. He sat on his bed trying to piece his thoughts
together. He tried to think of why his scar hurt. He was pretty sure that
Voldemort wasn't near him, so it could've only been one other thing. He must
have killed someone. Killed? Yes, he did kill someone. He remembered someone
being killed in his dream. But the strange thing was, that that was the only
thing he remembered. He tried hard to retell himself what happened while he was
asleep, but failed. He didn't understand. Why couldn't he remember what
happened in his dream. Then another thought crossed his mind. Why did the scar
hurt so much? And why did it hurt even after he was awake? He remembered, the
only time his scar hurt that much was when Voldemort touched him, or used the
cruciatus curse on him. Not when he was attacking someone else? Then a thought
struck his head. What if, Voldemort is getting more powerful? That would
explain a lot. Maybe that was the reason why Harry couldn't remember what he
saw in his dream. Because Voldemort had somehow found a way to block his mind,
but would that mean that Voldemort knew that Harry was watching?
"Weird," said Harry in a low voice. "Oh, well, I'll never figure
this out, there's no point thinking about it."
Harry knew he wasn't going
to get any sleep for the rest of the night, "so, I might as well get some
work done." The truth was that that was one of the only nights that Harry
was able to fall asleep. After his last year, he hadn't been the same. He was
always miserable, always sulking, always in a bad mood. But, he wasn't going to
think about it. That was his plan for the entire summer. Not to think about
anything. Not to get lost in thought, because he knew if he did, the first
thing he'd start to think about would be his fourth year. And then he'd get
even more miserable. Lucky for him, the Dursleys were able to help him with
this (a first). As soon as his uncle Vernon was driving him back from the
King's Cross train station, they got to talking. "Boy," his uncle
started, "it has come to my attention that haven't been pulling your
weight around the house." Harry didn't say anything. In fact he was barely
even listening. All he could think about was what happened at the end of his
fourth year. "So", his uncle continued, "When we get home [my
home not your home] you are going to have some more responsibilities."
"Sure," Harry said
in a melancholy voice.
"First off, you will be
helping your aunt around the house more often," his uncle Vernon began.
"Fine," said
Harry, as if he didn't care.
"Secondly, you will
cook all the breakfasts from now on."
"Great."
"And thirdly, you will
escort Dudley the gym everyday and see to it that he gets a good workout. Do
you understand boy?"
At this statement, Harry
couldn't help but look up at his uncle. "What?" Harry said
disbelievingly.
"I would do it my self,
but I'm very busy at the office," his uncle said immediately. His uncle
owned a company that made drills. And at this time his company was doing quite
well so he was usually not home. "And your aunt is very busy with other
things," he ended matter of factly.
"Yeah, she was
definitely busy with other things. Like spying on their neighbors,"
thought Harry. And he was as a matter of fact, right. His aunt was the nosiest
person in the world. Sometimes Harry thought that the reason she had such a
long neck was so that she could bring it over fences, and out of sides of
windows-natural selection at work here. Of course Harry dared not say any of
this in front of any of the Dursleys.
"Otherwise, we'd have
done it ourselves," uncle Vernon added in.
This was the best thing that
happened to Harry in all his summers. Now he had perfect distraction at all
time. He'd wake up and make the breakfast [which wasn't too hard since Dudley
was on a diet], he'd work out during the day, and clean the house when he came
home. And any spare time that he had, he'd just do his homework.
And throughout his summer he
kept to that plan. He never stopped keeping himself busy. Even after his entire
body became sore from the workouts, he still continued, that way he thought
he'd at least be able to concentrate on his pain to keep his mind off his
previous year. Sure enough when he got home with Dudley, his aunt Petunia
forced him to clean the house while she told her "poor little Dudley"
to get some rest. Harry wasn't upset by this, he was already as upset as one
could get. He knew that what he was doing was good because, at least this way
he could stay sane, even if he was abusing his body. The one thing that he
hadn't counted on was he not being able to fall asleep at night. He was sure that
after a hard days work (a very hard days in his case), he'd be able to fall
asleep. He was, of course wrong. During the first couple of weeks he kept his
nights busy by doing homework. After he was finished with that, he just read
other books. By now he memorized every single monster in "the monster book
of monsters", every single spell and potion from all his other books, and,
he even went as far a memorizing his divinations books. Divinations had been
one of his least favorite classes, because the teacher, professor Trelawny,
kept predicting his death every single lesson. By the end of the third year, he
had come to the conclusion that she was a fake-except on a few occasions; one
of them, was when she predicted that Voldemort would rise to power once again,
which now had seemed to be coming true. Now that Harry was all out of
schoolbooks to read, he decided to read muggle books. He read some of Dudley's
old schoolbooks, which Dudley wasn't using. So far he read: "Chemistry for
Beginners," one of Dudley's least favorite school books, "Human
Anatomy," he noticed that the chapter on the reproductive system was
opened many times due to the wide gap in the stitch in that chapter, and
"American History". Obviously Smeltings thought that American History
was important being that America was an ally of England. He thought that all
those books were very interesting, and wondered why Hogwarts never taught them
these subjects. Then he remembered how long it took him to finish all his
Hogwarts homework during the school year and thought better of it. All the
same, he still thought it a shame, especially when he remembered how oblivious
his best friend Ron was to the muggle world. Now Harry was in the middle of
reading "Origin of Species," by Charles Darwin, an assigned reading
for Dudley's English class. He understood most of what he read and thought that
it was an interesting theory. It made him start to think that maybe wizard and
witches were the next step in human evolution. It was possible, Harry thought.
Although wizard and witched were not a completely different species, they were
obviously different from muggles, and some wizards and witches like his best
friend Hermione came from muggle families. They must have evolved. One thing he
was careful about was to never let his theory slip in front of his uncle Vernon
and aunt Petunia, or else they'd do something to de-evolve him.
So Harry got out a
flashlight and his book and continued to read from where he left off. As he
started reading he heard something. It sounded like tapping. At first he
dismissed it, thinking that it was his alarm clock ticking. As he continued to
read he felt something on his elbow. It felt like a small needle pricking. He
immediately looked down and noticed an owl lightly pecking at his elbow. The
owl had gray and brown feathers, and a small pointy beak. "Finally,"
Harry thought. "This must be my letter from Hogwarts. It took them long
enough." Harry usually got his letter from Hogwarts telling him when to return,
and what books he'd need around the time of his birthday. Now it had been a
while past that. For a short time Harry began to be worried that he was
expelled. That maybe that article that Rita Skeeter wrote about him made the
school governors, and the parents of the other Hogwarts students scared. He
dismissed that thought in a hurry though, knowing that the headmaster of the
school, Albus Dumbledore would never allow such a thing, and even if he did,
Harry would surely get a letter telling him that he was expelled.
He opened the letter, and to his surprise, it wasn't a
letter from Hogwarts. Instead it was a letter from one of his best friends from
school, Hermione. It read:
Dear Harry,
How are things with you? I
know that after what happened in school the very last thing that you would want
would be to spend the entire summer with your relatives. But I'm sure that
Dumbledore has his reasons for sending you back to your aunt and uncle. Anyway
the reason I owled you is to invite you over to spend the rest of the summer at
my house. I know that your original plan was to spend the summer at Ron's, so I
talked to him about it and he thought that it was a great idea (we were sort of
hanging out together during the first few weeks of summer). We'll spend our
last weeks together and we'll meet Ron at diagon alley to collect our stuff,
two days before we have to leave for school.
I mailed your aunt and uncle
the muggle way and they should get it really soon, maybe they already got it.
I'm sure that they will let you come.
Now I know that you do not
want to stay at home for the rest of the summer, so don't bother owling me
back.
'Even in her letters she
sounds bossy,' thought Harry.
If they let you come I'll
come to pick you up this Friday, and if they don't let you come, I'll still
come to pick you up this Friday. I just sent them a letter to be courteous. Oh
no, I'm beginning to act like Ron, I guess it was because we spent so much time
together during the first few weeks of summer. Oh well, see you then.
Love, Hermione
PS: I have been made a
prefect, I got my letter two days after I sent you your birthday present. What
about you?
'What about me?' Thought
Harry. 'I didn't even get a letter inviting me back. Could they really have
expelled me? I mean, if Hermione already got her letter so long ago, then that
must mean that I should've gotten it too. They send all the letters at the
exact same time.' Harry sat for minute, getting even more depressed with every
passing second. 'No, they couldn't have. Dumbledore wouldn't let them. They're
probably taking extra precautions because of what happened last yea..'
"Oh, no. I have to
stop," Harry said to himself as he put his hands on his head. "No I
can't think about this now. NOOOOOOO!" Harry said raising his voice a
little while shaking his head around as if he had a huge migraine. "It's
not my fault, IT'S NOT MY FAULT." Harry started yelling. "I have to
do something to get my mind off this," Harry said in a soft voice once
again. "If I continue like this.. I'll.... go... crazy."
Harry slowly stumbled over
to his door stopping in front of it to listen for any signs of the Dursleys. He
put his ear up against the door and began to listen intently. After he heard
nothing, he came to the conclusion that the Dursleys had still been asleep. He
slowly opened his door, peered out to check if anyone was there [just in case].
After he saw that no one was there he made his way to enter the bathroom. He
flicked the light switch on and began to look in the mirror. It had been a long
time since he saw his reflection, but he was sure that what he saw had not been
him. His body was definitely in better shape than before. He could see his
biceps and chest muscles bulging through his pajamas. The bangs on his hair
were straight because he was sweating that night. And his face seemed to be
getting a little more rugged. But Harry didn't pay attention to any of those
things. The big difference that he noticed was his eyes. Even though they were
behind his glasses, he could tell that they were not the same as they had been before.
The irises were exactly the same as they always were. They shone in a brilliant
emerald green color. It was what was around the irises that had changed.
Outside the irises Harry saw dozens of disgusting red cracks. This was
obviously due to the sleep deprivation. They looked a lot like real cracks in
his eyes, like his eyes were going to burst into tiny little pieces any second
now. Around his eyes he saw two horrible looking black bags. But the biggest
difference that he noticed was inside his pupils. Inside there used to be hope,
spirit, and bravery. Now all he saw was death, a graveyard, an empty graveyard.
It was as if he'd lost all will to live. And at that moment, he knew that he
was not the same person that he used to be. He was a living dead man, or maybe
a shell of a man would describe him better; but he was definitely not human
anymore, he knew that much. By now he stopped thinking of his fourth year. He
took his glasses off, turned the faucet on and washed his face a little. After
he dried it and put his glasses back on, he looked in the mirror once more.
"I wonder what Ron and
Hermione will think of me when they see me when they see me like this?" He
thought out loud with a depressed voice. "Will they still remain friends
with me? Maybe I should write Hermione telling her to forget about me coming
over. Nah. She'd probably never accept that," Harry sighed. "I hope
they're willing to accept me this way."
He turned off the light and
quietly walked back to his room. He slowly slipped the door closed and walked
over to his bed. He stood there for a second, he then moved over to the loose
floorboard. He removed it and took out the presents that he received for his
previous birthday. Ron sent him an old golden snitch, which at the time was
useless being that he couldn't practice flying at the time. Hagrid sent him a
book about how to breed dragons; Harry never even opened it yet. The weasely
twins sent him a few of their of their new inventions. Obviously, they had
reopened Weasley's Wizard's Wheezes without their mother noticing. And Hermione
sent him a book full of advanced magical spells. He already memorized it, and
decided that he'd try them out when he got to school.
He looked at them for a few
minutes and then put them away. He took his flashlight and continued to read
"the origin of species". As he read through the chapters, his gaze
kept landing on the letter that he received from Hermione. It was true that he
wanted to see her; he wanted to see any of his old friends. But he was scared
of what they'd think of him.
He put down the book, took
out some ink, a quill, and parchment and started to write on it.
Dear Hermione,
I would really like to come
by and visit, and I know you told not to write back in your last letter, but I
felt that I had to warn you.
He stopped for a second. How
was he supposed to explain how he felt to her, when he never even told her what
happened to him during his third task of the triwizard tournament. "Oh
well," Harry said to himself. He took the letter and trashed it.
He got back to reading his
book; when before he even noticed it, it was morning.
