Chapter 3: Childhood (Part 2)
Harry was quietly and quickly walking down the road, his thoughts constantly running back to the accident, mere minutes ago, when Dudley had been thrown away from him. He had remembered shared moments with his parents before his mother had been killed by the wizard in the black robes. Harry was a wizard and he could do magic. That was what his mother had said to his father, James Potter. He felt warm on the inside remembering his parents' names. Until those memories came flooding into his mind, he had always just thought and had to accept, that his father was an idiot who drank more alcohol than he could afford and that his mother was supposed to be a street whore who drank with him. The two had supposedly died in a car crash after drinking themselves into a near blackout state and crashing into a large building.
But now, he knew that his father had been a wizard and his mother, Lily Potter a witch. He was their only son and he also was a wizard. They all had been able to do magic. He wanted to train his magic, learn how to control it, use it to his advantage and finally get some peace from the Dursleys by threatening them and scaring them. He wanted to get revenge for six years of abuse and torture.
He picked up his pace, wanting nothing more than to be locked up in his broom cupboard before his fat walrus of an uncle would hit him with the belt, or even worse kick and slap him. This prospect wasn't wonderful, but he'd be able to practice magic with the objects inside the cupboard and it was still better alone inside than outside and being used as a punching bag by his relatives.
Arriving at Number four, Privet Drive, he jumped over the fence, separating the lawn in front of the house and the one on the back of it. Slipping inside the house, he went to his cupboard and pulled it close, hoping that they wouldn't bother him in there. He lay down on the carpet in his cupboard and pretended to be asleep, while carefully listening for any sounds of the idiots who were hunting him.
Unbeknownst to him, Dudley had already called home with his Nokia cell phone. The moment he had closed his cupboard door, Vernon had gotten a metal badge of his old school, Smelting's, and heated it for a minute or two. He went to the cupboard, pulled the door open, ripped the shirt off of the Freak lying on the ground and pressed the badge into the back of his left shoulder for two minutes, burning his skin. The symbol on the badge would forever be burned into the shoulder. 'This is pain. He has never done anything like this to me. This hurts.' Harry thought. His Uncle took the badge off, heating it again and repeating the process on the back of his right shoulder. "This is for my son, Freak. We told you to never DARE do things out of the ordinary and yet you threw my Dudders twelve feet away without even touching him. You hurt him." Each word was accompanied by a slap to a cheek, alternating the cheek every slap. Harry was cowering against the wall and didn't know what to do, the tears that had welled up in his eyes began rolling over his cheeks. Vernon just stormed out of the cupboard, locked it and Harry fell back onto the carpet, exhausted.
He was trying to think back to the situation he had been in earlier that day, Dudley's fist probably mere inches away from his gut, Piers holding his arms behind his back, his desperate wish that there be no pain and that he wouldn't be hit. Suddenly, he remembered a warmth spread out inside himself, starting from his chest and then he asked himself, 'was that warmth what using magic feels like?'. He started to think back to all those occasions where he had unwillingly used magic.
When he had been running away from Dudley and his gang, disappearing, and suddenly reappearing on the roof of the school kitchens. There had been a warm sensation in his chest when this occurred. He had just blamed his exhaustion after running for a few minutes. As well as that accident when the hair colour and the colour of his teacher's clothes had changed. The warmth had accompanied the magic. Suddenly, he realised, that when he would be learning to control and use his magic, he needed to look for that warmth first.
When his thoughts returned to his parents, a smile grew on his face and with a warmth spreading from his chest to his face, the pain from the slaps receded into nothingness. He was happy for the first time since he could remember living in the hell of Number four, Privet Drive. He drifted off to sleep and his dreams revolved around his parents, his magic and what he should learn to do first.
Later that day, Harry woke up again and thought back to his difficult morning. He had to learn magic, starting slow and easy, before moving on to more and more difficult tasks. Remembering the fact that he was still in a house full of people despising him, he held his ear to the wall and tried to listen for any sounds outside of his cupboard. He couldn't do anything when they were just a corner away from his cupboard. He couldn't hear anyone inside and felt relieved, knowing that his tormentors and sadly also family, wouldn't know if he practised now. What should he do first? 'What if I try to levitate something small? Maybe the nail on that shelf over there?', he thought, walking to the wall across from where he was sitting on his carpet. He picked up the nail, which he had pulled out of one of the drawers in the garage he had been cleaning the car in a week ago. He had gotten it in order to try and open the cupboard locks from the inside, but it would do just as good, if not better as an object to learn how to use his magic.
Sitting back on the carpet, he placed the nail next to him and faced it. He observed it closely before he closed his eyes and willed the nail to levitate an inch above the carpet. He focussed on the image of that happening, trying to hold onto it while he opened his eyes again. The sight that met his eyes made him drop his hopes in an instant. The nail hadn't even moved at all. Maybe he needed a different approach. 'What if I work on looking for that warmth and learn to use it at will.' He decided, that meditating and trying to look for the warmth of his magic and getting comfortable at summoning it should be his priority.
Putting the nail away and retaking his place on the carpet, he sat down in a meditative posture, closing his eyes, and trying to feel the warmth that accompanied his magic. He started to try and feel it in his chest since that was where the warmth had originated from in the previous times that he had used his magic. He didn't feel any warmth however and tried to look for it again, this time desperately wanting it to be there. He thought and got the idea that maybe the warmth and his magic only came when he was desperate.
'My chest feels cold. I really want the warmth to come back. I need it to happen. I need to learn how to perform magic in order to defend myself against my relatives.', he thought.
He felt a stinging pain in his chest and opened his eyes. There had been no warmth, only a short sting in the area around his heart. He still hadn't made any progress and decided to try again the next day, after taking some time to rest, considering that he had been looking for the warmth for about three hours by then. He was pretty tired and needed sleep, making this decision, his head was already on its way to the blanket he used as his pillow. He had already drifted off to sleep a few inches before his head touched the blanket. God, he was tired.
Waking up late the next day when he heard his uncle's car pulling up to the driveway after a long day of work at Grunnings, he thought back to the previous day and decided to try again that night to levitate the nail. Should his relatives come to look into the cupboard, he thought it better to not be seen trying to levitate a nail by pointing his hands out towards it and whispering things like "Go up. Please move up." or similar things. He should probably sit on the carpet and use the time he had until night to try to summon the warmth.
So, starting the same way as the previous day, by sitting down in a meditative posture, closing his eyes and trying to feel the warmth while summoning it. But unlike the day before, he imagined himself saving himself when confronted by his relatives and it worked. A small feeling of warmth, barely above his body temperature, formed in his chest and he tried focussing on that sudden feeling of warmth coming from his chest. He pictured his uncle from the day before and the pain he'd felt in his shoulders and on his face after the confrontation. Thinking about the pain, about his uncle, about how he had wanted the pain to stop. With the same emotions, he decided that, since his relatives hadn't disturbed him, he might as well try to summon the nail towards him.
Suddenly, he felt a warmth spread from his chest to his right hand. The boy opened his eyes to see a nail float towards his hand and drop into it. He felt ecstatic. He'd used magic on purpose, even if it had taken him several attempts and in total seven hours of looking for the warmth, he couldn't even begin to wrap his head around this achievement. Harry had to focus hard in order to keep his voice down as he nearly shouted out "YEEEEESSS. Finally, I did it. I felt the warmth and used magic.".
With a giant grin on his face, he laid the nail back in front of him, focussed on the feeling he had felt mere seconds ago and wanted the nail to levitate. And again, he felt a warmth inside his chest, reaching out to his hands and seeing the nail float in front of his face.
Because of his back facing the cupboard door, he saw neither his aunt nor his uncle opening his door silently. His aunt fainted the moment she realised, that there was a nail FLOATING in the AIR in front of the Freak's hands. His uncle, seeing this as well pulled the boy out of the cupboard by his hair and slammed him into the wall next to the staircase before he walked over to his wife, who was beginning to wake up again.
"Are you fine, Petunia?" "Yes, I am. Thank you, sweetheart.", she responded, before adding in an undertone, so only her husband could understand her, "That was magic. We need to get rid of that Freak now. He will become more dangerous as time passes." "There will be no such un-Dursleyness in MY house. Could you walk upstairs into our bedroom, pull open the top left drawer of the cabinet on the right wall and get the black parcel down here?" "Yes, I can. Take care of the Freak."
All the while, Harry stood against the wall, scared, and wanted nothing more than just escape to the playground where his accident with Dudley had occurred. Suddenly a fist hit his gut, squeezing all the air out of his lungs. His face became very pale as he thought about the pain that was to come. He slid himself down to the floor because of the pain of the blow his uncle had given him.
Dudley had heard that his parents were dealing with his cousin and wanted to get a few hits as well for the pain that that idiot had inflicted upon him on his birthday. He went out of his room and moved down the stairs. He saw him lying in front of the stairs and jumped the gap of the last three stairs down, only to land on the Freak's arms, a crunching noise accompanying the jump. A wicked grin grew on his face.
Harry saw two feet appear next to him and land on his arms, breaking his bones in the process. He had never felt so much pain and tried to focus on anything but the pain. This became too hard when after ten seconds, his cousin still hadn't moved from his broken arms and even began to stomp on the elbows and hands to break even more bones.
"Dudley, get over here. I don't want you to get hurt.", his aunt said to him, after walking down the stairs with a black parcel in her hands and giving the demon under her son a kick to the head for good measure. Dudley did as he was told and stood next to his mother, who had given the parcel to Vernon.
Unwrapping the parcel, a loaded gun slid into the hands of a maliciously smirking man. He pointed the gun at the Freak and chuckled to himself when he saw the look on the boy's face. He had probably shit in his pants by now looking at the fear clearly visible on his face.
When he was about to pull the trigger, Harry gave a loud yell, startling the Dursleys and with a bang, a shot fired off towards the boys left leg and he dropped the gun to the side, kicking the boy to his ribs, before demanding "Leave this place. Now. I don't want you to ever come back, you'll bleed out anyway in an hour or so. ENJOY YOUR WAY TOO LONG LIFE" With that being said, the boy's uncle turned around, pulled him up by his hair, opened the door and dumped him on the doormat, before closing the door.
Harry got up. He had to get to the playground. Maybe there were some parents playing with their children, that would get him help, should they see him with these terrible wounds. He took a deep breath every other step when the pressure would be put on the leg with the gun wound. After about half an hour of limping to Magnolia Road in order to get help, he arrived at the playground and sat down on a bench. The pain he felt was insane and he was not sure if he could stay conscious with the amount of blood loss he had suffered. The bullet had been half an inch in diameter, and his way too large jeans had a hole in them and the blood was still leaking out of the wound, reddening the jeans as time went on. He didn't see a scarred man walking up to him nor did he see the shocked look and the ragged clothes the man wore.
"Excuse me, young boy, are you by any chance called Harry James Potter? Have you been living at Number four, Privet Drive?"
Hearing a voice so close to him, his head jerked upwards in fear and he saw the man in front of him. "I am not aware of where you got that information from, Mister ….? You haven't told me your name yet.", Harry responded. "Oh. I am sorry. Remus Lupin. Please call me Remus or Moony." Seeing the look of mistrust in the child's eyes and the wounds all over his body, he quickly added "You don't have to tell me, curiosity just got the better of me."
Harry thought for a second. If this man was here to help him, it would most certainly help to be on friendly terms and trust him. "Yes, Moony, I am indeed Harry Potter of Number four, Privet Drive. May I ask how you know me?" "May I call you Harry?", he began and, seeing the boy nod, he continued, "I was a close friend of your parents before they died that fateful Hallowe'en. They wanted me to check up on you every now and then. This happens to be the first time that I come by, I'd have liked to see you sooner, but my condition turned out to be a hindrance in that regard as well as the fact that Albus Dumbledore has been watching my movements closely and this is the first time I had the chance to escape his methods of tracking." "As much as I appreciate meeting you and chatting with you, Remus, my relatives shot me and I have broken arms as well as possibly broken ribs."
A look of shock crossed the older man's face but he recovered quickly. "I hope you know that you are special and that we can't be seen?" "If you are talking about me being a wizard, yes, I know that this requires secrecy.", Harry responded, biting his tongue to not yell out in pain. "As silly as it might sound, but do you by any chance know a house elf called Fiddy?" Harry began to think about this and suddenly remembered Fiddy from one of the memories with his parents. He nodded in response and Remus answered. "Now call for Fiddy by just shouting her name." He had already cast Notice-me-not-charms around the Playground that he had confronted the boy on. "Fiddy!", Harry called and the house elf appeared. "What can Fiddy do for you, young master Harry?" she said, before seeing the state he was in and saying "Fiddy must bring young master Harry to Potter Manor now to heal him." "Harry, I will contact you as soon as possible. I cannot go with you or Dumbledore will become suspicious." "Thank you very much for your help, Moony, I really appreciate it. Goodbye and I hope we meet again soon enough." "Bye Harry.", Remus said and disapparated. "Fiddy can you take me to Potter Manor now and heal me?" "Yes, Master Harry. Fiddy will bring you home now." The house elf grabbed his hand and he passed out the moment he felt like he was being squeezed through a pipe.
The moment they had reappeared inside, every house elf currently in the manor came rushing up to them. "Fiddy, what happened to young master Harry?" "Master Harry is hurt. We need to get him to the ritual room now." After Fiddy had ordered for them all to go to the ritual room, they arrived in said room, laying Harry down on the floor.
There were currently fifty-seven house elves in the large room and twenty-two had already begun to carve runes on the floor around the boy, while the other thirty-five were chanting words and sentences that only they could understand. Suddenly the bullet was pulled out of the leg by magic and the blood went back into the wound, so his blood loss wouldn't be fatal. His bones started to bend and twist together, repairing themselves, shards that had broken away came rushing into the bones. The concussion had gone away as suddenly as it had come after the kick to his head. The wound on his leg began to seal itself and the skin repaired itself. As this happened, all his inner wounds were healed, his bones strengthened, his muscles became stronger.
Fiddy was the elf that every other house elf serving the Potter family obeyed if their master or mistress was unable to give commands or orders. "He has mental and magical restrictions. Albus Dumbledore's magical signature." With that being said, they began focussing on his blocks and removed the restrictions on his magical core and his brain. Suddenly Fiddy felt some dark magic on his forehead. "House elves, there is some black scar on his forehead where dark magic resides. We must destroy it.", Fiddy said in a commanding tone and the chanting continued. The twenty-seven rune carving elves were now drawing runes onto his body with his blood while the scar was ripped apart and grey smoke, as well as some blackish, oily substance, oozed from his forehead and formed into a sphere of grey and black substances that seemed to reek of dark magic and emotions. His body was twitching and bending in pain as he was screaming and crying, still unconscious. This continued for about half an hour until his forehead closed again. The scar had disappeared and the sphere was levitated to the side. All fifty-seven house elves were now gathering around the sphere, pointing their arms towards the sphere and they all murmured one incantation: "lacerastore ". The sphere exploded into thousands of thin threads which vanished not even half a second after the explosion, leaving no traces of the dark magic. Finally, after three hours, the ritual was finished and Harry was safe. The explosion hadn't caused any damage to anything except for the now non-existent sphere.
AN: First chapter of 2022 so Happy New Year and I hope you guys had a nice Christmas feast as well as some nice time off. I hope you guys liked both this and the previous chapter, if so, then please feel free to review, make suggestions, share the ff or whatever you think to be appropriate. About the lacerastore, I used the Latin word 'lacero' (translated to English: tear, lacerate, break, shatter) and then just came up with something that sounded nice and put it at the end of the word. I was also able to finally publish to Ao3. Thank you so much, every one of you for more than 550 hits in 4 days, over 100 follows and 80 favs on and the 30+ reads on Wattpad and all the reviews (on all 3 websites).
