"Over here, Harry," Nymphadora called.

He ignored Madam Pince's aggressive shushing and made his way to the nook Nymphadora had claimed.

She was wearing her hair bright blue that morning. Harry hadn't yet figured out what that meant, but he was confident he'd learn with time. "Hi."

"Wotcher. Look, Hagrid helped me get these for you."

There, spread out across the table in front of her, were photographs. James or Lily waved from most of them, looking startlingly young.

It had been over ten years since Harry had seen their faces.

He felt—shocked. Knees giving out under him, Harry collapsed into a chair. He reached across and stroked the nearest reverently. Lily, in wedding blue, laughed as she dodged away. "I had forgotten how beautiful she was," he heard himself whisper.

Nymphadora settled a hand lightly on his arm. "You were just a baby. It's normal that you can't remember your time with them."

If only. Harry had watched it in his dreams thousands of times: the wrought-iron gate swinging. The Dark Lord knocking on the front door. Take Harry and go!

It was one of those dreams where he would run and run and run, but the faster he moved the slower he went—until the roof exploded.

Or he'd be settled in warm arms chewing on orange hair as the yelling started, just to find himself put in his crib with his mum's teary face smiling down at him, her gaze pidgeon-blue. Then she'd fall to green light, and the man with skin grey like oatmeal would look at him with red eyes and say words that spoke of endings, of darkest magic, of Death. Then the roof would char black.

"I remember," Harry said. "I just get the details muddled sometimes. Snape was there, did you know? He sounded so heartbroken. I think he never recovered from losing her."

Nymphadora made a sound from the back of her throat. Harry looked at her, alarmed. "Are you in pain?"

Her hair was mouse-brown. "I'm fine," she said, blinking her eyes rather quickly. She looked away. "I just wasn't expecting that, is all."

"Alright." Harry shrugged. People tended to get their expectations of him wrong, but he'd half-hoped Nymphadora wasn't like other people. If this was her first time making wrong assumptions, he could forgive her easily enough.

Then again, she had said she'd be leaving next month, just like everyone else had left him.

"Mars is bright," he explained. "It's a metaphor. I think it means I have to be more deliberate."

He fingered the other pictures on the table, finding one where Peter himself stood smiling bright and fierce. It had been taken shortly after he'd figured out how to do the animagus transformation properly. Harry remembered how strong he'd felt, like he could do anything.

"What does a proactive Harry Potter look like?" Nymphadora was asking, her hair fading to the usual bubblegum pink.

Harry knew the truth just as he said the words, tasting their rightness. "I'm going to learn to be an animagus."

"I wasn't expecting that," Nymphadora said. "That's twice I've underestimated you today, so I won't go for three by telling you you can't. But soon I won't be here to make sure you don't get into trouble. I want you to promise me you'll be careful and not do this alone. Alright?"

Harry grinned back at her. "I promise. I'll write to you, let you know how it goes."

Nymphadora had probably been thinking along the lines of having McGonagall supervise him, but Harry had a better idea. He hurried over through the gap in the Restricted Section's wards to get the right books.

That night after dinner he snuck into the greenhouses with Neville and Hermione. They charmed their fresh-picked Mandrake leaves to stick to the tops of their mouths. Harry thought it was a delightfully distracting sensation, offering hours of entertainment over the weeks as his tongue mapped out the grooves time after time.

It wouldn't do to be a rat, crouching in the corner, but what if he could be something else? Something new?

Something more.

xoxox

"You've been very quiet lately," Flitwick announced. "Is everything alright, Harry?"

"Nymphadora showed me what my mum looked like before she left," Harry announced. He wondered if that made him Slytherin, if James and Sirius would be spitting on him calling him slimy snake.

Not that James and Sirius would even look at him now, with what he had become. The guilt jolted deep in his chest.

"I see." Flitwick said, steepling his fingers.

Do you really? Harry wanted to ask. If he did, Harry would be in deep trouble. He'd been sleeping on astronomy tower roof more nights than not. He often visited Fluffy after dinner. He was conspiring with his friends to become illegal animagi.

The problem with going unseen was that at some point, he'd learnt to like it—or at least aspects of it. It was very lucky Flitwick couldn't read his mind.

"When will you teach me occlumency, Professor?" Harry asked.

At this, Flitwick smiled, back to his usual cheerful self. "I spoke with Madam Pomfrey yesterday, she said we can begin your lessons as soon as you like."

If Harry's ears could have moved, they'd have perked forwards. He was hoping for an animagus form with nice ears: a rabbit, perhaps, or something much bigger, like a bear.

"...Nonetheless, Harry, I want to talk about how you've been doing first."

Harry's shoulders fell with the force of his sigh. "I'm tired. I don't sleep easily. And I wish exams weren't coming so soon."

Two months until exams was 'soon' to a Ravenclaw. Flitwick would understand.

"You're ahead of your peers in most subjects, Harry. As long as you keep going like you have been all year, you'll do well." Flitwick watched him, his oblong pupils magnified behind gold-rimmed spectacles. "What are you worried about if it's not exams?"

Harry just caught himself from toppling off his chair; he'd rocked it too far back.

It was a strange paradox, Harry realised, how he swung back and forth between yearning to be seen, and wanting to be left well enough alone. The charms master had spent eight months worth of Thursday evenings watching him, and now Harry felt like a flipped turtle.

Flitwick was observing how Harry lay belly up with his arms flailing—watching cleverly and asking very pointy questions.

If Harry didn't answer, Flitwick wouldn't teach him occlumency. But if he did answer, he'd have to think about Aunt Petunia sitting alone in Privet Drive writing letters where she sounded so...different.

She'd been such a strong, determined woman for as long as he'd known her. A bit reticent in showing affection towards him, but always enough for Harry to understand that he might not have been wanted, but he definitely was loved.

And yet in her writing she'd sounded so lost at times, like a mother pigeon who had just realised she'd been incubating a rock.

Harry had almost wanted to comfort her and tell her it was all going to be alright, but he didn't know if that was true and he wasn't about to start fibbing.

Then, underneath all that uncertainty, Harry had been sitting on a brambly nest of bitterness since September.

She hadn't written him at first, as if she'd thought she could just send him away to school and forget about his blemish on her perfectly normal life.

She had written to Flitwick, likely talking about Harry, his progress, his life. Like an insect being studied. A lepidopterist publishing his notes without once asking the pupaescent caterpillar if it hurt to become.

And on top of everything, she'd decided he wasn't welcome at her family Christmas. The boy who couldn't even die properly was too freakish for more than a tin of biscuits and a gifted pet rat.

Nobody had asked him if he even wanted one, Petunia had just assumed.

"Harry?" Flitwick said then. "It'll be easier if you tell me what's bothering you."

Harry took a breath to answer but all that came out was a huff. I wanted to spend Christmas with my family but they didn't want me. How am I supposed to go back to them in two months and pretend like everything is normal?

He breathed again, pressing his tongue against the leaf on the roof of his mouth. He didn't want to cry.

"Aunt Petunia hates me," his mouth said as if it was the truth, and Harry burst like a dam.

"Oh dear," said Flitwick, conjuring a handkerchief, "there, there."

He listened patiently as Harry hiccupped his way through an explanation. He summoned hot chocolate from the kitchens. He asked clarifying questions.

Finally, when Harry was thoroughly wrung out with his face blotchy and pink, Flitwick spoke.

"It was Madam Pomfrey's suggestion that you stay here over Christmas."

Weary as he was, Harry had no tears left.

"Why did nobody tell me?" he whispered to his hands. "I just want to be treated like a real person."

Flitwick sighed then, too. "I see that now. You promise me to work on communicating when something has upset you instead of bottling it up for months, and I promise to work on being more forthcoming with you in turn. How's that?"

There wasn't much to do but nod his affirmation, so Harry did that. Then, he blew his nose. His right nostril was entirely blocked.

"Will you be alright going to bed now, Harry?" Flitwick asked gently.

Was it already that late? "I will be," he agreed vaguely.

He thought he wouldn't be able to sleep a wink, but the second he fell into his sheets he was gone. The Hallows rose around him like a waterfall, the usual murmur rising into a loud roar.

Harry didn't hear them, his exhaustion having pulled him into deep sleep.

xoxox

Dear Aunt Petunia, Harry wrote, determined to get it right this time.

There's been a bit of a misunderstanding and Flitwick insists I communicate this with you. I was very upset about not being invited to come back for Christmas, and I wish you'd asked me if I wanted a rat instead of bestowing one upon me like some fairy godmother.

I know you try, and that you're talking with my professors behind my back to trying figure out what's best for me, and to learn how I am doing.

But I'm a person with feelings and opinions of my own, and I would like to be talked to instead of just being talked at.

"Ugh," Harry cried, dropping his quill.

He watched the ink spatter across the page, ruining it.

Hermione came over and vanished the inkblot. "Here," she said kindly.

"Thanks," Harry muttered, shaking his head when she tried to hand it back. "It's useless."

"Essay?" she asked, looking down.

Harry watched her drop it as she realised it was not, in fact, an essay. "It's fine, you can read it," he told her. "This is just something Flitwick is making me do. He says I should communicate my feelings, but it's coming out all wrong.

Her head bowed as she read, hair surrounding her like a mane. "Huh," she said.

"Yeah, that's about right."

"You're angry."

Harry smiled at her wearily. "Yeah, Hermione, I'm angry. I'm fucking furious and I don't know if that's the right thing to feel, because she means well, I know she means well, and telling her I'm upset isn't going to make anything better. So on top of being angry with her, I'm angry at Flitwick for making me write her this stupid letter, because I don't bloody well want to write her a letter telling her she made me sad."

He mulled over the words for a second, thinking about what he'd just said.

In the end, he did appreciate the woman.

"I don't want Aunt Petunia to be sad," he realised. She'd spent his whole childhood worrying, and not knowing how to make him be less of a mess. "Did I tell you, she sent me off to Hogwarts without even a promise to write? But then when she does write it's all strange and different like...like she's not even my Aunt Petunia any more. So if I tell her she made me sad that'll make her sad, and what if she stops writing altogether and it'll just be me, all alone?"

Harry sniffed.

Hermione looked like she was about to say something, but Harry wasn't ready yet, he was just so full and it was all boiling inside him with a kind of intense, deep hurt he hadn't even known he was capable of.

"—Anyway, why doesn't she just know?" That was the gist of it. It wasn't about him feeling lonely, or let down, or abandoned. There was a long line of people who had let him down, and Petunia wasn't going to be just another human that Harry had loved, only to lose them. "Don't I mean anything to her? It's not that hard, is it Hermione? I'm not Dudley, demanding racing bikes and video games, I just—

He drew a deep breath, and when he started talking again it was smaller, softer. "It's not like I'm asking for the world. Just simple, easy things like, When I write, you should write back, and, If you make a decision about my life, at least tell me yourself—or maybe, you know, explain it to me, or, How about you treat me as a human being with complex thoughts and feelings and emotions, not just some accessory that can be taken out and put away at will?

"I'm more than this. I want to be more than this." Harry sighed. "Is it too much to want to be understood?"

There was sadness in Hermione's shoulders as she shrugged them. Her curls had fallen limp.

Harry took another deep breath, counted to five, and let it all out. When that didn't work, he did it again and again until he felt like he might fall over, or fall asleep, but no longer fall apart.

"Dear Aunt Petunia," he dictated to nobody in particular,

"I know it's been hard for you, raising me, and sending me off to boarding school. I'm sorry things were often difficult between us.

I want both of us to do better:

I'd like it if you could explain why next time you make decisions about my life for me. I want to understand.

What do you think I could do a better job of?

Yours,

Harry"

Hermione had a confused sort of smile on her face. "...Not bad," she finally said.

That was better than nothing, but not what he'd been trying for. He wanted to be done with this. Flitwick would annoy him if Harry didn't have anything to show for his last month of pouting.

Not bad would have to be good enough, though it likely wouldn't accomplish a thing. Harry indulged in a tired sigh. "It's pointless. She's not going to change."

The crook of Hermione's brow said And?

"I suppose there's little reason not to give Flitwick's methods a fair try," he conceded, pulling out a fresh sheet of ruled paper.

He dipped his quill in ink and began again.

xoxox

As usual, you can go find the next bunch of chapters over on ao3. Thanks for reading!

Also, check out my latest fic, a Tom-takes-over-Harry's-Body at /s/13953648/1/Sown-in-Weakness-Raised-in-Power