The Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning
Disclaimer: I don't at this time own any published work of Sega or JK Rowling, if I did I'd gut the current Sonic fandom and only allow literate people to contribute cutting the fandom back by 90% and improving the quality by the same percentage.
Harry effortlessly endured the searching gazes of the few people outside as he ran ahead of Petunia and Dudley on the 15 minute walk back from school.
Life had improved for young Harry ever since the incident when 5 year old Harry had been misplaced in a shopping centre in London by his relatives and wandered into a cinema where he had proceeded to go unnoticed for a week and survived off of discarded popcorn, chilidogs and drinks.
Harry had only been noticed when the staff had gone to change the movies screen curtains as part of a weekly maintenance, at that point he had watched or slept through over 100 showings of the movie Sonic the Hedgehog and could recite it by heart.
The Dursley's had faced serious censure from the neighbourhood for not reporting Harry a five year old tot missing in London, everyone suspected that the only reason that they weren't on trial was because of some serious bribes on Vernon's part.
Helpless to do anything and with the Dursley's seemingly untouchable by the law the residents of Privet Drive had started to keep a eye on the Dursley's for even the slightest misdemeanour this included unexplained bruises and skittish behaviour of the nephew, not that the Vernon or Petunia noticed.
At school children were asked about everything that happened regarding Harry Potter and thus the social circle of Privet Drive discovered what a thug young Dudley was becoming.
What happened next started with the best of intentions but did not quite end that way, young children were told by their parents that behaving like Dudley Dursley was 'very wrong' and thus began to avoid him like he had the plague.
Piers Polkiss, seen as Dudley's enabler was removed to another primary school by his scandalised parents who hoped the boy would grow into a better person away from such corrosive influence.
Others were moved to different classes or strictly disciplined.
This left Dudley suddenly quite friendless though it took him a while too notice it himself, primarily when his former friends weren't there to stop him from beating his cousin viciously into unconsciousness unknowingly in full view of the teachers lounge.
Unable to completely cover up Dudley's actions the two were moved to different classes, where without Dudley to use as a measuring stick, Harry, unknowingly to himself became top of the class, Meanwhile Dudley's grades took a sharp, sharp downturn.
It became a bitter joke of recriminations amongst staff that Dudley Dursley had fooled them all by taking his cousins homework and presenting it as his own. Attempts to get through to his parents were met with derisions and disbelief and thus nothing was done.
Dudley Dursley was so far below his grade level it wasn't funny, it was a failure on the part of the institution that they hadn't noticed it before. The only thing to do was continue onwards and let the Dursley's maintain their illusions, not that they could break them if they tried, either way Dudley was in for a hell of a shock if he thought he was getting into secondary school.
They could have tried to teach him on the side but after recording his screaming tantrums about already knowing how to read and do numbers and then trying to hit the
teachers they backed off, no one wanted to be treated so foully for trying to help. (It was 1985 what did you expect?)
Harry didn't make friends though not through lack of trying on the other children's part, many had been encouraged to try to get to know the green eyed waif and he avoided them like the wind.
In the face of these half hearted attempts at friendship Harry chose to become a distant loner and had a penchant for running like the crow flies, fast.
A hobby of his or more of a routine was helping cats out of trees, the neighbours who noted this also noted that most of the cats belonged to a friendly old cat lady nearly next door to the boy.
Thus Mrs Figg was informed, read manipulated, that the boy next door was repeatedly saving her cats therefore by the laws of decently she should reward him.
The fact that the neighbour in question offered to give her her sons old collection of comic books as Harry's reward was waved away as a convenient age appropriate gift and a waste no want not mentality.
So between school and mindless indoor chores young Harry spent the time at Mrs Figg, reading her "grandsons" unusually large comic collection in return for saving her cats, often.
The Dursley's had no reason to complain as Harry had stopped telling them things and thinking him bored out of his mind with the old cat lady but too dumb to refuse her offer they didn't see any reason to intervene.
Really Harry was counting down the days until he could leave.
Harry loved reading the comics, a extension of the movie that had devoured his thoughts since he was younger, watching that movie had been, Harry was certain, the greatest week of his life.
Coming back to the Dursley's had been a miserable affair, the police man had been nice but had laughed when Harry said he wanted to go back to the cinema.
Learning that the toddler had been in the cinema for a solid week and his relatives hadn't reported him missing had really left the police officer incensed, he'd even asked his counterpart in Surrey to throw the book at the Dursley's.
That police officer never knew how exactly 5 minutes after that conversation said counterpart suffered a sudden nasty migraine and promptly decided that the Dursley's were simply careless and needed a second chance.
Vernon simply counted his blessings and put it up to the government going to the dogs and dragging the police competency down with them, it wasn't.
Things didn't really kick into high gear until Harry turned 7, a odd if somewhat dangerous thing happened that day when a science experiment for school in house number 8 exploded, blowing out a window, drenching the passing Harry in a unknown chemical bleach.
Mr Eddard Mousse had been most apologetic and after washing Harry clean of the bleach mixture with a fire hose had rushed the child to the hospital unsure of the possible toxicity of his daughters failed experiment, though how she had managed to make a paper mache volcano explode with that much force was unclear. Let alone how a simple formula of vinegar, red food colouring and baking soda had come to contain bleach in the first place.
It was a few days after the explosion that the effects were made clear.
Harry's hair started growing in blue, all of it.
The doctors at the hospital studied the odd bleach mix and were quite baffled, Harry thought they were being quite silly after all that was what bleach did, it changed your hair colour like what happened to Sally Acorn in the Sonic comics, he'd been expecting it to happen actually.
But later after his release from the hospital, with no small amount of grumbling on the Dursley's part, he wondered that if his hair was growing in blue did that mean he could run really super fast like his hero too?
…A bit of study…
…huh…
Apparently yes.
