HARRY POTTER AND THE SECRET ENEMY
Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.
CHAPTER 3: Mysteries and Revelations
9 July 1992
The next morning, Harry awoke around 10:30 a.m. which was actually quite late for him. After years of cooking breakfast for the Dursleys, Harry would probably always be an early riser. Immediately, there was a soft pop, and a house elf appeared next to his bed, causing him to jump slightly. Unlike Dobby, though, this one seemed quite calm and was wearing a neatly pressed white uniform with a blue caduceus symbol over the heart.
"Good morning, Mr. Harry Potter, sir. Iris hopes that Iris did not startle you. Can Iris bring you some breakfast?" the female elf said cheerfully.
"Um, yes, thank you. Eggs and toast, if you please. Oh, and a glass of pumpkin juice."
"Certainly. And Master Healer Tonks has instructed that you also have a tall glass of milk and a nutrient potion." Iris popped away and returned barely a minute later with breakfast and the potion all on a four-legged serving tray that sat across Harry's lap. There was even a tiny thin vase with a daisy sticking out of it. "Can Iris bring you anything else, Mr. Harry Potter, sir?"
"No, thank you. No, wait! Actually, could I ask you a few questions? About... well, about house elves? I had an unpleasant encounter with one the other night. I'd heard of house elves but never actually seen one up close. I realize now that I don't know very much about you all."
"Of course not, Mr. Harry Potter, sir. A good house elf is never seen unless needed. Iris will answer your questions if she can, though she knows nothing about the wicked house elf that assaulted Mr. Harry Potter, sir."
"That's okay. I didn't expect you to. Though I don't know how wicked this Dobby bloke actually is. He did try to warn me that my life was in danger."
"Perhaps. But he also put your life in danger by delaying you at the gate of the house of the bad Dursleys. Had he not intervened or simply waited until you were in your room to talk with you, you would likely have been safe from the nasty doxies."
"How do you know all that?" Harry asked in confusion.
"Iris heard Mr. Harry Potter say what happened yesterday morning, sir."
"You weren't here when I told Ted and the others what happened," Harry said with just a hint of suspicion.
Iris smiled. "A good house elf is always close at hand, Mr. Harry Potter sir."
"Hmm. So why do you think Dobby was wicked, Iris?"
"Iris thinks Dobby Elf is at odds with his master or mistress. A good house elf is a reflection of its owner. If a house elf's owner is wicked, then a good house elf must try to heal him of his wickedness. Sometimes, such healing is not possible, in which case the house elf may become an extension of the owner's wickedness, but that is simply the way of house elves. But a bad house elf will sometimes set himself at odds with a wicked master, will seek to become free elf. And a free elf is not a good house elf at all, sir. In time, even with best of motives, a free elf may become the wickedest elf of all. He risks becoming ... a wild elf."
"And what is that?"
Iris shuddered. "Please forgive Iris, Mr. Harry Potter sir, but house elves do not like to think upon such things. It is ... unhealthy."
"Oh, I'm sorry, then. But can you at least tell me how house elves came to work for wizards? Was it by agreement? Or were you enslaved somehow?"
She smiled. "A slave is an unwilling servant. Only the wickedest house elves are unwilling servants. To be a house elf is to serve. It is what house elves are – what house elves were all born to do."
Harry blinked a few times. "But it can't have always been that way. Either there was a time when there were wizards but no house elves to serve them or house elves but with no wizards to serve. Right?"
"Ah. You speak of the Time Before. House elves do not speak of such things, for such matters are upsetting to wizards."
"Upsetting?" Harry asked gently. He was worried about somehow disrespecting or even frightening Iris, but she merely smiled.
"When wizards know how house elves came to be, it upsets them and makes them unhappy, so we do not talk of it. It reminds them of the Time Before because it was during the Time Before that house elves came to be."
"The Time Before?"
"Those days before wizards and witches bound Magic to their will. Those days when magic burned like the raging inferno and swelled like the stormy seas. Wizards are rightly proud of how they bound Magic to their will and do not like to be reminded of when it was free to do as it wanted. "
"Do you mean that wizards don't like to know about how house elves ... came into existence, so they ordered you never to repeat it?
Iris laughed. "Oh no, Mr. Harry Potter sir. No wizard ever gave the order. But the house elves saw how it distressed the wizards, so the house elves resolved never to speak of it. The best servants always anticipate their masters' needs."
"Would you speak of it if a wizard asked you?"
"Only if it were the right wizard," she said almost mischievously.
From her response, Harry assumed that wasn't him. He decided to change the subject. "Forgive me, Iris. Please don't take this the wrong way, but ... you're very well spoken for a house elf from what little I know."
"Iris takes no offense, Mr. Harry Potter sir. Master Healer Tonks and Mistress Healer Tonks are good owners. They wish for Iris to speak properly to reflect well upon them before their patients. Also, Iris assists Master Healer Tonks and Mistress Healer Tonks with their healing arts for which precision of speech is often important. And so Iris, being a good house elf, complies with their needs."
"But not to the point of using any first person pronouns, though," he said with a smile. "You still say 'Iris' instead of 'I.' Why is that?"
The elf nodded at that. "'Iris' is the name given to me by my masters. To a house elf, a name is a gift offered to define the nature of our service. A house elf has no identity of its own beyond its name, nor does it need one. Now, eat up, Mr. Harry Potter sir, so you can finish getting well." She bowed to him and then popped away. Harry shrugged and ate his breakfast.
Half an hour later, Ted came in. Outwardly, he looked as jovial as the day before, but Harry thought he sensed an undercurrent of ... something. After a bit of small talk, Ted performed the same wand examination he did before and pronounced Harry completely clean of doxy venom. Then, "just to be on the safe side," he performed a second and much more complicated diagnostic spell. He frowned at the results.
"Is there a problem?" Harry asked.
"No, nothing showed up," Ted replied.
"You seem ... unhappy about that. Were you expecting something to show up?"
"Honestly, I wasn't sure. But hold off on the questions about that. I think Snape and the others should be present for that conversation. They're waiting downstairs."
Ted called out for Iris, and the diminutive nurse popped back into the room. "Iris, dear, fetch the clothes that Miss Jones brought for Harry. Harry, when you're dressed, come on downstairs. We'll be waiting in the first room on the left at the base of the stairs." He smiled again, but Harry felt that he was definitely worried about something, which only made the boy start to worry as well. Seconds later, Iris returned with some of his casual clothes and a pair of trainers, and the boy quickly dressed. He checked himself out in the mirror and was dismayed by the state of his hair but otherwise thought he looked fine. Minutes later, the boy entered a small parlor where Ted, Hestia, Artie and Professor Snape were already sitting. Harry took his seat and looked at the others expectantly. Snape spoke first.
"Mr. Potter, we are here today to discuss your future living arrangements, as well as to decide how you wish to proceed against the Dursleys for their treatment of you and, by extension, how you wish to proceed against the Potters who were responsible for your placement with them. But first, I wish to advise you of the results of my own investigation. Yesterday afternoon, I visited both Vernon and Petunia Dursley and used Legilimency against them in an attempt to learn the reasons for their conduct towards you."
Harry scoffed. "What reasons were you expecting, sir? They hate me. That's all there is to it."
Snape looked oddly pained at that, as if he had unpleasant news that he did not wish to share but felt obligated to do so anyway. "Mr. Potter ... the Dursley's do not hate you per se." Harry started to interrupt, but Snape put up his hand and continued. "Allow me to finish, Mr. Potter. It would be more ... accurate to say that the Dursleys are ... afraid of you. More than afraid, actually. They are all three irrationally, pathologically terrified of you. In the first months after your placement, the Dursleys kept you in the same nursery as Dudley. Petunia and Vernon only moved you to the downstairs cupboard because they each independently came to the deeply held conclusion that you would somehow harm their son if you were kept anywhere near him even though you yourself were but an infant at the time. Their subsequent efforts to, as Vernon said, 'stamp the magic' out of you were driven by this fear which manifested within them both as a lengthy series of extremely disturbing and nightmarish fantasies developed over the course of a decade which demonstrated to them both how you would..." He hesitated and then took a deep breath. "How you would torture and kill them through magical means if you ever came into your wizarding heritage. Even without magic, however, they still remained utterly convinced of your intent to harm them through mundane means, as well as their own powerlessness to prevent you from doing so save through actively trying to crush your spirit."
Harry was dumbstruck at this announcement, and so Snape continued.
"To give but one example, there was an incident from when you were six or so when you spilled bacon grease on Vernon and in response he broke your arm. In his memories, you deliberately attempted to throw hot grease onto him with the intention of burning his face and possibly blinding him, and it was only his quick reactions that saved him from serious injury. The broken arm was the result of self-defense."
"THAT'S A LIE!" Harry said furiously. "It was an accident! And he wasn't even hurt!"
Snape raised his hands again to placate the boy. "I know that, Mr. Potter. With Occlumency, I was able to review those images clearly with all emotional context removed, and it was obviously as you say – a simple minor accident to which Vernon Dursley grotesquely overreacted. But when I reviewed the same memories without blocking the Muggle's emotional responses, I was nearly overwhelmed by the terror he experienced from what he genuinely believed to be an attempt by you to seriously harm or even disfigure him. In all my years as a Legilimens, I have never encountered any phenomenon quite like this. The only comparable effect I can think of would be when the memories of someone placed under a very sophisticated Confundus Curse are altered due to the subject's desire to rationalize his own Confunded actions. However, this effect, whatever its origins or nature, is much more potent and persistent than any Confundus I have ever encountered."
Harry fought to calm himself and to consider what Snape was saying, but a few months of Occlumency training were nothing against the fury he felt now. "Do you mean to say ... someone cursed the Dursleys and that's why they treated me that way all these years?" Then, his face darkened as he abandoned completely his efforts to control his growing anger. "Was it the Potters?" he spat. "It wasn't enough to dump me off with Muggles – they had to curse those Muggles to fear and hate me?"
"Harry," said Artie gently. "It's not just the Dursleys."
Harry froze as Artie's words sank in. Artie looked over at Snape who nodded at him. Then, he continued. "Professor Snape also interviewed several of your teachers, your neighbors and even some of the doctors and nurses who remembered you from when you were injured by the Dursleys and taken to hospital. Understand, these are all people who would have seen and noticed your appearance, and with it, the obvious signs of neglect. The teachers and medical personnel were, in fact, required by Muggle law to report any of the abuse signs you clearly showed to Muggle law enforcement. None of them did."
"I ... I assumed that the Dursleys bullied them out of saying anything."
"Harry, your uncle is a mid-level executive at a Muggle drill manufacturing company, and not even in the main office," said Hestia. "Your aunt is a stay-at-home mom. Neither of them has the sort of standing to bully a teacher into ignoring child abuse, let alone a doctor or nurse. All of the people Professor Snape examined knew that you were likely being mistreated. Originally, Severus feared that someone might have Obliviated them all for some reason connected with your placement with the Muggles. But the truth is ... all of them remember you clearly but actively chose not to get intervene because," the witch hesitated, as if grasping for a kind way to say it before realizing there wasn't one, "because something about you made them recoil in fear and hatred."
Desperate to deny it, Harry tried to summon up a single memory of a Muggle who had ever treated him well. "There was a neighbor across the street. Mrs. Figg. She was always fairly nice to me."
"She's a squib, Harry," said Artie. "Arabella Figg was placed there by James and Lily Potter to look out for you. As a squib, she may not have been fully affected. And even she never informed the Potters of how you were being treated, although in her defense she likely did not fully realize the extent of your mistreatment."
Harry struggled to comprehend what all this meant. In his mind, he tried to review every interaction with a Muggle that he'd ever had. Then, he remembered his brief phone conversation with Hermione's mother the previous week... and how surprisingly cold she'd been. This from a woman he'd met exactly once and talked to for less than thirty seconds. He rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as he fought to regain his self-control. "I've never met a grown-up who did anything to help me in any way," he'd told Snape the previous year. And now he knew why.
"What's causing this?" he asked in a quiet voice. "What's been done to me?"
"Well," said Ted. "I've performed the most thorough diagnostic spells I know, and I can't find any sign of a curse or any other dark magic. The only way to find out anything more than we already have is to go to St. Mungo's ... which carries its own drawbacks."
"Such as?" Harry asked tightly.
"Well, first of all, the healers there would almost certainly insist on informing the Potters of anything they find. Second, if the top healers there don't immediately find a cause and a cure – and I'm not confident they will – they'll want to keep running tests until they do find it, which might mean keeping you out of school. Finally, well," he hesitated for a moment, "St. Mungo's is Ministry-run, and I'm afraid this might be sufficiently weird enough for the Unspeakables to be called in. A wizard who provokes an automatic fight-or-flight response in nearly any Muggle who interacts with him for any extended period would probably represent some kind of threat to the Statute of Secrecy. Your solicitors are bound to confidentiality as am I, but the St. Mungo's healers would be less so."
"So no St. Mungo's then. And I suppose," he said sarcastically, "it also means we don't even prosecute the Dursleys because it will raise questions about me that we don't have answers for." He closed his eyes and went through another quick calming routine before the thought of Vernon walking away scot-free caused him to snap. Then, he looked up at his mentor. "Do you have any thoughts, Professor Snape?"
The man was silent for a moment before he responded. "Mr. Potter, I am, all modesty aside, an expert on the Dark Arts. I am more qualified to serve as DADA instructor than anyone who has held that post in at least twenty years. The only reason I never pursued a Mastery in Dark Arts Defense is that doing so would require me to reveal to the Ministry how many illegal curses and hexes I know, as well as how many I have invented that are not publicly known." He paused and then shook his head. "And I ... have never heard of anything remotely like this. It is a mystery and a deeply troubling one, and we must be absolutely cautious as we seek to unravel it. In any case, whatever the source of this malady, it seems to only affect Muggles. While your fellow students and teachers treated you with contempt throughout your childhood, you are presently one of the most popular students in your year, and all of your professors praise you without exception."
"The Potters aren't very fond of me," Harry said ruefully.
"James Potter hates everything connected with Slytherin House, a view which predates your birth by at least a decade. His son's views are nothing but a reflection of the father's. Lily Potter's views are ... more complicated, but it is not my place to explain them."
Harry started to ask Snape about that, but the man's expression made it plain that questions about Lily Potter would not be entertained. "Fine. So I can't stay with Muggles. Not a problem. Augusta Longbottom offered me sanctuary last Christmas. Can't I go there?"
"In time. Unfortunately, Lady Augusta and her grandson are abroad and incommunicado for another week. Until then, we need a wizarding household with sufficient warding to protect you against whomever sent the doxy swarm after you. But it must also be one to which James Potter cannot lodge a credible objection since he still remains your Head of House." Snape hesitated. "I am assuming, of course, that you do not wish to petition the Potters to allow you to move back in with them for the duration."
Harry closed his eyes as he thought through the ramifications of that idea, particularly in light of what he'd just learned. Honestly, the thought of living under the Potter roof right now filled him with equal parts fury and dread. "That assumption would be correct, sir," he said quietly.
"And for a variety of hyper-technical ethics issues that would only bore you," said Artie, "you can't just stay with Hestia or with me and Elizabeth or even with the Tonkses. So who does that leave us with?"
"I have one thought," said Snape. "One household that meets our particular needs and to which James Potter would not object."
Later that afternoon after the arrangements were all made, Snape apparated himself and Harry, along with the boy's shrunken possessions, to a hideously misshapen multi-story farmhouse in Ottery St. Catchpole. Next to the pathway that led to it was a battered, hand-carved sign that simply said "The Burrow." Harry regarded the tottering dwelling before him and then turned to his teacher.
"You have got to be joking."
The next chapter will be posted on Friday, September 4, 2015. "Meet the Weasleys (Pt 1)." Pretty much what it says on the tin. Sorry about the delay on this one - I got engrossed in Gilderoy Lockhart's dialogue in Chapter 11 and totally forgot what day it was.
RE: The Dursleys. The most important thing you need to know about me and the Dursleys is that I hate them. I don't mean I hate them for how badly they treat Harry. I mean I hate them as a concept. It is a standard trope that the protagonist in British children's literature is a poor mistreated orphan whose crapsack life finally changes for the better after he pulls the sword out of the stone or she finds out that she's really princess or he crushes his evil abusive relatives to death with a gigantic peach. The "Harry Potter" series is the only one I can think of which has this trope ... and ends every book but the last one with the child being sent back to his abusive relatives for his own good. It is also one of the few I can think of in which the abused protagonist implicitly fits into a setting in which Child Protective Services both exists and is handwaved away. (At least the Lemony Snicket "Series of Unfortunate Events" books rely on the conceit that everyone except the kids is too dumb to recognize Count Olaf while he's in disguise.) Frankly, I didn't want to do "the Dursleys are cartoonishly evil" and I didn't want to do "the Potters and/or Dumbledore are running around Obliviating CPS workers in order to keep Harry at the Dursleys because they too are cartoonishly evil" because both those themes bore me senseless. And I am convinced that the #1 reason for the "Dumbledore is evil" trope is that scene between Harry and Dumbledore in his office after Sirius's death where the old man gives the infamous "not as well-fed or as happy as I'd have liked" speech basically admitting that he knew how Harry was being treated and did nothing about it. I think that marks the exact moment when fans of the series started combing back through the first four books looking for signs that Dumbledore is not just incompetent but actively evil. And I DON'T want to do an evil Dumbledore story.
Well, not now anyway. I actually have an evil Dumbledore story that I had started but put on hold to work on this epic tale. Maybe I'll get back to it before the end of the decades. But I digress.
For the purposes of this story, the Dursleys were a pompous and obnoxious pair of social climbers who reluctantly agreed to raise the squib Harry Potter in exchange for financial compensation and a free house from James and Lily. And they raised Harry properly ... for a few months. Then, they went STARK RAVING NUTS, became convinced that Harry was some sort of demon-child, and responded as we've seen. And every single Muggle who interacted with Harry tacitly went along with it. And sometimes not even tacitly - we never did find out what that one teacher did to Harry that was so awful that he turned her hair blue with accidental magic.
So what is causing this phenomenon? Shhh. Spoilers. As for the Dursleys, you've seen the last of them for a while. I can envision a scene in which Harry confronts the Dursleys again, but I don't expect it before the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Possibly Lily and James will look in on them before then but not during anything I've outlined for the immediate future. Cheers.