Chapter 6 – Gas-lighting

"I'm telling mum you're playing weird games with your weird friends". said Dudley.

"And I'm telling her you wanted to hit us just for fun". replied Harry.

"She's not going to believe you!" answered Dudley, joyfully.

"Unfortunately, he is right." thought Harry.

The two cousins were strolling in a sidewalk, going home. Happily, Dudley was usually too hungry at this time of the day to even think of hitting Harry, so the young Potter could have some peace being alone with his thoughts.

And he was thinking about the Magic School's letter, having mixed feelings about it. He asked himself if he did right sending an answer to it; if he wasn't being too mischievous and ungrateful to his aunt and uncle getting involved with something quirky they would certainly frown down at without even consulting them first.

But, there was something about that letter that made it impossible for Harry to ignore or turn down its proposal: It offered a nice and sweet explanation to the strange events that usually happened around him; at least a nicer explanation than those his aunt gave him.

"Aunt Petunia, my hair is just like it was yesterday morning!" he said once.

"Wasn't it supposed to?" she replied.

"But, you shaved it completely yesterday!"

"No, I didn't.

Then she sighed deeply.

"Your mother harmed you greatly. She didn't change her bad habits when she was pregnant, and now your brain is damaged, you're always seeing things that didn't happen". she added.

She gave this same explanation in varied forms every time Harry senses perceived something unusual.

Besides this, every time he looked up for some clarification with other people, they unknowingly somehow confirmed his aunt's affirmations on the unlikelihood of those happenings being real.

"Miss Williams". he whispered to a teacher shortly after the class was dismissed. "If I had my hair shaved completely today, would it grow to be exactly like it is now by tomorrow morning?"

The young academic blinked behind her huge glasses and smiled with kind condescendence.

"No, Mr. Potter, it wouldn't. Hair growth is a slow process; human head hair grows approximately at one centimeter per month on average. If you had your head shaved bare today, it would take months for it to achieve the length it has right now."

"Ah." mumbled Harry.

"Why are you asking me this? Do you want to have a new haircut but is afraid that maybe you're going to regret it if the outcome doesn't look good?" she queried, amiably.

"Yes, exactly." he replied while feeling relieved that she made it a lot easier by giving him a reasonable explanation to his question, sparing him from the work of figuring out one.

"Want an advice? Just have your haircut!" she said, beaming. "If it looks good to you, it will be nice. If it doesn't, it will grow back in few months and then you can just try again. Life is all about trying and trying again."

"Okay." retorted Harry.

And so, Harry went on and on believing his mind was wrecked and not to be trusted while cursing his luck of having being conceived by such a careless couple.

But then, there was that happening at the Zoo.

"Aunt Petunia, I heard the snake talking to me, and the glass disappeared." told Harry.

She shook her head.

"No, Harry, snakes don't talk and a glass can't just disappear. Oh, Lily! Why couldn't you think of the child you were bearing!" she mumbled.

But this incident had a different characteristic from the past ones: it was documented by outsiders. Harry was flicking trough uncle Vernon's Sunday Newspaper when he found a small article about it on a page. His heart skipped a beat.

He took this page and brought it to school; maybe it was his brain playing tricks on him again, but at least now he could show something concrete to somebody and ask it they were seeing the same thing.

"Eddie". said Harry when he spotted his friend inside the almost empty classroom during the break time.

"Yes?" he responded.

"May you read this out loud?" spoke Harry while he was pointing at the article on the page.

"Why?" questioned Eddie, "Can't you read it yourself?"

Harry was a bit disconcerted by the harshness of his answer, but then he thought to himself that his request to his pal really sounded odd since they were both literate children; he had to give a plausible reason for it.

"I need to change my glasses urgently". said Harry. "I can't read well with them anymore, my short-sight is in a higher grade now".

"Oh, I'm really sorry." answered Eddie. And then he started to read the small article.

"Mysterious Snake Scape – A strange incident happened at the local Zoo on the afternoon of 23 June: the glass which separated a three meter long Boa constrictor from the public disappeared, letting the savage animal go loose, raising panic and terror. Oddly, there wasn't a single shard of the vanishing glass left at the scene; forensics and the Zoo staff are working hard trying to figure out how it could happen. The most accepted hypothesis on the given circumstances is that someone somehow managed to steal that glass and leave unnoticed, but even this seems very unlikely: how and why would someone do that?

Fortunately, nobody was hurt: The Boa mostly ignored the passerby and just slithered in the direction of a map of Brazil which was hung up in a nearby wall and informed the species of snakes that can be found in the said country.

'That was a funny coincidence that the Boa just chose to stay on this map since his species is largely found in Brazil.' said the Zoo's spokesman."

Harry chuckled while holding his head with his hands.

He saw the glass disappearing, then he saw someone wrote about the glass disappearing on the newspaper, and now he'd just heard a friend's voice reading a text about the glass disappearing. Also, he'd heard the snake say "Brazil, here I come": according to the newspaper it actually went to "Brazil" (just a map, of course, because the actual nation is thousands of miles away and most of this distance is on the ocean, but still…).

With those multiple sources saying it happened, was it possible that all of it was just a product of his mind?

"Are you okay?" questioned Eddie, sounding worried.

"The glass disappeared and the snake went to Brazil, right?" uttered Harry.

"Yes, so I've read."

"Please, remember that, never forget this information." voiced Harry.

Eduardo was utterly puzzled. "Why is it so important to you?"

"I was in the Zoo when it happened, it was scary. I think of it a lot ". answered Harry.

"Well, since you're having trouble reading for a while I suggest we swap our places for today since I got a desk that's nearer the blackboard and it would be better for you." said Eddie.

"Thanks, amigo!" hissed Harry, humorously.

Since this day, Harry would eventually out of the blue pose this question to his buddy.

"The glass disappeared and the snake went to Brazil, right?"

"Yes!" he snapped angrily when Harry did this question for the twentieth time. "There isn't a single day on which you don't ask me it! The answer will always be 'yes', it won't change! What's the problem with you?"

"Then, just say 'yes' ". answered harry. "It demands little effort from you, and it's important to me."

"Wait a minute…" muttered Eddie "It's a prank, isn't it? Somehow, in a way I can't understand because I'm a foreigner, you're mocking me. This question you're posing to me must mean something raunchy that I don't know about and you think it's very funny every time I naively say 'yes', right? That must be it! That's not the first neither the second time someone did something like this to me!"

"No, that's not it!" answered Harry.

"What's up, guys?" queried Jessica when she stormed into the classroom.

"Jess!" beamed Harry. "Could you read this article..."

"Oh no, you aren't going to play this prank on her too, are you?" queried Eddie

"This isn't a prank!" retorted Harry.

"What?" asked Jess.

"Of course, it is. You haven't changed your glasses yet and I've seen you read just well with those... But it's fine, play this prank on her if you want, she have a higher chance of getting what it means and telling me afterwards." replied Eddie, and then he left.

"What kind of prank is this? Is it funny?" queried Jess.

"That's not a prank." answered Harry.

"Aw, I like pranks." she replied.

"Okay, okay, okay. That IS a prank, a very funny one. Read this article out loud and try to figure it out!" retorted Harry.

"Okay. Mysterious Snake Scape…"

Now Harry had both a newspaper article and two close friends saying that something strange he saw actually happened.

Maybe he wasn't so crazy, after all.

And, a little after, he received his letter from Hogwarts, a school of Wizardry and Witchcraft, telling him magic was real and he was a wizard.

He just couldn't ignore this letter. Magic would explain a lot; magic could explain it all.

Maybe (and the mere thought of it made his skin crawl) his aunt had lied to him along all his life; when she told him the strange things didn't happen she'd be trying to hide from him the fact that he had supernatural powers. But, why would she do that?

Because of this very suspicion, Harry decided he would never show the letter to his relatives until someone from Hogwarts came to his aid.

If the letter didn't had an explicit order saying that he was strictly forbidden to tell about it to anyone outside his household he would show it to his friends, to make sure it was real. Now, he was struggling trying to keep up his conviction that the letter actually existed, he had answered it and now it was safely hidden under a tile in his cupboard.

"It is real! It must be real!" he told it to himself mentally multiple times, like a mantra.

Shortly, he and Dudley were before Privet Drive number four's front yard; Harry was so distracted he almost tripped on a stone. Dudley laughed childishly at that.

"MUM-UM! I'm hungry!" moaned the young Dursley while he hurried to his house's front door; Harry was way back him since he wasn't so impatient for his next meal.

Dudley entered the house; Harry expected to hear aunt Petunia's concerned statements about her child's nourishment while Dudley would keep on moaning until there was a large plate with delicious food before him, like it always happened.

But instead there was a dead silence, neither Dudley's nor Auntie's voice could be heard. Harry felt a cold feeling in his spine; something was off.

He approached the front door slowly, trying to not make noises. He did not enter; he leaned his back on a wall and waited. Soon, he could hear a silky low-pitched voice he couldn't recognize from anywhere.

"It looks like you overfed him."

Much for his relief, he could hear aunt Petunia's indignant voice next.

"He's not Harry Potter, he's my son! Harry Potter must be outside, being just too lazy to enter already. "

"Someone is inside, waiting for me… Is it… Is it what I'm thinking?" thought Harry, feeling the excitation grow inside of him.

He gathered enough courage and entered.

"Here he is!" said Aunt Petunia, seated on an armchair, looking and sounding tired and resigned. There was a tea set on the coffee table.

Dudley was standing stiff and silent, he seemed to be afraid.

Finally, on a second armchair was seated a dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-dressed and darkly-mannered man; his skin was pale and sallow, which just made his dark parts look darker. He had a large curved nose and skinny long fingers that made him look like some sort of rapine bird. He was positively the creepiest person Harry ever had laid his eyes upon.

The first thing he did when the boy arrived into the living room was to look deeply into his green eyes with his daunting black ones: they were cold, lightless, but so piercing that Harry had the eerie impression that he was able to stare inside his very soul.

"You must be Mr. Potter." said the man with the same throaty voice he could hear outside the house.

"Yes, I am." answered the boy.

"Dudley, dear, why don't you go to your room while mum is busy talking to our guest? It won't take long". said aunt Petunia.

Dudley promptly accepted her suggestion, quickly going up the stairs and locking himself in his room.

The guest pressed the armchair's arm with his hands.

"I'm Mr. Snape, from the Hogwarts School staff. You've already heard about us."

Harry dropped his jaw.

"The magic school?" he whispered.

"Indeed." whispered back Mr. Snape.

Harry was a bit down; he was expecting a more wizardly looking person to show up at his door, not someone who looked and sounded like a hit man. There wasn't a single thing in Mr. Snape that suggested magic; he reeked of reality and cynicism.

"You've received our acceptance letter and then sent us an answer showing your interest to enrol at our educational institution. The materials required for your school year can't be found just in any place, so I was sent to bring you to where you can buy them and to assist you with this task". said him.

Harry eyeballed aunt Petunia, looking for a suggestion or a reassurance; but she seemed even wobblier than him, with her eyes staring sullenly at the floor.

"Will my aunt come with us?" queried Harry.

"I'm busy, and it's not necessary." she mumbled.

"Then let's go already, Mr. Potter, it isn't getting any earlier." stated Snape.

Harry wanted badly to go to the Wizard School, but the perspective of going anywhere with the sole company of that strange man terrified him; not only he was unnerving, but Harry had an indistinctively feeling that Mr. Snape didn't like him.

Nevertheless, he had to go; ahead of him were the answers to all mysteries of his young life.

Harry looked to his aunt once more.

"I'm sorry." he muttered.

"Yes, you should be." she answered without taking her eyes off the floor.