Chapter 4

Cardboard Box Keepsakes

Harry woke with a start, feverish and nauseous, as though he had been the one fighting Voldemort in a crumbling cottage. He tore back the covers, threw himself down the length of the hallway and into the bathroom, where he threw up into the sink. When Harry felt faint and empty, he opened the window and stared out into the dark night sky, taking great gulps of fresh air. The stars twinkling above him seemed out of place after all he had just seen. After Dumbledore's death he had been expecting nightmares but nothing could have prepared him for that. He couldn't erase the image of his barefoot father lying lifeless, inches from his own infantile grasping fingers, out of his mind and his body meant to expel everything else in the hopes that it would follow. He couldn't help but feel that he hadn't taken full advantage of the eleven years he had been led to believe that his parents had died in a car crash; quickly and accidentally and whilst he now knew that his mother had died for love and his father had died fighting, neither seemed heroic under a telescope. Their lives, loves and personalities had been torn asunder and Harry felt like the worst thing to ever have happened to his parents. He couldn't stand the idea that his own father had felt like a coward but he knew just how it felt to want to be found. He too was hidden in plain sight but Voldemort could not come knocking. If he killed Harry's remaining relatives it would only prove his aunt right in her belief that magic was no good. Ron and Hermione had not written and Harry decided that he was leaving Privet Drive without them. He refused to come between anyone else and happiness for a second longer. They had a better chance of growing old with Harry out of the picture.

Harry charged down the corridor and back into his room where he grabbed an old backpack and pulled open his trunk. It was empty and Harry knew that his aunt and her cleaning OCD were to blame. With backpack in hand, he carried on down the stairs. He turned right into the kitchen, bent down before the washing machine and pulled out his unwashed clothes. He barely noticed his aunt Petunia where she was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of wine. The newspapers detailing the attacks were spread on the table along with several holiday brochures. Her face was lit by the glow of Dudley's laptop. She wiped her face at the sight of Harry and rushed to pour her wine down the sink. "What on earth are you doing? You do realise that Vernon has work in the-" Harry turned to glare at her, trying to convince himself that if he left now she might survive to criticise someone else for years to come. "Is that vomit? Are you ill?" Harry ignored her and continued packing. It was too late for her to start showing him any kind of concern. They had not spoken in days. She followed him back up the stairs and stood watching with arms crossed as he pulled on a pair of trainers and a jacket. "Where are you planning on going at this time of night?" There was nowhere Harry could go that wouldn't put somebody at risk. He would have to do as Sirius had once done and roam the countryside like an escaped convict, living in disguise, sleeping in caves and stealing to get by. He'd use his Invisibility Cloak to stay out of sight, pick up a tent and some blankets, place an extension charm on his backpack, camp out alone and somehow find and destroy as many horcruxes as possible before Voldemort found and destroyed him. "Harry-"

"I wasn't aware that I had to report to you," Harry snapped, staring at Hedwig, knowing that it would be best to set her free. He didn't have the heart to do so. "Take Hedwig to an animal shelter. She can't follow me where I'm going."

Harry's hands were shaking too much to close the clasp on his backpack. Growing frustrated, he threw the whole thing across the room and clothes spilled out across the carpet. He shot to his feet too quickly and came over faint again, stumbling backwards into his aunt. She steadied him at the elbows and tried to manoeuvre him to the bed but Harry refused to be helped and rushed to pick up the backpack. He slung it half empty and hanging open over his shoulder and slipped his invisibility cloak through the strap. Petunia stood watching him, holding the blood stained shirt Harry had worn when he had made the mistake of attacking Draco Malfoy in the girl's bathroom."You can't leave like this," his aunt insisted, moving unwillingly out of the doorway as Harry left the room. Harry knew that she meant in sick stained pyjamas and trainers but he knew that in the middle of the night was the best of all times to leave and that he should have done so the moment he got off the train. "At least wait until I've had a chance to wash your clothes-"

"You don't get it do you?" Harry turned in the narrow hallway to grab his aunt by the arms. "Voldemort is coming for me and he's not going to find me hiding."

"Are you afraid?" she asked. Harry considered lying to her. He was terrified but he could no longer linger under the fantasy that the shelter of family and friends made you exempt from hurt.

"Not anymore...The sooner I get out of here, the better for everyone." Harry left his aunt standing alone in the hallway and pulled open the front door.

"Do you think Lily would have gone into hiding if it weren't for you and James? You've got to have something worth fighting for. You won't make it on your own. Nobody ever has." Harry had given up everything worth fighting for in the hopes that it might keep them safe but perhaps safe just wasn't what people were supposed to be. People were supposed to be together and in love and enjoying life even in the face of danger. It wasn't the length of a life that mattered but what was done with the time given. All of this occurred to Harry where he was stood with his hand on the doorknob transfixed by the tabby cat sitting firmly on the low garden wall of number four Privet Drive. It had round markings like spectacles around its eyes and it almost looked shocked at the sight of him. Harry smiled, suddenly no longer feeling completely alone. He should have known that somebody would be watching him. "You're safe here until your birthday. Stay and enjoy it. Lily would never forgive me if I let you leave like this."

For some unknown reason Harry did as he was told. He didn't go running to meet Voldemort's challenge head on, alone and in vomit covered pyjamas. He was putting it down to delayed shock but he did need time to compose himself before he set out on the road. His aunt washed his dirty clothes and Harry crawled back into bed. He tried to shut off his mind but couldn't sleep, distracted by the hum of the washing machine. Before the nightmare about his parents, when Harry had thought of Severus Snape it had been only of plans to punish him for his betrayal-of how his life of lies and treachery had ruined Harry's life from past to present. Harry had wanted to find him and torture an apology out of him; been convinced that death was simply too good for someone like him; wanted Snape to feel as badly as he did and for a long time. Now Harry wanted answers instead of apologies. He wanted to know if he had kept the letters his mother had written to him during her time in hiding. He wanted to know just why Voldemort had been willing to spare her. He wanted to know what Snape had been doing at Godric's Hollow the night Harry's parents had died. Before Harry would have bet money on Snape attending simply to gloat but in Harry's nightmare he had looked anything but smug. He had shut Harry's dead father's eyes and dug his mother's body out from under the wreckage. In the single memory Harry had seen involving his mother and Snape, he had insulted and upset her. Remus may have told Harry that his mother had had the special gift of seeing the good in others, most especially when they couldn't see it in themselves but Harry thought it would have been impossible to find any good in someone who grew up to murder.

Harry could no longer piece Snape's motives together. The 'Half Blood Prince' had overheard the prophecy which named Harry as Voldemort's conqueror and rushed to tell his master. He had arrived on the murder scene to pay his respects and grieve for his "mudblood" school friend. He had taken a post at Hogwarts under Voldemort's orders and then upon his defeat turned spy to Dumbledore "at great personal risk". He had split himself between Dumbledore's secret society in charge of protecting Harry and the world at large from Voldemort and Voldemort's supporters intent upon killing Harry and cleansing the world of those they viewed as impure. When Dumbledore had returned from destroying a horcrux "desperately injured" he had healed him. After years of refusal Dumbledore had allowed him to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts when it was common knowledge the position was cursed and no professor so far had lasted longer than year. Had Dumbledore wanted Snape out of Hogwarts? On Dumbledore's orders he had done his utmost to discover that task Voldemort had set Draco Malfoy. Despite the fact that both had known all along that Draco planned to murder him he did not expel him in fear that Voldemort would kill him. Hagrid had overheard Snape arguing with Dumbledore and refusing to do as he had asked. He had murdered an unarmed Dumbledore on Draco's behalf whilst Harry was watching, told Harry to close his mind if he ever hoped to defeat Voldemort and then fled the castle. Harry's train of thought was tangled up in knots. Nothing added up.

Harry watched the sky change from black to beige to blue outside of his window and tried to clear his mind of the sickness, fury and helplessness he felt. He still needed to know that Hermione was alright. At nine, the click in the front door and the revving car engine outside meant that uncle Vernon had gone to work. It was safe to get up. Harry crawled out of bed and tore off his stained shirt. He opened his bedroom door to survey the empty hallway, practically ducked and rolled his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth, wash his face and shower and dashed back all in record time. He closed the door behind himself and made his way back to his bed, freezing as the floorboard in the hall creaked. His door opened and his aunt stepped inside. "Not been sick again, have you?" Harry shook his head though he had no desire to eat breakfast. She stared at him for a second or so, where he was standing over his bed smoothing down the duvet, in his striped pyjama bottoms. She passed her gaze over the scars on his shoulders and the healing cuts on his face. "Where did you get those?" Harry struggled to remember the origin of every single scar.

"Fighting probably." Be it from a teacher trying to strangle him for a stone, a 50-foot snake in an underground chamber, a fleet of Dementors, a fully grown dragon, Voldemort himself in a cemetery or the Department of Ministries or an army of un-dead inferi floating in a flooded cave, Harry had a habit of collecting battle scars. None had come to define him as much as the one on his forehead.

"I suppose you inherited that from Lily." Harry couldn't understand when his aunt had become so open with him about the past. When he was growing up the standard response had always been 'don't ask questions'. "She was always getting into fights, sticking up for people who couldn't do so themselves." Harry wanted to smile but he knew that the last defenceless individual his mother had chosen to protect was him.

"Come with me a moment." An unwilling Harry lost the war with his own curiosity and followed her down the hallway and into the bedroom she shared with uncle Vernon, stopping on the threshold. He had not been inside their bedroom in a long time. Thunder and lightning had always scared him as a child but he had always been barred from their bed. "Come in." Harry sighed and moved into the room, standing awkwardly, with no desire to sit down on the bed. The room had so little character a stranger would have had a hard time making any assumptions about Harry's aunt and uncle. Everything was so clean, straight and minimal that Harry suddenly longed to be at the Burrow sat at the crowded dinner table in their warm cluttered love-worn kitchen. "Sit down."

"I don't want to argue-"The day Harry had returned from Hogwarts, his aunt had asked for a clean slate and he had refused. It was clear she was still making the effort to convince him to change his mind. Harry just couldn't see what good could come from it.

"I only want to show you something." Harry fidgeted under his aunt's eyes were green too he noticed but more like ordinary olives than the emeralds he had inherited from Lily.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Harry felt increasingly uncomfortable. Petunia usually did her best not to look at him and was glad to be rid him yet the night before she had begged him to stay. Everything had been turned on its head.

"You don't look well," she murmured.

"I've looked worse," Harry said feeling self-conscious about his puffy cheeks and ringed eyes. His aunt tugged nervously at the bed covers and went to the curtains, pulling them open and cracking a window. The soft sounds of children playing in the street outside broke the tense silence in the bedroom. "I haven't exactly had the best year."

"I'm sorry. I'm glad you're back..." Harry snorted but did his best to believe her because he liked how it felt to be wanted. "I don't suppose you believe that but it's true. I've never been happier to see you. I've been thinking about you ever since you left with Dumbledore." Harry was surprised by how easily a name of such magical magnitude slipped from her prejudiced tongue but not by how much it still hurt to hear it. "Sorry," she said when Harry recoiled, "He left you on your doorstep. I expect he meant a lot to you."

"The ones that do always end up dead so you needn't worry," was the kindest response Harry could muster.

"Harry," she sighed reproachfully when he turned to leave. "I was worried that I might never see you again." Harry didn't turn around.

"I bet," he spat, "Who would stop the bacon from burning?"

"I couldn't stand the idea that you wouldn't be able to take anything good away from your time with me..." His aunt stammered to a stop, tight lipped and began again. "You didn't just lose a mother that Halloween, I lost a sister." Harry was suddenly confronted by the memory that his aunt had always hated Halloween. She had never let Harry dress up. She had always begged neighbourhood mothers to take Dudley trick-or-treating. She had never fallen prey to the desire to decorate or curled up on the sofa with uncle Vernon to watch horror films. She had always shut off the lights, drawn the curtains and done her best to pretend they weren't home. Harry had always thought it was because she hated the idea of him having fun but now he understood. In a world she could never understand a dark wizard had broken down every magical defence to murder her sister and brother in law and done his best to kill her infant nephew. That must have made it difficult for Petunia to surrender herself to a night celebrating the darkness and danger of magic.

"Lily died hating me. I don't want history to repeat itself." She said it with such sincerity that Harry was suddenly the one feeling guilty. He turned around with a sad smile.

"Mum didn't hate you. I don't hate you. I don't even know you," Harry assured her honestly. The way his aunt couldn't take her eyes off his scars made it obvious that she did not know anything about Harry either. A huge part of Harry did not want her to. Had he grown up with her parental concern she might never have let him return to Hogwarts.

"I remember the day you were born," Petunia admitted looking over her shoulder at him from where she was standing by the window. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her waist as though she was holding herself together. Harry wondered how long it had been since she had thought of his mother. "Your father showed up on the doorstep telling me that Lily needed me. He took me to that strange hospital and showed me down to the ward." Harry's face brightened as he tried to imagine them all brought together by his birth. He wondered which of his parents had kept a level head as the other panicked. "He was so nervous he barely said a word. I was sure he couldn't stand me. I'd just had Dudley so I suppose Lily thought I could help her through it but...I left before you came into the world."

"But mum needed you." Everything Harry knew about siblings he had learned from the Weasleys but Ginny didn't have any sisters. He didn't understand the intricacies of that kind of closeness.

"There were...complications. They would have killed anyone else but those people in that weird place..." Harry had no idea that St. Mungo's had a maternity ward. "They could just fix anything with one of those wands and a word. Our mother had just died. She'd been sick for years...I guess I couldn't handle that-any of it. Lily had your father and her friends- nothing could hurt her in that world. She didn't need her muggle big sister to look out for her anymore..." Harry would not feel sorry for her.

"Bitterness and jealousy? Now she's dead and I'm all grown up. Does it seem worth it?" After everything with Dumbledore Harry felt colder. He knew that he had to be. Enough people had been taken from him for Harry to be driven to leave everyone he knew before it could happen again. Harry turned to the door.

"Wait. Cruelty doesn't suit you," Petunia crossed the room to take his elbow and walked the pair of them back into the room. She stared down at the long scar which lined Harry's left forearm with a face like she thought he might have done it himself. Harry pulled his arm out of her grip and stuffed his hands into his pyjama pockets. He was not about to explain ancient history. "Lily was the same. You've got every right to be angry but let me make it up to you." She had opened the wardrobe in the corner and was standing on her tiptoes rifling through the clothes on the very top shelf as she spoke. Harry shook his head, stumbling on the spot.

"I don't think that's possible." His aunt withdrew from the wardrobe clutching a worn cardboard box which was held shut with a peeling strip of duct tape. Apart from Harry himself, it was the most unkempt thing he had ever seen within his aunt's house.

"Things have changed. You said it yourself. Where's the harm in starting fresh?" She held the box in her arms like a baby and Harry considered her offer.

"Better late than never I suppose..." Harry crumbled at the prospect of the fraying box. They only had a few more months together until Harry's birthday when he would return to the wizarding world and an uncertain future. What could it matter now if they lived amiably, exchanging pleasantries and memories of his mother?

"Here," his aunt thrust the box into his arms and straightened up as though relieved of a giant weight. She turned him in the doorway guiding him out with a soft hand. "Look at it. Keep it in your bedroom from now on."

Inside the box, Harry found a childhood photo album of his aunt's which had perhaps once belonged to his grandparents. Unlike magical photos, none of the subjects moved. For once, Harry was glad of the stillness. It allowed him to drink in every detail of a time from which he was utterly clueless. The first photograph was a peeling Polaroid of his aunt Petunia, newborn and sleeping peacefully in a hospital bed. Written on the back in someone's looping handwriting were the words 'Petunia Harriet Evans- September 20th 1956'. In almost 17 years at no point had his aunt mentioned that she was essentially his namesake. It must have been hard to love him knowing that he was the reason for her sister's death and that there was nothing she could do to stop him from meeting the same end. On the opposite page, another peeling Polaroid showed a baby with a shock of red hair and beautiful green eyes, wide awake and staring inquisitively up at the camera. 'Lily Alice Evans' became Petunia's little sister on 'November 4th 1959' and the sense of responsibility and pride she felt emanated from her in every photograph of the pair of them together. Even with their different hair colours, it was easy to spot the likeness when they stood side by side. Their smiles were identical and they shared a lot of mannerisms and a love for dresses. They seemed joined at the hip and forever in fits of giggles, unable to take a serious photograph. For a moment the photographs filled Harry with a warm joy but when that subsided he was left with a bitter hollowness. If his mother and aunt had never had anything in common it would have made it easier to understand Petunia's refusal to speak of her. The album made it clear that the reason it hurt his aunt so much to be reminded of Lily was because she had loved her so fiercely.

The turning point for their relationship could be defined within one photograph. Lily was sitting at the kitchen table with her hair in a messy plait wearing pyjamas. Half of her face was hidden behind the torn open Hogwarts invitation letter she was holding up to the camera. For once Petunia was not glued to her side. She was standing with her back to the kitchen counter staring off into the distance as though she could see all that was to come. Then there were less and less photos of Lily and Petunia together. They were no longer dressed alike or pressed together in childish hugs and their identical smiles rarely made an appearance. The back of a portrait of Harry's mother and father on their wedding day read 'You were missed Pet. Love the Potters.' A photo of himself as a newborn read 'Say hello to your nephew, love the Potters'. Inside a plastic pocket on the inside of the back cover was a newspaper cut-out about a gas explosion in a southern village named Godric's Hollow. Its brevity was representative of the effect their deaths had on the muggle world but the paper was so crinkled that Harry knew his aunt had memorised that paragraph about 'a mysterious green light' and the 'destruction' of their 'cottage' on October 31st, 1981. Harry closed the album. There was nothing more to see. His mother had died at 21 and Petunia had taken in her only son and locked every thought of her sister away in a box where it could never hurt her again.

A small gold whistle on a delicate chain was curled into the corner of the cardboard box. The flat top was engraved with small flowers and the bottom bore the initials 'L.E.'. Harry raised it to his lips and blew but didn't get a sound. He slung it around his neck. It was light and cool on his skin and it felt natural for it to be there, beside his heart. A letter with the Hogwarts wax seal caught Harry's eye. It was addressed to Petunia. Inside the envelope Dumbledore's tidy handwriting told Petunia 'thank you' for her request to come to Hogwarts but that she unfortunately bore no magical ability-that magic was a gift she had not inherited but she would inherit many others, each as wonderful as the next, whilst upon her path, much separate from her sister's. Harry smiled as he read it. It was the first time since his death that something regarding Dumbledore had made him happy and Harry thought that was special. He kept the box beneath his bed and read through the letter whenever he was feeling particularly down. Dumbledore was so kind and Petunia so full of childish hope.

Harry's mood may have been lifted but his health declined. The sickness which he had felt on the train and had returned with his nightmare seemed to take root inside of him. He was sick often in the middle of the night and could barely keep food down. He jumped in and out of uncomfortable periods of insomnia and increasingly horrific nightmares involving raging seas, lakes filled with inferi and Dumbledore begging for death, as well as his parents torn apart by the killing curse. When he did sleep it was with his wand clutched tightly in hand. More than once he had woken suddenly and accidentally set fire to his curtains, frightened by the shadows cast upon his window by the street lamps and the trees. Strangest of all was the sensation of being looked after. His aunt Petunia became his attentive nurse, forcing him medicine and bringing him meals in bed. With every visit she let slip more and more childhood memories of Lily which warmed Harry more than the broths or herbal teas. "I remember one letter from when she was sixteen...She needed advice because she was sure she was falling in love with your father but he was such a mess at the time. She was scared of disappointing him-breaking his heart...but it was obvious, even to me, that they were meant to be together." As much as Harry loved hearing about his parents, he couldn't help but hate it too. Only having other people's recollections of them to love had been bearable, before his far too realistic nightmare had shown him just how they glowed when they were together. Now every anecdote of their love was laced with the underlying subtext that Harry had ruined it.

He had also still gotten no reply from Hermione and was sure by insisting that she return home he had sent her to her death. The guilt expanded within him like a bubble. It had been swelling within some hidden recess of his since Cedric had died when he was fifteen. Usually he papered over it with a joyous return to Hogwarts and the comforting arms of his friends, but he had not heard from either so far and it seemed unsure whether Hogwarts would reopen at all. Perhaps it would have been for the best if it didn't. Then at least he could avoid the guilt he associated with the girl he had fallen for under its enchanted ceiling; Ginny. The more Harry heard about his parents, the more he felt increasingly guilty about the way he had broken it off with his best friend's sister. She deserved better than the few months of love he had allowed himself to give her. There was still a box in his head overflowing with the kind of things he knew would make her laugh and he didn't know what to do with them. He was lucky at least that nothing in the muggle world could remind him of her. Still, every time the phone rang, he longed to find her on the other end. He wanted every knock on the front door to be hers, turning up out of the blue to rescue him. However more than either of those things, Harry hoped that she understood. He knew it would have been best for her to forget about him, and by the lack of letters she was doing well, but the task of forgetting about her seemed impossible. Removing his feelings from Ginny was harder than he had thought it would be. Harry was just too genuine for a facade. He couldn't turn his emotions on and off but if that was what it would take to keep her safe-to keep her living, then he would have to learn and fast. He had spent numerous sleepless nights and days he was supposed to be gardening or washing the dishes, doing as he had once been taught and attempting to clear his mind. Ginny Weasley's large brown eyes, dusting of freckles and red hair always invaded. Harry could not help but love her more than he was allowed.

The year before last Harry had spent all of two weeks at Privet Drive simmering silently over Sirius's untimely death before he was rescued by Dumbledore. This year Harry was left simmering silently over Dumbledore's untimely death and with no one left to rescue him. Whilst at times it did feel good to be there, in the muggle world, away from everything that was happening in the Prophet, sometimes Harry still felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, strangers craned their necks to catch a glimpse of him and it seemed that there was more to see than he could leaving Harry sure that he was losing his mind. The knowledge that his aunt had booked a cruise for herself, uncle Vernon and Dudley which left the day before Harry's 17th birthday put Harry's mind somewhat at ease. The lack of contact with his best friends did not. He suspected that they had been banned from writing to him for security reasons but he still scanned the Daily Prophet terrified of reading their names amongst those of the missing or dead.

Harry skimmed over tributes to Dumbledore. He read intently about the new Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour's plans for a big shakeup at the Ministry. There were reports of daily arrests, investigations and trials for suspicious behaviour and general hiring and firing of new extensively screened employees. There were improvements in Auror Training Programs. Experts had been drafted in from across the globe to fight back against 'the evil invading the country'. With Scrimgeour in charge and flaunting his acceptance of Voldemort's return as a challenge, The Prophet was a different paper altogether. Reports of Deatheater brutality were no longer veiled but blown up across the front page. Harsh reality had taken the place of Fudge's comfortable denial and Harry couldn't stand it. After everything he had done and seen last year at Dumbledore's side, he sometimes resented being babysat by the Dursely's whilst his friends and their family worked within a secret organisation, created by Dumbledore, to combat Voldemort. They were risking life and limb whilst Harry, the only one capable of actually defeating Voldemort, was trimming hedgerows, hanging laundry, eating homemade cheesecake and helping Mrs Figg groom her cats. He was consumed by guilt.

Despite, the nightly spring cleanings of his mind, Dumbledore's death always seemed to slip through the cracks. Harry had been living on what felt like an emergency supply of positivity and reoccurring dreams of Dumbledore and his parents and sickness brought with them drained the last of it. Hearing his own mother beg not for her life but his and Sirius who had always been so strong, sobbing over Harry's father's body was more than enough to inspire sleepless nights. If Harry had taken one good thing from the sickening vision he had encountered, it was the knowledge that his mother had loved him. He had spent so many of his earlier days at the Dursley's doubting the fact but his parents had adored him and uprooted and sacrificed their young lives for him. Since Dumbledore's funeral, he had been finding it harder than usual to convince himself that he was satisfied with the lot he had been dealt-that he didn't wish he had joined his parents under the steaming rubble of their hideout sixteen years ago. Seeing how at barely one year old Harry had stared down the darkest wizard in the world, had swiftly changed his mind. Death was the easy way out and not the right way to deal with the destiny which Voldemort had bound to him. The idea of confronting that destiny came with a sense of unbearable hopelessness. Dumbledore had always insisted that he had all that he needed to defeat Voldemort-that when the Mirror of Erised had shown eleven year old Harry's greatest desire to be his parents instead of riches or immortality that was proof that he was pure of heart. It had proven nothing to Harry apart from the fact that he was already rich from his inheritance and that the idea of immortality had never appealed to him because his loved ones were long dead. Dumbledore had been wrong about Harry and he'd been wrong about Snape.

The Prophet detailed public outcry at the Ministry's inability to catch him. There were raids upon Malfoy Manor. Malfoy's mother Narcissa no longer looked cold and stiff like a statue. She was in floods of tears as ministry employees tore through her dead son's things. She claimed to have no knowledge that her son had conspired with Snape to murder Dumbledore and was adamant that she had not seen either of them since. Surely Snape was living in hiding with Voldemort and the rest of his Deatheaters in comfort and luxury whilst Malfoy's body decayed. The thought of it was enough to make Harry sick again. He knew now that every bad thing Malfoy had done that year was out of love. Snape however had killed Dumbledore with an expression of utter revulsion. In the years they had known one another, Harry had seen no evidence that Snape's limited repertoire of emotions even stretched to love. The Prophet article on the fire at his muggle home only served to cement the fact. There were walls upon walls of burnt books on the Dark Arts, potions making and medieval magic and torture, an empty wardrobe, and not a single personal artefact or family photograph. Harry could not imagine him living in a house with a fireplace adorned with photos of his loved ones as his aunt Petunia did. Harry could not imagine him having loved ones. In Harry's eyes he no longer deserved them and if Harry had been one of them he'd have disowned him. Snape would never grow to deserve the expansive funeral Dumbledore had received. Harry hoped that no stone was laid to commemorate him; that nobody gathered to say their goodbyes; that there was nobody waiting to greet him happily in the afterlife except Harry's parents with faces heavy with disappointment and disdain and Dumbledore in need of answers to his betrayal. Harry slept well that night.

All through June, Petunia had dished out extra scrambled eggs with Harry's breakfast, bought him anything he lingered over when dragged shopping, got him those biscuits he liked whenever she found herself in the supermarket and continued to do his laundry. "This shirt is ruined. The...blood just wouldn't come out. I've tried everything," his aunt said, coming into his room with a full laundry basket balanced on her right hip. "Maybe you know of a way to get it out." She placed the laundry basket on the floor by his bed and crossed her arms. She didn't mind that Harry had taken to wearing her sister's old whistle and had replaced the photo of James and Lily on his bedside cabinet.

"The blood wasn't mine..." Harry told her in what had been an attempt at reassurance. "There was an accident. I almost killed...another student." It was strange to think of Malfoy now that he was dead but Harry was sure that at this rate he had to know more people who were dead than alive.

"I always said that magic was dangerous," his aunt remarked darkly and Harry looked up at her sadly.

"It can be...but it helps more than it hinders," he explained with a smile as he thought of the many times thinking on his feet, Hermione's knowledge, Dumbledore's intervention and prolonged infirmary trips had saved him from death.

"I haven't seen that..." she uttered and swept out of the room. Harry felt instantly miserable. He wanted to show his aunt the beauty and good that there was in magic but could think of no way how until he could legally use it when he came of age at the end of July.

Days seemed impossibly sluggish. His aunt's mixture of TLC and hot spicy liquids had flushed all illness out of Harry and his occlumency practices before bed almost allowed him to sleep until sunrise. Harry was glad because it meant that he longer had to fight the urge to tell his aunt why he was crying for his mother in the middle of the night. He was up and out of bed without a trace of fever or fatigue and dividing his waking hours between thought filled silence, menial housework, helping his aunt Petunia, stealing his uncle's newspapers and reading the Daily Prophet cover to cover. He endured the unfamiliar sensation of family dinners with the Dursleys-talk of the drill factory Grunnings where his uncle worked, discussions of their upcoming cruise and upgrading the house or moving all together once Dudley was done with college and of what Dudley and Harry planned to do once education was over. Harry even enjoyed the odd kick around with Dudley. He hoped that it was not a slice of normality too late. A part of him was terrified of feeling anything but sadness at Privet Drive because when Harry was happy somebody usually swooped in and killed that happiness right in front of him. He did his best to keep a suitable distance from his relatives but his aunt wanted to make amends and she always had questions. "What's that?" she asked him one evening as he was sitting with them, as they watched the television. Harry had been away with his thoughts, fiddling with the fake golden Slytherin locket, he now carried with him everywhere.

"A reminder," Harry had replied cryptically and Vernon had turned back to the television with a snort.

"Of a girl?" his aunt had asked kindly.

"I suppose so." Harry hadn't said anything more and his aunt had returned to watching the television and stroking her hands through her husband's hair. Harry had sat there thinking of a girl but for once it wasn't Ginny. He thought of Voldemort's mother, Merope Gaunt and as much as he tried to hate her for what she had created, all Harry could feel was pity. He wondered if the reason Voldemort couldn't understand love was because he was conceived under the influence of a love potion. Had his muggle father realised that Merope didn't care for his money or his status and loved her in return, instead of being consumed by vanity and ultimately abandoning her, things would things have been different now? Had Tom Riddle grown up loved, would he have gone on to love stopping Voldemort from ever flowering into being? Were the Dursleys, Dumbledore, Hermione, Ron and his family, Remus and Sirius the only differences between orphaned Harry Potter and orphaned Tom Riddle? Harry knew it couldn't be that simple but too much television had him wishing it was. Dumbledore had always insisted that love was the key to understanding all things.