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Harry breathed a sigh of relief when they escaped the dining area without the Dursleys noticing him and making a scene about him being there. Since they were both feeling too full to do anything active Spencer showed him the public library and they chose some new books, Spencer trying to find anything that might explain what Harry had been able to do for him the night before, while Harry read through a history of the Jewish concentration camps, and then found the book 'Schindler's List'. It was more than a little too advanced for him emotionally but he understood all the words so he borrowed it anyway and quickly saw what Spencer had been talking about. By declaring the Jews to be different from the rest of them and imposing restrictions on them slowly nobody complained against it but a few of the more outspoken Jews themselves. Even the Jewish people became accustomed to being treated as less human than the non-Jewish Germans, and by the time the treatment was so bad that they started to protest as a whole they were no longer listened to and nobody paid attention to the widescale abuse and atrocities. He could see Spencer's point. If a new family moved into the area and treated one of their sons the way the Dursley's treated Harry it would be talked about everywhere and the neighbourhood would be up in arms over the poor boy but because it was just Harry, nobody gave his treatment a second thought.
"I can't find anything that describes what you can do other than fantasy fiction of fairies, witches, and aliens," Spencer said half teasing.
Harry laughed. Well I could be an alien, nobody except Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia has ever claimed to know my parents and they won't speak of them, except to say they were horrible people, which you think could have been lies," Harry joked. "But why would anyone leave an alien baby with the likes of the Dursleys? And the Dursleys wouldn't have kept me if they knew I was an alien, unless someone was paying them an absolute fortune to keep me hidden, and they're not rich enough for that."
"No they wouldn't, if officials knew you were an alien, you'd probably be monitored and tested, not abandoned," Spencer agreed. "The same goes for fairies, druids and witches, if they existed it stands to reason that they would have their own societies, there's no reason they'd leave you with the Dursleys either. It wouldn't make sense," Spencer said sighing slightly disappointedly. "I hate to say it but you must actually be related to those horrible people. But it has to be something, what you can do is a special gift of some sort, it's not something that can be taught or learned by other people. It had to come from somewhere. I doubt you're the only one who can do it even if neither of us have ever heard of someone else with these abilities."
"And it can't be controlled," Harry said despondently. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I could heal you but most of the worst beatings of my life were because I did something abnormal. I wouldn't do it again anywhere near the Dursleys if I could help it, and I wouldn't want to do it in front of anyone else either. I don't need more people thinking that I'm a freak."
"Hey, you're not a freak, you could be a future superhero, they use masks and costumes to hide their identities so nobody in their regular lives knows what they can do," Spencer teased.
"I don't think so Spencer. Comics aren't real and I'm not cut out to be a superhero. I'm just Harry," Harry protested. "Superheroes are brave and strong and care about saving people. I just want to be left alone and maybe have a few friends that accept me that I'd be willing to help out."
"Are you saying that if your cousin was in danger and you could fix it, you wouldn't?" Spencer asked curious but not judgmentally.
"I don't know. I'd get the blame for whatever happened to him, whether I tried to help him or not. Particularly if he saw me there. They'd never believe that whatever happened wasn't my fault, even if there were a dozen people trying to tell them differently or I was nowhere near him at the time, and I don't even know if the Dursleys would want me to help him if it meant using my freaky stuff on him," Harry said. "I probably would help him if it didn't put me at risk just so I wouldn't get in as much trouble for letting him be hurt even if it wasn't my fault, but I'm no hero Spencer. I want to survive, not save the world!" He hoped that his friend wasn't too disappointed in him.
Spencer nodded acceptingly. "I understand that. Survival instinct is strong in all of us and I'll admit that I'm a coward when it comes down to standing up to people bullying me or anyone else."
"That's not being a coward, it's just common sense not to make things worse. Standing up for someone else isn't going to help either of you in the long run," Harry said practically.
"You said you lit a fire the first night here and you healed my back. That's two incidents in just over a week. Does it normally happen that often?" Spencer asked.
"No, it's usually months between incidents, if it happened every week the Dursleys would have killed me by now. But maybe it's more common here because I wasn't punished the first time and I'm not injured or starving which I would've been if the Dursleys had caught me lighting fires with my freakiness, that is if they didn't kick me out of the house for fear I'd burn it down," Harry said thoughtfully.
"But there must have been times you made something happen that the Dursleys didn't find out about," Spencer said.
Harry thought back, "Some," he agreed. "I've healed myself several times and they either haven't seemed to notice or have been too grateful that they don't have to take me to the hospital with broken bones to question it. And I've made a light in my cupboard sometimes when I've woken up after a nightmare, and some other stuff when I've been alone in a room and broken a plate or something and fixed it before I could get in trouble for it."
"And you're sure that succeeding in using it to help you like that hasn't resulted in doing whatever it is again so soon before now?" Spencer said frowning. "So what's different? Wait in your cupboard, why would you make light in the cupboard and not near the bed?"
"Maybe it's you. You accepted that it wasn't freaky or frightening and it didn't make you stop wanting to be my friend," Harry replied, ignoring the cupboard slip.
"So you're suggesting that you accepted that you can do these things and it's okay for it to happen because I accepted it? You think you're doing more special things because of me?" Spencer asked sceptically.
"Well doesn't that make more sense than believing that there's something about being in America
that makes me do more of this freaky stuff than I could in England?" Harry argued. "We can't even find out what it was, there's no way we are going to find out what it is about being here that makes it happen more often."
Spencer sighed, frustrated. "You're right we will never know for certain! But I hate not knowing something this big and not even being able to find out anything about it."
"You know what you can do with your memory is just as special as this freaky thing I do," Harry said.
"No it isn't, yes an eidetic memory or an IQ as high as mine are rare, but they have been documented before and there are even tests for it," Spencer countered.
"It's still pretty amazing and it will probably do you more good than the ability to make freaky things happen," Harry said. "And there's one other thing I should have told you. I can't believe I forgot to warn you about it. The incidents that happened at school with the teacher's wig and jumping all the way up onto the roof. Other people don't seem to remember them. Normally something like that would be talked about for at least a few days but nobody said anything even that day. The only one that seemed to remember was Dudley and he seemed frightened. I don't know if their brain just refused to admit they weren't imagining things or they were somehow made to forget about it. They even forgot about the detentions I was supposed to have after the roof. Maybe it isn't safe for you to be trying to investigate this freakiness. I'm sorry I should have remembered that and told you before now."
Spencer looked frightened for a moment. "I only looked in books at the library and I check out so many books every month that I doubt anyone would've noticed me investigating. I guess I maybe shouldn't do a computer search about it."
"I wouldn't if I were you," Harry said. "I don't know how much they are monitoring for searches, I don't know why if somebody came and took away the memories from the teachers and the class at home they haven't come to take yours too."
Spencer thought hard, "Either it's a British policy only and isn't done here for some reason, or it's because this is an abandoned area so they aren't monitoring the building or they assumed nobody else was here," he speculated.
Harry nodded, "Yeah it could be either," he agreed. "Or maybe they did check on me when I made the fire the other night and because I was alone the first time they didn't bother to check the second time."
"There was no sign of anyone else being here, the dust hasn't been disturbed except the path we walk through, if they'd sent an adult he wouldn't have been able to get in the way we do," Spencer said anxiously. He didn't like the thought of some unknown agency watching his friend.
"But there wouldn't be if they came here to take memories and cover up whatever it is I do, then they would be careful not to leave signs, and what if they can move about by magic like I ended up on the roof of the school one day I was running away from Dudley," Harry said also shuddering at the idea of being watched and monitored.
"I don't think anyone is watching us," Spencer said reassuringly. "We would have noticed. Any adult would've tried to stop us from sneaking into the buffet."
Harry wasn't so sure about that if it was someone from a secret society trying to hide the freaky things he did, would they care about other stuff? They didn't seem to back home. They came and made people forget about whatever he'd done but never checked out why he'd done it or noticed that he was being beaten by the Dursleys for doing it. He wanted to tell Spencer that but he decided to let it go. He didn't want to frighten Spencer into not wanting to be his friend anymore, particularly when he was the first person who he could remember caring about him.
-o0o-
Harry had two other episodes of accidental magic over the remaining time he stayed at the hideout, though of course he and Spencer still didn't know that that's what it was. The first time he was alone late at night, and was startled by a stranger in the outer room and unconsciously cast a repelling charm to make him leave. Harry wasn't even aware that he'd done it until he felt the sudden exhaustion after the man left and fell asleep immediately when he'd expected to lie awake worrying about the man returning. He also slept late the next morning, and Spencer had trouble waking him when he dropped by on his way to school.
"Harry, Harry wake up? Are you okay?" Spencer said shaking him lightly.
"I'm tired," Harry said sitting up slowly. "There was a man in the outer room last night and I think I must have used my powers to make him leave because I should have been afraid to go to sleep but I couldn't stay awake and I feel like I did after healing you."
"So you did whatever it was you do, without even realising it. It's possible you do it more often than you think as home too," Spencer speculated.
"No I may not have realised it at the time but I recognised the after effects, tiredness, excessive sleep then ravenous hunger. I would've noticed that happening at home," Harry replied.
Then we need to get you something to eat," Spencer said.
"You're not going to ask if I hurt the man?" Harry asked surprised.
"I know you wouldn't have hurt him deliberately," Spencer replied. "And you said you made him leave, not that you hurt him, he's not lying out there dead or unconscious and there's no sign of blood so you can't have hurt him too badly if that makes you feel better."
"No, I don't think I hurt him, all of a sudden he seemed frightened and turned and ran out of the room. He barely fit through the tunnel but he scrambled desperately through and fell out the other end, he might have hurt himself," Harry said.
"It can't have been too serious if he did. I didn't see any blood out there either. Let's get you fed. Are you up to coming with me or do you want me to bring something back?" Spencer said.
"I can do it. You need to get to school on time. If you turn up looking like you've been scavenging in the bins you'll get picked on for sure," Harry said.
"I'll probably be bullied regardless," Spencer admitted blushing.
"Yeah, but there's no reason to give them extra reasons to," Harry said placing a supportive hand on Spencer's shoulder. "Go on to class Spencer, I'll sleep some more then find myself some lunch. I'll see you after school."
"Okay Harry," Spencer said handing over his packed lunch. "Here, I'll eat lunch in the cafeteria today." Ignoring Harry's protests he hurried away before Harry could give the lunch back. Harry knew what a sacrifice it was for Spencer to have to give up his researching time to go to the cafeteria and risk being publicly humiliated.
-o0o-
They spent the rest of the week, talking, playing cards and reading. Harry worked his way through quite a few of Spencer's books while Spencer was at school and while he didn't understand all of them they did have an influence on his way of thinking and seeing the world. He resolved to keep trying to read nonfiction books and literary classics when he returned home instead of the children's adventure books he'd mostly read before. He also was beginning to manage to count cards in a single pack and that extra observation skill increased the speed of his reading and his retention of what he'd read, though he'd never manage to match Spencer at that. They talked about just about everything, not just the positive stuff like what Spencer wanted to study in college and the history of Caltech and Harry's hopes of getting an apprenticeship as a chef as soon as he was old enough, but also the deep dark secrets they wouldn't have shared with anyone else, the feelings Spencer had when his father left, the loneliness Harry felt locked in his cupboard listening to the Dursley's read Dudley stories and tuck him in, the vague nightmares of green light, Spencer's fear of the dark. The anger and resentment they both felt when their teachers ignored the blatant bullying happening even in their classrooms in front of them at times. Spencer tried to explain to Harry exactly what schizophrenia really was and how it was hard because other people, even adults didn't seem to properly understand it, and were afraid of it even when there was no reason to be, and told him about the hurt he felt during the times his mother refused to believe that he was her son, and the fear when she thought he was there to hurt her. Not just the fear that she would hurt him like she did with the cooking oil but also the fear he had for her that she would realise that she'd attacked him and feel terribly guilty about it or that she would eventually do something he couldn't hide from his teachers or the neighbours and would be locked up in a state mental facility where he would be prevented from visiting her until he was an adult.
Harry didn't really understand schizophrenia even after Spencer's explanation but he understood more than enough about people judging you and being mean because they were afraid over something you couldn't help, so he tried to be as supportive as he could and looked it up in the library to try to understand better. It was while reading a book about Schizophrenia in the library to help him support Spencer, that Harry read that it could sometimes be inherited. He hesitated to tell Spencer but in the end he decided that it wasn't right to keep something so important to him from him, and he figured Spencer probably already knew and was worried about getting it. Maybe having Harry to talk to about it might help. Spencer hadn't read that particular book or realised the genetic component, none of the rest of his relatives had had it after all. It worried him but Harry tried to reassure him that the risks were still fairly low and even if he did end up with it with treatments improving all the time there might be a cure for it, by the time he developed the symptoms. Spencer researched the issue and found that while many studies agreed that there was a genetic link between sufferers in some cases none of them agreed on the level of increased risk a child of someone with schizophrenia had of developing the disease. There was also another reputable study linking the development of schizophrenia in adults to the amount of childhood trauma they'd experienced, suggesting that it was possible that growing up in the care of a schizophrenic parent contributed to the increased incidence of schizophrenia instead of or in addition to the genetic component.
That didn't stop Spencer from deciding then and there that he would never have children. He didn't want to risk one day hurting a child the way his mother hurt him. Harry wasn't sure he wanted children either, not if there was the possibility of them turning out like Dudley, or the possibility that if something happened to him they'd be sent to the Dursleys. He couldn't imagine anyone ever wanting to marry a scrawny freak like him anyway but when he pointed that out to Spencer, Spencer told him that he didn't think Harry was bad looking, he just needed to eat a little more regularly and that there were a lot of ugly people out there who had husbands or wives and children so looks didn't seem to be the deciding factor.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.