Getting Harry Back

Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or ratsÂ’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.

T.S. Eliot
“The Hollow Men”

By early afternoon, the warmest time of day, mugginess had crept into Harry’s room. A lone fly buzzed. It had been attracted by the smell of vomit. Now its buzzing was punctuated with the odd thud as it rammed into the window glass, trying to find its way out.

Otherwise, the Dursley house was still gripped by nasty silence.

Hedwig quietly watched her Harry.

“He’s dozing, thank goodness, but his sleep is so restless, so troubled. I know it won’t help.”

She sighed.

“I couldn’t hear what happened downstairs, but I certainly saw the evils when he left. And saw even more when he returned.”

She softly clicked her beak.

Harry twisted in his bed and began sleep-mumbling in anxious tones, shaking his head. After a few minutes, he quieted down, but Hedwig saw him fade into a deeper disquiet.

“Those evils I see growing inside him….”

Tears slowly emerged from her eyes.

With owl-silent flight(1), she glided over Harry, dropped her tears into his messy dark hair, then glided back to her perch and resumed her watch. Harry’s breathing steadied, and she saw his body relax, his movements ease some.

“It’s nearly time.”

Another tear came.

“But he’s not ready. I see that so clearly, he’s not ready.”

The tear trickled slowly down her eyefeathers.

* * * * * * * * * *

Harry sat up to high pain and the sweet-nauseous smell of his vomit in the wastebasket. His mouth was sticky and foul-tasting. He wished that he had some water for a rinse-out. He also wished that he were anywhere but Number Four, Privet Drive. And he wished most of all that he wasn’t so alone, so sick and scared and confused and alone.

He stayed put to let the spinning in his head and stomach gradually slow. As things stabilized, his mind went to the obvious questions: “Who put that broken glass in the chicken? How? And why?”

Harry suspected, given Dudley’s continued late-night thumps up the stairs, that he was still bullying the neighborhood kids. After years of this, there were certainly many who wanted revenge. But Harry knew that Aunt Petunia was almost always around and sharp- eyed, especially about her kitchen. When the Dursleys left, which was almost never, not only was Harry locked in his room but the outside doors were also locked, well-locked. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were paranoid about people breaking in.

“Probably as worried that they’d see me as that they’d take anything,” Harry thought.

Besides, this didn’t seem like the sort of thing a kid would do: “Too deadly.”

Nor did it seem like a Death-Eater: “Not deadly enough.”

Harry shook his head and sighed. No answers came, and the more he thought about it, the more his head and stomach fell back into spinning.

“Have to get Hermione or Ron to ask Dumbledore,” he said aloud, just to hear himself, to break that nasty silence. “This is going nowhere, and it’s creepy.”

Harry felt a chill run through him. With that chill, the wound spasmed, like cold air on a sore tooth. Harry’s face wrenched, then slowly calmed. He looked over at Hedwig:

“Reckon I better think about something other than Dudley and that glass, huh?”

Hedwig hooted softly, then flew over and landed on his bed right beside Harry. With her head, she rubbed his shoulder.

Harry smiled and gave her his finger to nip. She obliged.

He stroked her head a few times, then stood up and, with great effort, forced his mind back to the wound, partly to remove what he’d just seen and heard and felt, partly because he knew he had to. He went to the window and opened it wider. The sun had moved to the front of the house; the air from his window felt fresher. Harry took a deep breath, clearing his head a little.

Hedwig flew back to her perch where she could better see his face.

Harry saw the next-door neighbors – an elderly couple – out on their porch, looking at the house and talking, their voices a dull murmur. He automatically backed away from the window, an instinct from years of being told not to let the neighbors see him, from years of being hit when he wasn’t careful enough.

When he realized what he was doing, Harry shook his head and sighed. Then he sat down on his bed and, hugging his knees to his chest, withdrew inside himself, trying to not-think and, especially, not-feel.

After several minutes, Hedwig gently hooted.

Harry turned to her and gave her a half-smile:

“The wound isn’t backing off, Hedwig, it’s still getting in the way. Pushing it away just isn’t working. Maybe….” He hated this thought. “Maybe I need to face the wound and whatever’s inside. After all, that’s where it came from, knowing I have to see my mum and dad’s home. I don’t know why that’s important, but I know it is, and that’s from the wound.” He shrugged. “Maybe there’s more stuff in there that I need to know.”

Harry got up and went over to Hedwig’s perch and stroked her head again. She ruffled her feathers in pleasure.

“Guess it won’t help putting it off, hmm?”

Hedwig looked at him.

Harry raised his eyebrows and smiled, then he went back to his bed again, sat down, and took a deep breath.

“So how do I do this?”

Nothing came.

Harry sagged, put his head in his hands, and sighed for what seemed the millionth time, his mind empty. Hedwig flew down beside him. Harry looked at her and smiled.

“Thanks,” he told her. “Feels good to have company.”

With Hedwig there, Harry sensed his body easing, and with that easing a thought came: “Hey? Get closer to the wound. Look at it, listen to it. You can’t do anything if you’re always pushing it away. Feel it, and use your inner-eye and inner-ear, like with your shelter.”

“Makes sense,” Harry decided. “Nothing else does.”

So cautiously and oh-so-carefully he felt himself lessen the walls of muscle tension inside his body – walls that tried to block off the wound. For the first time when the wound wasn’t a roaring pain, Harry deliberately felt it.

He was surprised. He looked over at Hedwig, “The wound feels like it’s… alive. And it’s feeling tired. Sad, too. And not so dangerous.”

Harry frowned.

“And I feel surprise not just from me, but….”

Harry felt something release, and he took a deep breath.

“It’s as if the wound feels surprised, too, and wary, because I’m not pushing it away. It’s not just me sensing the wound. I feel…. This is weird, Hedwig -- the wound sensing me?”

Hedwig bobbed. Harry stared at her a moment, then brought his full attention back inside.

For several long minutes, Harry and the wound simply sensed, not quite felt each other, like two wild animals unexpectedly coming upon one another, still mostly hidden, cautious and ready-to-bolt, yet also curious, even drawn together.

Harry felt himself reaching out inside to the wound – he wasn’t sure exactly how. Again, he was surprised. He looked at Hedwig:

“I feel the wound reaching out to me.”

Then he closed his eyes, and felt their reaching out become a touch. That first touch was brief, with a start, then a backing away – each checking for safety, for acceptance, each still wary. Their next touch held and became a togethering. Harry stayed quiet, just letting it happen.

Finally he opened his eyes and turned toward his owl. “Strange, but… I feel relieved just being in touch with the wound,” Harry said, “and the wound feels relieved, too. Like we’re both relieved that we’re not fighting, at least for a while. And like maybe we could even be… friends?”

Harry shook his head.

“What a thought, Hedwig. But even just thinking it, and feeling it some, you know, kinda feeling friendly… I can feel the wound feeling kinda friendly back, and….”

Harry felt himself take another deep breath.

Now came a flow of energy, of magics both from the wound and from him, from his heart. Harry felt himself gently drawn more inside of his body, more into himself.

“Okay, Harry,” came another thought, “now see and hear, like with your shelter. Relax -- mind blank and quiet, blank and quiet….”

He followed the advice, and though at first there was nothing, he stayed blank and quiet. Finally, slowly, inner sight and inner sound came, as if out of a mist or a shadow:

There, bathed in a soft but intense radiance, was the wound. Its edges red and sore, surrounding a dark chasm from which came flickers of light and the edges of ominous black clouds.

Eyes closed now, somehow it still felt right to keep telling Hedwig, to keep linked with her.

“The wound is… weeping?”

No sound except a slow breathing.

“I can see tears coming out of the wound. And it feels even more tired, more sad.”

Harry stared at the crying wound.

“I don’t know why, but I sort of feel… sorry for it.”

With that, with his feeling sorry for the wound, Harry felt his whole body release with a sigh, like a small earth tremor or a ground-settling.

“And I can feel the wound feeling better, a lot better, too… because I feel sorry for it.”

Hedwig gave a quiet hoot that sounded to Harry like she agreed.

“Weird,” he said softly. But he stuck with it -- seeing the wound and feeling sorry for it - - and even though he didn’t understand it, that helped.

Then from inside, inside the wound there in his stomach, Harry heard a strange, unknown melody – sad and keening, played on an acoustic guitar, its fragile, quickly-dying sounds so achingly expressive of vulnerability and loss.(2) It began softly, like a moan of sorrow that swelled and ebbed, swelled and ebbed. It reached into Harry’s heart, into his soul and filled him with a weeping and holding love that Harry had needed, had yearned for, though he’d rarely let himself feel his need and his yearning.

Harry was gently carried away by the melody, which was now joined with harmonies and rhythms just as sad and loving and impassioned. He saw the wound crying more freely and he felt his own tears.

Harry, the wound and the music joined in mourning all that had happened to him. And even more, they mourned all that should have happened to him, and that never would.

Eventually the music faded away and Harry gradually came back to himself, but not quite so alone. For a long time Harry stayed with that not quite so alone. It seemed that the wound was keeping him company, that the wound was a part, an important part of his not quite so alone.

“Maybe,” he wondered, “I should look inside the wound?”

An answer floated up from the wound and into his mind, just as firm, just as right-feeling as the one about seeing his parents’ home:

Not yet.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Harry?”

Harry opened his eyes and saw Ron and Hermione looking down at him, their faces creased with worry.

Exhausted, he’d fallen asleep.

“Oh.” He tried to blink his eyes awake. “Uh.... Hi?”

Silence.

The stench of his vomit permeated the room. He wondered how his friends could stand it. Or him.

“We thought we’d drop by, you know, and since it’s afternoon, we figured it’d be all right?” Hermione’s worried expression hadn’t changed.

Harry noticed that his friends were looking at him a lot like Hedwig.

“Hey, it’s more than all right.” He sat up and tried to smile. “It’s great. Yeah, the only good thing that happens to me.”

“You okay, mate? You don’t look so good, and….” Ron looked down at the wastebasket. His expression hadn’t changed either. “Want us to get you something, or have Mum make you up a potion?"

Again silence. Harry sighed.

“Harry.” Hermione was alert and stubborn-looking. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Hermione, honest. Just an upset stomach.”

“Harry.” Ron was working his way up to stubborn, too, an undeflectable Ron-stubborn. Harry could see both Ron and Hermione becoming more worried.

“Ron, I just—“

Harry stopped himself mid-sentence and thought: since his godfather’s death, he’d become more and more withdrawn. This led to his friends becoming more and more worried. It wasn’t working, for them or for him.

“I’m letting my friends down,” he concluded. “And Ron and Hermione, they’ve really stood by me, through all sorts of troubles and all my bad moods. They deserve better. Maybe facing them is, well, like facing that wound? Not easy, but it beats hiding.”

Harry gave Ron and Hermione a genuine, though sheepish smile. “Sorry, guys. I’m not sick. I’ve been letting some stuff get to me. I….” Harry paused, feeling sad and tired. “I know I haven’t been much fun to be with. And I’ve been pushing you away.”

“Oh, no, Harry, you’ve been--” Ron was stopped by his girlfriend.

“Ron. Harry’s right. He hasn’t been much fun, and he has been pushing us away.” She looked at Harry and smiled. “Not that you ever could push us away. You’re stuck with us. You see, we love you.”

She said this all very business-like, just saying the facts. Then she sat down beside Harry and gave him a more-than-business-like hug.

Ron nodded, smiled, and sat down on Harry’s other side, bumping shoulders. “Like she says, mate, we love you. Guess you’re stuck.”

All Harry’s words got caught behind a big throat lump. Nobody had ever told him, right out loud, that they loved him. Dumbledore had, kind of. But this was so clear, so real, so….

Without thinking, Harry grabbed both of them into a tight hug, like grabbing a lifeline. He held on, head down and clutching them until the lump cleared up some. Which took a while.

A small, tense, “Thanks” was all he could get through as he let go.

At first, he couldn’t look at them. He was so scared that maybe he’d done something wrong. He’d never hugged anyone like that before. In fact, he’d never hugged anyone at all. He’d always waited for others to hug him, because he was never sure when it was okay to hug. The first hug he remembered, ever, was when Hermione hugged him at the end of their first year, right before he went into the room with the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Frankly, Hermione’s hug had scared him more than going into that room alone.

When he finally did force himself to look, he saw both his friends smiling.

Harry gave a big sigh.

“They look less worried, too,” he thought, “like they feel better. That’s something.”

“Harry.” Hermione, as always, was straightforward, but this time also gentle: “It’s time to tell us.”

Harry gave a start, then thought a few moments.

“Not sure I can,” he finally admitted.

“Hey? Let’s try?”

Harry looked down. He didn’t want to, but he knew he owed them this. “And maybe,” he hoped to himself, “it’ll help.” Though he didn’t see how.

Harry shrugged. “Guess so.” He felt silly and clumsy and frightened, very frightened.

“Harry?”

He peered up at Hermione.

“I know this is hard for you. Ron and I, we were lucky. We grew up with parents who listened. And now,” she looked over at her boyfriend and special-smiled, “we’ve got each other.”

Ron blushed, but returned her special smile. Hermione looked back at Harry, sad-eyed and sober. “We’re your family. More so now that Sirius is gone. You can talk to us.” She gave Harry a different, but still very special smile. “You can even have a hard time talking to us. That’s what families are for.” She squeezed Harry’s arm. “That’s what your family is for. Okay?”

Harry felt good, really good thinking of Ron and Hermione as his family, even if that also felt kind of daunting. Hermione made sense, making it not exactly easier, but easier for it to be hard. If only that bloody lump would go away. Maybe then he could think, or at least not feel like he was going to cry.

“Where do I start?”

“Try the fight with the Death Eaters when Sirius died and you disappeared.”

Harry hadn’t talked with anyone about that night, or what he’d been thinking and feeling. Except a little right afterwards with Dumbledore, and that hadn’t helped, not like the year before after he saw Cedric murdered. But he decided that now, with Ron and Hermione, it was time to let them be his family.

“Because I really need a family,” he thought. “I don’t know anything about families, but I know I need one.”

Time to open up.

It didn’t flow, not at all, but it did come out. Along with a lot of pauses and more throat lumps and some tears that Harry tried hard not to have. He hated crying in front of them, he hated it. It felt like losing control, like giving in. He’d never cried in front of anyone since he was little, even when he was beaten. And he didn’t want them feeling sorry for him, or to make them uncomfortable.

But Ron and Hermione didn’t seem to mind. They didn’t say anything; they just listened.

Harry told them everything: when Sirius died, when he went after Bellatrix, when he tried the Cruciatus Curse and failed, when Voldemort showed up and almost killed him, when Dumbledore came and fought, when Voldemort possessed, him, and finally when he had his talk with Dumbledore, feeling like it was all his fault.

Then he told them about the prophesy, about him either killing or getting killed.

That last part, killing or getting killed, he said with his head down. He stopped, not able to look at his friends. He felt unclean, cut-off and alone, terrifyingly alone.

This time, to his great surprise, it wasn’t Hermione who spoke, but Ron.

“Harry,” he commanded. “Look at me.”

Harry didn’t move; he started to tremble.

Ron spoke again, stronger: “Look. At. Me.”

Harry still couldn’t, he just couldn’t.

Ron, now well over six feet tall, reached down to put his large hands on either side of his best friend’s face, pulling him up until Harry looked him square in the eyes.

Harry saw rage; he was shocked.

“That prophesy,” Ron said sternly, “it said that you had to kill Voldemort but it didn’t say that you had to kill him alone, by yourself, right?”

“But it said by my hand,” Harry protested.

“Yeah, but it didn’t say by your hand alone, did it?”

Harry slowly shook his head.

“Fine. That’s settled. We’re killing Voldemort. We’re going to start planning now. Not just you, but me, too. And Hermione and the Order and everyone we can bring into this. By the time we kill that bloody bastard – and you hear me, and you hear me good, we’re killing him. ‘Cause we’re never going to let him kill you! Got that?”

Harry nodded open-mouthed, even more stunned.

“By the time we kill that bloody bastard,” Ron stormed, “it won’t make any difference who threw the last curse. We’re all going to learn Unforgivable Curses, curses that kill. We’re all going to kill him. Together. You will not be killed and you will not be killing alone!”

Ron glared into Harry’s eyes, doing a search-and-destroy for anything but total agreement. Finding nothing, he turned sharply to his girlfriend: “Hermione?”

Harry looked over and saw the same fiery rage and heard a voice he barely recognized. “Harry. We’re killing Voldemort. Not you. We.”

Ron grabbed Harry into a hug as fierce as his voice and face. “You thought you were going to do that by yourself? Bloody hell, Harry! Did you think we’d let you do that alone?”

“Ron,” Harry mumbled, “I didn’t want you to--”

“Oh, shut up. Would you let one of us do it alone?”

Harry shook his head into Ron’s shoulder, hiding tears.

“Well? Like Hermione said, we’re your family. And this, you numbskull, is what your family is for. If you have to kill, we have to kill! Understand?”

Harry couldn’t answer. He was too busy crying.

Ron held Harry tighter, his voice desperate. “You’ve been my best friend for five years; I love you more than my brothers. If anything happened to you, if I hadn’t done everything, everything….” The redhead, too, was crying now. “God, Harry, that would kill me. You can’t protect me like that. Please, Harry, promise you’ll never, ever shut me out like that again. Promise!”

Harry nodded, still crying and feeling Ron’s strong holding, Ron’s strong love.

Hermione collided with Harry’s back. He could hear her crying, too.

“Oh, Harry,” was all she said, maybe all she could say. But Harry could feel her holding, her love, as strong as Ron’s.

Harry let himself go into his family, which embraced and enclosed him.

“I’m not alone,” he thought, “I’m not alone.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Damn you, Lily!

Haven’t you done enough? Why can’t you leave us in peace?

But then I suppose I’ve always known that you weren’t through, that you’d left that evil boy of yours to finish what you’d—

There, now, Petunia, calm yourself. Close your eyes; take a deep breath. Concentrate, concentrate. Dudley needs you….

Oh, but ever since I saw Dudley in all that blood, his blood – my thoughts, my feelings, they’re so jangled. Those memories, those horrid pictures, I can’t stop them, I can’t get them out of my head.

And it’s your fault, Lily, it’s all your fault, yours and that wicked boy of yours!

I hate hospitals! These lights hurt, and that awful smell. There’s Dudley lying on that hospital thing, whimpering, and all those bloody gauzes. And the doctor and nurses standing over him.

Why won’t the doctor listen to me and give Dudley enough pain medicine? Why won’t he listen? Dudley’s looking at me, pleading with me to do something, and there’s nothing I can do, nothing at all. My son, my own son in more pain than any child should have to bear, and there’s nothing I can do!

But that’s the way it’s always been, hasn’t it? Nobody listens, nobody ever listens. Nobody even notices!

Now, Petunia, you know better. There’s Vernon – he listens, he always notices.

But he’s the only one. Mum, Dad, all they ever noticed was Lily and her magic, Lily and her magic, Lily and her bloody magic! Never me, no, never anything I did. I was the one who stayed around, I was the one who always helped out. And I was the one who saw Lily’s magic for what it was!

But would they listen to me?

Oh, no. Oh, my, no. We couldn’t listen to plain, dull Petunia. Not when we have our pretty, clever Lily, who does all those wonderful things.

Now, Petunia, you know it’s not their fault. It’s not. And you know whose fault it is.

I can see you, Lily, standing there, watching them. You bewitched them, that’s what you did, you bewitched them. You and your evil magic.

Oh, Mum… Dad…. I know why you couldn’t listen, why you couldn’t see. You were under her spell.

And she killed you.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about it, that I don’t remember what happened. I see it all like it was yesterday.

Vernon and I walking home from school, holding hands, talking, laughing. The little road through the hills and the pastures. Spring, a bit of chill in the air, the lambs playing, and the flowers, oh my, all the lovely flowers.

Then we came round the last hill and… there it is:

My home – blasted, burned, still smoldering. And that smell, that sickening, sweet smell.

At first we just stand there, looking, like we’ve made a mistake. We came down the wrong road, that’s it, we must have. Mum, Dad, I know this isn’t my home. It can’t be my home. How can it be my home? If it were, you’d be—

…Mum?

…Dad?

I shouldn’t look, I know I shouldn’t look. I know what I’ll see. And Vernon, he tries to stop me, he tries so hard to stop me. But I can’t help myself. Can’t you see, I can’t help myself, I have to, I must!

I get past him and…

…there you are.

Again, we just stand there, Vernon and I. Looking. But what are we looking at? There’s no face, there’s nothing that looks like it ever was a face, nothing that looks like it was ever human, or even alive. Just black, charred black, and red where it—

Lily, you did this, you did this to Mum and Dad! I know you did, I know you did! I hate you, Lily, I HATE YOU!!

I turn away and bury my head in Vernon. He puts his arms around me, he holds me so I don’t explode. But I can feel that he’s still looking, I can feel his horror. I can feel his hate, too. Even though he doesn’t know what he hates.

Yet.

That day, Lily, I told him everything.

Everything.

And he hates you, he hates you and your magic as much as I do. Maybe more.

Vernon and his family, they take me in, they save me from the orphanage, they raise me as their own daughter. They give me what I always wanted, Lily – a normal home. Normal and safe, where people notice what I do.

Vernon and I marry. He gets a good job, and does so well. Then we have a son, we have Dudley. All I want is to be Vernon’s wife and Dudley’s mum, to be happy and to forget everything that happened, to forget all about you and your magic forever. And for a year, for a whole blessed year, I do.

Then that boy came. Your boy, Lily.

I should have seen it. Vernon, he saw it right off.

Maybe you bewitched me, too, Lily. For a moment. When I first saw that little baby on our doorstep, just Dudley’s age, you know. And Vernon told me that it was yours, that you’d died, that you were gone forever. I thought of this poor baby having to go to an orphanage….

Then I read that awful man’s letter, and I knew what he’d do to us if we didn’t take him in. Oh, I knew all about your magic.

So you see, Lily, it was pity and fear. Pity and fear.

Vernon was for sending him to the orphanage. I can still see him pleading, his eyes filled with pain: “Let his kind take care of him. Petunia, Love, haven’t we been hurt enough by magic? We’ve seen what it does!”

Pity and fear, though the pity left soon enough. As soon as I saw those eyes.

Every time I look into that boy’s eyes, I see your eyes, Lily. Your green eyes, your magical eyes. Your evil eyes that murdered Mum and Dad.

And so does Vernon, though he thinks he can beat that magic out of him. He tries; even now, after everything, he still tries. I know it will never work, but I know why he tries so hard. You don’t hear Vernon starting awake at night, Lily, from the dreams, from the memories. And you don’t see him looking at me after I start awake from my nightmares. Every week, sometimes oftener, ever since that boy of yours was forced on us.

I see it in Vernon’s eyes, that he’s determined to try even harder.

All those times I thought Vernon had gone a little too far with that filthy boy, and I stopped him. But I understood, I knew why.

I stopped him, of course, because of those bruises and cuts. Not serious, not serious at all. But someone might see them. There are always those nosey people who don’t mind their own business, who go poking around where they’re not needed or wanted. And that old man, he might have posted someone to keep watch. That would be just like him and his kind -- your kind, Lily. And that boy’s kind.

So whenever there were cuts or bruises, or whenever he was pretending not to walk or stand right, I had to keep him out of school and out of sight. Which is such a nuisance. He’s always such a nuisance. And worse, so much worse.

When he was little, he was always looking at me with those green eyes of yours and whinging afterwards, after Vernon disciplined him, about how his ribs or his head or something ached, or about how he couldn’t walk or lift his arm or something else. He was just trying to get attention, Lily, like you, always trying to get attention.

Then I yelled at him, and I said all those things I should’ve yelled at you. I told him what a dreadful creature he was, how he was disgusting and wicked, and how if he weren’t such an evil little thing, he wouldn’t get hurt. Not that he was ever hurt, not much, not much at all. Nothing more than he deserved, and a good deal less!

Oh, those times he pretended to be knocked out. Sometimes he pretended so long and so well that he scared me. He’d only hit his head a little. And that was all his own clumsiness, all his own fault. Like his whinging, he was just trying to get attention, just trying to get back at me, just trying to scare me. Like you, Lily, always trying to scare me.

But if he got the attention of the wrong sort of people, or of that old man’s spies….

I was a fool to take him in, such a bloody fool!

And now it’s starting all over again.

He did it, he did this to Dudley, I know he did. He’s such a liar, such a filthy liar. Just like you, Lily, he’s out to get me and my family, he’s out to kill us!

You’re evil, all your kind. You should be driven away from decent folk. Or burned. That it, that’s the thing, you should all be burned, like people used to do. People used to know what to do with you witches and all your evil kind. Burn them, burn them, burn them all. People like you who—

I should have seen him for what he was, for what he would do.

Never again will I play the fool, Lily, never again will I ask Vernon to stop. Vernon was right, he’s seen it all along. No, next time I won’t ask Vernon to stop.

And then that boy – no, that dreadful thing with your evil green eyes – he’ll finally get what he deserves. I’m through playing the fool. Do you hear me, Lily, I’m through!

Next time, next time that Harry Potter will get exactly what he deserves.

* * * * * * * * * *

“The visibility of evil is always a mirror.”

David Michael Levin
The Opening of Vision