Childhood's End

CHILDHOOD’S END

As Hagrid said, what would come would come… and he would have to meet it when it did. Yes, it was foolish to worry about it now, very good advice no doubt about it; Harry just wished he knew how to follow it. As he sat on the enormous back seat of the car on his way to Privet Drive he noticed that Uncle Vernon had been talking to him, probably for some time and doubtless cataloging Harry's many faults, but he hadn't been paying attention. After all he'd been through paying attention to any of the noises Uncle Vernon made with his mouth seemed too insignificant to bother with, there was no point wasting valuable brain cells on that as he had far more important things to think about. The truth was he no longer cared very much what any of the Dursleys said or did. Although his mind seemed clearer than it ever had been before this brought him no joy, he was weary of relieving all the pain and ugliness and death he'd seen in stark relief; but he knew he should make an effort to think about something else at least for a while, just to see if he was still capable of it. For the first time he became fully aware of his surroundings.

"Hey, nice car," Harry said.

"That school of yours must have made you simple," Uncle Vernon said with fury "Haven't you been listening? I just told you it's a brand new custom supercharged Bentley with a Rootes type positive displacement blower able to produce 513 horsepower with no turbo lag. They only make ten of these beauties a year and it's just about the most expensive car in the world. It cost more than the likes of you will make in a lifetime I can tell you that, so sit still and don't kick anything. And none of that,.. that funny stuff of yours!"

"Pretty fancy for a company car, a Bentley," Harry said.

"It's my own personal car," said Uncle Vernon proudly "and if you must know I've retired from the company."

Harry thought for a moment as he looked at the mahogany dashboard with teak inlay and the ostrich skin seat covers, then things suddenly became clear.

"Congratulations," Harry said dryly "You must have a terrific pension plan to retire so young, and with such style. Most wizards don't know much about pensions or Muggle money, for example if a Muggle were to say how much it cost to raise a child a wizard would probably believe him, even if the figure was 10 times or 20 times too high."

"Is… is that so?" said Uncle Vernon with a slight quiver in his voice.

"Yes," said Harry, "of course not all wizards are like that, I have a friend in The Department of Muggle Frauds and Swindles who's very good at audits."

"Audits?" said Uncle Vernon trying, unsuccessfully, to sound casual "They know about those sort of things do they?"

"Oh sure," said Harry cheerfully "whenever they get a report of something suspicious they go to work, they love to send people to Azkaban, that's the wizard prison. Interesting place that, it's guarded by dementors, you know I see weird magical stuff every day but those things still give me the creeps, but you may be made of sterner stuff. I've heard stories that would make your hair curl, my godfather could tell you more, he's the only person to have ever escaped from there, if I asked him I'm sure he'd be willing to give you some pointers. Who knows, you might find them useful someday."

"What are deme..." But Uncle Vernon stopped, he wasn't sure he was really ready to hear the answer to that. He tried again "What are you insinuating?"

Harry smiled pleasantly and said "Just making conversation."

"Right," said Uncle Vernon trying to sound confident "Well there will be a lot less conversation and a lot more rules and work this year. I have a list of the chores you will perform every day, scrub the kitchen, wash the windows, weed the garden, cut the grass, wash the car, mop the… "

"No, I won't be doing any of those things," Harry said quietly but firmly, he wasn't trying to be defiant, he was simply stating a fact "it's important for me to do a lot of studying this summer and I can't be distracted with trivialities."

"Trivialities! You'll do what I tell you to do or I'll kick you and that stupid owl of yours out of my house!" Uncle Vernon bellowed.

"Oh I doubt you'll do that," Harry said calmly.

"And why is that?"

"Because you don't want to get off the gravy train. Give it up Vernon, I found out the truth, I know the Ministry Of Magic has been paying you to take care of me since I was one year old, grossly overpaying in fact. Nice little scam."

"I, I don't know what you're talking about." Uncle Vernon said in an unconvincing manner.

"Well," said Harry "If you really don't know what I'm talking about then prove it, stop the car and I'll get out right here. Perhaps you're tired of getting the ministry's money but I'm sure there are others willing to take up the burden. By the way, have you made all the payments on the Bentley yet? What's the maintenance and insurance costs on this monster?"

Vernon turned purple and looked like he was about to explode, but he did not stop the car "They promised me! They said you would never find out! I demand to know who told you!"

"Why you told me Vernon, just now, I thank you for confirming my suspicions," Said Harry with a smile "and now I'd like to talk about some rules of my own."

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Harry sat down and picked up a quill, his diminutive model of the horntail was marching along the edge of the desk; occasionally a tiny spark came from her mouth. This letter was going to be tricky, he didn't want to panic her nor did he want her to think he was trying to run her life, but he had to tell her of his concerns because he didn't think he could retain his sanity if anything happened to Hermione; best to start with some chitchat.

 

Dear Hermione

I hope you're well, I'm fine, in some ways better than fine, for the first time in my life I feel like I'm fully awake. Yes I know that sounds dumb. Anyway this first week back has been going really great for me. On the car trip from the station I pulled a sort of bluff on Uncle Vernon and it worked better than I dreamed, they try hard to stay out of my way now and I don't think they've spoken a dozen words to me since. That's just the way I like it; a good Dursley is one you can't see or hear. I'll never beat Ron at chess but I think I could hold my own at poker.

 

Harry stopped for a minute to consider what he had written. He had told the truth, just not the entire truth. No point in telling Hermione about the nightmares he thought, she can't do anything about them. He didn't know that his feint was only part of the reason the Dursleys avoided him, Harry didn't realize that he unnerved them with the profoundly powerful stare he had newly developed, a stare that almost seemed to give off sparks. Life lived at Harry's intensity was alien and freighting to many. He picked up his quill and continued.

 

Would you believe I've already finished my homework? I've decided to really concentrate on studying because I have a hunch I'll run into Voldemort again someday and I need to be much better prepared. It's relaxing too, when you're focused on trying to master a difficult spell you sort of forget your troubles. I've found a nice stealth spell to prevent the ministry from detecting the unauthorized use of magic, I can only make it big enough to cover my bedroom but that's large enough for me to practice without interference. I've learned to Apparate, at least I can do it from one side of the room to the other; they say distance only makes it slightly harder, I hope that's true. These new fifth year books are a bit disappointing don't you think, most of the stuff seems pretty obvious. Dumbledore said I should read a few seventh year books this summer and they are a lot better but still not quite what I'd hoped for. By the way I know a really nifty invigorate charm that's like drinking 10 cups of black coffee and it really cuts down on the time wasted sleeping.

The horntail had wandered onto his parchment and was getting in the way of his quill; he gently pushed her back to the edge of the desk. Yea it was a good charm but Harry wished he could find one that eliminated sleep entirely, 3 hours a night was still long enough for horrible memories to resurface. Ok stop stalling, he thought, it's time to get down to business. He wished he didn't have to write the next part but he knew he had to, he thought again of that incredibly gruesome book he'd seem in the forbidden section of the school library, the one that showed the agonizing deaths of people Voldemort particularly didn't like. Harry shuttered. Harry doubted the Dark Lord hated any of those people as much as he hated him, especially now that he'd embarrassed Tom Riddle Junior by escaping from right under his nose and making him look like a fool in front of his Death Eaters. Junior probably has something very creative in mind for me Harry thought, and physical pain would not be enough for that sadist, he'd want to scar me emotionally too. The method was obvious. He picked up the quill again.

I hope you're still not planning to visit Victor Krum in Romania because I think that could be very dangerous. Now that Voldemort is back I worry that he may try to punish me by hurting my friends. I think Krum is a good man but I don't like the idea of you being in a foreign country that I know little about except that it's full of graduates from Durmstrang taught by Karkaroff. I worry about Ron too but at least he's in a house full of friendly witches and wizards, I'd be really happy if there was one more witch there, you. You're the smartest person I ever met so I know you won't do anything stupid whatever you decide, but promise me one thing anyway, be careful, because if you were to go and get yourself killed it would ruin my entire day.

Harry

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Cho looked beautiful in her formal robes as Harry danced with her at the Yule Ball.

"You dance wonderfully," she said as she stared at him adoringly.

"Thanks," said Harry grinning from ear to ear "I was a little nervous at first yet I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, but you dance much better than I do."

"I love to dance," Cho said. "That's why I'm so glad you murdered Cedric; he couldn't dance at all."

"WHAT!" Harry screamed in horror "NO! I DIDN'T! I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS A PORTKEY!"

Cho started to laugh, a high cold mirthless laugh, and it was Voldemort standing before him not Cho and those weren't other dancers surrounding him; they were Death Eaters. Harry pulled out his wand pointed it at Voldemort and yelled "Avada Kedavra!" but it was Cedric who received the curse, and died before he hit the floor, a look of surprise on his lifeless face. Harry dropped his wand and fell to his knees crying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The Death Eaters bowed to Harry and chanted "All hail to Harry Potter, all hail the new Dark Lord."

NOOOOOOOOO!

 

Harry sat up in bed drenched in cold sweat his heart beating like a jackhammer. "I am not a dark wizard," Harry cried into the empty room "Cedric I ..." but he could not say more. When he finally got his voice back he just muttered "stupid dream," and got up. This was the worse one yet he thought as he splashed cold water on his face from the basin, he wondered if he'd have them until the day he died, and he wondered how soon that day would come. He put on his glasses and looked at his watch; it was 2:45 am. Harry glanced at the face in the mirror and was appalled; he was starting to look like Sirius did when he was in Azkaban. This is foolish Harry thought, I've got to take better care of myself, when was the last time I ate? Let's see, I did have breakfast, but that must have been yesterday morning, or maybe it was the day before. He touched his cheek and felt stubble; I guess I'm going have to start shaving too. He still wasn't hungry but he had just decided to go down to the kitchen and force himself to eat something anyway when an owl carrying a package and a letter flew into his room. She seemed quite proud of herself for delivering such a heavy bundle by herself.

"Hedwig!" Harry yelled with delight "It's good to see you girl."

He thought she might show up tonight so he had some bacon ready for her that she quickly devoured. He opened the letter and saw it was from Hermione.

 

Dear Harry

You have to be careful with those invigorating charms; they're not good for you if used too often. I hope you're getting plenty of sleep as you could use some rest after all you've been through last year. Don't worry I won't ruin your entire day because I'm at the Burrow; I decided to accept Ron's invitation instead of Victor's. I hope you can join us as soon as Dumbledore says it's ok. In the meantime don't work too hard and try to have a little fun, you deserve it.

A wave of relief swept over Harry, Hermione was safe, and the idea of visiting his two best friends at the Burrow was wonderful as he was starting to feel quite lonely. Imagine Hermione telling him not to work too hard. Harry smiled. Ginny would be there too Harry realized and his grin increased. He read on.

The package is your birthday present, I know it's a bit early but as soon as I found out it existed I knew you had to have it immediately.

 

Intrigued Harry opened the package and saw that it was a large red book, on the cover it said "Advanced Charms And Transfiguration Theory With Examples" in smaller print under that it said "with a introduction by Albus Dumbledore" then Harry looked at the authors and his jaw dropped "Lilly and James Potter". With trembling hands he opened the book as if it were more fragile than glass and more valuable than gold, he looked at the dedication page, all it said was "To Our Son Harry". It took a moment for his eyes to clear enough to read the rest of Hermione's letter.

 

Professor McGonagall says the book was published less than a month before your mom and dad died, she said it's the best book on transfiguration she ever read and Professor Flitwick says the same thing about charms. Harry your parents must have been very, very powerful wizards to write a book like that. I tried to read parts of it but it is way beyond me, maybe in a few years. Hope to see you soon.

Love from Hermione

 

Harry was still standing and did not move for several minutes while a thousand thoughts ran through his mind each demanding his full attention. When he got control of himself again he read Dumbledore's introduction.

 

Lilly and James Potter were two of the best students I ever had so I always expected great things from them, but even so I was stunned by the sheer brilliance of their first book which is I believe the most important treatise on magic published this century. The depth of their explanation of magical theory is unrivaled by any other work I am aware of. Nor is their originality limited to pure theory, this volume contains dozens of powerful spells the likes of which I have never seen before. The chapter on Animagi is certain to become a classic in the field but it is the astounding chapter on charms without wands that opens up an entire new branch of sorcery that has never been touched on before. This is not light reading; it can be quite demanding even for a talented wizard but those who make the effort will be well rewarded.

 

Albus Dumbledore

Hogwarts October 4 1981

 

Harry sat down at his desk and started to read chapter 1, all thoughts of food forgotten.

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Harry had thought he understood how transfiguration worked but he didn't, not until now; but he wondered why mom and dad said transfiguration was one branch of magic that really did always require a wand. Sure a wand contains a core of some magical creature he thought, but I'm a magical creature myself. Ok, maybe it is impossible but I'm going to try anyway. I'll see if I can turn a match into a needle, that's the first thing they teach you in transfiguration class but I'll try it without a wand. At first nothing happened so Harry tried again, this time the match went silver. He tried a third time and found he was holding a perfectly ordinary needle. Well, Harry thought with a smile, if there's a second edition of mom and dad's book it's going to need some revisions.

OUCH! A minute gray owl was pecking at his shoulder; he recognized Pigwidgeon at once and knew the letter he carried had to have come from Ron.

 

Harry- Hermione is fine and here at the Burrow. Every day mom asks Dumbledore if you can come too but he keeps saying not yet, but I think he'll say yes before the summer is over. You are not going to believe this but Fred and George brought me to the best tailor in Diagon Alley and bought me the most expensive dress robe in the shop. I'm not kidding! I have no idea where they got the money I thought they were broke, all they'll say is that they're tired of having a kid brother who embarrasses them by looking so shabby. That’s baloney, something is going on with them but I don’t know what; I do know one thing, that stupid git Malfoy won't be laughing at my robes this year.

It's all over the wizard world but you're sort of cut off from news so you may not have heard that the day after we left school Fudge issued something called an emergency executive decree and fired Dumbledore as headmaster and put Lucius Malfoy in his place, but don't worry, it's only on parchment. Dumbledore is still at Hogwarts because the teachers are more important than Fudge and they say he's still headmaster, every one of them still supports him. An hour after Fudge gave that stupid order dad resigned from the ministry and he was just the first, by now about half the ministry employees have quit in disgust. So far they haven't tried to use force to remove Dumbledore but if they do dad reckons that means civil war. He really hopes it doesn't come to that because we should be united now that you know who is back, but there is just no way Lucius Malfoy will ever be headmaster of Hogwarts.

Mom is mad at Percy because he didn't quit, he says he's for Dumbledore too and just wants to work for change from within the system but I think he's waiting to see which way the wind is blowing so he can jump on the winning side.

Don't let the Dursleys get you down. RON

 

Harry went to his trunk and dug out The Marauder's Map, yes Ron was right, there was a little dot in his office that said Albus Dumbledore, a very reassuring little dot. It was easy to scan the rest of the map because there were no students at school this time of the year and he was pleased that Lucius Malfoy was not on the Hogwarts grounds. The dot appeared to be pacing, Dumbledore often did that when he was deep in thought. Harry wished the map could tell him what that wise wizard was thinking.

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Harry was in deep concentration when he turned the page of his parent's book, the rest of the world did not exist for him at that moment.

Oh good another one of those spells without wands, I want to learn as many of those as I can, I hate feeling helpless, I hated it when I was tied to that tombstone and could do nothing because I couldn't reach my wand, I never want to feel like that again. Conjure fire into your bare hands, pretty cool, the only wizard I've ever seen do something like that is Professor Lupin on the first day I ever met him, I'll bet he learned how from mom and dad. Come to think of it that invisibility without a cloak spell I learned last night is like the one Dumbledore told me he knew how to do when I was in the first year, I'll bet he learned how from mom and dad's book too. I'll give my cloak to Ron and Hermione I don't need it anymore. Time to see what makes this fire spell tick; ok I understand that part, right, right, that makes sense, wait a minute why do they say.. Ok now I see, and then you invert that then repeat this middle part again put that there then just cancel the remainder out and it all should work. Well let’s give it a try.

 

Harry held up his index finger and a flame leapt from the tip.

Neat, the flame looks just as the book says it should, but actually the fire is really no better than what you'd get from a cigarette lighter, I wonder if I can do a little better. Let me look at that spell again, hmm this part seems too convoluted to me, I'll bet the same thing could be accomplished more directly, yes that would be better, now there's room to do it twice and double the heat, no I can fit three of them in there. There seems to be something working at cross purposes too, I mean when you really think about it 95% of the heat you gain here you lose over there, that won't do, but if I just repeated that part again then turn it inside out the negative would change into a positive and everything would be pulling in the same direction and the problem would go away. I don’t see the point of doing this step here either; it should be done at the very end because then you can eliminate all that useless overhead.

Harry tried again, a foot-long white-hot torch roared from his fingertip intense enough to burn through the armor on a battleship. That's better Harry thought, then he turned the page only to discover with disappointment that he'd finished the book.

Harry got up, stretched, and walked to the window, there was a violent thunder storm underway, deep puddles were in the street so it must have been going on for a long time but he didn't remember when it started. He'd once played a Quidditch match in weather like this, it was the only time he ever lost, it seemed like a very long time ago. He wondered if he'd ever play Quidditch again, he vowed never return to Hogwarts if a Death Eater is headmaster.

Well, Harry thought, I've successfully performed every spell in mom and dad's book, except the one on Animagi, I might be able to do that too but I don't dare try, I'd need more space, a lot more space. I could try it when I go to Ron's house, the orchard might be big enough and it's well hidden from Muggles, I hope Charlie will be there.

Harry became aware of a pain in his stomach and at first thought he was sick but then realized he was hungry, ravenously hungry. As he headed for the kitchen he passed the Dursleys in the living room, the TV was turned up loud and they were watching a special report on the severe weather. They looked at him and then as usual became uncomfortable and quickly turned away pretending they hadn't seen him. It was almost noon but was so dark he had to turn on the lights in the kitchen to see what he was doing. He'd about eaten his fill of cold leftover spaghetti while standing over the sink when a huge clap of thunder shook the house. Apparently it didn't impress Dudley because Harry could hear him whine, "Weather is boring. I want to watch the mega-mutilation festival, change the chan..." and then the TV went silent and so did Dudley. Any second now he expected to hear Dudley moaning that he was missing his favorite show, but he heard nothing from his cousin, in fact he heard nothing at all.

 

Puzzled he walked into the living room and was astounded to discover nobody there, the TV was still on but there was no sound or picture, a large dish of ice cream was on the table next to where Dudley was sitting and steam was coming off the tea Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were drinking. Harry changed the channel on the TV while he mulled over the situation but couldn't find a signal anywhere. Harry couldn't imagine where the hell they went to so fast, they couldn't be upstairs, they would have had to walk right next to him in the kitchen, they must have made a sprint for the front door and dashed outside. It's a little odd that he didn't hear the door open but that's the only thing that makes sense, if you can call running outside in the middle of a thunderstorm sensible. He opened the front door and looked at the sky; he saw a featureless blue dome with not a cloud in the sky. How could a storm stop that suddenly? He thought of the eye of a hurricane but Briton doesn't get tropical storms, and that wouldn't explain why the ground was dry. The sun was bright, harsh, pitiless, and everything had the wrong hue, the colors were vivid but unhealthy like those you see under a brilliant mercury vapor street lamp; then he heard something he had never heard before in his life, absolute silence. There was not a breath of wind no rustle of leaves no sound of birds or insects or dogs or cars or people. Nothing. Harry drummed his fingers on the door just to be sure he hadn't gone deaf. Nobody is outside Harry thought and the unpleasant glare of that strange sunlight was hurting his eyes so he closed the door, but Harry was wrong, somebody was outside. Just a few seconds later as he walked toward the living room he heard a powerful pounding on the door from the other side. His heart started to race; don't be stupid, he told himself, Voldemort wouldn't knock, would he? Harry opened the door.