My Name Is Harry Potter

My Name Is Harry Potter

Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth.

--Picasso

My name is Harry Potter, the Harry Potter, about whom you have read in the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and wizarding soirees, the notorious and legendary Potter of the Magi Crucifixion.

I am an observant Muslim. Yes, of course, observant Muslims do not paint crucifixions. As a matter of fact, Muslims do not paint at all--in the way that I am painting. So strong words are being written and spoken about me, myths are being generated: I am a traitor, an apostate, a self-hater, an inflicter of shame upon my family, my friends, my people; also, I am a mocker of ideas sacred to Christians, a blasphemous manipulator of modes and forms revered by Purebloods for two thousand years.

Well, I am none of those things. And yet, in all honesty, I confess that my accusers are not altogether wrong: I am indeed, in some way, all of those things.

The fact is that gossip, rumors, mythmaking, and news stories are not appropriate vehicles for the communication of nuances of truth, those subtle tonalities that are often the truly crucial elements in a causal chain. So it is time for the defense, for a long session in demythology. But I will not apologize. It is absurd to apologize for a mystery.

And that is what it has been all along--a mystery, of the sort theologians have in mind when they talk about concepts like wonder and awe. Certainly it began as a mystery, for nowhere in my family background was there any indication that I might have come into the world with a unique and disquieting gift. My pureblood Lightwizard father, had he lived, would have been able to trace his family line down through the centuries to the blood of Godric Gryffindor. My mother was a Mudblood Lightwitch descended from an illustrious pureblood family: the O'Rileys, who all records indicated were descendents of Merlin himself.

So, little Harry Potter--born in the summer of 1980 to Lily and James Potter, in a section of wizarding London known as Godric's Hollow--little Harry Potter was the juncture point of two significant family lines, the apex, as it were, of a triangle seminal with Lightwizard potentiality and freighted with Lightwizard responsibility. But he was also born with a gift.

~*~

It must be duly noted, that at the age of one, the most powerful Darkwizard of the age--some say in all of history--the Dark Lord Voldemort, arrived at the residence of James and Lily Potter at Godric's hollow aided by information a traitor, and once close friend of the Potters, had disclosed to him upon being named the Secret Keeper of the Potter family. The Dark Lord Voldemort killed James almost instantly and then proceeded to kill Harry, only to be stopped momentarily by my mother, Lily. It was my mother's sacrifice of her life that saved me from inevitable death. I was spared, but to this day it is not known what caused the curse to rebound so violently from me and return to Lord Voldemort stripping him for thirteen years from his body and powers.

It must therefore, be noted, that I have an affinity for getting into trouble, and a magnetism that seems to draw disaster to me, willingly it seems. In my years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there hasn't been a single peaceful year in which I was not involved in anything utterly dangerous. Miraculously however, I also seem to have an affinity for survival, an almost assured way of always getting out of the messes I manage to get myself into.

Some call my attraction to living a gift.

Be it what it may, this is not the gift I speak of.

~*~

I have no recollection of when I began to use that gift. But I can remember, at the age of four, holding my pencil in the firm fist grip of a child and transferring the world around me to pieces of paper, margins of books, bare expanses of wall. I remember drawing the contours of that world: my small cupboard under the stairs, with the narrow mat of a bed, the single softly swinging and flickering light bulb hanging in the center, the flimsy shoe boxes that were my desk, the tiny spiders scurrying in dark corners; the house with its whitewashed walls and pristine, spotless floors; the wide, manicured street that was Privet Drive, with the mowed fabricated lawns of Apple Green, the neat cement squares of the sidewalks, the Storm Gray of the asphalt; the people of the street, ugly routine suit clad men, old women gossiping on the benches beneath the trees, little boys throwing twigs and pebbles at wandering stray cats, little girls playing House or Tea Party or Doctor in Tickle Me Pink, Periwinkle Blue, and Macaroni-and-Cheese colored dresses. I grew up encrusted with lead and spectrumed with crayons. My dearest companions were Eberhard and Crayola. Washing for meals was a cosmic enterprise.

That, of course, did not sit well with my respectively immaculate and stern (at least when it came to me, or matters that concerned me) adoptive guardians, my maternal aunt, Petunia ( a thin, bony, gossiping, horse-of-a-woman) and her husband, my uncle, Vernon Dursley (a thick, beefy, no-neck, mean, pig-of-a-person). Both highly despised me for reasons I couldn't fathom, and thought my drawings would lead to an overactive imagination, and from there, to crazy and dangerous ideas.

It was for this reason that I was kept busy around the house, helping Aunt Petunia with chores while Uncle Vernon was at work at Grunnings (a drill firm) and Dudley, my cousin whose over-large cast offs clothed my back, played with his friends, his video game, his toys, and bullied little kids to get money for new toys so he could play a bit more. I had washed and scrubbed, baked and fried, pruned and potted since the day I could hold a feather-duster.

It helped my Aunt in her work, kept me out of my Uncle's way, and gave Dudley something to mock while he watched the telly and spooned ice cream straight from the tub.

Everyone, it seemed, was happy.

So it came to me a surprise when Uncle Vernon fell ill.

I have only vague memories of the darkness and fog of that week. It was August. I had just turned six. There was a phone call. Uncle Vernon rushed from the house and returned a while later, the blood driven from his face. Then Aunt Petunia screamed. The phone stayed silent, Dudley stayed silent, I stayed silent, while my Aunt Petunia continued to scream. Uncle Vernon yelled, he raved, he sobbed and yelled some more. I was in my cupboard, peering out the door, which I had opened to a tiny crack. Dudley yelled too, then screamed, then quieted and sobbed silently, his face filled with horror and shock. A cold uncontrollable trembling took possession of me. Something had happened to Dudley. Something had happened to Uncle Vernon. Something had happened to Aunt Petunia. I could not endure the screams. They cut--like the sliver of glass that had once opened my hand, like the curb of the sidewalk that had once gashed my knee. The screams cut and cut. Dudley's joined Aunt Petunia's, then mine joined his, the Uncle Vernon's joined mine until everyone became hysterical with screams and pain and tears. Then, suddenly, the noise died. The screaming stopped. There were whispers, then sirens, then beeping, then...

I wept, sure everyone was dead, including myself.

Later, someone remembered me. I was taken to a neighbor's house. The next day, I was brought back. We weren't dead. There were voices. "Trauma," someone said. "Abuse," someone said. "Children," someone said. A lady in a suit and plastic blue heels told me to behave and help my dear family out. Then the voices were gone.

Aunt Marjorie Dursley, Uncle Vernon's younger and only sister, had passed away. Uncle Vernon couldn't deal with the pain and had taken out the pain and sorrow on his wife, son, and nephew, so that all three of us still had dull bruises and healing cuts weeks later.

Aunt Petunia was the worst off. She had a broken tibia and crushed carpals in both her hands. They had to hire a maid to do the daily cooking and cleaning (with, of course, my help) as well as give Uncle Vernon his anti-depressants, give Aunt Petunia her painkillers, and feed and clean after the both of them. A month after the initial incident, the maid disappeared along with two hundred pounds and the more valuable selections of Aunt Petunia's jewelry.

It was I, then, that took care of my broken 'family'. I heeded their every need, and in the in-between times, when I could sit for minutes on end without being yelled for, I drew.

I drew Uncle Vernon's ashen face when he returned home. I drew Aunt Petunia's horror. I drew Dudley's fear. I drew them screaming with knives and fire and shards of glass piercing them, agonizing them. I drew them consumed in pain, in hatred and sorrow. I drew them killing each other. I drew them saving each other from worse beings that threatened them, then I ripped the sketch apart. I drew them betraying one another. I drew them creating and living in their own hell.

I was pictured in none of them.

Uncle Vernon, on one of his better days, returned home from Grunnings to find me coloring at the table. He took one look at the papers and napkins, and I instantly found myself screaming in pain, and everything went black.

When I awoke, my paper, my No. 2 pencils, and my trusty box of Crayola were gone. I was alone for three weeks in my dear cupboard with broken ribs and left arm, a glass of water and two slices of stale bread a day. But that didn't bother me as much as not having the feel of colorful wax and smooth lead beneath my fingernails.

My first night in the cupboard, the small bulb gave a shuddering gasp of light before flickering out entirely.

~*~

My return to the world of living found me staring constantly at my bedridden dear Aunt, her face ashen and swollen with bruises like mine. She was still confined to her bed on doctor's orders and even yet she flinched when her beefy husband entered the room.

Mrs. Figg, one of our more eccentric neighbors (whom I spent time with when the Dursleys went out and didn't want me with them) that was a little too attached to stale chocolate cake and her conniving, crazy cats, had taken to staying at number 4 with Dudley and I while Uncle Vernon was at work. She's spend all day watching soap operas, baking cakes with too much flour and old frosting, and pampering her army of felines with random treats and scratches behind the ears. While Dudley continued to play his games and bully his friends, I had taken to keeping watch at my aunt's bedroom door.

She sat on the small armchair near the window, her eyes closed, sunlight bathing her face. She rarely moved once she sat down on the chair. Her skin was sallow, translucent. She seemed drained of substance, dry skin and brittle bones surrounding empty space.

One Sunday afternoon, I brought a stolen pencil and pad into the bedroom and drew my Aunt sitting on the soft armchair. I drew the sagging curve of her shoulders and back, the concave depression of her chest, the bony stalks of her arms crossed on her lap, the tilt of her head against a shoulder with the sun full on her eyes. She did not appear to be bothered by the sun. It was as if there was nothing behind her eyes for the sun to bother.

I was having trouble with her face. The cheek on the left side of her face dropped sharply into a concave plane from the high ridge of bone. I could not do the shading with the pencil. There were graduations of darkness in the shade which the pencil could not capture. I tried it once and it did not work. I used the eraser. Then I tried it again and used the eraser again, and now the drawing was smudged; some of the line had been weakened. I put it away and on a new piece of paper once again drew the outer contour of my Aunt's body and the inner contour of her arms. I left the face blank for a while, then filled in the eyes and nose and mouth. I did not want to use the pencil again. The drawing felt incomplete. It bothered me to have it incomplete. I closed my eyes and looked at the drawing inside myself, went over its contours inside myself, and it was incomplete. I opened my eyes. Along the periphery of my vision, I saw the ashtray on the table next to the bed. It was filled with my Uncle's smoked out cigarettes. Quietly I went to the ashtray and brought it to my corner. I put it on the floor. Then, holding the pad with the drawing on my lap, I carefully brushed the burnt end of a cigarette onto my Aunt's face. The ash left and ugly smudge. I rubbed the smudge with my pinkie. It spread smoothly, leaving a gray film. I used ash from another cigarette. The gray film deepened. I worked a long time. I used cigarette ash on the part of her shoulder not in sunlight and on the folds of her dress. The contours of her body began to come alive. I was working on the shadows in the sockets of her eyes when I realized my Uncle was watching me.

I had no idea how long he had been standing in the doorway. But from the way he was leaning against the wall near the doorway, I thought he had been there a long time. He was not looking at me but at the drawing. He could see the drawing clearly from where he stood. There was fascination and perplexity on his red face. He seemed awed and angry and confused and dejected, all at the same time.

I thought he would be angry with me. Instead he simply turned and went quietly from the room. I heard him walk down the hallway and the click of the front door being shut.

I put the ashtray back on the table near the bed, collected my pad and pencil, and went to my cupboard.

~*~

The next morning, I somehow found myself before a couple of strangers, a man and a woman, who had decided to take the responsibility of my care and well-being in their own hands, who would, in time, change the course of my life by influencing every decision I would ever make.

He was tall and muscular, dark weathered skin and broad shoulders, with massive warm, dry hands and wide, white smile. His hair was a dark ebony, and his eyes a sweet chocolate brown that crinkled up in the corners when he grinned. He wore a long cream colored, collared shirt with opened buttons at his neck, and sleeves rolled up to his elbows over loose white trousers and brown summer sandals.

She was short and thin, with a child-like small frame, light milky skin, extremely long beautiful black hair, small delicate hands with long fingers, and an easy loving smile that revealed dimples in her cheeks. Her eyes were a light green-brown, glassy-looking and framed in thick black lashes. Her soft, pretty nose ended with a small twinkling stud on the right nostril. She wore a fitting, black, long-sleeved cotton dress, with similar fitting black leggings that ended in flat sandals that covered her entire foot. She had some type of shawl covering her head and shoulders, so that I couldn't see most of her face and all her hair.

Zikar and Malaika Ali, my new adoptive parents.

And Uncle Vernon hadn't even waved good-bye.