In An Empty Heart

When Harry Potter was ten, he could see his life stretching out before him in a long, empty line. He would keep living in the Dursleys' hall closet long after his feet hit the wall at the end of the cot and his head hit the ceiling every time he stood up. He would go to local public school, which was a rather horrid place. Harry actually enjoyed learning, but his fellow students (and even some of his teachers) though that he was strange and would do their level best to torment him all day long. Stonewall High would be even worse, as he had spent the last year hearing Dudley's horror stories: the kids stuck your head in the loo, trip you down the stairs, beat you up behind the teacher's back, and if you said anything, you'd get it even worse than before.

Harry assumed that his life would follow that dull and bitter road, and if he was lucky, he might even get good enough grades to go to university. Not that the Dursleys would pay for it - he'd have to find a job. Anything so long as he didn't end up like Pamela Sweeney's son who, he had heard Aunt Petunia say nastily to a neighbor, had fallen in with a bad crowd, dropped out of school, and now worked at a petrol station and lived above a fish and chips restaurant in Birmingham.

Harry Potter was only ten years old when he saw the future closing in on him, dooming him to a monotonous existence. If he was lucky, he might get free of the trap: do well in school (even with having his head put in the loo), go to university far away from the Dursleys and become a rich and famous barrister, like on the shows the Dursleys watched at night. Sometimes he dreamed of writing a novel about his life with the Dursleys, then revealing it as a tell-all expose and watching the Dursleys grovel for forgiveness, like the afternoon talk shows Aunt Petunia watched while he vacuumed and dusted.

Mostly, Harry dreamed of freedom, of a place where people loved him, where people wanted to be friends with him, friends he could trust not to shove his head into a loo or steal his homework the moment he turned his back. He dreamed of wheeling through the starry sky on a flying motorcycle, all connections with the earth severed. He dreamed of life, of living, of things intangible but needed.

In the morning, though, he would awake from dreams of dancing among the stars to the mundane, dreary world of his cupboard. He would get up, dress in his baggy, hand-me-down clothes, make breakfast for the Dursleys, clean the house while Aunt Petunia gossiped with the neighbors, sulk in his closet while they all watched television quiz shows, then sleep, hoping to dream of a better life away from No. 4 Privet Drive.

But not today.

Today, Harry Potter will receive a strange letter.