Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 11: The Night Before
The days that followed the second trip to Diagon Alley passed with an unsettling quiet.
Harry spent most of his time in his room, surrounded by his school supplies and the growing pile of books he had acquired.
The Standard Book of Spells sat on his desk, marked with tiny pencil annotations.
A Treatise on Magical Cores rested on his pillow, its cracked leather cover held together with a rubber band.
He had tried to read more of it, but the archaic English was stubborn and slow. He had managed to decipher only a few paragraphs...something about the "foure humours" of magic and the "balancing of the inner fyre". But it was like trying to drink a river through a straw.
I'll figure it out at Hogwarts, he told himself. There will be a library. There will be time.
But even as he thought it, he remembered the chained gate at Flourish & Blotts, the whispered warning from the shop assistant, the blank spines of the forbidden books. The Hogwarts library might be just as controlled. He would have to be careful.
The Dursleys, for their part, seemed determined to make his last days at home as warm and ordinary as possible.
Petunia baked his favourite cake. A delicious chocolate sponge with raspberry filling, on Wednesday afternoon. She set a slice in front of him with a glass of milk and sat across the table, watching him eat with an expression of pure joy.
"You'll write to us, won't you?" she asked. "When you're at that… at the school."
"Of course," Harry said, though he wasn't sure how the wizarding post worked, but Vesper would figure it out, he supposed.
"And you'll be careful?"
"I will, I promise."
Petunia reached across the table and took his hand. Her fingers were warm now. "You're a good boy, Harry. Whatever happens at that place. Whatever you learn about your parents, or about yourself...don't forget who you are. You're not them."
Harry squeezed her hand back. "I know."
He wasn't sure he believed it, but he knew she needed to hear it.
Vernon came home early on Thursday, carrying a small, flat box wrapped in brown paper. He set it on the kitchen table in front of Harry with a gruff clearing of his throat.
"For you," he said. "For school. A proper watch, so you're not late to your… your classes."
Harry opened the box. Inside was a stunning wristwatch with a dark leather strap and a silver face. The numbers were Roman numerals, and the hands moved with smooth precision. It was the nicest thing he had ever owned, in either of his lives.
"Thank you, Uncle Vernon," he said, and meant it.
Vernon nodded, his cheeks flushing pink. "Well. You'll need to know the time, won't you? Can't have you wandering about at all hours."
He retreated behind his newspaper, but Harry could see him smiling.
Dudley was the hardest to say goodbye to, strangely.
The large boy had been Harry's constant companion all summer. Playing football in the garden, watching cartoons on the telly, building elaborate towers out of Dudley's ever-growing collection of action figures.
Dudley had never once called him names or taken his things or made him feel unwelcome. He had simply… been a cousin, and a friend.
On Friday afternoon, Dudley knocked on Harry's bedroom door and shuffled inside, looking uncomfortable.
"I got you something," he said, not meeting Harry's eyes. He thrust a small object into Harry's hands.
It was a toy soldier...a green plastic paratrooper with a painted-on parachute and a tiny rifle. The paint was chipped, and one of the soldier's legs had been glued back on at an odd angle.
"He's from my collection," Dudley said. "My favourite one. He's been with me since I was little. I thought… I thought you might want him. For luck."
Harry looked at the battered little soldier. Then he looked at Dudley...at his round, earnest face and his too-big hands and his eyes that were suspiciously bright.
"Thank you, Dudley," Harry said. "I'll keep him with me. Always."
Dudley nodded, sniffed once, and then hugged Harry with enough force to nearly crack his ribs.
Then he was gone, running down the stairs and out into the garden, where Harry could hear him kicking a football with more force than necessary.
Harry placed the toy soldier on his bedside table, next to Vesper's cage.
The owl looked at the soldier, then at Harry, and clicked his beak softly.
"I know," Harry said. "I'm going to miss them too."
<><><><><><><><><><><>
That evening, Harry sat on his bed with his trunk open at his feet.
He had packed carefully, following the list from Hogwarts and then adding his own things. His school robes were folded neatly. His cauldron was wrapped in a cloth to keep it from rattling. His glass phials and brass scales were tucked into a padded box. His telescope was secured with a leather strap.
His wand lay on top of everything, wrapped in a soft cloth. He had not used it since the day he bought it. He was afraid that the Ministry would be monitoring underage magic, and he did not want to give them any reason to come looking for him.
But he took it out sometimes, late at night, and held it in his hands. The warmth still pulsed through his fingers.
Next to the wand, he placed A Treatise on Magical Cores. The ancient book had its own place of honour, wrapped in a spare shirt to protect its fragile binding.
And on top of all of it, he placed the small wooden chest from Gringotts, the one containing his mother's journals and the old photographs.
He had not opened the journals yet. He had not been ready.
But tonight, he thought, he might be.
The photograph showed two people he had never met, but whose faces he knew better than his own.
James Potter stood with his arm around Lily's waist, both of them laughing at something outside the frame. He was tall and messy-haired, with slightly crooked glasses and a grin that seemed to say I know something you don't.
She was beautiful...red hair falling in waves, green eyes bright with joy.
They looked happy. They looked in love.
They looked nothing like the people Petunia had described.
Harry traced his finger over the glass, wishing, not for the first time, that he could ask them questions.
"Who were you really? Why did you work for Dumbledore? Why did you leave everything to him?"
As expected, the photograph did not answer his inquiries.
He set it aside and reached for the first journal.
The leather cover was soft and worn by the years, the pages yellowed at the edges.
Lily's handwriting was elegant and precise, each letter formed with care.
The first entry was dated September 1st, 1971.
"Dear Journal," it began. "I'm on the Hogwarts Express. Petunia cried when I left. She says she's not jealous, but I know she is. I wish she could come too. But she can't. And I won't let that hold me back."
Harry read on, his heart sinking with each sentence.
Lily wrote about the sorting ceremony, about being placed in Gryffindor, about the friends she was already making. But there was something off about the way she described things. A hardness beneath the excitement, a calculation in the way she wrote about her classmates.
"A boy next to me on the train, Severus Snape, he seems brilliant. He knows more about magic than half the professors, I think. But he's poor, and his clothes are shabby. I'll keep him as a friend, but I won't let him drag me down. I need to make the right connections."
Harry stopped reading. He stared at the page, his stomach churning.
The right connections. She did not want friends, but connections. People whom she could use for her own gain.
"What kind of eleven-year-old thinks like that?" He wondered.
He thought of the tailor's flinch when she learned his name. Of Tom the innkeeper's oily smile. Of the patrons in the Leaky Cauldron who had looked at him with something like approval after they heard he was James Potter's son.
This is who my mother was, he realised. Ambitious, calculating, and willing to use people.
He wanted to close the journal and throw it across the room. He wanted to burn it and pretend he had never read those words.
But he didn't.
He turned the page and kept reading.
The entries grew more disturbing as the year progressed.
Lily wrote about learning advanced spells, about impressing her professors, about the "mudblood" slur, and how she would make them pay for underestimating her. She wrote about Severus and how she was beginning to find him embarrassing.
"He follows me around like a lost puppy. It's pathetic. I need to distance myself before people start associating me with him."
She wrote about James Potter. The arrogant, rich, insufferable James Potter, and how he had asked her out three times already.
"I said no, of course. But maybe… maybe I shouldn't. His family is powerful. Being a Potter would open doors."
Harry closed the journal with shaky hands.
He looked at the photograph again...at the laughing couple, at the happy faces. It was all a mask. Nothing but a performance. The real Lily Potter was someone else entirely. Someone is hungry and cold.
And at this point, he didn't think his father would be any better.
"Whatever they tell you about your parents," Petunia had said, "don't forget who you are. You're not them."
She had known. All along, she had known what her sister had become.
Harry tucked the journal back into the chest and closed the lid. He would read more another time...but not tonight.
Tonight, he had had enough.
Vesper flew to his shoulder and pressed his soft head against Harry's cheek. The owl's warmth was a small comfort in the growing darkness.
"I'm okay," Harry whispered. "I think."
Vesper clicked his beak and did not move.
Harry changed into his pyjamas, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed.
The watch Vernon had given him sat on the bedside table, its silver face glowing faintly in the dark. The toy soldier stood guard next to it, one plastic arm raised in a permanent salute.
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he would board the Hogwarts Express and enter a world of magic and danger and secrets.
But tonight, he could dream in peace.
<><><><><><><><><><>
The train was black and sleek, its windows dark, and its whistle sounded like an anguished cry.
It stood on a platform that was neither fully lit nor fully shadowed.
Harry stood alone on the platform, his trunk at his feet, Vesper secured in his cage.
However, something was very off...
There was no one else in sight. No other students, no parents, no conductors. Just the train and the tracks and the darkness beyond.
He walked towards the train. His footsteps echoed on the cobblestones, too loud in the silence.
The door opened by itself.
Inside, the corridor was narrow and dim, lit by lanterns that flickered with an unsteady flame. Harry walked past compartment after compartment, each one empty, each one dark.
At the end of the corridor, he found a single door standing ajar. Golden light spilled through the crack at the bottom.
Harry pushed it open.
The compartment was warm and bright, filled with the smell of chocolate and old leather. A figure sat by the window, facing away from him. It was a man with long white hair and robes of deep purple.
"Welcome, Harry," the figure said. It was no other than Albus Dumbledore.
But his eyes were not twinkling. They were cold and pale, like chunks of ice in a weathered face. He smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes.
"I've been waiting for you."
Harry tried to run, but his legs would not move. He tried to scream, but his voice was gone.
Dumbledore rose from his seat and walked towards him, his footsteps silent on the carpet.
"You cannot escape, my boy," he said softly. "You belong to me, Potter. You always have...just like your parents. You will make an excellent soldier."
He reached out his long, pale hand and touched Harry's forehead... touched his scar.
The world went white.
<><><><><><><><><><>
Harry woke with a gasp, his heart pounding, his sheets tangled around his legs.
The morning sun was streaming through the curtains. Vesper was perched on the headboard, watching him with calm amber eyes.
"A dream..." Harry muttered, breathing with difficulty. "Just a dream..."
Today it was September 1st.
The day had come.
Harry sat up, took a deep breath, and looked at the watch on his bedside table.
Seven o'clock.
"I still have a bit of time."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, walked to the window, and looked out at the grey English sky.
Somewhere beyond the clouds, hidden from Muggle eyes, a magical castle waited for him.
Ready or not, he thought, here I come.
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