Magic and Makeup
Harry had very quickly found a love for books after he had accidentally stumbled upon the library that humid august afternoon. With his love for books came a new confidence and a spine he hadn’t had before.
Every time he learnt a new word, or a new fact, it made him feel smarter. It wasn’t so much that it made him feel smarter as it was that it made him feel less stupid, less of a freak; better than the Dursleys.
When he read about how nebulosas came to be, or the particles of an atom, it made him think about how his relatives were probably too stupid to know those facts.
Sure, it made him less like his relatives, less normal, but for once that didn’t bother him.
That didn’t mean he was stupid enough to actually try in school, or heaven forbid do better than Dudley, but that didn’t matter, because he knew that with every failed assignment he got back, he knew he could have done better, and that was all that mattered to him.
With these acknowledgements came the realization that he didn’t really yearn for his relatives' love anymore.
And alright, it would’ve been nice for them to love him… okay it would’ve been really nice, but he had Mrs. Abbott now, and with her came the knowledge and irrefutable proof that it wasn’t completely impossible to like him like he had formerly believed.
He still didn’t believe anyone other than Mrs. Abbott would ever like him, or heaven forbid love him, but at least he knew that he wasn’t a completely lost case. He probably had some kind of disease, as aunt Petunia often screeched about, but perhaps there were other people out there who didn’t really mind him.
After that he swore himself to do whatever it took to get better, smarter, stronger. He didn’t need anybody to love him or to be his friend, he convinced himself again and again, all he needed was himself, his brain, and his books. And Mrs. Abbott.
Late august he had read the book “Matilda” by Roald Dahl. It was about a prodigy who was so very much like him. She loved to read, she was very independent and she had magical abilities, magical abilities! like him!
Her family didn’t recognize her ability. They mistreated her, the book said, they neglected her, and the good characters in the book said her parents were bad people for doing that.
If the way she was treated -a person just as freakish as he- was wrong, then wasn’t he too? Did he really deserve everything that was handed to him?
He knew he was smart -or at the very least smarter than his classmates- and he knew that he was worth more. He wasn’t ever going to be good enough of a person to be treated like a ‘Dudley’, of course, but he was at least worth being better treated than vermin, he was worth being fed and watered, and he deserved a real bed.
Because if Matilda deserved that, then why didn’t he? It wasn’t fair. Life often wasn’t, Harry had come to realize. But he wasn’t going to just give up without at least trying to make it a little bit more so.
The first thing he did was try to control his freakiness magic. He figured that if he wanted some kind of control over how he was going to be treated, that was the one thing he had but they didn’t. His one advantage over his relatives.
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✶⋆.˚꩜ .ᐟ˙⋆✶
After a long day of chores, they finally locked him up in his cupboard to be undisturbed for the rest of the evening.
He sat on the ratty mattress of his cupboard with his legs crossed like a pretzel, in front of him laid a broken toy soldier. The air was stuffy and the only light in the room came from the slight crack in the door.
He heaved a large breath and tried to imagine how he was going to do this. Was he going to just- force the figurine to float? Did he have to command the magic? Or just let it flow? Where did it come from? From inside of him or from the air around him? Was he like a cord leading the electricity or the very source it came from? So many questions.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm his racing thoughts. He didn’t know anything about magic, but he figured overthinking it wasn’t the way to go at it.
He had always resorted to meditating whenever he was in pain from a hard day of labour, or a harsh beating, or simply those nights when his thoughts would spiral and darken, and doubt would overtake him.
He let his thoughts come, but let them go before they could take root. Like the flowing of a stream. He had found out from trial and error that that was the easiest way to stop thinking. Not to hinder thoughts completely, but to acknowledge that he had thoughts and what they were, but let them go before they could take root.
Oftentimes he could hear a slight buzzing- no not a buzzing, more like water flowing smoothly, like rain, or maybe the sea.
Harry had always wondered what it was. It wasn’t that he heard it, it was more like a feeling that could only be described as a sound.
The presence -for that is the only way he could describe it- always helped calm him. It felt like it made him whole, the feeling that without it there would be a gaping hole in his chest. It felt like a mothers warm embrace, but at the same time like a cheeky giggling child.
Harry could now take a guess at what it was, and he believed it was his magic.
It took about 20 minutes of undisturbed meditation until he could feel the presence, the blue torch inside his chest. A soft smile graced his features, and a tension he hadn’t realized sat in his shoulders relaxed.
He sat there and admired the presence for a while. Eventually he tried taking the flowing water and leading it like water down a stream, from his chest down his arm, down to his hand. He could feel the magic flowing through his veins, and when it finally reached his hands it tried to escape out of his fingertips.
It felt like lightning jumping between his fingers, but he was careful not to open his eyes just yet. He definitely didn’t want to screw this up when he was this close.
He had the power in his hand, now all he needed to do was form it, to make it into an action. He wanted, wanted as much he was able to, that the figurine would start to hover.
He felt the power leave his hand, like blood dripping out of an open wound. But in contrast to a wound, his power didn’t dry out, it kept feeding into the action.
He opened his eyes slowly, making sure not to lose focus in the process.
The figurine was floating, it had worked! Sure, it was shaking a lot and wasn’t steady at all, and it was only a couple of centimeters off the bed. But it was floating nonetheless!
Harry was so overjoyed he let out a whoop and clapped his hands together. The figurine stopped hovering and fell down onto the mattress.
The joy was short-lived though, as he quickly realized just how loud his shout had been.
He slammed his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide in horror, deadly and rottenly afraid that he had woken up his aunt and uncle. He sat still as a statue, not moving a centimeter for over 10 minutes, until he was completely sure that his cry hadn’t been heard by his relatives.
He laid down on his mattress, staring at the ceiling for another half an hour until, eventually, sleep took him.
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✶⋆.˚꩜ .ᐟ˙⋆✶
The next morning he looked into the bathroom mirror intensely. He wanted something that his relatives would disapprove of, but couldn’t do anything about. They didn’t even need to notice it, really, he would be happy with the knowledge he had rebelled nonetheless. What were the ways one could rebel quietly? Can you rebel quietly?
He didn’t want to outright antagonize his relatives, he wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t want to be their slave either. He wanted something that made his resistance seem real, tangible, if only to himself. After all, a voice was still a voice around no one.
…Maybe he could do something about his appearance!
Harry smiled at his reflection. His relatives had always hated the ‘sissys’, ‘homos’ and the ‘boys acting like women’ on the tv, but they couldn’t do anything about it if they didn’t know what he had done.
He opened the mirror cabinet. Inside were two of Aunt Petunia’s creams, her makeup, some special soap and some other skincare thing that he didn’t really know what it was, but it was made out of glass and had a dropper cap.
He picked up all the things and quietly placed them down on the sink. He closed the mirror and tapped the sink. He began by simply cleaning his face with the cleanser, as the soap was apparently called, he dried himself off on some paper.
He then picked up one of the creams -daycream, it said. Well.. it was morning, so he supposed he should put that one on. The bottle opened with a click, and the liquid inside was white and cold.
After that he packed up the other cream, it said nightcream. He put that one back in the mirror cabinet, figuring it clearly wasn’t meant for the day. He would use it before going to bed.
Next up was the dropper thing. It was a clear liquid inside a white glass container, and on it stood ‘serum’. It looked scary, so he thoroughly read through the instructions to make sure he didn’t smother something he wasn’t supposed to on his face. It claimed to help prevent acne and dullness. He shrugged, dropped a few drops of the serum on his cheek, and rubbed it in.
He opened Aunt Petunia's makeup bag. He doubted he was going to use anything in it as he didn’t want to make it obvious that he’d done something, and he hadn’t used makeup earlier so it would probably just look obnoxious.
Yet he still looked through it. He was careful not to jostle around the products too much, as he knew his aunt was a clean freak, and might very well have a specific order of how things were supposed to lay in the bag. Besides, someone might hear him if he wasn’t careful.
He didn’t think he was going to have any use of much of what was in the bag, but he picked up some clear stuff, which read ‘clear mascara’, and some soft red lipstick.
The clear mascara looked interesting, but he wasn’t going to put that anywhere near his face, at least not yet. He didn’t even know its use, but he stored it away in his mind for later.
He picked up the lipstick and unscrewed it. He didn’t want it to be visible, and he didn’t want anything that had touched his aunt’s lips to touch his, so instead of putting it on his lips, he put some on his finger and then gently dotted it on his lips.
BANG BANG BANG!
He jumped like a cat as someone knocked loudly on the door. He quickly put the lipstick in the bag, not even thinking about the fact that the door was locked.
“Stop hogging the bathroom and get started on or breakfast you ungrateful freak! Dudley is hungry!” and aunt screeched as she banged on the door three times, for good measure, Harry mused humorously. Harry was of the belief that if Duddikins was so damn hungry, he could fix something himself. Unfortunately he had no one to voice that thought to.
He quickly but quietly put everything away, in the exact positions they were in before. He closed the cabinet and looked at himself in the mirror.
There wasn’t much of a difference, and you wouldn’t notice it if you didn’t pay close attention, but he was happy nonetheless. His lips weren’t garishly red, but they had a certain pout to them, and the skincare would only protrude after a long while.
It didn’t have to be bold, because Harry knew it was there, and that was all that mattered. Besides, he thought he looked prettier when it was subtler. He didn’t want to have a lot of makeup on, and he thought this and maybe something else was enough. Perhaps he could try to figure out what the clear mascara was.
Perhaps he could grow out his hair, Harry mused thoughtfully. That was a good idea. Harry thought he might look good with long hair.
He unlocked the door and climbed down the stairs. He wasn’t sure what to feel. He wanted them to notice the change, but at the same time he didn’t.
As he entered the kitchen, his aunt immediately jumped on him and began barking orders, snapping the wooden spoon at the back of his head in retribution for spending so much time in the bathroom.
She looked at him like he was disgusting, but not any more than usual. He let out a small shaky breath of relief he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and started pulling out a pan from the bottom cabinet.