Chapter 2
Harry will never, ever tell another living soul this, but when Voldemort offered his parents back he didn’t want them. The Dark Lord offered wrong. Harry wants to be reunited with them, yes, but he also wants to be set free.
Its fitting that the wraith does just that, free of charge.
“I thought I dreamed you,” Harry says.
“ALL THINGS DREAM OF ME,” It replied.
“I don’t think Voldemort does”
“DREAMS NEED NOT BE PLEASANT.”
“But you are,” Harry insists. “You’re the most pleasant thing I’ve ever met.”
“IS THAT SO?”
“Yes,” he says, with all the Gryffindor courage he can muster.
After waking up in the cupboard, Harry crawled into the living room and piled every throw blanket on top of himself. The added layers were well worth his Aunt’s screaming; without the blankets, he may have gotten sick.
Despite everything , Harry is fine.
Everyone inside the dollhouse knows he shouldn’t be. Even Dudley.
”Yer a wizard, Harry,” says The Giant.
“I’m a what?”
“A wizard. A thumping’ good one I’d say — once you’ve been trained up a bit, o’ course!”
“But I’m just me… just… Harry.”
“Well, just Harry, haven’t you every done summat strange? Summat yeh couldn’t explain?”
In another life Harry might of thought of appearing on the school roof or turning Mr. Henson’s wig blue or even regrowing his hair overnight. In this one, Harry can think only of It.
“Yes,” says Harry decisively, “yes I have. Will you teach me about It?”
“Me? No, ‘fraid not. Dumbledore will though! Great man, Dumbledore!” As Hagrid launches into a tirade and Uncle tries to keep Harry from Hogwarts, no one is aware of this great miscommunication. And that, more than anything else, is a shame.
“What do you see, Harry? When you look into the mirror?”
“I see my family, Sir” Harry says.
“Your mother and father loved you very much,” Dumbledore assumes. “Still. It does not do well to dwell on the impossible. Many a great man has wasted away in front of the Mirror of Erised.”
Harry drinks in the impression of It for the last time. Even this supposedly legendary mirror cannot contain It, cannot display It. The image is fuzzy, like a camera that can’t —or maybe won’t— focus. Its aura is missing, too. There’s no heavy-silent-completion. The mirror is an empty promise.
“I understand, Sir.”
“Wonderful, my boy,” the man twinkles.
“Sir?” asks Harry as they leave. “What do you see?”
“Me? I see myself with socks!” says Dumbledore. Harry thinks his first impression of the headmaster was correct: this man is Barmy.
Both leave the room. Both remain ignorant. Both saw It.
Though Professor Quirrel is hard to understand and reeks so strongly of pickled garlic Harry gets migraines, he still loves Defence class. There’s just something about the course that reminds Harry of It. What it is, he doesn’t know, but the fact remains Its aura clings to that classroom like Neville clung to his broom before falling.
Harry is certain he will never, ever forget Quirrel disintegrating under his hands. He will never, ever forget the pained screams or the putrid sent or the soft, fine-grained texture of ash. It was awful. He killed a man. Even if he did have Voldemort on the back of his head, Quirrel was alive. Then Harry un-alived him.
The headmaster tells Harry not to feel bad. ‘My boy,’ he had twinkled, ‘it’s alright. It was for the grater good. No one needs to know. I’ll keep it from the school, I promise.’
See — the thing is — Harry didn’t feel bad. Well, he did.
But then he felt It. And then everything but It stopped mattering.
Then, he got to talk to It. And when he woke up to Dumbledore twinkling, part of Harry hated the headmaster. Just a small part. But a part.
Harry’s fairly certain he knows what It is now. He felt it slightly when he and Ron bludgeoned the Troll and then a lot when he and Draco were in the forest.
Hardy doesn’t know why, exactly, but he’s certain he was never supposed to meet It like he has.
“Firenze, you let a Child of Pluto touch you? A human I could look past, but a Child of Pluto?”
“He’s a child, Bane,” the centaur Harry rides sounds defensive. The other one, Bane, looks mad.
“Yes. Of Pluto. Put it down.” Bane is like Aunt and Uncle, Harry thinks. He doesn’t like him.
“Another unicorn was slain. And Mars is bright tonight.”
“Then let Mars’ light consume it. You have no business touching it.” No, Harry doesn’t like Bane at all.
Harry doesn’t tell Neville or Hermione or Ron, but he goes back to visit the dog standing over the trap door. When it’s just him the Cerberus is a ball of putty, warm in Harry’s tender hands. He names each head: Margot, Daisy, and Sprite. They each have their own personalities. In fact, Margot and Daisy often argue with one another—or at least Harry thinks so. The only thing they all do, besides bark and drool, is love Harry.
They like him so much. It’s a stark difference from them looking ready to tear little first years hiding from Filch apart.
He doesn’t know why.
“Can I stay this time? Please?”
It says nothing.
“I came back didn’t I?”
“IM SORRY,” It says.
I am the end and the beginning. All things come from me and come to me. I am silent and I am loud. I am kind and I am cruel. Men beg for me and beg to escape me.
I am inevitable.
Who am I?