Chapter 2
Chapter 2
A year prior
Little Georgie was skipping through the grass.
He couldn’t help it.
For all that he enjoyed being the focus of love, he wasn’t used to the attention. He needed some time alone which as a young child, he couldn’t get. But there was only so much he could handle before ‘loving’ turned into ‘overbearing’, so he slipped out his window and disappeared into the night.
He understood that what he did was irresponsible.
He knew.
He just didn’t care.
Because the front his new family put up? That wonderful family love? It didn’t exist. But it took him so long to notice because for once in his life, he wanted to be deceived. Lied to.
But if any trait of Harry Potter carried through completely, it was his hate of lies. And liars.
So eventually it took all his efforts not to scream at his doting parents.
You have TWO sons!
Father, stop pretending that you aren’t a cheat!
Mother, that box of antidepressants you hide in the bathroom can’t make anything better! Don’t run away from reality!
Bill is beautiful, wonderful and has so many good things about him! Things you refuse to recognize because of a small speech defect!
Bill! Stop putting yourself down or selling yourself short. You are capable of great things one day.
Eventually he couldn’t hold it all in.
But for all that the days belonged to the consistent attention of the adults, the nights were an entirely different thing altogether.
They belonged to him.
And him alone.
Not that anyone knew, of course.
***
Although Georgie didn’t have his magic anymore, it wasn’t gone completely. Or forever, he suspected. After all, as Snape had aptly put it, they had been doing nothing but foolish ‘wand-waving’. None of the so-called ‘wizards’ could do any worthwhile magic to speak of without their wands.
And the Ministry liked it that way.
After all, it’s so much easier to control a herd of sheep. Snap one’s wand and they are helpless. Chuck them in Azkaban and they are stuck. Throw them into the muggle world and they are lost. Completely. Ignorant. Scared. Powerless. All the more reason to follow the rules. To let greedy idiots ban entire branches of magic. To make everyone reliant on a fragile little stick.
And as sad as it was to admit, Harry was one of those sheep.
Of course he could have chosen the ‘simple’ way. Taken a long strand of his hair, some wood and made a substitute. But that wouldn’t have solved the problem. It would have actually made it worse. Because as a child, he has the unique opportunity to re-learn. Properly.
So every night he slips out. To practice.
But so far he has had no luck. All his abilities seem to come down to is Parseltongue and some Metamorphism. So basically, the same bloodline gifts he had in his last life. One of which was the very thing that grew his hair back overnight, mended broken bones and even maintained his very mirror-image, stereotypical Potter appearance no matter how beaten and bloody he got. But it seemed to lay forgotten as soon as he left for Hogwarts even when he can remember practicing changing his features with plans to run away and not be taken back to the Dursleys like so many times before when he was ‘miraculously’ found by ‘child services’ half-way across the country.
And the other? The ‘dark’ gift the old pedophile swore up-and-down was a result of housing a Hocrux? One meant to disappear as soon as its gone? It didn’t. So someone lied (how surprising) and either Lily Evans was no muggle-born (or was just less than faithful, and isn’t that a disturbing thought when thinking with whom?!) or the Potters had more secrets he never knew. All three were equally likely.
But what use was the ability to speak to snakes in a deadbeat town in the middle of nowhere and to be able to rearrange his face? Literally? Other than for having a very ‘interesting’ conversation with some pythons at the zoo that only think about food or making plans to run away and live a life of crime (which he wasn’t) being a Parseltongue and a Metamorphagus in real life was hardly useful.