He Was Six

Harry was intelligent.

Now, here is where we are forced to make an important distinction. Harry was certainly smart - he could learn damn quick, and it was obvious just from looking at his eyes that he was by no means a dull boy.

He was also clever. He had common sense and self preservation galore, and he could wield a knife just as well as plenty of the adults he had been forced to interact with.

And thus, Harry was intelligent. To be smart meant he could acquire knowledge, to be clever meant he could apply it, and he could do both of these things with distinction.

He was not knowledgeable.

This is the kind of boy Harry Potter was, and, in the end, it was what made his life worth living.

At the Dursleys, he had never really thought about such questions. Things like his worthiness to continue to live were questions one only really had to worry about if they had nothing else to think of. Sure, many nights he had sat in his cupboard and tried to think of anything other than the dark beast gnawing at the edges of his stomach, but it had never really occurred to him that living was a choice.

But now, he lived at night. He walked the earth with feet blistered and broken, and made a living by taking the livelihood of others. He was like an animal - he had survived because he was the fittest, and had never really lived. The moon was his only friend on lonely nights, and music sang in his skull to fill the thoughts he should have learned to think.

And so, the only thing to do was think those thoughts he shouldn’t have learned.

It hurt, to think of the life he could, should have had. His parents may have been drunks, and yet, his image of them was light and happy in the dark mists of his haunted life.

And yet, he thought. It was what kept him sane. It was what kept him Harry.

And, sometimes, he would yearn for death. There was nothing to live for, he thought, in the darkest corners of his desperation. Nobody would know he had ever lived, and the only effect he would have would be the inconvenience of whoever had to clean up his body. Just a single length of rope and some experimentation, and his suffering would end.

There was nothing to life for. Nobody to live for.

In earlier days, he lived for his parents. They would have wanted him to live. And yet, with the dark mists and rains of black in the depths of his mind, thoughts crawled often, and questions were solace. And so, he questioned.

They may have wanted him to live. But like this? Living from the produce stolen from people’s mouths? Living at the deficit of the world? The parasite of society, nobody to care about him but as a nuisance?

Would his parents have condemned him to this everlasting torment?

Sure, maybe one day, when he was old enough he could get a job. But twelve years? Twelve years living as nothing but a parasite? Twelve years living against what little morals he had? Twelve years living this waking hell?

Some of it may have passed already, but eleven years, six years, hell, even one month was too long to live this life.

His parents - had they wanted this?

No.

And yet, he lived still. And yet, every day, he grew paler and thinner, lighter, faster, closer to the description of a corpse - and yet, his blood still pumped, his heart still thundered, and his breath still trembled.

And yet, his soul still yearned for freedom. To know life as more than a husk of itself.

Why did he go on? Still, why did his heart thunder? Every rattling breath he took was merely a deficit to himself and the world he stole from, so why continue to breathe?

And God, if it didn’t hurt.

And yet, he lived.

Because he was intelligent. Because, still, his heart yearned to know. Because, still, he read every book he grabbed faster than he ate the food he managed to steal. Still, he had matches to light candles, and the flames of them flickered onto the pages which brought his life meaning.

Because he was smart.

Because he was clever.

And because he was trying to be knowledgeable, despite the deficit he was playing at.

But oh, if he didn’t still some days yearn for death. The days that all the words were read, and all the food was eaten, and his breaths were labored from the effort, not of doing, but of merely living. An effort that grew heavier and heavier upon his breast every passing day.

But still, the days did pass. Still, the sun set, and rose, and called to him with the sunshine so beautiful he could sometimes love the world that cracked him so.

He wasn’t broken. But he was certainly cracked.

And yet, something in him bore the pressure, the mighty Atlas holding the dark, weeping mists that threatened to overwhelm him.

Some days, at his most dreamlike moments, when he truly fancied himself drawing closer to the wings of death, he could see his mind. That love, that passion, like the steel pyramid holding the lasts remnants of humanity, powered by the last electricity the world held. And the ruins outside, shambling thoughts that sat, patient, waiting for the lights to die out.

And it rained.

The world is really beautiful, he would think. Pity that it has thorns.

And yet, he lived. It was like living a waking nightmare - but he lived it still.

He never tried to go back to the Dursleys.

Even in these heavy times, there were some lengths he didn’t stoop to. Those eyes… blue eyes. Hazy eyes. Smoky eyes. Malicious eyes.

Like a waking nightmare indeed.

And yet, that nightmare was his life - and he lived it. He lived it for many years. Maybe not twelve, but still - one month was too long to live this hell.

His name wasn’t Harry. Not anymore. It occurred to him that it never really had been.

He had been Freak, at the Dursleys. The boy who wept. The boy who, when commanded ‘go to your room!’ went to the smallest cupboard. The boy whose only friends were spiders.

And, nowadays, his name wasn’t Harry. His name had only been Harry when he lived for his parents, live because of his parents. Now, he lived only for himself.

The only time his name had truly been Harry was the night he ran away. The night the blisters first began to grow on his feet, and the thing that kept him running was the picture of his mother in his pocket.

But now, he had given himself a new name. It was even a full name, for all that was worth. Though the first name was the only really important part.

His name was Tom. He wasn’t sure why he had chosen it. But, one day, he had stared in the mirror, and thought that the boy looking back at him was Tom. He had grinned at the boy, and found that the boy scowled back.

Though he hadn’t smiled in a while. Maybe he had done it wrong?

And so, that was who he was. He, of course, came up with the rest at a later date, from his favorite stories.

Tom Rumpelstiltskin Morningstar.

It was overly-dramatic, of course - though, in his defence, he was six at the time. Tom was his name, a rather simple one, especially considering the others. Rumpelstiltskin - in honour of the woman who could spin gold from straw, or rather, the little man who did it for her. He may be cruel, but in the end, the girl struck a deal - and, in the same vein, the little man struck a deal, as well. One that he honoured.

It was a good lesson - to think before acting. And, as a plus, another lesson - names have great power. It was good nobody would ever know his original name, then.

And morningstar. The devil - the morningstar. An odd choice - who wants to be Lucifer himself, after all? - but one he thought fit him.

Morningstar. The one who fell from heaven to the very depths of hell.

He, too, had lost his paradise. The only difference being, he had never had his to begin with.

And, in the depths of Hogwarts, the pulse of magic made the quill write a new name. It shivered oddly as it did, the magic of a dark-haired boy’s choice still reverberating through it - and the name Harry James Potter vanished from the long list of students to be read at the sorting.

Thus, the name was shaky with the vibrations of the quill as it wrote.

Thomas Rumpelstiltskin Morningstar.

Life truly was hell. Give up all hope, ye who enter here, indeed.

And it was thus, that Tom lived, for five long years.

Tom didn’t do much. And thus, he was doing nothing when the letter arrived on his eleventh birthday.

He had learned to steal. He had learned to pickpocket. He had learned to vanish into a crowd, and how to wield a knife, and how to kill a man without feeling a spark of guilt.

He had not learned to repress the shock he showed, for just a flash, when a brown owl flew through the window of his house.

Well, ‘his’. It was abandoned, so he counted it as his, but really, it was nobody’s. He had just happened upon it first. It was good enough for him - he could light his candles, it wasn’t too drafty, and it had a fully functioning mirror.

Though the last point may really be more of a deficit. Something about looking in a mirror always made him uneasy. The staring form of himself, eyes black and haunted, fingers thin and twitching.

Or maybe it was something else. The sunkenness of his cheeks, maybe. Or the sharp edge of his cheekbones. Or maybe his paleness.

He would look almost aristocratic, if it weren’t for the fact that every one of these were overly obvious. An aristocratic face had only a hint of these qualities - but Tom nearly looked like a skeleton.

Mr. Morningstar, skeleton extraordinaire. It had a nice ring to it, but when made physical, it made him look rather disarming.

Or maybe alarming would be a better word. Maybe, though, it was more the way those features were sculpted that made him look so unsettling. The marble, immovable face that never smiled, the set line of the sharp chin, the slight crookedness of his nose from being broken one too many times. Maybe it was the lack of that small half-smile that seemed to always be on a child’s face, permanently radiating joy. Though, eleven year olds have usually grown out of that anyway.

Or maybe it was the eyes. Those eyes, that nearly begged to be expressive, with that death green color that made them so distinctive. Those eyes that wanted to express the deepest  pits of his emotion, and yet showed only the harsh shine of iron curtains closing around his heart.

He was short, too - something most teenagers would scowl at anyway. And yet, it somehow didn’t detract from his expressiveness.

The curtains opened for the first time in years, and showed a small spark of shock when the owl flew into the long since broken window. It was only a spark, though, gone before it had a chance to really flare.

He stared into those bright yellow eyes, and found in them not a hint of remorse. Not a hint of the pity that usually twisted the faces of the few strangers who deemed to glance at him. But there wasn’t malice, either - again, unlike the strangers on the street.

Instead, the owl seemed to stare at him with a kind of detached curiosity, as you may look at an ant. What is his life like? What thoughts does he think? What guides his unknowable path?

But, when he threatens to bite you, you squash him like the bug he is. You may show curiosity, but even that only extends so far.

It was the look of a creature who would eat you if it were large and hungry enough.

I smiled at the creature, and felt strain in my cheeks. Still, it came out feeling more natural than it had in a long time.

Tom had been rather startled when he had truly realized that he had forgotten how to smile - or maybe he had just never known in the first place. Either way, he had been practicing in the mirror ever since, giving it at least ten minutes a day if only to distract him.

It still felt unnatural, but he was getting better.

The owl didn’t smile back. Instead, it stuck a leg out at him, and Tom was rather startled to note that there was a letter tied to it.

He walked forward with even steps, each one silent. He had long since learned to walk without a sound. He knelt, flicking the hair out of his face, and hesitantly untied the letter from the owl.

“Let me get that for you, buddy.”

Tom felt, again, a sense of surprise. He had rarely felt so much in one day before.

He probably hadn’t spoken in at least a year. There was no need - not when he had too much pride to stoop to begging. And so, his voice came out differently then he imagined.

It had grown deeper, and gained a note to it that seemed to be trying to sound smooth and silky. It failed, though, because his throat mangled the sound, and it came out crackling and scratchy, like an out of tune radio. His throat showed its displeasure at having to mangle human speech by giving him a deep, heavy scratch against its walls, the sensation burning strangely and causing him to give one, strangled cough before he gained control of himself again.

Still, the owl seemed to almost gain a note of warmth in its eyes. He might be wrong, though - he was better at reading human emotion.

To his surprise, the owl didn’t flap away when he took the letter. Instead, it stared at him, and he got the sense that it was trying to look expectant.

“Okay, okay, I’ll read it,” he mumbled. He promptly wanted to slap himself in the head for descending to the point that he was talking to owls.

Though, in all fairness, owls are pretty awesome. In the popular meaning of the word, not, ‘deserving awe’.

Then again, they probably deserved awe, too.

He shook his head to clear his scattering thoughts, and pulled his attention to the letter. He flipped it over out of instinct, trying to solve the odd mystery of the being or beings who sent letters, via owl, to an abandoned house. Maybe they didn’t get the memo that the owners moved?

And were eccentric or rich enough to use owls as letter carriers?

Hey, it was his best explanation.

And yet, as he flipped the letter over, that notion was quickly destroyed by the address on the back.

Thomas Morningstar,

The floor,

Abandoned house on street corner,

Surrey.

He snorted at the accurate summation of his living quarters, but then froze.

Someone knows I’m living here.

They know my name.

They know I sleep on the floor.

...And they sent me a letter.

It seemed that, with every detail he learned about this letter, his confusion and questions grew exponentially.

He shock off the curiosity, deciding the only was to sate it was to read the damn letter. He flipped it over and broke the seal, noting as he did that the person sending it, along with using the old-fashioned system of bird mail, used the old-fashioned wax seal instead of those weird strips that you lick to seal a letter.

Maybe it was a letter from the fourteen hundreds, sent forward in time by a magician?

He drew out the letter, and another piece of paper came out with it. It fell to the floor, and he gave it a glance before redirecting his attention to the curiosity he had on his hands. He opened the surprisingly thick paper, which seemed a tint too yellow, and found neat script staring back at him.

. . . . .

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

 Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Morningstar,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31st.

Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

. . . . .

Now, it may be relevant to note that that letter has been laid out for you, in its entirety, for convenience's sake. If we were to take Tom’s perspective to a fault, you would find that he stopped reading the letter, if only for a moment, on the fourth word. He did his best to continue, but found himself looking up several times despite himself.

For a normal child in Tom’s circumstance, his shock would be conveyed by a dropped open jaw. And Tom, indeed, was showing his equivalent of that.

A widening of the eyes, and two thrown up eyebrows.

After finally managing to finish the letter, he put it gingerly on the floor, and simply stared at the wall for a long time. The owl showed not a sign of its impatience, and instead sat, patiently, waiting for the boy to overcome his shock.

If anyone knew Tom in a friendly capacity, this moment would likely unsettle them a bit. The boy was even less expressive than usual, still as a statue. His fingers, despite their usual twitching and curling whenever Tom did nothing, were as still as the rest of him for the first time in a long time. And his eyes had lost even that harsh iron shine, and now showed not a hint of being anything more than vibrantly coloured sculpted stone.

But, finally, Tom’s head fell back, and he gave a kind of broken half-chuckle.

He didn’t bother looking at the list. Not yet, anyway.

Magic.

...It would certainly explain a lot.

How badly Tom wanted to just write this off as a joke a this expense, but he couldn’t. And the largest reason was probably that one. It certainly would explain a lot.

Why the Dursleys thought he was a freak.

Where his scar came from, and why it never healed.

And, of course, the… incidents.

There were other reasons he couldn’t just write this off, of course. It was unlikely that anyone would go this far just to prank him. Very few people had this much time on their hands. It was a touch too creative, as well. A vaguely menacing you’re one of us kind of letter would be easier to send, and likely, at least as far as these people were concerned, just as effective.

And plus, who uses an owl to deliver a letter just for a prank?

He stared down at the yellowish letter, sitting innocently on the ground. And then, he walked on carefully controlled feet to the left side of his house, in the middle of the abandoned kitchen.

For some unknown reason, the kitchen had a wooden floor. Inconvenient if you lived there, but for him…

He knelt on the ground, and counted out the boards carefully. He could go by instinct, but wrenching up the wrong one could leave the ground permanently disfigured, and the genius of his hiding spot would be ruined by the obvious sign of something suspicious.

Eleven… twelve… thirteen.

And down one… two… three.

He wrenched up the board with a single, swift motion, and the now familiar piercing screech of displaced ground rose into the air for that single moment, before dissipating, harmless.

He reached into the hiding place, moved aside his candles and match, and lifted up his now prized notebook. And, laying innocently underneath, sat what may have been his most prized possession.

A single, sleek blue pen, with the label of some long forgotten plumbing company printed on it.

Perhaps not valuable to you or me, but to Tom?

Not valuable. Invaluable.

He strode over to the letter once again, and turned over the piece of parchment. He refused to waste a precious notebook page on this.

He took off the cap of the pen, and chewed on the back of it thoughtfully as he tried to decide what tone to go for. Finally, he threw caution to the wind, and just put his pen to the parchment and began to write.

Headmaster,

I have never understood the tradition of putting ‘dear’ before the name of someone, even if you don’t know them. And thus, as I do not follow rules I don’t understand, I have neglected adding the traditional address. I hope you’ll forgive me my rudeness.

I confess, to the first time in years, to being immensely intrigued. I still believe the most likely reason behind this is that it is a cruel joke made by cruel men, and yet, I find myself questioning you and this school you claim to represent.

I suddenly received a letter in the mail, or rather, by the extravagant and utterly inconvenient method of owls. It claims to be from a school of magic, and claims that I have the ability to learn this magic.

And yet, nobody comes to introduce me to this magic. Nobody comes to assuage me my possible fears. Nobody even comes to keep me from whacking a live owl that just flew through my window with a broom.

You claim this to be my birthright, and yet you also claim to have kept it hidden from me? I confess myself concerned headmaster, not just by the questionable method of your delivery of this message, but also by your questionable morals in keeping it from me until this point. I confess myself surprised and resentful of this cloak-and-dagger approach to introducing me to my heritage.

And, on top of that, I know not where to buy the materials you want me to get within the month, how to come to this school, or how I am possibly to afford it. I don’t even know if you charge to go to the school at all, or even if you are willing to provide me these necessary tools for my education for free upon arrival.

I, again, request that you forgive me my rudeness. But the way you have handled my introduction to this world you claim to be the representative of is not only confusing, it also strikes me as more than a touch immoral.

Though perhaps it is merely some error in paperwork. Perhaps lines got crossed, and you intended a more proper introduction, or perhaps even did not intend to send me a letter at all. After all, I know nothing of who you are and what your world is like.

But, if this is not a joke and I am capable of it despite a lack of funds, then yes, I would be happy to go to your school.

Forgive me,

Thomas Morningstar

He capped the pen again, and re-folded the letter with careful movements. He glanced at the owl, glanced at the letter, and bit his lip.

It was unbelievably rude and presumptuous. It was brash. It was, really, just plain stupid.

But it had been so long since he had had fun. What was life, if not at opportunity to throw caution to the wind? What was the use of his survival instinct, if he couldn’t occasionally have some fun with the life he had preserved?

And so, he threw caution to the wind, and handed the letter to the owl. It gave him a single, approving hoot, before flapping off into the warm summer’s night.

He sat back against his legs, entering a position that looked almost like he was about to initiate a prayer. An idea that, honestly, was not out of character for Tom.

He wasn’t sure if he believed in God, but he was fairly sure that someone had heard his birthday wishes. And they had answered.

And plus, if magic did indeed exist, then so might God. Who knows?

He would have to look it up, if someone responded to his letter and told him where to get those damn books.

Man, I really am stupid. Since when was I a thrill-seeker?

...Hah. ‘Cloak-and-dagger approach’.

Tom gave, yet again, a soft, broken chuckle. And then, he gave a snort.

And, before he could even grasp the sudden welling warmth that was sloshing in his chest, full on, bubbling laughter began to escape his throat.

Tom curled up on the floor, his eyes beginning to well up from the force of the laughter. The snorts were now closer to coughs as his throat rebelled against the sudden onslaught of sounds escaping it where none had done so in years, but he still laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

His laughing fit continued, until the sun began to set, and his stomach began to threaten to release the few scraps he had scrounged up yesterday. The laughter finally died down to broken hiccups and slight snorts, before a full on coughing fit caused him to curl up once again.

His throat finally had its revenge.

And, after a long time, he fell into a deep, heavy slumber, tears drying and forgotten on his face.

He slept without dreaming for the first time in years.

...I’m going to go to school again.