Chapter Text
The Dursleys of Number Four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
Vernon Dursley was a heavyset man who worked as the director of a drill company called Grunnings. He spent most of his days arguing about drills in his loud, booming voice, or otherwise complaining about the ne’er-do-wells of society. His wife Petunia was thin, blonde, and sharp-eyed, with a long neck perfectly suited for craning over the fence to poke into the neighbours’ business. She kept the house in immaculate condition, ensuring that not a single speck of dust dared settle where it didn’t belong. Their son, Dudley, was the apple of his parents’ eye. A round, pampered boy, who had never known a day of discomfort in his life, spoiled endlessly by his adoring parents.
The world of the Dursleys was precisely as it should be, with no room for chaos, no tolerance for anything… unusual.
Well, except for the final resident of the house, whom they tolerated very, very begrudgingly.
Harry Potter was a thin child with untidy black hair and bright green eyes hidden behind broken, taped-up glasses. To the neighbours of Little Whinging, he was little more than a sad curiosity. Petunia’s poor orphaned nephew, who kept to himself and skulked about in clothes that didn’t quite fit. If they noticed him at all, it was to mutter about “such a peculiar boy” and wonder why he always seemed so alone.
In truth, Harry was a lonely boy. He didn’t have any friends - his cousin Dudley made sure of that. Dudley was the same age as Harry, but more than twice his size, and held a sort of unspoken power over the other children at school.
“Stay away from Harry Potter, he’s weird!” Dudley would tell his gang at the playground, his voice loud enough for all the kids to hear. “My parents say he’s nothing but trouble!”
And, dutifully, they stayed away.
In class, the teachers barely noticed Harry. Overworked and underpaid, most were happy to leave him alone so long as he didn’t cause any trouble. The few problems he’d had with a teacher, typically on account of Dudley’s instigating, had been settled by his relatives ‘explaining’ to them that he was a ‘disturbed youth’ as a result of his parents’ death. A drunk driving accident when he was just a baby, they would recount.
Those teachers tended to avoid him most of all.
Of course, Harry very much wanted to know more about his parents. Who they were. What they were like. The only things he had to remember them by were their names, James and Lily Potter, and an old baby blanket embroidered with his initials. But the Dursleys had only ever gotten angry at his attempts to learn more. Don’t ask questions, they always snapped. So Harry had learned to stop asking. Instead, he mostly did his best to stay out of the Dursleys’ way so as to not provoke their ire. He’d found that the best way of doing so was by doing chores. If he dusted quietly, Aunt Petunia left him alone. If he scrubbed hard enough, Uncle Vernon only muttered a few words about “building moral fibre” under his breath and moved on.
Truthfully, Harry tried very hard to be a good kid and not cause any trouble. But no matter what he did, or how he acted, the Dursleys never treated him with anything other than disdain and suspicion. It was as if he were a ticking time bomb of unnaturalness, just waiting to go off at any moment to ruin their perfectly normal lives.
The most infuriating part about it was, in a way, they were right.
For as long as Harry could remember, strange things just seemed to happen around him. Things that he couldn’t quite explain. Like the time when Aunt Petunia had cut his hair so horribly that he’d dreaded going back to school the next day, only to wake up the next morning with it fully regrown. Or that time when his second-grade teacher’s wig had suddenly turned blue in the middle of class, right after she’d scolded him for not paying attention. There was even that one afternoon when Dudley and his friends had been chasing him down the school’s back alley, and he’d looked up and suddenly found himself standing on top of the school’s shed, staring down in bewilderment as Dudley and the others gaped up at him.
There were logical explanations for all of these strange occurrences, because of course there were. But sometimes, Harry found himself truly wondering. Why was it, that so many strange things always seemed to happen around him? And why did the Dursleys always blame him for it?
He didn’t know. The whole thing made him feel… strange. Like he was part of some puzzle with pieces missing, but he didn’t know enough about the final image to even know what to look for. He had no clue where to even start, and there was no one to ask about it. Not Aunt Petunia, not Uncle Vernon, and certainly not Dudley or anyone at school.
All he could do was keep living his life, and hope that when he was older, he could get away from the Dursleys and figure it all out. Until then, he would just have to endure.
And so it was that on July 31st, Harry woke up on the morning of his 10th birthday, expecting absolutely nothing from the day.
His expectations were met immediately when for his birthday gift, his Aunt and Uncle shoved a shabbily wrapped package into his hands that contained a pair of Uncle Vernon’s old socks and a bent coat hanger, told him he ought to be thankful for being given as much, and barked at him to go cook breakfast. Dudley, for his part, blew raspberries and made faces and complained about there not being any cake, which Aunt Petunia soothed by promising to get him something special to eat tomorrow.
Harry knew far better than to complain about the unfairness of it all. Instead, he cooked breakfast for everyone and ate his portion in silence. Well, he was silent. Uncle Vernon went on a long tirade about how tattoos were eroding the fabric of society as Aunt Petunia tutted along sympathetically, and Dudley made all sorts of incoherent noises as he gobbled down his bacon.
After they’d eaten, Uncle Vernon left for work, Dudley waddled upstairs to go play on his Nintendo, and Aunt Petunia decided to clean the front windows so that she could spy on Mrs. So-and-so and the postman as he delivered her some mail packages. Harry meanwhile washed the dishes from breakfast and wondered what birthday cake tasted like.
When he finished with the dishes and was heading out of the kitchen, Aunt Petunia came around the corner and thrust the vacuum cleaner into his hands. “Don’t dawdle,” she snapped at him. “The vacuuming doesn’t do itself.”
“Yes Aunt Petunia,” Harry droned tonelessly, sighing once she was out of sight. Aunt Petunia was fastidious about cleaning, and vacuuming the house to her satisfaction would take him the rest of the morning. So, he got to the task. Room by room, Harry went through the house, moving the furniture as needed, even wedging himself into tight spaces and using the vacuum extender attachment to ensure he didn’t miss a single spot with the vacuum. Dudley’s room took twice as long as any of the others, as Dudley was in there playing some fighting game on his Nintendo and kept throwing crisps onto the ground, laughing when Harry had to vacuum the same spot over and over again to get the crumbs out of the carpet.
By midday, Harry was well and truly fed up with vacuuming. But as he finally went back downstairs, he realized he still needed to do the living room. He had saved it for last, as it had a thick shag carpet that took every bit of Harry’s strength to push the vacuum across. He groaned just thinking about it. He considered putting it off, but he knew that if he didn’t do it soon, his aunt would notice and get mad at him for slacking. In truth, he was lucky she wasn’t breathing down his neck about it already. He could see her now in the back garden, pruning the roses that just so happened to be growing right next to the side window of Mrs. What’s-her-face’s house. He didn’t know when she’d gone out, but he probably didn’t have much longer until the summer heat became too much for her and she came back inside.
Figuring he’d risked things long enough, Harry dragged the vacuum cleaner over to the living room and began the process of shoving the unwieldy machine back and forth over the thick carpet, his arms immediately protesting the strain. Harry grimaced, and mentally wished that for once, the vacuuming could just do itself. Then he wouldn’t have to do it all.
Suddenly, the vacuum lurched forward with a strange, unnatural speed, dragging itself across the room as if by some invisible force. It bumped and scraped around, bonking against the walls, before finally settling into a pattern trailing back and forth over the carpet. Harry watched, stunned, his hands nowhere near the handle.
Aunt Petunia, either finished with her pruning or somehow hearing the ruckus from outside, walked into the living room, took one look at the scene, and shrieked, “What on earth are you doing?!”
“N-nothing!” Harry stammered, panic rising in his throat. “I didn’t do anything! It just started going by itself! Like magic!”
Her face twisted into a rictus of rage. “There’s no such thing as magic!” She snapped, yanking the vacuum cord out of the wall and stopping the rogue machine in its tracks. “Now get out of my sight!”
Harry nodded mutely and scampered out of the room, his mind whirling with confusion and frustration. It was yet another strange thing, and yet again, he was the one who had gotten blamed for it. But it couldn’t have been his fault. The only thing that made sense was that the vacuum cleaner had some sort of malfunction. There was no other reasonable explanation. After all, Aunt Petunia was right. There was no such thing as magic.
But a dash of birthday luck was on his side, because his aunt had not banished him to his cupboard, as was his typical punishment for such offenses, but rather banished him out of her sight.
So as a birthday gift to himself, Harry decided to interpret that order quite liberally, and treat himself to an afternoon free from the Dursleys’ presence at the local park.
It only took a few moments for Harry to put on his trainers, and then he was out the door and jogging down the sidewalk to the park. It wasn’t anything impressive. Just a small, worn patch of grass with a few scraggly trees, and a couple of rusty swings that squeaked whenever the wind pushed them. But for Harry, it was glorious. He loved it here, with no Aunt Petunia telling him to do more chores, no Uncle Vernon angry at him for taking up space, and of course, no Dudley to taunt him with all the things he could never have.
As he settled down in the dappled shade of his favorite tree - a half-dead scraggly pine whose branches reminded him of Mrs. Figg's fingers - he let out a sigh of relief. Finally, a moment on his birthday that he could have just to himself. He kicked at a patch of dirt with the toe of his shoe, leaving shallow furrows in the ground. It felt satisfying, leaving little marks of his own in the world. Marks that didn’t have to be erased like he was erased at home.
These marks in the dirt began to take on the rough, blobby shape of a cake. And when Harry judged it to be good enough, he sung Happy Birthday to himself, took a deep breath, and blew hard on the small mounds of dirt that he’d formed into the shape of lit candles. “I wish magic WAS real!” Harry muttered defiantly, a spark of bravery that he allowed himself to feel in this moment.
As the words left his mouth, he suddenly felt a strange sensation zing through him, as if he was receiving a static shock from something stronger yet softer than electricity all over his entire body. It was so intense, and over so quickly – lasting less than a second – that after it happened, Harry sat nonplussed for a few moments, wondering if that had really just happened or if he had just imagined the whole thing.
After a few moments of contemplation, Harry shook his head, and with it, tried to shake the experience away. He chalked it up as just another one of those things, like randomly hearing a high-pitched ringing noise in your ear, or getting a strong sense of déjà -vu. It didn’t mean anything. It was probably some sort of ungrounded static electricity from somewhere. Or maybe nerve pain from sitting too long on the hard ground. Or low blood sugar. Who knows? There was no point in wondering about it.
Harry was officially 10 now, and only little kids were dumb enough to still believe in birthday wishes. He was dumb for even making a wish, anyway.
Harry sighed and flopped down in the grass, humming a bit sadly to himself as he watched the clouds drift across the sky through the gnarled branches of the pine. He spent a good amount of time just staring off into the endless blue expanse, contemplating everything and nothing at once. He was just beginning to fully relax, letting his mind wander to a daydream about flying motorbikes, when he heard a familiar snicker that made his stomach clench.
“So, this is where you’re hiding, then?” a smug voice sliced through the quiet.
Harry shot up, his heart sinking as he took in the scene. Dudley was there with two of his cronies, Piers and Malcolm, standing just behind him. He must’ve stopped playing Nintendo at some point and decided that Harry Hunting would be a more fun way to end the day. Dudley certainly looked thrilled. His piggy face was twisted into a visage of cruel delight. Piers was grinning too, while Malcolm sneered and cracked his knuckles.
Harry kept his expression blank, though his mind was racing. “I wasn’t hiding,” he muttered, hoping they’d just laugh and leave him alone.
Dudley snorted, swaggering forward. “‘Course you were. You’re always hiding. What’s the matter? Scared of a little fresh air?”
“Or scared of us,” added Piers, smirking.
“I’m not scared of you,” Harry retorted, but even as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Dudley’s grin only widened.
“Not scared, are you?” Dudley mocked, shoving Harry’s shoulder hard enough that he stumbled back a step. “We’ll see about that. Come on, Potty. You think you’re so tough, don’t you? But I know better. I know you’re just a loser!”
Harry realized at that point that he was unlikely to walk out of this unscathed, but that didn’t mean he was willing to just roll over and take a beating. So he straightened up, dusted off his too-large jumper, and met Dudley’s eyes with a look that he hoped was steady.
“Leave me alone,” he said, trying to sound unbothered, but his voice had a tremor from adrenaline and nerves that gave him away.
Dudley cackled, and Piers and Malcolm closed in on either side of him, cutting off Harry’s escape. “Leave you alone?” Dudley repeated, his eyes alight with mean thrill. “Why would we do that? Don’t you want to us to celebrate your birthday, Potty?”
Harry glanced around, heart pounding, but there was no one nearby, no one who could step in and stop Dudley. The rest of the park was empty, and even the houses on the nearby streets seemed closed and distant, as if the whole world had turned away.
Dudley shoved him again, harder this time, and Harry stumbled back, nearly tripping over his own feet. He felt a sting as his ankle twisted slightly, but he forced himself to stay upright, to keep his face calm.
“What’s wrong, freak?” Dudley sneered. “Gonna cry? Gonna go tell mum? Oh, wait, you can’t, can you? Because you don’t have a mum! Nobody cares about poor wittle Hawwy Potty!”
Something twisted in Harry’s chest, the words stinging harsher than any shove ever could. A rush of hurt and fury began roaring inside of him, overwhelming his attempts to stay unbothered.
But Dudley wasn’t done. He reached forward, clenched his meaty fists down on Harry’s shoulders, and gave him a rough shake. “Come on, Potty,” he mocked, shaking him back with forth with each syllable. “Say something funny, like ‘I’m not scared!’”
Laughter echoed around the park, grating and loud. Piers and Malcolm joined in, their taunts blending together, until Harry felt like he was surrounded, their jeering voices pressing in on him from all sides.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it all out, but something was building inside of him. A deep, simmering vat of something that roiled inside of his chest like a nest of knots, tightening with every taunt, every shove. It felt like he was going to burst.
Who were they, to treat him like this?
“Go away,” he whispered, barely more than a breath.
“What was that?” Dudley leaned in, releasing Harry’s shoulders to cup his hands around his ear dramatically. “Didn’t catch that, Potty. Speak up!”
“I said, GO AWAY!” Harry screamed, feeling the heat of something rising behind his eyes, pulsing through his veins like soft static. He didn’t know what he was doing. He couldn’t explain it, even to himself.
But he couldn’t keep it inside anymore.
And then, all at once, a strange thing happened.
A gust of cold wind swept through the park, sudden and fierce, even though the day had been calm and warm only moments before. It whipped through the trees, rustling the leaves, and Dudley’s laughter faltered. He looked around, confused, while Piers and Malcolm stepped back, casting nervous glances at the sky.
But Harry didn’t feel afraid. He felt… steady, his anger and fear melting away as something else took its place. He stared straight at Dudley, no longer flinching, and Dudley took an uncertain step backwards.
“What… what’s going on?” Dudley stammered, his face pale as he looked around.
The wind swirled harder, whistling past them, and Harry felt an odd sensation in his chest, like he was somehow connected to it. Like the wind was an extension of himself, of his own determination. For a single, thrilling moment, he felt powerful. As though he could make the wind go wherever he wanted, as if he could push Dudley away with just a thought!
And then, with a final, furious gust, he did just that. Dudley and his friends were all blown backwards, tumbling down to the ground in a plume of dust and grass. Harry felt a surge of victory as he stared down at them on the dirt, shaking and scared and defeated.
As the image lingered, his mind finally began to process the reality of the situation, and everything he was feeling was suddenly overwhelmed by a careening wave of shock.
The wind died down in an instant, leaving an eerie silence in its wake.
Harry closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, Dudley and his friends were still on the ground staring up at him, wide-eyed and pale.
Had that really just happened? Had he really just blown Dudley and his friends over with the wind, somehow? There was no way... was there?
“W-what did you do?” Dudley stammered, echoing his own thoughts and looking at Harry as if he’d grown a second head.
“I-I didn’t do anything!” Harry retorted, his voice warbling with uncertainty. “It – it must have been some sort of freak storm, or something. Right?”
Dudley swallowed, his face contorting with fear and fury, and grunted back up to his feet. “You’re the freak! I’m telling Mum and Dad!”
And with that, Dudley hightailed it out of the park, his friends close behind him, their usual taunts and laughter replaced by uneasy silence.
As he watched them disappear, Harry let out a shaky breath, dread settling into the pit of his stomach. His Aunt and Uncle would no doubt be furious. Dudley would go home and tattle everything to them, and really, what could Harry even say in his defence? He wasn’t sure himself what had happened. The only rational explanation was that it was some sort of freak weather event, but... was that really the case? He wasn’t so sure. He remembered that strange, brief moment of control. That flicker of something more that had risen inside him. In hindsight, it had felt an awful lot like the sensation he’d felt just after making his birthday wish.
But no, that was ridiculous. People couldn’t control the wind, and birthday wishes didn’t come true. That was the stuff of fairy tales. It must have been some sort of weird weather thing... right?
Right?
Harry shook his head. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter to his Aunt and Uncle what had actually happened. They would no doubt blame him for everything, and punish him severely for it. In truth, it was best if he started heading back home now. The longer he waited, the angrier they would be when he finally got home, and the harsher his punishment would be as a result.
And so Harry began his trek back to Number Four, Privet Drive, still struggling to process what had happened at the park all the while. Oddly enough, out of everything that had happened, his mind kept sticking on the look on Dudley’s and his friends’ faces after the wind had blown them down, and the feeling of victory it had given him to see it. It was the first time he had ever truly ‘beaten’ his cousin at anything, and the feeling was sweeter than he expected it to be. Sure, his punishment from his Aunt and Uncle was going to be horrible, but he decided that he wouldn’t regret it. It was worth it, to finally know what it felt like to win.
He just wished he knew what had happened. Had it been a storm? Had it been him?
Maybe there was no such thing as magic, just like his relatives always said.
But maybe, a small part of him whispered, just maybe, they were wrong.
As Harry huddled in his cupboard later that evening, his stomach rumbling with hunger from denied supper, he pulled his knees to his chest and thought about how unfair it all was.
From the living room, the sounds of the Dursleys’ laughter spilled through the house, underscored by the blaring drone of some dumb comedy movie on the television. The faint scent of buttered popcorn wafted through the small crack beneath the cupboard door, mocking him with how good it smelt. All Harry could do was curl into a ball, shove his nose between his knees to block out the smell, and will himself not to cry.
The cupboard under the stairs was supposed to be his bedroom, his place of safety in an otherwise hostile house. But now that he was locked in there for the rest of summer, it already felt like a prison cell. It was a very small, dark, and dusty space. The cot took up the entire floor, and there was nowhere he could even stand up unless he flattened himself against the door and let the cot dig into the back of his knees. At the head of the cot there was a battered old shelf built into the wall that held whatever possessions the Dursley’s expected him to have, and at the foot of the cot there was a small dresser that held his clothes, most of them being Dudley’s hand-me-downs. Behind the small dresser the ceiling slanted too low for anything else to fit except for some random clutter the Dursleys kept wedged in there, but stashed between the small dresser and the random clutter behind it was a secret shoebox filled with all of the items that Harry wasn’t supposed to have - mostly a mis-matched collection of broken toys that Dudley had thrown out or abandoned over the years.
Otherwise, his cupboard was essentially just a glorified wooden box, panelled on all sides by dusty wooden beams that were home to dozens of spiders. The door did have a sliding metal flap that when opened, allowed a slim view of the hall and small a bit of the living room beyond it. But since he was being punished, the Dursleys now kept the window flap closed, cutting off any access to the outside world. It was a stark reminder that the Dursleys could lock him in here, with no fresh air or light, whenever they wanted to. They were stupid, small-minded, horrible people, and he was at the mercy of their judgment.
He hated it.
And so, Harry stewed, too upset to do much of anything besides fantasize about eating an entire bucket of popcorn and stare at the long shadows cast onto the walls by the single dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. His own shadow in particular stretched long and dark on the wall opposite him, warped by the angle of the light. For some reason, Harry found his gaze drawn to it, his eyes narrowing as he noticed that the edges of his shadow were shifting slightly, even though he wasn’t moving at all. Was he imagining things - ?
“You could make them all kneel, you know,” a voice suddenly murmured from within the silence, echoing inside his head.
Harry startled, his heart hammering as he looked around for the source of the voice. For a wild second, he thought it might be Uncle Vernon, furious that Harry had dared to make a sound. Or perhaps Dudley, playing one of his mean-spirited pranks.
But no. The house remained as it was. The Dursleys were still laughing and watching the telly in the living room, and no one had opened the cupboard door. He was alone.
His shadow, however, seemed to ripple even more against the wood panelling, as though a faint wind stirred it. Harry tentatively leaned forward, staring at it, half-afraid it might leap off the wall.
“Is... Is that you?” Harry whispered to his shadow, feeling ridiculous for voicing the words aloud even as his heart pounded with adrenaline.
“Yessss,” the response hissed in his mind, low and cold, the vibrations matching the rippling of the shadow against the wall.
Harry’s mouth went dry. He would have screamed, but his throat was too choked up with terror to do so.
He was going mad. He was hearing voices in his head, and seeing things that weren’t there. Either that, or his shadow had somehow come alive and was speaking to him in his head.
And he hardly dared believe what that meant, either way.
“W-what are you?” Harry asked, his voice shaking. “What’s happening? Have - have I gone mad?”
The shadow seemed to elongate, its edges sharper and more defined. “Genius is always viewed as madness by the ignorant. But no, Harry. This is the start of your new life. You can think of me as a... guide. A mentor. I am here show you things. To teach you to harness the power that already stirs within you. The power you unleashed in the park? That was only the beginning.”
“That wasn’t me, that was an accident,” Harry responded, his habit of denial long ingrained into him by the Dursleys.
The shadow’s voice hissed again, softer this time. “Was it? Or was it a glimpse of your true potential? Tell me, Harry. Why did the wind blow those boys to the ground exactly when you wanted it to? And did it not feel good, to stand triumphant over those who would seek to harm you?”
Harry swallowed. The memory of Dudley and his gang sprawling in the dirt flashed in his mind. It had felt good, he admitted to himself. And, in truth he did suspect that he’d been the cause of it, somehow. But he didn’t know how he’d done it. There had been something wild about it. Something uncontrollable.
“Even if I had done it,” Harry whispered, his fear ebbing into something less visceral as his shadow continued to speak to him and not attack him, “I don’t know how. It all happened so fast.”
“That is because you haven’t learned how to control it yet,” the voice said smoothly, the shadow undulating in a calm, almost hypnotic pattern. “With my guidance, you could learn to wield that power with purpose and precision. Wouldn’t you like that, Harry? To be the one in control for once?”
The words were tempting. More tempting than Harry wanted to admit.
“Why would you even help me?” Harry wondered. “I don’t even know what you are... bloody hell, why am I even talking to you? You’re not real, there’s no way this is real. I’ve lost the plot, haven’t I? Gone totally and completely off my rocker...”
For a moment, the voice was silent. Then it answered, low and deliberate, the words unspooling into his head like silk. “I am very real, Harry. You made a wish, and here I am. As for why I’d help you... let’s just say that our goals are aligned. Your strength is my strength. I want what you want. Power. Freedom. Respect. The more powerful you become, the more… fulfilled I will be.”
Harry took a deep breath, his brows knitting together as he attempted to puzzle out the shadow’s words. Assuming this was really happening and not a dream or hallucination – which, despite it being crazy, he was beginning to consider – there was something about the shadow that instinctively told him to be wary. His hair was on edge, like when Dudley tried to trick him into a bad situation by pretending to be nice.
But he also couldn’t deny that this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. If this was real, this might be his only chance to learn why strange things always happened around him. To understand what had happened in the park, and to ensure it didn’t happen again.
Or maybe, to ensure it happened exactly the way he wanted it to.
“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” Harry asked finally. “How do I know I’m not just imagining things?”
“You don’t...” the shadow allowed. “But what choice do you have, Harry? Who else will teach you what you are? What you could be? Certainly not those filthy muggles you live with.”
Harry frowned at the term. “Muggles?”
“Non-magical vermin,” the voice explained dismissively. “Like your aunt and uncle. Like your cousin. Unlike them, magic runs in your veins, Harry, and they fear it. That is why they hate you.”
Magic. The confirmation of the word made Harry’s heart race even faster. He thought of all the strange things that had happened over the years, all the moments he couldn’t explain. Could it really be true?
“Prove it,” Harry demanded, his voice steady despite the whirlwind of emotions inside him. “If magic is real, if I’m not just going crazy, then prove it.”
The shadow shifted again, curling and twisting like smoke caught in a breeze. “Very well,” the voice said. “I will show you your first spell.”
And as Harry watched, wide-eyed, his shadow began to move. It writhed unnaturally, its form shifting into something sharp and almost serpentine. The small light bulb above Harry began flickering wildly, casting jagged shadows across the cupboard. “What’s happening?” he whispered. “What are you doing?”
The shadow’s voice came hissing back, low and steady. “As I said, showing you your first spell. Focus on the light above you. Command it to obey you. Command it to go out. The incantation is Nox.”
“What?” Harry asked, pressing himself against the cupboard wall. “But, I don’t know how – ”
“You do,” the voice interrupted, cutting through his panic. “You’ve already done it, in the park, with the wind. This is no different... Easier, even, for I am helping you. Focus.”
Harry swallowed hard, staring at the dim bulb above him. His hands clenched into fists as he fought the urge to cry out for help. No one would come. The Dursleys would only laugh, or more likely, punish him for disturbing their evening with something unnatural.
“Say the word, Harry,” the shadow urged. “Nox.”
Harry’s lips trembled, but he forced himself to try. “N-Nox!”
The bulb sputtered once, and then died completely, plunging the cupboard into suffocating darkness.
“No!” Harry whisper-shouted, panic flooding his chest. “Bring it back! Turn the light back on!”
The shadow laughed, a cold, humourless sound that echoed in Harry’s head. “Oh, but that would require your second spell. Shall I teach it to you, or will you sit there cowering, helpless in the dark?”
Harry’s breathing turned ragged. The darkness around him felt alive, pressing against his skin. He suddenly thought about all the old fairy tales he’d heard about witches and demons, about the price of power and souls lost to darkness.
What if the shadow was one of those demons? What if it was trying to possess him?
Harry clenched his fists tight, his nails digging into his palms. “Why should I listen to you? What if you’re… evil?”
“Evil?” the voice hissed, almost amused. “What is evil, Harry? Is it evil to protect yourself? To demand respect from those who would trample you? No... there is no evil. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it.”
Harry didn’t respond. His mind raced, turning over the strange, heavy words. The idea of magic, the very thing Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always sneered at, felt like something forbidden, something dangerous.
“What if…” Harry began, his voice cracking as he finally arrived at the core of things, “What if learning magic from you makes me a freak? What if the Dursleys were right about me all along?”
The shadow’s form coiled tighter on the wall, its edges sharper now, like claws against the cupboard’s surface. “And what is a freak, Harry? Someone different? Someone powerful? Let them call you what they will. Their words only have power if you let them. Learn from me, and their words will mean nothing.”
The cupboard was silent save for the sound of Harry’s breathing. He felt small and scared, but he also felt something else. Anger, and hope. Anger at the Dursleys, for their years of neglect and mockery. Anger at Dudley and his gang, for their needless and dumb cruelty. Anger at himself, for being so helpless, so trapped.
Hope, that he might finally be able to do something about it all.
“You want the light back?” the shadow asked, its voice a silky taunt. “Then take it. Ask me for the spell, and take it.”
Harry lifted his chin, his fear mingling with defiance. He hated feeling powerless. He hated being at the mercy of the Dursleys. The shadow was something strange, and scary. But it had also offered him a choice. A chance to wield a power he’d hardly dared dream of. Even if he was mad, even if he was imagining this whole thing... what was the harm in taking a chance?
The thought filled him with a strange kind of resolve.
“All right then,” Harry said, his voice low but steady. “Teach me the second spell.”
The shadow hissed, the sound dark and pleased. “Good. Now listen closely... the word is Lumos. It will call the light to you. But remember, you must want it, Harry... you must demand it.”
Harry nodded, his gaze fixed on where the bulb hung above him, shrouded in darkness. He took a deep breath, focusing on the light as if it were still there, imagined it flickering back to life.
“Lumos!” Harry said, his voice clear and deliberate.
Something like static buzzed quickly across Harry’s skin, and the bulb flared to life, filling the cupboard with its yellow glow.
“Very good,” the shadow murmured as Harry blinked against the sudden brightness, his vision filled with dark spots. “You are weak now, but you learn quickly... Together Harry, we will unlock your full potential.”
Harry didn’t respond. He continued blinking as his eyes adjusted, his thoughts a jumbled mess. He had made the light return. His shadow had come alive and spoken to him, whispered secret spells to him in the dark, and Harry had used them. And as far as Harry could tell, they had worked. What was to happen now? Was his soul damned? Was he some sort of superhero? Would secret government agents be showing up at his house to run experiments on him? Would he need to be locked up in some asylum? Was this his new reality?
A strange silence settled between them. The air felt thinner, the weight of the shadow's presence beginning to lift.
Harry looked around, confused. "What’s happening? Where are you going?"
"Nowhere," the shadow murmured, its voice quieter now. "But I am… diminished. I have spoken too long. Existed too strongly... I require rest again."
The shadow was fading, pulling back into itself, retreating into the walls like a beast slinking into the dark.
"I will... return."
And then it was gone.
The cupboard was empty.
Harry let out a breath and sunk into his cot, his limbs heavy and his muscles aching. His thoughts churned, repeating the shadow’s words and the events of the day over and over, trying to find some sort of resolution to them. But his body was too tired to keep up with his mind, and he succumbed to exhaustion long before he figured anything out.
His last thoughts before he fell asleep were that even after everything that had happened, today was, by far, the best birthday he’d ever had.