HP: Of Raven and Claw

🙞 15 August 1986 | Little Whinging, Surrey 🙜

Little Whinging wasn't a remarkable place. Uninteresting, dull, and bland were more apt words for the little county. Just like it, its residents were as unremarkable, if not more.

Their houses were perfect copies of one another, adorned with white picket fences and trimmed gardens. There was no personality, no essence. And it wasn't only in their appearances, but also in behaviour.

Similar to worker ants, these people committed to a strict daily routine. At sunrise, they worked, and at sunset, they rested. Their hopes and dreams were uninspiring, and their lives could be reduced to less than a single paragraph.

It was an orderly community, simply speaking. And any deviance from that pattern was looked at with scorn and ridicule.

That was one fact that little Harry knew all too well. Their near-fanatical need for normalcy, he observed it from behind the tinted windows. They became predictable in his eyes, almost like cogs in a machine.

He learned to read them and comprehend their nature to the very minutiae. Soon, it even became a game to predict them.

His aunt and uncle were perfect examples of that. Petunia was the ideal housewife, and Vernon was the gruff husband. While she would spy on the neighbours and gossip, using her overly large neck to peek over the fence, he would complain about work.

Such was their nature - and also why they hated him. After all, he went against every idea they had of normalcy. Anything he touched became corrupted by the tar of his strangeness.

Regardless, it didn't matter how much his uncle tried to beat the 'freakishness' out of him. Harry didn't belong with the people of Little Whinging, and neither would he ever try to.

He couldn't, after all. It simply wasn't in his nature. Even young, he understood that. He was Harry Potter, the freak, and he was content with that.

🙞 18 July 1988 | Little Whinging, Surrey 🙜

The sky outside reflected his mood, dull and grey. Nothing was interesting to do or occupy his time with. Worse yet, the seconds seemed to crawl by, taunting him.

Such was the emotion he often felt whilst living in Little Whinging - and not without reason. There wasn't much to do other than reading books, and even that had its limits. It mattered not the deep love he held for literature.

It was Monday, and he had spent his entire free time in school inside the library, reading about kingdoms and knights of yore. Unsurprisingly, it was a subject of great interest to him.

In the fantasy, after all, he was whisked far away. Contrary to Little Whinging's grey tones, books offered him a world of magic and wonder. Where he could be anyone and do anything he wanted.

Not to mention, the library itself was of great convenience to Harry. There, he could hide from his cousin, Dudley. He and his cronies loathed the thought of books, after all, and thus avoided any library like the plague. It was the perfect spot for Harry to spend his time at.

And, beyond just simple leisure, he could also try to find clues about what made him so different from the others. An answer to why things seemed to inexplicably happen around him.

But even that was beginning to grow dull. Even though Harry didn't want to admit it, he felt lonely. Desperately so. Watching the kids play outside made his heart hurt.

It was an old pain, one he had already grown familiar with. He felt it whenever other children hugged their parents or when he commemorated his birthday alone in his cupboard.

Unfortunately, he knew companionship was out of his reach. At least it was there. He was the community's hooligan. People spoke of him with distaste in their mouths and scorn in their eyes.

His aunt's gossip plagued his reputation, and many parents did not wish their children to associate with Harry. And, as if it couldn't be worse, Dudley's harassment was an effective deterrent to any who tried.

Harry's appearance also made him no favours. His clothes were grey and oversized. As he was skinnier than his cousin, the hand-me-downs Petunia gave him weren't adequate for his body.

According to her, however, he had to be grateful that they even bothered. The money wouldn't be well spent on him, not even for a single set of proper clothes. Regardless, one way or another, he couldn't be more than just an mere observer in the community.

It wouldn't do him any good to try mingling with the other children. He knew he was different, that there could be no connection between him and them. Only books and their tales could offer him companionship.

He shrugged, resigned. There was nothing to be done either way. Either he sulked on an overcast Monday, or he didn't. Between the two options, he obviously preferred the latter.

Before he could open yet another book, however, something robbed him of the opportunity. It lurked in the corner of his vision, nondescript in the background. His mind, however, instantly narrowed down on it.

A lone tree sat at the back of the playground. At first glance, Harry misunderstood it to have branches full of black leaves. But that couldn't be it. He had never seen a tree to have black foliage before.

He narrowed his eyes and instantly realised his folly. Those weren't black leaves, not at all. Instead, the tree held a flock of birds in its twisted branches.

'Crows? No, too big, those are ravens. What are they doing here?' He couldn't help but wonder, interest now picked.

Looking around the playground, he noticed that the others were avoiding the tree, too afraid to come nearer, and Dudley was nowhere to be seen. He then glanced at his book as if battling an inner conflict.

The flock of ravens called for him, however, and his curiosity eventually won. As it always did. 'The book can wait.'

Without even noticing, his feet had carried him to the tree. Now in its vicinity, Harry further scrutinised the tree. Its wood was old and gnarled, as if already in mid-winter. Its shadow loomed over him, and the clouds in the sky rumbled.

An invasive memory wormed its way inside his head then. It was a brief passage in a book about trees that behaved erratically, out of sync with the ongoing season. They were unnatural. So were the ravens that inhabited the tree. Supposedly, they should be in coastal areas, not in Little Whinging, Surrey, of all places.

For some reason, that brought a smile to his face. He didn't even notice it as he peered at the congregation of birds. They all stared back at him, their eyes black like tar, feathers cloaking their body.

Surprisingly, the flock of ravens had yet to be alarmed by his approach. If anything, they looked even more comfortable with his presence. He, of course, took advantage of the opportunity and came closer, steps slow and measured. Soon, he came face to face with a raven. It sat at a low branch of the tree, regarding him silently.

"Hello," he offered. Instantly, he felt foolish for trying to greet a bird. The raven noticed none of his apparent embarrassment, however. It merely tilted its head, curious.

'What am I even doing?' Harry asked himself, unsure how to proceed or why he was even there. Just as he glanced around, though, he remembered something.

He was alone in the playground, avoided by the others. The people of Little Whinging found him abnormal, and Harry didn't belong there, just like the ravens. When he thought about it, they weren't so different.

"Do you want to be my friend? I could give you a name if you'd like?" He tried, but the raven continued staring. Its eyes were inky black and followed Harry with an uncanny eeriness.

"How about Omen? Do you like it? I read somewhere that ravens are... omens of good luck." He hesitated, not sure if he remembered correctly.

'It is said that they are omens of luck... or is it death? I'm not too sure.' Before he could try and change the suggestion, though, the raven croaked in acknowledgement. It was a raspy, gurgling croak, like that of a crow if it was being strangled.

The raven, now named Omen, rose from its branch. It flew with practised ease, coming to rest on his left shoulder. All that Harry could think or say was - "Wicked."

🙞 28 August 1989 | Little Whinging, Surrey 🙜

Harry looked over the ledge again, feeling his stomach churn from the sudden change in scenery. One moment he was running away from Dudley in the playground, then the other, he was on the rooftop of his school's building.

As simple as that, one blink, and he was gone. It did not matter how much he tried to reason with logic. It simply was not possible. His head hurt, and he couldn't help but replay the events of that day.

Earlier, he had tried feeding Omen with berries he had stolen from his aunt's kitchen. The raven accepted the food, though reluctantly. It seemed as if the bird wanted to say that it didn't need the berries.

It gestured that it could feed itself without help. Of course, it could simply be Harry's imagination. Or his sanity growing wane. Regardless, he could swear he sometimes understood the bird.

It was then, however, that the situation went sideways. Dudley, in a rare stroke of genius, tried to throw a rock at Omen. He, of course, missed, hitting Harry in the nose instead.

Omen wasn't thrilled with the boy, to say the very least. Its pelt around the neck rose, and its black, void-like eyes narrowed at Dudley. It was almost poetic that the clouds obscured the sun at that exact moment.

Immediately, the raven had taken flight, wings turning in a flurry of black and grey as it bulleted towards Dudley. A raspy cry came from its throat, its sound cutting through the air like steel grating on metal.

Harry could already see the disaster about to unfold, and a distant memory clawed at his mind. It was the true meaning of ravens. To see one was an omen of death in many cultures, and he could finally see why.

While he appreciated the sentiment, he couldn't let Omen, his 'friend', gouge his cousin's eyes like in some old folk tale. Being slower than Omen, however, he did not have many options to prevent the unfurling catastrophe.

All he could do was gamble that the bird understood him. At that moment, everything seemed to slow down to a standstill, seconds crawling by. He gathered all the air in his lungs then and screamed as loudly as he could - "Omen, stop!"

Something - he did not know what - crawled from underneath his skin at that moment. His skin tingled, and an odd warmth settled as if he had just eaten a hot soup on a cold day.

A brief image of wings spanning to his left and right and a terrified boy flashed, and then it was gone. Omen took a sudden left dive, leaving to the woods it would usually sleep in, not interested in murdering Dudley anymore.

Before Harry could wonder what that was, however, his cousin robbed him of the opportunity. Dudley's fear quickly shifted into fury, and the rotund boy could only see one possible target in the area to vent his anger at - Harry.

And so the chase had ensued, and eventually, Harry somehow 'popped' up to the rooftop. He could still feel the pleasant tingling in his skin from 'popping'. Alongside it, however, he could also sense the onset of a headache.

To worsen his situation, his classroom teacher - an old, shrill woman - was shouting for his name, trying to find where he had suddenly gone. Her voice grated on his ears and threatened to deepen his migraine.

Harry could - of course - signal to her from the rooftop, but that would raise all sorts of questions he did not want to answer. Questions that broke the neat, perfect pattern of mundane everyone seemed to follow. Already, most 'freaky' incidents were linked to him. Having any more of those would be asking for peril.

Dudley would snitch to his uncle and aunt, that Harry already knew. The boy seemed to take a sick pleasure in getting Harry into trouble, and took the opportunity whenever it presented itself.

That he already expected. What Harry didn't need, however, was his teacher raising those same concerns to his family. The Dursleys hated 'freakishness', but they hated it even more when Harry displayed it to the world.

They hated it so much, in fact, that if they could keep him from going to school and get away with it, they probably would.

If only he knew to control how often and when those incidents happened, he couldn't help but wonder. His life would be a walk in the park. Fortunately, he wasn't totally helpless in that regard.

After much research - or as much as he could achieve with only one school library - Harry had an inkling suspicion that the nature of those incidents was magical.

He thought of the Arthurian Legends. And, the further he investigated, so did he ponder the tales of Druids. The many secrets and mysteries surrounding the Celtic Tribes called for him. Even more than the myths of King Arthur and Merlin did.

The Druids, unlike Merlin, did not need a wand or staff to perform Rituals and Witchcraft. Not to mention their affinity for animals, a trait Harry most certainly had.

He could wonder about it all day long if it wasn't for more pressing concerns. Right now, Harry needed whatever powers he had to work. His teacher wasn't a patient woman, after all. If he didn't answer her screaming voice, she would, sooner rather than later, call for his aunt and uncle.

There couldn't be a worse possible situation, and Harry's options were limited. There was no way down from where he was, so he had only two choices. First, call for help and earn everyone's suspicion and ire. Second, magically reappear at the playground.

Unfortunately, the latter option grew more and more unlikely as the seconds crawled by.

His lingering migraine worsened, and a gnawing realisation hit him. There was nothing that he could do to salvage the situation. Either one way or another, he was screwed. Beyond screwed.

Such an incident had crossed too many lines, and normalcy could not be restored. The cogs would go into complete disarray. Harry could only shudder to think what his uncle Vernon would do-

A sucking feeling crept up his spine, and his insides were suddenly squeezed tight inside a tiny tube. With a thunderclap, everything disappeared into the background, and all went dark for a second.

Harry didn't know whether to breathe or not. It happened so quickly, however, that he was back in the playground before he could even blink. His teacher, oblivious, didn't notice as he reappeared beside a lone tree. It was one he was all too familiar with.

"Wicked," he whispered in wonder.

A deep, vengeful migraine was his only response.