Shadows of the Past
It was Boxing Day, and Harry Potter was sitting outside in the small playground a few blocks away from Privet Drive. He didn't want to spend any time near the Dursleys today. Or ever, but he knew he had to go back eventually. For now, he was tired, and wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
Harry stared down at his hands, which had a pair of warm mittens on them. They were a gift from Sam, one of only two people he could honestly call 'friends.' And wasn't that a strange thing to think, that two boys five or so years older than him were closer and kinder to him than anyone else in his life.
He couldn't remember a time before the Dursleys, and had always been told that he was worthless. That his parents were worthless. That he should be grateful for the chance to live in a cupboard under the stairs.
No one seemed to care about him. Adults, other children… no one tried to speak up for him, to help him. Either Dudley chased them away, or his aunt and uncle spread lies about him.
Yet that wasn't the case for Edward, or Sam. They saw the bullying, and tried to help. They couldn't do much, but the little they were able to help with, like having breakfast every day or clothes that actually fit him, then they went above and beyond to help him.
But perhaps, Harry's biggest issue he wanted to think over was the revelation that he'd learned on Halloween. About his family. About his magic. About… everything, really.
Even now, two months after the fact, Harry still couldn't believe it, and was afraid he might suddenly wake up and find it was all a dream, and his gifts and changes would be dust in the wind.
But so far, for the first time in years, Harry felt… not happy, but hopeful. He was excited for the future. And it was all thanks to his older friends. His mentors. Especially Edward, who'd been the first to take an interest in him, had helped him in ways Harry wasn't sure he could ever articulate.
There was also the fact Harry felt safe around Edward. The older boy was like an older sibling, in Harry's opinion. Was it because Edward was so much like him that Harry felt safer around him? Harry wasn't an idiot. He saw the same signs in Edward as in himself, that Edward had been abused by his family for his status, for something he couldn't help or control.
Harry took a deep breath, and calmed his mind. Once again, Harry silently thanked Edward for having taught him about Occlumency. It'd come easily to him, to the older boy's surprise. Sam's guess was that spending ten years living with the Dursleys had something to do with it, and Harry agreed. After years of abuse, both physical and verbal, it trained him not to react to provocation, to always keep a calm, neutral mask despite whatever emotions roiled within him.
The Occlumency training had helped a lot with his emotions, and Harry couldn't help but wonder if it might have been harder to learn if he were older and more used to not having to hide his feelings from the Dursleys for half a year.
A flash of annoyance towards Mrs. Figg for never trying to help like Edward had zipped through Harry for a moment, and he forced it down. Mrs. Figg wasn't to blame. Well, not entirely. The more Harry learned about Dumbledore from Edward, the more he found himself skeptical of the old man's supposed benevolence.
If Dumbledore had taken down one Dark Lord before, why hadn't he finished off Voldemort when he appeared? Why had he waited for years, staging ineffective raids and guerilla tactics on an equally mobile force? Why hadn't Dumbledore gone after the Dark Lord's supporters in the open, or just cut their support apart in the Wizengamot? He was still the Chief Warlock back then; he could have done a few emergency measures to push for support for the Aurors! Instead of those sensible things, he'd instead chosen to fund a vigilante group that was barely more effective than the Aurors. In the end, the great enemy of Magical Britain had been defeated by pure chance, not through any actual talent or tactical skills. And wasn't that a scathing assessment of the so-called 'Greatest Wizard Alive's' plans? It took blind luck to take down a madman who, by all accounts, was beaten by a baby.
Harry knew a lot of his perception was being colored by Edward's biases (Occlumency sure was helpful in that regard!) but he found himself agreeing with a lot of the older boy's comments when he thought on them himself.
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