The End of Pretence

Well, I was not going to post this today, but I didn’t count on the absolute giddy feeling one gets when they get their work read. Thank you Jilliane, I hope I don’t disappoint.

A wee explanation: Some of my favorite books start with a point that actually happens somewhere later in the actual timeline of the book. That’s what I did here. When I first wrote this story, I didn’t do that and it took forever trying to explain everything. So, I started over using this method and it seems to have worked. It flows much better (trust me, ridiculously long and wordy paragraphs that made no sense even to me, much better now) There’ll be dates and Harry Ages at the beginnings of each chapter till I get back to the train ride home 5th year. Oh, I also forgot to say excuse the Americanisms, what can I say, I’m a Florida girl.

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Chapter One

July 31, 1988

Age 8

Harry watched as The Dursley’s went off to get school things for his lard of a
cousin, Dudley. His aunt and uncle had grudgingly agreed to bring him along to
their yearly trip to London proper, because they didn’t want to leave him home
alone. All his usual sitters had come down with the terrible flu that was going
around, and though the Dursley’s wouldn’t have cared if he contracted it and died,
they had to keep up appearances. They left him here on a street corner across from
some dilapidated old pub and told him if he wasn’t there when they got back, he
could walk home for all they cared.

He knew better. Not being aloud to talk much had made him a great observationist,
and one thing he noticed long ago that they would never lose him. Hate him? Starve
him? Hit him? Yes. But they were inordinately afraid of not having him accounted
for. As if someone who terrified them cared or something. It confused him, and gave
him false hope long after he resigned himself to the fact that no one loved him.
Hopefully today would shine some light on this.

You see, he had been waiting on a day like this to try and figure out this
“freakishness” his family seemed to think he possessed. He had a few hypotheses, but he
needed to test them out. He relished the thought of research, he didn’t often get the
chance to use his intelligence, having learned the painful way that showing he was
smarter than his precious cousin (really, a rock was more intelligent than
Dudley) was not the way to make his family proud.

He mentally reviewed his clues:

-strangers seemed to know him, and were fascinated by his scar

-all said strangers dressed funny, either in robe/cloaks or horrible combinations

-in he needed or wanted something bad enough, it happened

-escaping Dudley’s gang when they were out to get him

-growing his hair back when Aunt Petunia sheared him

-food appearing when he went to long without it

-the Dursley’s punishing him whenever something happened that couldn’t be

explained

-their extreme aversion to the word “magic” or anything having to do with it (i.e.

movies, shows, tricks, dreams, etc.)

Really, his logical brain was telling him it all lead to one conclusion, but his logical
brain also said that that was completely illogical. Reason suggested, putting all those
clues together, that he was magic. That was completely ridiculous though.

As he pondered, he unconsciously moved closer and closer to the old pub. Stubbing
his toe on a loose cobblestone, he looked up and was surprised to find himself
practically next door to the place. A flash of crimson caught his eye and he noticed
all of a sudden that the only people paying attention to the place were people dressed
oddly like the ones who always seemed to know who he was. He leaded back and
watched, fascinated, as everyone dressed normally seemed to never even look at the
place, yet every odd dressed person looked strait at it. Almost as if the normal
people couldn’t see it at all. Seeing a man who would almost give Uncle Vernon a
run for his money in the size department dressed in one of those funny looking robes
and surprisingly a pointed hat coming down the street, he quickly revised his days
plan.

Harry quickly took out the shard of mirror he had nicked when Dudley punched and
broke the hallway one that he had filed the sharp edges off it. He checked to make
sure the make-up from Petunias kit was still in place over his scar. Then, he quickly
slipped into the pub using the large man as a sort of human shield. The first thing he
noticed was that there were a lot less people inside than he had seen enter. Then he
found himself a dark corner to hide in for observing.

Just in time too, for the next group to enter the pub (rather loudly if he did say so
himself) seemed to be a large family of red heads. He couldn’t quite get a head count
on them, they were moving around a bit too fast for him. He definitely heard what
they were talking about though. They were talking about him. He put all his years of
being seen but not heard to use.

“Today is Harry Potter’s birthday, your going to have to remember that Ronald.”
This was said by the woman who seemed to be the matron of the family, especially
considering the weak, “Molly dear, can we not do this today,” uttered by the rather
cowed looking man that was completely ignored. She seemed to be talking to the
youngest boy. Harry wondered why this boy needed to know today was his birthday,
especially considering he didn’t even know that.

“You have to become friends with him. We’ll arrange it so you two meet, convince
him Gryffindor is the best house in Hogwarts, you need to be sorted into the same
one so Dumbledore can keep track of him. He’ll be incredibly dull, I’ve heard he
doesn’t know a hippogriff from a hinkypuff, but you have to manage dear. I’m just
so glad you’re his age and have been chosen for this job. I know my little Ronnykins
will be perfect. We can’t have the boy thinking on his own, he’s too important for
that. He has to follow Dumbledore’s plan. Albus knows what’s best” The woman,
Molly was it, seemed to say all this incredibly fast. She had just stopped to take a
breath when she noticed two of her sons, who seemed to be twins, mocking her
behind her back. They had been doing such a good job of it, Harry had been hard
pressed not to laugh, something he did rarely. All throughout her speech, the group
had been making their way though the pub to a door Harry hadn’t noticed before. It
had a small mirror on it, which is how she noticed the twins. Whirling about, she let
loose the most God awful screech of “Frederic and Georgius Weasley!” Harry had
ever heard, which was saying something considering he had Aunt Petunia to
compare her to.

He watched them go through the door into what seemed to be a small alley, Harry
thought about what he just heard. Supposedly, this Dumbledore character had his
life planned for him, and he was a very important person. Harry would have snorted
if he wasn’t trying to keep quite. If he was so important to these people, how come
they left him with the Dursley’s and he’d never seen them before? He decided that
these people needed close watch, especially this Albus Dumbledore. Harry noticed
whenever he thought that name, something at the edge of his consciousness tried to
click into place. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but the memory seemed just
out of grasp. He shrugged his shoulders and settled into his corner to watch a bit
more. He decided to add the words that that woman had used to his mental list,
because they seemed to be important.

Let’s see, what were they again? Oh yes, there was hinkypuff, hippogriff,
gryffindor, and hogwarts. Right weird words those are, especially that Hogwarts…
Oh my.

And with that, it suddenly clicked where he had heard the name Dumbledore before.
It was The Dumblyman of the Castle, a rather silly nickname he had given to the
man who he thought was going to be his rescuer when he was really young. It all
came from a conversation he had overheard when he was around 2 or 3 between his
aunt and uncle. It was right after he was thrown in the cupboard because a piece of
toast had floated to him after they hadn’t fed him for a couple of days or something.
He had quickly learned that they thought he couldn’t understand them like their
Didykins (who didn’t start talking until he was four), so they would talk about him
after they locked him in his cupboard, which is were he got most of his information
on who he was. That was the first time he remembers them talking about his
“freakishness” and the only time he remembers them sounding scared. In that
conversation they had talked about a man named Dumbledore, who had left him
there, and was probably going to want him at his Hogwarts Castle because of it. The
week before, he had been cleaning the hallway and had caught glimpses of the
Camelot movie Dudley was watching, and when he heard the word “castle” his
toddler mind had immediately turn this Dumbledore guy into a knight in shining
armor that was going to come back and take him back to his parents, who were
waiting safe at their Hogwarts Castle. This fantasy had lasted for a week, until he
heard them discussing what they were going to tell him about his parents deaths. He
knew the car accident was a cover-up story, and they died some other way, but
questions were forbidden.

It didn’t take long for him to lose hope that Dumblyman was an actual person who
was going to rescue him. Deciding that no one was going to save him, he came to
the conclusion he had imagined that part of the conversation. It seems it was all true,
except he’s turning out to be not what Harry had hoped for. From the conversation
he just overheard, he figured this Dumbledore seems to have planed his life out, and
seeing as how he left him with the Dursley’s, he seems to want him broken. Harry
remembered the note he had caught a glimpse of that his aunt had left on the counter
when he was washing the dishes. Dudley had started to throw a temper n the next
room. She hesitated, instead of rushing immediately to his side, which is what
caught Harry’s attention. She usually dropped everything if his cousin so much as
sneezed. She took an extra second to look from Harry, to the note she was reading,
and back to Harry, before tossing it down and running. Naturally, Harry had to see
what was written on the note that was that important. The had note said,
“Use a heavier hand with him, and don’t let him have any friends -AD.” Since his
treatment got worse after that, he had to assume the he was the “him” in the letter.
This Albus Dumbledore, was probably the AD, which means he knew about, and
encouraged the abuse I suffered though with my “loving” family.

Deciding that the Weasley family is as good as any to follow, Harry abandoned his
shadow to slip out the back door.

Harry was stumped. He had seen that impossibly large family, not to mention a few
others, walk through that door, yet when he went out there, no ones was here. Where
did they go? The only way in and out of this little alley is that door, yet no one had
come back though it. They couldn’t be hiding; there was only one hiding spot, a
little barrel at the other end of the alley that looks like it’s been bricked up for years.
When Harry noticed the dying light, he decided he better get back to his corner. The
Dursley’s daren’t leave him for fear of Dumbledore it seemed, but they had taken
that “heavier hand” comment of his in that letter to heart. It didn’t due to give them
excuses.



Feel free to sugest corrections, either to my timeline or grammer (it's the devil it is, I've always hated grammer)

~Alto~