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The Lives We Touch | ||||||
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Category: Pre-OotP, Alternate Universe Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Remus Lupin, Ron Weasley, Sirius Black Genres: General Warnings: None Rating: PG Reviews: 152 Summary: *** The author has been reminded via the e-mail address on file that this story is listed as incomplete and has not been updated in over 2 years *** When ten year old Harry Potter is assigned to Maggie Thompson's fifth year class at Little Whinging Primary School, the young teacher takes an immediate interest in and liking to the strange but sweet young boy. As their friendship grows through the years, Maggie finds herself pulled into a new world beyond her wildest imagination that sets her on a course for love and adventure. Hitcount: Story Total: 67145; Chapter Total: 6484 Author's Notes: This chapter is just a litle look into Maggie's life now that Harry has left Little Whinging behind (sort of) and gone off to Hogwarts. In keeping with the title, I wanted to show that Harry touched more lives than he realized. Harry will return in the next chapter, I promise! |
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Chapter Four - Regrets Late September 1991 “Good afternoon, my name is Maggie Thompson and I would like to speak to Harry Potter’s homeroom teacher.” Maggie settled herself on the small sofa in the staff lounge and pulled her legs up underneath her as she waited for the woman on the other end of the telephone line to return. The teachers and students of Little Whinging’s Primary School were a few weeks into the new term, yet Maggie’s thoughts were still consumed with her last class of students. One student in particular. “Harry Potter,” she repeated into the phone when the secretary of St. Xavier’s Academy for Young Men returned and asked her to repeat the student’s name. “I was his fifth year teacher at Little Whinging and I wanted to discuss some things with his new…” “I’m sorry, ma’am,” interrupted the grandmotherly voice on the other end of line. “We do not have a student named Potter registered here at St. Xavier‘s.” Maggie frowned. She had heard this response many times in the last month or so. Even though this boarding school in London that many students from Surrey attended had been a long shot, she decided to give it a try. But now it seemed that she had run right into another brick wall. “Would you mind looking under the name Dursley?” Maggie asked, trying to keep the urgency out of her tone. “Maybe they registered him under his aunt and uncle’s name.” Maggie waited again and finally the voice said, “I’m sorry, miss, there is no Harry Dursley on our list. Have you tried Smelting‘s Academy.” “Yes, I have,” Maggie replied tightly. “Thank you.” Cradling the telephone in her lap and frowning slightly, her thoughts once again turned to the small boy who had captured her attention and her heart only a year ago. Harry Potter had stepped out of that damned supply cupboard on a bright day in September and her first thought had been at how small and frail he seemed. He was tiny and huddled protectively in baggy clothes that hung loosely from his thin frame, green eyes skirting warily behind glasses held together poorly with failing tape so they balanced crookedly on his nose. But as the year progressed, the young teacher couldn’t help but marvel at Harry’s unwavering resilience. Despite his small size and stature, never before had she met a child so unfazed by the constant taunts and bullying of his peers and classmates. Slowly, with a lot of patience and loving care, Maggie had been able to break into his little world as the year went on. And now, with a new class demanding her constant time and attention, Maggie couldn’t avoid the stab of anxiety in her chest. The first one had been a quick phone call, one she had debated over all summer and made before she could argue with herself once again that it was not her place. It had been the least she could do for the tiny boy she had known and hadn’t seen since that sunny afternoon in June when she visited his home on Privet Drive. So she had spoken to the Headmaster of Stonewall High School at great length about her observations the previous year in the hope they would make a difference where Little Whinging had failed so unforgivably. But the Headmaster had thanked her for her concern and assured her that there was no student by the name of Harry Potter at his school. Yes, he had been on the list to attend, but his name had been pulled at the last minute. No, there had been no explanation. Panicked suddenly, Maggie frantically scoured the records the school kept religiously, tracking back to the exclusive school Dudley had bragged he was attending. Another phone call had been made just to receive an equally puzzled response from Smeltings Academy. And so, in the first meeting of the year, the staff of Little Whinging Primary School found themselves discussing once again the fate of a curious green-eyed boy they all remembered, and who had apparently fallen from the very face of the planet. Maggie had even gone again to the house with her friend, Katie McNamara, under the pretense of returning a lost possession of Dudley’s. After listening to Katie laud Dudley’s achievements to his proud parent’s for several minutes, Maggie had questioned briefly after Harry…only to be greeted with a curt declaration that Harry Potter no longer lived there, and they would appreciate people not harassing them every second of the day. They had lived with him for almost eleven years now and raised him as best they could. They only hoped St. Brutus’s Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys could save the boys poor, wretched soul where they had failed. The two teachers had been shown the door soon after, led from the kitchen politely but with no room for argument. They were led past the walls adorned with family photos, not one of which contained even a hint of Harry; led past the small cupboard the sat under the stairs, heavily bolted from the outside as Maggie briefly wondered what could possibly be so valuable as to justify such strange storage. The door had been closed firmly behind them and Maggie had all the answers she could ever hope to receive, aware that they amounted to next to nothing. Unfounded hope led her on a brief search for the school, but to no avail. It didn’t exist, and according to the Dursleys ,neither did Harry. He had disappeared. “Miss Thompson?” Maggie looked up to see Little Whinging’s Headmaster, Damien O’Rourke, standing in the doorway and smiling at her warmly. “It’s nearly 5 o’clock…shouldn’t you be getting home?” Glancing briefly at the clock on the lounge wall, Maggie blushed and admitted, “I guess I lost track of time, sir. I was…” “Still trying to locate Harry Potter?” he asked knowingly, moving further into the lounge and checking to see if the tea kettle were still warm. Seeing that it was, he poured them both a cup and sat down near her on the sofa. “I guess I am a little obsessed, aren’t I?” the young teacher asked, taking the tea cup that he offered. “But, it’s just puzzling to me that no one seems to know where he is. I have called every secondary academy between here and London and none of them have a Harry James Potter registered at their school. And then those awful guardians of his told me that he is off attending a school that doesn’t even exist and…” “Sometimes the lies people let themselves believe are for their own good," the Headmaster replied, blowing on the surface of his hot tea to cool it off a bit. “Meaning?” Maggie asked, raising her eyebrow at his odd comment. Damien O’Rourke regarded his young employee for a moment and then answered slowly and thoughtfully. “So many children have passed through the doors of this school and I like to think, as a good Headmaster, that I remember all of them. The shy ones, who hid behind their mothers legs or curled up in their fathers protective arms; the boisterous ones, who ran in small, never-ending circles with boundless energy.“ He smiled wryly as he continued, “The smart ones and the ones who struggled, sometimes bravely and sometimes with tears and tantrums. The short ones and the tall ones, the sweet and the mischievous…” The Headmaster looked down at her in an almost fatherly way as he said, “They were all special to me, in their own way, and they all earned themselves a special place in my memories. But, Harry Potter was another matter entirely.” He paused to take a sip of his tea and Maggie watched carefully as he took a deep breath and continued, “Everyone at this school knew of Harry Potter, although his name was spoken with a variety of emotions and inflections amongst the staff. Strange stories such as a teacher’s hair turning blue were recalled with amusement that had tempered the initial annoyance and muted anger. They were laughed off as youthful exuberance in need of careful curbing lest the delinquent behavior that the Dursleys had warned us of grew out of control.” Headmaster O’Rourke stood up and moved over to the small window near the refrigerator and looked out forlornly upon the grounds of the school. Maggie took a sip of her own tea as he began again, “The stories were laughed off because we live in a society where we are accustomed to sitting back and allowing others to clean up their own messes without once having to get our hands dirty. For to do anything else might have meant that we noticed sooner, might have meant we glimpsed the obvious and blatant truth instead of the lies that were much more appealing to see. But the laughter was always slightly forced, a little louder and more raucous than justified.” He looked back at Maggie with sad eyes and, if possible, looking as if had aged twenty years in the last few moments. His voice was gruff as he said, “And so it had been with a little more trepidation than usual that, upon making out class lists for last term, I placed Harry Potter in your fifth year classroom. And that, as it turned out, made all the difference.” “But it didn’t make any difference at all,” Maggie said quietly, looking down into the pale amber liquid that filled her tea cup. “Ah, Miss Magnolia, I have been an educator long enough to know a teacher who will make a difference the moment that I see them,” he assured her, absently swirling his remaining tea around in his cup. “I had you pegged from the moment you nervously walked into my office for your interview. And you didn’t let me down.” “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand what….” “A good Headmaster always knows what is going on in his school, even when others are not aware that he knows. From a distance, I watched you with Harry…I watched the boy come out of his shell a bit in your presence, and I even detected the hint of a smile on his face one afternoon in April. And I knew that I had finally done right by Harry Potter.” A wry smile replaced his fatherly one and he continued quietly, “It is not easy for a proud man like myself to admit that I let a child slip through the cracks. That a first year teacher, fresh out of university and young enough to be my own daughter, could have seen something in Harry that I had missed for over four years.” “But it didn’t matter,” Maggie said sadly, studying the Headmaster’s guilt ridden face, “because he’s gone. And neither of us can do anything for him now.” “In all of my years of experience, I have never known a child to simply disappear,” the elderly British gentleman told her kindly. “Harry Potter is out there somewhere. And I suspect that Mr. and Mrs. Dursley would not tell you where because, like me, you represent to them what could have been. What should have been.” He looked at her pointedly and continued, “How things might have been for young Mr. Potter had they spoken more a little more kindly to him or paid a little more attention to him. And although we do not know where, I suspect that they have sent him to a place far enough away so that they do not have to deal with anymore well-meaning young teachers forcing them to face up to their lack of responsibility where Harry was concerned. And, possibly, for Harry that place is much more inviting than all his years with the Dursleys ever was.” Maggie considered his words carefully and then nodded in agreement. And as they finished their tea in silence, Maggie could only hope what wherever Harry had gone, he was somewhere a little brighter. |
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