-J. R. R. Tolkien

~*~

CHAPTER TWO: THE FIRST TURNING

Harry wasn’t entirely certain as to what he had expected to discover by coming to Godric’s Hollow, but by the end of his fourth day he was clear on one thing; until he knew what it was he was looking for here, he was wasting his time. Even the mirror couldn’t help him.

He’d found the mirror buried beneath a heap of pulpy wood and rotting fabric that had probably passed as a bed or possibly a sofa in it’s previous life. Its frame had long ago fallen off, but the reflective surface was still intact with only a thin spider-web of a crack marring its appearance. Of course he’d nearly dropped it in surprise when his dirt-smudged reflection had let out a congested, barking sort of cough.

"Took you long enough dearie," it wheezed, brushing dirt out its hair even as it tried to polish the inside of the reflective surface with its sleeve.

Harry had taken the hint and used an old T-shirt from his pack to clean off the worst of the accumulated muck and grime.

"Have you been here this whole time?" Harry asked, starring at his disheveled reflection in stunned disbelief.

It smirked at him, raising an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"Err . . ."

"Stumped the boy hero, did I?" crowed the reflection, its smirk broadening. Harry stared at himself uneasily. There was something in the smirk that reminded him disturbingly of Draco Malfoy.

At the thought of the boy who had been Harry’s sworn enemy since their first train ride to Hogwarts, Harry felt the unmistakable heat of anger creeping up his neck. Malfoy . . . who had been responsible for cursing Katie with that damned necklace . . .who had nearly killed Ron by giving Slughorn the poisoned wine as a gift . . .Malfoy, who had been responsible for trying to kill Dumbledore and who, in the end, had succeeded, even if someone else had ended up doing it for him.

"Disturbed you did I?" said the mirror softly, reaching out one finger as if it could reach through the glass and touch Harry’s face.

Harry flinched reflexively and his reflection chuckled appreciatively.

"Fear and Anger." The mirror’s quiet tone was contemplative now, almost sad. "Not a good mix Mr. Potter, not good at all."

"What are you?" asked Harry before he could help himself. He knew what it was after all; a mirror. It was just a mirror, and a mirror couldn’t hurt him, could it?

"I’m you," said his reflection, shrugging delicately and sticking its hands in its pockets.

"I- I mean, when no one’s here. When there’s nothing to reflect, what are you then?"

"I just -am," said the mirror with a half smile. "I simply exist until it is time to reflect."

"Not doing a very good job of it, are you?" said Harry, looking critically at his reflection which was now slouched against the inside of the frame as if it had the weight of the world on it’s shoulders, its hands still jammed in its pockets. Harry himself was standing upright, his arms crossed against his chest, watching his reflection through narrowed eyes.

"My job is to reflect the truth, Mr. Potter, whether it can be seen on the outside or not."

"What do you mean?" asked Harry, his breath catching in his chest as the reflection’s eyes slowly took on a red glow, its pupils narrowing into snake-like slits. "Oh my god!"

"That is what I see in your mind. It is what you fear the most," said the mirror conversationally, shaking itself like a dog after a bath, its features once more reflecting those Harry was so familiar with. "You are afraid that he will use you; possess you, like he did at the Ministry-"

"That’s not-" began Harry, but stopped as his reflection raised a hand to stem his flow of words.

"Possess you, and then use you to hurt those you care most about," finished his reflection.

Harry, who had opened his mouth to protest, closed it again.

"How – How did you know?" he asked finally, eyeing the mirror suspiciously.

"I told you," said the mirror tiredly. "I reflect the truth. It doesn’t matter if you believe it’s the truth or not. I say what I see; whether it is a first gray hair or a love bite whose owner has tried to cover it with makeup, or the deep and abiding fear of hurting those you care about that you seem so intent on denying."

"I’m not denying-"

"Please, Potter. Why do you think you’re here alone?"

"I – well I-"

"Exactly."

"But it’s for their own good," Harry whispered.

"That’s what you keep telling yourself," snapped the mirror.

"Well, it’s true!" Harry insisted. "They are safer without me, and besides, I’m not going to be very good company until I’ve figured this damned thing out."

"You know, Potter," said the mirror quietly, regarding Harry with an expression very much like pity, "there was once a wise man who said; The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him."

"Ralph Waldo Emerson," said Harry automatically, then did a double take. "When did you ever read Emerson?"

"I didn’t," said the mirror, the smirk once more firmly in place, "you did."

* * *

Harry had thought that he’d have to leave the mirror when he moved on, but then had decided to ply it with the same charm he’d used on his broomstick and shrink it down to an easily manigable size. No point in leaving it around for the Muggles to find after all.

His reflection had muttered incessantly about "the indignity of it" until Harry had silenced it by wrapping it tightly in the dirty black T-shirt he’d used to wipe it clean and sticking it into the bottom of his pack.

He had, until his conversation with the mirror, been at a loss where to look next in his search for the remaining Horcrux’s. But in the end, it was something the mirror had said that had helped him make up his mind. It had gotten him thinking. . . remembering where he’d been when he’d read the words the mirror had quoted at him . . .realizing that there was someone he needed to talk to . . .something he had left undone.

Harry spent one last night in the tree house, taking comfort in the now-familiar night sounds around him; the babble of the river, the chirping of the crickets and voice-like rustlings of the wind in the trees; like a small child clutching a well-loved blanket or teddy-bear to it’s chest.

He was up before dawn, eating quickly; one of the mini-meals Ron had packed for him. A quick dip in the river; with the hot air trick of Hermione’s to dry him off, some clean clothes from his pack and he was ready to go.

With a final look around him, Harry took leave of number eleven Holly Drive. He’d be back. There was something here that he was supposed to find. He could feel it, like a splinter in his mind. But somehow, instinctively, he also knew that it was not yet time. His path would lead him back here, oh yes, he was almost as certain of that as he was of where he needed to go next – and it was the last place on earth that he wanted to go.

* * *

Privet Drive looked just the same as it ever did. The neat square houses squatted squarely on their neat, square lots, all of them looking rather out of place in the surrealist colors of an unusually vivid Thursday morning sunrise.

Harry, who had seen plenty of sunrises over Privet Drive, felt that he was well-qualified to judge. It wasn’t simply unusually vivid, but downright spectacular. So clear! The air seemed to have crystallized somehow, the colors refracted, purified, until each shade of pink and magenta; every orange and yellow stood out from the rest with startling clarity. He could feel the colors burning into his skin, searing into his bones until his very brain seemed to be on fire with the intensity of it. Had he ever seen anything properly before?

The color and splendid clarity of light acted on his soul much like Phoenix song, in that suddenly he felt lighter, braver, as if every fear had fallen away, leaving only the color and light and sound . . .

He could have sworn that he had heard the briefest snatch of Phoenix song, but it couldn’t be. . .not here . . .not on Privet Drive . . .

Harry swiveled about, squinting back over his shoulder, toward the west where the dark purple shadows of night were fast being overlaid with streaks of chartreuse and vermilion; nothing.

He turned slowly in a circle, breathing deeply, his eyes absorbing the light, ears listening hard for even the smallest scrap of music; but the silence was so deep he wondered for a moment if he was still asleep. Never, even in the earliest hours of the morning, had Privet Drive ever been as perfectly silent as it was at this moment.

"A tribute to the sunrise," Harry murmured, then winced. He had broken the spell. Whatever toehold magic had held over Privet Drive, however briefly, was gone. As if someone had flipped a switch, Harry was suddenly aware of the swishing of traffic on Magnolia Drive; of the underlying hum of the power wires and the incessant barking of a dog from somewhere in the vicinity of the play park. The vivid colors of sunrise were fading into an indistinct blue. Somewhere nearby a car door slammed and Harry came to himself with a start.

It wouldn’t do for him to be seen lurking around number four, especially by Uncle Vernon who (Harry glanced at his watch) would be leaving for work in a little less than an hour.

* * *

It wasn’t that Harry was afraid of Vernon Dursley. He hadn’t been truly afraid of his Uncle in years. But there was something he needed to know; something he should have asked a long time ago. He had to talk to his Aunt. He had to know the truth about some things and he had the distinct feeling that it was not something that she either would not, or could not bring herself to speak of them in front of her husband. So Harry would stay out of sight, lay low, until his Uncle had left for the day, Dudley too, come to think of it. Harry didn’t put it past that porky son-of-a bitch to call for his Daddy if he were to catch site of Harry after they thought he was gone for the summer.

A tabby cat had once perched on the very wall Harry was sitting on, though he couldn’t have known it. The cat had most definitely caught Vernon Dursley’s attention when he’d come home that fateful Tuesday sixteen years ago. Uncle Vernon, however, didn’t so much as blink at the tall, black-haired, bespectacled boy perched on it now; though the fact that the boy was hidden by an invisibility cloak probably had a lot to do with his inability to see him.

Harry had been sitting there, waiting, for the better part of an hour, and, in spite of the promising warmth of another perfect July day, was definitely beginning to feel the night chill of the stone even through the fabric of his jeans. It was a relief to finally see Uncle Vernon step across the threshold, looking every inch a businessman in his light-gray suit, and to see him climb purposefully into his light-gray sedan, take a moment to adjust the mirrors precisely, then rumble away toward the interchange into the city, leaving a light gray plume of exhaust in the air behind him.

Dudley emerged half an hour later, a knapsack slung over one shoulder. Aunt Petunia stood behind him in the shadow of the doorway, watching his progress down the garden walk.

"Be careful Diddy."

Harry, with a clear view of Dudley’s face, saw him wince at the endearment.

"See you tonight, mum."

"Will you be back for supper?"

"Don’t think so," grunted Dudley. "Supposed to be going to Gordon’s."

"You know, I really wish you’d let me have all the boys over for supper one night. It’s really not fair, you’re at one or another of their houses all the time."

"S’okay Mum, really." Dudley waved a ham-like hand over his head and took off at top speed.

He didn’t hear his mother’s heavy sigh, but Harry did. The look on Petunia Dursley’s face as she watched her son disappear around the corner of Privet Drive and Magnolia Crescent was one of mixed pride, concern and a sadness so deep it could almost be called despair.

While his aunt was sweeping off the front walk (an unalterable part of her morning routine) Harry slipped through the still open front door, removed his invisibility cloak, stuffed it in his knapsack, and helped himself to a cup of coffee.

He was halfway through the morning paper (which Uncle Vernon had left on the kitchen table) when his Aunt walked back into the kitchen, glanced once at Harry where he sat at the kitchen table, staring at her over the top of the Daily Mail. But instead of starting, or screaming, or even yelling at him to get out as he’d half expected, she walked directly to the kitchen sink where she proceeded to wash her hands thoroughly.

"I was wondering when you’d be back," she said calmly as she dried her hands on a kitchen towel.

Harry remained silent, waiting as his aunt finished drying her hands before pouring herself a cup of coffee and joining him at the table.

"Then you know why I’m here?"

His aunt shrugged delicately, raised the cup to her pursed lips and took a sip. "I knew that you would be wanting answers," she put the cup down with a clink of china, "answers that only I have, now that that old fool is dead. And, since you’re leaving for good this time, I don’t see the harm in answering them."

Harry twisted his hand in his lap, resisting the urge to reach across the table and toss the remains of her coffee in Aunt Petunia’s thin, horsy face. Instead he steeled himself and asked; "how did you know that he’s dead?"

Aunt Petunia raised her lightly penciled eyebrows. "I’m not completely stupid you know."

Swallowing an instinctive retort, Harry remained silent, fists clenched beneath the table, waiting for her to continue.

"He – he didn’t come this year," she said finally, in such a low voice that Harry could barely hear her.

"What do you mean he didn’t come?" said Harry sharply. "He’s come here before? Dumbledore I mean?"

"Every summer; well, ever since Dudley turned two."

"What for?" Harry blurted bluntly.

"To renew the spell," said Aunt Petunia with a slight grimace. "Every year, like clockwork he’d come to the house the day before your school ended."

"Was he renewing the protection charm?"

"Protection charm?" repeated Aunt Petunia, frowning slightly. "No, the memory charm."

"What memory charm?" asked Harry stupidly.

"The memory charm," repeated his Aunt in a matter-of-fact sort of voice. "The one he does every year on Dudley.

Dudley? Harry gaped openly at his Aunt, not even attempting to conceal the surprise in his face.

"Come again?" he managed finally.

"Do you think I did this for you?" spat his Aunt, her narrow face twisting with dislike. "Do you think I would have willingly put my own life – not to mention the lives of my son and husband – do you really think I would have put them at risk to take you in after what happened to James and Lily? After what happened to my parents?"

Her voice was quivering with fury and, for the first time in his life Harry saw in her face not merely dislike and annoyance with him, but a pure, unadulterated hatred that chilled him to the bone.

"I-"

"Everything&# 8217;s about you, isn’t it?" said his aunt bitterly.

"What are you-"

"Just like your mother. She was only thinking of herself, of her reputation as an Auror. She didn’t think about the consequences, did she, when she and her idiot husband stood up to Him. She killed them Harry."

"She killed who?"

"Our parents." Aunt Petunia was staring at him, daring him to challenge her.

"Don’t be ridiculous! My Mum wouldn’t have killed her own parents," said Harry heatedly.

"As good as." Aunt Petunia shrugged. "If she hadn’t been what she was-"

"What, a witch?" asked Harry innocently and was rewarded by seeing his aunt flinch as if he’d threatened to hit her.

"A freak."

"Look, Aunt Petunia, I don’t see what my Mum being a witch has to do with your parents being killed."

"Don’t you?" replied his aunt acidly.

. . .born to those who have thrice defied the Dark Lord . . .

"You mean Voldemort killed your parents – my Mum’s parents - because of my Mum and Dad stood up to him?"

"He couldn’t get to them, could he? Too smart they were. He couldn’t get to them directly, but he had his ways, oh yes, he had his ways."

Harry stared at his aunt, unblinking, a whole army of emotions vying for prominence in his brain. It hadn’t been his mother Aunt Petunia had been remembering that night in the kitchen when Harry had told the Dursleys about the return of Lord Voldemort. She’d been remembering her parents.

"I’m the one who found them you know," said Aunt Petunia finally, her voice so low that Harry had to lean forward to hear her. "I was still living at home then. Vernon and I had been out . . ." her voice trailed off and Harry wasn’t surprised to see the lone tear trailing down his aunt’s cheek. She shuddered involuntarily and then said in a bitterly furious voice. "I swore right then and there that I would have nothing to do with the magical world ever again."

That explained a lot, thought Harry silently. Her refusal to answer questions, her aversion to any mention of magic, even the punishments that had been meted out every time he did something unexplainable by mistake. But one thing it didn’t explain . . .

"Aunt Petunia," said Harry quietly, "if you swore off of any contact with the magical world, why would you have agreed to take me in when my parents died?"

"I didn’t do it for you, if that’s what you were wondering," she said, chuckling humorlessly, "anymore than I did it for my freak sister."

"Then why . . .?"

"I did it for Dudley," said his aunt a last, a beatific smile gracing her face.

Harry blinked. Of all the answers he had imagined, his Aunt’s doing it for big, porky, self-absorbed Dudders was the thing he would have imagined her saying. He thought she’d say that she’d done it out of some warped sense of family pride, or . . .or . . .

"For Dudley?" murmured Harry incredulously.

"Agreeing to take you in was the only way I could ensure he had anything resembling a normal life."

Harry was feeling very slow and stupid as he tried to wrap his brain around what his Aunt was saying but it just didn’t make any sense. He would have thought that taking him in was the last thing Aunt Petunia would have wanted.

"I – I don’t understand."

"Why am I not surprised?" said his aunt waspishly. She sighed then, and rubbed her temples as if she were warding off a headache. "But it doesn’t matter now. He’s too old now for it to make a difference."

"Dudley’s too old for what to make a difference?"

"I knew it before he was born even. He talked to me, while I was still carrying him."

"Who talked to you?"

"Dudders of course."

"He talked to you, before he was born?"

"It was more like a voice in my head," said Aunt Petunia, shrugging. "All during the pregnancy, he’d tell me what he needed . . . what he wanted; food, exercise. And then, that whole first year he’d just sort of do things."

"What sort of things?" Harry managed. But he knew. Somehow, before his aunt said even one more word Harry knew what she was going to say.

"Strange things," whispered his aunt in a barely audible voice. She shivered again and then wrapped both hands around her coffee cup as if trying to warm herself. "He dropped a toy once. He was in his playpen and I was across the room. I was going to get it for him – it was his favorite, the rubber elephant, you know?"

Harry shook his head slowly, unwilling to speak unless he broke the spell that was keeping his aunt talking.

"Well, before I could finish what I was doing, it was soaring through the air right into his hands. That happened lots of times after that. Sometimes things that I knew were still in his toy box would suddenly just appear, right in his playpen. And then there was the baby food . . ."her voice trailed away, sounding horrified.

"I’d be feeding him a jar of green beans, or beets, lord how he hated beets!" she was smiling slightly now, but her lip was still curled as if even that happy memory could not erase what the horrors she was about to relate. "And I’d put the spoon in and it would have changed . . .into sweet potatoes or squash, once even into chocolate pudding. I thought the first time that I must be hallucinating, but I know I wasn’t, because there were still green beans on the spoon!"

Harry chanced a glance at his aunt. She looked pale, pinched, and absolutely horrified at the memories she was dredging up.

"But that wasn’t the worst of it," she said quietly, as if confessing some horrid and grievous sin. "The worst thing happened the July after Dudders turned one." His aunt took a deep, shuddering breath, and then began to talk very rapidly, as if saying it fast would somehow blunt the horror of it.

"We’d taken a beach house in Brighton; two weeks of holiday. Do you know how hard it is to get Vernon to take a break from those retched drills? Anyway, a week into our stay and Dudley was having problems sleeping. He missed his old bed I think, because one night I woke up to hear him screaming. Then the screaming cut off abruptly, like someone had flipped a switch. By the time I got into his room he was gone!"

"Gone?"

"Just -gone. He was barely walking and there was no way he could have gotten out of his crib. I thought – I thought someone must have taken him, but all the doors and windows were still locked."

"Let me guess," said Harry dryly. "He’d gone home?"

"He was sound asleep in his own bed," admitted Aunt Petunia shakily. "I called that mad Fig woman; she has a spare key in case of emergencies. She went in and sure enough, there he was, sleeping like a baby angel."

Harry wasn’t certain if he wanted to scream or laugh. Dudley, a wizard? But if what she was saying was true – and he didn’t see why it couldn’t be, his mother and Aunt Petunia had been sisters after all - why hadn’t Dudley gotten a letter from Hogwarts too? Unless . . .

"You made a deal with Dumbledore, didn’t you?" said Harry suddenly, not caring anymore if the subject were hurting his aunt’s feeling or not. "When he asked you to take me in?"

"He agreed to strike Dudley’s name off the list," said Aunt Petunia in a wavery voice. "And to wipe his memory so he wouldn’t remember anything about having any sort of unnatural talent."

"Didn’t work though, did it?" asked Harry, guessing the truth.

Aunt Petunia was shaking her head. "No. It kept, I don’t know, coming back to him I guess. So he, Dumbledore, began doing the charm every year, every summer. Of course it wasn’t fool proof. Just because Dudley could no longer remember anything about having unnatural talents didn’t mean that every now and then he wouldn’t do something by mistake."

And that, Harry realized, was why they had punished him so badly every time he had done magic. They wanted to reinforce in Dudley’s brain just how unnatural anything even remotely magical was. By making him, Harry into a scapegoat, a sort of model of everything they despised about magic they would deter Dudley from doing magic himself, however inadvertently.

And that, Harry thought triumphantly, was most likely what the Dementors had forced Dudley to remember – all the times he had acted unnaturally by doing the magic that his parents so despised. He would have thought that he was loosing his mind.

"And this year he didn’t come," said Aunt Petunia softly, taking a sip of the now stone-cold coffee and curling her lip in disgust. "And then I got a letter from that werewolf fellow-"

"Lupin?

Aunt Petunia pushed the cup away from her across the table while Harry wracked his brain trying to remember when he’d ever mentioned Lupin’s being a werewolf to his Aunt or Uncle.

"The letter came just a few days before you came home. Lupin. Yes. His first name was Richard or Regulus or-"

"Remus," Harry corrected.

"That’s it. Yes. He was a friend of your fathers," she said, nodding. "He didn’t know all that was involved. I don’t think he knew anything about Dudley, but he knew that Dumbledore had been in contact with me, that I had made an agreement with him to take you in. He thought I had a right to know."

"So – what’s going to happen now?" Harry wondered, staring at the rings on his aunt’s bony hands as if mesmerized. Lupin had written to his aunt? Why had he taken it on himself to act in Dumbledore’s behalf?

"You’re going to leave for one," said his aunt decidedly. "You’re going to leave this house, and you’ll never come back. Don’t you think I know what this means? Dumbledore is dead! Any protection he put on this place – on you – will be gone, or at the very least, weakened."

Harry opened his mouth to argue; didn’t she realize that the protection came from the blood bond that he shared with her? That Harry’s strongest protection was in his mother’s blood? He closed it again with a snap. It didn’t matter anyway. Not now. Not now that he knew that his aunt had taken him in not out of good will, or of love for her sister, but purely as a means of protection for her son.

Privet Drive was no longer his home. It never had been, not really, he understood that now.

"So, what’s going to happen to Dudley," Harry asked without thinking. "I mean, now that Dumbledore is no longer putting the memory charms on him?"

Aunt Petunia shrugged. "I’ve already talked to the school counselor. She’s arranged for therapy sessions, just in case he goes into remission."

"You make it sound like a disease," said Harry bitterly.

"Well it certainly isn’t normal!" retorted his aunt, turning on him with flashing eyes. "Besides, I don’t think he remembers any of it now. It’s been years since he’s done anything . . .well . . .unusual. I don’t think he remembers any of it now."

Harry, who was thinking of a certain alleyway between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk two summers ago, wasn’t so sure. There had definitely been something Dudley had been remembering . . .and he doubted very much if had anything to do with the damned boxing title.

"Aunt Petunia, if you want, I could ask someone to come and do the charms."

"No!" His aunt’s voice was furious. "No one else knows! If they knew – they might – they might change him . . .they might take him away!" She broke down entirely then, sobbing uncontrollably into the hem of the tablecloth. "He’s all I have left, Harry, don’t you see? I can’t loose him too!"

Harry watched her for a full minute before getting to his feet. There was no point in staying. His aunt had told him all she knew. He had always known that she didn’t love him, but somehow, deep down inside, he’d always hoped that in some small way she actually cared about him. Another dream shattered.

Sighing deeply, Harry stood up and carried his coffee cup to the sink. There was nothing left for him here. Everything he owned was either in his pack, or in his Hogwarts trunk under Ron’s bed. Memories were all that was left, and most of those he’d rather not keep.

He didn’t know why, but on his way out the door he leaned down and kissed his Aunt Petunia on her bony cheek.

"Thank you," he said softly, tasting tears made all the more bitter for his knowledge that not one of them was for him. She had saved his life. Grudgingly maybe, bitterly perhaps, even resentfully, but there it was.

As he stepped out onto Privet Drive, Harry felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was free of Privet Drive forever! Free! God, he couldn’t imagine coming back here to live after leaving this place for good. Poor Sirius, what torture that must have been, to have to go back to Grimmauld Place after he thought he was free of it forever.

Harry tightened his fingers around the fake Horcrux. He didn’t need to open the locket to be reminded of what the note said; the one that had been signed with the initials R.A.B.

Yes! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Grimmauld Place. It was the logical place to begin looking for the Horcrux that had cost Albus Dumbledore his life.