It had started out a normal day.
So it had started out awfully.
Harry walked to school. There wasnt a cloud in the sky. It was nice and sunny and cheerful. The wind was blowing, the birds were chirping, everything was happy.
Harry hated it all. The stupid birds. How could they be so happy, how could everything be so normal, when Harry felt he was drowning?
It was offensive. And Harry couldn't WAIT to get to school.
School was awful. But it was less awful than a lot of other things. It had been harder for him lately. He had trouble concentrating, trouble caring. But he felt as if he were to stop caring about school then he would be defeated. If he stopped caring about that, then what would he stop caring about next?
But it was hard. Though he wanted to do well, he had to constantly remind himself of this. He didn't want to really do anything at all. It was all exhausting and it was hard to pretend that learning about fractions was important when it felt like everything in his world was crumbling.
Yet he continued at it. He pulled out Bs. Low Bs. But Bs.
So teachers, they didnt really have a problem with him. Sure. He didnt really participate much in class. He didnt really have many friends. He was quiet. He seemed to day dream a lot, start out the window by his desk.
But he was doing FINE. He wasnt disruptive. Far from it. He was quiet and polite when spoken to and his grades were nothing to take issue to.
So for the most part, teachers just let him be.
Except one. His art teacher.
He didnt participate in art. He was too afraid of what might come out of him if he were to let himself free to start. He knew it wouldnt be pretty, and he didnt want to cause any problems. He didnt want people to KNOW how he felt. He was too ashamed. He didnt want people to know how weak he was.
So he didnt participate. His teacher would hand out markers and crayons and Harry would just sit there and stare out the window.
At first his art teacher passed it off. People were different, maybe the child just needed some extra time to find inspiration. He was an odd little boy. Always looked unkempt. His hair was always matted and dirty, he would wear the same clothing for days and days on end, and he smelled.
Lots of little children smelled. Lots of them looked dirty. They were children. They played and fell and laughed and things happened and they would come out at the end of it with a smile on their face and a big old hole in their grass stained jeans.
But not Harry. The poor boy never even smiled. He always looked so sad.
One day. She felt she couldnt wait any longer to talk to him. He needed to figure out what was going on inside of his head. No one else seemed to notice, or care, and there was obviously something troubling the child. She figured that she would have to be the one to figure things out, the boy deserved for someone to try.
So she went up to him. He was sitting in the corner all by himself, as far away from everyone else as possible, just staring out the window he stared out every class. He didnt notice her until she was only a few feet in front of him, and when he did, every muscle in his body seemed to tense and he closed his eyes.
She looked at the boy and spoke as gently as she could.
"Harry dear, do you think you can please look at me? I have a few questions for you, and I would love to see your gorgeous green eyes when I ask them. Do you think you could look at me please?"
Harry took a few breaths and then nodded.
His teacher had smiled at him and had put her hand on his shoulder and had said he was a good boy.
The second the hand landed on Harry he started reacting. His breathing got heavier and heavier. He started feeling light headed. His heart was beating out of his chest. He started feeling like he was going to die. He felt sick. So sick.
Eventually it was like the breaths couldnt come quicker and he couldnt let them out fast enough.
He was causing a huge scene. All the other children were looking at him, and one particularly mean girl started to laugh.
It was so awful. He couldnt believe how awful he felt. Why wouldnt it stop? Why wasnt anyone helping him? Why were they all sitting there while he was dying? Did no one care? Was this the end? Did he want it to be?
Why wouldnt it stop? He started crying. Gagging on his tears as they fought for space through his hyperventilation.
He was a mess. A huge mess. A freak.
But things were getting calmer. His chest started feeling lighter. He started gulping down his tears.
And then he saw his teachers face. She was afraid of him. The nicest teacher in the whole school thought that he was a freak too. Something inside of him, that was barely holding itself together before, broke in him then.
He felt so sad. The feeling was so overpowering. He was so sad about his teacher. It felt unbearable. He closed his eyes again. Felt all the misery swarming inside of him, overtaking him, and then the next thing he knew... the next time he opened his eyes... he was greeted with one of the strangest things.
His teachers hair had turned blue.
—
So that night he had asked Dudley one question. And of course, like everything else that was happening around him, he was disappointed.
All that he had wanted was for it to end. And as much as Dudley was mean to him, as much as Dudley hurt him, he trusted that Dudley would do it right.
If anyone had to do it, might as well make it one of the people who liked hurting him the most.
He actually sort of thought that Dudley would have been happy with the offer. But then. Before he knew it, he got pain. But it wasnt the pain he wanted. It wasnt even close.
And in that moment Harry's world shattered.
There was nothing more he could do but cry. And cry. And cry. And cry.
Dudley left. It was ok. He didnt expect him to stay.
Who would want to stay and listen to a stupid freak cry?
He didnt even like listening to it. He was so pathetic. He couldnt even kill himself. He had to get someone else to do it.
He wasnt even sure what he wanted. He knew he wanted it to end, but he didn't know how.
Suicide popped in his head again and again. It always did. Hed see images in his head of him just dead. Buried off in a cemetary somewhere, forgotten.
It was comforting. He wanted people to forget him. He was so awful, so ashamed of himself, that he didnt want people to have to remember him. He didnt want them to remember pathetic stupid little Harry.
He could kill himself on his own. He knew that. But the thing was, he was scared. He couldnt get himself to do it. He would think and think and think about it. He even made up a few plans in his head of how exactly he would go through with it. Detailed plans.
But he could never follow through. He wanted to believe that there was another option. Another way to stop the pain. But it was becoming worse and worse, and he was getting so tired.
And then today. When his teacher had looked at him, she had confirmed it. It was time for him to go. He was hurting people. He was scaring them. He was trouble. And he needed to take care of himself once and for all.
But he didnt want to.
And that made him cry even more.
It was all so hard. It was so hard all the time.
Asking Dudley had been an act of pure desperation. And it didnt pan out.
He would have to do this once and for all. By himself.
The next few nights were awful for Harry. Even more so than normal. He would wake up in the middle of the night and he would go through the house. He would look at everything around him. But mostly, he would look at everything around him which he could use to hurt himself.
Sometimes he would go to the medicine cabinet, hold a mixture of whatever he could find in his hand, and fantasize about swallowing.
Sometimes he would go towards the knives and just hold one against his wrist and fantasize about all the bad blood, all the evil, spilling out of him.
Sometimes he would go into his uncles closet, grab one of his belts, and think that maybe... he could use that belt to hurt himself one last time.
But he could never get himself to do it.
The strangest thing was. This helped. Doing this kept him afloat. It gave him just enough to get through. And over time, he felt the heaviness go away bit by bit. It didnt happen overnight of course. But eventually he woke up one morning and half way through the day he realized that he hadnt thought about dying once. And then the next day he realized he hadnt felt like dying AT ALL.
It was amazing. A miracle.
Harry. Felt. Normal.
He didnt like thinking about how he felt before, so he tried not to. He just tried to enjoy it. And he did. All summer he had felt fine. He had done his chores, dodged Dudleys occasional worried looks, and even had sometimes even played on the playground.
It was all amazing.
Until it wasnt.
Until he started falling further and further away from anything he could even hope to grab onto and steady himself.
And thats how he ended up where he was at that moment. Thats how he ended up deciding that, all things swirling about, one thing was certain... he needed to know what was in that letter.
Chapter 4