This letter changed everything. He had to know what it was about.
It took a while, but eventually his aunt and uncle decided to go out and about on their day.
As soon as Harry stopped hearing the sound of his uncles heavy feet, and the sound of his aunts severe click clacking ones, and finally heard the slam of the door, he went out to investigate.
He grabbed the letter as quickly as he could. Taking it in his hands so it could become his. So he could make sure that it was real and wasn't going to just disappear.
It was. It was written on a coarse feeling old fashioned parchment. In clear letters were his name and... where he lived.
How did they know he lived under the stairs? Were they watching him? Was someone spying on him? Reporting his whereabouts? Who was it? Who could he trust? How did they know? Was he safe? Were they out to get him?
He started getting a panicky feeling in his chest. It happened sometimes, when he got really really scared, and it just made everything so much worse. It completely took over him. He had a very hard time thinking of anything but the feeling of absolute terror. And he couldnt control it. It stopped when it was through with him. When it had taken as much strength out of him as possible, it threw the rest of him away. He would have to pick up the pieces of himself and pull them all back together in something resembling 'ok'.
It took a while, as it always did, for him to regain control of his breathing. Eventually though, like always, he did.
He had to finish reading. Even if the letter killed him. He had to finish.
Because if he didnt then he was a sitting duck. Helpless. And he couldnt let himself be helpless.
He rocked himself a bit. Hit his head into the wall behind him, just a few times. Just enough for it to hurt a little bit.
He needed to be calm. He could do it.
Eventually he was ready. He read through the rest of it.
A school of witch craft and wizardry? How could that be real?
But his relatives believed it. That was the weirdest thing. It not for that he would probably be able to use his 'process' to figure out eventually that this had to be false.
His process wasnt perfect, and sometimes it was faulty, but it did help him. He used logic. Not necessarily the logic the rest of the world used- but his own logic. When the teacher would look at him, she wasnt communicating somehow her desire to kill him, probably not, people usually didnt go out of their way to randomly kill other people. Maybe she hated him, maybe she knew he was a freak and deserved to die, but she didnt have a weapon on her. That meant at least she wasnt going to kill him right then.
He would go through circles and circles of this sort of thinking. Sometimes the circles made things worse, but sometimes they helped answer more questions then they made him ask. So he used them. He questioned even when he was afraid of the answers.
So. If it werent for his relatives, with as many feelings as he was feeling about this letter, he was fairly sure that if he gave himself enough time he could figure out what it really was. What was really happening. Or at least, what wasnt happening.
But the fact that his relatives believed this was troubling. Because they believed in only things that were absolutely true. And they were very very secure and consistent in their beliefs. He knew this and used it as a check sometimes. If his relatives believed something- then it probably wasnt just a story. It was probably very very obvious and very very normal.
So. Was magic normal?
Was magic HIS normal? Maybe there was hope. Maybe this was why everything was so confusing. Because he was normal in a world that was abnormal to him.
He sure hoped this was the case. He sure hoped that maybe... it was everyone else. Maybe it wasnt him.
Maybe there was nothing wrong with him.
Maybe he wasnt a freak.
—
The next few days passed quickly.
If Harry were to be completely honest, he would say that wasnt totally sure all that had gone on.
His relatives, including Dudley, had completely stopped speaking to him.
This was alright. He didnt like feeling so alone, but his relatives had never been very good company anyways.
What bothered him most was that he would catch them whispering. Mostly they did this when he wasnt supposed to be around, but not always.
It was like they were trying to be careful, but were too lazy not to be somewhat careless.
Harry knew that he scared them. Aunt Petunia had even told him straight to his face that wished that he would just be normal so he would stop traumatizing her family.
What he wished he could tell her was that he wished that he could be normal too.
And that he was sorry.
So he would hear them talking. He would catch bits and pieces of what they were saying, each one making less and less sense and making him more and more confused.
He was always confused now. And he was so confused that it was almost a blessing. Because he had no time or energy at all to figure anything out any more. So he was just constantly confused. Sometimes hed feel himself coming back, but most of the time it felt like his head was doing its swirling colors thing, and he usually just didnt have the energy to make sense of it.
He knew that his aunt and uncle had signed a letter saying that he was supposed to go to the school of magic. They had told him. He was pretty sure he could remember them telling him that. Or maybe it was a dream. It was hard to be sure. Sometimes things felt like a dream and then later he found out they had actually happen, and sometimes things he thought actually happened turned out to be dreams.
It wad all confusing. But he was pretty sure they had said 'good riddance' to him after they had told him they were shipping him off so his kind could deal with him. He was pretty sure that was what they said. Or something like that. He was pretty sure he was remembering it from real life and not from a dream.
His aunt had even packed him a bag. It was sitting right outside his cupboard door. He was so happy that she did that. It was a bit of an anchor. The bag was real, so that meant he WAS really going away.
He was excited. And scared. And confused. And so many other things.
He had been pacing more and more. Talking to himself sometimes. He wasnt sure what he was saying sometimes but he did know it always felt very important.
His relatives ignored him for the most part. They were tired of dealing with him. And Harry understood. He was tired of dealing with himself too. He could be really hard to deal with.
Sometimes he was afraid the people at his new school would think he was hard to deal with too. But honestly. He didnt super care. He only half believed that the school existed anyways. He was constantly waiting for someone to jump out and tell him it was a joke. To figure out it was one of yet another things he understood incorrectly.
But so far that hadnt happened.
And when the giant man walked into his house with a magic stick that he called a wand...
Harry fell fast to the floor.
Giggling.
Chapter 5