𝗨𝗡𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗗 ━ Golden Trio Era

━chapter 1

Chapter 1
━━━━━━━━ ✥ ━━━━━━━━

WHEN HE WAS YOUNG, HARRY LEARNED A SKILL HE CALLED 'DETACHING'. It was certainly not the official term. Harry wasn't sure if it was even a thing. But it occurred to him one day, after hours spent in his cupboard, that he could make the long hours feel like minutes if he simply got lost in his own mind.

It was ironic, really. Because isn't it strange how being lost inside his own mind made him feel detached from his own body? How Harry was still in the cupboard, his aunt was still in the house, and yet he felt safe in the confines of his own silent mind?

You see, Harry was not a patient boy. He remembered, this one time, one of his teachers from primary school was teaching them about a play. About a playwright with a funny name and some quote about patience, trees and fruits.

Harry was not patient. He was rash, he was reckless, and he often acted without thinking. And sometimes an entire day — sometimes two — was very long and Harry needed a way to not feel hungry.

Thus, Harry learned how to 'detach'.

He did it inside the cupboard, during long hours in the garden, when doing the dishes, and so on. But when Vernon yelled at him, when Petunia sneered at him or when Dudley punched him, Harry felt the need to remain attached because he needed to be present to yell back.

The clock in the living room chimed loudly, indicating midnight. Harry was on his knees on the floor. Bits of wood were sticking to his palms and his jaw was stinging from where his uncle had landed his punch. Harry finally registered the broken table in front of him and his breathing picked up.

Events from the evening flooded back to him. Tea and biscuits, questions about Sirius, mentions of Adhara.

Harry choked on his breath.

Adhara, who hasn't answered a single one of his letters since the beginning of summer. Adhara, who would normally be here to make his summers more bearable, was ignoring him. And Harry couldn't even go to Aleyne to demand what was going on because Sirius and Professor Lupin had asked him to be patient.

"Enjoy the last few days with your relatives," Lupin's letter had said.

Yeah, right. If only they knew.

Insulting comments, a plate of biscuits, Harry's blood was boiling and words flew out of his mouth to defend, like how a knight defended with his sword. And then the first punch flew.

"Of course he would want his real niece first," had sneered Vernon, "why would anyone ever want you, you freak!"

Harry knew what stalling was, he had learned it from his aunt. And this. This was definitely stalling.

Sirius' trial was taking time because the Ministry didn't like to admit that it had made a mistake. More importantly, it didn't like to owe anyone. But the evidence was undoubtedly there. Harry's godfather would definitely walk free within a few days.

But with Lupin's insistence on being patient, and Adhara's lack of response, Harry wondered if they weren't simply stalling, because they were too afraid to tell him the truth.

Harry wasn't blood. Harry wasn't family. He wasn't patient. Harry was too rash, too reckless, too much of a freak. Adhara obviously didn't want to talk to him anymore. Remus kept telling to be patient, like how Aunt Petunia used to tell him "next year".

No one actually wanted Harry. Why would anyone want him?

━━━━