The Lost Prince of Olympus

I long for the darkness

Dumbledore was not a man to be trifled with.

Harry realised this moment after they departed from the Dursleys, whom they had left cowering and shivering in the wake of his rage.

The man hardly spoke on their journey there; he would stare ahead, his eyes fixed on the sea in front and his hands clutching the sides of their rickety boat as it rocked from side to side.

Harry wondered what he was thinking, whether internally bursting at the seams with rage and anger, imagining the Dursleys swallowed whole by the shadows like Harry often did, or thinking of the sea and how calm its vast blue expanse seemed today. Oh, how Harry longed to shift his body and plunge his fingers into the water that lay beneath, to feel the coldness surround his fingers and bite his nails, to watch the ripples form around his arms distorted image and see the creatures once again, their yelps nothing more than murmurs to his tired brain and bleeding ears.

Harry did not know what Dumbledore was thinking, but when the man glanced back, his eyes twinkling so ominously and his lips upturning into a frosty smile as he gazed almost hungrily, he found himself glad that he did not know.

With the cold water, he calmed his heart's rapid pace and his fingers' shaking and silenced his racing mind with thoughts of magic.

He was not a freak, a misfit, or a burden; he was not the strange child in their neighbourhood or the idiot who roamed in the rain.

He was magic.

He was magic and valued for the first time in his life.

Harry would rather die than let that go than return to the Dursleys and their contempt and his cupboard, with its bare walls and hairy spiders.

He was magic.

He could not let that go.

Harry had expected many things from the magical world.

He had expected to walk into a magical land with floating sweets and all the food he could eat simply a flick away. He had expected a land hidden, its inhabitants fresh out of the storybooks he had read, with elves, giants and witches who had green skin and cackled, with gnomes who could dance and animals who could talk.

He hadn't expected this.

The Leaky Cauldron was an odd place.

It was small, crowded and dingy. People sat huddled around small café tables with pints of famous beers that Harry had often seen his uncle chugging on long nights after work, drinking and talking loudly and animatedly as if they were in an argument only to burst out laughing. The pub had an atmosphere of warmth to it, a cosy feeling that Harry often associated with comfort.

Because warm meant safe.

Warm meant he wasn't in his cupboard, hiding and cowering with a blanket too small and tattered to cover his worn-out body.

Warm meant he was in the library or Miss Figgs's living room when she turned the heating on and had fetched logs for the fire.

Warm meant there were no Dursleys, nosy neighbours, or disappointed teachers to screech and scream at him.

Warm meant safe; Harry had always thought that.

Harry stepped inside. His hair stuck to his forehead, briefly hiding his lightning bolt scar, and his glasses seemed too large and bulky for his face. His clothes felt old and out of place in the room full of those wearing extravagantly designed robes and suits. Yet even then, the moment he stepped in, he felt different. There was a certain buzz in the air. A buzz that tingled with excitement and energy. It felt...magical, nonetheless.