Harry Potter

Magic

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CHAPTER TWO
The Professor
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Bruises and sore muscles are like constant reminders of a lost battle. They constantly ached, and they bloomed across the skin in ugly shades of blue, purple, red, and brown. Time and healing would turn them a puce green and yellow, with veins marking a prominent line across the bruise. Eventually they would disappear altogether, and one could forget that they were there, that once upon a time it hurt considerably even to just lay down. But as soon as another battle was lost and another bruise was formed, the memory of all of the previous hurts came rushing back. For someone like Harry Potter, that was both a curse and a blessing.

She had been hurt so many times that it seemed unwise to forget the pain, not when forgetting meant doing the same things that had earned her punishment originally. But forgetting allowed Harry to remain true to who she was, to not become some cowardly, sniveling brat. And Harry learned from all those times she was beaten. She knew to make herself a smaller target and avoid hits to vital regions like the solar plexus; she knew how best to move after having received the bruises, knew to sneak a little more food than usual and a bit more water. Unfortunately, none of this knowledge came in handy the next morning when the Dursleys sent her straight to the bathroom for two minutes to clean up and then to the car, throwing a tattered backpack stuffed with her clothes right after her.

Harry ached. It hurt to breathe, and bending her left arm shot sparks of pain through the limb. Under her clothes a motley of bruises colored her chest and back. She tried to avoid thinking about the pain, about the stray bitter thought that it was as if the bruises from her last beating had never left. Harry ignored those thoughts as best as she could because they always resulted in things like thoughts of running away or even suicide, when she became depressed enough. She focused instead on the cool touch of the car leather against her arms and legs, on the teasing hope of Po's arrangement. Then the driver's door was slammed open and closed succinctly and Harry was torn from her distractions by her aunt's daunting form.

Petunia was no reprieve from pain. Maybe at an earlier time in her life, seeing Petunia rather than Vernon would have been a relief, but Petunia's spite for Harry had been growing for a very long time, and it seemed to have spontaneously doubled over the past night. Vernon, for all of his blustering anger, would not have been able to do much damage in the car anyway, being terrible at verbal beatings and having already gotten his urge to beat her out of his system the previous night. (And Harry knew better than to antagonize him so soon, in any case.) Petunia's strength, on the other hand, lay in her words. She only occasionally laid hand to Harry (usually in the form of a harsh, nail-filled slap), preferring instead to insult and demean her. And Petunia, being the only one to know of Harry's status as a girl, possessed all of the ammo she needed to win every time. Really, it was quite cruel for the world to put Petunia in that car.

Petunia spoke before they had even left the street. "While you are away I expect you to hide your dirty little secret just as well as at home," she said snidely. Harry bit her tongue down on the sarcastic response that automatically rose to counter her aunt's vitriol. "You will not shame us or there will be consequences. There will be no mention of your little fantasies about magic." She hissed the last word just as she always did, always having found something abhorrent in the very idea of it. It made Harry want to blurt out everything that Po had told and shown her, despite the consequences talking back would bring. She did not dare, however. Petunia would surely turn the car right around if she received any hint of there being anything fantastical at Po's circus. Even now, Harry was not completely sure why Petunia had decided to foist Harry off on the ringmaster in the first place.

A few moments passed in silence after that, and Harry dared to hope that she would not face any more biting remarks during the trip. That was a mistake. She may as well have dared fate. "If you do anything freakish then so help me we will just get rid of you altogether. You and your miserable little secret have done quite enough damage to our perfectly ordinary lives," Petunia spat. "We never should have accepted such a child, not that those people ever gave us a choice. You were just forced onto us; as if any respectable person would leave a babe to die on their doorstep. All of the neighbors saw you, so it was already quite too late to take you back. If your miserable parents would have just taken you with them when they died we would not be having this problem, but here you are. No one wants you, Brat," she grimaced in disgust in a look back towards Harry. The ravenette was having trouble calming her pounding heart and stinging eyes. This was a familiar spiel, one Petunia loved to wave in Harry's face whenever she was feeling particularly vindictive, letting Harry know just how unwanted she was. But Harry had never gotten used to it, could never stop the intertwining waves of anger, grief, and hurt. Inevitably, she talked back to Petunia, which only spurred her blonde aunt further on. She could only hope that the car ride passed quickly enough that Petunia ended things quickly.