Protection: The Sword and the Shield

......4 Privet Dr., Surrey, England

Harry Potter was a freak, he was abnormal and weird. It was a self-realization that would have made his relatives quite happy if not for the confrontation the 7 year old boy had witnessed at the grocers earlier in that day.

His aunt had brought him to the store with her to introduce him to the layout and the manager so that she could send him to pick up what she needed when the occasion arose. As was typical to these lessons, she made sure to temper her insults toward him but not her cruelty.

She told anyone who would listen about her trouble-making nephew and that this new responsibility was to be yet another method to try and tame his unruliness. She would also happily bask in the unearned praise that her "tireless effort" and "patient spirit" afforded her.

At the end of their trip, as they were leaving the store, they passed a young woman who was dressed in a short mini dress with fishnet stockings and six inch heels. Harry would never forget the woman as she was taller than Vernon in her heals. Her long black hair had streaks of purple and gold in it and she was wearing a collar that reminded Harry of the jeweled collars that his Aunt Marge would put on her prized bulldogs.

The mini dress was dark red, bordering on black, and it was tight. Tight was likely an understatement as the fabric clung to her body like it was painted on. The woman's body was lean and the dress hugged every curve.

Harry remembered thinking that she had the type of shape that he knew his uncle would appreciate, if the magazines he found while cleaning were any indication. The dress was so short that Harry with his short stature caught a glimpse of her royal blue lace panties as she stepped up unto the curb. Her skin was very pale and she wore dark red lipstick that matched her dress.

It was jealousy that caused his aunt to react though it would be a time before Harry would be able to recognize his aunt's reactions that clearly. "What a freak" his aunt had murmured loud enough for Harry to hear and punctuated her comment by shooting him a look of disdain. The look was the same as the one she had been eyeing the passer by with.

His aunt, no doubt, expected Harry to be as devastated by the comparison as she would have been if she had been compared to such a person but Harry had no pre-set notions of propriety and instead only had a desire to belong and be loved. Up to this point he had thought that he was the only freak he would ever come in contact with as his Aunt and Uncle would only compare him to the freaks that were on TV before quickly turning the channel.

So for Harry, it was a seminal moment. In front of him was a freak like him and she was in public and he finally had a chance to see what one actually looked like. The repercussions of this moment were already ground breaking for the life of Harry Potter but the effects were magnified when the woman turned to look at his Aunt and spoke.

"Did you just call me a freak?" the women said in a tone Harry had never heard someone use against his aunt though he had had heard her use it with other people. To Harry's continued fascination he watched as the woman continued to speak to his aunt. "Looking at your pathetic normalcy, I should thank you. I am happily a freak if the alternative is to be as boring and forgettable as you."

With that, the woman looked at his Aunt in the same dismissive way his Aunt looked at him. Then the woman looked down at his shocked face, smiled, gave him a wink and entered the store. With an angry exclamation of "The nerve of that creature" his Aunt ushered him back to the car and drove them home.

His Aunt had taken her frustrations with the "freak at the market" out on the "freak in my home" and locked him in his cupboard almost immediately after they arrived back. In the long run, that had been a mistake. Harry spent the next few hours thinking about his experience that day and had found something.