Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 12: Hope is a feathered thing

Though each day at Privet Drive was a slog, they were passing. He had started carving a notched line for each day into the underside of his bed frame, where he could feel it as he lay in bed in the morning since the calendar that hung in the kitchen was no longer useful.

Another evening was approaching and Harry was getting nervous, anticipating the arrival of Uncle Vernon. His first hour or so after work was always Uncle Vernon's worst. Harry found himself trying to escape the worry by fantasizing about what he'd be doing at that moment if he hadn't blinded himself with Basilisk venom—which was a bit of torture in and of itself.

Weeks of school with no exams and the end of term not until the end of June seemed like a paradise compared to what Harry was enduring. Everyone would be in high spirits and he could imagine the intense chess games, late-night kitchen raids, and all the pick-up quidditch games he'd be playing. Imagining these scenes was like poking a stick in an open wound.

Dwelling on what was fair or not fair was not an activity Harry indulged often, mostly because he understood early on that it never swung the balance in his favor. He forgot that hard-learned lesson momentarily as he thought about all his classmates enjoying the respite from exams and the beautiful weather (even Draco and the Slytherins!) while he was stuck inside cutting onions and trying not to slice his fingers. He was the reason they had a break. He slew the Basilisk, but his reward was eternal darkness...

Well, except it's not dark. It is light and dark, but mostly just nothing.

Eternal nothingness and a ball of frustration that he just couldn't do things as easily as he had done them before.

I didn't know what I had until it was gone.

He wanted to pound and rage and throw things, but he couldn't because if he did, he'd bring the wrath of Vernon down on his head, shoulders, and back. He closed his eyes against the onion fumes, but not soon enough and tears squeezed underneath his eyelids. The knife slipped on the slick onion skin landing perilously close to his fingers. He took in a deep breath and cast around for something else to think about. He'd end up losing fingers, too, if he kept up the brooding.

Aunt Petunia was also working on dinner in the kitchen, bustling around in her efficient manner. She was humming a little melody that sounded familiar to Harry, but he couldn't place it. She had lined up the vegetables and utensils needed to process them on the counter for him, which in the context of his history with her, was an unanticipated act of kindness and generosity. It unnerved him. It outright scared him.

More than Aragog.

It was terrifying because it was so unknown. He didn't know how to respond to this new Petunia.

All he could do was keep an ear out for clues while he worked his way through the vegetables. The humming was definitely a clue if he could only figure out the melody.

His thoughts drifted to a recurrent narrative in his life: getting away from Privet Drive. How many times had he schemed and planned to run away to have his plans thwarted and his dreams dashed... that was until a kind hairy giant showed up and told him he was a wizard.

Where's Hagrid now?

He couldn't just wait around to be rescued. He needed to do something and in order to do something, he needed to be able to walk away from Privet Drive...

What about fly away?

His heart constricted painfully as he remembered the feeling of soaring through the air on his broom—the air whipping through his hair, the swoops, dips, and spinning around. It was a freedom he'd never felt before. Maybe there was a spell that would help him avoid obstacles in the air just as he imagined there was one that would help him avoid them on earth.