-【 A magical awakening 】

» Three years later.

I - or more aptly, Harry, awoke.

"Art?" The boy mumbled, clumsily reaching out a hand in search of his glasses. "Are you there?"

「 Always. 」I replied, sending my voice to him through our shared mental connection.

Ever since he had learned to talk, Harry had asked me the same question every single day, the moment he woke up. The boy had ended up depending on me a great deal.

At first, he didn't understand what I was doing in his head, which I supposed was a fair question, all things considered. I just told him I was his brother, something that couldn't strictly be considered a lie.

Harry believed me on the spot, maybe because on some level he remembered I had always been there. Or maybe it was because he was a young, immature child and had the naivety to match that.

Either way, it had worked out in my favour. That was all that mattered.

I think I was the only reason he wasn't going mad with loneliness while living in this household, as he certainly wasn't receiving any manner of affection from its other inhabitants.

The boy of four smiled, placing his round wiry glasses onto his nose carefully.

"Good." He whispered, quickly pulling on worn, oversized shorts.

The Dursley family's treatment of Harry hadn't changed from the original.

As of right now, there was never a threat of physical injury from any of his relatives, but given time; I could see that Dudley would soon learn of the power he held over his orphaned cousin.

Thankfully, the Dursley boy wasn't currently intelligent enough to learn anything at the moment, least of all Harry's poor standing in his household, as he was still having trouble speaking in full sentences.

On the other hand, Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle, and Petunia Dursley, his aunt; were utterly indifferent at best, and furious at worst.

The moment Harry could walk and talk they had expected him to do everything himself.

He had been given a single short demonstration of each chore he would complete and was then punished if it was either subpar or if he didn't follow through with it on time.

Sufficed to say, my 'brother' would have severely struggled without my constant direction. Not that he didn't struggle anyway.

I still didn't understand how the couple could look the four-year-old Harry in the eye and demand that level of competency from him. It made absolutely no sense to me at all.

Harry, now fully dressed, crawled toward to open the cupboard door. The boy then pushed it open and stepped out into the Dursley household.

Quickly after, a man's booming voice called from down the hallway, making Harry jump in fright. "Boy! Get in here now, we have something new to teach you!"

Harry rushed to the kitchen, not wanting to keep his uncle waiting for a second longer.

The man was wide and unfit; not too tall, but still an imposing figure nonetheless - at least from little Harry's perspective.

"You're starting to get up on time." He sneered, his tone one of grudging respect. "Good."

「 Thank you Uncle Vernon. 」I sent Harry, supplying the good manners Vernon had come to expect from the boy.

"Thank you Uncle Vernon," Harry said, repeating my words while a smile broadened his young features.

"Right then," Vernon replied, placing an arm on his wife's thin shoulder. "Pet here will be teaching you how to cook today. I expect you to give her your full attention at all times, understood?"

"Yes Uncle Vernon."

"Excellent," The man began to smile himself, pleased with his nephew's easily earned compliance. "I'll leave you to it then." The fat man planted a kiss on Petunia's cheek before walking out through the kitchen door and moving into the living room.

Walking was a strong word to use though. The movement Harry's uncle made on his way out of the kitchen seemed more accurate to, at best, a controlled waddle.

The next twenty minutes were spent by Petunia doing her best to demonstrate how to cook a full English breakfast.

Ironically, the woman turned out to be a very good teacher, at least in my eyes. She explained every step briskly and efficiently, highlighting every important detail Harry would need to know in order to complete his task. She was, at the very least, infinitely better at being an instructor than her useless husband was.

But her nephew was four years old. And he struggled with his physical coordination a fair bit; not to mention that her explanations were, at times, a bit too wordy for him to fully understand.

But I was there to help him through it all.

The whole ordeal was, to my surprise, going reasonably well; that is until the stool Harry was standing on teetered just a tad too far to the left.

Petunia's eyes widened as the boy fell backwards away from the stove, fish slice in hand. She didn't make any move to help him though.

Then I felt it.

Harry's fear.

It was followed by a distinct rush of what I recognised immediately to be magic. It burned like the hottest of flames; feeling wildly destructive and extremely volatile.

It swelled under Harry's instinctual panic, responding in kind to his instinctual fear of falling, of being harmed.

The stool fell backwards, collapsing loudly onto the floor.

Harry did not.

He instead hovered a few inches above the ground, levitating mid-fall.

The boy blinked, looking around in wide-eyed astonishment.

Then Petunia let out a shriek, her voice high and full of fear. "Vernon! He's done it. He's a freak, just like she was!"

Harry's sense of wonderment broke and he fell the rest of the way to the ground, landing squarely on his back. Being that he was barely larger than a toddler, and given his underfed state; Harry had the wind knocked out of him by the short fall. He wheezed in shock, his green eyes tearing up.

Vernon blundered into the room, his face purpling as he took in his wife's terrified eyes and the overturned stool lying next to her. He grabbed Harry by the arm and forcefully yanked him to his feet. The man shunted him through the kitchen door and out into the hallway.

"In, in!" He roared, flinging the cupboard door open and pushing Harry inside. The young boy tripped forward and fell into a heap onto the mess of blankets covering the cupboard's floor.

"And you'll stay there until you reflect on your actions boy! I won't have any of your kind's freakishness in this house! Never!"

The heavy door slammed shut with a loud bang, casting Harry into darkness once more.

Harry heard the man retreat toward the kitchen by way of his stomping footsteps.

The boy trembled, blinking away tears. He crawled forward shakily, curling up into the topmost blanket.

"Art?" He croaked out, tears running down the side of his face. "What was that? And why was Uncle Vernon so angry because of it?"

I stayed silent for a moment, debating about how much information I should relinquish to him.

『 Just enough. 』I decided, opening the mental link once more.『 It shouldn't matter anyway; I can't rely on plot-based predictions to keep us alive. Not after what happened to James and Lily. Playing it safe just isn't an option anymore. 』

「 Magic. 」I replied.「 And Vernon acted that way because he's afraid of it. Petunia is too. They all are. 」

"M-magic? That was… Magic? But magic isn't real." He muttered confusedly.

I didn't answer him. I wasn't a good father figure for Harry by any means; hell I was only seventeen. But I wanted the boy to learn to think for himself and figure things out on his own.

So I didn't contradict his stupid, childish statement; instead waiting for him to realise it was wrong all by himself.

『 Well, I guess I'm twenty-one now. 』I amended internally.『 How time does fly. 』

"You're doing that thing again aren't you." He whispered, rolling over. Harry wiped away his tears, clumsily drying his face with the blanket's edge. "Okay, magic is real," he corrected himself slowly. "And I did it, right?"

「 Yes. It is real. 」I replied.「 And yes, it was your magic that made you levitate like that. 」

"How can do I it?" He asked.

「 It's in your blood, 」I said, rectifying my mistake a second later.「 Our blood - and we inherited it from our parents. 」

A moment of lengthy silence passed between us.

"That's… So fucking cool." Harry finally whispered, his small fists clenching around the hem of the blanket. His muffled words made my jaw drop. I laughed at the sheer incredulity of what the boy had just said.

『 He had to have heard that from me, right? 』

Some role model I was. He was only four.

Imagine if he started saying that around Dudley and it turned out to be the fat boy's first words? Petunia probably would crucify him.

「 Language. 」I scolded him, endeavouring to sound as scandalized as humanly possible, despite how funny this was.「 Just where did you hear that word anyway? 」

The boy pulled the blanket closer to his face, laughing into it quietly.

"From you." He giggled.

『 So it was from me. 』I thought broodingly.『 I need to be more careful in the future. 』

I didn't remember ever saying something like that through our link, not consciously at least.

Evidently, I still wasn't completely used to this unique mental method of communication.

That fact alone was worrying. If something like that could slip through, then there was a high chance other things could as well, and that could get very complicated very fast.

"What is it anyway?" Harry asked curiously.

「 Later. 」I said, detecting the faint slyness hidden in his undertone. Too mischievous. The boy was going to be a menace when he grew up.「 Do not go saying that around the rest of them, okay? 」

"Okay." Harry agreed, grinning faintly.

Well, at least he was smiling now.

The boy lay there in silence for a while, listening to Petunia and Vernon's back and forth about what they should do concerning his burgeoning magical potential.

"Art?" He said, and I could hear the hurt hidden behind his hoping tone. "They lied about our parents didn't they?"

「 They did. 」I affirmed quietly.

I could have gotten away with lying about this, but it was better to have our first real fight when he was young and would forgive more easily. It would hopefully make a second eventual fight less impactful when it happened, and I could fall back on the same valid justifications I was planning on using now.

So, I would just have to bear the consequences of conceding to his relative's lies. It also didn't seem that bad of an offence to me, but I couldn't even begin to predict how a child would react to that sort of betrayal. They were just too simple for me to understand. It was an odd contradiction - but I had never been good with children.

"You knew? Why didn't…" The boy trailed off, the half-spoken accusation dying on his tongue. "Never mind." He finished quietly. "Will you tell me about them, please?"

It was the first time he had asked me anything remotely to do with James and Lily, having taken Vernon and Petunia's lies about them as gospel. That unquestionable faith had now been shattered.

The only unfortunate side effect of this was his faith in me had also taken a hit because of it; as even if I had not outright lied to him, I had been unquestionably dishonest.

「 I will. 」I promised him, choosing my next words carefully.「 Once you're old enough to understand what I will tell you. 」

Harry bristled with injustice, but I could feel that his heart wasn't really in it. The boy didn't push the issue any further after hearing the firmness in my tone, instead deciding to accept defeat.

"How old?" He asked, still mumbling into the blanket.

I pondered his words.『 How old indeed. 』

「 Nine. 」I decided, answering the boy.「 I'll tell you everything you want to know when you're nine. I promise. 」

If this is how he was now, then nine would indeed be a suitable age to tell him his truth. I vaguely wondered whether magic affected a child's growth.

『 Probably not. 』I decided. Magic wasn't a biological factor so it shouldn't affect a wizard's development.

"Nine. Okay. It's a promise then." He said, and the two of us fell back into an easy silence.

I expected far more resistance from him, a little push at the very least; but no, nothing. There wasn't even any anger or a sense of betrayal. His calm, defeatist reaction just didn't feel appropriate; not when it was coming from a four-year-old boy.

The conclusion I came to was that Harry trusted me that much. Enough to put aside his growing curiosity and move forward, accepting that answers would come at a later date.

I was… Proud. He was highly intelligent and very mature. The original was not like this. My presence had caused this improvement - somehow.

 I was also concerned.

『 Too mature. 』I thought, my reaction cynical. This seemingly silver cloud had to have a grey lining somewhere.『 He's rather like… Me. 』I concluded finally.

It wasn't a completely ridiculous line of thought.

Was there a relationship there? We did share a mental connection, one I wasn't going to delude myself into thinking I fully understood yet. It might have affected him in some way.

It was plausible, but nonetheless; Harry's blind trust in me was a heavy weight I would likely carry for a long, long time.

Perhaps a lifetime even.

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