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Harry thought he knew what Dumbledore was going to say.
As he sat there in the holding cells with Vernon’s guttural yells still echoing in his ears, he predicted the conversation he would have with his headmaster once he was fetched for punishment. Like a naughty or dangerous animal, kept in its cage until its owner arrived. He ran it through his mind over and over until it was as well-ingrained as Petunia’s shrill admonishments from when he was a child. Disgusting little freak. Ungrateful, useless boy.
Harry thought he knew everything.
Dumbledore would say, “Do not bite the hand that feeds you, Harry,” with a knowing twist to his lips and these awful eyes, glittering like shards of a dropped glass
stupid boy how could you be so useless clean that up right now don’t get your filthy blood on my floor—
Harry would respond, “What of the hand that strikes me?” with his chin lifted and jaw set, but the only answer he’d get would be a reprimanding shake of the head before being called to heel like a good little pawn, dragged back to his kennel, back to his little room of broken things, back to the cupboard,
he always ended up back in the cupboard.
A martyr for his cause. Wasn’t that all he was ever supposed to be anyway?
But none of that happened.
Dumbledore did come into the cells, all twinkly-eyes and sad smiles, but at first he said nothing at all.
Harry stood up. Cursing his height and the malnutrition that had caused it, he glared up at the man who had left him on that cold doorstep fifteen years ago, refusing to be the first to shift the silence settling prickly and uncomfortable between them.
Dumbledore finally spoke, but it wasn’t the words he’d been expecting. “Vernon Dursley is set to make a full recovery, and his memories of the incident have been wiped.”
The incident.
Was he afraid to say aloud what had transpired? As if, if he didn’t articulate it into words, it would not be a reality that Harry had exploded almost half of the house and the arms of his uncle
you’re no nephew of mine, if there’s something wrong with the bitch there’s something wrong with the pup, bad, disgusting little freak
up to the shoulder before Dedalus Diggle had stepped onto the scene to
neutralise
him. The dangerous freak.
Why hadn’t he stepped in before then, when Harry’s pulse was struggling under Vernon’s meaty hands like the dying flail of a trapped bird? When he was choking, unable to breathe, grabbed by the throat and tossed around like an object? Harry Potter, everyone, the Boy-Who-Lived, public commodity no.1, still gets tossed around by the horrible muggles he lives with! Come and see, come and watch, but don’t fucking do anything about it until someone else is in danger.
“So what?” Harry spat. He didn’t care if Vernon had bled out in the rose beds Harry had nurtured while the other children his age were learning their times tables. “No more advice? No pearls of wisdom or, or crap about love and family and all of that shite?”
Dumbledore’s face fell further. He reached up as if to lay a hand on Harry’s shoulder, but when he flinched back, Dumbledore allowed it to drop. Instead, he said, “You look tired, Harry,” and beckoned Harry to follow him through the door of the cell.
Harry didn’t move. Where was he being taken to next? To stand trial before the Wizengamot, that circus of people too old to be alive and way beyond having opinions worth listening to?
Dumbledore saw that he wasn’t moving and sighed. “There are some people very eager to see you safe and whole, and I do believe there is a warm bed with your name on it,” he said softly, as if speaking to a wild animal. Out of control. Dangerous freak.
“Who?” he asked scornfully. “I don’t think I’ll be accepted with open arms back there again.” Not that he ever was in the first place.
The old man sighed. “Oh, Harry,” he said, “I’m so sorry I have failed you. You will not be sent back to those people ever again.”
Harry blinked. Because. What?
He was always sent back. Back to Privet Drive, suffocating houses all competing to be the least out of place, suffocating cupboard smelling of dust and cleaning chemicals with an undercurrent of urine
please let me out I’m sorry I’ll be a good boy please please I need to go please let me out
that would never wash out and forgotten child.
The headmaster didn’t try to touch Harry again, but his eyebrows pinched together further. “I have made many mistakes in my time, far too many, but among the highest of them I count the tragedy of my placement of you in that home. You should not have been left there. I should not have left you there, and I should not have had you go back year after year. You should have been taken away from that place long before now.”
Harry was mortified to feel tears building up in his eyes. He didn’t want to trust Dumbledore’s words. Nobody ever cared how he was treated by the Dursleys. Mrs. Weasley had heard about the bars on his window, and gave him a hug and breakfast but still allowed him to be packed off like an unwanted package the next summer. Why would Dumbledore break the habit of Harry's lifetime? Why break the cycle?
But. But. He couldn’t help but let that sliver of hope that had grown when Sirius had offered him a real home brighten, and grow.
Maybe?
A traitorous tear slipped down his cheek, and he hastily wiped it away, ignoring the handkerchief Dumbledore summoned.
“You’ve been so brave, Harry. Far braver than any child should have to be, and I can never apologise enough for that. For the ways I and the other staff members have turned a blind eye to your struggles. And, for what it’s worth, though I dare say what I say isn’t worth much right now,” Dumbledore looked down as he vanished the unused handkerchief, “I’m very proud of you for what you did today.”
Harry swallowed down a sob, and felt another tear trickle down his cheek. He didn’t wipe this one away, but let it skirt around his mouth and drip off his jaw. Why now? Why after this, after he’d done something irreparable, unforgivable? Why?
Why?
Why?
His godfather crushed Harry into his arms as soon as he stepped through the door, whispering apologies and promises and half-baked plans and curses and pleas into his hair. “I can’t believe— I’m so so sorry— James would be so— I’m going to kill him, I’ll find wherever he as and rip him to shreds, Harry, I will—” before being pushed out of the way by a teary Mrs Weasley, a worried Hermione, and a clench-fisted Ron, all wanting to hold him, hold him together, while he fell apart.
“Who is responsible for all of these broken children?” Albus asked Minerva one night in his office over tumblers of firewhisky, Fawkes’ mournful croons a haunting reminder of another time he failed Harry Potter.
“We are,” Minerva replied. “We all are.”
Tom Riddle, dark eyes blank as he accepted he would be going back to the orphanage in the bomb-strewn city for the summer, where thoughts of a warm safe castle full of magic and food could be mistaken for hunger-induced hallucinations, alone, so alone.
Petunia, sitting at her father’s desk by the light of a small lamp, scribbling a letter to the headmaster of a school she would never be eligible for despite knowing she wasn’t special, not like her sister was, clever Lily, magical Lily, pretty Lily,
Lily who died little more than a teenager and left a squalling baby on
her
doorstep
, doing anything shy of begging for her parent’s attention.
Dudley Dursley, who only got his father’s endorsement when he was hurting others or ruining his own health.
Severus Snape, curled up on the floor beside the door separating him from his only friend, wishing he could take back words he wasn’t sure he meant, in a huge castle not big enough for him and James Potter with his half-mad mutt, cowardly idiot, and lonely werewolf, all searching for a place to belong.
Neville Longbottom, desperately trying to reach the expectations and demands of his family, trying to live up to the legacy his parents left, unaware that the memories of them had been put on a pedestal too high for any mortal to overcome.
Harry Potter, watched by all and heard by none but the voice in his head, whispering, whispering, it’s not him it’s not him it’s not him leave me alone please let me rest , hurting and hurting and no one doing anything but still expecting him to win their war, their home-grown sacrifice.
“Where did we go so wrong, Minerva?”
“Everywhere, Albus,” Minerva said in a whisper. She well remembered looking at the little boy who said the Philosopher’s stone was going to be stolen, imploring her with his wide, sincere eyes, the eyes of a bright, dead student in the face of another bright, dead student. She well remembered turning away.
“They’re the worst sort of Muggles.”
Some of these children were too late. Some were beyond help. But a few of these children could still be saved. Could be cherished, and healed, and held softly. Allowed to cry, and be told, everything will be okay, and it not be a lie.
After all, if for all of Albus' power he could not save one child, what was it worth?
It matters not whether you see it as half empty or half full. When the glass tips over, one can choose to see it as a slipping hazard or a learning opportunity, but the facts are this:
There is a floor to be mopped, there are shards to pick, and the earth shall keep spinning. Time will carry on its eternal march.
Focus on the solvable problems. The water, the glass. Everything else will follow.