Johnny and his parents sat at the kitchen table in silence.
Eve would slurp ever so often, then stared at by her family and would mumble an apology.
The entire room seemed to feel the tension between the people at the table. It had been a week since the strange man's threat and Johnny finding out that apparently his past wasn't happy at all. The night's tension grew because the Winters asked Johnny to try and get more information from Hermione, and he declined knowing full well she couldn't and he would have to search on his own. Of course his pace was lacking any type of speed which made his parents more and more impatient and more and more willing to leave; the sooner the better.
Johnny understood their feelings, but couldn't leave until he found out who he was.
The trouble with that was that every time he went to investigate his own personal history, one of the strange people would show up and escort Johnny away from his desired destination.
"Johnny, we're prisoners here. I don't like this. Not for you or your sister," Johnny's mother whispered, "Sweetheart, I just want what's best for you. And no matter what you find out you wont be happy with the result. Ignorance is bliss..."
"I don't care about being happy, I care about the truth. If something all that bad really did happen to me here then what's stopping these people from doing it to someone else? If we find out what happened, maybe we can stop it from happening to another kid. And what about Hermione? She's a prisoner too you know." Johnny let the spoon fall into his bowl.
Johnny's parents shared a look then his father said cautiously, "Johnny, what if... Have you ever considered the fact that she may just be a good actress?"
"No!" Johnny yelled, then was shushed by everyone at the table, including Eve, "Why then would she let me hear that little meeting?"
Johnny's father leaned towards Johnny, "maybe it was just to keep you curious, that way you'd stay. Answer truthfully Johnny, if you hadn't found out what you did, you'd tell us you want to go back home by now."
Johnny searched for an answer, "I want to trust her. Something inside my soul is telling me to trust her. I can't explain it, maybe it's the old me, stuck in my brain somewhere, yelling to me."
"Johnny," his mother gently placed a hand on his shoulder, "What if he was deceived by her too?"
For some reason Johnny felt sick to his stomach. The thought of her willful betrayal, and him being blind to it, made him want to leave the house even more than his parents wanted to.
"One more try." Johnny said as he got up and went out into the living room where he knew Hermione would be. Every night when the family went to dinner she would go into the living room and read some mysterious book.
But tonight was different, she was gone. Johnny heard a faint noise coming from upstairs and went to go see what it could be.
He peered into one of the rooms at the top of the stairs and heard a music box playing a haunting melody.
On the floor sat the music box, but the walls were covered with pictures. Pictures of red headed people laughing, playing, growing up and old. At the end of the room one picture grabbed his attention, most likely because it was not in a frame like all the others. It was of he and Hermione; they were wearing odd clothing and seemed quite happy.
He smiled and tried to remember when or where the picture was taken, but couldn't. He looked closer to the clothing and saw that both of, what looked like, cloaks had a crest on them.
Johnny took the picture from the wall, and started to make his way down stairs. He heard voices but drowned most of it out as he looked over the picture. When he got into the living room he looked up to see the red headed couple from the pictures upstairs and the weird man and they all looked as if they were scolding Hermione.
"What's this?" Johnny said as he held up the picture.
They all turned to see him and the woman looked at him as if she were about to cry.
"Harry dear never mind that," She came towards him and tried to grab the picture but he moved too quickly for her.
"Stop that! I'm sick and tired of hearing that I need to be protected. If I need to be protected so much then why the hell was I used as some type of weapon!"
"Who told you that Harry?" The red haired man asked.
"You all did! I heard you come over here and talk about me! I want to know the truth, now!"
"Look Potter, you aren't ready to know the truth. Just go back to mummy and daddy and-"
"Oh shut it you overbearing arse!" Hermione yelled, "Tell him the truth!"
The man walked closer to Hermione and said, "Listen here little girl, you will start listening to me and-"
Johnny could take no more; he walked in front of Hermione and pushed the man away. He did this while saying, "You stay away from her!" and as he pushed he could feel something from deep inside his gut course through his body and out his hands, which caused a bright light to come from what seemed to be his hands and the light pushed the man to the wall.
Johnny looked at his hands numbly, then at the people who surrounded him. The two red haired people looked as if they were scared, and Hermione looked of all things apologetic. He turned to see his parents looking at him with shock and fear while Eve; Eve stood behind them and looked at him as though she were both horrified and disgusted.
He couldn't take those looks from the people he loved; he slowly backed away to the stairs.
Hermione grabbed his arm and said through the tears that stained her face, "I'm sorry you had to find out like this."
She knew all the time that something was terribly wrong with him.
His father was right about her, she did betray him.
When the back of his heel hit the first step Johnny turned and ran up the stairs.
* * *
Johnny sat in his room, his mind blank, just staring at torn up pieces of the picture of Hermione and himself.
The pieces swirled at the floor then put themselves back into the original form of the picture. It floated from above the ground to his hand. He took it and looked up to see an old man with a long white beard dressed as if he were coming from some sort of renaissance fair.
"Harry, how I've missed you." The man smiled and swished the stick in his hand to make Johnny's trunk into a comfy chair.
After Johnny was silent for a few moments he spoke again, "This was not how it was supposed to happen. I gave the Weasleys strict instructions to tell you once you entered the house. Their hearts were in the right place Harry. They thought if they kept you from your past you would no longer hold the burden you once did."
"I'm a freak." Johnny said wiping a tear from his eye.
"Well, from one freak to another, it's not such a bad lot in life. You just have to learn control. Although what happened to you today is not at all your fault, well at least not entirely. I see even a loss of memory can't cool that temper of yours."
"It was all my fault, I killed that man..."
The older man laughed heartily, "No, no; his ego and back were bruised but there was no permanent damage."
Johnny sighed in relief.
"You may be wondering what made you do that. That will come in time of course; right now we need to talk about what kind of freak you are. Harry James Potter, you're a wizard. Spells, wands, cauldrons, it's all real and you play an enormous part in it."
Johnny thought about it a moment, "Broomsticks?"
"Only for sport." the man said.
"Who are you then?"
"I am the headmaster at your school, Professor Albus Dumbledore. You go to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Johnny gave him a disgusted look.
"I'm not the one who named it."
"So if it wasn't entirely me that made that thing happen, what did?" Johnny looked up at the man waiting for an answer.
"Ah, now we get to it. Well a bit more than a year ago you and Miss Granger did a spell together, one that would force one to protect the other if one was in danger. You thought she was in danger tonight and the spell did it's work."
Johnny nodded, but then stopped suddenly, "why would we need protection? Is it because of the weapon thing?"
The man furrowed his eyebrows then asked, "what weapon thing?"
"I over heard them saying that I was used as some sort of weapon... Did... Did I kill people?"
"You are not a weapon Harry, you are a human being, no matter how far from normal." Professor Albus Dumbledore gave a long sigh, "To tell you the truth about that I'm going to have to tell you a long story."
"What else do I have to do?" Johnny said.
"Once upon a time there was this prince among men. His name was Harry James Potter. His parents, King James and Queen Lily loved him very much. They loved him so much that when they heard from an advisor that an evil knight wanted their only son they ran away with him far far away where no one could find them. They called one of their most trusted knights, and wanted to keep the secret of where they were with him.
"If he kept the secret a strong magic would be formed and no one would be able to find them. Their knight told them to trust a different knight with this most sacred secret, that he would be expected to know the secret and this other knight could hold the secret with no one knowing the wiser. They did not want to at first, but so trusted was this knight that they agreed. And after the secret was given the second knight gave it to the evil knight.
"The evil knight came to the secret castle and killed King James and Queen Lily. And when he tried to kill the young prince he failed. The young prince lived with a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead, and the evil knight's body failed him. So the evil knight was forced to live off of others."
"This is great, but I'm not five." Johnny rubbed his temples.
Albus Dumbledore laughed, "You may not be but considering the next part of the story it is quite a bit easier for me to tell it this way. For you see the advisor was the headmaster of the wizarding school the young prince was destined to go to, and he was given the task of finding a place to have the young prince grow up. He decided that since it was unlikely that the evil knight were truly dead, he would have to place him where a strong magic could protect him. The one place the advisor could place him for that to work, was the barons, the Dursley's, where the prince's blood aunt lived.
"But you see Harry these Barons were horrible people. So the question was, should the advisor place the young prince where he was loved, with his godmother, or with these barons? But the choice wasn't as easy as it seems because the godmother was cursed, and every full moon would cause harm to themselves and possibly with others. The young prince, no matter how much the godmother would try, could never be as safe as he would be with the barons. So the advisor sent him there.
"You may be asking why the prince was in such danger, why the evil knight wanted him dead, the reason is because there was a soothsayer, and she told the advisor that there was one person that could stop the evil knight, and that was over heard by someone who worked for the evil knight, so he went after the prince and his parents. So the safety of the young prince was of great importance. You see the advisor tried to look at the situation without feeling, he tried not to care that the prince was just a baby and wasn't ready for such a responsibility, he just tried to remind himself of what the prince was to do and that would be the extent of his involvement of the boy.
"Where was I... Oh, yes. When the barons took him in they forced him to live under the stairs, in a cupboard. They treated him as a servant, and made him cook and clean, never bought him anything not even clothes, and did just about everything they could to hurt the prince."
Dumbledore came close to Johnny and said in a low tone, "Enough to make anyone a mean, unforgiving person."
Dumbledore leaned back and continued with his story, "They soon found out that the prince was special, that when he was angry, or humiliated, he could make things happen."
"What sort of things?" Johnny asked.
"Oh, well when he got his hair cut and he didn't like it he could grow his hair back to what it was over night... Nothing really bad. Well, when the prince turned eleven he was invited to a school for people who could do extraordinary things, like himself, but the young prince almost didn't go. You see the Barons did not want him to go to the school, so when the invitations came, they would burn and tear them, that was when the advisor sent Lord Hagrid to bring the prince to school. For you see Lord Hagrid was quite a big man, and at first glance may seem a bit scary. And at first the prince was scared of him, but after a few minutes of meeting Lord Hagrid the prince was able to see that he may be big, but lord Hagrid had an even bigger heart.
"When the prince came to the school, and the advisor saw him, he though he might have been a bit too skinny, but overall the prince looked rather well. The advisor found out that year that the prince was not bitter and cross as he expected, but he was curious and gallant if not a bit shy.
"And that year the prince met his two best friends, Sir Ron and Lady Hermione. Now Sir Ron-"
"Please," Johnny rubbed his temples; " you're giving me a headache, could you just tell me straight out what happened?"
Dumbledore sighed, "If you wish. Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. You met them you first year... you might want to ask Hermione for a more detailed answer than that, and they became your best friends. The three of you developed an appetite for getting in trouble for all the right reasons. Your first year at Hogwarts you learned that someone might want to steal something from the school, and you went in search of it for yourselves. You see, it was the Philosopher's Stone, a stone made by an alchemist, a rather good friend of mine, and it could create the elixir of life. That means it could make the person drinking it live longer, and if used by Voldemort, our evil knight, it could help bring him back to power. The three of you learned the power it had and you wanted to find it, not to get the power yourselves, but to stop someone who would do bad with it from getting it.
"I was not ready for you three. I was expecting something quite different from each one of you, but you joined together as if you knew you were destined to, I have never seen such a strong immediate bond. Of course over the years you've had your share of rows, and rather big ones I might add, but you were always there when it really mattered."
"What did you expect from us?"
"I thought you would resent me, hate me, I thought you would be a stubborn stoic sorrowful child, and when you came through the doors, you were smiling. You were smiling and talking to the youngest Weasley as if you had known him for years. I knew the hell I must have put you through, and yet you smiled. I knew then that you weren't just any powerful wizard, you are extraordinary.
"And young Mr. Weasley, I knew he would compete with his older siblings, I thought he would be some sort of snot nosed defiant youth, trying to prove himself to his older brothers. What I was faced with was quite different, while Mr. Weasley happens to be opinionated, and ready to tell the world what he thinks, he is brave to a fault. You know his biggest fear is spiders and in your second year you made him go into a hollow that was filled with them, they were bigger than me, and he went because he knew if he didn't than someone could get killed. To face your biggest fear takes something, something that not many are born with."
"I must admit that Miss Granger had not really grabbed my attention at first. To share a secret, I try to learn as much as I can about students before they come to Hogwarts, to see who I might be dealing with, but with Miss Granger I did not know much and I did not expect much more of her. She was smarter than all the other children, true, but most students I see that are like that either end up at St. Mungo's, that's one of our hospitals, for well insanity, or off trying to mate a blasted ended skrewit with a hippogriff. But then something happened that I didn't expect, she was sorted into your house; Gryffindor. Gryffindor is for the students who are brave, and bold, I didn't think she belonged. But the year went by and even when you didn't want her there she hung onto you and Mr. Weasley as if some spell had been preformed. I never took into account that despite the appearance of a bossy little know it all, on the inside she was screaming inside for a friend. Now, she still may be quite a bit bossy, and a bit of a know it all, but she's your, Mr. Weasley and yours, little know it all. And over time not only has she become one of your most loyal friends, but she has learned through time to love, with all of her heart. I realized, too late, that at the beginning that was all she wanted."
"What do you mean love with all of-"
"Ah, that is private, I think we should just not question any further on that score."
Dumbledore sat there for a while, smiling at Johnny, and Johnny felt his headache come back.
"So what happened... Why can't I remember anything?"
"That's a mystery to us. We know it can't be the Sempetutela spell, and it had nothing to do with what happened to you and Voldemort at Hogwarts... It's very peculiar that you should loose your memory and appear out of the country for what seems to be no reason at all. Were you taken into the orphanage with anything, anything they found unusual?"
Johnny shook his head.
Dumbledore sat there thinking for a moment while Johnny felt as if he would fall from his seat.
"Okay, well are you going to explain why these people think I'm a weapon or not?"