Chapter 177: Resistance
Number Four, Privet Drive, Surrey.
The summer night should have been stifling, yet as Harry Potter stood in the driveway, an unfamiliar shiver ran through him.
It was not fear.
It was excitement.
Behind him, the bloated Aunt Marge screamed and flailed as she floated into the pitch black sky like an ugly, overinflated balloon.
Uncle Vernon clung desperately to her ankles, dragged across the lawn like a dog tied to a runaway airship.
Harry watched the ridiculous scene with cold eyes. The corners of his mouth curled into a mocking smile that he could not suppress.
Had there been a mirror nearby, he might have been horrified to discover that the slight lift of his chin, and the way he looked down upon the suffering and humiliation of others, were exactly like Tamara.
Of course, Harry noticed nothing.
Even if he had, he would never have admitted it.
Throughout the long, two month summer holiday, Harry had repeatedly tried to rebuild his state of mind.
Countless times, he had forced himself to calm down. Countless times, he had told himself not to think about Tamara Riddle and not to long for a warmth that had never truly belonged to him.
At the end of his second year, Tamara had turned and left with Draco without the slightest hesitation, abandoning Harry where he stood.
That moment had finally forced him to understand that he could no longer deceive himself.
Tamara might be a good person, but she undoubtedly despised him.
For two entire years, Harry had clung to wishful thinking.
Tamara had repeatedly reached out to help him whenever he was in danger. Because of that, Harry had naively convinced himself that she was merely awkward and unable to express her feelings.
He had invented countless excuses for her coldness, desperately trying to prove that beneath her pride and indifference, she possessed some hidden kindness toward him.
Eventually, he realised that none of it was true.
When he finally found the courage to look directly into Tamara's eyes, he saw through that supposed kindness and recognised the undisguised disgust beneath it.
She looked at him as though he were a revolting insect.
Harry knew that look far too well.
He had seen it in the Dursleys' eyes for ten years. There was no possibility that he had misunderstood it.
Looking back, Harry found his former self painfully ridiculous.
He was not like Dudley, whose brain seemed to be entirely stuffed with fat.
Although Harry still could not understand why Tamara behaved so contradictorily, openly detesting him yet always intervening whenever he was about to meet disaster, he was now certain of one thing.
Nothing Tamara had done had come from kindness.
Every time she helped him, her actions carried a sense of condescending obligation and impatience.
It was charity, not affection.
Harry swore that he would never again approach that cold Slytherin like a hungry fledgling begging for scraps.
His deliberate distance and constant vigilance had made him quieter and sharper over the summer.
That was also why, only a few minutes earlier, when Aunt Marge had sat drinking brandy and spoken of his dead parents as though they were dogs with bad blood, Harry had not swallowed his anger as he once would have.
Without hesitation, he had pulled the holly wand from his trouser pocket.
His magic had erupted beyond his control, sending his aunt soaring into the sky.
As Harry watched the Dursleys tremble and panic, his fingers tightened slightly around his wand.
Under normal circumstances, a thirteen year old wizard who had performed such serious magic in front of Muggles should have been terrified.
He should have been afraid of being expelled from Hogwarts.
He should have been afraid that the Ministry would snap his wand and send him to Azkaban.
Yet Harry felt none of that.
To his astonishment, a thrilling sense of satisfaction surged through him.
For ten years, he had lived under another family's roof and endured every humiliation in silence. They had treated him like a freak, a servant, and a target for their cruelty.
All of that resentment had burst free in a single uncontrolled act of magic.
The moment Harry raised his wand, the people who had once tormented him without restraint became as helpless as ants beneath his feet.
"When you are strong enough, so strong that no one dares ignore your existence..."
"Home is wherever you stand."
Although Harry had sworn never to think about Tamara again, the miserable truth was that both his actions and his instincts continued to prove her words correct.
Harry glanced back at Petunia and Dudley, who were still screaming inside the house.
Then he dragged his heavy trunk away from Number Four and walked into the darkness of Magnolia Crescent without looking back.
He was free.
At the same time, however, another problem presented itself.
Harry held a crumpled Hogsmeade permission form in one hand.
From their third year onward, Hogwarts students were allowed to visit the wizarding village near the school. Harry had heard that Hogsmeade contained all manner of interesting places, but students could only visit with a guardian's permission.
Harry wanted to go more than anything.
However, if visiting Hogsmeade required him to endure insults against his parents in exchange for a signature, then he would rather tear the wretched form to pieces.
And if the Ministry expelled him and snapped his wand merely because he had defended his parents' dignity, then such a rigid, foolish Ministry deserved none of his respect.
The night wind swept through the deserted street.
Harry stopped beside a low garden wall.
As the rush of anger and excitement faded, the chill of the night slowly settled over him.
He had just begun wondering which bench he might have to sleep on when every hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end.
Someone was watching him.
Or perhaps something was.
Harry spun around and raised his wand.
"Lumos."
Light flared at its tip.
Inside the dark gap between two garages, a pair of enormous, gleaming eyes stared directly at him.
They belonged to a huge, gaunt black dog.
The creature lurked among the shadows like a ghost, radiating an unsettling chill.
Startled, Harry instinctively stepped back. His foot struck his trunk, and he fell heavily against the kerb.
He kept his wand raised in his right hand, ready to defend himself with magic at any moment.
BANG!
A deafening explosion shattered the silence of the street.
A blinding light flashed, and a triple decker purple bus came to an abrupt stop directly in front of Harry.
Golden letters were painted across its side.
The Knight Bus.
Its conductor, Stan Shunpike, jumped down and launched into a lengthy introduction about the emergency transport service available to stranded witches and wizards.
Harry looked back toward the garages.
The enormous black dog had vanished without a trace.
He did not hesitate.
Harry paid eleven Sickles, dragged his trunk aboard, and climbed onto the bus.