…Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Dr., Surrey, England
Harry Potter did not remember his mother. That was not entirely true; he would often dream about a woman screaming "Not Harry" and a flash of green light. But he was not entirely sure that person was his mother though something inside of him wanted to believe that it was. He was presently sitting in his room deep in concentration because he was trying to recapture that fleeting memory in hopes of confirming that it was in fact his mother's voice.
He was 7 years old and the last year of his life had been wonderful. After moving into his cousin's second bedroom he had seen a reduction in his chores at home and shortly after that his school life became equally wonderful. The change in school came about 3 months after his trip to the hospital.
He had already fully accepted his freakiness, much to his relative's dismay. His hair had grown to shoulder length, and would not remain cut if shortened. He had decided to wear it tied back in a ponytail. His aunt and uncle still refused to spend more than the barest requirement for his upkeep but he had found an old leather tool belt in a dumpster and with patience and some research in the library had made it into two gauntlets that he wore tied to each of his forearms.
With the help of that library, he had taught himself to sew and started turning his cousin's oversize hand-me-downs into his own freaky fashion statements. His favorites were his t-shirts. He cut vertical strips out of the oversized shirts and then sewed them back together into something that fit. The weird breaks in the patterns on the shirts looked odd and was exactly the look he wanted.
His relatives desperately wanted to curtail his behavior but decided instead that his behavior fed into the lies they had told the neighborhood about him and it was better than spending money on him. Most of their anger since his change was because no matter how many people agreed that he looked like a freak and a delinquent, he would only become happier and thank them for realizing he "wasn't boring".
The day that his school life turned around started similarly to the previous great change with a meeting with a nurse. Nurse Chambers was new to the school and was taking time to review and update every students file. Harry got called because his file was so sparse. It lacked the typical reports about small cuts and similar incidents one would expect from a small boy. The nurse had asked around and the general belief was that the kid was "freaky" and "unruly", but too smart to get caught causing trouble.
The irregular file was explained as being due to an expected unwillingness to report himself out of fear that he would get caught in whatever scheme he had hatched. That sounded a little convoluted for a 7 year old so she called him to the office.
…Nurses Office, Surrey Elementary School
When Harry arrived he was met by another of his kind. The nurse was dressed in professional pants and a conservative button down blouse but she had three piercings in her right ear and two in her left. She had another in her nose and when she welcomed him into the office he found that she had another in her tongue. He also noticed the end of a tattoo peeking out of her shirtsleeve.
Looking at her chest, Harry was also able to see her nipples through her blouse but to him they seemed oddly shaped. His curiosity got the better of him and he found himself staring longer than was appropriate. He flushed when she said "you're at little young to be interested in those, aren't you." He looked at her with a face that was red from embarrassment but still confused.
Harry was not sure why she explained it to him and though he didn't know it, neither was the nurse, but she told him that the odd impression was because she had her nipples pierced like her ears, nose and tongue. He was shocked because he never even considered that to be possible but smiled brightly at her. He had a feeling like he had once again found his people.
Since this was the first time he had been able to have a long, uninterrupted conversation with a fellow freak, he had happily told her about his life at the Dursley's home in an effort to prove that he was a freak like her too. Unbeknownst to Harry he created a minor scandal in Surrey. But that would be later. While in the office, the nurse explained to the boy that while there was nothing wrong with being different, it was considered insulting to call someone a freak.
She admitted that she had friends that would call each other names like that as endearments but that it wasn't a title to call someone without being friends first because they could take offense. Harry understood that his relatives would want to be insulting but for him the words did not matter because he had found out that whatever he was, there existed people like him, and it was OK for him to be like them.
The Dursley family had a harder time of it. While it was never proven that they had been criminally abusive toward Harry, it was clear that they had not treated him particularly well and the suspicion of the extent of that mistreatment would follow them for years. The evidence was not enough to remove him from their custody but it did remove the blinders from the community and caused everyone to keep a closer eye on the family at number 4 Privet Dr.
Vernon and Petunia were incensed at their tattered reputations but could do little about it. Abandoning their nephew to an orphanage would do no good and they couldn't afford to move. They couldn't even take their frustrations out on the child due to the increased scrutiny they were under. The community had focused their guilt at "ignoring the signs" into a movement. The Dursleys only survived because three families were discovered committing worse atrocities against their children than what was happening to Harry.
Harry was unaware of it but word had even reached back to "them" and the two Dursleys had gotten a visit from the "old man". Petunia later shared with Vernon that he had seemed unconcerned with their behavior and more upset with all the attention it had brought to bear on them. For Harry, in the end, the details were unimportant. He was now eating well, doing well in school, and being supported by a neighborhood of mothers who still felt guilty for falling for Petunia's lies.
…Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Dr., Surrey, England
Maslow's hierarchy of needs says that Harry Potter was in a world where all of his needs had been met. He was eating well and was healthy, he felt safe in the knowledge that the community protected him as one of their own, he had found friendship and belonging within the "oddball" clique at his school and they had found his oddness and self-acceptance refreshing as well. All that was left for Harry was self-actualization.
Nurse Chambers had actually introduced Maslow's ideas to Harry as a means to explain to Harry what was wrong with his previous upbringing. And now at 8, he was exploring what it meant for him to be self-actualized. While very smart, Harry Potter did not fully understand the concept except to say that now that everything was going so well for him, the only thing he could think to still need was a connection to his parents.
That is why Harry was sitting on his bed trying to hold the fleeting memory of his mother's voice. Harry sat on his bed with his eyes closed desperately trying to grab on to the memory from his dream. He had been working on it for a month and it was finally starting to work. Each night before bed he focused on it and each morning we woke with more of the memory that played itself in his dreams.
It took another week before the dream was complete enough for him to realize that he was remembering his mother's last moments of life. Before the door had been kicked in, she had said something to him. Hearing his mother's last words to him became a burning desire for him and he became focused on clearing up that portion of his memory. Then it came to him. It was a spell. His mother's last words to him was a spell she cast on him.
The fact that spells existed no longer surprised Harry, it was early in his efforts that he discovered that magic was a part of his life, as the first parts of his memory that had opened up was a creepy looking man calling himself Voldemort talking about "ruling the magical world" before casting some sort of spell on him. That realization had been the last puzzle piece for Harry Potter.
That is what made him different. He could never before understand why his Aunt would consider him as different as a woman wearing fishnets and a miniskirt since she was the one who dressed him, but that discovery had been calming for Harry. It had brought understanding to why his Aunt behaved as she did, why he was blamed for unexplained happenings and what the cause of those things had been. He hadn't realized he had needed to know but felt like he was continuing on the path Nurse Chambers had set him on.
That night Harry dreamed about the entirety of his parents last day on earth. He "met" his father for the first time and experienced what is was like to be showered with a father's love and pride. His father would talk to him about how strong he was and what a blessing he was to the Potter line and how he could never have hoped for a greater legacy. His mother's love was equally powerful if more possessive. Lily Potter wanted it known that he was her baby and that nothing would come between her and her love for him.
The Potters talked about how they wanted him to grow up and how they planned to make sure that if nothing else survived the war they were in, their baby boy would. When the hour of the betrayal happened, Harry saw his father stand and send he and his mother away and his mother prepare his nursery for her last stand. At 8 he had seen hero movies and it was oddly comforting to see his parents love for him manifest in their last stand against evil.
Harry Potter woke up in tears. He cried at the unfairness of losing his parents, he cried at the certainty of their love for him. He wept until he had no more tears and no more energy and fell back to sleep. While he slept, the magic inside him came awake.
Occlumency is a tool of organization. The ability to block intrusions has always been a secondary benefit because for a fully organized mind, the presence of another mind stands out like a beacon. Harry's month long focus on one disjointed memory that he was having re-occurring dreams about, forced his mind and magic to organize itself to find the pieces of the memory. The fact that the required memory was as far back as his 18 month old self forced his mind to organize everything.