Chapter 9: The Bombing of Coventry
Harry and Ginny arrived at Arabella Figg's house in Little Whinging at one o'clock in the afternoon, after having eaten a light lunch at The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. It was Ginny's idea to forego a big noontime meal, because she said that Mrs. Figg would probably offer them some treats. And she was right. As they emerged from Mrs. Figg's fireplace into her snug and tidy living room, they could see into the dining room where plates of goodies and teacups and saucers were already laid out on a dining table covered by a white tablecloth.
Mrs. Figg was sitting in an armchair awaiting their arrival, and she stood up with a bit of effort the moment that Harry and Ginny appeared. She was dressed in a blue flowered dress, with her hair neatly coiffed as if from a recent visit to the beauty salon, silver-colored earrings in her ears, and neat black leather shoes. It looked to Harry as if she was ready to leave the house for some special event, but the attractive refreshments set out on the table told him that the special event was their visit.
"Harry, Ginny, it's so nice to see you! And I'm so happy about your new baby. Congratulations!" She was bubbling with enthusiasm in her greeting. To his slight surprise, Harry felt really happy to see her too, more than he had expected.
"Mrs. Figg, it's so nice to see you too. After all these years, and you still look the same." It had been about six years since he had seen her last, and her hair was whiter, her face more lined, but the vigorous spirit she had shown during the last years of the war against Voldemort was still plain on her face.
"And Ginny, my dear, you're looking glowing. I always knew you were a very special girl, because Harry chose you for his bride."
"Thank you so much, Mrs. Figg, for having us," Ginny said. She was feeling more at home by the minute, and any misgivings about a self-invited visit to someone she didn't know were vanishing in the warmth of Mrs. Figg's welcome.
"Come in, my dears. Have a seat," Mrs Figg said, and she waved them toward the sofa.
"Maybe you were surprised to get my owl," Harry began, but Mrs Figg interjected, "Oh no, I suspected you would come back some day to talk to me."
"Why?" asked Harry, surprised, because coming back had never occurred to him until recently.
"Call it an old woman's intuition. There's no way you wouldn't want to know everything eventually," Mrs. Figg answered. "After all, your life has been unusual from the very beginning. That's a lot for you to try to understand."
"You're right," Harry conceded. "I don't know why I waited so long."
"What do you want me to tell you about?" Mrs. Figg asked, getting right to the point.
Harry leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and his hands upturned in front of him. "I want you to tell me about the role you played in my early life. How was it that you came to be my babysitter? What was that really all about?"
"Professor Dumbledore asked me to do it," Mrs. Figg said. "He told me he had an undercover job for which I would be perfect. I wasn't working at the time, so I had plenty of time to do it, and I could just blend into the neighborhood."
"How did you know him?" Harry asked.
"My family has known him for a long time," Mrs. Figg replied. "He was friendly with all of us, even me, although I never went to Hogwarts and I always had a foot in both worlds. He asked me to keep my eye on you, make sure you remained in Little Whinging, still living with your aunt and uncle."
"Were you living in Little Whinging at the time?" Harry asked.
"No, that would have been too much of a coincidence. I was living up in the midlands, but there were no witches or wizards living in Little Whinging, so Professor Dumbledore asked me if I would be willing to relocate. There was not a lot I could do for the wizarding community because, unlike my parents and my brother, I had no skills, but this was something I could do. A house was found for me, and I moved in about a month after you came here."
Ginny asked, in tones of wonder, "You left your town and all your friends and family to do this for Harry?"
Mrs. Figg replied, "My children were grown and gone, and I knew I could make new friends in Little Whinging. This was an important job, so I did it. And who could resist the opportunity to help a baby?"
"I'm curious," Harry said. "How did you make friends -- well, no, maybe that's not the right term -- how did you become acquainted with my aunt and uncle?"
"I had a plan," Mrs. Figg explained. "I took daily walks along Privet Drive and at first I just waved and said 'Good morning,' and after they were used to that I began to stop on the pavement and chat for a few minutes. I asked your aunt if you and your cousin were fraternal twins, although of course you weren't, but I pretended that I didn't know that."
"She must have denied that pretty vigorously," Harry observed.
"She made it very plain that only Dudley was her son," agreed Mrs. Figg with a twinkle in her eye. "Well, after a little while of just chatting every day, I decided that I could get a closer relationship by offering to babysit, because then I would have a tighter contact with your family. So I said something about how it must be hard to take care of two runabout babies at once, and if she needed someone to babysit them sometimes I would be happy to do it. She said that she would be glad to let me babysit you because you were so much trouble. Of course she never asked me to babysit your cousin, but that was fine with me. I didn't realize at first that your aunt and uncle were treating you and your cousin unequally, but it eventually became clear."
"Did you babysit me very often when I was little?" Harry asked.
"When you were little, before you started school, your aunt dropped you off here fairly often, whenever she wanted to go out for the day."
"What did Harry do when he was here?" Ginny asked. "Do you remember, Harry?"
Mrs. Figg continued her story. "He used to play in the back garden. Of course, there was no one else to play with but the cats, but your husband was a solemn baby, and he seemed to be good company for himself. I would feed him lunch, and I had some little children's books that used to belong to my daughters and I read them to him."
Ginny turned to Harry and asked, "Do you remember that, Harry?"
"No, I don't," he said, shaking his head, "but," now addressing Mrs. Figg, "I do recall you showing me scrapbook photos of your cats."
"Well, I didn't think you wanted to see pictures of my family, dead people and people you didn't know."
"Maybe if you showed Harry the books again, he would remember them," Ginny suggested.
"No, I'm afraid I don't have them anymore, my dear," said Mrs. Figg. "When my grandchildren grew up, I sent the books to my daughters to read to their grandchildren."
"What else did he do?" Ginny continued.
"Well," Mrs. Figg said with a smile, "when he was about four, I tried to take him to church."
"You did?" Harry was astonished.
"Actually, I just suggested to your aunt that I could take you and Dudley to Sunday School for an hour or two on Sunday mornings, so she and your uncle could have a little time by themselves. I figured she wouldn't accept for Dudley, but there was an outside chance she'd accept for you. But she didn't, so nothing came of it."
"No, I don't suppose so," Harry reflected. "I don't think that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon ever went to church."
"More's the pity," Mrs. Figg remarked. "The sermons might have done them some good."
Harry wanted to get back to his main focus of questioning. "Did you communicate regularly with Professor Dumbledore?" he asked. He felt sure that there must have been some sort of reporting, now that he knew that Mrs. Figg had been deliberately placed in Little Whinging.
"He sent me an owl from time to time, not extremely often, and I would reply that you were still living in your aunt and uncle's house and that I and my cats had not seen any sign of anyone coming to your house and threatening you in any way, such as Death Eaters."
"You weren't in a position to influence how my aunt and uncle treated me, were you?" asked Harry.
"No, I'm sorry, my dear, but I was walking a fine line. I didn't want to do anything that would cause your aunt and uncle to cut off contact with me, so I couldn't give you anything that you could take home, like toys or new clothes or candy. I just sincerely hoped that you were hanging on."
With a little effort Mrs. Figg got to her feet from her armchair and said, "Would you like some tea? I made a few things to go with it."
"Yes, we would like that very much," said Harry, also standing up. "My wife made you a little something special."
"But please don't open it up now," Ginny begged hastily. "We would much rather enjoy what you made, and you can share this with your friends another day."
"Why, thank you," Mrs. Figg said as they walked into the dining room. "I'll really enjoy it. It's always a treat to eat someone else's cooking." They seated themselves at the table, and Ginny handed the wrapped package of cakes to Mrs. Figg.
"I'll just put this out in the kitchen and start making the tea," said Mrs. Figg, and she went out of the room.
While she was absent, Harry and Ginny looked around the dining room. There was a dark wooden dresser up against one wall, with china and bric-a-brac on the upper shelves. Framed photographs of people who were doubtless Mrs. Figg's relatives hung on the walls, and lace curtains decorated the window.
Mrs. Figg returned a few minutes later with a teapot, and Harry wondered if she had had the water simmering when they arrived, because she had managed to make the tea so quickly without using the Fervio charm. She poured the tea and passed the sugar bowl and milk pitcher to Harry and Ginny, and urged them to partake freely of the varied little biscuits, which all appeared to be homemade.
As he nibbled a biscuit, Harry said, "There's one thing I've always wondered about. When you came to my hearing at the Ministry of Magic after that time when the dementors attacked me and Dudley, you testified that you had seen the dementors too. Did you really see them, or did Professor Dumbledore just tell you to say that?"
Mrs. Figg smiled, apparently taking no offense at the question, but she didn't answer directly. "You want to know if Squibs can see dementors. My dear boy, a Squib is not the same thing as a Muggle, even though neither one can perform magic, just as a paralytic in a wheelchair is not the same thing as an oyster, even though neither of them can walk. But I don't fault you for asking. People have been believing that Squibs are worthless since probably the beginning of the wizarding community. When their children turned out to be Squibs, some families would give them away, or send them to orphanages. Sometimes they would pretend that they were dead."
"Really??" exclaimed Ginny in shocked tones.
"It would be an interesting study," Mrs. Figg continued, "to investigate the reported deaths of children in wizarding families over the centuries, and see if there is not an uptick of reported deaths around the age of eleven. And it would be interesting to see if some of those coffins are full of rocks."
"They pretended their children were dead, and they sent them away?" Ginny repeated, horrified.
"I can believe some purebred families might do that," Harry reflected. "What do you suppose Lucius Malfoy would have done if Draco had turned out to be a Squib?"
Ginny turned to Mrs. Figg. "Your family didn't do that to you, did they?"
"No, my dear," Mrs. Figg reassured her, patting her hand. "I was lucky. My family was very supportive. They loved me anyway. I think they suspected something when I had not shown any magical tendencies by the age of six, and they sent me to the Muggle school. There was never a Hogwarts letter for me, so I stayed in the Muggle school until I was sixteen. Then I went to work. It was during the Great Depression and I was lucky to have a job. That's how I met my husband. His name was Cyril, Cyril Figg, and he was the best and kindest man I ever knew. And he was handsome too. He worked at Morris Engines. I was so happy that he fancied me. We were married in 1935. I was twenty. Here, I'll show you our wedding picture."
She got up and went over to the dresser and pulled open the upper drawer. She lifted a photo album out of the drawer and brought it back to the table. She opened the album, turned a few pages, and said, "Here, that's Cyril and me on the day we were married."
Harry and Ginny looked at the black and white photograph of a handsome young man and a pretty young woman standing side by side in front of a plain wall, smiling happily, dressed in what looked like what they would wear to church on an ordinary Sunday. As Ginny gazed at the photo, her mind leapt to thoughts of her own wedding photos, with herself in an elaborate floor-length white gown and Harry in formal wear, surrounded by their attendants also elegantly garbed, flowers and other decorations in the background, and she suddenly felt a pang of guilt that her own wedding had been so much more expensive than Cyril and Arabella Figg's wedding. But looking at the black and white photo and the joy on the faces of the couple, Ginny could plainly see that the expensive clothes and elaborate party didn't matter much, compared to the happiness of finding one's true love.
Harry, on the other hand, was doing some rapid mental maths as he looked at the photograph. Married in 1935, at age twenty. That meant that Mrs. Figg was born in 1915, so when Harry arrived in Little Whinging she was what? Sixty-six. And today? Eighty-nine.
"What a sweet picture," Ginny said. "Did you think that your children might be magical?"
Mrs. Figg shook her head. "There wasn't much chance, a Muggle and a Squib. But it's not impossible. You know the witches and wizards they call 'Muggleborn'? There's probably a Squib somewhere among their ancestors. If you trace their family tree back and back, and you reach a dead end on one branch, a person who seems to have no discernible parents, that person may be the Squib.
"Or," she continued, "the records may simply have been lost. There was so much destruction during the war. They bombed our city, you know."
Harry and Ginny stopped eating biscuits. Harry realized that Mrs. Figg was not talking about the wizarding wars; she was talking about World War Two.
"What city was that?" he asked.
"Coventry," Mrs. Figg answered. "We were living in Coventry. Cyril joined the RAF when the war broke out."
"Was he a pilot?" Harry asked.
"No," Mrs. Figg said, "He was a bomb aimer. Here's a picture of him in his uniform."
She turned a page in the photo album and pointed to a photograph of Cyril in his RAF uniform. He's even handsomer than in his wedding picture, Ginny thought. It would be easy to love this man.
"I was in Coventry when the Germans bombed it. That was in November of 1940. That was a terrible, terrible night. The planes started coming. We could hear them. They came in waves, dropping bombs all over the city. We heard the terrible sound of their engines, and the bombs falling, and the huge explosions, and people screaming. In between the waves of planes, there were little bits of time when the bombs didn't fall and people could run for shelter. I grabbed my daughter Norah, she was only three, and a single blanket, and I ran with her through the streets to the church, and we went down into the crypt. A lot of other people were doing that too. We huddled down there in the crypt, with all the tombs with dead people in them, and I wrapped the blanket around Norah and held her so tight. It was so dark and cold, and even down there we could hear the bombs and the explosions all night. We were so frightened. We knew that if the church took a direct hit we would all be dead, just like the dead bodies in the tombs."
"Do you think Norah remembers that night?" Ginny asked.
"I know she does," Mrs. Figg said. "There was a man there with a water bottle and he gave Norah a drink from the bottle, and she remembers that he didn't pour it into a glass; he just let her drink from the bottle, which was something we never did at home. We came out of the crypt the next morning. The church was damaged, but it didn't take a direct hit. We were so thankful just to be alive, because most of the city was destroyed and almost a thousand people died. Later they dug two mass graves for them."
"Was your house destroyed?" Harry asked.
"Actually, it wasn't. We were living in council housing on the outskirts of the city. I was pregnant with our second child then. If it was a boy, I was going to name him Cyril after his father. But it was another girl. I could have named her Cyrilla -- that's a pretty name, isn't it? -- but I thought that if I did that, it would be like saying that I thought Cyril would die and that there would never be a son. So I named her Celia. That's kind of like Cyril.
"But I lost Cyril anyway. They were doing a bombing run over Nuremburg in March of 1944 and a lot of the planes were shot down. His plane was shot down. That was a terrible day too, the worst of all, when they notified me that he was dead."
Silence filled the room. Harry stared at the table, the white cloth, the plates of biscuits, the tea cups. The gulf between this cozy, peaceful dining room and the horrors of World War Two seemed unfathomable.
"I am so sorry," Ginny said. Her voice quavered and she seemed about to cry. Suddenly she could see how her own life had mirrored Mrs. Figg's life. They had both seen the man they loved go off to war, while they themselves had stayed behind, facing horrors of their own. But Mrs. Figg had lost her love while Ginny had not. Ginny turned her head slightly to glance at Harry, as if to reassure herself that he really was there.
"When I saw those dementors in the alley, those were the two things I remembered," Mrs. Figg said. "The night they bombed our city, and when I learned that my husband was dead." She was silent for a moment and then added, "They didn't ask me what I remembered, at that hearing, but I wouldn't have told them anyway. They disrespected all Muggles. They would have disrespected my Cyril, and I couldn't endure to have them do that."
"No," Harry said. "Cyril was a hero."
Mrs. Figg nodded. "So many young men died in the war. They were all heroes."
She picked up the teapot, refilled their cups, and set the teapot down again with a wan smile on her old face. It must be hard to talk about this, Harry thought.
"And you never remarried after the war?" Ginny asked.
"No, my dear. I just wanted to focus on taking care of my girls. They went through so much; their lives were so disrupted by the war. I didn't want to bring in a stepfather who might not love them because they were another man's children. And I didn't need to remarry. I got a war widow's pension, and jobs were available because so many men had been killed or disabled. Whatever men were left could have their pick of women who were younger and prettier than me and weren't burdened with children or mourning for their dead first husband. I was mourning for Cyril. After him, no one could ever measure up. I would rather have had nine years with Cyril than a lifetime with anyone else."
"You haven't told this story in a long time, have you?" said Harry gently.
"No," said Mrs. Figg, "but talking about the dementors brings it all back. Thank you for indulging an old lady in her memories of the past. I know that's not why you came to see me."
"Do you have pictures of your daughters too?" asked Ginny. "I'd love to see them."
Mrs. Figg got up out of her chair and went over to the wall of framed photographs. "This is Norah when she was a girl, and here she is a little older," she said as she pointed to some of the photographs. "She lives in South Africa now. That's where her husband was working. And this is Celia. She lives here in England. I see her more often. You remind me of Norah, Harry. She was my 'toughie nut'. You would like her."
Ginny got up and offered to take the empty tea cups out to the kitchen. Everyone seemed determined to shake off the sadness of Mrs. Figg's story and try to be cheerful again. When Ginny returned from the kitchen, Mrs. Figg asked about what she and Harry had been doing recently, and they told her about Harry's job as an Auror and Ginny's career as a professional sportswoman and sportswriter. Mrs. Figg was particularly impressed by Ginny's career and remarked more than once that in her own day, women couldn't do things like that.
"Why don't you take Ginny out and show her the neighborhood, Harry?" Mrs. Figg said. " Have you ever been here before, Ginny?"
"No, I haven't," Ginny said. Turning to Harry she added, "I'd love to see some of the places where you used to go."
"Oh, okay, I guess," Harry replied, "although there's nothing special here."
"Show me your old school, Harry," Ginny suggested.
"Yes, get out into the fresh air for a bit, you two," Mrs. Figg urged cheerfully, "and when you're ready to go home, you can come back here and use the Floo."
Taking a warm leave of Mrs. Figg, Harry and Ginny went out into the sunny street. They walked along the pavement for a few blocks, past the square houses with their flowery gardens and neatly mowed lawns, discussing their visit with Mrs. Figg. At the next intersection, Ginny took note of the street signs and saw that they were about to cross Privet Drive. She looked up at Harry's face.
"Yeah," Harry said, noticing her glance, "I used to live down that way," making a motion to the right with his hand. He didn't express any intention to take Ginny down the street to walk by the house and see it, and she didn't suggest it. She just said, "Where is your old primary school from here?"
"This way," said Harry, and they started off again.
Harry's old school sat empty and quiet in the summer sun. It was a low, single-story building with plain white walls and large square windows all along the facade. At a couple of points on the building there were concrete steps with metal railings leading up to sturdy, plain double doors. Between the building and the road was a play yard surrounded by a chain-link fence, and in the play yard were some pieces of play equipment -- some swings, a jungle gym, and a carousel, which was a flat, rotating, circular metal plate with some railings to hold on to. Part of the school grounds were grassy, but around the play equipment the ground was covered with fine gravel. Harry and Ginny walked around the edge of the fence to enter the play yard.
"Well, this is where I went to school until I was eleven," Harry announced.
"Can we look in the windows?" Ginny asked.
"I don't see why not," Harry replied, and they walked across the yard to the building and put their faces up near the glass, cupping their hands around their faces to cut out the glare. Inside they could see little tables and chairs, chalkboards on the wall, and all the accoutrements of a Muggle school.
"What did they teach in this room, Harry?" Ginny asked.
"It wasn't like Hogwarts, where you go from room to room studying different subjects," Harry explained. "You would stay in one room all year with one teacher, and she would teach all the subjects."
"Oh," Ginny said. "What subjects did they teach?"
"Reading, writing, maths, science, music, art, history, geography, stuff like that."
"Was this your room?" Ginny asked.
"It might have been. I was in different rooms in different years, and it's hard to figure out which room is which from the outside. If we could go inside and walk down the hall, I could point out my rooms to you," Harry said.
Ginny stepped away from the window, having seen all she wanted to see, and wandered back toward the play equipment.
"Here, sit on the swing and I'll push you," Harry said. Ginny sat down, holding the chains firmly in her hands, and Harry began to push. She swung back and forth for a little while, but they could not converse easily in that way, so Harry eventually stopped pushing and sat down in the swing seat next to Ginny, and they both swung back and forth in very short arcs, just moving their feet on the ground.
"Do you remember the names of your teachers?" Ginny asked.
"Oh yes," Harry answered. "There was Miss Weingartner, Mrs. Major, Mrs. Stanhope, Mrs. Spencer, Mrs. Llewellyn, and Mrs. Brennan. Miss Weingartner was young and pretty. Mrs. Spencer was tall and thin, old and gray-haired, and very grim. She scared me at first, but I got used to her."
They swung slowly for a little while longer, and Harry spoke again. "I've been thinking. When our children are young, before they go to Hogwarts, I want them to go to a Muggle school. I know that a lot of the wizarding families teach their children at home, but I want our children to know more about the Muggle community, not to be so shut off from all those people."
"My mum taught us at home," Ginny remarked.
"And there's lots of things we can teach them at home anyway, but I want them to learn all this stuff too, the stuff I learned here. They need to learn history. They need to know that people like Cyril Figg were heroes. And once you go to Hogwarts, you don't get it anymore."
Ginny did not answer yea or nay, and Harry knew he would have to give her time to mull the idea over in her mind.
"I wonder if the wizarding community contributed to the effort in World War Two," Harry continued. "I don't remember anything in the History of Magic courses we had. Of course, I missed the last year. Maybe it was in there."
"No, I don't think so," Ginny reflected. "I don't remember anything like that was mentioned."
"Then I guess the Muggles defeated Hitler all by themselves."
They continued sitting in the swings, and the warmth of the bright sunlight soaked into their skin. A slight breeze caressed their faces. A few automobiles went by on the street.
"What would you do if our baby was a Squib?" Harry asked suddenly.
"What?" exclaimed Ginny.
"What if our baby turns out to be a Squib?" Harry persisted. "What would we do?"
"Well, we certainly wouldn't send him to an orphanage!" Ginny asserted. "But I don't think he'll be a Squib. How could he be? We are wizarding on both sides of our families. We go way back."
"But Squibs can show up in any family," Harry persisted. "Everyone knows that, even if they shove it into the backs of their minds. You know how happy people are, how they celebrate when their little kid starts showing signs of magical talent? That's because they always fear, even subconsciously, that maybe the talent won't be there, and their child will be a Squib.
"I remember, at that hearing, when Mrs. Figg said she was a Squib, the members of the Ministry indicated that they didn't know she was living in Little Whinging because they didn't keep track of Squibs. They didn't even know whether Squibs could see dementors; they had to ask her. It was plain they didn't value Squibs at all."
"The only Squib I ever knew knew was Filch," Ginny said, "at least until I met Mrs. Figg. But he was such a sad character. He tried to live in the wizarding world, but he was so bitter about it. That's what I thought Squibs were like. But after meeting Mrs. Figg, I'm seeing that it doesn't have to be like that."
"I wonder if a Squib could teach at Hogwarts," Harry speculated. "What could he teach that doesn't require magic?"
They looked at each other and suddenly exclaimed simultaneously, "The History of Magic!" They started laughing because both of them had had the same idea, and Ginny added, "Anyone could do a better job than Professor Binns!"
"I'll bet there's some other things too," Harry said. "Let's see...Ancient Runes, I don't think they need magic for that, Astronomy, French..."
"Why French?" asked Ginny.
Harry stopped swinging. "Do you remember when we had the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and kids came from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang? Did you notice that they could all speak English but we couldn't speak their languages? Didn't you think that was kind of embarrassing? I wonder if they held the tournament at Hogwarts because they knew that if they held it at one of the other schools, the Hogwarts kids wouldn't be able to speak the language?"
"I never thought about that," Ginny said.
"Hogwarts ought to teach at least one foreign language. When we go on holiday in France, the shopkeepers and innkeepers can speak English, and they don't even use any magical techniques to do it. They just use their own brain power. Are they smarter than we are?"
"But Harry, if Hogwarts added French to the curriculum, they would have to subtract something else to make room for it. And you can't learn magical subjects at any other school."
"You've got a point," Harry conceded. "But our children could study French during the summer."
"That goes for you and me too," Ginny said teasingly. "We can't speak French either."
Harry gave a big sigh. "You're right," he conceded.
Ginny sat on her swing looking around at the school, the play yard, the street, and the houses and gardens up and down the street that could be seen from her vantage point.
"Are you ready to go home?" she asked.
Harry took a deep breath. "I guess so."
"Has this been a good day? Did you learn what you wanted?"
"Sort of. I didn't know exactly what I would find. I have a slightly better picture of my early years. A few gaps have been filled in. But I still don't know much about my earliest life, when I was living with my mum and dad before they died. I don't remember it at all. I've just seen a few photos of them before they died, and that letter I found in Sirius's bedroom, the one my mum wrote to him after my first birthday, thanking him for the broom he sent me..."
He suddenly stopped speaking, right in the middle of his sentence, and then leapt off the swing seat onto his feet, shouting, "That's it! That's it!"
"What's it?" exclaimed Ginny in mystification.
Harry whirled around and faced her, speaking rapidly. "Do you remember that first month when we had our first flying lesson at Hogwarts?"
"Your first flying lesson at Hogwarts? No, I wasn't there. I wasn't at Hogwarts yet."
"Oh, yeah," Harry said distractedly. "I forgot you were a year behind us. It seems like you were always there." He continued, the words spilling out as fast as he could speak. "We had our first flying lesson and Neville got hurt and Professor McGonagall took him to the hospital wing and while they were gone Draco stole his Remembrall and flew up in the air with it and wouldn't give it back and I flew my broom and caught the Remembrall after Draco threw it and everyone thought I was a flaming genius because I could fly so well without any experience. Hell, I thought I was a flaming genius. But it wasn't true!"
"You weren't a flaming genius?" asked Ginny dubiously.
"No, I mean it wasn't true that I didn't have any experience. If you'd asked me, I would have sworn that I'd never been on a broom before in my life, but when I got on that broom to chase Draco, it was like my body already knew exactly how to fly it, like everything was just obvious. It was weird. But now I realize that I did have experience. It was in those three months between my first birthday, when Sirius gave me the broom, and when my parents were killed. I didn't remember that at all, at least not consciously, never knew about it at all until I found that letter in Sirius's old bedroom. But my body remembered. It remembered how to fly, and it kept that memory for ten years, just waiting until I needed it again."
"That's really interesting," Ginny said, staring at her husband with round eyes, "but why are you so excited?"
Harry spoke more slowly now, at a normal cadence, but with emphasis. "It's something that I learned at my parents' house and carried with me through the years without knowing it. And if I remembered that, without knowing it, then there's probably a lot of other stuff I remembered too without knowing it, stuff that's more important than how to fly a broom.
"It means that there's a core of me, the real me, that I learned in my parents' house, that's clean and sound and strong. Those books I was reading -- everything they said was true, but I ended up feeling like nothing but a walking sack of Dursley Damage. But now I don't think so. I think the Dursley Damage is more like an old ragged dirty coat that I can throw off."
"Just like that?" Ginny asked.
"Well, no, probably not just like that. It's probably more a case of peeling it off, and scraping it off, and scouring it off. I don't think I can point my wand at my brain and just say Scourgify.
"You'd probably Stupefy yourself if you tried."
"That's okay. Patricia said it would take time. But the book has shown me what I have to work on, and Patricia and the women at the church have told me how."
"Come on," he said, filled with elation. "Let's ride on the carousel," and he sprinted across the gravel to the shiny gray metal carousel standing motionless in the sunshine. "Hop on. I'll give you a ride."
Ginny walked over to the carousel and climbed aboard.
"Hold on tight," he cried and started running, pushing the the carousel around until he had it going as fast as he could, and then he leapt on board too, grasping the rail, going round and round, with the wind in his hair and a wide smile on his face.
The Baby in the Closet by Oregonian
Chapter Notes: In real life, Cyril Barton was an RAF pilot who lost his life in the bombing raid on Nuremberg on March 31, 1944. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, England's highest military honor, for gallantry. I did not know about him until after I had selected the name Cyril for Mrs. Figg's husband. Karma?