Harry Potter Breaking Free

Leaning in a little bit closer, Harry dropped the pitch of his voice so that he wouldn't be overheard by younger, far more innocent ears. "Until very recently... the memory that the Dementors forced me to relive was also the only time I'd ever heard my parent's voices."

Fleur's face transformed into one of both painful remembrance and yet more confusion. She'd seen exactly what memory Harry was describing and it was far too hurtful to be any form of reunion.

Harry saw Fleur's sad and confused expression, so he struggled to find a way to explain his self-harming behavior. "Fleur... I know it was unhealthy for me to seek out that memory, but... Look... Every single time I'm around a Dementor, I relive my parents' deaths. Imagine how complicated it was for me. The most painful memory that I have, also couched a very important idea."

"What idea?" By this point, Fleur had moved very, very close to Harry now without ever noticing her movement.

"My parents loved me and were willing to die for me." Harry breathed the half a foot it took to reach Fleur's ears. "I heard it in their voices over and over and it warmed my heart more than the chocolate ever could. My parents loved me so much their own lives became unimportant when I was in danger." Harry looked down and waved a hand at his scar crossed body. "I wear the signs of the Dursley's form of parenting and I always will. For that reason, it was overwhelming to me that my mom and dad cared so much about me. It also hurt like a knife to the heart, but I still sought it out over and over. I'm clearly not a good example of sound mental health, Fleur. Not yet anyway... I'm working on it every day."

As Fleur fell into deep thought, she absently reached out to run a hand along the smoothed out silver brand running across Harry's chest. They stayed that way for a while, just watching Gabrielle using a floaty mat to flutter kick her way across the pool (cute).

After the moment finally came to an end, Fleur turned back to Harry, and began pressing her hand even harder against his chest... "Here's what I think, Arry… I believe… that your life experiences so far will serve to add contrast to the life you'll live from this point forward. You have known sadness... great sadness, but that will allow you to feel the good that much more strongly. Life is all about the ups and downs, no? No one who's felt your shroud can deny that your range of emotion is incredible. You feel so much. You make even Veela, the most passionate of beings, look aloof."

"Is that just a kind way of calling me bipolar?" The lopsided grin didn't leave Harry's face even as Fleur lightly slapped his cheek.

In the end, both Harry and Fleur laughed as they moved closer to Gabrielle. The little girl had begun giving them both pleading puppy dog eyes from the shallow end.

.....

Two Weeks Later...

It took a little longer than expected but, Harry's eyesight was no longer reliant on corrective lenses. After waking up this morning, he'd found that his glasses made his eyesight worse rather than better, at which point he'd tossed them aside with a smile...

As he went about his day, Harry enjoyed the sight of completely normal, mundane things, as if he were seeing them for the very first time, because everything was so clear and defined and detailed in the extreme. He performed his morning run way faster than his best record and blew through his weight lifting with gusto. Harry had a smile that just wouldn't go away, as he used the Floo to the Delacour home and then slammed face first into the floor...

Damn...

Picking himself up off the floor, Harry dusted himself off using a quick flare of his magic.

Then he stiffened and his head whipped towards the Entry Hall door.

In the split second that he'd flared his magic, Harry's normal eight meter range of sensory perception had become more like twenty meters instead. In that single instant, Harry had felt something extremely out of the ordinary…

After yanking out his wand, the first thing Harry did was perform a Disillusionment (invisibility) spell upon his own body. The second thing he did was force all of his ambient magic to occupy a much greater distance away from his magical core. He didn't force out more power, but rather he sought greater range for the magic that was already floating around his body. This successfully thinned out his magical shroud, to the point that he wasn't immediately noticeable to everyone within throwing distance. Of course, with his shroud spread so thin, it didn't serve very well at feeding him information, but at the moment, Harry needed invisibility far more than he needed people's shoe sizes and star signs.

Bam, creak, slam!...

The door to the Entry Hall suddenly burst wide open to slam against the adjoining wall, as a wand was pointed into the room. After taking a look around the room, a wizard wearing Muggle style military BDUs performed a Rebrum Revelio spell. Nothing happened. If there'd been anyone in the room using an invisibility spell, the revealing spell he'd cast would've painted them a bright red color. The unknown man shook his head at himself. He'd thought he felt a flare of strong magic in here, but now he was second guessing himself. Closing the door, he returned to his patrol.

The Rebrum Revelio spell had indeed worked, painting Harry's body a cheerful red color for just a single instant. Thankfully, by that point, Harry was already hiding behind the Entry Hall door, tucked into the corner of the room, and not even three feet away from the man.

Phew... That had been waaay too close.

A few moments earlier when he'd flared out his magic, Harry had sensed eight strange wizards walking around the Delacour home, with the Delacours themselves clumped together within Adrien's Study. This had felt extremely suspicious to Harry's newly sharpened brain, and he'd just barely managed to react in time.

Now that he had a spare moment to think, Harry started putting together a plan of action using his decreased magical senses. Despite how vague his senses currently were, Harry could still tell that there were two people patrolling the hall, two people patrolling the yard, one person near the front door and three people standing in the study with the Delacours.

It was time to get to work...

Sidling up to the Entry Hall door, Harry held his breath as he waited. He could just barely tell the direction the men were looking, as they moved up and down the hallway. It appeared their patrol route was from Study to Main Entrance and back.

Finally, when the moment was right, Harry made his move. After quietly easing open the door, Harry silently cast two stunning spells into the unaware mens' backs. Then, before they could noisily fall to the floor, Harry made them float them with a silent Levitation spell, brought them into the Entry Hall and Incarcerous spelled their unconscious bodies. After confiscating both of their wands, he hid them in a vase-like poker stand, near the fire.

Leaving the Entry Hall again, Harry cursed himself out as he belatedly cast a silencing spell down upon his feet. He needed to be perfectly silent, if he was going to have a single hope in Hell of making this work. Moving towards the front door, he waited until the lone merc looked in the other direction, before stunning him from behind.

Once again, Harry levitated the man back to the Entry Hall, where he cast the same magical bindings around his arms and his legs. Moving swiftly back towards the front door, he cast a silencing spell upon the window-casing before slowly and carefully easing it open. The two men outside were walking a patrol route while keeping each other in line of sight at all times. These men were professionals... What were they even doing here? Never mind, it didn't matter. They were attacking the Delacours… Their asses were grass.

....

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