When I was a kid, I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series, its plot, and characters. I especially approved of the choices Harry and his friends made in the face of true evil and peril.
However, growing up, I realized how dumb and unrealistic some of the situations were. If it weren't for plot armor and stupidity on the enemy's end, Harry wouldn't have lasted the very first year at Hogwarts.
My rant is over, but my story has begun. Disillusioned with the Harry Potter storyline, I often created realistic versions of it in my dreams and imagination. It was during one of those sleepy trances that something unexpected happened.
It was perhaps a lucid dream, and I couldn't tell it apart from reality. I saw Harry Potter sitting on a narrow bed, shivering feverishly, his skinny arms wrapped around himself. Yeah, it begins dark.
The boy's tears were already dry on his swollen cheek, but his eyes were still red from crying for hours. I knew the cause. There were visible marks on Harry's face and neck, where Uncle Vernon had hit him last night, a punishment for failing to clean all spots on his treasured car, the Vauxhall Vectra.
The boy's ribs ached, where Dudley had kicked him earlier that morning before running off to school.
Harry had been starving since the previous night. Uncle Vernon had withdrawn his meals until he learned to "stop being a spoiled orphan."
The boy's lips quivered and drooled as he reflected miserably on his life. He was to live in the cupboard under the stairs from June until Christmas. And it was still mid-June. Again, it was a medium-term punishment for "being born from bad blood."
Harry did most of the household work—cooking, scrubbing the floors, cleaning the dishes, gardening, and above all, washing Vernon's new 1991 Vauxhall Vectra sedan, which earned him last night's beating.
The slightest delay or the silliest mistake brought down his uncle's heavy hand with a fury. Corporal punishment had become ordinary life for Harry. Not a day went by that he went to sleep without a painful smack.
It began two years back. Because of a faulty gas stove, little Harry overcooked the breakfast pancakes. Vernon flipped out and broke Harry's right arm with a mighty swing of a kitchen ladle.
It was the first time Vernon's discipline had taken such a dark turn. Surprised by the gruesome outcome of his own act, Vernon blamed Harry for the injury and refused to take him to the hospital. "You deserve it, boy! Just be glad I didn't strangle you to death!"
As the gnarled kid wouldn't stop crying, Petunia called over a nurse acquaintance, who crudely patched up the boy for a cup of tea.
When the neighbors complained about Harry's wails, the Dursleys apologized. They made up the very believable excuse that their nephew was bipolar and was under medical therapy.
Mental illness was becoming an affliction in Surrey, and psychiatry had turned into a sought-after profession. Hence, the neighbors didn't ask any follow-up questions.
"What did I do to deserve this?" Harry wondered aloud in the depressing light of his claustrophobic cupboard under the stairs. "Why do Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia beat me? Aren't they my blood relatives?"
"Why does my cousin despise me? Did my parents really die in a car crash? What's the purpose of my being born?"
Harry's clumsy housework wasn't the root of Vernon's abuse. A part of it was triggered because of strange things happening around the boy. Once, he thought he levitated onto the school's roof.
Another time, Harry believed he had filled a glass of water without approaching the water filter. Uncle Vernon had thrashed him on all such occasions and told him he was "weird and deranged", like his parents had been.
"They shouldn't have been allowed to drive… Those head cases killed themselves. You'll probably end up dead like them, and nobody'll remember you ever existed."
Harry figured perhaps he was actually mentally ill, because the peculiar things occurring around him were almost magical and supernatural. They must all be figments of his spiraling imagination.
"Aargh!" A fresh bout of pain spread over Harry as the numbness of his bruises faded. He opened his mouth to cry in anguish, but made no sound.
Right now, the Dursleys were out. If the neighbors heard his moans, they'd complain to Vernon, who'd find another excuse to punch his nephew.
"Tonight is different," Harry thought aloud. "I've decided that I'll snatch my freedom by myself."
The boy's heart felt relieved as he had planned everything and waited for weeks for this auspicious day. Initially, there had been two plans for gaining freedom.
Plan A involved poisoning Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley, and then running away to America. After much consideration, he settled on Plan B.
Harry wiped his tears and shuffled under his bed for an object he had kept hidden from his relatives. He retrieved it—a bundle of thick nylon rope.
The boy carefully and meticulously tied the hangman's knot that he had memorized from a YouTube video. Next, he placed a stool at the foot of his bed.
The ceiling was low for the cupboard, but there was a cavity at one end of the room that extended up to the fuse boxes. Harry climbed the stool and tied the rope to a beam that jutted out from the wall.
The boy had run the scenario over and over in his head many times. Last night's abuse had finally tipped him over. He was going to put an end to all the pain. He was going to take his own life since he had nothing to live for.
I, as a dumb spectator, watched Harry Potter get ready to kill himself. Wasn't my mind demented that I imagined such a horrible ending for him? I had gone too far.
A powerful urge to rescue the boy rose in my heart. He deserved a better life, and a much more exciting one than what Rowling wrote. As the Harry of my dream world tied the noose around his neck, my hand shot out subconsciously to stop him.
Instead of coming in contact with Harry, I stumbled into a hollow space. Suddenly, the third-person point of view in my dream glitched, shifting to a first-person perspective, similar to those in VR devices.
Now, instead of facing Harry, I was standing before the Dursley home with my finger on the doorbell. What just happened? My questions were answered almost immediately.
A spate of new information rushed into my head. "Oh, really?" I said aloud. "Isn't that a bit too much?"
I pursed my lips as it became clear as day what had happened. The information transfer was complete.
Without further ado, I pressed the doorbell, which rang a generic ring. A couple of neighbors peeped from their windows. There was a loud shuffle inside the Dursley home. Then, footsteps came thumping towards the door that flew open momentarily.
Before me stood Harry Potter, the real one, his face still soggy with tears and the hangman's noose dangling from his hand.
"Who are you?" he asked me rather timidly. "We weren't expecting any guests!"
I acted as if I hadn't noticed the boy's miserable condition and smiled at him with a knowing expression. "Hullo, Harry. I am Kaiser Ken."
The boy scratched his head and offered me a look of confusion. "Kaiser Ken? I'm sorry, I don't recognize your face or your name. There's no Ken among our acquaintances. And the title Kaiser is a bit pretentious and narcissistic."
I nodded, forcing my face to keep my smile warm and comfortable. The little brat was being too harsh with someone who came to his rescue. "That's fair, since we are meeting for the first time. I will explain while the others arrive."
Harry was frozen in place, taken aback by my non-explanation. "I don't understand—how is this even—there are others? I don't understand…"
I shrugged. "Yes, we are the Nexus Club, remember? Once we met at the park while playing baseball, and you swore to join our club on turning eleven?"
Harry dropped his noose and scratched his head, trying to remember. "I faintly remember that happening, but I thought it was just a pretendesies game. Who are the others? I can't recall the names."
I beamed ear to ear. My heart soared as I mouthed the popular names of the extraordinary club members. "Light Yagami, Anakin Skywalker, Gojo Satoru, Neo Anderson, Daenerys Targaryen, Ron Burgundy, Harley Quinn, and last but not least, Jiraiya."
I held out a friendly hand. "I cordially invite you to take up membership in the very exclusive—Nexus Club!"