Harry Potter and the Gift of Memories [Harry Potter Fan Fiction]

Chapter XIX: A Day in The Life of a Wizard

Three months had passed since I spoke with Master Wei. Three months since I realized that I was becoming the very thing I'd grown up despising. Master Wei had helped me understand why I became the way I did.

I was afraid. Fear begets anger. Anger begets hate. And hate often leads to violence. My fear of the Dursley's caused me to hate them so much that when I learned to use my powers, I became drunk off them.

As I walked through the halls of school, I thought about how much had changed. I no longer abused my relatives, though I did protect myself if they tried hurting me. I was determined not to let myself fall onto the dark path again.

“Give me that back! Give it back! My mum made that for me!”

I stopped walking as I turned a corner to see my cousin and his friends picking on a girl. Her brown hair flying around her face as she leapt through the air, trying to grab the lunchbox Dudley and his gang tossed above her head.

“Aw, did you hear that.” Dudley's laugh sounded like pig squeals. “Her mum made it for her.”

His friends laugh with him.

“Think we should give me it back?”

“Naw!”

As they continued teasing the girl my frown increased. What should I do? I wondered. I didn't want to get violent, despite how annoyed I was, but should I just let them pick on this girl? The answer came to me when I saw tears gathering in the girl's eyes.

No, I couldn't.

XoX

"I'll probably end up falling off my broom and breaking something," Neville moaned miserably as he and Harry walked into the Great Hall for breakfast. The young, round-faced boy had been like this ever since the morning began, when they had first noticed the post on the bulletin board claiming they would have flying lessons after Herbology. Apparently, he was not looking forward to their flying lessons.

Not that Harry could blame him. The boy's lack of confidence and general clumsiness definitely made the idea of putting him on a broom seem like a bad one. It didn't help that Neville's grandmother never let her grandson even make an attempt at learning to fly for fear that he would kill himself.

Again, this was understandable. Neville was clumsy enough on land, Harry could only imagine how bad he would be in the air.

Of course, he was sure that most of the boys clumsiness coincided with his lack of confidence. People who had no self-confidence tended to be more clumsy than those who did. Still, it would not do for Neville to begin putting himself down after all of the progress he had made thus far.

"Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy, Neville?" asked Harry, his voice just as mild as always, his tone laced with minor curiosity. Neville stared at him.

"What?"

"A Self-fulfilling prophecy," Harry repeated, sitting down at the Gryffindor table. Neville sat down beside him and they began piling food onto their plates. "It is the act of creating a prediction that comes true simply due to the fact that the prediction was made in the first place. For example; if you tell yourself that you are going to injure yourself during our flying lessons, you will, simply because you are so sure that this event will happen that your mind and body responds accordingly to make it so. By telling yourself that you will do horribly in something, you are already making it happen. Belief is half the battle when it comes to accomplishing anything. Particularly, belief in oneself. If you do not believe you can do something, you won't be able to do it because your mind is so set on believing you cannot accomplish your task that it works against you."