At first the changes were subtle, and because Harry and Dudley were in different classes for the first time, Harry at first thought that Dudley’s abcense was responsible for the changes at school. In prior years, the teacher would frequently notice something was off about that Potter child. The oversized clothing, the odd high pitched whisper of a voice, the way he flinched if anyone came too close would all normally attract a conscientious educator’s attention. In that respect, this year started almost the same way - during morning attendance,1 the teacher frowned and gave him an odd look, the kind that frequently meant a conversation after class, but then seamed to forget about him even faster than his other teachers had. She seamed never to notice him sitting quietly the rest of the day. Perhaps that was because Dudley did not draw attention to him?
It was in the phys ed classes that Harry first noticed that something was significantly different. Dudley disliked these classes, and frequently found ways to be disruptive. Last year, he had used his legilimency to redirect Dudley. The result was not that Dudley was behaving any better, rather, he was simply more random in his selection of a target. That was not ideal, but again, sometimes Harry just needed a break. Either way, this year it was not Dudley’s behavior that determined his (Harry’s) participation, it was something else. It took a while for Harry to make the key connection: in any activity where the teacher worked down a checklist, timed swimming trials for example,2 he would be called on. But in anything requiring teams, the teacher would somehow forget to assign him to either team unless he said something. It was very confusing.
For Harry, the overall results were not entirely positive. On one hand, he found the school day more pleasant, he was learning more, and dodging less. On the other, the teachers seemed to notice Dudley’s behaviour more now that he was targeting a wider range of students in class. They started to send letters home with him, and when Petunia binned them without action, started to call in the evenings. Vernon did not like his evening to be disturbed by an irate teacher or parent complaining about Dudley; it was surely the Freak’s fault - making Dudley look bad somehow. It was just as well that Harry could usually depend on getting a good meal at school, because he was getting less and less at home as Vernon took out his anger by locking him up more and more.
While Dudley was happy to pick on students from his own class during the day, the way home from school it was a different story. Something about heading home inevitably reminded Dudley that he had not pounded on the Freak in a while. This lead to Harry Hunting. Since this had been one of Dudley’s more consistent “games” for the past two years, Harry was already fairly familiar with the neighbourhood around Privet Drive. Now, as the game moved towards a daily occurrence, he was quickly memorising every available hiding place on each of the various side streets he could take in his attempts to avoid his pursuers. Once he was out of sight, no one except Dudley ever noticed him. Indeed, if Harry could have heard them, when Dudley was not around Gordon and Malcolm sometimes complained about how often Dudley “made” them search for his (Dudley’s) imaginary cousin. Unable to remember Harry without either his presence disrupting the spell or Dudley’s subconscious magic protecting them from it, their minds convinced them that they had entirely imagined each encounter with Harry.
Life thus settled into a pattern. Harry found that he could avoid Uncle Vernon more easily than he remembered being able to do even a few months ago, and Mrs. Figg seemed to have all but forgotten him entirely. Whatever was happening did not work nearly so well on Aunt Petunia or Dudley. It was clear that Aunt Petunia could not see him unless he made a noise, but both she and Dudley remembered him far more than Vernon or his teachers ever did. This was both good and bad. On the plus side, Aunt Petunia usually remembered to unlock the cupboard in the mornings. On the down side, she remembered to give him chores, and follow up to see that they were completed. Harry was not lazy, it was not the work he minded, but rather the results. She gave him so much to do that it was hard to find time to do his homework. Worse, if he did not get everything done, she would get upset, and her complaints were the one thing that would reliably cause Uncle Vernon to notice him. Overall, it was best when she didn’t notice him. He learned to avoid making unnecessary noises, as that seemed to break or pause his invisibility.
Like many children before him, he found that when no one notices you are there, adults say things that they would probably rather you not hear. It was this way that he learned that his aunt and uncle were not quite as blind to Dudley’s faults as they pretended — he overheard his uncle on the phone with the school superintendent one day, and saw an envelope change hands with one of the town constables another. Listening at the window (he was supposed to be mowing her lawn, but she would never remember if he did or not) as Mrs. Figg made her weekly report to the man with the beard, Harry noticed that her reports were starting to resemble the fantasy stories that she told the other guy, the one with the girl’s hair and too many teeth. He heard the man mention that the “obliv-somethings” would be making “their monthly visit because someone had complained about Harry’s disgraceful clothing again.” He wondered what an “obliv-something” was and figured that it (they?) had something to do with the way nothing had happened the one time he had tried making an anonymous call to the local ACPCs.3 On one hand it was nice to know that someone had thought to complain about the way he was treated. On the other, it angered him that the bearded man was apparently not letting those complaints come to anything. Still, Harry figured it was better to know more than not; already habitually silent, he was now getting used to being invisible as well.
If only being invisible worked on Dudley. Unlike everyone else, (even Aunt Petunia) Dudley consistently noticed when Harry was around.4 Worse, it was as if he had a sixth sense that helped him find Harry. The other boys in the gang were easy to avoid, the slightest excuse for a hiding space was enough for them to walk right past him. Dudley, however, would consistently focus on the right route home, no matter how random Harry tried to be. Dudley seemed to know when Harry was home, versus when he stayed late at school. It was endlessly annoying that the one person who could consistently remember him hated him. With a great deal of very painful (when he did get caught) trial and error, Harry learned that while Dudley would not forget about him, there were limits to Dudley’s inexplicable ability to find Harry.
If Dudley knew where Harry was, and Harry stayed there, then Dudley could always find him. If Harry went somewhere Dudley expected Harry to go, Dudley could always find him. If, however, Harry went to a place that blocked Dudley’s ability to see Harry, and was not somewhere Dudley expected Harry to be, then and only then could Harry remain unfound. So hiding in the bushes in a park would work, but not if Harry did it frequently enough that Dudley started to expect Harry to go to the park. Ducking into stores would work, but not if Dudley could see him through the glass store fronts. Heading back to the Dursley’s home almost never worked, because Dudley knew that Harry did not dare arrive back after Vernon did, and so expected Harry to show up there eventually. Staying at school also almost never worked, because Dudley knew that Harry started out at school. Harry might not be in Dudley’s line of sight on a particular sidewalk, but Dudley expected Harry to be on the way home somewhere and all sidewalks seemed to be sufficiently similar to count for Dudley-finding-Harry purposes. It became very important not just to use different places to hide each day, but to be sufficiently random about it that Dudley could never compile a list of favourite places to look. Harry had already learned the geography of Little Whinging fairly well, now he was learning which buildings were least monitored and least trafficked. Where were there rarely used corners or benches out of sight of the doors and windows, but in close proximity to them, where a mostly invisible boy would not get bumped into by someone who did not notice him?
being an American, I do not actually know much about British schools, and have done only the most cursory research into them. Please forgive any inaccuracies.↩︎
A copy of the a UK National Curriculum states that students should be taught to swim, and that performance should be compared, for each student, over time. Timed laps seems like one way a school would implement these two directives.↩︎
See the History page, The Children Act of 1989 was not in effect yet. Again, please forgive my butchering of actual British law.↩︎