Harry Potter

First Year

You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught

“It’s no wonder she hasn’t any friends.” Ron proclaimed, while Harry looked back to Hermione. “She’s a menace.” Harry grabbed onto Hermione and held her soothingly. While glaring at the boy he thought he had been a friend. But he found out was no better than Malfoy, who was no better than his cousin.
Seeing the professor in the doorway Harry loudly started quoting a song his aunt hated and so refused to allow the movie in her house. But Mrs. Figg loved it enough to let him watch:

“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,”
He looked directly at Flitwick for this, who looked in his eyes for a moment then down at his toes.

“You’ve got to be taught from year to year,”
He looked at each of the upper years who were now crowding in to see what all the fuss was about.

“It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—”
He looked at each of his dear year mates in the eyes till they looked away.

“You’ve got to be carefully taught!
“You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
“Of people whose eyes are oddly made,”
He looked at Ron, then at Dean, and the Patil sisters, and all the while rubbing Hermione’s back. While those he had looked at meaningfully stiffened at the meanings he was giving them.

“And people whose skin is a different shade—”
He looked over everyone again. Then again at the shamefaced Flitwick.

“You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
Flitwick cringed at those words as though they were weapons to him.

“You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
“Before you are six or seven or eight,
“To hate all the people your relatives hate—”
He looked directly at Ron with each of those words, then at the upper Slytherin years.

“You’ve got to be carefully taught!
“You’ve got to be carefully taught!”
Flitwick wasn’t the only one now cringing at his words. Words from their hero.

“I was cheated before”
Sobs broke out as everyone envisioned his dead parents on this holiday…. Finally.

“And I’m cheated again”
He glared at the hang faced people in the hall. Which now numbered his own Head of House. She who had done NOTHING for him during his short life and knew it.

“By a mean little world”
McGonagall gave a little cry as did most the females in the crowd.

“Of mean little men.”
Dumbledore decided now wasn’t the time to appear and left.

“And the one chance for me
“Is the life I know best.
“To be on an island
“And to hell with the rest.
“I will cling to this island
“Like a tree or a stone,
“I will cling to this island
“And be free—and alone.”

He turned while holding a tearful Hermione.
“I am a rock
“I am an island”

“And a rock feels no pain
“And an island never cries”

And together they walk off.