Disclaimer: Again, I don't own Harry, but the plot and Comptons are mine.
The Compton Diary
Saturday, 16th March 1998
Bernard has since not spoken again about his old friend Potter. Harry has not mentioned it either, at least not in my presence. Bernard was feeling rather poorly today, so he stayed in bed. We chatted a little, and I also attended to Harry, and allowed him to wash. He still has nothing but nightclothes to wear but he doesn't seem to mind. He stayed in his room most of the day also, and I no longer heard moans.
Last night, as I lay awake in bed, I heard moaning from his room. Nothing was audible. It was an odd sound, though I have always been wary of him, and he didn't seem disturbed at anything during the day. It eventually stopped, though I couldn’t help but wonder at this.
While attending to my poor vegetables in the garden at around midday, I was astonished to see a snowy owl fly in front of me, and land on the windowsill of Harry's room.
I have not seen the bird since, but the event startled me.
I always write in this diary in my bedroom.
The wind now whistles down the chimney - I did not bother to light the fire. I cannot imagine what brought the boy here, nor can I delve into his mind, as he remains as distant as ever.
He is moaning again. His sound joins the wind to create an eerie noise. The raindrops still hammer on the window, but the strength of the wind seems to be lessening.
The lights have just flickered oddly. Yet I still hasten to write. A strange light feeling has come over me. My pen dances across the speckled page before me. The ink is shining in the light.
His moans are growing louder. I hear a creaking sound. A shadow passes by my window pane, but in writing I tell myself it is nothing. It is nothing.
The figures in the picture frame look back at me. I look at “Potter” as he is so called. He stands erect, staring directly at me. He and Bernard are both in uniform. There is little evidence from the backdrop to tell me where the old photograph was taken. Their faces are both frozen in laughter, as though they have just shared a joke of some sort. Bernard is the older of the two. The other man’s hair is dark, and I suddenly see a striking resemblance between the man in the photograph and our own “Potter”. His black and white presence on my desk mystifies me.
For a moment there as the lights flickered, I thought I saw him wink at me. Bernard rolls over in his sleep. The thin cracks in the wall climb towards the ceiling, and as I write my eyes water with fatigue. I pull my dressing gown around me, for the air has grown very cold.
I hear the ticking of the clock on the bedside table and I know it is getting very late. I hear the rustling of the leaves outside. My wrist aches from moving repetitively across the paper, but I think that if I stop, I will go mad.
There is a stain on the mirror of my dresser. For a moment I think I see someone in the reflection, a little old woman, wisps of white hair falling down from her untidy bun. The lines on her face crease as she studies me. She too, turns back to her diary, her brow creasing further in an attempt to distance herself from her own feelings.
There is a musty smell in the room. My desk is littered with letters and papers, and my eyes scan the bookshelves along the wall. The works of Dickens, Maugham, Beckett, Lee, Sophocles, Shakespeare and countless other volumes serve as a backdrop to my own written thoughts. Those dark dusty volumes tower over me, their printed titles gleaming.
My thoughts return once more to Harry. Harry. I think it odd that a boy so strange should have such a name. He came to us, soaking, sick, broken, hungry. Days later he appears healthy. Such an appearance is yet to be explained. Bernard’s story is indeed senseless, yet to all reasoning thought, so is Harry. If in some distant youth, I too found myself in such circumstances, depending on a couple of strangers for nourishment, I would feel remarkably uncomfortable. Contrary to this, Harry seems to have settled in, with the hospitality of Bernard, who still believes him to be an old friend of his.
I still don't know who or what Harry is, I don't think we'll ever find out where he ca
This entry ends here. What follows is a large blot of smeared dark blue ink. Though the details of this torn page are not deeply revelatory about the events, they do offer some insight into the few hours before Alice's apparent madness.