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It was a common thing for toys to assume the personality of the thing whose image they were made in. Dolls were very hospitable and fashion-minded. Action figures were a lot more active and brimming with energy. Stuffed animals were ever optimistic, while any toy of famous people were exact copies of the person's ego.
The winged knight figure, little more than a small statue, had always tried to emulate the knight figures he was meant to be. The only problem was that the other knight figures were always too ready to break those knightly oaths and solemn pledges at the first wink of a princess or command of a king. It also didn't help that the winged knight took the religion they all were supposed to follow much more seriously than them. Even so, the winged knight, toy though he was, always hoped to be able to do some good for some child.
Sadly, this was not to be. The child that bought him was a tyrant. The winged knight would have felt his stomach lurch when the boy forcefully shoved another aside to grab him in his meaty paws. His hands would have trembled in anger when the monster displayed him to his mother to buy for him. The woman was perhaps even worse that the boy she birthed. A sneering, uppity hag that smiled down at her little monster and promised to buy the winged knight for the boy.
"No! Lord, any other child but this beast. I beg You, put me in the hands of a child I can inspire." the winged knight prayed with immobile lips. His prayer went unanswered as he was packed up and was swung around violently by the little monster.
They arrived at the monster's lair, and the winged knight wanted to be able to vomit in disgust and weep in lament. All around the room were contorted action figures, ripped stuffed animals, and worst of all, broken figurines. This was to be his fate, and he wept for all the other toys about him, and those that would one day follow him into this lair.
After that first awful day, when the monster had finally gone to bed, the toys began to speak to him in that unknowable language all toys knew. The winged knight was surprised to find that despite the horror of being owned by this boy, these toys still retained that joy and hope all toys had.
They spoke of another whose hands they would hopefully find themselves in. A kinder, gentler soul who this family treated as servant instead of ward. Those that had been carried outside the room had seen him. They spoke of one day boring the brute that owned them now and being given to the other boy as a mockery of a gift. There, they hoped to be fixed and played with as a good child plays with their toys.
But the winged knight hoped for more from this other boy. He hoped to be kept and played with, like the others, but he also hoped that his shape of a good, heroic knight could inspire this boy to be the best person he could be. His hope was such that he finally saw some act he could do to see this boy, and he felt his edges and angles sharpen ever so slightly.
Dudley, as the winged knight learned his name was, would play with them all as he wished. This often involved them being thrown around and forced into roles and acts of unspeakable evil. But slowly, he stopped playing with the winged knight. The harder edges of his figure were uncomfortable for the boy to hold long, and the sharp angles poked his hand if he wasn't careful. The winged knight took a small bit of satisfaction when his sword pierced the boy's hand enough to break the skin. It may not have been blood, but the knight felt as if he had wounded the brute. That wounding was what drove Dudley to give the knight to the other boy. It was then that the winged knight met Harry Potter.
From the pile of carnage that was Dudley’s room, the cupboard under the stairs was a completely different kind of carnage. One of a broken life lived by a brave little boy. Little Harry was almost the same age as his cousin, but he held in him a maturity that Dudley would never grow to have. He played with his toys like one would play with the dearest of friends. He was gentle in how he handled them, never shaking them violently, tossing them around, or slamming them against each other. The knight still fought the monsters, but each strike of his sword was slow and deliberate instead of spastic and hurried. Every story was one of heroic triumph and moral rightness in place of mindless bloodshed and slaughter. Here, in a dark cupboard that was coming to be too small for the growing boy, the winged knight found a soul more heroic than he could ever hope to be.
At night, when the boy slept, the toys around him would speak in the secret way of toys. Perhaps in gratification for putting them into good stories, they told ones of Harry’s salvation. Sometimes they went with him, others they would only tell of his bittersweet departure. Each story they told ended with Harry in the arms of loving adults, a caring friend, or a future lover. Each final scene was of his eyes filled not with the sorrowful longing for adventures he set them too, but for a bright contentedness at being loved and cared for as a son or friend ought to be.
The knight loved this boy, and sometimes found himself saddened by the fact that he was not a real winged knight. A real winged knight would take this boy in his arms and fly away to find a worthy family to raise him, or if none could be found, would raise him as a knight would raise their own son. Oh, how this knight prayed to God to save this boy. The longer his prayers went unanswered, the more his sorrow grew.
“Good knight, do not weep,” an old, stuffed stag would say. “For I know this boy shall not suffer long.”
“What do you mean?” asked the knight.
“I have been with this boy since the beginning,” the stag said, his mismatched eyes seeming to gaze from the grasp of the dreaming boy to look at the mournful figurine. “His mother and father were able to cast magic, and they went to a school that taught them how to do this. This boy is their son, and he too will go to this school in but a few years’ time. He already has bursts of accidental magic, and it won’t be long before he will be given a wand and taught how to cast spells in a place far away from here with good people who will love him as family.”
“You speak truly?” asked the knight again, hoping beyond hope that the stag wasn’t playing him for a fool.
“As truly as the stitched seam in my side, dear knight. This boy is not long for this squalor, and he will taste freedom soon. Have patience, angelic knight, and remain the image of what all young boys should strive to be.”
Those words were the last to be spoken that night, and the following morning, the uncle ripped the boy out of the cupboard to get to his chores. Now alone, the knight prayed for Harry’s future, hoping the words of the stuffed stag would prove true.
And so their time passed. By day, Harry would slave away for these cruel creatures, returning every night to tiredly play with the few broken, worn, or unwanted toys he had and falling to sleep soon after one adventure and happy ending. Each night, the toys would speak in their silent tongue about what they hoped this future would be like for Harry, asking the stuffed stag that Harry slept with to tell them more of this secret world of wizards and witches and magic. The stag would tell them all he knew, and one Halloween night, after Harry had suffered silently through a nightmare that plagued him every year on this night, the stag reluctantly told them the story of his nightmare. Of his memory.
The stag told them how an evil wizard made war on the other wizards of this secret world. He told them how Harry’s family went into hiding, trusting a dear friend with the secret. He spoke of how that secret was lost, and of how on a Halloween years ago, the evil wizard found Harry and his family. The stag spoke of how the father fell fighting, and of how the mother sacrificed herself to spare her son. He told of how that sacrifice created a magic that saved the boy and destroyed the body of the evil wizard. He ended his tale by telling how a wise wizard thought to place him here, unknowing of the cruel people that lived in these walls.
The knight wept again for the boy that had suffered so much, and he prayed once again for God to save this boy.
One day, the toys heard a commotion outside. That evening Harry gathered them on the small shelf and told them how he got a letter from someone called Hogwarts. He told them how his uncle had ripped it up and told him to get back to work. That night, after another adventure where the winged knight saved another kingdom, all the toys asked the stag in the boy’s arms if this Hogwarts was the school.
“It is, my friends. Harry will soon be far away from this place,” the stag said happily. If a toy’s cheer could be heard by humans, the whole neighborhood would have woken to the sound of a joyful crowd.
Each day, the letters arrived only to be ripped up, thrown away, or burnt in the fireplace. Each night as Harry slept, the stag encouraged the other toys. He would say, “Hogwarts is nothing if not persistent.” The toys took heart in that.
On Sunday, the whole house was flooded with many copies of this letter, and the family took Harry away from the house to somewhere the owls who carried the letters wouldn’t find them. No toys went with Harry that night, and they were almost in despair. But the stag gave a laugh and told them that nothing the family could do would stop Harry from going to Hogwarts.
This proved to be true, as when the Dursleys did return, Harry was not with them. From inside the cupboard, the toys heard the boundless complaints about the giant man that took Harry away and gave Dudley a pig’s tail.
“He is free of this place, for now,” the stag confirmed, and all the toys rejoiced.
Months later, Harry returned. His first year at school proved to be quite the adventure, including a disturbing resurfacing of the same evil wizard who had killed his parents. But he had finally made friends, and all the toys would have been content if Harry had never played with them again so long as those friends remained by his side. That summer, Harry was moved to the spare room of the house, and all the toys were brought with him in stealthy trips to avoid the greedy and cruel sight of the Dursleys. No matter how good Harry knew his life could be, as long as he was here, the Dursleys would take away anything that gave him joy.
This time prepared for his return, Harry packed away the stag to bring with him to Hogwarts. The other toys were glad for the old stuffed animal, as he was the one most deserving to go with Harry. The knight only hoped the rest of them would be able to leave this place with Harry one day.
The toys whooped with delight in their silent ways when Harry made his escape with red-headed brothers in a flying car. They watched it soar into the night as the Dursleys sulked about the broken bars on the window. They all hoped the stag would help Harry through the nights at Hogwarts and would tell them of the friends Harry had made.
When the stag did return, he told them of this new adventure Harry had found himself in. The knight couldn’t have been prouder of Harry for acting as any knight should, protecting the innocent and saving damsels. The stag told them of Harry’s two closest friends. One a part of the red-headed brothers that helped him escape, the other an intelligent girl with hair as wild as a lion’s mane. The stag told them how the girl was petrified, and how each night, Harry would sneak away to sit by her bedside.
“As any good friend would,” one of the toys interjected. Most agreed, save for the stag and the knight.
“Oh, my friend, I think it is more than mere friendship that binds these two,” the stag replied slowly.
“You think they might one day become more?” another toy asked.
“It is too early to say,” the stag said. “But I do know that the girl gave a mighty embrace to the Harry when she was unpetrified. One the boy told me he wishes to have every time he sees her.”
“Then,” said the winged knight, “while it is too early to tell, it is safe to assume that something more may yet grow between them.”
“Most assuredly so,” the stag agreed.
As the boy grew into a young man, the toys interacted with him less. Each summer, they listened as Harry read aloud the letters he got from his friends. Ron was a good friend, they all decided. Though they knew that he had an issue with jealousy, they also saw in him a true friend that would hopefully rise above those temptations one day. Hermione, as the girl was called, quickly grew to be approved by all the toys as the best partner for Harry. They listened to the way Harry’s voice would become happier as he softly read each word she wrote to him. One night, he confessed to what he thought an empty room that he truly fancied the girl, and all the toys gave a silent cheer at the blossoming love growing between them.
Each year never failed to be filled with adventures, but soon they also came to be marked with death. The toys, gathering dust on the shelves, all wished they could wrap their arms around Harry, comfort him, protect him. As he grew older, the returning evil wizard seemed to grow in power. Harry soon found his family and friends being harmed by this evil wizard, and all the toys mourned for his losses and pains. None more so than when Hermione was almost slain in helping Harry. But she had survived, and all the toys took comfort in that.
Then Harry turned sixteen.
The night before he left for the Weasleys, Hermione visited his prison. The toys, layered with dust, finally saw the girl who had captivated Harry’s heart. The knight would later proclaim that he had never seen a fairer beauty in all his time on the shelves of the toy store, a sentiment every toy shared. They watched as Hermione gently removed each of them from the shelves, tenderly brushing away the layers of dust each had gathered after years of neglect. The knight listened to how Harry told her his thoughts on each of them.
When she pulled him down from the shelves, the knight wished he could cry tears of joy when he heard what Harry thought of him.
“That is the knight. He was always the hero I wanted to be. He saved everyone he met, and he never failed to do the right thing. If I could be like any of these toys, I would want to be like him,” Harry said as he and Hermione cradled the knight in their hands.
“You are more like him than you think, Harry. I know it. You’re a hero like him. If to no one else, then definitely to me,” Hermione confessed, looking from the knight to the young man sitting beside her.
The knight then witnessed the most beautiful thing he had ever seen as the two friends shared their first kiss. When he was set aside, he could not help but join the cheering toys around him as Harry and Hermione confessed their long-denied feelings for each other. When they finally pulled apart, the two happy teenagers were unaware of the joyful cheers around them from the silent toys. If nothing else went right for Harry that year, every toy hoped that his and Hermione’s romance would only grow stronger.
When Harry returned that summer, it was with a heavy heart. His mentor, the headmaster Dumbledore, had been slain. It now fell to Harry, his girlfriend Hermione, and his friend Ron to save their world from Voldemort. That first night, Harry slept with the stag in his arms for the first time in years, crying silent tears of despair. The following morning, Harry took hold of the knight in his hands.
“What would you do? How would you save those you loved?” Harry asked forlornly.
”I would do what I could. That is all any of us can do,” the knight wanted to say. ”Take heart, young Harry. You are a kind and good soul, and if there is anything a toy like me could know, it is that no shame can ever be found in right action done for right reasons. You only need to trust yourself to do the right thing as you know it to be, and trust those around you to also do the same.”
While the knight knew he never said those words aloud to Harry, the young man seemed to take heart as though he had heard them. The knight was placed back on the shelf with the other toys, and all watched as Harry took to training his body, practicing what little magic he could, and teaching himself so much more.
No toy was more proud of him than the knight and the stag.
Then, Harry was gone. Spirited away in the dead of night to begin his quest. When the house stood empty, the knight led all the toys in a prayer to God for Harry to be successful, and for he, Hermione, and Ron to all remain true to each other to whatever end they met.
Years later, the knight watched happily as Harry and Hermione’s son slept peacefully in his crib, holding the aged stuffed stag in his tiny arms. His mother and father kissed their son good night, and as they shared a loving kiss in that child’s room, the knight could think of no other words to say to all the toys present than the same ones little Harry would whisper to them every night in that cupboard so many years ago:
”And we all lived happily ever after, my friends.”