Meet Harry Potter

POV Oliver

Oliver sat in the back seat beside Margaret as usual while Peter drove them. Only today, the mood between Peter and Oliver was noticeably different. They were both afraid.

"Five more minutes," Peter said, his voice trembling.

"Pete, I'm sorry I'm putting you through this!" Oliver apologised.

"We all make our choices. I made mine, and I'm standing by you," Peter said.

Oliver looked into the rear-view mirror, where Peter's eyes were reflected, and he wasn't sure whether he could see a tear.

I'm sorry!

Oliver thought back to the conversation before they had left.

"Sister Margaret, please, I'm begging you! Just this once, let someone from Warner come and drive Oliver!" Peter pleaded.

"Marga— No! Grandmother! Please don't do this to me!" Oliver joined in.

"Enough, you two! You're behaving like little children!" she ordered.

Oliver was abruptly pulled from his thoughts. Flashes erupted around them and simply wouldn't stop. Peter tried to make himself as small as possible behind the wheel while Oliver slid down in his seat so no one could see him.

Then Peter brought the car to a stop. Moments later, Oliver's door was opened from the outside.

"I don't want to get out!" he pleaded with Margaret one last time.

It didn't help. The man who had opened the door held out his hand and helped him out of the car.

The moment Oliver set one foot outside, chaos erupted around him.

The flashes he had seen through the windows came from dozens of cameras, almost all pointed at him at once. Reporters and photographers crowded behind the barriers, while somewhere farther back a mass of people shouted his name.

"OLIVER! OVER HERE!"

"OLIVER, A PHOTO!"

"LOOK LEFT!"

For a moment, he simply stood beside the open car door, having no idea where he was supposed to look. Every time he turned his head in one direction, someone immediately shouted from another.

Then Sister Margaret stepped out, and the shouting stopped.

Oliver looked at her and almost laughed despite his nerves. Among all the evening dresses, black suits and security staff, an elderly nun suddenly stood beside him as though walking the red carpet with Harry Potter were the most natural thing in the world.

"SISTER! OVER HERE!"

Less than ten seconds later, even Margaret had her own photographers.

Oliver turned back towards the car. Peter was still sitting behind the wheel and had ducked down so far that almost nothing but the top half of his head was visible. He wanted to get out of there. That much was obvious.

But just as he tried to drive off, the engine of Margaret's old Volvo stalled. Peter's expression would have made Oliver laugh in almost any other situation. Right now, it only triggered his own instinct to flee.

He had to get away from here—the bloody thing never started properly.

Then he saw her. His salvation!

"Emma!" he shouted and ran towards her.

Emma had watched the entire spectacle from a distance and had apparently decided that staying as far away from it as possible was the safest option.

"Nice car," she said dryly, visibly struggling not to burst out laughing. "Maybe you should come with us to the next premiere."

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"I don't care what I have to do. Even if I have to donate my entire salary to the Church so the Pope personally talks to Margaret—I am never riding in that thing again!" he declared.

Joanne approached them with a woman Oliver had never seen before. Dark trouser suit, clipboard tucked under one arm and a headset over one ear.

"Hello, you two!" Jo greeted Emma and Oliver. "Let me introduce you. This is Rachel Morgan from Warner Publicity. She'll be taking you through the red carpet tonight."

Rachel gave them a brief smile. "Hi. Don't worry, I'll tell you exactly where to stop and when to move on. We're going to the photographers first. Stay there until I tell you to move."

"Shouldn't we wait for Jamie?" Oliver asked.

"He'll be along shortly. We'll bring the three of you back together for the group photos," Rachel explained, motioning for them to follow.

Emma and Oliver walked beside her along the red carpet until Rachel stopped them in front of a row of photographers. The shouting immediately grew louder.

"Oliver, over here!"

"Emma! To the left!"

"Move closer together!"

Rachel showed them where to look, and after a few photos they moved on to the next group.

Rachel was already waving them forward. The photographers fell behind them, and a few metres farther along the setup beside the barriers changed. Instead of photographers packed tightly together, reporters with microphones and smaller television crews were waiting for them.

"We'll do a few short interviews from here," Rachel explained. "If there's a question you don't want to answer, just look at me."

Oliver nodded and followed Rachel to the first reporter while, a few metres away, Emma was already being interviewed by another journalist.

The woman greeted him with a friendly smile and lowered the microphone slightly so it was roughly level with him.

"Oliver—tonight the audience gets to see your film for the first time. How does that feel?"

"I'm actually seeing it for the first time too, so I'd say excited. Very excited," Oliver answered.

"How has your life changed since it was announced that you're playing Harry Potter?" she asked next.

"Not much so far," Oliver replied. "Apart from a few people who've seen the trailer, I still mostly go unrecognised."

The next few interviews went much the same way.

Most of the questions were about the film, the shoot, or what it felt like to suddenly be Harry Potter. Oliver answered them as best he could while Rachel made sure none of the reporters kept him for longer than necessary.

After a few minutes, she waved him on. Emma was already waiting a little farther ahead, and Jamie joined them shortly afterwards.

The flashes started all over again, this time with all three of them together.

Oliver put an arm around Jamie's shoulder, Emma moved closer beside him, and for the next few minutes they turned between the different groups of photographers whenever Rachel directed them.

[IMAGE]

Eventually, Rachel raised her hand. "That's it. Go inside, all of you."

***

POV Daniel Mercer

Daniel had already decided he wasn't going to like Harry Potter.

As a film critic, he had seen more than enough overhyped child stars come and go over the years.

Not because he had any particular dislike for the books. He had read the first one after it became clear he would be reviewing the film, and he could certainly understand why children loved it.

The problem was the hype. Or, more specifically: Oliver Bennett!

Oxford at seven. Musical prodigy. Theatre. Peter Pan. Joanne Rowling, who had supposedly been convinced years before the adaptation that nobody else should play Harry Potter. Then there were the actors and directors who seemed to take every opportunity to talk about how extraordinary the boy was.

It was too much—no child could possibly live up to all of those expectations.

Then he appeared on the screen.

Or rather, beneath a staircase, locked inside a cupboard.

And it was almost as though he had heard Daniel's thoughts and decided that such insolence could no longer be tolerated.

He didn't see Oliver Bennett trying to play some poor boy the audience was supposed to pity.

He saw Harry Potter, a boy who had long since grown used to being dragged out of sleep by his aunt's shrill voice or treated like a doormat by his overweight cousin.

No exaggerated acting—just a boy who would never dare talk back to anyone in that house and who stood at the cooker preparing breakfast with the ease of someone who had been doing it for years.

Daniel kept making notes about the smallest details. At least until the scene where a giant kicked in the door of the hut. By then, there was no longer any doubt in his mind that Oliver Bennett wasn't simply a boy trying to sell something to his audience.

First came the loneliness as Harry celebrated his birthday alone, then the fear when a stranger suddenly tried to break down the door, the confusion over what this man wanted from him, and finally the anger when he discovered that his relatives had spent his entire life hiding what he really was.

But none of it looked acted, it felt real.

Daniel only properly came back to himself when Harry boarded the Hogwarts Express and he noticed that his notebook was still almost empty. He had become so absorbed in Oliver Bennett's performance—no, in the story of Harry Potter—that he had almost forgotten why he was sitting there in the first place.

When the credits began rolling and the theatre slowly came back to life around him, Daniel remained seated for another moment and looked down at his nearly empty notebook.

Before the film began, he had wondered whether Oliver Bennett could possibly live up to all the hype. Oxford, music, theatre, Peter Pan—at some point, surely the expectations had to become greater than the talent of a single child.

But that hadn't happened.

Oliver Bennett hadn't merely lived up to those expectations.

He had exceeded them.

Daniel picked up his pen again and wrote the first line of his review.

Oliver Bennett isn't playing Harry Potter.

He is Harry Potter.