Chapter Text
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.
The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs Dursley’s sister, Mrs Potter, and her husband were as unDursleyish as one could be. And not only that! They had went and got murdered! Why, it was quite strange and mysterious when the little Potter child had been left on their doorstep and they had promptly tried to raise him as normally as possible. If they had to have an orphan hanging around it better be a well and truly normal orphan. When the little Potter boy turned three was the first time – that they noticed – that he did something decidedly abnormal. Freakish even. He floated his toys about! That sealed the deal. The boy was strange and mysterious and a freak and Mrs Dursley went straight to an orphanage, put the blanket he had arrived at their doorstep in around his shoulders, gave him a piece of perfectly normal stationery paper with a short note and sat him on the doorstep.
“You stay there, boy,” she said. “You hear me? No freakishness. Just sit there until someone comes to get you. Then show them that note.”
She turned on her heel and walked down to her car. With a single glance out the window at the little boy, she drove off. She left him sitting on the middle step of the porch, with his perpetually messy black hair sticking straight up in the back of his head and his big green eyes staring at her and his too big clothes hanging off him. He was clutching the note hard enough to crinkle the paper. He owned nothing but the blanket, the clothes on his back, and a crumpled note.
To Whomever It May Concern,
The boy with this note is called Harry James Evans. His parents are dead and we cannot take care of him. His birthday is the 31st of July and he is three years old. No allergies.
Harry James Evans woke up on his sixteenth birthday to a bit of a surprise. Of course, the surprise wouldn’t come until much later. But it was still going to be surprising. He woke up, did his bed and left the dorm to get breakfast. It wasn’t his kitchen day – and thank god for that, it had been last year and doing chores on your birthday is just no fun.
“Harry!” Brian yelled. He was sitting on the far end of the long table, where Harry plopped himself down to inhale some toast and juice. “Happy birthday, man. Sixteen’s a big ‘un.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, after swallowing. Brian was the type to clap his friends on the back in a very manly way, to show affection. He was nice enough, and one of the few residents in the orphanage in Harry’s age range. They never talked much in school but were amicable enough in the home. The only other orphans over thirteen they had at Saint Natalia’s Orphanage were Becky and Lissie, whom were fifteen and seventeen respectively. Becky didn’t get along with Harry, though that was a fairly recent development. It was mostly because of her new boyfriend, a skinhead, who might have been better off if he was orphaned ‘cause his mum was just that terrible. Lissie was actually called Annalise, but she had been bullied for being too good and posh for the rest of them and had made everyone called her Lissie or suffer the consequences. She was on kitchen duty today.
After breakfast and an awkward gift from the matron – a plain black shirt, the best they could do currently, she had explained – he hurried outside, armed with his skateboard and backpack and dressed in his new shirt. As soon as he was on the sidewalk he started skating. He loved the feeling of the wind in his hair as he zoomed through London’s streets. It was like he imagined flying to be. Sometimes he swore he could feel the aircurrents directing him in just the right direction, pushing him along. He stopped outside Jonathan’s apartment complex. Jonathan was eighteen and had gone to school with Harry, just one year above him because he was held back. He had moved into his own apartment last winter. Harry pressed the doorbell and heard the buzzer in reply. He hurried up to apartment 204 and knocked.
Jonathan threw open the door with more aggression than most people might, when greeting a friend, but that’s just how he was. “Harry-Jay!”
“Jona-Taj!” Harry smiled and let himself be drawn into a hug.
“How’s my birthday boy doing?” Jonathan asked as he ushered him inside and onto his bed. It was a cramped apartment with one chair, a bed, a table, a stove, a small fridge, a bathroom, and not much more. Harry loved it.
“Feel no different than last night.”
“We need to fix that, mate,” Jonathan said as he pulled a vodka out of his fridge and waved it in front of Harry’s face.
“I’m pretty sure your supposed to freeze that, not refrigerate it. And I have work later.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes and let himself fall onto the bed. He put a hand to his face. “You’re so responsible, it’s disgusting. And whatever. One birthday shot won’t kill you.”
Harry laughed. “Okay, one shot. But I want to greet my one true love first.”
“You just want me for my snake,” Jonathan bemoaned, but wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Yes. Give me your snake,” Harry said, deadpan. Jonathan chuckled. “For real. Get that snake in here.”
Jonathan grumbled but gave in and went to the bathroom where he kept a vivarium. He reentered the bedroom-livingroom-kitchen with a royal python held carefully in his hands.
“ Harry! ” The python hissed. “ You won’t believe what happened! My human only fed me yesterday! Yesterday! ”
Harry smiled indulgently and took the offered snake from Jonathan. “ Wow, that must have been eight whole days! It means your growing, you know, adult snakes don’t eat as often. ”
The snake’s tongue flickered. “ I guess that’s acceptable. I’m becoming a big and intimidating predator after all. ”
“Exactly. ” Harry continued to chat with the snake, Mr Freckles, for a while before it got sleepy and demanded to be put back. Jonathan had lounging on the bed beside them, reading a magazine while he waited, sometimes looking up at Harry and Mr Freckles. “He wants to go back now,” Harry told him.
Jonathan scooped up Mr Freckles and put him back in the bathroom. When he came back out he had a wicked smile on his face. “So. Those birthday shots.”
Harry laughed and held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. But I said one shot!”
“Your getting two,” Jonathan said. Two turned to three turned to six and Harry called in sick to work, so they took another shot each. They were laying in the bed, side by side when Jonathan reached out and traced Harry’s lips. Harry bit his finger, then turned to his side to look at Jonathan. He had black hair and dark skin. They had that in common. Where Harry was a bit of a mess though, Jonathan was cool. His hair was sleek and his eyes deep and dark. He didn’t know who moved first but Jonathan’s lips felt soft and his tongue wet, but in a good way. His hair was soft where Harry clutched at it and the muscles in his arms moved under Harry’s fingers. He could feel Jonathan gently nipping his bottom lip and he moved his head just a bit to the side to deepen the kiss, licking into Jonathan’s mouth and tasting vodka and orange juice and a little bit of smoke. He took off his glasses and Jonathan rolled and Harry was pressed into the mattress with Jonathan over him and everything felt so perfect and he was floating a little bit from the vodka and the kissing and now there was pressure on his cock and he moaned.
Jonathan pulled back a little and Harry let his head fall back onto the pillow under him. “Harry-Jay,” Jonathan whispered.
“Jona-Taj,” Harry whispered back.
“You’re getting old,” Jonathan said, punctuated with a roll of his hips. “Old enough to move out of the orphanage.”
Harry moaned, but managed to get enough control of himself to roll his eyes. “What? You gonna dump me now where I won’t be as desperate to crash at your place?”
Jonathan smirked. “Nah. You’re too good. And you’d miss my snake.”
He dove back into Harry’s mouth.
Harry woke up after a post-coital nap still a little pissed and still a lot tired. He looked to his left at where Jonathan was snoring. They had originally bonded over being raised British, and trying Indian and Arabic foods that the orphanage and Jonathan’s step-mother would never dare eat. It was much too spicy in the beginning, but eventually they acquired enough of a resistance that they could be invited to Muhammed’s house without embarrassing themselves. Harry was hungry. He put on his glasses and found the flyer for a nearby curry place and called ahead to order vindaloo and naan for them both. Then he pulled on clothes and his shoes and grabbed his skateboard and wallet.
While he was paying for the food he felt like a strange lady in the corner was staring a bit intently at him. He shrugged it off as being overly paranoid. He made his way back to Jonathan’s on foot, holding his board under his arm, so as not to spill the curry. Skating tipsy was one thing. Skating tipsy while holding curry was another. He discreetly looked around before floating his board beside him while he took out a cigarette he had nicked from Jonathan and lit it with a snap of his fingers. He inhaled deeply. When it was properly lit he took his skateboard back from where it was floating. He glanced around again and saw a movement behind him. He hoped it was a drug addict that wouldn’t have put much stock in a floating skateboard. Oh well. He took a drag and used the hand holding the plastic bag of food to hold the cigarette while he let the smoke out. He took another drag and when he blew out the smoke he let it form into Mr Freckles the snake. Okay so maybe tipsy made him a little reckless, but his freaky powers were more controllable when he used them regularly and the street was deserted anyway. Mostly, he added to himself as he passed a sleeping homeless man. Just as he was about to turn the corner he heard a yell and saw a flash of light.
He jerked back and into an alley that was mostly used for trash cans.
“Stupefy!”
“Protego!”
“Confringo!”
“Crucio!”
He heard nonsense yelling and saw lasers, so he carefully stuck his head out. From the direction he had been coming from he could see a lady in a black dress. From the direction he had been going he could see a dude in a black dress. He ducked back in. What. The. Hell. Two goths were shooting lasers at each other.
He heard a scream and dared to peek out onto the street again. The lady was down. Hopefully unconscious, maybe dead. Did Jonathan lace his vodka with some shite? Harry wondered. He hid behind a trash bin incase the man was like a serial killer or in some sort of gothy gang and was going to murder him for being a witness. Echoing footsteps, slow and precise, were moving closer and he felt his breathing sped up. Oh god he was going to die. Bloody fuck. He was not ready for this.
The footsteps stopped and Harry opened his eyes, still crouched on the ground in a stinky alley behind a trash bin. He could see a pair of fancy black shoes and black trousers and as he raised his head a black dress over the trousers and a pale face and black hair. “Oblivi–,” the man began, pointing a stick at him, but suddenly stopped short. Harry eyed the laser-shooting stick warily. “Potter?” The man sounded shocked and a little horrified.
“What?” Harry asked. He was a little panicked and a lot confused and really wanted to just eat curry in Jonathan’s bed and make out with his not-boyfriend-because-Jonathan-doesn’t-do-that and finish celebrating his birthday. He couldn’t help feeling something was vaguely familiar about the name though. Potter.
“Are you Harry James Potter?” The man said this as if it was the most important question in the world and Harry frowned at him.
“No. I’m Harry James Evans. You must have me confused with another Harry James, and really, this was lovely, but I should get going. I didn’t see anything, worry not. Lasers? In London? Never seen that. Anyways, it’s my birthday and I have food here that’s getting cold and someone waiting for me and –,” Harry felt a little panicked but was making his way to his feet so the strange man wasn’t looming over him. It didn’t help. He was so tall. Or Harry was short. A distinct possibility. He tried to edge away nonetheless but the man’s hand shot out and held him in place by his jaw. The man used his laser-stick to lift up Harry’s bangs and sucked in a breath. He let go of Harry as if burned.
“You’re him.”
Harry cleared his throat awkwardly. “No. As I just said my name is Evans and I really must be going,” Harry walked out of the alley but didn’t make it far before the strange man had caught up to him. He didn’t slow down for him, but it didn’t seem to faze the man, who had incredibly long strides.
“Allow me to escort you home, Mr Evans. I have something of the utmost importance to discuss with you.”
“Uh,” Harry said, trying in vain to walk faster. “I’m not going home. I’m going to a friend’s place. And I really can’t just bring visitors willy nilly. And I was just out quick for the curry. And really, you must be busy. I don’t even know who you are.”
“My name is Severus Snape, and I insist,” the man – Mr Snape – looked like he had swallowed something sour.
Harry really hoped Jonathan could stab Mr Snape with his single kitchen knife before Mr Snape killed them both with lasers. He wondered what had happened to the lady’s body, it wasn’t there when they passed where he had seen it. Maybe he would be framed for murdering her and Jonathan and then Mr Snape would make it look like he killed himself in guilt. Oh god. Why didn’t he just go to work today. At least he felt completely sober by now. He stopped. They were there. Sorry Jonathan , Harry thought. He rang the doorbell. A moment. They were buzzed in. He took the stairs slowly. Oh bloody fuck. Shite. At least he finished his GCSEs last spring. Imagine dying before finishing secondary school. God, what would happen to Mr Freckles? Would Mr Snape murder poor Mr Freckles, too? Or leave him to starve in the bathroom until someone found Harry and Jonathan’s bodies?
He opened the door to Jonathan’s apartment, he had left it unlocked when he left. “Harry-Jay! You better come bearing food, since you stole my cigs, you bastard.”
Jonathan was laying in the bed, shirtless still and sleek hair ruffled. “Uh,” Harry said eloquently. He held up the bag of curry but grimaced slightly as he stepped further into the apartment and let Mr Snape in. Jonathan cursed and pulled on a t-shirt that was laying on the floor.
“What the bloody hell is going on, Harry?”
“I was accosted by this man, Mr Snape, on the way back from Asim’s Curries,” Harry said.
Jonathan blinked at Harry. Blinked at Mr Snape. He stood up, wrapped in a sheet to preserve his modesty. He took the single chair and motioned for Harry to sit on the kitchen counter, which he hastily obliged. He gestured to the bed. “Mr Snape. Sit down. Make yourself at home.”
Jonathan was like that. He went with the flow pretty well. He was also probably pretty close to his kitchen knife, Harry had no idea where it was stored. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to get to it faster than Mr Snape could laser them dead. But maybe it was close enough to try.
Mr Snape grimaced as he sat on the bed. It was probably pretty obvious they had been buggering just a while ago. Jonathan hadn’t opened a window yet.
There was an awkward silence until Harry grabbed two forks and handed Jonathan his food. They began eating, both looking up at Mr Snape occasionally. He looked incredibly uncomfortable. Harry could feel his fear dissipating slightly as he took in the ridiculousness of the situation. He kind of wanted to laugh but instead took a huge bite of vindaloo covered rice. The spices burnt and he could feel it in his eyes and nose but it was incredibly grounding. He stabbed a piece of pork with his fork and took a bite of it. Mr Snape seemed to have had enough by then, because he pinched his nose and sighed. “What in Merlin’s name have I gotten myself into,” he mumbled. “Mr Pott – Evans. Mr Evans, there is a subject of a rather private nature I wish to discuss with you.”
“Go for it,” Harry said. He ate a piece of potato.
Mr Snape pressed his lips together in a decidedly displeased expression. “While this,” here he paused to look at Jonathan with clear judgement, “person is present?”
“Sure,” no way was Harry going to let Mr Snape split them up. That’s how people got murdered.
Mr Snape cleared his throat. “It is concerning–,” he looked slightly at a loss for words, “concerning certain skills you might have discovered you have that others do not.”
Harry stilled.
Jonathan looked up from his food and peered at Mr Snape. “You mean his superpowers?”
Harry sputtered and glared at Jonathan. “They’re not superpowers!” And also a secret!
Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Sure, they’re not.”
Mr Snape closed his eyes with a sigh. “Yes. I believe it is about his… Superpowers. However, it is called magic.”
That shut them both right up. Having telekinesis and talking to snakes hadn’t seemed that far fetched when Harry was first discovering what he could do. Saint Natalia’s Orphanage read fairytales out loud in the evening to the youngest kids. It only made sense. He was an orphan, small, poor. His eyes were unusually, noticeably green . Of course, when he turned thirteen he became too old to believe in fairytales and reformulated his theory into him being some sort of mutant or genetic experiment gone wrong and the government had to hastily cover up. Maybe it was even the American government - the movies and comics always happened in America - and they had shipped him off to England to cover all their bases. He didn’t know what theory to believe anymore. But there was definitely something freakish afoot. He had wondered, quite a few times, if a Dr Xavier type would come pick him up for training. Maybe this was it. A murdering, laser-wielding goth in a dress was his Dr Xavier.
“What do you know about it?” Harry asked, suddenly filled with a burning need to know.
“Magic is a mostly genetic trait. Your parents had it. We all thought you were dead when the Hogwarts acceptance letters couldn’t find you,” Mr Snape began.
“Hogwarts?” Harry said. “You knew my parents?” He was feeling quite out of his depth.
“A school of witchcraft and wizardry. You’re a wizard, Harry.”
Harry didn’t really know what to say to that but it felt significant. He stared at Mr Snape, who looked like he was thinking very deeply.
“I knew your mother very well. Lily.”
Harry felt like he’d been punched. “Lily?” He said in a small voice, hating how weak he sounded. Jonathan moved his chair closer to him and squeezed his leg. “Was that her name?”
Now Mr Snape looked like he had been punched. “You don’t even know their names?”
Harry narrowed his eyes, trying to hide the tears, suddenly feeling defensive and sad and embarrassed and guilty and angry all at once and at the same time happy. He had his mum’s name. He had a mum. He had never felt like he had a mum, it was some abstract idea he never got but suddenly he had a name, and that meant she was real. He had a mum.
“Your mother’s name was Lily Evans, until she married James Potter. They were both magic. Like you are. They died protecting you.”
Harry was feeling quite overwhelmed. A mum and a dad all at once. Magic. Other people with his powers, presumably. “Protecting me?”
“There was – is – a war. A sort of magical civil war,” Mr Snape said. “Your family was targeted by the Dark Lord himself, the leader of the Death Eaters. You are quite famous for not only surviving a curse no one else has ever lived through, but also vanquishing the Dark Lord and effectively stopping the war.”
“How could I have stopped it if there’s still a war?”
“This past year, the Dark Lord has been resurrected and the war has begun again,” Mr Snape said, his tone heavy. Weary. “You have to understand. You may not feel it. But you are – you could be a symbol of hope for a whole civilization that has none.”
“What.”
“There is a prophecy. Complete nonsense if you ask me. Nonetheless, people believe you have the power to vanquish him again, permanently this time,” Mr Snape said. “The Chosen One.”
“Okay, wait just a minute,” Jonathan said. “This is a bit much. Chosen One? You got to be pulling our legs, mate.”
“People will believe what they will,” Mr Snape sneered. “And I certainly would not expect a sixteen year old to end a war. But regardless, people believe Harry can. Except, they also believe he is dead and are therefore convinced nothing can be done. We have a severe morale problem and the war has only been officially restarted for half a year. You need to come with me. We’ll enroll you in Hogwarts, reintroduce you to Magical Britain.”
Harry swallowed. “How’s this my problem? I have a life here. A mostly non-magical life. I have a job, my GCSEs, I’m gonna move out of the orphanage when I can and save up to higher ed. I have friends, I have Jonathan.”
Mr Snape looked at him, with a hard to discern expression. “If I found you, the Dark Lord will find you. You can bring the war to your muggle life or you can come with me.”