Chapter Text
They say that you dream about your soulmate's life. Flashes of what they did that day or a week before. The dreams are always from your soulmate's perspective, and the only thing you can never hear is the name of your soulmate. Even the reflections are usually fuzzy. People say it´s so that you have to work to find your soulmate. No one remembers their dreams before they meet their soulmate. Perhaps there aren´t any dreams to remember before they meet each other, perhaps they just don´t remember. Once they do, once they look into each other's eyes, they always remember
Harry has never forgotten a dream. He always remembers, any night in the cupboard he dreams about a boy, different points in his life. There´s his youth, where he gets bullied mercilessly by anyone in the orphanage. Where an old man scares him with magic and looks at him with revulsion when he tells him he can speak with snakes. But there´s farther along, in a castle with hundreds of students and people waving a stick.
When Harry was five he had a dream that his soulmate spoke with snakes, and the snake spoke back, he was surprised. He didn´t know anyone could do understand snakes, and it seemed his soulmate hadn´t either. His soulmate felt happy when the small snake wanted to be his friend. But then the older kids had come and had taken the snake away, stomping it to death.
Harry knew how that felt, seeing anything you like being taken away before your eyes. He never made the mistake of befriending a snake in front of people since the memory-dream. But he did go out of his way to see if he too could speak with snakes. It only took him a week, to find one while working in Petunia´s garden. It was one of the few happy moments in his life when he found a snake and they had a nice conversation. It was the first nice conversation he had ever had. Not that he had many conversations at all. After all none of the Dursleys talked to him.
When Harry was six and a half he got his first dream about the castle. He didn´t know what it was, but he knew in his bones that it was real. The kids in his dreams could do something with a stick, and they´d sprout water, or change a button into a mouse. It was magic, and the first thing Harry did when he got outside was grab a stick of his own.
Harry wasn´t stupid, he knew that the Dursleys didn´t like magic. They always said that it didn´t exist, in a way that told Harry the exact opposite. But, Harry wasn´t about to prove them wrong. He hid the stick in his cupboard and tried to do what his soulmate did in his memory dreams. It never worked though. But he knew that his memories were real, he knew they were from his soulmate. So Harry never gave up.
When Harry was seven he had a dream about a giant snake, one that told his soulmate that he was special, for being able to talk to her. One that told him that she would help him change the world for the better so that he wouldn´t be bullied again, that he wouldn´t be hurt again. She followed his soulmate out of the room, and suddenly there was a girl lying dead on the floor. It was the first time Harry had seen someone die. But it wouldn´t be the last.
The old man from the orphanage returned many times in his dreams, and Harry already knew he disliked the man when he was seven. He´d always be mad at his soulmate, and always make sure that he knew that he didn´t trust him. He also saw him mistreat both his soulmate and his friends. Though Harry wasn´t sure they were his friends since they always seemed to belittle him for being muddy? Harry didn´t really understand that since his soulmate never even went into the mud.
When he was eight Harry had been working hard in the gardens, and occasionally speaking with the snake hidden between the flowers. He´d be careful, making sure Petunia wasn´t around. But suddenly she was there and she´d found out that he spoke to a snake. Harry had been locked up in his cupboard for a week, at least, he thinks it was that long, he slept a lot, living through his soulmate's memories. Whenever he wasn´t asleep he was trying to use magic.
He hated his family, hated everyone around him. They all hated him, so why shouldn´t he hate them as well. They treated him like a criminal, like a monster, so he decided he would be exactly that. With his determination to get the stick to work he managed to actually perform magic. Harry had no real idea how, but he knew that he could control it if he focused really really hard. So that´s what he did, focus, and he took people´s food when they weren´t looking, or their money so he could buy food.
They thought he was a criminal already, might as well be a criminal who actually got to eat once in a while. He still acted nice to them though, just like his soulmate always spoke politely. Didn´t hurt to be nice, made people less suspicious. That seemed to work better for his soulmate than for Harry which he didn´t completely understand. He knew his family knew about magic, and that they hated him for that. He didn´t understand why anyone else hated him as well.
In his dreams, his soulmate wasn´t much different from Harry. Though instead of being called a criminal he was being called the devil. He got less food than the other boys in the orphanage, and he was never taken out of the house either.
Once, when he was nine, Harry had a dream where his soulmate got adopted, he´d been around four, at least Harry thinks that´s how old he was, and the moment Harry saw the blocks around the crib floating he knew they´d be in trouble. Harry had been right, the people who had looked so lovingly at his soulmate had screamed and gotten someone to come over. There had been a man in full black, with only a white piece around his neck and a giant necklace with a cross.
Harry knew a man like that, at the church. Harry had been in the same position once, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach did he look while the man did the exact same to his soulmate as the man in the church had done to Harry.
The man made the parents hold his soulmate down and started throwing water while chanting foreign names, he kept throwing water, and pushed his cross against his soulmate´s face. Harry knew that nothing about that hurts, but as a four-year-old, it must have been very distressing. And when he was distressed more magic happened, just like it does for Harry.
The letter blocks around them started floating crazily and other toys joined. It became so bad that the man was knocked out by one of the toys. And the woman had grabbed his soulmate and brought him back to the orphanage.
Harry felt more and more anger at everyone around him and everyone around his soulmate. But the older he became the nicer the other boys around his soulmate became to him. They didn´t call him mudblood, instead now speaking with awed voices. Harry liked that. They even looked afraid of his soulmate sometimes. Harry liked that even more.
Harry had many dreams, not long after the dream of the giant snake he saw his soulmate hurt the first person ever. Sure the girl that died in the bathroom was also his soulmate´s fault, but not really, that had been an accident. This though, this person was anything but. He´d watched as his soulmate talked with a man in a dirty house, speaking in the language only they spoke. He watched as the man who was his uncle screamed and called him a mudblood like so many before him. Harry wasn´t even mad that his soulmate cast a spell that send his body flying. He even smiled when he stole the ring that the man had been so proud of.
Another dream showed his soulmate walking to a big building, and it turned out to be a house. His soulmate opened the door with one of his spells, one Harry really wanted to learn to get out of his cupboard. He saw two men and one woman sitting at a dining table. But the moment his soulmate explained who he was, they too started screaming, and Harry watched as his soulmate cast a spell on all three of them.
He couldn´t see what the spell really did, but he knew the moment their bodies hit the floor that they were dead. Good, they don´t deserve my soulmate, Harry had thought. Many other dreams followed where his soulmate hurt people, and Harry didn´t blink an eye. He heard his soulmate speak about being better, creating a better world, where wizards didn´t have to be afraid of muggles.
The people around him, his followers, they spoke of purebloods and being better than mudbloods. His soulmate let them but never joined. He did not seem to think they were better, though there was no love for them. Mudbloods could have power, just look at his soulmate. But they were bad as well since they brought the muggle closer to their world. And muggles, the people from the orphanage, the people who hurt him badly, they were the ones that needed to die, that needed to be hurt. If the mudbloods want to stop that, well, then sadly they had to go as well. It´s a shame to lose more magic, but they can´t stay if they forgo the old magic.
Harry agreed, muggles, he´d figured out what that word meant when he was eight, were bad. None of them had ever been nice to Harry. But Harry also thought a lot of wizards were bad. That old man that had hurt and scared his soulmate was the worst of all. He would need to go so that his soulmate would never be hurt like that again. Harry didn´t know what the old magics were, but if it was anything like the magic his soulmate used then that was very good and powerful.
One night he dreamed about a cottage, and he watched as his soulmate killed someone who looked a lot like Harry himself, or what he imagined he could look like. He watched as a woman pleaded for his life, only to be killed as well. Harry knew they were his parents. How he didn´t know, but he was absolutely sure. Then he watched as his soulmate cast the same spell on himself.
When he woke up he thought he should be mad at his soulmate, for killing his parents, for being the one that put him here. But Harry didn´t think that was entirely fair. Because he was supposed to be dead. He has never before seen that one spell not work, and he´s seen his soulmate use it quite some times. Besides, it´s not like he´s the one that put him with the Dursleys or the one that made them abuse him.
Most of his dreams were from his soulmate's youth or his years at that school. Hogwarts, Harry recalls it being called. There had been a few from after when he and his followers started to change the world.
Harry is sure he hasn´t even seen half of his life yet. Probably not even seen a quarter. Is his soulmate even alive? They say that the memory dreams stop when your soulmate dies, and you don´t dream anymore. So his soulmate shouldn´t be dead. Which also means his soulmate is really old. Harry knows that. Harry isn´t stupid, he´s never told his aunt and uncle that he dreams. When he was too young to understand them he couldn´t talk about them, and when he was old enough, he knew it was best not to say anything.
He wouldn´t want to get the belt because he said something strange. Or because he reacted with his magic, without meaning to. He´d been really careful about using it since he found out that he actually had magic in his veins. And the belt had been used less and less. Sure, sometimes Harry forgot, or lost his temper, wishing he could use that handy spell of his soulmate on his aunt and uncle, and then the belt would be used. But that didn´t happen all that much by the time he was ten, Harry´s back hadn´t been opened up in a long time. Harry took care to never do anything they would not agree with if they were even remotely close by.
Of course, his trip to the zoo when he was eleven had to muck it all up. Resulting in him getting the belt and being locked up for another week. He knew his aunt and uncle knew about his magic, else they would never react as they did. Sometimes he wished his magic just reacted and hurt his aunt and uncle instead of turning his teacher's wig blue. Who was Harry kidding, he hoped that every day. Harry would lose no sleep if they died, that´s for sure. But he also knew that he needed them since he would have to live on the streets if they were dead. No way that he was going to one of those orphanages.
Dreams followed dreams, and he became older and older. He saw more about his soulmate's life, and he watched as his soulmate asked if he could stay at school even during the summer, only to be denied it by the same old man and another older man, who was much nicer.
When he was eleven he dreamed about darker and darker things. He saw meetings between his soulmate and other people. He saw times they killed people. He saw intricate marks on the floors while they killed a young woman, he saw his soulmate kill several people in a row.
When he was twelve he had even more control over his magic, even without a wand. He had realised that was what the stick had been after all. He saw his soulmate learn more about wandless magic, and Harry practised that all the time. He took care that no one noticed him doing that, at least he tried. But only a few weeks before his thirteenth birthday he used his magic to open his cupboard, having finally found a way to do that. He sneaked out, under the impression that no one was out there, and had been indulging himself on some of the leftovers that had been thrown into the bin.
But it seemed that it was one of the rare times that Uncle Vernon was awake late into the night, and he caught Harry. The resulting punishment had him curled in a ball in his cupboard, back burning from the gashes surely staining his camp-bed. And a promise to be locked up for a week.
When he was finally let out of the cupboard again he noticed a letter, send to him. He turned it around and with a shock, he realised it was from Hogwarts, he´d recognise that little snake in the emblem from his dreams. It was what his soulmate had worn. He hastily pushes the envelope into his cupboard before giving the rest of the mail to his uncle.
He´ll have to go to the wizarding shopping street, but how? He´d actually laughed when he saw his soulmate buy his first wand, and found himself foolish to think it had been just a random stick from the ground. He still had it though, safely tucked away between his thin camp bed and the wall in his cupboard. He´ll have to read what the letter says anyway.
Late at night Harry finally managed to read the letter. He´d stolen a flashlight from someone and put it to good use. It wasn´t a very long letter, just telling Harry that he´d been accepted into Hogwarts. That got Harry excited, he´d dreamed about it so many times that he couldn´t wait to be there. He had to write an owl to the school, but how? Why didn´t they say how he should do that. And how is he going to be able to get his stuff if his school doesn´t say where he can get them.
Harry frowns at how little information this whole letter gives him. Really, how is Harry supposed to know any of this? It´s not like he can go out and ask his aunt or uncle. Not unless he wants the belt again, and his back still hurts from last week's mishap.
He lies awake for the first time in a long time, usually, he is very eager to go to sleep, finding out more about his soulmate. But now, he can´t seem to stop thinking. He needs to go to that school. He knows it´s the only way out of the cupboard, if only for a few days a year. They don´t stay there for summer Harry knows that, he´d seen his soulmate ask another old man if he could stay there for the summer, only to be refused once again.
When it was an hour later and he still hadn´t fallen asleep he sneaks out of his cupboard. He might as well try and see if there´s still food in the bin. When he opens it he hits the jackpot. Sure it´s all a bit dusty and dirty, but there are still potatoes in the trash. He knows they´re nice, he made them after all, only to be denied the pleasure of eating them. He eats them looking out of the window, to see an owl staring back with big luminous eyes.
Harry almost falls over his own feet as he goes scrambling to grab a piece of paper and a pen. He´d long ago decided that he wasn´t going to tell anyone about his soulmate, especially when he found out that his soulmate actually killed people. Then that thought had been even more cemented in his brain. That means he shouldn´t know anything about magic, or the fact that his parents were murdered instead of being killed in a car crash.
But, Harry pauses, he could act like his aunt and uncle did tell him about Hogwarts, but that they just don´t know how to bring him to the shopping district. Maybe he should nick some more money from people, so he could actually buy his stuff. It wouldn´t be the first time he took a wallet from an unsuspecting muggle with his magic.
Mrs McGonagall,
I am glad to accept my spot at Hogwarts this coming year. However, my aunt and uncle don ´t know where we could find all these supplies. Could you please tell me where I can go? And is there a possibility to pay with non-wizard money? I don´t have that kind of money and my aunt wasn´t sure.
Sincerely,
Harry Potter.
He folds the paper writing Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall on the paper. He slowly opens the window, hoping to god that the owl won't make any noise once it´s inside, waking his aunt and uncle. It doesn´t and Harry holds the note out to the owl. He´s seen his soulmate do this. ‟Bring this to Hogwarts, to Minerva McGonagall, alright?”
The owl looks at him before hopping off and flying out and into the night sky. Harry watches for a few seconds, before closing the window again. He scarfs down another few dusty potatoes before drinking a gulp of milk from the fridge and sneaking back into his cupboard, finally falling asleep.
That night he dreams of the man, Dumbledore, scolding his soulmate for nothing in particular. Harry even has an inkling that his soulmate didn´t do anything. Though he could of course be wrong about that, his soulmate isn´t entirely innocent of course.
When he wakes up he looks at his letter again, noticing the name of the headmaster. He´d been so focused on the content, that he´d scanned over it, focusing on the information in the letter itself instead. But after having another dream about the man, Harry is less than happy to realise that he is not only still a teacher at Hogwarts, he´s the headmaster now. Joy, what Harry wouldn´t like to do to him.
He goes through his day and at night he checks the post but there is no owl. The next morning he immediately spots the mail, grabs it. There´s another letter for him. Harry dumps it in his cupboard, before handing the rest to Uncle Vernon, who makes Dudley hit him with his stick because Harry was slow again.
Harry just keeps doing his work and before he knows it, it´s night again and he opens the new letter.
Dear Mr Potter,
I am glad to hear you are aware of Hogwarts and you accept your spot.
Weird, Harry thinks, for them to be glad he knows about Hogwarts. Someone must have suspected that the Dursleys never told him about it. But then why didn´t they immediately send extra information. Harry squints before continuing to read.
There are student escorts for muggleborn students that can take you to Diagon Alley, one will be able to take you on the 31st of July.
Harry´s frown deepens. Why, if they expected him to know nothing, didn´t they just send one of those escorts to his house? Obviously, these people explain Hogwarts and magic to muggles and their children. Why didn´t they do that to Harry? And do they know that Harry´s birthday is the 31st? Because if so, and he suspects they do, why send someone that day of all days. He frowns.
Please send a return owl,
Minerva McGonagall.
PS: you do have wizarding money, it is only in Gringotts, you will receive the key to your vault from your escort. Headmaster Dumbledore has kept it safe for you.
Harry actually gapes at that last part. Does he have money? Actual money? Wizarding money? But why didn´t he get that? And why does a school headmaster have the key to his fucking vault? He hopes that the key alone isn´t enough to come into his vault, because if that is the case, he really needs to know if someone took his money. Holy fuck, he has actual money. He´ll have to be careful with it, buy just what he needs. He´s not going to be without money again. No sir.
Harry creeps out of his cupboard, to see if the owl is still there. It still is, and Harry grabs another piece of paper from the note-block next to the phone. He writes a short thank you note, saying he looks forward to getting his supplies. When the owl goes, he goes back into his cupboard.
The next morning he cleans and makes breakfast. He waits until his uncle is gone off to work and Dudley is upstairs before approaching his aunt.
‟Aunt Petunia,” he says, and she looks up with a squint, ‟in three days someone is going to come here, and bring me to Diagon Alley. There I will get my supplies for Hogwarts.” Her eyes grow, ‟yes, I know about magic. You will let me go there, and you will let me go to Hogwarts on the 1st of September.”
She looks at him, and he holds his head high. He´s been getting ready for this day, he knows that he needs to make her understand that he will not, under any circumstances be held away from Hogwarts. Or his soulmate. He flicks his hand and the knife on the block starts to levitate. He´s been wanting to show her that little trick, and when her eyes widen in horror he smiles sweetly. He really should have done this earlier, but he needed to be sure he could get away. If there hadn´t been Hogwarts to go to, he´s sure they´d throw him out for just showing magic, no matter how much he´s going to threaten her. Which, really would just mean that she´d die before he left.
‟You will give me Dudleys second bedroom, and I will not tell him what I can do. You will never,” he says with blazing eyes, ‟hurt me again, and I will be allowed to eat properly. In exchange,” he says knowing that he needs to give her something, or else she´ll still throw him out. ‟I will tell Dudley and Vernon nothing about this, I will not perform any magic in this house,” once he´s at Hogwarts he knows he won´t be able to, his soulmate had found that out the hard way. ‟And I will still cook dinner and do the garden.” He likes both activities, so it´s not really that much of a hassle, and it will give him something to do. ‟Do we have an understanding?”
‟You,” Petunia says with trembling voice, ‟you´re a freak.” Harry twist his hand and the knife points itself towards her. He doesn´t have a problem with the word freak per-say, but it´s the fact she dares say it to his face. ‟Yes,” she amends quickly, ‟we have an understanding.”
‟What do I get?” he asks.
‟Three meals a day, Dudley´s second bedroom, Hogwarts,” she says.
She doesn´t mention the part where they never hurt him again, but he knows that she understood that point, ‟in exchange?”
‟You won't tell Duddykins or Vernon, never do magic again, and you cook dinner and do the garden.” She pauses, and she seems to steel herself. ‟You´ll eat alone, without us.” Harry almost laughs at her resolve to say that.
‟Sure, not like I want to eat with you,” he waves his hand and the knife puts itself down on the block. ‟I´ll sleep in the cupboard for one more night, after that I get the room.” He gives her that time to actually manage to convince her husband and son for it. But she nods, before shakily walking away.
Harry, who was going to make lunch for them all, changes the plan and makes lunch for himself alone. They´ll have to start doing their own work now. He almost expects the wack of a wooden spoon at the back of his neck for even thinking about making himself a sandwich with jelly, but it doesn´t come.
When he cooks dinner that night he makes his own plate last, before putting it in the oven. He cleans the stove and cleans the dishes. When the others are done, he cleans their plates as well, before taking his own food out of the oven and eating it at the table.
Vernon looks scandalous and ready to get the belt but when his wife calls for him in their bedroom he leaves Harry be with a threatening look. Harry scarfs down his food, just to be on the safe side, and it´s a good thing because the door opens up and before he knows it he´s being bodily thrown against the wall, Vernon´s meaty fist around his throat.
‟You dare threaten me, your aunt, your family,” Vernon roars. ‟You´re not going to that school.”
‟Stop,” Petunia calls out, ‟he´ll,” but she´s too late. Harry flicks his hand and the knife he´d just cleaned finds its way against Vernon´s neck. It doesn´t cut him. Harry is careful, he´ll need Vernon until he can get out of this house. And if his vault key being in Dumbledore´s hand is any indication, that is going to take some work.
Vernon yelps, his hand moving from Harry´s throat.
‟You promised,” Petunia says, ‟you wouldn´t.”
‟You break a promise, I break a promise,” Harry says with a gravelly voice. His throat hurt´s like hell and he´s pretty sure it´s going to bruise. He´ll have to wear a scarf or steal petunia´s makeup to cover it for his escort. He looks at Vernon who´s looking at him with fear. ‟You know my terms, your wife agreed with them,” he says, ‟do you? I´m lenient. I give you something in return, but the more you break your part, the more I will break my part.”
‟I agree,” Vernon says, ‟get that bloody knife away, you freak.”
Harry waves his hand and the knife flies away. He tilts his head, ‟I think I changed my mind,” he says conversationally, ‟I won´t be sleeping in my cupboard tonight.” He looks at Petunia, ‟you´ll have to make sure your son doesn´t suddenly hurt me, my hand might just slip.”
Petunia´s jaw tenses, before she gives a curt nod. Harry smiles, walking over to his cupboard. He doesn´t own a lot, dirty ratty clothes, his stick, the two letters and the flashlight he stole. He knows there´s an actual bed in the bedroom, so he takes all that and walks to his new bedroom. Vernon watches him, and Harry doesn´t even pay him any mind. Why hadn´t he done this earlier? He´d learned to control his magic when he was seven, and he´s been thinking about doing this for years. He could have been sleeping here for as long as that.
Well, he has no time for regret. Instead, he burrows himself in his new bed under an actual blanket, his bedroom door firmly closed, and the lights out. He falls into another dream.