Chapter Text
1st August, 1991
“Oi, freak!”
“We’re gonna kick your arse!”
“Grab him! Grab him!”
“You’re dead!”
Harry is running down Magnolia Road and he is fast. He is faster than his obese cousin Dudley, faster than his skinny sidekick Piers, faster than any other kid at his school. He is faster even though his trainers are too big, and the soles are peeling off. He turns a corner at full speed, and nearly comes crashing into a man - a giant. Harry hears the skidding of shoes from behind him. Somebody swears. He nearly laughs when he hears his pursuers scatter in the opposite direction. Harry doesn’t run away. He tilts his head up and looks at long tangles of the giant’s bushy hair and beard, at the hands that are at least five times larger than his uncle’s, at massive feet in leather boots. The giant would have looked menacing if his dark beetle eyes weren’t full of jolly mischief. Harry thinks that it must be easy to be happy when you know that nobody is going to mess with you.
“Harry Potter,” the giant says, and Harry thinks. If he knows his name, he must be looking for him. If he is looking for him, he needs something from Harry. If he needs something from Harry, Harry might be able to get something in return.
“What’s that to you if I am?” He tries to stand as tall as he can, which is hard to do when you are eleven years old and facing somebody twice the height of a regular man. He stares challengingly into the stranger’s eyes, and it makes him feel taller.
The giant chuckles. “Call me Hagrid. I’m Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts. I’ve yer letter.”
He says it all like Harry is supposed to know what Hogwarts is and what kind of letter Hagrid is delivering. Harry hates feeling stupid, but he also knows that people who don’t learn the things they don’t know will remain stupid forever.
“What is Hogwarts?” He makes his voice sound casual.
What Hagrid tells him turns Harry’s world upside down.
***
Harry walks into number four Privet Drive, Hagrid behind him with all of Harry’s new school things. Aunt Petunia shrieks, uncle Vernon bellows, Dudley squeals like a pig, Hagrid guffaws, and Harry thinks that it’s the best day of his life. It’s all quite mad, and all the adults are arguing now, but Harry feels safe because he’s got somebody grown up, strong and so very clearly magical on his side. And when aunt Petunia spits, “Now what? You want him to go to that special school for freaks?” all that Harry can hear is “School for Witchcraft and Wizardry”.
Late at night, he sits crosslegged on his bed, which barely fits into his cupboard, in the dim light from a single lightbulb, his new trunk shoved all the way back, some of the more interesting books arranged on the little shelves above the bed, his wand next to him. He can hear his uncle’s snores from above and he can swear that the whole house is vibrating with them. Harry can’t sleep. Harry is thinking how he’s been lied to all his life. His parents were not drunks, they didn’t die in a car crash, they were not useless. They were war heroes and they loved Harry. They loved Harry, and cradled him in their arms, and sang nursery rhymes to him, and called him ridiculous names like my little sausage or sweat pea - They loved him. Somebody in this world a long time ago loved him, and his aunt and uncle have been lying all this time. Harry feels a familiar itching all over his skin, and a pressure inside his skull, and he realises that the house vibrating is not uncle Vernon’s snoring at all, it is him, Harry, and his freakishness that he must keep inside. He rolls the sleeve of his left arm up to expose a range of shallow cuts going from the crease of his elbow nearly all the way to his wrist. Some lines are thin and white, some are glossy pink, while others are puffy and scabbed over. Harry reaches for a yellow craft knife he keeps on one of the shelves, which now rests next to Magical Drafts and Potions. Looking at the book, Harry remembers that his freakishness is not that at all, it’s magic, he is magic. So Harry reaches for his wand instead, and pleasant warmth spreads from the tips of his fingers all over his body, red sparks shoot from the wand like fireworks, and the light in his cupboard flickers on and off. The itchiness leaves his skin, and the pressure - his scull. He puts his wand back and rolls his sleeve down. He listens and is relieved to hear no footsteps thumping down the stairs and no shouts of “Boy!”. His uncle is still snoring. The walls around him don’t vibrate anymore. Harry sleeps.
***
18th August, 1991
Harry is wandering around Little Winging thinking that it must be the longest August in history. He nicks a peach when he passes the greengrocer’s and bites into the juicy flesh straight away. He doesn’t feel even a remote pang of guilt licking the juice off his fingers. As Harry sees it, it is the Dursleys’ fault that he had to learn how to steal food. And anyway, they tell everybody who will listen that Harry is being sent to St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys, so he feels like he needs to live up to his reputation.
Harry needs to last two more weeks, not even that, thirteen days. Thirteen days and he will be on his way to Hogwarts.
Harry has leafed through most of his books and read the chapters that he’s found most interesting. He has memorised some spells and did his best to copy wand movements from diagrams and descriptions, but for now he can only do Lumos, possibly because it doesn’t require any wand movement at all. Harry thinks of all the kids who are born into wizarding families, and how they probably look at all the books that Harry has studied with fascination like regular kids look at Maths and English and Science textbooks. In the muggle world, Harry gets tucked away into a dark cupboard under the stairs like a dirty little secret because he does not belong. He definitely belongs in the world of magic though, because his name is right there on the pages of “The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts”, Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived.
***
1st September, 1991
Harry is standing in front of the wall that supposedly leads to Platform 9 3/4. What is it with wizards and walls? First Diagon Alley, now this. He starts to scratch his head in confusion but stops with a wince. Dudley decided to present Harry with a parting gift and knocked him on the back of his head with a fire poker. Harry kicked him right in the balls though.
Harry touches the wall, and it’s solid. What if Hagrid has made a mistake? What if Harry isn’t enough of a wizard to go to Hogwarts? The Dursleys refused to take him to King’s Cross Station. “You want to get to that freak school of yours? You’ll have to find a way yourself then. We refuse to have anything to do with such nonsense!” Harry had to take the train, owl in a cage, a large old-fashioned trunk and all. People stared, and Harry pretended not to care, but he really doesn’t fancy dragging it all back to Surrey.
He takes a few steps back, squeezes his eyes shut, and runs at the wall. He feels it before he sees it. The air is different, the sounds, the smells. He opens his eyes to a scarlet steam train with people all about. Children of all ages and adults. Families. Mothers wiping their kids’ faces, fathers giving them pep talks or telling them off, siblings fighting, laughing, teasing… Hugging. So many parents hugging their children goodbye. “We’ll miss you baby!” “Remember to write at least once a week.” “Love you so much!” Harry can’t stand it. He goes to board the train. The Dursleys didn’t say “Goodbye”. They said “Good riddance.” Harry doesn’t care. He. Does. Not. Care.
It’s still early and Harry manages to find an empty compartment with ease. He looks at the luggage rack, then at the size of his trunk, and decides to not even try. He sits down, places Hedwig in her cage by his side and resolutely refuses to look out of the window. He looks at the writing on the compartment walls instead.
The usual collection of “cock”, “cunt” and penis drawings.
“You’re ugly.”
“BW was here.”
“L+J” in a heart.
“Be fearless. Fart as loud as your anus will allow.” This one makes him snigger.
He examines his surroundings until a yelled “Freak!” from outside makes him look out of the window. For a moment, he thinks it’s about him, but for a change it isn’t. He notices a girl with untameable chestnut curls and large front teeth. “Mudblood.” He sees two girls of about the same age sneer at her. One of them looks like a pug. Harry watches the girl with bushy hair. She doesn’t cry or look around for her parents. She fearlessly stares at her offenders, lifts her chin up high and calmly goes to board the train. Harry likes her.
***
His compartment door slides open, and Harry is pleasantly surprised to see the girl from before. “Hi. Do you mind if I sit here? Everywhere else it taken.” Harry shakes his head “no”, and the girl drags her trunk in. He helps her put it on the seat just like he did his own, but hers is at least twice as heavy.
“What do you have in there? Bricks?” Harry asks.
“Books,” the girl looks defensive, as if she expects Harry to tease her for bringing books to school.
“I’m Harry.”
“Hermione.”
The train jolts to life with a screech, and they quickly take their seats. Harry wants to ask her about her parents, and what “mudblood” means. He realises it’s probably rude, but he is curious, and he has never learned to keep his mouth shut, not even with the help of his aunt’s smacking or his uncle’s bellowing.
“Why were you alone at the station?” Hermione’s eyes go wide for a second when she realises that he’s seen her, but otherwise she looks unperturbed.
“They couldn’t cross the barrier,” at Harry’s puzzled look, she adds, “They are both muggles. It’s a shame they couldn’t see me off properly, but at least they’ve seen Diagon Alley.”
“I didn’t believe that magic was real until I stepped into Diagon,” Harry recalls Hagrid tapping the wall with his ridiculously pink umbrella creating a passage to a whole new world.
“Are you muggle-born too?” Hermione leans forward in her seat and looks hopeful.
“Not exactly. I live with my aunt and uncle. They’re muggles.” He scratches the back of his head and winces again. Dudley is such a prat. He realises something then.
“That’s what mudblood means! Muggleborn. They knew because you were alone at the station.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s either that, or because of my hair, or my teeth, or my brains. People have made fun of me all my life. You will too, when you realise how unpopular I am,” Hermione states it like a fact, and Harry wonders what her story is.
“I’m not exactly popular where I come from either,” he confesses, and Hermione studies him as if she is trying to figure out what he might have been bullied for.
“Is it because you’re wearing clothes that would better fit an elephant?” A surprised laugh bursts out of Harry at that.
“It’s a part of it, but it’s got more to do with the elephant.” Hermione lifts an eyebrow at him, and Harry tells her about Dudley and his gang, and a bit about his relatives. He doesn’t tell her about the cupboard though. He is certain that living under the stairs is freaky in both worlds, unless you are a ghost that is, or a spider.
“You are Harry Potter, aren’t you?” Hermione is looking at Harry with an odd expression that he can’t decipher, but before he can ask her about how she knows, their door slides open with a timid tap-tap-tap, and a chubby boy puts his head through. “Hi, I’m Neville. Have you seen a toad? Trevor. My gran will kill me if I lose him.”
“Hi. I’m Harry, and this is Hermione. Can’t you ask an older student to summon him with a spell or something?” Neville hits himself on the forehead with a palm and mutters, “Of course. I’m an idiot.”
They all go in the end, and Harry takes note of the pug-faced girl in one of the compartments that they pass. There are a few other kids with her: a stocky girl with a square jaw, two large boys who strongly remind him of Dudley, and a posh blond boy.
They finally stop at a compartment with an open door and a bunch of readheads inside.
“You can’t bring this to school! Mum would kill you both if she knew!” Harry sees a pompous looking teen just inside the doorway who is pointing at a pair of twins, who, in turn, seem to be hiding something behind their backs, and Harry is curious.
“Don’t tell her then,” they both say at once as if they’ve been rehearsing.
“Excuse me!” Harry cuts in and addresses the bossy boy. “Can you help Neville find his toad? We thought somebody older and smarter might be able to summon him, and you’ve got a prefect’s badge,” It works like a charm, and off the boy goes with Neville to use Accio in different parts of the carriage.
The twins jump up and bow before Harry.
“Kind Sir”
“Our saviour”
“Let us serve your Highness”
“And repay you for exiling Percy the tw-“
“Twit. Percy the twit.”
By the time Percy, Neville and Trevor are safely back, Harry knows that the twins are called Fred and George, their younger brother is Ron, and that they are hiding a box full of joke products, and Harry is in a possession of a Dungbomb as a payment for being their saviour.
“I’ve seen the girl who called you a mudblood,” Harry says as he and Hermione make their way back.
“I have as well. So what?” Hermione tosses her hair.
“You should throw this,” Harry puts the bomb in her hand, “into her compartment.” Hermione’s eyes widen, and for a moment Harry thinks that he’s judged her wrong, but then she grins, and her grin is wicked. Harry’s answering one looks just the same.
They bend low so that they are not seen through the window, Harry slowly and carefully opens the door just a crack, and Hermione launches the stinky ball inside with a flick of her wrist.
“What’s this?”
“Eww!”
“Gross!”
“Run!” Harry grabs Hermione by the elbow and they dash away as fast as the narrow corridor will allow. They hear a door behind them open with a slam and children retching and swearing.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Hermione shuts their compartment door behind them, then turns around and slides down to the floor, her shoulders shaking with laughter. Harry fits himself close to her in the narrow space between the seats, his back to the door as well.
“You know there is plenty more room to sit?” Hermione looks at Harry as if he isn’t making any sense.
“There is, but if they come looking, they’ll think that there’s nobody in here.” Hermione’s mouth forms an oh. “I’ve always thought that I was smart,” she says, “but it seems that books can’t prepare you for this.”
“You’re book smart, I’m street smart. We’ll make a great team.” Hermione is still smiling, but there’s wariness in her too.
“I just don’t understand why you’d want to be friends with a swotty girl.” Harry shrugs at that, but then says, “I’ve never liked boys anyway.”
“I’ve never liked girls.”
“See? At least we meet one of the initial requirements for friendship. I’m not a girl, and you’re not a boy.” Hermione smiles properly at that.
“Are there more? Requirements?”
“I’ve no idea. I’ve never had a friend.”
“Neither have I.”
“Your glasses are broken,” Hermione changes the topic.
“Dudley,” Harry says, and his name is an explanation enough. Hermione teaches him Reparo, and Harry thinks that it’s not hard at all when you know what a proper wand movement is. Then the Trolley Witch comes by, and they both get some snacks, which they share. Harry doesn’t know exactly what being friends is supposed to be like, but this feels like a good beginning.
***
Everything is huge and breathtaking. The lake they are crossing is dark and deep, and Harry swears he can see a large tentacle in the distance appear out of the water and disappear with a splash. The sky is clear and full of stars, which reflect in the surface of the lake, and for a moment Harry feels like he is floating in space, but the castle is right there, looming ahead of them, and it’s as large as everything else, and solid, and saturated with magic. When they are inside, children gape with their mouths open and talk in hushed voices. Everything is alive. Portraits move, stairs move, Harry sees a door appear and disappear, tapestries shift as if there’s somebody behind them, the Great Hall has a sky for a ceiling, and it seems endless. Even the Sorting Hat is so big that it falls all the way down to Harry’s nose. Harry doesn’t remember ever feeling so small or insignificant. It's like he is sitting in front of the judges, helpless and blind, while the voices around him whisper, and the whispers echo around the vast hall. Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter. His magic is prickling his skin, and he clenched his fists and digs his nails into the flesh of his palms.
The Sorting Hat wants to place him in Slytherin, but Harry doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff either. There is a girl that feels like the only familiar thing in this immense and alien place, and this girl has been sorted into Gryffindor. So that’s where Harry is going, no matter what a silly old hat has got to say. The said hat laughs, and its laughter vibrates inside Harry’s head. He has no idea what is so funny, nor does he care, because the Hat shouts out “Gryffyndor!” and Harry pulls it off as quickly as he can, in case it changes its mind. The applause at the Gryffindor table is the loudest he’s heard today.
“I knew you’d be sorted into Gryffindor,” Hermione has to shout right into his ear because everybody at their table is still cheering. “That’s why I asked the hat to place me here as well. It wanted to put me in Ravenclaw!”
At once, the hat’s glee makes a lot of sense.
***
He wasn’t lying to Hermione when he said that he didn’t like boys. He really doesn’t, so when they are all at the dorms, he surreptitiously watches his peers unpack. Everybody has got something. Neville has got a tank for Trevor, Ron has a rat and a few bright-orange quidditch posters, Dean has got his drawings, Seamus has some quidditch posters too and a chess set. For a moment Harry feels like he’s got nothing at all, but then he remembers Hedwig, and takes the treats he bought for her out of his trunk and places them into the bedside table. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start.
They all change into pyjamas and chat for a bit. Who grew up where and such, and if their parents were magical or not. They all seem friendly enough. Everybody looks surprised that Harry didn’t grow up in a castle, and Harry wonders what other legends people might have created about him while he was hidden away from the world. He could create a whole new personality for himself and nobody would know any different.
When it’s finally quiet, Harry thinks about his cupboard, and he misses the familiarity of it just a little bit. He doesn’t understand it, and he tells himself it’s stupid, but he misses it all the same.