Chapter Text
Harry smiled as he flipped through the pages of the red leather book Hagrid gave him at the end of last year. He sat on his bed in his room and laughed as the pictures in the book started moving and his parents were smiling with him and his brother.
Harry Potter wasn't a normal boy. As a matter of fact, he was as not normal as it is possible to be.
Harry Potter was a wizard — a wizard fresh from his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant stomachache. He missed the castle, with its secret passageways and ghosts, his classes (though perhaps not Snape, the Potions master), the mail arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall, sleeping in his four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visiting the gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin next to the Forbidden Forest in the grounds, and, especially, Quidditch, the most popular sport in the wizarding world.
All Harry's spellbooks, his wand, robes, cauldron, and top-of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick had been locked in a cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Vernon the instant Harry had come home. What did the Dursleys care if Harry lost his place on the House Quidditch team because he hadn't practiced all summer? What was it to the Dursleys if Harry went back to school without any of his homework done? The Dursleys were what wizards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins), and as far as they were concerned, having a wizard in the family was a matter of deepest shame. Uncle Vernon had even padlocked Harry's owl, Hedwig, inside her cage, to stop her from carrying messages to anyone in the wizarding world.
Harry looked nothing like the rest of the family. Uncle Vernon was large and neckless, with an enormous black mustache; Aunt Petunia was horse-faced and bony; Dudley was blond, pink, and porky. Harry, on the other hand, was small and skinny, with emerald green eyes and jet-black hair that was always untidy. He wore round glasses, and on his forehead was a thin, lightning-shaped scar.
It was this scar that made Harry so particularly unusual, even for a wizard. This scar was the only hint of Harry's very mysterious past, of the reason he had been left on the Dursleys' doorstep eleven years before.
At the age of one, Harry had somehow survived a curse from the greatest Dark sorcerer of all time, Lord Voldemort, whose name most witches and wizards still feared to speak. Harry's parents had died in Voldemort's attack, but Harry had escaped with his lightning scar, and somehow — nobody understood why —Voldemort's powers had been destroyed the instant he had failed to kill Harry. He escaped with his brother, Killian and have been separated for ten years, until reuniting last year when he went to Hogwarts, which is where Killian currently resides.
So Harry had been brought up by his dead mother's sister and her husband. He had spent ten years with the Dursleys, never understanding why he kept making odd things happen without meaning to, believing the Dursleys' story that he had got his scar in the car crash that had killed his parents and brother. And then, exactly a year ago, Hogwarts had written to Harry, and the whole story had come out. Harry had taken up his place at wizard school, where he and his scar were famous... but now the school year was over, and he was back with the Dursleys for the summer, back to being treated like a dog that had rolled in something smelly.
But his mind was happy now as he smiled again before turning the page of the red photo album. There he was with Ron and Hermione, his best friends. His thoughts were distracted by a sudden loud chirp and clank. Hedwig, his owl was making a racket again.
"I can't let you out Hedwig. I'm not allowed to use magic outside of school."
Hedwig continued chirping loudly.
"Besides If Uncle Verm-"
"HARRY POTTER!" A muffed shout filled the house as Harry sighed and closed the book. He took another look at Hedwig.
"Now you've done it."
Harry went down to the living room to see Vermon's annoyed face glancing at him before tying Dursley's tie and spoke to Harry without turning.
"I've warned you. Third time this week!" he roared. "If you can't control that bloody bird, it'll have to go!"
Harry tried, yet again, to explain.
"But she's bored," he said. "If I could only let her out for an hour or two-"
"Ha!" snarled Uncle Vernon sarcastically. "What? So you can send secret messages to your freaky little friends? No, sir."
He exchanged dark looks with his wife, Petunia. Harry tried to argue back. "But I haven't had any messages, from any of my friends. Not one." He said, voice breaking a bit. They had promised to write to him but so far not a single letter had reached his house.
But his words were drowned by a long, loud belch from the Dursleys' son, Dudley. "Who would want to be friends with you?" He said as he pushed past Harry fiercely. He
Uncle Vermon walked up to him now, with a fake smile.
"Harry, you perhaps should be a little more grateful. We've raised you since you were a baby, given you the food of our table, even let you have Dudley's second bedroom purely out of goodness of our hearts." Harry doubted that.
Aunt Petunia meanwhile was preparing a homemade cake for guests who were arriving later, she gently slapped Dudley's hand when he tried picking a cherry from the cake.
"Not now popkins, you can eat it when the Masons arrive."
Vernon raised his hands, raising his voice slightly. "Which should be any minute." Before gesturing the family to huddle up in the living room.
At that moment, Uncle Vernon cleared his throat importantly and said, "Now, let's go over our schedule once again, shall we?"
Harry looked up, hardly daring to believe it. He went back to his toast. Of course, he thought bitterly, Uncle Vernon was talking about the stupid dinner party. He'd been talking of nothing else for two weeks. Some rich builder and his wife were coming to dinner and Uncle Vernon was hoping to get a huge order from him (Uncle Vernon's company made drills).
"Petunia, when the Masons arrive, you will be —?"
"In the lounge," said Aunt Petunia promptly, "waiting to welcome them graciously to our home."
"Good, good. And Dudley? You will be?"
"I'll be waiting to open the door." Dudley put on a foul, simpering smile.
"Excellent!" said Uncle Vernon. Then he rounded on Harry. Voice turning cold as they all turned and glared at him. "And you?"
"I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending that I don't exist." said Harry tonelessly.
"Too right, you are." said Uncle Vernon nastily. "With any luck this could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career. And you will not. Mess. It. Up"
Harry couldn't feel too excited about this. He started making his way up to his room as the doorbell rang and he could hear distant conversations. The Dursleys paid no care to him, they didn't even care that it was his birthday today.
He sang gloomily as he walked up the stairs. "Happy birthday to me... happy birthday to me..." No cards, no presents, and he would be spending the evening pretending not to exist. He sighed miserably. He had never felt so lonely. More than anything else at Hogwarts, more even than playing Quidditch, Harry missed his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger And especially his brother. They, however, didn't seem to be missing him at all. Neither of them had written to him all summer Killian had said he would come and visit from time to time and even though Ron had said he was going to ask Harry to come and stay. Countless times, Harry had been on the point of unlocking Hedwig's cage by magic and sending her to Killian, Ron and Hermione with a letter, but it wasn't worth the risk. Underage wizards weren't allowed to use magic outside of school. What wouldn't he give now for a message from Hogwarts? From any witch or wizard? He'd almost be glad of a sight of his... 'friendly' rival, Draco Malfoy, just to be sure it hadn't all been a dream...
Not that his whole year at Hogwarts had been fun. At the very end of last term, Harry had come face-to-face with none other than Lord Voldemort himself. Voldemort might be a ruin of his former self, but he was still terrifying, still cunning, still determined to regain power. Harry had slipped through Voldemort's clutches for a second time, but it had been a narrow escape, and even now, weeks later, Harry kept waking in the night, drenched in cold sweat, wondering where Voldemort was now, remembering his livid face, his wide, mad eyes —
Harry reached the top of the stairs and crossed to his bedroom on tiptoe slipped inside, closed the door, and turned to collapse on his bed. The trouble was, there was already something jumping on it.