Chapter Text
“Shh, Violet,” Harry cooed, rocking the baby in his arms. He very carefully brushed a strand of fine hair from the infant’s forehead, careful not to knock his arm into the side of the cupboard. “It’s okay, baby. Just gotta be quiet so your mummy can’t hear you.”
Nearly a year had passed since Harry’s life had once again been turned upside down, this time in the shape of a six month old baby cousin.
Violet Elizabeth Dursley was once the apple of her parents’ eyes. Though a late surprise newcomer to their family, she was very much welcomed, especially to a Petunia who desperately wanted a daughter to dote upon.
Three months later, they had caught Violet summoning herself a bottle.
Harry’s body still ached in remembrance of the way his relatives had reacted to his ‘polluting’ of their daughter. Polluted or not, it hadn’t taken very long for Violet to find herself in the cupboard with her cousin.
Freaks stick together and all that rot.
He rocked the baby, eyes burning and tired. He had hardly slept the last few days. Violet was fussy and always seemed a little too hot but Harry didn’t know what to do besides try to get the baby to eat the mashed herbs he’d placed on the nipple of the bottle he gave her or the spoons he struggled to get her to eat from. The pair of them had hardly left the cupboard except for him to change the baby’s diaper or do the chores required of him, or rarely, midnight sojourns outside or to the hallway to teach Violet how to crawl or talk or other Very Important Baby Things™.
Harry desperately wanted a parenting book but he knew better than to risk stealing his aunt’s books from her bedroom. It was bad enough dealing with his freakishness infecting their house as is; him purposefully touching their things besides to clean was unthinkable.
He missed school and missed being outside for longer than it took to complete his chores. He missed the library at school and missed how it felt to not have knees that creaked whenever he escaped the cupboard, unused as they now were to walking very far. Even if he went to school— which without Violet, he never would dare— he wondered if he could even reach it with how much his body ached.
He really wouldn’t have minded it all if his aunt had fulfilled her promise to homeschool him. His world seemed so small, wrapped up in a closet and a baby, that even the horrors of geometry and cursive were things he longed for again.
Bringing his attention back to his baby cousin— who he secretly thought of as his baby or at least his sister— he hummed very quietly to her, so none of the Dursleys could hear.
Once, Dudley had watched some television special on an old series of books and fantasy as a genre. When Aunt Petunia caught him, it had been one of the few times she’d actually raised her voice to him. It was fantasy, and there was little that the Dursleys hated more than magic. Harry, though, had listened to the special almost desperately, ingraining it into his memory to listen to again and again. He hadn’t known why it mattered so much to him, just that it hit some hidden chord deep inside his breastbone and carved itself there.
It was one of the songs from the special he sang softly to her then, humming where he couldn’t find the words.
“...and there are many paths to tread,” he sang softly to her, rocking just enough that he could see her eyes closing. “Through shadows...to the end of night...until the stars are all alight…mmm...ohh...wander back to home and bread…”
He let his voice drift off as the quiet, rhythmic breaths of a sleeping baby settled. She was finally asleep again. Leaning forward to kiss her forehead, he laid her down and curled up next to her, pulling a blanket around them. “Good night.”
Heart pumping in his chest, Harry pulled out a torch and smacked it a handful of times to the delight of Violet, who clapped her pudgy hands together with a gurgling laugh.
Between the faint, dimmed light of the torch and the almost harsh light burning through the slats of the vent in his cupboard door, Harry could just make out the words of the letter.
It had to be a joke.
It had to be.
He, Harry, a wizard? A wizard like Gandalf? There was no way. Absolutely none. He wasn’t special, not like the wizards in that television special. He was just...Harry.
Maybe, just maybe it could be a prank from his aunt and uncle but with how much they hated magic, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
And, then there were all the times that something strange or abnormal happened and Harry was at the center of it...or Violet.
He looked down at the happy baby. “Are you a witch, Vi?” he whispered to her, poking her nose.
She looked at him very seriously with blue-green eyes. She blew a spit bubble.
Okay, so maybe a baby wasn’t the best choice to ask.
If he believed the letter was real, though, how was he supposed to respond? Harry had no pen, nor ...an owl, apparently. Would he be allowed to bring Violet? Did she have to be a cat, or owl, or toad? Maybe if he managed to cobble together a cat outfit or a cat ear headband, he could argue that she was, in theory, a cat?
He chewed on his lip. “What should I do, Vi?”
“Apa!”
Very helpful indeed. “Yeah, I’ll feed you. If I clean extra fast today, I can get you something more than formula too.”
She grabbed his nose. He couldn’t help but break a smile, giggling. “You gotta be super quiet so I can get extra food, okay? I haven’t eaten in a bit and I gotta get enough for both of us and your formula.”
She papped his face. Good enough. Shoving the letter under his ratty mattress, he snuck back out of the cupboard and got to work at his chores, carefully sneaking a scrap of paper, length of twine, and pen into his ratty clothes. By the time the sun was baking the innermost parts of the house where the fans didn’t quite manage to reach, even with the windows thrown open, Harry had managed to wrangle food and formula out of his aunt for Violet and even a bit left over for himself.
Between feeding the baby bits of porridge, Harry very carefully scribbled out his note, keeping an ear out for his relatives. He was in fact quite proud of his endeavors into letter writing, as he had never before done so and only had his Hogwarts letter to guesstimate from.
Dear Hogwarts
I am Harry. I did not know I am a wizard but I would very much like to come to Hogwarts as soon as possible.
Harry Potter
Harry was proud of it if he did say so himself. Carefully wrapping the paper in a bit of twine and signing his name and the school on the outside, he cleaned up the remains of Violet’s meal and escaped from the cupboard. Now he just had to find an owl.
Easier done than said! To Harry’s surprise, a very irritable owl was outside sitting on the shovel that he was supposed to use for planting Aunt Petunia’s new begonias.
“Er...can you take this?” he asked, feeling rather foolish as he held the letter out to the bird.
The owl tilted its head and flapped its wing, holding out a leg. Harry scrambled to find a bit of string in his pocket, tying the letter there. “You know where to go, right?” he asked.
Staring balefully at Harry the owl hooted once more, feathers all ruffled like it was offended.
“Well I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know how this owl thing works. But you can do it, right?”
The owl bobbed its head and took off, leaving Harry fervently wishing it actually took the letter to Hogwarts.
He could only wait.
Harry was proud of himself. He’d managed to sneak a book from Dudley’s discarded school supplies. Even when he’d gone to school, he struggled to get his hands on books, since Dudley would do his level best to destroy them, which left Harry with a bad reputation. Even before Violet was born, he’d missed so much class from various punishments that he knew his writing and reading skills left a lot to be desired. Despite that though, he enjoyed it...maybe more than if he had simply had access. Reading gave him an escape from his tiny world, and though he adored Violet, even she wasn’t enough to color the cupboard’s dullness.
And dull it was. Since Dudley’s school had let out, the only color to his days was dodging his new Smelting stick and soaking in the hot early August sun whenever he was let outside for chores.
A harsh cough tried to escape his chest and with a wince, Harry muffled it with his arm. Violet was finally asleep and it wouldn’t do to wake her up just because he was a little sick. Ever since Aunt Petunia managed to catch him in the chest with her frying pan, his ribs had been really sore. Now he had this annoying cough that wouldn’t go away. He hoped it was just whatever cold Violet had and that she wouldn’t catch it back from him. She was so little.
Outside, the doorbell rang.
Harry sat up a bit more, careful not to disturb Violet. Ears pricked, he tried to see what he could hear from the front entrance.
“.....freaks….” he heard Uncle Vernon bluster. “...will not be….crackpot old….”
There was another, higher voice being buried by his aunt and uncle’s voices. Harry couldn’t recognize it.
He heard the door slam and then, after a pause, a startled yell from his relatives.
“Where is he?” an unfamiliar voice said, this time from inside the house. It was a high tenor, smooth and bright. “If you harmed Lily’s son…”
“He will not be going!” Aunt Petunia said, voice cold and sharp and ever so slightly tremulous. “He is needed here.”
“He will be going!” said the voice fiercely. “His name has been down since birth.” It gentled. “Petunia, I remember when you were a girl. Headmaster Dumbledore did all he could to try and allow you to attend. Will you prevent your own nephew from his heritage? You know how you felt when you couldn’t attend! Why would you do that to your own blood kin?”
“I was foolish and a child,” she snapped. “Had I know how dangerous and abnormal and— and— freaky you all were, I would have sworn you all off in an instant. Instead, my sister and her parents are dead and your kind is to blame!”
“We will not let any harm come to Harry—”
“We swore to stamp the magic out of him,” Uncle Vernon blustered.
Chilly silence.
“Stamp out?” the voice said, soft and yet almost dangerous.
“Yes,” said Uncle Vernon. “Stamp it out! Make him normal. Instead he infected one of our children and turned her as abnormal as he is. He’s a deviant, you know. Climbs school buildings, bullies our Dudley. Completely unpredictable and dangerous. It was out of the goodness of our hearts that we took him in!”
“You cannot stamp out magic,” the voice said, as sharp and blisteringly cold as ice. “Only repress it until it explodes outward, uncontrolled. If he was so uncontrolled and dangerous it is because you forced him to lock his magic away until it overflowed! Now where is he?”
“None of your business! Leave before I call the police,” Vernon snarled.
“Where is he, Dursley?”
There was a sound like a balloon popping and suddenly, the cupboard shook with the force of a heavy body slamming into the wall.
Violet began wailing.
“...tell me that crying is not coming from the cupboard,” the voice said, tightly coiled fury in his voice.
“No— no, thin walls—”
Footsteps and then—
“Alohomora.”
Light spilt into the cupboard and Harry looked up, eyes massive behind his broken glasses as he held Violet.
A man looked back at him. He had brown hair that was rapidly turning gray and a surprisingly kind face. He was dressed in odd-looking clothes, long and black almost like a dress or nightgown but not quite. Perched on his brown hair was a pointy little hat, like what witches wore in the picture book his nursery school teacher had read to his class once. The thing that startled Harry the most though was that the man— and he was surely a man, not a child— was the size of him. A moment later he also noticed the long stick held in one fair hand.
“Harry,” the man breathed, his eyes darting from Harry’s eyes to the baby in his arms.
Harry’s heart pounded in his chest but swallowing, he managed to squeak out a very confused, “Sir?”
A large meaty hand attempted to clasp the man’s shoulder but in a flash of red light, his uncle fell back against the wall, the entire hallway shaking. The man pressed his wand into Vernon’s fleshy stomach, back straight as iron.
“Do not touch me, Dursley,” the man said, voice quiet and cold. “I’m taking the children.”
“The freaks? But that Dumbleman—”
“Albus Dumbledore,” he corrected.
“Dumb door—” Vernon tried before wheezing as the man pressed his wand deeper into his stomach. “Dumbledore— he said we had to keep the boy—”
“For the blood wards, I’m aware,” said the man impatiently. “No blood wards are worth this.”
“He said—”
“I will not leave children to be raised by the likes of you,” the man said. “I am taking the children and I’m leaving. Do not try to run. We can find you everywhere and anywhere. You cannot escape your crimes.”
“Crimes?” Vernon blustered. “I’ve done nothing —”
“You have done everything!” the man cried before turning to Harry and Violet, the former of whom pressed into the wall of the cupboard, heart racing like a small bird in his chest. His eyes softened. “Harry, come on out. Would you like to visit the school we told you about in the letter?”
“Letter? What letter?” Petunia called from somewhere down the hall. “He never got any—”
“Yessir,” Harry said quietly, holding his cousin tightly to his chest. “I would like that very much.”
The man brightened like a sun and gently pulled the boy against him, protecting him from the fuming Dursleys. “ Accio Harry Potter’s things!”
A tiny pile of broken crayons scavenged from the garbage, Violet’s various clothes, diapers, and other baby needs, ratty hand-me-downs, and small, bent and battered collection of Dudley’s old army men appeared in the bag that— hidden in Harry’s awed distraction of the spell— the man had conjured.
“That’s all?” he asked, something crossing his face.
Harry nodded, shame blooming in his chest.
“Is there anything else the little one needs here?”
He quickly ran through everything he’d seen during the spell and shook his head. “That’s everything, sir.”
“You may call me Filius, child.”
His eyes widened. “Thank you sir— er, Filius.”
Filius gave him another sunbeam smile and looked up at the Dursleys, expression thunderous. “I will take my leave now,” he said. “Do not do anything foolish, Dursley.”
Uncle Vernon sputtered but before he could shout angrily, Filius flicked a stick at him. His mouth closed and opened but no sound came forth.
“We are going to take something called a Portkey. Do you know what that is?”
Harry shook his head.
“No matter, no matter. A Portkey is an object that is spelled to take passengers to wherever it is spelled to go. You simply hold onto the object or whoever is holding it and when it activates, away you go. Now, when I tell you, I need you to hold on to my arm very tightly, see, and keep a good hold on the little one.”
“Will it hurt?” he asked.
“Goodness, no,” he said. “You may be a little dizzy, but it shouldn’t hurt. Now, hold on to my arm, Harry.”
Harry did so, holding Violet tightly to his chest.
“And a one…two...three!”
They spun away in a storm of dizzying colors and bright lights. Before Harry could even register what he was seeing, his feet planted into spongy Scottish grass, wet from a recent rain.
He promptly fell against Filius and struggled not to vomit, his stomach spinning.
“Alright, lad?” Filius asked.
Harry nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth.
“It’s always hardest the first few times,” he clucked. “Here, let your stomach settle a moment. We are in no hurry.”
Harry slowly caught his breath, eyes fixed on a distant tree to help with the whole ‘world spinning, unsteady ground’ thing happening to his poor stomach. Eventually, he felt a bit more steady and breathed out.
“Alright?” Filius asked.
“Yes sir,” he said shyly, a little embarrassed. “Sorry sir.”
“Not a problem, not a problem,” said Filius. “I was expecting it, in truth. The first time your mother Portkeyed, she threw up all over my robes.”
“You knew my mum?” he asked, breath stuck in his chest.
“One of my best students,” said Filius with a smile. “A lovely woman, really. I miss her often— she was special, Lily.”
“Lily? That’s her name?” Harry asked.
“Indeed it was,” he said, after an odd pause. “Tell me, Harry...did your relatives ever tell you about your parents?”
He shook his head. “Only that they died in a car crash while driving drunk,” he said, the last part hardly a whisper.
Filius took a sharp intake of breath. “I...see. Well, I imagine the Headmaster will explain to you what truly happened.”
Harry’s heart clenched. “So they didn’t get themselves killed?”
“No, Harry. But let’s go inside. I imagine you’re a tad woozy from the trip and the little one is hardly dressed for the Scottish morn.”
He looked down at Violet, who was shivering a bit. His stomach twinged. “Yes sir.”
And so they went from the little courtyard they had arrived in through a set of a heavy wooden doors. As they made their way through what almost looked like a castle, Harry tried to stifle his coughs, lungs burning.
“Are you alright?” Filius asked.
Harry nodded, winded. “Just...just a cold, sir. I’ll be alright.”
“We’ll have Madame Pomfrey— the nurse— set you up with a potion that will help with that,” he promised. “Ah, here we are.”
Harry half stumbled to a stop in front of a strange looking gargoyle.
“Twizzlers,” said Filius, and to Harry’s awe, the stone creature moved aside for them as a staircase seemingly spun down by itself like magic.
“Wicked,” Harry breathed, feeling very warm.
“Wicked indeed,” laughed Filius. “Come along. If you don’t mind, we will let the staircase carry us up rather than walk them. It is quite far for legs of unusual size!”
Harry stifled a laugh as he stepped forward. He couldn’t stifle a squeak though when the staircase began to move upward on its own, almost like an escalator.
“Magic is a wonderful thing,” said Filius.
He nodded, eyes huge.
Before Filius could even knock at the door near the top of the stairs, a voice called out to them, creaky and old, but warm— almost like Gandalf.
“Come in, Filius!”
Filius jumped a bit. “I’ll never understand how he does it,” he half-whispered to Harry, who struggled to not laugh again. He opened the door.
The most magical room revealed itself to them. Spinning, silver bits and bobs covered colorful bookshelves, filled with the most wondrous of titles. Another silver object let off little puffs of multicolored smoke, twinkling in the lamplights. And the lights! Warm and so many shades of orange and gold, one flame even burning blue! The air was thick with something that buzzed through Harry’s skin and into his chest, settling there like a warm cat or a particularly cuddly dragon.
And settled in a royal purple chair spotted with multicolored, blinking stars was a man who looked like what Harry had always envisioned Gandalf to look like.
Filius sat in a squashy maroon chair in front of the desk and Harry followed suit, hovering on the edge of the chair.
“Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr. Potter!” said the elderly man. “I must say, I was not expecting you here so soon.”
“There were complications,” said Filius.
“I see,” said the man, bright blue eyes shifting to the baby in Harry’s arms. “And who is this little one?”
“Violet,” said Harry. “She’s my cousin.”
“And, forgive my rudeness here, why is she here with you instead of with your aunt and uncle?”
Harry swallowed, shame rising up in his throat. He’d infected her with his freakiness, he could say, except he was sure they would want nothing to do with him after.
“The Dursleys had them locked in a cupboard,” said Filius.
The warmth of the room almost vanished as those sparkling blue eyes turned hard like glass. “In a cupboard?”
Harry nodded reluctantly. “It is where we sleep, sir,” he mumbled. “‘s not too bad, honest…”
“It is my personal belief that children should be treated well,” said the man, leaning forward slightly across his messy desk. “And locking them in cupboards is not included within that belief. I will personally ensure you never have to live in one, understand Harry?”
“Yes sir,” he squeaked, head spinning.
“Good! Now, we will talk more about this later. In the meantime, I imagine you are ready to get your school supplies? Professor Flitwick here was sent to help you re-enter the magical world.”
Harry’s lungs protested at the thought of it, but the idea of seeing more magic far outweighed it. “Of course! Yes!”
“Splendid,” the man said. His eyes suddenly widened, gaining that sparkle once more. “Oh, that reminds me. I never did tell you my name. Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, among many other dreary and long winded titles.”
“Harry Potter, sir.”
Headmaster Dumbledore smiled at him. “It is very good to see you, Mr. Potter. Enjoy your time in Diagon Alley, will you?”
“I will,” he said, before his stomach dropped. “Erm...Headmaster, I have no money…”
“Don’t worry about that, Harry,” said Filius, holding up a key. “Your parents left you a trust fund to get you through school. We will make a stop by the bank, Gringotts, before we buy your supplies.”
“I have money?” he said, surprised.
“Indeed!” said the headmaster. “And even if you hadn’t, Hogwarts has a fund set aside for any wix in need of aid.”
“If that is all, Albus, I would like us to head off,” said Filius. “The shops get a little overwhelming the closer to midday it gets.”
“Go, go,” said Albus. “Filius, when you return, have Harry bring his things to the guest wing and have him select a room. Have an elf watch him and come speak with me once he and the little one is settled. Harry, I will meet with you before dinner.”
“Thank you, Albus. I will see you this evening. May we use your Floo?”
“Go right ahead.”
Filius rose from the chair and Harry scrambled after him. “If you will, Harry, may I hold Violet for the duration of the trip? Rarely people fall but I would rather be safe than sorry. Your father was very uncoordinated when it came to the Floo; there’s a chance it passed to you as well.”
Reluctantly, Harry held the little girl out. Filius carefully held her in his arms and offered a hand to Harry. “Now, what we will do is known as a Side-Along Floo. It is mostly done with young children or those who need a little help to get to where they mean to. I will take some special powder that will make the fire safe and put it in the flames. From there, I will call out where we will go and we will be transported there through the fire. Understand?”
Harry didn’t really but he nodded anyway.
“Well then, off we go!” said Filius, taking a pinch of powder from a pot on the top of the fireplace. He threw it into the merrily dancing flames and with a bright flash, they turned a deep green. “And forward!”
Together they stepped into the fire, Harry flinching despite himself. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so.
“Diagon Alley!” Filius called and in a whirl of soot and light, they arrived on the other end. Harry immediately tripped over his own feet and stumbled to the floor, yelping.
“Are you alright?” Filius asked, helping him to his feet.
“Yeah,” said Harry tenderly, rubbing his aching ribs.
“May I clean you up with a spell? I imagine you would not like to go about looking like you fought a chimney.”
Harry gave a small laugh and nodded ruefully. “That would be nice.”
Filius casted some sort of spell that cleaned all the soot and dust from his clothes and then, with a little twist of his wand, turned a pebble into pink buggy. “There we go!” Setting Violet in it with a pleased hum, he turned to Harry. “Would you like to push her or should I?”
“I would, sir,” he said.
“Then I shan’t stop you,” said Filius jovially. “Come along. To Gringotts we go!”