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It was Harry’s eleventh birthday in one minute. As usual, there was no one other than himself to celebrate it with. Solo parties were pity parties, Harry mused to himself as he listened to the thunder of the coastal storm shake the house. Dudley was on the couch, and his aunt and uncle up on the loft, but they were all sleeping as soundly as hibernating bears, with the storm doing nothing to hinder their sleeping. Or snoring.
The watch on Dudly’s outstretched arm chirped as the hour changed to officially be the next day. Today is the day. One more year on the planet completed, Harry smiled ruefully.
Harry turned to look at the birthday cake he’d traced in the dirt. “Happy Birthday, Harry,” he said softly to himself, before blowing out the picture and wishing on his impromptu-candles with all his might. His wish was nothing specific, unless the want for a better life needed to be justified. Harry sighed and laid his chin down on his hands. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t gotten that mysterious letter.
Letters, mind. It had to be magic, he tried to reason. But magic was make-believe for the foolish, his aunt and uncle had said bitterly. However, Harry was forced to remember Dudly’s birthday party all those weeks ago. The snake had... understood him. And the glass had just vanished! A shiver ran through him, yet he was not afraid of the memory. It thrilled him, somewhat. Magic or not, why was he being sent hundreds of letters? What was so special about them? Why did his aunt and uncle not want him to have one? Harry was not a total dunderhead, and wondered if they knew more than they let on.
Just as he was getting ready to turn down for the night, wrestling with his sleeping back against the dusty floor, lightning struck outside. It was soon followed by another loud clap of thunder, causing the shutters to rattle harder. He jumped a little, but settled soon after. It sounded like someone was trying to beat the house down.
However his moment of peace was gone again as an equally thunderous noise alerted him from outside. Harry sat up his palms and stared up at the door. It shook with great force being pounded upon it.
There was a knock at the door.
Someone was knocking on the coast house door. On a place only reachable by boat. And it was storming! When Harry jumped up this time it was met with equal surprise as Dudly lurched awake, squealing in shock. Harry and Dudley both scrambled upwards and backed up from the shaking door. Dudley tried to back himself into the nearest window seat as Harry rushed to hide behind the side of the fireplace. This immediately alerted the adults above them in the loft. He heard his Uncle Vernon gargle his last snore as he too was abruptly awakened. Aunt Petunia’s shrill cry followed quickly after, and they rushed to see what the matter was. Harry looked up to the two adults coming down the stairs, with Vernon baring a rifle. Harry had been hurt before, had been frightened before, but this was all new grounds to him. It was almost scarier, as he had no idea what would come of this.
The knocking on the door became impatient- until a flash of strange, green light glinted through the door’s cracks and hinges. The heavy iron lock on the door clicked open, causing all the room’s inhabitants to cry out in terror. Harry was quiet, though, and huddled against the wall. No matter what, he would not cry. Harry had learned very early on not to show weakness in the face of danger.
The door flung open and banged against the wall. Lightning illuminated the figure in the doorway for a sporadic few seconds.
A tall, billowing black form stood in the entrance. The thunder outside seemed to have nothing on this creature of the night, with all the bitterness it brought with it. He was reminded of the old movie monster Dracula. Harry did not see anything else, as he pulled away to hide.
The Dursley family did not scream, as tense silence settled upon them. The figure, a man in dark robes, stepped inside and hesitated. The door closed soon after. Bathed in darkness, it was impossible for anyone to properly see him. All that was visible was his frighteningly great, imposing form.
The intruder did not speak right away. Uncle Vernon shouted, “I demand that you leave at ONCE! You are breaking and entering!” As angry as the fat man was, his fright gave him away, with his red sweating face and shaking hands, which couldn’t shoot a straight shot if his life depended on it.
The man did not immediately respond. Rather, he strode forward, as dark and as swift as the night. He approached the Dursleys, giving Harry the chance to really see him. He prayed the man did not see him.
The man was pale, with a strange, horrid face that Harry could never call attractive. A hooked nose stood out, and crooked yellow teeth. Wet black hair clung to his head, fine and glossy in the faint light of the room like a raven's wing. From head to two he was clad in black, and Harry wondered if the man’s soul was equally black. He was frightening to behold, and Harry felt blessed to not be on the end of that man’s fearsome expression. He was a sight to behold, and he hadn’t uttered a single word yet.
“Forgive me if I don’t immediately comply,” came a low, deep drawl that made every other person in the room hitch their breath and cringe. “Tuny.”
Petunia Dursley looked as if the intruder had slapped her. All the color from her face drained as she visibly realized something, leaving her as nearly pale as the man in question. Her jaw dropped and she pulled away from her husband, gapping like a fish. Vernon did not seem to understand his wife’s grave reaction, but snapped, “How dare you barge in here! This is our house! Do you know who I am!?”
The intruder was not affected by the fat man. He just sneered in disdain, openly looking down on the couple despite being on the main floor as they stood upon the stairs. He uncrossed his arms, causing the long robes cascading around his sharp figure to rustle. “Where is the boy?”
Vernon looked ready to start shouting again, but Petunia answered first, voice shaking and on the verge of hysterics. “*You!* You can’t have him! You have no right-!”
“Quiet,” the intruder said, barely having to raise his voice to gain the upper hand. “You should have known someone would come for him.”
“No,” Vernon spat, aiming the rifle. “You get out of my house! Out, you fiend!” With shaking swollen hands, Vernon raised the weapon and aimed at the intruder.
One arm shot out like a snake lunging forward, grasping the barrel of the gun and jerking it aside. It fired, blowing a hole into one of the wooden boards holding the loft up. Both children flinched. With the bullet having gone off, Dudly cried out for Mummy, red in the face and sniffling a dripping nose.
The dark-haired fellow turned at the sound, hand letting go of the rifle. Vernon all but collapsed then, with Petunia too shocked to begin screeching the obscenities she wanted to say to the dark man.
“I wondered if they would spoil you,” he drawled as if he wished he were doing anything else than scaring the absolute snot out of the plump boy. He didn’t seem to care at all, and glared down his great hooked nose at Dudley. “Spoiled, like your father. Come along. Now.
“He’s not going anywhere with you!” Petunia shouted, rushing between the imposing man and her cowering son, using herself as a body shield. “Not my baby!”
The intruder sneered, holding his ground. “Move aside, Evens. Potter’s place is at Hogwarts.”
Harry could not watch this any longer. It took a disciplined eye to look past the dark fellow’s frightening persona to see him not as a murderous giant, but as a man. The boy swallowed thickly, stepping out of the shadows. “I-I’m Potter. Harry Potter.”
The man turned his head to look at him. He seemed to go very still, staring at the boy with an unreadable expression. His eyes, like pieces of coal, burned into Harry as he studied him from head to toe. He stared until Harry could take it no more. He squirmed uncomfortably under the dark man's gaze.
“Who are you?” The boy asked.
The stranger broke from his trance and gifted the boy his first glare. Instead of introducing himself, the dark stranger turned back to Aunt Petunia, who was clutching onto Dudley like a lifeline. Vernon had joined them, and they all huddled together like squealing pigs. “I see... Does it hurt, Evens, to have him under your house? Seeing her in him? Under your pathetic care? Or does it please you, knowing your sister’s legacy ends with him if you have any say? Does it feel good to neglect him?”
Petunia gasped as if he’d said something outright scandalous.
“Pathetic,” he drawled, and moved away. “You disgust me.” Harry felt the need to back away, but his curiosity peaked at the man’s words. Petunia’s sister… His mother… Harry sucked in a breath of air and gathered some courage he didn’t know he had. Did this man know his mother? Had known? Harry was desperate to ask. Desperate to know. He wanted to know about his parents so badly, as the Dursleys never talked about them. When Petunia made any reference toward them, she implied his mother was shallow and his father an arrogant fool.
“Legacy?” Piped up Harry, which earned a nasty look from his aunt and uncle. And from the stranger.
“Oh yes.” The man approached Harry and seemed to loosen up as he looked down at him. Something grave lingered in the man’s coal eyes. “You are a celebrity, after all. I’m sure your father,” he hissed, “would be proud.”
Harry swayed. “You knew my parents?” Both of them??
The man did not respond, giving the Dursleys time to speak. “Yes, I’m sure Potter would be proud,” Petunia said with an ugly look, bitter and enraged. “He was a pompous bastard who got himself and my sister blown up. Serves them right!”
Offense coursed through the boy. Forgetting the dark stranger, he turned to his aunt in disbelief. Before he could shout to defend his parents, people who he only knew gave birth to him before dying well before their time, it was the stranger who spoke.
“Silence!” He growled, causing everyone to jump at his harsh voice. “You will not speak of them that way, in front of me again. One more word that dishonors her and I will make you regret it, woman.”
Petunia made an ugly expression, lip curling upward. It reminded Harry of a cow. "Ah. I see how it is. Still a filthy pervert, then?"
"Evens," the man sneered with a voice strained and full of ill-intent, "you better put your robe on. Your jealousy is showing. It's terribly unsightly."
Before she could respond to that besides crossing her arms, the man turned to Harry. The boy resisted the urge to cringe backward. With a flourish of his hand and the billowing of his black, foreign robes, the stranger wordlessly produced a letter. It’s red wax seal stood out against the pale parchment. It was thrust out to him. Tentatively, Harry took it.
He opened it.
He read it.
"HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme
Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list
of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July
31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress"
Harry finished the letter with a large gust of air. Wizardry… Witchcraft… "What..." Harry could hardly breath. Questions swam inside his head like a hundred little fish, all too slippery to grab hold of even one.
"Close your mouth, Potter. You look surprised." He sounded disinterested.
"I don't understand."
One black brow went up, and he turned to the Dursleys with another dark scowl. "Does he know anything?" Silence. The man's expression grew even darker. "We leave at once, then. I hope you're happy, Evens..." His voice grew dangerously quiet. "Your own nephew. What would she think?" Harry took a gander at who 'she' was. How well did this man know his mother?
Vernon came marching between them before Petunia could answer, looking like he wanted nothing more than to squish the two of them in his big meaty hands. “No! He will not be going! We swore when we took the boy in we would put a stop to this magic rubbish!”
Harry jerked toward his Uncle. “M-Magic rubbish? You knew about this?”
Silence. Suddenly the dark stranger didn’t seem to matter anymore. Everything seemed to be crashing down upon him. Magic was real, or this was a very elaborate and cruel prank. If this was true...
“You knew about this all along and you never told me? You said magic wasn't real.”
“Of course it is. And of course we knew,” Petunia glowered, exasperated. Something dark and bitter Harry had rarely seen flashed in her eyes, something he only saw when Petunia spoke about her sister. “How could you not be like her? My perfect sister,” she spits, “being who she was. My mother and father were so proud the day she got her letter. We have a witch, in the family. Isn’t it wonderful? I was the only one to see her for what she was. A freak.”
Harry wanted to glare at the woman. She had treated him like a servant his entire life, never giving him any comfort or sympathy for the loss of his parents. Never telling him anything other than bitter lies. But his anger was muddled, muddled with sadness, and he stood there, feeling very alone and upset and confused and-
His anger was acted upon, but not by his hand.
The dark stranger, who Harry had momentarily forgotten about, flinched and growled as if he’d smelled something horribly offensive. With lightning-fast speeds, he reached into his long sleeve and withdrew a glossy wooden stick. He aimed it at the woman. His expression was thunderous. Light emitted from the tip of the object as he angrily waved it toward her.
Suddenly Aunt Petunia’s skin turned green. Bright, Wizard of Oz witch green. Her nose stretched out and warts appeared all over her face. The curse was almost poetic in its execution. Yet it caused an immediate panic amongst the Dursleys, with all of them shouting and dancing around as if they'd been covered in itching powder.
Harry’s mouth dropped open, and a helpless, nervous giggled left him. He covered his mouth. Instinct from years of neglect and verbal abuse told him he'd be punished for laughing. Yet it was a sight to see! Them being made the joke for once! Aunt Petunia looked ridiculous with her "witchy" look, flailing around as if it would help as her husband and son stumbled and waved their arms in alarm. It was like watching a skit on the telly.
“I do not,” the stranger gritted, “like to repeat myself. I will not be so forgiving next time.”
“Sir,” Harry implored, drawing the man’s attention to him. “What does this mean?” He lifted the letter. “What does it have to do with my parents? I-”
The man sighed, impatient. But his eyes were as hard as nails. “You are a wizard, Mr. Potter.”
Harry’s mouth fell open. The Dursleys went quite save for their unattractive sobbing and huddling in the corner.
“I… how-- What? No. I'm just Harry...I can't be a... wizard!”
The man was not amused. Harry earned a second glare from the tall fellow. But something softened, gave way to something vulnerable. “Your mother was the brightest witch of her age.” Pause. “Your father...” he scowled and scoffed. “Your aunt and uncle are imbeciles. They should have prepared you for this. I do not have time for mollycoddling.”
“But I don’t understand! Who are you?”
The man's expression gave nothing away. “You will refer to me as Professor Snape.”
It was such a short, curt introduction, but it only made Harry have more questions than answers. The man- Professor Snape- seemed to realize this and gave the boy a third glare. Harry begrudgingly accepted that he would be at the end of that horrid look many more times.
“Come,” Snape said with a bark, spurring Harry to move. “Unless you’d rather stay with your loving family. My time here was absolutely splendid after all.”
Harry certainly didn’t want to stay, afraid that if he stayed another night that his aunt or uncle would lock him up somewhere. Would this Snape fellow save him, if so? Not wanting to find out, for Snape looked unlikely to rescue anybody, Harry shuffled after on his bare feet to get his shoes. It was all he had with him, as the lot of them had left the Dursley house in such a hurry.
When his shoes were on, Harry looked up to find Snape staring at him again. It was impossible to tell what the man was thinking. Was he angry? Sad? Indifferent? He didn’t know. He opened his mouth to say he was ready. Snape reacted faster. A heavy hand lands on his shoulder, and before Harry knew it, the world itself sucked in onto itself.
And then, they were gone.