Chapter Text
Life was hard, and, while wizards were tougher than muggles, there was a limit.
A few small changes in random outcomes, a few accidents, a few extra turns around an already vicious spiral, and Harry had a thickened left arm with a slightly twisted hand, that he kept hidden under his oversized jumpers.
Those trying to grab it to see what he was hiding bounced away. Except, for some reason, his so-loving family, so he had to learn to just not mind them instead.
After a few experiments with a cricket bat, when Dudley, a boisterous, growing boy, was not yet five and was only trying to pretend to be Aunt Marge, bless him, Harry didn't run. Or cry. He had a slightly shuffling walk, so he just had to take whatever happened. Obviously, the Dursleys said, he was making a fuss about nothing and Being Dramatic.
It wasn't as if they hadn't taken him to hospital to be checked. Harry had no actual broken bones, and had obviously grown that way, which only made him more of a freak. It was wilful and unnatural.
Whatever Harry thought about this, he wasn't sharing. Dudley was taught to not be silly, Harry was messing around, and neighbours knew it was congenital and preferred anyway to not see anything the Dursleys might be up to, not when Uncle Vernon had friends in high places and a large vindictive streak.
Dudley and his friends realised they'd gone too far when Harry's bloody left eye wasn't really an eye, but that healed overnight as well, after he hid the injury and crawled into his cupboard. There was a ragged pink hole there instead, surrounded by thick scars. After that, nobody wanted to touch him. Harry was not grabbed again, but they'd throw stones at him to get him to move on.
Neighbours avoided even looking at him. It was as if they saw only what Aunt Petunia's words described.
When Dudley and his friends had a trip to the zoo, they left Harry in his cupboard. No one was about to argue him out of there. It was his safe place. They called him 'Hermit' and 'Hermit Crab'. He pretended they didn't exist.
When Hagrid came to get Harry, he saw James's son. Everyone saw Harry's best side first. Seeing the left side of him, Hagrid became uncomfortable.
Vernon didn't want his wife's unwanted nephew learning magic tricks, when he'd already nearly broken Dudley's wrist with freakishness. Hagrid could take him away and good riddance.
Harry had to be fitted for a school uniform. A blond boy stood on Harry's left, and didn't even try to talk to him. He wasn't sure Harry was human.
Harry had an extra-long sleeve on his left side.
Harry couldn't drag his own trunk down the stairs from the storage room where it was kept. He had to bring his things down in carrier bags and the trunk after. Vernon stuffed the in the bags back in, willy-nilly.
Harry, as usual, said nothing, just stared out of his one good eye, giving Vernon the creeps. Then he shuffled to his usual seat in the car and, as always, took a long time belting himself in.
Vernon was glad to drop the boy off at the station, with his too-heavy trunk. They didn't laugh cruelly - they just got out of there. Harry rescued his caged owl, Hedwig, finding her somehow none the worse for being sealed in a trunk in a car boot all the way to London.
People actually, eventually helped him get his trunk onto a trolley and to Platform 9, while talking to him in loud, simple words.
He made it to the Hogwarts Express on time, and, from the various looks of horror, wasn't welcome to any compartment, and someone had made off with his trunk while he was still carrying things onto the train in carrier bags. He had three carrier bags of stuff and his owl, and kept shuffling them down, until he found an empty compartment and let himself in.
Things were going to be difficult, but Harry was used to things being difficult. He was also used to his magic lashing out if people tried to grab hold of him, and had little fear of other people. He had his wand and his owl and she was still fond of him. She was worth the cupboard being as cramped as it was.
He spent his time trying to make his wand work and reading his two textbooks, now he actually had them and they weren't locked away.
The trolley witch left after Harry shook his head. He didn't want to deal with getting money out one-handed, all the awkwardness. He'd rather go hungry. It wasn't as if he wasn't used to it.
"Excuse me, have you seen a toad— oh, sorry. Wrong compartment." The frizzy-haired girl went red and hurried away.
The boy that was with her stared a moment, then was dragged off.
A somewhat familiar blond boy with two big goons looked in and left, saying "What was that? Not anything human... some prank..."
A voice told him to get changed into school uniform. Harry had a robe and pulled it on over his existing clothes. No tie.
He left Hedwig, with one last head-scratch and stumped off to see if Hogwarts would be any better than Little Whinging. He doubted it.
On the way up to the castle, Harry was slower than the rest. Hagrid picked him up and ended up thrown away, bouncing down the stairs, much to everyone's alarm.
"Just a bit o' accidental magic, yeh'll grow out of it," Hagrid said cheerfully, from the bottom of the stairs. He climbed back up, stiffly. "Yeh'll get up when yeh do, I reckon. I'll tell Professor McGonagall."
Harry nodded and kept on going up the stairs while more nimble children went ahead and eventually out of sight entirely.
"Whatever that is, it shouldn't be allowed at a school," someone was complaining. "Probably some half-goblin abomination that fool Dumbledore let in..."
There were protests at those words that faded as well.
Harry kept climbing. One step, then another, then another. Once he was powerful, he'd show them all. For now, magic was his guardian and protector, even from someone as big as Hagrid.
Big and tough. Vernon wouldn't have bounced like that. He'd have spent weeks in a plaster cast.
Big and tough and very friendly. Hagrid had cast no blame, at all, on Harry himself.
So now Harry had two people he liked and one wasn't even an owl and could talk.