Chapter Text
Hagrid beamed down at him. “You’re magical. Harry, you’re a wizard.”
Harry froze, ceased to breathe, the rest of the world blurring in his vision until the only thing that existed was the rash hurtle of his mind, the knowledge that he, Harry, was a wizard. It settled inside him, a revealed secret, jumping off each pattering beat of his heart like rainfall into water. He closed his eyes, reaching, feeling, and down his arms, inside his veins, and then deeper, deeper, down to the marrow of his bones, there was a warmth, a squeezing comfort like a hug: magic, his parents’ legacy, his to have, his to use—his.
“A wizard?” asked Harry at last, mind fumbling. “What does being a wizard mean? How do I use magic? What sorts of things do wizards learn?” He had so many questions. There was so much to learn, so much to know, and if there were people born into this magical world, Harry knew he must be behind, desperately behind.
Hagrid’s smile grew watery. “Ah, you’re so much like your mum. You don’t have anything to worry about Harry, at Hogwarts, you’ll learn everything about magic that you need to know.”
Later, Harry would laugh at this statement, at the audacious blatancy of the lie.
“Are there any kids that are born in the magical world?” asked Harry.
Belatedly, Harry realized Hagrid had known his mother, and Petunia, as bitter as she sounded, had not had personal ire toward Hagrid; she did not know him, and seemed alienated from the magical world. Harry’s mum must have had a non magical upbringing too.
“Of course, the majority of wizards are already in the magical world. Only a select few come from the muggle one.”
“But then I must be so behind,” said Harry. “They’ve had their whole lives to learn. I barely have a month.” Primary school didn’t teach you everything, so Harry doubted Hogwarts could be so different, magical or not. Knowledge kept you safe, and Harry didn’t feel in any way secure knowing how out of the loop he was on the workings of an entire secret society.
Hagrid patted Harry on the back, his chuckle deep. “Don’t worry Harry, I reckon you’ll be right smarter than the lot of students in your year, and even in years above. You’ll sweep them off their feet, you will.”
Harry was quite sure of the contrary, but Hagrid seemed so happy with his conceptions of Hogwarts, his conceptions of Harry, that Harry didn’t want to argue. “How many first years do you get a year?”
“Well at Hogwarts there are four houses, and I’d say there are about ten new students per house per year, so forty total.”
“280?” The number was so small. “Is the Hogwarts population small in comparison to other magical schools?” asked Harry.
Hagrid shook his head. “Hogwarts is one of the bigger ones.”
“Hagrid, how many magical people exist in the world?”
Hagrid gave Harry an odd look at the question. “About 1.7 million I’d reckon. That’s the latest number calculated by the ministry.”
Dizzyingly, Harry felt a trace of fear climb up his spine. That was a cause for future concern at the very least. “So people without magic—”
“Muggles,” said Hagrid.
“Yes, the muggles: they outnumber the magical population by a ratio of about four thousand, one hundred and fifty to one. That can’t be right Hagrid.”
“Highest the magical population’s ever been and still growing every day,” said Hagrid, proud.
Like a flower suddenly abloom, dread spread its petals in Harry’s stomach, the stem thorny and stabbing. “Hagrid, muggles exist in the billions. A near 2 million, that’s tiny in comparison. It’s dangerous.”
Hagrid chuckled, “You’re worrying too much Harry. The magical world is protected by wards. The muggles will never find us unless we want them to.”
Once again, Harry found himself not so sure of the easy assurances Hagrid gave. The magical world was just as dangerous, if not more so than the muggle one. Unease curled around him like a fist. “What are these wards?”
“Why, you can learn about them at Hogwarts!” said Hagrid, and he continued to chatter merrily along, chipper at bringing their conversation around full circle.
Harry let Hagrid talk, but he remained quiet. If he was going to be a part of this small wondrous world, he needed to learn everything about it, from how to mend his clothes to the best kept secrets of magic. Knowledge was power, and power was protection, and then maybe, maybe if he could more than adequately protect himself, he could in turn protect the society that had taken him away from the Dursleys, and keep any muggles like them away. He would learn everything.
***
Learning wasn’t always pleasant. There was the fact that he was famous, for one, and also the fact that there was an entire faucet of his life that he’d simply never known about. Harry knew learning wasn’t always pleasant, but being told for the first time how his parents were murdered would never be on the list of things he enjoyed hearing about, however, it would be knowledge that he would keep safe forever.
Harry waved the latest wand, and like lightning to a pole, a warmth jolted into his hand up his arm, an effervescent burning, but ephemeral; it soon faded into a stillness that felt audible.
“Curious, very curious,” said Ollivander.
“What’s curious?” asked Harry.
“It is curious that the feather that resides in this wand is destined for you, Mister Potter, when its brother… why its brother gave you that scar.”
October thirty-first, a date of misfortune shared with Voldemort, and now a wand core, Harry stared at the wand, held it, feeling simultaneously like he wanted to snap it in half and cocoon it in his arms. So to distract himself, he instead said, “Where do wizards carry their wands?”
“Most choose to keep it in their robes,” said Ollivander.
Harry had seen the wand pockets in his robes, and they seemed entirely too shallow to hold something as important as a wand. “That seems unreliable,” said Harry. “Not to mention impractical, it could fall out at any time. Is there anywhere else I can put it?”
Ollivander nodded, “I have a few wand holsters here, if you would like.”
“I would.”
When Harry left Ollivanders, it was with his wand secured in a holster. It was waterproof, which was good, because Harry wasn’t ever going to take it off. Learning wasn’t the only thing a part of preparedness.
***
Getting onto the Hogwarts express was a stressful affair that involved a half hour straight of Harry having no idea what he was doing. It was lucky that such a loud magical family had been running late to the Platform, because otherwise, Harry was certain he wouldn’t have seen them over all the noise. As it was, he watched them all go through, and with five minutes left until eleven and no small amount of trepidation, he placed his hand against the barrier that separated Platforms nine and ten, and watched in amazement as it sank through. After that, finding a compartment was relievingly easy.
He practically ran to a compartment at the back of the train, eager to read in peace, but it was not two minutes into the journey that there was a knock on the door, and one of the red headed children he’d seen going through the barrier was standing before him.
“Er, sorry, can I sit here? Everywhere else is full,” said the red head.
Harry sighed, resigned to having company. “Yeah alright.”
The redhead sat, and they both stared at each other.
The redhead cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’m Ron, by the way, Ron Weasely.”
Inwardly, Harry was cringing at all the reactions the revelation of his identity could bring. “Harry Potter,” he said.
Ron’s eyes went wide. “Are you really?”
Harry leaned as far back into his seat as he could.
“Do you really have the, er, you know, scar?” asked Ron.
Harry sighed, back pressed low into the seat cushions. “Look, I know you’re really curious, I would be too, but I don’t really feel comfortable showing anyone my scar for the sole purpose of being gawked at.
Ron, even awkward as he was, gave a stilted apology. “I shouldn’t have asked. My mum would probably yell up a right storm about it if she’d heard me, now that I think of it,” he mumbled.
Harry shook his head. “It’s alright, let’s just move on.”
“Erm, what’s your favorite Quidditch team? Mine’s the Chudley Cannons.”
“I actually don’t know any Quidditch teams. When I was at Diagon Alley I was mostly focused on academics. From what I’ve seen so far, Quidditch is a sport played on brooms, right?” asked Harry
Ron was aghast. “How do you not know about Quidditch?”
“My Aunt and Uncle are muggles. I didn’t know I was a wizard until less than a month ago. I’ve never been a very sporty person, so when I was gathering materials for research I didn’t honestly think to look at Quidditch teams.”
“Wow,” said Ron. “Do you want to learn more about it?”
Harry didn’t, but Ron looked hopeful. “Alright, just a bit then.”
The conversation flowed easier for a while after that. An hour or two into the ride, a trolley came by with various sweets.
Ron gave the cart a forlorn look. “I’m set already,” he mumbled.
Harry decided that he didn’t like it when his friends were sad. “Well I’m not, and I’ve never tried these things before, so you’ll have to introduce me to them.” He looked at the witch in charge of the trolley. “We’ll have three of everything,” said Harry. He planned to save some for later.
Ron grinned at Harry, bright eyed. “Alright you have to try a Chocolate Frog.”
Harry opened up the box, pulling out the trading card curiously. “‘Albus Dumbledore,’ isn’t he the Headmaster?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve got about five of him, supposed to be a really cool guy in real life.” Ron opened his own Frog. “Urgh, it’s Slytherin. Do you want him? You can start collecting.”
Harry took the card from Ron. “Isn’t Slytherin one of the Hogwarts houses?”
“It is, right bunch of tossers, they are.”
Harry tilted his head. “Why do you say that?”
“You-Know-Who was in Slytherin, not to mention all the other Dark wizards. There hasn’t been a single wizard in Slytherin that hasn’t gone bad,” said Ron, expression dark.
Harry blinked, shook his head. “But that’s just not true,” said Harry. “Voldemort”—Ron flinched—“is only one person. And even if all Dark wizards came from Slytherin house, Dark magic isn’t an inherently bad thing.”
Ron spluttered, face growing rather red. “How could you say that? A Dark wizard killed your parents.” said Ron.
This logic didn’t at all make sense to Harry, but he hesitated to say anything more. Ron was the first amiable person his age that he’d met and sort of got on with, but he was also clearly in opposition to this belief that Harry was passionate about himself. Did he want to risk losing a friend? He almost backed off, but then realized that if he did have a friend, he’d much rather be himself. Harry wasn’t really sure if being yourself was a thing he could actually do with people without being disliked or ignored. At the Dursleys’ and all through primary school, no one had liked when Harry was himself, and in fact, Harry was convinced that even when he was honestly expressing his emotions, no one generally believed him at all. But, Ron wasn’t the Dursleys, and he wasn’t the people at Primary school.
Harry took a deep breath in an attempt to slow the rapid beating of his heart. His stomach flipped, but he ploughed against it like a wave against a cliff side. “So? Technically, a Dark Wizard was the one who created an organization that promotes muggle rights. You may have heard of him, his name was Merlin,” said Harry, feeling better after gaining momentum.
“Merlin wasn’t a Dark Wizard!” said Ron.
Harry frowned. There were some books he’d grabbed that weren’t part of the curriculum, and the shelves he’d pulled them from had looked quite full. He’d believed them to be recently restocked at the time, but now, he was suspecting they weren’t popular reads among magical folks.
From what he’d been observing, culture in the magical world revolved heavily around gossip, history, and stories passed down orally. He supposed if they got a lot of their knowledge by word of mouth alone, they wouldn’t take the time to read books with content that they already supposedly had all the information on. That seemed an incredibly dangerous attitude to have. No doubt it was a huge catalyst of ignorance. A lot of what Harry knew should have been common knowledge.
Harry took another breath, exhaled, pushed on once more. “In Merlin’s time, they didn’t even have labels to separate magic yet. Light and Dark labels are actually a lot more modern of an approach to magic, and primarily, it’s a Western concept. Dark and Light magic are just adjectives for different branches that are a part of general magic as a whole.
“From what I’ve read, as magic became more socially polarized, Merlin was predominantly perceived as a Light wizard due to his feud with Morgan le Fay. People made assumptions that if he was fighting a Dark witch, then he himself must have been Light. But then, just a few decades ago, someone uncovered evidence that, while Merlin was a practitioner of Light magic as well, his specialty resided in the Dark Arts, specifically, advanced Dark runic magic that he initially studied with his mentor: Salazar Slytherin.
“His magical core was Dark. His campaign against le Fay was based on their differing beliefs and had nothing to do with the magic they cast. He was a Dark wizard, and he was a decent man, by the looks of it at least.”
Ron stuttered, “I—well—that’s only one person! Maybe he’s an exception.”
Harry gave Ron a wry smile. “And Voldemort”—Ron flinched again, Harry this time giving him an apologetic glance—“is only one person too,” he said, repeating his earlier words. “His followers largely came from Slytherin, I suspect, because he had so much influence there, first from when he was a student, then respect by word of mouth, and then by the children of his own followers.
“If most of his followers hadn’t come from Slytherin, he wouldn’t have been nearly as successful as he was. Gathering Death Eaters from Slytherin was a very intelligent move on his part. It’s like a religion, or rather, it’s a cult, and religions are like cults. You have to indoctrinate a set of ideals early on. His roots are there, and you can’t undo that easily. That being said,” Harry grinned. “While they haven’t had the best reputation in recent decades, Slytherin’s are in no way inherently evil in exactly the same way that Dark magic isn’t inherently bad.”
At Ron’s lost look, Harry leaned back. He supposed it was rather a lot to take in. He wondered if he’d managed to disrupt any of Ron’s beliefs. He hoped so, if only because Ron was a decent bloke, and his prejudices made him so much more dislikable than he would have been otherwise.
“Are you—” Ron cut himself off, looking at Harry with uncertainty.
“Yes?”
“Are you aiming for Slytherin then?” asked Ron.
Harry shook his head. “If the boy I’m thinking of ends up there, which he’s likely to if his family history says anything, then I’m honestly looking to avoid it. They aren’t all ‘tossers,’ as you said, but from what I’ve seen of Draco Malfoy, he is.”
Ron looked eager for an opportunity to badmouth a Slytherin, but Harry interrupted him.
“He’s a git, but I really don’t want to think about it. People are complicated. He can’t be all bad. I’m not going to like him, but I’m not going to actively crusade against him,” Harry hesitated. “I’m tired of having enemies.”
Ron frowned, looking as if he wanted to say something, but then he leaned back, thoughtful. “Yeah, I—yeah, that makes sense.”
Suddenly, Harry was worried. “You aren’t saying that just because it’s me you’re talking to are you? You’re like, actually listening to what I’m saying?”
No one had ever listened to Harry before, and he didn’t see why that would change now, especially with how famous the preconceived notion of him was. But Ron seemed brash, loud, and incapable of subtle dishonesty, so Harry watched him closely to gauge his reaction.
Quickly, Ron shook his head. “Bloody hell, mate, no, I’m not giving up my beliefs because you’re famous or anything like that if that’s what you’re worried about.” He flushed then, but instead of anger it was from embarrassment. “I might have been caught up in it at first but, you’re a person, right? I mean you are a person. And so it’s not right to treat you any differently. You just—I—urgh, you make sense? You’re good at talking,” said Ron, feeling rather lame. “I forget that people are complicated a lot of the time. You did a good job reminding me.”
“So I’m not making you uncomfortable?”
Ron’s brows scrunched, mouth set into a firm line. “You’re making me not a git. You have to be uncomfortable for things like that sometimes,” he said, strangely wise.
Hope felt unfamiliar to Harry, where it was trying to settle a home in his chest, close to his heart. “Are we friends?” he asked.
“Of course we are!” said Ron, but then he paused, unsure. “That is, if you want to be?”
“Yes,” said Harry, rapid, head nodding like it was attached to a spring. “Yes, I want to be friends.”
Ron held out his hand, face serious. “Friends then, no matter which house we end up, whether it’s the same or different—friends,” said Ron, and his voice was decided, unyielding: final.
Feeling vaguely like he was in a fever dream, Harry took Ron’s hand, shaking it with a firm grip equivalent to Ron’s voice. “Friends,” said Harry, “No matter what.”
Ron beamed at him, his teeth a little crooked, face too small for his nose, ears too big for his head, and clothes just a bit too short for his limbs, but Harry grinned back, and thought that if he listened to Harry so well, he was just about the most perfect friend anyone could ask for.
They released hands with an awkward air that could only be generated by two eleven year olds that had essentially sealed a life altering business deal, but the solemnity of the moment lingered. The two of them sat for a few minutes, contemplative.
At last, Ron spoke. “So, is there a house that you’re aiming for then?” he asked.
“Well, since I’m avoiding Slytherin, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up in Ravenclaw, though I think I’d go there even if I wasn’t avoiding Slytherin. In order, I’d say I’m Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor.”
“Potters are almost always Gryffindors.”
“I’m the only Potter I’ve ever known,” reminded Harry.
Mystified look leaving Ron’s face, he nodded quickly. “Right yeah, my bad, I should have thought of that. I want to be in Gryffindor. My whole family’s been in Gryffindor,” he paused then, glanced around like one of his relatives would pop up from the wooden framing, and then lowered his voice. “I think that I might make a good Hufflepuff, though.”
Ron looked frightened that he’d admitted such a thing aloud.
“You’d be fantastic as a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff. You know Hufflepuff house has actually produced some of the most efficient auror teams in history? Seventh years tend to graduate and go through the training program together and they end up being a super tight knit unit.”
“Really? Wow that’s so wicked. I’ve always wanted to be an auror,” said Ron.
Harry nodded, “I can lend you the book I read it in, if you want. There’s a lot more information there.”
“I’ve never been much of a reader…”
Harry tried not to slump in his seat.
“But I want to try it out again, so I’ll take you up on the offer.”
“Oh,” said Harry, and before he even realized what he was doing he was pulling the book out and handing it to Ron.
Ron stared at the cover of it for a few moments, and then carefully, he placed it into his trunk. “I’ll take good care of it,” he promised.
Harry smiled, “I know you will.”
***
Seeing Hogwarts for the first time was like forgetting to take a breath before falling. The magic in his veins, braided into his DNA with such individualized precision, stood all at once like hairs on end, reaching out—and there was a soft touch to it like a cheek against the pad of a thumb as Hogwarts reached back; before Harry even stepped foot in the castle, he knew he was home.
***
Everything about Hogwarts was vitality, and Harry absorbed it, breathed it all in like it was a replacement for oxygen. The magic was potent, and the living history fascinating. It was unfortunate that the Sorting Hat was only used once a year, because once his sorting was over, Harry wished he had a guaranteed opportunity to get answers to questions other sentient beings wouldn’t be able to answer. The Sorting Hat no doubt had an unparalleled understanding of the human mind, and Harry wanted to know everything.
It was with disappointment that Harry focused solely on his own sorting. “Not Slytherin,” he thought.
“Not Slytherin? Are you sure? You could be great you know, it’s all here in your head, so full of ambition. You remind me of a student that used to attend here, many years ago.”
“What was their name? And yes, not Slytherin. It’s much too tense to learn anything there. Just from observing their seating I can see that they have some sort of hierarchy going on, and I just don’t have the time to be sucked into house politics—I also met a boy that just went to Slytherin. He’s a terrible git, and I refuse to deal with or live with him for seven years. He reminds me of Dudley.”
There was an impression of a chuckle from the Sorting Hat. “His name was Tom Riddle, though I hear he goes by something else these days.”—a pause, and then—“Slytherin is losing a great student today, but no matter where you go, a great student you shall be. Keep an eye out for Tom Riddle, in all his forms, Mister Potter, for in greatness, you are not alone.” Aloud, the Hat spoke. “RAVENCLAW!”
Almost shivering at the intensity of it, Harry slipped off the stool as McGonagall took the Hat from his head. ‘In all his forms’? Harry had no idea what the cryptic hell that was supposed to mean, but seeing as it was told to him by a wise ancient Hat, he supposed it would be worth it to keep watch.