Chapter Text
Harry Potter, in Possession of Firearms.
And so it begins, with a line that has been remixed many a time. For Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of No. 4 Privet Drive were perfectly normal, thank you very much, and planned to remain so for the rest of their normal (read: boring) lives. Too bad that someone else out there had... other plans for them.
When Mrs. Petunia Dursley stepped out in the morning to place the empty milk bottles on the stoop of No. Privet Drive, sometime early in the month of November, she almost tripped and fell flat on her face. Maybe if she had, she would’ve suffered enough brain trauma to either die outright or perhaps gained some sort of empathy in her shriveled, blackened heart.
It would’ve been more pleasant to observe anyway, in comparison to the deafening shriek she let out with her high, nasally voice. For she had looked down, where on the stoop a bundle of cloth lay. Swaddled in that cloth was an infant of about a year old, with flyaway black hair and a gruesome looking wound upon his forehead. That infant, one Harry James Potter, recently orphaned in the last 24 hours, understandably awoke from his exhausted slumber to give a responding screech of complaint.
Petunia, in fear of her oh so important reputation being tarnished by the sudden baby delivery, quickly snatched the wailing and freshly traumatized tiny human and brought him inside, out of view of prying eyes.
And so, with some ear-splitting noises and a housewife anxiously pacing around her kitchen, spiraling into despair over the sure loss of her Perfectly Normal lifestyle, Harry Potter’s life in No. 4 Privet Drive began with a bang- the first of many, and I’m not just talking about more slamming doors.
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At the tender age of five, Boy thought that he was rather grown up already. Firstly, he knew that ‘Boy’ and ‘Freak’ were not his name, because on his first day of Primary School, Miss Bluebell in had a very shocked and displeased look on her face when he introduced himself to the class as Freak Boy, and looked like she had bitten into a lemon when he corrected himself and said Boy Freak instead. She soon pulled him aside, and took him to the Headmaster’s office in order to contact his Aunt and Uncle.
He was harshly scolded when he returned to No. 4 Privet Drive after school, and was thrown into his cupboard with only the promise of no dinner that night and something Very Important to think on. He had a name! He had a name, a real one- not Boy or Freak! His name was Harry James Potter, as he had been roughly informed, and he was shaking with the excitement and shock this discovery gave him. Just the fact that he had a real name was enough, but as he sat curled up in his dark and dusty little cupboard, something else occurred to him.
If having the name Boy or Freak was such a surprise, something that put shock on the faces of Miss Bluebell and the school Headmaster, then… was it Not Normal? He knew that he wasn’t normal, but he didn’t pick those names, the Dursleys did. And they were all about Being Normal. Why would they do anything that would be seen as abnormal? If being called by those names was not normal, and calling someone those names, like the Dursleys did, was not normal, then… did they do other Not Normal things?
Boy was shaking for another reason now, not excitement over his name, but bewilderment over this new revelation. If what the Dursley’s called him was wrong, then what was right? Well, there was Dudley, his fat blonde cousin that really looked more pig than human. Harry knew he was five because Dudley had his fifth birthday back in June, and he knew they were about the same age because they started primary school at the same time. You needed to be at least five to go to primary, Boy- no, Harry, knew that much.
He realized that Dudley had gotten a lot of presents on his birthday, but Harry had never had any presents- or any party, or cake, or really anything nice done for him by the Dursleys, unless you count his cupboard as a dry place to sleep, and scraps of meals that he got to eat.
Dudley though, he had two bedrooms and ate all sorts of food, including candies that Harry had never gotten close enough to see clearly, nevermind try. They were usually down Dudley’s gullet pretty fast though. Dudley had hugs and kisses and bedtime stories, anything asked for he got, and no matter what kind of tantrum or bad thing he did, he was never punished for anything.
But Harry was yelled at, pushed and pulled around, even hit if one of the Dursleys felt like hitting him. As soon as he was tall enough to reach the counter with a stool, he had to cook breakfast, and was punished if he messed it up. He swept, he mopped, dusted and cleaned all day, and was never rewarded with a ‘thank you’ or ‘good job’. Aunt Petunia had just recently put him to work pulling weeds in her garden, and while he was a little proud to have that kind of responsibility, Dudley never had to do any kind of work. He was praised for just sitting around and eating, and sometimes rewarded for no real reason.
Miss Bluebell had said that in Primary they would be rewarded with shiny gold star stickers if they worked hard and did a good job in her class, but the Dursleys seemed to have these ideas mixed up.
Maybe, tomorrow he would ask Aunt Petunia why he was called Freak and Boy if his name was Harry James Potter, and why they treated him like they did but spoiled Dudley rotten.