Chapter Text
It had all begun with a fairy.
A golden winged fairy, to be precise.
Obviously, it wasn’t a real one- how absurd. Magic couldn’t be real.
That was what his relatives had tried to engrave into him, ever since he was a mere babe.
Key word: ‘tried’.
Obviously, for a person such as Harry, with his bright, emerald eyes and imagination that seemed to be too big for this world, indicating that magic didn’t exist would have been the biggest absurdity in his opinion.
But alas, relatives.
Harry lived in a town called Godric’s Hollow.
It was quite a mundane place. There were two schools, Diagon and Nockturn, one under the guidance of Headmaster Dumbledore, and the other under Headmistress Lestrange.
They couldn’t be more opposite.
However, crime was to a minimum, people were friendly enough towards one another, and visitors would call the little town ‘average’ in every way possible.
However, no one was like one such as Harry Potter.
If anybody encountered him, they would immediately be fascinated with the boy. Messy black hair that looked as though several mad ravens lived inside of it, and porcelain skin that almost seemed transparent in the right lighting. A strange lightning bolt scar that covered the entirety of his right forehead, dipping bellow and crossing paths with his eyebrow, before stopping dangerously close to one of his shining emerald eyes, that glowed too bright to be completely hidden beneath the ugly round glasses that framed his angular face.
He had the sweetest smile, and often spoke in the softest voice that was just begging to be heard, yet could easily be mistaken for a mere breeze unless one was listening close enough. The young boy would often speak of fairytales from a distant land, making no sense to those who tried to listen, and yet they were all captivated by tales that were woven into the boy himself, the ones that were never spoken, yet heard by those privileged enough to be graced with his presence.
And those who did get the chance to meet the boy with emerald eyes would often speak about him for an unknown time before they suddenly stopped, lost in thought. But they never forgot about him.
In the little town that Harry lived in, there was a Mansion upon a hill. ‘Don’t go in there,’ parents would often tell their children in hushed voices, as though afraid that they would be overheard, ‘It is where the Beast lives. It is where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named resides.’
Of course, Harry was never told this himself personally, but he often overheard his Aunt Petunia tell his cousin Dudley about Riddle Manor. He usually couldn’t eavesdrop for very long, since as soon as he was discovered to be within hearing range, he was locked in his cupboard and was starved for a few days before being let out, the garden needing to be pruned and the laundry needing to be done.
But he wasn’t told of the absolute dangers of venturing inside Riddle Manor.
When he was eleven years old, he met a huge giant of a man named Hagrid. He was about to start High School in Diagon, and it was then, on a side street near the pub called The Leaky Cauldron, that Harry learnt that his parents didn’t die in a car crash.
“It was terrible.” Hagrid blowed his nose with a handkerchief. “Murdered in cold blood. Oh, they would be so proud of you, Harry.” And when the boy asked who murdered them, the soft half-giant (as Harry had been calling him in his head) couldn’t deny those bright emerald eyes for the deepest, darkest, most unknown of secrets. Leaning in closely, Hagrid whispered, “It was You-Know-Who that killed your parents, Harry.”
And yet, no matter how hard he tried (and the gentle boy surely didn’t, because without a dash of forgiveness in his life, where would he be?), he forgave the man. He didn’t know why. But it was this feeling he had, and his feelings had never been wrong. (Apart from the feeling that magic was real, but that was yet to be determined.)
And so as he stood in front of the rusted gates of Riddle Manor, he didn’t hesitate to walk forwards.
“No, Harry, it’s too dangerous!” Hermione told him, Ron nodding somberly behind her.
“Yeah, mate, I’ve heard that those who go in there come out as werewolves!” Ron piped in. Harry had always presumed that Professor Lupin was a werewolf.
“Honestly, Ronald, werewolves don’t exist! I would expect this out of Harry or Luna, not you!” Hermione scowled.
As the two started bickering, Neville begged him, “P-Please don’t d-do this.”
Luna looked him in the eyes and said, “If you find a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, make sure you bring it back with you.”
Beaming as bright as the moon, and more than sure by then that his friend was a seer, Harry replied, “I sure will, Luna!”
He raised his hand to nock on the rotting, wooden door.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Harry?” Professor Dumbledore asked. Harry just nodded, and the old man sighed, as though resigned to his fate. “And your guardians know about this?”
Harry nodded. (It was a lie. They wouldn’t care either way.)
“Then I guess I have no choice but to let you go, my dear boy.” He stood up and walked towards one of his many, many shelves full of devices that worked in ways that Harry could only describe as magic. Dumbledore took off a strange stone, a wand (because surely it had to be) and a cloak. “This stone belonged to a person named of Tom Riddle, the wand was an old friend of mine’s before it was passed along to me in his will and the cloak was your father’s. I expect one with such an imagination such as yours would be able to use these in ways that nobody has ever dreamed of. Use them well.”
The next day Dumbledore died. They suspected it was a heart attack. Only one person would ever know the true reason why, and that wouldn’t be until much, much later.
The doors opened before his knuckles met the darkened oak.
Smiling happily to himself, he skipped along the path towards Riddle Manor, wondering what it will be like inside the great place. Would it be old and grimy on the inside, just as it was on the outside? Or would it be like stepping into a dream full of fairytales and gnomes?
Slowly, he traversed into a walk as he passed the rusted gates of Riddle Manor.
Unhesitatingly, he walked into the darkness that greeted him on his first venture inside the gigantic household. As the doors closed behind him, screeching in an imitation of nails on a chalkboard, Harry allowed a smile to grace his lips as he adjusted his grip on his dark grey backpack that was barely holding on by an ugly frayed thread.
After all, his feelings were never wrong.