Chapter Text
Harry Potter knew he was not a normal boy. The denizens of Number Four Privet Drive tried very hard to keep up appearances stating otherwise, but Harry Potter was aware that not only was he not normal, but neither was the family he resided with.
Vernon Dursley was the largest man Harry had seen yet, and his temper fit him accordingly. His smile never sat on his face right. Sometimes, he looked as if his cheeks were ready to burst when talking to people like the normal Mr. Huntsman from Number Seven. Vernon doted upon his wife and child, and looked at Harry with an expression of nothing short of disgust. Harry thought he sort of resembled a rat sometimes, especially when his nose would start twitching at any signs of “ freakishness.”
Petunia Dursley was also rather strange, in Harry’s opinion, for she sometimes seemed to resemble a giraffe more than a human. When she would get angry, or snap and chirp at Harry to do his chores, he noted that her movements were akin to a ruffled bird perhaps recovering from injury. Harry would describe her more as long than tall, especially once he started dodging the occasional smack or frying pan from his Aunt Petunia and became quite familiar with her reach.
His cousin Dudley: a round, portly boy with atrocious table manners and an even worse personality. Dudley had two bedrooms, whilst Harry was “graciously” given the luxury of the dark cupboard under the stairs. Neither boys seemed to enjoy each other’s presence at all, and other than the playground bullying and snide remarks here and there, they left each other alone. Harry thought Dudley was rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Dudley didn’t think much at all.
All in all, it was not a pleasant ride for the not normal Harry Potter staying with his “very normal” relatives. He learned in the power of silence, and holding his tongue. He quickly understood the paradigm for normal human interaction with his family, and kept it at that. An occasional snarky comment here and there wouldn’t get him sent to the cupboard, but getting higher marks than Dudley or complaining about anything would generally result in unsavory conditions for Harry. He snatched extra snacks during school, and made use of the public library across the street from their neighborhood (for Dudley would never be caught in a library) and that was that. He wasn’t happy by any means, but he learned to live with what he had.
It was no extraordinary way to live, especially for a young boy, and it meant that he mostly remained quiet and in the shadows. When he wasn’t tending to the baskets of Petunia’s petunias, or serving up finer eggs for breakfast than the local pub, Harry spent most of his time reading, thinking, and sleeping. In spite of his hurdles, though, Mr. Harry Potter, of the Cupboard under the Stairs at Number Four Privet Drive, was rather tolerant of his current settings.
It was one remarkable night, when he was locked in his cupboard without dinner for getting higher marks than Dudley in their maths class, when the power went out on Privet Drive. There was a storm due that evening and it was stronger than expected, knocking out poles carrying electricity and trees alike. A tree had been struck straight down the middle, and fallen right on the power lines outside. Petunia and Dudley shrieked from up the stairs, and Vernon loudly cursed the shoddy workmanship of the area’s utility poles.
Meanwhile, Harry Potter was sitting in the pitch black dark, hungry and—though loath to admit it—he was scared . Then, in the inky blackness surrounding him, his hands started to tingle and a faint light began to emit from the tips of his fingers.
He closed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing, and he heard the faint whispers of a voice saying something in his head. Vaguely, he could still visualize the light from his hands while trying to decipher what he was hearing. A warmth started to build inside of him, and he could feel things twisting inside of him and faintly around him and—he opened his eyes, the word spilling out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying.
“ Lumos . ”
And then not only was there a floating orb of warm light in Harry’s hands, there was a massive grin on his face. The voice didn’t say anything else, but those things he felt when he said the words weren’t gone. In fact, he didn’t think they were ever missing in the first place, but he just never noticed that they were there. Tiny rosy pink orbs danced right on his palms, right from where the ball erupted from.
This. Was. Wicked .
—
Somewhere out there, a pulse of magic rippled throughout the isles of Great Britain, unbeknownst to many, but not unknown to a tawny-haired werewolf cooking dinner in his cottage, and not to the cat Animagus prowling the dimly lit hallways of a an ancient sleeping castle.
The werewolf’s nose twitched, suddenly smelling a scent that he thought was long sent away. The cat sneezed, suddenly getting the feeling she was forgetting something to do.
Magic thrummed. It was happening.
Hogwarts slept on. Her time would come.