Chapter Text
BANG, BANG, BANG!!!
Dudley was hitting the door that Harry was hiding behind, and the door wouldn’t hold on for much longer. It wasn’t fair, Harry thought. All he did was ask if he could play with his cousins Lego’s! And now he was sitting in his tiny cupboard, waiting for the moment the door would give in and Dudley would storm in to beat him up.
He looked to the little figures of the toy horse and knight, the only thing that was truly his. But, as uncle Vernon always said: He was lucky to live with the Dursleys, otherwise he would have to live in an orphanage. It was Harry’s worst fear to get abandoned by his aunt and uncle, and live alone.
But he was ripped out of his thoughts when the door finally gave in. It came crashing into his bed, the only thing that fitted into the small compartment.
“Mommy, dad, I did it!” Dudley yelled.
Harry heard Vernon’s voice from the end of the hallway, and he tried to melt into the back of his tiny room. It didn’t work. It never worked. What petunia said next, disgusted him even more.
“Duddykins, you are a genius! Look at him, such a strong young man!”
Harry had to try his best to fight his gag reflex at the sound of those way to sweet words. He was pulled out of the cupboard by his hair, it hurt so much, tears started to leak out of his eyes. But the little boy managed to keep quiet.
His breath choked in his throat as Harry laid his eyes on the stick held by Vernon. He had just a few to many not so nice experiences with that stick. It was almost as thick as a baseball bat, and Harry could still feel the bruises of his last run-in with Vernon.
“But I was only asking to play with Dudley!” Escaped from Harry’s mouth.
“Little scoundrels like you don’t deserve to play” The look on his uncle’s face said that if he heard another word about this matter, Harry would pay for it.
But he couldn’t help it, he just had to stand up for himself. “Why does Dudley always get all of the toys and I get NOTHING!”
Vernon’s face turned red, so angry was he. His face was almost as red as the red T-shirt he was wearing. Harry knew he was screwed, so he took his punishment quietly. Not saying a word through all of it.
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He was standing in a field, the long grass tickled his legs. The wind was blowing softly, and the sun was brighter than he had ever seen before. Harry looked around, he saw nothing but beautiful, green hills and trees with all sorts of coloured leaves. He let out a sigh, everything in this place was perfect!
Harry turned around to see a mirror, golden with a slight hint of blue. He looked into the golden glow in the mirror that was in place of glass, but he didn’t see himself.
Well actually….he did see himself…but he looked…different.
Harry was tall in this mirror, and his jaw was strong and prominent. He was not thin anymore, and the glasses resting on his nose weren’t held together with tape. Harry looked down at his body, it looked exactly like the image in the mirror. But that couldn’t be him, right?
“Eehm hello?”
Harry almost jumped at the sound of a voice behind him, it was a soft feminine sound. Harry got goosebumps from it, so sweet was that voice.
He turned around, his jaw dropped. Before him, stood the most beautiful creature in the world. Long, flowing red hair surrounded her face. She had brown eyes, dark like the purest chocolate, and freckles that only complimented her face.
It took him a while to realize that she had screamed his name and was now running towards him. The beautiful girl ran up to Harry and launched herself into his arms. Harry was shocked, he did not understand a thing about what was happening.
“Oh Harry I’ve missed you so much! Where have you been? Why did you have to go all alone!”
All of a sudden, the girl was sobbing in his arms. Harry couldn’t think of anything else to do except comfort her. So he gently stroked her head, and told her that he was here, he was not going away. The girl’s sobs were getting softer and less frequent. Harry slowly pulled her away from their embrace, at which she flinched.
“Hey, easy.” He told her. “What’s going on?”
The girl looked up to him with a confused look in her eyes. “What do you mean? You don’t know? Is everything alright Harry?”
Harry was about to tell her that he hadn’t got a clue what she was talking about, when he got interrupted by a weird sound. It sounded like someone was whistling… Then the realization hit him: an arrow!
“Duck!!!” Harry yelled, while he landed flat on the ground.
But it was already to late, the arrow had hit the pretty girl straight in the chest. She staggered on her feet, before she fell to the ground. Harry was just quick enough to catch her before she hit the ground. A silent tear leaked from Harry’s eye, when the red-haired girl died in his arms.
“There he is, GET HIM!!!”
Harry stared in shock as a dozen men came rising out of the grass. There were flashes of colour everywhere he looked. He knew he had to get out of there, before any of the flashes hit him. So he ran, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He felt his breath go shallow, man he was out of shape.
But his efforts were in vain, one of the flashes hit his leg. A burning pain rose through his leg into the rest of his body. Harry saw the men come closer to him with threatening looks on their faces, as he fell to the ground…
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Harry jolted up from his bed, he was soaked with sweat and he was panting. With a bewildered look on his face, he looked around his tiny cupboard. When he looked down, Harry saw that his body was the same as always, he let out a sigh of relief.
What happened to the girl? Shot through his mind. And, more importantly, who was she? When Harry remembered the dream, he also remembered how gorgeous she was.
And…she said something about him going all alone? What did it mean? Harry dug deeper into his mind, but he couldn’t find anything about what the girl said. Slightly irritated, he laid back down on his thin mattress.
Suddenly, Harry felt a searing pain in his forehead. He clutched his scar with both hands, waiting for the pain to end. He got these random pains much more often recently, and he didn’t know why. Once it finally stopped, he was panting once again.
Harry spend a couple minutes trying to catch his breath, before he decided that he should get ready.
Ready for another day of abuse.
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Harry was laying on the ground in the small hut on a tiny island. The last days were quite hectic. It all started when he was tasked with getting the mail. But when Harry had quickly flipped through it, there was one letter that caught his eye.
It was written on parchment instead of normal paper, and the ink of the letters he could see was green. Harry went to investigate further, he now looked right at the green ink and let out a gasp.
That could not be true! The letter…was for him!
But, unfortunately his uncle had destroyed his newfound letter when he showed it to him. So, Harry was absolutely delighted to see the hundreds of letters to him floating through the chimney.
Since then, the whole household was traveling criss-cross across the country. They went from a cornfield, to city, back to the countryside, and then his uncle drove to the coast. Yes, Vernon actually hired a boat and rowed to a small island just to get away from all the letters. It was both hilarious and enormly irritating at the same time.
Couldn’t he just have a normal family? Harry wished that he could just have a silent place to escape to. What would it be like next year, when he would finally be send to school. Harry was glad that he would go to a different school than Dudley. He was definitely ready to spend some time without that annoying-
His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a giant man storming through the door. The poor hinges couldn’t handle the pressure put on them, and the door fell to the ground with a loud bang. Suddenly, everyone in the room sat up straight in their beds. Except for Harry of course, he had not got a bed.
“Sorry ‘bout that” Said the large man in the doorway.
He then proceeded to lift up the door and place it back in his place with ease. A shiver ran down his spine, that man was strong. “Mummy, daddy, who is that?” It seemed that Dudley had gotten over his shock.
Apparently, the man heard him, as he answered:
“My name is Rubeus Hagrid, caretaker at Hogwarts”
As Harry looked over his shoulder, he saw his two guardians exchange a weird look. He didn’t understand, what is Hogwarts and why are his aunt and uncle so afraid of it?
“So Harry, ‘appy birthday! I know it is a bit early, but I got ya a little something.”
Hagrid reached down to his giant pocket, and pulled out a white box, with a red lint wrapped around to keep it shut. Harry froze.
Did he actually just get a present? His fingers trembled as he slowly opened the box. Inside was a pink cake, with ‘Habby birtday Harry!’ written upon it. Harry swallowed a lump in his throat and his eyes started to water at the gift.
A hesitant voice called out to him. “Do you…like it?”
In a split second, Harry decided to do something surprising. He jumped up from the ground, ran up to Hagrid to wrap his arms around one of his legs.
The giant man stiffened from the sudden hug, but after a moment he softened. To comfort Harry, who was quietly sobbing into his leg.
“What are you doing here, you horrid man!” From what Harry could hear, his aunt was disgusted by Hagrid. He didn’t understand, how did Petunia know him? “Vernon and I will never let Harry go to that disgusting school to be taught by freaks!”
“Never call my friends freaks, ever again” The tone Hagrid said that in, left no room for arguments. At last, Harry calmed down enough for him to speak. “May I ask something?’ Hagrid noticed the question, and gave a nod.
“What is Hogwarts?”
To Harry’s surprise, Hagrid looked startled at the question. “You didn’t tell him?”
“Why would we, his parents were lazy drunks anyways…” Vernon answered.
“James and Lily Potter were not drunks!” Hagrid’s voice got even more angry an dark while he said those words. Then, Harry realized, this man knew his parents!
So, in his curiosity, he decided to ask an important question.
“Hagrid, do you know how my parents…died?” The last word was very hard for him to say, but Harry knew that he had to know the answer.
“Oh of course he does, we all know that your parents died in a car crash. And then we got stranded with you” Uncle Vernon blurted out.
Hagrid snapped his head at the direction of those words. “What did you say?” He stood up from the sofa he was sitting on, to walk over to Vernon. When he reached him, he shoved the trembling Vernon back against his pillow.
“You spend all of his childhood bullying him, and you didn’t even tell him his parents were wizards!” He nearly screamed those words.
Harry’s jaw hit the floor, was that true what Hagrid said?
Hagrid noticed his shock, and he turned back to him.
“Yes Harry, you’re a wizard”