Chapter Text
There's an art to life's distractions
To somehow escape the burning weight, the art of scraping through
Some like to imagine
The dark caress of someone else, I guess any thrill will do
Someone New- Hozier
-
The cupboard was dark and stiflingly warm. Sweat slid down the side of Harry’s face and soaked his back where he lay sprawled out on his thin mattress on the floor. His thin sheet was bunched up on the side of the mattress, as it was far too warm to have it anywhere near him. Harry had slept in the cupboard for nearly ten years; ten miserable years since the day he’d been left on the doorstep of his aunt and uncle’s home in Surrey as a baby. Long enough to name each spider that had spun a web in the corners near the ceiling. Long enough not to cry over the loneliness and the hunger anymore.
Harry wasn’t quite sure how long he’d been locked away in his cupboard that time. Somehow, on his cousin Dudley’s birthday, the glass containing a Brazilian boa constrictor had disappeared while they had all been on a trip to the zoo. Uncle Vernon had been so furious with him, Harry didn’t eat a meal for almost three full days. After that, all he got were stale crusts of bread every now and then, and a glass of water or two when they felt like it. Harry was exceptionally small for his age- both in height and in weight. Really, the only exceptional thing about him was the scar that cut across his forehead in the jagged shape of a lightning bolt, something he’d gotten in the car crash that had killed both of his parents. Some of his teachers had brought up concerns about Harry’s weight before, especially since both Vernon and Dudley were exceptionally large and still getting larger, but the Dursleys had always brushed it off. They made it known to Harry in the very beginning that he would only be given what he needed to survive, as that was all he deserved for causing them so much inconvenience by being forced into their care. Harry could hardly blame them.
Even so, his stomach twisted in his belly, throbbing with hunger. His hands trembled and his breathing was quick. He was used to it, but the desperate inanition never became comfortable no matter how often he endured it. Harry tried not to focus on it, making up stories in his head of strange unknown relatives coming to take him away to a place far away where he was wanted and cared for. Where he was never beaten or starved.
The light in the hall clicked on. It filtered through the thin vents on the door of the cupboard and illuminated slivers of Harry’s calves. There were footsteps on the staircase above his head– too soft to be Vernon or Dudley– and then a figure stood in front of the door, blocking the light from coming in. There was a metallic scraping noise as his Aunt Petunia fiddled with the locks on the door and then she pulled it open.
“Breakfast.” she demanded, “Now.”
Harry scrambled up, his vision going blurry– well, blurrier than normal– for just a moment as he adjusted to being upright again.
The light in the hallway made his eyes water as he hurried to the kitchen where Petunia was setting out silverware for three people. Harry took the carton of eggs from the refrigerator and, hands trembling, began scrambling them. He made sure to cook enough that there might be enough for him to eat if his uncle was feeling particularly kind that day. Vernon could easily blame his starvation on a lack of cooked food if he didn’t.
The summer holidays had started, Harry soon figured out. He had been locked in his cupboard for that long. And when Dudley came barrelling down the stairs for breakfast, he learned that his cousin had already broken his new video camera and his remote control airplane, as well as knocking down Mrs. Figg from two streets over– who was hobbling down the sidewalk on crutches– when he took out his new racing bike for the first time. All three were brand new presents from his birthday. Harry never would have treated his things like that.
Harry was glad that school was over. Nobody there liked him very much, because Dudley didn’t like him and nobody disagreed with Dudley and his gang. However, even without classes, there was no escaping Dudley’s gang. All four of the other boys who were part of it came over to the house every single day. As the biggest and stupidest of the lot, Dudley was the leader, but Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all just as awful.
Harry spent most of his time out of the house to avoid the gang and their favorite game: Harry Hunting. He wandered about Privet Drive, thinking about the new secondary school he would be going to in September. Dudley had gotten into Smeltings, Uncle Vernon’s old private school, but Harry would be going to the local public school, Stonewall High. Harry wasn’t upset over it, though. It would be the first time he ever got to be away from Dudley. Perhaps he would finally have a chance to make friends.
In July, when Dudley got his Smeltings uniform, he pranced about the house in his maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and a flat straw hat called a boater. He also carried a knobbly stick that was, apparently, part of the uniform. When Harry saw it, he had to carefully exit the room so that he wouldn’t burst into laughter. Dudley clearly felt more powerful than ever in his new uniform, but Harry was especially glad he wouldn’t be going to Smeltings. He’d rather die than wear that horrible uniform.
When Harry got up early one morning to start breakfast as expected of him, he found the sink filled with what appeared to be dirty rags floating in grey water, emitting a horrible smell that took over the whole room. He glanced at Aunt Petunia, who was seated at the table with a cup of tea and a book on gardening– as if it was her, and not Harry, who had slaved over her precious roses in the front lawn just the night before. Unfortunately, the most important rule of living with the Dursleys was that he could never ask questions. As curious as he was, he refrained from speaking up. While Aunt Petunia was far more forgiving than her husband and son, she could still get just as angry.
When Harry laid several thick strips of bacon on a pan, Petunia spoke.
“That will be your new school uniform,” she said. Harry didn’t reply, as was typically safest, but he did glance over at the sink. His school uniform?
“I’ve dyed some of Dudley’s clothes for you. It’ll look just like everyone else’s when it’s finished.” Petunia informed him, turning a page in her book. Harry seriously doubted it was true, but he didn’t argue, it wasn’t the worst thing she could have made him wear.
Harry heard Dudley coming before he saw him. Dudley had become attached to his Smelting stick and carried it everywhere, banging it on everything he passed. Harry had set out large portions of breakfast for both Dudley and Vernon as they came in, wrinkling their noses at the smell from the sink. As they sat down and Harry plated a smaller portion for Aunt Petunia, they heard the click of the mail flap and the soft sigh of letters hitting the doormat.
“Go get the post, Dudley,” Vernon said, opening his newspaper.
“Make Harry get it,” Dudley replied.
“Get the post, boy,” Vernon said in the same tone. Harry didn’t dare argue, setting Petunia’s plate down in front of her and leaving the kitchen. He stooped down and picked up the letters lying on the doormat, glancing through them. A postcard from Vernon’s sister Marge who was on vacation on the Isle of Wight, a formal brown envelope that looked like a bill, and… a letter for Harry. A letter for Harry . Harry swallowed dryly as he stared down at the green ink on the thick parchment envelope. He never got mail. He had no friends, no other relatives, he didn’t even belong to the library so it couldn’t be a request to return a book.
Mr. H. Potter, it read. Below that was The Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. There was no stamp.
Somebody knew about his cupboard. Nobody knew about his cupboard. Harry turned the envelope over with a trembling hand and found a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms: the letter H surrounded by a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.
“Hurry up, boy!” Uncle Vernon shouted from the kitchen. “What’re you doing? Checking for letter bombs?” He chuckled loudly at his own joke. Harry almost walked back into the kitchen, but quickly changed his mind and ducked into his unlocked cupboard to slip the letter addressed to him beneath the mattress before he headed back. He handed the other two letters to Uncle Vernon and made himself a plate of the leftovers from breakfast, long since gone cold. Vernon glanced at the bill but dropped it onto the table without a word. He flipped over the postcard.
“Marge is ill,” Vernon announced. “Ate a funny whelk, she said.”
“Oh dear,” Petunia replied. “We should write her back with our well wishes.”
Harry, who had scarfed down his breakfast as quickly as he could, stood to clear up. He wasn’t addressed besides Petunia leaning back slightly in her chair so he could reach her plate. Harry brought the dishes over to the sink where he would normally wash them but remembered as he saw it that it was occupied by his new school uniform and took the dishes to the downstairs half-bath to wash in that sink instead. Petunia would not have a reason to assign him extra chores in the summer heat if he could help it.
He scrubbed each dish carefully, soothed by the repetition of the motion. His stomach began to cramp from eating suddenly after going without, but he managed to ignore it. When he left the bathroom to put the dishes away, Uncle Vernon was headed out the door to work. They didn’t acknowledge each other, but Harry pressed up carefully against the wall opposite Vernon so they wouldn’t touch, just in case. He put the dishes away and was instructed by Petunia, as he did so, that he was to weed the garden– which he was constantly weeding and was, as a result, weedless– and then Dudley’s room needed to be cleaned since Dudley refused to do so himself. She didn’t say it, but he heard the silent third instruction to keep out of her sight.
For the first time that summer, Dudey was off at Piers’ house with his gang instead of bringing them all over, so Dudley gave Harry a firm whack over the head with his Smelting stick and wandered off down the street toward Piers’ house. Holding the spot over his eye that he knew would bruise, Harry went out into the garden. His oversized top was good for preventing sunburn on his shoulders if nothing else, but the fabric stuck to his skin within minutes as sweat dripped down his back from the climbing temperature. The shorts he wore went down past his knees and were held up by a fraying shoestring tied around his waist like a belt.
Harry kneeled down in the dirt and dragged his fingers around as if he would find any weeds hidden beneath the soil. He plucked a few dead leaves off the bushes and tried not to think about the letter hidden in his cupboard, but could hardly help it. Who could possibly be writing to him? How could the letter have been sent without a stamp? How did the sender know he lived in the cupboard? Did Vernon or Petunia tell somebody? And perhaps that somebody was reaching out?
When Harry could find no other imperfections in the roses to correct, he headed back inside and right upstairs, tripping over steps occasionally when he got dizzy and misjudged the distance. He stopped for a few seconds to lean down and drink from the faucet in the upstairs bathroom, not risking getting water from the kitchen where Petunia might find him. He then went to Dudley’s bedroom.
As soon as Harry stepped into the room, he was taken aback by the sheer magnitude of things. All the broken toys were kept in Dudley’s second bedroom, which was one of the two empty rooms in the house that Harry wasn’t allowed to sleep in because he didn’t deserve a real room, the Dursleys said. Despite that, though, the room Dudley actually used was filled with all kinds of gadgets. He had remote control planes and trucks on shelves above his bed, and a plethora of game discs beneath his brand-new television– since he had put his fist through the other one when his favorite television program was canceled. He had printed out photos of him and his gang on the walls above a desk that was cluttered with sweets and nicknacks he’d accumulated over the years.
Harry tried hard not to feel jealous as he picked through the mess of dirty laundry tossed onto the floor, and the basket of clean laundry yet to be put away. He’d never owned enough things that he could make a mess. All he had was his glasses, held together by tape and sheer will, and an old baby blanket he had been wrapped in when he was left at the Dursleys’ home which had acted as his only source of warmth until he could no longer fit beneath it. Even that was carefully tucked away at the top of his cupboard where he was not to touch it. Once it could no longer function, Petunia had deemed it unseemly and would have thrown it out if not for the massive fit Harry had thrown. He’d been beaten terribly for that, but he was allowed to keep the blanket in his cupboard as long as it never left that shelf.
In the back of Dudley’s closet, Harry found all the clothes he had grown out of since he had gained significant weight since he’d gotten them earlier that year. Those would be what Harry wore once he had worn out the clothes he had currently to the point that Petunia was forced to get rid of them. Even as awful as they told everyone he was, his relatives would not have him leave the house in anything less than decent.
Harry stripped the large bed and remade it neatly, and then he took all the dirty clothes downstairs to be washed. He passed Aunt Petunia in the sitting room, but she made no comment as she focused on her attempt to knit. She wasn’t all that good, and Harry was certain she didn’t have a single creative bone in her body, but he wouldn’t tell her that if it kept her busy.
Harry quickly ran out of chores to occupy his time, so he headed back outside and to the nearby park. It was decently shaded by trees and all the parents in the area had been warned not to let their children near him, so nobody would bother him. That was how the Dursleys got away with treating Harry the way they did. He knew what they did was not how people were supposed to treat the children they were responsible for, but they convinced all the neighbors that he was a horrible juvenile delinquent and they all turned a blind bye if he had a bruise in a suspicious location or if he seemed thinner than normal.
Harry made his way over to the lone swing set and the kids who were using it quickly scattered. He sat down on one of the swings and pumped his legs gently, not enough to do much, but enough for a lazy sway. A group of middle-aged women, several of whom had toddlers in their laps, eyed him suspiciously as he swung. He tried not to let them know he’d seen them. Harry always tried not to draw attention to himself. At the Dursleys' house, if he drew too much attention, he was locked in his cupboard or beaten or given a list of chores that forced him to work well into the night. Once he’d gotten to school, he attempted to keep to himself so that none of the teachers would be upset with him, but the Dursleys warned all the schools that he was a troublemaker, so Harry got in trouble at school for things he didn’t even do.
On top of that, he seemed to have terrible luck. Strange, unexplainable things always happened to him. When he’d attempted to jump over the trash cans behind the school while running from Dudley’s gang, he somehow ended up crouched on top of the roof and the school had called his uncle as soon as Dudley ran back to tell the teacher all about how he’d caught Harry climbing the building. Every time Petunia cut Harry’s hair dreadfully short or styled it specifically to hide the scar on his forehead, it somehow grew back overnight. Harry could never explain the incidents, but for some reason, the Dursleys were convinced they were entirely his fault.
When Harry next glanced up, he met the oddly firm gaze of a sleek tabby cat with curious circular markings around its eyes. It sat atop a wooden bench flicking its tail. Harry didn’t know much about cats, or any animal really, but he didn’t think most cats seemed so… human.
Eventually, Harry headed back to the house to assist in cooking dinner. He wasn’t trusted to make a decent dinner on his own just yet, but he was expected to help Petunia prepare it. She had cleared the sink of his school uniform and prepared a pot of potatoes for Harry to peel and wash. Once he’d done that, he chopped them all up and dropped them into the pot. She then had him do the same with a bowl of carrots while she put the rest together. The carrots went into a pan with some kind of roast that Harry just knew was severely underseasoned. Once the meal had finished cooking, they both heard the sound of a car in the driveway and Harry hurried to plate Vernon’s meal while Petunia fetched a brandy that Vernon would surely demand once he’d stepped through the door.
Harry got Dudley and Petunia’s portions on the table as Uncle Vernon slumped into his seat, beginning what would be a long rant about work to his wife, who rubbed his shoulders soothingly and hummed her sympathy at just the right moments. Harry scraped what he could off the sides of the pans for his own dinner just as Dudley burst through the door, smacked it with his Smeltings stick, and then slammed it shut. Harry scarfed down his meager meal. There were several loud noises as he made his way to the kitchen, whacking everything he could with his stick and then aiming for Harry as soon as he got near the table. He caught Harry’s arm as he ducked out of the way and Harry let out a short yell, hurrying the rest of the way out of the kitchen and into his cupboard. He pulled the door shut. It was dark in the cupboard with the door shut since the bulb in the ceiling had burned out years ago and the Dursleys didn’t care to replace it just for him.
Blindly, Harry felt under his mattress for the thick envelope he’d found that morning and he tore it open quickly. Inside was a thick sheet of parchment with the same crest that was on the seal of the envelope printed at the top of the page.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
There was another bit of parchment with a long list of things he would need for classes at this school for wizardry. Robes, a cauldron, a wand, and several books by people he’d never heard of for things like Potions and Transfiguration classes. At the bottom was a reminder that first years could not bring broomsticks.
Harry’s heart sank in his chest. His very first letter and it was a prank. He didn’t know why he’d even begun to believe that someone out there cared about him, but he didn’t think anyone would go so far just to make fun of him. There was no such thing as magic. He was knocked around often for even mentioning something doing anything it wasn’t supposed to do, like a dream he’d had about a flying motorcycle.
Harry stuffed the parchment back into the envelope and hid it beneath a dusty stack of boxes the Dursleys never touched. He couldn’t bring himself to throw it out, and something in him still insisted he shouldn’t tell anybody about the letter, but he wouldn’t have to look at it again if he could help it.
Now, he mused dejectedly, I own three things.
-
The next morning was much of the same. Harry jolted up as Petunia rapped at the cupboard door and he went to cook breakfast as soon as he’d tugged on his too-large clothes. Harry didn’t think too much of it when Aunt Petunia stood from her dull conversation with Uncle Vernon to go get the post. She’d been expecting a cooking magazine she had a monthly subscription for. Harry took it as a moment to quickly swallow a few bites of breakfast. Unfortunately, his moment of peace was cut short when there was a shrill shriek from the hall and a bloodcurdling cry of “ VERNON!”
Uncle Vernon was quickly out of his seat, which was a feat for a man so large. Dudley’s eyes went wide as he shoveled sausage into his mouth. Even in shock, he didn’t cease eating. All Harry could think about was how his aunt and uncle would twist whatever this issue was into something that was his fault so they could lock him away until the school term began. Harry set his plate down and crept toward the door, left ajar. He didn’t dare follow Vernon into the hall, but he stood just close enough to hear what they were saying.
“Vernon,” Aunt Petunia was saying in a small voice, “look at the address. How could they possibly know where he sleeps? Could they be watching the house?”
“Watching, spying, probably following us,” muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.
Who were they talking about? Harry remembered the strange way his letter had been addressed and suddenly felt as though a bucket of ice water had been poured over him. He couldn’t possibly have another letter, could he?
“But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don’t want-”
Dudley stood, shuffling closer to Harry than he’d ever stood in his life to eavesdrop on the conversation as well.
“No,” Vernon said finally. “No, we’ll ignore it. If they don’t get an answer…Yes, that’s best…we won’t do anything…”
“But-”
“I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?”
Harry and Dudley jumped back as Vernon thundered back into the kitchen, but he didn’t even seem to consider that they may have heard.
“Boy!” He demanded. Harry felt himself hunch down, attempting to appear smaller. Vernon fixed him with a furious stare but immediately plastered on a false smile, which ended up looking far more frightening than the previous expression.
“Boy, ah… Harry,” Vernon said as though it pained him. “Your aunt and I have been thinking, you’re really getting quite big for that little cupboard… we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley’s second bedroom.” As soon as the words were out, Dudley let out a cry that quickly turned into those false sobs that always got his parents to give in to his demands.
“Go get your stuff,” Vernon continued as though he couldn’t hear Dudley wailing just a few feet away from him, “and take it upstairs. Now.”
Without a word, Harry scrambled from the room, past Aunt Petunia who let out a loud sob when she saw him, and into his cupboard where he easily gathered everything he could consider his own. He shoved the first letter into his pocket and took the blanket from atop the shelf it was folded on. He then grabbed the few pairs of oversized clothes he had and he carried it all up the stairs and into Dudley’s second bedroom, feeling a little bit sorry to lose the space that had been his for so long.
Nearly everything in the room was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next-door neighbor’s dog; in the corner was Dudley’s first-ever television set, with a large hole through the screen; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end bent at an angle because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they’d never been touched. Harry looked forward to reading a bit. He didn’t have access to books outside of school. He was too busy with chores to worry about it, and his relatives weren’t about to spend money for him to do anything they didn’t tell him to do. Here he wouldn’t be as pressured to read fast even when the words on the pages were all blurry.
From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, “I don’t want him in there… I need that room…make him get out...”
Nestled in the corner was a small bed on a wooden frame. It had baby blue sheets and a soft blanket with different kinds of birds scattered across it. For the first time, Harry had a real bed with real sheets and a real, soft pillow. He stretched out on top of it, able to fully extend his limbs to all sides for the first time, even if parts of them dangled off the sides.
Could that letter be real? Would the Dursleys have reacted so strongly if it wasn’t? Maybe they were just upset that he’d been written to at all. Except their reaction seemed far more afraid than angry.
Harry stood up off the bed and folded his clothes into the wooden dresser on the opposite wall from the bed. He tucked his letter inside a folded pair of Dudley’s old jeans. He then curled up on the bed again. No one came to speak with him for the rest of the day.
-
As the days passed, Harry kept getting more letters. First, it was just one. Then, after Uncle Vernon had burned them and nailed up the mail slot, twelve were shoved through the cracks around the door and the small window in the downstairs bathroom. On Saturday, twenty-four letters came rolled up in the two dozen eggs the milkman handed Aunt Petunia through the kitchen window, as Vernon had boarded up every door in the house so no one could go in or out. Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor while Vernon called everyone he could think of to try and find someone to complain to. Harry became very glad he’d kept the first letter to himself.
“Who wants to talk to you this badly?” Dudley asked Harry in amazement. Harry had been thinking the same thing.
Tuesday was the thirty-first of July, Harry’s eleventh birthday, and Harry had only been tasked with making toast, as Petunia and Vernon were too exhausted with getting rid of the letters to worry about much else. Harry’s birthday was never a big event. Sometimes he got a broken coat hanger or a single sock as a gift before he was given a list of chores for the day. Harry didn’t feel any different.
As he spread marmalade on his newspapers beside his plate of toast, Vernon stared Harry down like he was considering if Harry was really worth all the trouble. Harry wasn’t too worried about that; Uncle Vernon considered tossing him out on the street multiple times a week; what bothered him was the murderous glint in Vernon’s eye.
Suddenly, a letter came whizzing down the kitchen chimney and caught Vernon in the back of the head. Harry watched Vernon’s eyes fill with dread as he munched on his toast with jam he wasn’t normally allowed to have. The next thing he knew, thirty or forty letters came whizzing down the chimney like bullets, pelting them all and filling the room with a buzzing noise as they flew about.
“That’s it!” Vernon shouted. He stood, toast abandoned, and seized both Harry and Dudley by the scruff, dragging them from the kitchen while Petunia followed. Both she and Dudley were wailing. Once they got out into the hall, Vernon released the boys and declared, “Be back in five minutes ready to leave. We’re going away. No arguments.” His voice was even, but there was a crazed look in his eye that no one dared cross.
BOOM!
They all froze. Someone was knocking at the boarded-up door. Harry ran back into the kitchen when the letters had stopped flying out of the chimney and he pressed himself against the wall where he could just peer around the corner.
BOOM!
Vernon dashed up the stairs and reappeared at the top of them with a rifle in his hands.
“I warn you! I’m armed!” Vernon shouted. Harry wasn’t sure whoever was knocking would care too much.
With a great crash, whoever was outside knocked hard enough that the door simply gave out and the whole thing fell into the hallway only feet away from Harry. A huge man stood in the doorway. A shaggy brown beard and long, wild hair almost completely covered his face.
“Sorry abou’ that,” the big man said gruffly. He ducked into the house and reached down to fit the door back into its frame behind him. He glanced at Petunia and Dudley standing frozen in the hallway and then at Vernon who trembled at the top of the stairs, clutching his rifle. Then he made eye contact with Harry, who squeaked slightly.
“An’ here’s Harry!” The man exclaimed. His eyes crinkled into a smile “Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby. Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mom’s eyes.” Harry gaped. This man had known his parents? He’d known Harry ? He crept slowly back into the hall, watching the giant nervously. Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise and went down the stairs to glare up at the giant even as his whole body trembled.
“I demand that you leave at once, sir!” he said. “You are breaking and entering!”
“Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune,” said the giant. He jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon’s hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it aside carelessly. Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on and backed up to stand beside Petunia.
“Anyway, Harry,” said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, “a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here.” He reached into his great black overcoat and pulled out a slightly squished box. He handed it over with a gentleness Harry hadn’t expected from a man his size. Harry opened it with trembling fingers and found a sticky chocolate cake. In green icing the words “Happy Birthday Harry” were scrawled messily. Harry looked up, intending to thank him, but he found that the words got stuck in his throat and all he managed was a harsh, choked exhale. The giant chuckled.
“Oh! I haven’t introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts.” He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry’s whole arm. “What about a cup’a tea then, eh?” he said, rubbing his hands together. Harry blinked up at the man and nodded. Hagrid followed him into the kitchen, chuckling at the sheer number of letters strewn over the floor. Harry set about heating up the kettle while Hagrid sat down in a chair that Harry was afraid might break under his weight.
They waited there, silent except for the Durselys’ whispering in the hallway. When the kettle began whistling, Harry set about pouring Hagrid a mug of tea and then sat across from him.
“I’m sorry, but I still don’t really know who you are.” Harry said very quietly, afraid of how the man might respond to his implied question, which would have, at best, gotten him a stern warning were he speaking to the Dursleys. The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Well, like I told yeh, I’m Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts. Yeh’ll know all about Hogwarts, o’ course.” He said.
“Er, no,” said Harry. Hagrid looked shocked.
“Sorry,” Harry said quickly. His fingers itched for his bag where his first letter was hidden.
“Sorry?” barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys in the hallway, who shrank back from him, but seemed too afraid even to leave the room. “It’s them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren’t gettin’ yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn’t even know abou’ Hogwarts, fer cryin’ out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?”
“All what?” asked Harry, confused. As far as he knew, his parents had been reckless drunks who never really wanted him to begin with.
“ALL WHAT?” Hagrid thundered. “Now wait jus’ one second!” He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole room. He stomped into the hallway where the Dursleys were cowering against the wall.
“Do you mean ter tell me,” he growled at the Dursleys, “that this boy…this boy knows nothin’ abou’... about ANYTHING?” Harry found himself cowering back but his curiosity rose up like it had when Aunt Petunia had found that second letter. Could it be that his letter wasn’t really a joke? That all these letters were real and he was being invited to a wizard school? That his parents had been wizards? It just couldn’t be true. If magic really existed, there was no way that Harry would have it.
But, a voice in the back of his mind pointed out, it would explain a lot.
“I know some things,” Harry blurted.
Hagrid waved his hand and said, “Abou’ our world, I mean. Yer world. Yer parents’ world.”
“What world?” Harry was confused again. Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.
“DURSLEY!” he boomed. Uncle Vernon went very pale and muttered something Harry couldn’t make out. Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.
“But yeh must know about yer mum and dad,” he said. “I mean, they’re famous. You’re famous.”
“What? My…my mum and dad weren’t famous, were they?” Harry asked, astounded. It wasn’t entirely inconceivable that the Dursleys had lied to him about what his parents had been like, but for them to have been famous… That was just too much.
“Yeh don’ know...yeh don’ know....” Hagrid ran his fingers through his wild hair.
Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice. “Stop!” he commanded. “Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!”
A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.
“Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh,” said Hagrid. Then his voice became kinder as he fixed his gaze on Harry and smiled. “Harry… yer a wizard.”