Chapter Text
Harry didn't like it when the people from the Department in Charge of Magical Youth came to visit the Dursley residence.
They would always show up with their vacant smiles and uncaring eyes and the Dursleys would greet them, simpering and boasting in equal measure. Harry would be hurriedly ushered in to the guest room beforehand, relentlessly coached on the answers to give to all of the routine questions. And he would then have to parrot the answers to the coming caseworkers that the Dursleys were amazing, that he couldn't be happier here, that every single need of his was being met. And then they would leave and Harry would be stuffed back in to the cupboard under the stairs, stomach growling and without hope of ever leaving.
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had told him, time and time again, about the horrors of the orphanages and schools that he could be forced in if the Dursleys hadn't taken him in out of the kindness of their hearts. Harry personally wasn't sure that any place could be worse than Number Four Privet Drive but he knew better than to say anything.
Harry was all of seven years old and he knew he was different.
St. Grogory's Primary School accepted 'magical youth' but the numbers of them within the school in the suburban area was staggeringly low. Harry was the only magical in his entire class and he was always ostracized, from the students to the teachers. The few kids who were brave enough to try to befriend him were then scared off by his cousin Dudley, so it was hardly a surprise that Harry didn't have any friends at all.
The worst thing in Harry's opinion was that he didn't even look that strange. Sure he was skinny with too knobby knees and eerily bright green eyes, but the only really strange thing about him was the branching lightning scar across his forehead. And the only magical thing about that was that it never seemed to heal.
Harry had heard Uncle Vernon grumbling over the morning paper about other 'freaks' like him 'winning' and something about the DICOMY being 'overhauled' but he wasn't sure what that was all about. All he knew was that his next visit with one of the caseworkers was coming up so Harry had to spend extra time making sure the house was squeaky clean or he would be in big trouble.
Grumbling to himself only when the Dursleys were out of earshot, Harry bemoaned his lot in life. He was not looking forward to the visit.
Harry didn't know how, but from the very start of the visit, things had been different. Maybe it was in the eyes of the caseworker. Instead of the usual blankness, there was a keen interest in the eyes of the woman who had come from the department. And with those keen eyes came keener questions, questions out of the usual rote that Harry was coached on. He stumbled his way through answers and internally winced at each mistake he made and hoped his Aunt Petunia, who he just knew was eavesdropping in the other room, wouldn't be too angry with him when the woman left.
But she didn't leave.
Unlike every other caseworker before her, she didn't look at the guest room and just accept what she was told. She demanded to see every other room in the house. Aunt Petunia tried to derail her and Uncle Vernon threw his considerable weight around as he harrumphed but the woman was determined. So they went through every room in the house thoroughly, a lot of notes being written down at the sight of Dudley's room and then his second bedroom.
But it was when they were downstairs again that Aunt Petunia made a fatal mistake.
In her uncertainty of how things were going, she may have been a bit too obvious in her eyes swaying to his cupboard door. And the keen eyes of the woman had caught on to the glances and the very obvious padlock that they used to lock him in at night.
The caseworker had demanded to see his cupboard and his relatives hemmed and hawed and blustered until they couldn't any longer and the truth of his cupboard was simple to see.
Everything was in a flurry for Harry after that.
He was out of the house by the night and in a temporary home with a family of four with an emergency fostering license. Years listening in at his cupboard door had him learning that he would only be there for a couple of days while the Department in Charge of Magical Youth decided where he'd end up permanently.
Harry laid on the guest bed of a strange house and stared at the ceiling for long into the night.