Chapter Text
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If you were to ask ten year old Harry Potter if he thought his life could become any stranger than it already was, he would've answered with a resounding no. Alas, Harry had no choice when it came to the strangeness that often permeated his life, much to the chagrin of his Aunt Petunia and his Uncle Vernon. According to them, every strange or unfortunate event that ever took place could be traced back to Harry and his 'freakishness'. Harry often wondered what exactly he had done to make his aunt and uncle so abrasive towards him, especially considering the way they doted on their son, Dudley, but asking questions was forbidden in the Dursley household, and truth be told, Harry didn't mind the silence between him and his relatives. He did wonder what they would say to him when they saw the grayish-brown spikes growing out of his back, though.
In hindsight, Harry should've seen this coming; his life was becoming more and more unexplainable the longer it went on, and this summer had been no exception. In fact, Harry was confident in saying it was the strangest one he could remember. It started off normal enough, with some walks to the park when he was free from his constant chores, a few small trips to places Dudley demanded his parents bring him to, some nice books being borrowed and read, and all those annual TV programs and radio broadcasts on Godzilla Remembrance Day. But Harry's summer slowly shifted after those initial, blissfully normal days. Living with the Dursleys was already a miserable experience, but they were getting more irritable towards his existence the longer the summer dragged on, and that only seemed to make any strange happenings more common. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon kept demanding Harry cut his unruly mass of jet-black hair, but every time they went to the barber or Aunt Petunia took to his hair herself in a rage, it would grow back overnight. Harry thought she would have given up after cutting him nearly bald a few weeks ago, but nothing seemed to deter her. Even when Harry was forced to tend to the garden out back, strange things happened. He would wish to be anywhere else, and then poof, Harry would be on the roof or up high in a tree, able to see the entire neighborhood of Privet Drive. Harry didn't know what to think about these events, if they even happened, because in his mind, he was starting to go crazy from so much exposure to the Dursleys, or maybe it was from being locked in his cupboard for so long.
Now, despite his relatives' insistence, Harry considered himself a pretty smart boy, always managing to be top of his class despite never having a peaceful moment to study. Not only was Harry intelligent, but he felt he was also proficient at reading people, especially simpletons like the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were especially easy to read and please. If you wanted to avoid Vernon Dursley and his purple-faced rage, just stay as quiet as possible, stay out of sight, and agree with everything being said. To avoid Aunt Petunia's wrath, do as she says and appear as meek as possible. Simple. Dudley was just as predictable, though he did come with a slight complication. Unfortunately, appeasing Dudley meant entertaining him, and for Harry that of course meant getting chased and, on occasion, beaten by Dudley and his gang of equally stupid and large friends. As sad as it was to say, hurting Harry seemed to be a favorite pastime for all his relatives. Aunt Petunia enjoyed thwacking him on the head whenever he started to stare off while he was cooking or whenever he dug too deep while gardening, Dudley's tantrums often only ended whenever he got to hurt Harry in some way, and Uncle Vernon, on the occasion of something particularly strange happening, seemed to only calm after hitting him with the large black belt he always wore.
Even with Harry's intelligence though, he didn't see a way of avoiding the impeding meltdown that would occur from the Dursley family upon seeing what had happened to him. Uncle Vernon, he imagined, would turn furious and purple before whipping out the belt, Aunt Petunia would crush Dudley in a hug and scream to the high heavens, and Dudley would sit there like a dunce until he realized Harry was the center of attention, at which point he'd begin the tantrum. Harry felt sweat beading on his forehead as he imagined the punishment he'd get for once more daring to interrupt the Dursleys' perfect, normal life.
He was already on thin ice after the recent trip to the zoo for Dudley's birthday, where he was blamed for the boa constrictor escaping its enclosure after the glass disappeared, despite that being completely impossible. Then again, impossible things seemed to happen to Harry quite regularly, so he wasn't sure. Point being, Harry had just been freed from his cupboard punishment, and he wasn't keen on being imprisoned there permanently, especially when Uncle Vernon always chose random moments to decide when to actually punish Harry for his 'freakishness'. Harry hadn't even been hit for the zoo fiasco yet, just filled with anxiety and dread over the future lashing. Nothing came to him that could stave off his punishment for this new freak incident, however, and after a few minutes of desperate pondering, he heard the familiar sound of Aunt Petunia's footsteps coming closer to the cupboard he slept in. He knew she would pound on the door and demand he make breakfast, and hiding in his cupboard so she wouldn't see him would only make the inevitable catastrophe worse. Sure enough, he heard the rap rap rap of Aunt Petunia hitting the old cupboard door.
"Up! Get up, boy! Breakfast won't make itself!"
"I'll be there in a second!" called Harry through the door.
Dammit! thought Harry to himself as he slowly stood from his tiny cot and opened the door to his cupboard. Well, tried to. The small, rusty knob came clean off the door the instant Harry grasped it. Sighing inwardly, Harry tossed the door knob onto his cot, where it promptly made a cloud of dust shoot up upon landing. Harry turned and pushed the door open, but he hadn't made it one step out before hearing a muffled thump, and after turning around once more to make sure everything was in proper order, he could only stand frozen in the hallway, staring at the tail that was flopped upon the dusty wooden floor, and had clearly just bumped against the miniscule legs of his cot.
More alarmingly, this tail was obviously attached to Harry! When he woke up sore and in pain that morning, he had felt the jagged spikes jutting from his back that stabbed into his mattress, and after a brief panic, spent 20 minutes on his side touching them in astonishment. This, however, was something else. How had he missed it? A tail. An actual tail! Harry couldn't even pray the baggy hand-me-downs he got from Dudley would hide it, like he was hoping they would for the spikes. A tail. This was it. His life was over. Forget being locked in the cupboard, the Dursleys would ship him off to some science institute to be tested on.
Harry had no time to consider his doomed future though, as Aunt Petunia came back into the hall.
"What are you standing around for?" she asked shrilly, her face already scrunched up in annoyance, hands on her hips. "Get to the kitchen!"
Harry briefly considered asking why the hell she wasn't commenting on his new appearance and appendage, but he had enough sense to just accept whatever was happening.
"Y-yeah, sorry Aunt Petunia," he said, as he tore his eyes away from his very large tail. "I'm coming."
Aunt Petunia just huffed in annoyance and walked back towards the kitchen. Harry followed after her, dazed and confused.
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Harry almost felt like a real Dursley as he walked into the kitchen - every fiber of his being was hoping for a normal breakfast without any acknowledgement of his predicament or that anything at all was amiss. He was beyond relieved when Uncle Vernon looked up over his newspaper as Harry walked in, clearly getting ready to admonish Harry over his hair being messy, but then something made him pause. Here it comes, Harry thought morosely. By tomorrow morning I'll be underground in some lab being dissected.
To his surprise though, Uncle Vernon just shook his head after a moment and went back to reading.
"Stop staring!" Aunt Petunia shouted behind him.
Harry went to the stove and began cooking the usual eggs, bacon, and pancakes that were expected of him. None of his relatives noticed the slight shake in his hands as he made their food.
What the hell is happening today?! Harry screamed internally.
By some miracle, Harry managed to cook everything perfectly, and after quickly eating a single slice of bread and some eggs, Harry rushed out of the kitchen and into the bathroom upstairs near Dudley's bedroom. After making sure the door was locked three separate times, Harry once more stood frozen as he looked over himself in the mirror.
Seemingly overnight, though Harry supposed quite literally overnight, Harry had transformed into some type of abomination. His head, though it still had his trademark black, unruly hair, as well as that angry looking lightning scar on his forehead, now sported grey-brown scales, set in a line trailing across his jaw, as well as sets of scaly lines down the sides of his neck. Speaking of, as Harry saw as he turned to his side, the base of his neck also had small greyish-brown spikes on them, though, now that he looked more closely, the spikes actually resembled the dorsal plates of a stegosaurus. Even more bizarrely, Harry saw what looked like the gills of a shark or fish in the scales on his neck. It didn't stop there. Harry could feel sharp fangs where his regular canines used to be. His arms, which must've been twice as big as they were before, were now also covered in scales, all the same color as before. Oddly enough, Harry's palms and the underside of his fingers still looked regular, though he now had short, slightly sharp claws instead of uneven, bitten nails. Even with the darkness of his cupboard, Harry was shocked he didn't realize he was covered in scales. Harry's legs also seemed bigger, and as he pressed against the fabric of his barely-baggy shorts, he realized they also had scales on them. Last, but most certainly not least, was his new tail, which he could swing with the same ease as moving an arm. It too was covered in scales, but it also carried the spikes that Harry's back had, albeit a lot smaller. Harry had no idea what to think about all this, and as he grasped the edges of the sink in an attempt to stay steady, upright, and sane, he noticed his bright emerald eyes now had flecks of fiery orange and yellow.
"I'm a monster," he said, legs shaking as he stared into the mirror, "an actual monster."
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Harry was in a daze for the next few days, monotonously going through his usual chores and tasks without even the barest hint of a complaint. After another morning spent making breakfast one day, Harry heard the familiar, short tone of the doorbell of number four, Privet Drive, and then a moment later the closing of a mail slot.
"Get the mail, Harry." Uncle Vernon said behind his paper, not bothering to look up.
Harry, still in his stupor, stood up from the table and dragged himself to the front entrance, scooping up the mail from the doormat. As Harry began his slog back to the kitchen he glanced down briefly at the mail in his hand: some advertisements and a strange golden yellow letter, that, upon further inspection, had his name on it!
Mr. H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
Instantly Harry's stupor was broken as he stopped dead in the hallway and wondered with bewilderment who would even write to him, or how they knew where he slept. He had no friends to speak of, and no one besides the Dursleys knew about his living arrangement.
"What's taking so long? Hurry up, boy!" he heard Uncle Vernon shout from the kitchen.
Harry quickly entered back into the kitchen, and after giving Uncle Vernon his mail, flopped back into his seat before ripping the letter open with one clawed nail. Aunt Petunia heard the sound, however, and before Harry could even blink, snatched the letter from him.
"Trying to read our mail, are you?" she sneered, before her mouth dropped open as she read the first line.
Like a rubber band her head snapped towards Uncle Vernon.
"V-Vernon, it's from them. From them!" she shrieked, shoving the letter into his mustache.
"What do you-" Uncle Vernon's face turned to ash.
"Out." he spat.
Harry, after getting over his shock, quickly turned angry. "What? That's my letter! Give it back!"
"I want to read it!" cried Dudley petulantly.
"GET OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, grabbing Dudley by the collar before throwing him out into the living room. He made to do the same for Harry, but found he couldn't pick him up and throw him. Vernon's one-track mind came up with a simple enough solution, however: drag the freak out, which he promptly did, before slamming the kitchen door shut and locking it.
As Dudley screamed and cried and banged on the door with his fists, Harry sat on the plush living-room floor, shocked and angry. One word from his very brief view of the letter stuck out in his mind though.
Hogwarts.