Chapter Text
The letter arrives with little fanfare. Harry, a small poorly dressed boy of ten years old, quickly snatches the over-stuffed envelope from the ruddy owl holding it tightly in its claws. The boy pauses only briefly in his rush back indoors to pull the freshly dead snake nailed to his home's front door as a thank you to said owl before running excitedly on bare feet into the house.
“Uncle Morfin! Uncle Morfin! It came! My letter really came!” Harry yells as soon as he is through the threshold. From the sitting room he hears his Great-Grandpa Marvolo yelling at him to “shut his filthy half-blood mouth” Which he ignores in favor of pushing his way into the decrepit little kitchen his family calls home. “Uncle Morfin—“
“I heard ya the first bloody time.” His great-uncle hisses in annoyance as he turns his head just enough to glare unbalanced eyes at Harry.
Harry’s uncle is an old man made to look much older by his neglected appearance. His hair could have been any color and it fell in long unwashed mats around his face. His dark eyes glanced out through the mess, each staring in an opposite direction of the other with the left one so full of cataracts to be near-unseeing. Harry is silent as his uncle stabs the butcher's knife in his hand into the wooden block in front of him — already full of holes from similar abuse — and turns around to grab the envelope from Harry’s hands, ripping it open. He brings the papers within close to his half-dropping face, squinting at the text.
Harry waits, knowing not to rush his uncle on his reading — He wasn’t very good at it after all — before his uncle snorts and throws the letter back at Harry, the paper scattering as Harry tries to grab them.
“If they think we’re buying all of that—“ his uncle grumbles to himself as he turns back around, returning to his butcher's block. Harry watches as, with little fanfare, he grabs one of the small birds he has suspended in the air beside him (an immobilization spell keeping them still as death) and swiftly removes its head in one solid ‘thunk’. The song birds, Harry knows, will be their dinner tonight.
“Why are you just standing there?” His uncle snaps at him, “go look around the house. My old supplies are probably somewhere in this mess.” He waves a hand at said mess. It mostly consists of broken dishes, heavily rusted pans and utensils, and food (Of all the things Harry misses about living in a muggle house, a refrigerator is high on his list). Harry thinks that at least there aren't any half-eaten and rotting meals like when he had first arrived. Harry likes to imagine he has done his fair share to clean this place up since moving in; they could actually see the floor now, something that Harry was particularly proud of.
“Yes uncle.” Harry hisses back as he turns to go do just that, smiling widely at the unofficial confirmation that he is going to Hogwarts. Neither his great-uncle or great-grandfather are fans of the school after all (he has listened to far too many of their rants about its downturn over the last few decades) so he had been worried. He isn’t sure what he would have done if they had refused to let him go so he is happy he doesn’t have to figure it out.
He dodges a ‘Cruciatus’ that flies his way as he enters the sitting room where Great-Grandpa Marvolo sits in his half-broken wooden-framed wheelchair. He ignores his grandpa’s yelling and cursing at him to, instead, start going through the old and worn bookshelves behind him looking for all the books on his list.
“Hogwarts isn’t a place for disgusting half-bloods like you,” his grandpa snarls from his chair, his back to Harry so Harry doesn’t have to worry about getting an unexpected spell shot at him from behind.
“I know, Grandpa Marvolo,” Harry chimes, only half paying attention as he reads along the spines of the old books on the bookshelf looking for the ones on his school list.
“You’ll do nothing but taint the magic there! Weaken it for the purebloods that deserve it!”
“I know, Grandpa Marvolo.”
“Nothing but a disgusting spawn from that blood-traitor daughter of mine.”
“Yes, Grandpa Marvolo,” Harry agrees as he pulls down a few thin books from the book shelf. They are older volumes than the list says it wants, likely the ones Uncle Morfin used at school, but he is certain that they will do. They would have to. He moves then to see about finding himself an unbroken quill and decent ink. No one really wrote all that much in the Gaunt house but he was hoping he could find something.
“Morfin never should have brought you here,” His grandfather keeps going, “Should have left you with your filthy muggle mothers family.”
“Uhhu,” Harry nods his agreement as he kneels down to look at the trunk hidden under the desk. He wonders if it would do for the trunk he was required to bring? It is old and the wood is faded and uneven but it still has an engraved metal plate declaring it ‘Gaunt’ property.
“Thought I raised that boy right. Bringing trash like you into this—“ his grandpa’s complaints are suddenly cut off by sounds of thrashing. Harry looks up in time to see the red light of a ‘Cruciatus’ fading from view as his grandpa slumps in his wheelchair. Harry frowns.
“You’re going to kill him one day with that,” He tells his uncle, looking at just how small and fragile his Grandpa looks after the spell. Uncle Morfin had told him that Great-Grandpa Marvolo was ninety-eight when he first brought Harry here which meant he had to be over a hundred now and, after the curse, he looks ancient. Body frail with tremors wracking his atrophic muscles as bruises blossom across his fragile skin.
“He needs to learn to hold his tongue,” Morfin snaps, grabbing his fathers thin hair and twisting the man’s head up. Morfin smiles one of his terrifying rotten-toothed smiles down at the man as he shakes him. “You hear that old man, I’m in charge now. You’re at my mercy. Don’t you forget that.” He hisses before letting his father drop. Harry is silently impressed by the look of pure hatred and defiance on his grandfather’s face. He knows the man would torture his own son without a moments hesitation the second that he could.
“What are you doing?” Uncle Morfin asks as he pushes past his father to look at the small collection of bits and bobs that Harry has been piling up. It’s mostly books, a single quill with a half dried inkwell, and a silver knife that Harry had thought looked interesting.
“Getting ready for Hogwarts.” Harry reminds him and watches as his uncle’s face scrunches up in thought, obviously trying to remember the conversation from less than an hour ago. Harry doesn’t mind. His uncle has trouble remembering things a lot of times. “My letter came today. Do you think I can take this trunk?” He asks, indicating under the dilapidated desk it had been stored beneath. The question pulls his uncle out of trying to jog his own memory as he stumbles over and ducks under to look at said trunk.
“Don’t see why not.” He shrugs after a moment of squinting at it. He stands back up and his bones crack at the strain.
“Might have something deadly in it.” His grandpa hisses with a strained voice as Harry gets down and grabs the side strap and starts pulling it out using his full body as leverage. “Maybe you’ll kill yourself.”
“Maybe, grandpa Marvolo.” Harry agrees as the strap breaks under his hand and sends him sprawling to the ground.
————
There isn’t anything poisonous in the trunk, instead the old thing is full of haphazard jars of potion ingredients and a mummified black adder. Harry is mostly sure the snake isn't a potion ingredient but he still keeps it with the rest of the jars he pulls from the trunk, just in case.
—-------
“It says the only pets I’m allowed are a cat, a toad, or an owl.” Harry says that evening after he’s packed what he could find in the trunk (he hasn’t had any luck on scales or a telescope yet but he hasn’t given up just yet). He’s been drawing lines through the things he had managed to track down and all he has left — besides the aforementioned objects — is a wand and the optional pet. “Why can’t I take a snake? That seems unfair.” Harry grumbles. Not that Harry currently has a snake (Uncle Morfin has a tendency to kill them after all) but it is the point of the matter.
“It’s because of all those mudbloods they let in these days.” Great-Grandpa Marvolo snarls as he bites into the leg of one of the small song birds Uncle Morfin made for dinner, he rolls the appendage around in his mouth before pulling out the stripped bone and tossing it on his plate. Beside him Uncle Morfin has already devoured his meal and is slowly snapping the bones on his plate into smaller and smaller pieces as if in a trance. “They’re too afraid of anything that could kill them. When my Aunt Basinda attended she was allowed to take her adder! Let it bite anyone that annoyed her. Now you can get expelled just for having one! Bah!”
Harry wonders if that meant the dead adder he had found was his great-great (great?) aunts or if it was just a coincidence. It would be pretty cool if it had been, even if it is now dead. Maybe the trunk had been hers too. Harry thinks it is amazing to have so much family history behind him to learn, especially after living with his muggle relatives for so long. They had refused to tell him anything about his parents besides the fact that they were ‘no good deadbeats with nothing important about them at all’. They hadn’t even let him know his last name, only ever calling him ‘boy’ ‘freak’ ‘him’ or, on very very rare occasions when they were forced to introduce him to others, ‘Harry’. He wonders what Aunt Petunia would say now knowing that she was wrong all along about her sister and his dad.
“When was Aunt Basinda at Hogwarts?” Harry asks, excited to learn more and knowing that his grandfather would humor him. The man might not like Harry, but he enjoyed talking at length about the ‘Honorable House of Gaunt’ whenever given the opportunity. As his grandfather started talking Harry finally set his letter aside and dug into his own meal as he listened intently to the stories of his ancestors, picturing them in his head and their grand adventures through Hogwarts that he would, so soon, be attending too.
————
Harry goes hunting for black adders the next morning. He figures that, if his Aunty Basinda had had one, he should be able to have one too. However, by the end of the day, the only thing he is bringing home are the broken branches stuck in his hair from looking under bushes. He thinks, maybe, he can pick a snake that’s a little easier to find to take as a pet after all.
————
“You should probably do something about the boy's hair,” His grandpa comments offhandedly as Harry sits attempting to read through one of his school books early. He wasn’t retaining much, but it did make him feel a little accomplished even trying.
“What’s wrong with it?” Uncle Morfin asks. Harry looks up at him as his uncle takes a strand of Harry’s long and overly thick hair between his fingers. Harry, unlike his uncle, does actually bathe regularly (even if it is just in the stream out in the forest) – after all, that was considered a treat when he was living with the Dursley’s; something he only got for good behavior – and the fact that he could wash whenever he wanted now was magical. That said, all the bathing in the world didn’t change the fact that, well…
“It’s a bird's nest!” His grandfather hisses, waving his hand in annoyance at said ‘bird nest’ on Harry’s head. Harry thought it looked more like an old and worn-down mop given its length, but he understands his grandpa's point. It was almost impossible to manage given its thickness and curl. “Boys going to be representing the Gaunt Family, Slytherin’s very line, and you’re sending him looking like that?! He’s already half-blood filth and a disgrace! Don’t have to send him looking like it too!”
“Maybe I can go to town and see about finding a barber?” Harry offers. He has never been to a barber before, his aunt had always insisted on cutting his hair since they wouldn’t waste money on him, and once he got here…well. Uncle Morfin didn’t cut his hair and Grandpa Marvolo was nearly bald except for a few white hairs that were splattered across his head. It hadn’t exactly been something that had come up.
In the end they opt for the muggle barber, Uncle Morfin’s mind control spell (Imperio) making quick work of getting him in without an appointment (although they still get a lot of stares just like every time they go into town). In the end Harry has his hair cleaned up, making the hard choice to cut its length down though still refusing to cut it shorter than the large scar on his forehead. Instead he asks the barber to style it to hide the disfigurement.
By the time they are done Harry feels like he is staring at a completely different boy in the muggle mirror as the barber makes some final touches, thinning out his hair and styling his curls artfully around his face. Harry tells his uncle that he should get his hair done too, but Morfin just grumbles that he doesn’t want some muggle touching him and pulls Harry along back to Gaunt House.
“Great. Now you look even more like those filthy muggle relatives of yours.” Grandpa Marvolo hisses at him as he comes through the door. Before Harry had learned about the Riddle’s he would have actually been insulted, thinking about his aunt Petunia and her horse-like face or his cousin duddly’s more pig-like features. Now though Harry privately cherishes the insult. He has heard in town just how gorgeous the Riddle family used to be and he really hopes, for the first time, that his magic won’t re-grow his hair against his will. He doesn’t mind looking like a Riddle at all.
————
The wand is the last thing he gets and it’s also the easiest because Harry knows exactly where the Gaunt Family wands can be found. They sit in an old jar in the living room surrounded by other piles of junk. Harry had been trying to sort through said junk since he moved in with his great-uncle and great-grandpa but he hasn’t had much luck seeing as Uncle Morfin couldn’t tell him if any of it was important and grandpa Marvolo had only yelled at him to ‘get his disgusting half-blood hands off their stuff’. So he did the only thing he could: he organized. Now the mess exists in neat piles on the decrepit desk that he had found (what he is now thinking of as Aunt Basinda’s) trunk under. He had been the one to put all the wands together into the jar too and now he is digging around to see if he can figure out which one to take.
“It’s meant to feel powerful when you find the right one.” Uncle Morfin tells him, “like you can destroy anything you want when you grab it.” He smiles and proceeds to blow up one of the living room chairs with his own wand as if in demonstration. Only then he gets that look in his eye and Harry quickly wheels Grandpa Marvolo out of the room and into the kitchen where they wait out his uncle’s fit. Grandpa Marvolo takes the opportunity to tell Harry, again, how he is unworthy of any of the family wands and how he is likely no more powerful than a ‘squib’ (something that he calls Harry’s grandmother a lot but that he had never actually explained the meaning of).
Harry, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to prepare lunch with the food that he and Uncle Morfin had gotten from the village a few days ago. Harry is still in awe at the “impero” spell that his uncle uses to get muggles to do all the shopping for them (something that had become much easier after Harry had started writing shopping lists for his uncle to give to the spell-bound muggles). Right now he is taking full advantage of the fresh groceries to make him and his grandpa sandwiches as they wait for the sounds of yelling and breaking furniture to fade from the other room.
When they finally return to the living room an hour later, Harry pushing his grandpa with him on his rickety wheelchair, Uncle Morfin is curled up in a corner and hissing to himself which is usually how his episodes end. His grandfather grumbles under his breath about Azkaban and ‘that disgusting half-blood stealing from them and framing his son’ but takes out his wand and starts fixing things (Harry has to admit that ‘reparo’ really is a very useful spell too) as Harry sets about tidying up everything as it gets fixed. It was always a task but he didn’t let it make him forget what he had been doing in the living room in the first place. Eventually he makes his way back to the jar of wands.
“I think I’m going to take this one.” Harry says, showing his great-grandfather his choice. The old man eyes it skeptically before snorting, looking a mixture of angry and vindicated.
“Figures.” He hisses, “that’s Ominis’s. Ruined my marriage. Ruined the family name. A disgrace. Suppose it is only fitting that you get it.” He sneers. By that rant Harry knows not to push for more information about this particular relative (just the same way he knew not to ask about his Grandmother or his father) but Harry is just happy to know who the wand belonged to. It is more than enough.
————
Uncle Morfin takes Harry to the bus stop early on the morning Harry has to catch the Hogwarts express. He grumbles about the early hour and curses under his breath. Beside him Harry vibrates with excitement and clutches the fixed handle of his trunk. He hadn't slept the night before, too excited and nervous about possibly missing his bus.
“You remember how to get there?” His uncle asks, giving him a once over. Harry is in old hand-me-down robes that fit his thin frame a little too big and a little too long but that Grandpa Marvolo had insisted were ‘more than he deserved’ even as he had used some spell on them to fix them up as best he could.
“Yes Uncle Morfin. Take the bus to London. Get off at Kings Cross. Get on the Hogwarts Express at platform nine and three-quarters.” Morfin nods at Harry’s recitation but it looks more like he is reminding himself than approving Harry’s memorization. Uncle Morfin was like that a lot. He forgot basic things, sometimes even forgetting Harry himself, and sometimes, on bad days, he had a tendency to wander off and get lost for days before he remembered himself. It was nothing new to Harry by now, but it did leave him with a bit of worry about heading away. He still remembers just how bad the family house had been before he moved in. He didn’t want to see it become like that again. Uncle Morfin and Great Grandpa Marvolo really couldn’t look after themselves all that well…but he reminds himself that they had, somehow, managed to keep themselves alive long before Harry had arrived into their lives. Besides, maybe while at Hogwarts he could find something that could help? Something magical that would mean he could leave without worry.
“I’ll make sure to write.” Harry promises as the bus finally arrives, a muggle one that is mostly empty this time of day, and waves happily at his uncle through the back window as he goes off, finally, to his own Hogwarts adventure.