Archive of Our Own

It hurts.

It—

It hurts.

It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts.

Make it stop, Make it stop, Make it stop, Make it stop, Make it stop, Make it stop, Make it stop, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP.

Why am I like this?
No—no, that’s not right—
What is this?
What’s wrong with this?
What’s wrong with me?

Am I the problem?

It is, isn’t it?. It has to be.

Why can’t I just be normal?
Everyone else just is.
They don’t have to try. They don’t have to think about it.
They don’t have to be like this.

Why can’t I be loved?

Freak. 

Waste of space. 

Ungrateful. 

Lazy. 

Horrible. 

Criminal. 

Idiot. 

Good-for-nothing. 

Nosy. 

Stupid. 

Rubbish. 

Say it again.
Go on. Say it again.

Freak.
Waste of space. 

Ungrateful.
Good-for-nothing. 

Good-for-nothing. 

Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing!

Is that what I am?

Am I broken?
Or was I just…made wrong?

I need to suppress it.

Suppress that—thing.

Suppress it, Suppress it, Suppress it, Suppress it, Suppress it, Suppress it, Suppress it, Suppress it, SUPPRESS IT, SUPPRESS IT, SUPPRESS IT, SUPPRESS IT, SUPPRESS IT, SUPPRESS IT, SUPPRESS IT, SUPPRESS IT, YOU HAVE TO SUPPRESS IT.

BANG

A loud noise woke the boy in the cupboard under the stairs from his trance.

“Up! Get up! Now!”

A shrilling voice the boy knew all too well called from outside.

“Up!”, the voice screeched. 

The boy heard footsteps walking away from his door and the sound of a frying pan being put on the stove. 

Just as Harry took a deep breath to gather himself—

BANG BANG BANG

His door was banged again, this time louder and filled with more urgency.

“Boy! If you don't come out this second—”, a much deeper voice threatened.

All his life, he has never heard his name being called. The only way he knew his name was from the letter tucked in his baby basket he always sleeps next to.

He glances over to the basket tucked on his side to read the note:

‘Harry James Potter, our son.’

At least there were people who wanted him—people who are now gone.

He rubbed his eyes and pushed open the door of the cupboard under the stairs, leaving behind his only safe space—which was also, ironically, his cage in that house. He groggily began to navigate his way into the kitchen, his vision blurry. He needed glasses—he couldn’t see without them, but he seemed to always leave them behind. If he couldn’t see, it would hurt less…right?

“You good-for-nothing freak! How are you still not grateful that we took you in?”

The same routine, the same insults every day. 

Guess he just had to accept this, the reality he has to endure.

But if he could dare to hope—to wish, that maybe, some day, one day, if the thing that makes him a freak went away—they would finally accept him.

Accept him as family, a family that laughed together, ate together, and was loving to each other. He just had to endure it, like a story book he had read once at kindergarden—everything would be beautiful once the time came.

Harry winced as he walked down the hall, he had just gotten lashes on his feet from moving too slow—again. Entering the kitchen, he spotted a mountain of presents on top of the dining table. It seemed like Dudley got the computer he wanted, and also a television, and also a racing bike. He shuddered at the thought of a pig-sized boy chasing him around on that bike—he might finally be able to catch him.

Harry moved the stool over to the stovetop, grabbed two pans, and started cooking breakfast. He’d been doing this ever since he could remember. He swiftly cracked some eggs into the pan, along with a handful of bacon. He had smelled amazing food all his life—but he never seemed to get to taste it, only getting scraps if he was lucky. But Dudley ate a lot—enough to feed three normal adult humans.

Just as Harry finished cooking the eggs and bacon, an even bigger man entered the kitchen. And before he had even glanced at the man, Harry felt the back of his hair being pulled—hard. 

“What’s with that hair of yours!”, Uncle Vernon grabbed Harry by the hair, making Harry hiss from the pain. 

“If cutting his hair isn’t enough to keep it short, why don’t we just pluck it out?”, Uncle Vernon howled in laughter as he let Harry with a throw and went to sit at the table. 

“Now, now. You think I haven’t tried that?”, Aunt Petunia said, placing the birthday cake on the table, just in front of Dudley’s seat.

Harry had always been small, and only being allowed to wear Dudley’s old clothes didn’t help with that fact either. His hair was always wild and stayed long even after how many times it was cut. But every time his aunt cut it short, it always grew back to its original length the next day—which leads to cuts someplace else.

He hated the scar on his right eyebrow, a sign of how he’s a freak—the Dudleys said. Because of that, he had always made sure that it’s covered.  He once asked how he got that scar, but all that he got was that it was from a car crash that killed his parents and that he should not ask questions.

Don’t ask questions—he had been reciting it like a mantra, hoping that following it will lead him to a quiet life with the Dursleys.

Harry moved on to the pancake batter, as he stared at the stove, he hadn't realised that someone had crept behind him. His aunt’s baby angel had just barged into the room. 

“Cousin! What took you so long!”, a high pitched voice complained, accompanied by a loud smack to Harry’s back, causing him to lean forward as he coughed. The hand that caught his fall burned on the hot kitchen stove.

Harry swallowed a yelp as he hurried to run his hand under the sink.

‘This is fine, this pain is fine. Pain is proof that I’m doing things right, right?’

Dudley sat down at the table and began counting his presents, the pile was so high that even his huge body was covered.
“Thirty-six”, he said, looking up at his father and mother. “That’s two less than last year!”
“Darling, you haven’t counted Auntie Marge’s present, see, it’s here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy.”
“All right, thirty-seven then”, Dudley said, his broad face gradually turning red.
Harry slowly walked back towards the stove, still holding the plate of freshly made pancakes in case Dudley turned the table over in his tantrum.
Aunt Petunia obviously sensed danger. She quickly soothed her son who was right on the verge of exploding, “And we’ll buy you another two presents while we’re out today. How’s that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?”
Dudley started counting on his fingers—which took a stupidly long amount of time. After what seemed like an hour of hard work, “So I’ll have… thirty… thirty.”
“Thirty-nine, sweetums”, Aunt Petunia helped.
“Oh!”, Dudley sat back down heavily and grabbed the nearest box. “All right then.”
Uncle Vernon chuckled. “Little tyke wants his money’s worth, just like his father. ’Atta boy, Dudley!”, He ruffled Dudley’s hair.

The telephone rang right in the middle of Dudley unwrapping his new racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games—you get the idea. Harry was too busy making tea after finishing the pancakes.

Aunt Petunia went to answer the telephone while Dudley continued ripping through his presents to reveal a gold wristwatch. She came back looking both angry and worried.

“Bad news, Vernon”, she said. “Mrs. Figg’s broken her leg. She can’t take him.” She jerked her head towards Harry’s direction.

Dudley’s mouth fell open in horror while Harry winced at the news. Every year, on Dudley’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. And every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away.
Harry hated the place, but he didn't hate going there—even if the whole house smelled of cabbage and cats. He found comfort when Mrs. Figg showed him photographs of all the cats she’d ever owned. He deliberately made it look like he hated going there so that the Dursleys wouldn't stop sending him. He liked Mrs. Figg, she didn't hate him—she even gave him cake from time to time.

“Now what?”, Aunt Petunia said, looking furiously at Harry as though he’d planned this.

Harry was actually sad to know that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, he was going to miss seeing Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty. But he was oddly excited, this was going to be the very first time he’d be going on an outing, not to school or to run errands—actually going on a trip somewhere, to a zoo.

“We could phone Marge”, Uncle Vernon suggested.

“Don’t be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy.”

Harry was used to the Dursleys speaking about him openly like this, acting as if he wasn’t there—or rather, as though he was something so low and useless that he couldn’t understand them.

“What about what’s-her-name, your friend—Yvonne?”

“On vacation in Majorca”, Aunt Petunia snapped.

“You could just leave me here”, Harry said in a quiet voice.

Aunt Petunia looked as though she’d just swallowed a lemon.

“And come back and find the house in ruins?”, she snarled.

“I won’t blow up the house”, Harry said.

But they weren’t listening.

“I suppose we could take him to the zoo”, Aunt Petunia said slowly, “....and leave him in the car…”

“That car’s new, he’s not sitting in it alone”, Uncle Vernon retaliated.

Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn’t really crying—it had been years since he’d really cried—but he knew that if he scrunched up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.

“Dinky Duddydums, don’t cry, Mummy won’t let him spoil your special day!”, she cried, flinging her arms around him.

“I. Don’t. Want. Him. T-t-to come!”, Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs.

“He always sp-spoils everything!”, he shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother’s arms.

Harry fought the urge to just roll his eyes at the sight.

The ringing doorbell sliced right through the melodrama.

“Oh, good Lord, they’re here!”, Aunt Petunia said frantically. A moment later, Dudley’s best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother.

Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people’s arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them.

Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn’t believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys’ car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the very first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they’d left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside right outside the car doors.

“I’m warning you”, he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry’s, “I’m warning you now, boy—any funny business, anything at all—and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.”

Harry nodded frantically but he knew that Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn’t make them happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left to hide his horrible scar.

Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses.

Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn’t figure out how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley’s, which was brown with orange puff balls. It wasn't that he wasn't grateful for the sweater—but it was because of the horrid smell it had. The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn’t punished.

On the other hand, he’d gotten into huge trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry’s surprise as anyone else’s, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry’s headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he’d tried to do was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors, which of course Uncle Vernon hadn't believed as he shouted through the locked door of his cupboard. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. He even accepted having to spend the entire day with Dudley and Piers if it meant spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg’s cabbage-smelling living room.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.

“...roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums”, he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.

Harry remembered having a dream about a flying motorcycle once.

He shook his head, erasing the thought. Nothing good would come from saying anything.

He was content enough about going to the zoo to endure what was going to come.

The sun was shining bright on the very crowded Saturday. Anywhere Harry’s eyes landed on the zoo, there were families smiling at each other, kids laughing with their parents and siblings.

The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance. The smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted, locking them in, so Harry got himself a cheap lemon ice pop.

Harry smiled at the ice lolly and licked it absentmindedly as they watched a gorilla scratching its head—who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn’t blond.

Harry was having the best morning he’d had in a long time, making sure to be careful not to walk too near to the Dursleys. That way Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn’t fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him.

They ate at the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had thrown a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn’t have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first. 

As he was eating while admiring its multiple colorful layers, he was hit by realization—this day was just too good to be true. Surely something was going to happen, and he knew that he wasn't going to like it.

After lunch, they went to the reptile house which, in contrast to the sunny outside, was cool and dark with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone.

Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons and ran through exhibitions, disturbing the animals.

Harry faintly heard whispered cussing. When he looked around, there was no one talking near him. His trance was broken by a very excited Dudley, who found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon’s car and crushed it into a trash can—but at the moment it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep. Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

“Make it move”, he whined at his father.

Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn’t budge.

“Do it again”, Dudley ordered.

Uncle Vernon knocked on the glass multiple times with his knuckles. The snake just snoozed on.

“This is boring”, Dudley complained and shuffled away.

Harry walked towards the tank and stood in front of it, looking intently at the snake. He felt—sympathy towards the creature. He wouldn't be surprised if it had actually died of boredom—it had no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.

It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was either Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake him up or Uncle Vernon who’d drag him out. At least he could still walk around the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes and slowly, very slowly, raised its head until its eyes were on par with Harry’s. Then, it winked.

Harry stared at the snake, dumbfounded. He looked around quickly to see if anyone noticed. They didn't. He looked back at the snake and winked back—well, at least he tried to.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley and raised its eyes to the ceiling.

It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly, “I get that all the time.”

“I know”, Harry murmured through the glass. He wasn’t sure the snake could hear him.

“It must be really annoying”, Harry said.

The snake nodded vigorously, as if it understood perfectly.

“Where do you come from, anyway?”, Harry asked, sounding like a madman talking to a snake.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it, reading Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

“Was it nice there?”, Harry asked.

The Boa jabbed its tail at the sign again as Harry read, ‘This specimen was bred in the zoo’.

“Oh, I see—so you’ve never been to Brazil?”

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump.

“DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!”

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

“Out of the way, you”, he said, punching Harry in the ribs.

Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. He barely had time to register the fall. Suddenly, he felt something protruding out of him—something he had suppressed for so long, lurking out. And what came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened. One second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.

Harry sat up and gasped. The glass front of the Boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake began uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor.

Terror rang throughout the reptile house as screams echoed through the hallway as people ran for the exits. As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, “Brazssil, here I come…Thanksss, amigo.”

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock, “But the glass”, he kept saying. “Where did the glass go?”

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber, as far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn’t done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed. By the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon’s car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.

Worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to raise his finger towards Harry, “He was talking to it, weren’t you?”

Uncle Vernon waited for Piers to leave the house. Once the front door clicked shut, he turned on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak.

“Go—cupboard—stay—no meals”. He collapsed into a chair right after, prompting Aunt Petunia to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry reached to close his cupboard door, but a massive hand seized his skinny arm, yanking him backward into the hall. He hit the floor hard. An instant later, a fiery sting lashed across his back.

“YOU—UNGRATEFUL—LITTLE—BRAT!”, Uncle Vernon yelled each word along with another strike from his belt.

“WE BROUGHT YOU TO THE ZOO!”

Another hit registered onto Harry’s back.

“WE GAVE YOU AN ICE POPSICLE!”

Harry could feel a warm liquid starting to run down his back.

“YOU EVEN FINISHED DUDLEY’S ICE CREAM!”

With another blow, Harry could hardly keep holding his body up with his arms and ultimately collapsed.

“YOU MUST BE SO HAPPY ABOUT WHAT YOU DID TO OUR DUDLEY!”

And with the final verdict, Uncle Vernon kicked Harry in the stomach, over and over. The abuse didn’t stop until Harry coughed uncontrollably.

Uncle Vernon grabbed Harry by the collar and threw him inside the cupboard, slamming the door shut.

“STAY THERE AND ACT AS IF YOU DON’T EXIST!”

Harry stared at the cupboard ceiling, clutching his stomach. He lay in the dark, wishing he had a watch, not knowing how long he had passed out for. His stomach was rumbling, but even if he had the courage to go outside—he couldn’t. Right before losing consciousness, he had heard wood being hammered outside the cupboard—he could even feel the nails on his side, protruding out. He ought to be careful when moving around, he wouldn’t want to scratch himself.

It felt like days—even months. The bleeding on his back had already scabbed over by the time the wooden blockades were taken down. It seemed like the Dursleys couldn’t last too long without their little maid around.

“I’m sorry, may I use the bathroom?”, Harry tried to call out.

But no one answered.

Harry was about to ask again when a loud BANG cracked against the cupboard door.

“After what you've done, you still have the audacity to ask for something!?”, Uncle Vernon’s voice roared from outside.

“You do not have the luxury to ask for anything, boy!”, Uncle Vernon screamed at Harry. Heavy footsteps stomped away down the hall.

This was fine.

Harry had experienced this multiple times already.

Now, if he could just find an empty bottle.

After days stuck in his cupboard, the door finally opened.

“GET OUT! The cupboard is starting to stink with you in there”, Aunt Petunia said while pinching her nose closed.

Harry crawled out of the cupboard and breathed in the fresh air outside.

“Clean that up and take a bath, outside”, Aunt Petunia ordered, immediately turning on her heel.

Harry could see her gagging but paid it no mind.

Harry took a bath in the backyard. While scrubbing his shoulders, careful to not let the soap reach his back—his eyes wandered to the gray uniform hanging on the drying line—it kind of looked like it was dyed.

Harry placed his clothes in the basket inside his cupboard since Aunt Petunia would be horrified if he put his dirty clothes anywhere near their ‘expensive and sophisticated’ clothes.

While cleaning up his cupboard, he heard the click of the mail slot and the flop of letters onto the doormat.

“Get the mail, Dudley”, Uncle Vernon said, flipping his newspaper.

“Make him get it.”

“Get the mail, boy.”

Harry went to get the mail and saw three things lying on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon’s sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and—a letter for… Harry.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his eyes wide. No one, in his entire life, had written to him. He wracked his brain but came up with no one. He had no friends, no other relatives, nothing. Yet, this letter was clearly addressed to him. He put on his glasses to read the letter more clearly:

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. But there was no stamp.

Harry turned the envelope over, his hand trembling, and at the back, he saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms of a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake—surrounding a single large letter H.

“Hurry up, boy! What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?”, Uncle Vernon shouted from the kitchen, chuckling loudly at his own joke.

Harry walked to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, walked away, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

“Marge’s ill”, he informed Aunt Petunia. “Ate a funny whelk...”

“Dad!”, Dudley shouted. “Dad, he’s got something!”

Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.

“That’s mine!”, Harry tried to snatch it back.

“Who’d be writing to you?”, Uncle Vernon sneered, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it.

His face went from red to green faster than a traffic light on a Monday morning. And it didn’t stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

“P-P-Petunia!”, he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

“Vernon! Oh my goodness—Vernon!”

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn’t used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

“I want to read that letter”, he said loudly.

“It’s mine”, Harry said furiously.

“Get out, both of you”, Uncle Vernon croaked, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Harry didn’t move.

“I WANT MY LETTER!”, he shouted.

“Let me see it!”, demanded Dudley.

“OUT!”, Uncle Vernon roared.

“I. Said. Give. It. BACK.”, Harry’s voice distorted at the last word, almost making him sound—inhuman.

Uncle Vernon was startled at the change, but he still persisted, refusing to hand over the letter. His massive hands reached out, threatening to grab Harry by the collar to lock him away once again.

But Harry didn't flinch.

The air in the kitchen suddenly grew impossibly cold, making the hairs on Dudley's arms stand up. A high-pitched ringing echoed in Harry's ears, drowning out the sound of his aunt's terrified gasps. Harry’s vision blurred at the edges, slowly turning a venomous, blinding red. He felt something deep inside him—something dark and volatile that he had suppressed for so long—leaching out of his chest. It crawled viciously towards his arms, his legs, filling his veins with an agonizing pressure. He felt as though his very body was tearing apart, unable to contain the sheer force of it. The lights overhead flickered and shattered, plunging the room into shadows. The last thing he remembered was an ear-piercing, bloodcurdling scream—whether it was his aunt's or his own, he didn't know. Then, nothing but pitch black.

Harry woke up in a haze. His memories were spotty and his vision blurry—he felt like he’d just had a terrible dream. He noticed something thick and sticky on his feet. And when he looked down—he saw pools of blood everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, seeping into his clothes—anywhere his eyes landed, there was a gruesome splash of red.

Harry dropped to the floor, his eyes wide, his breathing ragged. He looked around frantically, but he didn't see anyone. He even tried to listen for any breathing, any sign of life—but he heard nothing.

He hurriedly crawled to his cupboard, grabbed a fresh set of clothes, and took a frantic, burning-hot shower in the guest bathroom.

He scrubbed his clothes—hard—but the red stains just wouldn’t wash out. He opted to bury them deep in the backyard dirt. Back inside, he grabbed some extra clothes and what little food and water he could carry from the fridge. He stuffed it all into his old school backpack, picked up his glasses from the floor, and left the house without looking back.

He didn’t know how long he had walked, but he just kept walking. So much so that he could feel the fresh scabs on his feet peeling open. Somewhere, anywhere, as far as he could get from that place. He didn’t remember what he had done, but he knew with sickening certainty that he had done something bad. That he was a murderer now. He had blood on his hands. He hated the Dursleys—but deep down, he had still somehow longed to be accepted into their family. He had longed for the day they would finally treat him like a human being. But that day was permanently gone now, an impossible dream lying in a pool of blood, forever out of reach.

Harry reached a park. He didn't recognize his surroundings. Good, that meant that he was far away from the house. He found a bench and laid down, using his backpack as a pillow, and closed his eyes.

“‘Arry?”

Harry’s eyes shot open. His eyes darted below the darkening sky, before finally landing on a giant of a man standing beside him. 

“Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby”, the giant said. “Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mum’s eyes.”

Harry sat up and shuffled towards the edge of the bench, holding his backpack in front of him for protection.

“Anyway—Harry, a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here—I mighta sat on it at some point, but it’ll taste all right.” the giant rummaged from an inside pocket of his black overcoat and pulled a slightly squashed box. 

Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with ‘Happy Birthday Harry’ written on it in green icing. Harry looked up at the giant and took the cake, grabbing a slice and starting to nibble on it. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth. Instead, what he ended up blurting out was, “Who are you?”

The giant chuckled. “True, 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. Harry could feel his arm getting a bit sore until he’s finally let go. 

“What ter you doin out in the open here? It’s freezing”, Hagrid said, rubbing his hand together.

“Oh, nothing. I just…want to try what it would feel like being one with nature”, Harry laughs nervously. 

Hagrid sat down on the bench beside Harry and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon, Harry could hear the sound and smell of sizzling sausage.

He passed the sausages to Harry, who was starving. Looking at the sausage sceptically, he only took a small bite. But then his eyes went wide, he had never tasted anything so wonderful. After finishing the sausage, Harry had just realized that the situation he was currently in was quite dangerous.

Harry gulped before speaking carefully,  “I’m sorry, but I still don’t really know who you are.”

The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Call me Hagrid”, he said, “everyone does. An’ like I told yeh, I’m Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts—yeh know all about Hogwarts, o’ course.”

Harry grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, “Should I have?”

Hagrid looked shocked.

“Sorry”, Harry said quickly, shuffling even further towards the edge of the bench to make himself smaller, afraid he’s going to be hit. Being hit by Uncle Vernon and his big hands is one thing, but it’ll be a whole new experience being hit by a giant—he’d be flying miles away from here.

“Sorry?”, Hagrid barked, turning his attention to Harry.

“Do the Dursleys ain’t said anything bout it? What about yer letter? 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?”

Harry hadn’t wanted to ask questions, but he wouldn’t understand anything if he didn’t. He mustered up his courage and asked in a small voice, “All…what?”

“ALL WHAT?”, Hagrid’s sound boomed. “Now wait jus’ one second! Do you mean ter tell me, that the Dursleys never told yer—bout ANYTHING?”

Harry gulped. “I—it’s like I don’t know anything. I do know some things”, Harry said, wanting to not look like an incompetent fool. “I can, you know, do math and stuff.”

But Hagrid simply waved his hand. “About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents’ world.”

Harry thought he had messed up, what the Dursleys had told him was right—do not ask questions. Harry kept his mouth shut and looked down, absentmindedly picking on his nails.

Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode. “DURSLEY!”, he stood up, shouting at the sky.

Harry looked around in panic, worried if there was someone watching them. Luckily, there was no one in the park at that time since it was almost nighttime.

Hagrid mumbled something like “Mimblewimble” and stared wildly at Harry.

“I’m…sorry?”

“Yer—”, Hagrid threw his arms up in frustration, “But yeh must know about yer mum and dad”, he said. “I mean, they’re famous. You’re famous.”

Harry just tilted his head and gave Hagrid a look of concern.

“Yeh don’ know...yeh don’ know...” Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, looking at Harry with a bewildered stare.

“Yeh don’ know what yeh are?”, he said finally. “You never knew? It was told in the letter Dumbledore left fer you? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it! An’ Dursley kept it from him all these years?”

Harry tilted his head. “I only have the letter my parents left me. That’s how I know my name, but I didn’t see any other letter besides that in my basket.”

Hagrid took a deep breath, not wanting to ask further about what Harry meant regarding how he got to learn his own name, and simply said, “Harry—yer a wizard.”

“I’m a what?”, Harry asked, dumbfounded.

“A wizard, o’ course”, Hagrid said, sitting back on the bench, which groaned and sank even lower, “An’ a thumpin’ good’un, I’d say, once yeh’ve been trained up a bit. With a mum an’ dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An’ I reckon it’s abou’ time yeh read yer letter.”

Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green. He pulled out the letter and read:

Harry’s thoughts were racing. He had many questions—but a murderer like him…attending a school of witchcraft and wizardry?

“Gallopin’ Gorgons, that reminds me”, Hagrid clapped a hand to his forehead. From yet another pocket inside his overcoat, he pulled an owl—a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl—a long quill, and a roll of parchment.

With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down,

Hagrid rolled up the note and gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak. He stood up and threw the owl out into the night, then sat back down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.

Harry was lost in his thoughts. He didn’t know the extent of his magic. Was this magic what killed the Dursleys? Was he also a freak by magic standards?

He opened his mouth to ask, but quickly shut it again. This was the first time someone had been nice to him, and he didn't want to ruin the moment.

“Where was I? Oh, ‘Arry—di the Dursleys truly not tell you anything about yer being a wizard? Ye do know who yer parents are, don’t you?”

Harry shook his head. “They didn’t tell me anything”, Harry shifted in his seat. “The only thing I know about my parents is that they died in a car crash.”

“CAR CRASH!”, Hagrid roared, jumping up angrily. “How could a car crash kill Lily an’ James Potter? It’s an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin’ his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!” 

But seeing Harry’s concerned face, Hagrid’s anger faded. He looked suddenly anxious.

“I never expected this”, he said, in a low, worried voice. “I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin’ hold of yeh, how much yeh didn’t know. Ah, Harry, I don’ know if I’m the right person ter tell yeh—but someone’s gotta—yeh can’t go off ter Hogwarts not knowin—well, it’s best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh—mind, I can’t tell yeh everythin’, it’s a great myst’ry, parts of it....” He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, “It begins, I suppose, with—with a person called—but it’s incredible yeh don’t know his name, everyone in our world know—”

Harry had wanted to ask who, but he managed to stop himself. But Hagrid noticed Harry’s curious expression.

“Well—I don’ like sayin’ the name if I can help it. No one does”, Hagrid drawled.

“It’s fine if you can’t”, Harry said.

Hagrid looked at Harry’s defeated face and sighed, feeling bad. “See, there was this wizard who went...bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was...”

Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.

Seeing the giant’s conflicted face, Harry picked his finger until it finally drew blood. “I’m fine with not knowing, I just needed to know what happened. If you don’t mind—of course”, Harry gave Hagrid a weak smile.

“No, ‘Arry—it’s just that. All right—Voldemort.” Hagrid shuddered. 

“Don’ make me say it again. Anyway, this—this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin’ fer followers. Got ’em, too—some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o’ his power, ’cause he was gettin’ himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn’t know who ter trust, didn’t dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches...terrible things happened. He was takin’ over. ’Course, some stood up to him—an’ he killed ’em. Horribly. One o’ the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore’s the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn’t dare try takin’ the school, not jus’ then, anyway.”

Hagrid looked at Harry with a soft expression before continuing. “Now, yer mum an’ dad were as good a witch an’ wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an’ girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst’ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get ’em on his side before...probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin’ ter do with the Dark Side.”

Hagrid sighed, “Maybe he thought he could persuade ’em...maybe he just wanted ’em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an’—an’—”

Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

“Sorry”, he said. “But it’s that sad—yer mum an’ dad were the nicer people yeh could ever find—and you-Know-Who killed ’em. An’ then—an’ this is the real myst’ry of the thing—he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin’ by then. But he couldn’t do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh—took care of yer mum an’ dad an’ yer house, even—but it didn’t work on you, an’ that’s why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill ’em, no one except you, an’ he’d killed some o’ the best witches an’ wizards of the age—the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts—an’ you was only a baby, an’ you lived.”

Something very painful was going on in Harry’s mind. As Hagrid’s story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before—and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life—a high, cold, cruel laugh.

Hagrid looked at him sadly. “Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought yeh ter this lot…” 

The two of them sat in silence as the sun fully set into the night. Harry contemplated for a while before asking, “But what happened to, you know, You-Know-Who?”

“Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That’s the biggest myst’ry, see... he was gettin’ more an’ more powerful—why’d he go? Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he’s still out there, bidin’ his time, like, but I don’ believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of ’em came outta kinda trances. Don’ reckon they could’ve done if he was comin’ back.”

Hagrid continued, his expression dark, “Most of us reckon he’s still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. ’Cause somethin’ about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin’ goin’ on that night he hadn’t counted on—I dunno what it was, no one does—but somethin’ about you stumped him, all right.”

Hagrid turned to look at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes. But Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He’d spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

Hagrid spoke about how being a wizard was honorable. But how could he, who became the same thing as what caused his parents’ death, be honorable? Was the thing that he had been suppressing, the thing that had been eating him alive, and the thing that sent him running away—the same thing that made him a wizard?

Maybe he wasn't a wizard, but a monster.

“Hagrid”, he said quietly, “I think you must have made a mistake. I don’t think I can be a wizard.”

To his surprise, Hagrid just chuckled.

“Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?”

Harry did realize odd things that happened to him had made his aunt and uncle furious with him. Like when he was chased by Dudley’s gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach. Or when he was dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut—he’d managed to make it grow back. And when he was at the zoo and Dudley had hit him—he set a boa constrictor on him.

As for the last thing he did—.

Harry clutched his head. His mind felt like it was going to split open. He thought he knew—no, he knew what he had done. He just couldn’t remember how, it was like his mind refused to let him remember.

“Yer ok, Arry?”, Hagrid asked, his face riddled with worry.

“Yeah, I’m fine—just a little headache”, Harry gave Hagrid a little smile.

“Where are the Dursleys? ‘Ought they would be here somewhere.”

Harry’s heart started pounding. Was he going to get caught?

He gulped before answering. “Oh, they’re on vacation right now. I don’t know where though—that’s why I’m alone here. I’d need to find myself some entertainment and kill time, right?”

Hagrid scratched his head. “I guess ter right.”

They sit in silence once more. Harry continued picking on his nails—a habit he had developed every time he was nervous.

“So… how yer been?”, Hagrid tries to breaks the silence.

Harry didn’t answer for a short while, “I’ve been—fine.”

“Oh, that sounds great! Knew that Dumbledore woulda made the right decision.”

“Dumbledore?”

“Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts. Ye know, I was at Hogwarts meself but I—er—got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an’ everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore.”

Harry picked his nail hard until it bled, the sting ignored

Dumbledore, a great man? But he sent him to that hell hole. Did he want him to suffer? If Dumbledore was that great, he must’ve known what Harry had been going through. Even the letter he got knew where he’d been staying—the cupboard under the stairs.

Harry shook his thoughts away. He couldn't insult the man that this giant thought very highly of. He had learnt this the hard way with his uncle when he ‘disrespected’ his boss—he was just watering the flowers, but him being there apparently made Uncle Vernon look ‘disgusting’.

“Alright, it’s getting late and we’ve got lots ter do tomorrow. Er—ya sure yer want to stay here?”, Hagrid got up.

“Well, I can’t think of any other option than to stay here”, Harry said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Hagrid pondered for a while before his face lit up. “Follow me ‘Arry, we goin on a little adventure!”

“Adventure? To where?”

“Just follow me”, Hagrid waved to Harry, prompting him to stand up.

Harry grabbed his backpack and followed Hagrid behind a tree.

“Hold me hand”, Hagrid offered his hand.

Harry grabbed it. His vision suddenly spun.

Hagrid was chuckling as Harry stopped himself from puking, grabbing onto the wall near him to steady himself.

“Be grateful if yeh didn’t mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts”, Hagrid said after he composed himself.

“I’m—er—not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin’. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an’ get yer letters to yeh an’ stuff—one o’ the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job—”

Harry looked at the giant with furrowed eyebrows, still calming down his stomach.

“Thought that it’d be bad to leave yer in the cold. This is for safety”, Hagrid nodded, justifying himself.

Hagrid led Harry towards a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn’t brought him here, Harry wouldn’t have noticed it was there. The night was quiet with few passersby around as Hagrid made his way inside.

“This is the Leaky Cauldron, it’s a famous place.”

For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. Even though it was already nighttime, there were still people drinking and smoking inside. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid as they waved and smiled at him.

The bartender reached for a glass. “The usual, Hagrid?”

“Yer do know me well”, Hagrid howled. “But er, a little later yeah? Yer got any spare rooms here?”

“Well, of course. This is the Leaky Cauldron after all. You’ll be staying here?”

“Oh, not for me. It’s for little ‘Arry here”, Hagrid said, clapping his giant hand on Harry’s shoulder and making Harry’s knees buckle.

“Good Lord”, the bartender said, peering at Harry, “is this—can this be—?”

The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.

“Bless my soul”, the old bartender whispered, “Harry Potter... what an honor.”

He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed towards Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes.

“Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. Everyone was looking at him. He looked at Hagrid only to be met with a big smile. Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.

“Welcome back, Mr. Potter.”

“I can’t believe I’m meeting you, Mr. Potter.”

“My, can’t say how delighted I am to make this acquaintance.”

The quiet atmosphere had been replaced with a bustling crowd—even with the few people populating the bar.

“Hagrid, a little help, please?”, Harry whispered.

“Oh”, Hagrid noticed before clearing his throat.

“Good people! Little ‘Arry here is tired from his journey. Now if yall excuse us.”

Harry heard the crowd whispering before moving back to give him space.

Hagrid pushed Harry forward towards the bartender. “One room for one night.”

“Yes, right away.”

While the bartender was busy writing on his clipboard, Harry tugged on Hagrid’s coat to get him to bend down.

“Um—Hagrid? I haven’t got any money—and the Dursleys would never pay for me…”

“Don’t worry about that”, Hagrid said, “D’yeh think yer parents didn’t leave yeh anything?”

“But if their house was destroyed—”

“They didn’ keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, wizards keep their gold in Gringotts, wizards’ bank.”

The bartender called for their attention. “One room for one night for Mr. Potter”, he said, sliding a key on the bar.

“Appreciate it”, Hagrid said before walking up the stairs at the side of the room.

“Where are we going?”, Harry asked, following Hagrid from behind.

“To yer room, ‘course”, Hagrid said, finally stopping in front of a door and unlocking it using the key.

“Are you going to stay with me?”

Hagrid opened the door and led Harry inside. “Nah, I better get back soon. Me dog, Fang, can’t leave him for too long.”

Hagrid placed the key on the table beside the bed. “I’ll pick yer up tomorrow then”, Hagrid said, walking towards the door.

Harry turned around towards the door. “Wait, at what—time”, but alas, Hagrid was already gone.

Harry plopped down on the bed, thinking about the crazy day he just had and also about his days as a ‘wizard’ that were going to come.

Harry tried his hardest to get some sleep, but he ended up awake with cold sweat.

He kept getting flashes of red and—black?

He felt his body being ripped apart, becoming something—not human. He didn't know what it was, but it was powerful—and dangerous.

He saw glimpses of limbs being ripped apart, mutilated with multiple slashes from what seemed like a sharp object, but he didn't remember seeing a knife nearby.

Harry tossed and turned in his bed, his head throbbing. A few hours went by before Harry finally tired himself to sleep.

Harry suddenly jolted awake, but he was no longer in his bed—he was on the floor. When he sat up and looked around, the room was trashed. There were claw marks everywhere on the wall and even on the furniture.

Harry panicked. Was he going to be kicked out? Did he have to pay for the damages? But he didn't have any money. Were they going to punish him? Make him work here?

Black static started to crackle around Harry—his breathing became erratic. His vision began to blur—

“Mornin ‘Arry!”, Hagrid burst through the door.

Harry’s eyes went wide, looking at Hagrid.

“‘Arry! What happen’? Did someone break into your room last night!?”, Hagrid roared.

Harry was shaking like a leaf. He didn’t dare answer—lest he be locked up somewhere just like what the Dursleys did to him.

“‘Arry! Ye okay?”

Harry nodded immediately.

“Who did this?”

Harry shook his head. “I-I d-don’t know.”

Hagrid scratched his head in anger and confusion.

“C-can we not talk about it? I’m fine—really”, Harry said, his body still shaking.

Hagrid sighed. “If yer say so. But me still got to report this to the bartender.”

“How much do I need to pay for the damages?”, Harry blurted out.

Hagrid huffed. “Ter need no worry, I’m sure he’d understand.”

Harry looked at Hagrid, anxiously picking his nails. “I-I’ll work hard to pay you back—I don’t have any money on me—”

“You do have, ‘Arry! Tell you what, first stop fer us is Gringotts, yer remember? The Wizards’ bank.”

“Wizards bank?”, Harry asked.

“Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins. Now, get up yer. There a bathroom—take a shower and join me downstairs”, Hagrid grabbed Harry by the armpit and pulled him to his feet before leaving the room.

Harry took a few deep breaths. It seemed that he hadn't been found out—yet.

Harry walked downstairs with his backpack, wearing a fresh set of clothes.

“‘Arry! I’d like yer to meet someone.”

The whole pub seemed to set their eyes on Harry the moment Hagrid called him. It looked like the rumor of Harry Potter staying at the Leaky Cauldron had spread like wildfire—the pub was practically brimming with people.

A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.

“Meet Professor Quirrell!”, Hagrid said. “Now, Professor Quirrell here will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts.”

“P-P-Potter”, Professor Quirrell stammered, grasping Harry’s hand, “c-can’t t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you.”

“O-oh, nice to meet you too, Professor Quirrell.”

Both Harry and Professor Quirrell stared at the floor in silence, hands still grasping in a handshake—but neither moved.

“So, uh Professor Quirrell ere—tell em what ter teach in Hogwarts”, Hagrid tried to break the silence.

“D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts. N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter?”, he laughed nervously, letting go of the handshake with Harry.

Harry rubbed his neck nervously.

“You’ll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I’ve g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself”, he said, looking terrified.

Suddenly, the terrified Professor Quirrell got pulled back by mobs of people wanting to talk to Harry.

They all crowded around the boy and started shaking his hand and thanking him.

Harry just stood there confused.

It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.

“Must get on—lots ter buy. Come on, Arry”, Hagrid said, walking towards the back of the pub.

Harry looked at the Professor with a concerned expression on his face—he sees himself in the professor, someone who’s scared of something—scared of messing up and getting punished.

“Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin’ outta books but then he took a year off ter get some first-hand experience….”, Hagrid commented.

“They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o’ trouble with a hag—never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject—now, where’s me umbrella?”

‘Vampires? Hags? Still shouldn’t be as scary as Aunt Petunia’ 

Harry was lost in thought while Hagrid was busy counting bricks in the wall above the trash can. “Three up... two across...”, he muttered. 

“Right, stand back, Arry”, Hagrid said as he tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella. The brick he had touched quivered—it wriggled—and then, a small hole appeared in the middle. It grew wider and wider until a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, revealing a cobbled pathway—twisting and turning.

“Welcome”, Hagrid announced, spreading his other hand, “to Diagon Alley.”

Harry looked at the sight in front of him with awe, his eyes wide and his mouth almost gaping.

Hagrid grinned at Harry’s amazement.

They stepped through the archway. Over the bustling sounds, Harry noticed a noise coming from behind him. He looked quickly over his shoulder to see the archway shrinking instantly back into a solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop, all in different sizes and made of a variety of materials: Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver. And when Harry looked up, there was a Self-Stirring Cauldron sign hanging over them.

Hagrid noticed where Harry’s looking and chuckled, “Yeah, yeh be needin’ one,  but we gotta get yer money first. Alright, let’s go straight ter Gringotts. It's the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe—’cept maybe Hogwarts”

“Is it okay for you to accompany me there? Don’t you have any important business to attend to?”, Harry asked nervously.

“No worries, as a matter o’ fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business”, Hagrid patted his chest proudly. “He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin’ you—gettin’ things from Gringotts—knows he can trust me, see.”

Harry kept quiet throughout the whole walk but turned his head in every direction, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the displays outside them, and the bustling people doing their shopping.

There was a plump woman bargaining for a material Harry had never heard of, she had about eight more eyes than a normal person. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.

There was a low, soft hooting coming from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium—Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy.

Several boys of about Harry’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. On the display, it read Nimbus Two Thousand—fastest ever.

There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels’ eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon…

Hagrid picked up a newspaper from one of the stalls as they walked and began reading.

“Ministry o’ Magic messin’ things up as usual", Hagrid muttered, turning the page.

“Ministry of Magic?”, Harry asked before he could stop himself.

Hagrid sighed. “They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o’ course, but he’d never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin’ fer advice.”

Harry didn’t say anything and just continued to sightsee around the alley.

As they were nearing a snowy white building—towering over the other little shops—Hagrid folded up his newspaper.

“Gringotts”, Hagrid said. And standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was—

“Yeah, that’s a goblin”, Hagrid said quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him.

The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard, and very long fingers and feet.

He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

‘Enter, stranger, but take heed 

Of what awaits the sin of greed, For those who take, but do not earn, Must pay most dearly in their turn. So if you seek beneath our floors A treasure that was never yours, Thief, you have been warned, beware Of finding more than treasure there.’

“Heh, yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it", said Hagrid. 

A pair of goblins bowed as they went through the silver doors, revealing a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, and examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, Harry couldn’t keep track of which doors they had passed through. But after a while, they finally reached a room with multiple counters.

Hagrid walked up towards a counter, “Morning", said Hagrid to a free goblin. “We’ve come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter’s safe.” 

“You have his key, sir?” 

“Got it here somewhere”, Hagrid said, patting down his pocket but ended up with nothing. Finally opting to empty his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin’s book of numbers. 

The goblin wrinkled his nose as Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.

“Got it", said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key. The goblin looked at it closely and muttered, “That seems to be in order.” 

“An’ I’ve also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore”, Hagrid said, handing the letter from the inside of his cloak. “It’s about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen.” 

After the goblin read the letter carefully, he handed it back to Hagrid, “Very well, I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!” 

Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all of his stuff back inside his pockets, the two of them followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

Griphook held the door open for them, revealing a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward, and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled, and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. Harry had expected yet another marble-floored hall, but he wasn’t surprised nonetheless.

They passed a maze of twisting passages, but Harry noticed that Griphook wasn’t steering. It seemed that the cart just magically knew where they needed to go.

The whirling cold air brushing against Harry’s face rattled a sense of familiarity within him, but he just couldn’t place what it was.

The cart then passed through a burst of fire which seemed to have come out of a dragon, but before Harry could take another look at it, they plunged even deeper underground.

Harry just sat in the cart motionless, taking in the scenery of the underground tunnel. The cart moved fast until it reached a screeching halt in front of a vault.

Griphook made his way towards the vault door and unlocked it. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold, silver, and bronze.

“All yours”, Hagrid smiled.

The Dursleys couldn’t have known about this or they’d have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained about how much Harry had cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London. Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag.

“The gold ones are Galleons", he explained.

“Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o’ terms, we’ll keep the rest safe for yeh.”

He then turned to Griphook. “Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?”

“One speed only”, Griphook replied without turning around.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners, the motion of the cart twisting still just barely familiar to Harry.

Hagrid seemed to be holding himself better this time, as he stood without needing to hold on to something when they got out of the cart.

Harry looked in front of him to see the door of vault seven hundred and thirteen, but he noticed something strange—this door had no keyhole.

“Stand back”, Griphook said before sliding a long finger down the door—and the door slowly melted.

“If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they’d be sucked through the door and trapped in there”, Griphook said smugly.

Harry shuddered, he knew what it felt like to be trapped in a room for a long time. Harry peeked inside the vault looking for gold, only to notice a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor.

Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. The package piqued Harry’s interest, but he knew better than to ask.

“Come on, back in this infernal cart”, Hagrid sighed.

One wild cart ride later, they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts.

“Still got yer letter, Harry?”, Hagrid asked.

Harry took the parchment envelope out of his bag.

“Good, there’s a list there of everything yeh need”, Hagrid said as they began walking.

Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn’t noticed the night before and read:

“What’s the fers thing on the list?”, Hagrid asked.

“Three sets of plain work robes, black”, Harry read.

Hagrid nodded. “Come on, let’s get yer uniform”, leading him toward Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions.

“Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts”, Hagrid said as they reached the front door of the shop.

He did still look a bit sick. “Oh, yes of course”, Harry nodded.

So Harry entered Madam Malkin’s shop alone, feeling nervous.

Madam Malkin smiled as she greeted Harry, dressed all in mauve.

“Hogwarts, dear?” Harry opened his mouth to answer, but was cut as she spoke again. “Got the lot here—another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”

Harry peeked to the back of the shop to see a boy with a pale, pointed face, with equally pale blond hair, standing on a footstool, while a second witch pinned up his long black robes.

Harry looked at the boy, his gaze fixated on the robes being pinned.

Harry stood there, stunned, with only one word in his mind—beautiful.

Madam Malkin ushered Harry to stand on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.

“Hello”, the boy greeted. “Hogwarts, too?”

“Yes”, Harry replied quietly, his face blushing.

“My father’s next door buying my books and Mother’s up the street looking at wands”, the boy spoke again. He had a bored, drawling—but weak—voice.

“Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully Father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”

“Have you got your own broom?”, the boy went on before he covered his mouth with a handkerchief to cough.

“No”, Harry said.

“Play Quidditch at all?”

“No”, Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.

“I do—Father said it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my House, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you’ll be in yet?”, the boy continued his questions.

“No”, Harry said again, feeling more stupid by the minute.

“Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been—imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”

“Umm”, Harry said, his hands starting to pick at his fingernails.

“I say, look at that man!”, the boy said suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show why he couldn’t come in.

“That’s Hagrid”, Harry pointed out. “He works at Hogwarts.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of him. He’s a sort of servant, isn’t he?”

“He’s the gatekeeper”, Harry corrected. He was liking the boy less and less every second.

The boy in front of him reminded him more and more of Dudley, of the Dursleys—acting high and mighty while looking down at everyone else.

“Yes, exactly. I heard he’s a sort of savage—lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed.”

“I think he’s brilliant”, Harry defended coldly.

“Do you?”, the boy sneered, his eyes glancing at Harry.

“Why is he with you? Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead”, Harry answered shortly.

“Oh, sorry”, the tone not sounding sorry at all.

“But they were our kind, weren’t they?”

“They were a witch and wizard, if that’s what you mean.”

The boy coughed again before speaking. “I really don’t think they should let the other sort in, do you? They’re just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What’s your surname, anyway?”

But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin interrupted. “That’s you done, my dear.”

“Well, I’ll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose”, the boy drawled before hopping down from the stool and leaving the shop.

Harry’s face darkened. How could someone so beautiful be so—spiteful?

Harry began to dread his supposed school days. Would there be more like that boy?

That same prideful act, that same prideful voice.

He had thought that the wizarding world would be different, but it seemed that all humans—both magical and not—were the same.

Harry knew that he shouldn’t have had high expectations of anything.

Harry sat inside Madam Malkin’s to wait for Hagrid after getting his uniform.

“Oh! ‘Arry. You er done?”, Hagrid peeked into the shop.

“Yeah”, Harry replied, getting up. After bidding goodbye to Madam Malkin, he left the shop and joined Hagrid.

As he exited the shop, Hagrid handed him an ice cream. Harry ate it quietly as they walked towards their next destination.

“So, how was yer fittin?”, Hagrid asked.

“It was fine”, Harry answered, finishing his ice cream.

Hagrid dropped his desire to talk more after seeing Harry so quiet.

They stopped at different shops to buy parchment and quills, ink, and other supplies.

After they left a shop, Harry finally spoke.

“Hagrid, what’s Quidditch?”

“Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin’ how little yeh know—not knowin’ about Quidditch!”

“Don’t make me feel worse”, Harry replied with a flat tone.

Hagrid seemed to be flustered at Harry’s reaction and quickly cleared his throat before answering. “It’s our sport. Wizard sport. It’s like—like soccer in the Muggle world—everyone follows Quidditch—played up in the air on broomsticks and there’s four balls—sorta hard ter explain the rules.”

“And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?”, Harry continued.

“School Houses. There’s four. Everyone said Hufflepuff are a lot o’ duffers, but—” Hagrid closed in on Harry and spoke in a small voice, “There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one.”

“You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?”

“Years an’ years ago”, Hagrid said.

They continued their round of shopping, stopping to buy Harry’s school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts, where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books. Harry looked at the books with an unreadable expression.

After getting books, they continued on to the next shop, getting a cauldron and a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients, along with a collapsible brass telescope.

Then they visited the Apothecary, which barraged them with horrible smells just as they opened the door.

After exiting the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry’s list again.

“Just yer wand left—oh yeah, an’ I still haven’t got yeh a birthday present.”

Harry’s eyes widened at the mention of a present. “Y-you don’t have to—”, he said, waving his hands in front of him quickly.

“I know I don’t have to. Tell yeh what, I’ll get yer an animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh’d be laughed at—an’ I don’ like cats, they make me sneeze. I’ll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they’re dead useful, carry yer mail an’ everythin’.”

Harry glanced at Hagrid with hopeful eyes as they made their way.

Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. He couldn’t stop looking at the owl and Hagrid back and forth before quietly muttering a thank you.

“Don’ mention it", said Hagrid gruffly. “Don’ expect you’ve had a lotta presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now—only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand.”

A magic wand….

Harry bit his lip. He was already a monster without it—what would he become after he got his hands on a magic wand?

They reached their last shop—narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. And Harry saw a single wand laying on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, made more so with the giant entering it. Hagrid found a single, spindly chair and sat there to wait.

Seeing the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling, Harry began to panic, and, for some reason, the back of his neck prickled.

“Good afternoon”, a soft voice greeted.

Harry jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.

An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

“Hello”, Harry replied after calming his beating heart.

“Ah yes”, the man said.  “Yes, yes. I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Harry Potter.”

It wasn’t a question.

“You have your mother’s eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work.”

As Mr. Ollivander moved closer, Harry took a step back—his forest green eyes meeting gleaming silver.

“Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it—it’s really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course.”

Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could almost see his reflection in those misty eyes.

“And that’s where...”, Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead before sighing.

“I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it”, he said softly.

“Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands...well, if I’d known what that wand was going out into the world to do....”

He shook his head and turned to see the giant standing at the corner of the shop.

“Rubeus. Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again.... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn’t it?”, Mr. Ollivander closed in on Hagrid.

“It was, sir, yes”, Hagrid replied rigidly.

“Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?”, Mr. Ollivander said, his eyes turning cold.

“Er—yes, they did, yes”, Hagrid replied again, shuffling his feet awkwardly.  “I’ve still got the pieces, though”, he added brightly.

“But you don’t use them?”, Mr. Ollivander questioned sharply.

“Oh, no, sir”, Hagrid said quickly.

Harry couldn’t help but notice how Hagrid was gripping his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.

“Hmmm”, Mr. Ollivander gave Hagrid a piercing look before finally turning his attention back to Harry.

“Well, now—Mr. Potter. Let me see”, Mr. Ollivander said as he pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket.

“Which is your wand arm?”

“Oh, um—well, I’m right-handed”, Harry answered.

“Hold out your arm”, Mr. Ollivander instructed and began to measure Harry.

From shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit, and round his head. 

“Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard’s wand”, Mr. Ollivander said as he continued measuring Harry.

Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was in the middle of measuring between his nostrils, was floating on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

“That will do”, he said as the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor.

“Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave.”

Harry took the wand and tried to wave it. But just as he was about to move the wand, he felt it shake uncontrollably, and he had to let it go.

“No? Alright then, try this, maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try—”

Harry had barely raised his hand before he had to pull it back from the sting.

“No, no—here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out.”

Every wand Harry tried either stung him or shook so hard Harry had to let it go. He kept trying wand after wand. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we’ll find the perfect match here somewhere—I wonder, now—yes, why not—unusual combination—holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.”

Harry took the wand, and this time—it didn’t sting, nor did it shake. He felt some sort of warmth on his hand—like he had just found a glove that perfectly fit. But just as he tried to wave it, pain shot through his hand and set off a powerful explosion.

It was so bad that even Hagrid had to hide behind the stool.

“Is that a no?”, Hagrid asked from his hiding spot.

Mr. Ollivander looked at the wand and clasped his chin. “I believe this is the wand. But it seems that Mr. Potter here has some problems with his magic.”

Harry stood there, stunned. Had he been found out? Would they take his wand back? Would he be locked up somewhere?

Mr. Ollivander seemed to have noticed Harry’s distress and finally spoke. “Not to worry, think of it as a dam. Your magic had nowhere to go all this time, and when you finally held your wand, your magic just burst out. Powerful magic you have there.”

Hagrid whooped and clapped. “Oh! That’s great ‘Arry!”

But Mr. Ollivander continued, “But well, well, well...how curious...how very curious...”

He took Harry’s wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, “Curious...curious...”

Harry sighed a breath of relief before looking at Mr. Ollivander with a confused expression. Which Mr. Ollivander replied to with his own pale stare.

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather—just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother—why, its brother gave you that scar.” Harry’s eyes went wide.

“Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember.... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter.... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things—terrible, yes, but great.”

Harry looked at Mr. Ollivander with mixed feelings before paying seven gold Galleons for his wand and leaving the shop.

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, which was now empty.

Harry didn’t talk throughout their walk back, only muttering a small thank you when Hagrid passed him his food at the Leaky Cauldron.

“Everyone thinks I’m special”, he said at last. “All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander...but I don’t know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I’m famous—but I don’t even know why, or how. I don’t know anything about my parents, about the wizarding world, about magic, about what—who I am.”

Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows, he wore a very kind smile. “Don’ you worry, Harry. You’ll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you’ll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it’s hard. Yeh’ve been singled out, an’ that’s always hard. But yeh’ll have a great time at Hogwarts—I did—still do, ’smatter of fact.”

Hagrid reached into his pocket and handed him an envelope. “Yer ticket fer Hogwarts”, he said. “First o’ September—King’s Cross—it’s all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she’ll know where to find me.... See yeh soon, Harry. Gotta go back to report to the Headmaster”, Hagrid said before getting up and waving Harry and the bartender goodbye.

Over the next few weeks, Harry roamed around Diagon Alley while waiting for the date he was to set off to Hogwarts. He had received a letter a few days ago, coercing him to go back to the Dursleys—something about a blood ward to keep him safe.

But he knew there was no such thing as ‘safe’ in that house, so he replied with a letter saying that the Dursleys weren't back from vacation yet, since they usually went out for at least a month. It seemed that Hagrid had bought it and didn’t press any further. Though Harry thought that it was strange how Hagrid had left him at the Leaky Cauldron, only to then tell him to go back to the Dursleys.

As Harry strolled by the different shops, looking over the displays, he felt the urge to just buy anything he wanted, now that he had a lot of money. But then again, he was afraid that everything he owned would be stolen away right under his nose. So, in the end, he opted to buy small things that he could stuff inside his new trunk.

He sat at a bench just outside of Rosa Lee Teabag, with a cup of warm tea in his hand—just how he usually had it, with too much sugar and too much milk. Even though he had ordered a small-sized tea, with the additions, it filled up a large cup.

Sipping on the tea, he looked at the bustling Diagon Alley, enjoying his peace. Other than when he stayed at Mrs. Figg's, he had never had the chance to take a deep breath. He always had to be at Aunt Petunia's beck and call.

But Harry’s peace didn’t last long as several families walked past him, the parents holding their children’s hands, listening to their every want. Harry had never experienced that. He had never gotten what he wanted. He could only be grateful for the things he was given, whether it be a toy Dudley didn’t want anymore, Dudley’s old clothes, or things Dudley had thrown away—everything new must pass Dudley first, then Harry would only be an afterthought.

He wondered every day, what had he done to be treated like this? Had he done something bad in his past life to be reborn as someone unwanted? The Dursleys hated him because of what he was, who his parents were. But—suddenly people here all liked him because of his name?

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the child who vanquished the evil lord when he was only a baby.

Even Hagrid only searched for him because of who he was, and had been frustrated when Harry knew nothing.

It was never Harry, it was always either boy or Harry Potter. Why couldn't they care for him because of him? Was his personality just that terrible? Was he a bad person?

Harry sat at that bench until the sky turned dark, his scar covered by his wild hair. And not a single person came to ask how he was, why he was still sitting on that bench while every shop had closed and not a single person walked that alley.

Harry didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, but when he woke up, he saw the exact same scene he had seen a few nights before. The walls of his room were riddled with claw marks and dark residue—almost like black sand.

Harry didn't know what had happened, but somehow, he knew that it came from him.

Harry stayed in his room for a while to calm himself down before washing up and going down to find something to eat. But as he arrived on the first floor, he heard voices of multiple people talking.

Harry tried to be as quiet as possible and sat on the bar chair to order something. As he waited, he tried to listen in on what the crowd was talking about.

“There are claw marks all over the buildings outside!”

“Oh dear, I heard the poor witch who just opened shop here had to close because of the damages.”

“Do you think this is an attack from you-know-who’s followers?”

“Shhhh, you do not want to mention those horrible lot.”

“Several people that were walking around last night got injured pretty badly—they had to be sent to St. Mungo's!”

“What do you think this attack is?”

“I think I’ve read about it, there was an attack just like it back then in New York.”

“Well, what’s the cause?”

“I don’t know, but it looked similar to the incident years ago.”

The crowd descended into a terrified silence. 

Harry felt his blood run entirely cold. He did not want to hear anymore. But as the bartender brought over his plate, the man was so flustered that he announced his name loudly. “Breakfast order for Mr. Potter!” 

The silenced crowd whipped their heads toward the corner bar where Harry sat. Hundreds of eyes stared at him. He felt like a piece of raw meat tossed into a cage of starving lions.

“Oh! We’re saved! Mr. Potter, please protect us!” 

“Mr. Potter! Harry Potter, the hero of the Wizarding World!” 

The crowd surged forward, flocking over to him, begging him for salvation and singing his praises. Harry, violently unused to the attention and suffocating under the pressure, froze entirely on the spot. 

He couldn't force a single word out of his throat as desperate strangers crowded him, grabbing his shoulders, pulling at his clothes, and seizing his hands.

“You’ll save us, right?” 

“Yeah, you’re the Chosen One after all!” 

“Why aren’t you saying anything!?”

“Harry Potter! Harry Potter! Harry Potter!” 

Harry slammed the door to his room. He slid down the door and sat on the floor, pulling his knees to his chest as he hugged himself, burying his face.

How could he save them? He couldn’t even save himself.

How could those people have any expectations of him? He was only eleven. He only knew how to follow orders, not make them.

Harry stayed in his room until the day he had to leave. All alone, with nothing but his thoughts.

Harry walked with Hagrid at King’s Cross, keeping his head down the entire time, not wanting anyone to recognize him. He had even started to wear his glasses again, since the frames helped hide his scar. Though he still took it off every now and then to obstruct people’s faces, finding comfort in his inability to look at people face to face.

When the two of them reached platforms nine and ten, a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying.

“—packed with Muggles, of course—”

“Oh! Ter Weasleys!”, Hagrid said, approaching the source of the sound. Harry followed quietly behind the giant.

“Now, what’s the platform number?”, said the plump woman.

“Nine and three-quarters!”, piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand. “Mum, can’t I go...”

“You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first.”

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward the dividing barrier between platforms nine and ten. Harry watched blankly as the boy reached the brick pillar. A large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him, and by the time the last of them cleared away, the boy had vanished.

“Fred, you next”, the plump woman said.

“I’m not Fred, I’m George”, said the boy.

“Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can’t you tell I’m George?”

“Sorry, George, dear.”

“Only joking, I am Fred”, said the boy, as he disappeared into the barrier.

His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he was gone. Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier—he was almost there—and then, quite suddenly, he wasn’t anywhere. There was nothing else for it.

“Scuse me”, Hagrid called.

The plump woman turned around at the sound, and her face brightened up. “Oh! Hello. Going to Hogwarts, I assume?”

Hagrid huffed a laugh. “On a mission fer the headmaster to accompany young Harry here.”

“Harry? As in Harry Potter?”, the woman’s eyes went wide.

Harry flinched violently at his name being called out.

“Harry Potter?”, a small voice came from behind the woman as the little girl from earlier stepped forward.

“Ah yes, would ter be so kind to help young ‘Arry here to enter platform nine and three-quarters? It’s his first time, and it ter be better for em to do it with a friend.”

“Oh! Not to worry”, she smiled, turning her gentle attention to Harry.

“All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous. Go on, go now before Ron.”

Harry nodded nervously, pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. 

It looked very solid as he started to walk toward it. People jostled past him on their way to platforms nine and ten, causing Harry to walk more quickly.

He was going to smash right into that pillar, he’s going to crash, he’s going to crash, he’s GOING TO CRASH.

Harry shut his eyes and broke into a run. He was unable to stop, the cart out of control.

As he neared the barrier, he braced his body for the impact—but it never came. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw a scarlet steam engine waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock.

Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it.

He had made it.

Harry walked down the platform, passing by lots of kids accompanied by their families. He tried to keep his sight locked forward—rather than dwelling on the agonizing jealousy churning in his stomach. Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks. The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the windows to talk to their families, some fighting over seats.

Harry pushed his cart off down the train aisle in search of an empty seat until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. 

He put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his heavy trunk toward the train door. He tried to lift it up to the top compartment, but he could hardly reach it until it tumbled down and smashed onto his foot.

“Want a hand?”

It was one of the red-haired twins he’d followed through the barrier.

Harry’s eyes went wide. Terrified of being seen as a burden, he furiously shook his head. “No, thank you. I can manage.”

The tall redhead tilted his head, turned around, and shouted, “Oy, Fred! C’mere and help!”

“Oy, what is it?”, the other twin came by.

“Better help this guy out with his trunk.”

Harry’s body shook, and he frantically waved his hands in front of him to stop them.

“Yes, yes, hello to you too”, the second twin smiled before grabbing Harry’s trunk anyway.

“Heave-ho!”, the twins heaved Harry’s luggage up.

Harry stared at the two boys in front of him, entirely not knowing what to say.

“Alright, we gotta go—wait a minute. What is that?”, one of the twins pointed towards Harry’s forehead.

His long bangs seemed to have been swept away when he was looking up to place his trunk.

“Blimey”, the other twin came closer to see.

“Aren’t you—”

“No! No, haha, no I’m not, I’m nobody”, Harry panicked, his voice pitching up.

“Well hello, nobody!” “Harry Potter!”, the two twins said at the exact same time.

They looked at each other. “Hey! I was about to say that.”

Harry tried to make himself as small as possible while the two boys bickered. It seemed a long time had passed before a voice came floating in through the train’s open door.

“Fred? George? Are you there?”

“Coming, Mum.” With a last lingering look at Harry, the twins hopped off the train.

Harry sat down next to the window where, half-hidden by the shadows, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief.

“Ron, you’ve got something on your nose.”

The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose.

“Mum—geroff”, he said, wriggling free.

“Aww, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?”, one of the twins teased.

“Shut up”, the boy snapped.

“Where’s Percy?”, said their mother.

Harry couldn’t stomach watching the warm family standing on the platform. He looked away and stared at the empty seat in front of him.

Suddenly, he heard his name being mentioned.

Harry whipped his head back toward the window, practically pressing his ear against the glass to hear clearer.

“You know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station? Know who he is?”

“Who?”

“Harry Potter!”

Harry heard the voice of the little girl. “Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh pleaseee.”

Harry’s expression darkened. What did they think he was? Was he a snake in a zoo, waiting to be stared at?

He pulled away from the window and clamped his hands over his ears, refusing to hear another word.

They only cared for him because he was Harry Potter. Not because they cared who he was as a person—but solely because of a name. At least the twins had helped him before they knew who he was, but the second they found out, it was the only thing they cared about.

If Harry had been any other bruised, quiet kid suffering the same fate, no one would have ever searched for him. They didn't care about the boy—they only cared about the hero in their stories.

As the train began to move, Harry sat quietly in his seat, refusing to look at the waving families on the platform. He only turned his gaze to the window when the buildings and trees began to blur past. He wasn't even excited anymore, he was dreading his days at Hogwarts. He doubted he would ever have any real friends—just like Dudley had always said.

Harry was startled as the door of the compartment suddenly slid open and the youngest redheaded boy came in.

“Anyone sitting there?”, the boy asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. “Everywhere else is full.”

Harry eyed the boy, recognizing him as the twins’ little brother. Harry shook his head, and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry once, then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn’t been staring.

A voice called out from the open compartment door. “Hey, Ron”, the twins called.

“Listen, we’re going down the middle of the train—Lee Jordan’s got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right”, Ron mumbled.

“Harry”, one of the twins called, “did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then.”

“Bye”, Ron said.

The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

“Are you really Harry Potter?”, Ron blurted out after only a few minutes of agonizing silence.

“And what’s that got to do with anything?”, Harry said, still facing the window.

“Oh”, Ron snapped his mouth shut and looked down, his freckled face slowly turning red. “I got the wrong person, then.”

Harry eyed the deeply embarrassed boy and sighed. He hated being humiliated himself, and he couldn’t bear being the reason someone else felt that way.

“I am.”

Ron immediately looked up with wide eyes and scrambled his words before asking, “Have you really got—you know…”, he pointed awkwardly at his own forehead.

Harry nodded, but made absolutely no attempt to move his bangs. He had spent his whole life making sure it was covered.

Seeing Harry shut down, Ron quickly looked out the window again.

Harry eventually fell asleep watching the rolling green fields.

Harry was awoken by the loud noise of chatter in the corridor outside. It seemed that the redhead sitting across from him had also been asleep, seeing how he was rubbing his eyes as he rousingly sat up.

A dimpled woman slid back their door and smiled brightly at them. “Anything off the cart, dears?”

Harry, who hadn’t eaten a proper meal for days, nodded quickly. But then he heard rustling from the other boy. When he glanced over, Ron’s ears had gone bright pink. “I already have a sandwich right here”, he muttered, holding up a lumpy package.

Harry felt a deep pang of pity toward the boy. He knew exactly what it felt like to have nothing, and how it felt when the one thing you did have was forced upon you, not chosen.

Harry turned his gaze back to the woman and dug his hand into his pocket. “How much for two of each?”

In the end, Harry paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron’s eyes were as wide as saucers as he watched the lady pass Harry the mountain of purchases.

After the woman left and shut the door, Ron gulped and looked at him. “Hungry, are you?”

Harry nodded. “Starving.”

Ron sighed and started to unwrap his lunch. There were four sad-looking sandwiches inside. He pulled one apart and muttered to himself, “She always forgets I don’t like corned beef.”

Harry picked up a pumpkin pastry and casually tossed the other one right at Ron.

Ron looked up, dumbfounded. He glanced around for a second before his gaze landed on his own dry sandwich. “You want—?”

“Keep it. I got it for you”, Harry said shortly before taking a bite of his own pastry, picking off some of the crust and tossing it to Hedwig.

Ron laughed dryly, looking at the sandwich before happily swapping it for the pumpkin pastry, “She hasn’t got much time”, he mumbled to himself, “you know, with five of us.” 

Harry didn't say anything. He just kept eating and tossing more sweets at Ron, who ended up devouring all of it and completely forgetting his corned beef.

After eating through the pastries, cakes, and candies, Harry reached out and picked up a pack of Chocolate Frogs.

“Oh! Open it, see what card you get there. I’m missing Agrippa”, Ron said excitedly, his mouth still full of cake.

Harry tilted his head, confused about what the redhead was talking about.

Ron stared back in equal confusion before he realized. “Oh, of course”, Ron swallowed before explaining. “Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect—famous witches and wizards. I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy.”

Harry unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. It showed a man’s face. He wore half-moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, a beard, and a mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

“Dumbledore?”

Harry turned his card over and read:

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

“Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa—”, Ron hadn't even finished talking when a Chocolate Frog landed squarely in his lap. “Thanks.”

“Do you know how the school letters know exactly where they're supposed to be sent?”, Harry asked quietly.

Ron pondered before answering, “I bet it’s the headmaster. The letter knows where you live after all. It even knew which bedroom I was staying in.”

Harry’s attention turned inward toward the letter stashed in his pocket. “How long would he have known?”

“Since—forever, I guess? It says right there on the card that he’s considered the greatest wizard of modern times. So knowing something as small as where students live would be a piece of cake for him.”

Harry’s expression darkened. This so-called great headmaster had known all along where he had been staying. He had known about the cupboard under the stairs. Why hadn't he lent a helping hand if he was oh-so-great? He had just let him rot there.

Harry tossed the card away, noticing that Dumbledore’s face had completely disappeared from the frame when it landed on the seat beside him.

“Eh, you’re going to throw it away?”, Ron stared at Harry.

“Not interested.”

“Ah, give it to me then”, Ron said eagerly.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the boy in front of him, “Help yourself, you can take all of it.”

Ron beamed and began grabbing the other pack of Chocolate Frogs, smiling to himself.

Harry smiled a little, happy that he had made another person smile.

Ron was much more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards. As he got lost in his own excitement, Harry opened a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.

“You want to be careful with those”, Ron looked up, warning him. “When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor—you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once.”

Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit off a tiny corner.

“Bleaaargh—see? Sprouts.”

Harry actually liked sprouts. He ate them often because Dudley had refused to touch any vegetables on his plate.

Harry ate his way through the Every Flavor Beans, getting toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, and sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn’t touch, which turned out to be pepper.

The countryside flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat farm fields had vanished. Now there were dark woods, twisting rivers, and deep green hills.

There was a sudden knock on the door of their compartment, and a round-faced boy stepped inside. He looked tearful. “Sorry, but have you seen a toad at all?”, he asked.

Harry and Ron looked at each other before shaking their heads. The moment they did, the boy wailed. “I’ve lost him! He keeps getting away from me!”, he sobbed, leaving the compartment.

“Don’t know why he’s so bothered”, Ron huffed. “If I’d brought a toad I’d lose it as quickly as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can’t talk.” Ron pulled the fat rat out of his pocket and laid it on his lap. “He might have died and you wouldn’t know the difference”, he said in disgust.

“I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn’t work. I’ll show you, look.”

He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in several places, and something white was glinting at the end.

He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville’s lost one”, she demanded.

She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

“We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it”, said Ron, but the girl wasn’t listening, her attention caught at the wand in his hand.

“Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then.” She sat down immediately.

Ron looked taken aback. “Er—all right.” He cleared his throat. “Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.”

He waved his wand, but absolutely nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.

“Are you sure that’s a real spell?”, said the girl.

“Well, it’s not very good, is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard—I’ve learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough—I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?”

She said all this incredibly fast. Harry looked at Ron, deeply relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn’t learned all the course books by heart either.

“I’m Ron Weasley”, Ron muttered. “And this is Harry Potter.”

Harry went completely rigid at the mention of his name, but fought hard to make sure it didn’t show on his face.

“Are you really?”, said Hermione. “I know all about you, of course—I got a few extra books for background reading, and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.”

Great. Now Harry was a freak in history books, too.

“Do either of you know what House you’ll be in? I’ve been asking around, and I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best—I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad.... Anyway, we’d better go and look for Neville’s toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we’ll be there soon.”

And she left, dragging the toadless boy with her.

“Whatever House I’m in, I hope she’s not in it”, said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk.

“Stupid spell—George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud.”

“What house do you want to be in?”, Ron asked.

Harry just shrugged. He didn't know enough about what the houses were, or what Quidditch looked like.

“My family are all in Gryffindor, and I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not. I don’t suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at the mention of the last house. He felt like he had heard it somewhere recently.

Ron flopped back into his seat, looking thoroughly depressed. “Did you hear about Gringotts? It’s been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don’t suppose you get that with the Muggles—someone tried to rob a high-security vault.”

Harry stared, his green eyes widening in shock.

“My dad said it must’ve been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don’t think they took anything, that’s what’s odd. ’Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who’s behind it.”

“What’s your Quidditch team?”, Ron asked.

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What!”, Ron looked dumbfounded. “Oh, you wait, it’s the best game in the world—”

And he was off, enthusiastically explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he’d been to with his brothers and the broomstick he’d like to get if he ever had the money.

He was just taking Harry through the finer points of scoring when the compartment door slid open yet again. It wasn’t Neville or Hermione this time. Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: It was the pale, blond boy from Madam Malkin’s robe shop.

He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he’d shown back in Diagon Alley.

“Is it true?”, he drawled. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment. So it’s you, is it?”

Harry stared at the two huge boys standing on the left and right side of the blond, but said nothing.

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle”, said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking.

“And my name’s Malfoy”, he tilted his chin up haughtily, “Draco Malfoy.”

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy snapped his gaze to him.

“Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”

He turned back to Harry. “You’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.” He held out his pale hand to shake Harry’s.

Harry stared at the hand, but he didn’t take it. He gave the boy a bored, empty look before turning his head entirely toward the window.

Draco Malfoy didn’t go red, but a furious pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.

“I’d be careful if I were you, Potter”, he said slowly, his voice dripping with venom. “Unless you’re a bit politer, you’ll go the same way as your parents.” Harry slowly turned his head back, his eyes flaring with a dangerous, quiet hatred. “They didn’t know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it’ll rub off on you.”

Harry wanted to say something—he wanted to scream. But, driven by his deep-rooted instinct to remain invisible, he opted not to engage. He knew exactly how standing up for himself always ended, it would just be a repeat of when he tried to fight back against Dudley and his gang. Total silence was his safest shield.

Ron stood up, his face as red as his hair. “Say that again.”

“Oh, you’re going to fight us, are you?”, Malfoy sneered. “But we don’t feel like leaving, do we, boys? We’ve eaten all our food and you still seem to have some.”

Goyle reached heavily toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron. Ron leapt forward, but before he could even touch the boy, Goyle let out a horrible, piercing yell.

Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle’s knuckle. Crabbe and Malfoy backed away in terror as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling. When Scabbers finally flew off and hit the window with a thud, all three boys stood there, breathing heavily.

Malfoy seemed to be panting much heavier than the other two.

“You’ve got the wrong person”, Harry said, his tone icy cold. He just wanted this to end quickly. He didn't need any more trouble coming his way he just wanted to be left in peace.

Malfoy’s face flushed a deep red, but as he opened his mouth to retaliate, he suddenly broke into a violent coughing fit. Crabbe and Goyle looked confused as to why the blond was hacking so harshly into his hand. When Malfoy weakly motioned for them to leave, the two goons followed him as he retreated from the compartment.

Just in time, Hermione Granger bustled in. “What has been going on?” Her eyes caught the sweets scattered all over the floor and Ron picking Scabbers up by his long tail.

“I think he’s been knocked out”, Ron sighed as he looked closer at the rat, completely ignoring the girl at the door. “No—I don’t believe it—he’s gone back to sleep.”

Ron turned back to Harry. “You’ve met Malfoy before?”

Harry sighed, rubbing his temples. “At Diagon Alley.”

“I’ve heard of his family”, Ron said, his expression turning dark. “They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they’d been bewitched. My dad doesn’t believe it. He said Malfoy’s father didn’t need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side.”

He finally turned his attention to Hermione. “Can we help you with something?”

Hermione’s eye twitched at being noticed so late. “You’d better hurry up and put your robes on. I’ve just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he said we’re nearly there. You haven’t been fighting, have you? You’ll be in trouble before we even get there!”

“Scabbers has been fighting, not us”, Ron scowled. “Would you mind leaving while we change?”

Hermione turned her face away and huffed. “All right—I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors”, she said in a sniffy voice, tapping her own nose. “And you’ve got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?”

Ron glared at the door as she left.

Harry peered out of the window. It was getting dark. He could see towering mountains and thick forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.

He and Ron quickly changed and put on their long black robes. Ron’s were a bit short for him as Harry could clearly spot the boy's worn sneakers underneath the hem. Harry ignored it, feeling a swell of empathy as he remembered how his own hand-me-down shirts and pants were always comically too big for him.

A voice echoed magically through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Harry shut his eyes tightly, his stomach twisting in knots, while Ron looked pale under his freckles. Ron crammed his pockets with the last of the sweets, and they joined the crowd thronging the corridor. The train slowed right down and finally stopped with a hiss of steam. People pushed their way toward the doors and out onto a tiny, freezing dark platform.

Harry shivered in the cold night air, pulling his robe tighter around himself to try to keep warm.

Then a massive lantern came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a comforting, familiar voice.

“Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here! All right there, Harry?”, Hagrid’s big hairy face beamed over the sea of nervous heads. “C’mon, follow me—any more firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years follow me!”

Harry deliberately kept his head down as several students turned around to gawk at him, their eyes wide at the mention of his name.

Slipping and stumbling in the dark, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, incredibly narrow path. It was so pitch black on either side of them that Harry assumed there must be a thick forest blocking the moonlight. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffled once or twice.

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec”, Hagrid called over his massive shoulder, “jus’ round this bend here.”

There was a loud, collective “Oooooh!”

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great, glassy black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling brilliantly against the starry sky, was a vast, sprawling castle with many turrets and towers.

“No more’n four to a boat!”, Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little wooden boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione.

“Everyone in?”, shouted Hagrid, who had an entire boat to himself. “Right then—FORWARD!”

The fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding silently across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone sat in hushed awe, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered menacingly yet beautifully over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!”, yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff face. They all bent their heads low, and the little boats carried them through a curtain of thick ivy that hid a wide opening in the rock. They were carried along a dark, echoing tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered awkwardly out onto rocks and pebbles.

“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?”, Hagrid pointed down as he checked the boats.

“Trevor!”, Neville cried blissfully, holding out his trembling hands.

The students clambered up a steep passageway in the rock, following Hagrid’s swaying lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the imposing shadow of the castle. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded nervously around the huge, heavy oak front door.

“Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”, Hagrid asked, looking back over the crowd before turning toward the door.

Raising a gigantic fist, he knocked three times on the castle door.

The door swung open at once, just enough to reveal a tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes, standing there. She had a very stern face, just like Aunt Petunia when she was cross with him—which was all the time.

“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall”, Hagrid said, motioning to the small army of kids standing behind him. A few of the students whispered, while some stayed absolutely quiet—afraid of the imposing figure in front of them.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here”, Professor McGonagall said as she pulled the heavy doors wide. Harry could hear the gasps of the other first years. The entrance hall was so big you could fit the whole of the Dursleys’ house inside it.

The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors. The students followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor like baby ducks following their mother.

Harry could hear hundreds of voices echoing from a doorway to the right—the rest of the school must already be here. But Professor McGonagall led the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Hogwarts”, Professor McGonagall greeted, her voice authoritative and clear. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room.”

Some students, again, started to whisper amongst themselves. But Professor McGonagall paid them no mind and simply waited until it was silent once more.

No longer hearing any voices, she continued, “The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.” Her eyes lingered on the students for a moment—like she was searching for someone—before turning. “I shall return when we are ready for you”, Professor McGonagall said, walking away but then pausing. “Please wait quietly”, she added before finally leaving.

Harry felt like he had eyes looking at him. But when he looked around, everyone was busy talking to each other, looking terrified at what was to come.

While Harry was lost in thought, he felt a hand on his shoulder and violently flinched. It was Ron, leaning in to whisper. “I was told that the sorting is some sort of a test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”

Harry was suddenly drenched in a cold sweat. He didn’t know anything about magic—or anything at all. And to be tested in front of so many people, after his name was to be called?

He remembered the cries of the people in the pub, praising him and then practically mobbing him in the time it would take to flip over a pancake. He didn't know what he was supposed to do—he didn't even know who he was. Harry kept his sight locked on the ground, his head swimming with fleeting, panicked thoughts: Should he leave? Should he cry? Should he beg?

Suddenly, he heard the screams of several people around him.

Harry raised his head and looked around to see pearly-white, slightly transparent—people? They glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years as they seemed to be arguing.

“Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance—”

“My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost—I say, what are you all doing here?”

Harry stared at the ghosts floating around. He had heard of ghosts before—but Aunt Petunia had always said that ghosts weren't real and that people who believed in them were delusional freaks.

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Everyone was dead silent.

“New students!”, the Fat Friar smiled. “About to be Sorted, I suppose?” A few people gave each other a nervous glance before nodding mutely.

“Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!”, the Friar waved. “My old House, you know.”

“Move along now”, a sharp voice called out. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite stone wall.

“Now, form a line”, Professor McGonagall waited for the students to obey before motioning her hand. “Follow me”, she said, opening the door and leading the way.

Harry stared at the floor as they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of heavy double doors into the Great Hall.

He paid attention to no one as he walked through the immense room lit by thousands upon thousands of candles. He didn’t even realize that those candles were floating in midair over the four long tables where the older students sat.

These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets, holding the promise of more food than Harry had eaten in his entire life.

At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting.

Professor McGonagall led the first years up front, bringing them to a halt in a line with hundreds of faces staring directly at them.

Harry picked at his nails as he heard Hermione whisper, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts: A History.”

But Harry didn’t make any effort to look at it, as that would require him to raise his head.

Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years, and on top of it, laid a pointed wizard’s hat. Harry sneaked a peek at the hat to see that it was patched and frayed and extremely dirty—just like him.

For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then, the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth—and the hat began to sing. Harry couldn’t really make out what it sang, his heart was beating too loudly in his ears. But when the song ended, the whole hall burst into applause.

It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

“So we’ve just got to try on the hat!”, Ron whispered to Harry. Harry was surprised to realize that Ron had been standing beside him all along.

“I’ll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll.”

Harry didn’t say anything. Yes, trying on a hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he desperately wished they could have tried it on without everyone in the castle watching.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward, holding a long roll of parchment, and her voice rang out loud. “When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted”, she announced before calling the first student.

Harry watched each student being called one by one, having the hat placed upon their head as it began to think.

The hat seemed to be taking a rather long time to deliberate, and Harry feared it. He was terrified that the hat would ask him about his past, about what he did in that house, about the blood, about what he was—

Harry heard Ron grunt when Hermione was sorted into Gryffindor, and once more when Malfoy was sorted into Slytherin. Even the toad boy was sorted into Gryffindor after a very long wait.

As he heard more and more students being called, the more agitated he became. He shuffled his feet, aggressively picking at his nails. His ears started ringing as his vision began to go dark—

“Potter, Harry!”

Harry snapped back to reality.

He gulped heavily before walking toward the stool in front of him.

The hall boomed with whispers that suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the room.

“Potter, did she say?”

“The Harry Potter?”

“I didn’t believe it when I heard that he was in Diagon Alley the other day.”

“I heard that he stayed at the Leaky Cauldron.”

“Since when?”

“Roughly a couple of weeks ago.”

“Wait, isn’t that when the—”

Harry tuned out the voices around him as he sat on the stool. The last thing he saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was a hall full of people craning their necks to get a good look at him, and the next second, he was looking at the pitch-black inside of the hat.

And thus, he waited.

“Hmm”, said a small voice directly in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes—and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting.... So where shall I put you?”

But then the voice went dead quiet.

Harry could feel eyes on him, waiting—like a predator eyeing its prey.

It felt like an eternity before the hat spoke again, and this time, its tone was deeply grave.

“I see that you do not have that long to live anymore.”

“Oh.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence again for the third time until the hat sighed heavily into his mind.

“Then, do tell me. What house would you want to be in?”

Harry pressed his lips into a thin line. How was he supposed to know which house he belonged in? He didn’t even know anything about them in the first place! There was no one house where its members were all guaranteed to be nice people. Humans were not to be trusted, one mistake and that’s all they ever remembered. Like they said, one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.

The hat hummed. “Hmm, then better be…GRYFFINDOR!”

The hat shouted the last word to the whole hall.

Harry took off the hat and walked silently toward the Gryffindor table, keeping his head down the entire time. He hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet.

Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, “We got Potter! We got Potter!”

Harry sat down opposite the ghost in the ruff he’d seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Harry the sudden, horrible feeling he’d just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Hagrid, who caught his eye and gave him a thumbs up. But when his gaze landed on the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore.

Harry recognized him at once from the card he’d gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. He gritted his teeth and gripped his knuckles tightly. It seemed that the white-bearded man realized he was being stared at, and turned to look at Harry.

Harry hurriedly lowered his head back down, sighing—both in panic, but also relief.

He wondered, how would his days in Hogwarts be from this point on?

Harry heard the faint whispers from earlier rising up again at the Gryffindor table. He was afraid of what they were saying about him.

After the last few names were called, the final students joined their tables, including Ron, who sat beside Harry after getting teased by his brothers.

Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away. 

Harry looked down at his empty gold plate. He had only just realized how hungry he was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago. 

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!”, he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!” He sat back down.

Everybody clapped and cheered.

Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Harry turned his attention back to the table as the golden dishes in front of him suddenly piled high with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat in one place: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

Harry had never eaten until he was full—only ever just enough so that he didn't collapse. He had relied on that one meager meal per day like a lifeline. One mistake and it was gone.

On very good days, he’d occasionally get Dudley’s leftovers—even better if the fat boy hadn’t touched it at all before it was shoved toward Harry.

He felt a small, genuine smile creep up his face as he piled foods he had always wanted—but had never been allowed to try—onto his plate.

He ate like a starving animal, like a stray dog that had finally gotten a taste of meat after eating scraps all its life. Harry didn’t pay attention to his surroundings, completely lost in the pure indulgence of food and eating to his heart's content. He had wanted to buy out the whole sweets cart on the train, but he had been too focused on laying low—spending that much money would have brought him unwanted attention.

Fully engaged with his food, he occasionally heard chattering around him, like something about a ghost being nearly headless, or about winning a House Cup—whatever that was.

Harry ate and ate, stuffing his mouth with food until he coughed, completely forgetting to chew. He cleared out his plate and grabbed a glass of pumpkin juice just as moments later, the desserts magically appeared.

Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, and rice pudding.

As Harry helped himself to one of each dessert, he bit into a treacle tart and listened to the people talk.

He didn't really care, though, as he didn't want to talk anyway.

Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, the stuttering professor he had met in the Leaky Cauldron, was talking to a teacher with black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happened very suddenly. The black-haired teacher looked past Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes—and a sharp, white-hot pain shot directly across the scar on Harry’s forehead.

Harry bent forward, his hand flying up to clutch his scar. He bit his lower lip hard, enduring the pain to stay quiet. He had experienced physical pain far worse than this, so it was somewhat bearable. Harry took a deep breath and sat back up. He continued to eat like nothing had happened.

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off, however, was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher’s look—he had seen it countless times in his life: a look of pure hatred and deep disgust.

He moved his gaze, accidentally landing on the boy he had seen at Madam Malkin's—Malfoy, who incidentally, also looked up and met his eyes.

Harry immediately looked down to avoid the stare, focusing intently on the remaining desserts he had piled up on top of his plate.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again as the hall fell silent.

“Ahem—just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you”, Professor Dumbledore started, his voice loud enough to be heard from the end of the hall.

“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins. “I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.”

“Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

Harry heard someone mumbling down the table. “That’s odd, he usually gives us a reason why we’re not allowed to go somewhere—the forest’s full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least.”

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!”, cried Dumbledore. 

Harry noticed that the other teachers’ smiles had become rather fixed and strained. Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to bat a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, rising high above the tables and twisting itself, snakelike, into words.

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand, and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music”, he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

The Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry followed the crowd drowsily, his usual wary senses relaxing from the sheer amount of food he had just eaten. He was too sleepy to even begin to fathom that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that the crowd had passed through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries.

They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet. A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and, after a few moments of silence—they started throwing themselves at the students.

“Peeves, a poltergeist”, Harry heard a whisper. Then the voice spoke louder.

“Peeves—show yourself.”

A loud, squeaking sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered. “Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?”, then there was a pop.

Harry looked up to see a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appear, floating cross-legged in the air and clutching the walking sticks.

“Oooooooh!”, he said, with an evil cackle. “Ickle Firsties! What fun!” He swooped suddenly at them as they all ducked.

Harry was about to get back up when he heard shouting. His body violently tensed up. Clutching his hands over his ears to muffle out the sound, he ended up staying in his original position, crouching defensively on the stone floor.

He only finally stood up when he heard no more voices, and there was only the sound of rattling armor.

“The Bloody Baron’s the only one who can control him, he won’t even listen to us prefects”, a voice explained. “Here we are.”

Harry looked in front of him when the crowd stopped.

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

A redhead—taller than Ron—stepped forward.

“Password?”, the woman asked.

“Caput Draconis.”

Harry heard a creak, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall.

They all scrambled through it. Some ran toward the common room—a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

The dormitories were separated by gender, and at the top of a spiral staircase, Harry found his place to sleep for the rest of his Hogwarts life. There were five four-poster beds hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Even the trunks had already been brought up.

Too utterly exhausted to care, Harry and his other roommates—one of whom turned out to be Ron—hurried toward the common bathroom and slumped onto each of their beds as soon as they had finished washing up.

Harry could almost cry when he laid down on the mattress—his first ever real bed. It was so soft and big that it could fit two of his threadbare blankets from back in the cupboard.

Harry was hazing in and out of consciousness when he heard someone speak.

“Great food, isn’t it?”, Ron muttered to Harry through the hangings. “Get off, Scabbers! He’s chewing my sheets.”

Not paying it too much mind, Harry fell asleep almost at once.

Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange, suffocating dream. He was wearing Professor Quirrell’s turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Slytherin at once, because it was his destiny—but what was the point of houses if everyone acted the same?

Harry ignored it, but the turban grew heavier and heavier. He tried to pull it off, but it tightened painfully around his skull—and there was Malfoy, looking at him with his chin lifted high and his cold eyes looking down at him—then Malfoy twisted and turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high, cold, and cruel—then there was a blinding burst of green light—.

Harry woke, sitting straight up—sweating and shaking violently.

Looking around, the room was completely dark and the other boys were still sleeping soundly.

Taking a deep, rattling breath, he forced his racing heart to calm down and lay back on the soft bed. He tossed and turned a few times until he finally slipped into a dreamless sleep.

When he woke up the next day, he didn’t even remember the dream from the night before.

“There, look.” 

“Where?” 

“Next to the tall kid with the red hair.” 

“Wearing the glasses?” 

“Did you see his face?” 

“Did you see his scar?”

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next morning. Students—both new and old—were all trying to get a closer look.

“He doesn’t look like how I expected him to be.”

“I heard that James Potter was tall.”

“Maybe he hasn’t gone through his growth spurt yet?”

Harry tried to ignore the comments, but with the sheer amount of people talking about him, he started to deeply question himself again.

Across the hundred and forty-two staircases—which were wide, sweeping, narrow, and had a habit of changing every Friday—through doors that had special requirements, and past moving portraits, Harry felt the weight of a thousand eyes. In every hall they passed, people would line up outside of classrooms, standing on their tiptoes to get a look at him, or double back to pass him in the corridors again, staring openly.

“One of my relatives said that he spoke to him at the Leaky Cauldron.”

“Oh really? How was he?”

“He said that the Savior of the Wizarding World didn’t want to help the locals there.”

“But how could that be? Is it really him, though?”

Harry kept his sight glued to the other Gryffindors as he followed them to their classes, trying to hide himself amidst the crowd.

Turning a corner, Harry accidentally collided with someone and fell hard onto the stone floor.

“I’m really sorry. Are you okay?”

Harry looked up to see a boy with golden hair, not much older than him, looking down with a hand stretched out.

Harry was about to take his hand, but the boy suddenly paused.

“Wait, are you Harry Potter, by chance?”

Harry froze in a cold sweat. No one would ever act nice to him without a cause.

The boy’s expression shifted instantly from warm to irritated. “Are you or are you not?”

Harry began to panic at the sudden, aggressive change in tone.

“I’m sorry?”

He shot Harry a bewildered expression. “Forget it”, the boy scowled, retracting his hand and turning to his friends.

“Come on, let’s go. See, I told you there is no way a weak, pathetic kid like that is the great Harry Potter.”

Harry got to his feet quietly and dusted his robes. Looking around, he realized he was completely lost. The other Gryffindors hadn't noticed he had fallen behind.

Walking blindly along the winding hallway, he eventually heard loud shouting.

The school caretaker, Argus Filch, was yelling at a crowd of first-year Gryffindors. Apparently, they had tried to force their way through a door—which happened to be the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor.

Filch refused to believe they were merely lost. He was certain they were trying to break in on purpose and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons.

Harry shrank back against the wall. He hated how Filch was shouting, but the man did seem somewhat fair, seeing as he yelled at the students without differentiating who they were.

To escape the caretaker's wrath, the Gryffindors scrambled into a nearby empty broom closet, but with the door being shut so hard—it had knocked a broom onto the handle of the closet, locking them inside. Only after realizing that they’re stuck inside, they finally noticed that Harry wasn’t with them.

Seeing the other Gryffindors unable to come out, Harry walked towards the closet to help them. But just as Harry was about to reach for the broom—he heard whispers from his housemates.

“Potter, where’s Harry Potter?”

“Oh! He must be trying to rescue us!”

“But I don’t see him anywhere.”

“And why would he try to rescue us?”

“What are you talking about? Because he’s the Savior of the Wizarding World! Of course he would come to save us.”

“Oh, you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

There was an awkward silence, filled only by the sound of rustling robes. 

Harry wanted to leave, to run away, but he wouldn’t be able to get to his class without following them. So he backed into a corner just before a turn and sat there. Hiding from their sight in case they managed to get out.

“You know that he stayed at the Leaky Cauldron last month, right?”

Harry heard hushed murmurs of agreement.

“And you’ve also heard of the incident that happened in Diagon Alley?”

“The big claw marks?”

“Yeah, that one. People are saying that those claw marks appeared during his stay there.”

“I heard that when he left, the claw marks disappeared.”

Harry buried his head in his knees, hugging himself tightly to stop his body from shaking.

“Are you saying that he’s the cause of that incident?”

“Couldn’t say for sure. But when the people there asked for his help, he turned them down and ran away like a coward.”

Harry could hear dramatic gasps coming from the room.

“And then, what happened?”

“After that day, the incident got worse. The onslaught was even more brutal than before—and I heard that there was even a victim.”

“Murder!?”

“Shhh!!!! Be quiet. It wasn’t a person, though, thank goodness.”

Harry’s ears perked up. A cold dread settled in his stomach as he realized why his shirt had been stained red that morning.

The room fell into another silence, broken only when a stuttering voice echoed in the corridor.

Professor Quirrell, who had been passing by, discovered the kids inside the room and let them go. Only then did Harry pop out of the corner.

“There you are! I was looking all over for you.”

Harry tried his absolute best to force a small, fake smile.

“Potter! Where have you been?”, a dark-skinned boy asked.

“Ah, I bumped into someone when I was following you and got lost. I was looking for you guys when I heard people talking and walked here. Thank goodness you’re all okay.”

“Oh”, the boy scratched his head awkwardly.

Professor Quirrell bade them all farewell and hurried on his way.

After even more twists and turns, they finally reached their class—late.

Whispers rang out the second the class noticed who had just walked in. It wasn’t until they all sat down that the murmurs finally ceased.

Harry learned that he wouldn't only be learning how to say weird words and flick his wand as there was a lot more to magic. They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets.

Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Harry actually found History of Magic interesting, mostly since it was the only class taught by a ghost.

He had always secretly loved learning, but back in Surrey, he had purposely forced himself to get bad grades since he ‘couldn’t possibly be smarter than Dudley.’ His primary school life hadn't been peaceful either, as Dudley and his gang would always invent new hunting games that made Harry the target.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class, he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry’s name, he gave an excited squeak and toppled right out of sight. Again with the special treatment for a name, Harry sighed.

Professor McGonagall was entirely different, though. Harry had been quite right to think she wasn’t a teacher to cross. Strict and sharp, she gave them a stern talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts”, she warned.

“Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but they soon realized they weren’t going to be changing furniture into animals for a very long time.

After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and told to try and turn it into a needle.

Harry tried to channel magic to his wand—however he was actually supposed to do it. But he only felt a sharp, burning pain in his chest before a powerful, uncontrolled blast shot out of the wood. He was oddly comforted by the physical pain—it wasn’t so unbearable that he had to huddle over, but it was enough to reassure Harry that he was at least doing something.

By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match.

Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy, and gave Hermione a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell’s lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke.

His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he’d met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but no one was sure they believed the story.

A few students had asked about what monster or spell could leave big gashes of claw marks in buildings. The professor suggested the Diffindo charm, but ended up a stuttering, nervous mess when the students pointed out that the results of the spell didn't quite match the sheer brutality of the alley attacks.

After a long week of constantly getting lost, they finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for Friday breakfast without a single wrong turn.

Harry ate quietly as he listened to the other Gryffindors in his year talk about the day's schedule.

“Double Potions with the Slytherins. Snape’s Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them—we’ll be able to see if it’s true.”

At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the distinct, chilling impression that Professor Snape deeply disliked him.

“Wish McGonagall favored us.”

Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn’t stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

Just then, the morning mail arrived. Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a massive shock on the first morning—when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages directly onto their laps.

Hedwig hadn’t brought Harry anything so far, of course. She would sometimes fly in to affectionately nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery.

This morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a rough parchment note onto Harry’s plate. Harry furrowed his eyebrows, not knowing who in the world would ever send him a letter. Tearing it open, he read the very untidy scrawl:

Harry grabbed a quill from his bag, quickly scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the freezing dungeons. It was significantly colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the stone walls.

Professor Snape, like Professor Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry’s name.

“Ah, yes”, he said softly, his voice dripping with malice. “Harry Potter. Our new—celebrity.”

Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their thick hands, while Malfoy gave Harry a superior look and clicked his tongue. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His black eyes were entirely cold and empty.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making”, he began.

He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. Like Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape had the rare gift of keeping a class perfectly silent without effort.

“As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses...”, he let his gaze drag across the students. “I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

A heavy silence followed the speech. Some students exchanged nervous looks, while Hermione Granger leaned forward, desperately wanting to prove that she wasn’t a dunderhead.

“Potter!”, said Professor Snape suddenly, his voice cracking like a whip. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Harry flinched. He racked his brain but came up with nothing. He glanced toward the bushy-haired girl whose hand had shot high into the air, yet was being completely ignored. Defeated, and wanting the man to stop staring at him, he answered quietly, “I don’t know, sir.”

Snape’s lips curled into a nasty sneer. “Tut, tut—fame clearly isn’t everything.”

He ignored Hermione’s waving hand and zeroed back in on Harry. “Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Hermione stretched her hand even higher, as far into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat. Harry remembered he had read this during his isolation in the pub.

“Is it—in a goat’s stomach, sir?”, Harry said, looking up slowly at the towering professor.

“How thoughtful of you to think of opening a book before coming, eh, Potter? Correct.”

Harry let out a small breath, but before he could relax, Professor Snape fired yet another question. “What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

At this, Hermione literally stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books, but how was he expected to memorize everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

Feeling cornered and deeply unsettled by the man's relentless bullying—which felt far too similar to Uncle Vernon's interrogations—Harry decided to gamble on a guess. “They’re the same plant?”, he said tentatively.

Professor Snape eyed Harry with a dangerous, dark look before adding a follow-up. “And what is their other name?”

Harry closed his eyes, shrinking into his shoulders. “I don’t know”, he murmured. He cast a desperate glance at the girl beside him. “But I think Hermione knows, sir. Why don’t you ask her?”

A few people laughed at the deflection, but Professor Snape was severely unamused.

“Sit down”, he snapped at Hermione.

“For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar, as you said, is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite.” Professor Snape glared at the rest of the room. “Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

There was a sudden, frantic rummaging for quills and parchment.

Over the noise, Professor Snape sneered, “A point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter.” He noted Harry’s darkening expression. “But because you could somewhat answer the questions, one point will be given to Gryffindor.”

Things didn’t improve for the Gryffindors as the lesson continued. Professor Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he clearly favored.

He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid-green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. A Gryffindor had somehow managed to melt their partner’s cauldron into a twisted blob, and their boiling potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people’s shoes.

Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools. Neville, who had been completely drenched in the potion when his cauldron collapsed, moaned in agony as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

“Idiot boy!”, Professor Snape snarled, clearing the spilled potion away with one sharp wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Harry heard pathetic whimpering on the floor. Peering down, he saw boils starting to pop up rapidly all over Neville's nose.

“Take him up to the hospital wing”, Snape spat at Neville's desk mate. Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who, unluckily, were sitting right beside the exploding cauldron.

“You—Potter—why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That’s another point you’ve lost for Gryffindor.”

Harry just nodded numbly, taking the unfair blame exactly as he always did back home.

As they climbed the stone steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry’s mind was racing—why did Professor Snape hate him so much? What had he ever done? 

But Harry knows that he has done nothing to the man. Then, had his parents done something towards the Professor? But why should he be the object of his hatred?

At five to three, Harry left the castle and made his way across the sprawling grounds. Ron had asked him where he was going, but Harry deflected, simply stating he was going out to get some fresh air.

Hagrid lived in a small, rustic wooden house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes sat outside the front door. When Harry knocked, there was a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming, deep barks.

“Back, Fang—back”, Hagrid’s voice rang out. Hagrid’s hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the heavy door open. “Hang on”, he grunted. “Back, Fang.”

He let Harry inside, struggling to keep a hold on the thick collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside the hut. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed covered with a patchwork quilt.

“Make yerself at home”, Hagrid said, finally letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Harry and started enthusiastically licking his ears. Much like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not nearly as fierce as he looked.

Hagrid poured boiling water into a large teapot and put a plate of rock cakes on the table. The rock cakes were shapeless, dense lumps with raisins that almost broke Harry’s teeth, but he didn’t complain and just ate them. Food, however hard or tasteless it was, was a blessing. He would never waste a crumb.

Harry told Hagrid all about his lessons as Fang rested his heavy head on Harry's knee, drooling all over his black robes.

Harry told Hagrid about the incident with Filch, making no comment when Hagrid called Filch “that old git.” 

“An’ as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I’d like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D’yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can’t get rid of her—Filch puts her up to it.” 

Then, Harry brought up Snape’s lesson. Hagrid quickly told Harry not to worry about it, claiming that Snape hardly liked any of the students.

“But he kept picking on me and called my name for everything.” 

“Rubbish! Why should he?”, Hagrid said, his eyes not quite meeting Harry’s.

Harry eyed Hagrid before pressing, “Do you know him during his school days?”

“Oh, quite ter quiet one he is”, Hagrid answered vaguely, aggressively nibbling on a rock cake.

“And how was his relationship with my parents?”

Hagrid completely froze. “And why would ter ask that?”, he huffed awkwardly.

“Oh, nothing much. Just thought that it would have something to do with them.” Harry glanced down at the table and noticed a piece of parchment sticking out from under the tea cozy.

It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

“But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you”, said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

Harry suddenly remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn’t mentioned the specific date.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows, staring at the clipping. “The Gringotts break-in happened on the exact same day we went there?”

This time, Hagrid definitely refused to meet Harry’s eyes as he grunted uncomfortably and offered Harry another rock cake. The vault that was searched had, in fact, been emptied earlier that very same day by Hagrid himself.

Harry sighed internally. It seemed that he could no longer trust Hagrid, just as Hagrid clearly didn't trust him. Harry didn't really care about the Gringotts vault, but he did care that Hagrid clearly knew something about Professor Snape and his parents, yet actively chose to lie to his face.

During his walk back toward the castle, Harry stumbled across the edge of a giant Black Lake.

Desperately not wanting to hear any more whisperings in the common room, he decided to sit down and leaned on the thick trunk of an old tree. He planned to wait for the sky to fully darken, hoping the students would be too tired to gossip or stare at him by the time he snuck back in.

Harry knew there was a strict curfew, but if he could just time it perfectly, he would be able to slip into his dorm with no problem.

Just as he was staring out over the glassy water, turning over how he should pry the truth about his parents out of Hagrid, he heard the heavy crunch of footsteps.

“What are you doing here, Potter wannabee?”

Harry flinched and looked up. It was the golden-haired boy from the corridor earlier. After giving the older boy a blank glance, Harry turned his face back toward the lake, ignoring him.

“Hey, I’m talking to you over here.”

The boy stepped directly in front of Harry, blocking his view of the water and towering over him.

“How pathetic should you be to pretend to be the great Harry Potter?”, the boy folded his arms.

Harry sighed. “I never said I was Harry Potter”, he answered quietly.

The boy scoffed loudly. “Oh yeah? Then how come everyone was saying you are, if you weren’t the one prancing around spreading lies?”

“Why don’t you ask them?”, Harry’s patience was wearing thin, his chest tightened—like something was trying to come out. He was sitting outside to avoid annoying glances, but ended up with someone worse. He could ignore whispers, but he wouldn’t be able to ignore someone standing right in front of him.

“I don’t want any trouble. If you’re not going to leave, then I will.” Harry tried to stand up, but a heavy hand shoved him roughly back down into the dirt.

“Have you no shame? Walking around using a great name like Harry Potter?”

Harry gritted his teeth, when he was Harry Potter, they swarmed him like a moth to light. But when he wasn’t, he’s scorned and reduced to being a liar.

“Not saying anything now? You're scared you’ve been found out?”

Harry glared up at the boy, his heart beginning to hammer painfully against his ribs. “Leave me alone.”

“And why would I? My parents said that lying scum are the worst people in the world!”

“Just leave me alone.” Harry scrambled to stand up again, trying to push past, but the boy violently shoved him backward. Harry's back slammed hard against the rough ground.

“I bet you have no parents to teach you any manners—”

“I said, leave me ALONE!”

Harry’s breathing hitched as a blinding, suffocating panic clawed up his throat. He felt his very skin burning, cracking open as pitch-black, sand-like wisps began to violently leach out of his body.

His emotions warred violently as the creature inside him started to take control. He didn’t want to hurt anyone and bring even more attention to himself—but another, much darker part of his mind was screaming for him to silence everyone that had hurt him. 

Clinging onto his last bits of lucidity, Harry remembered Professor McGonagall’s lesson on channeling magic. He desperately tried to reign the darkness in, to force it back down into the cage in his chest. He shakily forced himself to his feet, trembling under the sheer pressure, fighting a losing battle against this—thing coming out of him. 

His vision rapidly turned a venomous, blinding red, the edges bleeding into pitch black. Harry felt his feet leaving the ground as he could just barely make out the silhouette of the older boy, who had stumbled backward, his arrogant sneer entirely replaced by stark, paralyzed horror.

Just as the boy opened his mouth to scream, the darkness violently lunged forward.

That—was Harry’s first intentional kill.

He had blacked out, and when he finally forced his eyes open, he was met with the starry night sky. It seemed he had collapsed at the edge of the Black Lake.

Sitting up and rubbing his eyes, a sudden jolt of panic shot through him—he was late for curfew.

He wanted to sprint toward the Gryffindor common room, but his clothes were drenched in a thick, sticky red liquid.

He took off his outer robe and stumbled toward the edge of the lake. The moment he knelt to start washing the blood away, however, he heard yet another footsteps on the grass behind him, but this time, it was quiet.

“Potter?”

A voice Harry had heard earlier that morning called out to him. Harry glanced over his shoulder to see Professor Snape, his pale face angry—but also, conflicted?

Harry didn’t say anything, he could still hear voices inside his head. Harry shook his head and continued to dip his ruined robe into the black water.

There was a flurry of fabric fluttering before Harry felt a harsh hand seize his arm.

“Potter, what are you doing? And what is that—”

Professor Snape’s dark eyes went impossibly wide. Harry’s robe was dyeing the lake water a deep, sickly red. But when the professor glanced at the boy’s face, he found absolutely no emotion. It was the chilling, hollow look of someone who had entirely given up on the world.

The professor recognized that expression all too well—as it had been his as well in the past.

“Come with me”, Snape ordered, pulling Harry to his feet and dragging him swiftly toward his office in the dungeons.

As Professor Snape closed the heavy oak door, Harry was still staring down at his soaked robes with an unnatural level of calmness.

“Care to explain, Potter?”, Professor Snape demanded, turning on him.

Harry made no effort to answer, his gaze shifting on to the stone floor.

Professor Snape irritatedly clicked his tongue, “Don’t think because you’re the supposed chosen one you can strut free from any responsibilities.”

Harry didn’t answer, as he was absent mindedly scrubbed on the red stain on his robe. The blatant dismissal made Snape even more furious.

“Look at me!”, Snape barked, grabbing Harry’s arm—only to be met with piercing green eyes. Those eyes were eerily bright, glowing with a manic intensity without his glasses to obstruct them.

Snape was violently taken aback by the familiar—yet utterly foreign—gaze. He let go of Harry’s arm as if he had touched a Venomous Tentacula.

Snape glanced back at the red stains, a horrific thought flickering in his mind. He swallowed hard. “Potter, what did you do?”

Harry tilted his head to finally meet Snape’s eyes, his gaze dangerous but his voice cracked as he said, “Would you believe me if I had said that I didn’t do anything?”

Snape pressed his lips into a thin line, saying nothing. A heavy silence swept across the dungeon room, stretching until Harry suddenly huffed a dry, hollow laugh.

“What’s so funny?”, Snape snapped.

“It’s funny how whatever I say, nobody would ever believe me. People either put Harry Potter on a pedestal—seeing him as a savior hero or a heartless villain.”

Professor Snape watched warily as the small boy took a slow, deliberate step toward him.

“Do tell me, Professor. What sin have I committed to deserve this?”

Snape looked at Harry with a guarded expression, his jaw clenched tight.

“No? Then what had my parents done?”, Harry’s green eyes were practically glowing in the dim light, the manic edge sharpening his voice.

Snape hadn’t wanted to dig into his miserable past, he had done everything to bury it deep in his memories. But seeing the expression on the boy’s face, that face that looked so much like his tormenter back in the day—he snapped.

“Insollent boy! You want to know what your parents have done to me?”, Snape scoffed bitterly. “Your father made fun of me every waking chance he got. He called me names, mocking me for wanting to join Slytherin, he’d launched hexes and jinxes at me out of boredom!”

Harry went quiet hearing Snape’s explanation. But he wasn’t done, breathing heavily, he continued. “And the worst of all is when he attacked me by the lake out of nowhere—”

“Shut up.”

“Disarmed me with Expelliarmus, jinxed me till I was knocked down—”

“I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Washed my mouth with Scourgify, then lifted me up upside down in the air!”  

There seemed to be more to the story, but Snape choked on the words. Refraining from saying anything more to protect his last bits of dignity.

Harry’s breathing heavily, his small chest heaving. The voices in his head grew louder as something was struggling to lurch out of his chest. Then he muttered in a small voice, so small that Snape couldn’t quite hear it.

“What is it, Potter? What pampered, spoiled child would know how it feels—”

“WHY IS THAT MY FAULT!?”

Harry screamed, a sound that tore his throat raw. In an instant, his skin violently cracked open to reveal a swirling, roaring vortex of pitch-black wisps. The manic energy shattered, replaced by pure, blinding rage—before it lunged directly at Snape.

Luckily, Snape had fast reflexes. He threw himself backward and shouted, “Protego Maxima!”

The black entity slammed into the shimmering magical barrier with the force of a freight train. Snape couldn’t hide the absolute terror on his face as he stared at the nightmare raging in front of him.

The black wisps kept battering the shield, tearing at the magic, stopping at nothing to obliterate the source of the shouting.

Snape quickly ran through his options. He needed to stop this—thing. No, he needed to stop Harry from hurting him, and most importantly—from destroying himself.

“Potter! Get yourself together!”

But Harry wouldn’t stop his onslaught merely from a few words, more over—it just seemed to be getting worse. The thing inside him feeding on his desperate need to not be hurt nor cornered.

Snape closed his eyes, thinking of the one desperate option left. “Potter, I—” he sighed heavily.

“I haven’t told you about your mother, yet.”

Harry’s attack hastened in interval as Snape continued, “Your mother—Lily, was the kindest person in the whole world.” Snape looked at Harry with mixed emotions.

“She was my childhood friend—no. She’s my only friend in my entire life. Seeing how you have her eyes, reminded me of her.”

The violent battering hesitated. Seeing this, Snape pressed on, lowering his gaze to not look at the boy in front of him. “She would shield me from bad people that called me names. She saw me for who I am, a person. Not a Slytherin nor a half blood.”

Harry had calmed enough to stop banging on the shield entirely, hovering in the air as a massive, volatile shadow.

“I know this is selfish of me, but she was my sole lifeline in this world. And I hope you will find someone like that too. She loved—” Snape shook his head, his voice cracking, “She loves you very much, so much that she could protect you from the Dark Lord.”

When Snape finally looked up, the black wisps had vanished. His eyes darted everywhere in his office in panic. Only when a trembling Harry walked out of the dark corner of the room did the Potions Master release a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Then why did you hate me, if I had never done anything to you?”, Harry asked, his voice incredibly small and quivering.

Snape swallowed thickly, answering carefully. “It seems that—I had projected them on to you.”

Harry walked slowly past Snape toward the heavy door. He stopped just as his hand touched the handle.

“Professor, do me a favor—just act like I don’t exist. As the only person in this world that could ever understand what you’ve been through—would be me”, Harry said coldly, before he shut the door behind his back.

Snape grabbed onto the edge of his desk, his legs giving out as he covered his face with his hands. His voice a broken whisper in the empty dungeon.

“Oh, Lily. I—I’m so sorry.”

Harry quickly walked back towards Gryffindor Tower—luckily he had memorized the route back from his walk towards Potions Class this morning.

When he arrived and opened his mouth to say the password, the Fat Lady in the portrait took her sweet time waking up. When she finally did, she eyed Harry’s ruined clothes with deep suspicion.

“And where have you run off to, young man? Don’t you know what time curfew is?”, she jabbed sharply.

Harry bit the bottom of his lip, thinking of a reason. But before Harry could muster up an answer, a smooth voice cut in from the shadows.

“Mr. Potter here had some—extra assignments from me. That's why he had come back so late.”

Harry whipped his head around to see Professor Snape. His expression was as flat and unreadable as a stone wall.

“Oh, is that so, Professor?”, the portrait took another skeptical look at the two of them before sighing. “Well, come in then.” She swung open, revealing the Gryffindor common room.

Harry took one last lingering glance at Professor Snape before stepping through.

After a moment of contemplation, he turned back. “Why—”

But the portrait had already swung shut, violently obstructing his view of the halls—and of Professor Snape.

After soaking his clothes in the shower and burying them in the absolute deepest corner of his trunk, Harry slipped into his bed and closed his eyes.

He had killed someone. On purpose, this time. He had attacked a teacher. Snape knew his secret, knew the monster he carried, and knew what he had likely done—but the man had protected him anyway.

Harry tossed and turned for what felt like hours, his conscience tied in agonizing knots, until he finally succumbed to a restless sleep.

The next morning, Harry was so lost in thought regarding Professor Snape that he was completely oblivious to why the other Gryffindors were groaning at the breakfast table.

“Great, flying lessons are starting on Thursday—and we’re learning it with the Slytherins!”

Harry glanced at a short kid with light sandy hair who was loudly telling a story about how he had zoomed around the countryside on his broomstick all his childhood. Ron and a dark-skinned boy were also having a heated argument about their favorite sports teams—either Quidditch or soccer, Harry didn't know or care.

Neville was talking nervously to Hermione Granger, both of them terrified of never having flown on a broom before—just like Harry.

“I know Malfoy’s always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet it’s all talk.”

Harry’s ears perked up at the blond’s name being mentioned. He remembered his encounters with Malfoy and scowled. He never thought he’d meet a boy who reminded him so much of his supposed cousin.

Harry listened to the others complain about Malfoy boasting that first years weren't allowed on the House teams, and spinning tall tales about narrowly escaping muggle helicopters.

Harry rolled his eyes. He could never understand the boy. Strutting around with his chin up, talking big, only to cower, heave, and go completely quiet the next moment. Harry genuinely thought the boy might have a personality disorder.

“Anyway, has anyone seen McLaggen?”

During breakfast on Thursday, Harry was eating to his heart’s content—as usual. Accompanied by the sound of Hermione Granger, who apparently had just gotten through a book called ‘Quidditch Through the Ages’. The Great Hall was also quite noisy due to the chilling announcement that a second-year student had gone missing, and that all students were now strictly mandated to walk in groups.

But the tension was briefly interrupted by the arrival of the morning mail.

Harry hadn’t gotten a single letter since Hagrid’s note—a pathetic fact that Malfoy had been incredibly quick to notice. Meanwhile, Malfoy’s massive eagle owl was constantly bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly at the Slytherin table.

A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly, revealing a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be swirling with white smoke.

“It’s a Remembrall!”, he explained to the table. “Gran knows I forget things—this tells you if there’s something you’ve forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red—oh...”

His round face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed a brilliant scarlet. “...you’ve forgotten something...”

Neville was desperately trying to remember what he’d forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was passing behind the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall right out of his hand.

Ron eyed Harry and half-rose from his seat, but hesitated when he saw Harry not moving a muscle. The other Gryffindors also stared at Harry, clearly expecting the 'hero' to jump in and defend Neville.

But Harry paid them absolutely no mind, calmly reaching for another serving of sausages and mashed potatoes.

Luckily, Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.

“What’s going on?”, Professor McGonagall demanded, marching toward the squabbling kids.

“Malfoy’s got my Remembrall, Professor”, Neville said meekly.

Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the glass ball back on the table and raised both his hands in mock surrender.

“Just looking”, he shrugged, before sloping away with Crabbe and Goyle tailing behind him.

Professor McGonagall sighed heavily before walking back toward the High Table.

Harry could physically feel the glares burning into the side of his head as he munched on some tater tots. Several Gryffindors sitting near him started murmuring aggressively amongst themselves. Harry was used to this, of course.

Ron and the other first years all cast sidelong glances at him, clearly wanting to say something but seeming to lose their nerve at the last second.

Finally, someone actually opened their mouth. “Um, Harry. Why didn’t you say anything? I thought you hated him.”

It was Ron, looking at him with wide, expectant eyes.

Harry tilted his head, chewing slowly before swallowing. “Yes, I do hate him. But what’s it got to do with me?”

“But don’t you feel the need to protect others?”, another boy chirped in.

“Yeah, what Dean said is right. Why didn’t you argue with him?”

Harry stared at them with a bone-chillingly cold gaze. “Then what about you guys? Why should I be the one to save him? If you’re so obsessed with fighting for justice, then you do it.”

“But you’re the Savior of the Wizarding World!”, Ron argued loudly.

“And who gave me that title?”

The whole Gryffindor table seemed to have caught wind of the heated argument happening between their first years, falling silent to listen in.

“You defeated the dark lord!”, the person who’s apparently called Dean retorted.

“I supposedly did that when I was one year old. But, in fact, it wasn’t even me at all. It was my mother who protected me.”

“Right, you were a hero when you were only one year old. Then what about now?”, they deliberately ignored Harry’s statement and still pressed on.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows, his pulse starting to quicken. “Why are you so obsessed with this? I didn’t ask for any of this. I just wanted to be a normal kid.”

“Well, because we’re your friend, of course. We want you to embody the spirit of Gryffindor, to be brave and to be the hero that you are”, Ron said, puffing up his chest.

“Friends?”, Harry clicked his tongue, a bitter, manic laugh escaping him. “Some friends you are. You all just want to ride on my fame.”

The Gryffindor boys all stared at Harry with wide, offended eyes.

“How could you say that?”, the smallest of the bunch, spoke up after a heavy silence.

“I guess what Seamus told us was right, you did leave the people in Diagon Alley to fight their own battles. While that monster came for you, you hid in Leaky Cauldron and ignored their cries for help!”

“I bet he’s the one who also caused McLaggen to disappear, too!”

Harry’s lips pressed into a thin line. He grabbed a Treacle Tart and stood up abruptly, shoving the pastry into his robe pocket. Without sparing a single glance back at the table, he made his way toward the Great Hall’s massive doors.

Just as he was about to cross the threshold, he heard a loud, intentional whisper from his housemates.

“Truly, not all that glitters is gold.”

It was the last thing he heard before he left the hall.

Harry walked blindly until he reached the Black Lake. He wanted to sit right at the edge of the water—but the memory of what he had done there last night flashed in his mind, making him physically nauseous.

Spotting a tall, thick oak tree nearby, he climbed up and leaned against one of the sturdiest branches, pulling out his Treacle Tart and took a bite.

He actually felt a slight, twisted relief after saying what was on his mind. He was definitely going to be antagonized by everyone in his house now, but he didn't care. He didn’t need friends—he had never had any before anyway.

He had survived alone practically his entire life. Why would he need anyone now?

As the sun rose higher into the sky, Harry blankly watched the giant squid sunbathing its massive tentacles on the surface of the lake.

He was lost in thought when he heard the crunch of footsteps, followed immediately by a heavy thud—like someone collapsing onto the ground. Harry glanced down through the leaves. To his absolute shock, the person kneeling in the dirt, desperately holding himself up with trembling arms, was Draco Malfoy.

It seemed the blond hadn't realized he was being watched. He squeezed his eyes shut, coughing violently into his chest. He stayed in that miserable position for a long time before reaching a shaking hand toward the trunk of the very tree Harry was sitting in, trying to pull himself up.

Malfoy looked around frantically before letting himself fall backward, sitting with his spine against the rough bark and letting out a ragged sigh.

Harry watched the boy from high up. Malfoy’s blond lashes looked long and delicate as he kept his eyes closed. He really didn't look much like a cruel prat when he wasn't strutting around with his chin shoved in the air.

Malfoy furrowed his eyebrows in sudden pain before bending forward and coughing directly onto the ground, his chest heaving from hyperventilation. Harry shifted slightly to get a better view of Malfoy’s face, but his breath caught in his throat when he saw the bright, horrific splatter of red staining the green grass.

“Malfoy.”

The boy stiffened. He tried to scramble to his feet, only to immediately collapse again.

Harry stared down at the struggling, terrified boy with profound confusion.

“Malfoy, why are you—”

“What do you want, Potter?”, Malfoy spat weakly.

Harry scowled at the venomous tone—he had been genuinely concerned.

Malfoy twisted his head to look up at Harry, making the Gryffindor flinch. The already pale boy looked as white as a sheet of paper—almost to the point of looking like a corpse.

“What—”

“Do not say a wor—”, Malfoy’s threat was abruptly cut short by another violent, wet coughing fit.

This time, he didn't try to stand. Covering his mouth with a pale hand, he cast a freezing, hateful glare up at Harry.

Harry noticed that the boy’s palm was covered in blood, but before he could comment on it—Malfoy vanished the stain instantly with a sharp wave of his wand. Then, using the tree for leverage, Malfoy staggered to his feet and walked unsteadily away, leaving Harry completely dumbfounded in the branches.

Harry was left even more confused by the Dudley-wannabe. What intrigued him the most, however, was that in his absolute weakest moment, Malfoy hadn't looked up at him with eyes that begged to be saved.

Whenever Harry had some free time, he secretly experimented with this profound, terrifying power inside him. Back then, he’d blacked out every time it broke free and took over. But that night, he had somewhat retained consciousness during its onslaught. It was similar to how he tried to channel magic through his wand, but instead of a wand—it’s his whole body.

Every time he allowed the black wisps to seep out, more painful, ash-like cracks would form along his skin. Most of his arms would eventually heal, but the skin around his shoulders and thighs still bore deep, black, lightning-like streaks that didn't look like they would fade anytime soon.

He could more or less feel when he was about to lose control, but he couldn’t exactly test controlling it, since it would require him to change forms. It’s still quite painful to let it out, it feels like you’ve starved yourself and had gone through such lengths to suppress your hunger—but when you finally get to eat, you feel nothing but stomach pain.

At three-thirty that afternoon, flying lessons would be starting. It was a clear, breezy day. The grass swayed gently on the flat lawn opposite the Forbidden Forest, where the trees there were swaying calmly—unlike the suffocating hostility coming from the Gryffindors there.

As Harry walked down the sloping lawns, he saw that the Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks already lying in two neat lines on the ground.

Harry searched for the blond he had just seen earlier that morning as he walked towards his broom.

“I heard that McLaggen had offended Potter before he’d gone missing.”

“Really? What did he do?”

“Said that he bumped into Potter and he had been mad to have fallen down when it was just an accident.”

“Are you sure he’s actually Harry Potter?”

“I don’t know, but the teachers all addressed him by that name.” 

Harry didn’t have to wait long to see Malfoy striding toward the lawn with his two lackeys. The boy was laughing loudly with his usual mocking tone, though his face was still noticeably paler than usual. But when he saw Harry standing by a broom, he immediately pivoted to a broom much further down the line to put distance between them.

Not long after, their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. With short, spiky gray hair and yellow eyes like a hawk, she marched to the front of the class.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?”, she barked. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”

Harry glanced down at his broom. It was splintered, and several of the twigs stuck out at completely odd angles.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom”, Madam Hooch instructed, demonstrating at the front, “and say ‘Up!’”

“UP!”, everyone shouted.

Harry’s broom jumped into his hand instantly. But as he glanced around, he saw that not everyone had been so lucky.

Hermione Granger’s broom had simply rolled over lazily in the dirt, while Neville’s hadn’t moved a single inch.

Madam Hooch showed them how to properly mount their brooms without sliding off the end. Then, she walked up and down the rows, strictly correcting their grips.

To Harry’s surprise, Madam Hooch actually scolded Malfoy, loudly announcing that he had been holding his broom entirely wrong for years. Harry could hear the Gryffindors eagerly snickering at the blond, whose ears turned a violent shade of red. Whether from sheer embarrassment or fury, Harry couldn't tell.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard”, Madam Hooch shouted. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle—three…two…”

But Neville, nervous, jumpy, and absolutely terrified of being left behind on the ground, pushed off hard before the silver whistle had even touched Madam Hooch’s lips.

Madam Hooch stared at the floating student, dumbfounded. “Come back, boy!”, she shouted. But Neville was still rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle, soon he reached twelve feet— twenty feet—and he just kept floating higher. 

Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and—BAM!

Harry winced at the sickening crack as Neville hit the ground, landing face-down in a heap on the grass. Meanwhile, his rogue broomstick was still rising higher and higher, drifting lazily toward the Forbidden Forest until it was completely out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.

“Broken wrist”, Harry heard her mutter. “Come on, boy—it’s all right, up you get.”

She turned to glare at the rest of the class.

“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch’, she shouted before tending back to Neville. “Come on, dear.”

Neville, his round face tear-streaked and clutching his dangling wrist, hobbled off toward the castle with Madam Hooch supporting him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into cruel laughter.

“Did you see his face, the great lump?”

The other Slytherins eagerly joined in.

“Shut up, Malfoy”, a brown-skinned Gryffindor girl snapped.

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?”, a Slytherin girl with a sharp bob snarked. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

“Look!”, Malfoy pointed, darting forward and snatching something shiny out of the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”

The glass Remembrall glittered brightly in the sun as he held it up.

Once again, every Gryffindor turned to look at Harry with expectant, demanding eyes. But this time, Harry was curious to see what Malfoy would do, so he stepped forward, one hand holding his broom, the other shoved deep into his pocket.

“Give that back, Malfoy”, Harry said in a flat tone. Everyone stopped talking to watch the showdown.

But Malfoy just flashed a nasty, challenging smile. “I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about—up a tree?”

Harry stayed perfectly still as Malfoy leapt onto his broomstick and kicked off. He hadn’t been lying— the boy really could fly well.

Hovering level with the topmost branches of a massive oak, Malfoy yelled down, holding the Remembrall out like bait. “Come and get it, Potter!”

Harry casually took his hand out of his pocket to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun as he looked up.

Seeing that Harry was making absolutely no effort to chase him, Malfoy hovered awkwardly in the sky, his taunting smile faltering.

Suddenly, Harry saw the blond stiffen strangely. Malfoy lurched forward over his broom handle, and then—he fell.

A violent rush of adrenaline spiked in Harry's blood as he instantly bolted forward to catch the plummeting boy. Why was he running? He didn't know. He definitely knew he wasn't physically strong enough to catch someone falling from that height.

But as Malfoy plummeted closer to the earth, Harry felt the familiar, agonizing cracking of his skin. The thing inside him acting entirely on instinct to protect the boy who hadn't asked to be saved—leapt out, forming a dense, shadowy cushion that caught Malfoy just inches before he shattered against the ground.

“Harry!”

“Malfoy!”

Harry grunted under the sudden weight on top of him, the dark wisps instantly retracting back into his skin the second the danger passed. But as he tried to push the heavy blond off him, Malfoy's silver eyes shot open. The boy scrambled abruptly to his feet, breathing heavily.

His pale face burned a furious red. Utterly out of words, Malfoy threw the Remembrall hard onto the ground beside Harry and stomped furiously away toward the dungeons.

The Slytherins, completely dumbfounded by the display, hurried after him after a moment of stunned confusion.

Meanwhile, the Gryffindors were all eyeing Harry with a profound, reverent awe.

“See! I knew he would stand up for Neville!”

“Yeah, and he even saved his enemy! What a big heart!”

“Though I’d prefer it if he’d let Malfoy fall...”

Harry stared at the fickle Gryffindors who were currently singing his praises, feeling nothing but a deep, exhausted disgust. He ignored their calls and walked back toward the castle in absolute silence.

That evening, Harry was enjoying his dinner, completely ignoring the chatter around him. The Gryffindors seemed to have entirely forgotten their vicious argument from the morning as they were all speaking to him as if he was their beloved hero again.

It was a peaceful meal—until a familiar, pointy-faced blond marched directly toward the Gryffindor table.

“Having a last meal, Potter?”, Malfoy sneered.

Harry just nodded without looking up at him, far too occupied with the chicken parmesan on his plate.

“I’d take you on anytime on my own”, Malfoy said irritably, his pride stinging from being ignored twice in one day. “Tonight, if you want. Wizard’s duel. Wands only—no contact. What’s the matter? Never heard of a wizard’s duel before, I suppose?”

“Of course he has”, Ron butted in, wheeling around fiercely on the bench. “I’m his second. Who’s yours?”

Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, visibly sizing them up. He eyed them for a long moment before turning his cold gaze back to Harry and Ron. “Crabbe.”

“Midnight. We’ll meet you in the trophy room, it's always unlocked”, Malfoy shot before turning on his heel and leaving.

Harry sighed heavily. Just what had he just been dragged into?

Ron seemed to notice Harry’s sour face and awkwardly tried to strike up a conversation. “You have heard of a wizard’s duel, right?”

Harry just shrugged.

Ron rubbed the back of his neck. “Basically, a wizard’s duel is when—”

“I know what a duel is. A wizard’s duel just means we use magic instead of fists”, Harry scowled, finishing up his chips.

Ron gulped nervously. But before he could respond, a bossy voice interrupted them.

“I couldn’t help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying—”

“Bet you couldn’t”, Ron muttered.

“—and you mustn’t go wandering around the school at night! Think of the points you’ll lose Gryffindor if you’re caught, and you’re bound to be. It’s really very selfish of you.”

“And it’s really none of your business. Goodbye”, Ron rolled his eyes, turning his back on the girl.

During the walk back up to their dormitory, Ron spent the entire evening giving Harry unsolicited tactical advice. “If he tries to curse you, you’d better dodge it, because I can’t remember how to block them.”

There was a very high chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, but Harry couldn't care less. He just wanted to sleep.

Harry was already dozing off when Ron aggressively shook him awake.

“Half-past eleven”, he hissed, nudging Harry out of bed. “We’d better go.”

Harry didn't even remember ever agreeing to this duel—Ron had gone out of his way to accept on his behalf, and now Harry was being dragged into a fight he didn't want.

They pulled on their robes, grabbed their wands, and crept silently across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room. A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched, menacing black shadows.

They had almost reached the portrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair nearest to them. “I can’t believe you’re going to do this, Harry.”

A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a deeply disapproving frown.

“You!”, Ron hissed furiously. “Go back to bed!”

“I almost told your brother”, Hermione snapped back. “Percy—he’s a prefect, he’d put a stop to this.”

Harry just rolled his tired eyes at the argument between the two.

Ron finally had the brain cells to just ignore the bushy-haired girl and pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady.

But Hermione wasn’t going to give up that easily. She scrambled through the portrait hole after them, hissing like an angry goose.

“Don’t you care about Gryffindor? Do you only care about yourselves? I don’t want Slytherin to win the House Cup, and you’ll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells!”

“Go away.”

“All right, but I warned you! You just remember what I said when you’re on the train home tomorrow, you’re so—”

But what they were, they didn’t find out. Hermione had turned back to the portrait of the Fat Lady to climb inside, only to find herself facing an entirely empty painting.

The Fat Lady had gone off on a nighttime visit, and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.

“Now what am I going to do?”, she asked shrilly, panic lacing her voice.

Harry groaned internally. Great. One additional problem—and a noisy one at that.

“That’s your problem”, said Ron callously. “We’ve got to go, we’re going to be late.”

They hadn’t even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione scrambled to catch up with them.

“I’m coming with you”, she announced.

“You are not.”

“D’you think I’m going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us, I’ll tell him the truth—that I was trying to stop you—and you can back me up.”

“You’ve got some nerve—”, Ron snapped loudly.

Suddenly, there was a sound from the shadows ahead—sort of like, snuffling?

“Mrs. Norris?”, Ron whispered, squinting in terror through the dark.

But it wasn’t Mrs. Norris. It was Neville. He was curled up tightly on the cold stone floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer.

“Thank goodness you found me! I’ve been out here for hours. I couldn’t remember the new password to get into bed”, he whimpered, wiping his runny nose.

“Keep your voice down, Neville. The password’s ‘Pig snout’, but it won’t help you now. The Fat Lady’s gone off somewhere”, Ron whispered—but loud enough that it could easily be considered his normal talking volume.

Harry dragged his hands down his face in pure exasperation. Is this what they think a righteous hero does? Break the rules to fight some snobbish rich kid who happens to be in Slytherin? Wow, what a brave, noble group of individuals.

“How’s your arm?”, Harry asked quietly.

“Fine”, said Neville, showing them. “Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute.”

Harry nodded, while Ron waved impatiently at Neville. “Good—well, look, Neville, we’ve got to be somewhere. We’ll see you later—”

“Don’t leave me!”, Neville whisper-shouted, scrambling desperately to his feet. “I don’t want to stay here alone! The Bloody Baron had passed me twice already.”

Ron looked at his watch and glared furiously at Hermione and Neville.

“If either of you get us caught, I’ll never rest until I’ve learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on you.”

Hermione opened her mouth, perhaps to lecture them on exactly how to properly cast the Curse of the Bogies, but Ron hissed at her to be quiet and angrily beckoned them all forward.

They flitted nervously along corridors striped with cold bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn, they expected to run face-first into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky. They sped up a grand staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe weren’t there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered ominously where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes locked on the doors at either end of the room.

But as the minutes crept by, there was no sign of the blond and his henchmen.

“He’s late. Maybe he chickened out”, Ron whispered smugly.

Then, a sudden noise in the next room made them all jump. Harry’s heart hammered on his chest until they heard a raspy voice speak.

"Sniff around, my sweet. They might be lurking in a corner.”

It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris.

Horror-struck, Ron grabbed Harry's sleeve, dragging him deeper into the trophy room. They scrambled wildly into one of the narrow, unlit storage closets at the back of the room, squeezing tightly together in the pitch black.

“They’re in here somewhere”, they heard Filch mutter from the hallway. “Probably hiding.”

Heavy, panicked breathing filled the cramped, stifling space.

Neville gulped loudly before violently whispering, “What do we do now? What do we do now? We’re doomed!”

“Quiet! If we’re caught, we’ll receive detentions from Filch! Or if the teachers find out, we’ll get a punishment, or worse—expelled!”, Hermione hissed, her elbows digging into Harry's ribs as she frantically searched the dark for another exit.

“Then shut up if you don’t want to be found out!”, Ron whispered furiously.

Harry felt the walls physically closing in on him. He was trapped. Being squished in a tiny, pitch-black space by three loud, panicking people was pushing him rapidly toward the absolute edge.

Cupboard under the stairs. Trapped. Loud. Angry.

“This is all your fault! Why couldn’t you realize this was obviously a trap set by Malfoy!”, Hermione grumbled loudly, her voice rising in panic.

“Oh, if you’re so all-knowing, why didn’t you share your brilliant thinking before we went out of Gryffindor Tower?”, Ron snapped back.

“Can’t you guys be quiet?”, Harry pleaded quietly, his chest tightening painfully.

But his small voice was completely drowned out by their furious, escalating squabbling.

As they heard Filch's heavy boots closing in on the closet door, the three Gryffindors grew even more frantic, hissing and shoving at each other in the dark.

Harry couldn’t take it anymore. The claustrophobia and the noise shattered the cage in his mind.

He pressed himself deep into the very back of the closet as a blinding panic overtook him. The air in the tiny space immediately grew freezing cold as dense, pitch-black wisps began to aggressively bleed from his skin, rapidly filling the enclosed space.

The heated argument between the three abruptly stopped. They suddenly realized the cramped space around them had loosened up—as if one of them had physically disappeared.

But when they squinted through the darkness, they didn't see a boy. They only saw a massive, swirling silhouette of black sand thrashing at the back of the closet.

“Harry? Is that you, mate?”, Ron asked, his voice trembling.

“Harry?”, Hermione whispered, shrinking back.

It seemed that only Neville kept his mouth completely closed, staring in pure, unadulterated horror. His grandmother had told him dark stories about every dangerous creature in the wizarding world. And the terrifying, volatile entity thrashing in front of him was the worst of them all.

“Ob—ob—” Neville stammered, paralyzed with fear.

“Ob what? Neville, what are you saying?”, Ron demanded.

“Never mind that, did the air just get freezing?”, Hermione shivered.

“Obscu—”

The last thing they saw was a tidal wave of pitch black.

The black whirling mass, desperate to break free from the cage and silence the overwhelming noise, lunged.

Just as the last terrified scream faltered into a wet, sickening crunch, the closet doors were blasted violently off their hinges.

A massive, roaring cloud of black wisps tore out of the wreckage, flying directly past a horror-stricken Argus Filch, leaving the slaughtered remains of three first-year students bleeding out in the dark.

The Great Hall was deathly silent following the morning announcements. There were now three more missing students, bringing the total to four. The remains of the last three had been found by none other than Filch—who was currently in the Hospital Wing being treated for severe shock, babbling about a cloud of black smoke bursting from the closet where he had found the shredded, blood-soaked robes.

Malfoy couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Harry sitting down at the Gryffindor table as if nothing had happened. Harry calmly picked up a piece of toast and lathered it heavily with butter, completely ignoring the terrified Gryffindors staring at him.

“Uh, Harry. So how was the duel yesterday?”, Dean asked, his voice trembling.

Harry stared at the dark-skinned boy with wide, innocent green eyes. “What duel?”

Seamus Finnigan—who had listened in the night before—furrowed his eyebrows. “The duel in the trophy room at midnight. You had Ron as your second!”

“What is this about a duel?”, Percy demanded, suddenly appearing behind Harry.

Harry glanced behind his shoulder but then quickly composed himself, “As I said, nothing happened.”

“Then what is this about Ron being your second?”

“I don’t know what happened to your brother”, Harry shrugged dismissively.

“He’s lying! I’m sure it was him. I heard him talking about a duel with Ron and Malfoy yesterday!”, Seamus cried.

“A duel? Is that right, Mr. Potter?”

Harry turned his head to see Professor McGonagall standing right beside Percy, her face ashen.

“I was in Gryffindor tower the whole time, Professor.”

“Is that true?”, Professor McGonagall eyed both Dean and Seamus sharply.

“No, I’m sure that he left with Ron around midnight!”, Dean retorted.

“Did you or did you not see him leave your dorm room?”, Professor McGonagall pressed. “Keep in mind that your words have grave consequences.”

Dean gulped and looked at Seamus, who was equally drenched in cold sweat. “We didn’t, Professor. Up until we fell asleep at around eleven, Harry and Ron were still in the dorm.”

Professor McGonagall sighed heavily, the lines on her face deepening. “Mr. Potter, the Headmaster will see you after class.”

Harry’s lips pressed into a thin line as Professor McGonagall left the table.

“See? We’re not the only ones who think you have something to do with their disappearance”, Dean eyed Harry fearfully.

“And?”, Harry asked, his detached mask perfectly in place.

“Well, where have you taken them?”

Harry roughly slammed the maple syrup pitcher he was holding onto the wooden table. “Don’t ask me. It was probably a malevolent ghost or something.”

“Yeah, or the Chamber of Secrets has opened again”, Dean snorted nervously.

As the day went by, the rumors escalated violently. The thoughtless words spoken at the Gryffindor table blew up into a legitimate, school-wide gossip.

“I heard that only the Slytherin heir can open the Chamber of Secrets.”

“But how would we know if he’s the heir or not?”

“Quick, think of something that could prove one’s bloodline.”

Harry couldn’t concentrate in class with dozens of accusing eyes boring a hole at the back of his head.  A lot of people had started scheming behind his back, starting from looking at his family registry up to trying to get a strand of hair or a drop of blood from him.

Harry saw Professor McGonaggall waiting in front of his last class with her usual stern face.

“Come, follow me, Mr. Potter”, she said, leading Harry through the crowd of students.

While walking through the halls, Professor McGonagall couldn’t help sneaking conflicted glances at Harry. She vividly remembered how she had fought Dumbledore about where Harry should be placed after—after the tragedy. Dumbledore had been paranoid that Harry would grow up arrogant if he knew his fame. But seeing the small, broken boy walking rigidly beside her now, she began to severely doubt, pondering—had it been the right decision? 

She remembered addressing Harry’s first Hogwarts letter. Her heart had shattered at the address—The Cupboard Under the Stairs—and not long after, another letter addressed to a public park. Professor McGonagall almost couldn’t contain her crushing guilt when she had first seen him arrive at the castle: how impossibly small he was, and how he had kept his head bowed in terror for the entire sorting.

They finally reached a secluded corridor and stopped before a large, extremely ugly stone gargoyle.

“Lemon drop!”, Professor McGonagall commanded.

It seemed to be a password, because the gargoyle suddenly sprang to life and hopped aside as the wall behind it split in two. Behind the wall was a spiral staircase moving smoothly upward like an escalator. As he and Professor McGonagall stepped onto it, Harry heard the stone wall thud closed behind them. They rose upward in circles, higher and higher, until at last, feeling slightly dizzy, Harry saw a gleaming oak door ahead with a brass knocker in the shape of a griffin.

They stepped off the staircase, and Professor McGonagall rapped on the door. It opened silently to reveal a man with long white hair and a flowing beard, observing them from a desk in the center of the room.

Harry recognized him as Professor Dumbledore, both from the Chocolate Frog card he had gotten and from the times he saw him in the Great Hall.

“Thank you, Minerva. You may go”, Dumbledore said softly.

Professor McGonagall nodded tightly and left the room, leaving Harry completely alone with the old man.

“Lemon drop?”, Dumbledore offered, gesturing to a bowl.

“No, thank you”, Harry declined, staring at the face in front of him with wary eyes—like a mouse looking at a cat.

Harry waited nervously while Dumbledore brought the tips of his long fingers together.

“I must ask you, Harry, whether there is anything you’d like to say to me”, he said gently. “Anything at all.”

Harry wanted to scream. He wanted to ask why this man had abandoned him with the Dursleys, despite apparently knowing exactly how they treated him, despite knowing where he had slept all these years.  Harry stared at the man with a profound, simmering hatred. He felt deeply betrayed by this Headmaster who supposedly made all his decisions for the 'greater good.'

But what about Harry’s well being?

Despite the rage burning in his chest, Harry shook his head. “No", Harry answered with a flat tone. “There isn’t anything, Professor.”

Dumbledore looked at Harry with twinkling eyes, “Ah, but my boy. I have something I wanted to ask you.”

Harry held his breath, his palms immediately sweating. Dumbledore stood up from his ornate seat and made his way around the desk until he was standing directly in front of the small boy.

“Have you experienced anything—unusual?”

Harry was taken aback by the question. He stared at Dumbledore’s impassive face. “What do you mean by unusual, Professor?”

Dumbledore turned to examine the sleeping portraits on his wall, his hands clasped behind his back. “Have you experienced anything like a sudden, violent burst of magic? Or perhaps experiencing blackouts that you cannot understand?”

Harry stared at Dumbledore’s back, a cold spike of pure terror nailing his feet to the floor.

“Have you ever tried to suppress your magic—”
“No, Professor”, Harry cut in quickly, his voice sharp. “I’ve never experienced nor done anything like that. Why would I want to suppress my magic? Magic is amazing, right?”, Harry laughed dryly.

Dumbledore turned back to look at Harry, his piercing gaze shifting from soft to deeply questioning.

“I see. But you must tell me if you ever experience something like that. We wouldn’t want you to suffer any—dark afflictions that could threaten your life.”

Harry gulped, understanding the unspoken threat lurking beneath Dumbledore’s gentle words. The man suspected what he was—and he needed to get out of this office immediately.

“Yes, Professor. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully. “You may go now.”

Harry nodded stiffly, practically sprinting toward the door. He clattered down the spiral staircase as fast as his legs could carry him and ran.

Harry found himself retreating to the Black Lake to catch his frantic breath. He was genuinely confused as to why so few students visited this place, it was so peaceful. But who was he to complain?

But it seemed that he was not the only one to run here when trouble arises.

Harry was staring at a very pale Draco Malfoy, again. If he had gotten a knut every time he saw him coughing blood on the grass, he’d have two. Which isn’t a lot but weird that it happened more than once. Once again, Malfoy was completely oblivious that he was being watched.

“You going to clean that, Malfoy?”

The blond froze. He slowly sat up and turned his face to look at Harry, who was crouching casually on a thick tree branch.

Malfoy didn't say anything. He just flicked his wand, murmuring a quiet vanishing spell, and the red splotches on the grass disappeared. But that seemed to immediately send him back into another coughing fit.

“You know, I’m doing you a big favor by not exposing your—condition. To your Slytherin friends.”

Malfoy flinched visibly, clutching his chest to hold in the coughs.

“I bet they have no idea how weak you actually are. Aren’t you tired of hiding behind that perfect, arrogant mask of yours?”

Malfoy didn't utter a single word. He abruptly hauled himself to his feet and walked away, his posture rigid.

With Ron missing, Harry did his potions assignment alone. But strangely enough, Professor Snape didn't target Harry even once.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin students all looked between the professor and Harry in utter confusion. It hadn’t been a month since Snape's brutal onslaught against the boy. Yet now, Harry was being actively ignored, a development he was perfectly content with.

When Snape caught a few students whispering about the Chamber of Secrets and the missing Gryffindors, he furiously handed out extra assignments, sweeping past Harry’s desk without a glance.

“N-now would you please pay attention t-to this—”
“Professor Quirrell?”, a Ravenclaw student interrupted, raising his hand.

“Y-yes?”, Professor Quirrell paused, his eye twitching.

“Say, are there any spells that could summon a snake?”

Throughout the week, Harry had heard students asking this exact question to multiple teachers. But the furthest that they’ve ever gotten was that Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth—meaning that he could talk to snakes.

Harry suddenly remembered how the boa constrictor had spoken to him back at the zoo. Watching the Ravenclaw eagerly ask for a snake, a deep sense of dread pooled in Harry's stomach.

“Ah, t-there is”, Professor Quirrell rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

“What is it professor?”

“Can you teach us?”

The students, both Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, excitedly pressed the stuttering man.

The professor seemed terrified at first. But then, like the flip of a switch, his demeanor smoothed out, and he nodded.

“Alright t-then, now pay attention closely as I will o-only do it once.”

Professor Quirrell stood in the center of the classroom, his wand raised as he shouted. “Serpensortia!”

A massive black snake shot out of the wand and landed heavily on the stone floor.

Several students scrambled backward, while others immediately stole fearful glances at Harry, as if waiting for something to happen.

Harry just leaned his cheek on his hand, looking out the window, ignoring whatever was happening.

Suddenly, a searing, blinding pain slashed across his forehead, precisely on his lightning scar. As Harry doubled over his desk, gasping, he caught a glimpse of Professor Quirrell. The man was almost—smiling? And it wasn’t his usual meek, nervous smile. It was an eerie, calculated smirk. It was the look of a predator springing a trap.

Clutching his head against the wooden table, Harry couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening around him—but he heard the terrified screams of his classmates.

“C-calm down everyone. It w-won’t hurt anyone”, Quirrell stammered weakly.

But everyone was too busy screaming and running for their lives to listen. Some had even jumped on top of their desks to escape the hissing reptile.

The burning pain in Harry’s scar finally subsided. When he looked up, the snake was making a direct beeline toward him—slithering aggressively—as if it was been controlled. Just as it coiled back to strike, Harry reacted on pure instinct. He hissed loudly, and the snake immediately stopped dead in its tracks.

Harry hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t speaking English. He continued to sharply command the snake to back off until Professor Quirrell finally stepped forward and banished it into a puff of smoke. When Harry finally registered his surroundings, the entire class was staring at him with wide, horrified eyes and gaping mouths.

The heavy silence was only broken when Professor Quirrell finally spoke.

“O-oh, Mr. P-Potter. I didn’t k-know you were a P-Parselmouth.”

Harry was drenched in a cold sweat. He looked around the room, feeling the absolute terror radiating from his peers. His breaths devolved into short, heavy pants, his heart hammering violently against his ribs.

Then, suddenly, the bell rang.

“Ah, that marks the e-end of our lesson. Make s-sure to—”

Before Professor Quirrell could finish his announcement, Harry bolted from his chair and broke into a desperate run, fleeing the classroom.

Harry had avoided running for as long as he could, his feet still full of scars that made every step as agonizing as stepping on sharp stones—but he was desperate. Wanting to be alone, Harry steered clear of his usual spot at the Black Lake and instead bolted toward the nearest boys' bathroom. But just his luck—there seemed to be someone else occupying it.

Bursting through the door, Harry saw the silhouette of a boy leaning heavily over one of the porcelain sinks, his head bowed. Harry instinctively knew who it was from the bright blond hair. Even the sight of Draco's pale, sickly face in the mirror didn’t surprise him anymore.

Distraught and vibrating with excess adrenaline, Harry marched toward Malfoy. But when Malfoy caught his reflection in the mirror, his face twisted into his usual, arrogant scowl. The sight of that scowl made Harry’s blood boil, his emotions in violent turmoil—a mix of panic and hatred.

Harry gritted his teeth, his strides turning predatory as he closed in on the pale boy.

“What are you doing here, Potter?”, Malfoy spat.

Harry didn’t say a word. He just kept walking closer, his green eyes locked on his prey. With every step he took, volatile black wisps began to aggressively bleed from his skin.

Malfoy stared at him. First with his usual prideful sneer, which rapidly melted into profound confusion, and then sheer terror.

“Potter, what are you—”

Harry’s body violently dissolved into a roaring flurry of pitch-black darkness. But it seemed Malfoy’s aristocratic family hadn't been rich for nothing, as a powerful, magical barrier erupted from the Slytherin's ring. Despite the magical shield absorbing the brunt of the attack, the sheer physical force of the blast flung Malfoy backward through the air.

The barrier protected him from magical damage, but not physical force. Malfoy coughed up blood as his spine slammed brutally against the stone wall. He had squeezed his eyes shut upon impact, but as he slowly opened them—they widened in absolute horror.

“Wait…Potter, you—you’re an Obscurial?”

Harry was barely clinging to a shred of lucidity. Rising upward in a swirling mass of shadow, he looked down at the blurry, broken figure on the floor.

Malfoy’s usual smirk couldn't be seen on his fear stricken face. But as Harry closed in on the blond, he didn’t see disgust in the boy's eyes. Rather, he saw...pity?

Enraged by the unfamiliar emotion, Harry tried to shift back to yell at him—but failed halfway. He materialized in a horrific, half-human state: his body maintaining its shape, but covered entirely in thrashing black wisps, his limbs fractured with deep, glowing black cracks along with his eyes—which were entirely devoid of color other than black.

“What’s that look supposed to mean?”, Harry growled, his distorted voice making him sound utterly inhuman.

Malfoy looked up at the monstrous boy hovering over him with a deeply conflicted expression.

“I said, what’s—”

“I’m sorry.”

Harry froze, violently taken aback. His glowing eyes widened at the boy sitting helplessly on the floor. Fresh blood was smeared across Malfoy's lips, staining his usually pale skin with a stark tinge of red.

“What?”, Harry finally managed to squeeze out.

“No child should have ever experienced what you have gone through.”

At first, Harry just hovered there, staring at Malfoy, who looked like he was one breath away from death. But then Harry’s face twisted into a furious scowl. “What do you know!? I bet you’ve never felt unwanted for a single second! Your parents dote on you! You have no right to pity me!”, Harry shouted, his chest heaving painfully with every ragged breath.

Malfoy gazed downward, his blond eyelashes casting long shadows over his gray eyes. “I know”, Malfoy whispered, raising his head to meet Harry’s infuriated, monstrous gaze. “I know that. But let me tell you this, Potter. For you to still be standing here, surviving with that condition of yours... it is nothing short of a miracle.”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows, the rage fracturing.

“And that”, Malfoy swallowed thickly, grimacing at the tangy taste of copper in his mouth, “means you did a brilliant job staying alive.”

The validation hit Harry like a physical blow. The black cloud suffocating the bathroom immediately began to recede, tearing back into Harry's skin as his form crashed back into that of a scrawny, traumatized eleven-year-old boy.

Harry walked slowly toward Malfoy and crouched down, suddenly looking incredibly small and utterly lost.

Malfoy sighed tiredly and slowly drew his wand. Seeing that, Harry flinched violently, raising his arms to shield his head. He cowered away exactly like a stray dog that had been beaten far too many times.

Malfoy’s eyes softened. He murmured a quiet incantation and aimed the wand gently at Harry’s arms. Startled but feeling no pain, Harry slowly lowered his hands to see that the horrific black Obscurus cracks creeping up his forearms had completely disappeared.

“What? How?”

“A glamour, should be able to cover your marks till tomorrow morning. I noticed that you had started to clasp your cufflinks and let your robes hang looser to cover your arms”, Malfoy explained, his voice weak—before going into a harsh coughing fit, hugging his shivering body. The temperature in the room had dropped into a significant low due to Harry.

Looking at the sorry state of the blond in front of him, Harry clicked his tongue. He leaned forward, grabbed Malfoy by the robes, and stood up, hauling the boy onto his feet.

“Potter?”, Malfoy managed to call out, swaying heavily.

“Shut up. If you’re going to die from a cold anyway, what’s the fun in killing you?”, Harry muttered, forcefully slinging one of Malfoy’s arms over his own shoulder to support the boy's weight.

“Ah, so those Gryffindors—”

Harry didn’t say anything and just dragged Malfoy out of the bathroom.

After getting lost in a few corridors—requiring grumpy directions from the very boy he was supposed to be rescuing—they finally reached the Hospital Wing.

One look at the bloody, pale state Malfoy was in sent Madam Pomfrey into a panic. She immediately instructed Harry to lay Malfoy down in a bed as she magically contacted the Head of Slytherin, bustling back a moment later with an armful of vials.

“What on earth left him in such a sorry state?”, Madam Pomfrey gasped, her hands moving swiftly as she cast rapid diagnostic spells over the half-conscious blond.

Before Harry could think of anything, he heard a familiar, furious snapping of black robes marching toward them.

Professor Snape went completely pale at the sight of Malfoy, and seeing Harry standing beside the bed only made his expression darker. But upon seeing that Malfoy was indeed still breathing, Snape exhaled a shaky breath of relief.

“What happened, Draco?”, Professor Snape asked with a strange, intimate level of familiarity, leaving Harry quietly questioning their relationship.

“I just—tripped and fell hard in the bathroom, sir”, Malfoy answered, his voice painfully strained.

Professor Snape didn’t say a word, nor did he shoot a single accusing glance toward Harry. It made Harry relieved, but also—unexpectedly guilty.

“Didn’t I specifically tell you to refrain from using any unnecessary magic?”, Professor Snape scolded quietly.

Malfoy’s lips pressed into a thin line before Madam Pomfrey forced a potion down his throat. The matron finally spoke up, her tone severe. “You have a highly unstable magical core, Mr. Malfoy. It is already straining your body just to sustain your basic life functions. Pulling more to cast spells actively drains your lifespan. Simple magic is dangerous enough, but pushing yourself will cause irreversible, permanent damage.”

Harry’s green eyes went incredibly wide at the statement. Malfoy had actively performed magic on him—sacrificing a piece of his own failing lifespan—just to protect Harry's secret.

Harry stayed completely quiet, watching the procedure until the sky outside the high windows started to darken.

Professor Snape eventually had to leave the Hospital Wing, leaving Harry sitting stubbornly on the wooden stool beside Malfoy’s bed. As the curfew bell rang, Harry was finally forced out of the wing by a very angry Madam Pomfrey, who demanded he leave the poor boy alone to rest.

Why did Malfoy do that? Wasn't he just some rich, arrogant prat who knew nothing of the cruelties of the real world? Someone coddled by his parents, exactly like Dudley?

Harry was so deeply lost in his conflicting thoughts during his walk back toward Gryffindor Tower that he didn’t realize he was being followed.

He jumped when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and was even more surprised when he whipped around to see who it was.

Professor Snape was looking down at him with an entirely impassive expression.

They stood there in the middle of the dark, empty hallway in silence, neither wanting to speak first.

Finally, Professor Snape sighed heavily. He gently squeezed Harry's shoulder. “Thank you for sparing him”, the man said quietly, before letting go and sweeping away into the shadows. He left Harry standing alone in the corridor, completely overwhelmed by his own swirling thoughts.

The next morning, Harry was walking toward his Herbology class when he saw a group of Hufflepuffs huddled anxiously in a corner just outside the greenhouses.

Yesterday, he had spent the majority of his time in the Hospital Wing, and when he had finally returned to his dorm, he quickly yanked his bed curtains shut and buried himself in his blankets, isolating himself from the world. 

Because of this, he hadn’t had the time to hear what rumors his DADA classmates had spread about the snake incident.

“You definitely think it is Potter, then, Ernie?”, a girl with blonde pigtails asked anxiously.

“Hannah”, the stout boy replied solemnly, “he’s a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that’s the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent person who could talk to snakes? They literally called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue.”

“He always seems so quiet, though”, Hannah whispered, her voice uncertain. “And, well, he’s the one who made You-Know-Who disappear. He can’t be all bad, can he?”

Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously as the Hufflepuffs leaned in closer.

“No one actually knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a really powerful, inherently Dark wizard could have survived a killing curse like that.”

He dropped his voice until it was barely more than a terrified breath. “That’s probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. He didn’t want another Dark Lord competing with him. I wonder what other terrifying powers Potter’s been hiding?”

Harry slammed the heavy glass door of the greenhouse open, the loud bang making the entire group of Hufflepuffs jump out of their skin. Harry cast a brief, dead-eyed glance at the huddling crowd, then quickly looked away, entering the humid room.

Everyone already inside actively avoided him like the plague, shrinking back in fear of becoming his next target.

Harry was terrified of what would happen if the truth about the four students' deaths ever came to light. He had been more or less lucid at the time of the slaughter—it had been his conscious, desperate decision. But committing and taking responsibility are two entirely separate things.

He had thought that permanently silencing those who cornered him would finally bring him some peace. But instead, it just added to the screaming voices in his head. Harry knew he had been a murderer ever since he had left Privet Drive, but rather than stopping there—he ended up taking even more lives. But  he just couldn't ignore the hollow, terrifying feeling that consumed him every time he gave into the Obscurus.

Harry had been confused by the violent nature of his own emotions for a while, he was like a two sided coin. For weeks, he would feel incredibly gloomy—crushed by anxiety, isolating himself, terrified of every little whisper or perceived slight. But then, without warning, the coin would flip and he would suddenly feel entirely detached, invincible, and terrifyingly apathetic, not caring about anyone’s life but his own survival. The manic highs and depressive crashes were tearing his mind apart.

“Have you heard? Yesterday someone saw Draco Malfoy willingly walking with Harry Potter.”

“Huh, really? What were they doing?”

“I don’t know the details, but think about it. The Slytherin heir with a Slytherin? What a perfectly evil pair.”

“But how did Potter get sorted into Gryffindor, then?”

“I bet it was a master plan to hide the fact that he’s the Heir of Slytherin.”

Harry had kept his head down throughout dinner, but the gossiping air around him was suffocating. He couldn’t concentrate on eating. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore—he abruptly stood up and fled the Great Hall.

Remembering what had happened in the bathroom, and refusing to risk running into anyone at the Black Lake, he wandered blindly upward until he reached the very top of the Astronomy Tower.

He sat at the stone ledge, dangling his legs over the massive drop as he stared up at the dark sky. He just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. He had tried making friends, he had tried laying low, he tried studying. But whatever he did, his very existence just made everything worse. He made mistake after horrific mistake, but why was everyone else allowed to fail while he was expected to be a flawless savior?

Harry lamented in the freezing silence of the night, staring blankly at the twinkling stars, which seemed to shine brilliantly without a single inkling of regret.

“Thought I'd find you here.”

Harry didn’t even flinch. He had heard this voice far more often than he’d wanted to. He didn’t even spare a glance at the boy who was now taking a seat on the cold stone beside him.

Harry noticed a Treacle Tart being quietly offered into his peripheral vision. He took it, still not looking at the giver.

“You usually eat like a starving troll during every meal, but you left abruptly today”, Malfoy commented.

They sat in silence, accompanied only by the howling of the high wind and the sound of Harry munching on the pastry.

“You know, I had wondered why you were so indifferent towards me the first time we met.” Malfoy sighed, “Now I just feel bad.”

Harry finally glanced at the blond. The moonlight reflected off his hair, making it look like spun platinum. Harry quickly averted his gaze. “You’re not going to hang out with your friends?”

Malfoy cocked a pale eyebrow, “Friends?”, he scoffed dryly. “High society does not have friends, Potter. We have connections and political relations.”

Harry looked at Malfoy awkwardly, “Is that…fun?”

Malfoy shook his head, “If you think having to always wear a perfect mask in front of everyone can be counted as fun”, Malfoy chuckled. “One wrong move and you’ve shamed your parents and your family name.”

“Oh. That’s—a lot of pressure.”

Malfoy shrugged elegantly. “You get used to it—” He suddenly slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle a wet cough, then cleared his throat as if nothing had happened.

“Why are you—?”

“This?”, Malfoy huffed a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. “Well, that’s what you get from generations of inbreeding.”

Harry didn’t know how to possibly respond to that, so he remained quiet.

“When did you, you know… Started becoming an Obscurus?”

Harry rubbed the back of his neck, “Around July, I think?”

Malfoy tilted his head, “Then how can you control it? I mean, from what I read in the restricted texts—the parasite usually completely devours the host’s mind during transformation. The host doesn't survive long.”

Harry scowled, his defensiveness flaring. “Why shouldn’t I be able to? It’s a part of me. Why do people keep dictating what I should and shouldn’t be able to do?”
“Hey, calm down. Merlin, I was just saying.” Malfoy looked at Harry with a defeated expression, “Look, I just want to say that…you shouldn’t face this—condition of yours, alone.”

But Harry just clicked his tongue and started aggressively picking on his nails, “Why would you care? I’m just a broken piece of trash that no one wants. I’ve been thrown away, picked up for convenience, and then thrown away again ever since the day I was born.”

“Potter…”

“Everyone manipulates me, my parents left me, no one would care if I drop dead now!”

“I would!”

Harry stared at Malfoy with wide, utterly shocked eyes. His chest was heaving from the shouting. He had unconsciously moved aggressively closer to the blond, his hand already starting to emit violent black wisps as it hovered dangerously close to Malfoy’s pale neck.

Terrified of himself, Harry immediately retracted his hand and scrambled backward. He pressed himself tightly against the wooden door of the tower, sitting down to make himself smaller while hugging his knees tight to his chest.

“Potter”, Malfoy sneered. “I'm much stronger than you think.”

But Harry shook his head, “No, looking at how pale you are. You’d die from a snap of my hand.”

Harry’s hands moved up to grip his own unruly hair, tugging in extreme frustration. “I don’t deserve to be here. I don’t deserve to live. I can’t ever do anything right.”

Malfoy looked at the spiraling boy, exasperated. Then, he spoke in a surprisingly small, quiet voice. “Well I think you’re pretty great.”

Harry whipped his head up. The boy sitting casually at the deadly edge of the tower was looking away, the soft breeze brushing his platinum hair out of his eyes. The room was just dark enough that Harry almost didn't catch how Malfoy’s ears were gradually turning a bright, flustered red.

“What—why?”
“Pretend you didn’t hear anything”, Malfoy blurted out quickly, frantically waving his arm.

How could he have said that out loud? How could Draco ever admit that he had been Harry Potter’s biggest fan ever since he was a little boy? His childhood bedroom had been filled to the brim with storybooks detailing the bravery of the Savior of the Wizarding World.

“Who is Harry Potter, mother?”

“A brave little boy who vanquished the Dark Lord.”
“Then he must be really strong, right? Unlike…me.”

Narcissa smiled warmly, brushing the hair from her son's sickly pale forehead. “Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses. No one is perfect, it’s just how we could manage our weaknesses and view them not as an obstacle, but as a challenge to improve ourselves to be better.”

“Even Harry Potter has weaknesses?”

Narcissa nodded softly, “Even Harry Potter.”

The pale, small boy looked at his mother with bright eyes. “Then, could I help Harry Potter with his weaknesses?”

Narcissa hugged her only child tightly, kissing his hair. “Of course, darling. You can do anything in this world.”

“And I’ll be as strong as he is to fight off my illness!”

Narcissa’s breath hitched at the painful reminder that her little boy was as fragile as spun glass. Closing her eyes to hide the tears, she calmed her quivering voice. “Yes, dear. You’ll grow up to be big and strong.”

Malfoy had always dreamed of meeting the invincible hero from his storybooks. But sitting here right now, he wasn't looking at the Vanquisher of the Dark Lord. He saw a boy, just as fragile as he was—broken by the abuse and expectations forced upon him.

How could anyone place the weight of the world on this boy's shoulders? He was just a traumatized child.

Malfoy sighed heavily and got to his feet. He walked over to the boy still crouching defensively by the door and grabbed his arm to pull him up—or at least, he tried to.

Seeing the frail Malfoy actually struggle with the physical effort, Harry finally let out a small amused huff—and stood up on his own.

The blond just sighed, reaching out and swatting at Harry’s messy collar. “You don’t even know how to wear your uniform properly. Honestly, the Chosen One my arse.”

Harry looked at Malfoy in utter confusion as the boy straightened his tie.

“And why aren’t you wearing your glasses? You’re as blind as an ashwinder.”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows, “How did you—”

“Salazar, not all of us are as blind as you are. You’re practically always squinting at the chalkboard in class”, Malfoy berated.

Harry felt—oddly comforted by the constant nagging of the blond in front of him. There was something incredibly grounding about someone putting in the effort to take care of him without him having to beg for it. He didn’t dare dwell on the thought, but it felt incredibly nice to have someone who actually cared.

“They say that not all that glitters is gold”, Harry whispered quietly into the wind.

Malfoy rolled his eyes, “True, but true gold will always shine.” He stared directly into Harry’s emerald green eyes and extended a pale hand. “Now, show me your arms.”

Harry paused, wrapping his arms around himself. “What for?”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at the question, “To reapply the glamour over your marks, obviously?”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows in alarm. “Madam Pomfrey said you must absolutely refrain from using your magic.”

“Oh, not you too”, Malfoy scowled, stepping forward and physically forcing Harry’s hands out.

But Harry quickly pulled back. “Rather than you casting it for me yourself, how about you just teach me the spell? I have way more expendable magic than you do.”

Malfoy looked at the stubborn, determined set of glowing eyes staring at him sighed in total defeat.

This was going to be a very long night.

Harry Potter was now following Draco Malfoy around like a lost puppy.

Harry spent his days at Hogwarts ignoring the gossiping masses left and right. He still spent the majority of his time avoiding crowds, but if one was lucky enough, they would spot a pair of dark and light-haired boys sitting quietly together in the alcoves.

On the days when Harry's depressive swings hit—when he wanted to shrink into the shadows and not speak a single word—Malfoy would just sit silently beside him, occasionally reaching out to swat Harry's hand away when he started aggressively picking at his nails.

But on the manic days, Harry would experience a sudden, brazen burst of confidence. He would march right up to the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, and sit directly next to Malfoy.

The blond, and the entirety of the Slytherin House, had been utterly baffled the first time it happened. But seeing that Professor Snape merely sipped his goblet and completely ignored the intrusion, the snakes gradually accepted the Gryffindor's presence as a bizarre new normal.

It quickly became a regular sight to see Harry aggressively stacking portions of food onto Malfoy’s plate.

“Eat more. You’re as thin as a twig.”

Malfoy would just grunt, scowling down at the mountain of food in front of him.

“You must never waste food”, Harry would repeat, his tone deadly serious.

Seeing absolutely no reaction from Harry as the rumor continued to swirl, paired with no new incidents happening, some students eventually grew bored. A rumor without fuel to fire it would quickly die down. With no more missing student cases, everyone had stopped believing that the Chamber of Secrets had opened, but they were still sceptical about Harry being Slytherin’s descendant.

The missing students case was, unsurprisingly, being kept shut behind closed doors. However, the sheer gravity of four first-year students vanishing without a trace still hung over Hogwarts like a suffocating fog. The Ministry of Magic and Dumbledore worked tirelessly to bury the incident, officially classifying it as a series of "unexplained disappearances" to prevent the school from being shut down. Aurors quietly scoured the castle at night while the Daily Prophet was suspiciously silenced.

And thus, a month had passed as the October October winds brought a biting, freezing chill to the ancient castle.

Consequently, Malfoy’s fragile health began deteriorating rapidly. Even layering a scarf and a thick wool coat couldn’t stop the boy from catching a severe, rattling cold that plagued him for the entire month.

By the end of October, Malfoy had practically isolated himself from the other Slytherins. He couldn’t bear revealing his worsening constitution and bringing perceived shame to his father and proud family name. Instead, he spent all his time hiding in the deepest corners of the library or resting in the Hospital Wing, almost always accompanied by Harry acting as his silent, fiercely protective guard dog.

Draco's magic had also been growing noticeably weaker by the day—until finally, on Halloween morning, he collapsed entirely during flying lessons.

Harry had desperately wanted to stay by his bedside in the Hospital Wing, but was ultimately ushered out by a frantic Madam Pomfrey. Forced to attend his afternoon classes, Harry spent the entire day vibrating with a restless, agonizing anxiety.

That evening, a thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling of the Great Hall, while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter.

Harry was aggressively stabbing a baked potato when Professor Quirrell suddenly came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and sheer terror painted on his face.

Everyone stared in shock as he reached Professor Dumbledore’s chair, slumped heavily against the table, and gasped, “Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know.” Before sinking to the floor in a dead faint.

An absolute uproar erupted. Students were already screaming, leaping from their benches and stampeding toward the heavy oak doors. It took several deafening purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore’s wand to finally bring silence to the panic.

“Prefects”, he rumbled, “lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!”

Harry heard Percy shouting for the Gryffindors to follow him, but Harry only had one frantic thought crashing through his mind.

As he followed the Gryffindor line out the doors, he waited for the chaotic intersection of the grand staircase. Blending into the panicked crowd hurrying in different directions, Harry deliberately separated himself from the lions and sprinted as fast as he could in the complete opposite direction.

“Malfoy, what are you doing out here? You should be in the hospital—”

Harry’s frantic sprinting slowed to a dead halt. He stared at the fragile blond boy standing precariously close to the deadly ledge.

Harry had broken into the Hospital Wing to find Malfoy, but when he got there—his bed was empty. The only thing left behind was a neatly folded letter resting on the side table.

Harry walked slowly toward the blond, reaching out with trembling hands to fix the green scarf hanging loosely around Draco's thin neck. “What are you doing? You can’t even tie your scarf properly.”

Malfoy chuckled, the sound frail and broken. His silver eyes were completely hollow. “You’re talking to me like I’m going to live to see tomorrow, Harry.”

Harry’s breath hitched, his green eyes going incredibly wide.

“What, did you call me?—Say it again”

Draco tilted his head, a sad smile touching his pale lips, but he complied nonetheless.

“Harry.”

Harry broke into a massive, blinding grin and laughed. He actually laughed. Not his usual mocking, hollow scoff, nor a manic, breathless giggle. A genuine, big smile bloomed across the boy's face.

“The first time I hear you say my name—and you’re leaving already?”, Harry stopped laughing, his right hand clutching the opened letter he had just read. “Are you really sure you want to do this? What about your parents?”

Draco nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for being selfish, but I thought that—if I leave today. You would only need to remember one date of sadness”, Draco’s ears began to turn red as he gazed somewhere else that isn’t Harry’s eyes. “Not that you would be sad if I’m gone.” He continued to ramble, “And I could also be classified as one of those—’unexplained disappearances’”

Harry sighed, running a frustrated hand through his messy black hair—but then, he lurched forward and coughed violently.

Draco looked at Harry with panic plastered on his face. 

“Harry! Harry what happened?”

Harry held out his hand to stop Draco from coming close to him, while his other hand moved from covering his mouth down to clasping the scarf he was wearing.

Seeing this, Draco lunged forward to pull on the wool covering Harry’s neck to reveal black cracks creeping up the side of his skin.

Draco gulped at the terrifying sight. The last time he had seen the marks—it had only looked like black streaks on Harry’s arms. But now, it no longer looked like skin—it almost looked like fractured, blackened glass, ready to shatter into a million pieces from the mere touch of a finger.

But what had caught Draco’s attention—was the raised pale lines on Harry’s skin.

Harry noticed the horror in Draco’s face and grabbed him by his arms, gripping hard to force the boy to look him in the eye, averting the conversation. “You’re going to jump from here?”

Draco swallowed his fear, forcing a weak ghost of his usual smirk. “Scared, Potter?”

But Harry, who could physically feel the frail body he was holding violently trembling, just clicked his tongue. Pretending that everything was fine, like the thing that was going to happen was normal. “You wish.” Harry forced out of his throat.

Draco slowly stepped backward toward the open balcony, feeling Harry’s warm hands gently let go of his. 

His gaze remained entirely fixed on the vibrant green eyes of the boy staring back at him with a deeply conflicted expression—before letting his heels slip off the stone edge. 

He let his failing body fall from the top of the Astronomy Tower, looking up at the beautiful, starry sky one last time as the wind roared in his ears and his descent began.

The stars twinkled brilliantly above, as if bidding him a gentle farewell for the very last time. But suddenly, his vision was entirely eclipsed by a massive, roaring, black-whirling manifestation of pure magic and rage—Harry.

Draco’s consciousness was dimming rapidly by the second, the rushing wind stealing his breath, but he just managed to hear a faint, distorted whisper echoing in his mind.

‘Let me consume your grief.’

Draco closed his eyes and smiled a profoundly tired, peaceful smile. “Then I shall be your relief.”

Before Draco could even fathom hitting the ground, he was violently enveloped in a freezing, yet impossibly warm embrace of dark magic.

He could feel his frail heartbeat slowing, his consciousness finally giving out. His very last inkling of lucidity was the incredible, weightless feeling of flying—before he vanished entirely into a peaceful, eternal darkness.

The Obscurial, carrying with it the fragments of two shattered souls, ripped its way upward, flying higher and higher into the pitch-black sky. It carried with it all of their combined rage, their crushing regrets, and their final, desperate hope—before disappearing entirely behind the clouds.

A blinding, explosion of magic tore apart the night sky, leaving a sprawling ribbon of brilliant, shifting auroras in its wake as a final parting gift to the world.

A beautiful end to a tragic beginning.