Harry Potter: A New Dawn

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 1. The Formative years

Privet Drive, Little Whinging is a perfect example of a stereotypical middle class suburb, populated mostly by boring normal families. It is a neighborhood where anything remotely out of the ordinary is frowned upon and talked about in hushed voices.

The residents of house number 4, the Dursleys are no different in this respect from their neighbors. If anything their zeal for being normal has far surpassed that of their neighbors becoming a very unhealthy obsession. The sole exception to this obsession is one little boy named Harry Potter. He was the subject of many hushed whispers and disapproving glares from the denizens of Privet Drive. It was unanimously agreed that tiny, runty Harry Potter was headed for a life of crime and delinquency.

Harry Potter lay down on his cot in the cupboard under the stairs nursing a split lip and a few bruises gained as a result of his extremely unwise attempt at teasing his cousin Dudley Dursley. Harry had been living with the Dursleys as long as he could remember. They had taken him in after his jobless, drunk parents had gotten themselves killed in a car crash leaving him an orphan. The reason for this unexpected generosity was a puzzle to him as the dursleys hated him.

7 years old now, he had been attending the primary school for two years along with Dudley much to his misfortune as Dudley loved to bully him. The only way harry could retaliate was through words as Dudley was much bigger and stronger than him. But today he had been stupid enough to get cornered by Dudley and his friends after mouthing off to them during the class and this had led to a worse than normal beating. But the soiled clothes and a split lip did not go unnoticed by his teacher and this had eventually led to a phone call to his aunt and uncle. Unfortunately for harry, uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia refused to believe that Dudley was anything but an angel and had instead punished harry by locking him in his room which was the cupboard under the stairs.

It would not be an overstatement to say that harry had a very unhappy life at the Dursleys. The tiny and dusty cupboard under the stairs was both a prison and a sanctuary to him since he had come to the Dursley household. His earliest memories were of being pinched, kicked or spat upon by his whale of a cousin Dudley.

The first few years of his life were spent by being locked in the cupboard until he had to be fed or being another play toy for his cousin. As he grew older and hence more physically capable, his aunt slowly began teaching him how to do various chores around the house like cleaning, washing, gardening and eventually cooking as he had become the unpaid and hated servant. He was constantly reminded that he had to earn his meager meals and oversized clothing by working around the house and that working hard from childhood may prevent him from going the way of his parents

The dursley family's favorite recreational activity was making Harry's life as miserable as possible. He was constantly belittled and punished for the slightest of infractions. He was not allowed to participate in any of the activities that other children his age did. The oppressive living environment led to harry developing in a very different way than other children his age.

As a necessity for survival he had become a keen observer and had learnt several lessons in human behavior that event most adults never learn during their lives. His observational skills were a necessity for a peaceful life at the dursleys. He could accurately predict the moods of his relatives and hence was capable of knowing when not to draw any attention towards himself.

Today's episode with Dudley started when they were given their midterm test scores, as always he had a much higher score than Dudley. This had made him a little smug and he had tried to tease his cousin for being stupid and paid for the insult only scant minutes later. His performance in school had been a major point of contention with his aunt and uncle. From the time he and Dudley had started school together, he had consistently performed better than Dudley. At first his uncle had predictably accused him of cheating and punished him. But after a dozen times of doing so, even he had given up claiming that Dudley was not a nancy little book worm.

While Harry could deliberately sabotage his tests to make his life a little easier, he refused to do so. After being told time and again that he would never amount to anything, he had decided that he would work hard to achieve a high station in life. Being normal or mediocre like the Dursleys was very unappealing to Harry. He had recognized quickly that the only way he could achieve his goal was to work as hard as he could at his studies. While he was still nowhere near the top of this class he was slowly getting there. Becoming the top ranking student in class was hard for harry as he was neither encouraged nor even allowed to study properly at home. Every day after returning from school he was swamped with different chores until dinner time after which he was locked in his cupboard. Only then in the cramped confines of his cupboard could he complete his homework and study.

It would be an understatement to say that harry hated his relatives, but he was powerless to do anything. Any attempt at retaliation would only end with a beating from Dudley or an endless list of chores by his aunt and even a perceived slight would result in a reduction of his already meager portion of food. Thinking about his misery only made him angry, sad and helpless at same time. Harry potter drifted off to sleep cursing his situation and resolving to do everything in his power to make it better.

"WAKE UP!, BOY!" a hard rap on the door and the shrill voice of his aunt woke harry up from an uneasy sleep. The sound of a latch sliding was heard before the door to his cupboard opened and he was met with the blurry yet unmistakable face of his aunt.

"Get ready quickly, there are a lot of chores to do today" she said

Harry stifled a groan, ducked a swat from his aunt and hurried toward the bathroom all the while cursing the fact that it was a Saturday and bemoaning his fate.

An hour and a tasteless sandwich later he was asked to clean and arrange his cousin's second bedroom. He lazily opened the bedroom door and entered and suddenly he was lying on his back on the floor. Groaning in pain he sat up and saw that he had slipped on a toy trolley which was lying on the floor. Cursing himself for his carelessness he stood back up again. Suddenly he felt tremors on the wooden floor and deduced that either his uncle or cousin had risen from their sleep.

Quickly closing the door he set about doing his chores and midway through he suddenly realized that he had a way of getting back at his cousin. He picked up the trolley and another similar toy and waited until uncle Vernon went down the stairs. Then he carefully placed both the trolleys under the designer mat at the top of the stairs and went about cleaning the room.

After a few minutes he heard more footsteps and as he expected he saw his cousin waddle past his room at what for him was a furious pace to satisfy his mountainous appetite. A moment later he heard a small shout and a few muted thuds. Immediately he stepped outside and grabbed the toys and threw them back in the room.

His cousin's fall and the accompanying cries immediately brought his uncle and aunt running to stairs at the same time as he came back out of the bedroom. His heart beating rapidly in fear he ran down the stairs two at time to see his aunt and uncle fussing over his cousin.

His uncle took one look at him and bellowed "WHAT DID YOU DO BOY!".

Gulping in fear at his uncle's rapidly purpling face he squeaked "I didn't do anything!".

"DID YOU PUSH HIM DOWN THE STAIRS!" shouted Uncle Vernon.

"No! I did not!" said harry with all the fake indignation he could muster.

"Vernon! We must take him to the hospital" said aunt petunia.

"YES PET" shouted the still angry Vernon and within a minute all the dursleys and a very fearful harry were on the way to the hospital with a moaning and weeping Dudley and a crying aunt petunia in the back seat of the car.

"Did he push you Dudley!" asked a red faced Vernon while furiously navigating the traffic.

And then to Harry's amazement Dudley shook his head in the negative.

A sober Harry lay on his bed that night admiring his luck. The one time he was truly guilty of something he was let off the hook. His relatives usually blamed him even for strange and unexplainable events like when his teacher's hair turned blue after she unfairly picked on him in class. He assumed that his aunt and uncle were too preoccupied with Dudley's injury (three fractures in the right hand) and Dudley himself was too stupid to realize that there was something under the mat when he stepped on it.

As he thought about his day, harry came to a realization that he could get revenge against his relatives as long as he was careful not to get caught.

Over the next few days Harry's euphoria at getting back at Dudley plummeted as his days became even more miserable. Dudley, who could not play outside due to his injury had glued himself to his chair watching television in his bedroom and harry was given the task of waiting on him and bringing any food or drinks he desired from the kitchen to his bedroom. As if catering to Dudley's whims was not enough he had to do Dudley's homework for him as the injury was to his preferred hand.

A week after Dudley's accident, his aunt in a bout of nastiness had sheared all the hair on his head except for a small fringe which she left to hide the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. That night Harry went to sleep worrying about going to school where he was already laughed at for his oversized clothes and broken glasses with his mutilated hair.

The next morning, when he woke up, he found that his had grown back overnight to its previous condition. His delight at his hair growing back quickly turned to anger as his aunt upon seeing his hair called him a freak and given him a week in his cupboard ignoring his pleas that he did not know how his hair grew back. He was allowed out only when Dudley had thrown a tantrum that he wanted Harry around to bring him food.

While being let out of the cupboard was a relief to Harry, being forced supply food to Dudley when he was not allowed to eat since yesterday was a torture, made only worse by Dudley's constant teasing. He watched in impotent rage as Dudley stuffed his mouth while giving mocking smirks. As his anger reached a crescendo he watched Dudley reach for something on the bed with his left hand and a flicker of a thought crossed his mind and then with a resounding crack two of the legs on Dudley's chair snapped sending Dudley crashing down to the floor with a mighty thud.

After an hour and another trip to the hospital, a confused harry sat in his cupboard thinking about the events that transpired. He was sure that the legs of the chair snapped a split second after the exact same thought crossed his mind. It was as if the chair broke because he wished it. He was pretty sure that the chair could not have broken solely because of Dudley's weight because it was regularly used by Uncle Vernon who was much larger and hence heavier than Dudley. To his relief Dudley had only a mild sprain and his left hand was still very much functional and his aunt and uncle concluded that the chair was too old and hence he was not blamed.

But Harry was reasonably sure that he was responsible for the broken chair legs. Now that he thought about it, the other strange events around him happened only when he was angry, desperate or very annoyed. While he did not understand how or why these things happened, he was sure that it was indeed him that made them happen and it was always either the object or person he was annoyed at that was affected.

Over the next few days he tried to replicate this feat by breaking something else. He tried breaking his cupboard door and a few other things and he had also tried to change the colors of various objects. But none of his attempts yielded any results. While he did find a small crack on a very garish vase his aunt was fond of, he could not be sure that it was not an old one. As the days passed he told himself that the chair was an accident just like the other events, but there was a part of him which still held on to the hope that it was him that did those things.

As the days passed and his punishment ended he settled back into his old routine, he started using every bit of his free time to study to achieve his goal of becoming the best in his class and probably even win a scholarship which would help him get into a better high school than the one the Dursleys had graciously informed him that he would be enrolled in.

But his routine had come to a screeching halt only a few months later when another strange event occurred. Dudley's arm was mended and he returned back to school and as if to make up for all the bullying he missed out on, had become twice as nasty.

It was a very stormy day and the sky was pouring down sheets of rain by the time the classes were finished. Uncle Vernon had returned early from work to pick up Dudley in his car. Dudley in lieu with his increasingly bratty behavior had thrown a tantrum saying that he did not want harry in the car and uncle Vernon had easily given in, his own nastiness coming to the fore when he closed the car door in Harry's face and left harry standing in the pouring rain. Already angry with Dudley's bullying, this act made harry even angrier as he saw Dudley gleefully waving through the window of the car. Harry furiously watched his uncle's accelerating car and hoped its tire would burst and a moment after he had that thought there was a loud noise and the car came to a sudden stop.

That night an excited Harry lay in his bed thinking about how he had burst the tire by just wishing it. Now, he knew beyond any doubt that it was him who made all the strange things happen albeit reflexively than with any conscious thought. He knew now that he had to gain control of his ability. Gaining control of this ability would allow him to use it whenever necessary and to prevent himself from involuntarily doing something very obvious like growing back all his hair in one night or changing someone's hair color. He had deduced that there were two different factors at play whenever he had used his power. The first factor is a heightened emotional state (anger, fear, desperation etc) to activate his power and the second factor is giving a direction to his power through his thoughts to do his bidding.

To control his power he should be able to either activate his power independent of his emotional state or be able to artificially induce anger in himself and then be able to direct his power in that state. Since he had no idea of even what he was trying to control, the former approach was all but impossible so he set about making himself angry so as to do something with his power but even that proved to be impossible.

Over the next few months strange things kept happening around him with increasing frequency and each and every one of those times was without any premeditation on his part. Even after several exhaustive hours of trying to make himself angry or just wishing with all his strength for something to happen, he had not been able to control his power.

Almost a year had passed since his discovery of his strange power and yet he had not once been able control it properly. if not for the minor but frequent instances in which he had used his power (mostly to break Dudley's' toys or to trip him and his friends) he would have convinced himself that it was just his imagination. Though in his current situation, even a little bit of control would have been of tremendous help.

'God must have a sick sense of humor.' thought harry running as fast as his scrawny legs could carry him. When Harry wished his classmates would occasionally let him play with them in some game (preferably football) or the other this was not what he was imagining. A few weeks ago Dudley had the unfortunate (for Harry) idea of inventing a game called harry hunting which gained instant popularity with Dudley's gang of ratty assholes. Dudley and his friends would chase him around the school ground and try to catch him. Till now had mostly evaded them without gaining anything more than a few bruises. But today his situation was dire as even some of the older students had joined in the game.

In his hurry to escape, he ran around a corner forgetting that it was a dead end. Coming to a complete stop he looked around him for an escape. But he was surrounded by smooth high walls which were impossible to climb. The only cover he could find was a cluster of dust bins. He hid behind the bins knowing all the while that even Dudley would not be fooled by the cover and listened to the closing footsteps and shouts with rapidly mounting panic wishing to be anywhere but here and suddenly after a brief moment of feeling like he was squeezed through a narrow tube he was somewhere else.

Harry looked around him in confusion for a minute. He saw that he was on the roof of a building and upon further observation he found that he was on the roof of the building beside which he was crouching only a moment ago. He crawled to the edge of the roof and peeked down and found five of his classmates looking around with puzzled faces. He moved back a little and lied down quietly.

"Where is he Malcolm?" Demanded Dudley red faced with exertion.

"I swear I saw him run into this corner Dudley!" Said Malcolm

He lay still on the roof and remained quiet while he waited for Dudley and his gang to leave.

Harry sighed in relief when the voices faded away and then began to wonder how he had gotten on to the roof.

Before his line of thought could proceed any further, Harry heard a loud gong signaling the end of the recess. His still settling heart beat picked up again as he scrambled to his feet to look for a way to climb down. As the minutes passed and he couldn't find a safe way to climb down without being caught, his panic rose to its previous levels. He crouched at the edge of the roof wishing with all his might to be on the ground. And then he felt a peculiar sensation rising up inside in his body and a moment later he once more felt like he was being squeezed through a narrow tube and then he appeared with a resounding crack on the ground next to the building which housed his classroom. He looked around him for a few moments in awe before rushing to his class.

After being chewed out for being late to class a still elated Harry potter sat behind his desk pondering his achievement. He had, after more than a year of trying used his power with full premeditation. Granted he was in panic, but this time his power responded to when he wanted it to and not to momentary thoughts like before. He was pretty sure he felt a strange sensation well up inside him just before he disappeared and reappeared. The strange feeling that welled up inside him was probably his power harry surmised. If he could learn to bring up the feeling on command Harry knew he could replicate all his previous feats. He still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that he travelled from the roof of the school kitchen to near his classroom which was on the opposite corner of the grounds. This was by far the coolest thing he had ever done and probably the most useful if he could replicate it.

Harry couldn't wait for the school hours to be finished. He wanted to see if he could do it again without the urgency or the panic driving him. As soon as the bell rang signaling the end of the school day, Harry rushed out of the class before he could be intercepted by Dudley's gang all of whom kept shooting nasty looks during the class as if he had done them a grave injustice by not letting them use him as a football.

He quickly exited the school grounds and hurriedly crossed a few streets before he reached a small clump of trees. He had a maximum of sixty minutes before he had to go back to his aunt's house, so he had some time to try and reproduce what he did earlier. If he succeeded it would only take a few seconds to travel. Once again he crouched as he did on the roof, closed his eyes and wished to appear in a narrow alley near number four which is almost always vacant. Nothing happened. There was no strange feeling, no being squeezed through a tube and definitely no loud sound. He reopened his eyes to find himself exactly where he had been before. He closed his eyes and tried again and again with no results. As the minutes passed by, his hopes plummeted and his frustration mounted until suddenly he felt something rising up within him he disappeared from behind the trees and reappeared at his destination with a loud crack, frightening a nearby cat (probably one of Mrs. Figg's). For a moment he stood there in disbelief. Gradually a genuine smile bloomed on his face and he pumped his fist in the air. His self congratulation came to halt as he suddenly remembered that he left his school bag behind the clump of trees. Not letting that minor oversight dampen his spirits he stood up closed his eyes and disappeared with another loud crack and reappeared near his bag. He picked up the bag and with his body still full of adrenaline from the excitement, disappeared again only to reappear in the park closest to privet drive thanking his luck that it was deserted. He wanted to practice a few more times until he was a little confident in its usage before he headed home. He now knew how to bring up his power. After almost giving up on ever learning to use it, he had finally succeeded.

After several more successful attempts, he went home feeling more tired and hungry than he ever felt only to be locked in his cupboard without food for being late. His good mood evaporated as the burning sensation in his stomach grew. He waited for his relatives to go to sleep so that he could steal a little food from the refrigerator. When he was reasonably sure that the dursleys were asleep he tried to open the cupboard door. But as he expected it was still latched. He knew that he couldn't jump (which was what he decided to call his skill until he found a better name) as the loud crack would awaken the Dursleys. So he had to open the latch from the inside. Pushing aside his tiredness he called on his power and wished for the latch to slide open and to his elation he heard the sound he hoped to hear. He slowly pushed open the door and tip toed into the kitchen.

After an hour he tip toed back to his cupboard and closed the door and called upon his power again, this time to close the latch. He lied down on his bed with a large smile on his face. He was happier than he had ever been before, and he had a damn good reason for it too.

All his life he had lived under a cloud of fear, fear of the Dursleys and fear of the dursleys abandoning him. But for the first time in his life, he felt as if he had glimpsed the sky beyond the cloud. Today he had defied all the dursleys without any repercussions. He had escaped Dudley and his friends without a scratch and he had defied the elder dursleys' food ban. He had eaten more than he had ever eaten in his life and now, he knew that his days of being starved according to dursleys' whims were over. All because of the power within him.

Ever since he figured out that it was him that caused all the strange things to happen he wondered if the dursleys had known that he had this power. They had always called him a freak and blamed him for all the strange occurrences after all.

He wondered if there were other people out there who could do things like him. Maybe his parents had the power; the dursleys had called them freaks too. But his parents had died in a car crash and if they had his power they should have been able to escape and if they could jump like him they wouldn't even need a car.

His thoughts drifted back to the dursleys, imagining their reaction if they knew that he could do these things. There was no doubt that they would go ballistic. He remembered his uncle's reaction when Dudley talked about a magic show at one of his friend's birthday party.

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC!" he bellowed and cuffed Dudley on the head while glaring at him as if it was Harry's fault that some kid had a magic show.

That was the first time he had ever seen Dudley get reprimanded. Suddenly Harry sat up, his previous exhaustion forgotten.

'MAGIC!' Thought Harry.

'Was that what his power was?'

He remembered the panic on Vernon's and petunia's faces as Dudley uttered the M word, as if Dudley had leaked a great secret. He was locked in his cupboard immediately and he could still hear Vernon warning Dudley to never utter the M word again. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen the dursleys freak out as much as they did that day. In fact they were more upset because harry heard the word than because Dudley said it. While the dursleys disapproved of a lot of things their reaction to the word 'MAGIC' was extreme by even their standards.

If what he could do was indeed magic, then he was reasonably sure that the dursleys knew about it. He had to admit that calling it magic was more appropriate than simply calling it "the power".

The next two years in Harry's were not anywhere as pleasant as he expected them to be, in spite of his growing powers.

He had learnt to do all of the things that he previously did involuntarily and also learned some new tricks. He could teleport(A term he got from a comic book) over long distances now. He had tried once when he visited London with his aunt and uncle. He could call on his magic instinctively now, instead of having to concentrate for a few seconds.

But, as if to compensate for all the good in his life the durleys had become miserably unbearable. Nowadays it was almost impossible for Dudley's gang to corner him as he would duck behind a corner and teleport somewhere else and on the rare occasions when he couldn't find a secluded space to teleport, he would simply trip his pursuers and escape. So Dudley had given up on harry hunting, but he would blame any and all mischief he committed on Harry. This had the unfortunate consequence of the entire neighborhood considering him a hooligan and treating him like a leper. But things had gone too far when a burglary happened a few houses down the road and the family named him as a possible suspect to the police.

While the police immediately ruled him out as a suspect on seeing that he was not even eleven years old, they still believed that he was a vandal and gone as far as to warm him against any more mischief. Immediately after the police left a red faced Vernon slapped him and proceeded to ream him about causing the police to come their house. Already furious at his undeserved reputation, Harry shouted back at Vernon saying that the neighbors considered him a hooligan because of the rumors spread by the dursleys and that if anyone would become a criminal it would be Dudley.

This pushed Vernon over the edge and he tried to punch, harry but harry instinctively blocked the punch with his hand. As soon as Vernon's fist touched Harry's hand there was a loud crack immediately followed by two smaller cracks. That was the first time in more than a year that harry performed involuntary magic and as a result, Vernon had a badly fractured wrist.

Almost Eleven years old now, Harry had just finished primary school at the top of his class. Ever since that incident none of the dursleys dared to touch him, but they did everything they could to make his life miserable. And so he remained in a very familiar position again, angry and resentful. The feeling of helplessness at his situation had devolved over the years into hatred towards his family and the apathetic people that populated his life. He had long ago vowed to escape from his relatives as soon as he could but he could not come up with a solution to achieve that goal, at least not before his eighteenth birthday. Harry felt that he would go crazy if he had to stay with his relatives for so long.

AN:

Hi,

This is my first attempt at fan fiction and English is not my first language. So I apologize in advance for any mistakes I might have made. I hope to improve the quality of my writing as the story proceeds.

This story is based on my view of how harry would have shaped up because of his childhood. The story would cover all seven years at Hogwarts.

Any advise, criticism and subplot ideas are welcome.

Yours Sincerely,

Sattilallu.