Title: Keep on running, if you can
Summary: What if Harry had doubted that he would forever stay in the wizarding world and made it possible that he could be a successful muggle as well. When Voldemort comes back at the end of Harry's fourth year and Harry disappears, where else would he go but blend in with the millions of muggles in the world at a boarding school for the troubled. After all his muggle records do show him attending st Brutus for the incurably criminal. As the entire wizarding is in uproar and numerous wizards are sent out to look for him he has to learn how to survive and fit in with criminally inclined teenagers. Can the wizarding world find the Boy-Who-Lived before it's too late, or will Harry happily spend the rest of his life in peace from the war that is brewing.
(Author note: I don't own anything but what I came up with)
Chapter one- How we do things
When Harry potter found out he was a wizard at age 11 and was likely to spend much of his next years of life in the wizarding world he was unsure about what it would bring. He had lived his entire life up to that point believing he was like everyone else only to find he was supremely different. Not only was he different to what others would class as normal. He was also different to what wizards would call normal. According to Hagrid who had introduced him to the wizarding world he was famous. He knew about famous people from listening to his aunt gossip to the neighbours about them as well as reading all those magazines. What he had gathered about being famous is that lots of people liked to talk about you and not always in a good way. Whatever you do is somehow shown to the public and they all have expectations of you. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be famous if that's what it meant but he clearly wouldn't have a choice. This worried him because if everyone would be paying attention to what he did and he knew nothing about the new world he would be joining, then it was inevitable that he would make a fool of himself. He didn't know the first thing about the wizarding world, Hagrid hadn't told him anything much apart from what came up on his first journey to the strange new world. He was a wizard and so he felt it was his right and his obligation to know as much as possible about being a good wizard, but since Hagrid had stopped him from buying any books that weren't on his school list he had no source of information. That was apart from his aunt. After all she had been his mum's sister and they had grown up together so she must have learned some things about the world that was hidden from her. He normally avoided his aunt so he didn't get on her bad side but it was important he knew all he could before September the 1st. so gathering up all the courage available to him at 11 years of age he went to ask his aunt what she knew. It might not end well but it was his only option.
He'd waited for his uncle and cousin to leave the house because she wouldn't reveal anything if those two could over hear. He hadn't had to wait for long, his uncle still had work and since it was the summer holidays his cousin went round his friend piers polkiss's house almost every day. So on one of these days Harry shuffled his way into the kitchen where his aunt was disinfecting all the counter tops after having cooked lunch on them. He tried not to scuff the tiled floors as that would surely spell a bad start.
"Aunt Petunia" Harry called quietly as he stood meekly next to the dining table.
"What do you want boy?" petunia had turned around so she could scowl at the mop head boy in front of her for sullying her kitchen while she tried to clean it.
"Well you see, well um, I just wanted to, um, ask you some, uh, questions about m. m. magic" Harry managed to stutter out. The look his aunt gave him could induce heart attacks to the weak. Harry averted his eyes to the counter top. He'd known this would be a risk but he had to try. If he had been looking at his aunt he would have seen a number of emotions cross his aunts face, From disgust of the word magic to indecision of whether or not to help her nephew. She had always distanced herself from her sister's son knowing he would leave like her sister had when he got older. Over the years she had grown used to disparaging and neglecting him. But now he was leaving soon and there could be no risk in growing attached in the short time before September 1st.
She had been a recent mother when her nephew was dumped on her doorstep and she still hurt from her sister abandoning her and getting herself killed before they could make amends. But as a mother her instincts had wanted to care for the boy, only her emotions couldn't allow it. Seeing the boy, Harry stood there and asking for her help for the first time in years made her heart twinge. She sat herself at the dining table to prepare herself for the emotions this would undoubtedly bring up.
"Okay ask your questions and I'll tell you what I know." Harry looked at his aunt in shock; he had hoped but hadn't truly thought his aunt would help him. He didn't know where this change in attitude had come from but he wasn't going to waste it.
Harry cleared his throat, "I was wondering if you could tell me anything about what goes on at Hogwarts or what happens afterwards, did my mum ever write home telling you about what wizards do or if they do anything odd I should know about, can you tell me everything you know about wizards and magic?" Harry was very nervous thinking that his aunt had been playing a joke on him and would punish him for speaking so outrageously about magic. He hoped she wouldn't, so far all he knew was from his school books he read every night and they were only about the subjects he would be taking. There had to be more to a secret society of wizards and witches than learning magic.
His aunt seemed to fortify herself against the questions he asked. "Okay you have to understand that I don't know much, I only had glimpses of the world my sister was in but I'll try." that was more than Harry could wish for.
"Most of what I know is from the books Lilly got before she went to Hogwarts and the letters she sent home about what she was doing. There is seven years of school and each year is split into four groups, Lilly called them houses, she was a Gryffindor she was always writing about a friend she had in Slytherin and that her house mates disliked him because of his house. There was also Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. She said a hat sorted them but I don't know what that could mean, absurd if you ask me." Yes well I supposed you think magic is absurd Harry thought in his head.
"You sleep in dorms with your year's house mates and go to lessons with them, Lilly was always writing about all the interesting things they were learning her favourite was charms I think. They have a sport where people fly on brooms I don't know much about it because Lilly didn't pay much attention to it she was always more into her studies. I think in your third year at school you are allowed to a village near the school on certain weekends as well as adding extracurricular classes to your schedule, she raved for a week about Arithmacy and ancient runes I think she took a creature class as well, these were added onto her normal classes. I believe that in the fifth year of schooling you have exams like G.C.S.E's called O.W.L's which decide which classes you can take as well as career counselling. I remember the tirade Lilly threw that year because normal born students couldn't get a job in the ministry she was almost ready to leave the wizarding world that year because with such a small population they don't have many jobs to obtain elsewhere. In the seventh year you take N.E.W.T's which are like A levels and then you graduate to find a job, start a family, get a house. Wizards have longer life spans than we do you see but they marry and have children very young, most only out of school like your parents. It is likely with wizarding parents yourself you will work for the ministry and I'm sure you'll have a large inheritance because your farther was well off for a young man. He was what's called a pureblood those with no non magical blood in them the pure bloods are the crème of the crop to wizards. That's all I can tell you about the practical part of things, I didn't pay too much attention to it all as I had my own schooling to attend to." His aunt unbeknownst to her was exactly what Harry was looking for. She was a well spring of information, though that prejudice against people with non magical parents seems very barbaric to him he didn't much like discrimination, which he'd learned about in school, he would've though wizards could accept everything.
"The largest wizard past time I suppose would be that broom game I mentioned it's their only sport I think. Lilly spoke of the high society wizards having balls and other functions. They appear to be very old fashioned from the clothes they wear, lack of electricity and the fact that they use quills and parchment; I couldn't believe it when she told me. They haven't advanced nearly as much as we normal people have. But that also means they don't have as much of an issue as we do with the rebelling teenagers and all the bad things we have in the news with the new technology." Harry made a disgruntled sound at her disrespecting his precious technology.
"I didn't hear from her as much after she graduated because of course I married your uncle Vernon and got on with my life and she got dragged into that blasted war the wizards were having. I could see it in our news, all the mysterious deaths and odd weather but that's supposedly done with now." The weird look his aunt gave him made him positive she knew he was partly responsible for the war ending, but apparently she wasn't going to say anything. "I'm afraid that's all I can think of, all I can suggest is getting some books on what you want to know." His aunt had given him lots of new information but he was sure that was barley a dent in what he should know. With the way things were going he might as well just stay out of the wizarding world, by the sound of it he was getting in way over his head, he didn't even know how to use a quill!
"Thank you aunt petunia" Harry gave a small smile of gratefulness. Petunia sniffed and nodded, she had done her bit it was up to him now so she just got up and continued to clean as Harry made his way to his room.
Up in his room Harry was thinking over everything he'd been told. What if he couldn't cut it after Hogwarts he didn't want to have to survive on his inheritance? What if because he wasn't brought up as a wizard he was only as good as a muggle born to their ministry? He wouldn't have continued with regular schooling so he'd be useless in the regular world, he'd be a failure like his aunt used to call his dad. This wizarding stuff made everything so complicated. Before those letters started he'd had it all planned out. He would make it through primary school which he had then he'd do his best in high school away from Dudley and try to get some form of scholarship to get as far away from the Dursley's as possible and have a successful career in future technology. The magical world didn't even have technology so how was he supposed to satisfy his wonderment of electricity. It wasn't like he could go to both a wizard and a muggle school there wasn't enough of him for that.
He flopped down on his lumpy bed in frustration. What did other muggle born children do when they got their letters? Did they just leave the normal world and drop everything they had planned for their life to go for this possibility of a magic world that they wouldn't even be treated as equals in. He was so frustrated at not knowing he was a wizard before now. Couldn't he just be normal for once? His aunt and uncle had always called him a freak. Probably because they knew he was a wizard but it had always made him want to be as normal as he could be. He'd gone to school done his work been well behaved for the teachers, behaved for his family and done all the chores he was given to his best ability. But it turns out he was genetically abnormal so no matter what he did it wouldn't change anything.
Without a normal education he would never pass his G.C.S.E's or A levels needed to get a normal job if he were to want to do so because that's mainly what you needed for a non magical job. And then to be more specific you went to university to get a degree. He could always home school himself. He could split his time between doing his magical work and learning what he would've been learning at a normal school that way he could sign up to do his exams when he was supposed to. But how would he know what he was supposed to be learning and would he have the time.
Sometime while he was thinking over just what he was going to do he heard both Dudley and his uncle come in and not long after that everyone was called to dinner by his aunt. Maybe after dinner he could ask her for advice. She'd helped him earlier maybe it wasn't a once off.
Dinner time was as strained as it had ever been with his uncle pointedly pretending he didn't exist and his aunt and Dudley going along with it. It was after the meal when his uncle and cousin went to watch TV in the front room that he approached his aunt.
"Aunt Petunia" Harry called once again.
"Yes" well at least she didn't scowl this time, but she also didn't look up from the dishes she was attending.
"I was wondering if there was a possibility that I could learn the non magical stuff while I was away at school so that when the time came I could get qualifications in both worlds, only I won't know what I should be learning and I don't know if I'll have time so I thought that maybe I could ask you" Harry held his breathe as he waited in suspense for his aunt to say something. For a while she just stared at the sink.
"If you truly feel like this is something you want to do then I'm sure you'll be able to do it, it would mean giving up some of the spare time you have and you likely will have to do studying in the holidays but if you felt up to it I could send you the things that Dudley has to do at Smeltings and you could send your finished work to a tutor to check your doing it right." Aunt petunia was going to help him Harry thought in wonderment. Today had been an odd.
"How do I get a tutor like that and wont uncle Vernon get mad if he sees any owls nearby?" the idea was good but he didn't want to burden his aunt now of all times by causing trouble for her with his uncle.
"Your uncle will be away at work and your cousin at Smeltings, Dudley has already been told to mail me everything he is doing so I will just pass it onto you during the day when no one is here just make sure your bird is here once a week. I'll send you the assignments and you can complete them to send back to me and I will send them to a tutor which I will hire for you before you leave for school, I'll send her your current grades and she will correspond with me only to keep your magic a secret, when I mail you new assignments if they're available I'll send you back your marked work. I will only continue to help you with this as long as you maintain above a B average once you drop below that mark you have two assignments to bring it back up or it will be clear that it would only be a waste of time to continue the system, okay so leave it up to me for the time being, I'll take you out tomorrow so we can get you books to study from and normal pens and paper."
"Thank you so much aunt petunia" Harry still didn't like his aunt very much but she was helping his so he would be grateful for all she did.