TITLE: Blind Sight
summary: Maybe if things had been different he could have lived a normal life, but they weren't. No one had bothered to check the aftereffects of the killing curse, and so no one noticed that little Harry Potter was blind.
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but my ideas. Anything you recognise belongs to JK Rowling
AN: One potato, two potato, three potato, four, I bet you aren't reading this anymore.
WARNINGS: minor swearing and possible bad grammer
Italics – Harry's thoughts
Chapter 1 – Beginnings
A young boy, about 6 years old lay on the muddy ground as boys around him kicked him over and over, his clothes tearing and falling into the mud. The other boys laughed at his misfortune and left the malnourished child lying in the mud, his shirt ripped to the point where it could only be called a rag, and bleeding profusely. Almost unconscious young boy dragged himself through the mud, one of his legs bent at an odd angle. He kept dragging himself along for a few moments till his hand brushed a warm stone in the mud.
The young boy had found the stone a year earlier, when hiding from his cousin, and since, had always kept the stone on him, never letting another know he had it, lest it be taken by his guardians, freaks weren't allowed belongings.
The young boy drew comfort from the small stone, the permanent warmth emitted from the stone let the boy find security in the cold mud and rain, providing the boy hope but today, the even the stone couldn't provide the boy the energy he needed to return home, and very quickly the boy's energy failed him and he passed out in the mud.
The next morning the young boy woke with a start to the sound of his very angry uncle. "Boy! How dare you not come home last night!" the man bellowed as the boy winced. The man then proceeded to life the boy up by rags that were once his shirt and drag him back towards his house, ignoring the wincing, and groans of pain from the boy as one of his legs failed to hold his weight, and he collapsed. As the young boy fell he clutched the stone, and prayed for the pain to stop, the stone responded in kind by heating up and provided the boy with some relief from his pain, as his uncle picked him up yet again.
Unbeknownst to both the uncle and the boy, a country away a man and his wife were woken to the sound of screeching from a machine, their search for an alchemic stone completed. The man, Nicolas Flamel would soon find himself in England where he had the most interesting day of his very long life.
Not two minutes later, as the uncle dragged the boy to the street Nicolas Flamel arrived, haphazardly dressed in an old suit, missing the tie and his hair in a mess with a small device in his left hand that could easily be mistaken as a mobile phone, if it weren't for the dial on top or the weird beeping it was making.
The reason for his arrival however, was completely forgotten as he saw a massive man – who could quite easily be related to a walrus – dragging a young boy, who looked about five down the street. Never one to let children be injured he promptly went to intervene.
"Excuse me sir," Nicolas began, startling the man as it was only 4 o'clock in the morning and the street had been deserted a moment earlier, "but I really don't think you should-"
"I don't care what you think, this is my deranged nephew, and I'll treat him as I please," he said cutting Nicolas off
"In that case, I'll report you to child services," Nicolas responded, frustrated by this man's lack of care for the child
"See if they care, they know he's a little freak. Terrorising the other kids and running amuck," He said, walking up the drive to his house
"Now see he–"Nicolas started, before the man cut him off again
As he opened the door again, his face now purple the man roared, "LEAVE! This conversation is finished!" He finished slamming the door in Nicolas' face. Prepared to go and take his case to child services, Nicolas turned to leave, but paused as he heard the man exclaim, "Bloody Albus Dumbledore leaving us this little shit to look after."
Eyes widening as he realised the boy must be a wizard, Nicolas tried the door, and upon finding it locked pulled out his wand, and gave it a small wave, unlocking the door and walking in, to see the child thrown into the cupboard under the stairs, and the man stalking down towards a different room.
Mind racing, and absolutely furious, Nicolas sent a silent stunner at the man, and grinned satisfied, as he hit the floor with a thud. Denying his strong urge to further punish the man on the floor, Nicolas turned to the cupboard, unlocked it and asked the boy "Young one, are you ok?"
To which he received a prompt reply of, "Why are you so bright?"
"Bright?" asked question Nicolas, confused
"I can see you, I can't see anything," the boy replied, startling Nicolas as he noticed a band of old fabric wrapped around the boys head for the first time
"Oh, well that's easy to fix, let me take this blindfold off," said Nicolas, reaching around the back of his head and undoing the knot holding the fabric to the boy's head. To say what he saw shocked him could be considered an understatement, and the disfigurement he saw would cause him many sleepless nights.
The boys left eye was completely green, like the killing curse, and glowed eerily, the right eye however, was more shocking, it was black and shrivelled, completely dead, so was most of the very scarred skin around the boys eyes.
"You're… blind," stated Nicolas, reapplying the blind fold to the boy
"Yes sir," replied the child softly
Denying his curiosity and to prevent pestering the boy, Nicolas went on to ask "That man who was holding you before, was he your uncle?"
"Yes sir, he was taking me home because I couldn't find my way last night," replied the boy, as Nicolas first noticed the odd angle his leg was bent at, and observing that it was probably broken
"Well, would you like to come with me, my wife will heal your leg, it doesn't look like you can walk on it?"
"My uncle would be angry if I left with someone else," replied the boy shyly
"Don't worry little one, my wife and I will look after you," said the man
"Will you make me go back to them?" asked the boy hopefully
"Not if you don't want to," replied the alchemist, before telling the boy to gather his belongings. When the boy grabbed only a few belongings and said that was all he had, Nicolas' anger grew, and he arranged a small present for the family, before saying, "Now hold my hand tightly and we'll get you somewhere safe."
Obediently the little boy grabbed the older man's hand and the two vanished into the air, arriving a moment later in the dining room of Flamel Mansion. Knowing that his wife was already awake, as she woke when his alarm went off he called out for her, and a moment later she appeared, and said, "You left here to find a stone, and returned with a boy. What have you been doing Nicolas?"
"He was being abused Perenelle, what could I do?" the aged alchemist countered sheepishly, now remembering his reason for leaving that morning
The lady sighed before saying, "Alright, we'll sort this out later, let me have a look at him."
Nicolas watched as his wife leave and sighed, before looking at his device to see if the stone he'd been looking for was still there, unfortunately it wasn't, it would probably be a long time before he found another trace of it.
A few hours later Perenelle led Nicolas into a room where she had placed the young child to sleep, before she asked, "How did you convince his guardians to give him up?"
"Umm istunnedthemandtookhim," Nicolas said quickly
"Excuse me,"
"I stunned them and took him," Nicolas said sheepishly
"So according to the wizarding world, someone just kidnapped Harry Potter?" asked Perenelle
"Wait… He's Harry Potter?"
"You didn't think to even check his name?"
"I was more worried about removing him from their care," replied Nicolas, going to the boy, and lifting his bangs to see his scar, "Could you fix his eyes?"
"No, too far damaged to be fixed by magic," Perenelle said sadly
"That's a shame, come, let's leave him sleep in peace," Nicolas said, leaving the bedside and following Perenelle out the door, before pausing, as he saw a faint purple glow from inside one of the boys hands. Moving closer to investigate Nicolas saw the magic stone he'd spent so much time looking for in the boy's hand and chuckled to himself. Maybe he'd be able to help the boy see after all.
In a large mansion in France a young English teen woke up in his bed as he recalled the day that his life had changed. 8 years ago he was just a little blind kid, but now Harry James Potter was a mage in training, a potions master and budding alchemist, despite his blindness.
In the past 8 years he had gone from a malnourished little boy to a strong teenager who was studying advanced magic with his mentor, and adoptive father Nicolas Flamel. He was quite skilled in the mind arts, as well as potions, alchemy and elemental powers. "Harry," a voice called, prompting the teen to jump from his bed and run towards the living room where his "mother" Perenelle Flamel was calling from, his navigational skills allowing him to travel without his mage sight, a unique ability which he developed with the help of Nicolas and Perenelle to allow him to see.
He had also become a champion on the duelling circuit where he played under the title The Blind Duellist, his unique way of seeing allowing him to predict and dodge attacks quite easily, combined with his spell repertoire made him quite a formidable opponent.
"Yes Mum?" asked Harry as he arrived
"We've had a change in plans, it seems that you must return to Britain this year" explained Perenelle
"What happened?" he asked, curious as to the change of plan
"Your name was entered into the tri-wizard tournament being held at Hogwarts this year," stated Perenelle
"What!?" asked Harry surprised, "How can I be entered into a tournament without my consent?"
"We think your name was entered on a piece of paper from one of your junior school pieces of paper from when you were at the Dursley's, which was written by you which counts as your consent," explained Nicolas
"Seriously? I doubt I would have even been able to write then… And who bothers looking that far to find something I wrote?"
"Dumbledore and Voldemort would be my guess. Someone knows you're still alive, and they've entered you into this competition to bring you out of hiding," explained Nicolas, his faith and respect for Dumbledore having dropped a lot over the past 8 years
"If I have to compete, then I will. But I don't like this," Harry said
"Neither do I Harry, but
"I believe Britain is going to be in for a big shock," said Perenelle as Nicolas nodded.
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Gates, imbued with magic, most likely wards keeping the school safe. Need entrance without breaking wards. Most likely the magical signature of staff or ministry official. Lacking both. Must break wards for entry. Wards too strong for one person to break… bugger. Magical signature close… half giant?
"Excuse me sir. Can you open the gates for me?" asked the man, Harry Potter standing outside the gates
"What yeh here for?" asked the magical inside the gates
"Meeting the headmaster," Harry replied quickly
"Musta forgot to tell me abou' yeh. Lemme jus' open them," came the reply from the half giant
"Thank you, sir, what was your name by the way?"
"I'm Hagrid."
"Well Hagrid, I'll be seeing you around," said Harry walking off in towards the castle, before stopping in front of the doors and unleashing his magic to explore the envirnoment
Doors, made up of magically enhanced wood, centuries old by the feel of them. Most likely the entrance to the castle, large amounts of magic inside, probably from the castle. Another room connected afterwards, full of people.
Quickly pushing the door open just enough to slip inside the castle Harry continued through the Entrance Hall towards Great Hall where he decided he should make an entrance. Pushing the double doors in front of him open Harry strode into the hall.
Inside the hall, all noise suddenly stopped as an unknown man pushed open the large doors to the Great Hall. He wore a long black cloak that blew in the non-existent wind in a way that would make Snape proud. He had medium length, messy black hair and a piece of black fabric wrapped around his head, covering his eyes. In his left hand he held a wooden staff with a purple crystal like ball on the top.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here" asked a Scottish voice from the head table
Demanding, sits slightly off centre to the right… probably deputy headmistress…
"I'm Harry Potter, and I'm here because I have a tournament I need to win and a ministry to sue," Harry stated with a smirk, causing the great hall to erupt into shouts and yells, drowning out all else.
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So, what do you think? Like it? Love it? Hate it? (please don't choose the last one) Please review, any and all feedback is appreciated… unless you're flaming me… that isn't appreciated