Prologue... In Your World
There is no noise.
Not to the boy. He follows a family of redheads at a safe distance, cautiously observing them walk to a curiously desolate section of King's Cross. They step into a brick-and-mortar pillar as if it wasn't there, and the boy realizes that perhaps everything the old woman told him might be true. He had seen the sights in the Alley, clinging close to her robes to shield himself from the absurdity around him. She must have thought him shy, because she gave a kind smile and rested a hand on his shoulder, oblivious to idea that she may have caused the tension she felt beneath her touch. Nobody touched him willingly.
Not once.
He stalked up to the pillar and walked through it without a second thought. The platform that had been deserted not a second before was now swarmed with people. Sound pressed on him as though it were actually tangible, a hot, heavy blanket thrust upon his body and he instantly closed his eyes.
Breathe.
Breathe.
He opened them again and slid through the crowd unnoticed. There was no noise.
Not to the boy.
The compartments aboard the Train were larger on the inside than he expected. More 'magic', he guessed. The boy walked to the very end of the very last car, passing several empty carriages on his way there. Here, tucked far away in the back, the boy thought he might not be disturbed. The compartment was not as large as the others, perhaps seating four comfortably. It could easily be described as cozy. Comfortable.
Familiar.
Soon enough, the spare seat is covered in books. The boy has already read them all, but review is always a good thing. Do whatever you need to do for it to stick in your head, he could clearly recall his Uncle Vernon saying, there is no reason to be mediocre.
The Old Woman had explained the subjects in great detail to both his Aunt and his Uncle, with Vernon actively taking notes as she spoke. Magic is governed by rules, she said, Magic can do everything. But not really. Magic steals your perfectly normal life away from you, and throws you into a world surrounded by people who have immersed themselves in it since the day they were born. Even if the boy was normal... not that he ever was to begin with. Aunt Petunia knew it, keeping her other child as far away from him as she could. Dudley was everything he wasn't – large, strong and dull.
Normal.
Magic is not normal. Vernon told him this every single day. Magic is unnatural. After seeing the Old Woman turn Petunia's prized coffee table into an Irish Wolfhound, the boy was inclined to agree. Magic could create life. Normal people simply couldn't do that. For years innumerable, all the boy ever wanted was to be normal like his family.
But he wasn't normal. Not at all.
Normal people couldn't turn their primary school teacher's hair blue. Normal people couldn't will themselves onto a school roof. Normal people couldn't hide in plain sight.
Normal old women certainly couldn't create dogs out of varnished wood.
The boy was never normal. He just didn't know by how much till the day the Old Woman told him that he shouldn't even be alive.
"Can I sit in here? Everywhere else is full."
A red-headed boy stood at the door of the compartment. He was unremarkable in appearance, a smudge of dirt on his freckled nose and dressed in clothes just as shabby as the boy's, though they were better fitting. The redhead glanced around the compartment and saw the books lined up in neat stacks on the spare seat, his face torn about what to do. Upon seeing the boy's emerald green gaze, he squirmed uncomfortably, "I'll just find somewhere else."
He turned on his heel and shut the door behind him, and the boy returned to his book.
"You're a Wizard, Mr. Potter."
Five words was all it took to change the boy's life. To confirm everything his relatives had told him since the day he was able to comprehend why they just plain didn't like him. The Old Woman stood imperiously before a long table at the end of the Great Hall. The night sky was reflected on the ceiling, and that more than any other thing he had seen up to this point made him believe that Magic could do anything. He saw a thousand small miracles in the Alley that day, things that the Wizards regarded as trivial. The boy couldn't really understand why people weren't dropping their food and staring at the stars above them, at the half-moon sitting red and fat on the horizon. Magic was something tangible and real... and they just didn't care.
"Hannah Abbott!"
The Old Woman was calling their names for their sorting. The Sorting Ceremony... he recalled a girl with an untamed head of brown hair talking about it, reciting as if out of a book. He had read about the Houses, especially after the hearing the Old Woman describe them. It wasn't that he didn't trust her – he didn't trust anyone – but knowing that she was head of her own house meant bias was inevitable. He needed more than one source for his information, Vernon had drilled that into him from the very first day of his 'lessons'.
"Draco Malfoy!"
The pale-haired boy gave a simpering smile when the tattered hat declared him Slytherin after less than a second on his head. Slytherin... a name that kept coming up in his books, and none of it good information. Every book on his list to mention Slytherin did so in a, at best, derogatory manner. There was something simply off about that, the boy thought, and he reminded himself to write it down so he wouldn't forget about it.
"Padma Patil!"
The first of a pair of twins skipped up to the podium, so the boy took the time to look at the faces populating the table behind the Old Woman. Most were observing the ceremony with a jovial expression, like the tiny man seated next to a bespectacled woman with beads in her hair, but three faces in particular stood out to the boy. A dark-haired man with pale skin glared hatefully at him, a man wearing a vast, purple turban stared dimly into space – and the boy's forehead prickled at the sight of him, and at the center of the table was a man who looked out of step with time. He was dressed in bright blue robes and a long, pointy hat, with a beard so long he could knot it and throw it over his shoulder. The Old Man glanced at him from behind half-moon spectacles, a curious smile on his face.
"Harry Potter!"
It was his turn. Hearing his own name was a new experience... he wasn't sure if he liked the way the words rolled off the tongue. The name did get a reaction from the others in the hall – a moment of hushed whispers before rising to a dull roar. The boy breathed in, willing the noise away.
Breathe.
It didn't completely vanish, but it was enough. He walked up to the front, feeling the eyes upon him even if he could not see them himself, and sat upon the stool. The old hat was placed upon his head, and he waited.
Waited.
"How curious, Mr. Potter. I've heard a great deal about you."
I'm sure many people have.
"What would you like them to say about you? Do you want to give them a taste of what lives in your head?"
I really don't care.
Don't.
"Don't you? You have it in you, I can see it."
What does it matter?
"Everything matters. I can see what that Muggle has told you, I can see his words in your mind, like worms."
I can do it. If you can really see inside me, you know I can do it.
"Yes, the fat one has taught you well, even if he did it for the wrong reasons."
The boy snorted at that thought.
"He gave you that much, but I can also see what he didn't give you."
I don't need it.
"Despite what he told you, you have a heart. You have a soul."
I don't.
Don't.
"He wants you here as a pestilence. A small-minded man's trick on a world he doesn't want to ever understand. Is this something you want?"
What else is there?
The Hat was quiet for a moment. A murmur rippled through the crowd, discomfort at the sight of the boy perched quietly on the stool.
"You have a thirst inside you. You use knowledge to fill the hole, to keep you frozen. So hungry, so sad."
Then let me be what I want to be.
"You can do great things, Harry Potter. When the ice melts you will truly have no limits. Slytherin fascinates you, but there is a place better suited for your vast talents. The lions won't accept you as you are, but you will fly with the eagles in RAVENCLAW!"
Green eyes opened, and the noise was deafening.