Lost Cause
Summary: He bore no outward signs of physical damage, but on the inside he was mangled; broken beyond repair. Bringing him back would be a lost cause.
Disclaimer: I own nothing; no money is being made from this.
Notes: This was going to be a multi-chap, but it didn't work out. Therefore, I'm uploading it as a one-shot and I may continue it in the future.
Harry Potter was a strange child, so strange that his only living relatives hated him for it. They never passed up a chance to remind him that he was a worthless freak and that he should have died in that car accident with his worthless freak parents so they didn't have to care for him.
Not that they actually ever cared for him. No, Harry slept in the dusty, bug infested cupboard under the stairs. He was fed leftovers – Dudley and Uncle Vernon always made sure there were never many – and he wore his cousin's hand-me-downs, which were three sizes too big. He worked in the backyard all day (because the neighbors couldn't see him there) and then he cleaned the house in the late afternoon. When the front yard needed tending to, Harry was woken early in the morning before any of the neighbors were even awake.
It was safe to say that the feelings of hate were mutual.
Harry always knew he was strange, though. He could make things happen when he was exceptionally angry or scared. Like when Dudley and his friends beat him up, there was never any evidence the next day. Or like the time when Aunt Petunia gave him a particularly horrible hair cut and it had grown back when he woke up. For that he had gone a week without food.
It was almost like magic. But according to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, magic didn't exist. The Dursley's were obsessed with being normal and magic just wasn't normal. Harry had been locked in his cupboard for three days once when he mentioned he'd had a dream about a flying motorbike to his uncle. The man had flown into a rage; Dudley had snickered quietly while Aunt Petunia stayed silent the whole time.
No one had ever raised a hand to Harry – except Dudley and that didn't really count – but they may as well have. You see, Harry Potter could have been an adorable young boy. What with his messy black hair and his wide emerald eyes, even his lighting bolt shaped scar had a certain charm. But he was malnourished and entirely too short for his age. His skin was pallid and his cheek bones had a hollow air to them.
He was incredibly smart for his age, but had no friends and his teachers fancied him a liar. He'd once fainted in class after not having eaten in several days. He'd told the nurse it was because his relatives didn't feed him, but Aunt Petunia had spun some tale about him having a very small appetite and that he refused to eat everything put on his plate. And then the fact that Aunt Petunia was good friends with the Headmistress didn't help matters.
Harry never received any mail and it was as if he had never existed at Number Four, Privet Drive. That is, until a week before his eleventh birthday when a letter addressed to him came through the mail slot. And it couldn't possibly have been a mistake because the envelope read:
Mr. H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
How on earth did anyone know he lived in the cupboard?
Harry never got the chance to find out because his uncle had taken the letter away and sent him to his 'room'. Over the course of the next few days letters continued to arrive, more and more appearing each day. His uncle boarded up the mail slot and then they came through the chimney.
Eventually he dragged Harry and his cousin and his aunt off to some motel in the country (or what he guessed was the country). And even then he received another letter.
Mr. H. Potter
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth
Yet again, his uncle confiscated the letter and they moved on. They were in the car for hours, with Dudley complaining loudly the whole time. Finally they reached a beach, where Uncle Vernon put the car in park and told them to wait. He came back a quarter of an hour later, telling them to follow him.
They got in a boat and as they got in the boat it started to rain. His uncle paddled out to a rocky island in the middle of the ocean (or wherever they were), ignoring Aunt Petunia's undignified shrieks about her hair and clothes being ruined. Uncle Vernon tethered the boat to a post and led them up to a rickety-looking shack in the middle of the...well, what seemed to be a rather large rock.
After much arguing, they (Vernon and Petunia) convinced Dudley to sleep on the lumpy couch while Harry slept on the floor with a ratty old blanket. He simply lay there, ignoring Dudley's snores as they mixed with the booming thunder outside. He glanced over at Dudley's wristwatch to discover it was 11:59 PM.
He counted down the seconds to midnight. "Three...two...one...Happy Birthday, Harry." He smiled sadly, his relatives never remembered except for the one year when they'd simply given him a pair of Vernon's old socks.
He closed his eyes, willing himself back to sleep. He was almost there when he heard noise outside. It sounded like footsteps, but that wasn't possible. Uncle Vernon had used the only boat on shore.
And then the door was knocked off its hinges to reveal a huge, looming figure in the doorway. Dudley, who had obviously woken up, screamed in a very unmanly way. Vernon and Petunia ran into the room, the former holding a rifle.
"Don't come any closer! I'm armed!"
The giant man sighed, reaching forward and grabbed the gun before twisting it into a knot. "Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune." He threw the gun across the room and turned to Harry.
"Yeh mus' be Harry. I haven't seen yeh since yeh was a baby. Well, happy birthday... I got yeh this, mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll all taste the same."
Harry, who had been staring at the large man since he walked through the door, blinked out of his daze and accepted the box. "Er – thanks...Who are you again?"
"Oh! I haven't even introduced meself. I am Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts – but yeh know all about Hogwarts, o' course." At this point, Hagrid took a seat on the couch.
"Well, no..." Harry said uncertainly.
"Sorry? What?"
"I have no idea what Hogwarts is."
Hagrid turned to the Dursley's and glared. "I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters, but I never thought yeh wouldn't know anythin' about Hogwarts! Didn't yeh ever wonder where yer parents learned it all?"
"All what?"
"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid rounded on the Dursley's again, leaping to his feet this time. "Yeh mean to tell me that this boy – Harry Potter! – doesn't know anything about, well, ANYTHING?"
Harry looked at Hagrid crossly. "I know some things! My marks aren't that horrible in school."
Hagrid looked ready to explode, but calmed himself as he turned back to Harry. "I'm talking about our world. My world. Yer world. Yer parents' world."
"What world?"
"DURSLEY!" The giant roared.
Uncle Vernon, who was cowering in the corner, seemed to pale even more and his eyes widened. He seemed to be trying to blend in with the wall – which wasn't working considering how fat he was.
"But yeh must know about yer mum and dad! I mean, they're famous...You're famous, fer cryin' out loud!" He paused to take in Harry's still confused state. "Yeh don't even know what yeh are, do yeh?"
"NO!" Uncle Vernon bellowed. "I absolutely forbid you telling him!"
"Tell me what?" Harry asked eagerly.
"No, no, no!" Aunt Petunia shrieked this time. "Absolutely not!"
"Ah, shove it, the both of yeh." Aunt Petunia let out a noise of offense, while Uncle Vernon turned a lovely new shade of purple he'd yet to discover. "Yer a wizard, Harry."
Harry blinked, he wasn't sure he heard the man correctly. "A what?"
"A wizard, o' course. I'm sure yeh'll be a thumpin' good'un once yer trained up a bit. What with a mum and dad like yers it'd be hard not ter be. I reckon it's time you read yer letter."
Harry nodded and took the offered envelope. The address read:
Mr. H. Potter.
The Floor
Hut-on-the-Rock
The Sea
When he unsealed the envelope, two pieces of parchment fell out. One was a formal acceptance to this Hogwarts.
~ HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY ~
Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted by Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins September 1st. We await your owl no later than July 31st.
You're sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
"What does it mean, 'We await your owl'?"
"Oh, right!" Hagrid fished around in the pockets of his cloak before extracting a piece of parchment and a quill. He scribbled a short note before reaching into his cloak once more and pulling out an owl. "Take this ter the Headmaster."
The owl hooted before flying off into the night.
"Now, where was I?" Hagrid seemed lost in thought when Uncle Vernon stepped forward and spoke.
"He's not going."
"Yeah, and I'd like ter see a great Muggle like yeh try ter stop him."
"Muggle?" Harry questioned.
"The non-magical folk. And it seems yeh grew up with the biggest Muggles I've ever had the misfortune o' layin' me eyes on."
"No, no, no, we swore when we took him in that we'd put a stop to this rubbish! We swore we'd stamp it out of him!"
"Wait, you knew I was a wizard?"
"Of course we knew!" Aunt Petunia shrieked (she seemed to be doing a lot of that for the past two days). "What with my sister being what she was..." Petunia continued to rant about her sister as Harry tuned her out. Then she said something that caught his attention. "Then she went and got herself blown up! Leaving us to care for you!"
Harry froze in place until he found his voice. "BLOWN UP? You told me my parents died in a car crash!"
"CAR CRASH?" Hagrid roared. "Lily and James Potter couldn't be killed in a car crash!"
What followed that statement was a long explanation about how Harry's parents were murdered by a Dark Wizard and how said Dark Wizard had tried to kill Harry, which is how he got his scar. Apparently the curse had rebounded off of baby Harry and hit Voldemort (a name which, for some reason, Hagrid had a difficult time saying and had shouted at Harry for saying), leaving the Wizarding World Dark Lord-less for the past ten years.
With every sentence, Harry's temper flared more and more. How dare the Dursley's lie to him like that! How dare they keep in a cupboard and starve him all these years for being something he couldn't control! And how dare they call him a freak and belittle him when wizards were obviously superior to Muggles!
Harry was angry, angry at Voldemort for killing his parents; angry at the Dursley's for treating him like they did; and angry at himself for not realizing what he was sooner and using it against them.
Hagrid went on to explain that Dumbledore left him with the Dursley's – who were his only living relatives – for some huge reason that Hagrid didn't know. It was then that Harry was angry with Dumbledore as well.
But in that moment he decided that he'd play the part of the perfect savior. And then, when the time came, and only then, would he defeat Voldemort and reign as the new Dark Lord.
I had a lot of fun writing this one, so I hope you enjoyed.
xoxo, Haley Potter
P.S. Constructive criticism is more than welcome. However, that doesn't include rude, pointless comments that won't help me to improve my writing skills in the slightest.