A/N:
Slightly OOC Harry. No slash here and no slash in future chaps, no matter how close Harry and Malfoy seem.
Starts off with first year.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters and elements belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm just having fun with her ideas :)
Rated T for language and some mature content. Check it out...review? and let me know what ya think.
Chapter One: The Right Sort
The compact space underneath the staircase of 4 Privet Drive shook violently on the morning of June 23, awakening the boy whom lived in there rather abruptly. Harry Potter sighed angrily to himself as his obnoxious cousin, Dudley, or "Dudders" as his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon liked to call him, stomped and stomped away, his heavy weight adding on to the dramatic earthquake that was seemingly powerful enough to make the compact space's ceiling cave in.
"WAKE UP, POTTER! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!" Dudley Dursley boomed as he continued to hop up and down, thick beads of sweat now gathering on his wide forehead, this having been the most exercise he'd gotten in his eleven years.
"Ugh! The hog!" groaned the thin, nearly malnourished boy in the cupboard. He restrained himself from shouting back some nasty names, for the life of him. After all, he'd been adopted with great reluctance after his parents were killed in a car accident, and in the nine years and eleven months he'd been residing here, he'd been treated like rubbish. While precious Dudders was raised as a king, given all the toys and games he'd asked for and most definitely well-fed, Harry was assigned grueling housework at the mere age of five, while before then completely ignored.
It was tragic, but what could the boy do other than bury his head under his pillow and attempt to block out the noise surrounding him? He cursed the lardy child, but chose wisely not to actually wish him any bad luck, for the last time he did just the winter before, Dudley had slipped on the icy pavement by the car outside and landed sharply on his chubby left hip, just the moment Harry bid him such in his mind. Whether the incident was coincidental or not, Harry was still blamed, and harshly at that, not allowed dinner that night nor breakfast and lunch the following day.
Just when Harry was on the brink of passing out again even with the voluminous thrashing above him, his short door was jerked open, and in peered his strict Aunt Petunia. Harry immediately sat up in his bed as she presented him with a thin lip and crossed arms. Panic settled within.
"What do you think you're doing?! Get up and put on some bacon for your cousin, you ingrate," she snapped before strutting off.
Harry moaned in frustration as he got up. The day ahead was to be dreaded for sure…
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Harry had always been capable of performing strange obstacles using his thoughts alone, and there were simply too many instances to recall in that moment alone as he was berated at on the car ride home from the zoo.
He sat perplexed as his uncle scolded him, tomato-red in the face, his voice going hoarse from all the strained yelling. Over the years, Harry had taught himself not to feel helpless. It was a pointless notion, especially since he reckoned either guardian would have murdered or beaten him by now had they intended to. Because he was solely assaulted verbally, Harry really had little to actually fear, other than a deprivation of meals and a 'reward' of extra chores. His abuse had also instilled his need to fend for himself...and by the age of six, Harry had been molded into something of a hot-tempered and perpetually upset child, compliments of his aunt and uncle and his protruding ribs and holey, oversized clothing.
"I don't know how you did it, boy, but you DID! I demand that you apologize to my son this instant!" Vernon shouted from the driver's seat.
Harry was by now becoming just as irritated as his uncle. "But I didn't do anything-"
"Don't you back-talk me," Vernon growled lowly enough to elicit goosebumps along his nephew's body, much to the nephew's disliking. "You tell Dudley you're sorry right now, lest I'll drop you straight off at the orphanage!"
Harry was fuming. He almost told his uncle to go on ahead and do just that. The orphanage must have been better than what he was suffering through on a day-to-day basis! He thought about this, and decided to keep quiet, so that perhaps the corrupt uncle would go about as he'd promised. Harry's stomach contents turned to butterflies at the prospect of being adequately fed and making friends in a new home, even if it was substandard and his chances of being adopted out before eighteen years of age were slim.
"I'M GOING TO VEER ONTO THIS UPCOMING CURB AND ONWARD FOR THE ORPHANAGE, YOU BURDEN! I KID YOU NOT!" Vernon warned loudly, as Harry suppressed a giggle of joy.
"...Okay," Harry answered happily.
"OKAY?!" the uncle screeched.
"I mean, sure, Uncle Vernon. You may drop me off at the orphanage if you really want to. I'd be more pleased there anyhow, to be quite honest," Harry admitted. His reply made his soaking wet cousin gasp and his aunt's face go white in shock. That was about the most audacious thing the boy had ever uttered in his life.
To Harry's surprise and disappointment, the uncle never turned, and instead, kept driving on towards Privet Drive. Harry gulped then, that rare-to-surface sense of fear having approached as he could almost literally feel the livid temper reverberate off of Vernon. His aunt and cousin seemed to receive the same gist as they were now dead silent. Dudley had even cut out his complaining.
Vernon chuckled with a demon's finesse. "When we get back home, boy, you're an inconceivable amount of trouble," he informed darkly.
Over a month later, Harry was still scrubbing the toilet bowl every single day for his required set of forty-five minutes each time, and he was still not permitted lunch nor any snacks at all, additionally only allowed two three minutes showers weekly, until further ado.
As he scoured the toilet's interior, his nostrils barely accustomed to the long-lingering pungent odor of the large uncle's recently taken deuce, Harry yearned for a better life. He instinctively loathed whomever hit and killed his parents who'd more than likely took at least decent care of him. Harry was just a child of almost eleven, but he had enough knowledge to understand that he deserved healthier treatment than this.
Rising after his due forty-five minutes had come to an end, he hastily flushed the cleaner down and departed the bathroom to return to his personal quarters underneath the stairs, where he was forced to wait out with nothing to do, not even authorized a bloody book to read in quiet. As he laid in his dimly lit room, he contemplated running away, but where he'd go, he just didn't know.
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The strange and copious letters striking the household had Vernon aggravated beyond belief. Apparently, they'd been addressed to Harry, but that didn't denote his getting to have at one. Potter could only wonder what those envelopes contained as Vernon so ruthlessly burned some of them and shredded others.
Just the day before his birthday that was on July's final day, the Dursleys and Harry fled to an area that could be described as a shack on a small island out in the sea where they had arrived by old rowboat. Harry was taken aback as to why their boat hadn't sunk at all their combined weight, what with how fat Vernon and Dudders were...Was it again Harry 'doing' something to prevent such a thing from happening? He doubted the possibility for the time being.
The rickety hut had two bedrooms, one for the aunt and uncle and the other for their tubby and spoiled son. Harry would be taking to the dusty floorboards for the night, as directed by Vernon. Shortly after midnight approached that night, Harry wished himself a happy birthday, and when a lone tear rolled down his cheek, he roughly wiped it away with his sleeve and internally rebuked himself to grow up and deal with his ridiculously upsetting living standards.
His woeful state was interrupted by thunderous footsteps that seemed to grow near the shack. Harry stood shakily as the tall, wooden front door was pounded on. He stood still in his place at each powerful blow. His 'family' was now downstairs with him. Vernon had a rifle in his meaty clutch as the door thudded to the ground at a blaring volume. In lumbered a man, or creature, who could be sure, for he was so massive in size, coming to nearly nine feet in height, not to mention he was generous in width as well.
"Sorry about that," it spoke.
From those three spoken words on Harry's life would be changed for, as he'd craved, the better.
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Harry was more delighted than flabbergasted to hear that he was a wizard. His hatred for Vernon and Petunia tripled when the giant told him how parents really died. Those deceitful morons! This 'Dark Lord' bloke had piqued Harry's interest by the lot, enough so to make him swear awful vengeance on this murderer when he'd one day seek him out—and he would seek him out, he promised himself.
Harry listened intently as this turned-out 'half-giant' yakked on about the Wizarding World. He took in his surroundings of this weird, albeit whimsical town, 'Diagon Alley'. This all seemed a wild dream, the existence of magic, witches and wizards; it was almost too much for the birthday boy to grasp fully.
Crazy as it all was, he came to love it. He laughed when this Rubeus Hagrid fellow gave his greedy cousin a pig's tail when he dug into his cake, and warm feelings had tickled his fancy when this ogrely man bent the barrel of his uncle's rifle up in half.
Hagrid took him into a shop called Eeylops Owl Emporium to survey what owls they had so that he could purchase one he'd like to bring along to Hogwarts with him. Harry wandered the place and found a female snow white owl towards the back of the shop. Her large, shrewd golden eyes seemed to race straight through him. In awe, he stuck his finger through the metal barring that separated the two of them—to have his right index finger chomped into with incisive force.
"Youch!" he hissed, glaring daggers at the guileful bird. "Not too nice, are we?" he asked her. She gave a guiltless chirp in response, a splotch of his blood on her beak and her alluring eyes looking blank and coy. Harry chuckled. "Naughty...perhaps I could put you to some good use...sick you on my oaf of an uncle." Harry picked up her cage and walked her down to where Hagrid was eyeing a slender gray owl.
"Found yer bird?" asked the half-giant.
"Yup," Harry replied, already scheming his plans to train this not-so-innocent birdie to attack his lousy guardians, his lousy uncle in particular. "I like her a lot."
"That's wonderful, Harry," Hagrid beamed as they made their way over to the counter to pay for her. "She is a pretter' little 'un."
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While Hagrid was out picking up something from the Leaky Cauldron, Harry was fitted for his robes in Madam Malkin's. As he was being measured, a blond boy of around the same age was stood on a stool next to him. One could say no awkward silence was exchanged between the two, because the pale blond was quick to speak.
"Hogwarts too?" the blond with a pointed face asked.
"Yeah," Harry answered.
"Father's next door buying me books and my mother's up the street looking at wands. Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own...I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."
Harry nodded. "Whatever floats your boat, I guess," he said, shrugging.
"Have you got your own broom?" the blond asked.
"Yes, I do, actually," he replied, subtly referring to the broom in the downstairs closet—the very one he'd been obligated to use most days to 'clean house' from the age of four.
An expression of jealousy crossed the blond. "Do you? How long have you been riding?"
Harry thought for a moment. "Well, I was fairly young when I started...wow, I guess my guardians started me off about seven years ago."
The other boy gaped. "Lucky bloke...Ever play Quidditch?"
"No, but I just might," Harry said smiling. He was without a clue as to what the hell that could even be.
"I will. Father says it'll be a crime if I'm not selected to play for my House, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you'll be in yet?"
'House?' Harry thought with a raised eyebrow. Hagrid had perhaps mentioned it earlier, but he had talked so much that Harry missed some of what he said. "Er, not yet."
"No one really knows till they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all of our family have been. Imagine being in Hufflepuff. I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"
The name did sound girlish and kind of silly to Harry, so he supposed he would not want to be in that House. "Probably."
"Blimey! Look at that beast over there!" the blond gasped, pointing to Harry's humongous tour guide who stood outside the window holding two ice creams.
"Oh, that's Hagrid. He works at Hogwarts," Harry informed offhandedly.
"I've heard of him. He's sort of a servant, isn't he?"
Harry shook his head. Being a servant himself he knew just as strenuous such a duty could be. "He's the gamekeeper, actually."
"Yes, exactly. I heard he's sort of savage. Lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk...tries to do magic to end up setting his mattress aflame."
Harry frowned. "And he probably poops in pots and pisses in mugs," Harry surmised. "But hey, who are we to judge him?"
This had the blond snickering. "So, he's with you, yeah? Where are your parents?"
Harry's frown intensified some. "They were murdered when I was an infant," he sighed.
The blond's features softened in forced sympathy. "Oh...sorry. They were our kind, right?" he asked with a stern and churlish tone, angering Harry some.
"They were witch and wizard, if that's what you're getting at," he answered.
"They should not even let the other sort in in my opinion. They're just not the same...They've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get their acceptance letter." He tsked. "They should really keep it in the old Wizarding families. What's your name, anyway?"
Before Harry could respond, the stout owner told him he was set to go. He hopped down from his stool and waved the blond goodbye.
'He was yammering as if we're best mates...' Harry mused. He found this boy to be a bit arrogant and annoying, yes, but all his life Harry had never had a best friend, save for a few acquaintances here and there throughout grade school. Meeting Hagrid outdoors, he took his ice cream and nibbled away at it, really savoring the treat since he'd enjoyed so few of them in his life, while they finished getting what supplies Harry would be needing.
Harry would have gladly gone to hell before back to the Dursleys, but it was only for another month—and then the relief was to hit him, the relief and joy he'd so earned all these years.
As Harry had anticipated, the uncle threw a hot raging fit when he saw that ruddy bird for the first time, so Harry had to assure him that he'd keep the owl in his cupboard at all times.
One day in the middle of August, Dudley had intruded Harry's cupboard space, wanting to get a closer look at that attractive bird. Harry was scrubbing through a load of dishes when he heard a high-pitched shriek ensue from his space. Subsequently, his cousin came barreling into the kitchen, wagging his pink, swelling index finger in his mother's face.
"Stupid owl bit my finger, Mum! Tried to pet him and he - he bit me!" he cried as Petunia went pale.
"She," Harry nonchalantly corrected from the sink. "She doesn't much like strangers. Took her over a week to stop nipping at me, you know," he added.
"She's not tame then! We need to have it put to sleep!" Dudley hollered, frightening the living daylights of out Harry for the first time ever.
Trying to remain calm, Harry argued, "No, Dudley. I don't think she deserves to die. She didn't mean to hurt you. She's just acting out on instinct. You made her feel threatened."
"Silence," Aunt Petunia muttered at her nephew coldly. She consoled her duddykins and led him out of the kitchen for the bathroom to bandage his poor plump finger up.
Harry shook his head. 'Hogwarts. Hogwarts. Hogwarts. Just another sixteen days and I'm free of this nonsense for a while.'
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The guardians were terse in dropping their nephew off at King's Cross Station. Vernon didn't grumble a goodbye, but rather, a "Good riddance." Petunia didn't plant a goodbye peck on his cheek, and Dudders insulted the stupid, evil bird once more before Harry was gone, out of their hairs.
'May the lot of them find considerable trouble in paradise,' Harry thought, hoping he would be able to train his owl, whom he had yet to give a worthy name, to drop white bombs on their house. Wanting to ponder no more of them, he focused on getting to Platform '9 and ¾' though he'd never heard of such an area. The 'three quarters' was really throwing him off, and when he hesitantly asked his uncle if he knew what that meant he was gifted a hearty scowl.
He spent nearly ten minutes searching for the area specified on his ticket. When he resorted to asking a guard where it was, he was replied to in a manner similar to Vernon's. Fortunately, he spotted a band of ginger-haired people in between platforms nine and ten. Harry smiled when he watched two tall twins disappear through a brick wall.
He pushed his cart up toward the family.
Through the wall and into the Hogwarts' Express, a ginger boy Harry's age named Ronald Weasley boasted his ear off, though was evidently not nearly as irksome as that blond boy he got fitted beside. The boys picked out an empty compartment to sit down in. Ron told Harry just about all he'd need to know about the sport, Quidditch, though Harry was sure he'd had it with broomsticks for a while, no matter the potential fun in flying one could have been.
Ron was stunned to discover he was in the vicinity of Harry Potter. Harry blushed slightly as Ron giddily made a show of himself on how popular he, The Boy who freaking Lived! was among their world.
Harry respected this fellow, and eventually found comfort in his yakking. At one point, likely over an hour after the train had taken off, a bushy-haired brunette girl slid open their compartment's door to ask them if they had seen some toad named Trevor. They hadn't, so the girl left them be.
The two snacked away what oodles of candy they'd bought with Harry's great deal of money. Ron told Harry about the four Houses and what they represented. Ron's own kin had been sorted into Gryffindor, so he in turn was aspiring for such.
"I don't think I'll care what House I'm in...except for that one that sounds goofy...erm, oh, Hufflepuff," Harry said. "But then again, I guess they all sound unique."
"They're all the surnames of the grounds' Founders," Ron explained. "I happen to know plenty of people with odd last names though."
Then, that blond boy from Madam Malkin's along with two beefy boys stepped in without first asking. The three of them faced Harry from where he sat, all grinning smugly at him. The blond broke the silence.
"So it's true then? They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter is in this compartment," the blond announced, confidently brushing some of Harry's straggly hair out of the way to reveal his lightning-shaped scar. The blond's expression was glowing now. "It is true…"
"...Uh, yes," Harry mumbled awkwardly, regretfully intimidated by the two boys large enough to resemble bodyguards. One was even heavier than Dudley...
"This is Crabbe, and this is Goyle," he said, patting either boys' shoulder. "And I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
Ron gave a half-suppressed snicker, rousing irritation on Malfoy's part. Turning his attention the other way to glare down at Ron, he sneered, "Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask yours. Red hair, and a hand-me-down robe...you must be a Weasley."
Ron faltered, appearing disappointed, while Harry had to give Malfoy, rude as he was, some credit on those astute observational skills…
"You'll soon find that some Wizarding families are better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort," Malfoy said, glancing fleetingly at Ron in referral to his statement.
Harry was offered his hand.
"I can help you there," Malfoy finished.
Harry shot Ron a glimpse, absorbing his new companion's saddened look. He then gazed back up at Malfoy. Harry admired Ron, he really did, but he wanted to open himself up to anyone who wanted his friendship. The flattery he felt...the desire to have actually have mates...it was too much to possibly decline.
Harry took his hand, and he shook it.