We all know the story of the night Harry Potter became the Boy-Who-Lived and defeated Lord Voldemort for the first time. Peter Petigrew betrayed his friends and told Voldemort where the Potter family was hiding. And then on the night of Halloween, the Dark Lord arrived in Godrics Hollow, got through the Fidelus charm and killed James and Lily Potter as they were trying to protect their son Harry. When Voldemort went to kill Harry though the curse rebounded and hit the Dark Lord destroying his body and leaving him a bodiless spirit not dead but not alive. He then wanders as a disembodied spirit for years till he finds a way to come back. We all know this story.
But what if one thing was different that night? What if because of the addition of one tiny new character to this story, Voldemort didn't have to wander disembodied all those years? What would change? This is the story of Tobias Thorn, that new very tiny, otherwise insignificant character. But as you'll soon find out, this story isn't really about Tobias at all.
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The very same Halloween night, not far from where the Potter tragedy occurred, there was a cozy little house at the edge of Godric's Hollow. In this cottage lived a nice young wizarding couple called Daisy and Robert Lee. Daisy was currently sitting asleep in a chair within the little nursery she had set up for her infant nephew. The young witch often sat there at night staring at the little child, praying that he would one day wake up. The healers all said it was hopeless but she wasn't going to give up hope. Little Tobias was all she had left of her family and she didn't want to let him go too, no matter how dark his father, her brother-in-law, might have been. Ambrose Thorn had died during a deatheater raid more than a year ago. He was hit with a particularly powerful bombarda by an auror. Being such a big "Light" aligned witch as Daisy was, she had been so embarrassed to learn then that her sister had married a deatheater. But she had still supported her sister through that difficult time hoping that her sister would realize she was better off without him. She had lost Tobias's mother, her sister, to a rogue dementor attack not too long after that, when she was still pregnant with Tobias. She had died during childbirth about a week after the attack but she was already long gone before that. No one recovers from a dementor's kiss. Little Tobias hadn't opened his eyes once since he was born. Most of the healers believed he had also been affected by the kiss and that there was nothing they could do for him. His Aunt Daisy wasn't willing to let him go yet though so she brought him to her house in Godric's Hollow and took care of him the best she could.
About an hour after all the nastiness happened at the Potter residence just down the road a few blocks, as Daisy slept in her chair snoring, an inky dark shadow slipped into the nursery. It slowly glided along the floor over to the crib and then stopped and seemed to stare at the eternally sleeping one year old lying silently in his crib. The shadow slowly leaned over the boy in the crib and then suddenly just seems to vanish.
About 5 minutes later Daisy wakes up to the sound of her very awake nephew bawling his eyes out. She stares at the crying toddler in shock. Then rushes over and pulls him quickly into her arms.
"Robert! Robert! Come quick! It's a miracle! Tobias is awake!" She cradles the crying child in her arms tears of joy coming to her eyes. If she had ever seen her nephew's open eyes before she might've been a little concerned at the fact that they were now an icy blue instead of their normal pale green. But since he had never opened his eyes before this abrupt change went unnoticed.
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The first few years after that night were a relatively happy time for little Tobias Thorn. His Aunt Daisy spoiled the little boy as much as she could for the first few years that her nephew was awake. She was quite surprised at his rather fast mental development. She thought he would be quite a bit behind in mental development after sleeping for the first year of his life but he was well ahead of the curve. At first his aunt was quite proud of her little prodigy nephew and boasted to her friends about how smart he was and how well spoken he was.
But Tobias's happy childhood didn't last very long. When Tobias was only 4 he was playing in the back garden of his aunt and uncle's cottage and he discovered a small snake. He was delighted when he found that he could speak with the interesting little creature. He spoke with the snake all morning. When Aunt Daisy walked up to her four year old nephew hissing parseltongue at his new snake friend, to say that she was a bit shocked would be a bit of an understatement. She freaked out and dragged the boy back into the house. She frantically told him that he was never to talk to snakes again and that he'd be punished severely if he did. She then sent him to his room for the rest of the day. Tobias didn't understand why his aunt was so upset about it. But to Mrs. Lee, parseltongue was an ability only dark wizards had. And to hear her own nephew speaking it was just not right to the very "Light" aligned witch. After that she looked at all of her nephew's accomplishments differently. She worried so much that he would end up just like that evil father of his. In her mind anything dark was so "abnormal" and should be avoided.
Things changed for Tobias after that. Both his aunt and uncle had both a very negative view on their nephew's parseltongue ability. Now that they knew he had a "Dark" ability they began second guessing everything little Tobias did. His fast mental development which had made them proud before, now worried them. They stopped treating him as nicely as they had before. They now punished him whenever he did something that they thought might make him seem Dark. They discouraged his curiosity and any questions about his mother or father. Their fear and distrust of him only grew as he got older. As well as their neglect of him. It got to the point where they tried to spend as little time with him as possible, only paying him any attention when they would punish him for something they thought he had done wrong. They would punish him extra harshly whenever they found him using or even talking about his parseltongue ability. Tobias hated his aunt and uncle actions towards him but for some reason he seemed more comfortable with the harshness than the ooey gooey friendliness his aunt acted like with everyone else. His aunt's overly cheery facade set his teeth on edge and tended to make his accidental magic act up a bit. Which didn't help his aunt and uncle's view of him any.
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(Date that makes Tobias 8)
A door at the end of a hallway, the magically painted teddy bear on it fearfully covers it's eyes as you approach. A child's bedroom. A crib. A flash of green light. Pain. Darkness.
Tobias woke up in a cold sweat from a horrible nightmare. A nightmare that he remembers little of save that he has had it many times before. He sat in bed for a moment trying to steady his nerves.
If only my aunt would let me have a dreamless sleep potion he thought to himself. The nightmares happened almost every night and he was losing sleep because of it.
He got out of bed and crossed his small room to his bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror. The dark circles under his eyes showed how little sleep the boy got each night. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair and sighed.
"Why does the face in the mirror always look so wrong to me?" he asked himself frowning at the face in the mirror.
He went back to bed and read a book to keep himself from going back to sleep. Because sleep meant nightmares and he didn't need and more of those that night.
A few hours later Tobias heads downstairs to the kitchen to make breakfast for himself. You might've thought it strange that an 8 year old would have to make his own meals but Tobias had bee doing it for years. He had to, considering how unlikely his aunt or uncle would do it for him. They rarely did anything for him. Nowadays the only time they paid him any mind was when they felt like punishing him for something they thought he had done wrong.
As he was finished cooking his eggs and sitting down to eat, his aunt had woken up and slowly drifted into the kitchen sleepily. She started making breakfast for herself and her husband, pointedly ignoring the boy sitting only a few feet from her. Tobias ignored her too and continued eating in silence. When he finished eating he washed his dishes and then went to the food cabinet that was enchanted to be cold and pulled out the lunch he had packed for the day. He then grabbed his school bag from his room and left the house to walk to school.
Tobias hated the muggle primary school his aunt had made him go to. The schoolwork he easily breezed through and so it was so boring to him. He hated all his classmates and he hated all his teachers. He just didn't want to be there. His aunt however, felt that making him interact with muggles by sending him to a muggle school would make him grow up "less dark". Despite his hatred for his school, his teachers all loved him. They adored the little prodigy and would've had him skip quite a few grades if his aunt hadn't insisted against it. The children at the school he mostly ignored. They all seemed so stupid and childish to him and it felt like a waste of time of to talk down to their level. A few of them had liked to bully him in the beginning but after those children had gotten into some mysterious accidents, those bullies avoided him like the plague.
He got to school early so he waited outside and read for awhile. He rolled his eyes at the kids running around the playground like maniacs. Tobias' class was going on a field trip that day to a museum in London and most of his classmates were rather excited by it. Tobias didn't share their enthusiasm but at least if they went on a fieldtrip he wouldn't have to be stuck in class all day doing boring pointless schoolwork.
When it was time to go, the children all piled on the school bus chattering excitedly. Tobias chose a seat at the back and glared at anyone that even thought about sitting next to him. Not that most of his classmates even wanted to sit by him really. They all thought he was weird. Tobias stared out the window at nothing I particular as the bus made its way to the museum.
As they arrived at their destination Tobias saw that there was already another school bus from another primary school that was parked in the parking lot.
Great. More annoying children he'd have to tolerate for the day, he thought to himself rolling his eyes.
The children that were lining up outside the other school bus seemed to be from a primary school in Surrey, according to the words scrawled across the side of the bus.
Tobias' classmates cheered as their bus pulled into the parking lot and parked. As they filed out of the bus, the other school kids passed by them on their way to the museum building. As the other children passed by him, Tobias noticed some boys picking on a rather small dark haired boy with glasses. One of the boys, who was rather large and mean looking, kept calling the dark haired boy a freak. Tobias frowned at that. He hated bullies. He decided that if he happened upon that large boy later he may have to show him the error of his ways. The two groups of children made their way inside the museum.
The museum was as boring as Tobias thought it would be and found himself quite relieved when lunchtime rolled around. He went outside to get away from his annoying classmates.
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Harry Potter, a dark haired green eyed eight year old was actually enjoying the museum his class had gone to. His cousin Dudley actually found some of the exhibits interesting so he didn't torment Harry as much. Towards lunchtime however, Dudley was starting to grow bored so Harry ducked outside to avoid the imminent Harry Hunting game his cousin loved so much. Harry sighed and looked for a nice quiet place in the museum garden to be alone for awhile. As he made his way into the garden however, he heard a muffled conversation. He thought it strange that the voices sounded a bit hissy. As he rounded a corner he saw a boy about his age who at first glance seemed to be alone. As Harry got closer however, he noticed that the boy was holding a small snake and talking to it. What amazed Harry though, was that the snake seemed to be speaking as well!
"Is that snake talking?" Harry asked very confused.
The boy looks up with a very annoyed look on his face. "Of course she is talking. Leave us alone." Tobias exclaims.
The snake looks at Harry and asks Tobias "is the human going to hurt me?" It remembers other little humans trying to step on it on multiple occasions.
"I'll hurt him if he tries little one." Tobias says.
Harry looks at them in amazement. "Why would I hurt you?" he asks the snake.
Tobias looks shocked and nearly drops the little snake. "You can speak parseltongue too?"
"Parcel-What?" Harry looks at him confused.
"Parseltongue. It's the ability to speak to snakes. It's a pretty rare ability so its weird to meet another person who can do it." Tobias places the snake in a nearby bush. "So what's your surname? You must be from a pretty powerful wizarding family."
"Wizarding family? What are you talking about?" Harry has no idea what he is talking about. Wizards aren't real he thinks to himself.
"So you aren't from a magical family then if you don't know what I am talking about." He sneers. "So what is your name anyway?"
Harry doesn't like the way this strange boy is looking at him now as if he were a nasty bug. "My name is Harry Potter and just because I don't understand what you are talking about doesn't mean you have to get nasty. Plus magic isn't real. Everyone knows that."
"The Harry Potter?" Tobias looks up and sees Harry's lightening bolt scar on his forehead. Harry fricking Potter the 'boy who lived' doesn't know magic is real? Tobias looks at him in confusion. "If you are Harry Potter, then how do you not know about the wizarding world? Who even raised you?"
"My aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, raised me. And they've always said that magic isn't real. And what do you mean by 'The Harry Potter'?"
"Oh damn" Tobias sighed, "sit down kid we have a lot to talk about."
