Authour note:

Rated M for Language, and future violence and sexual scenes (though not for a while as Harry is 11.)

Harry is not the boy who lived in this and Voldemort was not a thing, there was a war that Harry's parents fought and died in, you will find out about that as you read.

Pairing: At this point, I'm not set on pairings or if there will be one specific pairing, some teenagers get around you know ;)

This fic starts off similar to Harry Potter in the sense that the way he grew up with the Dursleys is the same. However, the war Harry's parents fought and died in is different and the plot is very different from Harry's introduction to the wizarding world.

Some characters, magical theory, and the law may also be different in this world, all will be revealed as you read.

Harry is different in this story, he's a little more bitter, sarcastic, slower to trust. More ambitious to some extent, but hopefully he has a somewhat humorous voice to. He still values friendship and loyalty, but also power and success.

I have some of the major plot lines lined out but a lot of it comes to me as I write, also the major plot won't happen until Harry is older since it would make no sense for him to be involved in it at age 11 lol. The first school years are about setting up characters, relationships, world building, minor plot lines, and hints and flashes into what will be the driving plot-line later on.

I'm not big on author notes so unless I think it's important this will be one of few in this story. And no I don't own Harry Potter and am not profiting from this in any way :)

Hope you enjoy reading and I'm open to all kinds of reviews, and constructive criticism is encouraged. Thanks

Chapter 1

Harry Potter had just finished re-organizing his secret stash in the loose floorboard of his cupboard when he heard his pig of a cousin stomping down the stairs above him. He shot what he liked to think of as his signature glare upward and let out a gusty sigh before muttering quietly to himself, "fucking spoiled shithead". Harry was feeling cranky today. Harry often felt cranky in the mornings and quite frankly didn't have much in his life to be happy about anyway, however, on this particular morning, he was extra irritable. His cousin Dudley's birthday always made Harry feel things he didn't want to feel. He liked to think that he had gotten used to his lot in life and that he wasn't the young kid who cried in his cupboard wondering why his family treated him like they did, when as far as they were concerned Dudley shat rainbows. He liked to tell himself that he was over that now, that he didn't need what other children got and that he would make his own way in life. On days like this though, when Dudley woke to a room full of presents and a day full of whatever the hell the prick was nagging for this year, he couldn't help but think of his own mostly unmentioned birthdays and a small part of him longed for a family who cared for him. Harry, however, likes to think that he does not need anyone and therefore does not appreciate that small part of him speaking out and thus gets mightily cranky on days such as this.

Harry's mood was slightly improving due to a fantasy involving Dudley choking on his birthday cake, when his contemplations were rudely interrupted by the banging on his cupboard door.

"Boy! Get up! We want a special breakfast for Dudley this morning."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia" If his aunt heard the slight sarcastic tinge to his reply, she didn't comment on it. The giraffe looking woman simply unlocked and opened the cupboard door and looked at Harry with the usual sourness as he climbed out and made his way to the kitchen. Dudley was already there poking and counting his presents and Harry did his best to ignore the simpering of his aunt and the whining of his cousin while he worked on breakfast and had another pleasant little fantasy, this time involving poison and crispy bacon. Harry tuned back into the room when he heard his name mentioned in that particular whiny tone of Dudleys that made Harry long for the sound of nails on a chalkboard, it would be an improvement.

"He can't come with us! That freak would ruin the whole day!" Harry felt his stomach sink somewhere to his toes. The last bloody thing he wanted was to be dragged to the zoo with Dudley and his equally brutish friend. The one highlight of Dudley's birthday was that he only really had to put up with the Dursleys for the morning and then they usually went out. Harry was usually sent off to the elderly neighbor, Mrs. Figg, who after spending an hour or so listening to stories about her cats, let him go out to hang with the boys.

"Why can't I go to Mrs. Figg?" Harry couldn't quite keep the plaintive tone out of his query and his uncle, who was now also in the kitchen, narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Though this may have little to do with his tone and more to do with the fact that his obese uncle was at best annoyed with his existence and at worse enraged by it and didn't like to be reminded of it with acts such as Harry talking, or come to think if it, breathing.

"Are you stupid boy! We just said that she can't have you since she broke her leg." Harry felt a brief flare of concern over this, as much as he didn't exactly like stories of cats, and quite frankly hated the old people smell of Mrs. Figgs house, he rather had a small soft spot for the old lady who fed him biscuits and tea. Harry shook the concern away and concentrated on the problem at hand.

"Well... I could stay here by myself then." That would be pretty great actually, he could maybe even sneak the boys over for a couple of hours to watch some tv.

"Oh, I bet you would like that, wouldn't you? who knows what kind of trouble you could get in, we might not have a house to come home to!" Harry did his best not to roll his eyes at his aunt. He takes better care of the house than any of them considering he was the one that did all the bloody chores in it.

"No! he can't come with us, he just can't!" Dudley was gearing up for a full-blown tantrum now, and as much as seeing an eleven-year-old walrus stamp and cry like a toddler usually disgusts Harry, he found himself silently cheering him on today and actually hoping he gets his way like he usually does.

"You could just lock the door and I could spend the day in the park" Harry tried to sound like he doesn't really want them to take him up on this suggestion. He figures that there was nothing the Dursleys liked more than Harry's misery, so painting an image of himself being stuck outside with nowhere to go for the day while they enjoy a trip to the zoo could only benefit his cause. His aunt and uncle conferred a little more with each other, but between Dudley's tantrum and the simple fact that they wanted him around almost as much as wanted to be around them which was to say, not at all, Harry soon found himself shut out of the house watching the Dursleys driving away and he couldn't help but grin.

Harry's morning crankiness gradually left him with each step he took away from number four private drive. He had a whole Dursley free day ahead of him and he planned to make the most of it. He made his way past the small park that was at bottom of the street and checked to see how much of his secret stash he had managed to stuff in his pockets before being unceremoniously pushed out of the house. With the way he was selling he would have enough to buy some uniform trousers for his new school in September to go along with the brand new shirt he had already bought. Harry was determined not to have to wear Dudley's old uniform which was not only big enough to fit at least three Harry's in them, but was also in the wrong color and his aunt was making sounds about dyeing them, Harry was trying to avoid being bullied thank you very much. Dudley had been teasing Harry about him going to Stonewall High for his first year of comp for months, Dudley himself was going to smeltings private school, as far as Harry was concerned Dudley could tease him all he liked on this topic, he couldn't be happier with the situation. Separate schools meant Dudley wouldn't be able to bully everyone into either ignoring Harry or bullying him themselves and Harry could stop dumbing himself down in class so as not to show up precious Dudley and he could start working on getting good grades. Harry can't wait to get away from the Dursleys, but he doesn't just want to get any old job at sixteen and escape, he wants some revenge, and becoming someone successful while Dudley probably ends up in jail sounds like some sweet vengeance to Harry. He's not entirely sure what he wants to do, but Harry figures that doing well in school is a good bloody start.

About 10 minutes from the park, Harry stopped his leisurely stroll and made his way up the walkway of a house that lay behind a garden that was almost overflowing with growing vegetables and herbs. Harry knew that this annoyed the other neighbors on the street to madness as it disrupted the flow of neatly cut grass of all the other front gardens of the street, but Harry thought it was nice to have something look a little different. Mrs. Thompson, who owned the house, had a major green thumb and hated buying food without knowing exactly where it came from and what exactly was in it, and thus she had used all available space in her back and front garden for her own produce. Harry often found himself on the other end of a lecture about preservatives and organic produce and other such things that Harry only barely pays attention to whenever he visits here, but this trait of Miss Thompson meant that her son, Connor, was one of his best customers so Harry didn't complain. Harry knocked on the well-kept front door and waited patiently, enjoying the earthy smell of the garden as he did so.

"Good morning Harry!" Miss. Thompson was relatively tall for a woman and Harry had to crane his neck back slightly and squint his eyes from the sun so he could see her.

"Good morning Miss. Thompson, Is Connor available please?" Harry had learned that being as polite and charming as possible to grown-ups made life easier in the long run, though he admits to himself that he sometimes fails in this endeavor if he is in a particularly unpleasant mood or if the person in question is a prick. Luckily Harry rather likes Miss. Thompson and thus doesn't find it as such a chore.

"Of course!, come in, come in, I'm busy out back at the moment, working on growing some green beans, do you like green beans Harry?, I harvested some tomato and cucumber today would you like some? You should really talk to your aunt about where she gets her vegetables, you know they put per-"

"Hi, Harry" Harry breathed a silent sigh of relief at Connors interruption, as much as he likes Miss. Thompson, she doesn't half go on about stuff. Stuff that quite frankly he couldn't care less about, Harry barely gets enough scraps from the Dursleys to keep hunger away as is so he's not going to start worrying about where that food comes from, if it tastes half decent and fills him up he's happy. Harry looked up at Connor who was leaning over the handrail of the stairs with a happy grin on his face and an excited air about him. "Wanna come up to my room for a bit?"

"Sure" Harry made his way up the stairs and into Connors room as Connor had a few words with his mum. It wasn't long before Connor rushed into his room and closed his bedroom door behind him before turning to Harry with an almost crazed look in his eye.

"What have you got?" Harry dug into his clothes pockets, silently thinking how at least Dudley's old oversized clothes meant he had big pockets, and pulled out a handful of chocolate bars and presented them on the bed with a little bit of a flourish.

"I have some Galaxy, Dairy Milk, chocolate buttons, Galaxy Caramel, and some Freddos" Harry dug into his other pocket for a moment knowing he had some stash that he bought with Connor in mind, once he found it, he pulled it out with a triumphant sound "And an Aero mint so you breath will smell minty instead of chocolatey"

Connor looked at the chocolate googly-eyed for a moment, he had one hell of a sweet tooth and since his mum never let him get any and Harry hadn't had a chance to come see him for a good two weeks, he was probably feeling a little desperate at this point.

"How much?"

"Pound a chocolate bar and 50p a Freddo"

"50p a Freddo!" Harry does admit that this is a bit extortionate, but Harry usually makes his money by selling in school, but now that summer is here most just go to the shop themselves and buy things for cheaper than Harry sells them, so Connor is his only avenue to getting them new trousers and he will be damned if he has to wear trousers the size of a parachute and smelling of dye. Besides, Harry thinks Connor is a bit of a knob.

"Take it or leave it" Harry made to pick the chocolate bars back up.

"Fine! Fine!, Jesus! give me 4 bars including the Aero and 3 Freddos" Sweet. Harry smirks a little. "Don't be so smug freak" Harry rolls his eyes at the unoriginal insult and simply takes the money that Connor hands him and picks up the few chocolate bars he has left and leaves the room without another word to the stupid twit.

After getting caught up in a twenty-minute conversation about green beans, Harry finally leaves Miss. Thompson's house two tomatoes, a cucumber and five pounds fifty richer. So he's feeling particularly smug and is munching on a tomato while also planning a way to get his aunt to send him into town in the next week so he can secretly pick up his spanking new trousers, when he runs into a group of older boys hanging not far from the corner shop.

"Oi! kid! What are you up to then? No good I bet" The boy was in his early teens, lanky, with a nose on the slightly too large side and a grin that Harry and many others would call cheeky.

"none of your damn business you chav!" Harry grinned rather cheekily himself as the group of three boys laughed. Harry had met the three boys about a year ago when he first started selling chocolate. He was just exiting the shop with a bagful of goodies when the boys called him over and asked him quite frankly why a scruffy boy like him who looked liked he hadn't eaten in days was doing buying a bunch of chocolate every week. When Harry told them he was selling it for a profit the boys were right tickled by it, saying that having that kind of forethought at his age suggested he was going to be a genius. Harry thought they had a rather low estimate of what qualified a genius but he wasn't going to argue with them on it. Harry started to stop and chat with them every week and they soon started asking him to tag along sometimes when they hung out and as someone who hadn't had any friends before Harry was rather pleased. He knew that a lot of the time the boys were humouring him since he was a couple years younger than them and his small stature, even among those his own age, probably didn't help things in that department but they were as close to friends he was going to get until he finally got to comp school and they were a good distraction for days like this.

"Chav! I'll have you know that this tracksuit brings all the girls calling thank you very much!" If an all black tracksuit with bright yellow strips on the side really does make women call him Harry has less of an understanding of girls than he thought he did, and he didn't think he had much of one to begin with. Elliot was Harry's favorite of the three, he was the one who seemed most invested in Harry and he still found Harry's little business venture humorous as proved by his next question asked with an amused smirk "you stoking back up then Harry?"

"Na, think I'm out of business for the summer now, no market for it" The boys had another chuckle about that and although that was what Harry was going for he can't help but be a bit annoyed by it as it is a little patronizing. The other boys were called Tony and Chubs. Tony was a little shorter than Elliot, had muddy brown hair, a body that was slightly muscular and laughed a lot more than Harry thought was necessary. Chubs was well...chubby, blond and actually rather quiet, Harry didn't actually know Chubs's real name, he has always kind of gone by that and Harry had never bothered to ask his given name.

"We're headed to Chubs's place to hang for a bit since his parents have pissed off somewhere or another, you in?" Elliot asked Harry.

"Sure" Harry was kind of hoping for some sort of invite or he really would have been stuck in the park by himself until the Dursley got home.

"What about Laura though...her nose is a little distracting but her tits man..." Tony sighed dramatically in what seems really fond remembrance. "the dreams I've had of those" Harry couldn't help but scrunch his nose a bit at this, he had been over Chubs's place for almost two hours now and doesn't know when talk turned to girls but wished mightily that it hadn't. His discomfort didn't go unnoticed it seems as Elliot, chuckling lightly, turned to him where he was sitting beside him on the sofa in the living room and ruffled Harry hair giving Harry's already unmanageable mop a rather wild look.

"I think our talk is a little mature for little Harry here" Elliot was grinning wide as he watched Harry try to pat down his hair and Harry started to feel some of this morning crankiness creeping up on him again.

"right… girls tits are the epitome of maturity" This made the three of them burst out laughing much to Harry's annoyance "What?!"

"epitome!" Tony gasped out.

"you talk like a grandpa" Chubs added rather redundantly in Harry's opinion.

"Christ, now who's being mature" Harry rolled his eyes at the lot of them though he had to work on keeping a small lip twitch from becoming a full grin. After they had stooped giggling like girls, well mostly, Tony was still chuckling a little but the rest of the boys were well used to his overlong laughs, Elliott turned to Harry again.

"Trust me Harry, in a few years you won't be scrunching your nose up at tits"

"Something else might get up though" Tony muttered with another bloody giggle, causing Harry to blush to the roots of his hair which in turn made the rest of them burst into laughter again.

"You shouldn't have got that one Harry!" Harry did his best not to answer, but he's had sexual lessons last year in school and has woken up some mornings with ...situations so he knows what their bloody talking about, though he's not saying that out loud to them, he would never live it down.

"whatever, can we just put something on the tv or something, it would be a miracle if any girl let any of you near them and their tits anyway" This brought out another round of raucous laughter and Harry let himself join in this time. Harry rather enjoyed insulting people who only laughed in response.

As much as Harry would have liked to stay at Chubs's place longer, or hell for life really, he had to get back to the park and look miserable for when the Dursley's arrived home, so he only stayed another hour before he made his way back rather despondently. He knew he would have to listen to Dudley brag about his birthday all night and though Harry really did not want to go with Dudley to the zoo, he thinks he might have liked to visit there in other circumstances, like maybe with the boys or something, it sounded pretty neat. He wasn't at the park for long, only enough time to finish his other tomato when he spotted the Dursley's car going past and Harry got up and walked back to private drive.

It turns out that Harry wasn't wrong about Dudley's bragging and by the time he was ordered to his cupboard for the night he really wanted to punch Dudley in his pig face. Though heaven knows that wouldn't have tuned out well, considering Dudley's three times the size of Harry and the reaction he'd get from his aunt and uncle if he dared touch their precious Ickle Dudleykins doesn't bare thinking about. Harry lay in his cupboard thinking about how different his birthday is going to be in a just over a week compared to Dudleys and he fantasized about kicking Dudleys arse before finally succumbing to sleep.

Harry was again proven right when his birthday did come round and wasn't even acknowledged by the Dursleys at all. It was clear that Dudley knew it was his birthday as he kept sending Harry smug little looks over breakfast while he again told tales of his birthday trip to the zoo. Harry wasn't surprised by the Dursleys behavior, however, that didn't stop him from wanting to wallop Dudley. The fat shit. Harry was enjoying his slice of toast and egg whilst secretly salivating over the bacon Dudley was shoving in his gob when the mail came, and just like every morning…

"Boy, get the mail" Shoving the last of his toast in his mouth knowing that once he's left the table he won't be welcomed back to it, Harry made his way to the front door. Picking the letters up he noticed that the one on top had a weird texture to it which made him stop and take a closer look at it and to his immense shock noticed it was addressed to him. The letter was for him! It was on some fancy looking paper and his name was written on it in posh looking green ink. Not just his name either, but it said the cupboard under the stairs! Someone knew he lived in a cupboard. Harry has never told anyone about that, and he knows the Dursleys bloody well haven't either.

"Boy! What's taking so long? Are you so dumb you got lost on the way to the front door?" Harry rolled his eyes at his Uncles chortling at his little joke and quickly slipped the letter addressed to him into his cupboard on his way back to the kitchen and handed the mail over as if nothing was amiss. He was about to casually walk back to his cupboard when his aunt grabbed him by the arm.

"where do you think you're going? Your Aunt Marge is coming over in a couple of days and I want the house spotless" She then, much to Harrys frustration, handed over a long list of chores to be completed by the end of the day and Harry had no choice but to leave the letter until later. Throughout the morning he contemplated the contents of the letter, but Harry realized that he was probably being a little bit dopey and the letter is probably not important at all and he would be mighty disappointed if he got his hopes up about it, so he cleared his mind and got back to work. If his mind still flashed with curiosity throughout the day that was only natural and could not be helped.