The Badger Lord
Summary: A Plot Bunny of Rorschach's Blot from his story "Odd Ideas". What if Harry had a friend when he was young and wasn't quite as alone. Hufflepuff!Harry
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. The idea isn't even totally mine I'm just trying to explore it.
A slam of the greenhouse doors followed by the sound of wood on the floor made Pomona Sprout look up from the venomous tentacular to see the grizzled auror Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody looking at her from across her greenhouse and walking in her direction. The expression on his face was not one of happiness or grouchiness but rather one of sadness.
"Pomona," Moody said slowly. "I think you need to sit down."
"What is it mad eye," questioned the squat herbology professor.
"Just have a seat," the scarred man commanded. "I'm afraid your hunch about young Potter was true. Two years ago, Potter . . . Harry befriended a shy girl in his neighborhood. The two of them were almost inseparable, each the other's only friend."
"So what happened?" Sprout asked with growing dread.
"The girl came from a large family," Moody continued. "She was the only daughter and the youngest child . . . because of this she suffered quite a bit of abuse. One night . . . one night they got a bit too rough and she was badly injured. Rather then take her to the hospital, her father buried her in the basement."
"No . . ." Pomona whispered her horror evident.
"Harry . . . Harry came to their front door looking for her for three days before he stopped believing it when they told him that his friend was sick, or had moved to a relatives house. It's not clear what excuses they used." Moody said mechanically as if reciting from memory. "On the fourth night he made his way into the house and was somehow able to find . . . to find what remained of his only friend in the world."
"Alastor don't tell me . . ."
"Harry was the only thing to leave that house alive," the old auror said quietly. "Fire engines arrived an hour later to find the house in flames. Inspector said that large amounts of accelerant had been poured around the beds and he also noted that several of the exits had been blocked. The body of the young girl had been removed from the house prior to the inferno and carefully wrapped in a worn blanket."
"That poor boy," Sprout gasped her Hufflepuff nature reaching out to him.
"There's just a bit more Pomona," Alastor said gently. "When the emergency services arrived, they found Harry sitting on the lawn cradling the girl's body. He told the first fireman not to bother entering the house as he'd stopped hearing screams several minutes before and suspected that everyone inside was dead. Due to his age and the circumstances surrounding the crime, Harry was given a psychological evaluation. They noted that the circumstances surrounding the crime were unlikely to occur again and ruled that Harry was no threat to society."
"Where is he now?" Pomona asked the grizzled auror quietly.
Moody sighed sadly and looked at the plant she was tending. "Word is he's on the train right now turned eleven just a month ago and is coming to Hogwarts for his schooling," he then looked right to her.
"I'm actually a little worried about the little punk" said moody as he looked to his old friend from the last war. He knew the hufflepuff would do anything she could to make sure Harry had a good Hogwarts life. Nodding to her in a goodbye he walked out and away from the building he had to get back to his home.
----------------------------------------------Back with Sprout-----------------------------------------
Pomona nodded in return to the auror as he left and turned her attention back to her plant. Her mind was racing trying to reason with herself to figure out why Albus would put young Harry in such a home but she simply couldn't come up with a worthy explanation on why the so called greatest wizard of the age would put a young child with people like the Dursleys. Even Minerva was extremely unhappy with the old wizard having gone so far as to say he had lost his touch.
Pomona had decided she would do her best to get young Harry in her house. First though she needed to call a council meeting. The Hufflepuff council would decide whether or not Harry was truly that which this new history made Pomona Sprout believe.
Hearing the loud horn of the train blare she rushed from the room. Casting a spell under her breath Hufflepuffs from around the school past and present became alert even those that were asleep and began heading to their fireplaces or apparating to a house that had floo powder if they were out. One way or another the Hufflepuffs were on their way. The Hufflepuff council had been called.