What if Harry loved to mess with the minds of the unsuspecting public? What if he loved to do the opposite of what he should, just to get a rise out of people? And what if Harry shattered the expectations that everyone had had of him? This is what might have happened.

CHAPTER ONE

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls.

Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.

The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too. Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day. "Up! Get up! Now!"Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again. "Up!" she screeched.

"Shut the hell up, I'm getting up!" A grumpy Harry yelled through the door.

"What did you say to me you ungrateful brat?" Petunia screeched angrily.

"Aww, what a nice thing to call me, compliments will get you everywhere." Harry said sarcastically, neatly confusing his aunt and dodging the question. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove.

He rolled onto his back and half-heartedly tried to remember the dream from the previous night. But he soon gave it up as a bad job, if he hadn't been able to remember it the last hundred times he had dreamt it, then he probably wasn't going to remember it now.

His aunt was back outside the door. "Are you up yet?" she demanded.

"No, I'm still sleeping, come back in five minutes and try to wake me up." Harry replied, he was always angry in the morning but he was angry in the afternoon and night as well so this was a normal occurrence.

"Don't sass me boy, hurry it up and come watch the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Dudley's birthday."

"Oh darn, how could I forget Dudder's widdle birthday, you've only mentioned it a few thousand times since his last birthday." Harry said.

"What did you say?" Petunia snapped through the door.

"Oh I'm sorry, maybe you should turn your hearing aid up." Harry shot back. He knew he was pushing it but he also knew that he didn't care.

Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.

When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.

Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise - unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley had once liked to use Harry as a punching bag but Harry had put an end to that rather quickly. Let's just say that the only food Dudley will never eat again is peanut butter, which is no longer kept in the house.

Harry dodged his aunt's hand flying toward him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast. Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age.

He would have looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was if he had been to wear old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. But Harry was smart and had threatened to inform the Child Service's and so the Dursleys had reluctantly bought him new clothes.

Harry had a thin face, knobby knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He had horrible eyesight and had once worn huge round glasses that were so inconvenient. One mention of the Child Services and Harry now wore clear contacts to show off his bright green eyes.

The only things that Harry liked about his own appearance were his eyes and a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.

She had told him cock and bull story about how he had gotten it in the car accident that his parents had died in, but he knew it was a lie. How would he, a mere baby at the time, survive a car accident, when his fully grown adult parents didn't?

That hadn't gone over well and Petunia had avoided the question every time Harry had asked it, which was often. She also always told him to not ask question. Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys. However, Harry liked to think that rules were merely suggestions, so he made it his mission in life to question everything.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon. "Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut.

Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way - all over the place. And of course, because it annoyed his relatives, Harry urged his hair to grow and to his amazement, it did.

The Dursleys never figured out that the money they gave him for a haircut every week was actually put under the floor board in his cupboard; there was a lot of money stashed in there.

Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel—Harry always loudly proclaimed that Dudley's children would be smited for being so ugly.

Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.

"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father.

"That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, its here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.

Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, smirked and said, "its okay Dudley, it's not like your parents are going… poor." Poor was the one taboo word that was never to be spoken in the Dursley house, that and for some reason magic.

Vernon was going a deep shade of red but let it go as he preferred to pretend he didn't have a nephew and let Petunia deal with the boy.

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?'' Harry refrained from laughing but mouthed "popkin" and rolled his eyes at the display of spoiled-try.

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty... Thirty... "

"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.

"Oh."Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."

'Wow, this is the influence I'm being raised under.' Harry thought to himself with a sliver of disgust.

Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.

Harry snorted. "Little? Dudley hasn't been little since… ever." He said. He grinned as he saw it take a real effort for Vernon to ignore him. Harry took every opportunity to try to force his Uncle into acknowledging him, just to see what would happen. Harry couldn't remember a single time when his uncle had actually spoken to him directly, except to tell him to comb his hair; that was really yelled in his general direction rather than to him so technically it didn't count.

At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR.

He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried. Harry grinned in anticipation; anything that made his aunt both angry and worried was always good news for him.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broke her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.

"Excuse me, Him has a name." Harry interjected indignantly, though it was of course, faked.

Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's formed a wide evil smirk. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies.

Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.

Like why the hell should he give a damn about those smelly ass cats?

"Now what?"Said Aunt Petunia. She looked furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this whole thing. He hadn't of course; if he had it would've involved blowing something up, his specialty.

Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but she wasn't really a priority in his life now.

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy." Petunia said quickly.

"I'm not exactly fond of her either you know." Harry interrupted; he finally got a reaction from his aunt.

"Will you shut up with your constant talking?" She snapped angrily, Harry grinned and she suddenly groaned; now he would try even harder to give her a hard time.

The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug, but Harry never stood for that and made it a priority to make his presence known whenever he entered a room they were in.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend, Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.

"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully. If they did he'd be able to kip over to downtown and buy those fireworks that he wanted to experiment with.

Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon. "And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.

"I won't blow up the house again, that was only that one time, yeesh." said Harry, they always brought that up. Honestly, you blow up the bathroom one time and they never let it go.

"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... And leave him in the car... "

"But I could die in there!" Harry said, dramatically horrified. He looked offended when he could see them considering the idea even more instead of less. Screw them.

"That car's new; he's not sitting in it alone..." Vernon said quickly shaking himself out of daydreams about life without his nephew.

"And I could die! Why I never…" Harry said indignantly as Petunia shushed him.

Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - it had been years since he'd really cried but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.

'If they fall for that I am going to bang my head against the wall.' Harry thought as he watched his cousin fake-sob with disgust and shame that he was related to the whale.

"Dinky Duddydims, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him. Or at least she tried to; he was much too big for her to fit her arms completely around him.

Harry stared at her in mild disbelief before turning to the nearest wall and banging his head against it once.

"I... Don't... Want... Him... T-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.

"I… Don't… Want… Me… T-t-to go either!" Harry mocked, his eyes even glistened a bit but as usual his aunt and uncle tried very hard to ignore him.

Just then, the doorbell rang, "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically, and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat.

For some reason, every time Harry thought of the fat-faced boy he was filled with indescribable anger, he simply did not like the boy at all. Maybe it was because he was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Not that Harry cared about other people but that was low, even in Harry's books. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his rotten luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. No amount of pleading and begging would change the Dursleys' minds about him staying home alone.

His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had finally broken and had taken Harry aside.

"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy, any funny business, anything at all, and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

"Yes, because I make funny business happen on purpose just for the sake of annoying you." Harry drawled back. Vernon had growled and went back to ignoring Harry's existence.

The odd thing was that Uncle Vernon believed him. No one usually did. The problem, which in Harry's opinion wasn't actually a problem for him, was strange things often happened around him. It was just no good trying to annoy the Dursleys by telling them that he'd made them happen, because they already believed he did without his prompting.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all,(because he never did go) had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar.'

Harry almost shaved that part off but thought he might as well liven up school with his new haircut. Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, not realizing that Harry didn't give two fucks what anyone thought about him.

Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, surprisingly he hadn't been given more even though he had tried to explain that he could explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and Harry had decided that his aunt was a complete and utter idiot.

On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. He'd tried to explain that he simply wanted to see the world from a different perspective but the Dursleys were convinced that it had something to do with his freakiness.

The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings but for some reason they hadn't believed her.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. And Harry was sure he had just jinxed himself and grinned with anticipation, he had a feeling that today was going to be good.

It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day causing chaos wherever he went and unleashing it on the unsuspecting public.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. Harry had a feeling that his uncle liked to complain about him a lot but that just made him happier.

This morning, it was motorcycles. "... Roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.

Harry of course had to provoke his Uncle so he said, "I had a dream about a motorcycle. It was flying."

Harry grinned and tried to smile innocently as his Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right round in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" Dudley and Piers were both sniggering.

"Are you a mechanic? No, didn't think so. You don't know what flies or not. You're just jealous because you can't fly." Harry replied and huffed, sitting back in his seat. Dudley, Piers, and Petunia were staring at him in shock while it seemed that he had broken his Uncle.

But he wished he had said something like that sooner. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon; they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas. Which he did of course.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance. Then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they had tried to buy him a cheap lemon ice pop.

But he had quickly said he wanted the same thing that to the others boys had, only with sprinkles. To avoid causing suspicion, the Dursleys had grudgingly bought him what he asked for.

It wasn't bad either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head that looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.

Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk as close to the Dursleys so that he could annoy them further. Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, were trying to avoid him and another incident with peanut butter.

They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbockers glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to get one as well so he wouldn't make a scene.

Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known when the chaos would start so he could've added to it. After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, Man-crushing pythons.

Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can (which Harry would have paid all the money in the world to do himself), but at the moment it didn't look in the mood.

In fact, it was fast asleep. Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on. Harry watched on in disappointed, he had hoped the snake would strike at the glass and scare the piss out of the two Dursley males.

"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away. Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself; no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.

It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house. Of course Harry felt sympathetic with the creature and began thinking of ways to free it, never mind that the snake could kill him in seconds.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's. It winked. Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't and Harry pouted; how that would freak out someone if they saw him winking at a snake!

He looked back at the snake and winked, too. The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, and then raised its eyes to the ceiling as if rolling his eyes. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly: "I get that all the time."

"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "I get it too, annoying isn't it?"

The snake nodded vigorously. "Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked. The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it. Boa Constrictor, Brazil. "Was it nice there?" The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo.

"Well that must suck, huh?" The snake nodded. "How about if I let you out?" The snake stared at him and then twitched its body as if shrugging; Harry found this whole conversation very amusing.

A deafening shout from behind Harry made both of them jump and Harry let out a string of colorful curses.

"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!" Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast at all.

"Out of the way, you," he said, he tried to punch Harry in the ribs but he dodged and Dudley's fist connected with the glass. Harry glared at Dudley and wished the glass would disappear.

What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened. One second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next they had leapt back with howls of horror. Harry straightened up and jumped up with a cheer; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.

The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits. As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."

"No problem, buddy." Harry quickly whispered back as he watched the snake disappear. The keeper of the reptile house was in shock. "But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?" The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again.

Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.

"I sincerely wish it would have, it would have saved future generations the horror of seeing your offspring." But Dudley and Piers had only understood about half of what he had said; his sarcasm was wasted on them.

But funniest of all, to Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"

"Of course I was who wouldn't want to talk to a giant man-eating snake on a beautiful Saturday such as this one?" Harry had replied cheerfully.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry wasn't having that so he said, "I'm sure the child services would love to get a phone call from the poor abused starved orphan that lived in Number 4 Privet Drive." Harry said, deadly serious for once.

Vernon had sighed and took a deep breath, "Petunia, please handle your nephew." And then he went upstairs.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk setting up some pranks in their breakfast chairs.

He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten humorous years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died.

Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. That was most certainly not from a car crash.

He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions, not that that had stopped him from asking them anyway. There were no photographs of them in the house.

The Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe the attention whore in him hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything.

A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word.

The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look. But Harry felt that something about them was very different from everyone else he had met.

At school, Harry had no one. Not because of Dudley and his gang, but because he was such an annoying smart-ass that no one could stand to be around him too long, not that he minded anyway. Harry liked who he was and he had no plans to change for anyone, ever.