Harry Potter and his family were a bit odd.
For one, his family wasn't his family, or in any way even related to him. He had run away from his relatives when he was very young, and so now had a mother who had picked him and another two children, the twins Topaz and Traven, off the streets and taken them into her inherited house, because apparently it was huge and she got lonely. Food was occasionally a bit tight, seeing as Molly, their mother, was single and worked only as a waitor and occasional pianist at a nearby lobby. But while their stomachs were sometimes empty, their minds and hearts never were.
Molly had a love of literature and shopping, and all but drowned them in books from the oddshop on every subject imaginable from ever since they had learned to read, which she made sure they could do wello. She encouraged them to find their passions with all of the aggression and finesse of a rabid wolf, and whenever one of the three found something they were even remotely good at, she jumped in with all hands on deck and many celabratory kisses. Or full out snogs, depending how excited she was.
She bought graphic novels and art books for Topaz and Traven and gave them her sketchbooks from uni, where she'd taken no shortage of art classes to go along with her english major. She spent time encouraging them and drawing with them, from sketches of each other to mythical beings. Mainly merpeople, for the benefit of Harry. And she took them out every other night to let them look at the stars after Traven developed an interest in those.
And she signed Harry up for every class in the near viscinity that had anything to do with his love for movement. He'd been only six when she'd randomly taken him to the nearest place offering karate lessons while on an off day from work, and stayed off to the side with the twins and a magazine, cheering whenever he got something right. And she'd even cleaned out one of the unused rooms of the big old house they lived in so that he could use it as a dance studio. And she didn't even ask when he started wearing tutus, and later on, various other articles of female fashion in addition to his normal boy clothes. She was actually the one who gave him his first fashion magazine, and argued with his teacher when she tried to send him home for wearing bows in his hair.
So yes. His family wasn't really his, but it was wonderful, in the way that he had a dizzyingly blond and supportive mother and occasionally annoying asian siblings and also a tank full of goldfish named after all the colors of the rainbow and a semi-stray tabby cat he called Sugar. None of them matched, except of course the twins, but they were *functional.*
And that was when the wizarding world hit.
Molly had been halfway between estatic and terrified when his letter came. She'd been eager for him to explore this new talent of his, but simularly her protective insticts were kicking in and she didn't really want to let him out of her sight, especially for a whole school year, considering he'd been home taught ever since what was now known as the "hairbow incident" at his preschool. She'd changed jobs for him even, now working nights so that she could stay in the mornings to teach him from her old highschool and university text books and anything else educational she could buy at the odd shops.
It was while on this train of worry that she made a rather good defence when she had a none too small fit of hysterics and wailed that, if some crazed man had tried to kill a mere baby, then the wizarding world obviously wasn't as safe as Hagrid had originally claimed.
Hence why she had demanded she come with them to Diagon alley.
She'd loved it, or at least most of it, as she complained that it was too crowded, but adored the pet shop Harry demanded to visit after seeing a bat in the window. Which Molly then proceeded to buy for Harry and let him name Batti. Not too creative, but it would do. And she'd all but snogged him when he discovered a talent for talking to the snakes in the tanks, much to Harry's embarresment and Hagrid's white faced horror. Truly, her congratulatory kisses were very intense.
And when Molly took her three to the station to send Harry off, Topaz and Traven had gotten themselves temperarily lost before returning being led by a pair of indian twins, Padma and Parvati Patil, who had apparently fallen for the two slightly younger boys at first sight, judging by their worshipful looks. Harry sat in a compartment with the two girls and waved out the window at his family before settling down for a very long conversation about wizarding fashion and self defence with Padma and Parvati with his cat Sugar in his lap. Halfway through the long ride, three boys, one with blindingly blond hair and the other two strangely muscled for eleven year olds, had come knocking on the compartment door and asking for Harry Potter. When Harry had answered, the twins gasped. Apparently, he'd forgotten to introduce himself to them past his first name. In the meantime, the blond boy introduced himself as Draco Malfoy and the other two as Vincent Crabbe and Gregory "Greg" Goyle. And furthermore, also in the meantime, Harry formed an immediate crush on Draco.
He had a thing for blonds, mainly due to the positive reinforcement known as Molly.
From there, Draco sent Vincent and "Greg" onwards and sat down to join the chat about fashion, because apparently the boy knew it, effectively making Harry swoon. It was all too soon the next knocker came in the form of a girl with a bush of brown hair that made Harry think of his karate instructor, and a rather smug look to her face that made him think of his dance instructor. Harry wondered if perhaps the two had a secret love child.
The girl demanded they tell her whether or not they'd seen a toad, which caused Draco to give her an adorable sneer, the twins to shreik in disgust because like almost all girls before them they weren't big fans of amphibians, and Harry to slam the door in her face because the tearful, chubby boy standing behind her was kind of creeping him out.
The rest of the ride went peacefully, with talk of something called dualing, which Harry found himself endlessly eager to try.
When they arrived, Harry let out a warcry and happily launched himself forward to hug Hagrid, before simply letting go and going to stand by Draco and the twins as if nothing had happened. And then, boats appeared out of nowhere, and Harry and his new friends had to fight to get one together, but in the end, they managed, and Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, and the Patil twins Parvati and Padma all got to have their first glimpse of Hogwarts castle together. Harry felt like his heart swelled three sizes and a half by the time it was fully in view, all fancy stonework, lit windows, and elegant towers.
By the time the crowd of new students had climbed the hill and actually reached the Great Hall, Harry was suddenly terrified. He'd never been in a castle before, and the whole thing was making him feel rather insignificant, magnificent as it was. It didn't help how everyone seemed to be pointing to him, or how one alarmingly ginger boy had attempted to befriend him, to disastrous results when he'd met Harry's other three friends, Draco especially. And then his name was called, and Parvati whispered into his ear that he'd do fine. So he marched up the steps towards a hat which had minutes ago sang a rather jaunty tune about how it could with one word determine your entire future.
Which, when lowered onto his head, screamed "Oh Merlin! RAVENCLAW! DEFINATELY RAVENCLAW!" to the now deafened hall. It helped none that it was yelling straight into Harry's ear.
After marching to the correct table with ringing ears, where he noticed the bushy haired girl from before sitting there as well, and plopping himself down by Padma, Harry then heard the most absolutely barmy speech he'd even even considered capable of existing spill forth from the Hogwart's Headmaster's grey bearded lips. And then food appeared, so he ate, and conversed with Paddie and another girl named Elizabetha about something called Ancient Runes that sounded interesting.
Before bed he sent a letter to home via Batti, explaining how he was doing thus far and asking if Molly could send a camera, because he really wanted to see if ghosts would show up on film.
They didn't.
All of his classes passed smoothly and with good grades and many a gained house point, with the exhemption of potions, because the teacher was obviously infatuated by him and trying to cover it up with the well known school boy bullying tactic, and Defence because the teacher creeped him out and gave him a rather stressful headache. In fact, the only exciting thing had been when he'd fought and beheaded a troll, much to the disgust and unease of everyone present, and the distress of Molly when he'd mentioned it in his now biweekly letters. Even the bushy haired girl he'd saved seemed rather unthankful towards him, though that was probably more due to the blood that had recently dyed her a rather muddy red then her ungrateful self. So soon it was nearing Christmas, which he decided to stay at school for, much to the dissapointment of Molly when he told her, because he was currently trying to work out a tactic for getting Draco to marry him and needed some time alone to plot.
When Christmas day arrived he got a pleasant amount of gifts, ranging from an adorable frilly nightgown that was no doubt somehow rigged from Topaz and Traven, to a strange silvery cloak that, when tried on, he found made him pleasantly invisible. So of course he used it to sneak him and Elizabetha, who also stayed over hols, into the restricted section and they raided the section on dualing tactics. Then, while on the run from a stunningly crabby guy with the cat who was nowhere near as cute as Sugar, Harry stumbled into a room with a mirror that apparently showed Harry what he would look like as a merman? He didn't know.
What happened in the weeks after that after that included many things, ranging from the discovery of a three headed dog after another run in with the crabby man, setting fire to some extremely lively plants, and a lot more fire as well, in fact a whole wall of it. Oh, and the fact that he'd been right about the Defence teacher all along, he was in fact rather creepy and had another man, a man willing to murder babies and sweet little eleven year old boys in babydoll dresses, living on the back of his wrinkly bald head.
He was then dragged home by a Molly-in-hysterics, who informed him that he'd have home tutors in magic from now on, and would never be leaving the house again. Ever. Even when grown up. He was under house arrest for life. One month and a foiled kidnapping by the barmy grey bearded headmaster later, and Harry is currently in court in his frilliest nightgown, because apparently it was questionable for him to have beaten the old man to the brink of death with a stuffed rabbit after having woken up to him watching Harry sleep.
Did he mention that Dumbledore had been watching Harry sleep?
"I plead self defence. And if that doesn't work, then insanity." Harry solomnly announces to the surrounding men and women in subdued purple robes. And somewhere behind him, he hears Molly cackling proudly.
"Justified." The judge announces and claps his hammer thing down. And thus ends the case of "Why Harry Potter saw fit to beat Albus Dumbledore with a stuffed rabbit." The old man gets removed from his post for his concerning behaviour, the papers have a field day, Harry stays home but is allowed to invite his friends over, and fifteen years later, he and his husband Draco are attending the wedding of the Patil twins to his now legally adopted siblings, while Molly quietly sobs in the corner and a cake the size of Harry himself sits in the next room just begging to be spiked.
The punch already has been, courtesy of Elizabetha.
So there you have it. Harry Potter and his family were a bit odd.
But they were quite happy with that.