AN: The italicized quotes in the beginning are directly from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Except for that bit in the very beginning, which is meant to be inner baby dialogue.
Freak
"Where was mummy? I no like feel of outside! Cold! Cold! Cold! Where was mummy? Mummy? Da? Pa'foo? Mooey? Wormy? No leave me! I no like strange man! MUMMY!"
A wizened old man wearing strange robes covered in stars, and a bent pointy hat, approached Number Four Privet Drive, the Dursley Household, with a bundle in his hands. The bundle was in fact a child, however, the Child simply refused to calm, and was screaming for some reason. It's not as if the child was old enough to realize what had happened? Right? The man shook these thoughts out of his mind. No matter the child's importance in the prophecy, no child was that advanced at only fifteen months.
The man continued down the street doing his best to calm the child in his arms, making an odd sight for the normally quiet neighborhood of Privet Drive. As he finally came to the curb of the Dursley household he noticed a Cat slink out from behind a trash can,
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."
The man turned back to the Dursley house, staring at an open window from which he could faintly hear snoring. When he turned around to look back at the cat he instead found a severe woman with her hair tight in a bun on the back of her head. Curiously her whole posture radiated a sense of annoyance and weariness that was often easily acquired with age, but it was the events of the past day which made the man question why she seemed so tired.
"How did you know it was me?"
She asked
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."
The woman bristled, before turning to the man and the house
"I've been watching these muggle's all day Professor Dumbledore, they are the worst kind of muggles! You cannot allow the last Potter to grow up in a house like this! Not after what's already happened to him!"
The now named Dumbledore gave a sad smile to McGonagall,
"Alas Professor, you know just as well as I do that the wizarding world is no place for Mr. Potter with the current political climate. Mr. Potter would be auctioned off like cattle to the highest bidding pureblood, and then we'd truly lose the last Potter in the saddest way possible."
Dumbledore shook his head before turning back to McGonagall,
"No. We must leave the boy here, where maybe he can live a life free of the burden his name carries."
The Professor McGonagall looked down sadly, a morose expression crossed her face as Dumbledore walked up to the household. McGonagall pulled out an odd looking stick from her robes and waved it, causing a small basket to appear on the front doorstep. Dumbledore gave her a thankful nod before setting the child down in the basket. He tucked a letter into the basket with the boy before standing back up. Dumbledore turned back to McGonagall, and as a lone tear rolled down his face he said,
"There is nothing more we can do except hope that young Harry may find the love and peace here that he would never have had in the wizarding world."
McGonagall gave one last sigh of resignation before turning on the spot and disappearing with a small *pop* Dumbledore spared one last glance at the young Potter before he also turned on turned and disappeared, without so much as disturbing the air.
"MUMMY! Where Mummy? DA! PA'FOO! MOO'EY! WORMY!"
The young boy cried through the night screaming for some semblance of normalcy. Where were his parents? They never left him alone for this long, Mummy was always nearby, or Da, but where were they now? As the night progressed, the boy's cries quieted to a whimper, and eventually into sleep. However, as the last potter sat upon the doorstep of the Dursley's his destiny was changed. While the boy slept his subconscious desire for his parent's caused something unforeseen to happen. The boy's desire caused a small cloak, hidden in the rubble of his parent's house, to be transported to the boy, covering him in the last remaining heirloom of his family.
~Freak~
Freak was good, freak had never done anything wrong, so why were auntie and uncle angry at him? Freak had been here for… a while now, and freak had done everything his auntie and uncle wanted. Why didn't they love freak? When auntie told him to move from the floor in dud.. Dud… d-u-d-l-e-y-s room (Freak was proud, dudley couldn't spell yet, but freak could, Auntie would love him!) into the small room under the stairs, he did it without a-r-g-u-e-n-g? argueng! once, but auntie and uncle were still angry at him. Why? Was it because he did something bad? He hadn't done anything but swing a wood stick like a sword. Freak loved that stick, it made him feel strong, and like he finally could fight all the nightmares that plagued him. None of this crossed Freak's mind though, Freak was scared now, did he do something really bad? Freak wanted to apologize, but auntie had loc.. loc… l-o-c-k-e-d the door out. There was nothing freak could do, why didn't they love him?!
The boy under the cupboard cried, he cried throughout the night, wrapping tighter around him the only possession that his relatives refused to touch for fear that it's freakishness would rub off on them. Harry cried, unwittingly wrapping his father's cloak around his trembling body. However, like the night he was left on his relatives doorstep the fate of his world diverged once more, and as he cried, his desire for the strength to make it through his terrible nightmares summoned his "sword." A gnarled wooden stick, fifteen inches in length with small knobs interspersed evenly throughout the length of it. This new item thrummed with a hidden energy, almost as if… excited. These pulses of energy finished the work of removing bindings on his very mind, work that harry himself had started by learning how to spell at three. Harry was not aware of the changes occurring around him, however, he did notice the difference the next morning when he found the strange stick and was able to work on his spelling with little to no problems.
~Freak~
Harry had spent the past five years learning everything he could. He quickly realized that he would never receive the love he so desired from his last living family members. Point in case, he had only found out that his name was harry when he was five, because the teacher had called for a harry potter, not a freak like he had expected. After the teacher had called everyone and hadn't called freak he had finally raised his hand tentatively before saying that he was Harry Potter, a fact that had filled him with a strength that he hadn't felt since the first time he had waved that strange stick that never left his side.
Harry (the name was still strange, even after almost three years of saying it) had quickly learned that no one liked him, if it wasn't his cousin bullying any potential friends, it was Harry's obsession with learning everything he could. He was infamous within his school for having spent a whole school year not attending lunch once, due to him always being in the school library. Constantly. Reading. Harry's devotion to studying had even gotten the attention of the teacher's, some of which had offered to tutor him after school in some more slightly advanced subjects. Because of all this Harry learned that he would never have a relationship, if his own relatives wouldn't love him, why would a stranger? But more importantly than that, he learned that knowledge is power. After having spent a whole year reading all the books in the (admittedly small) little whinging primary school library, he had eventually found mention of wizards in a fiction book. While Harry hadn't truly believed he was a wizard, he liked to believe he was special. So when he was in his cupboard later that night, he pulled out his trusty stick and gave it a whirl, whispering under his breath, "You shall not pass!" Harry had waved his stick in front of him while saying this, and incidentally a spider that had been building a web where he had been pointing flew into the opposing wall. Due to the lack of light in his cupboard Harry failed to notice the spider flying, however, he did notice the little thunk that had been made when he did the same thing while facing his small collection of toy soldiers he had pilfered from Dudley. At first it seemed like a coincidence to the young boy, but he continued to say the words while waving his stick, and every time he did, those toy soldiers fell. Harry could not have stopped the joy soaring in his chest. He was special! He was unique! Maybe, just maybe, this could be what identified him in life, his powers, not the title of freak, or of the neighborhood hooligan. Maybe he would finally be free of the Dursleys.
Hope, while easily attained, is equally easy to lose. After months of practice with using various spells he had found in all sorts of different books about wizards (He even read through a manual for some game called "Dungeons and Dragons") he eventually realized the gaping flaw in his plan. He was a minor. No matter how free he might be of the Dursley's, he would not be able to do anything in the world without someone looking down on him. No, as much as he hated it, he might as well stay where he knew what to expect, and how to deal with it. So it continued, for years Harry practiced in secret, testing his limits, always reaching further and further. It all culminated on the eve of his eleventh birthday, when two events happened that changed the course of his whole life, and the lives of everyone around him.
As harry sat in his cupboard on his eleventh birthday thoughts of the strange letter he had recieved earlier that month filled his head. He had never heard of a school of witchcraft and wizardry, but he supposed hogwarts would be it's name if it really existed. He had at first been skeptical, until he realized that he himself had been performing feats of magic consciously since he was six, why was this where he drew the line of possible and impossible? Harry knew his relatives would never approve of such freakishness, so instead he followed the directions of the letter and stuck his response letter into the air while in his relatives backyard. After a few minutes of standing around like an idiot, he heard a low hoot from a nearby tree. He looked up only to find himself face to face with a large tawny owl, staring... (dare he say it?) owlishly, at him. For about a minute there was an awkward silence, before Harry stuck his arm out to the owl, and asked,
"I don't suppose you're the owl that can take my Hogwart's acceptance letter?"
The Owl looked back and blinked, before hooting and taking off from the branch. Harry stared as the creature flew from it's perch and snatched the letter from his hand before flying off into the distance.
Harry broke from his thoughts as he came back to the present. He sat in his cupboard drawing on the dirt within the cupboard and the webs along the wall. Harry sat and waited, hoping that maybe, just maybe, today would be the day that someone helped him figure out all this Hogwart's rubbish. And so he sat, waiting, for hours on end until he fell into a fitful sleep, unconsciously gripping his wand and cloak. While harry slept his inner desire for a guide called out to a stone, hidden within a ring deep inside a decrepit and abandoned hut in the middle of nowhere. Harry's very being yearned for this object, and so, with all his subconscious willpower, harry jerked a ring from it's hiding place, summoning it to him, before placing it on his ring finger in his sleep, completely unaware of the wild magic rippling through his cupboard.
The Hollows were united at last.
~Freak~
P.S: As a bit of a difference from my two previous story's, I will try and keep my AN's Short, however this one is just a quick explanation as to what's happening with this story. I'm wanting to write a video game story for harry potter, and I was going to make this story something like concept101's videogame story, where it starts off as a kind of escape to Harry's fairly depressing life and then progresses into darker themes. However, as I wrote this I also felt that I could write a more serious, angsty all the way through kind of story, but i'm not quite certain either way. Tell me what you think, if you even want to bother. If not, well i'll probably write whatever flow's best in my mind. Now an explanation of the story itself. This story disregards any sort of mention of Horcruxes, harry's scar is still bad, but it aint a horcrux. I just never liked the horcrux plot point. Also, dumbles isn't going to be getting bashed, at least not too much, he's trying to do right by harry. The weasleys on the other hand... well, I always like the older siblings (sans percy) and Mr. Weasley, but the only two i'm definitely not bashing in any way shape or form will be Gred and Forge. Also, hopefully chapters will get longer, this was mostly an introduction. Pm me if you have any questions,
Peace out bitches!