The Choices We Make
Everyone knows the story of the Boy Who Lived. Everyone knows how he just barely defeated the darkest wizard to have ever walked the earth. How he made bad, wrong choices in his schooling, and it was a stroke of good luck that led to the Dark Lord's defeat. Here is the other story, one where he made different choices.
Harry Potter banged his head on the stairs as he sat up in his miniture, cramped, and too small cupboard. His wicked aunt, Petunia Dursley (formerly Evans), was pounding on the cupboards door.
"Get up, freak!" Petunia shouted, her shrill voice cracking and croaking from extreme overuse.
"Coming, Aunt Petunia," Harry groaned, his growing bones popping as he reached for his taped up coke bottle glasses.
"Well, hurry! It's my Duddywobkins special day, and you need to start cooking his special four course gourmet breakfast!"
"Okay," Harry sighed as he remembered that it was Dudley's eleventh birthday. Harry had turned eleven several months ago. Harry slowly opened the cupboard door and stepped into the startlingly bright hallway.
"Don't you dare burn the bacon, either!" Petunia squaked.
Harry cringed when he heard the spoon hit the floor, knowing he would be punished for dropping the bowl full of eggs. Uncle Vernon, very fortunately, did not notice Harry's clumsy mistake. When he heard the mail slot open and hit the floor, Vernon asked Dudley to get it.
"Make Harry get it!" Dudley wailed loudly, whacking the freshly set table with his brand new Smeltings stick.
"Yes, my little Duddylumpers should not have to get his own mail on the monumentous occasion!" Petunia shouted, her face flushed.
"Well, boy! You heard your aunt! Go fetch the mail! Now!" Vernon screamed, his face looking like a purple plum. Why does this family scream so much?, Harry thought.
Harry scurried toward the foyer, shutting the kitchen door quietly behind him. He picked up the mail. Birthday card for Dudley from Aunt Marge, bill from the electric company, Vernon's lengire catalog, and a beige letter with a crimson seal on the front, that was adressed to Harry James Potter.
Choice 1:
To let Vernon know about the letter.
Harry quickly stashed the letter underneath Petunia's pretentious walnut cridensa, to retrieve later, in the dead of night.
"Mail Call!" Harry said, setting the rest of the mail in the center of the table. Dudley snatched up Aunt Marge's card.
"Hundred pounds!" Dudley wailed, as he ripped open Aunt Marge's card open, openly bawling at the, in his eyes, cheap amount, "Cheapskate!"
"Duddyboop, I'll give you an extra two hundred to go with that." Petunia said with a tone that could freeze a burning building. Petunia glared at Vernon until he begrudgingly pulled two bills out of his wallet, trying to smooth out the wrinkles before handing them over. "Here you go Doddywubbles, two nice hundreds to match the ones you already have." Petunia said, naively obliging her selfish, spoiled son.
"Well, Dudley, when is Piers coming over for your zoo trip?" Uncle Vernon said, referring to Dudley's equally oafish friend, who was also part of his gang of bullies, Piers Polkiss.
"He said he'd be here around two." Dudley said, shoving his birthday cake in his mouth.
"Mrs. Figg will be here to pick up the freak in half an hour, luckily she didn't break anything when she walked in front of Dudley's bike a few weeks ago." Petunia said, packing snacks into a small rucksack for the trip.
Harry calmly slipped out of the kitchen as Dudley unwrapped his presents, each one bigger than the last. He checked to make sure that Petunia and Vernon were occupied, watching Dudley unwrap a computer, than a video game system, than a brand new ten speed bike, that both knew he would never use. He grabbed the letter from under the cridensa, and went about reading the inch thick letter, written on old school parchment. His eyes widened and his mouth opened wider and wider as he read the letter. He was puzzled when the letter ended, asking him to send a letter with the owl. What owl?, He thought. He quickly scratched out a reply. An owl scratched at the window, his curiosities rectified. As he sat back down, something truly sank in. He's a wizard.