It was nearly completely dark just beyond the fenced lawns of Number 4, Privet Drive.
A solemn sort of silence hung in the air, unbroken by the argument that two robed figures seemed to be having in the middle of the road. The aged woman, whose normally strict frown was twisted into a frustrated scowl, made several agitated gestures. The other man, with kindly blue eyes and a long, white beard, stood tiredly, saying nary a word. At their feet was a small basket from which a tuft of dark hair could be seen poking out of several blankets.
Beyond the small bubble of a strong privacy spell, shouting could be heard.
"What do you mean you're leaving Harry with them?" The woman spat out the last word, levelling a venomous glare upon the astoundingly normal house.
"Minerva, you must understand…"
"They're muggles, Albus. Of the worst sort. I've watched them all afternoon. And it says something about them that an afternoon is enough to convince me of their utter incompetence and disgustingly harsh bias against anything 'abnormal'!" Minerva McGonagall interjected, with the same fierceness she had levelled upon opponents decades ago. "They are prejudiced, narrow-minded, and they hate any sort of 'freakishness'. For Merlin's sake, they are-"
"-The last of Harry's family," Albus Dumbledore calmly cut off his colleague's protests. He turned and regarded the household with fatigued resignation. "Harry Potter must live. But Death Eaters are still about, and he'll never be as safe as he is under Lily's protection."
"Family?" McGonagall shook her head. "No. These muggles will never be family to Harry. Why not the Longbottoms? Or even the Weasleys? He's even got Black blood, and that'll sooner link him with the Malfoys. I'd bet Gryffindor's sword that even they'd treat him better; Harry's family, and they'd be under too much scrutiny if they let anything happen to him under their care."
"It can't be done," Dumbledore sighed, sounding older than he had in years. "They must be of Lily's blood. It was her sacrifice that built these wards. Harry won't be safer elsewhere."
"What about Sirius Black? You and I both know he didn't betray the Potters. The Ministry will sort the whole mess out. The Black estate is unplottable. It is just as safe as any forbidden blood wards," McGonagall argued, but the conviction in her voice was dwindling. It was clear that she was fighting a losing battle.
A moment of silence passed before Dumbledore closed his eyes. "People change. We'll never know what truly happened this night. We can never truly trust Black again."
McGonagall was stunned beyond anger. "You can't seriously be suggesting-"
"It is a possibility, that's all I'm saying. Besides, Harry will be better off growing up in the muggle world."
"How?" McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "You're setting him up for a decade of abuse, Albus!"
A shriek drew both their attentions to a spindly woman within the house, cooing at a lumpy bundle. However, the baby's loud wails didn't cease. If anything, the noise only increased, reaching a sharp crescendo.
"That boy will grow up to be a brute," McGonagall murmured. "It's hard to imagine a Potter having any ties with them. How this ever compare with what our world has to offer?"
"Fame can cloud the mind," Dumbledore said softly, eyes shifting to the basket by their feet. "It can make one arrogant, proud, and by extension, careless. It would be better for Harry to grow up away from all that. Harry can grow up unburdened by his name…He won't have to deal with his fame before he is ready. He can see a bit of both worlds, and then he would know better than to hold a prejudice against his muggle blood. After all, they have television and video games and the best candies. What more could a child want?" The old man smiled, attempting to bring some lightness into the conversation.
McGonagall looked unconvinced. "I still think you are making a mistake. Knowing the Dursleys, they'd turn Harry out on their doorsteps before he could even learn to say 'Lumos'."
Dumbledore slipped an envelope out of one of his robe's many pockets and handed it to the other professor. "Voldemort poses as much a threat to Harry's extended family as he does to the boy himself. I've left them a letter that should explain everything."
The frowning witch took the envelope and opened it, quickly skimming through its contents.
"I still think you're making a mistake, Albus," McGonagall exhaled deeply, folding the few pages of the letter in half and tucking it next to the sleeping form of Harry Potter. She wordlessly handed the envelope back to Dumbledore, then turned an apologetic gaze to the small boy.
"It is for the best," the older wizard slumped. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled a similar case of an orphaned boy, who grew up learning to hate and to hurt.
He promptly put the thought out of his mind.
Young Harry, son of sweet Lily and mischievous but well-meaning James, would never grow up to be anything like him. He would know, if not love, then at least the care of a blood-related family. Petunia may have envied Lily, but they were still sisters in the end. Now, with Lily gone, she would at the very least honour her legacy that lives in her son.
More importantly, Harry would grow up knowing to appreciate friendships and love and the magic of…well, magic. Few children that grew up in the wizarding world ever share the fierce sense of wonder muggleborns does. Dumbledore could only hope that little Harry will never take what life has to offer for granted.
"Let's just hope that I've worried over nothing," McGonagall muttered as Dumbledore cancelled the privacy charms and walked across the lawn to set the basket on the Dursleys' steps.
Dumbledore agreed, and gazed one last time into the face of the boy who reminded him so much of the younger James Potter, before turning and Disapparting without a sound.
As fate would have it, the Dursleys woke an hour later than usual the next morning, and that would make all the difference in the world.
Harry opened his eyes at promptly 7:30 am and realized at once that he was not where he had been when he had fallen asleep. The ancient halls and high ceilings of their house in Godric's Hollow had been replaced by a neatly trimmed lawn and whitewashed fences. Harry's arm flailed and he grabbed the first thing that his chubby hands came in contact with, which just happened to be a page from the 3-page letter that Dumbledore had left.
He gurgled and fidgeted.
Once the ink covered parchment no longer held any interest to him, his fist loosened and he laughed as the wind carried it away.
Half an hour later Petunia would open the door and let out a blood-curdling scream.
Another hour would pass before Petunia and Vernon Dursley would sit down at the dining table, staring down at the baby with wide, unnaturally green eyes. Petunia's eyes were reddened, but a good cry had already taken the edge off of the brief grief she had felt at her sister's passing. Dumbledore's letter-or at least what was left of it-sat on atop the table. Both Dursley's eyes drifted to anywhere but there, avoiding the topic of their inevitable discussion.
"We have to keep him." Petunia was the first to break the silence.
"And let him bring his freakishness into our perfect, normal house? I think not." Vernon muttered darkly.
"Please, Vernon," Petunia's eyes glistened again. "My sister is dead. Dead! I can't cast her son out when he's still so young in good conscience. At least give it a few years."
Vernon opened his mouth as if to protest, but upon seeing his wife's tear streaked face his eye twitched and he fell silent. Finally, he turned with some difficulty to look upon the parchments on the table.
"Did Dumberbell at least mention why he'd been placed with us and not one of their kind?" Vernon asked through gritted teeth.
The mistaken name went uncorrected.
Petunia slowly shook her head and swallowed. "No. He just said that L-Lily and her husband James were…were k-killed in some sort of attack. And that we are the only family Harry has left. They'd be coming back to pick him up when he's eleven…to that place."
Vernon's face paled considerably at the mention of Hogwarts.
"The letter cut off pretty abruptly," Petunia continued, dabbing a few remaining tears from her cheek. "I think he meant to write more but forgot. But what do we do now?"
In unison, the couple turned and met Harry's sharp gaze. The boy was only one, but he's already seemed to master that solemnly blank expression to an art form. Another sign of his freakishness, Vernon supposed.
"Four years."
"Four years?" Petunia looked up, confused.
"We'll keep him until he's four. Then you'll have more than fulfilled any obligations as…as her sister. We can drop him off at youth services then. How's that?" Vernon compromised and was rewarded when Petunia gave him a watery smile.
"Thank you, Vernon. Then that's what we'll do."
The basket was carried into the broom cupboard and the doors were shut. Harry stared alone into the darkness. His hand twitched and suddenly, brilliant orbs of light filled the small space, hovering and flickering like stars in the night sky. Harry giggled and gradually closed his eyes to the soft glow of his own magic.
In the kitchen, Petunia and Vernon Dursley sat, already discussing possible arrangements for when Harry turns four. They remained blissfully oblivious of the Dark Lord and the blood wards. While the Dursleys plotted and Harry slept, the wizarding world celebrated the fall of Lord Voldemort, unaware of the consequences that an incomplete letter would bring about a decade in the future.
Harry Potter was three, almost four, and he understood several things.
One, he lived, ate, and slept at Number 4, Privet Drive, but that was not 'home'. He would not stay; his aunt and uncle had made that perfectly clear.
Two, he was an orphan. That meant that his parents were dead, that they weren't coming back. The young Harry still couldn't quite wrap his head around the concept of death yet, but he understood well enough what that meant. There was no one left in the world who would treat him the way Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon treated Dudley.
Three, he wasn't normal. In fact, he was as far as normal as he could possibly be. He was a freak. In fact, that may have been the least upsetting of all those few facts. If his uncle, aunt, and cousin were considered to be normal, then perhaps not being normal was a good thing.
Four, strange things tended to happen around him. The first time he had been conscience of it was when he was about to be hit in the face by a toy truck Dudley had thrown. He willed the truck to stop, and it did. In mid-air. Dudley had gaped, Vernon had paled and sputtered angrily, and Petunia had screamed. Harry watched, fascinated, as the truck wobbled, then crashed to the floor as he loosened his mental hold on it. He hadn't gotten dinner that night.
Soon it became clear that no matter how amazing, how wonderous, how magical everything he did was, he would always be punished for it in the end. 'Freakishness', Vernon and Petunia had called it. Dudley caught onto that with open glee, running after him and screaming "Freak!" as he did. The glares and insults and pushes got worse as Dudley seemed to realize that Harry could do certain things that he could not.
Sometimes Harry wondered if Dudley was jealous. But that couldn't be it. Why would Dudley ever be jealous of him when he already had everything?
Sometimes other children would come over to play. They were always nice to Dudley, but they never were to Harry. Harry soon learned that it was because they were Dudley's friends, but they weren't his. He wondered idly if he would ever have friends like those. Friends who would giggle at his jokes, who shared lunch with him, and who were nice. He was pulled from his thoughts by Uncle Vernon's roaring voice.
"HARRY!"
Harry got up and walked up the steps from the gardens, putting on a stoic expression. They never liked it when he smiled.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon?" He asked softly as he took off his shoes and stepped indoors.
"Harry, boy. Come here, don't dwaddle," Vernon snapped, holding onto what appeared to be a set of clean clothes. "We'll be going somewhere today. And you have to dress nicely and don't mess up, got it? That means no freakishness."
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry replied, reaching out to take the clothes. A minute later he was changed and ready to go. He peered at himself in the mirror and knew that they were going on a business trip since he wore the same formal white shirt on black trousers that Dudley always wore when Vernon's business partners came over. Harry wasn't sure what the words meant, but he knew they were important. The shirt and pant felt too baggy on him, but they were the best things he's ever worn.
"Boy! What's taking so long!?" Vernon's yell sped Harry's stroll to a brisk walk.
It was a two hours drive. Harry knew that he was leaving for good from Aunt Petunia's stiff expression and Dudley's maniacal laugh as they saw them off. When they finally arrived at in the gravelly parking lot next to a building that read "Mossdale's Orphanage", Vernon was annoyed and glaring.
"Come along now," he growled when Harry lagged slightly behind. Harry didn't say a word, but he didn't speed up either. If his intuition served him, then that would be the last time he ever saw his uncle again, and his intuition was never wrong.
An hour later, he found his guesses confirmed as he watched Vernon drive away from the second-floor window of his new bedroom. His grin was hidden behind a closed fist. There would be no more name calling and no more Dudley. He had his own bedroom now, though he had to share with another boy. Still, the matron seemed nice enough, and the other children had been friendly. Life was better.
Life was not better.
Children, Harry mused, were all selfish and cruel. He had lived at Mossdale's for over seven years and in just over a week, it would be his eleventh birthday. He had long since outgrown any childish notions from his Dursley days.
Friendship and unconditional kindness from other children, he had realized, was a naive thought and an impossibility.
The initial curiosity soon morphed to disinterest once the other children realized that Harry was not one for much social interaction or childish chattering. Once the strange occurrences had started up again, that disinterest turned to fear for some, and hatred for others. The bullying and name calling returned with a vengeance.
It was then that Harry realized that enduring silently was the worst thing he could do.
The bullies mistook his silence and inaction for weakness. Still, Harry was never too bothered by their cutting remarks.
Harry knew early on that he was different from the other children. The Dursleys had made it perfectly clear that he was as far as one could possibly get from the term 'normal'. While he had always thought himself a quick learner, since he took much less time than Dudley to learn the alphabet or how to walk, it quickly became apparent that even the children at the orphanage couldn't quite match his pace. This only made the others more antagonistic towards him. After being seen as a freak by the Dursleys, ostracized by the other children, and even being treated differently by the caretakers at the orphanage, it was hard not to see himself differently.
Therefore, Harry found it difficult to act his age. He had experienced enough to know the uglier sides of the world and had been the target of numerous negative emotions from others such as envy, ridicule, and spite.
All in all, it made him rather cynical and detached for a child. He found the antics of the bullies in the orphanage childish and not worth bothering with. If anything, this only pushed them to more drastic acts. Harry took it all in silence, knowing that there was no need to lower himself to their level and react to their insults.
And so he did nothing, until one day, when it went too far.
He was six when it had happened. A few boys had thought that it would be funny to use him for target practice while he was on gutter cleaning duty. One moment, he was balanced along the edge of the roof. The next, he felt a blinding pain on the side of his face and felt himself falling.
One story wasn't much to fall from and logically speaking, he knew it should've taken much shorter. But suspended in free fall, a distant memory seemed to claw at the edge of his mind.
Wind on his face. The grounds far beneath him. A sharp dive downwards. A surge of wondrous exhalation.
"James!" An angry screech. "What are you doing!? He's one for goodness sake! Come down here right now!"
A nervous laugh, then once they were on steady ground again, he was moved into a warm embrace. "How could you!"
The soft chuckles suddenly shifted into a crazed cackle. The room was dimly lit.
"Run! Get Harry! I'll hold him off!"
A scream, sound of frenzied steps followed by faint, barely audible thuds.
A whirl of wind. Billowing red hair and anguished green eyes.
"Harry! Harry!"
A brief exchange muted by ringing in his ears. Then…a flash of brilliant green.
"Harry Potter…" A soft hiss. Then another surge of light. A horrible wail. Searing pain on his forehead.
Then for the briefest moment, he felt a torrent of pain, anger, and panic. None of those emotions were his own.
"Harry…"
"Harry!"
The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, but there was almost no pain. It felt much more like a fall from a bed than a tumble from the roof. Still, he remained on his back, unmoving. That had been a once-reoccurring nightmare that he had long since forgotten. But rather than some sort of dream, it felt more like a memory.
No. Harry closed his eyes, trying to draw up the thought again. No matter how realistic, it wasn't possible. He shouldn't be able to fly, green lights didn't murder, and he wasn't a mind reader, or emotions reader, or whatever that last part was. All of that was…impossible.
He was Harry. Just Harry. Harry, whom everyone else dubbed 'freak'. Harry, around whom strange things always happened. Harry, who had always done the impossible, such as floating toy trucks, or mending broken glass, or speaking to garden snakes.
But if that vision had been his memory, then what did it say about his past…? Were his parents murdered? Were there other people who did the impossible like him?
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had told him that his parents died in a car crash. The matron had told him the same thing. Did they all lie? Did they know who he was and what he could do?
"Harry!" The panicked calls of the Matron drew him out from his reverie.
Harry opened his eyes but made no move to get up. He felt perfectly fine. More than fine, actually. But he knew that he should've been hurt, badly. And apparently, so did Ms. Ellis. There was nothing wrong with up playing his non-existent injuries. After all, he's been hurt enough times in the past to know how to act convincingly.
"Harry, what happened?" The fear in the woman's voice had drastically decreased upon realizing that Harry wasn't dead, and probably wasn't going to anytime soon. "Are you able to stand?"
Harry's gaze shifted towards her. She was one of the more tolerable adults. Rather than treating him with suspicion, she normally acted as if he was just another one of the children. Harry debated telling the truth. But he knew the children who had targeted him.
They were loud and boisterous but sweet and obedient in front of the caretakers and matron. Even if Ms. Ellis did believe him, they would get off with nothing more than extra cleaning duties. Harry bit back the sudden mix of frustration and anger that threatened to overtake him and slowly shook his head.
"I slipped," he lied, pushing himself up shakily. "I-I think I'm okay. I'm just dizzy…and it hurts when I move my arm."
"Can you show me where? Ah. Sprained wrists, then. You're still lucky. Can you walk?" 's stiff posture relaxed, no doubt relieved they don't have to go through the troublesome process of getting him medical care.
"I think so…"
He stood and took a few slow steps to prove his words, and once Ms. Ellis dismissed him he wobbled back inside, emphasizing his limp. He continued the same slow trek up to his room, after which he dropped the act entirely and dropped onto the hard mattress of his bed.
He lied there silently, staring up at the yellowed ceiling. The bullying had escalated, but he never fought back. He recalled how whenever Dudley got hurt while chasing him down, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always blamed Harry as if he was at fault for his cousin's violent tendencies. Somehow, he knew that it would only be the same at the orphanage.
The seconds ticked by and he barely had a minute to himself before he heard a series of light steps.
His room was the first after the stairs and so he could see perfectly as the four children who always picked on him make their way up the steps. There were three boys and a girl. The boys were two or three years older than him, but the girl was around his age. Each had a mean streak a mile long.
One of the boys stepped forward bravely.
"Did you tell on us?" He asked, a threatening tinge to his voice.
Harry didn't bother deigning that with an answer. The other boy, Jackie, apparently took that as an affirmation, since he sneered. "They'll never believe you anyway. You're a loner and a freak. No one cares."
The same anger surged upwards and Harry suddenly felt the same clarity he had when he held Dudley's truck afloat in mid-air. For a moment he felt the strange sensation wrap around him protectively before it unwound and swirled as if awaiting his command. He slowly turned his head until he was staring at the group of children before letting an emotionless smile grace his face. Then he let the intoxicating power fill him and sent it bursting outwards.
The other three were thrown back and they hit the wall with a dull thud before falling to the ground, but Jackie was suspended in the air, arms flailing and choking against some invisible force.
Their eyes were all glued on Harry, filled with…fear, Harry realized with a start. It was dozens of times more satisfactory than the normal mocking sneer.
Harry levelled his eyes with the hanging boy's, then concentrated.
For a moment he could almost see the scene of his fall play out from another angle as if he was in Jackie's body. He could see the stone in his hands, hear their giggles, and then see the fist bumps they shared when Jackie landed a hit right on Harry's head.
Harry pulled himself out from the memory harshly and he could see a violent, pained shudder run through the boy's body.
At first, he had wanted to leave things be. He had hoped that the others would quickly tire of him, just like how children cast aside new toys once the novelty's passed. But at that moment, he realized that no matter what he did, the other four orphans would simply view it as either a weakness or an affront.
Jackie had been glad to see him hurt. He had been amused. Even when Harry took that tumble off the roof, he still had felt as unapologetic as ever.
Harry had originally planned to scare them a little so that they will leave him alone for at least a few weeks. But why should he be lenient when Jackie, and the other children as well, wouldn't even care if he had died?
"Did you think that you are invincible?" Harry asked quietly. Normally, even someone in the room would have to strain to hear the softly spoken words. Yet to the four children's fear laced minds, Harry may as well have shouted the sentence from the rooftops. The three huddled against the wall whimpered. Jackie couldn't make a sound.
"Did picking on a six years old make you feel strong?" Harry continued. Years of repressed anger and hatred suddenly sprang free, fuelling his magic as it coiled around the children. It was the only word that could describe what he could do: magic.
The girl began to cry. She never personally acted against him, but Harry knew she could be even more vicious than her brother. Most times, it was her that egged them on. She was Jackie's younger sister and, at the moment, Harry could feel waves of horror and worry roll off of her.
In fact, he could sense varying degrees of terror from each child mixed with disbelief.
"Did you still feel strong?"
The four stared fearfully back at him.
"Well? Did you?" Harry willed his magic to squeeze, and the children were fast to shake their heads.
He stood then, sliding out of bed with a predatory ease. He was small for his age, yet somehow that didn't seem to matter as he stared down blankly at the much taller children crumbled on the floor. He leaned in until they were barely an arm's length apart. Their eyes widened.
"You're not. None of you are strong, or ever will be," He whispered, reinforcing each of his words with a spike of magic. The children's eyes glazed over. "So don't act like it."
With a sudden turn of the head, he let Jackie stumble to the ground. He could hear the Matron's sure steps as she neared the base of the stairs one floor down.
"Well?" He narrowed his eyes at Jackie. Memories of when he had shoved him in the mud, framed him for his own pranks in the orphanage, mocked him for his silence and lastly, nearly caused his death, flooded his mind. This was letting him off easy.
"What happens to liars?" Harry asked. Jackie trembled. Harry pushed insistently with his magic, infusing it with his desire. "Show me." The words came out in a near hiss, and whatever fight that had remained in the boy's eyes were completely doused.
He turned, mechanically and slowly, until he stood facing the stairs.
"Jackie? Do you need something?" Harry could hear Ms. Ellis ask from downstairs.
"Now."
Jackie fell forward, like a marionette with its strings cut. What followed a series of loud crashes and the alarmed shout of the caretakers. Harry ignored it all and turned to the remaining three children. Tears were flowing freely from the girl's eyes, but all of them were still blank gazed.
"None of you will say anything to the adults," he stated, willing his magic to surge forward. He received two nods, but the girl hesitated, a flicker of some unnamed emotion shining through the haze of her eyes.
"You will not say a word," Harry insisted, pouring the entirety of his willpower into his words. "You will say nothing, because you are all weak."
Finally, all three children nodded, their faces still void of expressions.
"Good." Harry turned and went back to lie down in his bed, feeling drained from suddenly consciously using his powers. And wasn't that a surprise. He had no idea he could influence others like that.
Behind him, the children all slumped, no longer held upright by the sheer force of his magic.
"Leave." He said without sparing them a glance. They did.
Downstairs, there was a sudden explosion of sounds. Frenzied steps and cries and shouts drifted upstairs. Riding on the high of what felt like a magic overdose, Harry thought he could even pick out the worried whispers and the frantic dialing of a flip phone.
With open wonder, he realized that a pin could drop in the basement and he could probably hear the click.
"Call the ambulance!"
"What happened?"
"Is that Jackie? Is he okay?"
Harry laid back against the rough linen sheets and felt a tension that he hadn't even realized was present finally release. It left him feeling lightheaded and relaxed.
A part of his mind urged him to acknowledge that he had driven a boy to throw himself off the stairs. That at that point, he might even be considered a murderer, if Jackie didn't survive. A part of him wanted to feel remorse, to regret over the act.
But when he had seen his own near-death through the boy's eyes, it was as if a part in him that cared for others had shut off. If no one cared what happened to him, why should he concern himself over others? For the most part, he just felt a vindictive sense of satisfaction at the thought that they were never going to bother him again. Besides, he had put up with Jackie's bullying for over two years. The boy had it coming.
Soon, a drowsy numbness overtook whatever moral struggle he might have had, and he found himself being lulled to sleep by the white noise of the commotion downstairs.
The next morning, the dining room, filled with over three dozen clamouring children of varying ages, quieted when Harry entered.
He ignored their stares as he walked past, got his bowl of plain oatmeal, and seated himself in the far corner of the room, as far away from the other orphans as he can manage without actually exiting the room. They all knew that what had happened to Jackie had been his fault; even some of the caretakers had taken to avoiding him. But none of them could prove it. After all, Ms. Ellis had personally witnessed Jackie 'falling' down the stairs with Harry nowhere in sight.
The boy left the orphanage on a stretcher in an ambulance. He never returned.
Over the course of the next two months, the remaining three of Jackie's old clique had become more and more despondent, more and more pale, and more and more withdrawn.
Then one day, one of the boys collapsed. He left on a stretcher, too, with a steady heartbeat and in good health. But no matter what anyone did, he remained unresponsive. The same had happened to the other boy.
As for the girl, she had taken a nasty fall one day and scraped her palm. Harry had been all the way across clearing. The caretakers had wrapped her hand in gauze, but the blood just wouldn't stop flowing. When the ambulance arrived, she was already unconscious, half soaked in a puddle of her own blood. They finally stemmed the blood flow after a few frantic minutes. But despite having survived, she never opened her eyes again.
Each incident-that's what they called it since they had no idea what 'it' was-was spaced out from the other just to give enough time for gossip on the prior matter to dwindle. None of these three ever returned to the orphanage, either.
The remaining orphans whispered, the caretakers fretted, and the doctors worried. They never found out what exactly happened to the three children. The smarter orphans in the place knew that Harry was behind all four of the incidents. The other children, who didn't quite understand, still knew enough to pick up on the growing fear and avoided him like the plague.
Harry appreciated the sudden bubble he found himself in. It meant no more drinks purposefully spilled down his front, no more sudden shoves, no more laughter, and no more degrading sneers. It meant more time to study his new found abilities.
And so time passed. Over the years the fear that other children held for him was only further cemented.
Rarely, there were one or two children who thought it funny to make a target out of the 'freaky' loner. Some came down with terrible colds, some experienced constant nightmares for weeks, and the more malicious ones…left the orphanage in various ways.
Eventually, it became a widely agreed upon rule that Harry was not to be messed with. Or talked to. At all.
At the moment, he was sat upon the window seat of his room, contemplating what he would ask for his eleventh birthday the following week. Every child got to ask for a present on their birthdays, and as long as it was nothing outrageous, the matron would grant it. In the past, Harry had gotten third-hand books almost falling apart at the seams, cheap pens, and notepads for writing practice, and the occasional trinket, when he needed something to practice his magic on.
But somehow, the number eleven felt unique, and he knew that he should think carefully of his choice.
His attention, however, was soon drawn out of his thoughts and towards the opening gates of the orphanage. There, clad in the most ridiculous piece of clothing-a robe of some sort, in bright purple with yellow highlights-he had ever seen, was an elderly man with pure white hair and a long beard that reached his waist. Harry watched the old-more like ancient-man as he neared and wondered with morbid curiosity if he was looking to adopt, and how long it would be before the child would be returned to the orphanage with another deceased guardian on their records. There was a click of the door downstairs, some words exchanged, then silence.
Harry put the matter out of mind before turning back to the book he had opened in his lap. It didn't concern him anyhow. A half-hour later, he was proven wrong when a knock sounded on his door. Ms. Ellis entered, followed by a familiar mix of that horrendous yellow and purple.
"Harry?" Her tone was clipped, as it always was when speaking with him. "There's an Albus Dumbledore here to see you."
