Harry was confused. When Hagrid came to the hut and he finally got to read his letter, he didn't know what they meant by "You may bring an owl OR cat OR toad, familiars will be received at Hogwarts".
Wouldn't the owl, cat, or toad be a familiar? he had asked Hagrid, but he was only told it was a suprise for first years, much like the Sorting.
What Harry didn't expect was to be told it was a ritual to summon a familiar, and that the familiar is proportional to the power of the wizard or witch and the potentially life threatening situations they will get into in their life (dictated by Fate of course), and sized and/or powered accordingly.
Well, like all the other first years, he had done the ritual out on the Hogwarts lawn the day after the Sorting (wouldn't want any particularly big familiars to destroy the castle in a fit of claustrophobic panic) and a boy a year or two older than him appeared!
Were familiars supposed to be humans? The only thing weird about him was the sunshine gold hair, whisker marked cheeks, and strange energy emanating from his stomach and feeling like warm beams of sunlight against his skin. Well, that and he started screaming out in a language he didn't know and freaking out.
Then again, if he'd been teleported to some strange place against his will he'd be freaking out pretty hard too, so maybe it wasn't that weird.
